Health, Housing & Human Services Committee - Regular Meeting

Good morning.

Morning.

Since Glenn and I are both new, I know there is, time in the meeting to elect the chair, but I just wanna make sure no one's waiting on one of us to call the meeting to order since neither are chair yet.

Yeah. Well, I you're you're here. I mean, I can call it to order, I I guess. That's and then, we can go from there. Are there any additions or any additions or corrections? Sure. Alright. Should go to public comment period if there's any item anybody wants to discuss that is not on today's agenda in the room. Yes. Please go right ahead.

Should I speak here or should

I Right here is fine. Sure.

Okay. So, yeah, thanks for having me, and I appreciate everybody here in the room. So there's this, there's this Monterey County Youth Center. I don't know if you guys are familiar with it, but, it's way understaffed. Right?

And it's run by the county. Now we have a juvenile hall, brand new juvenile hall that that's way understaffed as well. So I just think it would make sense if maybe people considered maybe consolidating the two, maybe putting put the kids in the youth center at the juvenile hall and utilizing that building for the homeless people, you know, or for or or for other some other kind of resource because it doesn't make sense for us to have two facilities. And I don't know what the budget is for the Monterey County Youth Center, but I I I taught a a a media class there last year. And and I was I was pleasantly surprised by how understaffed they were because when I was a youth, I was in that Monterey County youth center, and there was around a 150 kids, I think, a 160.

So to now that there's only 30, I mean, I I felt super, like, super good about that to know that that that that's where we're at to where the the crime rate is that low to where there's not really a need like there was in the past for that facility. So I just wanna just propose the idea, and maybe people have thought about this idea, but I just don't think it makes sense for us to spend all this money on two juvenile facilities when they're both very, very under, capacities. We're not staffed, but under capacity. You know? Like I said, they spent, I don't know how many, a $100,000,000 on the branded juvenile hall or something like that.

And and if they're way under capacity, then like I said, it doesn't make sense for us to have two facilities just burning money when we can just put them in one. So, I think something like that, that facility I mean, they have a garden. They have a basketball court. They have, portables. I mean, it's a pretty good sized facility to, like, tackle part of the problem that we have in the county with with with homelessness. Those are a lot of beds that people could be at. I mean, even homeless residents with with pets could be there. You know? I mean, it's just an idea that I just wanted to throw out there, and I just wanted to put it on the record that this is something that you know, like I said, people might have thought about this already, but maybe not. So that's why I wanted to show up and just give that idea.

That's all I have to say. Want that. Thank you for everybody's time. I appreciate you.

Would you have

to share

your name for the record?

My name is Daniel Munoz. Yeah. I'm Salinas resident, District 1.

Do we have anybody else? And thanks for your comments, by the way, Daniel. Appreciate you. I don't see anybody online. You'll see me in the chamber. So, we moved in on to appointment of, chair and vice chair. And, I I know George Daniels and I have some of the committee coming up here too. If you wanna be chair on this one, I'll be vice chair. I don't know why we have vice chairs. There's only two people anyway. But

Yeah. I'm happy to serve as chair of this committee.

Alright.

Would you like me to well, well, I think we by consensus Yeah. Looks like that that has been moved, and you're the vice chair. Would you like me to take over then from this

Please do.

Point on. Okay. Thank you. And so at this point, we have item number two, the approval of action minutes from the 10/20/2025 meeting. Are there any public comments on the minutes from '20 from October 20?

K. Supervisor Church, any comments or a move to approve?

I wasn't there, so I'm happy to move it. It looks all good to me since I don't know anything about it.

Okay. Moved by consensus. Thank you. Item number three, there is a discussion on the agenda of the committee schedule.

There supervisor Daniels, Roderick Franks, director of social services for the county of Monterey. This is an item where it would be helpful to have the input of both the chair and the vice chair in determining the schedule of meetings. Historically, this committee has had a varied meeting schedule going from meeting every month to meeting quarterly. And so, our experience has been that meeting monthly has, created a a little bit of administrative burden and a lot of repetition for the committee. However, meeting quarterly has created some very long meetings because the items seem to back up and pile up for the committee to address.

Our recommendation as staff is to initially adopt a committee schedule of meeting every other month, and then, we can determine how the, committee item load looks.

I'm I'm happy with that.

I'm happy with that too. And, generally, the Thursday time works for me. This the Thursday mornings do work. I don't know if if supervisor Church would prefer a 9AM start to an 08:30AM start. But the Thursdays, I don't have any regularly scheduled committee meetings at this point with with the exception of the one that's coming next, which will be my first time at that one as well.

I mean, 9AM is a little better, but, a little more time for coffee to kick in. But I'm if we gotta, if we gotta do 08:30, that's okay.

Roderick, how's that feel for guidance? Does that work?

Yes. That sounds good. What we'll do at this point is look at the calendars and determine the appropriate dates adopting in every other month's schedule. And then we'll get that published out to you both for your consideration as soon as possible.

Great. Thank you. Alright. We'll consider that discussed and move to the regular agenda item four. And this item is a presentation on the health department's Behavioral Health Bureau Community Assistance Recovery and Empowerment Act program. And I believe it will be Melanie Rhodes, Fabrizio Chumbo, and Kelly Molton, and Cassandra Shah.

Yes. Good morning. Good morning, supervisors. Thank you so much for hearing this agenda item. And Melanie Rose, behavioral health bureau, she's here with a number of staff.

Kelly Moulton was not able to be here today, so it will be myself, our assistant bureau chief, Fabrizio, and Cassandra who will be presenting on this item. I do wanna acknowledge that care act is before you today for an update. We've previously presented to the board on care, but wanted to bring this back now that we've been live for, what, fifteen months now, with the care act. And there has been some updates through SB 27 that have expanded and makes made some substantive changes to CARE Act as we've known it and started it and implemented it. That went into effect, January that we just wanted to bring to your attention.

We do have partners who should be joining us online. Sarah Solano, our, public guardian administrator conservator, is joining us online. I believe Christie McDonald from county council will also be joining online. She represents behavioral health in CARE Act court proceedings. And then we also have Michelle Wooten from the public defender's office who is also a key partner in CARE Act implementation as their office represents the respondents in these in these cases.

So I just wanted to acknowledge and thank our partners for being here early today as well. And if we can go to the next slide. I wanna start by level setting and just a little bit of reminders for folks because I know it's been a bit since we've talked about care court here and just kind of overview, like, how we got here today. So the care act or care court, it's a civil, not a criminal court process. So really important to just make make sure that's really clear.

This is meant to be helpful and engagement tool to help, folks get in and connected to to treatment. And really where it fits in the continuum of care is somewhere in between our traditional typical voluntary outpatient services and something that is more structured and involuntary like LPS conservatorship. So care court is kind of in the middle of those things as a court supervised voluntary treatment type program. And so in preparation for our go live, because Monterey County has been live with Care Court since 12/01/2024. In preparation for that go live date, a CareCourt planning committee was convened, by Monterey County Superior Court, judge Culver.

And we had monthly meetings starting in January 2024. We had some ad hoc work groups throughout the year. We had a mock trial, walking through procedural things. This is a was a huge, like, a new program. The planning committee included several key partners from court, self help, behavioral health, public defender, DA, public guardian conservator, also stakeholder groups, came and were involved.

And then, of course, we work closely with our health management associate consultants. So there was a lot of effort and collaboration that went into preparation for go live in in December. And so s p 27 went into effect, as I said, 01/01/2026. And, you know, what that did was made some substantive changes to care the initial care act, expanded criteria a little bit, and then also provided more direct pathways for referrals from other, core processes. So we will highlight some of those.

Waiting for a second. Yeah. And so there's that overview of some of those high level overview of the major changes, which we will walk through right now. Next slide. Next slide.

So the first one of those was the addition of bipolar one disorder as an eligible or qualifying diagnosis, where previously it was was initially limited to schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders, SB 27 expanded the eligible diagnoses to include bipolar one disorder with psychotic features. And, you know, except as psychosis relates to intoxication. Right? So there still needs to be some teasing out of that diagnosis, but it does expand the criteria. So that is that is one key shift.

And just to assess, you know, clarify too that its diagnosis alone does not qualify somebody. It's not sufficient. It really there is the the continued criteria where there there needs to be, you know, a functional impairment, risk some certain risk criteria, and consideration of the individual's current treat level of treatment engagement that are all factored in. Next slide. So it also defined because the the initial language was, you know, not really clear what was meant by being clinically stabilized, in ongoing voluntary treatment.

And so s p 27 provided us with this with this, definition definition. And, you know, looking at the individual's condition, is that stable? Are they, not deteriorating, or is there some level of deterioration going on? And how actively engaged are they in their treatment. Are they currently engaged in treatment?

Are their symptoms being effectively managed through medications and other treatment interventions? Next slide. And so, additionally, it streamlined referrals from other courts without the need to file a petition. And while Monterey County doesn't have an assisted outpatient treatment or an AOT court. We do have an LPS court, and we do have, our our criminal courts, the IST courts for felonies and misdemeanors.

And so what, s b 27 did was created a more streamlined mechanism and process in place for court to court referrals that didn't exist before. Next slide. And so you you can kinda see see through there here that, you know, a referral can be deemed a petition. Care court judge will review that and can deem a referral from one of the other courts as a petition. And if they choose to accept it, then they will notify that referring court that it has been accepted as a petition.

If the care court judge does not accept the referral as a petition, then there's other mechanisms in place to order the appropriate, petitioner candidate, whether that's behavioral health or the public guardian's office, for example, to follow-up and do some things, investigate, look at the appropriateness, and report back in fourteen days. So it tightened up that process and kinda created that, more streamlined process.

Melanie? Yeah. Can can I, Mel I'm sorry. Can can you can you do me a favor? And just because supervisor Church and I are new and the acronyms, if you could like you did with the AOT assisted outpatient treatment, if you could just name the acronyms that you're

Oh, of course. So we're not completely lost. My apologies. Yes. So when we're talking about miss, we're talking about misdemeanor and competent to stand trial.

And when we're talking about this, we're talking about felony and competent to stand trial cases. So those would be cases that would be heard in criminal court process. And, again, care is civil, not criminal. So it's created this pathway for folks who are going through criminal processes for felony or misdemeanor and competent to stand trial processes and creates a pathway for that criminal court to refer over to the care court civil process. Great.

And LPS conservatorship is our Lanterman Petra Short Act that oversees conservatorship, which is also a civil process. So you have care court and LPS, which are civil processes, and now it created a pathway there for referrals that can come from LPS to care as well as from the criminal side through, the criminal courts for felony and misdemeanor and competent to stand trial matters. And so this just really outlines a little bit more in more detail, and authorizes, you know, county behavioral health and jail medical providers to share gives that authorization to share medical records and other relevant information that can assist with the determination. So it just it clarified some things. Next slide.

And, again, here, the felony and competent to scan trial referrals to care have always been provided for in the penal code, but it created that pathway for for the misdemeanors that that kind of mirrors that. Okay. It also provided these additional clarifications here, expanding the scope who can assist in, you know, signing the the care affidavits. Initially, it was just, you know, the the physicians, and now it's expanded to nurse practitioners and physician assistants. So it just updated some some of these categories.

Okay. No, that's okay. And clarified some of the other processes and the court's role in graduations and things like that. Next slide. And so now I wanted to just, you know, share a little bit of the data now that we're, again, about 15 in.

The data on this slide, though, we we cut it off at February because we're we're still in March, and we had to, you know, get the this presentation submitted and things. But from the start of CareCourt, from December 1 through the February, so 12/01/2024 through February 2026, We've had a total of 33 petitions filed. That first month, we had a couple in calendar year 2025. We had 24 petitions filed. And in January to February through February year, we've had seven.

This month, I was checking with the team yesterday, and we have four, this month with another one pending. So we might be looking at another month where we get get five, petitions coming in. So the numbers are going up. And if we want to you know, you'll see there, there's, we've had 16 dismissals. We've had some that have resulted in that sort of more voluntary care agreement.

We've had one that's resulted in a care plan to date, and we have, you know, about eight more that are still currently in process. And Cassandra will walk through a little bit more detail about the process and some of this stuff here in a bit. But next slide, please. So I really I just wanted to map this out in terms of the care petitions by month. I I find this visual helpful because it kinda tells us how we're trending.

We did get off to a little bit of a slow start with, you know, December, that first month, only a couple and and no petitions in in January. But then as you can see as we've gone through the last calendar year from October to date, we've really seen those numbers trending upwards, which is helpful to us in terms of informing, like, you know, staffing because care care court is a very staff intensive program. There's a lot of responsibilities that fall on behavioral health, a lot of tasks that that we need to do here. And so it's it's very helpful for our planning, and care can be quite a a long process, a lengthy process. And we'll share a little bit more about that here in a minute.

But I do just wanna pause at this point because there was, you know, there was some media attention from the governor back when when was that? March 2, press release, press conference in Alameda County where, governor Newsom really announced that, you know, there was this counties were going to be measured as to their success by the number of petitions that are filed. And, you know, I I do just wanna acknowledge that. I know there was some local attention to that here as well and interest in that. And and so, that was really the first time.

So earlier this month was really the first time that counties heard that a measure of a court's, you know, success, for a care court was by the volume of petitions. Because traditionally, how we work in behavioral health is our goal is always voluntary engagement, right, and least restrictive environments and trying to engage. And how we as as county behavioral health have always viewed this is another engagement tool, another tool in the tool bag. And so with the goal and it was even written into the statute, right, like that a care petition would be dismissed if, through this process, there was voluntary engagement. So that that is really the intent is to get people connected to, care and services.

And so, you know, looking at this slide with the trend upward, I mean, Monterey County was identified as a care ICU port or a care improvement and coordination unit cohort port. And so we have been in conversation with the state, with CalHHS, and, you know, sharing what we're doing, sharing the good work that we're doing, and anticipate a site visit in a couple months or so, and more information can be provided to the board at that time as that planning effort is just starting here. But, really, we look at the measure of the program success really by our ability to engage people voluntarily and the successes in, like, the lives that we see that we're changing and how we're helping folks go from very unstable situations to more stable situations. And I also would say if we just included our all in numbers, not just calendar year 2025, which is what was put out on the governor's accountability website, We're actually above the the mark and yeah. We have a way higher per capita rate that would kinda take us out of this ICU cohort.

So I think it's just in how the data was looked at, and that there's a little bit larger picture and context here that I just wanted to share. Because if we looked at the total number of petitions for the population, we would be at a bit closer to 7.9 per capita than, you know, where we were just looking at the, you know, 5.5 level of petitions. So

in reality yeah. Can we ask some questions about this sort of at this point in the presentation? Supervisor Church, did you have any questions at this point?

Not at this point.

Okay. I'm gonna just ask a couple questions. Are there any repercussions from the governor's sort of declaration that we're underperforming, or was it just sort of a a a statement that he made?

He did call out the Care Champion counties and the 10, care ICU improvement and coordination unit cohort counties or lower performing counties. There was statement in the press conference about consideration of taking away funding or or whatever from underperforming counties and redistributing it to other counties, but that was just a statement. We haven't received any correspondence that that is actually what is going to happen. What has happened, though, is deputy secretary Stephanie Welch from CalHHS has reached out. We have been in contact with with her.

She's very interested as is secretary Johnson in what we're doing here locally at Monterey County, and they have expressed interest in having a site visit to meet the partners, meet our our partners, and hear more about our program and what we're doing. And there is an tailored technical assistance that the state is is offering. And so we will be again, we had an initial call, and we are just starting those planning efforts. And so as this proceeds, we will definitely report back to the board when we know more about when that site visit would occur.

Well, if it's helpful, I am very appreciative of the way in which it sounds like you are measuring success versus what they are measuring success by being the total number of petitions filed. If we could go back to, slide 14, I just wanna understand, a little bit better what, what progress we've made in Monterey County or what this slide actually means. So it's 13 33 petitions filed, 16 dismissals. Does the dismissal mean that somebody, a petition was filed and then the the individual decided they did not want to be part of the program, or is it something else? Or is it the judge that says, no.

You don't qualify. What is a dismissal?

That's a great question. And, actually, I think that can that's something that I'm gonna have Cassandra really walk us through with another visual.

If if it's Okay. Then let's stay here then what before she does that. Okay. Because I do wanna understand, care agreements and, what that means and and then what plans mean. And then the last thing I wanna ask is it sounds like, if you were measuring success on petitions filed, that in in 2026 with some of the s b 27 changes, that we are actually going up. Is that accurate?

Just for

the first two months data.

We've trended up since October. Actually, even before the s p 27 changes went into effect, we started to see more, more petitions being filed. And yeah. So we are now sort of if we look all in at our numbers, per capita, we're actually above that ice that ICU cutoff and above the state average for petitions filed.

Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry.

I was gonna answer your question about care agreements and care plans. Care agreements are when they and Cassandra can feel free to jump in here. But in essence, it's they're more voluntary agreements and engagement with the care participant or care respondent around their treatment needs, what they wanna work on, and it's it's more a voluntary nature. The court can order a care plan anyway and approve that, but there's just a different level of voluntary nature, if you will. Yes.

That's a little different between an agreement and a plan.

Got it. Thank you. Sure.

Next slide. Okay. So, now what I'm what I'm gonna do is I'm I'm really, you know, just to underscore the voluntary nature of how we engage with folks. You know, we also have a number of full service partner clients and full service partnerships and and things.

And, Melanie, just on the abbreviations when we get if you could explain those.

Yes. Thank you.

So I'm actually gonna make sure that now we transition it over to Cassandra to walk us through some additional data points here as well as share more about the care process and insights and lessons learned from the first fifteen months. But just as we transition that, again, DSH is Department of State Hospitals, PGPA PC is our public guardian administrator and conservators office, and CDCR is the state department of corrections and rehabilitation. So, Cassandra? Hi. Good morning. So we

have many sources for care petitions. Behavioral health has filed nine care petitions. Department of State Hospitals have filed nine as well. Seven from family members, two from the public guardian's office, two from the hospital, two from CDCR, one from interim, and we have one criminal court referral.

Thank you.

Some reasons for dismissal. Seven had LPS conservatorship filed. We had one transfer to their county of residence that was actually very successful. They left Monterey County Jail, and we were able to link them to their behavioral health county and their care court team. We had two participate in voluntary engagement.

One did not meet Primo Pachi. Three did not have a qualifying diagnosis. One, we were unable to locate. And then the other, specifically the dismissal, was for an individual who was at Department of State Hospitals receiving treatment as an offender with a mental health disorder, and they were not released to Monterey County. So what does the care court process look like?

It's a large process. So in order to start the care court process, first we must receive a petition. It has to meet the legal requirements. Additionally, we have to find and serve the client, building rapport as well. In situations where someone other than County Behavioral Health files a petition, behavioral health is substituted in as a petitioner at the initial court appearance.

Individuals can exit out of the care process in several different forms, as you can see, including voluntary engagement and county treatment services, and then up to including graduation from the care agreement or the care plan. And the care agreement and the care plan are documents that specify services to support the respondent's recovery and stability. The care agreement, as Melanie mentioned, is a voluntary agreement. If a care agreement is not reached, the court can order the creation of a care plan. Additionally, there are status review hearings throughout this process to review their progresses and challenges.

And then and as we're moving forward this process, the treatment team is constantly looking at what services the client needs in order to be successful in each agreement and care plan is specifically tailored to the individual client based on their needs at that time we're seeing them. Overview of the care court process. So there's a lot of due process built in. And just to demonstrate, it is a really heavy lift for behavioral health. We're serving clients with their court reports each time they're attending court, getting them to court over in Monterey. The majority of our clients live all over all over the county.

K. I think it's next. So,

it can take time to engage the respondent and get to the actual treatment phase of care. This can be up to five to six months before we're actually they're kind of gone into the process, building rapport and engagement with them before we can, you know, get to actually status review hearings. And, again, it's just based on the individual and what they're needing at the time for services. Okay. So some of our successes, we've had increased collaboration with the public guardian's office, county counsel, our court partners, including the public defender's office, Parole, Veterans Administration, Veterans Transition Center, Monterey County Jail, and our SUD, substance use disorder, and mental health contracted partners.

It also provides support for mentally ill individuals transitioning from jail to treatment and housing. So we've also seen a reduced repeat of parole violations for technical issues like not being able to charge their income monitor. It assists families in creating stable housing and improving family harmony for both the individual and their loved ones. It helps individuals transitioning off of conservatorship to remain stable and demonstrate voluntary adherence to treatment. The care process involves repeated engagement with behavioral health providers, which often helps link even resistant individuals to becoming more open to treatment over time.

We've had two care participants who have been appropriate and are actually living in behavioral health's help housing program in Marina. We have one additional for all pending who should be moving in any day. We've also had three clients who have been connected to boarding care facilities, one receiving crisis stabilization at Interim, and one is actually being housed at the Veterans Transitional Center, Marina.

And so while we're on this slide, I just wanna highlight, like, the increased collaboration with, Public Guardian's office has really been key because what we saw initially when CARE went live is we were seeing a petition filed for CARE and the same time an investigation was being requested from the public guardian's office for conservatorship for someone under LPS conservatorship. So part of this, because they're very different, was working together and collaborating to see what's really the appropriate level of care for this individual and to try and make sure that we're we're getting it right. Right? So collaborating and really keeping the person at the center of the decision making and then figuring out what resources what's the appropriate level of care for these folks. So that's also why, you know, we we were seeing some of those dismissals in the person, ending up on conservatorship is that there were some that were just in need, of more, they had more acute needs and needed that higher level of care.

And why Cassandra really called out the, behavioral health bridge housing program over at Hope Housing and Marina is because it was BHBH funded. So behavioral health bridge housing, funding was used for that. And as part of that, peer court participants, were to be given priority for, housing there. And, unfortunately, what we found initially with some of the initial petitions was that they had more acute needs and really weren't at that level to be able to live independently. They needed more support.

But now we are starting to see that we're getting some petitions maybe a little bit earlier and more appropriate for more independent living housing in those supported environments in the community. Next.

So some challenges for CareCourt is there is extensive data collection that goes into this. There's no placement for PC two ninety registrants. The legal process tasks, which include writing, preparing, and serving legal documents, arranging transportation to court. That's very time consuming and it reduces the amount of time that can be spent on treatment specific services. There's the addition of the SB 27, which does streamline the criminal court process. It's a resource intensive program in terms of staffing. We have seven staff with different classifications who are all cross trained for adult justice involved population. However, they're also helping other programs as well.

Good morning, you just tell us what PC two ninety registrants? You might have just said it, but I missed it. What that is.

Registered sex offenders.

Got it. Thank you.

Good morning. Chair Daniels for vice chair, Fabrizio Chombo, assistant bureau chief. And I just we added a fun slide for funding, but this really should be part of the challenges because when we look at the funding that the county has received to date, there was an initial startup allocation of $328,604, and that was part of the assembly bill one seventy nine that essentially allocated funding to counties based on population. So the funding that was supposed to be used for initial startup costs. And then since then, the state has allocated additional funding.

So for this fiscal year, we have approximately $32,000,000 statewide for air court activities. And so you can see at the bottom the activities that are funded with this with this dollars. And, essentially, what we wanna highlight is that to date, Monterey County has received $38,000 of this funding. So when melaniemadecom commented earlier about some of the fiscal risks about this. That is essentially what could be at risk if we remain under that ICU level at the stage. Yep.

And so with that, there's, you know, the care court website through the court self help website, our own behavioral health website with additional resources and information. Behavioral health has worked really closely with the self help center as well. We have staff colocated in the in the building here at the Salinas Self Help Center. So if there are families or people going in and curious about this process, we have staff that they can be connected to that can help explain. On our website, we also also have, set up a way that our partners, whether that's hospital partners or first responder partners, can refer folks or go send information over in a secured way to us to follow-up on.

Because while anybody the net is very large for individuals who can file care court petitions, the reality is some folks may not have all the information that they need to do that. So we've tried to create these pathways where, okay, if our first responder partners are having these repeated contacts with folks but may not have all the information that they feel they need to file a petition, they can flag that for us, reach out to us, provide us some information, and then we can take that as staff and follow-up on it. And if it's appropriate to file a petition, can do that, on their on their behalf, essentially. And with that, we'll conclude the presentation, and we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Supervisor Church, do you have any questions?

No. I do not at this time.

Okay. I just have one, thank you so much for the presentation. This was very helpful. I I feel like per perhaps as supervisors, we could be helpful with the compliance issue only because I don't want us to be unable to receive any future funding that might be, available. So what, it sounds like you were going to have the the agencies come here for a presentation or to visit Monterey County. What can you continue and tell us more about what that plan was?

Sure. Yes. Deputy secretary Walsh and Karen Lincoln too. I don't know. I think I did forward them the meeting invite for today, in case that they were able to join and wanted to hear an update.

But the state has reached out to the 10 counties on the ICU list and are planning county site visits to come to those local jurisdictions to meet with the teams, with the partners, with the courts, and hear more about our program, the implementation, sort of all the things that we're doing here at the local level, and with the intent of providing some, you know, input and technical assistance if they see that is that is needed for the program. So I I really look at it as an opportunity to share all the good work that we're doing and to help provide that larger context that maybe isn't represented in, you know, just a number on a state's accountability website. I so I see it as an opportunity to share and to have them get to know County Of Monterey and all our strong partnerships because

Yeah.

We have some really solid partnerships here, and we have implemented a lot of different programs. And I know we have some of the partners here, you know, with us today, which I think I you know, speaks volumes for that that they they show up.

And it seems it seems like that increased collaboration and the partnership is one of one of the successes. One of the measurements of the success is just not the measurement that the state is utilizing. And so I also don't know if there's any attempts being made in the legislature or via anyone even letting our our own legislative caucus know that the the way in which success is being measured by the governor isn't an accurate measurement from our perspective in terms of the work that we're doing. And, and so I wish you a lot of luck with the deputy secretary, and let us know if there's ways that we can help. Obviously, we all have very good relationships with our legislators and are happy to set up any sort of meeting that might help them also become more aware of of Monterey County's work in this in in in how we can have them sort of help advocate for us as well so we can get off that list.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.

Melanie? Supervisor Daniels, just to also give you a little bit of an update. This is Michelle Wooden with the Public Defender's Office. I recently did a presentation for the California Public Defender Association with deputy secretary Stephanie Welch and Karen Lincolns. So they are aware of the training that we have and what we can offer as well for our defenders and the partnerships that we have developed.

So during that meeting, Ms. Welch had indicated, yes, they are reexamining what it looks like to be on the ICU list and the 10 best list. And I know that that's something that will be discussed during the site visit, yet our partners are now intimately aware of the training resources that we have for our folks as well.

Great. Thank you so much. Okay. Well, with that, should we go to public comment on this item? Is there anyone with hands raised? No hands raised. Is there anyone in the room who would like to make public comment? Okay. Well, with that then, I really thank you for this presentation. Is the next step something coming to the Board of Supervisors, or is this a presentation that was just for this committee?

We brought it to this committee. And then typically, in the past, has happened is that we present an item here that the chair and vice chair feel should be brought to the full board, then they can make that recommendation, and then we would move forward with scheduling that for a full board presentation. So I would defer to to you and supervisor Church on what your recommendation is. And if you'd like us to do that, we're happy to.

I think my recommendation and supervisor Church, you can let me know what you think, is is that maybe we we allow for you to have that engagement with the deputy secretary so then there is some more some more information to share. It would definitely be beneficial to get the s v 27 update and also just to get this update, but maybe waiting to see how those engagements go first. And so and and present after that. I don't know how that sounds to you.

That that's fine with me.

Okay. Sounds that sounds fine with me as well. Because, again, I I think the dates that, they were proposing for a site visit, well, they haven't landed on a date yet, but it would be sometime possibly in May. So we could plan to come to

the board after that. That sounds great. Okay. Well, with that, then thank you very much, and we will move on to item five, which is a presentation on standardized homelessness response system performance benchmarks and outcome goals. And this is being presented to us, well, that's a, as well as supporting the CAO homelessness strategies and initiatives, division's recommendation to incorporate standardized performance benchmarks into all county funded contracts related to homelessness interventions and provide direction. And it's Dania Valdez, Katrina McKenzie. Well, it's both of you. Dania and Katrina.

Yes. Supervisor Daniels, before we move into the next presentation, just a reminder that I'm aware that both of you have another committee meeting in this room at 10:30. We do have a pretty full agenda, and, you know, we've

And we went off. I

will try to not ask as many questions, but I cannot let it pass that in District 5, I struggle very much with the Bixby Bridge and all of the visitation on the Bixby Bridge. So what I would just say to our wonderful next two presenters, if the Bixby Bridge doesn't have anything to do with your presentation, let's find another image. And I'm sorry to have to be the one to say that, but I am tortured. So with that

I have one question before we start on this.

Yes.

We're we're talking about a five year plan, But when I I look at this, the leave me home plan update here, it says July 2021 through June 2026. And I on the front cover, and I'm just not quite sure why why that date is on there. If we're talking about five years, it's we're looking back on the five years, or we look I mean, is that

If I if I may, hi, everybody. My name is Katrina McKenzie with the Coalition of Homeless Services Providers. We're the lead agency for, the continuum of care and also initiate the five year plan, and we're under development of reporting out for the this past year and the development of extending our five year plan to, start the development of the next five year plan.

That's a little better explanation for me. Thank you.

Okay. So good morning. Manuel Des. I'm management analyst with the home homelessness strategies and initiatives division. As Katrina introduced herself, she is the executive director of the Coalition of Homeless Services Providers.

So we will be presenting the standardized homelessness response system performance benchmarks and outcome goals. And just to provide some background, in November 2024, our division partnered with the monitoring and evaluations committee, of the Leave Me Home continuum of care, which includes representatives from city of Salinas, the coalition of homeless service providers, department of social services, direct service providers, and also people with, lived experience. The county contracted, Egypt Colony Consulting to assist the committee with the development of standardizing, monitoring, and evaluation protocol. So Katrina will now provide more information on these benchmarks and the outcome goals.

Thank you so much, Donya. So sorry about the image.

So I am so apologetic for even saying anything. The bridge is symbolic for all of our work. We'll just find a different bridge.

So Donya went over most of this slide real quick, and, just want to just further, what she said that, like, these these benchmarks or these efforts really mark an important step in enhancing our accountability and increasing transparency and ensuring measurable outcomes across county funded homeless programs. From my side, I might also include, continuum of care. We have all we have met with, like Donya said, the city, the county, and the coalition to align our our our funding streams so that we are able to that's the same things of our organization and hold them accountable equally across the board. So this slide really highlights the data review and discovery process and integrates multiple sources, including the leave me home plan, the HUD systems performance measures, California systems performance measures, local metrics, HMIS or the homeless management information system, which is ran by our office, and all that program data to create a comprehensive and, aligned approach to evaluating our systems performance. And here in this slide, these outcomes are the recommended updated performance measures and benchmarks that is proposed to be implemented across our homeless response system, and how they can align with the leave me home plan goals are as it's a COC that is COC led and county adopted regional strategy to reduce and end homelessness.

These benchmarks are not created in isolation. They are informed by multiple layers of accountability, best prac and best practices, including all the measures, that I referenced in the last slide, which is the HUD systems performance measures, California systems performance measures, our local performance expectations, and those are drawn from various requests to proposals, which set clear standards for providers who are receiving funding. Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry. This thing looks like it's timed.

Mhmm. And then looking at our HMIS data, our annual performance reports, that look at program level data across all project types, which is street outreach, emergency shelters, or interim housing, rapid rehousing, and permanent supportive housing. Together, these sources, inform the benchmark shown here, and they reflect what a high performing system should achieve, which is quickly moving people into housing, minimizing returns to homelessness, increasing income and access to benefits, and maintaining high quality data high data quality and system accountability. By aligning these local provide provider performance performances sorry. By aligning local provider performance with these federal state regional standards, our lead me home plan, it ensures that our system is data driven, outcome focused, and accountable.

This ultimately, improves how we serve individuals and families experiencing homelessness in our community. So together, these benchmarks help us understand not just how many people we serve, but how effectively we are in helping, exit homelessness and for folks to stay housed. So I'm gonna pause here for you guys to just take a gander a further gander at what we have developed here, through our monitoring and evaluations committee and our consultants, over the past year and a half.

So so I I and I say, I being new to this committee, I'm trying to trying to understand this and how we're moving head forward. And I know that we're we're looking back onto this, but I'm not quite you know, some of the goals that were set here back in 2021 on reducing the homelessness

They were

population's higher than what we our goals were. Let's say it didn't quite work the way we wanted to achieve in all those goals. So I I I I'm trying to look forward looking here and seeing what we're learning from this and and what we're adopting going ahead when when when I'm not seeing that we really didn't reach our benchmarks. So

I Yes.

I'm that's why I'm a little bit, and I'm trying to explain myself totally completely in my first, statement here. I'm trying to piece this together of what we're trying to achieve here when the last five years, you really have achieved what we really set out to achieve.

Yeah. So thank you for bringing that up. That last, lead me our our current lead me home plan was extremely ambitious when we were highly funded. We were in a a time of abundance, in funding, and we were like we were we we saw the funding, and we said, we can do this. We can absolutely do this.

But funding pulled back. Program, requirement shifted. Restrictions got very harsh, and those benchmarks were really hard to achieve, exiting a pandemic and funding falling. So we we did look back at, you know, almost ten years of data for us to really come to some sort of achievable, benchmark that is closely aligned with not only HUD federal and state, but our local. We found a happy medium to meet everybody's requirements, and that is not overly ambitious to the point of not being able to achieve.

So looking at our current data of our local system, we have and state and federal requirements, we found the happy medium, and this is what we're presenting today.

K. Oh, okay. I yeah. I I guess for me is I wanna you know, I'm hoping we can have some real successes as we go ahead and knowing what resources we need to put into this to reduce it down. It's I'm I'm just wondering how much we've we've learned from not being successful or having reduced, reduced, resources available. But, thank you for for filling me in a little bit onto that. I'm I don't well, let you proceed on with your presentation, and maybe it'll all fit together a little better here on where we're going to or what we what we think we wanna head to down the future too. So thank you.

Yeah. Well, I hope ask the Go ahead, Kate. Sorry. Just gonna

say no. Kate is fine, Katrina. So I I wanted to to provide some context that or maybe you can provide some context in terms of who the coalition of homeless service providers is. With all of the tracking that you're doing, each of those individual entities have seen successes. And so, you know, as we the way that you're measuring it is important, but also, you know, when we think about system exits and we think about population size changes, when we think about who we're serving, you know, each of the individual partners have achieved some success in a larger population or in a larger context that as a whole, we haven't met the targets that we set out necessarily, but there are successes within that.

If you could just elaborate on that, unless I'm wrong, then that might be helpful to sort of understand.

Yeah. I I would agree, supervisor Daniels. If we look at each organization individually, they're and we rate them on just their that one program, and not even as a whole, but each individual program within an organization. I do see that there are successes taking place. Macro level, looking at dual county as well, because this is not just data from Monterey County.

This would be a Monterey, San Benito County, implementation. But we wanna make sure that each partner is buying into it. Right? Macro level, it's it is a a bigger pot to to measure. So, getting our system aligned would be extremely helpful because what the coalition is asking for our subrecipients versus the city of Salinas versus the county of Monterey, we're gonna see different outcomes because we're asking different things.

But because we have come together to align that and start the implementation of that being that it's contracting season, it's budget season, we're gonna start, if adopted, the county would start putting this into their contracts, and we're already going to be putting it into our contracts on the, continuum of care side.

I just will give an example, though. In this period of time, for there have been two shelters on the Monterey Peninsula that have opened up for women and families with children. And so they themselves, I think, have have created the interim housing well, not the interim, but the the the emergency shelter, the the and then within their own programs, there have been successes in folks exiting to permanent housing. And so, I mean, there's just just to try to remember that there is some some bright spots. The challenge is enormous.

But Absolutely. This peer this five year period of time via the coalition has seen some very bright spots, and that's just one part of the county. All over, we've had some bright spots.

Yes. And I would like to highlight that we have attended now four grand openings of some permanent supportive housing programs and interim housing programs, to come in just the month of March. So we're really excited to continue to serve the unhoused and work with our network to increase our data quality and quality of service to those clients.

Great. Thank you.

So I hope because it's the end of the almost the end, that I was able to answer most of your questions. So, through this, we're our recommendation is, one, to have, you know, provided this presentation to you all and for the county to support the homeless strategies and initiatives division's recommendation to the boards of supervisors and to direct the county departments to include these standardized performance benchmarks benchmarks and outcome goals in all county funded projects or contracts relating to homeless intervention. And then, Donna's here to take notes to provide, direct, further direction as needed.

Great. Well, with that, let's first, supervisor Church go out to public comment and hear what the public has to say.

I'll give you a shot. I see something you wanna say.

Sure. Why not?

Yes. I I think Wes wants to speak.

Sorry for

putting you both too complicating and wasting your time.

Wes Weiss, this is Martin County Homeless Union co president. I'd like to see some addition of, like like, during a sweep, I guess. You know, how many people have people how many times have they been driven off of where they're at, like, off of Railroad Avenue that just have is about to happen? And there is a a shelter there as well. And so that's in jeopardy. Some more homeless numbers. How many times have people been moved around? How much money have they lost doing that? How much does it cost for them replace the items that have been taken from them? And and how can we legitimize people?

You know? We pass around. I'm on a lived experience advisory director, which is part of the Continuum of Care Leadership Council, which is connected with this as well, a voting member. So looking for a livability license or whatever. You know? Just something they they're like mental health and safety standards. If if it's not a blanket of trash, if they're if they don't have, like, stolen property in front of them. You know, it's just it's just their their property and ground. How can they maintain their personal property and not have it taken away to where they have to regenerate that? Because that actually causes a lot more, and we're not gonna be able to solve and get anybody out of it if we're constantly making them start from zero.

Their their personal wealth is know, their family fortune is gone in a heartbeat. And and and it's really hard. It's very traumatic. And we're not treating our United States citizens as equals, you know, with inalienable rights. You know, they're they're due process. They're just summarily dismissed because everyone's considered a hazard, And that's not Okay. We've got it's the homelessness problem is a wealth inequality issue. So unless we want to address it like that and support people where they're at, provide services like we did during shelter in place, running water, electricity, let them provide their own housing. Why are we taking away the housing that they're providing for themselves? You can't break the law to enforce the law yet.

This is what we do constantly. Real property or personal property. So where's the balance? Because there are human lives at stake and they are our constituents. And if they did stay somewhere, they'd be able to register a vote and run for office and also help alleviate these symptoms, you know, by making causing issue to address these policies. So help me stop sweeps.

Thank you, mister White. Is there any other public comment?

I've seen them online. None in the room.

Okay. Then coming back to the, to the to the committee, if you could help me just understand what so if if this were to move, what I'm looking for is some clarity on exactly what the, new metrics are that you would be bringing forward? I mean, we didn't really get or maybe we did, and you can bring it back, a slide that tells you the the new protocol. Right? This what is it exactly exactly if you were to articulate it, and can you put it on a slide for us so we know what we're moving forward?

I know we talked about HMIS annual performance reports and local performance measures. We have read in our packet the California system performances measures, HUD's measures. So what what exactly is it that you are presenting to go to to to the board?

Sure. Yeah.

What is different? What is different from before?

Okay. I see. So before the lead me home the the county or all all funders, had their own their own benchmarks and, measures that they would like that they use for their their funding streams. But this would standardize the benchmarks to ensure consistent expectation across all county funded providers, improve transparency and performance monitoring. Sorry.

It looks like this thing keeps going. It's on a timer. It's so weird. Improve transparency and performance monitoring and align local contracts with HUD's date reporting frameworks. This approach will strengthen county's competitive positioning and futures and state future state and federal opportunities, including HAP, ERF, and other federal resources.

In addition, it will support the strategic system improvement identified in the lead me home plan and enable a clearer, more meaningful reporting to the board of supervisors and community state stakeholders that reflects a shift towards performance based contracting and outcome accountability. Because historically, performance expectations varied across all funding streams, departments, administration, at contracts, and it had it resulted in inconsistent reporting and limited comparability when you look across the various contracts and types of services depending on what department department it may have come from.

So and do you feel at the coalition, like, you have everybody's support, everyone's on board to to do this?

It has been approved by our leadership council already to be implemented on the COC side.

Okay. So it sounds like everybody's on board, and it obviously makes a whole lot of sense to me. Supervisor Church?

Yeah. I guess and this is the problem. You know, you can probably support the problem that you're had are having there too. If your question is we're both coming in on this kind of late and and understanding why, you know, these majors are taken over other majors, how successful these majors been compared to other majors. That's where I'm kinda coming in here where I I mean, I haven't seen that background to where I'm totally comfortable to say, yes. Great. Number five or six or eight or 10. I I completely understand, and I see why that's on here instead of something else that would've could've been number thirteen, fourteen, or 15.

Would it be helpful if you were to if you were to see this in comparison to what was proposed or what is currently implemented?

Okay. Absolutely. And then also if there's any kind of metrics that were used, why these are being chosen over others. That's what and when I look back at the the five year report, I say, well, k. We didn't you know, we're supposed to have reduced homelessness by half. It hasn't happened. And and so I'm looking and wondering, well, there's some things that didn't work. It's of course, I understand we didn't have resources. You pointed that out clear, but some things will work better than others. I'm assuming these are the ones.

That's where I'm just coming from is it's it's kinda incomplete to me still. And and then probably is a great deal with that coming into the meeting here, not having been on this committee before. And so just this kind of a depth, recommendation is what's kind of leaving me sort of unanswered questions. I think, Darby has something up here, Kate.

Okay. Yes. Darby.

Supervisors. Darby Marshall Housing program manager. This is something that I I brought to the board's attention last year when I when we did the, urban county, and we we pointed out that, you know, we're funding the Meals on Wheels, for example, out of numerous different pots. So I think that's trying to stand come up with a standardized reporting system is very helpful. I think something else that we are pursuing that might be, equally useful is a a centralized grant management system.

And I know that, each CD has an f an RFP out right now. And what it would do is it's the it's the forward facing tool that we would use to collect grant applications, and it would allow us to collect standardized information in one place and generate reports across departments if we develop if we can agree on standardized reporting. And and from my perspective and from what we'll present in the in the next, urban county meeting is there are some very different things that we have to collect by statute. But that doesn't mean we cannot be cooperative and come up with shared definitions and and reporting requirements so that we can come back to the board collectively. So I I'd like to put that pitch out there early that a a grant management system that makes it easy for our subrecipients and our county departments to manage these agreements and collect the same kind of information might be something very, worth consideration.

Thank you. That that's helpful. And I I I do think, you know, standardizing our reporting systems and, you know, centralized grant management systems, all these things, this is all very good. I think the only the only question that that or that was brought up is just a need when presenting this to the full board to to just have have a clear picture of the current system and its and its shortfalls and and and moving in this direction and what that will accomplish. But I think you have general support from from this committee.

I have one question about the public comment, and I'm not sure where the metric would be included or if it's included, but it it does sound like there is a desire to to be tracking more from from the cleaning and well, sweeps, for lack of a better word, of encampments and and personal property metrics and things like that. I don't know where that fits in this, but there I've I've heard over time always, and I and I've experienced it myself personally when I've been when I was at Gathering for Women that there is there is a there is some data there to be collected in terms of personal property. And so if you if you know or can place where that fits in this, that would be appreciated as to the comment that was made in public comment. And so with that, I think we can we can move forward. We've received the presentation.

I I sense support here, Supervisor Church, in terms of recommending, we incorporate standardized performance benchmarks into all county funded contracts related to homelessness interventions. And I think we've given some good direction if that's satisfactory to staff that made this presentation.

Yes. Definitely. Thank you, supervisor Daniels.

Thank you. Okay. With that then, we are going to move to item number six, and we're receiving a status report on efforts to construct a housing campus for unhoused parenting youth in the city of Soledad. And with that, it is Darby Marshall.

Darby Marshall, county housing program manager. Back in '20, '22, the county received a $2,000,000 community facilities grant. This is a a congressional earmark, so we have very little latitude in exactly how we, use it, but we also have a tremendous amount of rope with which to, to implement the project. We were directed by congress to spend $2,000,000 to create a homeless youth pair homeless parenting youth parent parenting campus is, South County. We have been working with the city of Soledad to identify an appropriate location for this facility.

We think we have finally landed on one. It is property that the city has purchased and is now, cleaning up and remediating. Once that's done, we can move forward with completing the National Environmental, Policy Act environmental reviews and committing the funds. The plan is that we will release the funds to either CHISPA or the housing authority, and they will use the funds to purchase the property from the city of Soledad because the city used, park funds, I believe, to purchase the land. Then they will construct between four and six, two bedroom manufactured units on the site.

They will provide permanent supportive housing for transitional age youth that are parenting. So this is 18 to 25. We do have Megan Hunter, who is the city manager from the city of Soledad in the room right with us. She could provide more details, on on what the city is doing, but that is the, and what we're looking for now is just, guidance from the from the committee that they're in agreement with this and, that we continue to move forward. At some point here in the next three to four months, we will be going to the full board with a recommendation for probably a subrecipient agreement with one of those two entities that I mentioned, the housing authority or CHISPA, to actually spend the dollars down.

And with that, I'm available for questions. And I and so is miss Hunter.

Kate, you're, you're muted.

I was just saying go for it, supervisor Church.

Yeah. There's one question. I mean, this is referring to July 2022, when and wondering what's happened in the last you know, four years, that's a four year gap and why it's coming up to us now and not earlier.

That that that's very fair question. We've encountered some hiccups, both staff transfer to changes at the county side that originally approached the board and and senator Padilla for these funds, and then also at the city's level. We did have a property in mind that we were going to purchase. We had gotten very far down that road, and that imploded. And it kinda sent us back to the, drawing board.

Your is there a timeline that we've gotta spend this money on for this?

We have to spend the funds by, 2027.

So Yeah. Well, we're back to the wall then.

So We are we are getting there, but we should have, have them expended early in either late this fiscal year or early next fiscal year. Okay.

I support, obviously, this moving forward, and I will have some thoughts, on the recipient agreement, but I will hold those off until we have that full board conversation. Let's go to public comment. Anyone in the room?

No time if I give a public comment.

Sure. The

the city is in full support of this project. We have already acquired, as Darby indicated, the property. It's right next to a park in the city of Soledad, so it's it's very well situated, and it's in a neighborhood that we intend to invest in quite a bit over the the years. I think the city has demonstrated the capacity to be a good partner. We've partnered with the county in executing and building Sendero, which is a 16 bed, interim housing project in the city of Soledad.

We've already, permanently housed 14 residents that lived in the Salinas Riverbed and just, I we've achieved a functional zero homelessness in our city. So that's one, bright, bright success that we can point to, in terms of cleaning up a 44 unit a 44 person encampment and successfully, help helping to transition folks into permanent housing. So, we are very excited about this. The the council is very supportive and is looking we've we have seen this need in South County for, unhoused, parenting youth, and we're very excited to move, quickly forward. We're working with and the housing authority, and we're confident that we can execute this in by 2027 as we have demonstrated with Sendero, which we were, able to execute in about an eight month timeline to build that facility.

So thank you for letting us comment. I just wanted to also acknowledge my colleague, Beatrice Trujillo, who's our community and economic development director. Thank you.

And thank you, miss Hunter, and and congratulations on all of the success and the, benefits to to all of the county. And so, yes, I I think you have the the the support of this of this committee to to move forward to the board of supervisors. Is there any hands up for public comment online?

No hands up. I'll see it.

No hands up. Supervisor Church, anything more you'd like to say on this item?

No. I am very, you know, supportive of this moving ahead.

Wonderful. Okay. So with that then, we will do we need to take a have a motion and a vote on on the recommendation of the board of supervisors?

Move by consensus that both of us agree.

Okay. Move by consensus. We're good.

I'm with counsel. Yes.

Okay. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. And we are now moving on to item seven. Consent oh, wait. Was this the same oh, yeah. Also Solid Ed. Okay. Consider a request from the city of Solid Ed to use permanent local housing allocation funds controlled by the county. And this again is Darby Marshall.

Morning, supervisor. Darby Marshall, housing program manager. Back in, 2024, the cities of of Carmel By The Sea, Greenfield, and Soledad delegated their permanent local housing allocations to the county of Monterey. This was a an opportunity that we had to consolidate some relatively minor pots of funding and potentially create a bigger pot of funding that could support a significant affordable housing project. In this case, Soledad, I think, over the five year period, was gonna get about 8 point $8,850,000.

Greenfield, roughly the same. And the county was gonna get about 3,600,000.0. This has allowed us to, take what we were going to get and push us up north of 500 $5,600,000 to support 10 designated activities. The county has used these to support the the SHARE Center here in in Salinas, homeless street outreach case management, funding for Rock Rose Apartments here in Salinas, was permanent and transitional supportive housing. We still have about $1,600,000,000 available that is restricted by the state for use to support affordable owner workforce housing.

So this is, housing that is affordable to households. They can earn up to a 150% of their immediate income. It could be used for predevelopment, down payment assistance, housing rehab, a whole variety of activities. The city of Soledad has a project that is in search of funding, is otherwise, once it's funded, ready to go. And they have requested that the county, allocate its $1,600,000,000 of affordable owner workforce housing for PLHA funding to their project.

Unfortunately, miss Hunter and miss Trio were in, at a conference when I was trying to put this together. So I I didn't get a lot of the, numbers, but they are in the room. They can tell you how many units are proposed, what the affordability levels are proposed. These will be income restricted units for forty five years, consistent with what we do for the county's inclusionary housing program. And I do the one other thing I will point out is under the permanent local housing allocation, guidelines, when jurisdictions, delegate their, authority to apply for the funding, they get, RENE of credit for units produced with the with the funding in their jurisdiction.

It's based on where who issues the building permit. So the city will get, RENA credit for these units when they're ultimately built even though the county has invested some of its its funds in it.

So, Darby, I'm gonna ask you to just repeat that. When you say the city gets the Rina credit, are you talking about the city of Soledad or the cities that donated the funding?

The city of Soledad because they're the ones issuing the building permits.

Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. It does mister Hill or miss Hunter, do either of you want to say anything further?

Sure. We're we're very excited about this opportunity to acquire this four acre parcel. It's located. Is relatively geographically small, so we're about, 2.2 square miles if you take out the prison and some of the the other islands, that we own, and it's a highly walkable community. This parcel, four acres, is actually right next to our best park.

It's the first all inclusive park in South County. And it's just a a two doors down per se from the Hartnell satellite location. So it's a prime location. It's on Orchard Lane, which is one of our newest built areas where we have a lot of residential there. We have a circulator bus with MST.

So it's just a it's a and also down the street from some schools. So it's just a prime location. It was, meant to be be a small lot subdivision. The developer, hasn't been performing, and so there's a lot of interest, in building, more moderate, housing, ownership housing, that we anticipate for that location along with some multi multifamily affordable housing. So we're really excited.

There's 30 the original entitlement, so it has been, entitled as 37 small lot subdivision homes along with 24, multifamily units. So in total, it's 61 units projected for that site. The city has had a great history with housing for workforce. We, just had a project called, which was a 104 townhomes that got, snapped up so quickly. That was one of the, issues with the project.

We weren't able to, get ahead of it because there was such a high demand for, that workforce housing. So we're confident that, again, we can put together a project if we're able to acquire this, pretty quickly. And, the developer, we have a couple of developers who are interested. We've been in, initial conversations with Habitat, and Self Help. So there there are some opportunities with groups that do this kind of affordable ownership housing. So and happy to

Yeah. Just to clarify, so the way in which you're able to do this would be with, like, a nonprofit developer?

Yeah. We would or it's possible that we could work with a private developer. We would have the the units' income restricted or deed restricted, so based on what the PLHA requirements are. But it's possible since it's workforce housing. These are more middle class families, which are really great for ownership because as I think, you know, coming from the Peninsula, a lot of folks have been forced out of those areas, and they're actually looking at South County as as maybe the last affordable place in Monterey County where you can, have homeownership.

So, Soledad is prime for that because not only are we, you know, more affordable for the land, but we also have water and sewer capacity, which I know is challenging in other other parts of the county.

So on We own

our own utilities. I should preface that. The city of Soledad provides water and sewer in our in our jurisdiction.

So yet, though, with the success of Las Villandas, was that was those local Soledad families that

There yes. There was many, in Soledad. There were also a lot in South County, but I will say that we have increasingly had more people from, Monterey County that have moved to Soledad because they've been priced out of whether it's the Peninsula or even Salinas, where we're finding, folks actually, county employees. We have many county employees who live in Salt Van.

Got it. Okay. All the dynamics of the challenge that we're trying to address. Thank you. So appreciate that. More. Yes.

Want me to interject. My name is Donnie Ademitsu. I'm with Housing and Community Development. I actually oversee the PLHA grant, and it's actually affordable for fifty five years, not forty five.

Oh, good. Okay.

So I gave you an extra 10.

Deed restricted for fifty five years? Correct. Okay. Thank you. Supervisor was there any so I haven't gone to public comment. I just went to Solidad. Supervisor Church, did you have any other questions or comments?

Yeah. I I have some questions onto this. On the summary here, the cities of Carmel, Greenfield, Soledad delegated their PLH eight allocations to county. How much did Soledad delegate?

I wanna say it was about 850,000 over four years.

And so this one point is this 1,680,000.00? Is that an accumulation of all of them?

Yes. It is. Okay. So the the way it works, supervisor, is, when the funds were delegated to the county, basically, those funds became subject to the county's PLHA five year plan and how we plan to allocate dollars. And so Soledad and and those participating cities have provided funding for the share center for, the k the homeless case management services, for Sunrose Gardens.

And in turn, we're now going to be able to invest back in Soledad. So the the money comes in, it gets consolidated and spent on on board approved activities and then goes back out on on to board approved activities. Okay.

This can be used for moderate priced homes. What's a moderate priced home consolidated?

We we would base it on the most recent, but I think when we were offering them in Las Vivien does am gonna turn to my colleague because she she will know exactly because we we signed many covenants during that time. So it's determined based on the size of the the home and also based on the household size.

So I'll give you an example. When we were selling, is slightly different, a little cheaper because they were condominiums. So for a family of three to buy a two bedroom, so they will be kept at the income category, the maximum income category at three. For low income, they were purchasing the unit for 297,000.

So is this is a is this a home? Or

This was a condominium. And then we had a three bedroom that was getting purchased by a family of four within the moderate income household, and that will be the 450,000.

So are are these gonna be these will be homes or condominiums?

These are gonna be homes. I was just giving you a baseline on our late our latest project. So this will be homes. There is smaller lots. That's what helps keep the price down. So even it's not gonna be as cheap as a condominium, but it's gonna be more affordable than a regular lot house because there are smaller pieces of land. Yeah.

Of course. Right. And that'll help help keep the the price. I guess, I'm I'm just yeah. I I guess I'm trying to get a piece idea here of of for this project, what the plans are for it in terms of how many homes are gonna be going on this, where we you know, Do you are you that far developed to this along the way? Do you know how many homes are there? What is gonna be the the price onto them? How does it relate to what is a, you know, average price or moderate income, normal, you know, undead restricted home? Yes. So does all that fit in?

Yeah. So for the property is entitled for 37 small, small lot, single family homes and 24 multifamily units. Obviously, what we would do is when we acquire the, property, we and we've just gone through this with another property. We would go out to an RFP process to identify a developer with the requirements of the PLHA funding and with the entitlements. And they it may be possible that when they look at the requirements, they may have to tweak the the development. But right now, it's entitled with 61 units.

Oh, okay. So really don't know what what we're gonna what you're setting out on a price for these units on this at this point.

I mean, we would have to meet what the deed restriction

And and I guess that's and

cost, which they they are a little bit, a moving target because it really depends on what the what the income what the median income is. But I think it's roughly going to be in the 500,000 range

based on

how for

Yeah. I I was gonna say I'm I'm not always a big fan of deed restrictions because it caps people's ability for wealth depending on what the terms are, and a lot of people that are able to, you know, buy a home. It's the way that they're able to take care of their wealth at retirement and for their their family later on. So it's it's, I understand that it's, you know, it's more economy advantageous than than renting onto that because there's still some equity that people are able to build into there. But, I, you know, I also think, you know, if you one thing I have you know, something I'm hoping to push but raise more in the next few years.

But if you're making you know, that you're making smaller lots, which is one step. If you make smaller, you know, the homes two bedroom homes, that tends to gets itself naturally capped in price as well because those are not as high priced on the market. But it doesn't sound like you have all those details that I want, and that would be my that was the one thing I was trying to get sorted out is understanding how far along you were, but I don't think your my questions, I think, are going beyond what you're Yeah. You're you're prepared for.

You know, right now, I think that they they had they the city, I don't think, has even prepared a really rough pro form a yet. And, you know, like like Megan said, you know, a lot of this is gonna depend on what the median income is in two or three years and also interest rates. Those are usually the two biggest drivers in in how we set the affordable housing price. And then the other challenge to your point about deed restrictions, we don't really have a choice because that's the the the requirement that state legislation has posed on using these funds.

Fifty five years? Yeah. Okay.

And and I think we could reach out and clarify with PLHA on a homeownership product because, we have an inclusionary housing ordinance, and we do have, like, a, equity share arrangement. And I think the county also does in their inclusionary housing. Oh, no. Maybe not. But that's something that I agree with you.

It's really important to figure out how, folks can build wealth. And, usually, what you can do is the longer they hold onto it, the the more that they can kind of actually have that funding, and then the the payoff goes into a system where you can re you know, do build more affordable housing. But we definitely want to ensure that we can provide, this housing, for the for the benefit of the county because, like I said, we're we're seeing more and more people they can't afford in in this area, and they're coming down to South County. So And just to add a

little bit to what Megan is saying for Las Vivien, that's a condominiums that I was mentioning. It's probably our latest development that had inclusionary housing. I have two families that are selling their properties that they bought back in 2020 early twenty twenty four. They're selling them now because they're growing their family and they wanna size up. And even though it was an inclusionary home, they did get a little bit of an equity. So they're using the money that they made to size up into a unit that is not restricted anymore. So for them, it was a stepping stone.

Okay. Yeah. No. I I understand it can be sometimes. It's a very small stepping stone. Sometimes it's bigger. Yeah. So I just don't I can have that flexibility, but I understand we have state regulations here that that limit us what we can do.

Yeah. And I and we're we're going through, this, as I mentioned. We just, are partnering with Eden Housing to build a house a property that we acquired kinda similarly. And so, they are tweaking it. And the great news is, by partnering with them, we're actually getting the original plan was for a 100 units. We're now getting a 143 units on that site. So, there might be some ability to, you know, once we acquire to look at even a a few more units that we could get on the site.

Thank you. Great.

Well, let's, I can't remember if Ab asked about public comment. Is there any hands up online? No hands up online. And is there anyone in the room who would like to make public comment? Okay. Well, with that, I believe we support a recommendation by consensus to the board of supervisors. And before we adjourn this meeting, you know, thank you for your patience with supervisor Church and myself, especially with acronyms. I look forward to serving on this committee, and I hope that we were helpful to all of you. And I think with if there's nothing else that anyone else needs to do in this meeting, we can adjourn.

Same room here for Yes. We are. Alright.

Same room, but I'm in a lot