Human Services Commission - Regular Meeting

This evening. To access this, select the show captions button in the meeting toolbar and select your preferred language. Staff and commissioners are participating both remotely and in person. Members of public are welcome to provide public comment and listen to the meeting in person or on the Zoom. I will now call the role. Commissioners, please say here after I call your name. Vice chair White? Here. Commissioner Hayes is ex excused today? Yes.

Commissioner Fan? Here. Commissioner Gonzalez? Here. Commissioner Rashid?

Here.

Commissioner Pearlman?

Here.

There is set of two minutes to approve this evening. Please take a moment to review the October 20 minutes in front of you. Any discussion about October 20 minutes? Is there a motion to approve October 20 minutes?

A motion.

And a second?

I second.

All those in favor, say aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

All those opposed opposed say nay. October 20 minutes are approved. The Human Services Commission values community input and looks forward to hearing from you during this meeting in compliance with Washington state campaign laws regarding the use of public facilities during elections, RCW forty two seventeen a five five five. No speaker may support or oppose a ballot measure or support or oppose a candidate for election, which includes your own campaign. Any speaker who begins discussing topics of this nature will be asked to stop.

At this time, we'll take we are taking oral communication. Staff will call the names of the people in the order they are signed up, either online or in person. Members of public may speak during two nights oral communications for up to three minutes. There

is

a limit for three people speaking on the same topic. The oral communication period will end after thirty minutes. After everyone who has signed up to speak has been called, staff will ask if there is anyone else who would like to speak. Staff, can you please call speakers for oral communication?

Our first speaker is Alex Zimmerman.

He wants speakers. Oh, sorry. It's for you, babe. Yeah. Stay.

My name, Alex Zimmerman. Guys, I don't come to you because you look to me like a Nazi salty, a primitive animal. Yep. I spoke because for me, the microphone. So I will, Sam, show you right now what is you never hear. You never know probably for all your life. Yes. This 300 pages case, what is two year ago, Bellevue government, attorney, mayor, prosecutor, public defender. You see this Alex Zimmerman case number 38853551. You can see this in in court website, whatever you want.

This case go for two year, 300 pages. It's a similar, very primitive case. Second degree trespass. You know what has been? Yeah. It's a misdemeanor case. Dozen people involved in this case. All these Nazi pick keep me in jail in court for two year in couple day in jail too. This what is they doing this. You know what this mean? She's Bert Robinson, she's a leader in this. She's a furor. As behalf of her, they doing this. So you need to understand, this case don't have analogy not only in state Washington. They don't have analogy in America.

I explained to you why. 300 pages, two year. Approximately in King County, public and I have a public defender. But as I fire five five six times for this two year, the judge not approves this. You know what this means? They want to keep me under bad condition. So look how bad this, and I go for election. Exactly. Absolutely. So listen to me very careful.

Ordinary, statistically, in country, public defender spent for misdemeanor case, one hour. One hour. You can go to Bellevue court to Bellevue library every Tuesday and judges talking about cases. For one hour, they make six, seven cases. You understand? I stay in in this for two years. Right now, I go for appeal because for me, very interesting. For thirty year, I cannot find no one

on this judging system. No one. They barely prosecute me five times. If five times, I win. This case, dismissed. But I go to appeal for one particular reason. I try understand. I don't have choice. It's my job. You understand what is I mean? This is exactly what is

I told you. Guy, you need to understand. You are denary a Nazi pig. You know what is Mary Robinson, she's a psychopath. Okay. Viva Trump. Viva new American revolution. I show you this. What is degree of fascism you support? You are fascism soldier. The same soldier, what does Nazi have or Comey. You understand who are you? You are animal. Thank you very much for your time. You have a question. I can show you this, or you go to court. Be a kind, Nazi pig.

And that was our only oral communication for the evening.

Mayor Robinson, do you have anything to share?

Yes. I do. I love following that. Okay. So right now, I'm feeling grateful for such a strong human service commission. You guys do excellent work, and you really analyze the needs of the community and make good decisions. And the council entrusts that you will do that. It is possible that we may be able to allocate some more funding toward human services. It's a council discussion that has to happen. I cannot just say it.

It has to be voted on, But I am going to make a recommendation that the money that we have left over from my council contingency be allocated towards human services. I don't know how much money that's going to be, and I've asked Tony and and your staff to come up with some recommendations of the top priorities in the community right now. And if you had this extra money, how you would allocate it. I ask that it be considered one time money. We don't want people set hiring people and setting up programs that then then they cannot maintain when the money runs out.

We want it to be I should say I because I haven't this hasn't gone before the council yet. But I want it to be going to agencies that we have already used before, because we need to move fast on this. And, I know there's a big push to put it all toward immigration and refugee only, and I think that we have some really significant needs in that area, and we also have emerging needs with food security. So I'm asking that you look at everything. Look at what you've researched during your time here on the Human Service Commission, what all the information that you've been given.

And I'm sure you sit there and you think if we had a little more money, we would love to do this. So this is your chance to do that. But council contingency is really designed to address emerging needs. It's not to supplement somebody's budget. So think about it that way. And I think that's all. And I just want you to know how much I appreciate you that I can even have this conversation. You mean So I should say sorry. We actually asked the city manager if we needed to have an emergency meeting to talk about that this week at the council level, and I'm hearing we don't think so. We are meeting again on Wednesday of next week.

So little over a week, we'll be having that conversation at the council level. And I think we'll have a recommendation at that time that we can move forward to you. But if you come back and you say we really should get this out this week, I am not have no problem calling together an emergency meeting of the counseling and just addressing that. So, we will be nimble with whatever we need to do. Okay.

Thank you. Major Inman, do you have anything to share?

Good evening. I just wanted to share that one of the challenges that our police department continues to face is hiring, recruiting and hiring. We stay pretty consistent with 24 ish vacancies and have over the last several years. We're actually in the process of updating our website. The website that we have dedicated for recruiting that's separate from the city of Bellevue website, and we're doing a big filming on November 16 to try to refresh that and update that.

So we're pretty excited about the support from the city on making sure that that can happen and that we have the funds available to continue to put forward and recruit, hopefully, people. We've had great success with recruiting nationwide from that website. We just thought after a couple years this time for a refresh. So I'll keep you posted once it's finished, and then we can I'll encourage everyone to go take a look at it and see if you have any feedback or on it.

Thank you. New business item. Our first item of business is presentation by staff from

Sorry. Oh. Yeah.

Do we have any commissioner reports?

Did you want us to report on porch our porch light visit? Yeah? A couple of commissioners last week went and visited Porchlight, and Troy took us on tour. I would say for me, if any other commissioners wanted that were there wanted to share, some of the takeaways was that it was busy when we were there. A lot of people were using the computers that are there for them, hanging out, just watching the news, a couple of people outside.

I will say that one of the things that I wasn't aware of was that they have had an increase in fentanyl overdoses for the last two years, and that while they've been successful in reviving the majority of the people overdosing, they did lose one person, which is unfortunate. But just bringing that to light because that was something that I think none of us kind of thought was happening. The other thing that I would like to bring to light is that because it's a very small parking lot, porch light actually rents out some spots from CBRE or leases out parking spots because there's the transitional housing or the supportive housing also that shares the same parking lot. And so just like small little not small, but like issues that you wouldn't think they would be that they wouldn't have to deal with is something that they're dealing with. I think that's all I'd probably wanna share for that.

I see that I think we're gonna be having

a present also aware of the some people parking at Eastgate Park and Wright and a single family and or other people walking around, and it's dangerous. And it's a low barrier, And so they are not allowed to do the background check when somebody comes there. I think that should be there. And I shared the neighborhood concerns that there are a lot of 911 calls. And my neighborhood, I live close by, There has been an incident.

Somebody came and therefore, everyone agrees when we talk one to one. So and but they're working hard. I appreciate what they do, and the facility is in a great shape. And, definitely, we should be looking on the mental health and behavior health issues as well as the drug use in our city.

Also, just gonna add that they did lose federal funding. And Troy mentioned to us about 10% or about $500,000 of their their budget.

And I

One more question. I can I ask, Mir? So is it a property owned by King County, or it's in Bellevue?

Yeah. Yeah. Let me take it. It's it's come it's a combination of, entities, and it's not owned by Bellevue. So I'll let you go ahead. And and we do provide the funding for the operations of it. K. But the capital was go ahead.

I think you said everything I was going to say. Yeah. The city does not own it. We support the operations. And so you have three different operators there of facilities. You have Plymouth Housing that's permanent supportive housing. K. And then you have Porchlight. Yeah. And then you have an entirely separate housing that's workforce housing

Okay.

That's for families housing. And so you have different operators, but Bellevue does not own any of the facilities nor the grounds.

So how much control we have on the well, like, we support them?

We support them. Mhmm. Just like all of our other providers. And so they're they're city partners. They want to work in collaboration with us both to serve their clients and the community. Our office of housing is working pretty closely with them as we have you know, that's a big increase in the number of residents in that area as well. You added three complex complexes which brought in Probably, you know hundreds of people into a neighborhood that previously did not live there so that alone changes the dynamic of a neighborhood Permanent supportive housing by definition is for people with disabilities So you have people with higher needs that are living in permanent supportive housing. So there's just a lot of different dynamics there in addition to the ones that you all have observed as well.

I'm gonna add to that. That's great. So the permanent supportive housing has on-site services with people earning a living wage, which is very unique and is the city of Bellevue's collection of what we call $15.90 dollars, which is a point o 1% sales tax that allows us to put funding into those services. So it's probably one of the best staffed and operating supportive housing of its type. We do have a good neighbor neighbor agreement with Porchlight, which was their part of their permitting.

And we have gone back to them and met with them and asked that they make some changes to address some of the issues because we have seen increased crime in the radius of that. Even though we've housed a 100 men in a year, which is amazing out of homelessness, it has some challenges. And so they have responded by we're going to have an another police unit at Eastgate Park And Ride. God. I'm trying to remember. There's, like, a list of five things that they are doing in addition in response.

Can you remember can you remember the other things? Go ahead, Majorana. Go ahead. Okay.

I can remember a couple others. They also changed the time that men would come to find out if there was open beds. And so, you know, a difficulty of shelter is people leave, and then they have to sign back up for the very next night. And so they previously had it that you signed up first thing in the morning. So even men that did not have a bed the night before had to be back on the property very early the next morning, which could have led to some men feeling like they needed to stay in the area outside so they could get back in line.

So they're shifting that starting time till later in the day so that men that aren't staying there the night before can go find shelter elsewhere and still make it back in time to sign up for that night. They're also creating a I believe, like, an app notification system so that men don't have to stay close by in order to find out if they have a bed later that night. So all of that will hopefully help, you know, their clients not feel like they have to be right next to the building in order to get into that night. And I know all of our partners are always looking for new opportunities to expand their staffing, and so they are looking for a grant for some additional staffing to help as well. Those are the things I could think of. Yeah.

I think I'll just add one more from the police department. We're also going to stand up our community services officer and a sergeant where we can have someone dedicated to that area. We have a sector capture program in the city of Bellevue who oversees that area, but they also are responsible for everything else that happens in that geographic region. So in this case, our goal is to dedicate someone to that area specifically, an officer and a sergeant. So then when we need to reallocate resources or address concerns, we have somebody who is dedicated to making sure that happens.

This was covered in a rep report at our last council meeting. So if you wanna read the report, you can go to the agenda from last week's council meeting, and it's at the bottom of the agenda.

Sure.

Thank you.

No. I just wanna say that I I am very happy to be able to attend because it was my surprise, the great shape, how the building is. It's so clean, how I don't know. How they feel like I feel welcome since you were in. And the program they have, like, even if they don't have enough bed, you can get access to the to take a shower, to get food. So that's great. Thank you.

Any staff reports?

Yes. Thank you, Chair Singh. Couple of things to, tell you about. The essentials for all food drive is still going on until the November 15. So there are collection bins at community centers and at the tennis center and the swimming pool.

And we have 21 of the agencies that we fund that are picking up the bin each week. We have a whole schedule of pickups happening, but feel free to participate. Take things to the collections. There's also a collection bin at Mini City Hall and here at City Hall. A couple of commission announcements.

If you participated in the hope the open public meetings training, if you can I I have the copy of the email? Let me know if you need it. If you could email Karn Roberts and let her know that you completed it. If you weren't able to complete it, she sent each of you a link to where you can take yourself through the training online. The second training is parliamentary procedure.

And I know commissioner Fan signed up. The that is coming up on a week from today on Monday. It's in person, 05:30 to 08:30 here with dinner included, and the RSVP deadline is tomorrow. The Giselle and I had parliamentary procedure training last week, and it was I learned so much. It was great. So

It's November 10?

It's on the eighth, a week from tonight.

Eighth is not Monday.

No. I'm sorry. December 8.

Okay.

December 8. Coming soon. Not next week. December 8.

And the last date?

But the last date RSVP for that is tomorrow.

Can you sign up, or I have to do it myself? Okay. I'll try write it down. I'll do it.

I can I can, let them know?

For sure.

I would like to register to yeah.

Oh, well, look at this. Alright. So you're seeing and commissioner Gonzales and commissioner Rashid. Anyone else?

05:30 to nine.

08:30.

05:30 to 08:30, and dinner is from 05:30 to six. And it's in, on this floor in 108. K. Fantastic. My last announcement is that this Thursday, the sixth, really November, the affordable housing group is doing a public information session here from six to 07:30 on the 1st Floor.

And it's similar to the presentation that Hannah gave to you all about two meetings ago. So it might not be too much It's really just to talk about the action steps that they're putting together for the affordable housing plan that they're developing. And I think they'll be getting more community input at that time. So it's sort of like talking about it and then hearing people's comments. And it's it's in person here, six to 07:30.

Vision of an existing plan. We've we have an affordable housing plan. They're redoing it.

It's the future one? Yes.

That's right.

A ten a ten year plan. Thank you. And last but not least from me is if you have any ideas for any panels that you'd like to have, any presentations, any topics you'd like to hear about or learn about, You can always email me and let me know. But if you have any thoughts right now, feel free to share them. We're planning our calendar for next year.

A couple. And one is that it's part of my my report as a commissioner is that I attended the Sound Generations annual event, and they are the ones that are focused on meals, on wheels, community dining, transportation, and caregiver support for individuals that are elderly adults in our community, and that number is going up. So maybe a good panel to have on what kind of services that what trajectory we're seeing with people who are getting older in the community since that number is gonna go up. And the other one, again, kind of a little selfish since I'm also part of the affordable housing arch coalition. We're now going through our funding cycle of giving money out to the community for the buildings to be built in our community around the East Side and on, and maybe that would be a good panel as well just in regards to how that's going and how many units have been built in Bellevue and what they're anticipating.

Some thoughts.

Great. Thank you. Anyone else? I

have two suggestions. One, I'm really curious about the East King County cities that we share, the one app the app for this human service cycling funding cycle. I'm curious about because Chris had asked some questions about collaborative ways and collaboration with cities, if there would be a possibility to hear from other cities on just the work that they're doing. Not trying to ask them to collaborate, but just kind of hearing what they're what they've been up to. And then the other one, I'm still really curious about just our youth with intellectual developmental disabilities and the organizations that serve them.

And there was one other one that I was thinking of when Olga was talking, but now I can't remember. Oh, and because of the human needs update and all of the talk about cultural navigators, I think that'd be really also really interesting to hear from people who are actually doing that within community and the gaps and the barriers and all of the things that that they're facing.

Wonderful. Thank you. Yeah. Great. Thank you, K.

New business item. Our first item of business is a presentation by staff from HopeLink on their 2025 community needs and assessment. I will hand it to off to human service planner, Andrew, to introduce our guest.

So it's

Start off. Who's Andrew?

Well, Andrew isn't here, so I'll step in. I'll be Andrew. So I just wanted to welcome Megan Altimore, the CEO, and Valerie. Is it Gustave? I was like

Sorry, Gustave. I

think Okay.

The vice president of community services. Thank you very much for having us here tonight. For those of you who may not be familiar, HopeLink is a community action agency. We are based in Redmond, but we serve all of King And Snohomish County. Tonight, Mallory and I aren't really going to be discussing HOPELink services, but the community needs assessment that we just had completed to talk about what we learned through this process.

I've been joking as we talk about this that you need like a puppy or a kitten as we get into this data because it is pretty intense and hard to see. But there are positives on the other side with what all of the agencies that you fund are doing as well, which is really good to see. And I did want to mention too, when you were talking about porch light, that we spend an inordinate amount of time focused on parking. So that is a real thing that we do across the board. Okay, so if we could go to the next slide.

So I just wanted to start with HOPE Link's mission, vision, and our theory of change. And the reason I wanted to just start us here is that this is what drives our needs assessment. If you were to be looking at all of the needs of everyone in the community, it would be a much longer document than this 80 pages that we have here. And so we really focus on the issues that people experience that are related to living in poverty. And so that's the component that is our piece of the puzzle.

Next slide, please. So as I mentioned, we are a community action agency, and so we complete this document every three years. We do this for a few reasons. One, it's required as part of being a community action agency. But more importantly, this is a part of what we call our planning cycle.

And so as we are moving into our strategic planning for the next three years, we want to make sure that we are using the most up to date data that we can. This data is still lagging. It is still based in 2023 and so is not up to the current date. That is just by nature of the census and the timing that that information is available. Most importantly, Mallory and her counterpart Susan Carter, who lead our transportation operations, they use this data almost on a daily basis to make decisions of how we are guiding our programs.

They combine this with the results that we have to make sure that we are paying attention to the needs of the community and where HopeLink's expertise is. Next slide, please. So this one's really important and I wish just for this part that Mayor Robinson was still here, just because she is the one who made me realize probably ten years ago how important this is. When we talk about the service areas here, you can see up on the map that this is what we call the service area for where our center is serving. So for instance, when it says Bellevue, that is more than the city of Bellevue.

So we also serve the city of Issaquah through Bellevue, Medina, the what do they call them? The Lake Cities, yes, and then Mercer Island. And so when you're looking at this, or when Mallory and I refer to Bellevue, we are talking about that larger catchment area that our Bellevue Center serves. You can see the purple section with the Snoqualmie Valley is a huge amount of space out there. Not as many people as there are in the Bellevue section, but a very significant area that we serve.

So really going into the key findings. You all do have a link to this report. I encourage you. Mallory and I are going to go over the surface tonight and then answer any questions that you may have. After I go through the data, Mallory is going to speak to sort of how this is showing up in the day to day work.

But I just wanted to give some of the higher level findings that we had. The one where we're going to spend most of our time is the lack of income adequacy. Everything Ruth was saying earlier about the work that you all are doing, I think it all goes back to that particular area. What I think is most shocking that came out of this report is that one in five households in North And East King County do not have enough income to meet their basic needs. 134,000 individuals.

That is shocking in a region where we are, and we still and US commissioners, I'm sure, experienced this too there is still a huge lack of understanding here that there is poverty here. There is a belief that there is only wealth here and not poverty, when in fact that's not true. The second is, as we all have lived and breathed for years, a lack of housing affordability. Over 40% of renters in our region are cost burdened, which means that they are having to pay over 30% of their income for their housing. And that is, as you probably know, one of the indicators of a risk of homelessness or at least lack of housing stability.

The third is that transit access is uneven across the region, and we'll talk a little bit more about that, but I will give you a little bit of a preview that that's not really true for Bellevue in the way that it is for your partner cities out there. The fourth is food insecurity. Food costs rose 78% from 2020 to 2023. This is particularly salient right now, with the fact that SNAP benefits were not reloaded on those EBT cards on Saturday. There is some light within the tunnel, not necessarily at the end of the tunnel, and that some benefits will be provided, but not to the level that they would normally be.

And then the last place is barriers to service. And so this is more of a catch all element, but it's the fact that language, age, disability and immigration status all show up in various ways to block people from being able to fully adequately access services. And so that's something that we as a provider are certainly paying attention to for how we could continue to mitigate that more and more.

Can I sidetrack you for a minute? Do you want to talk about the food and security for a minute and kind of bring it to today for a minute. I know you said, like, hey. We're really looking at the trends. So I understand you're seeing individuals come across your food banks that maybe have not gotten to used to not come to your to your space.

So help me understand if you are given more funds, for example, knowing, like, your space is limited. I know how you operate, have taken food to your places to donations and also volunteered. So how would you use the dollars? Just curious because and I'm the reason I'm asking is that you are not alone because when I go to food banks, they're usually constrained by space or the number of hours that they operate. So what would you do differently if you're given more dollars?

Well, I was saving this for the end, but what I what I can tell you is that we're just seeing such an increased volume in our spaces. So for instance, this month, we served or had 12,000 folks enrolled in our markets. So just the the traffic of folks coming in to get food, we see that increasing tremendously. And so one of the things that we're looking at is our home delivery program to see where we can get more food out where folks don't have to come into the markets. We're thinking about how do we give more access to our mobile markets.

Right now, we have 11 stops across East King County. Mercer Island is one of the stops that we go to. So increasing that and making food available in that way. A variety of different things. We're looking at those core, those core menu items and how do we purchase more of those and have those available where where people can stretch whatever they have to make sure that they are getting food, on the table.

And so so those are some of the things that we're looking at. We're always, you know, in community and and having conversations with other food programs, pantries across to see how they're utilizing their resources and and figuring out how we can partner. But those are three things that I could think of right now.

Can I add one more thing? So starting today, we are giving away more food. And so the because SNAP benefits benefits were reduced and we're also constantly enrolling more people. And so giving away that more food, a lot of response is coming from the community, but it's not enough to meet those SNAP benefits. And so we will be purchasing more food as well And lifting the limits on what people are leaving with so that they have enough food, more food to be able to get them through this period of time.

So that's a big piece. So we have not only focused HopeLink resources, but we're also seeing resources from the state of Washington and through eFAP. And then there was another source. Oh, United Way did provide a one time $36,000 grant to replace specifically WIC, the things that those families would be receiving. So the biggest thing we're doing very fast is just more food. It started today and we will continue with that, not just for SNAP recipients but also for anyone coming because people are already experiencing that difficulty.

Yeah. And and and I I don't wanna maybe go too deep by my hand for just a second. But, again, I've seen your locations. You only have so much space in the back to be putting food as well. So if you're saying you're gonna be the throughput is gonna be higher, I could see how in both cases, you should be able to accommodate it. But at some point, your backroom is your backroom. So it's

Well, we truck it through from the so it really is just getting our truck there more often.

Sure.

Yeah. So Bellevue is our the Bellevue Center is our busiest center with the smallest footprint. I have dreams in the future of changing we have dreams in the future of changing that. But you're absolutely right that that is an issue, but it's just a matter of getting our truck there daily or every other day as opposed to twice a week to make sure that we are moving food through as quickly as we can.

Which is what we're doing. Yeah.

Others are doing as well as where it's just more delivery. K. Sorry for side tracking.

Oh, thank you for the questions. Sure. I have I have

a question for the food. So for every day, maybe for anyone need a service for food, they come and stop by to Hopling or

you Monday through Thursday.

Monday through Thursday. And I have a question for one in five, you say, income. So you have any limit for the money? I'm sorry? For the one in five households.

Don't have enough money for their basic needs.

Correct. You have any limit of the money? Maybe one in five, maybe they can make this money than helping from you. So you have any limit?

Yeah. So there is for our food program are we still at 400400%. Yeah. So we for the most, we don't turn anyone away for food. And so our current income limit is 400%, but that's to access a certain so that we have federal commodities that come into the markets through it comes down through Food Lifeline and through the federal government. But if someone does not want to sign that form that they want those federal commodities, or if by chance they're over 400% of the federal poverty level, which we have not seen, then they just wouldn't be able to get that food. They could get other food. Anything you want to add to that?

Yeah. We also make emergency bags available. So if someone is coming in and they're not enrolled and they're just looking for a quick meal and they just want to get something that they can go, we make those available to people coming in too. And so whatever we can do so that when someone comes into our door, they are getting something. That's what we're trying to do right now.

Thank you. I just wanna say that, like, the name that you guys changed before for Foodbank. Now it is like Market.

Market. Yeah.

So I really love the name. Thank you.

Thank you. We love that We

used to have

to you put a dollar in the jar every time you said food bank, but we've all pretty much gotten there now. But we do have to sometimes like, we talk a lot about free groceries because we don't want to give people the impression that they would have to pay money when they come in. So, okay, this next slide. This is where we get into the deep data. So basically what this talks about is both the similarities and the differences of the income levels that we see.

So in every or city area that we serve, except for the shoreline area, there are areas of the community where the median income is $200,000 But everywhere but Redmond also has areas where the median income is $100,000 So what that speaks to is not only do you have a lot of wealth, a lot of concentrated wealth, but you also have these pockets where people are living in poverty sprinkled among that, which makes it certainly more challenging to find that affordable housing, to find access to affordable groceries, etc. In this needs assessment area, which is North And East King County, 42% of the people that we serve or I'm sorry, that live there are considered BIPOC. Thirteen point six percent are over the age of 65, and 18% of those households have incomes less than 300% of the poverty level, which is what is needed to meet just your basic needs. What I want to add to that is that these numbers are at least the BIPOC and 65 and older are the general population. When Mallory and Susan and I are working on the services that HopeLink provides, we are looking at the demographics of the population living in poverty.

And so we do not match our numbers, our service numbers do not match the numbers of people in general. They match the demographics of people who are experiencing poverty. It can get a little confusing, but it's an important thing

to

note. So in this next one, this talks about the income disparity by race and ethnicity, and it kind of matches up with the next chart that we're going to look at. But what this talks about is that white and Asian households definitely consistently have a higher income level than other BIPOC communities. But if you go to the next slide, Christy. Because of the numbers of the demographics in our community, they are also the most highly represented in every income category.

And so basically what this is saying is that white and Asian households make up the largest percentage of those over $200,000 a year, but they also make up the largest percentage of every income group. So it does make it a little confusing to look at the numbers. But you can see that there is race and ethnicity distribution across each of those areas. It's just we are a region that has a predominantly white and Asian population. Does that make sense?

Okay, great.

And so the next slide, please. So the next one is the one that I struggled with the most. And so basically what this tells us is that incomes rose in every part of our service area, but the purchasing power of those incomes went down. And so while we did see gains through the pandemic, we saw incomes rise, but we have not seen people experiencing the benefit of those incomes rising. And so while you're seeing gains, you're also seeing simultaneous losses there, which is really difficult and very, very stressful.

We talk a lot about the daily stressors that people have to experience of, if I have $3,000 worth of bills this month, but only $1,500 worth of resources, that is a daily decision of what do I do with this $10 And so the stressors that that is putting on people is incredible, over and above just navigating how to meet their daily needs. And again, this is where it really gets highlighted that 130,000 community members do not have enough to meet their basic needs. And that number is something I think we need to unfortunately shout from the rooftops. So the next topic is housing 130,000 in King County? In North And East King County.

So the Community Action Service area, which is shoreline out through the Snoqualmie Valley, including Bellevue. So housing affordability. This obviously we all talk about this again all the time, but it is one of our region's most destabilizing areas. Rent growth has continued to grow in most areas, that basically the cost has gone up. It has started to moderate a little bit, as opposed to the rapid increases that we saw, but it is still much, much higher than incomes would be able to provide.

So the severely cost burden that I mentioned in the summary at the start is that, again, if someone is paying more than 30% of their income for their household expenses, that puts their housing as unstable. If it is more than 50 of their income, then under HUD guidelines, that means that they are imminently at risk of experiencing homelessness. And so that's something that we keep a great eye on at HopeLink. Next slide, please. So this one I thought was really interesting that in the research that's been done out there, job loss is definitely stated as the most common reason why someone lost their housing.

And so we certainly see that, and Mallory, when we get through the data, Mallory can speak to this a little bit. But we do see that it is that snowball effect of the lost job, to the behind on the rent, to in their car, to the car being towed, to being literally homeless and living outdoors. It is a really slippery slope. The other thing here that I thought was interesting is that men report that as their number one reason much more often than women. And women have a much broader set of reasons why they might become homeless, and certainly that connects with some relationship violence and other things that we see there.

So the other piece that we thought was really interesting, and again does not necessarily relate directly to Bellevue, except it does relate to people being able to get into Bellevue to access jobs and services. But what we found, what our researchers found, was that residents on the Eastern sides of the area that we serve have a much harder time to access transit and to be able to have options to get around. Now, HopeLink has a robust mobility program where we're constantly talking about that, and it's also ironic that we are King County Metro's largest subcontractor, but we don't set the routes. They do. So what we do is rely on all of you and our other advocates to be able to speak to what's needed there.

So I mentioned that last one about barriers to access to services. And transportation is one of the largest ones of those. What this data shows here is that any sort of difference from the norm, from the majority, is a transit barrier, which is just a really sad thing to have to see down in a graph. People with disabilities, obviously, much greater access barriers. Non native English or non English speaking, low income, BIPOC, 65 and over, and certainly obviously people who live in rural areas.

These are ways that they have a harder time accessing work and services and being connected to their community. This is something that we spend a lot of time talking about and working on. And then longer distances to employment can deepen reliance on personal car oh, I'm sorry.

To increase the size of the screen, but we can only do that at beginner.

Oh, sorry about that. And I'm happy to leave this so that you can dig in. So long distances to employment deepen reliance on personal car travel. So that is certainly an issue that we see, too. One of the advocacy pieces that we have a lot from the data and from the anecdotal things that we hear from both our staff and our clients is that the closer they could live in to work and services, the less traffic we would all be dealing with.

And so I know we all advocate in that space, but we certainly know the increased cost. When we talk about the ability to meet basic needs with that 300% of federal poverty, that does not include car ownership. That is reliant on either foot power or transit. So then the last section is food affordability challenges that they mirror the other cost of living pressures. And again, going back to that statement that I made a few minutes ago.

This was me at the board meeting the other night, so I'm feeling a little better. So I'll speak to it while it's coming back. So in essence, when people have that daily stressor, right, of where am I going to put my money, there is that back and forth of is it food, is it transportation, is it medical care, is it a Halloween costume because I want my child to feel part of the community, is it school supplies? And so it's constantly having to navigate those decisions. You go one more. There we go. That one right there. Nope. There we go. Perfect.

Ah, it's ahead. You are ahead of it. Go back one more. We go. Okay. So what this shows is that even though incomes have gone up, the cost of food has significantly gone up, too. And so the pressures of being able to adequately feed your family is so significant. And again, Mallory can speak to this when we get to how this need is showing up for us. But that is one of the challenges, as that cost has much, much outpaced any wage increases that people would have.

Some other questions, if I may. So talking about the financial aid, I know you distribute that as well for people to pay for the bills. Do you have you increased how much you're giving per person over the last few years? Like, how much maximum they could get from you per month? Because I know there is usually a max that

Yeah.

Right. Does it.

Yeah. Right now, the average is about $2,200 a month $2,200 per household that they're getting from financial assistance. But the the larger piece is that for every one household that we could serve through that program, we turn away 14 households that we cannot serve through. So about seven seven thousand requests were made, and we are only able to cover a small fraction of that. So, again, that's

just thousand per in in the last In

the past fiscal year. Yes. Okay.

Okay. And do you have you seen a significant increase in how much like, the 2,200, is that bigger than, like, two years ago you were giving people? Just curious Yes.

With the increase.

I think also the the last few years were a little bit skewed, right, because we had increased funding that was coming in, and so then we had much more resources that we are working that we're working with. In the last year, those resources have gone away. And so a lot of, the funding that we're working with are funding through the cities, through the our own dollars through donations that we work through to be able to address some of those needs. Most of those needs are rent related, so they're housing related. And, our director of our financial and education program speaks to it as people are looking at what mouth they need to feed.

So no matter if you pay the rent, here comes another mouth. So what mouth are you going to feed in terms of the the needs that you have in your household? So definitely an increased needs that we're seeing in that department.

Only thing I'll add is that the cap is 3,000, and it can go ahead two months. And so if they let's say that someone's on section eight and their rent is 700, then we could do $1,700. We could do and then the future month so that people have a little bit of time to breathe.

I don't know. Because there's a limit per month. Is there a lifetime limit as well that you do or you don't

Just annual.

Just annual? Okay. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Okay. Next slide. So what this speaks to, the persistent and rising issues of food insecurity. We have an interesting area in North And East King County in that we don't have any what they call food deserts. Oftentimes when you look at poverty research, there are areas where you cannot buy food. A lot of rural areas, that's where the dollar stores and things like that are in, which are not offering anything fresh or healthy. And that's not the case in North And East King County. What is the case is that the food is unaffordable. And so it's there, you just can't afford it.

And so that is one of the hugest challenges that we are seeing. And so what happens is moms water down or parents water down the formula, or parents get meals in order to be able to feed their household. And so that's the piece that we are really trying to address in our food markets and in partnering with groups like KidVantage that help with formula and diapers. One of the things that we are working on, too, is the education of connecting people to resources. And you had asked about the ability of what it costs or how much income you could have to have the food.

No one is grifting for the food. No one's coming in to get extra green beans. And so we are removing as many barriers as we possibly can and connecting people to all the resources that we can to make sure that they are doing what they can do to feed their family so that that is money that doesn't have to go there and can't go to that other bill that they have, that other mouth to feed. So that's something that we really prioritize. And again, it's based on the data that we see of how much more food costs are taking up that share of the household budget.

Have you heard people come back and say, hey. I lost my section eight because there have been cuts in section eight vouchers or not yet?

Not

yet. Okay. Okay. But that's kind

It's on the radar. Yeah. We don't know how that's gonna land, but it hasn't happened yet. So the Medicaid cuts have not happened yet, and the SNAP changes haven't happened yet. This is just the interruption. It

I understand that King County Housing Authority has been notifying people that some of their section eight vouchers are no longer valid or they can't give any more out.

I haven't

heard that.

I haven't heard that. I know that they're working Yes.

I hear that too. Yeah. I know that. It's a new

But they're no longer valid.

I know they were speaking to that the wait list were longer now because they were ensuring that folks who got access to emergency housing vouchers were able to stay put, but I haven't heard that piece

yet. Yeah.

So, Mallory, did you wanna add some

Yeah. So I will speak a little bit to the how this shows up and the need. I think thank you for your questions because you covered a lot of the things I was going to share. So as Megan was sharing, with our food assistance programs in our markets, usually, that's the point of entry where folks are coming to us. So what we do is as you're coming into the market and we're getting to know you is how do we give you access to all of the other resources that we have available so that you are then able to address your needs?

So you're not, again, thinking about that mouth. You're thinking about, okay. I can if I have access to food, I more than likely will qualify for our energy assistance program. And so, I'll speak a little bit to that. What we saw in the last, fiscal year is that we served, 10,000 household through our energy assistance program.

So that covers quite a bit of things from, you know, light bills to even if you need firewood that could cover that. Quite a bit of folks got ACs through the energy assistance program. And we also had been really fortunate to partner with the city of Bellevue to our boost program. So that's giving folks access to low cost heating and cooling by getting I can't think of the word of what

heat pumps

installed in their homes and that is a no cost to them resource. The other things that we're seeing is like I said we saw 12,000 folks accessing our markets this month, and there's 22,000 folks who are enrolled. And like Megan shared, we're just trying to get food out the door, more food so that folks don't have to be coming back and not having what they need. That's a 25% increase from what we saw in the last year, and this is not even taking into account what's happening right now with SNAP. This was prior to the SNAP numbers.

In our housing programs, what we're seeing is people are staying longer. We've seen a steady increase in the last seven years of our enrollment times, meaning in our shelter. A long, long time ago shelter was thirty to sixty days, ninety days max. Now it's a year. And in a lot of the housing programs, especially shelter, it's a year and a half that we're seeing people stay because there is not affordable housing that they can access.

So in the last fiscal year, what we saw was, like, a in 2023, there was two hundred and fifty one days that people were staying, and now it's four thirteen days. We also are seeing people it's not the lack of it's the transportation, being able to be connected to transportation that's close to their homes. And I have to say that's what's been really exciting here in Bellevue is seeing all of the transit oriented development that's coming up that's putting people close to transit and close to where they can get to their jobs. You don't have to worry about necessarily accessing a car to be able to get to where you need to go. I think those are mostly what we're seeing right now.

There's just a lot of tremendous need out there, and I'm happy to answer any other questions you all have.

I'm a few. Sorry. I'm just what punishment to ask so many questions today. But I remember at some point, you were talking about HelpLink wanting to exit the coordinated entry. Did you actually do that?

No. No. No.

Sorry. I won't subject. We won't touch that anymore.

No. We're fully all of our units are in coordinated entry entry for all.

You I I think the discussion has been about the the the issue with the coordinated entry, and I know there's been a lot of different things over the last ten plus years with it. But do you feel like you are able to fill the units with individuals that are from the area at this point, or you're still seeing some people from other areas? They're just so desperate that they're willing to come in into your unit that maybe they don't have a connection to the area.

I think we're getting better and better about that conversation around having folks who are connected to the area in some ways. I think it continues to be a challenge sometimes, but we also partner with community partners. So there's folks who are at the car camps that we are able to also reach out to when we have openings if we are unable to get someone through coordinated entry. K.

And do you manage I don't believe you do, but you don't manage any of the the I don't know what they're called. Little villages, the small villages. There's a tenant for that. Okay. And is that something that you believe would help this particular region if we were more open to that around here? Or

This is more of an opinion than a hope link statement. Mhmm. I think land is too precious here. And so I think that we do need to find ways to develop affordable housing faster. But the tiny home villages, one, it doesn't work for families, and that tends to be who HopeLink works But, also, it's not a it's not really a permanent solution.

And so while there does need to be more shelter, and I think the county's done a good job with Health Through Housing, even though it's been very challenging. I think that density is really key, getting more units in. And I personally am a big fan of mixed income units where I think you can have a really healthy community that way.

Yeah. The issue with the tax dollars and funding for those, as you

know. Yes.

Yeah. We do. Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Sorry. I just wanted to understand a little bit of, like as you're talking about housing issues and dollars to be stretched further, that's where where I'm going with it.

Okay. Thank you. I have one question. So the food need is getting bigger and bigger, and the immigration issues is bigger and bigger in the area. So do you guys have a thinking to do, like, delivery food at the low income apartments area or something like that? Because the families are getting afraid to go even to the food trucks.

So we I'll start in the no, Pasadena, if that's okay. So we we're really limited in our capacity with home delivery to be able to do that. And what's interesting and a little sad, to be honest with you, is we are not seeing people staying away from our markets. They are still coming because they need the food. And so what we have done is to train our staff and volunteers really intensely and directly about what to do to protect people who are in our spaces.

And so knock on wood, there hasn't been an issue at a HopeLink recently, at least in the last few years. But we continue to be very direct and clear about how we will protect people in our spaces when they are there. And I think that the need is so great that that's why we're not seeing people stay away, if that makes sense. But

We home delivery has been a really it was a really great resource during COVID, and, unfortunately, the funding for it is not available as it was. And so definitely looking at ways that we could revamp the program, really ensuring that we are the folks that we are that are accessing the programs have no other means of getting food, or coming into our markets. And so we're always thinking about ways that we can scale up, scale down, really hone in on who really needs access in that way so that if there is resources that come for us to beef up that program, we can do that.

Other thing we're hoping to do is get our mobile market out on the road more. We have food to put in it and give away, but there's only one staff person attached to that truck. And so that's a a harder part. We would like to get that that market in. If those of you any of you who haven't seen it, we'd love to get you a chance to see it. It really is very special. And we're we were just incredibly fortunate that there was capacity building dollars during the during the pandemic where we were able to get such a great resource for the community.

And this is still going the truck twice a month in Lake Hills area or not anymore?

No. It goes out almost every day,

and Yeah.

Not to Lake Hills. So Lake Hills is

Oh, not Lake Hills.

Yeah. Lake Hills area.

No. No. It doesn't go out to Lake Hills area. I think it does. Does it go out to

It was twice a twice a month.

My Sorry. There's been we can keep up on that. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry.

I will definitely send the stops that it goes to. We've been trying to increase them and kind of, again, revamp and make sure that we're getting to where folks could have the most access to it.

And I've been working with the HopeLink staff around finding a location that more people are able to access because that was one of the challenges. So we are exploring possibly having it at a different location, but that hasn't been confirmed.

That will be great. Thank you.

We're also looking at ways that we can increase our market hours and also increase the times that the mobile market is out. So that's something that's in the works for us too.

Thank you so much for the presentation and for being here tonight. My think just one question that I had was, I know transportation is sticky, and you had mentioned advocating on behalf of to, like, metro and to the cities. What would be the things that community members could advocate for in order

to help? So

Metro did just announce that they're adding 400,000 service hours in the next two years, which is great. That will take us back to pre pandemic. But it's understanding where those areas are in your community that are not well serviced and letting them know what you're interested in. Our experience has been very positive in terms of them listening. So we had a forum on advocacy around rural transportation about four or five months ago.

Michelle Allison, the general manager of King County Metro, did come to speak at that. Councilwoman Perry came. So we had some people there to really commit to the importance of it, but they just got stuck on the issue of ridership. And so how do handle it if you have five riders as opposed to Downtown Bellevue where you have thousands of riders? And so that's a nut that they haven't cracked yet.

And so I think it's understanding, one, where the gaps are in your community, and then two, what are some of the solutions that your community members are interested in? So I live in the Isquah Highlands and so park and ride there has pretty decent transit access if you can get down that mile and a half down the hill and then at the end of the day that mile and a half back up that hill. A few years ago, King County Metro subcontracted with HopeLink to run a bus up the hill and back down the hill and then they took it away because nobody rode it. And so those are the challenges. They are trying last mile issues, but it is to speak to them about what are the last mile issues or what are the big and small routes that your community would use.

And I think that's the information that they really need. And HopeLink, through our mobility program, does run all of the mobility coalitions. So they facilitate the mobility coalitions around King County. That is a great way. You don't have to attend every meeting, but that's a great way to funnel that information in there so that then they can get it to the right folks.

I think they would be a great group to come and talk about transportation, transportation access throughout the county. They are involved in so many different things, and it's not only thinking about buses, but there's community van. They're thinking about just all the other transportation outlets that are there and how they can be interconnected to help someone get where they need to be. That's a great point. Yeah. Can we oh, I was gonna say one ride, one click. Or

Oh, yeah. So findaride.org is our trip planner. And so it not only brings in the the transit options, but also if you are a veteran or if you are disabled or you are a low income senior, it brings in those nonprofit options too, so that you see your full pantheon of what your options are as opposed to just a slice of them.

Where have you gotten into in our last two or three years as, like, a new area you had to go in where there was not a need and which areas you had to exit because you probably didn't have the funding?

So the new ish area is that we merged with Attain Housing. So they were When they went under. They were going under, and so we were really grateful to be able to preserve those 32 units of housing. So that was an area we never knew that a merger of something that small could take that long and cost that much money. But they're saved, and so we're really happy about that.

Did poor Mallory. So I used to have the job that Mallory's in, and as we were talking about her taking this role, was like, so the good news is you get to get a big bump in your job responsibilities. The bad news is you have to cut the deficit by a significant amount. And so Mallory and the other leaders at Hope Link and I went through an intentional deficit reduction coming into this fiscal year of $3,700,000 And we did that because the pandemic funding was fully winding down. We had that prior January invested in our staff, which took away any excess cash that we had to get us through the tough times.

And we still have a reserve, but just cash flow. And so part of that meant that we did make some intentional choices to stop some things. And so we did stop our GED program because that was one of our smaller programs and the community colleges, the junior colleges, have really stepped up in that program. We also because the funding through the state did not materialize, we had to stop our digital literacy our digital skills program. And so we had hoped we started that because the state was going to be funding it and they weren't able to do that.

And then we reduced our family development program by several case managers and we stopped our employment program. The employment program at that point had shrunk down to just two employment specialists and while they were doing a fantastic job, it was too much infrastructure for that smaller program. And it was really hard decisions for us to make, but in order to make sure that we could adequately invest in the other programs that we are working on and make sure that we kept everything that was unduplicated. So like our financial capabilities. Some of the suburban cities do support that, but for the most part that is funded through our fundraising that we have.

But no one else is doing that work to be able to do those workshops. And we now provide them in 10 different languages with native speakers. And so those are the work those are some of the areas where we've really invested to make sure that we could stay and stay in a robust way. And we know now where reinvest when that money materializes. We're in the process of strategic planning right now for this next year, this next three years.

And it is bracketed, this new strategic plan will be bracketed by the greater political issues that are happening in terms of funding and policy in a way that prior strategic plans have not been. And so that is something it doesn't mean we want to limit what we are setting out to do. We don't want to undercut what we're setting out to do, but we also do want to acknowledge that Medicaid cuts, for instance, we don't know if non emergency medical transportation will look the same in three years from now or if it will look very, very different. And we won't know until closer to 2027. And so we're contingency planning as far as we can go and then just being ready to make make decisions.

Another thing that we've done in the last few years is in terms of our housing programs. We've partnered with developers to not be the owner and operator, but to provide the services. So I think that's one of the things that we do really well is that comprehensive case management support to help our families stabilize. And so if we could focus all of our energy on that, that's where we want to put our time and our dollars and not necessarily in the operating piece. There are people that do that very well, and we wanna partner with them.

That's a great point. Thank you

for bringing that up. Mallory has really positioned us to be the CBO partner with a lot of developers out there. So really excited about that growth.

Yeah. I've seen you on the list as a partner of the with the developers that I see on the other side. Do you the the the programs that you said you cut, the employment one, I find it interesting that that's the one that right now you're not seeing as maybe it's not it's the dollars, but it's isn't there much greater need at this point?

The need was there. It was the funding to keep it going. Okay. That's what I thought. Because that was, again, almost entirely there was some suburban city funding, but there wasn't other funding to to really keep that program going. We did have one position funded through King County Housing Authority, but that position could only serve King County Housing Authority households. And so that left us with one other position for the entire service area. So it just wasn't it wasn't feasible, but it was hard. It was a hard decision to make.

Do you perceive you need to get into technology in some ways? And the reason, just, like, to be not to make it more efficient for both the delivery of the services, but also for your end users to be more effective at

Yeah. Actually, our CTO and I were just talking about that the other day. So they're one, we're all going through this AI boot camp, which is making all of our heads spin, but really understanding where those efficiencies are. But there are also some other community action agencies around the state that are testing basically a first step AI bot that would do that first screening to see if you're eligible. We're not there yet.

We still want to have that very human connection. But Mallory and our data team are working on a portal for our database, that like for food reenrollment, for instance. We do have to reenroll people every year, but it's pretty simple. And so especially if we can have it in multiple languages, that would be something that people would be able to if they can't sleep and it's 2AM, I'm going to re enroll in HopeLink's food markets and just take care of that without having to connect with us and make it inconvenient for them. So yes, we absolutely are looking at that. We're also on our non emergency medical transportation side. We're also working on a portal on that program, too. That one's a little tougher because it has to be HIPAA compliant. And so right now, we're ready to go. The state of Washington is not ready.

Go. So as soon as they are, then we'll bring it together to make that easier on people needing access to their medical appointments, too. But the people that we serve are so vulnerable, and one of the things that they are the most scared of right now is their data going somewhere. And so one of the things that we have done is to make sure that we have trained our staff exactly where the data that they're collecting goes, so that they can answer any questions that people have about that. And on our commitment posters that we have up, it's now a QR code that goes to the most recent privacy policy.

And that is on our website and can be machine translated in over 100 languages so that people can see the most recent information. But things like the Medicaid data for the state of Washington being shared with Homeland Security, that is out of any nonprofit's control. It was out of the state of Washington's control. And so people are scared with that data. So that's where the technology piece becomes trickier because we don't want people to avoid us because they are scared of what's going to happen with that data.

So we're trying to balance that. Thank you for the questions. I really appreciate this. I do want to mention I'm sure we're getting close to or out of time that the actual report that you got the link for, If you have time, please do. I just skimmed the summary of the information.

There is a lot more information in there. And reading through so our consultants, Burke and Associates, did a much better job this time of getting out into the community and talking to groups. They worked through MISO, through Chinese Information Services, and I don't remember the name of the senior group, but they did some focus groups to really dig in with people who are not utilizing HopeLink services to understand why. What are your barriers there? Because that's what we wanted them to do.

And with the promotores, it was done in their native language so people could have those conversations in a safe and comfortable space for them, and they were compensated for their time. And so there is some really good, not just the quantitative, but the qualitative data that's in there, too. So please do, and share it wherever you want. Give it to anybody who might want to read it. You gotta really like data, but we did a donor open house on Saturday, and we had to pull people out of the data room. It was fascinating to me. So people liked well, I mean, around here, guess, makes sense. Yeah.

We we appreciate the work HopeLink does in the community, and thank you for being here tonight.

Thank you so much. And I will leave this in case anybody wants the printed copy. I will Thank you all very much. Thanks for the invitation

and for the work that you all do to support the community. And we'll forward out a copy of the PowerPoint as well as a link to the community.

Next, we will continue the review and discussion of 2027 and 2028 funding percentages. I will hand it over to Ruth.

Well so, Ruth, is that what we should be doing, or should we be doing what we were asked to do by the mayor? So the

mayor is giving us a preview of what is might be happening at the next council meeting, or she mentioned maybe at an emergency meeting. So we'll have to wait to see what happens with that.

So we cannot do a preliminary if there anything comes in, this is what we would

appreciate to be to wait until we see what they what they do because they're reviewing some am I correct? Okay. Yeah. That's it's not quite on our plate yet. Yeah.

Our What I'm listening here and from the mayor or or all over is the food. We need to focus on the food. The food is the basic right now. More focus.

The council to bring a topic in front of you. So the the mayor is expressing her priorities. We have a council of seven, and so priorities have to come from all seven council members. And so the commission's time for recommendations is in the places that were directed by the entire council, and we don't have that right now. But I think what is clear from what we've already talked about amongst the commission and amongst data is that there's some needs throughout the needs update that you can see.

And then there's others that are becoming more critical because of things that are going on in our communities right now that have risen. We've talked about those here in these commission meetings. And so, yes, food has clearly come up today. I think we're hearing a lot about impacts on refugees and immigrants that are coming up. And so the the inquiry that's been sent to staff is just to supply data that documents those needs, and then that will be up to the council to make that decision.

So

our task for tonight has a couple of pieces. You have a few things in front of you that get added to your folder of materials. You have a draft 27 yeah. That's okay. You have a draft 2728 contingency plan, and there is a document that says input from the '25 2025 needs update.

And on the other side is questions about combining categories. So Tonight, our goal is to continue to tackle the percentages to look at the decisions that you all wanna make about your recommendations for the percentages within the areas area of needs, and then to look at the contingency plan. And I will I don't have a starting point for you. You can start wherever you wanna start tonight.

So I

think by the ending of our last meeting, I think chair Singh thought we were getting fairly close to voting, but I but we had a you know, commissioner Pearlman, you weren't here. I I don't think we were quite ready. So when you get to the point where you are decided about the percentages that you're recommending for the areas of need, you will also be voting on a contingency plan. So at some point tonight, we can spend some time looking at the draft contingency plan, and we can do that first if you like. So one of the questions that came up is what would happen if you decide on a percentage for an area of need.

And then either there are four times as many applications that come in, or for some reason, there are very few applications that come in that would warrant that much money going to that area. So the contingency is basically laying out that as a commission, you all have the ability to adjust the percentages based on any adjustments or changes that you need to make because of the app this would happen after the applications have come in. And you're reviewing the applications. And then you might, as a group, decide to make some changes to the percentages. It's just a little insurance that the decisions that you make now and that you vote on now that you send to counsel in January are not set in stone because this is a new process for us, and we don't exactly know how the applications will roll in.

It says these adjustments cannot exceed 2% in any area of need, so you wouldn't be moving a percentage area up or down by more than two. Then it says if additional funds become available after you've completed your recommendations, these dollars will be evenly split between the most critical needs from the needs update, which were shelter, financial assistance, and food. And, again, as a draft, you all can suggest any changes to this.

So we can we do 40% in the food and thirty and thirty instead of evenly 30?

In Do you wanna make that as a proposal?

Yes.

Or as a point of discussion?

Yeah. Point of discussion. Yeah.

Can you can you repeat what you're proposing?

So dollars will be evenly split between critical needs. These are three one.

Mhmm.

So now we are seeing the food and the basic. The other snap programs are going away. So I was thinking 40%, 30% in other. That's a 100% instead of going 33 evenly.

And that's for any extra dollars that gets oh, if additional funding comes in after you all have made your recommendations.

And I I can see that this will be the there will be the the way things are going, this will be the need in near future.

But but help me understand. What is basic needs? What's the definition of basic needs here?

It's on the sheet under the purple line, programs and services that provide access to food and essential daily needs for individuals and families experiencing economic hardship. In addition, these services may include hygiene items such as diapers and toiletries. So that's what's in food and basic needs.

I'm not sure I fully agree with you. And it goes to giving more to food. I agree with you. It's a very important area.

K.

I actually think that financial assistance to allow individuals to make decisions to pay that bill so they could buy food with some other means is maybe more important. So my point here is that I'm I kinda like the evenly split ideas because it allows people to to make their own choices. Like, if there's like, maybe I could access food via food bank, but I need to pay that bill to keep the electricity on in February.

Yeah. I agree also. And, I mean, we we heard it from Troy at Porchlight is that besides funding, the second need that they need is food. So shelter and shelter based programs are also providing food for our communities in need. And so I like the evenly split Okay. As well.

A split between FEMA and solar system employee?

These three.

Between all three of them.

All three. But

help me understand, I guess, what if we already funded everything shelter and shelter based programs? Like, magically, we funded it all. What happens then? Will not happen. I know. But amuse me for just, you know

It doesn't a question that just will not happen. So Okay.

So there's none of these will

to that question.

Okay. Just wanna make sure. Yeah.

Perfect. So this would be in the instance of whatever money we know about coming into the funding cycle. You guys have allocated it all. And then sometime later, the council says, wait. Perhaps we would like to allocate more funds that you had would have already expressed your interest in where they should go. So this would be after the application process. If more funds come up, you're saying now this is where we would like them to go. That makes sense.

I am curious if it is possible I mean, we all heard Debbie from Eastside For All speak last

two weeks ago?

Yeah. Two weeks ago.

Last week.

Yeah. About how the one time funding last time, while we did a great job as a human service commission, is making sure that BIPOC culturally and linguistically specific programs, I wanna make sure I use the right language, were funded. That one time funding did not go towards, like, the criteria that we had created. So curious if anyone was if we could have a conversation about having our priority categories because we already have this set as what our target is and if that's if we should talk about that for our contingency plan as well, or we're just saying go for it.

Maybe need to think about this some more. But initial thought is that knowing this is probably not a huge amount of dollars, I guess, and to keep it simple, maybe we're just leaving it as is and maybe having an asterisk for us to be thinking about that in the back of our minds and be reminded as we just, in general, think about it versus trying to write that into a contingency plan. But I I respect your thought about maybe we need to write it in.

I mean, I feel like this is the time since we have time until January or December, yeah, to, like, think about it and then talk about it because it happened last funding cycle. And we had public comment about it. And so just wanting to bring that up saying, like, we've heard from some a prominent community leader about the the issues that was with that one time funding last time. So yeah.

I'm I'm not opposed to that.

I think we should keep it like that only. Three evenly spitted without complicated it. That's my opinion.

What's complicated about

Adding and dividing that this. We already have an application process. We have everything that written according to the

I mean, it's already in our, like, actual I mean, I'm just trying to make make it it's not complicated because we already have it. Like, it's already something that is in our actual thing.

So like,

youth Youth programs and culturally and linguistically specific programs. Right? And then we don't we wanna make sure that we hit, like, above 23% for youth programs and above 26 for

So can I clarify? You are suggesting, if I'm hearing you correctly, that those targets also just be noted in the contingency plan.

Yeah. I I that yeah.

I agree. Can we that or not?

That is up to all of you. I was just making sure I was understanding her correctly. So, yes, that is what she is saying. You you get to say that if that's what you would like.

And how we are going to do it? Can you explain where we're able to add the that line here?

Yeah. Just recommending that they take in account our priority categories. Right? And that one time funding could I don't know. I'm like, this is where I lean on the human service staff because they're fantastic with the language and the ways that they can incorporate. But

It's actually not that complicated if I think about it. Is that if we're doing 33% for each of these, it's like taking this table. This became 33% for these three. And then on the bottom, you're just saying, and please make sure when you're allocating to each of these categories, you are considering that 20 plus percent go to the culturally appropriate organizations and to the youth. So it's actually pretty clean.

Yeah. I don't think it would be complicated. The one thing I would say is that this statistic isn't that 23% of each category is youth. So it's all of them. So I think if I'm hearing correctly, you would recommend that 20 no less than 23% of any additional money provide services that are culturally and linguistically specific, and no less than 26% of them serve youth.

Yeah. I think because the pod is gonna be smaller. That's my only thing is that I wonder if it's worth us giving us a little leeway. That's why we're saying is that is it something we just keep ourselves accountable for it, or we do put that in writing? I I I like the idea. We gotta be thinking about this. I just wonder because of its it's contingent, let's just say that it's only, like, 40,000. I'm gonna make this up. So it may be harder to be splitting it. So do we want to have a a little more of a fuzzy language that says we will strive to do this? It's not like we will do our best to accomplish it. I just wanna make sure nothing is locking us into if we just can get there effectively.

Yeah. And we do have written down in those two right boxes as a target.

Okay.

Because, again, we don't know what applications will come in. And so it would be impossible to say it has to be that way. So we wrote it in as a target.

Okay. As long as it's not locking. As I said, I I again, I love the that it's part of the conversation. That's You think

So

you like the idea?

Commissioner White, you have anything to say?

I like to the, to keep the targets where they are. I think that's a good strategy.

I like to target that same. And anyone else?

K.

So if I'm hearing correctly, we're going I'll be adding some language, and this will be a draft again. We'll bring it to the next meeting and make sure we'll hold off on the vote tonight because you all will need to review another draft to vote on. But I'll put in language that says we will you will have a target of 23% of those funds going to cultural and linguistically specific and a target of 26% of them going to youth. And so we'll take a look at that at the next meeting.

Okay. So

are we back to discussing the the top ones?

Yes. Make sure.

This is done. Okay. Next time.

Yeah.

Yeah. We are back. Go ahead. Sure.

I'm just trying to since I missed the last

So we we didn't pursue with anything. We Okay. Yeah.

That's what I thought.

That's not true. I mean, we did everyone did suggest not combining. We did

have That that's written, but Because they have written that for you.

Oh, did that. On what page?

Page? Okay.

They have clarified that.

We talked about that, though.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But she mentioned earlier when she reported. Maybe I think she's what else?

Okay.

Basically, whatever you were asking, we asked that question in the last meeting, and they are they came with what are the what No.

Wait. I just haven't seen it, so that's why I'm going with No. Where is that?

Ruth was told us when we explaining her April. That's when I read that these were the questions we asked last time. K? So you want to read somebody want to read it, or you want to read it what says what I think that answered what we discussed.

No. She wasn't here at the last meeting, so I was just making sure that we were all on the same page before we moved forward. That was what's happening to me. Okay. Okay.

So any changes, commissioners, you suggest in the percentage? So everyone looking at the twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty human services commission sheet. That's what we do.

Mhmm.

Any commissioners? Any discussion? Any? Are we going with the

Well, are we voting? Sorry.

And I try I like the I like this. Also, keeping in mind that this is the first time that we're we're doing this, so it's it's not gonna be perfect. I like that it's not like we're super locked in. There's some wiggle room once we see, yeah, once we see applications. And so I'd definitely rely on the human service team and the percentages that they put in front of us for this time. That would be my input.

Okay. Here, we have a 2%. This is for this funding.

That is any adjustments that you all might wanna make after the applications come in.

Okay.

In the contingency plan, we said that you can't make an adjustment of more than 2% in any category. That was an arbitrary choice to say 2%. You can change that or alter that if you like.

Commissioner, do you agree for that term? 2% with this?

Chair, the 2% is something you'll vote on next week when, Ruth and her team bring back that contingency plan.

Yes.

Definitely room for if you would like to talk about that tonight because the two elements of the contingency plan for you to discuss would be the 2% and then the categories, which you all had a robust discussion on.

Okay.

I think the so that one staff will bring back, and you'll get to discuss it again. And so for tonight, that blue grid is the one that for discussion and up for a vote if you're prepared.

We were gonna vote on those together. Okay.

Yeah. Do that. Sure.

Let me think through if we can vote separately. We have it going to council together. So can they vote separately tonight? Okay. So you can If they're ready If you're ready, you can vote tonight on just the percentages. They will go to council together as one item.

I heard one commissioner express their perception of where they would like it to be. And and do others have a input on their thoughts on the chart, any changes or as is, or what which direction you're headed?

I guess I'm just gonna express it as that I don't I see I I see your reasoning, and I understand your reasoning why you do not recommend merging those categories, but I don't I don't agree with that reasoning. So but that's just my point of view.

So as last time, I'm I'm okay with the staff recommendation. We this if it's pretty balanced if we change any percentage, move. Any commissioner, you want to discuss any particular area?

I do wanna draw I just read the the input from the 2025 needs update about aging. Older adults are often looked overlooked when making funding decisions. They'd requested the commission look at the percentage of programs that focus on service older adults when making funding recommendations? And then transportation is a huge issue in Bellevue, especially for older adults, and significant need for navigation and case management services for older adults. And just curious of where we see that in our funding recommendation worksheets.

Which column?

We don't have that data currently broke out by percentage of funding for older adults.

Okay.

So it would be some data analysis that we would need to do.

We have some agencies that focus on older adults, but then some agencies, like, serve older adults but wouldn't be focused on older adults. Right? So that would make it a little challenging to capture that. Correct?

So, Commissioner Fan, you were asking which category, where it falls? Or

Yeah. Just because it was something that was asked for us to look at, and then I was just looking at the area of need sections and seeing if there was any focus or any talk of that specific demographic and if that's something that we need to take into account or we just would take into account once we're reading applications. Right?

Yeah. Okay. But so you're going to add the column. Can you explain this this percentage of elderly people are served or this like, any percentage we can get?

So we have a few agencies that specifically serve older adults. Yes. But more generally, they are eligible for services across most categories, not youth serving agencies, not child care. There there are some services that for which they don't they're not eligible. So it would be difficult to capture inside each category

K.

The services for older adults.

So we have to look at the agent.

So you would be looking at the applications and trying to remember to elevate that.

And when I gave the needs update presentation to the group and got that feedback from one group that was we held a focus group during the needs update, They were really talking about as we're looking at applications, knowing that, like Ruth is saying, that most of a lot of the agencies, they actually serve people with disabilities and older adults. If they're specific to populations, those two categories tend to be lumped together. And then as Ruth was saying, then there's also agencies like a food bank that serves

Yeah.

You know,

I mean, it's, like, 30 some percent of people are older adults. But we wouldn't have the ability to be able to break that out into a subcategory, but just a filter to that the group I was presenting to ask for that to be considered when you were looking at applications.

But you get reporting, and it don't the agencies provide to you the breakdown of what's by age, by other different categories?

So, yes, we get demographics annually. So we would get them in the January for this year. However, it doesn't tell us if somebody comes in and gets a service one time or if they come and access services on a weekly or a daily basis. So it's so, yes, we can say this percentage of people across all of our programs or by program, but you're also then looking at over a 100 programs individually and needing to look at the demographic ages for each of those. So I the data analysis can definitely happen. I'm just trying to figure out, like, the impact and how useful it would be. I

think an example of how it could show up is much like when HopeLink was talking about how dialogues happen about transportation and when they were looking at perhaps adding a bus in one place and a question arose, well, that bus will serve five people, but this bus over here is in a more populated area. I think of that as an application for how to consider service to older adults. That sometimes, when we look at applications, we can say, well, that program isn't going to serve as many people. So when we're looking at food programs, we could perhaps place less value on an application that reaches a smaller group of older adults versus something that reaches a larger group of a bigger population. And what I hear this group asking for is recognize that that need is unique, and that if you don't value that application, the the needs of that group won't be met just like the needs of those five people by that bus that just won't get served.

Any other questions, commission? Commissioner Fan? Commissioner White? We can vote today on this. Okay.

Motion.

So moved. Any second?

I second.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye. Aye.

All those opposed say nay? Nay. So we have the motion is approved for 2027 and 2028 funding percentages with contingency plan has passed. Not not yet. Oh, but we will not. Okay.

We'll vote on that contingency at the next meeting.

Okay. So good with this. As a reminder, our next commission meeting is Monday, November 17, and this concludes our meeting. We are adjourning at 07:53. Thank you.

Thank you. Have a good night.

Bye, Angela.

Thank you.

Bye bye.