Public Safety & Criminal Justice Reform Committee - Regular Meeting

I wanna welcome you to the Toledo City Council Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform Committee. Clerk, please call the roll. Hobbs. Here.

Here. Hartman. McPherson. Morris. Serrantu? Here. Three present.

Okay. Thank you. We're gonna start with our offices of public safety quarterly reports, changes, or updates pertaining to public safety. We'll start tonight with, I think, Toledo Police Department chief Trendley. Thank you for being here. After that, we will have Toledo Fire and Rescue and then Toledo Municipal Court, clerk's office.

Good afternoon. Thanks for having us. So just have a quick presentation prepared for you just to kind of give you some updates on the 2025 for the police department. First thing we'll kind of cover is our crime stats for the first quarter. As you can see from this slide here, this is covering the period between January 1 and 03/31/2025 compared to 2024.

And on this here we're looking at a 60% reduction in homicides, 16% shooting reduction. Our robberies at this point were up 8%. Our burglars are down 15, auto theft down 18, and theft from auto was down 24%. When we started seeing a spike in robberies, we started putting out some extra crews and targeting some areas. And I'm pleased to report that as of this morning, our robberies are now down 5% compared to last year.

So we were down in every category including persons shot. We are sitting at a 38% reduction in persons shot. As we've been doing since I took over having designated foot patrol areas for the summer months. Happy to report that we started our foot patrols on April 1. And I provided here a map of our two areas that we're covering for one in the Scott Park District area and one in the Central District area.

And so far so good on those. Still starting to get positive feedback in the area. Our community really enjoys seeing our officers on foot in the area walking and engaging with the community. While we only have two dedicated areas, this is the ones that we're operating in full time on our afternoon shift. We are still utilizing bike patrols and other foot patrols by our community service officers in our target areas.

And we do a monthly target area. So there is more areas of the community being covered by bikes and foot than just these two areas, but these are the dedicated foot patrol areas. This is the crew's full time assignment. Looking at our staffing levels. As of today right now, we are sitting at 647 sworn.

This does include 38 in the police academy. And there is a breakdown of our ranks and gender and race if for your guys' reference there as well. Next slide is just to kind of give you a first quarter look at our internal affairs statistics. So far for the first quarter we were looking at 41 total complaints. And of those 41 complaints 37 of those were administrative in nature meaning that they were initiated from within the police department.

And this generally is when we're reviewing incidents, our command officers are binding violations and starting a complaint what we call departmental investigation. From those the most of those have ended in verbal reprimands. However, there were seven suspensions issued for the 2025. All right. Our final slide.

Just wanted to kind of give you an update on our goals and objectives. These are not the entire goals and objectives for the year but these are the goals and objectives that have had significant activity in the first quarter. The first implementation of a drones as a first responder program. I'm happy to report that we have worked well with the company and are on track to have the drone in place by sometime in the month of May. So we're looking forward to this test run that we have on this.

If you remember when we did the legislation for it, this is going to be a year long test program that we received for free. So hopefully it's going to show that it's a good piece of technology that will help us not only respond to calls faster, but to also provide situational awareness for our officers making it safer for them as they respond to calls. Next one was reduce the drug chemistry laboratory backlog by 10%. Happy to report that through March we are looking at a 14.6% reduction in that backlog so far this year. The third one was reduced fatal accidents by 10%.

And so far this year and we're trying to do this through increased speed seat belt and red light citations. And we have decreased fatal crashes by 40% this year so far. And there's been a 50% decrease in the amount of deaths by motor vehicle accidents so far for the first quarter compared to 2024. And then the final one I wanted to talk about was providing homicide investigation training for newly designed detectives. We have currently have six of our detectives are attending the training.

This is important because we've had quite a bit of turnover in our investigation section and getting some of the new officers the training they need to properly investigate the crimes. That is all I have prepared for you. But as always, I will gladly take any questions questions you you might might have. Have.

Councilwoman Williams.

Thank you, chair. Thanks, chief, for being here, and thanks for representing the first quarter. I just have a question. I attended our BOMA meeting, our quality of life. I absolutely love our quality of life meetings. I love the blazer, and I love the team operations, I I have to say. And I I think they have made a a a great impact in the safety of the city. My question is is we didn't have a good turnout there, and that was like the first one that I'd I've been to that we didn't have a good turnout. Has Marcom's been helping you with getting the word out about them? Because I I just I'm not used to being there, and it just be me and councilman Sorantu.

It was it was some other people there, but I just I know it was a warm day outside but we've I've never seen it and I was just wondering like, are they helping get the word out about your meetings?

So we do work with Marcom's quite a bit. I would have to go check on this particular meeting whether they utilize MARCOMS or not. I know we do a heavy presence on our social media. Getting it out to the community leaders in the area to let their community know that this is gonna happen. And generally, are fairly well attended. Unfortunately, I was not able to make the last one. So that's the first time I heard that there wasn't very many people there actually.

No. It wasn't. It was me and councilman Sorrento and one guy that lived out c corp another guy that walked in, and he walked out after he got the numbers and a young lady from an organization. But we didn't have a good turnout, and that was the first one I had ever been to, and I had a good turnout. And I I just was like, dang. Was Marcom's helping with this? How do we get the word out about it? Because that's good information, and people don't understand, like, how much you guys do in those team operations. And I really and we I know I shared it on our district four Facebook page, but I just wanna make sure that, you know, we get because all your officers were there ready to give information. We were shocked that we didn't have a good turnout.

Mean, everybody was at the park, and I wonder. But I'm sure they didn't live over there, but I definitely think that Marcom should market more of of your quality of life meetings. I know it used to be on the news, and I don't remember it. I knew it was in the newspaper, but I don't and on their website, but I didn't hear about it on the news. So I just wanna know, how how can we help as council members get it out a little bit more, and I'm willing to help. I know you guys do a good job, of doing a whole lot of stuff, and I wanna make sure that have that information out.

So I appreciate that. First thing I'll do is I'll check to make sure we did work with Marcombs, and try to see if there was any reason we didn't get the turnout. We have been doing these for a few years now. So unfortunately the more times you repeat a program less and less people show. But I will take you guys up on helping us get the word out and I will make sure that we get you all information in advance so that you guys can share it when you're out in the community talking at your meetings and or on any social media that you may have. Because I agree with you they're a great program and we do a lot of work for those initiatives. Thank Thank

you. Councilman Serratzu.

Thank you Mr. Chair. Yeah and I would add to that I think it was Monday night I attended the junction coalition meeting. And there were at least 15 to 20 people there at the Mott Library. So which was great. We had a very good discussion and a lot of feedback and a lot of questions, you know, were asked. But I just wonder if Markham was not involved in this one. Because it really was very, very poor attendance. So I want to follow-up on a couple of questions, chief. And I appreciate you being here today.

The incident unfortunately, last Friday night where the tree on a from private property fell on the truck and killed a young man. Is that considered a traffic accident, or how do we consider that?

So I'd have to look at more of the details on that. But generally, if the tree you said it fell on the car?

Yep.

Was it in motion?

No. The car had stopped for a red light.

Okay. Yep. So that would that's an interesting question actually. I will have to check with my traffic lieutenant to see how they would actually classify that one. Okay. But it would be a motor vehicle incident. So my guess is it would be counted. Okay. But I will verify that for you, and I'll get you an answer on

I mean, clearly it was an accident, you

know, but

it was very tragic. And the driver is still in the hospital, but it was the passenger that was killed instantly. And then on the crime stats, which I appreciate, where do we find statistics on domestic violence? I know the police department is making those calls. So where would that be listed on this sheet?

It is not listed on that sheet. Obviously there are hundreds and hundreds of different types of crime codes that we respond to. These are what we consider our track crimes and this is what we use in our Comstat process. So these are the ones that we are our analysts are tracking and doing crime series on and making sure that we're addressing. So domestic violence does not fall inside these stats. If you do want stats on domestic violence, I can provide those.

Yes. By way of referral. Would like to see it. Fact, if you could, know, I'd like to see a comparison of the year 2024 domestic violence calls versus current, you know, at least through the first quarter. Just curious if we're making progress on that or if there continue to be a

Would you like calls or would you like crimes?

Crimes. I'm sorry. Crimes. Actual crimes. Yes, sir. And then do we have do we have one or two detectives assigned to domestic violence at this point? I know you have many detectives that also work with domestic violence. So

we still have solely one detective assigned to the domestic violence unit itself. Obviously, are sergeants there as well. And then the other detectives inside the special victims will pitch in if there is a need at that time. But yes, on our and they only work day shifts. So on our off shifts, our normal detectives handle all of our domestic violence calls.

Do you feel there's a need to have a second full time officer?

So if manpower was not a problem, it's we could always use another one. Unfortunately, you know, up until this month, we've actually had a freeze on all backfilling of assignments. So we're going without backfilling our swats and our gangs and a lot of our units just because our numbers were not up to snuff inside operations. So we're trying to maintain that number in operations that when you pick up the phone call or pick up the phone and call 911 that you'll have an officer responding. Our last academy class that graduated in January is starting to count into our numbers.

So we're going to start looking at backfilling, assignments. So it is something that I know that you feel very strongly about and we 've had many conversations about. It is something that is always on a list if we have enough officers that we can get the rest of our units filled that we would up that. But at this point we don't have the resources to do that. Like I said, the sergeant is very good at asking for help from the other detectives that work with our special victims. And pitching in to help them on any kind of domestic violence cases. Okay.

All right. Well if you can get us the answers by way of referral on that, that would be very helpful.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, chief, and thank you, mister chairman.

Thank you, chief. Two questions. One, is it true that you're adding

cart style vehicles. They're John Deere vehicles that we've painted. So our foot patrol officers will use those as well in those foot patrol areas. But we are also using them for downtown events and or any kind of specials that we might have going on. So yes, we do have two. One for our South Channel and one for our Central Channel.

And my last question is, the two areas that were chosen for foot patrol, what was the criteria in choosing those areas?

So when we we looked looked at all of our tracked crimes and tried to identify areas that we felt could be impacted by having officers on foot in the area. They moved slightly from the previous year which actually moved slightly from the year before that. We do try to try to pick a little bit of a different area every year so we can kind of get into more neighborhoods instead of staying in the same one over and over again. But it is based on our crimes and our tracked crimes that we that are listed here. And our analysts go through those and suggest several different areas, and then our command staff picks the areas.

Thank you chief. I appreciate you. Thank you. Yes, sir. At this time, we're going to have Toledo fire and rescue, deputy chief, Daniel Brown Martinez. Thank you, chief.

Say good late afternoon or good early evening. Accompanied by my esteemed colleague here, the latest promotion deputy chief, Rodell Franklin. He may be able to answer some questions pertaining to his bureaus. And he's just getting a feel for the lay of the land here.

Congratulations.

So, yeah, we'd like to start with our PowerPoint presentation. We gave a hard copy and there should a copy was submitted for presentation. Yeah, yep, no problem. So I'll read through this too so the folks at home or in the audience can also hear. I'll start with hiring and retirements because staffing obviously is very important to us.

A few years back we were struggling for maintaining the staffing levels. We are currently uniform staffing is five eighty five. This has been a consistent stronghold for us. We're very proud of that number. Of course, with your help city council administrative staff we have had these numbers the highest in my career.

We're very proud of that. 2025, the separation retirements of the quarterly report year to date we have seven that have left. 16 additional have confirmed that they will leave this year. Fire class update. We currently added to our staff 28 probationary firefighters as they completed this past quarter.

The academy, they passed all their certifications with high success. Proud to report that's highly diversified group of individuals from military. Definitely different socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnic status. And also proud to report that two thirds of that class either obtained while in the hiring process or prior to going through that, two thirds of those individuals brought certification which we were allowed to then add them three months early to the line. Being at stewards for our tax base, adding those individuals to the line, and also seeing the recruits make a significant investment trying to become a Toledo firefighter.

So that was that was good news for us. At this time, we have memorialized the new eligibility list for the next class or maybe classes. Our recruitment teams did a very good job with that. Very, very good list. We are scheduled to hire additional 20 as of right now late or excuse me, September.

And when you say 20, that's 20 going into the new class?

Yes, sir. Okay. Alright. Yep. Yep. 20 starting the new class. Be late summer, early fall. So just to give you an update of our total incidents. And I wanna make sure I differentiate the two total responses and incidents. So I'll begin with incidents.

This is just a calls for service. We've had over 15,000 as you can see, which is a slight increase and that's averaging about 170 calls for service a day. Of those 15,286 of those fire incidents were 2,241 with 51 of those being structure fires. Now all those other fire incidents could be things like outdoor fire, vehicle fire, dumpster fire. That's what falls into that category.

But to actually have commercial or residential structure fires, we're at 51 currently. Emergency medical incidents, 13,045. And that's primary all of our EMS. Total response through March. And that's when rigs are dispatched.

That's why that number is different from the overall incidents. How many apparatus of personnel takes to ameliorate or remedy an incident. That number is higher than of course the total incidents. Busiest medic unit out there, ALS medic unit, was medic three in the North End. Over 1,000 responses with that, so they're staying pretty busy there.

Ambulance transports. The first quarter we had over 6,000 patients transported. That's 70 individuals a day that we're taking to the hospital by our ambulance medic units. Slight increase there. Our fire prevention bureau.

This is the proactive part of our department. As you can see, over 1,100 fire were completed. And that is just making sure that our commercial structures are meeting their compliance codes to make sure that they have all the equipment where they need to be and things of that nature. Making sure that those areas those businesses and stuff are safe for occupancy and storage. 145 building sprinkler systems, plans reviews.

That's again all commercial. That's just making sure that we update any commercial or business that updates, makes updates to their building. We make sure they're in compliance so the fire load can be contained by the sprinkler system. And this also includes new builds that they're properly assessed and we make sure that that fire load can be contained by the accurate suppression system. 19 building fire plans completed for commercial buildings.

That's basically saying what we're going to put into our CAD system. This is fighting the fire before it happens. This is basically like a coach putting together plans before the team goes out and executes those calls. So those will pop up in our CAD system. We'll know things like where the fire department connections at, where the hydrants are staged, and any asset or resources available to our incoming crews.

They will know that beforehand. So that's in regards to that. 18 code red properties mitigated. That's derelict properties that are identified that we will not fight, interior attack, fire attack in that unless we see, of course, a civilian or somebody. And that's when we would risk a lot to save a life in that regard. So some of the highlights. It's been busy last, I believe, say a few years, it's been a busy quarter. Two thirds of our department have had hands on training, high rise training. The whole department has had an awareness training through our vector solutions program. But to say that two thirds of our department actually went out and trained 701 Adams.

That was very kind of the county to help donate that building so to speak. So we could get our crews out there for a low frequency, high risk event. It was that's something to be proud of. Our members did a very good job with that. Again, city council with your help, whether you're approving money or helping us find money money, we are able to continue, making building, station improvements.

These are our homes we live in. We have ongoing roofing projects, windows, HVAC, kitchens, a lot of things just again to make those buildings sustainable and to have a decent, you know, it's our home away from home. Fire vehicle replacement. We are happy to report again with your help that we are going to take possession of two heavy rescue soon. We're going to have four engines are being built currently, fire engines, three ambulances, we call medic units.

This is something that you see in perpetuity that we're going to come back and ask for. We do have an aging fleet, but it's working well. We have an excellent maintenance program. Proud of that. But we will be back to ask for your help with some of these things in the future. Paramedic training program development. We're in the process of we always take our training serious but paramedicine is something that we are really going to focus even more so on as we put more of these medic units in service. So that's something that we are in the process of developing now so we can furthermore train our department. We're about 40 paramedics. Everybody's an EMT basic.

We would like to see that number increase because that just means better service delivery for our patients. So that's an overview of our quarterly report here for 2025. At this time, if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them.

Councilwoman Williams.

Thank you. Thank you, deputy chief. Just going back to the fire class, what'd you start with?

Yes, ma'am. We started with 30.

I thought it was.

Mhmm. That's pretty good.

We have a very good training bureau and I like to throw little stats out there. Nationally, about twenty percent is the washout rate in departments. So we were six percent. So we're we're doing a good job and we're employing things like added empathy, understanding, and we're we even there's a lot of people with like we say we firefighters have jack of all trades. We've included some people that were former educators into our academy and that has shown to work very well. So we know that we're doing our job as instructors that we're teaching and delivering those materials and education pieces properly.

Yes. That is just really good that only two out of 30 didn't finish. So and the EMS training really how many of the 585 uniformed staff are EMTs now?

So all of 585 are EMTs, but of that number approximately, and it changes by the day, we just added another individual today. Paramedics. Yeah. We are right. I believe the number would be two sixty five.

And the goal is to have all of them. Right?

That would be the ultimate goal to have to have all of them as trained paramedics. But given that we have so many specialties, which I am remiss, I did forget to mention one thing I skipped over here. So many trainings specialties within our department. I apologize. I left that out in the 2025 highlight. I'll go back to that in a second. But to answer your question, Councilwoman, yes. The goal is to have as many as possible. But some individuals really like specialty, special ops training. So that's where their focus goes and their dedication.

And we have specific apparatus that they do primarily. That is their main focus. Paramedics, if we hit 50% and we compare it nationally, we are doing really good.

That's

great. That's great. I know that was something that was was out there. I know this is not for you, but I know fire does not have their contract yet and I'm hopeful that that can happen. And that was one of the asks is to have everyone get paramedic training or at least 50%. So I'm hopeful that the administration is working through that so we can get a contract for our firefighters because all our firefighters are important and we want to make sure that they are happy on their jobs because it's a hard job. So I appreciate you bringing this to us and we're always ready to support you guys with whatever you need.

We greatly appreciate that. Thank you councilman for saying

those Thank kind you. And congratulations deputy chief.

I just wanted to add one highlight I forgot to speak on was our technical rescue training program. Not too long ago we saw that individual that had to be extricated or taken out of that bucket. That was that team, our TRT team that was able to do that. That's to one of those specialty programs that we have. We have put that in high gear and currently we are training 36 individuals to have every piece of those five trainings to better, again, better serve our community.

Thank you. Councilman Sronsut.

Thank you, chairman Hobbs. Thank you for the presentation to both of you deputy chiefs. The EMS incidents, clearly most of your calls are for EMS situations. Yes, sir. Can you tell us typically what are some of the more predominant conditions when you arrive there? Is it diabetic? Is it heart issues?

That's a good question. And to answer your question, it is a litany. It's a smorgasbord. You never know what you're going into. The majority of those calls, what you may think something maybe minor come in, like an in service assist where it's not technically even deemed an emergency medical patient, turns out to be a cardiac arrest.

But by way of referral, I can break those numbers down so you can see. It's actually going to be in our annual report too for 20 How 20 many difficulty breathings, how many cardiac, and all that. But it's a very diverse subset of groups, medical conditions. But you will see things like you stated, cardiac issues, breathing problems, things all of that nature.

Yeah, would be helpful by way of referral. I think we need to know, you know, the type of calls that you're encountering. Absolutely. Because obviously, we wanna make sure that we're we're out there helping.

Yes, sir. And I'll make sure you get that 2024 report too that breaks everything down.

Okay.

So you can have a retroactively look at what And it then I'll get you the current numbers as well.

Yep. For the '25. Yes, The paramedic training, is it is it done internally? How officer become a paramedic?

So that's a good, very good question. And this is a a national conundrum. As fire departments want to advance that training, to do it internally, which we had done in the past, it is extremely expensive. It's a laborious endeavor to pursue. So the best avenue that we've had is we do things like we do the tuition reimbursement, and then those individuals are rewarded with a percentage increase upon graduation.

But they receive that education outside of the department. In our area, there's four institutions that do that. As part of the highlights that we were focusing in and to Councilwoman Williams' statement about the contract. There are some things that we're currently as a fire administration that we're working on to work very close, even closer with those schools to create better system, a better model for our students to receive that education. And it lasts about three semesters, but they run those concurrent, so it's about eleven months to receive paramedic training. But that is something that we're diligently working on. I've been a paramedic twenty three years. I'm kind of excited about doing it.

So could you tell us the four institutions? Is it like Owens College? Yep.

So locally, because some people can do satellite as well, but predominantly locally. We're looking at Owens Community College, University of Toledo Medical Center campus over in South Toledo. We're four county, that's in and then also Mercy Okay. Campus. That's that's good

to know. Thank you. Another question I had was I I know that you're saying a lot of maintenance work on the rigs are being done at the firehouse. So I have a silly question. When you're working on that and it's out of commission, do you bring another rig in from another station?

Yes. Yes, That's a very good question. The only time we will put a station out of service and that it's few and far as if we're building a new station or if let's say the floor is compromised and what do we do with that? We will run them that crew and those apparatus out of a sister station next to them. But that happens infrequently. Usually it's sometimes and God love our firefighters. Sometimes the water is coming through the roof and the company is they're inhibited by progress because of the elements outside. So sometimes they're working in those conditions. But, you know, they are our job is to try to get it done in the most expedient manner. Okay. But we we work around it. And it's

And in terms of the remodeling of stations, you know, council's been very concerned about that. Do we have firehouses where the the remodeling has been done? You know, the bathrooms, the kitchen, and that. If if so, how many? And do we still have quite a bit of work to do, roofs and so forth?

Yes, sir. Our buildings are very aged. We have that report that we could provide you as well. That's something that we would love to see change in the future that we could update those buildings and or build new fire stations. But right now we do have a plan and we seek any money as possible whether it be through federal money, grant, grant dollars, city of Toledo tax base. We're very good with those dollars. But of course, we could always do a little better.

So by way of referral, and I'll I'll write it out. Could you tell us what stations, what they still need to be done? What needs to be done? Is there roof replacement or the bathrooms, plumbing, electrical? If you could just tell us which stations they are.

Possible, can you tell us the location? Not not the number necessarily, but the actual, you know, door in Detroit, Glendale in Detroit. It would be helpful because I'm not very good with

Yes, sir.

I don't remember what numbers are at what's I know where Station 23 is and I know where 25 is.

Yes,

sir. And I think I know where 7 is but that's about it.

By way or referral, I'll get you provide that We

wanna see what the progress is and what still needs to be done because we we really wanna make sure that we're doing that. And then finally, my last question, in terms of replacing fire vehicles, my understanding is that it can take a long time, maybe a year or two Yes, when you're having them built to get them here in Toledo. Is that accurate?

That is absolutely accurate. Post pandemic and then also just the lack of labor force. I I could just throw some numbers at you. It takes up three, sometimes four years to get a fire engine after we order it. We've built some very good relationships with outside our department where we have some friends that have moved those dates up, which help out quite a bit. A ladder truck take two to three years. A medic ambulance right now, we just ordered three. We will see those after we spec them out and put the order in eight hundred days. Wow. So those are something that we need to stay consistent on.

Order early because an average engine, again with our PM, our preventative maintenance program that we do internally, we give out fifteen years out of our fire engines, which is a very long time. But those the fleet is aging and it is it's becoming problematic. And there are times that we have maybe one engine as back up in service. And, you know, that's concerning.

Okay. And Chief Armstrong, basically I asked her a couple of months ago how much money it would take, you know, to replace vehicles in that. And she responded it would probably be 8 to $9,000,000 that we're going to have to replace vehicles in the next few years. So I think that's important for counsel to know,

especially around budget time. Yes, sir. And and we could give you that estimate. We do have a

few replacement program Okay. List. And I would say the figure she gave you is accurate, but it's probably on the conservative end. Okay. Great. By way of referral, we'll get you that information as well. Okay.

Well, thank you very much, and thank you chairman Hobbs.

Thank you. Deputy chief Martinez, one question is a few years ago, there was the accident of the ship hitting the bridge. The bridge collapsed. Mhmm. And I've asked, is there a plan in place? We have several bridges here. We have cargo. Mhmm. Is there any plan in place without your fire department and other, fire departments if there was, which we don't, but if there was some type of accident way, do we have a plan in place for something like that? And if we don't, we can talk later or, you know, I just wondered, was there a plan in place if there's a bridge hit by a ship or a boat?

Yes, sir. I I will get that information, by the way, a referral from our operations deputy. And you know, councilman, we we will provide that like we did our shipboard firefighting. You put that on our radar, and that's something we took serious, and we did a training. So I'll, I'll have him address that question to make sure that if he's working to implement or enhance what we do have, that's more his in lane. I I I will make sure you get that information.

Thank you. Yes, sir.

Thank you for the work you do. Congratulations again, deputy chief. We appreciate you. At this time, Toledo Municipal Court, Clerk's office executive chief deputy clerk Alex Huglet. I believe we have also, miss Valley Bowman English, clerk, of course, and, miss Lisa.

Here today. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Good evening. Thank you guys very, very much for having us here on today. I am Vali Bowman English, the clerk of court for Toledo Municipal Court. And at this time, I am going to defer to the judge's division, our esteemed court administrator, miss Lisa Fauciano, and then I will go

here to provide an update on several issues that have been part of our continuing conversation with City Council. The first item I wanted to talk to you about is we are looking at our competency statistics for 2024 and we have noted an increase in those competency referrals. Competency referrals occur when an individual appears before the court who is not competent to appear before the court. They don't have the mental capability of understanding what is happening in the courtroom or cooperating with defense counsel and they don't understand the charges against them. And so in those cases, the court has very limited options in terms of how to proceed.

The first thing we have to do is establish whether or not someone is restorable. We are finding that fewer and fewer people are restorable, which means they're incompetent and unrestorable. And as a result the court is very limited with what we can do with those cases. We have two options. We can either dismiss those cases or if they meet the statutory requirements for an in voluntary commitment to an inpatient psychiatric facility, we can refer those cases over to probate court for that commitment.

We are working on two pilot programs to try to address this population. We have a six month pilot program with the Board of Mental Health and Recovery Services and St. Charles Hospital to expedite these individuals that are incompetent and unrestorable with nonviolent offenses to go into treatment at St. Charles if they meet certain requirements. So we're in the third month of that program.

We've had three people go into inpatient care through that program. The board is paying for those bills for those hospital stays and we're going to evaluate this summer how effective that program is. We're also working on another program, a pilot project to have an incompetency working group to start to diagnose gaps in the system and barriers to treatment so that we're better coordinating as a system to address those cases. In addition, I wanted to give some updates on where we are on our diversion study. We launched with the help of the Harvard's Access to Justice Lab a study of our community diversion program.

That study launched on March 17. We have 57 people who were referred into their diversion program in the first month. And out of those 57 people, we've enrolled fifty six percent in the study. And those individuals are either completing the diversion itself or they're going into the control group and they're completing community service. So we hope to have some preliminary information after the first six months of how things are going in terms of the impact of the diversion program.

And then I just wanted to make you aware of two budget updates. The first is in regards to court security. We are anticipating a 14% increase in our court security bill this year. The contract with the sheriff's office and his labor was finalized in March through binding arbitration and that increase in wages will result in about a $300,000 unfunded obligation. We do believe we'll be able to move money around through salary savings to cover that this year, but we would anticipate having to address that in our next budget cycle.

In addition, we anticipate reapplying for our CCA grant. That's a state grant that we get. The current grant ends in July and we're hoping to replace that grant with a new funding cycle at at about $1,600,000 which is a very high level of funding given the size of our probation department in our community. And then we are also working on a help center. We're using the current assets we have that serve unrepresented litigants and folks who want to access court services but don't have the luxury of legal counsel.

We're working reorganize those resources under one department so that we can better serve the public and provide better access for the community in terms of the things they need to accomplish at municipal court. Things like expungements, driver's license, reinstatements, and the like. And then the final item I wanted to bring to your attention is you'll be seeing us again shortly in order to update chapter 2,134 of the Toledo Municipal Code. That chapter governs employment with the court. In 2023, we were focused on becoming the court employer of choice in Northwest Ohio.

We made a number of changes to our structure including alternative work schedules, a different approach for how we handle sick leave, and we need to update the Toledo Municipal Code reflect those changes that we've we've put into place. So you'll be seeing us again soon. Subject to your questions. That's all I have for you today.

Councilwoman Williams.

Thank you, chair. Just real quick, miss Faziano. So 56% of 70 of 57 are enrolled in a diversion program. Question. And can you give us a time frame? It started March 17 and it'll end?

So we have funding to do enrollment for three years.

Three

years. But we're trying to enroll at a faster pace than we need to do three years. So our hope is to do it in a year and a half. But we have to keep on pace with enrollment.

Okay, okay. The other question I had was Judge Wagner had a program that she wanted to start to help, dry people get their driver's license back. Do you have an update on that? I mean, I I can get it from her. I just thought about it as we were talking. You were talking about the things that you guys are doing to help. I know she wanted to start that and I wanted to see how that was going.

So I can speak to she does have a program where she is working not only in the community with different agencies that are getting ready to discharge individuals back into the community after treatment. She is working with those agencies to provide information and support to people about what they need to do in order to get their driver's license back so that they are reentering the community with a plan of how to become a properly licensed driver. She also holds a special docket where she's like focuses on that and brings people back. Because the process can be very overwhelming. So she will bring people back breaking the process into small pieces, incremental pieces for people and then having them come back and report in on how they're doing.

And she also worked last year to get cones at all the public libraries for people to check out so that throughout our community people have access to resources to help them prepare for the driving test. If you don't have those cones it's hard to get ready.

I definitely just wanted to get an update on that because I don't think many people I remember she did a press conference, but just wanted to see where she was at with it and what if she she's able to do it, but it sounds like she's doing well with this. So tell her I said thank you.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Miss Faljana, can you tell me what is the CCA grant?

That's the Community Corrections Act grant. It is through ODRC, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. And that money comes into the probation department. We use it to pay for a small portion of our staffing, as well as money for treatment and case management services for indigent individuals that are on probation.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. It's All Holly Bowman English. And let me get this right.

Thank you very much.

Executive chief deputy clerk Alex Huber.

That is very good. Thank you guys for letting us be here on today. Just to make a quick presentation to you. The last time I was here was for our budget hearing. And during that time there were some questions about our end of the year numbers and things of that sort.

So with the thanks to Alex, we have those here in our annual report and I thought that we would just go through that and see how we ended up and how we fared last year compared to the year before last. So with regard to our case filings, our civil case filings were up quite a bit, several thousand from 2023. Our criminal traffic case numbers were pretty static with the prior year, but overall we ended up 53,000 case filings compared to 50,000 the year before. As you would expect, our revenue collection was up as well due to the fact that the case filings were up in civil. A couple thousand.

I mean a couple million dollars more than I'm sorry, not thousand million than what we had the year before. Criminal traffic is pretty close to being static. And then the administrative fees are basically from a telephone sharing that we do with the judges division and CJCC and then CJCC pays us back for that. So that's what that administrative fee is there. Our revenue the then then disbursements were up based on the ir fact that we collected more money than we would have.

And then that page just shows a breakdown of where all of the money goes. A lot of times when people ask where does the money go, this is the breakdown of all the different places and all the different parts that the money goes into. On page five we have have our civil division. Revenue collected, our revenue dispersed, and then all of the different activities on cases that is done in the civil division. A lot of different things from cases being sealed, certificates of judgment, certificate of mail, certified mail issued.

We have disbursements, dismissals, executions, exemplified transcript judgments, garnishments. Is something that people hear a lot about. But that's a lot of different activities and a lot of different times that those files go across the desk of the individual clerks in the civil division. Same thing with our criminal traffic division. There's a breakdown showing how the revenue is dispersed.

As you are aware, the Toledo Municipal Courts jurisdiction is the city of Toledo, Ottawa Hills, as well as Washington Township. So we do receive traffic tickets and citations from all of those individual so federal we about and fees that come along with those cases the are in there. And then the final thing I want to talk to you about today is that we often talk about how much money is collected in Toledo Municipal Court, but there is a new house bill that is going to affect the way that we collect that revenue and how much we collect. On April 9, house bill 29 went into effect and it changed the way that we process our unpaid fines and costs. Prior to April 9, we would place a vehicle registration block on all cases that had past due fines and costs.

That vehicle registration block was able to keep a driver from renewing the tags on their car and their vehicles or keep them from getting a new license plate on a new vehicle. On April 9, we based on House Bill 29. We removed all vehicle registration blocks on all cases and will not put new vehicle registration blocks on cases. However, we will continue to send those cases to our collections. Service that we've had in effect since 2005.

This change in law will impact the amount of revenue that we collect in the criminal traffic division. However, at this time we are unable to tell you how big of an impact that would have. I will say that we are in a better position than a lot of other courts due to the fact that we already have the collections system in place and they will be very eager to continue collecting those. And that's all we have.

Councilwoman Williams.

Thank you. I have question, and you may not have the answer to this, but what happened with Washington Township? Why are we getting no money from them? It went down. It did. I mean, like a lot. They don't get tickets out there? It was 10 I mean, look at the numbers. It was 10/2023 and '24. It was 1,900. There's a problem there. I just I I just asked. I just wanna know. I'll have to ask chief and he left. But I I would definitely like to investigate that.

So I'll do a referral to the police department and asking, what happened with the tickets out in Washington Township? I need to know. That is very alarming to me. That's a big dip. Maybe if I saw 22, but I I need to know. So I'm gonna write a referral for that, not for you guys. I'll write it for a TPD. I'm asking what's what's that all about because that's the biggest dip I see on here. Yes. And and it's it's very well yeah that's the biggest dip I see on here. But oh other than restitution, we collected more restitution this year?

So we just started collecting the restitution last year and it was partial. Okay. So that's why the number was so much less. The restitution used to be collected by the probation department, but the clerk's office took over collecting restitution last year. And in that the judges made sure to make sure that when someone made a payment that restitution was the first thing that got paid. So that our victims of crime are getting their money a lot quicker. And they 're getting it paid in full before any other fines or fees or anything like that are are paid.

That's great. That's great. Well, thank you for this report. I appreciate this. Yeah, I'm a find out. Thank you.

Councilman Soransu.

Thank you, chairman Hobbs. Thank you for being here today. I want a couple of follow-up questions on the revenue collection, for 2024 was about $15,000,000. How much of that is is unpaid do you think?

We will have to take that as a referral and get back to you.

Okay. I mean, would you say it's more than 25% or

I have no idea.

Okay. Well, by way of referral. Sorry. How much is that? If it's unpaid in the past, we've been able to achieve a block on somebody renewing their license plates. What about their driver's license? Is that also just the license plates for the vehicle?

So you might answer.

If it's unpaid, it's only on their Okay. And that was only for fines and costs, not fees. Driver's license is if you have a warrant. And that still exists. Okay. But that has nothing to do with Right. With the money owed.

Okay. Do we know why the legislature adopted that new legislation? Was there a

There were sweeping driver's license changes in an effort to help people have their license and have their Vehicle. Have their vehicles. Okay. Right? So there were a lot of changes and this was one of and this is the one that affected us the most.

Okay. All right. Well hopefully it won't be a huge hit on collections. But as I recall, the collections efforts have been pretty successful over the years. So

Yes.

Okay. So hopefully that will continue. Hopefully, will continue. Alright. Thank you very much. Thank you, mister Thank

you so much for being here today. We appreciate you. Thank you.

Thank you. Next,

we're going to have the agencies that are dealing with the Ohio opioid settlement. And our first group that we're going to have up is neighborhood properties incorporated executive director Lynette Hair, whoever she wants to bring with her. And what this is, this portion is an opportunity for agencies, in the community that are dealing with the opioid epidemic and helping those that are with this, how they help either in housing or whatever way they may and to show how they're getting this and then how they plan to move forward with it so that other agencies can see so that we're not recreating the will, but also so that community, people in may also have an opportunity if they need to seek help for themselves or others, at least they know where to go. So thank you so much for being here today, miss Hare. Thank you.

Thank you for having me. For those of you that are familiar with organization, I am not the executive director Lynette Hare. My name is Alexandria Thomas Holland. I'm the director apologize. No. That's okay. That's okay. I I noticed that in the agenda, and I'm not sure if it was communicated that I'd be coming in her place. I am the Director of Community Relations and Development for Neighborhood Properties as well as the responsible party for the One Ohio Funds and grant work going forward. Since our found so I'm gonna provide some remarks.

I did not provide PowerPoint slides today because I was not sure if it was gonna be working. But I did make sure that everybody had a folder that had all of our information in it as well as my contact information should you all have any questions for me after today. But I did just wanna share a couple remarks about neighborhood properties and what we do. So thank you for the opportunity. Since our foundation in 1988, neighborhood properties also known as NPI has been a vital lifeline for some of our most vulnerable members of our community.

Born from a vision to provide permanent supportive housing to individuals experiencing mental illness and chronic homelessness, NPI has grown into one of Toledo's most trusted partners housing first solutions. Our mission is simple yet profound, to end homelessness and save lives of those we serve. This is not just a tagline. It's the heart of everything that we do. At NPI, we understand that housing is more than just a roof over someone's head.

It's a foundation to stability, recovery, and dignity. MPI levels leverages federal, state, local, public, private resources to manage 471 apartment units that are safe, affordable, and service enriched across Lucas County and your districts. We also have 212 subsidized adult care facility beds. Our properties are not only well maintained and thoughtfully integrated in your neighborhoods and districts, they also serve as models for how supportive housing and other diverse housing options can be both compassionate and dignified. Residents housed with us receive case management including critical time intervention models, certified peer support, expedited social security applications, supported employment, peer led recovery activities, social connection, and our newly found tenant association where we value the voices of our tenants and work together to ensure their needs are being met.

Nearly 70 people are employed with MPI with about forty percent of our staff identifying as having lived experience with mental illness, homelessness, or other traumatic situations. At MPI we don't just help people find a place to live, we help them find a place to grow. Every success story represent a per represents a person no longer living on the streets but instead thriving as a part of our community. But our work does not stop with housing. MPI proudly operates the county's path outreach team.

A vital service made possible through the funding from the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services with support from Scott Silek in the Mental Health and Recovery Services Board of Lucas County. PATH which stands for projects for assistance in transitioning from homelessness is on the front lines meeting people where they are in encampments, shelters, libraries, and other public and private spaces. Each year, our team engages nearly 300 individuals prioritizing their connection to mental health and treatment services as well as housing. MPI currently represents Lucas County in that statewide initiative. We also operate the wellness and recovery center known as the WRC and the Lucas County emotional support line.

Both nationally recognized components of the county's mental health crisis services continuum. Funded also by the Mental Health and Recovery Services Board of Lucas County, the WRC is the first of its kind program in the state of Ohio. It supports individuals experiencing emotional distress and helps them stay connected community while avoiding a crisis. This is staffed 20 fourseven residential facility by peer certified peer employees who have lived experience. The WRC is a welcoming, safe environment grounded in evidence based practices and a recovery first approach.

We're proud of our partnership with the One Ohio Foundation which supports our ongoing response to the opioid epidemic. Through this initiative we take necessary steps towards accountability for the thousands of lives lost in our community. We provide rental assistance and housing to individuals rebuilding their lives after addiction. With this funding, each resident would be provided with up to three years of income based rent subsidies. This is not just housing, it's healing.

We're deeply grateful for your continued support of Neighborhood Properties' mission. Whether it's through zoning that enables affordable housing in our community, funding partnerships, or simply your advocacy for the dignity of every Toledoan, your support truly matters. At a time when housing insecurity is rising and mental health needs are growing, let us continue to work together and support organizations community in our day to day work to build stronger, more compassionate Toledo. Thank you for your time, your leadership, and your commitment to a city where regardless of someone's past, income, or health, they belong. I'm happy to answer any questions at this time.

Councilwoman Williams.

Thank you. Thank you for being here. I do know that you are not miss Lynette. I'm not. Because I was looking for her. Sorry on the agenda and I didn't see her. But thank you for being here. Mhmm. I have a question. Do you know who is operating ArcLow? Who operates ArcLow?

Uh-huh. Yeah. We do have program staff there.

You do have program staff there?

Okay. We do. We have program staff at ArcLow and then we also have a community room for those tenants to participate in activities. And then ArcLow does because the land is the biggest that we have. It also houses our community gardens where our tenants can come and participate in recovery activity related to gardening.

If you guys are ever looking to acquire new property, I think Unison has some that they could probably buy Councilman Hobbs right on the corner of North Cove and Upton. So please, if you guys are looking for it, reach out to us because I'm sure

we do have a property on North Cove, actually.

You do? We do. You want another one? Anyway, thank you for all I know you neighborhood neighborhood properties has always been a a good partner with anybody that they partner with because just the just the program that you had out at Arklow that I actually am very familiar with was the one that I definitely look to for assistance for my kids at the high school. I appreciate what you guys do and how you do it. You guys still operate out have some places out on off of Lexus. Is it Lasky? We do. Lasky. Yep. Yeah. So we

house single mothers and their children off of Lexus and then Burn in Arlington. And then our young adults is at Arclow. Yep. Yep. Yep. That Arclow. 1 Arclow Drive.

At Arclow, boy. It was Yeah. Whoo. It was a trip, but it was had some good services out there. But I couldn't imagine it was just my kids leaving school to go to school again. Right. But I know we have a police officer that actually used to work for you out there. Yes.

Tina I miss her very much.

Tina Jones. I know you do. I just wanna thank you for all the work that you guys do. And tell miss Linnett we missed her here.

I will. Thank you so much. My

question is the money that has been come from Ohio one Ohio opioid, the settlement, is it just for this year? Or is it given this amount given to you for three years or

It is a three year grant.

Okay.

So it will allow us to provide rental assistance assuming somebody has zero income. It's it is income based and so that number could change based on what income somebody may already have. 30% of their income goes to their rent. But if they have no income then we provide that full rental assistance subsidy for the time that they need to then establish income.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And again, I apologize.

No, that's Thank you

so much for being here today. I appreciate you.

Sure.

Thank you. Thank you. And hopefully, I'll get this right, Ohio GuideStone president and CEO, Brant Russell.

Good

afternoon. Thank you all for being here today. Hit that button and you can pull it closer to you.

Good afternoon, councilman Hobbs. Unfortunately, we're the same story as the one before. Brandt Russell, our CEO and president was not able to join us today. So, I am representing Brandt. My name is Joanna Gioia. I'm the Vice President of Operations for the Northwest area. So, with me I have my very wonderful team here, Victoria Graham who is our regional director. And Marvin Houston who is our assistant director of our operations.

What was your first name again?

Joanna Joya.

Joanna. Joanna. And?

Victoria Gray.

Victoria. And Marvin? Marvin Houston. Got it. Thank

you. So

we are here today to talk about Ohio Guide Stone. We are a very large social services behavioral health organization in the state of Ohio. We serve over 40 counties in the state. Every year we serve upwards of 24,000 individuals. A piece of history for our presence here in the city of Toledo is that several years ago, approximately seven years ago there was an organization in the community that was known as a renewed mind that came to us.

A renewed mind. That came to our organization because they were struggling to financially and operationally continue. We were at the opportunity point with a renewed mind that our missions aligned very began a merger acquisition effort at that time and made a full acquisition of a renewed mind. So we were happy to be able to take over all of the programs, the services, and the staff from that agency and wrap them into the Ohio Guidestone operations that we have. Our continuum in the state of Ohio goes all the way from prevention efforts and workforce development to treatment services, working in the communities, the home, schools, office based services, as well as telehealth of course.

That kind of came through with COVID for provide a lot of psychiatry services, intensive treatment options, group services, and also have residential for youth and adults throughout our organization. Today we are here to talk specifically about Toledo. And I'm going to pass it over to Victoria and Marvin to be able to share with you the work that is done locally in this area and specifically the efforts of the One Ohio grant.

Hello I'm Victoria. So I'm our local director here. So we are located just right up the street, it was very convenient for us today. So we could walk here. So this is our building here on Adams Street and that's where our outpatient services are. And so I wanted to just briefly talk about some of our services that we have because individuals in our recovery house will come to these services. They may also go to services elsewhere. They're not required to come to our services, but a lot of people do. So we have pretty traditional services, counseling, case management, assessment. We also offer a mental health group specific on emotional regulation.

And then for substance use treatment we have all kinds of group services. So up to very intensive, down to aftercare. We have a group that focuses on criminal thinking, things that can lead you back to substance use. We do have psychiatry services for ages six and up. As well as medication assisted treatment. So we do all medication assisted treatment, but we do not offer methadone. So that would be Zaf locally that offers that. We have parenting support through nurturing parenting program. And then we also have our early childhood program which really focuses on children ages five and under. And working with the children and their parents to try and provide that support and early intervention.

And then we have services in the schools as well. We have some specialty services that are very exciting and near and dear to us. So we have our Ready Care clinics and that is a basically walk in service. Whatever my need might be, I walk in I'm able to see whoever I want to see. Do I want to see a counselor, case manager, somebody for a medication evaluation? On Tuesdays and Thursdays at our Adams Street location we do that. Basically no wrong door come in and link you either with us or someone else. We have our dialectical behavior therapy program which is a fidelity program that really works on difficult to treat problems. Most notably it works with suicidal behaviors. And so it's an evidence based program for that.

And we know in the state of Ohio and nationally we're continuing to see suicide rates increase. So that's a program we're very proud of. We have our double arc center for FASD which is focused on fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. So anybody that was exposed to alcohol. We are one of three diagnostic clinics in the state of Ohio.

And then our project link which provides medication assisted treatment and treatment linkage for individuals when they're incarcerated in the Lucas County Jail or the correctional treatment facility. And our expressive arts program which is basically just any kind of creative expression paired with traditional psychotherapy. So specifically in Lucas County we served seventeen thirty four Lucas County residents last year. And those were treated for mental health, fifteen oh three were for mental health. Two thirty one were for substance use only.

But we see more than half, closer to about seventy five percent that are dual diagnosis. Meaning that both mental health and substance use. And so somebody might be treated in both programs. So we only had two thirty one that were just substance use that we were seeing. And we served a little over 1,000 adults and seven twenty three youth. So next I'm going to turn it over to Marvin Houston to talk about our recovery housing.

So again, I'm Marvin Houston. As you can see this is our recovery house. The renewal house is located right in East Toledo, so really local. From the pictures you can tell it's set up like a a home. Right? So we don't want individuals to come in and feel like they're staying in a facility. So we really strive to create that home like environment. A little bit about the Renewal House. It opened in 2015. So I've been with the agency since 2016. I've always had some involvement with our recovery house. But for the last five years, it's been one of my direct programs. So we're certified through Ohio recovery housing at the level two recovery house. So the residents are monitored. We have house rules.

We have staff daily that check-in and support all of our residents. We provide housing for up to 10 adult males. So again, a it's smaller environment to create that home like feel. Our length of stay is resident driven, which means that the residents are gonna determine how long they're gonna be there. It's not set for a specific amount of time.

Our average stay is around one hundred and twenty days, but some of the longer stays we've seen seventeen months to fourteen months. Each resident in our recovery house receives an individual recovery plan. So the plan is truly based on where they are when they come in, what they want to accomplish as far as setting their goals. Each resident is at a different place when they come in, so we really wanna meet their individual needs. So a little bit about the clients we serve.

We receive referrals from a number of places, including self referrals. Some are referred from other community agencies, outpatient, inpatient, the criminal justice system, including courts, probation, local jails, parole. In 2024, we served 35 individuals. And at move in of those 35 individuals, 31 had no income, is 89%. And then 22 had some legal involvement, which is about 63%.

So again, our goal is to really help support our residents to achieve whatever their goals are, work on their recovery plan which leads to better outcomes. So as we talk about outcomes, I'm gonna turn it back to Victoria to talk about our measurement based care.

So our measurement based care really brings us to why we're here today. And so one of the things that I love about organization is that we're always getting feedback from our clients and the community of what's missing and what do we need to work on. And so we do all types of different measures to see what are gaps that we may have in treatment. Specific to the renewal house we use the Ohio recovery surveys to gather all kinds of data. Which really led us to knowing the need that we have for recovery supports. So I am a data person so I had to bring in some stats. But I know you guys know this probably better than everybody. In Lucas County we have high overdose rates and it is higher than other places in the state of Ohio and Ohio is larger than the country. And so we know it is a really big concern. And we know recovery housing helps.

So there is so many outcomes that come from recovery housing. We know that that is a huge part of substance use recovery plan. And we know that it is a service that isn't always available and that's so necessary. And then we know with individuals coming into recovery housing they don't always have the same resources as everybody. So some recent data that we saw was fifty percent of individuals have no income. As we said, we see more than that in our recovery house. Which led us to say what funding can we do to support our residents that are coming in? How can we leverage our resources to be able to give them support? Which leads to where we came in today. And so I'm going to have Marvin talk about our recovery journey that let us know this is something that our residents need and this is why we need this funding.

So again coming in, every resident comes in different. But residents are often going to need assistance with scheduling and attending appointments. So we talked about 63% of the residents that we see being involved in the criminal justice system. They have appointments with their probation officers and their parole officers that are out in community. Life doesn't stop for them just because they're on the recovery path. So they're trying to gain employment, so they need assistance with getting to job interviews. And once they get that job, how are they gonna get there? Linkage to medical care. Some of the individuals come in, they haven't seen a primary care physician or routine, just dental work in years. So we're trying to connect them to those, and they have to be able to make those appointments.

We wanna connect them to sober supports within the community, other natural supports. So again, having a means of transportation there. And then they're all in treatment services, so being able to get to and from treatment. And up to next slide. How this ties into the One Ohio award that we received is using it for rent and transportation assistance for our residents.

So historically, when we have individuals that come in and they again, which was 89% that did not have an income, we would offer them a sixty day scholarship just to be able to kind of adjust to the recovery house, get acclimated in treatment, and really start to address their needs. When we do that, we just honestly take that loss. Right? So we're not recouping that. No one's covering the cost of that scholarship, but we do it because we believe in the work that we do. We believe in the recovery process. And that's part of our mission. Transportation. Again, we so just talked about all of the areas and all of the things that these individuals still have to make it to. We provide transportation assistance to our treatment services.

And then our staff, we try to help them again getting started. Again, with their 10 individuals and trying to balance their schedules and support all of them right, that can become a challenge. And we also really want to promote the individuals being self sufficient and being able to do it themselves versus just relying on us. So how One Ohio helps is it will provide support to residents for up to thirty six months. And then due to having the support, residents will have time to be able to focus on their recovery before focusing on obtaining income and having to pay rent or figuring out how they're gonna make it to their appointments or their first day at work.

The the support allows for residents to build their recovery capital, obtain income, and learn skills to budget to meet their needs basically, what that means is while they're receiving the the assistance through the One Ohio grant, we'll be working with them on becoming self sufficient and independent and being able to meet their own needs. So that's about our recovery house, the recovery journey in One Ohio grant. I'm gonna pass it back to Victoria to conclude us and talk about access to our organization and services and answer any questions you'll have.

So this is just some information if anyone wanted to learn more about us or our programming, our website is the best way. Also how to refer somebody to us because we always want to make sure people get into our services. And then we just like to always touch base on our accreditations and partnerships. We do receive support from the Lucas County Services Board, which we're very proud of and allows us to give some extra support to our residents. So it helps fund some of our recovery housing, but then also our services for anybody income based. And then any questions anybody has?

Thank you. Councilwoman Williams.

Thank you. I'll give the same offer as I did MPI. There's a property on North Cove and Upton. Maybe a for sale in a little bit. Just letting you know.

Just real quick, it's a full circle moment for me because if you guys don't know, the building that you got these guys are in is actually the building that the school was in that I worked at, and, I actually helped them get their special use permit to operate. I had to advocate with city council to pass the special use permit. It was voted 10 to two ten to two. So as I sit here and listen to you guys and how how your services has expanded, I'm very honored and privileged to have been a part of it. But the recovery house is something new. How long have you guys had the recovery house again? Since 2015. 2015. Mhmm. And you just have the one.

Correct? Okay. And that's what you got the one Ohio grant for. Right? Right. This is amazing. I, I I knew you guys did recovery services, but I didn't know to this extent. And to see that you have, the operations and really been doing this, I'm so glad that you guys were able to partner with the Renewed Mind to take over that space and that program. I want to go back to your walk in days. Do you guys have medical doctors there on Tuesdays

and Thursday, right? And do they only do the medicine compliance or aren't they coming in to see like a family physician? Yeah so it would be that they're getting an evaluation for mental health or medication assisted treatment. Now that being said, they are all able to provide that component as well so they have medical training. And so we have partnerships already established to say okay, you're going go to the health department for this. A lot of things that we're talking about is, so maybe someone is coming in that has been using substances. Have you ever been screened for hepatitis C, for AIDS, or if you are using, do you know about safe syringe services, things like that. So they are doing that assessment, they do the full medical assessment on them, but they wouldn't be necessarily treating that. They would be referring to another provider for ongoing care.

Okay. Well I thank you for your partnerships there, and it's good to see you guys thriving and growing in in that space. I appreciate all your assistance, and congratulations on the grant. And don't forget about that property on North Cove. If I'm just saying, me and councilman Hobbs are somebody gotta take it.

And thank you for your advocacy so that, we can provide the services that we do.

The only question I have is you talked about only help recovery, and it starts at the age of six. Is this psychiatric help treatment, is it all medicine? Or what does that all include? And what does that look like if you have a six year old? What does that look like?

I'll take that because that talks a little bit about the early childhood mental health population. Our philosophy of early childhood is very conservative in the psychiatric approach. We believe that a client of that age needs to be working in treatment services for extensive period of time before we go for a psychiatric evaluation. Our psychiatrists are able to provide a prescription for psychiatric medication for a child as young as six. But that is not a very frequent service that is given to a child that young.

Thank you. I of course that is not my degree. But often times, it seems like the first time when a child is struggling in any way, it's always, you know, put them on medicine. And then they're marked by that for the rest of their lives versus, of course you can't give kids today the medicine my mom used to give me when I was acting out.

Think it's really important that it's an integrated approach, right? So while a parent or a guardian might want to have a psychiatric evaluation completed or a medication review, it doesn't mean that everybody walks out of that office with a prescription. So part of it is education in the session as well. And some kids do need medication, some kids don't. So, that's where it's important to have a treatment team approach.

Well, thank you because I'm just one for was a substitute teacher for many years. And I just it was many times just so very easy to see children that were on medicine, because they just seemed to be in a state not responsive, just kinda I don't know if it's appropriate to say zombie, but they were it was just like in almost a zombie state. And so thank you for being patient and trying to work with our children to help them whatever whatever you can do. I just I just hate seeing kids stuck on medicine immediately. It just seems to be zombie the quick easy answer nowadays.

Just let's get them on Ritalin or something. Thank you. Thank you for being here today. Thank you so much.

I can't help but plug if you would ever like us to speak on all of the other options we could offer instead of medicine.

We would

be happy to talk to anyone about that because we have lots of thoughts.

Thank you. Thank you.

I was just gonna tell you I think our moms might have used the same medicine.

Alright. Thank you so much Ohio Guide Stone.

Thank you.

Thank you, miss miss miss Joanna, miss Victoria, and mister Marvin. Thank you. And last but not least, the Ohio Recovery Housing. I'm not gonna say the name because I've been wrong twice. So I'll wait to see who's coming, and then I will properly address.

But I am so thankful that neighborhood properties in Ohio GuideStone came today. And one of the things people have asked us is why do you have different agencies come in at the same time? Because I think one, to hear what other agencies may actually do versus guessing. Agency specializes in housing, another one specializes in so we don't have to, again, reinvent the wheel. But hopefully, we are not selfish enough to because of our business or agency not to depend on each other.

And, that's one of the things that's meant a lot to councilwoman Williams and I around these issues. We both have had in our families and friends, personal neighborhood, people that have had these experiences, and this is extremely important to us. So, I'm so thankful to have her as a, co chair on this and, that we are trying to come up with healthy, answers. And I'm thankful for this one o high opioid settlement that will help so many. So from, the Ohio recovery housing, who do I have with me today?

Miss Danielle Gray. Hit that button. You, miss I'm Danielle Gray sorry. For being here today. Thank you.

Okay. Yes. But thank you so much for inviting me to be here today. So I am Danielle Gray, I serve as the executive director of Ohio Recovery Housing. What we are most known for is our certification program, which is one of the credentials that is recognized by the state of Ohio as one of the required credentials in order to operate recovery housing in the state of Ohio.

But we do many other things as well. Like our friends from Ohio Guidestone stated, we collect data on outcomes. We offer those free tools for recovery housing operators. So it definitely made my heart sing a little bit when I heard how helpful that data outcomes tool was for Ohio GuideStone and I'm sure it is for others throughout the state of Ohio. We also do a lot of education training and technical assistance.

And one of the ways we are expanding our education, training, technical assistance in the Region 4 of the One Ohio funds in the Greater Toledo area is through our program that we call Peer to Professional, guiding house managers to excellence. And so we received a grant, from Region 4 from the One Ohio Foundation, to support the training of up to 75 house managers over the next three years, specifically within Region 4, which includes Lucas County and the city of Toledo. House managers are the backbone of recovery homes. They provide guidance structure and critical support for individuals recovering from substance use disorders. Yet despite their importance, there's no standardized training that equips them with the tools they need to be successful in their jobs.

And this gap contributes to high turnover, inconsistent services and ultimately poor outcomes for residents. And so this grant will help us address that gap. With the funds we'll provide a structured evidence informed training series that will include self paced online learning modules, six interactive live webinar sessions per cohort, real world exercises, case studies and group projects, and ongoing mentorship and support that will be available after training completion. This isn't theory. It is something that we have done before.

We have already trained 183 house managers through a similar program in the past. Participants have rated our training 4.7 out of five on relevance, satisfaction, usefulness in their jobs. So now thanks to this grant, we can bring that same high impact programming to house managers in Toledo and the surrounding region. Lucas County is currently meeting only 11% of the need for level two recovery housing. And without trained staff, operators can't expand and sustain these homes.

Meanwhile, higher level support homes get backlogged forcing residents to stay longer than needed at higher levels of support because the next step in their recovery journey simply isn't available. And so this program helps address those workforce needs to help homes expand at lower levels of support so that way we can address the gap recovery housing in Lucas County. And so by training 75 house managers, we estimate that at least 168 residents will benefit directly from improved recovery housing services, but the ripple effect will be far greater, stronger homes leading to better recovery outcomes, increased employment, more stable housing, and reduced strain on city services. At ORH, we also believe in sustainability. We do have a three year grant but we are very hopeful that after the grant ends we can integrate this training into our ongoing services through contracts with state partners or provide it for a sliding fee scale.

Our goal is not just to run a program but to build infrastructure that helps Toledo residents thrive. So in closing, this represents more than just funding. It's an investment in Toledo's workforce and future and we are grateful for continued support and the opportunity to partner in developing the Toledo and Lucas County Recovery Workforce. So thank you, and I am happy to answer any questions you have.

Councilwoman Williams.

Of course. I'm a ask all questions. The thank you for being here. I appreciate you actually doing the training. Does the state right now currently require this cert certification in order to open a recovery house? The current law, it

just went into effect January 1, is that recovery homes must be appropriately credentialed. And right now there are three ways to be considered appropriately There's certified by high recovery housing, chartered through Oxford House, or if they've obtained CARF accreditation for community living prior to 01/01/2020 the Department of Mental Health and Injunction Services also accepts that. If you're opening a new recovery home, by the day the first resident moves in, you need to be at least in the application process to earning the appropriate credential. And you have eighteen months to actually earn the appropriate credential.

Okay. So they do require it. You can get it at any point. Yes. But you have to have it in order to function after so many days. They come in and say, hey, you don't have the right credentials and you got shut down? Or what how does that look?

If somebody is operating without the appropriate credential and again they're not new, they're not active in the process after eighteen months, What happens is the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Injection Services can report that to the Ohio Attorney General, and the Ohio Attorney General can seek an injunction to shut the business down.

Well, thank you for your work, and congratulations on receiving that grant. I know that in this work is you definitely don't get patted on the back, but getting some money in there to help more people is the reward that is worth taking. So thank you so much, and congratulations.

Thank you.

Miss Gray, could you give me two things? One, one is any you said you do certifications or you teach the certifications?

Yes. We do provide a certification.

Okay. So what example what's an example of a certification that you provide?

We provide certification

Is that to the client or to

someone that It wants to get in the is for the business. So it is for the recovery home. So for example, the recovery housing program offered by Ohio Guidestone is certified with us. So they fill out an application, they go through our process and if they meet all of our measures, we will you know, they can say that they are certified by Ohio Recovery Housing for that recovery housing property. And then we also provide lots of training, education and resources to help people meet our measures and our standards. Because again, it is our goal to have high quality recovery homes and to have people be able to achieve that. So we not only provide but all the resources and tools that they would need to be able to meet that certification.

Secondly, you said that there is no training. You said the most important person is the housing manager, but there's no training for the housing manager. So there's a high turnover. So how do you get the state or how do you get the county or someone to require training for me coming to dealing with different individuals and what they may be experiencing. How do we get training, proper training?

Yes, that is a good question. And I think it's a larger workforce issue that we're experiencing in this field is having enough people who have, you know, appropriate training. And then when they are, you know, faced with issues that they might face in a recovery home, you know, they have that appropriate training and they, you know, know how to respond. And so for us, that's why we applied for these funds and we're thrilled to be awarded the funds. So that way we can offer that training.

And it is completely free of charge to the individuals who can take the training. And then we hope as we've provided the training, we're going to collect outcomes, we're going to collect data, and then hopefully be able to integrate that into either our certification program or into other programs so we can continuously offer that training either at a very low cost or for free for operators. So that there's very little barriers to having them get their staff the training that they need.

Thank you. Well, thank you, miss Gray, for, again, as councilwoman Williams has said, for being awarded in the use that you're going to do. We need this in our community. Please keep up the the great work that you are doing. Ohio GuideStone neighborhood properties, please keep up this work. As I always say, scripturally, the Bible teaches us don't get weary in well doing, for in due season, you will reap if you faint not. And so we need you to please continue these services. We're really suffering, and, I think that what you're doing is just amazing, and that's why I think it's important that you come here and talk to us. We need you. I need you.

Thank you. You. Thank you. Was there any, mister I think we have one from the public. Mister Arnold is here. Mister Richard Arnold. Thank you. Thank you, miss Gray.

Richard Arnold, thank you for the opportunity to speak. There is a local program that's due for elimination and I'm very worried about it. This is the mobile response stabilization services currently provided by ZEP Center. This has been around for about since 1987. Back then it was run by Rescue Crisis. It was a twenty four hour program. And if someone was having a psychotic episode at 03:00 in the morning, they had a van that went out with specialists that would evaluate them and if necessary transport them to a facility. Our rescue closed abruptly four years ago. ZEF has been running it since that time. They received $367,000 from the mental health and recovery services board.

That is due to be eliminated on July 1. I've asked. I'm told the state will be taking this over. We will be having some sort they've issued an RFP. There will be some sort of regional crisis stabilization services offered by the state. I do not know the time frame and I do not know the area that they're looking at. I know there are 21 counties in Northwest Ohio, but I'm told the state will be taking us over. And that worries me a lot. So my question for the safety committee, what is this going to mean to local law enforcement and first responders? Will this increase the workload of TPD?

And will this mean that we will see more police officers involved in transporting a mentally disabled person to a treatment facility? But my understanding is come July 1, this is discontinued and at some point in the future the state will come in and give us another service. So I'm trying to find out more on that.

What did you say this was called, Mr. Honore?

This is called Mobile Response Stabilization Services. It's been around for more than thirty five years and Lucas County residents do depend on it, especially in the middle of the night when all agencies are closed. It's due to be eliminated on July 1. Zeph Center is not going to appeal this. It's one of about 20 programs that are due for elimination by the Mental Health Services Board. They're making their cuts right now. They'll announce their final I believe in May they'll announce their final allocations. But I'm very concerned what is this going to mean for local first responders.

Thank you. Thank you.

Miss

Joanne, I'm I'm back at my list. I'm going. I got it right here.

So, actually, yesterday, there was a press conference and there was an announcement. So MRSS is not going to go away in any of the communities. The governor is dedicated to having MRSS in every single county. So there is going to be some shift in the community, but the providers were awarded and announced yesterday. And in this area, I do understand that the provider was chosen as unison.

Could could could miss Joanna, could you please could we please have an email on that? Either if you send it to miss Andrea, she'll send it to all of council. And I wanna make sure then once we get it, Andrea, please make sure we get one from mister Arnold a copy of that so he can have that information.

Sure. There's a map that shows each of the providers throughout the state of Ohio of who it's awarded.

Yes. If we could have that, please. We'd really appreciate it. Thank you, miss Joanna. Yep. See? Teamwork make the dream

work. Alright.

And it's unison. And it's unison. Alright. Alright. If that'd be all, thank you, councilman Sorantu.

Thank you, councilwoman McPherson. Thank you, councilwoman Williams, miss Paula, miss Andrea, to everyone that is here today. This is really important. And, hopefully, we will get one thing that I get irritated about and I don't hide is that when things happen in our community, everybody wanna rah rah rah, want their five minutes on YouTube creating a live and yelling and screaming. When we can come in and talk about these things and try to have preventative measures now, no one shows up.

So that's just my soapbox moment. I think these are opportunities to address issues in our community now so that we can and I'm for councilwoman Williams who is so we have had some long conversations about these issues, and I am I so appreciate her dedication. If that be all, this meeting is adjourned.

I'm telling you that.

Come on. Put your shit. That message.

What is your question? Yeah.

Just your Social Security number, stuff like that.

You don't want mine?

So,

I always ask this one first. What's going? What are we doing here today? Or what did we just do?

Today, our councilwoman Williams and I are dedicated to making sure that the especially the mental health issues in our community some of them being the drug issues that our our constituents are also dealing with and we want to make sure especially for the one that it is going towards agencies that are then being transparent with their use of how these funds will

be distributed in And were there any, was there anything unexpected at today's meeting or anything you weren't expecting to hear or surprised by?

I was surprised by how much money that was poured back into this community from the opioid epidemic that's taken over so far. So, to see the settlement be used by real organizations doing the work for the to fight this epidemic is great. Mhmm. Sorry

if I'm jumping back and forth, but the we we had a lot of different organizations here today, not just place in fire, but, like you said, the mental health. So it's important to have all those, I guess, one spot during conversation together.

One thing that councilwoman Williams and I have constantly talked about, and we think it's important is that these other agencies have an opportunity to hear what each other is doing. One, so that we're not reinventing the wheel but the other thing is is that you can't be the best at everything and so if you lack in a particular area, you hear what other agencies are doing which then you can come along and strengthen them or they can help you be better because our number one goal is to better Toledo and our constituents.

With the police, one thing that jumped on me was 30 people having been shot or however they phrase it, is down 30%.

Oh, yes.

I mean, I I was surprised by how drastic.

Well, violence across the country is down. In the of Toledo, the Toledo Police Department is doing a lot of work along with the Massey office, the mayor's office for neighborhood safety and engagement. But the police department with their team operations, their quality of life meetings with the community. They are doing an amazing job, and we appreciate them.

I think you covered most of what I wanted to say, but

Thank you.

Yeah. Is there any wrap up or any last thing you wanted to say?

No. Thank you for coming.

Thank you very much.

Where does Sandra go?

She was out. We're like a shot.