Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶

Please.

Vice Chair Coleman? Here. Johnson? Here. Jost? Here. Kim? Here. Naker?

Here.

Yang?

Here.

Chair Bui?

Here.

There are seven members present, zero absent.

Wonderful, so today's Public Safety Committee, we have two agenda items here, and I just want to just offer introductions as we go into our discussion, particularly that's focused on what's happening, or what's happened after the Pig's Eye encampment closure, and most importantly, what we have learned from it, what are next steps, what have we done well, what do we need to work towards, And just for our audience out there and for people who are just now joining us for the first time today on this topic, last month we had an opportunity to do a review of the encampment closure. We had a presentation by Assistant Mayor Cedric Baker and also the County Manager Lynn Becker. And in this Public Safety Committee we have with us Assistant Mayor Cedric Baker as well. We also invited police and fire. Thank you so much, fire, for being here. They are not going to be part of the presentation, but if any of us have questions that's related to fire, they are gladly here to answer that. I also want to recognize that we have some representatives from Catholic Charities here as well. They're going to be the second agenda item. And hopefully, we got everyone. Also, just for a heads up, County Manager Becker had initially agreed to attend and present, but she has a budget meeting that she has to tend to. So she will not be here, but she has committed already, or if not, in writing, giving a report on any specifics that people may have. So we're going to go straight into our agenda item so we can make the best use of time. We have here the first agenda item. Peer, if you mind reading it.

Now reading into the record, item number 1, SR26-177, post-encampment closure response.

Assistant Mayor Baker.

Thank you, Chair Bui. Members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to come back before you and provide you information about the Pig's Eye encampment closure, what happened, as you said. The impact of that and then next steps. So with that, just because I know there's a lot to cover in a short amount of time to do it. This is my suggested agenda for today during my time. A brief background and just kind of how we got here. Very brief in the planning process. I want to talk a little bit about the actual encampment closure and the report out of what happened. The impact of that encampment closure. I want to, for item number four, it's called aligning on the facts, but there's just some misinformation at times that I want to make sure that we just provide information or some questions that are out there that I feel like should be spoken directly to. Talk a little bit about Randolph encampment based on a larger migration of individuals to that encampment. And then next steps.

And, Assistant Mayor Baker, before you go, I just want to also just let my colleagues know, if you see us pausing, frequently asking questions, or even if we ask you to speed up and move forward, just understand that we just received this, so we haven't had an opportunity to actually review this presentation. I would say, moving forward, I want to establish a consistent expectation that we get our materials way ahead of time, just so we can get to the niche in terms of what we want to actually review.

Chair Buitt, thank you for that. We'll do our best to provide you information. I will just say that based on this type of information, we cannot always promise to have that information. um days and days in advance there's been a lot of actually coordination to even get the information that i have right now so i want to make sure that i'm giving you as much information accurate information updated information but to do that i'm going to need time so based on the request my i will do we will do our best to make sure that we're giving you the information you need thank you just ask for a little grace

And if we can, if you don't mind too, if we could just start with the report out, because I think we already, this is the body in terms of already familiar with the background.

All right, we can do that. So when it comes to the report out, so we're moving on. Within the Pigs Eye Park encampment closure, it commenced on August the 5th, which was a Wednesday. It was officially completed on August 7th. The reason that I put that in there is because between August 5th and August 7th, we still had individuals that were on site. And this is also important is because we tried to highlight earlier on that it was going to be somewhat of a slow and steady process. We wanted to respect the individuals that were out there, understanding that they were making decisions and choices and to support them in that transition. We had an estimated 45 to 50 people from staff's count that were still at the encampment the morning of the encampment. So leading up into August 5th and that closure, we had that estimated amount of people still living at the encampment or on site at the encampment. It was a coordinated effort between our St. Paul Fire Department, Police Department, Emergency Management, Public Works, Safety and Inspections and our Office of Neighborhood Safety to support the closure on-site. Really, really strong partnership with all of those departments. In particular, we had around our outreach staff, support staff, our ONS's familiar faces, CARES unit from FIRE, and then our DSI's HEART team as well. And those individuals in particular were there to support individuals to move their belongings, to transport them to shelter if they needed it, and to take things to storage. I also want to say thank you because what ended up happening was we had a lot of community members and advocates that actually supported in that transition for individuals living in the encampment, move their belongings, and transport them off of the site. When it comes to Ramsey County, they play an important role and part, and we are really grateful for their partnership. As you remember, we coordinated a team of individuals, our teams, but also their teams were there earlier in the slide that we passed through. I just wanted to highlight that we had financial assistance, housing stability, public health, social services, and probations on site Monday through Friday from Ramsey County. And so with that, they made more than 5,000 individual contacts with people living in the encampment. They deployed more than 90 county employees from multiple departments. This is either externally on site or internally supporting them. to support this effort. They invested more than $1.1 million in emergency shelter and intensive case management. And then they also provided more than $33,500 in outreach supplies. Thank you, Assistant Mayor Baker.

I have a question from Council President Baker. Thank you, Chair. Assistant Mayor Baker, this $1.1 million in investment, I assume that is over and above the city's investment that the county accepted.

That is true. That is correct. So, Chair Bowie, Council Member Naker, yes. This is in addition to the $1.1 million that we sent over, transferred over to the county. If you remember that, just to delineate just for you all and the public, it was about $200,000 for a contract between Ramsey County and Catholic Charities, and then a little over $800,000 for additional shelter, emergency shelter services, beds. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, I'm trying to speak through this. Just more on the report out. We just wanted to also highlight our team and HART staff members that they had 450 touch points as well. This includes two housing referrals. And the thing that I really wanted to highlight here is how they define touch points. So Ramsey County and the city define touch points a little bit differently. For us, it shows it here. I don't want to go into detail so you can see how they define touch points. As we move forward, we had no major concerns when it comes to individuals living in the encampment. So our overall interactions with Those living in the encampments were extremely respectful and productive. So we just want to highlight that that is what happened. What also happened is we had multiple concerns and issues when it came to certain activists on site blocking access in and out of the encampment. We had our staff members being harassed, shoved, spat at. We even had nails and spikes in the encampment to puncture tires, staff's tires, or harm those that are walking in the encampment. So one of the reasons that I bring this up is because I think city council should understand what was actually happening and going on during the encampment closure. And as much as we had really, really strong support and strong partnership from a lot of the advocates that were there, we also had activists that were there. And it was very, very hard to work around. We did, but it was extremely hard to work around that. When it comes to the closure impact, and I think that this is important to know around the emergency shelter utilization, we, and this is based on, the reason that this is broken out is because some information we can get through the HMIS system, and then there are certain service providers that are not a part of that system. So we know through the system that there are a total of seven people that were living in the encampment that have utilized the available shelter beds since the encampment closure. These are unique points. So this is not consistently always every night going to the same place, but at least some point in time between now and the encampment closure, we had seven people that we can track from the HMIS system. And then... We had another four from UGM. When it comes to the wraparound services, and this is, again, impact of the closure, the city and Ramsey County had a list of the individuals at the encampment. They worked on that list and worked off of that list to support individuals living in that encampment, to get them into housing, support them with emergency shelter, but also to try to ensure that we were thinking about their overall needs. And so this just highlights that, based on that list, that 28 individuals were identified who had active housing referrals within the past 30 days. And then updates are continually coming in different service providers. And I also wanted to highlight that Ramsey County has initiated a group of service providers and community partners to support more intensive wraparound services and individual action plans for many individuals in the encampment. to provide a little bit more insight into this. It's going on the list, service providers, the city and the county coming together weekly, meeting and talking about each individual and trying our best to support them to get into housing or get the services that they need. So it is very focused and intentional in the support.

Assistant Mayor Baker, I just have a question around the service providers. Can you share what is the number in terms of how many service providers and part of those weekly check-ins? Are there opportunities to expand those service providers?

I will. I got this information from Ramsey County. So I can get that for you and provide information. So follow back up. Thank you.

And I pause real quick. We have a question from Council Member Kim.

I just have a question around the folks that have utilized available shelter beds. So the seven are not consistently showing up to the same shelter, but they're sort of moving around.

Is that what you? I would say that they're showing between. So we've had a few weeks in time frames. So Council Member Kim, to your point, They are showing up, but they could be showing up, say, take for instance, it's Catholic Charities. They may not show up every night, but they are still showing up to Catholic Charities. Maybe it's one time this week. Maybe it's three times this week. But it's generally to the same shelter. It's just not consistently every night.

OK. I'm wondering, and maybe this is further along, but again, we didn't have a chance to look at it. So forgive me if it's later on in this presentation. I'm wondering how some of our partners that provide shelter services, wraparound services, recovery services, mental health services, how they see this data point and whether or not they would define sort of this closure impact as a success.

I think that a lot of people had different definitions of success when it came to this closure process. So I cannot speak to that on how they would respond to success of this. But I will say for the city, one of the slides that we passed through is And I want to highlight that the whole reason we went forward in doing this is because it was a safety and health concern. So for us, that is what we were tackling for the city. But also, we wanted to make sure that this transition did not cause further harm when it comes to interactions with our police and fire departments. And so I feel like different people have different definitions of success. I can't speak to what they would say, but I would say for us, we would have wanted more individuals to be in shelter space. That is one of the reasons why we brought it before you to move in that direction. That did not happen. So we do not believe that that was a success.

Any other, I'm sorry. Council Member Johnson, Chair Johnson, has a question.

Yeah, I was just, thank you, Assistant Mayor Baker, for bringing some of the updates. I had a couple questions, in part, I guess, around the shelter utilization and just some of the comments there, and I think the fact that I probably would have asked this question maybe to County Manager Ling, but because you're here today, I think I would just ask How are we currently able to pull that number, so that number of seven people? How are we able to get that data point? Is that specifically from the beds that were designated for folks at the encampments? Or is that overall? Or how would you, if someone doesn't come in and they're there at the shelter, but they don't necessarily specify they're coming from Pig's Eye, how would you know?

I don't want to, through the chair, I don't want to step out of my depth when it comes to answering that question. I do know that we have a representative from Catholic Charities that can probably give you a little bit more insight on how they're pulling it. I do know that some of the information is coming from their shared team. So emergency shelter space, but I can follow up to give you specific information on where they're pulling that data from and how they're pulling it. When I'm asking, I'm asking for specific information around the beds that went online more recently based on the investments that was made from the city and the county.

And I don't know if you'll get to this as well, but I am wondering what kind of touchpoint numbers we're currently having. Are we working to re-engage with community members? And are we looking to fill those beds? Have we been seeing the same touchpoints carrying on? I appreciate knowing what happened at the closures and how many touchpoints we've had. But I'm just wondering, are we continuing at that same level of wraparound services that we were maybe operating then?

If you don't mind, if I then could move forward. I'll go back. I'll say it this way. What I'll do now is let's just have a conversation and a discussion. You have it. And I'll be able to go to the slides that you need. To answer that question, Council Member Johnson, it has been hard right now based on the current condition and situation at Randolph. I want to be very, very clear to the City Council that we intentionally did not want individuals to go to Randolph encampment. And the reason being is because it is a different situation. At Pigs Eye Park, we had greater autonomy and control over the land because we owned it. We are now dealing with a situation where there are multiple land owners, right? And so our response has to look a little bit different because we don't control all of the land. I think another issue that we had is the ingress and the egress of the space. It is hard to get in in comparison to Pigs Eye Park. I think another situation and a problem that we are navigating and we're dealing with, and maybe I'll just go to this slide, is we are having a problem right now with some of the activists we can find and agree on a different name. But as of right now, the concern is our staff are not feeling safe because they don't know what they're going to run into at this point. Ramsey County staff are feeling the same way. You got things where it almost feels like it's tactical guerrilla warfare that is happening on the site where you are planting booby traps for people to step in and get hurt. And so our people are going in trying to support individuals that are out there and they're met with this type of resistance. I think another issue that we have is the contamination of the soil. The reason that we did not want individuals out there is because we have reports that says that the soil is contaminated. This is a very wooded area. You have issues of getting in and out. Recently, we had a birth at the site. It was a stillborn. A fire can attest to it. They tried to, and they did, get out there, but they had to get into a side-by-side gator because their trucks and their vehicles could not reach the person. This is not acceptable. We need to be able to reach individuals when they need help. When there is an issue, when it comes to fire, we need to be able to reach them. When we are in a situation at this site where we cannot reach people, we are having issues being able to bring them in. And at the same time, we're having a lot of issues, of course, with intoxication of all of that. So you add that into the list. with sickness concerns. It's just not a great situation. And then lastly, we have this is also an area that floods on top of that. So when you put all of that, this is extremely complex now. So this is not just the city going in and closing down the encampment. This has gotten a lot more complex. And with that complexity, we are having to work through now, how do we navigate and support the individuals that are down there? We also have to support the individuals that are going out to help. This is an active train route, right? So that was something that we did not have to deal with. Given all of that, we are having to now look at how we work together with the county. The county is still on board. But the county is saying there is so much new things that are coming up now. We need to talk and see how do we work together, because if it's not safe for our people, we can't commit to consistently going out there. The county has been out there, but they've been out there and they've been met with resistance and concerns. So hopefully that answers some of your questions.

Thank you. And we have in the queue Council Member Jones and also Council Member Kemp.

Thank you, Chair Bowie. Assistant Mayor, thanks for being here. I have two questions. One, kind of the previous question, a question about the closure at Pig's Eye. Do you have, like, you know, we talked about the number of people that were there, folks that have utilized shelter beds. Do you have, like, a more specific breakdown of... How many people were there and not just on the day that the encampment closed and then specifically where they went because I have from our last meeting that there were at least 124 people there and just like even a chart of like this many people went here this many people went there and this many people are unaccounted for. As we're talking about understanding how we're going to measure success or what that even means when these encampments are being closed, I think that that's really important to understand. And then my second question, because we did start talking about Randolph, is I've heard a lot of discussion of soil contamination and safety on that site, which soil contamination can mean a lot of different things, but do you have any specific reports or information from the MPCA or anything that can speak to what this really means, like the depth of the soil contamination, where it's located, and what the actual potential impacts are to people, to the environment, to animals, all of those things. I would be much more important to understand than just, you know, I see a list of some of the different types of things we're talking about. But that would be really helpful because I think it sounds like we're dealing with a very complex situation. And I would want to know more about that.

Why don't I start with numbers of people and where they went. That also highlights the complexity. We responded to someone that asked me the same question. And my comment was, based on the level of complexity that we were navigating and dealing with, People are still able to make their own decisions, and they can leave when they want to. And so I think that some people are looking at this that there should have been a check-in to us as staff to say that I am now going to and then fill in the blank. That didn't happen. Now, what did happen is, based on some of our staff's relationships, we do know that there are certain people that actually didn't go to any shelter. They got picked up by a brother. It's those types of things. We have some of that. But there are a lot that we don't know. At the encampment for Randolph, there was around 40 or so people that were there. When the new estimate I just want to make sure I'm saying the right thing. So the new estimate, I don't see it in here, but the new estimate, and give me grace on this because I'm approximate, but I can get you the specific numbers. We're probably looking at like 140 or something like that. So when you remove 140, 150, I'm thinking around in there. So you remove 150, 140, 40 or 50 people from that. So you're looking at closer to like, maybe 190, 100 people that transitioned from, that's our estimate, that moved from Pigs Eye Park to Randolph. The other reason that I bring that up is because we know that there are certain people that will not take us up on our offer for shelter. We understand that. But city council members, I want you to know that once it became clear, I've heard, I talked to a service provider and an individual that had active conversations with individuals in the encampment that were looking to move to that shelter space. Once it became clear that Randolph was a valuable option and that it was being told to move to Randolph, I was told that information between that service provider rep and the individuals staying, it was like four or five individuals staying in the encampment, completely stopped. It was done. And the rationale is they were given is because we can just move to Randolph. So we never intended for this to happen in this way. And I felt like there was progress moving forward. But the swell of support to move individuals to Randolph kind of exacerbated the issue. We knew that other people would move into different places, but we intentionally did not say anything about Randolph because of the issues.

OK, if I could just really quick follow up. That's helpful. And I have from the last presentation, at the end of July, there were maybe around 44 people at Randolph. So if you're telling me now there's 150, it sounds like 100 of the 124 people approximately that were at Pigs Eye maybe moved or more. moved to Randolph, and that's hard to hear just because I know that my understanding was we also invested some money and opened up shelter beds for folks, and I understand that maybe there are people that don't always take us up on this offer, which is why I'd appreciate a breakdown of as much as we have the information of what happened, because I'd like to understand what can we do differently and what can we do a better job of to connect people with resources and also prevent them I know people make their own choices, but I'm really concerned about the number of people at Randolph and the conditions of the site at Randolph and the challenges, especially the safety challenges that it poses.

So I really appreciate your your transition around the open discussion I know you have a little bit left on your presentation, but I saw here I said councilmember Kim then councilmember Coleman and I just saw I'm chair Johnson's hand go up. So we'll just go around I'm gonna yield Okay, sounds good. I'm comfortable. I

Thank you. And I know that we still have some kind of a look back to get through. So I don't want to totally cut us off from that. But just in the interest of time, I'm really interested in looking at where we're going next. I think that there is that. What is hard, and I think that this is a little bit of what Councilmember Jones was getting to, is that it seems like in many ways we are in a worse situation than we were in six weeks ago or two months ago, and that that happened for a variety of reasons, many of which the city didn't intend, but I think that some of what has transpired was foreseeable or was at least kind of a concern that there would be people who are encouraging movement that the city didn't want to see, that we would have people moving to an encampment that is more dangerous, that is less safe, and that we're now doing so in a heightened political environment where there is Were there additional barriers to creating a safer situation for residents and the residents of the encampment? So I'm really interested in spending whatever time we can on talking about what comes next and how the city is looking at both decision making around future encampment closures, what will change between now and any future enclosure, how we are going to create a safer environment, again, for the residents of our encampments, for city workers, for county workers who are going into the Randolph and Shepherd encampment. So we'd love to spend as much time as we can on that.

Through the chair, really quickly, Council Member Coleman. Yes, we recently went through an after action review. It was a planning after action review. So all of the planning leading up to August 5, and then what actually happened operationally on the 5th, the 6th, the 7th. And we have some really good takeaways from that process and findings that we would be incorporating moving forward. I think also, too, that it has to be noted. Thank you for bringing up about how staff were treated. And that will not be tolerated next time that we will be in situations where it needs to be. You need to abide by the law. And if you don't, there will be consequences for that. There are things that we didn't necessarily know that were happening on the front end. And so we will make sure that we understand before. but we cannot tolerate what we did in some of the instances at Pigs Eye Park. So to your point, we will be in a situation to make sure that that is rectified and that we will be supporting staff in a way that we feel like is our responsibility as the city. As it relates to partnership with the county, we are right now working and processing through what that looks like moving forward. The terrain is different. The situation is different. We're in a different situation now when it comes to Randolph encampment. And because of that, our tactics and how we operationalize some things are going to need to change. And so we are in that process right now of talking through what does that specifically look like internally as well, just knowing that it's even just hard to get to individuals. And we're navigating just a level of not having the same level of... Intimacy in conversations now. We are hearing a lot from service staff that are saying that people are now just recording a lot of the conversations and not making it in a way where people are feeling as comfortable talking about what they need, what's going on. And so those are the things that we're navigating right now. It's not... We think that we will be able to have a plan to move forward, but based on what has happened, we're just going to have to retool.

Do you have a follow up?

Yeah, I do, if that's OK. Go ahead. Thank you. That is all helpful. And I think that understanding, and I know that this is been said clearly, and it's really important to reiterate that there is no date scheduled for any future encampment closure. I think for me, it would be really helpful to understand what you all consider that needs to be in place before any future closure would happen. So both like what thresholds would need to be met in terms of city preparedness and also how the city is evaluating individual encampment closure decisions around kind of the encampment specific situation.

Through the chair, there are certain things that I specifically do not want to talk about just based on security issues and concerns that we are more than willing to have that conversation with city council members individually or provide information. But That's number one that I wouldn't want to say here. Number two is there is a lot more engagement that I feel like needs to happen. One of the things that we felt like worked pretty well in the last encampment closure is working very closely with The council member who was in that ward where the encampment was and just really staying connected with information, getting feedback from the council member, Council Member Johnson for Pigs Eye Park, better understanding. We even had an opportunity to go to a community meeting. event together that she hosted. So we, my goal is to keep all council members updated. But in particular, I'm thinking about council member Naker and council member Kim being a little bit more tethered just based on the proximity and where you're located and you overseeing that ward. I just want to make sure that we're in lockstep with you two while we keep everyone else updated. And then I think too that... Because there's so much complexity in this, multiple things are going to need to happen at the same time. So we don't necessarily have the luxury to only think about alternative housing and then not do anything else. We don't have the luxury to only think about the safety concerns that are happening right there on the site. All of this is needing to move forward at the same time based on the level of urgency in the situation. We also are concerned, that brings in another level of complexity, that it will be getting colder as well. And so that just brings in another level of urgency, which, again, just is one more element.

Okay, and I'm just going to transition. We have Council Member Johnson, and I just saw Council Member Kim's hand go back up.

Thank you, Chair Bowie and Assistant Mayor Baker. I know that we've had a lot of conversations about the in-campus closures, and I appreciate just the context behind how we got there. One thing that I... don't want to do is like kind of consistently dance around what I feel like is a direct known thing where we had some elected officials that were on site that were also advocating for folks to go to Randolph. And I wanted to just respectfully ask my colleague to share a little bit more information around like what kind of led to that site, or just folks organizing around that site, because that was something that for me was both a little surprising, but also just in general, I did see community members and organizers bringing folks to Randolph. And I know that that happened during the last closure of Bruce Vento. With your permission, I wanted to ask a little bit more context around what, because what I'm hearing is just that that was not what the city would have wanted, but I'm wondering what led, what were some of the contextual pieces that maybe folks didn't see that kind of led to some of that decision?

I mean, ultimately, we left it up to residents. Not all the residents went to Randolph. We brought residents with U-Hauls to storage facilities. We brought folks, we drove folks to Brooklyn Park, to Maplewood. We made connections with family members that have varying levels of complexity in their relationships with their family members and dropped them off with their children, with a sibling, with an estranged partner at times. So I think it's true that folks did opt to go to the Randolph site, and also we made so many trips to connect folks with safe and stable housing that is connected to family and caring members. So I... I mean, it's hard to say where it happened, but it certainly didn't come from us, and we also left it up to residents. I think we have to keep in mind that these are communities, and they are connected. They see each other at different shelters. They know each other from being inside the system. They go to Listing House. This is a community that is connected, and so it's not beyond me that if I were to be forcibly extracted from my home, that I would seek out another place where I knew I had community. So I just want to place that value on the table to say that while personally I think the posturing and the way that we're talking about it here at the table is incredibly dehumanizing, but I think that the reasoning is because they're seeking safety, they're seeking connection, and they're seeking familiarity. Whether or not we from a very paternalistic perspective, believe that they can be autonomous and have the agency to make those decisions for themselves. But many of them made that choice. I was at Pig's Eye at 4.30 in the morning starting to help folks. And their number one choice was not necessarily to go to Randolph. One of the first U-Hauls we sent was to go to a storage facility. So I just... I think, for me, the recognition that these are interconnected communities and the way that they show up in our neighborhoods are ways that we honestly would hope some communities and neighbors would behave, quite frankly. So it came from the residents. They have the autonomy to decide where they want to go. Just if I were to move, I would have the same autonomy. Whether or not the city, you know, our posturing on where they land is a whole other thing.

Can I just follow up to that point through the chair?

Yep. Are you done with your comment or question?

I believe that I've answered Chair Johnson's question, yeah.

Yeah, before you go, Assistant Mayor Baker, I just simply wanted to share that from my initial feedback and also as the council member who Pigs Eye Park's encampment was in Ward 7. Ward 7 is in my ward. One of the things that I would share to you all is something that I don't necessarily see here on the next steps that I would highly, highly encourage is direct contact with the organizer and protesters on site. I cannot share or express how... concerned I am with, you know, being on site during the time as well of the closure and there being nail hoses out, there being barricades to the entryways, there are folks that can go in and folks that can't go in. You know, it truly is very difficult and also not seeing that from the folks that were actually residing at the encampment. So not seeing that from the folks that were living on the site of the encampment, not seeing a single person who lived on the encampment participating in those acts, but seeing folks that were driving into the encampment doing so. And not necessarily in a shaming way, but in an alert way that I don't think helps anyone. I do have concerns about Randolph and Lorient only for a variety of reasons, but when we are seeing and hearing that Public safety vehicles, public safety individuals, service providers, county staff, city staff can't actually enter the place to talk to people, to have communication, or to have services. I just don't think we get past that with more plans or more closures without direct conversation and without direct and intentional conversations about this is what's going to happen. Here's the plan moving forward. What are the questions we have for folks that are on site? Because that, to me, poses a real risk that I think it would be a mistake to fundamentally ignore. And it was different. I would say that that was different. I get asked that question a lot from what's the difference between Bruce Vento and the closure on Bruce Vento and the closure of Pig's Eye Park. That is a key difference. At Bruce Vento, we had folks on site. Folks were still transitioning folks to Fish Hatchery, which is why Pig's Eye Park became where it was. But what you did not see was the circling of staff. We had staff on site. The mayor was on site and gave information multiple press conferences right on site. We had several things that were happening simultaneously. But it was very clear that the goal was not obstruction. And I did not see that same level of goals from community members at Pig's Eye. it really did feel like there was an intentional method of destruction and obstruction to the process. And I just am sharing that as time goes along, I don't think that's going to get better without intentional efforts to create that. And I do not want there to be a situation where We didn't have any arrests at Pig's Eye Park when it came to civilians being arrested, protesters being arrested. When I hear things like, we won't tolerate staff being treated the same way, I fundamentally think that that is important to protect city staff and county staff that are on site to be able to get emergency vehicles in and out, not to bust a tire or have to deal with booby traps. Also, if we know that they are there, the city has every right to remove. And I hope that we do that. But I also hope that we have intentional conversations with folks that are on site, because many of them came to public hearings. Many of them have names. Some of them are elected officials at multiple levels of government. And if that continues, then I would hope that there is an intentional conversation between the administration and those same people.

We, through the chair, to your point, and I think the one thing I wanted to say is it is not the administration's intent to come to this, just this topic, and come across as we are dehumanizing the individuals that are out there. We respect the individuals out there. We want to make sure that they get the help that they need. We want to make sure that they get the housing that they need. We want to partner with those individuals. There is complexity on the decisions of some, right? And we've got to navigate that. To your point, we dealt with issues not with the individuals living in the encampment. We dealt with a lot of the individuals from others that were outside of the encampment. And so when I say certain things will not be tolerated, it just will not be tolerated. We will not be in a situation again where our staff is spat on, shoved. We will not be in a situation again. We just won't. So I am making this very, very clear to city council that we will do everything that we can as city city staff to make sure that happens. And we want to make sure, and we still are at the table of saying, what do we need to do differently? We are doing that on our side. We are doing that on our side. We are looking through. We're having after action review. We're combing through things. We're saying, this was the intended goal. This is what happened. What was the difference? So we're having those conversations. The last thing that I would like to just implore us is, Right now, I feel like a lot of the conversation for the last few weeks has just been mainly about beds. And we know, either through a Housing First framework or others, that beds are important. There needs to be an equivalent conversation about the wraparound services and the supports that a lot of these individuals need, the addiction services that they need, the mental health support that they need. Right now, I feel like the conversation has been dominated by only beds. But we have examples. I just had a conversation with somebody at Randolph that was in housing. Back at Randolph, it's not just about beds. It is also about some of these wraparound services that we are doing. We cannot make people say yes. But what we can do is be more strategic in making sure that we are all on the same page about the importance of these wraparound services.

I'm just going to do a process check for the sake of time and our other presenter.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Pierre. We do have a time check here, and I do appreciate how we open it up for more of a conversation. I'm just going to wrap this up. And I know, Assistant Mayor Baker, you're always on call when it comes to getting more information and how we can be more collaborative. But I'll just be very frank here. I think this... didn't meet my expectation, but I'm not surprised in terms of the urgency and the quickness and that this enclosure, or excuse me, this closure of the encampment was really fast. I was amongst other colleagues who was very public that I did not want this and came in closer to move forward because of the very reasons that we are hearing today. And I think there was too much of an emphasis on a media strategy and not on a safety strategy. And also some of the... Some of the factors that, just from my observation from last month's presentation and many of the conversations we've had, is that especially with this transition of a new administration, I don't think there was really a deep inventory of taking into consideration all the tools, the resources, the staff, the relationships that was built over years, and really a plan to really measure success. You have heard at this table time and time again what the success looks like. What's the definition of that? How are we measuring it? We're even asking you questions around how you're getting the numbers, and we're not even clear on what the sources of the data is. I think some of those things really raise questions in terms of If we are going to take an action, how do we make sure that we can measure the impact? And the impact is actually to accomplish that goal of getting people safer. I don't see here in this presentation how people got safer. I've seen a really clear indication of the strength of our enforcement as a city, but I don't see here how we have been successful with getting people from point A to point B? And like you mentioned, not just the sake of just beds, but how are we leveraging those existing relationships? How are we expanding wraparound services, service providers? And working hand in hand, not only with the council members, but working with those who are boots on the ground, the advocates, they also are stakeholders. They are not our opposition. And I also just share too, you know, during your presentation, you were mentioning surprise around resistance. And I think I'm not surprised. When we had our public hearing, they told us that they were going to resist. They were very clear. that they were going to go to other encampments. They were really clear that they were going to protest. And like you have heard today, many of our neighbors have made a choice to build community. And that is a place that they have built. um i think there definitely needs to be more intentionality around cultural competency in trauma-informed care we are talking about a population that has been through so much trauma from government agencies and this was an opportunity to build that trust and unfortunately because we have seen low numbers going into some of our shelters I can see that the damage further exacerbated that trust.

Can I please just follow up?

I'll just make one more remark here, and I'll have you follow up because I think it's really important. When we first had this presentation, or before we had the presentation, the central question we all asked was where are people going to go? And, of course, we can't control that. But now I'm asking the question, like when the city of St. Paul says you can no longer live here, you know, how do we ensure that they are safer? And that is really, really, that is a policy question. That's a process question. That's a procedure question. Because we are responsible not only for the land, but we are responsible for the trust that we're building with people. So if you can please respond.

Yeah. Through the chair, I hear your comments and I think I just respectfully disagree. I think that as the administration took on a situation that we inherited and so we did not start this. These encampments have been there for a while and a lot has been happening with these encampments. When we did the assessment, we actually went into this eyes wide open knowing that a lot of the research that we did and having conversations with individuals that have been working with the encampments Also, staff members that have been out there and navigating the encampments. So we did not go into this not knowing what we were doing. We went into this understanding the situation. We went into this understanding that it needed to be closed down based on issues and safety concerns. We did our best to try to provide the information and the numbers so you can understand the rationale of why we did it. But I would also say that just because we closed an encampment and are planning to close the other encampments does not mean that we do not have a heart and want to support every individual that is down there. I think that this has been very demonized in the conversations, that as an administration, we are in a situation where we don't care and that we didn't have foresight and thought. We are in a complex situation. And as long as, I guess I said it again, complex, We're in a complex situation and people are talking about it as if it's binary. It is not. There are multiple aspects and factors that are going into the decisions of why people are making their choices and also our response to those choices. So as much as we want to make sure that we are working and we're pulling people and giving them to emergency shelter, we are limited in the levers that we can pull here at the city. The reason that I can't give you all of the detail around the numbers is because that's not my lever. That's not my responsibility. We are working with the county to make sure that they give us the numbers, but I feel like right now we just gotta probably remember What responsibility the city has in its jurisdiction to do what? And we want to continue to have that conversation. But I respectfully disagree of the premise that we were not prepared. I am very grateful for the staff. I am very grateful for the people that came out. I'm even grateful for the advocates that came out and moved individuals. They had a purpose and they were moving forward. And we appreciate that. But I do want it to be. Very clear for the record that we are here in a situation where the Randolph encampment that people have moved towards. I'm trying to be very thoughtful with my words on this. The Randolph encampment that people move towards is unstable. And so we are going to do everything we can to support the individuals in leaving and getting out and getting into shelter. But my request is we need your help because many of you have megaphones and many of you have influence and many of you have constituents that listen to you and what you say matters. What you say goes a long way and what you say changes minds. So the more we can be on the same page on how we are working together on this, I think the better.

Thank you, Assistant Mayor Baker. Appreciate your time. Thank you. We're going to be transitioning to our next presenter here. What time is it? We are at 1.30. We have our next presenter here from Catholic Charities, Keith Kozerski. He's the Chief Program Officer from Catholic Charities in Pennsylvania. Pierre is getting the presentation going. I would ask that we hold our questions to the end, you know, if possible. I really wanted to say as you're getting ready, I appreciate you coming on short notice with the action that council have took, or excuse me, HRA had took. when making sure that you have those resources to open up those beds. It was really important for us to hear directly from you. And I also would want to mention as well, one of the purposes of having you here is to make sure we get accurate information. What we have heard from some of our neighbors at the encampments have mentioned that they feel prohibited to go to Catholic Charities and whether the policies allow them to be there or not. So we just wanted to make sure that we had accurate information about that. And then we have Council President Naker.

Chair Bowie, just a point of order. Given that the meeting was supposed to end at 1.30, I know some of us have conflicts. Obviously, we want to hear from our presenter. Is it possible to set sort of an amount of time that this conversation will take?

Yeah, we won't be able to use the full 20 minutes. I would say should we aim for 10? I'm looking at Chair Johnson because we have HRA right after this, our 10.15 meeting.

Yeah, so, Chair, I'm going to have to step up, but that's just because I am going to go and feed my child. I got you. So I'm going to go do that. But I think just so you are aware, Chair Bowie, 1230 to 130 is the public safety time, so you'll just need to maintain quorum.

Very aware, and my apology. I think we just had really important questions. Next time I will make sure we... I'll make sure we'll move through the questions a lot quicker. And we can take some of those questions. But I just want to, since Catholic Charities is here, I will allow them to go. If we want to have a part two, I'm sure we could arrange a meeting with some of our colleagues after. So thank you, Keith.

Chair Bowie, council members, thank you very much for allowing us to present today. Apologize for you getting the materials last minute, but we had about 24 hours to prepare for this for a variety of reasons. So thank you for your understanding. So just a little bit of context, and I'll move through this as quick as possible. Catholic Charities has 150 years of providing services in the city of St. Paul and Ramsey County and the Twin Cities in general. We want those services to be person-centered, trauma-informed, and focusing on the needs of our community. And we were able to do that with 25,000 individuals last year and are grateful that the city approached us in helping with the current situation. Catholic Charities on our Dorothy Day Place campus traditionally provides 243 nights of overnight shelter, which we've recently expanded, 360 permanent supportive housing apartments, and serves between 1,000 and 3,000 people every month at our St. Paul Opportunity Center with things like meals, showers, mail service, and connection to Ramsey County and other service providers like mental health service providers and chemical health providers. So that brings us to kind of current date. And on July 1st, Ramsey County approached Catholic Charities and requested a proposal from us of what capacity could we bring to the emergency shelter system. And in conversation with Ramsey County, In the city, the most cost-effective and easiest stand-up proposal was to add 49 beds to our current Higher Ground St. Paul shelter. Our current capacity with those additional beds is just under 292 beds. That's 220 men's beds and 72 women's beds. It's important to know that access to those beds is through the Ramsey County Shed Team or Shelter Entry and Diversion Team. So they actually book the beds for us. As far as what we've seen, we ourselves can only document one actual individual that we know came directly from Pig's Eye to shelter and was successfully placed in shelter. Part of that is, and I'll go into it in the next slide as well, is we try to be trauma informed and as low barrier as possible, which means we don't ask questions that we may not use the information to help the individual. So it's not always necessary for us to know as the current service provider if they came from the encampment or some other situation. The service we're going to provide is doing a quality assessment and meeting the needs of the individual. The other thing I'll mention is in conversation with the city and the county that since we didn't see the a volume of individuals coming from the encampment closure we did reach an agreement that the shed team would open those beds to any individual seeking shelter and it's not just limited to individuals coming from an encampment um As we know, one of the factors likely influencing the number of people coming into shelter is temperature, that currently the average Temperature at night has been about 64 degrees. We know from quality research that people really don't start struggling with body regulation and significant discomfort until temperatures reach about 50 degrees. So even though the beds haven't filled currently, whether it be through encampment individuals or other individuals experiencing homelessness, we firmly believe that As temperatures decrease, we will see more people making use of those beds. And as Councilmember Kim mentioned, it's hard to convince some individuals that their best option is shelter. And for some individuals, that best option may not be shelter. And we fully own and recognize that. And we provide the safest environment. that is geared towards the average shelter user and try to provide a safe and supportive environment as much as possible. It's just important to know that some folks struggle with some of the rules that Councilmember Kim pointed out, like curfew, the restrictions around on-site drug use, and reluctance to separate from their partner as we're unable to shelter partners. A couple of the barriers that we have worked on to try to address things that people have said to us is we are a completely pet-friendly shelter system, whether it's at our daytime shelter or overnight shelter. And we've also tried to increase community wellness by making sure that the Animal Humane Society is on site monthly, providing vaccines and support to pet owners who can't afford to otherwise see a vet. We also don't require sobriety. We don't allow use on site. We're a harm reduction facility. But if someone comes in and they're clearly under the influence, we will monitor that individual to make sure that they and the other people in our shelter can remain safe. But we don't maintain a sobriety check when people are checking in. The other thing I would say is that while we haven't seen as much volume in utilization of shelter beds, we have seen significant increase in volume of people visiting the St. Paul Opportunity Center, where they don't have to commit to staying in overnight, but they can get a shower, they can get a meal, they can connect with other service providers. And for example, the week after the enclosure, we saw a 40% increase of new users to the St. Paul Opportunity Center. Excuse me. new users coming onto that campus and accessing services. And we continue to see significant volumes of new users on campus. The other thing I would say is the other barrier we're trying to work with the city on is we have recently reached out when we saw that people weren't coming in for the shelter beds, offered to the Heart and Familiar Faces team that we would be available to go out with our shelter staff to the encampments and have conversations about what services at SPOC or our shelter look like and try to bust some... preconceptions that people may have, and talk to them about restrictions that may have been in place but have long since expired. And we're also willing to look at any restriction in place, unless there's an imminent safety concern, to try to either lessen or eliminate that restriction. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Keith. I see we have a couple questions here. Well, actually one question. Council Member Kim, do you still have a question or comment?

Yeah, I do, if that's all right. So I heard you correctly that you've now opened the beds that we provided Ramsey County money with to help you open the shelter beds. Originally, it was the intent is to offer capacity for the tent community closure. And then I heard you say that you opened it up for the more general population. How many of those extra beds are being utilized by the general population? And then the follow-up question that I had for you, kind of connected to that, was around what does an average shelter attendee look like? I believe that the continuum of housing has a user that has certain abilities, resources, right? What does an average shelter attendee look like for you and how would you define that? So first, what's the usage of the general population for the extra beds? And two, can you kind of define that for us?

Chair Bowie, Councilmember Kim, thank you for the question. I would say that our population in those excess beds has ranged from zero on some nights up to about 12. since we expanded the range. As I said, our shelter typically runs well above 90, if not close to 100%. With the added capacity, we've seen fluctuation in the utilization of those beds. As far as the typical shelter guests, I would say that my experience in doing this for over 25 years is you've seen one shelter guest, you've seen one shelter guest, that they are individuals who may be in an acute crisis where they lost their... apartment and may need immediate shelter and those individuals come in, I would say on average, those folks self-resolve on average within two weeks and are able to connect with services and economic assistance and get back into housing on their own. And then we have some long-stayers who have been using shelter services, some unfortunately for years. Those tend to be individuals with chronic mental health conditions, substance use disorders, or a variety of issues that prevent them from being successful in housing. But we do see a significant number of individuals move from shelter into housing. And we are working with Ramsey County to try to increase resources around case management so that we can be a housing-focused shelter. Thank you.

And then Council President Aker. Thanks, Madam Chair. I appreciate this presentation and the brevity with a lot of information. I'm really glad to see the changes that have been made to allow pets and not require sobriety, the housing first model that you're shifting to. I'm curious what would be the barriers to allowing couples to stay together and also wondering if you allow property to be brought on site and stored.

Sure. Thank you, Chair Bowie and Council President Naker. So I would say that The main barrier around couples is physical setup, that we have 60 or so beds for women and then the rest of the beds for men. And it's a congregate bunk situation. And we often hear from women that one of the reasons they... are reluctant to seek shelter is they need to feel safe. And some are fleeing domestic violence situations. So having a male identifying individual in the same space could be triggering or cause them to be fearful. And we want to be able to maintain as much safety for the broad number of guests. We have recently talked with the city about just kind of trying to think about what could couple shelter in Ramsey County look like in a dignified way. And we are willing to be part of that solution. and try to think that through. But in the time frame we had, which was about less than a month from the time of solicitation to the time the shelter needed to be open, we weren't able to make that jump. And then as far as belongings, we normally say that an individual is welcome to bring in whatever they can carry. So typically that's two large bags or a cart and some bags. And that's simply just for storage and space reasons.

Thank you. Thank you, council president for that. Um, I have another clarifying question, particularly around the curfew. Can you state the, what is the existing curfew and if there's Any considerations going to a 24-hour drop-in?

Chair Bowie, council members, thank you for that question. Current curfew is 830, and the reason that curfew is in place is because we are a coordinated system through the SHED system, and that we... need to be able to know if someone's showing up for the bed at night. And if not, if they don't make it by curfew, then we allow that bed to be rebooked by the shed team. And that's important to make sure that we don't have individuals who are actively seeking shelter and want the bed spending the night on the street unnecessarily. And we also do, once shed closes that night, up until midnight, we do accept walk-ins and we'll fill any available beds with individuals who choose to walk in rather than going through the shed system.

Got it. And I have one last question. Unless there's a question from someone else, I'll yield my time. Another perception around payment, I've been asked before, people have asked for money to get into shelters. I'm not really familiar of, like, if there's a payment requirement to get access to a bed.

Chair Bowie, council members, thank you for the question. Prior to the pandemic, Catholic Charities did operate a smaller shelter that was pay-for-stay for individuals who may have been employed, and we charged a fee for that. and then 50% of that fee was returned to individuals for down payment or furniture or whatever. But what we saw is post-pandemic, that model wasn't needed in Ramsey County because those individuals were more likely to be successfully housed and didn't need to remain in shelter so we could move people along the continuum quicker.

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time and coming. It's such a swift request here. Do we have any other questions? I think we are good. Thank you so much for your time. And without any further business, we are done.