Neighborhood Services and Education Committee (nse) - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. Welcome to NSC.

Good afternoon.

So before we begin, I want to remind the committee members and the members of the public to follow our code of conduct at meetings. This include only commenting on specific agenda item and addressing the entire body. Public speaker will not engage in a conversation with the chair, council members, or staff. All members of the committee, staff, and public are expected to refrain from abusive language, failure to comply, with the code of conduct, which will disturb, disrupt, or impede the orderly conduct, will result in a removal from the meeting. This meeting of the Neighborhood Services and Education Committee will now come to order. Clerk, please call roll.

Campos? Present. Candelas? Here. Casey? Here.

Here.

Chair Ortiz, absent. You have a quorum.

Thank you very much. Look like we welcome the group up there, students, and I'm not sure which group you guys are, but welcome to NSC. Sorry, News Commission. I didn't hear that one. Well, welcome to NSC. And thank you for all your hard work, by the way. So what do we have here today is nothing on the consent calendar. Do we have any public comments.

No public comment.

All right we'll go right to the news commission report. And we have a presentation.

Good afternoon, chair, council members, and staff. My name is Neha Pradeep Kumar, and this is my third and final year representing District 2 on the San Jose Youth Commission. I had the pleasure of serving as the vice chair this year. Today, I'm proud to present our annual work plan report for the fiscal year 2025 to 2026 alongside a few of our youth commissioners. The San Jose Youth Commission serves as the official advisory group to the mayor and city council, empowering and encouraging youth to be civically engaged through local and citywide events and initiatives. Our commission includes representatives from all 10 districts, plus a citywide seat. Together, we represent approximately 248,000 youth in San Jose, working to ensure their voices are heard in city government decision making. Commissioners work alongside volunteer youth in their district youth advisory councils, known as YACs, to develop policy proposals, host events, and create initiatives that relay youth priorities to local public officials.

Good afternoon, chair, council members, and staff. My name is David Huynh, and this is my first and final year representing District 7 on the San Jose Youth Commission. I had the pleasure of serving as the outreach officer this past year. This year, the Youth Commission implemented a focused outreach plan with the core objective of increasing the number of youth who are aware of the Youth Commission and participate in our YACs. We reached youth through social media, school distribution lists, local libraries, community centers, and council member newsletters, and we showed up in person at community events and hosted youth-led programming and summits. We measured progress through social media engagement, YACC participation rates, and survey response numbers.

Good afternoon, chair, council members and staff. My name is Anushka Deshmukh, and this is my first year representing District 1 on the San Jose Youth Commission. I had the pleasure of serving as the communications officer this past year. The Youth Commission creates and distributes an annual survey to youth throughout San Jose. This year, the survey collected 653 responses. This slide shows a multi-year comparison of how youth responded to the statement, the local city of San Jose government reflects youth priorities. This year's results are largely consistent with prior years. About a third agreed in some form, with just 6.6% strongly agreeing and 26.5% somewhat agreeing. Just over half selected neutral or unsure. Notably, strong disagreement has continued to decline, dropping to 3.8% this year from 6.4% in 2023 to 2024. That sustained neutral majority is not discouraging, it is actually an opportunity. It tells us there's real space to build awareness and trust among young people in the city. And this slide shows multi-year issue priority ratings on a scale of 1 to 5. This year we introduced housing affordability as its own distinct issue category, and it immediately ranked among the top concerns, scoring 4.29 out of 5 in its first year. A few other patterns stand out. Violence and safety remains the top rated issue at 4.3, consistent across all three years. Meaningful and sustaining jobs rebounded to 4.12 after dipping to 3.95 last year. And quality mental health, resource equity, and environment and climate change have both declined a bit, a trend worth noting. Vandalism and graffiti remains the lowest rated issue at 2.85, though it has ticked up slightly from 2.71 last year. These ratings directly informed our work plan priorities.

Good afternoon, chair, council members, and staff. My name is Kyle Park. This is my first year representing District 10 on the San Jose Youth Commission. In addition to the issue priority questions, youth were asked about their dream jobs and what they are excelling at or struggling with this year. In terms of career aspirations, healthcare and medical topped the list at 28%, followed by STEM and technology at 21%. together representing nearly half of all responses. Creative and arts came in at 11%, tied with youth who are still undecided or exploring. These responses speak directly to the kinds of college and career pathways that need investment. Regarding the excelling and struggling question, the contrasts are telling. Academic performance is both the top area where youth are excelling, 37%, and the top area where they are struggling, 26%. reflecting how much weight young people place on school. Social connections are a relative bright spot with 19% excelling and 11% struggling, but the mental health data gives us a pause. Only 3% said they are excelling in mental health and well-being, while 13% said they are struggling, a gap that underscores the urgency of the priorities we heard on the previous slide.

On to work plan objectives. Our first work plan objective focused on evaluating and advising on college, career, and literacy opportunities and resources available to youth in San Jose. Commissioners engaged in youth participatory action research, positioning young people as researchers gathering inputs from peers on the city budget and educational priorities. We continued distributing the youth priority survey as a policy advocacy tool and explored partnerships with local education agencies to bridge the gap between school resources and what the city and community organizations can offer. Our second work plan objective focused on celebrating San Jose's rich diversity through community building and placemaking. Commissioners led beautify initiatives, community art projects, cultural events and fairs, and outreach highlighting existing local resources. We also committed to advocating for immigrant youth and families by spreading awareness of available support services. Celebrating culture is how we build a community where every young person feels a sense of belonging.

From July 2025 through March 2026, Youth Commission and YAC members collectively volunteered 740 service hours. Our 11 youth commissioners averaged 35 hours each attending meetings, coordinating YAC activities, conducting outreach, and developing policy recommendations. And across the city, 45 YAC members averaged eight hours each attending meetings, supporting district events, and conducting policy research. This is only a small sample of the over 200 YAC members who participated in youth commission activities this year. These are students giving their time to civic service because they believe San Jose is worth investing in. These councils are the mechanism through which hundreds of young people have a real channel to shape the policies and programs that affect them. This year, we received 275 YAC applications, a 17.2% increase from the previous year, Of those applicants, nearly three quarters applied to their home district, reflecting strong community investment. Looking at who is applying, the top interests among YAC applicants are education, environment, and community, and youth empowerment, followed closely by mental health and civic engagement and government, which came in tied. These are not abstract causes for young people. They reflect what youth in San Jose live and think about every day. The satisfaction data on this slide tells us that the program is delivering for them. When asked whether the program met their expectations, no respondent rated one or two, and over 90% rated it four or five. Regarding whether they would recommend the program to others, the results were even stronger. Again, zero ratings below three, with 93% rating it four or five, and nearly 2 3rds giving a perfect score of five. That kind of feedback reflects the real investment our commissioners and district partners put into making these councils meaningful for volunteer youth.

Beyond our formal work plan, commissioners have been actively engaged in the broader civic life of San Jose. At the Neighborhoods Conference in October of 2025, commissioners joined Councilmember Campos on being led by our young leaders to share their perspectives on youth civic engagement. At a joint commission meeting on October 27th, commissioners joined the Library and Education Commission to receive the Education Strategy Annual Report and the Margaret Sullivan Studio Facilities and Customer Experience Plan. Having youth at that table matters. And throughout the year, commissioners organized community events. the Youth Budget Priorities Summit, park cleanups, flower plantings, an eco-swap, and the AIM Career Conference, along with various cultural celebrations and educational workshops.

Looking ahead, the Youth Commission will continue to deepen our civic engagement work and make sure youth voices remain central to city decision making. For more information, please visit www.sjpl.org slash youth commission or email youth commission at sanjoseca.gov. As this is my final year, I want to say how grateful I am for this experience. Serving as a commissioner and then as vice chair has been one of the most meaningful experiences I have had as a young person in this city. What I will carry forward is a deep appreciation for what happens when young people are genuinely invited into these spaces. It builds confidence, it builds awareness, and it builds a connection to the city that we all call home. I'm grateful to have served, and I'm confident in the commissioners who will carry the work forward. To this committee, thank you for always making space for youth at the table. It means more than you know. And this concludes our presentation. We are happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much.

Thank you for the presentation. Do we have any public comments?

No public comment.

Well, thank you. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank our youth commission, or commissioners for that matter, for their, you know, your dedication, leadership, and you make a huge impact onto us who we, the one that make the policy to help our youth. Your voice, your ideas that help implement many policy right here in the city of San Jose. So when people said news can't make changes, you guys did it. And not only that, you're building not only what is now, but the future of the city of San Jose. And I just want to say thank you for your commitment, your creativities, your willingness to step up beside your schools and your families and your extracurricular activities. We, as council, very grateful. of your energy and your investment into the city of San Jose, making it a better place. So let's, everyone, please join me. Give them a big applause. I do have a quick question for you. One of my concern is I noticed on the chart is that both the mental health and well-being and physical health and well-being is at extremely low percentage. So the mental health, I think it was at If I'm looking at it correctly here, people are struggling at 13% and excelling only at 3%. And then the physical health is 2% and 2%. What can we do? to help young people to have, you know, when you have a strong body, it will help make a sound mind. And I know that a lot of youth are struggling with, you know, the enormous social medias, the pressure, the bullies, and our daily life. what can we do to help you or help our youth to bring that percentages up higher because I think it's extremely important.

Regarding the physical health point and honestly going to the mental health point to the city does have a lot of resources and activities for us, especially run by the parks and REC department. The issue is more that you don't really know about it, they don't know how to access it or sign up for it. So bringing more awareness to those programs and how to become a part of those along with increasing public transportation could help the physical health aspect of being outside and doing activities and also mental health of meeting new people.

Well, thank you for that, and I know some of you guys are heading to college, and best of luck, and continue to be the leader that you are. And now I'm going to go over to Councilmember Pamela Campos.

Thank you. Thank you, Vice Chair Dwan. I also want to begin my remarks with thank you to the Youth Commission for being here today, sharing this report, and really for all of the work that you do. I could spend a lot of time just sharing about all of the wonderful experiences that I've participated in, seeing the work that you all bring, not just on the commission, but in the community, the fair that was hosted in D7 my first year, the panel that you mentioned. Vice Chair Pradeep Kumar you participated on a statewide virtual panel about youth commission and youth leadership and so it's such a joy to have had so many of my colleagues and myself at the celebration earlier this week recognizing your hard work and your achievements this year and I also want to thank our library staff who help ensure that our commissioners have what they need to carry out their work. And you've all been incredible leaders in this work. So I just want to thank our library staff as well. The report is providing some key indicators that tell us that this work is helping us build trust among youth. We know what kind of opportunities youth in our city are seeking, and we also know the consistent challenges that youth in our communities are facing. So I think what's most meaningful about this work is that it's not just youth-centered, but rather youth-led, where the work is inspired, led, and driven by our youth. And that is noteworthy because I think that making sure that youth are seen as partners in this work is key in public policy. And so with that, I just have one question. Are there any areas that would be meaningful for us to consider improvements to our youth commission program or the way that youth are involved in our city government?

I have a couple of things. I think when it comes to council member involvement in youth commission activities, I think if council members could attend YAC meetings more regularly in their respective districts, that would be really helpful, especially to the youth who are participating in the YAC activities. They'll get to know more about what your priorities are, what the council priorities are, Things like that. So, you know, everyone's on the same page. And I think specific to our Youth Commission application, I know this year there was a little bit of a drop in the number of applicants for the Youth Commission. I think that's largely due to how the application is set up. I think the application to apply for Youth Commission is the one that's used for all the other commissions, too, and asks questions about, oh, do you own property in the city and your tax information, things like that, which is something that youth are probably not that comfortable answering or don't know the answers to. So maybe if there was a way to modify that form so it could be more accessible to youth and it'll have questions that youth can confidently answer, I think that's something that would definitely be helpful for the future youth commissions and things we do on the commission in the coming years.

Yeah.

Thank you. Any other commissioners would like to weigh in?

I'd like to put an emphasis on the first part Neha said. I think it's just when the council members show up to the meetings and the events that we hold, not even for the whole thing, but just like a little bit. And I think when the youth get a exposure to who their council members are and they know who they are, I think that gives a really meaningful connection. Yeah.

Thank you. Well, I appreciate those recommendations and suggestions, and with that, I will move to accept the annual report of the Youth Commission. Thank you.

Perfect. There's no other comments, so let's vote. That's unanimous. Thank you so much again for your courage and your service and your leadership. So now we're going to the second item. It's the Children and Youth Services Master Plan Status Report, and that will be Andrea Flores Schultz.

Thank you, Vice Chair Dwan, Andrea Flores-Shelton, Assistant Director of Parks, Recreation, Neighborhood Services. Our verbal report this month will be focused on really recapping what we are very grateful to the council for adopting on Tuesday through the mayor's June budget message that included MBA 14. So just at a high level, What we'll be moving forward with in 27, 28, and beyond is really Children and Youth Services Master Plan 2.0 strategy, which we developed in partnership with Sobrato Philanthropies, our community grantees, our community anchors, as well as with the County of Santa Clara. And you're all very familiar with the seven priority areas of the Children and Youth Master Plan. And what we really did was sort of reframe the fact that Our two overarching outcomes will always be safe, clean, connected communities and children and families with meaningful and sustaining jobs. How we achieve those will be sort of our new focus, action-oriented strategy, where we will move through sort of three focus areas along the child development continuum. So that would be the three areas would be child care access and kinder readiness, third grade reading, and focus on chronic absenteeism. And then the third is A to G college readiness, which is really that curriculum that gets them ready for college with an eye towards workforce development. So that's college or career pathways. So that's our intention with the coming year and sort of what are those opportunities interventions and what are those metrics. So we have direction to come back to council in October with a logic model and more in-depth detail about what those metrics and outcomes would look like with our partners. We're also grateful that through the MBA adoption we will be funding our community partners and community anchors and we'll be updating and amending those contracts to be more grounded and rooted in this updated strategy so there's plenty more that was in the MBA and and the June budget message but with that I'll conclude or take any questions well thank you Andrea for your hard work do we have any public comments

No public comment.

All right, well, thank you. Well, my understanding that a lot of our district, we have a lot of underserved youth. And as we can see, there's an uptick in graffitis and gangs. And one of your statement earlier, part of the program is getting the kids ready to, the readiness to go to college. That is the most powerful tool that we can help overcome the adversity being underserved. Education can leverage that. And my question is, besides some of these younger programs from the college readiness, what other program where we can help from K-8 before high school to have a really good habit you know, time management, to be able to set the time out to study, to understand, and be able to reach out for help when they need it. Because a lot of kids, they're shy or they're scared. They're thinking, oh my God, if I don't know this, you know, I'm going to keep quiet. Then if I say it out loud, then everybody will look down on me. And I want to be able to create a program where they can get help without having to be out in the forefront and be successful in their education.

Thank you for the question and the concern. I think there's multi prongs to this because I think with our school partners, so on the San Jose Youth Empowerment Alliance side, we fund community based organizations, but we also have our own intervention services and we have had a strategy this last year that we are continuing to work with those youth that the school has deemed they have high absenteeism and may be at risk for crime or violence where we're working directly with them to re-engage them in school. And that's the same with our best partners. School re-engagement is a top priority for us. In addition, I think, you know, all of our, whether it's the library or PRNS and our school partnerships, and they have their own, the schools have their own partnerships and providers that they work with. I mean, this is something that I would say back to the Children Youth Master Plan, right? Our family resource centers and community anchors they're really building at an early age with families with young children sort of that trust and involvement so that when you do have a child that is in need of some resources or support, that there are resources that they can rely on. you know, whether we're meeting the demand or meeting the need is something that we're continually monitoring. But I do think we have an array of services now and we will continue to monitor whether we're meeting the need.

Well, thank you very much. We're going to go to Council Member Pamela Campos.

Thank you, Vice Chair Duan, and thank you, Andrea, for the update. I agree it's very exciting that Council adopted MBA 14, and also passed in the budget on Tuesday was a Youth Empowerment Summit that I want to thank all of my colleagues on this dais for. signing on and supporting that because it demonstrates that truly the commitment of city leadership in supporting better outcomes for our youth. I just have one question. Given the amount of Fortune 500 companies and government agencies across San Jose and Santa Clara County, and the overarching focus of meaningful and sustaining jobs as part of CYSMP 2.0 strategy, how can the city of San Jose or how can council be more supportive with connections in meaningful and sustaining jobs as it relates to these key employer opportunities?

Thank you. And I think what we're excited about with this focus strategy is that we're really naming workforce development. And we're going to be strengthening our coordination with, whether it's Office of Economic Development, Work to Future, aligning with the library's strong workforce programs and strategies. And then on the Youth Empowerment Alliance side, we work with those kids that are already, again, at risk or justice involved. So we want sort of a universal approach to how do we get kids that are, you know, maybe they're graduating from high school, but they just need to be on a path to a career, or those kids that are sort of need an intervention to get them through high school and then onto a path, right? So it's this continuum, but I really do think, and I'll look to Angel if he wants to weigh in on sort of this diving deep, and that's what we'll come back to in October with sort of what this workforce development pathway looks at at a more detailed level.

Thank you. Do you want to weigh in, Angel?

Yeah, so we're approaching this really from kind of two angles, right? So the first part of your question, in terms of the marketplace, right? We know that we're in a valley that's rich in jobs, right? But if we're going to be very candid, there are jobs that are limited to a certain profile of employee, right? So what we're doing is we're actually entering, reaching out to the private sector to really better understand what it is that they need and how they hire, who they hire, and how they go about it to draw kind of a pipeline connection there. IN FACT, WE JUST HAD OUR FIRST MEETING JUST THIS WEEK WITH APPLIED MATERIALS JUST TO BEGIN THAT CONVERSATION, RIGHT? JUST AS A STARTING POINT. BUT THE BULK OF THE WORK IS REALLY FOCUSED ON HOW DO WE CREATE A PIPELINE, RIGHT? AND AS YOU HEARD FROM ANDREA, WE'RE GOING TO HONE IN ON THREE SPECIFIC AREAS, AND REALLY THOSE AREAS ARE EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION, BECAUSE WE KNOW THAT IF YOU ENTER KINDERGARTEN LEARNING READY, THEN RIGHT FROM THE GET GO YOU'RE OFF TO A GOOD START. And then there's third grade reading, which is probably the next big indicator of your success in terms of at least academically, right? So we're going to really hit third grade reading real hard. And then there's the focus on the A through G requirements. I'm sure the youth commissioners can probably tell you a lot about the A through G requirements. And so as an example, we've engaged Dr. Mattson and her team at San Jose State AND I KNOW COUNCILMEMBER GABAL IS INVOLVED IN THIS AS WELL, WHERE WE'RE LOOKING AT NOT SO MUCH THE CLASS OF 2027 OR 2028, BUT THE CLASS OF 2040, RIGHT? BECAUSE IF YOU TAKE A LOOK AT STATISTICS, YOU KNOW, SAN JOSE STATE IS REPORTING SOME REAL GOOD STATS AROUND INCREASED ENROLLMENT OF ESPECIALLY KIDS OF COLOR STUDENTS THAT that traditionally have been kind of historically underrepresented. But when you disaggregate the data, you find that the numbers are still very dismal when it comes down to STEM and STEAM and engineering and computer science and those. So if we're going to change that, we've got to start younger, right? So we're really approaching it from those two perspectives, making sure that we have a pipeline so that students can master that. Waiting until their ninth grade, tenth grade is way too late, right? And then on the flip side of that is better engaging with our private sector to really kind of connect Silicon Valley to these pathways, right? That's the hope. Of course, that's the long game, right? This is not a two-year, three-year thing. This is a system that we're trying to build that actually creates a system that hopefully will be here long after many of us have gone on to do other things. So that's the thinking.

Thank you. Thank you, Angel, and thank you, Andrea, for those responses. It's definitely something that I've said before. The earlier we invest, the better the outcomes. And I think the thing that I want to underscore and uplift is that exposure to the jobs is also key when I am in my district and meeting with parents at our elementary schools. they're always asking me, how do we get field trips that take our children to learn about the different jobs that they can have in the Silicon Valley that are going to be able to keep them here? A couple of times, I've been fortunate to be able to invite some of our schools to San Jose City Hall, and I always show them on the elevator each different floor and all of the different departments that they could be thinking about jobs. When I ask them, you know, what surprised you about San Jose City Hall, I would say like two thirds of the students will say the jobs. I cannot believe how many jobs you have um just in the city of san jose as an employer and it you know there's a little twinkle in their eye when they realize that they can have a future in the city that they're growing up in so it's incredibly key um for us to uh build these partnerships with you know the the fortune 500 companies but also government right um we've got a lot of six-figure jobs at the water district at the county here at the city of San Jose. And so really looking forward to how we strengthen and build these opportunities for our youth. And with that, I will accept the status report on the Children Youth Master Plan. Thank you.

Can I just add one more thing on that? We are very excited that this summer through Youth Intervention Services, we're holding our first Youth Leadership Academy, and we have a great partnership thanks to Olympia Williams and Aurelia Bailey with Chief Sapien. And so we will be having, you know, the fire department will be very involved in sort of, again, exposing our young people to fire department jobs. So I see the twinkle in your eye, Council Member Duan. So we will, you know, we absolutely agree that city jobs are a great opportunity for our youth to be exposed to. So we'll be starting that this summer.

Through the chair, if I may just say one more thank you. Thank you to everyone involved in this. It's truly been a one-team effort on bringing the Children Youth Master Plan to life. So I just want to say thank you for everyone who's participated and been involved in this work. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Campos. We're going to go to Council Member Domingo Candelas.

Thank you. No, Andrea, thank you for the update. I appreciate Council Member Campos' insight, especially when it comes to bringing kids and ensuring that we are showing our young folks what, yes, what we have here, but more importantly, connecting the broader populace to like outside of here, right? I mean, I'd love for, if anybody wants to come and be a council member and take my job, please. We need more young people involved in government. I think that's the point. We wanna leave our city better than when we came in. But I think opening those pathways to the MEDAs, to the big companies that are in our backyard, I think is just as critical. So thank you for uplifting that. And one of the quick questions I have, I know we get these verbal reports every time we have an NSC, which is great. Remind me when the next time we're hearing the full report.

October.

It'll be in the fall.

And I believe it's to Council, per the direction in the June budget message.

Okay, great. Wonderful. Thank you, Andrea. I appreciate it and look forward to that. Thank you.

No other comments? Let's vote. is unanimous thank you so much andrea and and all those who have made this happen including angel sitting right next to over there all right then let me see the next item we'll have the uh city council focus area status report cleaning up our neighborhoods that will be angel rios all right and his team

ALL RIGHT, THIS IS A LITTLE DIFFERENT. I'M USUALLY IN THE BOX THERE, SO IT FEELS A LITTLE DIFFERENT HERE, BUT AS THE TEAM GETS SITTLED IN, I'LL KIND OF GET US KICKED OFF HERE. IT'S BEEN MY PLEASURE TO SERVE AS THE EXECUTIVE SPONSOR OVER THIS FOCUS AREA, CLEANING UP OUR NEIGHBORHOODS. JOINING US IN THE BOX, WE HAVE OLYMPIA WILLIAMS. WHO NEEDS NO INTRODUCTION, RACHEL ROBERTS FROM OUR CODE ENFORCEMENT, DAN NORTH FROM ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES DIVISION, AND FROM SAN JOSE PD WE HAVE ANTHONY KILMER. AND WE ALSO HAVE PETER HAMILTON WHO IS A REAL KEY PLAYER IN REALLY HELPING TO PULL A LOT OF THIS TOGETHER. WE WORK VERY CLOSELY, HE AND I AND THE TEAM. SO WE HAVE A PRETTY Pretty amazing group in the box here. We're here to report out on cleaning up our neighborhoods. We'll start by reviewing some background and then go through some focus area projects. For starters, as a reminder, the focus areas create visibility on the problems most impacting our community, putting these issues at the top of the pyramid. There's plenty of complexity and innovation that happens in the bottom part of the pyramid every day where departments are empowered to drive efficiencies and make improvements. But importantly, this level of change is typically managed through our standard operations. An important part of this model is an ongoing focus on learning, right? We want to not only achieve the goals we set out in the focus area, but continuously reflect on our progress, identify what works and what doesn't, and adjust to improve our efforts, right? So it's not just about getting the job done, it's about how can we keep getting it done more efficiently with greater efficacy. So now we'll go through the focus area goals. Our overall goal for this focus area is that San Jose residents can enjoy a city with clean public spaces and well-maintained private property. WE MEASURE OUR PROGRESS TOWARDS THIS GOAL THROUGH OUR QUARTERLY NEIGHBORHOOD SURVEY OF SAN JOSE RESIDENTS. WE ASK RESIDENTS ABOUT THE PERCEPTIONS OF THE CITY AS A WHOLE, THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD AND DOWNTOWN. WE START TO DISAGGREGATE THIS. BEFORE WE WOULD JUST ASK THE GENERAL QUESTION. NOW WE DISAGGREGATE BY CITY AS A WHOLE, NEIGHBORHOOD, DOWNTOWN. THE GRAPH ON THE BOTTOM RIGHT SHOWS THE PERCENT OF RESIDENTS WHO RATE EACH OF THESE CATEGORIES AS CLEAN OR VERY CLEAN. HAPPEN TO REPORT THAT WE'VE SEEN NOTABLE PROGRESS OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS. IN REGARDS TO PERCEPTION OF CITYWIDE CLEANLINESS, IT'S IMPROVED FOR SEVEN STRAIGHT QUARTERS. TWO YEARS AGO, ONLY 34% OF RESIDENTS RATED THE CITY AS CLEAN OR VERY CLEAN, WHILE TODAY, 54% OF OUR RESIDENTS RATE IT CLEAN OR VERY CLEAN. PRETTY SIGNIFICANT JUMP IN PERCEPTION. We've seen similar improvements in perception of neighborhood cleanliness, which stood at 66% just two years ago and is at 77% today. I believe this progress shows our efforts are having an effect on resident perception. I also believe that through our continued focus on this problem, we can make further progress and continue down this path and keep moving that number up. So we'll focus on our first problem. Our first problem area concerns blight on private property. In addressing this problem, code enforcement faces a number of challenges, including increasing case volumes, expanding scope, and static staffing for general funded positions. The chart on the left shows the increase in case volume over the past 10 years. In response to these challenges, many of our goals under this problem focus on increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of code enforcement's operations so that we can move cases out of the pre-investigation and investigation phases and into the enforcement phases more efficiently and more quickly. The chart at right shows the number of cases at each stage of enforcement, allowing us to track how effectively we move cases out of the investigation and into enforcement over time with a focus on getting these solved and closed. With that, I'll turn over to Rachel, who will tell us more about Code Enforcement's efforts and goals.

Thank you, Angel. Since our last update, staff has launched the Core Pilot Program, which is the Chronic Offender resolution and enforcement program to address the most chronic violators and repeat problem properties through expedited enforcement, reduction of repeat violations, and preventing cases from becoming or continuing to be long-term nuisance properties. While originally focused on new cases, through our implementation and learning so far, we've expanded to the pilot to include existing cases and now have just about 15 cases in process for the program. As we continue this work, staff has proposed that this goal be continued into the next fiscal year with completion of this pilot in September and then evaluation of the pilot, including the effectiveness, areas for improvement, resource needs and scalability by December of this year. As noted in our December update, staff implemented the revised escalated enforcement policy in September, which set clear timelines and expectations and provided more structure to improve consistency and ensure cases progress more efficiently through our enforcement process when our voluntary compliance efforts are not reached. Since implementation, we've already begun to see measurable results, as Angel had mentioned. Compared to prior fiscal year, more cases are advancing beyond the investigation warning stages into formal enforcement actions including an increase of 30 percent of cases reaching the citation stage 11 percent reaching the compliance order stage and 30 percent going through the appeals hearing board process while demand for service does remain high the data suggests that this policy is helping to move cases toward resolution more effectively and consistently With regards to Code X, staff has continued to work on this project, which will replace the division's legacy case management system, and it's expected to significantly enhance our case management, reporting, and data analytic capabilities across the division. While several key project milestones have been completed, resource constraints and technological challenges as well as changing business processes, excuse me, changing business processes and greater than anticipated complexity have resulted in some unanticipated delays. So staff is currently reevaluating the project plan to ensure an optimum project approach and timeline. We've also started a short-term critical system improvement project with the same vendor to preserve functionality and maintain operational continuity within the existing platform. Following Council approval of an increase to the city's maximum administrative penalty of up to 20,000 per day and 500,000 total in October, staff completed a fine study with GuideHouse, which evaluated our existing citation schedule and administrative fine structure, providing benchmarking and analysis to support future policy recommendations. Beginning in 26-27, staff will continue evaluating those findings and developing recommendations regarding specific fine amendments for council consideration planned for September of 2026. Throughout the fiscal year, we also continued our downtown enhanced vacant building and storefront working group, which strengthened coordination across city departments to address some of downtown's most blighted vacant and nuisance properties. The group has evolved through the past months from its original focus on vacant buildings and storefronts to expand and include coordinated response to a variety of emerging downtown code related issues. Through that collaboration with those partner departments and the city attorney's office, we've responded and addressed problem properties more quickly. We have progressed cases through to the enforcement process more efficiently with many receiving the maximum penalties and or legal remedies such as receiverships and nuisance litigation when appropriate. And as we close out the fiscal year, the working group continues to provide a valuable mechanism for coordinated enforcement and strategic problem solving.

Problem area concerns graffiti. While we have an effective service for removing graffiti, the volume of graffiti we remove is high. We'd like to prevent graffiti from happening in the first place, so we don't have to remove it. The graph on the left shows the volume of graffiti removed each year since 2014-2015, while the graph at right shows the same data by quarter. As you can see, there was notable decrease graffiti removed in 24-25. for quarters one through three of this year. We're tracking at roughly the same levels as in 24-25. With that, I'll turn it over to Lieutenant Anthony Kilmer to talk more about our graffiti efforts.

Good afternoon. My name is Anthony Kilmer, and I'm a lieutenant assigned to our assaults, gang investigations, and our ghost gun team. During quarter three, the San Jose PD graffiti team consisted of two temporarily assigned detectives. Their sole job was to investigate graffiti-related crimes. The majority of their leads originated from proactive monitoring of the 311 app and social media. Effective in May 26, the detectives were reassigned to the patrol division. The detectives were removed from caseload about a month prior to allow them to catch up on their administrative tasks. The detectives investigated in this quarter 14 cases resulting in 60 search warrants for records, data, and a myriad of other things. Two search warrant, I'm sorry, two search and apprehension warrant or operations were conducted resulting in two arrests. One subject arrested was a repeat offender. He was arrested in January and we arrested him again for about 30 new crimes in the Blossom Hill corridor. Effective May 9th, which is our shift change, there will no longer be detectives assigned to the graffiti detail.

All right, thank you. And so our final problem area is illegal dumping. We collected over 5,000 tons of illegal dumping in last fiscal year, and the amount we've collected has increased steadily over the past three years. As you can see on the chart on the left, as you can see on the chart on the left, The chart on the right shows the same data by quarter. Removing this volume of waste from our streets is a real achievement and likely helped contribute to our improving cleanliness perceptions. But like with graffiti, we would prefer to avoid the illegal dumping in the first place and see the amount of illegal dumping we collect decrease. I'll turn it over to Olympia Williams to talk about what we're doing to achieve this goal.

Thank you, Angel. For goal 3.1, illegal dumping enforcement, BeautifySJ has strengthened coordination with San Jose Police Department's Real-Time Intelligence Center to improve identification and accountability for illegal dumping offenders. This year, 112 cases have been referred to code for enforcement follow-up, resulting in 18 warning letters and 16 citations with additional cases still under review. We're also working with SJPD, Public Works, and DOT to develop a citywide camera technology strategy that will improve investigative capabilities across departments. Finally, Beautify SJ, SJPD, and the city attorney's office are pursuing the use of vehicle seizure authority for illegal dumping cases. To date, one vehicle seizure warrant has been issued with additional cases under review. These efforts are intended to increase deterrent and reduce illegal dumping citywide. For goal 3.2, for education and outreach, Beautify SJ continues to focus on high incident neighborhoods through targeted community engagement, including hanging door hangers on doors, providing educational materials, promotion of the junk pickup program, attending neighborhood association meetings, and direct resident outreach. Prior to deploying monitoring cameras, staff conduct canvassing and knock and talk efforts to educate residents about legal disposal options. We also expanded our environmental stewardship program to six schools across five council districts, educating elementary and middle school students on litter prevention, neighborhood stewardship, and the impact of illegal dumping to their neighborhoods. While broader marketing campaign efforts were deferred due to citywide cost control measures this year, staff continue to coordinate outreach efforts and pursue lower cost education opportunities. We are reevaluating our education strategy for 26-27. I'll now turn it over for Gil 3.3.

Thank you, Olympia. The city contracts with Green Team of San Jose for multifamily junk pickup services citywide. Green Team has been conducting enhanced proactive outreach to multifamily property managers using phone and email. That outreach work continued through quarter three and tons collected were up an average of 50 tons per month. Cumulative tonnages compared to last fiscal year are up over 30%. To further increase participation, our team has engaged our department's community activity specialist. This role's job duties include in-person meetings with multifamily property managers to promote and educate about the junk pickup program. In quarter three, we developed an outreach strategy for the community activity specialist targeting multifamily properties near illegal dumping hotspots. Meetings with property managers commenced in May. In addition to educating on the junk pickup program the Community activity specialist is using a survey to collect feedback from property managers that will help inform service model improvements in the next solid waste contract cycle. And finally, in quarter three we began collaborations with the city's customer experience transformation team to review and improve junk pickup customer service processes. The team identified opportunities to streamline email communication to residents, clarify item set out instructions, and developed a performance tracking dashboard. Improvements began launching in quarter four, and further improvements are planned with 311 team in the upcoming fiscal year. And I'll pass it back to Olympia.

For service efficiency improvements, the Beautify SJ optimization plan is included in the 2026-2027 operating budget. The plan positions Beautify SJ for long-term sustainability by improving operational efficiency and strategically aligning resources. While Beautify SJ has successfully managed increasing volumes of trash and debris, the optimization effort allows us to expand our focus beyond collection activities to include blight reduction, neighborhood and public space beautification, neighborhood engagement, and encampment management. This approach will help preserve recent progress while creating a more balanced and proactive service model for neighborhoods citywide. I'll turn it over to Rachel.

Thank you, Olympia. This fiscal year staff completed the abandoned shopping cart pilot program which operated from August through November 2025. The pilot resulted in the collection of 734 abandoned shopping carts across two hotspot areas and provided valuable insight into proactive collection strategies, operational challenges, hotspot locations, and opportunities to improve enforcement and service delivery.

Collectively, these efforts reflect a balanced strategy of enforcement, education, and operational improvements. While we continue to respond to illegal dumping and blight issues, we are also investing in long-term solutions that improve neighborhood conditions, expand legal disposal options, and enhance the city's ability to maintain clean, safe, and welcoming public spaces. I'll now turn it back over to Angel.

All right, so thank you. And so finally, we'll take a look ahead. On Tuesday, the City Council approved the June budget message, which incorporated an MBA which we set out OUR FOCUS AREA GOALS FOR NEXT YEAR. WE WILL BE RETURNING TO CITY COUNCIL IN THE FALL TO PROVIDE A FINAL REPORT ON THIS YEAR'S GOALS AND THEN COME BACK TO THIS COMMITTEE IN DECEMBER TO REPORT ON PROGRESS ON NEXT YEAR'S GOALS. AND I ALSO OVERLOOKED WE ALSO HAVE ANDREA FLORES SHELTON ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF PARKS IN THE BOX AS WELL AND I DON'T THINK I MENTIONED YOU AT THE BEGINNING SHE'S AN IMPORTANT PART OF OUR TEAM SO I WANTED TO RECOGNIZE ANDREA. AND SO WITH THAT THAT CONCLUDES OUR PRESENTATION AND WE'RE OPEN FOR QUESTIONS.

Thank you for the presentation. Do we have any public comments?

No public comment.

All right. Well, thank you. Thank you for reducing 800,000 square feet of graffitis and tons of garbage each month. I noticed on slide 3.1, we sent out last fiscal year 18 warning letters and 16 citations. Do we know each of those citation? I would imagine it's vary. What is the citation include and what is defined within that state citations for illegal dumping?

Thank you for the question, Council Member. So these stats are for this fiscal year, and the citation would be for the illegal dumping infraction that's in the schedule of fines under Title IX, and I believe we've updated that fine amount, and I believe it's close to $10,000, if not $10,000. Yeah, up to $10,000. Or it is $10,000.

Oh, it is $10,000.

I think. I'll have to double-check it, though.

I just know there's a sign right here by my house that says up to $10,000.

Yeah.

And let's say the bad actors, if they, let's say the fine, let's say $1,000, and they're not paying it, what is the next step in process? Yes.

Well, for illegal dumping, it's a little tricky. As we've mentioned, I know in previous reports that for illegal dumping, it's critical that you have the evidence to be able to allege a violation against them. So in this instance, I think we've been taking more steps to address chronic repeat violators. And so to the extent that we have information that this is an individual or entity that has committed this violation in the past, I know that's something we're working with BeautifySJ and our city attorney's office on other approaches we can take. But additionally, we can always issue another citation to that same individual as well.

And this amount of fine goes up as this first and then the second one, maybe?

Yeah, let me double check that for you. I'll pull it up on our schedule.

Yeah, Council Member, the way that works, it's kind of an escalating. You know, the first fine is $2,500, then it escalates all the way up to $10,000 is the way that works. But let me address kind of maybe the more underlying issue around fines here. Because I think, again, this is something that we're grappling with as we're doing our operational assessment. I think just the bottom line is we haven't really utilized... FINES IN A MANNER THAT REALLY KIND OF GETS US THE RESULTS THAT WE WANT, RIGHT, IN AN EFFECTIVE WAY. AND SO ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE'RE DOING RIGHT NOW, WE'VE PULLED TOGETHER AN INTERNAL TEAM THAT INCLUDES THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, CODE ENFORCEMENT. WE'VE ALSO PULLED IN BDFI-SJ BECAUSE I THINK THERE'S AN OPPORTUNITY HERE TO KIND OF LIKE COMBINE OUR STAFF FROM BDFI-SJ WITH CODE ENFORCEMENT STAFF TO GET MORE ECONOMIES OF SCALE AROUND ENFORCEMENT. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, EVEN GOING BEYOND THE FEE STRUCTURE, IT'S HOW WE EXECUTE THE FEE STRUCTURE AND HOW WE HOLD PEOPLE ACCOUNTABLE TO PAYING THAT STRUCTURE. IN FACT, ONE OF THE OTHER GROUPS THAT WE PULLED IN IS THE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE BECAUSE RIGHT NOW THE WAY FINES ARE COLLECTED, CODE ENFORCEMENT ISSUES A FINE, BUT IT'S FINANCE THAT COLLECTS IT AND THERE'S A FIREWALL BETWEEN THE TWO, RIGHT? SO WE'RE TRYING TO CONNECT THOSE. WE STILL, OF COURSE, ARE GOING TO RESPECT THE FIREWALL BECAUSE THERE'S KIND OF AN INTERNAL CHECK AND BALANCE. But in order to really get the end result that we want, which is compliance, right, and really use fees and fines as a deterrent, then we're going to have to get more aggressive on the front end, which means that we're going to have to do a lot more enforcing on the front end. As the word gets out that they know that, okay, San Jose will enforce, then we're hoping that that serves as a deterrent. So that's the work that we have right now before us. And so some of these stats that you have here, I would say, you know, are good, you know, But I think what we're really aiming towards is a system of fine enforcement that really helps us move the needle to make sure that these blighted neighborhoods, these blighted properties, especially the frequent flyers, as they say, are held accountable.

Thank you. Rachel, so regarding the evidence, is that videotapes of the person with the license plate who's dumping it? Or is it, for example, I believe I sent over a couple of photos of people who dump it into my neighborhood, and I put on a pair of gloves, I go through it, and I go, oh, there's all their mails and their address. And then do we send them a warning or a citation? What do we do with that?

Yeah, it's going to be one or the other of those two things. Video and photos, it has to have that identifying information. So with videos or photos that have license plates, that's pretty straightforward. We can run the plates, get that registered owner information. The example you gave of mail in the debris, that can also lead to a citation if there's enough there. So yeah, we're going to cite whenever we can, for sure. That's our priority. But if we aren't able to substantiate that, then it would be a warning. And to answer the earlier question, I just wanted to double check so I didn't provide inaccurate information, but it is an escalating fine. It's $2,500 the first violation, $5,000 the second, and then the third and any subsequent violation after that is $10,000 per infraction. And it does not have a limitation of time, so that's great. So that means if a third offense and it happens a month later, it's another $10,000.

Well, thank you. Thank you for all your hard work. We're going to go to Councilmember Domingo Condeles.

Thank you for the presentation. My comments are real quick. With Olympia, with your update on the illegal dumping issue, we deployed cameras, correct? You mentioned across five council districts. How do we identify those locations and is there any, how do we communicate with the council office, for example, or nearby folks that, you know, this is where we're going, just FYI, this is a camera?

Definitely. So we have a total of 10 cameras. And what we do is we place those cameras based on data, whether it's reports that are called in, that are submitted through SJ311, or things that we proactively collect. And we place cameras in those areas where we tend to have a lot of illegal dumping with the goal of getting someone cited. typically council offices can reach out to us and say we want you to consider this area but because we had such a limited number of cameras us being able to partner with pv especially and now d.o.t and public works who have cameras everywhere we've actually been able to use the real-time intelligence kind of center and they've been able to contact us and say hey this was a dumping that we caught and that really helps us because it's that video that we need that's the easiest way that we can cite someone So those are the different things that we do. But if there are areas that you're like, oh, we want you to consider this area, please let us know because we either place a camera there or there may be another camera in the area that we can use.

Great. That's awesome. But how do we know that it was deployed out there so we could message afterwards? Message afterwards.

Those are things that we can, we typically report it during our annual report. But if you reach out, we can tell you where cameras are.

The reason I ask is when I go out to the neighborhood associations and I talk about this and, oh, we do this. Well, did they? I don't know. And so help me answer that would be helpful. And that's, I guess, the closed loop on the- Yeah, we can do that.

We can definitely be better at that and close the loop with the council offices.

Okay, great. That's what I was looking for. And then the second part of my comments was a kudos to the Beautify team, I think, with the education on the illegal dumping and or the Beautify message. uh for for that program it's like the the beautify strong or i don't know i forget what brandon you all use but it's it's it's it's um i think it's great i mean ida ju was one of the selected schools and the kids were like hyped up just to like talk about how good of a job they're doing and that is exactly the type of investment and the type of work that you know i'm a huge part of because it's upstream And we don't have to worry about future, hopefully, at this class being part of those illegal dumpers that we are constantly chasing down and spending millions of dollars a year. So kudos on that. So I appreciate you all. And with that, I'll move acceptance of this staff recommendation.

Second. Perfect. Let's vote. unanimous thank you keep up the good work and now we're going to City Council focus area status report regarding reducing unsheltered homelessness and that'll be our housing director Eric Sullivan

Thank you, Vice Chair. So Eric Sullivan, Director of Housing, and I'm joined by Andrea Flores from the Assistant Director at Department of Parks, Recreation, Neighborhood Services. There we go. I forgot your title entirely. So I'll go through a brief presentation here, and I will just also note Based on the Tuesday City Council vote, which has tasked the administration with coming back in September for revisions to this reducing unsheltered homelessness focus area, what I'll go through is the updates to date, and then we'll talk through the next steps as we have been charged in the June budget message with revisions to the focus area work and the next steps. And we will look to come back to Council as an action item for revisions to this focus area in September. So I'll go through just a quick update as you've seen from the other focus area works. You know, we look at where do we have kind of the complex, the long-term problems and what are measurable results in executing on reducing unsheltered homelessness. And so the overall work is really looking at how do we take the data that we're collecting and the numbers to tell a compelling story of the movement and actions that we have done? How does that build further public trust? How do we look back on some of the considerations and areas of focus that we have executed on? And what's our progress going forward as well as lessons learned? And we'll cover on each of these topics during this brief presentation today. So in going forth, we had four problems that we had articulated within this work. One was around building out the shelter system. We'll speak to that. Two was looking at some of the challenges around sustainable funding sources. And there still remain some challenges as HAP dollars is still a debatable funding source at the state level. And I'll speak to that briefly. Three is around our environmental compliance work in public spaces, which our partners at PNRS are driving forward. And then four is our work around data and forecasting as we're looking to improve how do we further refine the target we're solving for with unsheltered homelessness. And so going into some of the challenges as we kind of listed out in the prior work, you know, the focus on building out more shelter supply was very much the work that we did over the last six months and getting to a full system now of 22 sites and 2,202 beds serving over just about 2,500 individuals and over 630 pets. So we have a larger pet shelter system in our shelter system than the animal care center. In addition, we also looked at areas displacement where does our enforcement actions best sync up with building out the shelter system with good examples of that coming through our clearings at Columbus Park and also at the jungle and where we're best collecting as we have pulled together much broader data set for better managing the impacts of our work And so looking at problem one, we were able to get to completion on a lot of the build out with the opening of Cerrone, which was our last site to bring us to a full 22 sites with the opening of that location. And then we are going to be going to, as discussed in the June budget message, we'll eventually be phasing out one side at the Taylor Street navigation. And goal 1.2, how do we standardize operations? We're doing a lot of work with that administratively. We're going to be rolling out a single document to standardize a lot of our policies and procedures and looking at ways to optimize cost effectiveness within the system. And then three, outreach and engagement, a lot of the targeted work that we've been doing in breaking up the city into quadrants, as well as focused work within our downtown initiatives. The PRNS team has done fantastic work in leading around our no encampment zones and building out 26 miles of waterways for no return zones, as well as encompassing a lot of our interim housing sites with those no return zones as part of our commitments to community. In addition, as we look at other ways and funding sources, Part of this year's proposed budget, as just adopted on Tuesday, included that build out of effectively a third, a third, a third of local funding, state funding from HAP, as well as measure e-sources to sustain the shelter system as we then build out under the grant awarded on the PATH cited for our CalAIM work. I'll talk a little more about some of the challenges with the CalAIM work going forward based on changes at the federal side. And then lastly, as we've expanded and built out, you'll see green labels here for our work on data forecasting and infrastructure as we're expanding out and incorporating more of our data build out both with the county and local resources. Going to our next section here and talking about some lessons learned. I'll just briefly touch on these. One is around cost savings. We're very dependent. on some of the work with our service providers. One of the ways in which administratively we're going forward with a standard procedures document that we refer to as the admissions and continuing occupancy plan is a way to get to standardization across 22 sites, across 2200 beds, across five different service providers. How do we ensure that that experience from outreach into intake in the bed connected to services and moving on to the continuum becomes a more consistent just daily delivery and that's part of the work that we're doing now so that's It's very service partner reliance. We've been doing a lot of meetings with the service providers to get their feedback and input on this document, and it will be an evergreen document being revised probably quarterly as we roll this out by the beginning of July. Two, in looking at our outreach work and connecting with our enhanced engagement teams, with the Anquil team, with the PNRS team, Beautify, SJ, How we better synchronizing our initiatives as we look to resolve not only our larger encampments but our small and more daily encampments work. Three then looking at how we're further maintaining our no return zones and our no encampment zones. We've really increased and expanded out and stress a lot throughout the city covering 26 miles and a lot of the work that the PRNS team has done in ensuring rapid response and ongoing monitoring is certainly proving to be a lot of effective results in maintaining these zones while also being a stress factor. It consumes a lot of resources to do that. For the Department of Transportation, Olive program work and its evolution to its next iteration is articulated in the Tuesday June budget vote and how we're able to better synchronize again just the operations of enforcement and outreach and getting to improved results and looking at that retrospective that we had provided regarding the improvements to the overall Olive program and its eventual evolution. And then lastly, looking at some of our governance tools and how do we best take our work around HMIS, our GIS geotagging for a lot of our outreach work so we know with the investments we have made in the enhanced engagement teams, in the internal outreach teams, how we're best collecting that data throughout the city and within downtown to better synchronize service delivery. Then going on here to some of our long-term goals, here are just some quick key lessons learned. One has been around shelter site activation. It took a lot of work across six departments on consistent Thursday lunch meetings, to really synchronize our various operations for building out this system. And in seeing just sort of the complexity of that work to align the various department operations. Two, in looking at ways in which we standardizing these operations, you know, we run what is effectively a very large public interim housing system. and being able to provide that service in the most cost-effective way. We're pulling from a lot of lessons learned from prior experiences, as well as looking at ways in which we fine-tune and improve our partnerships with our service providers to get to that standardization. Three, as I mentioned prior, are work around CalAIM. We have the Path Sited grant, for a total of just about 2.4 million, including a match of 1.2 from the city. As we're looking to build out this system here at our three pilot sites, I will note some recent decisions has certainly put this Medi-Cal funds at risk. And so now we're looking at what are some of the considerations that need to go into that risk factor as we're trying to build out this piloted program within three sites. And then the original goal was throughout the entire shelter system. However, that funding source is currently at risk. Four, we then get into overall shelter capacity and how do we ensure we're keeping our neighborhoods clear, maintaining our commitments, meeting the obligations we have to the various communities and community meetings regarding the build out of these sites. And then last, how best we're able to track our outcomes. We're gonna be releasing a new set of revised dashboards uh in july that reflect the council direction going back to june of 2024 memo inclusive of the series of memos that come after to ensure we would report out on the progress and sustainability as well as success and service metrics across the entire system And so what's coming up next year, as I mentioned, we'll make a quick amendment to this slide, which is in September we'll be returning for further refinements to this focus area work. We've already begun meeting internally to discuss what are some of those big bets we're going to look to make around both our internal execution as well as the partnerships and the work that we need to do in collaboration with the county for expanding as much service areas as we can provide. And so we'll be coming back in September with that report. And if anything else to add, I think that's our report for today and happy to answer your questions.

Well, thank you for the presentation. Do I have any public comments?

No public comments.

Well, thank you for reducing or unshelter by building more shelter, but I know that it's unsustainable with the 24 shelter that we have, right? Including using funding from apps, home keys, and measure E funding. If it is unsustainable, Right now with what we have, how can we build more shelter in order to reduce the amount of homelessness in our city?

So I think that's part of the charge from the June budget message is to look at that problem more critically around what is the sustainable sources? How do we continue to address the issue knowing we've hit our max of what we can possibly do within the city? So where do we look at refinements to that overall shelter delivery where do we look at congregate solutions where do we look at more effective streamlined solutions where do we better sync up in our work with the county and what is the county's sort of expanded role in some of this work as well and that's some of the work we're going to do right now thinking through that to come back in September with sort of improvements to how we are approaching the problem and how we're dissecting the problem. Because we will have the benefit of just in a more exhaustive set of data that we're able to collect on our various intervention points to say, based on this data set, you know, here is some revised thinking and to receive that feedback further from council.

Let's say there is no other funding coming in. Even though we dissect and being efficient with what we have, it's still unsustainable. Therefore, how many years can we sustain with that unsustainable process?

So, you know, we have funded out over the next three years. Again, assuming HAP dollars continue to come in, it's about a third of the total system. Our last update we received from the IGR team just an hour ago had said that the state funding is back up to close to a billion, but there's still ongoing negotiations. If we continue to receive that over the next three years, then with current performance of measure e and i'm again talking in in general terms here there's a lot of sources that go into this uh you know we can continue on a current size again we're going to be slimming down by eliminating the navigation site we have the agreement with the county for them to take over two sides of operating dollars, so they're not buying the sites from us, they're just taking over the cost of operations. So with those reductions, you know, we can sustain this stuff for a couple years, but your question goes to sort of the central question we've been charged with, so what do we do next, right? We still have, you know, about 3,000 individuals who are unsheltered, homeless, and how are we going to continue our work to achieve functional zero? in light of resource constraints.

All right, thank you.

We're going to go to Councilmember Pamela Campos.

Thank you for those questions, Vice Chair Duan, and thank you, staff, for the presentation. I really appreciate laying out the problems, the long-term and short-term goals in the context in a way that provides us with the information as policy makers and decision makers to you know be able to understand those big bets and how we want to move this work forward so uh... really thankful for this presentation and uh... One of the earlier items that this committee heard related to youth and how investing earlier will get us those better outcomes. I'm curious about how the city is approaching those vulnerable populations that tend to be more challenging to support later down the road if we're not addressing them early on. So is that something that can be incorporated or that the Housing Department is thinking about as we come back and hear the update in the fall?

Thank you, Council Member Acampos, for the question. So in thinking about how do we get more on the prevention side for families who are further at risk, You know, I will speak to the framework for how the department is addressing this to the March memo where we dove deep into cost burden households throughout the city and really looked at it based on our plethora of resources that we have from multiple different angles, including one, you know, in our existing rent stabilized, rent restricted, rent subsidized portfolio, you know, we house 80% of the 102,000 families that are currently cost burdened, paying over 30% and in many cases over 50% of their income on rents. And so we have them in our portfolio that's to be providing those solutions. And so now that we have that detailed data, we'll be coming back based on sort of further charge from that memo when it's thinking through some more solutions around prevention. As well as discussed in the new proposed area on cost of living, how do we think through some of those strategies for years that we actually control? You know, for the units that we have under asset management and our rent stabilization program, through our shelter program, you know, we can push and pull some of those levers to further go upstream to prevent some of this, but there's also limitations there. And so we can, that memo, information memo really should have set the framework up. Here's the data set, here's what it says. You know, how do we pull from some strategies here to look at different ways in which we finance new housing construction? How do we create more mixed income communities? How do we ensure some of the distressed assets that we're gonna be stepping into to preserve around permanent supportive housing? How do we ensure we're not repeating some of those mistakes of that deeply concentrated high service need populations in a single building? because the building's not stabilized, and neither are the individuals there. So how do we rethink some of that work so we can come back with that broader strategy to address some of those issues?

Yeah, I appreciate that, and it was a conversation that I had with our youth commissioners recently in terms of youth homelessness, and it's a top concern for their... I'm curious about ways that we can better connect this issue and make experiencing homelessness so that we can capture that data less of a negative stigma by making the onus less on the individual and more on the systems that need to be improved so that we have less people in our community experiencing homelessness. You know, on that thread, I went on a ride along with the neighborhood quality of life unit last month. And in the experiences that we had, I feel like I noticed a missing component for our success in the sense that There were folks who had received shelter or housing and were still returning to places where they could make some bad decisions that would take them off track. And what I thought I saw an opportunity for was mentorship. And so I'm curious in terms of our work to reduce unsheltered homelessness and recognizing that There is a need to shift behavior at times as well. How are we thinking about that aspect of social responsibility or personal responsibility? in making this work that is very human, how can we use that to bolster our success? And I'll just end with, you know, I don't want to make it feel like we're boiling the ocean because this is not an easy thing to do since it doesn't exist in our community, or maybe it does, but maybe it could be strengthened. And so I think about a small pilot with 15 individuals that we know by name are consistently in and out of the legal system or with a population like veterans. How can we incorporate that human to human connection that could be truly transformational in ending unsheltered homelessness for an individual?

So I will say that in this part of our downtown collaboration work we actually have that exact number 15 individuals who've gone through the entire system from our shelter into permanent housing into their hospital bed or temporary place in bed and have returned right back to street homelessness. And this is part of the complex problems that we are collectively addressing with the county. Because the city, in terms of our availability of services, reaches a limit at some point. And the tools that we can provide to solve that are those 15 individuals experiencing going through the system. And where does the county step in? Where does the state step in? And we're, this is live and active work with these 15 individuals on this list. working with the ds office public defender's office how do we find a solution here and we're going to test run a couple of intervention points over the next couple of months in fact i'll be coming back in october as part of the annual report to do some minor re-budgeting to try to pilot some initiatives that will reflect work with the tas the pds the sheriffs um work with both county services and behavioral health to see where do we find a solution here because these 15 people are just emblematic of what's probably a larger broader population of the system or I did not have a tool to address their issue and now they're in our streets they're in our particularly within our downtown and they're probably in many other neighborhoods throughout the city as well and we need to find What is the, you know, what's the question we need to call on when our ability to respond to that individual's needs hits its limit? And what do we do next? Because they're still within our city, they're still our resident, they're still a human who is not being served and needs are being met. And so that is a very timely question and it's something that we're actively looking at now with a subset of 15 individuals today.

Thank you. I look forward to more information on this and how we can make sure that that component isn't missing in the work that we're doing for folks who studied psychology and understand Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We're really working on that fundamental base level, but once you reach that, whether it's we the city, we local government in partnership with the county, federal government, however you see that we, The need changes as you start to fill some of these gaps and so Wanting to make sure that our progress is sustainable I appreciate you saying that this is timely in the conversation because it was very clear to me that There is there is some gaps in how we're trying to solve for this and so I appreciate Staff recognizing that being aware and working on it.

So thank you again for the report and I will move to accept this status report Thank you, let's vote As unanimous do we have open forum No public comment. Okay meeting adjourned. I