Commission - Regular Meeting

He's got like three restaurants. He's running two and a half.

It was a choice. It was a choice. It was a life choice. It'll be worth it once you get through that. Get all the, everything in it. Because Rob would be here already if he was. I'm a child, aren't I? Are we voting on that, Scott?

No, I think it's just an assumption, but we can. Not tonight, though. Yeah, not tonight.

Maybe after. Don't worry, we'll let you know what we assigned you at the end. That's right. Happens a lot at the county. We try not to. We see all the true bad guys.

All right, I'm going to call this special joint study session of the Traverse City City Commission and Grand Traverse County Board of Commissioners to order. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands,

As the city is running this, we will acknowledge that the land on which we gather is the territory of the Ottawa and Chippewa peoples who have stewarded this land through the generations. Thank you for your strength and resilience in protecting this land and inspiring us to uphold our responsibilities to do the same. And I did want to acknowledge that we are alternating here, and so while the county does outrank us, Chairman Seifert has handed over the reins to me for this evening. to run as a city meeting, so we will be going through our city rules. All the staff over there for both sides has taken visual attendance, so we won't go through the official roll call. So we'll kick this study session off with our first topic and only topic, which is our discussion of the Housing and Homelessness Task Force. So we're going to hand that over to City Manager Maritette to start us off.

yes good evening i'm excited that we're at this point for about a year and a half the housing and homelessness task force has held dozens of public meetings had tremendous amount of public input met with a whole variety of stakeholders that are really important to tackling this tough issue. It's my honor to introduce Rick Bellingham, who has facilitated those discussions and is going to help facilitate it tonight. He is an organizational psychologist and has helped hundreds of companies and organizations tackle some really tough issues. He's been doing great work in Traverse City, and he's going to also introduce Ashley Halliday-Schmatt. But without further ado, I'll turn it over to Mr. Bellingham. Thank you for being here.

Thank you very much. My pleasure. Good evening. It's a pleasure to be here. So the first question is why are we here, and you all know that, but I'd like to clarify the purposes before we begin. My understanding of the purposes of why we're here are, one, to give you a chance to ask any clarifying questions you may have on the task force recommendations that Ashley will be presenting, and two, hopefully, for you to be able to SUPPORT A JOINT RESOLUTION TO MOVE FORWARD AN IMPLEMENTATION PLAN. SO THAT'S WHAT THE PURPOSE IS. DOES THAT PRETTY MUCH MATCH YOUR IMAGE OF THE PURPOSES?

If I can just clarify, Rick, because we do have audience at home and out here that's observing. This is a special study session, though, so we will not be making any decisions tonight. Study sessions don't allow for decisions. Those have to happen during regular business meetings. So I just wanted to clarify that so people don't see things and hear our discussion and wonder why we're not doing anything.

Right. No decisions tonight. Yes. Thank you, Amy. And so the agenda of this evening is proposed. You can always push back on that. One is I'll just sort of set the stage of the brief history and the context. Two, Ashley will present her recommendations and findings. And then three, I'll facilitate some discussion around some clarifying questions around anything else you want to ask Ashley and Christy about what's happened so far. So does that make sense as an agenda? Is that cool? OK, so a brief, brief history. So there are really three phases we need to think about. In early 2024, the Rotary Charities and the Community Foundation jointly sponsored a group to get engagement and alignment with community leaders throughout the region. And we had about 25 leaders we brought in for over a year to talk about what the goals were where we were right now, our current status, what the major gaps were, and what the priorities might be. As a result of that work, we ended up with a year-round shelter at Safe Harbor. And we also, even though it wasn't the intention or it wasn't part of the group of the collective, homeless collective, Matt, I wanted to give a shout out to Chief Matt Richmond because he attended almost all those meetings and really facilitated as humane closing of the pines as you could ask for. So just a quick shout out to him around that. So we met for over a year and as a result of that, You invited, actually, Ashley and Christy to establish a task force to envision the possibilities, to create a strategic vision. So the first phase was around alignment and engagement and the second phase was around envisioning and setting priorities, which you'll hear tonight. So that was second phase, and then hopefully the third phase will be planning and implementation, and that's what you'll have to consider this evening. So that's just a brief context of what has happened. So Ashley's going to present, and then I'll come back out. You can ask whatever questions you want around the components and the process and the funding and what this implementation team might look like. Does that sound okay? Is that good? Ashley, it's all yours.

Thanks Rick. Bear with me, there's a lot of tech going on right now. Should have printed this. Okay, good evening everyone. I'm Ashley Halliday Schmant and I have the honor of being the director of the Northwest Michigan Coalition Tend Homelessness. First of all, thank you for taking the time to do this joint study session. I know it's extra, but it's really important. I also wanted to thank the City of Traverse City and Grand Traverse County for asking us to take part in this and being engaged throughout the process. Before I begin with the recommendations and the presentation, I'd also like to publicly thank the more than 100 people who contributed to the process over the past 15 months. That includes task force members who represented service providers, government partners, philanthropy, community members, and people with lived experience. They shared their time, their expertise, and their perspective. This strategic vision reflects a tremendous amount of work and it's stronger because so many people were willing to engage in this really complex and difficult community issue. I'd also like to especially thank the leadership team, Benjamin and Nate, Sakura Takano of Rotary Charities, Ryan Hannon of Central United Methodist Church, Rick Bellingham, of course, and my favorite colleague, Christy Minervini, our task force coordinator. Tonight I'm going to walk through the Housing and Homelessness Task Force strategic vision and the eight recommendations that go along with it. And like Rick said, we'll do questions at the end if that's okay so we can get through it, and he'll help us facilitate that. Like he said, our ask tonight is pretty simple. We know no action can be taken tonight, but we're asking the city and the county to support moving this strategic vision to implementation and doing that back with your respective boards. All right, so the task force did what the city and the county asked us to do. We brought partners together, looked at the system as a whole, identified gaps, reviewed data and best practices, listened to people experiencing homelessness, and developed a coordinated strategic vision for preventing and ending homelessness. And what that means is making a strategic vision where homelessness is rare, brief, and one time for those experiencing it. This slide says, we did it. But I want to pause on that for a moment. It was really difficult. It was not easy. As Benjamin mentioned, it's a complex community issue. Homelessness is emotional, it's highly visible, and it's incredibly hard to grapple with. It can be difficult to reconcile how in one of the richest nations in the world and in a thriving, caring community like ours, so many people are still suffering every night without a safe and stable place to live. But homelessness is not a personal failure. I'm gonna say that again. Homelessness is not a personal failure. Homelessness is the result of the systems that have not kept up with the need for housing, have not kept up with the need for healthcare, income stability, mental health services, substance abuse treatment, and the supports needed to keep people housed. It affects neighborhoods, parks, businesses, public safety, health systems, service providers, and most importantly, the people experiencing it. But over the past 15 months, the community came together in a serious, intentional, and sustained way. The city, the county and philanthropic leaders challenged us to create a strategic vision that would help ensure resources are used more effectively and services are better coordinated. And that challenge came from a real place. Myself along with pretty much every service provider in this room and outside of it would come to you all time and again receiving or presenting separate requests that were fragmented. that were from different approaches or different missions, often without a shared strategy, a shared budget, or a shared understanding of how anything even fit together. The task force was created to answer that concern. What we now have is a clear community-informed strategic vision. It gives us a shared direction, a set of priorities, and a framework from moving away from the fragmented crisis-driven response to coordinated action. The next phase is implementation, determining how we move these recommendations forward together. And you've all already seen this in previous iterations of this presentation that I've given, but the task force was really organized around these seven goals, creating a unified strategy, addressing barriers to housing, which is what will actually end this problem in our community, maximizing resources, improving service coordination, tracking progress, incorporating community input, and advancing policy solutions to move the needle on housing. In plain language, we're trying to create one shared direction for the community, one that helps the community understand what we're working toward together. And really what we're trying to answer, how do we make sure public and private dollars are aligned around outcomes and not fragmented crisis responses? A little bit more on how we got there. I know Rick shared the phases, which I'm grateful for. I won't go into that. But the process getting to tonight was pretty significant. Over 15 months, we held more than 50 meetings, engaged more than 100 participants. That included the leadership team, the advisory council, work groups, providers, government representatives, healthcare, law enforcement, housing developers, philanthropic partners, and people with lived experience. We also held five listening sessions with people with lived experience of homelessness in our community right now, experiencing the problem. And that mattered. People who are living through homelessness often understand systemic gaps and barriers more than anyone else ever could dream of. They helped us identify barriers around access, trust, safety, documentation, transportation, shelter rules and practices, and unintended consequences of well-intentioned programs. We also prioritize transparency. We provided you all with monthly progress reports, public updates, materials on the website, media coverage, and regular communication when requested. This was not a quick planning process. It was long, careful, intentional, and built alignment around a really complex problem. All right, now the juicy stuff, the recommendations. So the work groups who are meeting, there were three work groups who met and they really are focused, the recommendations are focused into three buckets. Safety net recommendations, which are focused on the front end of the homeless response system, making sure that we have processes and programs in place to stem the inflow into homelessness. We have recommendations from the emergency shelter and services work group, focusing on emergency shelter in our community and the day shelter services that we provide. then finally housing solutions. That workgroup came up with recommendations around increasing housing units and the supports needed to help people stay housed. First you'll see here a couple from safety net services. Recommendation one is to strengthen the system navigation and outreach to reduce the inflow into homelessness. This really just means we need people and systems in place that can find people earlier and engage them effectively, help them navigate the services, and connect them to housing pathways so that the experience of homelessness is rare and very brief. This is about making sure people are not just contacted in crisis. We're not in the business of creating and counting how many contacts we have, but actually connecting people to the next right step toward housing. Recommendation two focuses on people at the highest risk of entering homelessness, and those people are folks who have already experienced homelessness before. We know that once someone has experienced homelessness, a future housing crisis can escalate very quickly without the right support. So this recommendation is about identifying risk earlier, responding with problem-solving and trauma-informed support, and coordinating help across the system so people can remain housed when possible. Next, our emergency shelter recommendations. The largest one, number three, that you see there is to maintain year-round shelter operations while planning for the potential consolidation of shelter with key partners for 24-7, 365-day shelter capacity. This is one of the most visible and complicated parts of our vision. The recommendation identifies a need for 165 shelter beds with Keystone Road, the location on Keystone Road, appearing to be the most feasible option at this point. This also recognizes that if that option proves unfeasible or unworkable, alternatives would need to be considered. This recommendation does not mean every single operational site control capital or funding question has been answered. It means that the task force and the folks on the emergency shelter work group believe the community needs a unified year-round housing focused shelter system with clear roles, shared data, coordinated funding, and a strong and intentional connection to housing. Shelter is not the solution to homelessness all by itself. Housing is the solution. But shelter is a critical part of a balanced system. It provides immediate safety and a place to connect people to housing. Recommendation four is to create a sustainable budget and funding plan for uh that emergency shelter and day shelter services this matters because shelter cannot be funded the way we've been funding it for years in this community through uncertainty year after year a stable shelter system requires a coordinated operating budget diversified funding and shared accountability from our community leaders and partners Recommendation five in emergency shelter services is to adopt consistent service standards across all emergency and day shelter services. That means consistent service provision, trauma-informed practice, housing-focused service delivery, and funding expectations that are tied to performance and housing outcomes. This is about making sure that if public dollars are invested, there are clear expectations for quality, consistency, transparency, and housing focused outcomes of an emergency shelter. The final three recommendations focus on housing solutions. Recommendation six is to align local financing tools and development incentives to increase deeply affordable housing. And when we say deeply affordable, we're talking about housing for folks who make between zero and 30% of the area median income. This is where the work moves really outside of the homeless response system and into the greater community housing ecosystem. The bottom line here is that we need more housing that people exiting homelessness can actually afford. That means housing at very low income levels including 0 to 30% of the area median income and 0 to 50% of the area median income. These recommendations point to tools that we already have, like pilots, the TIF, housing millage potential, land leveraging, streamlining approvals, incentives, but they're not intentional enough to help us move the needle on ending homelessness. Recommendation seven is centered on stabilizing and expanding permanent supportive housing and establishing and investing in an integrated care team to more effectively support folks once they get into permanent supportive housing units across the county. This recommendation is especially important to people experiencing chronic homelessness who have long periods of homelessness, who have disabilities and serious health needs, who need comprehensive care in home to stay housed. Recommendation eight is to advance zoning and land use policies that allow for density and flexibility to support the development of deeply affordable housing. That one kind of goes back to, I believe, number six, five or six, around being very intentional around the policies and the land use to make sure that development for deeply affordable housing is always included. This is a city, county, and township issue. So the housing market doesn't stop at the municipal boundaries that we've created and neither does homelessness. We need coordinated land use, coordinated financing, development incentives, and policy tools across the region. And this is the smallest font known to man. But you all had it ahead of time. The budget slide is not intended to suggest that this is all finalized or figured out or committed by anyone. We're also not asking that the city and county are making obviously a budget commitment tonight or by saying that we support the strategic vision does not mean that the city and county are on the hook for every single line item that you see here. What it does mean and what it's intended to do is show the scale of what implementation will require and to begin those more serious funding conversations. Some recommendations can be advanced through existing partnerships, coalition funding, state and federal dollars, or government staff support. Others will require new and sustained investment. The important point is that this cannot be carried by any one entity alone. Local government does not have to fund this entire vision by itself, but local government does need to be at the table in an intentional and sustained way If we are going to align resources around the shared implementation plan. At its core homelessness and our community is a resource allocation issue. The solutions are achievable, but they require aligned public investment shared responsibility and a commitment to funding outcomes, not just responding to crisis. So what happens next? We're still working just because the task force officially has concluded. We're still working on this. So first, we're still the emergency shelter work group is still working with Org Code Consulting with I'm sorry, on a feasibility study to help validate the feasibility, timeline, capital needs, operating cost, and the most realistic path forward related to the shelter consolidation recommendation. We should have a plan from our consultants by the end of July. Second, working through the funding scenarios for the task force recommendations is still ongoing, including the possibility of a countywide housing millage that has the potential to address at least three of these recommendations, if not more. And then third and most important for what we're here for tonight is for you all to hopefully go back to your respective boards and secure a joint resolution of support for the implementation phase of the strategic vision. And here's a sample of that. But what the joint resolution we would like to see in it, kind of these main themes, would be affirming support for the Housing and Homelessness Task Force strategic vision. Second, adopting the eight recommendations as guiding policy for coordinated planning and resource allocation. And then third, committing the governing bodies to work with municipal departments, the task force, and community partners to develop a comprehensive, fully funded implementation plan within six months of adoption. That is the core ask. We're not asking you tonight to approve every budget line or finalize a shelter site. I wish we could get there in one meeting. We are not asking you tonight to decide every detail of a potential millage, a capital campaign, or an operating structure of an emergency shelter. We're asking you to say yes, this is the direction we're moving. Yes, we want a coordinated plan, and yes, we as a city and the county will work together to move from strategic vision to implementation. And then finally, before I hand it off to Rick, I just want to close by bringing us back kind of to the bigger picture. This community shows up time and time again for complex, complicated issues. When it's possible, local government providers, philanthropy, and community partners do align. However, I have not seen alignment prior to this on such a complex issue. um in this community and i've i mean i've only been here 15 years but i haven't seen it like this some of the conversations we had were messy we had the tough ones together and i think we came out with this strategic vision that really represents what those hundred participants really talked about We've seen people move from homelessness into housing. We get to see it every day. We've seen street homelessness in this community reduced to almost nothing when housing, shelter, outreach, and public investment are coordinated. We've seen providers come together around shared solutions, but again, we can't sustain any of that through one-time decisions, emergency requests, or disconnected funding streams. The strategic vision gives us a way to move from managing homelessness to ending it, ensuring it becomes rare brief in one time. It recognizes that shelter and housing are not competing priorities. We need both. We need immediate safety and we need permanent housing. We need prevention and we need deeply affordable units. We need service standards and we need sustainable funding. We need compassion and we need accountability, and I know we can do it. Tonight I'm asking the city and the county to take the next steps with us to eventually support the resolution, adopt the eight recommendations as a guiding framework, and to commit to developing a fully funded implementation plan within the first six months of the adopted resolution. That's how we move toward a community where homelessness is rare, brief, and one time. Thank you.

Wow, it is a complex problem and an impressive amount of work. I mean that's incredible in terms of what this task force has done. So as we move into the question phase here, I'd like you to keep in mind two things if you possibly could. One is to stay focused on the strategic vision more than the implementation plan. And two, if your questions could be clarifying questions to learn more about and to clarify something you might not have understood as deeply as you would like. And I'm going to suggest that we start out that discussion by let me structure those question areas into four areas. One would be... around the components of it we're talking about. So the components meaning we have these three task forces and we talked about safety and services and shelter and supportive housing. I like to alliterate so we got four areas to make it easier. So those are the components. TWO ARE THE PROCESSES, HOW WE WENT ABOUT DOING THIS. THREE IS THE FUNDING. AND THEN FOUR IS THE COMPOSITION OF THE IMPLEMENTATION TEAM. SO IF WE COULD START OUT, IF YOU'RE OKAY WITH THAT, IF WE COULD START OUT WITH THE COMPONENTS. SO WHAT CLARIFYING QUESTIONS DO YOU HAVE AROUND ANY OF THE COMPONENTS, THE SAFETY COMPONENT, THE SERVICES COMPONENT, THE SHELTER COMPONENT, OR THE SUPPORTIVE HOUSING COMPONENT, PLEASE? Yes, Jackie.

I really, first, there's so much to admire. Congratulations and thank you for the hard work. I wondered, you mentioned in terms of those who had lived experience with homelessness, the transportation was one of the topics that was very important. And I wondered, did our public transit agency come to the table and what input did you hear from them?

Great question.

Yeah, that was a great question. During this phase, they were not part of the conversation, but what I will say is, so the interviews with folks with lived experience were talking about transportation between service providers. Like, for instance, Goodwill Inn is on Keystone Road. If you're staying at Goodwill Inn, how do you get down to breakfast at Central, right? That sort of thing. So what we did in the work since is engage Beta in interviews with our consultants at Org Code, as well as some one-on-one meetings that we've had with them. So they will be part of, that's definitely a consideration for shelter, among other things. But it's been received very well so far with Beta. Two, it's, let me be more specific on that. Our meetings have been going very well with them and they're very engaged in working with us and working with our population. So we've seen very few barriers come up in terms of increased routes or yeah, whatever it takes, we'll work with them and they're happy to work with us.

That's a great example of a services question. I mean, you know, transportation is a service, right, among many other things. Other questions on the components, safety, shelter, services, supportive housing? Yes, Laura.

Ashley, you mentioned that there were unintended consequences of well-intentioned programs. And I believe you indicated that came from the interviews with those with lived experiences with homelessness. Can you expand on that or give an example? Sure.

One example is our work to end chronic homelessness that I've presented in front of these boards before. When we're trying to do a really lofty goal like that, like end chronic homelessness in our community, we reached a capacity issue. We only have so many street outreach workers. We only have so many housing navigation folks. what people on the ground were seeing who weren't chronically homeless were saying, well, what about me? So you're saying I have to stay homeless longer in order to get your help, right? And so that's an unintended consequence of a well-intentioned strategy. What we then did was correct that, and there's been some really great things that have happened. An example of it is not necessarily directly because of that, but we've doubled down on it, is some housing navigation services, both at Jubilee House during the day and at Central United Methodist as well. So we have some volunteers working really hard to get people who just, not everybody needs the same thing, right? Somebody who's experiencing chronic homelessness needs deep subsidy for rental support and usually a lot of services in home. Whereas somebody who's like a couple weeks into experiencing homelessness probably just needs somebody to sit down and like, here's the lay of the land, here's our community. What do you need to get back on your feet? That sort of thing. Great. Thank you.

So it's a good support question, right? How much support do people need and what kind of services? Other questions around the components, safety or shelter or supportive housing, services, just to understand more fully. Good. Let's move to the second then. I'll open this up so you can ask anything you want, just in case we don't cover it. What about process, how this whole thing unfolded? We talked about the original group around the homeless collaborative and then the task forces and the three task forces that were established and the advisory council and the leadership council. So a lot of process going on. Any questions on the process, how this unfolded?

I've got a couple of process questions. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ashley and team. The first question about process I have is it was mentioned in here that there is a new task force or? I think it was in one of the slides. Another iteration, is it an implementation task force?

Oh, I might have just used the same word interchangeably. I apologize. Call it whatever you want. It would not be like a new version of this. It would be really centered around forming the implementation plan and the funding strategy. And there goes our slide. Sorry, Sarah. Oh, there we go.

So there is a new task force then?

There is not right now.

Okay.

I think you're asking, we had the task force for the strategic vision and now we're moving to this implementation phase. Is there going to be a team or a task force for that? Is that the question? Yes.

I'm not sure yet. That doesn't exist yet, but go ahead Ben.

So we've had this leadership task force in place for a little over a year and the hope at least on my part and I've spoken with the county administrator at least initially is to leverage that leadership team to help develop the funding plan and the implementation plan if the city commission and county board were to ultimately adopt the resolution. That core group that's been working on this for quite a while with the partners that's been in those spaces I think would be really well suited to develop that. Okay. Does that answer your question?

Yeah. Can I ask a piggyback on that too though, Ashley, really quick? Sure. Because I hear that but I'm also reading, I was going to say this for implementation but since you're up here and it's on that topic. In the suggested resolution itself, the task force is listed as one of the people to advise for the next step so there's a task force identified in the resolution itself so not that we have to pass it as is but it's kind of sounding like a chicken or the egg scenario because you're saying well if the resolution is passed we can create it but the resolution and the kind of structure is saying this can guide us to what the resolution will be pushing us towards so i just wanted to kind of

sure it's a sample resolution concept it's that we will have folks you would have folks work on that and I think that those that would be respectfully best position to that would be the folks that have been working on this issue in a really focused way yeah and advise the boards accordingly Great, thank you.

Well, Ashley had another question. Pardon? Ashley said she had two questions. Oh, you had one?

Yeah, the other question was about, you mentioned the group that's working on the feasibility study and that it's end of July, hopefully, we'll have a plan for that or results of the feasibility study, the results of it. What are, how does that fit into this process? As we're discussing, you know, resolution, as we're discussing, you know, because there's so many unknowns around that, how do you see that fitting in? Since it's a little bit off, like it would have been nice to have seen that today, but it didn't work out that way. So how do you see that fitting in?

Yeah, that's a great question. Honestly, I kind of saw this, I thought someone might ask that. I kind of see this as you all taking, I think by the time each body brings something back to each commission and potentially just, I mean, you can rewrite the resolution of support, right? It's a resolution of support. That's ultimately all it is. Those three things I talked about, supporting the recommendations and bringing us support creating an implementation strategy, and then through that creating, actually seeing through the implementation plan. I see that happening in July, and then by the time that kind of happens, you'll have that report to guide the implementation. What Org Code is bringing, or what I believe they'll be bringing, Is the validation of that third recommendation around emergency shelter location, the budget, is it best for the people experiencing homelessness to do this approach? And so that is really the nitty gritty details that happen in implementation. So I feel like you could adopt the resolution, start the process of what Benjamin was talking about without having that report.

Ashley, go ahead. Any other process questions?

Yes, please, Lance. Yes, just around the budget, could you just speak a little bit more to the process of how that was created and then is there logics behind the one through eight on the budget of prioritization or of what would go first type of thing? I got to make it bigger, sorry.

There is no, to answer the first question, they're not in any particular order. So no, they're not prioritized. And then, do you want me to go line by line or?

He also talked, he talked about the process for establishing that.

Oh, the numbers? Yeah. Okay. So I kind of do have to go line by line. For recommendation number one, that is to fund system navigation and outreach. So that's to bring to scale housing navigators and outreach workers. So that entire line item is staffing. That was drafted in partnership with the providers already doing that work and what the cost for full-time employment is. The second, same thing, reducing targeted prevention and housing stabilization. So that's, I believe I presented to both your boards at separate times about the idea of homelessness diversion and shelter diversion work. That's to increase that funding or increase that funding, increase that support through funding to full time staff. Next, the biggie, the year-round shelter. So right now the estimated cost of operating the two shelters along with some of the day shelter services is $3 million a year. That's how that was, that's easy peasy, get the budgets from the two shelters that exist along with the budgets from our day shelter providers and it costs right around $3 million a year. The capital costs for potentially building something different in terms of emergency shelter are not included in this and are not funded. The ask is not to fund that through local government. Oh, and then so the next two around shelter, we paid consultants to figure those two things out. So those will be number four and number five will be part of the plan, or I'm sorry, the feasibility study that comes from Org Code. Number six, financing tools, development incentives. So that's around the development of permanent supportive housing units. Yeah, so that's a complicated one that I feel other people in the room are better suited to answer. You could go to the doc, the 100 page document. It's probably more spelled out in there, but that's around unit cost and how many units we need. And then finally, number seven, stabilize and expand permanent supportive housing. Oh, so that's the integrated care team. So an integrated care team happens in many other communities. I've had the privilege of working on one in Chicago. And what that is is a psychiatrist or a psychiatric nurse practitioner, a peer support specialist, a case manager, or a therapist, and sometimes substance abuse counselors coming right into the home and doing those services in home. That would cost about a million a year. That's heavily dependent on a lot of things, right? Like you can bill Medicaid for a lot of those services. So partnerships with community mental health, which we're already exploring. Billing through Medicaid through either a health clinic or community mental health is something we're also working on. And that cost is strictly related to the staffing costs of building out that team. And then finally, number eight. Doesn't require any money. It does. It requires taxpayer dollars, right? But it doesn't, we're not making a comprehensive ask. The ask for number eight is really to be really intentional when making those policy and land use decisions.

That's good. Jackie, did you have a process question?

I did. Could you tell us a little more about the participation of the townships in the task force and what you expect in terms of engagement going forward? Yeah, sure.

So on the advisory council, we had representation from Garfield Township and East Bay Township. We had, I think that's right, yeah? Yep, we had Chris Barshuff and Beth Friend. So they were on the advisory council. And the planner, that's right, we had East Bay Township planner Claire Karner there. And Claire was also involved in the housing solutions work group. So the housing solutions work group was, we split them up and then brought them back together. We had a room of developers and planners coming up with solutions and then service providers coming up with solutions and brought the two together. So Claire from East Bay was also on that. In implementation, I would strongly recommend that Probably not representation from every township exists on that body, but quite a few. I think of representation from Garfield Township, East Bay, Blair, potentially Acme, where we see progress and development around housing.

Thanks. Yep. Other process questions? All right, let's go to the final one, please.

Daryl. Did you have somebody else have one? Go ahead. All right. So two questions. Thanks to everyone who was involved in this. I don't see any big surprises in this. Nothing of the eight points are shocking to me. Did the committee look at examples of other communities who have used this program and have shown some success. That's the things I've been kind of researching and looking at. Houston is an example. There's even some ones in the state. How did you lay this plan over those plans of what is actually working now? And how did that look as you guys were doing this?

Yeah, great. Great question. Yep, we're always, we created this based on the Santa Clara County model. Difference there is it's Santa Clara, so we're talking about Silicon Valley and lots of tech money to support things like that. So it's not apples to apples, it never is. But the formation of the task force, when you say program, if you're referring to just kind of the task force in general, that's a model that is recommended by the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, and that's where that came from. So the idea to have a city and county led task force, and then all the people, all the participants that were involved was based on that model. And then yeah, it's hard to compare apples to apples, what we do in our group. We just did it last night. Ben and Rick sent a New York Times article about a great solution around housing developments. We're always looking at new ways to explore that.

There was a great deal of, go ahead Daryl, sorry. Well, so follow up, another question too, but follow up on that. I mean, this is a worldwide issue. I see it everywhere. I got to believe that there are really well thought out programs that aren't working very well at all and are really expensive and there are really well thought out programs that are working and I would like to look at those examples and try to find what's working, why it's working, how is it working or why is it not working. Because we can look at this, but I got to believe with it being such a, a prevalent issue worldwide that there are lots of attempts at working it. So I would like to see, and actually if you would share probably with everybody the Santa Clara example. I'm not familiar with that one, so I'd like to see how that's worked, what's worked. The second question I have is did you guys talk about putting in some performance metrics? Like how do we know this is working? Obviously, it isn't going to work 100%. It's not going to work 0%. Right. How do we look and where do we tweak along the way and what reporting are you going to be using? Because I think that's an important element of this is, is it working? What isn't working? What is working? And how can we fix what isn't working and improve on the ones that are?

Yeah. That's awesome. Yes, so that really, well, first of all, I want to go back to the other thing. There are like six-ish models that are linked in the document. So there are other community examples that we linked right in there. So you can find those there. And those are examples of plans. They're things like this. They're not real specific on any one given intervention. The other thing around performance metrics. So yes, the coalition, that's like what I do. So I give educational presentation, you know, stuff like this. We help coordinate the funding, but we're not in the business of advocating things that don't work for the people who we serve. So anything that you see in here, there has been a level of vetting. Does this work? Does this have good outcomes? And if not, what would make it better? So you see in some of the recommendations and some of the stuff that I shared during my presentation, we need to get better about. We need to have, when we tie government funding to solutions to end homelessness, there has to be accountability. There has to be measurements on services and outcomes. Something off the top of my head, so $140,000 a year for two full-time people working to divert people away from homelessness. An outcome for that would be how many people didn't come into emergency shelter because these people were in place, as opposed to the year prior when we had like a halftime person or something like that. So I could go all night on all of the outcomes for every single intervention listed here, but what I think you want is to hear me say like these things are already working in our community. We can tweak it, but that's where like the implementation planning and then the accountability with that comes in.

I'll just simplify maybe. Okay. So there's about a $5 million ask here of the two bodies that are here. What is that $5 million bias? That's what I would like to see. I'm not asking the answer to that right now. Okay. You would expect a 10 to 20% decrease in this. Oh, sure. Or a 50% increase in that. And the other answerly thing is because the city and the county are both spending a lot of money toward the issues of homelessness, substance abuse disorder, alcoholism, those type of things. So this body is already heavily invested. So it's a group that's going to want to look at the metrics of what does this $5 million a year, whatever it ends up being asked, what does it bring to the budgets of not only the county and the city, but the businesses, the homeowners, the taxpayers.

Sure.

hospital, you know, all of that. So that's a really big ask. But so is 5 million.

It is. It's a big ask.

Yes. And I can assure you, because I've been involved with this since the beginning, there's a ton of research done, which gets included in the report. But we can, if you would like more, we can get you that research. A lot of work being done on performance metrics and ROI and how we measure that. So I'd be happy to go into that detail. They can go into the weeds on that. Okay, Eddie, yes, Jackie.

One last question, I promise.

No, please, that's why we're here.

Everybody is familiar with the work that the city and its community has been doing on strategic planning and how we're trying to align our spending and our budgets with our strategic pillars. Was that issue addressed in the task force and did you find ways to connect the dots of your proposal and resolution with ours? existing strategic planning.

Yes, so it was great because we had Benjamin on our leadership team. However, he's a newbie, right? He's new to our leadership team. We've been doing this under three city managers, so I just want to be really clear about that. So is it perfectly aligned? Probably not, because we've been going through different iterations of that position. However, what I will say is that we formed a lot of trust with Benjamin and we know the commitments there. And I should have known somebody was gonna ask me this. I can't remember the pillar that it's under. Is there one around, huh? Regional cooperation?

Certainly, there's a great starting point, maybe more.

That's a great question. How do you map what's going on here with the strategic plan? You should be able to map it in, so great question. Any other process questions?

I have a quick question going back to the budget because it's staring me in the face. The numbers are somewhat daunting but what I'm wondering is how much of this is actually a new request versus money that's already being spent and perhaps being spent in an inefficient uncoordinated way. And so how much of a benefit would we see from this? new approach perhaps with the same amount being spent. And did the task force drill down into how much is being spent currently versus what this proposed annual requirement is?

And Laura, I think what you're getting at is what's the cost of not doing anything and what are we already spending that we're not sure what we're getting from?

Yeah, so I mean, I think Ashley mentioned on the emergency shelter that that $3 million a year is basically being spent today, that you basically took the budgets from the two and combined them. So what I'm wondering, just for clarification, is how much of this is a new ask versus what's being spent already?

Sure. That's a great question. And something I kind of tried to weave through my presentation tonight, it's about intentionality. It's about resource allocation to the spots that we know are proven to work, which are the recommendations. Every community spends a lot of money managing the problem. And when I say managing the problem, I'm talking about, we need this, but law enforcement, first responders, emergency department overutilization, EMT overutilization, our jail system overutilized by people experiencing homelessness. When the right approach and an intentional way that resources are allocated We should see shifts in those costs and go down significantly. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's move to the funding segment. I know we're sort of getting into that area as we go along. We're talking about it more from a process point of view, but what are your specific questions or any other questions or clarifying questions on funding? Ashley?

Yeah, I've got a couple, and this is kind of a follow-up to Commissioner Ness's question about those aspects of the budget. And some of these are annual costs that are budgeted. I'm assuming most of it's annual, are there?

Yes, they all are.

know if all goes well and we're successful do these continue to be annual costs do we it's a good question do we you know at a certain point we don't need 165 beds or we don't like what's the leveling off or is it it needs to be at this level for it to continue to sustain a system forever? What are we looking at? What's the vision there?

Love that question. It's not forever, but it's really hard to project how long we'll need Related to shelter, it's really hard to estimate that. Things on the front end of our system are hard to estimate because the inflow to homelessness is impacted by almost every other failed system in this country that we have no control over. We don't have control over when hospitals release people without housing to our streets and our shelter. We don't have control over that. We don't have control over a failed mental health system in our country that exacerbates the experience of homelessness and often prolongs it without treatment. So we can't project that ultimately also like COVID right like things like that can happen where we just we don't know what I will say is to maintain an effective shelter system where we can and kind of this all this front end work, it would need to be five years at least. before we start seeing impact and think about can we start reducing this. But that's always on our mind. We don't want to fund programs forever. With housing, it's a little bit different. That $1 million a year, that's really the startup to get that going. I would anticipate that goes down if Medicaid continues to be something that's funded. and provided to our folks because we'll be able to leverage that more. So it depends on the issue, but I would say at least five years at this level and then we'll see some leveling off I would anticipate.

It's a great question, but I think a lot of it has to do with there's so many variables you can't control. Economy, health care, mental health, can't control. It's a great question. Other questions? Yes, Amy.

So this is a question that came up under here, but I guess it probably could have gone under process at the beginning. Now that's popped in my head. You know, we've engaged with our nonprofit partners, a lot of whom are part of the resilience team, and others as part of this, as well as our local governments. But we've now pointed out some of the issues are releasing people from the hospital to unknown circumstances, ER costs, things like that that ultimately sometimes do fall on the taxpayer through Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs, but are also a responsibility of some of our public, private, nonprofit-profit combo people in this region. Was there outreach to that and or is that something we can look at as we look at funding some of these things?

I think it's definitely something you can look at when you think about implementation in a funding plan. There was and always is outreach to those I don't know, kind of like, I don't want to call it feeders. The systems that affect our response to homelessness the greatest. So that's, we're thinking about foster care system, folks aging out of foster care coming in to experiencing homelessness. We think about the healthcare system, mental health system, and then our substance abuse treatment providers. Yes, they've been consulted in working through this plan, but I think it could be far more intentional when we think about including them in the funding plan, for sure.

Thank you. Other funding questions? Yes, go ahead, please.

Yeah, thank you. I was a little surprised to not, right, so context. We understand that we are a regional hub. The Coalition to End Homelessness has a wider scope than Grand Traverse County from my understanding. Yep. And we understand that when our neighbors in, say, Bel Air or Cedar become homeless due to rising rents and other circumstances in those communities, they're going to come here. We are the closest shelter. We are the closest services. So I am surprised that we don't see more opportunities for state funding. When we have multiple counties, multiple regions being affected, how do we bring in resources that reflect the makeup of the problem, right? Yeah. The fact that the situation we're in where we've got a growing number of homeless folks not just from the four corners of Grand Traverse County, right? There's no gate.

Right.

At the county line. Yeah. We know that, right? Mm-hm. We're not going to pretend that this is an intra-county problem. Right. So how can we, I think of, for example, boards like the airport and beta right they have representation from leelanau county because leelanau county is a partner in some regards uh waste we bring in in benzy county into that mix courts we bring in antrim county into that mix how do these funding questions right a county millage Is that a multi-county millage? Is that on the table? Because these are regional issues.

Yeah. I'm not going to answer that one.

State resources and resources from regions outside this area. What is the mechanism to get those resources? Funding a shelter? not forever but for at least five years, right, like whatever that number is, is going to be a burden and how does the state contribute recognizing that we are a regional enterprise, you know, system up here and in my opinion, right.

It's a great question. How do you expand funding possibilities outside the city and the county? So how do you expand that?

Yeah, I think part of that question would be, Figuring out who makes the most sense to be on that implementation body. Yes, it's Grand Traverse County, but that's where I think there's more. I mean, the task force was Grand Traverse County specific, but I think in implementation is where we can get into the more nitty gritty of stuff, especially with funding. And I think that's where we can leverage relationships with the other counties or who do understand, but it's easier if you're on that side of it, that Grand Traverse County bears a lot of the costs related to this issue. So I think there's leverage opportunities there for implementation. To answer your question about the statewide resources, so there's a couple things. There's nothing to my knowledge out there right now, so that's another part of My job is to figure out what's out there in terms of state or federal grant opportunities to fund all of these things, among other things that the homeless service delivery system does. So to my knowledge, there's nothing right now that would help, say, build a new shelter. But we already receive funding in this community for Shelter operations through a statewide grant we receive state money for street outreach. diversion and rapid rehousing what's tough is our cut of that is tiny like the state money that we receive Nora shouted out that for the shelter is. $358,000 a year to be a regional hub to operate shelter and day shelter services at a cost of $3 million. So we're already leveraging kind of what's existing. I think what implementation could look like is some really intentional advocacy or potentially even can I say lobbying, you know, things like that to get the state legislature to kind of understand our local issues.

Can I ask a follow-up question on that, going to the regionality and the cost? I know when we tend to apply for those, some of our partners are five county, ten county, multiple, I know that as well. But it also can be seen as, I know how some of the applications look, we're applying for this in Grand Traverse County, blah, blah, blah. So if a millage has to be passed by voters, and that's a whole other issue, but is that a possibility with the way some of the funding mechanisms that you know work? that if we suddenly had Antrim and or Leelanau or Benzie leaders step up and say, yes, Grand Traverse is applying for this, but it applies to all of us, is that a way we can shift that a little in how some of that funding is allocated, or is it really like all or nothing?

No, most of the statewide funding applies based on what counties your kind of jurisdiction serves. Something, I didn't want to get into this because it's kind of way in the weeds, like you're deep in the forest. But the way the federal government and some state organizations give funding to communities for homelessness is through your continuum of care or your COC, right? And so for many, many years, the five-county region of Greater Grand Traverse, Antrim, Leelanau, Benzie, Kalkaska, and Grand Traverse has been a continuum of care. Over the past year, in order to protect our very precious permanent supportive housing dollars through the federal administration's cut of those and deletion of its priority around permanent housing, we've merged with a 67 county continuum of care. So in order to do that, we had to make some tough decisions locally. We doubled down on the fact that that would protect our permanent supportive housing in the next two iterations of the federal funding cycle, and it has so far. We're wondering through litigation and potentially midterms what that will mean. as far as our federal funding, but what that has given us at the state level is a bigger voice. We're serving, and when I say this, I do not, again, we're way, way in the forest, but I don't mean that the service providers here tonight, like Safe Harbor isn't gonna start serving 67 counties. Goodwill is not going to start serving 67 counties. That's the way our funding rolls through, and that's the way we're recognized by the state and federal government. So it has leveraged opportunities already, and we hope more in the future.

Great, thank you. Other funding questions? Let's go to the composition.

Oh, I think Mitch might.

Oh, did I miss one? Oh, please, Mitchell, go ahead.

To the funding and regional things, and it also gets to the previous questions of process, on recommendation three, it identifies a Keystone Road facility as the most viable. I'm a little curious how that was arrived at, and also with the current... shelter set up at safe harbor is within the city limits keystone road is not and while we have the city and the county here northfield township is not right not that the city can't be funding things that are regional in nature and are beyond our limits but it can be a little harder for us to be spending from our general fund for something that is fully outside of our jurisdiction

It could, but it doesn't have to. If we truly look at this like a regional issue, and we think about the impacts and the cost savings that the city of Traverse City would be relinquishing if the shelter was in a different jurisdiction. I think there's some money there that could potentially be reallocated. When the shelter is out of the city limits, if it were to be, or anything's out of the normal jurisdiction. Some of the essential services that we talked about before, first responders, police or law enforcement or fire department, all of that cost then goes to the township or the county, right? So there's a cost savings thing there, and that's a decision obviously for your boards to make. But if we truly think about this as a regional issue, I think that should be considered.

Were you also asking Mitchell what the process was to come up with Keystone as the preferred? Oh, sure. So let me just take that to give you a rest. Thank you. So there was a lot of contentious and heated dialogue around what's the best shelter option, right? So the process for doing that was we got together all the people who were involved in the shelters of one sort or another. and we looked at all the values we were trying to solve, and then we expanded all of the options that were potential there, trying to solve the problem of 165 beds, shelters, and when we're currently at 130. So if we're at 130 and we think we're going to need 165, what's the best option for getting there, or combination of options? So after a lot of debate and dialogue with everybody involved, the stakeholders involved, we looked at which option seemed to satisfy the most amount of values. So we did it very systematically. But you still raise a very good question, and it's still being studied. It's not like they've landed there, but that was the process for getting there. Do you want to add to that?

I just have visions of that horrible spreadsheet. So we laid out, I mean, it was this massive thing, laying out, like Rick said, every single option that we could think of, and then making, kind of like voting, you know, based on the values of the people in the room who were greatly impacted by that decision. So that's how that came to be.

Let's go to composition, composition of the implementation team if you decide to move forward with the joint resolution. Any questions about how that would be composed or who would be on it or thoughts about that, Amy?

I guess I have a question of who would be convening it because I mean I look at it and when I see who's making the decisions, being our two boards and others, I would look to Benjamin and Nate to kind of decide who's convenient, who makes sense, and then from there, look to township partners, nonprofit partners, and things like that. Has there been any kind of suggested structure, or are you kind of all looking for input from us right now?

Not necessarily right now, but in the future, definitely looking for input. I think some things have come up tonight, some things like TJ mentioned about like having the other counties participate. I love that. So I think it's iterative, right? Like we're figuring it out. The one thing I will say is the coalition has a funded position, like funding secured to help kind of do my job to help with implementation. So we already have that secured from the homeless response system perspective.

Great, that's a good answer too. Other questions beyond the components and process and funding and composition, any other questions you have to Ashley? Yeah, Ashley. Questions for Ashley.

This was in a couple different buckets, but you had mentioned in the presentation that there are potentially three aspects of the plan that are that could be funded by a possible housing millage. Yeah. And can you speak to what the task force envisions as possibly- Yeah.

Yep.

Funded by that?

I think it's, I want to say it because it's so easy, but then I want to check myself. So any potential funding sources anywhere you see county wide millage. Yep, county millage. that could potentially be utilized there so things that that group has already been working on would be funding for the operations of emergency shelter to take it to 165 24 7 365 and other communities have done that so the great thing about three other communities in our state having already went through this millage process or counties i guess They have funded in some way an emergency shelter. They funded the development of permanent supportive housing or deeply affordable housing. So that's the second one. And then the third is a version of the integrated care team. So all of those other millages have also provided funding to supportive services for housing. I don't know that they call it an integrated care team, but that would be the third one locally.

Other questions? All right, going once, going twice.

I guess I have a quick one and this is for us taking it kind of to Ashley for guidance but also kind of to the two boards not looking for answers from everybody. But, you know, we've kind of said there's a resolution here, it's not the exact one and we just need to pass something and I totally understand that and I think that's why we're all here together and why we're all hammering this out now. How important is it though that we pass essentially the same resolution between the two boards?

Oh, didn't think about that. I just was calling it a joint resolution, assuming it would be the same.

And if it's a joint, then we'd want both our leadership people to kind of put heads together on that then. Would that be the solution? I'm just trying to get to that, we don't have to hammer everything out here today. who's picking up the mantle and bringing it back to us with an understanding that we can get on the same page and resolve.

We can both agree that the same page. Benjamin?

Oh, yeah. No, we can't. False. Team Ben and Nate. Yes. Okay. Team Ben and Nate. Love that. Thank you.

Any last question? This is a question that I probably can't even answer right now, but I'm on page 107. It talks about the Alice households at 19% and the state average is 28%. Alice households are, I forget the acronym, but below a certain level. We'll call it a poverty level just for lack of a better term. But then when I go to page 108, I was kind of surprised by some of the high levels, percent below Atlas threshold, as high as like 45% in Garfield Township. There's only one that's below 19%, all the rest of them, it looks like the average is closer to like 30%. that chart so I'm kind of confused so look at that and see okay yeah something's confusing there sure and the data so okay I'm hoping it's the 108 page because there's some really high numbers okay good catch Gerald yeah thank you that's not what I'm trying to do I'm just no that's a good catch TJ do you have a question

Yes, and it came to me and then it left. Okay, it's back. So one of the recommendations that doesn't necessarily cost money is, and there's some different ways it's phrased, aligning policies among the different communities in terms of, in particular, I think you ticked off housing, TIF, pilots, those sorts of projects. low-hanging fruit, potentially, right? When does that happen? And who does that, right? So is that an implementation team project? Is that within the next six months? Is it after we're implemented, before we even convene a group that starts talking about how we might be aligning on incentives, right? Seems like a, like I said, low-hanging fruit. How do we move low-hanging fruit forward while other things that take a lot longer sit?

Yeah. I'm hearing that some of it's already started. Yeah, so some of it has already been started. I think it can go now. So I think of this time when I was presenting about something, well, not something else. I only talk about homelessness here, but... not about the task force at like a city commission meeting and a pilot I can't remember what for was being approved and there was nothing in that mentioned about deeply affordable housing about how can we pair housing choice vouchers to make the capital stack work how can we engage philanthropic partners to make the capital stack work if we set aside units for people experiencing homelessness. There are creative solutions that really smart people know and it just doesn't always come to the table when the thing's being approved. So that's, Just me saying it and you hearing it and thinking, oh yeah, when that next thing comes up, should I ask about, are you going to do any set-aside units? Like that's an easy peasy.

That's too late, right? Like it's too late. Like when it comes to the board? When it's in front of this board to say, Why don't we do more permanent support? That's a policy choice, right? We need a policy that reflects those way on the front end because by the time it gets to these guys or then us three months after them, it's so baked in and it is so difficult to change those things. So, and what worries me is it's being done. We don't know about that happening. We've just adopted a policy at the county level in January. I have not heard anything about policies being aligned. Garfield just adopted a completely different policy, right? That's a real problem and it's somebody's job or is it not somebody's job?

So a couple of things. I think what you're saying is assuming that you support the joint resolution, is there a way of knowing or acting on low-hanging fruit more quickly and is there a way of communicating what's happening so that it doesn't go down the road too far before things are already baked?

I don't think that's actually what I was asking. I don't necessarily think we would need to tie it into a joint resolution. I think my question is more maybe it's a process question like who is responsible for making those policy recommendations that come back to all the governing boards and making sure they're cohesive and consistent and thinking about the things we want to be thinking about, irrespective of a joint, right? Like why do, if there's no joint resolution, does that mean we don't need a joint policy? No, of course it doesn't. We need both, right? Yeah. Okay, got it.

Yeah, and that's a great, I hate saying this, that's a great thing to figure out in implementation. I envision, and we've kind of talked about this for a really long time, I think it doesn't happen because it's everybody's job and it's nobody's job sort of a thing. Would that make sense for someone in my role to make that recommendation? Probably not. It would look more like the homeless response system is supporting something like that. Is that a carve out of potentially Housing North? I could see that happen. I could see a potential carve out with the county's new community development. team and position really focused on housing policy that's regional. Yeah, I think there's a lot of different ways to make that work and I don't have the answer tonight, sorry.

Just follow up because this is where I saw this talk of a new task force. So that's what I was confused about earlier is creates, and this is related to policies, creates a countywide collaborative framework for affordable housing with a new task force. a different task force that's just policy-oriented? Is that part of the implementation task force? What does that mean?

I think it's just talking about implementation. Let's not call it a task force.

An implementation team and a task force, okay. Any other questions? All right, I'm going to, okay, please, Kenny.

I guess just kind of to piggyback off of what TJ was talking about in regard to the pilots and the potential for, is there a thought or a recommendation on like a minimum number of units or a percentage? I talked to, I'll say it was William Tweetmeyer about pilots, and he said that, years ago it used to be very rare to award a pilot because it had to come at some significant public good but now we're continually doing this over and over again as a financing tool for housing this could be an opportunity to return these pilots to some sort of public good, I guess. Is there a thought on a number of units or a percentage of units that might need to be necessary to help this? Because we're going to address this by either spending money to shelter them or spending money to house them somewhere. I guess I'm looking in this for a recommendation on something like that because it references tools a lot and the pilot is mentioned.

Yeah, so in the actual document, each one of these recommendations has a pretty thorough more detail right so for example the ones on land use or pilots or in toolkits for developers those go into greater detail because the people who are not me and are really smart about development and incentives and all of that stuff came up with that so for example we had planners involved in creating those solutions so some of our I can't promise that every single thing you just asked me like number of units and stuff will be addressed, but there's far more detail in the actual document about that.

All right. Thank you. Just a great, great questions and Ashley and Christy, a terrific job of putting this together. If it's all right with you, Amy, I'll turn it back to you to open it for public comment or whatever you do. So thank you very much. Great questions.

You know the process well, Rick. So I'll let Ashley pack up her roadshow there, because as she said, there's a lot of tech up there. And then now is our time for, because this is a study session, we have one public comment. It is general public comment, so it can be about the presentation. It can be about anything under the sun. But if you'd like to make public comment, please approach the podium. And we have three minutes if anybody would like to. Please approach the podium and make public comment. And if there's a few people who want to, you can also line up. We don't have to wait one at a time just to keep things moving and make sure everybody gets their chance to speak. Sometimes I'm missing the crowd. All right, hold on. Hold on just one moment. We have to read rules for public comment from our clerk.

We ask that you state your name and address, indicate if you're a city resident, non-city resident, and or city business owner. We have a three-minute time allotment per speaker. When your time has elapsed, the timer will beep, which will be my phone.

And we finally request that all language be respectful to all parties. Now, please proceed. Sorry about that. We just forgot. We just got to this point without public comment. First time, so.

My name's Gary Smith, and I'm across the street here at Riverine over here with my wife, Rebecca. I know these are always hard times with the homeless problems and stuff. I've been a little bit involved as a veteran and working for the VA with homeless. We've had a lot of homeless issues with the VA and such. And we have similar systems. We have domiciliaries and homeless shelters and a lot of things that we do. A little bit different people because a lot of our people that we deal with, are coming out of the military have had trauma or had different issues so it's a different clientele I guess you would say that I dealt with but anyways I wrote a few notes because I forget a lot of things I'm with it but we're here primarily to share our personal concerns living here at Riverine across the street here with it. We have seen and there was a lot of discussion on the pines when they came up and it was a hard decisions to make and I think it was successful for the most part but what I've seen is I've seen it shift from there to here where I live. We live in the first building past the 8th Street Bridge here. I know personally of six single ladies who live in the building, in that first building with us. We've had incidences of people looking in the windows of our places there. Single ladies aren't comfortable with that. We've had a little bit of a thievery. Some of the cars that were unlocked were broken into one time, which is not terrible but you know puts people on edge a little bit whether we ended up installing cameras over there so what I've kind of seen is I've kind of seen a shift from the pines to our neighborhood with some of that and it's been challenging for us I'm not saying that people are bad that's absolutely not what I'm here I'm just saying that what I would request living there is maybe there's some shorter term solutions to try and help us navigate through this period of time that we're coming for. I think it's a fantastic idea to have the 24-7. area because that's what we did in the VA for the men and women. We have the domiciliaries where you don't have to leave during the day. It's worked out pretty well because the people stay there and they become community and they work with each other, but that's a different animal. That's the VA. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Hi, my name is Molly Curis. I live at 523 Webster Street, so also nice to meet you neighbors. And I am therefore a city resident. I also technically have a business in the city, a small solo law firm. And so I'm here as a city resident, resident of the neighborhood that Safe Harbor is in, and also as president of Northwest Michigan Supportive Housing. And I know that you've heard a lot from folks about the strains that the Boardman neighborhood has experienced. And those are real concerns, and I have all the empathy and respect for the people who are voicing those concerns. They're not misplaced concerns. I also just want to share that as In my professional life, I have heard from several people in other neighborhoods. I know Commissioner Morris is aware of one at least, but multiple townships that are impacted by impromptu halfway houses that have arisen with people camping in tents on yards and residents who can't do anything about that issue and are very frustrated. I think this issue impacts all of our residents in the city and the county, whether they realize it or not. And Traverse City, while certainly in the best possible scenario, all counties that are benefited by this would contribute financially. Traverse City also has probably the most to gain because that's where we're experiencing a lot of the primary impact of these issues because folks come here for the services. I also, I don't want to get too into the weeds on this, but I am personally someone who has been a victim of violent crime as at the hands of somebody who probably should have been served by an organization like Northwest Michigan Supportive Housing. And so as someone who's been through that and who lives a block and a half away from here. I just want to be clear from everything I've learned engaging with this task force and the Coalition to End Homelessness and Northwest Michigan Supportive Housing. This kind of comprehensive solution is what is going to help everybody. It's what's going to get us out of this, and especially the supportive housing piece. I think the shelter issue takes up the most oxygen, you know, but the supportive housing is what's going to solve this problem permanently. And we are facing a situation right now where, you know, we just sent out, please fund us. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, I'm from city of Traverse City. May I have a quick comment? So in the PDF, I'm seeing a lot of things about shelters, funding, subsidies, programs, et cetera, food pantries, et cetera. But I'm not finding the actual solution in the PDF. we don't have to have that solution. But at least think about the chronic homeless people. And what else? I mean, I don't doubt that you help people getting out of the homeless. I mean, your own data in the PDF here, the output and everything, it shows successful case or whatever. But my question is, If in the, there was a, there was a 2020, a comparison between 2023 and 2025, I think, and the outflows or inflows. If the outflows, like helping the people is working, I mean I guess my question is why the biggest junk of money like millions of dollars or thousands or whatever it's going to expanding the shelter instead of going into the actual outflow solutions I guess and Yeah, like what what is driving the outflow success it feels like we're making like a bucket bigger instead of fixing the leak and I mean, I'm not trying to throw out the work that you are doing here. I mean, I hope I'm making sense. But yeah, I just want to understand why the money is like being weighted more into like towards shelter instead of the when your own numbers suggest outflow and housing are where the real progress is happening. I mean, I know it's very hard. I mean, it's a very hard problem in the city, but I mean, it's just like my thoughts. So I hope I'm making sense. Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Hi all, Hannah Westcott, director of Jubilee House at 325 Washington Street and a city resident. As Traverse City's drop-in day shelter for adults experiencing homelessness, Jubilee House sees daily the many things that our homeless response system is doing well and the many things that need improvement. We provide safety, access to basic resources, and support through the journey into and out of homelessness. Housing is the only solution to homelessness, but it tends to happen slowly. Folks need stable and easily accessible support while they work toward housing. The stability that Jubilee provides is crucial in reducing the harm that can accrue over the duration of a homeless experience. Jubilee and day shelter in general is an essential piece of this little community. We build trust and relationships with our friends who might not access the homeless system at other locations. We keep them connected with help. Eighty-eight individuals visited Jubilee House today, a number which is not unusual on Mondays. We have over 450 individuals using our services, a number which is growing literally every day. We stand with our partners at the front lines of homelessness as a crucial entry point into the homeless system. Jubilee is where people go when they're in crisis. We are a gateway, a portal to area resources and we take time to sit with new arrivals to help them make a plan that will meet their myriad needs. Thrillingly, we are taking steps to bring robust case management to all our guests in collaboration with the Homeless Response System and the Coalition to End Homelessness. This will make basic assistance available to more of our unhoused neighbors while simultaneously reducing the burden carried by Goodwill Street Outreach. It has been my honor to take part in the task force's emergency shelter and services work group, collaborating with my esteemed colleagues to imagine a shelter that would actually meet our community's needs. Our recommendations speak of comprehensive shelter, deeply affordable housing, incentives for developers and property owners, and improved access to physical and mental health care. This big plan will be realized slowly and funding will need to be found to maintain the status quo of existing services, especially day shelter and emergency shelter until it does. And I want to thank you city and county commissioners for your continued engagement in our task force. What a thrilling moment to hold positions as city leaders. Here in front of you are the tools for ending homelessness in our region and you now have the unprecedented privilege of putting them into action. Thank you. Thank you.

My name's Rebecca Smith. I just want to add to what my husband Gary said. I 100% support the task force and all of the ways you want to solve the problem. I want to ask again for help for the short term. Maybe we can close the A Street Bridge to pedestrians. Walking to the library has been an issue. I'm afraid to let my grandchildren out. Walking the lake loop has been an issue. We've been harassed, yelled at. It's a real issue just living here. So I want to thank you for listening, and maybe we can come up with something to help in the short term while we wait for the wonderful program. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Sarah Hughes. I'm the Executive Director, sorry I'm short, of Northwest Michigan Supportive Housing on Veterans Drive. I am a Grand Traverse County resident. I live on Kingsley, but I've been doing this work for over 10 years and seen the importance of the supports needed with housing. So housing, obviously we have to have deeply affordable housing. We have to have the supports that go with it when we are working with people who have experienced chronic homelessness we appreciate the housing homeless task force I was a part of that and the strategic vision that they brought it brought more partners together into the table than we've had for a long time around this shared goal and building a stronger more coordinated community response to homelessness The housing solutions recommendations are especially important because they outline the practical steps that our region must take to end homelessness and reduce the effect so that it's rare, brief and one time. And those steps that rely on local leadership, local investment and strong partnerships with the city and county government. Permanent supportive housing is key to that system. It serves residents experiencing long-term homelessness with disabilities, complex barriers and repeated housing instability. Housing is the solution to homelessness and supportive services are what make it sustainable. The recommendations emphasize the need for more real housing We have housing programs, they are successful. We do not have the capacity for the need in this area and that is what we're really asking for is to help meet that capacity so that we can start seeing a change in the system. Our community needs investment across the entire system because it's not just permanent supportive housing that doesn't have the capacity, it's also street outreach and our shelters. No single organization can solve homelessness, but together, as a community, we can. Thank you so much.

Hi. My name is Donna Ohlendorf. I live at 2399 Carroll Road in Peninsula Township, and I am also a member of the Safe Harbor Board of Directors and have been a volunteer there for about 15 years. So Safe Harbor is currently in the second year of a two-year pilot program to keep the shelter open year-round. so we are now open in the summer and unfortunately that's leading to some of the problems that the neighbors have encountered but we are now serving dinner every night we're seeing between 60 and 75 people stay at the shelter and use the services and we are actively managing the problems that we see. So every day that we see a problem, our staff works to try to find a solution to that. We're engaging a resource manager to help connect the guests with resources in the area to get them housing or get them the food stamps they need or the job that they need. We are utilizing not only the churches, but 2,000 community volunteers work at Safe Harbor. So we are very much embedded in the community and we have a stake in the outcome. Every time we hear a complaint, we take it very seriously, and we try to come up with a solution. So my request is that the city and the county work together, put a long-term solution in place, and provide the funds so that we can really wrap our heads to solve this problem. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name's Patty Steele. My address is 102.39 Harmony Drive. That's in Interlochen. I really appreciate all the effort and work everybody's put in here. I do have a little bit of a different opinion. I don't think that housing is the end all answer to homelessness. I think that we can see with what we've done already in Traverse City with trying to have shelters and low income housing that there are still problems there and more and more homeless people are arriving. I myself am in recovery from alcoholism. I'm a drug and alcohol counselor. I worked for Addiction Treatment Services for three years. And then the last six years, although retired in November, at the Salvation Army as their social services supervisor. A lot of people come to this town and they stay, as they have told me over the years. is because we're welcoming, nice, and have a lot of services. So I think part of it is, and I really appreciated TJ recognizing that our homeless problem is that it's not just Grand Traverse County or Grand Traverse, Louisville, and Benzie. it is a much bigger problem. People are coming here, looking for the services here and staying. And as everybody started talking after TJ mentioned that, they were using the word regional. My question for everybody here is, Do we, for the people who are homeless in this community, do we find ways to walk beside them and support them in remaining not homeless, like support systems, like more to do with addiction? I know a lot of people who are homeless might have gotten there just out of shitty circumstances. But there is the mental health aspect and there is the addiction aspect. And those people need something to help them sustain being in a place. and I think we're falling down on that part of it. At the Salvation Army, a lot of people came in looking for money once they were already in Ruth's place or ANACA I or ANACA II, all of those things, because they still needed money, because they couldn't do it themselves. So where are the support systems to teach them to learn to be people who can maintain a society? And is our money now just going to saying let's be regional rather than taking care of those services that we already have going? That's my concern. And my other concern is if this discussion was opened up to the people in Grand Traverse County who are the ones that it sounds like most have to support this, are they going to like the words, we are going to be the regional homeless shelter, the regional homeless housing? Is that what Grand Traverse wants?

Thank you. Any other public comment?

Hello, my name's Ryan Hannon, Ascension United Methodist Church, 222 Cass Street. I support the work of the Housing and Homelessness Task Force and the strategic vision it's produced. The process has brought together many, many voices, helped create a shared path forward for the community. As someone who has worked closely on homelessness issues in this community, for many years I've seen both the depth of the need and the progress that is possible when partners work together. Homelessness is not an abstract issue. It affects real people in our community every day, people who need safety, dignity, relationships, and a path back to stable housing. Housing is the solution to homelessness, but people also need trusted connection points along the way. Outreach, day shelter, emergency shelter, faith communities, service providers, and housing partners all play an important role in helping people move from crisis to stability. This task force reinforced that no single organization can solve homelessness alone. This work requires a coordinated community-wide response with shared responsibilities across local government, philanthropy, providers, faith communities, landlords, businesses, and residents. This strategic vision is important because it moves the community beyond reacting to homelessness one crisis at a time and toward a more coordinated system-focused prevention on prevention, housing, services, and long-term stability. The community needs investment across the full system, the prevention and diversion, the outreach, shelter, basic needs, behavioral health connections, affordable housing, permanent supportive housing and stabilization supports. We've already seen progress through stronger collaboration, clearer shared priorities and a growing understanding that homelessness can be reduced when the right systems and resources are in place, like the VA. Implementation is the next critical step. The strategic vision should not sit on a shelf. It needs sustained leadership, public investment, private and faith community partnership, and clear accountability. I encourage the city and the county to support this vision and help move this work from planning into action so that homelessness in our community becomes rare, brief, and not reoccurring so that folks can get out of homelessness and stay out of homelessness. Thank you, commissioners, for taking on this issue.

Thank you.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for being here. My name's Nora. I work with Goodwill Northern Michigan. I'm an East Bay Township resident. So I work with the Housing and Homeless Services Department at Goodwill, and I'm a proud member of the Housing Solutions Workgroup of this task force. I want to express my strong support for the Housing and Homelessness Task Force and the vision it's bringing forward. At its core, this work is about a simple truth. Housing is the solution to homelessness. Every person who is unhoused needs a place to live. That's the foundation. Without housing, nothing else can take hold. With housing, everything else becomes more possible. But we also know that for many people, housing alone is not enough. Services are an essential part of the solution. Permanent supportive housing works because it pairs a stable home with ongoing support. For many individuals, the challenge is not only getting housed but having the support they need to remain housed and thrive. When we combine housing with services, we see real lasting outcomes. It's happening right now in our community. What's powerful about the task force work is that it recognizes the full scope of what's needed. The housing solutions recommendations point us towards more real housing exits, permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, expanded affordable housing, stronger landlord partnerships, and long-term stabilization supports. These are not abstract ideas. These are the tools that move people from crisis to stability. I just heard Ryan say that. I was very proud. This is about building a solution that works, one that doesn't just manage homelessness but truly ends it, one household at a time. I urge you to support this vision and the work ahead, because there is work ahead. If we stay focused on what we know works, housing paired with the right supports, we can create a community where everyone has a place to call home. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you.

Is there any other public comment at this time? Okay, I think I'm seeing none. So I'm going to bring it back. I just wanted to thank our city staff, our county staff for bringing us this study session. I want to thank the task force for all their hard work, Ashley for leading that and her team, and Rick for managing the conversation and getting us to this place as a community. And I want to thank both the county commission and the city commission for being here in full tonight, so pretty much. And thank everybody for joining us this evening. And with that, I will adjourn. Thank you all. Thank you.

You don't actually get applause at the end. You got to run a little longer.