Recommendation to request City Manager to evaluate the feasibility of working with Get Help, a California Public Benefit Corporation, or a similar service, to develop City of Long Beach specific mobile and web-based applications for City staff and City of Long Beach residents who work with or interact with those experiencing homelessness and/or addiction or other mental health issues and report back within 60 days. The tool would provide updated real-time data on bed availability for shelters, rehab, detox, medical detox, and other types of public, private, and non-profit beds. The mobile and web-based applications would provide additional information to City of Long Beach employees and residents about services such as food pantries, showers, or locations to get ID vouchers.
Thank you very much. And with that, if I can just please ask the council to join us as we take a photo. So let's give them all a round of applause again. Well, thank you. We are moving on to our next item that's going to be item 16, which is an item by Councilwoman Price. So if we can go to do that item. Item 16 is communications from Councilwoman Price Council member Pearce, Vice Mayor Andrews and Councilman Austin. Recommendation to require city manager to evaluate the feasibility of working with get help to develop City of Long Beach specific mobile web based applicant applications for city staff and Long Beach residents who work with or interact with those experiencing homelessness and report back within 60 days. Councilwoman Price. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If I can invite Dr. Tony Greco and former Councilman Mitch Englander to the podium. What I'd like to do is to have these two gentlemen give us an overview of this particular app and how it could be used. And then I'll save my comments for after they finish talking. But I did hear about, you know, we have residents all the time come up with come to us with solutions of, you know, how can we connect people better with services. And when I saw an article in the paper about this app and its use in the city of L.A., that's when our office reached out to Dr. Greco. So I thank you for being here. I'm going to turn it over to you. Great. Thank you very much. Honorable mayor, councilmembers and Councilmember Price, thanks for reaching out as well. I will say, though, that Los Angeles is number one. As a former L.A. city councilmember, we were number one. We are number one in homelessness. Make no mistake. I don't think anybody can argue with that. That's not to go for that title. Yes. Yes. Well, you've achieved it. And and you're doing a lot here. And I can I congratulate each and every one of you for what you're doing to to tackle this epidemic and this moral dilemma of our lifetime. And so the reason I'm here is as a councilmember and the chair of Public Safety and president pro tem of the L.A. City Council was certainly something that I was personally dealing with every single day. In fact, I myself as a child was homeless. And so this is near and dear to me. And while everybody in Los Angeles at the time, a few years ago, when I was looking at what options and what opportunities and what tools do we have, everyone was talking about housing, and that's critically important. Make no mistake, we have a tremendous crisis and housing shortage and rents are way too high and it's very difficult. And so many people who are housed are right on the edge of homelessness themselves. But what are the tools and the different obstacles and issues and ways to get people help? It didn't exist. And in fact, when I graduated from the Los Angeles Police Academy, I was given a book, a resource directory. By the time I was given, that resource directory had already been ten years old out of print. This was some 16 years ago, and I haven't gotten an update ever since. And so I looked at what's out there in the space, and I tried to create an app myself, an app that would be geo coded. When you stop somebody on the street, when you're trying to help somebody, whether it's a first responder, a clergy member, a teacher, a nurse, and they need resources. They need a domestic violence shelter. They need a homeless shelter. They need a food bank. They need a work source center. And to know what's around you close by that's open and available with all the information didn't exist. So I reached out to everybody I knew and it wasn't there. So I created it myself and it failed miserably. I worked on it, put my own funds into it, and spent years on it. Didn't work. Not to my delight. And so I scoured the universe and what was out there. And I met with Google. I met with big tech companies, could not find anything we were looking for that would actually have in real time geocoding what's there to help people. It didn't exist. And so in talking everywhere about this, somebody introduced me to Dr. Greco, who actually created the very thing that I was looking for. And it has been piloted with the Los Angeles Police Department and many others that love it, that have said that it's one of the most valuable tools on their tool belt, the ability in real time to get people information and help, particularly when dealing with the three P's, their personal belongings, their partners and their pets. A lot of people are service resistant, but it's just because you have a moment in time to get their information, to help them, to give them the resources, to give them a referral before you lose them. And so you have to capture that moment, particularly if they have mental health issues or drug addiction. They need help. And it's not just always a shelter bed, but it's also a shelter bed. And knowing what beds are available in real time, where close by. So with that, I want to thank you very much, Councilwoman, for looking into this for Long Beach, being on the cutting edge and and trying to help as many people as you possibly can all the time. You've been setting the example for other cities that I've certainly looked to as well. So I truly appreciate it with that. Dr. Greco. Thank you. I am Dr. Tony Greco, and it's an honor and privilege to be here today. Thank you. I'm a licensed clinical. Psychologist by trade. I didn't start out that way. My parents. Actually met in a 12 step meeting and. My mom didn't stay sober. At the time. And my dad was dealing with mental illness. And what I what I tell people a lot when I'm telling my story is that I've been trying to get people into treatment in some way or another since I was seven years old. So I was intimately familiar with how difficult and challenging it was and also intimately familiar with what happens when people don't get help. And as a result of my my parents. Own issues with addiction and mental illness. I myself was homeless at 15 and didn't. Get help myself until I was 17 years old. And that was only by the grace of. Many people. And so since 17 I've been trying to get that my whole life has been dedicated to trying to help people both in recovery, family members of those involved. And I've known how. Difficult it was in that moment that Mitch was talking about, that moment when somebody wants help and how difficult it is. When all you've got are a couple either people that you can call or outdated phone lists or anything like that and that really. Set the direction in my life. Right. That's why I got a doctorate in psychology was I figured they're the ones, right? The the licensed professionals, the doctors, they're the ones that no other way. Around the system. They're the ones that that know the secret handshake or whatever that is. And what I discovered is that not only did it not make it any. Easier to get people help, but now it made it harder because I had more people asking and even less resources. And that was the foundation for me. Founding Get Help was to be able to create resources and give people that that in that window, in that moment of time when when they need help to give people like . Myself, psychologists, therapists, social workers, you know, I did my internship and worked in the county facilities and and to give all of us the tools. That we needed so that in that moment of time, we'd be able to get help for people who needed it, because that's that moment and that's when people do. End up homeless as a result of not. Being able to find a resource that they need. And sometimes it's not shelter, sometimes it's detox, sometimes it's it's a warm meal, you know, or a shower or something. And that's enough to give them hope to go on to the next day. Right. And then the next day is when they say, maybe I'll try that mental health facility. And so that's really been the. Foundation of get help is for us to be able to provide resources. To the professionals, the first responders, the people that are out in the field on the front line, and make sure that that data is accurate and up to date and can give people exactly what they need in that moment when it can make the difference between life and death. So thank you for letting. Me be here. Thank you to both of you. So I'm just going to make a few comments on this, and I know my colleagues want to speak as well. Thank you to the residents who are here tonight and support as and those who have written our office and filed comments and also emailed me over the last week. And of course, to Dr. Greco and Councilman Englander for being here tonight. Looking at more efficient approaches to homelessness is an incredibly important to this city and to cities throughout the state. What I'm proposing tonight is the creation through the help of partners to create an app that provides real time services and bed availabilities for services to the homeless. If we can put these types of services in the hands of our city, teams that work directly with the homeless population as well as our first responders, like police and fire, we can really improve the efficiency of getting people into the services they need. As someone who routinely goes on outreach ride alongs, both in the city of Long Beach and throughout Orange County, with the Orange County Community Officers Group, throughout the 33 agencies, and as a prosecutor who often staffs and also manages the collaborative courts, including our drug court and homeless court programs, I've seen firsthand how important outreach can be in building trust and credibility with people suffering from homelessness. The amount of time and repeated contacts that are necessary to build those relationships is essential as we work to get people off the streets. Our outreach done out of the Multi-Service Center and by our police and fire department is incredible. However, our outreach teams would absolutely benefit from having real time updated information for bed availabilities where they can immediately route someone or transport someone to. Sometimes that window where someone has a moment of clarity can be brief. And if we're lucky enough to have an outreach officer reach out at exactly that moment, we cannot miss the opportunity because the officer had to call around looking for somewhere that would admit the homeless individual at that exact moment or risk the individual losing faith in the system or in the officer because they weren't able to follow through quickly enough. I've been on so many ride alongs where individuals have said that they want help, they want to go to detox, but that they were not ready at that moment or we didn't have a bed for them at that moment and they've asked us to come back and when we've gone back, the person's been gone. This technology based solutions means that we can quickly and effectively allow our officers and outreach teams to access information they need in real time in order to give the people the services that they need immediately. City cities across the country are looking at moving forward with creative, technology based approaches to homelessness, and this is one of them . Los Angeles is currently undergoing a pilot program that they are proposing to extend because of how successful and useful this app has been for their outreach teams and first responders. Apps like this not only help get people the help they need, but get them used to the idea of accepting services, trusting and building credibility with first responders . They may not be ready to accept detox treatment today, but they may be ready to accept shelter. Or maybe they're not ready for shelter, but they're ready for a food bank. Or maybe they're not ready for shelter, but they simply want assistance or an opportunity to talk with others who are going through a similar thing. Having access to what is available at that moment is critical for our first responders and for the homeless population in the city of Long Beach. I ask my colleagues to support this item, but more importantly, I ask my colleagues to support a commitment by this Council to to direct resources at providing help for the homeless so that they can be given the opportunity to get the treatment they need at the moment that they decide they need that help. And although it's a different topic and not part of this particular item, I do believe that having services 24 hours, seven days a week available for our homeless population and our outreach officers to be able to contact them seven days of the week is an important priority for the city, given what we're hearing from our constituents as a priority for them as well. So I think I thank the presenters and the members of the city who have reached out to us and I thank my councils in advance for their support, my council colleagues . Thank you. Councilmember Pearce. Thank you. I definitely signed on to this item because I know how challenging it can be to create an app like this. In 2016, we had nearly 100 people do a day of service. They did a hackathon to try to create an app very similar to this. It is difficult to find the right technology, particularly in places when we have HIPA and we have privacy concerns. And so when you have a vulnerable population like our homeless population, we have to think creatively. We have to think outside. Of the box. And so taking what's worked and building on that, I think is an exciting opportunity for all of us. I think that our entire city has said over and over that dealing with homelessness as a public health issue and not as any other type of issue is their priority. And so while I love the item, as is, I know that there's been some ideas around expanding not just where are their beds, where are their basic services, where are their socks, where are their clothes, where are things that they can pick up if they're not ready for those services? But maybe we connect them with geo and the socks that they're doing and the homeless services around creating jobs to create those socks. And so I look forward to seeing what staff brings back. I hope that this is an app like many other apps, so we can have a phase one, phase two and phase three where it just gets better with each development. So I wholeheartedly support this item and I encourage our community groups. I know there are some here in the room that have participated in that hackathon to try to create that app. I hope that our city staff will work with Long Beach organizations as well to kind of see what's already worked and what they've had a trial and error on. And I can work with staff afterwards to connect you with those groups. So thank you very much, Councilwoman, for bringing this forward item. Thank you, County Councilman Austin. Thank you. I'm going to say less because I think my colleague, Suzy Price, council member, probably said most of what needed to be said. I think our presentation was excellent and I am fully in support of this item. I think this Get Help app is very, very intriguing as we are working as a city to create more bed space and create more resources, we need tools to help us manage our resources and be smarter and more efficient with everything that we're doing. I just had a question regarding the capabilities or capacity. This this is not or is this just limited to public resources? Or or can we we look to engage our faith based organizations who are doing work around the homelessness issues, nonprofits and other private partners. So I can answer that question. So if the city chooses to go forward and identifies the funding to start a pilot, then we'll work with the app developer to define our parameters. What can be included and what I would be recommending be included is nonprofits as well as government based resources, not just in Long Beach, but within the region. Because, for example, we have very few medical detox beds, but there are cities within the region that have medical detox beds, and we don't sometimes know immediately if there's a bed available. So this would allow us to go within the region, even outside of the county. So if there's a bed in lossL or there's a bed in SEAL Beach, then we would be able to transport, help somebody get services there through transportation. This is much better and this is an advancement on anything that we have today in terms of tools. And so this is a great start and I'm fully support. So thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Ringo. Thank you. And I want to thank Councilmember Susie Price for bringing this forward. I think this is an excellent opportunity for the city to really get engaged in dealing in and confronting homelessness. One of the biggest. Progress that we can make is having opportunities for people experiencing homelessness or mental health issues or drug or detox issues is admitting that there's a problem. That's the first step as it was a process goes. And a lot of times all they want is not a handout, but a hand up. And this is application would be able to provide that with them in the sense that it's simple. They come to somebody and says, you know, I need help. Where do I go? This application, I think, would be very beneficial in providing that kind of assistance. So I'm glad that this brought forward looking forward to the city, to the cities, evaluating this and looking into it and hopefully that we can get this on board as quickly as possible, because as we know, every day we talk, there's another homeless person on the street. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Mongo. Yes. Thank you. I remember the first day that I was assigned to the Lakewood Station after I got out of the sheriff's academy and we went into a homeless camp. And I will tell you that in a region as big as Long Beach, I mean, we are a large city and an officer may be on overtime on the east side, but usually works downtown and they might not know those resources. And so I feel like this app is a phenomenal opportunity to really put the technology in our hands. I would also say that in some ways it would be great if it could plug into another resource or app that is already available to the officers. There's already so many different technologies they're working with on a daily basis. I hope that we're mindful of the amount of connectivity that they have and how that all fits together, because it can be cumbersome to our new recruits, especially who are out there on the field every day. Thank you to Councilman Price for bringing this forward. It is a a critical component of what we can do, but also highly recommend as we work through this and get some cost outs what the long term commitments are and. Finding a way to ensure that, as we talked about, it can scale and grow over time to the needs of the community. And perhaps that we could then have other cities or other agencies adopt in and help us pay for those costs. So. Great work and thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Richardson. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And so in looking at this item, I think it's very well written, all the references and you know, as you know, as I'm out on other boards and commissions and it's gag, folks, pay attention to what Long Beach is doing around the homelessness issue. And particularly around the last homeless count. Folks were asking, what's Long Beach doing differently? And I think what we're doing differently is continuing to innovate and continuing to focus on this issue and really lock arms and support it. And so, Councilwoman Price, I think this is a great step in the right direction. I also want to want to just lift up what Councilwoman Mongo just said. I know that we're you know, our firefighters move into different applications. And so there's ongoing conversations within the health department. So the more we can think about integration, you know, one comprehensive system, the better off our our whole collaborative system will be. The last thing is, I know that, and I would just hope that this is sort of there's a level of sort of privacy we work out with outreach workers. And I wouldn't want to see this link in any way to like go Long Beach. Right. So I wouldn't want any residents taking photos of incoming encampments or or anything like that. And I know that's not the intention here, but I think as we lift it up that the people who use this are professionals. Right? These are people who can actually help people in need. And I think that's important to call out. But this has my support. I think it's a very well thought out item and I look forward to supporting it. Thank you. Councilman Richardson. And, you know, I also would like to thank my colleague, you know, Councilman Price, for bringing this to the, you know, item forward, because the fact that Long Beach, you know, is in the middle of a one of the homeless crisis that we need to use every tool at our disposal to help try to solve this problem. You know, using technology to identify solutions is an innovative way to enable our hard team match up with the homeless, which is available spots to help them return to society. You know, I'm urging my colleagues to join us in supporting of this item. And thank you. Thank you, Councilman Price. Thank you very much. Colleagues, I just wanted to end with a few comments. First of all, while I appreciate and respect the thanks, it's not thanks to me. Every single person on this council has been working really hard for the past four years to find solutions that are impacting all of our communities. So this is just part of a larger team effort and a larger discussion. I will say to Councilman Austin, I forgot to include that private providers can also be included in this system. So hospitals and, you know, other types of treatment, rehab centers. The problem with those is that they may not all accept, you know, they may have different insurance requirements and things. So we want to make sure that that those who don't have the means are able to get into those resources, but that can be included. I also say that, gosh, about three weeks ago, four weeks ago, I was invited to be the keynote speaker and my day job as a prosecutor at the Orange County Community Officers Meeting. They modeled a program in Orange County similar to our quality of life officers. Here, there's 33 police agencies in Orange County. Every police agency now has a quality of life officer. They don't call them quality of life officers. They call them community officers, and they have an association of community officers. So I invited our Quality of Life team and our East Division commander to go to the meeting. And there was a there was over 100 people in the room and they were all talking about the same things that I read on next door and that same things that I hear at my community meetings. And I had to take a pause for a moment. I was standing in front of the group giving them a presentation about different misdemeanor offenses that we often see in quality of life type situations with our transient population. And I took a pause as I was looking out this entire room filled with police officers, and I said, you know, they didn't know this about me. I said in my other hat, I'm a councilwoman in a city, and I go to a lot of community meetings. And I have to tell you, one of the most common things I hear at community meetings from my residents is why is this only a problem in Long Beach and not a problem in Orange County? And they all started laughing. You can ask Commander O'Dowd, because the same exact issues we have here, in fact, the Newport Beach officers were there. I said in my my city, my residents are always telling me this isn't a problem. In Newport Beach, they said, actually, our homeless count revealed we have 67 while 67, compared to the population they have in Newport Beach, would be proportional to the population. We have given that we have almost 500,000 residents. So it was really interesting. They had the same issues that we do with encampments at the railroads because, you know, the railroads run through all through Orange County and a lot of the same issues in terms of enforcement. So, you know, I was really happy to see that some of the things that were doing, they were looking to. Learn from they. Many of them didn't have standing, no trespass orders like we have here for our business corridors. They asked us to send ours to them so they can model it after that. So it was very and I've invited many, many residents. Anytime you want to go to one of those meetings with me there once a month, I'm happy to take you with me. But I think an app like this is honestly a game changer for the city of Long Beach. In the area of homelessness, there are so many different aspects to homelessness. But if we can't get people connected to services when they're ready for services, they will lose faith in the system and our outreach efforts will not be as effective. So thank you, colleagues, for all of your comments and thank you to all of you for your ongoing efforts on this issue. It's not about this item or me or anybody. It's all of us working together to find a common, common solutions for this problem that we're all facing. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilwoman. I'm going to go to public comment. I have eight speakers. I want to ask the first four to come up Luke Cardenas, Katie, Della, Donna, Wil Cullen and Marco Pizzo. You four can please come forward. And please begin. Luke Cardenas. Hi. Good evening. My name is Luke Cardenas, the Louis Vuitton Apostle. A special messenger of the Louis Vuitton kingdom. I am here to advocate. For the recommendation of the new. Digital app that would allow police. And fire personnel real time data on what beds are available at various shelters to better assist the homeless. This is a progressive step to reduce human suffering, and I urge council members to search your hearts and indeed your souls and approve this recommendation. We are watching the gap grow between extreme wealth and extreme poverty. With such wealth available, it is morally apprehensively that in this, the 21st century, we are stepping over bodies in the streets and having to smell human waste throughout the city. We need more public showers to clean those on the streets and more safe and clean shelters to house them. In Palm Springs, for example. There is a water truck that. Drives around with portable showers for the homeless. As well as a clothing exchange program where the homeless trade their clothing to be washed and then redistributed. We need more creative. Solutions like this. Taking care of the least of us isn't merely the moral thing to do. According to police officers I've spoken to. It would help the businesses that currently suffer. From the blight the homeless individuals can bring. Caring for the needy also reduces crime. Desperation fuels crimes against property. Imagine a city where we. Can walk around safer not. Having to smell human waste and not having to step over bodies. I urge you to please. Approve this recommendation. Take this. Proper step to help those. In need and let us continue to reduce human suffering. Let us solve the manmade problem of homelessness. Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter. May the universe be abundant to you all. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Hi. Katie, Della, Donna, Naples, Neighborhood Watch. Thank you, Susie Price for bringing this recommendation forward. I'm all for it. I would mirror everything you say, but I don't want to waste time. One point I want to bring up is it's not just about the detox beds and the rehab beds, which we know were limited. It's really just a bed. Sometimes at 10:00 at night when an officer approaches someone, he can't offer them a bed. If he doesn't know that the Salvation Army has one more. Or Catholic Charities has one more. So I think it's important that all the officers have this on their phone so they can access it and get anyone to bed when they need it. And I also think it's important that we interface with all of the homeless shelters and get some sort of system organized so that we can allow people in the door at any time because people need beds at 9:00 at night and 10:00, not just till four or 5:00 in the afternoon. So I would hope that when they develop the app, they consider that and consider negotiating with these homeless shelters and what we can do to get their doors to be open whenever an officer needs it. So thank you very much. I hope you all vote for it. Thank you so much. Next speaker I am Marco Pizzo. I'm from the Bluff Park Historic District and I wanted to just thank you all for considering this great idea and for Suzy Price to Councilwoman Price to bring this forward. I just wanted to show my support. I wrote any comment. I didn't know if it went through, but I just wanted to say that I do support this application and I think it's a great idea in being on the forefront of homelessness, which I know we're always trying to do. So thank you very much for your consideration and I hope you all vote for this. Thank you. Thank you. Marco is the next four speakers. Jeff, Jeff Malin, Joe Ganim, Matt Simmons, Anthony Kennedy. Please come forward. In that order. Mr. MALLABY first and then Mr. Garnham. Good evening, counsel, and thank you for this proposal. Councilwoman Pryce. I am Jeff. I'm in also the third district Councilwoman Price's district in the Bluff Park historic district. And I. I think I wholly support this proposal. I will just say briefly, as a as a person in health care, myself, as a pediatrician, myself, I am looking at it from the perspective of of those people that are actually trying to get services for the homeless people, the people that need detox, that kind of thing. I can speak from my own perspective. Many years ago, when our system at Kaiser Permanente was not as connected as it was, it would be very difficult for me to call around and find beds for my pediatric patients that needed hospitalization. I think something like this and our system has evolved as well with personnel and technology. I think something like this moves that bar and makes the lives of all of us much better. So thank you so much for bringing this forward. Thank you so much next week. Mr. Mayor. Members of the council. It's a pleasure to be here. Your new surroundings. I'm Joe Ganim. I spent nearly four years on the Homeless Services Advisory Committee as a commissioner. I was also on the Continuum of Care Board, and I was a board member for the Long Beach Coalition for the Homeless. I'm very excited about this because to me this could be very well the beginning of the end of homelessness. And I don't say that lightly because quite honestly, what you're talking about now is finally putting all the disparate parts together where they can be accessed by the very people that are needing those services. The Health Department does an outstanding job, and they have won awards nationally on the work that they've done. They have a computerized system, the HMAS, that provides them with critical data, but it's not available to everybody. Your app that you're talking about developing can link those services. In addition to that, there are very simple things that occur, which I can see this later. I don't want to get away from your original purpose, but I believe you'll find that agencies, nonprofits, churches and so forth that are would be eventually participating in some way. Some of them will have resources that other ones need. I recall attending a commission meeting one day when the chair came rushing out of the parking lot running in, and he was running late and from the time he had left where he was to the time he'd come to the mission meeting, somebody called him to say, Hey , I've got 12 crates of crates of apples and I don't know what to do with them. And he had found he knew other people and he'd contacted. But had he not been able to do that personally, those 12 crates of apples would have rotted. And so this is what we're doing. We have tremendous resources. By linking them together with this app, I think you will be able to do some amazing things. I personally am a believer or a strong believer in technology. My wife of 42 years has to tolerate living with two other women, Alexa and Siri. But but it also has its benefits. And so I think by by finally linking up all these available resources in this community that have heretofore not really always talked to each other, it's not because they're mad. They just know what the other one was doing. You're finally bringing the what what I think of as a potential into homelessness in Long Beach. And I congratulate all of you for participating. I think you're about to approve this. So I'm going to get off of here so you can do that. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Hello, Mr. Mayor. Members of the council. My name is Matt Simmons. I am president of Semtech Solutions, and I applaud this initiative to bring the tech into the hands of the people. They're trying to do this good work. The reason why I am at the podium is I do want to ask and encourage that the community look to put this out for public comment and for a bid because there are other technologies out there and the bid process itself will help flush out some of the challenges that have not yet been surfaced. The data integration required to link up the app with Service Point Your homeless management information system is significant. If you want real time information to be exchanged to be in the hands of the people that need it the most, there is a process that needs to happen. Well, Sky, the vendor for service point their capacity to share data back with any app is limited and so I would encourage fleshing that out. Resource directories are out there and birth is a common one you can look at. We have an app, it's also out there called Show the Way. It's on the App Store and Google Play and it's meant to be put in the hands of outreach workers. And it's not just a resource directory. So I just mentioned it. I competition can breed innovation. May the best man woman company win because in the end we all win by helping the people that need it the most. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And our last speaker, please. Hello. City councilman and honorable mayor. My name is tonight Ken Faye from Sixth District. Uh, I want to, um, first say that I want to thank the, uh, Councilwoman Woman Price for bringing this, uh, agenda item up. And I think that this is a great opportunity. Uh, to. Uh, have another tool in our toolbox of solutions to help with the homelessness and housing crisis that we're currently facing right now. Um, I, I, uh, signed up to comment specifically on some concerns that I have in regards to, um, uh, Texas, uh, as we just heard in the previous texts, uh, maybe excitement and uh, possibly the , the future of privatization of services like this. Um, it's, it's a little bit concerning. Um, because this program is something similar to this program was tried out at San Diego County where they also, um, uh, did a lot of connection with uh, uh, law enforcement in regards to like uh, uh, thermal. Imagery to, to, they use the data points that they got. From these similar apps to then do drone. Uh, flyovers. To then, uh, calculate thermal technology to verify the point. I think it's called point in. That's a look it up. It's called like a point in play. It's the HUD requirement for proving that someone is homeless. Look it up later. But the. Point that I have is that it's. Uh. It's a little worrying to see, uh. Uh, a digital solution to an analog problem come up. Um, from, for me, in my personal opinion, the great solution to this crisis that we're living through is, you know, housing, building more shelters, building more affordable housing, building more options for people to live in. For me the cities to get involved in this looking towards the right honorable city attorney. There are concerns regards to possible liability concerns here because, you know, I don't know, this is just a pilot program, but I don't know to the extent of what get. Help will do with. The data that that the acquiring in the process of this. You know, this is a pilot program and this is a public benefit corporation that could just as easily go from being a nonprofit nonprofit into a for profit. And if we as a city allow allocate any kind of city funds to partner with this organization, there should be some serious security guidelines with regards to the data points that are acquired during the. The year of this program. That's all I would like to say. Thank you. Thank you very much. That concludes public comment. Before we go, we're going to go to a vote. I want to just make a couple of comments. I think that when I was on the council, one of the apps that really kind of changed the way we do business was the lobby, John. And I remember bringing that forward and working with Mr. Modica and other members of the team to try to kind of rethink the way we did services for residents. And without question, the Golden Beach app has changed the way public works and our code enforcement and our clean teams work today because of the work of our city staff and the way the public has embraced that, I think I mean, there are tens of thousands of people that use the Golden Beach app, and we have opened and closed tens of thousands of cases, probably close to 100,000 cases by now at this point, I imagine. And so when I saw this, I really was very supportive and really thought this was a great approach. I've heard of other types of technology kind of applications, but, you know, this had not been brought to this body before. I want to thank Councilwoman Pryce. I think this is a great opportunity for the city to engage in using technology to help solve a very real and serious challenge. It is the single biggest challenge we have in front of us today is is helping folks get into housing, get mental help, the mental health care they need, and provide residents with an opportunity to help us all solve this challenge together. And so I think this is a great idea and very supportive. And I want to thank Councilwoman Pryce and those that support this item as well. And with that will go to a vote. Mushing carries.