A resolution approving a proposed Loan Agreement between the City and County of Denver and Catholic Charities and Community Services of the Archdiocese of Denver, Inc. (doing business as Catholic Charities Denver) to provide acquisition financing for a new women's homeless shelter located at 6240 Smith Road. Approves a 35-year loan agreement with Catholic Charities and Community Services of the Archdiocese of Denver, Inc. (doing business as Catholic Charities Denver) in the amount of $1 million from Community Development Block Grant funds structured as a performance loan to provide acquisition financing for a new women’s homeless shelter located at 6240 Smith Road in Council District 8 (OEDEV-201630186-00). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 10-17-16. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 9-14-16.
Yeah, I'm going to ask. Thank you. Parks and Public Works. Please send that to the entire council so we can look over that. Thank you. Okay, let's pull up. 778. Councilman Herndon has a comment. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to to invite somebody up from Catholic Charities if they're in the chambers. And I believe I see Larry in the back, if you want to come to the podium. I just I didn't have the opportunity. To come to committee for this, but I wanted to point this out. 778 is an agreement between the city and county of Denver and Catholic Charities for another homeless shelter. And two things I wanted to point out about it. One, it's in District eight. I think as we are trying to house those who do not have housing, those are the surrounding districts need to be a part of that as well. And district data is no stranger to shelters. The we have the emergency shelter has been in my district for a while but. Even more I appreciate about this. It's more than just housing those without homes. It's also about helping those. And so I want to invite Larry from Catholic Charities just to take a quick minute to describe how this shelter is different. And it's something I'm really excited about. And I appreciate the city's partnership with Catholic Charities in making this a reality. So I wanted. To give you an opportunity to speak to it. Briefly. Thank you, Councilman Hernan, and thank you, City Council. We've been working with the Office of Economic Development here at the City Councilman Herndon, a number of other Councilman Flynn in order to try and provide additional shelter for and obviously Councilman Brooks for homeless women in the city of Denver, which there is a significant need for and a growing need, unfortunately. And one of the problems that we've seen is in trying to help some of these women exit homelessness. We're running into a real struggle, a more difficult struggle than with some of the men. So in this new shelter that will be building and developing over the next several months, we're going to add a new program that hopefully will allow these women to get a leg up on exiting homelessness by giving them an additional period of recovery from substance abuse and the homelessness that they're currently experiencing, where all they have to do is come into the shelter and be safe and sober and let us take care of them for 30 days while they recover from what's been going on. And what will what we're hoping to have happen is that in doing so, we'll see a much greater success rate in helping these women exit homelessness. And today, that is a very broad swath of women that were experiencing homelessness due to three primary reasons the loss of a job increase in housing and a break up of a relationship. And when that happens. And they find themselves on. The Street's very bad things happened to them. And now getting out of that becomes a real, you know, downward spiral. So this new program in shelter, with the help of the Council and the Office of Economic Development and Denver's Road Home and Bennie Milner has been very helpful in working through this, will hopefully allow us to begin to increase the number of women who'll be able to exit homelessness successfully. So your vote and support tonight would be very helpful in helping us get there and helping these women in a service that is greatly needed right now in the city of Denver. Thank you. Thank you so much. And Mr. Perez, I just wanted to let I know I saw a lot of all councilmembers attended, but certainly a great model for success. And I hope it's something as we prove it's successful, you know, shelter and services in one location, it certainly can be replicated. So kudos to Catholic Charities and Ed for helping with the finances to make this a reality. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Herndon. I think we have Councilwoman Ortega. Yes. I have a couple of questions for you. Can you tell us how many shelter beds this will provide? How many women can be served at one time? Sure. Currently, we serve about 100 women at the Holy Rosary at Samaritan House in partnership with Denver Road Home. We're operating a shelter on Pecos that serves somewhere around 100, 220, 130 women a night. That building is going to cease to be available to us as a shelter. And so the Smith Road Facility, which we are purchasing and renovating, will allow us to serve 150 women every night, which will be an additional 30 women on average. And then we have other facilities that we're bringing online over the course of the next several months and year that will give us group home capacity as well to help these women exit homelessness. Right. So I wanted to ask a question about. How the outreach is happening that will target the people who the women who actually need the services. I walk Sloan's Lake every morning and there's an elderly woman who literally sleeps under the bridge and gets up and has her own cart and has been there for a number of years. And, you know, I know that historically our street outreach has primarily concentrated on the downtown, but we have some of our chronic homeless that, you know, have have left the downtown. They're in our parks. They're they're kind of hidden a lot more so now. And my hope is that these are some of the very people, because when they end up in our emergency room or in our detox facility, it actually costs us a lot more than it is to house them. And so I'm just curious how that piece of it is going to be handled so that it's not just people who are downtown. Right. Well, thank you for the question, first of all. And secondly, I would tell you that we work with Denver's Road Home on an outreach program. Since we opened December of 14, 2014, since the very day that we opened the first Holy Rosary Women's Shelter at Samaritan House. We have not had an empty bed, and many nights we wind up moving chairs and tables out of conference rooms so that we can facilitate these women. I'm happy to say, unfortunately, that we've never turned a woman away. I say unfortunately, because that means that, you know, there are so many out there that need help, but we're always there to help them and we will put them up no matter when they come in to the facility. The Smith Road facility, you know, is a bust in facility. There's no walk up. So these women will gather at Samaritan House where we provide a hot meal in the evening. Then the women that can fit into the Samaritan House shelter at on Lawrence, of course, will stay there and the rest are then bussed out to the facility on Smith Road. But no walkup traffic is allowed out there from an outreach standpoint. You know, we do there is a street traffic network that these women know about. And as soon as we open up new beds, they're immediately filled. And the other thing, Councilman Ortega, it's important to point out is that we have an extended stay program that once they are sober and are able to, you know, recognize their plight and reach out for help to get out of it. We have a four month program that we move these women through very successfully. Once they get past that first 30 day period, we're seeing a success rate in the high 80th percentile who live with stable income. Unfortunately, housing is a bit more of a struggle because of the increase in housing in Denver. So I'm also happy to tell you that Denver Catholic Charities has 27 apartment buildings that we manage, and now we're working with HUD to develop a housing first initiative for the homeless that will allow them to get first in our waiting list for our newest property, which is over on South Federal and Councilman Flynn's district. It's called Golden Spike. And we're setting aside 40 units for women and homeless people in general who are exiting homelessness will then be able to move up on that waiting list. The actual outreach, though, is done through a network of street communication and then also with Denver Road Home, where they send people out to to find these people that are homeless. And we can always expand that and try and do a better job in the outreaches of the city. Well, I just want to commend Catholic Charities for their efforts in moving this project forward. We absolutely know the need is incredible, and I'm sure the women just can't wait for the facility to open. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Ortega and Councilman Herndon. Okay. All right. We can bring up Bill. Council Bill seven 5778 on final. And Councilwoman Ortega wanted to put this on for Councilwoman Sussman, will you please put council bill 757 and 758 on the floor for final consideration and do pass?