Recommendation to receive and file a presentation on “Care Closet LBC” by community leader Duke Givens.
I. District eight. All right. District nine. I know she cares. Thank you. Number 17, please. Communication from Vice Mayor Richardson, Councilwoman Allen, Councilwoman Sato. Councilman Austin. Recommendation to receive and file a presentation on Care Closet LBC. Thank you. This this this is a presentation. And like we said, in this virtual moment, it's hard to do recognitions, but when someone steps up and does something important, I think it needs to be deserved to be recognized. This pandemic has been difficult for our entire community. We've seen impacts on our city. We have to do more with less. And we've seen the impacts from Caltrans and trash piling up in different areas. We've seen this pandemic exacerbate our homeless crisis. We've seen a lot of, you know, individuals with a lot of. With with a lot of pain. And so Duke Gibbons is a community leader who saw me sprung into action. And and and from that simple standpoint, you know, he's really inspired a lot of people to step up, clean up their own communities and to help be more compassionate with individuals experiencing homelessness. And so I'm going to introduce a video and then I'm going to have the brief, brief comments from Duke at Duke Gibbons. But really, the point here is this is a grassroots effort. The grassroots effort. And we're we're acknowledging the spirit of this effort to step up and create a wave. And we see it. We want to embrace it, help formalize this structure in our experience. Let's go ahead. We shouldn't have. Hello, everybody. To those of you who do not know me, my name is Duke Gibbons, and I'd like to say thank you for allowing me to present this small little video to you. Over the past few months. I have gotten with some of our homeless brothers and sisters in our riverbeds and other communities, and we started doing a major cleanup. COVID 19 really hit us hard. And in this season right now, we're working diligently to clean up our river beds and other locations in our city. I would like to share with you this small video. Thank you. Enjoy. Somebody burned his whole camper actually up at. Hear about another friend of mine named Ziggy. Somebody burned his as well. Hey, Long Beach. The question is posed. Ask not what Lambie's can do for you, but what you can do for Long Beach. Over the past few months, myself and a few other amazing people that live in our community that are homeless have been getting together and working with the issue of trash in our riverbed and on our entrances and exits of freeway. With that said, I'd just like to thank our city council, our mayor, our city manager, all those who are diligently putting up the effort to fight homelessness first and foremost, and secondly, working on comprehensive housing solutions. With that said, your brother has been out there right now, boots on the ground working to clean up our streets in a major way. To date, we've collected over £4,000 of trash out of our riverbeds and other locations. That's what we can do for Long Beach to help her bring her back to the beauty that this town deserves and what she represents. All right. Thank you. And at this point, I want to be recognized to do our bit of time to honor you and get your comments. You got. I'm sorry. I'll try again to. You don't. That's out on my left hand side. It seems like the audio is working, but we got four comments in the video and we just wanted to receive this presentation. Again, this is really a gesture to acknowledge the effort. I know it's a volunteer grassroots effort. I know that, you know, there is more that we can do to formalize this structure. I think it sends a good message to the city to step up and be a part of the solution. You know, help do what you can to keep our community together and help support those who are hurting. And that's really why we want to lift up and recognize you. So at this point, I'm going to have comments from the city council and I'm going to make the motion and I'm the first person shooter is council member uranium. Thank you, Vice Chair Richardson and I had the opportunity to visit with Duke over the weekend, and we went to a couple of the camps, to the homeless encampments that were along the L.A. River and the freeway. And I got to tell you, it is a experience. One of the most impressive parts of that little tour that I took with him is that we had these preconceived ideas as to who are the people where a lot of these river beds we think about people with. Or have mental issues or other addictions. And I'll tell you, the people that I met were so kind. We're so friendly or so accommodating. We are able to greet and talk to you and tell you about what's going on with them and their lives under the bridges or along the river here and the freeways. But as Duke is doing God's work, he has communicated with these individuals. He has built trust among them, and they see him become the boss of it because he is not only offering opportunities for them to clean up their vacations and their places, but he's offering them some some compensation for it as well. They're looking forward. They look forward to work. They look forward to helping clean up the river, clean up the freeway. And it was one of those enlightening experiences that just gives me a different perspective as to what he's doing. And I want to thank you for allowing me that opportunity to enjoy him. And if there's any way that the city can provide him with support and help, I. He asks for it. Trash cans. Yes, for the porta potties to clean up. And I wish we could. And perhaps one day we came out of that where it would be part of our infrastructure to provide assistance, to continue the ritual. So perhaps we can also look at our mercy and how we can improve services there as well. That did come up in our conversation. So do hats off and congratulations and excellent job doing and you know that are there you will be before and I'll be worried having to put my jeans on backwards and that's why I feel good work. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Duke Now that the audio is here, do you want to give your comments now? Yes. I'd just like to thank you all for giving me this small time. I'm a long beach rather than born and bred. Went to poly. Went to the Air Force. Went to lobby City College, worked for Long Beach, tried for over 20 years, and I've had a chance to work with some of you all as well. And that tagline, asked about what lobbies can do for us that we can do for Long Beach, is truly something that is true in my heart. And being able to get some experience and some form of structure from you all to help me with this endeavor, I think would be a great move forward to assist our brothers and sisters in these communities. Thank you. All right. We have a few more council members. Next in line is council member thoro. Thank you, vice mayor, for bringing this item forward to acknowledge and showcase the work that care closet LBC does. And thank you to you for your just hard work and commitment and passion to serving and finding solution and empowering our our most overlooked members of the community. You know, my office recently made a contribution to the organization and hopes that it continues to further the work that that is being done to lift up and empower our houseless community members and to help make this what you use as a tagline that that I love to is little by little, because I think you are a person who sees no effort is too small and that all of these little efforts together does make a huge difference. And I look forward and continue to find ways to work with you and and, you know, and however we can make sure we're doing little by little to do a lot together. Thank you. And thank you so much as well. Thank you. Next in queue is council members and they are. Thank you, Vice Mayor Duke, I just wanted to give you a huge thank you for all that you're doing for our community. I think that this is so humbling of you and also, you know, thinking about our neighbors who are houseless right now and giving them the opportunity to feel empowered and giving them the opportunity to to just, you know, social while at the same time doing a good deed is something that is very respectable. I think that the work that you are doing is incredible. Keep up the good work and I look forward to being able to support you and your organization in any way that I can. I know that I am continuously committed to making sure that we find permanent homes for our houseless neighbors. You know, that is one of my greatest goals. And and even though things are not done overnight, I wish they could be. I think that what you're doing is something that is very commendable. And again, I look forward to working with you and continuing your your efforts. So thank you again. You're welcome. And that's our new mission will be for all of us, little by little. Thank you so much. Little by little, I love. Thank you. Next, we have council member Austin. Thank you. And this presentation actually hit really close to home. Duke is a personal friend. He is a awesome photo artist. Is that tell you every time you meet him that you graduated from poly? So he loves this city and he can add to his list of accomplishments. Now, as a humanitarian, somebody who's actually doing the work, rolling up his sleeves and making a difference every day in our community. Duke accompanied me several months ago as we were doing some homeless outreach along the railroad tracks on Union Pacific Railroad. And I have, you know, just over the last couple of months, witnessed firsthand the clean ups and the just amazing efforts happening in our grassroots happening efforts happening in our city. You know, Duke has really, really inspired trust from a community that doesn't let too many people in. He has extended dignity and hope to a group of folks who have been forgotten in many respects. And I just want to mention that the care closet was has not been in existence very long. This is a very, very young nonprofit, but one that is effective. And and if you just weigh the volume of the work, he's doing the work in the short period of time, in two or three months, that many organizations and many resources haven't been able to match in years. And so, you know, the amazing community efforts that have had an opportunity to witness at the expo where the sleeping bag drive and and supplies that are coming in, it's just breathtaking when you see the amount of community support behind this effort. Duke, you you you met your colleague. And I think on behalf of the residents of the district, I know we all are talking about meeting your accolades right now, but I want to extend my appreciation and encourage you to continue on your mission. I know that you know from. Programs like this are not sustainable unless other people get involved, unless we are able to put structural resources behind them to to to continue. This is a model that is that is a new model. That is a necessary model. But one thing that I can say about it, it is clearly an effective model because it's visible, it's clear our freeway, our ramps are are cleaner, our underpriced passes are cleaner. And the people engaged in this are individuals who have been on the streets and understand the and understand the the culture of of of of homelessness. And so to work is something that I certainly support. I would ask that my colleagues support and I look forward to working with you on do for many months and years to come. All right. Next, we have council member Alan. Thank you. Will Vice Mayor Richardson, for putting this item forward. And one thing I have to say is do given it's just an inspirational leader in our community and he has been doing amazing work for a long time. And I and Duke, I still have the lobby's pollie hat that you gave me years ago. And it's hanging in my council office right now. And I know, just like me, I think we loved graduating from from Polly. But but you know, Duke, you just been are a role model. You've been an incredible advocate for the homeless community. Just thank you for all you have done in Long Beach and for all the opportunities that you have created for people that really need it. And like Councilwoman Sara said, helping people that are so often overlooked. Just great work, my friend. Just much appreciation for all that you do. Fantastic. The you heard it. No doubt, my love here on this council, we certainly all recognize vice mayor. Yes. This is Councilwoman Price. I queued up. About 40 minutes. Ago. Okay. It wasn't set to go forward. Councilmember. Thank you. So I want to thank you for coming and presenting to council this evening as well. I did have the opportunity to go out and visit him as well, like my colleagues did, and I know that he and so many others, I know there are residents in my own neighborhood. My neighbor is very, very involved in these efforts as well. And I think, you know, the more the merrier in terms of responsible and structured programs to help us get to where we want to be as a city where we're providing opportunities and cleaning up these, well, visible corridors. I know that my office worked with Duke to get him registered as a city vendor, and I know that there's other some other formalities that Duke would have to go through. And I think any nonprofit that's doing work like this should definitely reach out to the city so that we can figure out how to combine the efforts of our nonprofits with some of the goals that we've set in the city. I know one of the programs that we have and I could talk to Duke about this that I feel very passionately about and I presented to council was our homeless work program that got started and then got a little bit of a pause because of COVID, but that's starting up real soon. So I think my question would be to city management. Would it be possible to connect Duke with our once work program so that they can provide who can help provide some jobs to people who might be interested in those opportunities as he goes through accomplishing the goals of the nonprofit ? Yes, absolutely. That RFP is getting finished pretty soon, should be out and we would love do to apply for that. And we've actually done some outreach to realize and there is a newer nonprofit just to help give him a little bit of assistance too on the kinds of things that we would need to have somebody award a city contract to so he can get prepared for that. So, yes, I think it'd be a great opportunity for him to apply. That's great. Thank you. And so, Duke, I know you and I have talked and I know you're going to pursue that. And I just want to thank Lisa West from my team, because she really worked hard to make sure that all the paperwork and everything was processed to become a city vendor. But I think the type of work that you're doing is amazing. And I applaud you and so many others in the city that are doing this kind of work. And we are here. I think I can speak for all of us to say we're here to utilize whatever resources we have in the city to help people structure nonprofit so that we can utilize public resources to effectuate some of the goals that we share in common. And I'm grateful for the work that you're doing, and I thank you for inviting me out to see your work and sharing a little bit about it with me. Thank you. Right. Thank you. I see no further comments from the council. I just wanted to close by saying, you know, there's you know, every once in a while you need to lift up those who inspire others of what you've done to hopefully serves as an inspiration. Everyone can make a difference. You clearly from the comments here, you've heard that you've inspired the council, you've received a lot of comments here. But this is you know, this is recognition of what one person can do to help create a ripple effect, to multiply the impact that we have on the community. So we all just thank you for your friendship and for your service to our community. Let's go ahead to public comment now. There is no public comment for this item. Fantastic. All right. Let's go to a roll call vote. District one by district two. I. District three. District II. District four. All right. District five. I. District six. I. District seven. By District eight. Right. District nine. I know. Curious.