Accept Status Report from Operation Dignity on Case Management Services for Homeless Individuals. (Recreation 280)
All right. Recommendation took the status report from Operation Dignity on case management services for homeless individuals. Member Ashcraft. Did you want? Yeah, I just teared up. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Ms. Wooldridge. This is Amy Walters, our director of Recreation and Parks in Alameda. And the reason I pulled this from the consent calendar, I know we have a really long agenda tonight, but. Homelessness. Issues are very important in our city and our region. And just recently, in the last week, with the beginning of the site preparation at the future, Jean Sweeney Open Space Park, there have been some more visible signs of some of our homeless population. The council has gotten a number of emails and it's not always evident how much work is going on behind the scenes. And so that's for this reason I wanted to pull this up. So in addition to getting two new parks online and doing rehab to some of our existing parks, Ms. Wooldridge is also overseeing our efforts to work with our homeless population. So if you wouldn't mind, this will just to give us an update overview on what's been happening in the city in this regard. I'd appreciate. It. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Councilmember Ashcroft, Amy Wooldridge, Recreation and Parks Director. I also have Margaret Bouchard here, who's the executive director of Operation Dignity, and she can answer any questions as well. You have before you an updated report as of today of of what Operation Dignity has been doing. As reported in the in the staff report, they they have successfully gotten a family of four into into transitional housing. And I'm happy to report that that one member, one adult of that household now has a full time job. The child is in school. They're also working on helping an individual to relocate with their family, also working to house two more individuals at Alameda Point Collaborative and as well as another veteran to get them into into housing. So they're working very actively. Getting people into housing is a is complex it's individual to each person's need needs there also Operation Dignity is also actively working with people that residents are now seeing more aware of out on the streets. They have there's a gentleman that's been living on Webster behind us bank branch that they have transported to a shelter in Berkeley. They've also been working with an individual behind plowshares, and there's other locations as well that they are actively doing case management with individuals around the island. The way people can help is certainly to help continue to report those. They can report it through, see quick fix on our website and or contact me or other city staff who will then let Operation Dignity know where where people are being seen so that we can provide case management directly to them. So they're actively out the community trying to locate people and provide them with services. Yes. Vice mayor. And this is just to clarify for those who are watching from home or in the audience, this includes any homeless individual, not just veterans. Because we've at least I saw an email that was directed, I believe, to the rest of the council as well, and specifically asking that. Yes, absolutely. It's all individual, all homeless individuals. And that may be in cause that that's not even necessarily simply just on the street, but yes. All individuals. Thank you. And and I was just going to add that one of the things that Operation Dignity does and perhaps the director would like to come up is they do work with veterans, first of all, identifying which of the homeless individuals are veterans because they are entitled to benefits that they may not be aware of. And just just briefly, if you would, because again, long agenda. But in the in the discussion of Miss Wooldridge, his staff report, they talk about providing services, including nearly 1000 harm reduction supplies, enrolling individuals in the county's tracking system. Could you talk a little bit briefly about what those things are? Yeah. So we're so we're out there every day actually giving them food hygiene kits, trying to hook them up with health services or anything else that we think there's an ancient something called an HMO system which registers them, and that's going to be ultimately used for something called coordinated entry. So we want to get as many people as we can into that system. That said, some individuals. Aren't willing to go on the system or we can't follow up with them. They move, we can't find them. So one of the challenges is, you know, locating people and then if they're there the next day, then we try to follow up again. They have to get some documentation. So every support that we get from the police officers, from residents, anybody, it just helps us to, you know, if you're our eyes and ears because we know about the people we know about, we know most of the people who left the Beltline where they are. But there's some that we don't. And then there's a lot of other individuals that are homeless as well. So it's really helpful. And that's why we're going to meet with the police the police department to find out. You know, apparently they have actually more knowledge because obviously, you know, residents have lived here forever. And it's like it's just important for us to get a handle on everybody that's homeless. But every day we're out there doing outreach, following up on a daily basis. Thank you. And I do see our police chief, Paul O'Leary, in the back of the room. And we do have a very well-trained police force that many of the officers actually have special training and know the resources, know who to connect these folks to. And are long term residents of Alameda and know these individuals. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you both. Thank you, Mayor. So do we have an emotion? Oh, and yeah, so we we covered the G20. So with that I will move that. We accept the status report from Operation Dignity and Case Management Services for homeless individuals. That's item five H. Sex. Of all those in favor I motion cares unanimously. Thank you. So five oh was pulled and now five Q We have a speaker. Jim Strelow five Q. But it's the recommendation to accept additional information and renderings requested by City Council regarding the design concept for the Cross Alameda Trail Gap Closure on Atlantic Avenue between Webster Street and