Recommendation to Authorize the City Manager to Negotiate and Execute a $310,000 Agreement with Creative Build, Inc. to Operate a Day Center and Safe Parking Program for Individuals Experiencing Homelessness Funded through the Homeless Emergency Aid Program (Community Development 267)
Yes. To a is a recommendation to authorize the city manager city manager to negotiate and execute a $310,000 agreement with creative building to operate a day center and safe parking program for individuals experiencing homelessness funded through the Emergency Homeless Emergency Aid Program. Thank you. And I believe this is Miss Potter's idea. I see. I see. And a Baptist from community development. Welcome. And I see Debbie Potter now. Okay, so who's taking the lead on this one? I can speak to that item. All right. Action, please. Thank you. Anything there? And members of the city council, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight about the Alameda Day Center and Safe Working Program for an exciting program that are going to be coming to Alameda. As you all know, the city of Alameda has been allocated 700 of the $6,524 in homeless. Emergency aid program late. Last year. He a $500 million block grant from the state designed to provide one time funding for projects that have immediate impact to address homelessness in our local jurisdiction. At City Council's January meeting last. Year, you directed Community Development Staff to work with the Social. Service Human Relations Board to develop a proposal that identifies projects that may be funded through. The Social Service. Human Relations Board subsequently created an ad hoc committee that works with staff to gather input from community stakeholders and possible projects to fund the review. And two of the key projects that were recommended and approved by the City Council on July 16 of 2019. Whether they center and the Safe Parking Program, the Bay Center and Safe Parking. Will be. Located at 431 Stardust at Alameda Point. And the building was used by the Alameda Fire Department as a training center a few years ago and which has been unused for. A couple of years or. So and had some structural problems that would otherwise be a great space for both programs. The building is currently under construction and should be ready in the next couple of weeks, which is exciting. Meanwhile, the city issued an RFP or request for proposal on April 22nd. To seek a provider or providers to operate the either. The Bay Center, the safe parking are both programs. The city received two applications for the Bay Center and three applications for the Safe Parking Program. Two of the organizations that submitted proposals applied for both Safe Parking and the center. We had an RFP review committee comprised of a community advocate working with the homeless and Alameda resident who coordinates homeless services for the city of San Leandro. A city staff who manages projects like Alameda Point and a city staff coordinated homeless services for the city of Alameda. We independently scored the applications and conducted Zoom interviews with the applicants. There was a clear winner and Creative Build Inc, which is a data driven, results based nonprofit organization that will work with the Village of Love, an organization that has extensive experience working with the Thomas Carl Business Improvement District. Jack London Square, downtown Berkeley in East Oakland, is providing street outreach meals and shower services to the unsheltered population. They will be conducting the. Services for. Their clients at the Bay Center and the Safe Parking Program. We are here today. To seek. Your. Approval to authorize the. City manager to negotiate the contract to execute a 300,000 $310,000 agreement with Creative Build Inc to operate the adult the Bay Center as well as the safe parking. Our goal is to launch the Bay Center and Safe Parking programs on July 1st. So it's coming up soon and we're very, very excited for these programs to be launched. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight and have an answer. QUESTION Thank you. He is back to saying, I want to get over the feedback, but I want to just really thank Ms.. Bacchus for all the work that she has done from her position as community development in the Community Development Department. She serves on numerous committees around the county. She has kept up to date on the latest developments, the best practices for how to address our unsheltered population. I know the two of us have made field trips to visit things that other cities are doing because we don't have to reinvent the wheel. But it takes a lot of compassion and understanding and just plain tenacity to keep moving forward on projects like this. And so thank you. I'm very excited to see this come to our council. Um, before and um, Madam Quirk, I didn't ask you, do we have public speakers on this item? We need to ask when we're ready to get to the public comment portion, we'll have to ask them. So. Okay, so. I was going to ask if council had any clarifying questions about the presentation or Ms.. Potter if there was anything you wanted to add? No, she's shaking her head. No. And if there are no clarifying questions, then why don't we see if there's any public comments we'll hear then? If there are, and if not, we'll launch into council discussion and hopefully a motion. So if any attendees that are on the line would like to comment on this agenda item, please indicate so now by raising your hand. Okay. Nobody has raised their hand, so we have no comment on this item. Excellent. All right. City Council. Anyone want to take the lead? I have a motion. Vice mayor, not quite. Seeing nobody jumping in here. I would be happy to. Second all the comments you made in your thanks to this back tests and the community development and move approval of this item as proposed. Thank you. We have a motion to have a second by Councilmember Ody and I also would be remiss not to recognize Debbie Potter, the director of Community Development Department. She she knows this stuff off the top of her head. And she is another very compassionate individual who always sees possibilities out there, even when it's sometimes hard to keep hope. But I am I am feeling hopeful. And I read something recently that one of the things we've seen exposed more in this COVID crisis is there is there are a large number of very wealthy individuals in our country, in the world, and there's an increasing number of very poor people who are just falling through the cracks. And and there's a connection, by the way. As a city council, we can address every wrong. But there are things that are within our powers to to impact. And this decision tonight is one of them. So we've had a motion. We had a second. Any further discussion? Uh, Councilmember de SAG. Yes. Thank you very much. I'm not convinced that the street parking idea is, um, is a good use of the of the limited dollars, but that, you know, I, I'll abstain on this item. I'm just concerned about that. And one of the things that I also want to highlight, because I've been working with staff on the safe parking concept for a while, is you and I and I hope you had an opportunity to read that. But the staff report and the code of conduct, because we are modeling what will be done after the successful models of other cities and Union City is one of them. And we so it isn't just a matter of come on down and and and park here people will register. There is not only supervision but also resources are provided because the idea is not just to give you a place to park but help you to move out of your circumstances and into eventually a roof over your head, a permanent roof, not a car roof over your head. But thank you for that comment. If there are no further comments, let's have a roll call vote. Councilmember Jason. Epstein. Not quite. I i. Sabella. I may or as the Ashcroft high that carries four eyes one abstention. Thank you very much. All right. With that, we move on to item to be. Like Hamlet her. Okay. And Madam, quick, could you introduce item to be for us, please? Sorry. My mute was on recommendation to create a strong community relief fund to provide grants or other types of relief to small businesses, nonprofits and residential renters that have been negatively financially impacted by the COVID 19 pandemic.