Recommendation to Receive Direction from City Council Regarding Uses for a Potential Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Grant Award.  (Community Development 267) [Not heard on June 15, 2021]
Thank you. Thank you, Miss Butler. It's always nice to get fans we weren't anticipating. And that's what we have here. And thank you for your report. And Madam Kirk, do we have public speakers on this item? We do not. Okay. Well, counsel, it's if we have no public speakers, then I'm going to go ahead. They're going to go ahead and close public comment and we will just launch right into council questions, comments, motion, what have you. So Council, what's your pleasure, Councilmember Herrera Spencer and then Councilmember Knox. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Jack, for this report. I'd like some more information about the all of these items. How, for instance, how did you come up with the ratio? Is there some formula that the reference of the 125,000, if I heard correctly, and I read this correctly, it's ten persons, but I don't know for how many nights. And I'd like to actually know what is the cost per night that you're estimating. And then the second one, the Street Outreach, Mental Health. Do we have an organization right now that you're working with that you're extending what is the 75,000 buy and then the last digit, the amount that. 85,000. Is actually the most broad. That could actually be my preference. And I don't know if you could allocate more money to that. I really like the idea of that includes assistance for car repairs, paying back rent and utilities for previously homeless or those most vulnerable are on the verge of becoming homeless. And this to me is actually, if I'm understanding correctly, is the most similar to some sort of universal basic income where we help, we treat people that they know that they how to spend the money work best and can get the most bang out of it. And I think that that might actually be my highest priority is where I think it could be most efficient. But so I would like more information of, you know, what is the cost per night for the overnight shelter. I think maybe some people can figure it out, maybe lower if we give them more money to spend. Thanks. Okay. So I don't have the cost per night, but I could probably calculate it. I would need to go through my notes for that. What I do, what I do have is that. And the way we the way that it was figured out was we were trying to have a stopgap measure for a for for shelter. We need a way to put people in shelter temporarily. It cost about $100 per night to have people in in shelter temporarily. And this would allow us to get some of the most vulnerable off the street. People say that they don't have a place to stay at all, and that's why they're setting up camp in our city. We would be able to move them temporarily to a shelter. So I will I will come back to that item. As far as as the other items are concerned, mental health, we do have a provider that we're working with that that does provide mental health services that could tack on to what they are providing. We have not negotiated a deal with them, but we we have talked I have talked to them about perhaps having them work with some of our moderate and extreme mental health folks that that that we have in and that are homeless in Alameda that were trying to get in into permanent housing. But we can't do that because their health condition is such that they can't be trusted in housing at this point. And then with the flexible funds, the amount was based on being able to provide the temporary shelter and the mental health service, and that was the remaining amount. So I will get back to you on the the shelter item. Okay. You have to do a calculation. And Councilmember Harris, as you had more questions. So I would like to know who that provider is that you're looking that's currently working with the city that you're looking at extending. Um, the, the shelter, the, the case provider would be Operation Dignity. Thank you. I had a question having to do with mental health assistance, Mr. Butler. Is it possible if we were to augment the amount we're spending on those services now, that we could have someone on call 24 seven for somebody who's just having an episode and looks like they could use some assistance, as. Does. Operation Dignity. I think they do outreach. Outreach, correct. And what you know, what are their what are their what's their structure now? Is it Monday through Friday certain hours? Is it on the weekend? No, it's not on the weekend. It's Monday through Friday. Mm hmm. So would there be a possibility of extending to the weekends and maybe the evenings? We could look at doing that with the dollars instead of doing the mental health piece. Are you? Are you? We don't have them doing any mental health. Okay. I was confused when you said Operation Dignity. I was. Yeah. So who who would be providing the mental health services? What I would be proposing is operation. Technically, they provide it in other jurisdictions within hours. Got it. Do we not currently provide some mental health assistance to our homeless population? No, we only provide case management. Hmm. Got it. Okay, so this would actually be something new. We're starting. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, then I could see the I could see the the reasoning for starting with a monday through Friday model. But hopefully, perhaps if it's successful, it could be expanded to to longer, because I think we could probably all agree that people that just have their mental health crises Monday through Friday. Okay, I, I have some other thoughts, but I'd love to hear from the rest of the council council members. Anybody want to add anything or to be like these recommendations? Council member, not quite when it was. Ready to move the staff recommendation. I think they did a great job and I just want to thank them for their work. They moved the staff recommendation. Okay. And did. Okay. Let's have a say and then maybe have a just a little bit more discussion. Council member, they said, are you seconding? Okay, perfect. We've had a motion by council member that's. Wait a second. By councilor would decide the. I just wanted to. I love everything you proposed. Ms.. Butler and then on the page three where it says if well, it's a carryover from page two, if other funding is sufficient to address the mental illness needs of the city's housed staff recommends that the proposed mental health funding referenced above be divided between and allocated to the other two categories, that being increasing the 67,000 plus fortnightly shelter to 185,000 plus, and then increasing the flexible funds from 14,000 some to 100,000. Alternatively, the funds could be used for transitional housing programs such as the community cabins. I might like to see some of that money going to try to help get those shelters where people could go. That I do think more than 14,000 for flexible funds is a good thing and jumping it all the way up to 100,000. That's quite a bit. And again, this is only if we find that there's funding coming in to cover the mental health services that Ms.. Butler's proposing. But I. Anybody else have any thoughts about that? Ms.. Butler ahead. I should say that this cut, the funding cut, can span over a couple of years. It's not just a one year funding amount. And so the the moneys for the flexible funds, which just extend for a longer period of time. Okay. Okay. I thank you for that clarification. What period of time are we talking about? Currently the funding would probably last about a year, just over a year and a half. And if you extended it, it would last approximately two years. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Okay. Councilmember Herrera Spencer. Q In regards to mental health services, I don't know if we've looked in at Almeida Family Services, and I know they provide quite a bit of mental health support to other APEC, I believe, as well as our schools. And obviously within the community they offer quite a bit of counseling. So I don't know if you checked with them, if they would be eligible to help with any of your ideas. But I, we we could we could extend it. We could do an RFP for these services. We don't have to go with the entity that I spoke with. It was just that I spoke with them because they do provide it in other locations. It's my understanding when analysts here she had spoken to Alameda Family Services in the past for services and they they are interested in providing services but maybe not of this type. I can go back to them and speak with them about that again. And then APEC, I was not aware that they provided mental health services, so I can also speak with them. Family Services at least provide some mental health services to APC. Sorry if I misspoke. Okay. I really value our services of the different locations within the community already. And I and I this my understanding that they have the capability to do the Weekender 24 seven services. Well, I can I can definitely speak with them. So just this is, you know, something to look into. But regardless of the formula, how is it the bet is that this. This allocation. Really the best use of. The money? I'm not really sure because I'm not really sure what it's based on. But I, I do like with, you know, flexible funds and letting it can go to a lot of different options. So I just think that so when you're saying the one 2575 and then the 86, is that like at some point it means the city gets these means that they could reallocate depending upon what things actually cost and where we actually see the greater need to meet people's needs. Yes. So to answer your first question about the the cost, it would be $1,250 a week, and that would be five, five days a week. Just $50 plus the weekends. So it would be seven days a week. And then your second question. I'm sorry, I was doing the calculation to try to get you your information. What was the second question going back to the first one then? Is it how many days does. Over a year? It's over a year, 50 to 52 days and ten people. And it's $1,250 a week. Okay. So depending upon if that really is the best uses the program unfolds, I'd like to hope that we can have some flexibility there because I think keeping people in their homes might actually be a good use of that tool, which is the flexibility issue option. Anything for the second baseman, Avila. Okay. Vice mayor of L.A.. It just we know that our unhoused population has grown. We have a significant need with the folks that are going to our shelter. We also know that they do not have a place to go at night. And I think that this is a good opportunity. I think that what we are going to find is that this is insufficient to serve. That need is substantially insufficient. This is not a huge amount of money that we're talking about. I'm very supportive of the staff recommendation. I think it is trying to maximize the space that we have at our data center while still addressing with dignity the needs of the folks that we have. So I'm prepared to support the proposal tonight. And I also just think that at the end of the day, I also want to be cognizant of staff time. We are having this staff work on a number of different issues. And so I actually don't support having them try to go back and kind of do work a second time. We keep bringing up Alameda Point or we keep bringing up different vendors relative to the mental health services. We have vendors that are already operating in this space and so are providers, I should say. And I think that we need to honor the work that's been done rather than second guessing it and, you know, move forward with this. I think there's going to be other opportunities. This is not something where I think that, you know, an RFP or anything like that is needed. I think it would actually delay providing these services that are very, very much needed. That's all. I would say I agree with that approach. Anyone else want to add anything before we vote on approving the staff proposal? Remind me. We had a motion by Council member Knox White and it was seconded right. By former SA. Correct. Okay. All right, then. Well, let's take a roll call vote, if we could, please. Madam Clerk. Councilmember de SAG. Yes. Herrera. Spencer, I. Knox Light. Hi. Fella. I mayor as Ashcraft high. That carries by five eyes. Great. Thank you. And Ms.. Butler, thank you again for all your hard work in following up on this. It is so important we have not had a place in Alameda where every day of the year there is someplace that an and sheltered person could lay down their head and have a roof over their head. And so now this is an important first step toward doing that. So thank you so much for all your hard work and we'll look forward to hearing more from you. Okay. All right. So with that, we're going to close. I turn six B and we're moving on to item 60. Madam Kirk, will you introduce that item for us, please? Recommendation to assign a portion of the 28.68 million funding from the federal government through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to assist this recovery from the impacts of the COVID 19 pandemic. Right. Who doesn't like talking about money coming into the city, huh? And I see some familiar financial faces. We have our finance director and Anita, we have Jennifer, 12, also from finance. And I think. Do you ladies have a presentation? I believe you've got a PowerPoint. Is that you, city manager? No, I think. Mr. Bowden, are you. Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah, I'm going to try. I'm going to do the presentation, but these folks are critical to the conversation. So we'll tag team the responses and Q&A segment. All right. Thank you. Good evening. Anyway. Thank you very much. Council members, we have another update for you on the the American Rescue Plan Act funding. We hope that the conversation tonight starts to start to funnel our our priorities into a particular direction. Next slide, please. And thank you. So as you all know, we've got $28.68 million in ARPA funding coming to the city of Alameda on June 17th. We received our first tranche, which is a $14.34 million, and we had City Council direction on this topic back in May. There were a couple of themes to the meeting in May. One of the things that we took away from that meeting was setting up a framework for us to be able to allocate these funds. So we did set up some guiding principles for council's consideration this evening. We also distilled down the topic from the main meeting into four topic areas supplementing revenue loss. This is general fund revenue. Loss was one of the topic areas. Addressing housing, homelessness and behavioral health matters was another topic area building broadband infrastructure in the community and really investing in that in that key and really underinvested in piece of infrastructure in the community was another topic area that came to light. And then finally the household and local small business assistance programing, which which is essentially a bucket at this point. There is no program designed around this like we had with prior funding sources. First, with respect to COVID, COVID response and recovery, the monies are intended to be a response to COVID. So that is a critical, critical theme, underlying theme that needs to be considered throughout the discussion. Next slide. So these are the guiding principles. There are eight of them on the screen. The ones that I guess all I'll I'll call out this this information is all fleshed out a little further in the staff report. But we did want to make sure that we called out the equity lens as a particular item that we're wanted to emphasize with the ARPA dollars. This is a response to COVID. And COVID did impact certain certain elements in our community, certain folks in our community, more so than others. And so as we look to funding opportunities, this is a way to to ensure that we are spreading those resources a little more generously to areas that were harder hit by the pandemic and the impacts also that the general fund has taken a hit during COVID, and we did bring in less revenue. And so the idea of being able to top up the general fund, which does provide services across the community, is is a topic area that we wanted to make sure was in there. And finally, the one time expenditures element was a theme that we pulled out as well from the the main the main discussion. This is this is one time money. So anything that we create that creates an ongoing operational cost is going to be something that the city's general fund or other funding sources would have to absorb. So with that, we'll say next slide, please, and thank you. The interim final rule is really what guides the the elements that are eligible for the that the spending. There are there are some pretty big buckets there. We did using the interim final rule, using the the guiding principles, using the city council priorities that had been established