Recommendation to receive and file information regarding restoration of the senior meal program at Cesar E. Chavez and Silverado Parks.  (Districts 1,7)
Kate. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Moving on to the next item. We're actually we had one other request we're going to do item 14. So. Item 14 is a report from Parks Recreation Submarine recommendation to receive and file information regarding restorations of the senior meal program at Cesar Chavez and Cerrado, Silverado Parks District one and seven. Okay, Councilman Gonzales. Yes, I'd like to see if there's a staff report. But while we're waiting for our staff member to get here, I just would like to first thank our senior advisory commission. And I know members of the Gray Panthers that are here as well that have expressed a lot of interest in bringing back the senior food program, both at Chavez and Silverado. I'm glad to hear that it is positively heading in that direction and it could be maybe staffed up very soon. So we'll hear more information very shortly as Marie comes down. And then I'll just sit here and talk and talk until she can come down. That's okay. But I also want to say thank you to Marie as well. She and I chatted. I know that she has worked with a senior advisory commission and I really appreciate your work as well. And here she is. Thank you, Marie. Good evening. My apologies. You know, trying to do a little business in the back. That's all right. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor. Members of the City Council. On February 21st, the staff was asked to report back to the city. At that time, the city council and outlining costs related to restoring the meal program at the current state and the current state of the transportation services provided by Long Beach Transit to the two sites at Cesar Chavez and Silverado Park. At that time, the council requested that staff look at other options to fund these two sites and solutions for transportation issues. So this is our status report and an update. In the past few months, staff has researched options for providing senior meals at these two sites. First, reaching back out to HSA to see if they were in a better financial position to return services to these two sites. And unfortunately, their funding has not increased. And as reported previously, the total cost to restore meals at both of these sites by using the HSA program would be over $100,000. Staff then reached out to organizations that may be in the area already providing meals and to through other programs, and contacted multiple community organizations including Empowered for Life, Food Finders, Workforce Development, Aging and Community Services in LA and Women in Action reaching out to ascertain if any of these organizations had either the capacity to add additional sites or if they knew other programs that could be in existence. After multiple conversations, we're excited to report that Women in Action Reaching Out. A local nonprofit organization has offered to provide meals to our seniors at Cesar Chavez and Silverado Parks. The meals will be served Monday through Friday, beginning on Monday, April 24th, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.. They will be served either hot or cold and come prepackaged to meet the USDA serving sizes and the organization will be requesting a suggested donation of $1 per meal. Although this will not be mandatory. Women in action. Reaching out has been serving various communities in Long Beach since 2012. They provide meals and snacks to seniors, teens and youth residing in the Carmelite housing area on a year round basis. In addition, they provide afterschool meals at a park in Compton. Meals are also provided to seniors who participate in activities at the Long Beach Expo Center, located in Bixby Knolls. Ms.. Mrs. King, the CEO of Women in Action, reaching out is a very passionate person about her services to the community and is dedicated to providing the best services ever and is very excited about serving our seniors at these two sites. Staff is currently working with the organization on the proper insurance, health permits and agreements, and we are excited to be starting that program next week. We will also continue to research and identify additional locations in these areas that may be providing senior meals, such as local churches and other services and other agencies in case there are other options available for our residents. Finally, we are also in conversation with Meals on Wheels Long Beach to explore the opportunity of enhancing the Meals program at these two sites. To also include meals to homebound seniors. With respect to transportation. In August of 2012, the Long Beach Transit discontinued their passport services to Chavez Park. It was replaced with Route 151, where standard fares apply. The passport service was, as you are aware, a free service. There were no major changes to Route 191 at the time, which stops in front of Silverado Park. The discontinuation of the passport service and the discontinuation of the two meal sites were within months of each other and likely one did not affect the other. Both agencies cited the discontinuation of service because of low participation. I have been in contact with Ken MacDonnell, the CEO of Long Beach Transit, and Mr. McDonald explained that the majority of the three passport services were discontinued several years ago, mainly due to the fact that a lot of their subsidy is based on the number of paid ridership. So the more free ridership. That they offered, they. Then would be hurt with reduced subsidy. So they only left one free passport service in place. That said, Mr. McDonald understands the issues and wants to be a part of the solution and he will be working with his team and ours to identify opportunities for discounted passes for our seniors to get to these locations, or possibly working together to locate community partners who are interested in funding free passes for our seniors. We hope to have some movement on this issue within the next month and be able to come back to the council to report on that. In addition, on March 23rd, 2017, Long Beach Transit also hosted a community meeting to discuss their systemwide transit analysis and reassessment initiative, which will take an in-depth look into Long Beach Transit's current transit operations, such as one time performance ridership, route efficiency, staffing, etc.. It will also set priorities that will carry Long Beach transit into the future. Two of our senior advisory commissioners in their roles as advocates for our seniors, attended the meeting and presented a proposal for the reinstatement of the passport program on a route to include Cesar Chavez Park. In addition, we have been researching other alternative transportation options for our seniors to utilize to get to these two sites. One option we found could be the immediate needs transportation program operated by L.A. Metro. Through this program, there is a possibility of receiving free bus tokens and passes and taxi vouchers to provide to our seniors who are participating in the Meals program. We have been informed that there is currently a waiting list for this program and we are submitting the necessary paperwork to be on that waiting list. We have also been working with the HSA regarding their Rider Relief Transportation Program, which also provides senior access to reduced cost monthly bus fares. A representative from this program will be visiting both meal sites next week to provide information to the seniors on how they can enroll in the program and receive coupons and vouchers for the discounts. Again, we will continue to look at the opportunities for transportation as we move forward, but we are very pleased that we will be able to reinstate the meals program at these two sites starting next week. That is the end of my report. Well, that was great. Thank you so much, Marie. I appreciate it. This was a very in-depth report. I'm glad. I'm very happy. That will be bringing back the meal program to both of these locations. Cesar Chavez Park. Jan Peyser, Community Center as well as Silverado. And I look forward to certainly passing this item here now, but also looking forward to seeing the report come back in a month. That will include additional information about transportation. And I know our senior advisory commission is here. I know they'll continue to work and bring better ideas and more ideas to that discussion. I know a few things that have been mentioned so far that I would just like for us to take into consideration. But I myself am also in communication with Ken McDonald. I've been in talks with you as well. I'm glad we're all on the same page here. In addition to looking at alternative transportation options, bringing back some routes, looking for either free bus passes or some discounted bus passes, I would also like us to kind of open up the question to Long Beach Transit as it really depends on them. You know, they have their own board, their own director, but really looking at also ways that we can add more more stops near build senior buildings. I think that some have been changed, have been moved around, and I think that just creates an additional barrier for them to get to and fro different areas. So I think that's just something for us to look at and then just creating more access in general for that. So again, thank you so very much. Thank you to everyone who's here and I look forward to hearing more. Thank you. Council member gearing up. Thank you, Mayor. Well, I commend the staff and in their research on getting the program back on line. I think that we still have a responsibility to our seniors that this program should be institutionalized within the city and not have to rely on philanthropic workers, organizations and their generosity to help us keep this program going. So I hope that in the future discussions, we can look at other ways to institutionalize it. So we're not having to go out and reach into the philanthropic community to sustain programs that we should be responsible for here. I also want to commend staff for their efforts in transportation. It's out of our control. However, I think that we need to also work with our partners in transportation, such as Long Beach Transit, to make transportation more affordable and more accommodating to our seniors so that they can get from point A to point B without having having it be a major effort and an all day endeavor for them to get to where they need to be. So I'm looking forward to next month's report. Hopefully it can be a very good one. But again, I want to see the city move forward with institutionalizing the food program for seniors. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilmember Pearce. Yes, I just want I really think Marie Knight for a thorough report and for my colleagues for pushing the conversation forward. We know that our senior population is a growing population and we have a senior center in my district and it's a great place to visit and it is a place where we do have access to a lot of different meal programs there. And so making sure that this is something that other districts in areas have is really important to me. And I really appreciate you circling back with public transit. I know it's one of the things that we're trying to work on as well. And so I support everything that you guys are doing and I would continue to support trying to institutionalize, you know, ensure that these programs are reoccurring with some city support. And also just really a big thank you to the nonprofits and the community groups out there that step up to do this work because you're not required to do that. So thank you so much. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you. And I also like to just agree with my colleagues. I want to thank Marie Knight and Parks and Recreation and Marine Four for their work and their efforts to improve services, in address services for our seniors all across the city, and particularly in the areas of senior meals and transit access. It was it was mentioned that by Councilmember Gonzalez that she'd like to see more access points. I think there is opportunity, particularly in terms of engaging, engaging Long Beach transit. They do have no more resources now as a result of Measure M and and SB one. And so we should, should encourage them to increase, improves transit services and use those resources to improve transit services to our seniors. I also want to commend women in action reaching out. I know I made the recommendation that when this issue came before us, that we look at that organization, organization as doing some amazing work out of the Carmen Leto's community. If you go there on a daily basis, you can see a team of volunteers, women in action, reaching out, preparing hundreds of meals and feeding hundreds of seniors in North Long Beach and now in Compton. I believe now they'll be volunteering their services for seniors on the West Side into two park locations, which I think is awesome. And it shows the capacity and amazing potential to integrate our senior communities throughout the city of Long Beach. And so but I will agree with our Councilmember Urunga, in terms of the sustainability, I'd like to see that program be sustainable in an organization like Women in actually reaching out. I think, you know, there should be a codified agreement in a contract at some point in the future to to make sure that those services are are sustainable and that there are the seniors cannot can depend on them moving forward in terms of their quality of life. And yeah, I'm just proud that that that we're having an impact and able to to touch the lives of hundreds of more seniors throughout the city. And so good luck and look forward to it coming back. I'll support this. Okay. Thank you. There's a motion and a second, I think, with a public comment. Stepped away with that. Did we do public comment? No. Let's look. Set the way. I wasn't sure if that happened when I stepped away. So public comment, please come forward if you have public comment. I get a lot of time from guys tonight. I apologize if you get tired of hearing from me about anyway. Bill again from Council District three. Maureen, I want to thank you for bringing this attention for the meals program to these very important parks. There are some programs in Los Angeles County where the increase has needed and the demand has increased. In fact, there's now a waiting lists for some food programs in Los Angeles County. We don't want to hear this kind of thing. However, regarding transportation, I would like to see a collaboration between the City Hall, Language Transit and Uber and Lyft. Uber just released their financials. Last year, they had $6.5 billion in profits. I think they could afford a little reinvestment in our community, which they're participating in. And also, I'd like to say that last week at Cal State, Long Beach, I believe, Marie, you were there for the aging and reimagining aging. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend that event. I was in Los Angeles attending the first annual ever AARP first annual elder summit. Got a lot of great information. Metro was there. They're asking for our feedback. So I'd like to see and I know Mayor Garcia is on the Metro board now. So I'd like to see some kind of collaboration, if we can. Something that we can do there as well. We are more than glad to send to you via email to your office the presentation that was performed by Metro there on their long ago program for transportation. There was a lot of great knowledge there for seniors, so definitely I'd like to support this item. Marie, thank you for your support and I'll definitely be contacting you on other items on seniors. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Mary Alice. You? I'm the chairperson for the Senior Citizens Advisory Commission, and we have been working on this. Project for Meals. For. Seniors for one year. Exactly. So we have been very patient in waiting. It's taken a lot of organization and a lot of meetings. And so we are now finally coming to fruition. And I want to thank Marie and her staff for all the work that they did. And I also want to thank Lena Gonzalez for her patience and waiting. And so I'm happy to see that we're going to be able to have some nutrition for our seniors and hopefully. We can get Ken McDonald, the CEO. From Long Beach Transit, to hear our message in our voice and and do the proper things so that we can bring our seniors there. Thank you very much. Karen Reseda, resident of the first district and secretary for the Long Beach Gray Panthers. And thank you, Mary, for all your work in getting this program back. I am. These lunch programs are absolutely critical for low income senior population. A lot of them depend on these programs. It's often their only hot meal of the day. I know when I find myself going to many meetings, that's the only hot meal I get. I participate in the lunch program over at the Fourth Street Senior Center, and there's regularly over 100 people and usually 10 to 15 people that come in, get on the waitlist, and oftentimes they don't get served because there's not enough food, because the demand is so large. But even more critical in the food and the transportation is the socialization opportunities for many seniors. The senior center is the hub of their socialization experience. So thank you all for supporting this and thank you your anger, Mr. Erakat, for suggesting that it be institutionalized. It really does need to be used for the well-being of our seniors and our community and keeping them healthy and aging in homes and reducing our health care costs . I want to hitch a ride on her last statement. She said. The seniors are in homes. However. As your homeless count will bear when the record is finally posted on your website. It's taken in January, but it's not up yet. The homeless count. That a passenger, a large percentage of those people are homeless. So you have seniors who not only are not part of your social structure because they are homeless, many of them are scraping on their food stamp card, the general relief card. And they're not getting to those meals. In thing, seniors said service centers that you're now going to restore and because they're considered public outcry casts. Some of them might have to show up dirty. And because they know that if they showed up dirty, that they wouldn't be socially accepted. They're not going to make it. So as we're seeking to restore your meals. I want to remind us of a man who died on the side of the Bank of America building in District four. He was taken off the street a month before he died. But he sat there morning after morning. Some people would bring him food. But I wonder what would would have happened if he had been invited into the singer's center. Someone would have noticed, oh, he's homeless. So he instead of being taken off the street one month before he died, if he had been invited into the senior center for Meals, he might have been off the street earlier than one month before he died. We think, in terms of seniors who are in housing. But many of you seniors who are homeless, seniors who are homeless will not see even these meals. Now. I'm 56. We're all going to be singers one day. If some of us already are. In front of me and behind me. What is it going to take? To get the same news that you counted in January who are homeless. Into those centers where these meals are. What is it going to take us to do this? And when you go to sleep tonight, I hope that's on your mind. What? What can I do personally? Thank you, Mr. President. Would you like to speak on? Those of you who know me know that I rarely speak after public comment. I don't think it's right that we have the last word. But these comments tonight were so egregious that I have to respond. So I'm references a particular individual in the fourth District, Richard, was a success story. We got him off the street and into housing. So I just want to set the record straight there. Ask anyone in our health department. They'll tell you that this was a miracle, what we did. Also, just to set the record straight on the homeless count, I watched it for many, many years. I don't ever remember it being out before late April. So there's nothing new about that. Thank you. Thank you. This is Councilman Gonzalez. Yes. I just wanted to add one last thing, is that I think in when we brought this item forward some time ago, this was really done in honor of Ruth Ricker in terms of bringing the meal program back. And I know the senior advisory commission knows that, and I know that we're looking to possibly rename this after her. She was a fantastic person that really believed in bringing that back also for the socialization issue. But this will be a great memory for her. Thank you. Thank you very much. I see no more. We have no one more individual than the diocese. Okay, fine. We'll do a voice count. Please cast your vote. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. Motion carries. No, I'm fine. Thank you. Notamment. Yes.