Recommendation to receive and file an oral report as an update on the Everyone Home Long Beach Initiative.  (Citywide)
Thank you. So just as a reminder, we have one item and then after this one item, it's a presentation, an important presentation. Then we move on to the budget hearing. So we're going to hear an update on the Everyone at Home Long Beach plan and then we'll move on to the budget. Item 17 is a report from Health and Human Services Development Services recommendation to receive and file an update on the Everyone Long Beach Initiative of the city by. Thank you. And before we before we have Mr. Modica start, I do know that everyone in front of them has the original everyone home Long Beach Task Force recommendations, I think should have a book in front of them. And also I know the presentation we wanted them in talking to Mr. Modica. For those who don't know our everyone home Long Beach plan is our our action plan and our work product that the Health Department put together with a really great group of folks from across the community chaired by our President, Jane Connolly of Cal State Long Beach, and included almost all of our organizations that were doing direct work around around homelessness and helping people experiencing homelessness and the housing work that's been in place for so many years. This plan will this update will give us the latest as to where this plan is from when it was released to the city council. And also talk about how we have met some of the metrics or maybe not met some of the metrics that we still have to work on as part of the plan. And so again, want to thank before Mr. Modica starts. Just the incredible group of folks that worked on this plan a few years ago. I think they are probably listed in this book and just grateful to that work and the work of the Long Beach Health Department. So, Mr. Modica. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think he summarized that very, very well. So I will just turn it directly to Kelly and Oscar, who will give the report's Kelly copy and Oscar worthy. Good evening, honorable mayor and Council Members. I thank you for this opportunity to share the mid-term progress on everyone's home line breach plan. Oscar worthy Director of Development Services has joined me for this presentation. You. Everyone from Long Beach Initiative was established to address the homelessness crisis in the city of Long Beach. We gathered a task force chaired by Cal State Long Beach President Jane Close Connelly. The task force comprised of nearly 50 community leaders, stakeholders and people with lived experience during the summer of 2018 to present information on homelessness, existing resources and gaps, the task force developed engaged the Homeless Services Advisory Committee, Continuum of Care Board and other community members to inform the recommendations. The Task Force established a set of goals and strategies which were adopted on December 11th, 2018. This document has been our guiding focus since that time. There are seven key goals within the report. Strengthening governance. And increasing funding. Increasing housing access. Reducing homelessness. Employing people. Supporting families. Connected to help. And developing population based service models. I'd like to start tonight's presentation with some context. In our last homeless count in January 2020, just before the pandemic, we had 2034 people experiencing homelessness in Long Beach. This was up slightly from the previous year. People self-reported that they became homeless due to insufficient income and loss of jobs, family problems, loss of housing and behavioral health concerns, including mental health and substance use. Nearly half reported that it was their first time homeless. 28% had experienced homelessness for more than two years and are considered chronically homeless. In the past year, we have seen substantial increases in funding and recognition of homelessness as a public health crisis. However, this is not fully led to more people in transitional housing, as COVID 19 protocols reduce by nearly half the number of beds available in congregate shelters. Given the distancing restrictions and some shelters stopped taking new participants to ensure a person with COVID wasn't entering the facility, we began to hear more about encampments and as CDC guidance was to reduce encampment cleanups, to reduce possible community transmission due to encampment disruption proven also led to reduced access to vital public facilities and services as people were needing them even more than before. Another factor in the past year was the focus on reducing people in congregate settings, including the jails and prisons to reduce transmission. People in jails and prisons were released, but there were little, if any, additional housing and resources to meet their needs, leaving many of them homeless as well . The COVID pandemic has in many ways set us back in our efforts a little to address homelessness in Long Beach. However, you will see that we've made great strides on many areas of the Everyone Home Long Beach plan and we have significant opportunities in our future. Our first goal was to strengthen governance and increase funding. It was to build governance, data capabilities, communications and financing to support a coordinated and robust homeless services system and housing system. The task force set a goal of 25 million and ongoing sustainable funding for operations, programs and services and another 220 million in capital funding. Rapidly expanding state and county funding has helped us move very close to this goal. To date, we're very near the goals for ongoing funding and one quarter of the way there for capital funding. We expect to reach about 50% of the capital funding goal by 2023. Is there significant capital funding in the state budget over the next two years? The chart on the left here shows the funding. In 2018, we had eight funding sources for a total of $39 million, including housing voucher subsidies and capital funding. We now have 11 funding sources totaling nearly $95 million. 64 million is for new services and assistance funding, and 23 million is available to us through grant terms over the next two years. The primary focus areas for the funding include interim housing, housing authority, vouchers and capital improvements, remaining funds, support, homeless prevention, outreach, coordinated entry system and case management, rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing. Remaining resources also fund MSD Operations Program and Administrative Staffing Data Systems and overall administration. Our additional accomplishments in it, in addition to the funding, is that we have elevated the homeless services from a division to a bureau, hiring many new staff, including a focus on hiring around mental health and health care in our jurisdictional work and other special projects. We improve the continuum of care governance, adopting a new charter in 2020 to increase policy and decision making responsibility within the CRC Board. We also implemented a new number and implemented a number of collaborative work groups to focus on specific areas of need in the city. Finally, we enhance collaboration by transitioning to the Clarity Homeless Management Information system, which is right surrounding jurisdictions are using. This allows us to better coordinate services and outcomes with our regional partners. Our initiatives in progress include developing an affirmative marketing plan to ensure communications are focused and effective in achieving equity for communities who are disproportionately impacted by and experiencing homelessness. We are implementing a lived experience advisory board to ensure a lived experience is informing our policy program and resource decision making. We expanded access and referrals to the coordinated entry system to improve access so that regardless of which homeless services provider you are working with, you are being all or being prioritized for the resources within the system. And we're also developing contractor performance management dashboards, advocating for additional funding and piloting the Unite US referral platform to increase service access. The second goal is to expand housing opportunities and incentivize major landlords to provide housing to low income and homeless individuals and families. Everyone home goals for increasing housing. Access for 200 shelter beds by 2020, 200 new permanent supportive housing units by 2023 and 2000 very low and low income units either entitled or online in the pipeline by 2023. We have made strong progress on this goal in the past two and a half years, surpassed our goal by double in 2024. The shelter crisis beds are bringing 402 shelter crisis beds online in 2020. 402 beds in one year. During the pandemic, we have quadrupled the permanent supportive housing goal with 844 units of permanent supportive housing underway or completed. And we have an additional 425 units of low and very low income housing being developed or in the pipeline. In 2020, the city opened. The Atlantic Bridge community in North Long Beach, purchased the best western motel on Long Beach Boulevard. The project Homekey funding and supported the Los Angeles County Purchase and opening a project Homekey Sites funded Motel six and Holiday Inn, which brought an additional 175 beds to our city. We continue to operate Project Roomkey through August of 2021, which brings an additional 43 beds. In addition, we've issued 1582 vouchers for a total of 9375 bed nights. Through our new nightly capacity at this time is 484 individuals and households each night. Efforts to increase our housing access has resulted in the development or processing of approximately or not approximately 1269 total supportive housing units, as well as low and very low income housing units. This figure includes 15 projects that have been completed throughout the city. With a yield. Of approximately 589 total housing units. Next slide, please. Also included in this figure are the preservation and rehabilitation efforts that have maintained 288 units in the city. Three residential projects with 53 units currently under construction and five development projects with 483 units that are approved or in the permitting process. We estimate that an additional 400. Units will be processed in the near future under current funding sources. Next slide, please. Additional accomplishments aimed at increasing housing access include inclusionary housing and the no net loss ordinance aimed at providing new affordable housing through new market rate development. The motel conversion ordinance creates avenues to increase supportive and rapid entry, as well as transitional housing. The Interim Housing Zoning Code Update expanded the locations of interim housing, as well as supportive of various supportive housing types throughout the city. The A.C. ordinance provides a clear path to encourage the rehabilitation and preservation of unpermitted units and the Miller Ordinance updated policies for the replacement of affordable housing within the coastal zone. The new plan and rezoning, which is a collaborative effort between the city and the North Long Beach community, establish zoning to provide, in part, additional housing support . Excellent. Continue to develop new housing opportunities through the Long Beach Recovery Act. In the next year, we anticipate opening a transition age shelter for youth aged 17 to 24 at our Navigation Center location on Hayes Avenue, as well as bringing 50 modular shelter units online. The Project Homekey sites are slated to be turned into permanent supportive housing in 2022, utilizing state funding, bringing an additional 217 permanent supportive housing units online. Thank you. Notable policy efforts. Policy efforts included the housing element, which will identify development opportunities to accommodate over 26,000 additional dwelling units throughout the city of various income levels. The housing element was released earlier this year. Community engagement continues and the draft element will be brought to the council in the fourth quarter of this year. The Anaheim Corridor Zoning Implementation Plan will provide visioning and planning efforts for new zones that will implement the land use element and encourage housing production. Lastly, the Enhanced Density Bonus Program is designed to incentivize and facilitate the development of mixed income. Multifamily housing. By. Establishing development concessions in exchange for onsite affordable units. Excellent. The third goal is to reduce homelessness. We reduce homelessness for prevention, early intervention and reducing our chronic homeless population. The Homeless Services division as partners continue to make progress on this goal. The goal focuses on reducing people falling into homelessness to fewer than 1500 annually, ensuring that if people fall into homelessness, they can be rehoused within six months, and that we have fewer than 350 chronically homeless people in Long Beach. The pandemic has slowed our progress in preventing homelessness. We currently are serving 1200 new homeless households engaged with us as well as we know that during the homeless count there were nearly a thousand people who were identified. So we know that there are more than 1500 households currently that are falling into homelessness. You prevention resources are available and we'll continue to work closely with partners to reduce the number of falling into homelessness. We've made strong progress in moving people from temporary to permanent housing. At this time, 66% of households access housing in less than six months, and 74% of households with a child are accessing housing within six months. Producing and reducing our chronically homeless population remains a challenge. The 2020 count found that we had 665 people who are chronically homeless. We continue to prioritize those who've been homeless for more than two years and seek to achieve this goal by 2023. These charts sort of provide a picture to what we were just discussing. What you'll see here is that in the chart on the left is that the chronic, chronically homeless population remains fairly stable, and that what we're seeing is that the new homeless is where we're seeing our increases. We continue to prioritize this population and work to build relationship and connection to services that on the right shows the percent of households exiting to permanent housing over a over a year time frame and longer. And once again, 66% of adults and 74% of families with children exit into permanent housing within six months. People who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness have significant, longer experiences of homelessness. This chart here basically shows it shows you that we've been fairly consistent in our ability to house people each year when we're talking about households. But because we've had the increase in resources in 2020, we have seen an increase, almost doubling of the number of households that we've been able to house in one year. We continue to expand outreach and sheltering opportunities. We've moved forward with outreach on the weekends and high impact neighborhoods and implemented the Safe Parking Program with the ability to serve 13 each night. We are working now to identify an additional site and expand operations. The L.B. Cares Rental Assistance Program provided up to $3,000 per household impacted by the pandemic. This program served 1440 households in the city. The city also entered into an MOU with L.A. County to provide legal assistance for those experiencing tenant landlord disputes. Policies to reduce homelessness included tenant assistance, including just cost termination, as well as the State Tenant Protection Act, which established provisions to protect tenants from evictions caused by the pandemic. The Senior and Disabled Security Deposit Assistance Program provided provides security deposit assistance of up to $3,000 to lower income seniors and or disabled households. Excellent. The Housing Authority received 582 emergency housing vouchers this year for people experiencing homelessness. This is a great opportunity to provide permanent housing opportunities in existing housing across the city. Vouchers will be prioritized for those with the greatest need. We have identified funding to provide case management to households receiving these vouchers to support their housing success. The City Council elected to combine federal and state funds for a total of $64.4 million to provide rental assistance for those tenants impacted by the pandemic. So far, there are over 13,000 registered applicants and we continue to process their requests. The city will be amending the MRU with the County of Los Angeles to expand the right to counsel program services to assist tenants facing evictions due to direct and indirect impacts from the pandemic and related economic impact. Excellent. The fourth goal is focused on increasing employment opportunities for people at risk of or experiencing homelessness. Our goal was to create 600 new job opportunities for adults and 240 job opportunities for transition age youth by 2021. At this time, the city has created 60 slots of supported employment and we are in the planning for a transition age youth program. During the pandemic, many jobs across the city were lost and creating new opportunities was very difficult. Jobs programs with our partners continued, but at lower capacities during the pandemic, we continued to seek employment resources. The primary funding in the county is administered through the Los Angeles County Department of Workforce Development, Aging and Community Services, otherwise known as the Relax Relax hubs for initiatives focused on employment, supports for people experiencing homelessness across the county and is seeing large increases in funding. We are working to tap into those programs and resources to grow employment supports in the City of London. Homeless pilot. The other things that we have been doing this year is the Homeless Corp pilot, which is current misdemeanors and working and works towards dismissal. If persons are working with service provider which expunging their past convictions and works to address current warrants, that may be barriers to housing or employment. Pacific Gateway has co-located career counseling staff across the city at places like the Center for Health Equity and Reform, as well as link housing sites such as the Spark and the Palace. Pacific Gateway has engaged in a cross-agency case conferencing. The Long Beach Youth Services Network addressing the housing, health, employment and other needs of transition age youth. In progress. As part of the Recovery Act, the Health Department is exploring partnerships with economic development and public works to create a social enterprise healthy foods market at the Rented Bridge Farm Shelter in North Bombay, which would create a workforce development opportunity for transition age youth experiencing homelessness, as well as providing access to healthy food for the surrounding neighborhood. Pacific Gateway has reached out to the City of Long Beach Council of Business Associations, encouraging businesses to create employment opportunities for jobseekers experiencing homelessness. We also continue to focus on our employment program through our state hub funding and our focus. And there are tax incentives, state tax incentives for hiring persons who are experiencing homelessness. It goes supporting families and children so that we know that we have strong families because we know they are essential to positive futures. We set out to establish 400 new childcare slots for very low income and homeless parents by 2021. 200 were created prior to the pandemic, but we don't have a good sense of where things are now, given the pandemic's impact on early childhood providers. In 2018, the Health Department launched the Early Childhood Education Plan that outlined many goals and strategies to ensure our young children and families have opportunities for success. It continued to implement this plan that included creating opportunities for people experiencing homelessness. Also, nearly 1 million in CARES Act funding supported families and providers in the past year, and we will continue this work through the Recovery Act. In addition, we are creating housing opportunities as part of the previously discussed emergency vouchers. We are currently holding 100 vouchers for families with young children, as well as 64 people being served by a victim service provider. Future opportunities include 1 billion in funding and then state budget to address family homelessness and 1.5 million set aside for early childhood supports in the Recovery Act. The six goals focused on behavioral health and physical health services. This girl continues to be our most difficult to achieve, given county focus and funding limitations. At this time, there are only three medical detox sites in L.A. County, and we have not identified substance use funds for sobering center. We have continued to engage in conversations with the county around detox programs. However, Medi-Cal funding does not fund these at the same level as other services, and few providers are interested in opening these sites. The county has opened 14 new recuperative care beds in the city, but they serve not just the city of Long Beach, but all of L.A. County. Mechanisms for tracking hospital E.R. discharge data are not currently available. Prior to the pandemic, there was a discharge planning collaborative that kept track of this, but they have not been meeting since the pandemic due to resourcing, and we anticipate that that will start back up in upcoming months. However, in the past year we have implemented a number of programs to support the health and mental health of people experiencing homelessness. This includes partnering with UCLA to implement a mobile opiate and HIV testing and treatment pilot, conducting vaccination clinics at the mercy shelters and in encampments, visiting registered nurses at various shelter sites, and placing a mental health clinician at the mercy to engage with people at the mercy. Moving into this year. We are also we are implementing a number of new programs, including our new REACH program with the mental health and public health nurses in the field and additional alternative mental health crisis planning. We continue to partner and advocate with the Los Angeles Department of Mental Health and Safety and Substance Use Center to advise mental states right to increase mental health and substance use opportunities in Long Beach. Yet this was not a key focus area of the county in the past year. Finally, the Recovery Act funds are providing an opportunity for mobile, mental or mobile multi-service clinics to create greater access to services in the community. And our final goal is focused on developing population specific housing opportunities and supports. There are many initiatives taking place to generate housing and supportive services for specific populations in Long Beach. To date, we funded rapid rehousing and homeless prevention services for youth utilizing hip funds. He funds one strategic plan for youth in emerging adults and the Office of Youth Development. These efforts focus on upstream prevention of homelessness in our youth. The Department is currently hiring a youth development manager as well as a reentry coordinator, funding a healthy aging coordinator, and establishing an older adult housing work group through the Healthy Aging Center. Collaborating with Pacific Gateway and other providers to connect transition ages, age youth to housing and supportive services. Focusing on equity and homeless services and partnering with the L.A. County offers a diversion and reentry co-location at the Multi-Service Center. There are ongoing challenges and needs that that have come from the pandemic. The economic impacts of COVID 19 pandemic rapidly exacerbated existing affordable housing and homeless needs and service gaps. We've seen a real increase in the cost of real estate, which impacts housing affordability and production, as well as the city's ability to purchase and construct facilities without sacrificing direct services. We had city staff focus, the city staff focus and prioritization has shifted due to the pandemic response. Hiring challenges have limited our capacity of the Homeless Services Bureau to quickly respond to emerging needs. The administration and location of mental health and substance use. Reentry services largely fall under L.A. County's jurisdiction, and they're planning is not currently meet the needs for Long Beach. You've also had new a lot of new and more flexible state funding, but they're almost all one time funds limiting the ability to fund ongoing supports and operations to support homeless services. The new Long Beach Recovery Act funds, which are approximately $11 million, will support the creation of multiple new programs, including two mobile mental to mobile and AC clinics that will be deployed throughout the community to improve services. The modular shelter program, the opening of a navigation center which will have storage as well as 12 shelter beds for youth outreach workers stationed at libraries throughout Long Beach. Supported employment programs for youth. Expansion of the Safe Parking Program. And implementation of the REACH program. The Rich program launched at the beginning of August. It is a mobile response team focused on urgent community requests and low level, non nonviolent calls for service related to people experiencing homelessness. There are two teams. Each one has a public health nurse, a mental health condition and two outreach workers. We are also hiring one person to focus specifically on phones and field coordination. This really is an alternative response model focused on getting people to services such as interim and interim and permanent housing, mental and physical health services. Case management. Crisis intervention and trauma informed care. The REACH team is currently available 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the weekdays and will be expanding that as additional resources are secured. At this time it is early. Watch it or piloting the proactive outreach in impacted areas and urgent requests and in early September will be we'll have live response to the MFC hotline, the version of low level and nonviolent nine on one calls for service with police and fire department handle. There's a large set of opportunities when it comes to funding. The enacted 2021 state budget provides about $10 billion towards housing and homelessness, reflecting the level of focus and support the state is providing to this important issue. The allocations listed here represent a variety of funding sources administered by different agencies, some of which are direct funding, while others are competitive grants or collaborations with the county. All of these represent opportunities to address the various root causes of homelessness. I don't plan to go through all of these, but you have them available to you to understand the large number and focus areas of funding available. We do know that you cannot run you cannot address homelessness in our city with just city employees. This list represents a portion of our important partners in this work. It takes all of us working together toward the same goals. Your city and community based teams. Thank you for your support in our efforts. I also want to give a big shout out to our homeless services team who kept the NSC open and have worked every day during the pandemic to ensure people experiencing homelessness feel supported, are housed and can continue their progress toward housing. It has been a big year for our Homeless Services Now bureau. So with that and our presentation or open for questions. Thank you, Mayor. Members of the City Council. Mr. Vice Mayor. That was a comprehensive presentation. I know this is such a big topic for the council. We wanted to really show you kind of all the pieces. We're prepared to answer a lot of questions. I do want to underscore, while there's a lot of successes and you can see there's funding opportunities, the funding need is still incredibly great. Affordable housing is incredibly expensive to build along, which has been a leader in that. But we need more and more resources every time we open up one of our shelters to those take operation dollars to be able to run, not only purchase them and run them. So the team is very aggressive. They're looking for a lot of funding opportunities that are out there. But I do want to point out there is still a ways to go. We know that there's a crisis across the country. Long Beach is a model in reacting and responding and being very proactive, as well as compassionate about dealing with people who are experiencing homelessness. But we know there is still a lot of work left to do. And with that, we're available for questions. Thank you, Tom. So we'll take the conversation back behind the rail. I'll go ahead and start. First of all, thanks for acknowledging there's still a long way to go. But what you have here, I think you demonstrate incredible progress. Congratulations to you. Our continuum of care, all of our partners on the incredible work that you presented today and your hard work over the past few years since adopting the Everyone Home Plan. When we adopted this, we emphasized data and goals, and what you were able to present today was responses with data and metrics and goals, and that's a measurability and that's important to highlight. We love to see that in plans because we can show to the public the benefit of having our own health department and our own continuum of care. We can we can control local outcomes on these issues. That's incredibly important. I think I'll highlight a few things and then I have a question or two. I'm very happy to see a lot of the things here, particularly the expansion of temporary shelter beds. We had no idea we would be able to expand so much over the course of the past year. And I think the pandemic actually changed a lot of attitudes around that. A lot of my backyard sentiments and you saw people even with the temporary shelters during the pandemic that popped up temporarily all across town prior to Project Homekey. You saw a complete change in that narrative. That's important to note. I'm very happy with the Atlantic Bridge community in North Long Beach. I'm very happy was completed. The residents are happy with it. It's a great community. We can't get to the larger master plan fast enough, so we want to get to that so we can actually start talking about what the what the permanent site looks like. I'm happy to see the direct connection to racial equity. I think it's important. You know, we've learned a lot and it's important that we make a connection. We know that homelessness disproportionately, it impacts everyone, but this personally impacts black homeless. We know that black families are impacted to a significant degree. And if you go in with that awareness, then you know how to approach the issue with the right level of attention and cultural sensitivity to be able to address the issues. That's important. I love that you had a policy like a lot of the homelessness issues and the poverty issues we have in our city are directly linked to policy, land policy, and the solution will have to be rooted in policy. And so you highlighted things like inclusion, inclusionary housing, dwelling, amnesty or local land use plans like the Uptown Plan, motel conversions and our housing element. The fact that in our land use element we create the space for 26,000 units that's actually above what our arena requirement is, is important. And that's important for people to understand because within that arena number, it's previous need, current need and future need over the next decade for housing. All of that is built into that number. We've already put forward a number and created the space in the city to surpass it. All other communities are really fighting and struggling to figure out how to deal with it. We were ahead of the ball, ahead of the curve. That's really important to note. I love the highlight under go for around jobs and employment. I love the partnership at the the new Ron Arias Health Equity Center soon to open. We love to see that the social enterprise market with the Atlantic Bridge community that will employ individuals experiencing homelessness. I think that's important. And and I also know that there are still there's still much more to do. There are some some threats. And one significant threat is growth of the social. Economic conditions globally are still creating conditions where people are still vulnerable. The vulnerability is still there are people still slipping into homelessness. And so that moves our targets. It's hard to say this is our goal when the goal continues to grow. We're seeing this resident see this manifest in the scenes of life. You see them in the you know, you see encampments that crop up on freeway, on an off ramps and in the areas that are not even the responsibility, the city, but other agencies. But that's what our community see. And those people definitely, certainly need help. So I think we're headed in the right direction with the partnerships that were born with Caltrans and others. I think that's important. I think it's important to know it's going to be expensive to buy, to build affordable housing. We had, you know, redevelopment years ago, $25 million a year. We're going to have affordable housing production. We're nowhere close to that in terms of the subsidy. Have to think outside the box. We have to continue to advocate for a dedicated source of revenue. I think one are opportunities as be. 649. A lot a lot comes out of Sacramento that may or may not be helpful as it relates to local giving local cities the tools to make a difference. And I think this is one that will on city council and have a discussion next week about supporting SB 649. And, you know, a few other things I think, you know, we need to think about creating our own mental health department within the city. No other jurisdictions have done that and have contracted in from the county. And I would love to explore what looks like the contract in mental health services. I think we need our own housing department to think about something to talk about. And I think the rights program, I think it's a great the fact that is great that we're rolling it out. I think there's some questions and, you know, I'll stop there, but I'll go ahead and ask a question on the REACH model. Walk me through a little bit of how how it works. I know it's a separate phone line to 911, but walked me through what happens if someone calls our regular emergency line 911? How would that be processed with the Reese model? If you could walk me through that, I think that would be helpful. They said they could call two different lines. So, one, they could call the NSC directly and request support, and then we would respond or they could call 911. And there are certain certain criteria for which 911 would transfer that line to the to the NSC to respond. Or they would send out, depending the police and fire department, depending on what the call was about. And then once their situation may be stabilized, to the point that the REACH team would then arrive and there would be a handoff opportunity at that point to continue to work with someone to engage them in additional services. Okay, great. So it sounds like there's more than one way that people can call and access this reach service or alternative crisis response. Okay. Those are my comments. I'm going to go now to Councilwoman Mongo. Thank you. I'm pushing the wrong button. Thank you. When you were talking about goal four of employing people, you discussed DAX or we DAX, the workforce development agent and Community Services Department and the program that they have. We have our own workforce department and typically when federal funds are allocated, we have our own allocation. Have we advocated for a similar apportionment for direct allocation to our own workforce development department of the Homeless funding for employing people out of homelessness? I know that. There are specific funds that we taxes receiving that is not federal funding. Correct. So it's coming from the county funding and. Correct. And I'm asking if we're advocating to use the same federal formula, if L.A. County on the way that Exide gets 40 million and we get 4 million, then if the county is receiving homeless funds and the amount of 4 million, then we would get equivalent. I understand now. Thank you. And I would have to, you know, engage with have the workforce discuss that upward. So I'm really interested in having that discussion. Otto Solorzano, the director, they're great individual, used to be my boss, and he was often really open to partnerships, especially regional ones that decentralized funding and gave other agencies the opportunity as long as we reported back on the systems that they're using to provide transparency through their dashboard. And I just see that as a huge opportunity for us to localize that workforce side that I just think is critical in getting individuals employed. I also want to thank our Economic Development Commission. I sat in on their meeting on Monday and their discussions around different issues that help people stay off the brink of homelessness and fall into homelessness and what economic factors that they can contribute to. And I really think it's very thoughtful and I appreciate that. I see an intersection between the Everyone Home and the Workforce blueprint to point out that I see as being a really huge step. I also appreciate this is a very comprehensive report and I know we're doing so much. And when we talked about the chronically homeless. I don't know if I can find the page quickly enough. It doesn't seem like we're making as much of an impact. And I think you'd stated how long a person is homeless to become chronically homeless. Could you remind me what that was? Over two years. Over two years. So. Is it that how many chronically homeless individuals are we getting into housing annually? I'm going to ask Paul Duncan, who's in the audience, if he has that number. We don't have a specific number. Like a dozen, two dozen. I mean, we have 600 people who are chronically homeless and that number is fluctuating a little bit. But I'm not clear what the inflow is and what the outflow is. And do we have a dashboard that demonstrates that? Can we can bring that information forward. But I'm going to ask Paul to join us now. Good evening, council members. The large majority of the permanent supportive housing units that you see within that presentation are all prioritized to people that are experiencing chronically homeless or experiencing chronic homelessness, as well as a number of resources that we get through HUD and through our Continuum of Care program. So we receive $10 million annually, about 6 million of that goes towards permanent supportive housing. So anytime there's a turnover in one of those units, they're also prioritized towards people that are experiencing chronic homelessness. So the majority of the people that we're housing that are single adults tend to be chronically homeless. Thank you. I appreciate that. I think that. There's a lot of discussion in our community about. How much do we spend on homelessness? It's not enough. I don't think people know how much it is. If you look at a $90 million number or a $40 million number, and then you take the homeless count of. 1820, 400, I mean, different numbers of year by year. And you spread that out and then you add to it the additional resources that are provided by city departments that are really just embedded in the work that we do every day. I think it really speaks to the value of certain programs. And this was another discussion that was had at the Economic Development Commission, which is the universal basic income. And if the universal basic income could keep someone from falling into homelessness and how much it really saves the taxpayer in the long run. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Councilwoman Pryce. Thank you very much. So thanks for that presentation. I really appreciate it. Has a lot of detail. I think it's safe to say that some of the increase that we've seen, increase of transient activity and homelessness that we've seen over the last year has a lot to do with the early release of certain populations without treatment rehabilitation once they're released from custody. Is that fair to say? We are saying that on the street. Yes. You know, are there any sort of what organizations do we have available in the city of Long Beach that can meet people literally as they're leaving jail to provide them access to services or offer some sort of, you know, treatment program or reentry services. We currently have the jail commission, so that is in jail now and who assesses and connects people to services as they're coming out. And we have a treatment center which also focuses with that population, but there's insufficient supports, certainly within the city of Palm Beach and frankly, all across L.A. County in the ability to address the number of people who need mental health and substance use support. That's unfortunate. What about in the area of nonprofits? I know in Orange County, we have an amazing organization called Project Kinship. They work really closely with our health care agency. They're literally at the jail. As people are released, they'll interface with everyone and at least give them the opportunity to connect. Is there any nonprofits like that that are active in that space? Not necessarily in Long Beach, but even in the county jail. We have a number of nonprofits that are focused to measure. H also pays for some jail and it's more focused on the county jails where necessarily the city jails. But there are a number of nonprofits that are doing enrich to the jails. And then we have a number of nonprofits that are focused on our reentry population within Long Beach. The two organizations that are most active within that space are there's three are The Advocate, a Tarzana treatment center and a center. So there are three nonprofits that we do work with and also partner with the city prosecutor's office and supporting and contracting to to some of those agencies. Okay. Thank you for that information. That might be something that maybe we can do a study session on in the future, because I think the work that those organizations do is incredible and would be worth highlighting and replicating many times over. And, you know, while we're talking about incredible work, Paul, I just want to take a moment and thank you. You've just been a really noticeable force over at the multicultural center. And I will say that my team and I very much enjoy working with you and appreciate your responsiveness and understanding. You know, kind of where we're coming from. It's always from a place of patience, not judgment and help. And I really appreciate that. So thank you. In regards to the jail conditions, so we do still have a jail commission in the jail in Long Beach. Is that correct? Programs still exist. But I think during the during the pandemic, it's been not as much of a presence, but an opportunity, I think more an online presence. Okay. All right. In terms of the employment opportunities you talked about, I know that a number of years ago that was one of the items I brought to council to start our homeless work pilot program. I'm curious, how is that program going and is that something that we can consider turning into a more of a permanent program moving forward? Yeah. When we look at some of the work force development programs that exist, there's a large focus on metrics, especially with the funding that comes from the federal level and really making sure that people are getting to sustainable, sustainable employment. And what we often see is a real hesitance to work with people that have been experiencing homelessness and maybe have been out of the workforce for a while because the outcomes are often not quite as high. So really looking at things around supportive employment, where we're offering some financial assistance to take a chance on somebody and provide them an employment opportunity. And I think that's the one area that we've seen the largest impact looking at employment focused services for people experiencing homelessness. So we could definitely look at expanding more opportunities there. That's great. I would very much support that and then I know I'm out of time here. But just the final question, the REACH program, which is a replacement for the HARP program. I know the HEART program had to have some approvals from L.A. County. DHS does the REACH program, or am I mistaken on that? I just don't know what kind of approvals we need from the county. The REACH program does not need any approvals. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Supernormal. Thank you. I will also follow up on the REACH program. We we featured that in our July 30th newsletter and we included a link to your I think it's July 22nd press release on that. And for for folks reading our newsletter, it's a little bit of a complicated formula. And so I guess I wanted to drill down a little bit on that. So fire will still respond to calls for persons experiencing homelessness. We know after 4:30 p.m. they will do that. But let's say during the day, will will fire still respond to those calls. And then is there an if is there an interaction in the field with the REACH teams or how do you see that actually working out there? So when the calls come in, if it is an emergency fire, we're always respond first. I mean that. So if if if it's a health emergency and is deemed a health emergency at the at the nine moment call center. Other than that, the the REACH team will be available wandering pro-active outreach in communities and encampments and others in addressing physical and mental health needs while they're there, as well as being responsive. So if someone calls the AMC and requests support or calls 911, it's not deemed an emergency. Then the Multi-Service Center, the REACH team would also go out. So it is a partnership. There are will be handoffs in different ways. So it might be that police or fire response first says, you know, this is not it's not an emergency, it's not critical. They'll hand them off to the REACH team to do further case management and other supports to try and eliminate the need to call nine on one in the future. Or it may be that we go out and we determine that the REACH team needs additional supports and may call on fire or police to support in those situations . So it's an ongoing partnership for sure through that process and the REACH team is available every day, at least during the weekdays until and we have additional resources will be on the weekends to be able to support the mental health and substance or side mental health and physical health needs of people. And the the REACH team itself with a county clinician is that from the unit model, same type of personnel working? It's not a county clinician, it's someone that we have hired with. So this person works directly for us and it's not through the county departments. So we've hired specifically to two nurses and two public health nurses and two mental health clinicians that are hired directly through the city. Okay. So you would have the same possible issue in the field if the Met unit is responding and and there could be a handoff from the Met Unit two to reach. Sure there could be. Yes. Okay. And just I see the fire chief there. Do we have any moneys, any funding coming in to address all of the fires that are happening in the areas of these encampments? Thank you, Councilman, at this moment. No, there is no additional funding specifically for the fires that we are that we are combating in the vegetation and all the other areas. We are realizing a great increase in fees as far as our firefighting. Foam. And some of the other issues that we have to contend with. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you, Councilman Allen. Thank you so much for that comprehensive presentation and just all that you and your team does and the community. I know you've been out there in my district and I just feel like thank you isn't enough. But we sure appreciate it. We know that the programs that you are doing touches every aspect of lives, and I know for sure that we are a better city because of all your work. So thank you. I also wanted to say that I know the housing and employment opportunities are critically important to the community and we need to make sure that we are redoubling our efforts on supporting employment and those experiencing homelessness. And we need to get roofs over their heads. So they can pursue employment. I've said this before and I'll keep saying this, but, you know, childcare is absolutely imperative and important. This pandemic has a lot of people back and we need to help kids and we need to get their parents back to work. You know, I have a lot of people, especially those businesses that can't find employees, but it's really hard when when folks don't have good childcare. I know that we've had several questions regarding regarding the the REACH team. And so I'm just trying to just one further question, like what is the difference between the REACH team and the Heart team? And I can have as the fire chief to speak a little bit more about some of the specifics of the Hurt Team. The Hurt Team, they were available to respond. So if a call came in through 911, they may be dispatched to be able to respond to issues or medical related issues among the homeless population. And I think that their paramedics. Yeah. Yeah, there. Yeah. So the if I can jump in here for just a sec. So the heart team, specifically the mission of the Heart team was to enable the rest of our resources to be freed up. So the heart team would monitor dispatch and then go out on these calls, on typical calls that they thought might be dealing with the homeless or something that they could handle on their own, and they could upgrade or downgrade as they saw fit. And that would take calls off from our other apparatus, the engines and the rescues that would free them up for additional calls, heart attacks, difficulty breathing, stuff like that. So that was the the intent of the heart team primarily. And then the reached him includes a mental health response as well. So it's it's not specific to the same level from dispatch as fire and the integration of the fire response. But the REACH team includes a public health nurse who has a lot of case management and other sorts of opportunities and engagement to be able to connect people to services. And then our mental health clinician that will be onsite as well to be able to sort of maybe de-escalate certain situations, really try to understand where the what the different issues are, and to be able to connect people also to mental health and supports. Okay. Thank you. I might add, Councilwoman Ellen, some of some of the additional things that the Hart team is doing currently. So Councilman Supernanny brought up the all of the vegetation fires that we have. So we are currently using them to heat map the city, find where various encampments are ingress and egress for our fighting firefighting forces. They also, once we get rain, if we do get rain, they patrol the riverbanks, start to clear people out so that they're not in harm's way. So they're utility players for us, for the fire department. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilman. Sun ink you. Thank you for this great and very, very informative presentation. I think our city is doing a lot of good work and to provide a large amount of support to our homeless and homeless crisis that we're in and that we're living in today. One of my concerns often is that we as a city, I think, fall short of ensuring that our residents receive all of the information and direct connections to all of the resources and projects that we have. Can you can I have staff explain maybe a little bit more on the outreach efforts with this initiative and how to ensure what you're doing to ensure that this information is dispersed both in Spanish, English and any other language that may be needed out there. So we do work to make sure that our information is translated within on the website so that you're able to access it in multiple languages. We do provide translation services on site for anybody that is in need of translation. We have a number of staff that speak Spanish that that speaks command. But if somebody was in need of translation for another language, we do have access to supports for that as well as people that may need sign language. So that is something that we continue to make sure is available and that we're utilizing when when needed. As far as communicating out and being able to reach people, I think really in the slide we talked about Unite US, that's an online platform that's really focused on it's basically like a yelp for for support of services. So we're partnering with them and making sure that people know how to connect in with the agencies that are providing services and can even coordinate referrals to the best service provider to meet that need through an online platform. So that will be launching shortly. And then we have a number of efforts to increase our outreach, the incorporation of the mobile MFC clinic. So making sure that we're reaching throughout the community, that we're in the community and finding people where they're at and engaging them through a number of different ways. Thank you. Thank you for that. Also, one more question. I know that we've been referring a lot to the REACH team, which is, you know, great. And one of the questions that I had and you kind of touched upon it a little bit earlier, but who takes on those calls? Maybe you can clarify that a little bit for me. I know that in the past, from what I remember, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I do remember that with there were there was a dispatcher that was hired and to take those those calls from the community instead of calling the 911 number to be able to free up that number for other emergency. So maybe you can touch a little bit upon that, please. So we've had an outreach hotline for quite some time. It has not been staff just to do capacity. So this will be the first time where we have a staff that is answering that live and being able to coordinate with the caller who's asking for a response. So right now, if somebody were to call that hotline, there's a message system. We check that multiple times a day that the caller asks us for a call back to let them know the outcome, which is basically that we went out and we were able to engage. We will return the call. We do work to process those. Typically, we get every call within 24 hours and being able to go out. Sometimes it does take 48 hours just depending on the requests that are coming in. So this will be the first time that that's being answered. We also have an email where a number of people also submit requests through email. So we try to get as many requests as we can through the communities as we want to get out and engage as many people as we can. But remember, I think the the the model that you're referring to is we did pilot where we had a person from the multi-service center sitting in 911 dispatch where the nine one dispatcher could transfer calls to that person to have a discussion. But it didn't it wasn't a space where we would had someone to send out. It was more someone to answer questions and engage with those people who are calling. In this case, if someone calls 911, they will transfer. If it's the appropriate call, they will transfer it to the NSC and we'll take those calls. Thank you. I know my time's up, but thank you. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you. And I want to thank you for the very thorough report. I think there was maybe, oh, 45 slides on that. A lot of good information. And I think it speaks to. Burn Long Beach in our city actually you know investing in and having a plan that everyone home task force was put together. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And all of those who served on that that task force gave us some guidelines and framework and goals to to achieve. I think in many respects we have we're definitely on the right track, especially when you think about just the shelter beds and transitional housing opportunities that have been created in the last just a couple of years. Uh, I want to say that I think. That when it comes to this issue of dealing with homelessness and the unhoused, we need to maintain and continue to be flexible and adaptable with our programing and governance over this issue, because the resources are not unlimited, they're not abundant, and we don't have many opportunities to get it right. Right. And so I want to caution us from, you know, creating a program and being married to that being the only solution to to fixing this issue. We need to be continue to be adaptable, because I can assure you that the challenge that we face, those who are on house are not, you know , in a square box. We're going to have to move to be able to move it around. And oftentimes, I think I've been on this council long enough to see us create initiatives before we even had the opportunity to assess to determine whether that initiative is working. We've created a new one and a new one, and we started layering on top of initiatives. And so I want to be mindful that, you know, that's something that I've been paying attention to watching. I think so. In some respects, we need to. Take a step back in and allow the good work that this council, this community has supported to actually manifest and then determine whether or not we need to do something extra. I just wanted to add add those comments. Again, I do appreciate this report and look forward to the implementation. They did have one question. Related to goal number four, employing people. There is a. Initiative in progress to hire a reentry coordinator. Can you explain a little bit about what that individual will be doing? The the target population, the goals set forth, particularly for that position, because I think that reentry is is an area of focus that we need to take to actually put as a priority and to just look at the data coming from L.A. County and CCR. We have a lot of folks that are reentering our community who will need these services. So the entry, the reentry coordinator is actually being funded to the racial equity and reconciliation funding. It's part of that process within the violence prevention area at the health department. And so the goal and the long term goal is to establish a sort of a11 stop shop for people who are reentering from incarcerated settings to support employment , housing and many other things. Those resources have not yet been identified to go that far. So at this point, it's really it's an individual who will be working closely with nonprofit organizations and others to start to build a more coordinated capacity to be able to serve people as they're exiting incarcerated settings. I think you'll all be watching that process very carefully, because I think it's very important that we like I said, we get it right. We don't have very many options and opportunities like we have right now. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Sorrell. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Ms.. Collopy and Mr. R.S. for the presentation. And can you you know, I've heard this answered several times, but if you can answer it again, how many times is outreach? Does outreach get done to an individual before services is accepted? So this was and this is something that gets thrown around. And I don't know that it's the most impactful answer truthfully. And, you know, it varies. 15 to 20 is what people say. However, that's kind of an averaging. So what we find is people either are willing to engage right away or it takes a whole lot of times more like 30, 40 times that somebody is very hesitant for a number of reasons. We are working with people with a significant amount of trauma, a lot of disappointment within our social services as a whole throughout their life. So there's a number of different reasons why somebody might be hesitant to engage with us. So I think as Councilmember Austin kind of said, we need to look at various different approaches, not being married to any one particular approach, but that people have a wide range of different experiences and backgrounds. So creating programs that engage people in different ways and really making sure that each program really takes a trauma informed friends to recognize people's histories, what they've gone through and really recognizing. And allowing that person to express from that viewpoint and not be reactive to it. And that's why I really appreciate this Slide 34, where the goal is to develop population based service model. And I had hoped that maybe there would be a little bit more. But I do think that it does it really gets down to kind of what you're speaking about, ensuring that it's really addressing their individual experience and also situation that range is not, you know, from older adults to transition you to LGBT, LGBTQ reentry, single parents, veterans, etc.. Right. I really love to see more of it being kind of flushed out. The other two is just with what you just shared in. I know the team does so much work, you know, the city staff do so much work. So at the end of the day, how do we communicate to everyday people, residents, businesses that walk down our street or drive down our street, see people living on the street, or at least people who are unhappy? And how's that? You know that what we're doing is working. How do we communicate that to to to our residents? Right. That is probably not reading this report or reading the numbers or understanding the statistics. How do we how is that communicated that what we're doing is working as councilmember? So that is one area that when you are in direct service models, we often don't have the time and the capacity to do the level of communication that you're talking about. And we fully understand the importance of that. And happy to say that the health department now has a peer. But Arpaio has been heavily involved in COVID response rate and has not been able to create as much of the other kinds of conversations. We've had multiple conversations about sort of campaigns, right, about sharing about all the work that we're doing and others, but that has been put on the back burner in the last year. That is something we will be focusing on moving forward. Though I hope we do prioritize that because I think that it's really important that we share the different various work and because there's so much money also invested in this that it's so important we communicate all of the various approaches that has to be taken and needs to be taken. No further comment or question. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. Thank you. So when we move from the Hart team to the Reach team, how will we have a consistency of data reporting? So currently, earlier this evening, the fire department replaced their data system, but that's a data system that the Health Department doesn't have access to. Or are we going to give them access? How do we track these? Calls and contacts longitudinally when we're changing our methodology. Perhaps you guys can work on that and give you. A capsule on Mongo? Yeah. We haven't been asked for that data as of yet, but we are looking forward to sharing that data. We would like to see also if it's working and if it's not working, how we can get it to work better. That would be great. And then I really appreciate the discussion around funding from the measure H For all the different components of our city that have had increased costs, including, you noted, 200% increase in fires. I know L.A. City had a and a news show and I think they talked about a 600%. I don't know if that was on Channel seven. And I think that perhaps there's an appropriate opportunity for some discussions among the fire chiefs to really come together and discuss the environmental and regional impacts. And then I know that Supervisor Barger had an agenda item related to clear out on county property that would not take the standard 14 to 21 days when a brush fire risk is adjacent. And I don't know that we're really using that. I know I've talked with a few of my council colleagues about some of the issues we have related to the Nature Center. We've worked with P.D., but those fires are still happening on a regular basis underneath those trees, and we've already had multiple fires. So being able to reimburse some foam from the funding, I think is a reasonable request. And I think if we went in with a three or four agency approach, we might be successful. So I, I look forward to hearing what that might look like and then also having a better system in place for identifying those risks more quickly and making sure that we don't have as many of those fires because of the a dual impacts. There's also a lot of risk to the individuals that are homeless when a fire breaks out. So let's get that process memorialized. Thank you. Yeah, I totally agree with you. And in fact, we have the public safety committee meeting coming up at the end of the month, and that is the topic that we're going to be addressing from the fire department, because regionally, the fires have been growing exponentially. And we've spoken to some of the council members about all of these vegetation fires and how they're impacting. Us, our. Run load, our resources and all the rest of that. So we do have our support services staff looking at ways to get reimbursement for that. And once we do, I'll get back to you that information. And I appreciate that. And I know that when the funding first became available, there was an effort at that time and it just we didn't have the volume that we have today. And I think a new day is here and we can make a new effort. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Ringo. Thank you. I also want to add my voice to the accomplishment of putting this report together very thoroughly. Very informative. A lot of information here that I'm going to have to dove a little deeper into with the author. But there's two things that stand out to me in terms of some of your goals here. Employ people and connect to health. I mean, those are important things that are always here when I'm out there in terms of why are these so many people homeless, what's going on, why they need a job? And some of those people also have some kind of mental health issues, whether it's substance abuse or or just some other kind of a diagnosis that they might have in terms of of their mental health. So one thing that came out to here that I that I saw here and it's like 27, was that there's a homeless court pilot. With the city prosecutor's office. What is that? Could you describe it for a little bit to what it is? Sure. We received a some funding through the D.A. Hahn's office, Supervisor Hines office through the L.A.. Community Development Agency. So that funding comes to the health department and we are partnering with the city prosecutor's office. So we have a judge who joins us by video conferencing and people can request to have their misdemeanor heard within that court. And basically, the focus is on really making sure that people are getting connected and to services and resolving issues that related to that legal issue that they're now facing. So that's the main focus. However, we partner with other aspects of the Los Angeles criminal justice system, including the. The county public defender has a program to focus on expungements. They come out to the homeless court as well. So we have met with over ten people that are focusing on expunging past convictions that way, when they're going to get employment, when they're working on housing, that that's not showing up on their background check and potentially affecting their ability to access either of those. We also are able to clear warrants for a no show and re-issue that for a future court date which might be at homeless court. We also have a number liccardo to show up to provide additional case management as well as we have are a partnership with the county to have a probation officer at the multi-service center 20 hours a week. So people that are also on probation that may have a probation issue, they're able to check in at the multi-service center as well. So all of those are offered at our homeless court, which occurs on the third Wednesday of each month. So we have done two so far. This month will be our third. How do they get that information? Is it. Because of some kind of contact that you probably had with one of the homeless person who says, I can't get a job because I have a record. Is that is that when you direct them towards the court? Yeah. So it comes up in our conversations. We have also there's been several press stories and presentations regarding this. So as we're out on outreach, engaging people around their legal needs, if people want to sign up for homeless court, there is a way to go on to the city prosecutor site and sign up to have your case heard the process and then assigned to that court. The other part about collecting to help you have here that there's an ongoing partnership and advocacy with the L.A. County Department of Mental Health to get some more on substance abuse facilities in Long Beach. What requirements do. You need to have to open up a mental health facility here in Long Beach? I know we have one. It's in my district. I support it because I think it's important. But is there another is there another effort to open up another one? And what is the requirements, if any, to open up a mental health facility here? Councilmember There are two. The requirements are different for mental health and for substance use. So they're run by to the department. The L.A. County Department of Mental Health is a full department with a focus area, and then the substance abuse area actually lands within the public health department within within L.A. County. They are you know, they focus primarily on the Medicaid and unfunded population. And those are three with high level needs in terms of the substance use providers. They have to go through a licensing process at the state level, which is not easy. But we're hearing it's quite, quite complicated. The county does work with organizations who are interested to to work them through that process and provide them some guidelines. I don't know what the requirements are for the mental health side. We have the Behavioral Health Urgent Care Clinic, which is in it, which is in your district. And then but there are many other mental health providers. One Damage has a site that's near the health department that's a direct service provider, but they also fund many other nonprofits within the city of Long Beach around mental health services. So it's a real mix. And then so like the MHRA, you know, Mental Health America and others all have contracts with with the image to be able to provide those services. Thinking the time is up and we'll move on to the next member. If you want to queue up again. Councilmember. If if you need to be. Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is a big, big issue. And, you know, I had a lot to say and I was looking at that five minute clock. But I want to go back and lift up, you know, one or two points that I really want to talk about. First of all, I'm glad to hear the health department has a PIO. It's pretty important at this moment that we're able to communicate out to the public during a pandemic. It's great to have a public health department. A lot of folks, a lot of cities don't have it. Now they're looking at Long Beach to say, what do we need to do to do it? One thing I mentioned earlier is having our own like contracting in mental health services from the county. I want to go back to that. You know, I saw a presentation recently about the Trinity Mental Health Partnership. It's a three city JPA between Pomona, Laverne and Claremont. And for the purposes of this JPA, they're they're independent. They for the purposes of mental health funding from the state and for reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid. And the way that the reason I think that's interesting is that we've seen the fact that we have our own health department and our own continuum of care. We've been able to amplify the amount of resources that we bring here to Long Beach for public health and for homelessness. And I think with the issues related to mental health in our communities, I think we have to explore what happens if we're fully in charge, not necessarily getting approvals from the county to be innovative or to invest more in mental health. And so I want to drive that home. I want to I would love to explore, you know, because you've done a great job here at everyone home with over at home report. We certainly need to look at. You know, moving past the partnerships we have in establishing our own independent mental health bureau or mental health department within our health department. What are your initial thoughts on this, on this idea? I think it's certainly something that we're, you know, willing to to investigate. And along the way, we have had multiple conversations with the AMA and the funding makes sense to be to be carved out. So there's only one other one city jurisdiction on their own that receives mental health funding at Berkley. They did started a long time ago and they got their carve out of the all the state mental health funding. So I don't know what that approach looks like at the state level to be able to carve that out outside of the out of the L.A. County piece. But it's something that we could look at what those steps would be, and then we can report back. Okay. Yeah, I would love to. I would love to see that, particularly because we have such a great track record and one of only three cities in the whole state with a health department. I think we have a good story to tell on. As in, we should be thinking about being more entrepreneurial about how we can handle it. If we give us the funding, it probably gets directly to the street faster. And we can we can locally control our own outreach around mental health. I think that's that's an idea that certainly demands some research. So so thank you so much. The last thing that I kind of glossed over before it's an idea that's come up time and time again is we do a lot of housing in the city and it's spread across two departments. Where are we with the conversation about unifying and having one housing department where there's one shared vision between the production of housing and the servicing servicing of and the education around housing units? Is there an update on the feasibility of that? Mr. Modica. It's an idea that we've talked about a little bit. I think that would come with some significant resources. So we kind of consider that if there was going to be a large investment maybe by property owners or by the state or by others, where we really can can create a department. Departments are are wonderful and they really provide a service, but they require a lot of backbone infrastructure to do that. So that is something that if we were to get a large revenue source, we could certainly consider. Thank you. Is that our vice mayor? Yes, councilman, sir? Yes. I just have one more question. I was wondering, is copy if you can give an example of a call that 901 receives that would go straight to the REACH team. An example of a call that would go straight to fire instead. So that would go to fire instead of the REACH team. I can't remember what the exact designation happened and it's like six or seven or something like that. But it's, it's, it's termed in a way that probably is a little misleading. So I'm more just describe it. So somebody calls in and says, Somebody in my neighborhood is experiencing homelessness, and I'm concerned about that. They'll ask a number of questions to make sure that there's no concern of, you know, safety or any illegal, illegal activity occurring like that. Somebody says this person looks suspicious. They'll ask a number of questions that they kind of dig down of what does that mean and suggest that you're concerned that this person is in your neighborhood . So no major concerns are identified. Those would be calls that normally would have been transferred to PD, will now be referred over to the REACH team and then on fire. And so there's a complete matrix that the dispatchers go through. And so if they determine in any way, shape or form that it's medical in nature, then it will come to the fire department and we'll go out and evaluate the patient first. It becomes problematic when some of the callers are unable or unwilling to approach the patients, because at that point we can't really determine are they having a medical emergency or not. And so more often than not, the fire department is going to be rolling out on that that type of response. Thank you. And Americans, I would want to point out that heart and reach are very different. They're not a replacement. We're not replacing heart with reach. We're looking at a different service model. The heart model is really a medical response model was an innovation that we didn't have at the time. And it was really designed to help lighten the load with our firefighters who were responding to these calls because there wasn't anyone else to go to those. As we look towards reach one with a budget reduction, but also it was to look at more of a case management model, and that really is the REACH model. It's an alternative to police. It's an alternative to fire. It's also a model where you have actual homeless outreach workers who can then do more of that kind of mobile connection to services, as well as mental health as well as nursing. So they are very different. We're not looking at just taking, you know, firefighters and replacing them with with nursing staff or health staff. It is a different model that we're looking to take that next level of innovation. Thank you. Councilman. Sir, anything. Else? No further questions. Thank you. That was the only one. Thank you, Councilwoman Pryce. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was wondering what the status of the bed fap item that I brought to council a couple of years ago. Councilmember. We started that process through the search process, as you remember. And through that process, what we found out was that the providers were not interested in participating. So a real time build up requires that the providers enter the information and engage with the app and the business. There was not a lot of interest. The team did reach out to a number of different providers and to others. So that was a key piece around the mental health and substance use space. We do have more in insight around sheltering and the folks that the areas that we are funding through our other service provision model. So we have been looking more at stronger technology to connect people to services, unite us into other things. But the better conversation, there was not really any incentive because we don't fund the mental health and substance use providers and others to engage in that app with us. And so that piece of it has has not moved forward. So is that the difference between Long Beach and other cities that are using the real app, that other cities are directly funding into the providers and we're not? I think that there are they may just have other providers in that space that they've been able to connect with or engage with, or they may be funding them to engage in those services moving forward. We did the initial outreach and there just wasn't an interest in Long Beach. We continue to watch and to pay attention and to look at to look at other options, to be able to connect people to services. We have very tight relationships with with all of those providers in the city of Long Beach. And so through the case management and outreach and other connections, we do everything we can to connect them as quickly as possible. Okay. And then in terms of the number of beds that we have available, do we have beds available on a daily basis if somebody wanted shelter? It varies from day to day. We have a number of pets within Long Beach that have very specific criteria. So a lot of the times those beds are available, however, and months or a veteran, unless you're experiencing or fleeing from domestic violence, those beds may not be available if you do not meet those care characteristics. As far as our beds that are more general as an access, it does vary. There are some days where we have a number of beds due to somebody leaving the shelter, moving into housing. There are other days where we might have no women's beds, we may have no men's beds. It just varies from time to time as we're coming along, people that are vulnerable and are looking for a bed. If we don't have one available that night, we have been utilizing our motel vouchers to continue to engage that person and work towards with them until a bed does become available. So we do our best when people are looking for a bed to get them into a place immediately while we navigate towards an open bed. And so how are we how are our first responders who are tasked with enforcement able to determine whether or not there is availability or shelter space before? Choosing an enforcement action pursuant to Boise and Judge Judge Carter directives and best practices that we have seen. That's somewhat of a difficult conversation. I think it's much easier to do in the daytime. It becomes much more difficult in the evening time as our system just is not currently funded to operate 24 seven. So just depending on time of the day, it can be really difficult to determine when a bed bed is available. We have a number of beds within our winter shelter program that are set aside for PD as well as we do engage in as somebody reaches out from enforcement or other community services looking for a bed for somebody at an off hours, we will typically work and try to coordinate, but it can be difficult outside of our working hours. And I do want to point out for the record that our homeless shelters are not full and we track that every single day. We're we're getting closer now. But throughout the pandemic, we've been at 60%. We have availability for motel vouchers. So when we are taking enforcement actions, we absolutely do have shelter beds available in our community. You know, the data we do wish sometimes we'd like to know exactly how many, but we definitely have them available when we take enforcement action. And that's thank you for clarifying that. I think that's really important because a lot of times the enforcement action is going to take place after hours because the law violation oftentimes is tied to it the hour of the day. So if they're at a particular public park or the public beach that's closed at a certain time, the enforcement action would be based on the municipal code, which would necessitate it being after hours. So as long as I think our officers have that information of what resources they have available to them so that we can make sure that we're compliant, I think that's fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. Let me just have a couple a couple of questions. Also, I think the comments have been really, really great. And I want to just start by thanking our health team. I think it's been obviously a great job. I know it's not just the health department, but it's all departments in the city are involved in the work of ensuring that we get as many people into housing as possible and really focus on ensuring that unhoused folks have all the resources they need. It is obviously a even more difficult situation that we're in because of the pandemic. And I was just wanted to ask and also just uplift a few items in the report. One is, I think that having this update was great to kind of go through and see. I know I've had a chance to see the update and I want to make sure that for a project and task force of this significance that went that we have updates around this issue, you know, as often as possible, whether it's every year, whether it's every other year. We need a check in. At least the council needs to on this particular report. My other suggestion is the the task force was made up of so many folks from across the community that I think would also be great. At some point, I know we have some restrictions because of the pandemic. But to bring that group together, whether it's virtually or whether it's at some point in person, and to have just to give them a direct update, but also get additional feedback as to how they think we are doing and the progress that we're making in the within this within this report. I want to just uplift, I think. Corby, I think you and the team have done and other members of the department have done a great job, particularly on Project Homekey. I think it's been a huge success not just to see our our project, but the county partnership projects also have been phenomenal and I've said I support more project homekey projects in development. I hope that we're able with this money coming down the pipeline right now from the state and the federal government, we need to add and purchase more hotels or motels and convert them to housing for people that are unhoused. And I think that that is something that is, in my opinion, the the biggest bang for our buck is to get a hold of these motels and hotels and convert them into housing. And so I'm really hoping that we're really putting our best foot forward. I know we have a list of maybe three or four other acquisitions that we would like, and I'm just very supportive of this and hope that we continue to to push on these on these new housing opportunities. Let me also just say that. The one. Well, there's a lot of success in the report and a lot of success in the progress where I think we we just have to do better. I know it's not for lack of trying, but I can't express how important it is to have detox and sobering centers available in our community. And I understand that sometimes it's a difficult conversation for some neighborhoods or some for. I've talked to community members who don't like the idea, and I unfortunately just disagree with that. And I can't tell you that. Giving. Having a safe space for people that are suffering, that are sick and that need help within our community is incredibly important. We are also also just it's a plain resource issue when we have paramedics or. Or folks for it from our city, having to take folks to a sobering center or a detox center that is in downtown Los Angeles. The amount of time that that takes. It is costing us valuable resources versus being able to take someone to a sobering center or detox bed within our within our city. And so I just want to know that we are kind of all hands on deck on on this issue and that we are working with our partners in the health care space to add to identify these detox beds and sobering centers. And and that we are a part of that acquisition. Is there. Is there any progress we are making here or anything that we can assist with in this area? I think that the easier of the two would be the sobering center. So it has far less restrictions, different funding mechanisms than others. And that is certainly something that we could be looking into more immediately in terms in terms of access, we have been looking at a number of different locations just for various service models, and that would be something to look at. Medical detox is a very is a much different conversation in terms of how it's funded, how it's funded through Medi-Cal, the systems that L.A. County has in place to find those systems, they're expensive. There are only three in all of L.A. County, and they're very, very difficult to access. So that is something that we've had multiple conversations but made no progress. They just basically have said about the funding doesn't work that way and that no one is interested in providing that. So I think the first place would be the sobering center. And then we continue to push on a detox conversation. Well, think I think we should look at look to our our all of our our hospital partners as well across the city or medical center partners, I think. Ms.. If you're looking at, what is it, 12 beds on the for the for the sobering center, is that right? It's the original conversations were told that, yes. I mean, even to start, it would be, you know, and so I just am hoping that we that we continue to push on that. So thank you for for for that. And then finally, I do hope at some point we can address the issue of services or access for, you know, 24, seven for people that need assistance and support. I know that we there are some challenges there, but folks that are that are expressing homelessness should be able to access the multi-service center. Every day of the week and past what are considered regular business hours. I know that is hard to do, but I just hope that we continue to push and that we open the services up and meet folks when they need the support. Not necessarily when our traditional work hours are. And so those are just things that I want to uplift. But overall, quite frankly, you guys are doing an incredible job. The whole team at the health department. Thank you for for this report and this work. We look forward to meeting all those other obstacles and challenges. Councilman Mongo. Thank you. The mayor brings up some excellent points. I know that alternate destinations have not been a popular thing at the state level. If we wanted to transport to a detox bed, that's. Is it my understanding that that's currently not an available option for our fire department? That's correct. That's not currently available to us. There have been pilot programs throughout the region. I don't know that there are any pilot programs going on at this point in time. So the County of Los Angeles currently has a pilot program. It started during COVID and on every EP, C.R., they have a tool where they can push a button and get a assessment from a medical doctor, whether it is either the medical director of the department, one of the two assistant doctors, or a physician's assistant that makes that assessment and then determines that that transport would be allowed. And so it may be something we want to explore. It wasn't an expensive system, and they pay by the minute. So you don't have to load up a bunch of cash to do it. Their foundation actually fronted the money to start the program, and during COVID, when they were trying to not transport to hospitals, it was tremendously a tremendous resource to be able to go to urgent care or any of those other things, because while it is outside the scope of a paramedic, having the availability to do a virtual consult with a doctor became an amazing resource. I don't know if the funding would be available for this to do that, but great tool and potentially mental health services or the County. Quality or. Productivity Commission would be interested in funding it, and I'd be happy to help. Thank you. Definitely something we're going to look and do. I'll get together with our medical director and we'll get through that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There's a motion and a second. I don't believe there is public comment on this item. There's a motion any second to receive in favor of the report. And please cast your votes. Motion carry.