Recommendation to Authorize the City Manager to Negotiate and Execute a $100,000 Contract with Block by Block to Help in the Economic Recovery Efforts from COVID-19 in Alameda’s Business Improvement Areas; and Negotiate and Execute an Amendment to the Agreement with Creative Build Inc. to add $103,970 to Provide Extended Hours of Operation for the Day Center and Related Support Services. (Community Development)
Recommendation to authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute a $1,000 contract with block by block to help in the economic recovery efforts for COVID from COVID 19 in Alameda Business Improvement Areas and negotiate and execute an amendment to the agreement with Creative Build INC to add $103,978 to provide extended hours of operation for the day center and related support services. Thank you. And oh, we've got a stellar team here. So you've met Debbie Porter, head of community development, Lois Butler, head of Economic Development. And Anna, back just here, we would be lost without in all our social service programs. So who is presenting this one to us society? So with that lead off, I am going to ask Anna to do a brief presentation. And then once again, Lois, Anna and I are available to answer any questions. Perfect. Thanks. You. Justin Bute. They tell me that all the time. It's too muted on the. Great. Perfect. Right. Good evening, Madam Mayor, and members of the City Council. My name is Anna. Back to the Community Development Department. And first off, I want to thank you for your continued support of our unhoused residents, especially during this challenging times with the pandemic and then the fires and the winter is coming. And also, I want to thank you for your consideration to implement block by block in Alameda and to expand the Bay Center and safe parking programs. Both of these proposals totaling $203,000. We understand from your last meeting that you have some questions about the scope of the block by block program, and we're especially concerned about the coverage on evening peak hours after hours on weekends. You also wanted to ensure that block by block ambassadors have resources available to them to refer clients during these hours and on weekends. As we know, a lot of our service providers serving our homeless population do not work on weekends. So that's always a challenge. So bring in block by block will keep our downtowns clean, safe and welcoming, especially during this time of heightened public health concern. Because of the pandemic and expanding the day service center hours as well as the safe parking are especially critical during this time so that our house neighbors have a clean, safe and welcoming place to go as well. The proposal submitted by block by block includes coverage in early afternoons, evenings to 10 p.m. and also on weekends. In addition, the funding for the day center and safe parking the amount of $130,000 will also allow the village of LA, which operates the day center and Safe Parking Program, to extend its center hours to 8 p.m. and also at weekends. The safe parking will also be open with this funding from from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. seven days a week, and that would also include weekends. There will be a flexible account that will be available to pay for emergency motel stays, car repairs to keep vehicles operable, and other items that are ancillary to making sure that our unhoused neighbors are safe during the pandemic. And Village of LA will also be able to add additional staff to do more outreach. They will hire a driver that can pick up and provide rides on demand, which they currently do not have the capacity to do under their current contract. We hope that the information that we provided with you are helpful and answer some of your questions and concerns that came up at the last meeting, and we're here to address any of your additional questions. Thank you again for your support. Thank you. Ms.. Factors. And I will just add that inspectors has been present at a couple of meetings that the city manager and I have had recently with concerns arising from um, just difficulties with the intersection of and has two individuals with a preschool in the area of constitution way and some of our local businesses. So sorry I did that. So thank you very much for bringing this forward to us. Council Do we have do you have any questions or concerns you want to raise? While you're thinking of them. And again, I. I think you touched on this. This fact is and we've talked about this before that. Outreach is really important. It's not enough for staff to I mean, obviously, someone has to staff the data center. That's a very important function. But we do need to have people go out to where the and housed individuals are. And the groups that are working with these these organizations are very adept at the very complicated work of establishing rapport, establishing trust and relationships, because you will remember that this is it's got to be voluntary. We don't have a means of just removing people, although I will say that I have submitted my question to our supervisor, Wilma Chan's office as to whether with any properties that Project Roomkey acquires in Alameda motels, hotels, that if it would be possible to set aside a certain number of rooms to be available for Alameda unsheltered individuals. So I am told that they will get back to us with an answer. And then the other thing that I said before that I think is really important is it is vital that we have these hotels like the marina village in and others extended stay that are being used to get people out, some living in the bushes. I mean, you just think about with this air quality, they kept all of us in our houses, closing our rear windows over the last couple of weeks. Well, what if you didn't even have a window to close because you lived outdoors? But these sites still have to be supervised and make sure that the. Rules. In place are are being followed so that residents. In the area are. Not impacted. I think there's room for everybody that we just need to respect everyone too. So I think this is great and I really applaud staff and and city manager for bringing this back to us. So council. Are we ready to approve? Questions. Councilmember de Daisuke I just. Just a quick comment. I had not I did not support safe parking for the reasons that I said. I thought we ought to focus our money elsewhere. But and I still feel that way. I'm not supportive of I actually don't think it's safe to have people sleeping in their cars in the cold Alameda. And that if we're going to have limited money, we should focus on putting people into shelters. But I think what we're discussing here tonight is not just that, but also funding outreach programs that clearly our businesses have have expressed a need for. So I'll be supportive of this. Thank you. Thank you. And by the way, the city manager the city clerk just graciously reminded me that we don't have any public speakers to thank you, because I forgot to ask of Councilmember Vela. Just wanted to thank staff for their work on this. I know we gave a lot of direction and feedback at the last meeting, specifically around extending the day center hours into the evening and the weekends. I'm glad we were able to get that worked out and with that I want to move approval here. We've had a motion by Councilor Vela, second by Councilmember Odie. Any further discussion? Seeing that maybe we have a roll call vote. Please remember de. All right. Not quite. Hi, Odie. Hi. Bella. Hi. Mayor. As the Ashcraft I. That carries my five eyes. Thank you. That was an appropriate interview. That's another way we will help our business community and our shelter residents. And I will just add that it is no one's choice to have people sleeping in their cars. But. It is also a better choice. While we're finding other places for people to live because there is truly an imbalance of supply and demand for places to live, it's better to be in some place that has supervision overnight. And I know from talking to the women who stay overnight at the warming shelter in the winter months when it's open, that they're very fearful of things like sexual assault, when they just have their car parked on a street, that if they had unsafe parking where they. Knew there was. Supervision, that would go a long way to preventing the sexual assaults that if sometimes happens. And just. Letting people. Relax, get to sleep because they don't have to think. But I hope that we've got, you know, big issues to solve. And this is a step forward. And I thank you all for your time. Thank you so much, staff for your hard work, bringing this to it. Right. With that, I am going to adjourn this meeting. It's 1058, everybody. So we we definitely met our mandate of ending on the same day that we started. Thank you all. You covered a lot of a lot of territory. Good work, everybody. Enjoy the rest of your evening. Go read that good, clean air. Good night. It's at 20. Wow.