 I want to thank everybody for being here today. As you can tell, we're here united as a city, both with our entire city council, our administration, our police department, our law enforcement, our various departments all coming together as we've been continuing to work on what we call Operation Hope and Order. In Columbia is a multifaceted approach to address the issues of homelessness and crime. As you know over the last year we've had lots of discussions and we have moved forward in lots of different paths trying different things to address the issue that is centered in the core of our city. It's continuing to grow and hitting the different pockets of our community and we're trying to address it and continue to address it by putting all hands on deck. But I want people to understand what we're dealing with and what we have been dealing with. We've had over 11,000 service calls in this corridor. In the last year we've had 455 arrests but we've offered over 700 people services to help them move on and get into permanent housing, treatment, mental health evaluations. This operation involves not only our police department but DMH, Department of Mental Health Pathways Unit, which has been active in numerous calls, service and actions taken here. The operation focuses on our transient citizens' criminal activity with significant number of custodial arrests, field books, citations, field interviews, information reports and services offered. The operation is linked with the Department of Mental Health to provide the necessary competency to stand trial valuations for municipal level criminal offenses, helping to identify unsheltered offenders who are deemed incompetent or and refer them to providers who can provide them the mental health related services. We cannot be a strong city if we're not compassionate but we also have to have law and order. And for us to have law and order we have to enforce the laws and we have to protect the citizens, all citizens. And living on the streets is not a way to provide somebody a safe way to live and exist in our community. We're invested in recruiting more law enforcement. We're continuing to do what we need to do to not only enhance the the talents, the training, the technology and investing in our police officers, but looking at new innovative ways that we can address the issue and help by looking at extending our yellow shirts programs, our clean and safe programs, investing in working with non-traditional methods to help us not only address the issue, but help people get the help they need by identifying them, helping them to get in. As you know, we propped up our rapid shelter this year and I have to commend the staff. We gave them a direction and in 70 days they were able to build a rapid shelter and start affecting the lives immediately. And you'll hear more from Kamisha, our director, and a little bit with the successes and the numbers of the folks that we've been able to affect. But this is a community-wide issue. That means all hands on deck. We're going to continue to invest and do the things that we need to do. But we also need our property owners and our citizens to help. That means we need to do everything we can to secure your property and work together. We're continuing to upgrade our lighting, which you'll hear more about, trim landscaping, do the things that the city can do, but we can't do it all. And that's why we're calling on folks to continue to work with us while we continue to invest in these actions and continue to move forward in addressing the issue, not running from the issue. But that also means we've got to think bigger and longer. What we're doing right now is short-term fixes. Long-term, we need to relocate transitions. We need to relocate Oliver Gospel and the services into a comprehensive, one-stop campus that allows us to provide all the services in one location so that we are not moving people all over town to get the services. By having services in a one-stop shop, it makes a difference. That means things like having DMV work with us to get people's licenses and IDs done on site, DHEC working with us to help people, those folks that are from here from the state of South Carolina, be able to get their birth certificates, what they need so that we can help make sure that they're getting their benefits and their services. That means having clinicians on site, healthcare on site, having the various components where we can have folks that are in temporary long-term mental health and addiction counseling in one site. We cannot continue to do it fragmented. It is clearly not working. We've seen a great influx of folks in the community and we are the capital city and we're going to address it. We're going to be working with our partners at the county and our surrounding counties and cities to get them engaged to help be part of this. This is a regional issue. And if the city of Columbia takes the stance that we're only going to put down and push hard, that means we're going to spread the problem out and create 15 other problems. We're not here to create more problems. We're here to solve problems. And the only way we solve this is have a plan both short-term and long-term. And we need everyone in our community to understand that we're doing things every day. All these people up here today have spent hours working every week to address the issue from Dr. Bussells and Mr. Brennan working on and Reverend McDowell working on our homeless task force to set the stage to our administrative staff and our police department working from everything from rapid shelter to enforcement of our existing laws to making sure that we're creating opportunities for people to get health. Working with our partners in the community, DMH, Laredak, it's not enough folks. We got to do more. And we got to get the red tape cut and we got to make it a simple process. You look at cities like Houston and other cities who have adopted the one-stop-shop campus, they're making a difference. We're not going to solve it 100 percent, but folks we can reduce it. And we can make sure that we not only provide hope and opportunity and a quality of life for those who are less fortunate, but we also maintain the quality of life in the law and order that our citizens, businesses, and residents deserve. We're committed to continue to do every aspect we can from our code enforcement to our city beautification. But at the end of the day, we're going to take each one of these actions with compassion. We believe ensuring a clean safe city is the compassionate thing to do. No one is helped by living on the streets. We're partnering with the Department of Health and our governor, our legislators, and everyone to address this issue in every facet we can and use every tool that is available to us. But we're not done. We're going to try some different things, some alternative things. Yes, maybe Operation Lawn Mower. Maybe Operation Clean Up Columbia, where we work with first time offenders to really help make a difference in our community and provide them an alternative. The last thing we want to do is put people in jail, but we cannot continue to allow people to break the law and continue to be repeat offenders in multiple, multiple accounts. So we're going to try some different things. We're going to work together. But at the end of the day, our ultimate goal is to make sure that we get each individual the help that they need in our community. And that may be some tough love that comes with that, but we're going to do that together because our city's strengths lies within our unity and collective effort. Let's continue to work together to make Columbia safe, clean, and compassionate city for all. With that, I'd like to ask our city manager to come up and give a few remarks followed by our chief of police, Ms. Shepherd, Camisha Shepherd, our director of Rapid Shelter, and then Robert Anderson. Good morning. I really don't have any prepared remarks, so bear with me. I'm speaking honestly from my heart. I want to say thank you to Mayor Rickamin, the Columbia City Council, the efforts that they put into resourcing what we can do in our sphere of influence here at the City of Columbia to make a difference. As the mayor said, this isn't about recognition. It's not about us getting up here scolding anyone or anything of that nature, but it is about telling the story because what we are finding, I think just because we are the face of it, are officers on the streets every day working with individuals who are in need or who may be doing things that they're not supposed to do. They're the visible face of this, and I think it gets lost oftentimes all of the other efforts, genuine efforts that have gone behind resourcing Rapid Shelter Columbia or beautification efforts that our public works staff so diligently does every day. Those are the things that the City of Columbia can do through its departments, through these policymakers putting a very focused effort on what needs to be done to make a difference in the lives of people who are probably at their worst. But at the same time, there must be a balance because as we're trying to help those individuals, our business owners, our families, our college students, people who want to visit the City of Columbia and participate in the commerce and growth of the city shouldn't feel afraid. They shouldn't feel intimidated. They shouldn't feel like they can't walk down the street and witness certain behaviors. So the intentionality behind the operation hope and order is real. There is a hope that we can address these things in a way that help the individuals who need it and at the same time make sure and dictate that there's law and order in the City of Columbia so that we continue to flourish and grow as the capital city. Quite frankly, I'm getting a feel that in our spirit of influence, we're up here telling that story of all these things that we're doing and you'll hear from Camisha Hepard, our director of homeless services, you'll hear from Chief Holbrook, you'll hear from Robert Anderson, our public works director on the literal things we're doing, the successes behind those things. But even with all that, the system is broken and the cycle has to stop because at the end of those things that we're doing, we need mental health professionals, stabilization units, substance abuse professionals, people that understand what the some of the challenges the individuals are facing that we may have to arrest, take them to court or jail and then court and they get right back right back out again. So again, we're doing what we can in our spirits of influence, but we need to stop all the talking with all the other elected officials, the legislature and the other policy makers and the state agencies and act. Rapid Shelter Columbia, you will hear in a moment, is scalable. It works. You will hear how it's working, but we were able to stand up. 50 units on the backs of the city of Columbia cost the taxpayers of Columbia to do this and it's working when we've got 50 individuals who are moving through a process where case managers have been hired and clinicians are working with them on site. What and our wonderful staff that I see sitting here in the audience, what the mayor is talking about is scale that up to be something that our whole state can be proud of and our whole region can be proud of and we have multiple opportunities more than just the 50 units we have, but more opportunities than that with the right professionals on site to assist. So I stand by it. I love what this council has put their energy into. I think we're demonstrating what we can do as a city, but we cannot do it by ourselves. And so I think it's this today is a call for collaboration because it's honestly frustrating when you continue to do and do and do and you wonder to what end will there actually be that ultimate achievement of the goal that is going to help individuals who so need it and continue to see our city thrive. I love it when we see the excitement and entertainment on a Saturday downtown Columbia of Soda City, but I get frustrated and this happens if not every day, every other day when I'm riding down Main Street and I see an individual and y'all y'all in the media know me long enough now I've been doing this a long time in the city. I don't post the first time in my career that I almost posted was about two weeks ago at the intersection of Main and Hampton and an individual who obviously no clothes on except for some shorts, no shoes, acting out in the middle of the intersection clearly on meth or something. I knew that within 10 minutes all of our metro region was going to engage all those resources were going to be deployed to try to help this one individual who is acting out, disturbing others, scaring young people and for what? Did he need to go to jail? Probably not. Did he need certain assistance? Absolutely. But those are the stories we're telling every day, but it's happening all the time. So this from the manager is a call to action because I see what these elected officials are doing. They put their money where the mouth is and we're going to keep doing it. We can't do it by ourselves. To give you a little more insight on some of those actions that are actually happening, I would ask for Kamisha Hepburn, our director of homeless services, to share a little bit and send your briefing document you'll get today from our public relations team. But she'll just highlight a couple of those efforts after Chief Holbrook talks about the efforts from a law enforcement perspective. You're going to see a lot of presence. I mean, that's just it is what it is. But he's going to talk about the why behind that. Thank you, Ms. Wilson. And Mayor Rickman, it's very refreshing to have the support and funding that everybody represents is behind me. Law enforcement, public safety is absolutely our top priority. And as Ms. Wilson said, it's represented in an investment in that. I'd first like to say thank you to our police officers and our clinicians and our partner divisions in the city that have worked these last few weeks in particular to get this operation up and running. Our officers, as you know, we we have challenging times in terms of staffing and our officers have not pushed back one second. But we've spent a lot of time in Elmwood Corridor and I think everybody would agree with me. We've really just reached a tipping point. You know, the development and growth downtown in particular just but citywide is very exciting. And we with that growth, we've seen a an uptick in criminal activity that is being perpetrated by a few a percent of this transient population. And this is not it's not at all been about an indictment on those suffering from from homelessness. It's about criminal activity that is being perpetrated by some that are part of this population. And that's that's really been our focus. Our pathways unit has done a phenomenal job reaching people where they are, if you will, referring them to services. So those are our success stories. You know, you could argue arrests or failures. But we've got to change a culture. I mean, when I say we, you know, we've had criminal activity. We've had assaults with weapons, guns and knives. We've had sexual assaults. We've had robberies. It was just the other day we had. And when I say of these axes or people that are identified as being unsheltered, we had somebody in the middle of Elmwood with a gun waving at people passing by vehicles. Of course, that was somebody that armed career criminal had no business to not even to possess a gun or not be in prison. And then we we continue to arrest over and over some of our repeat offenders that are chronically homeless to fuel their criminal activity. We have aggressive panhandling. We have theft. And then we have businesses that are contributing to this that are part of this corridor. We targeted the first business that was, you know, very much, you know, part of the conversation, you know, a year ago, we started looking at the blue store on on North Maine and and how it was furthering this activity and in taking advantage of a vulnerable population. And we've got we've got two commercial stores now that the Circle K on on Elmwood in the pit stop combined they account for over 1200 calls for service for our police officers. And they're not trivial calls for service. They're serious calls for service 1200. And that's part of the 11,000 in that corridor. 11,000. That's that represents 38% of our North region calls for service. Why is that? Should that be significant to you? Everybody knows North region is primarily to 9203. We're losing a generation to gun violence. And we have very important things that we need to be focusing our attention on. And the time that is spent dealing with this lawlessness in this Elmwood corridor is is tearing at the fabric and the foundation of all this growth and and excitement that we see. And we've, we've got to affect some some change and we're doing that. Just in the last two weeks we've arrested 73 people and we're going to continue to have our foot on the gas when it comes to criminal violations. We're looking at a program to where we can collaborate with a private vendor private security vendor in the near future to help take a few things off of our plate in that in that quarter specifically our property checks and some checks of property dealing with people that have sought shelter 30 minutes before this news conference. We had a parking, one of the city parking attendants encountered somebody sleeping in the back of a pickup truck in one of our parking decks confronted that person. Person ended up assaulting the parking attendant. That person was homeless. This is the stuff that that's an example of a city worker that encountered somebody that was aggressive. Our business owners, our residents that are adjacent to that corridor, they experience this every single day. The trash and debris that is in and around these two businesses I mentioned. It's, it's, it's ridiculous. There has got to be a shared responsibility to address this problem. We're not going to arrest our way out of it, but we're also not going to put up with criminal activity. And that's our job to deal with that. And we're going to keep doing that. Our, the pathways unit, they, that works. And we work can and glove with our rapid shelter folks and they're doing a terrific job. And I absolutely think it's successful and it is scalable. And I hope that we do that. We've, I applied the, the foresight of the, of these folks up here about we got to, you know, we've got to move these services off, off the main line downtown and get them working more collaboratively at one stop shop. And I think that would be a game changer for our, our city and the entire midlands for that matter. But we've got to change the culture. And we've, we've talked about this for over nine years that I've been here, but we are at a tipping point. It is different right now. The population we deal with is ever changing. There is more people in mental crisis. I see more addiction. I see more aggressive activity by, by these folks. And it seems to be, you know, new faces all the time. So in spite of all of our efforts, we've got to do more. And I think that is kind of the point of this is that shared responsibility. And it's time for people to step up and be part of the solution. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you city council manager. Um, so just going to share some information about Rapid Shelter Columbia. We started in November of 2022. And since then we have received 292 referrals to provide services to individuals experiencing homelessness. We as an agency Rapid Shelter Columbia, the case managers, they have placed 111 service referrals to partners in the community, meaning they have referred clients to mental health services, substance use, whatever the need is, they're making the referrals to get clients primary care services. Since November, we have placed 18 residents into permanent housing and we are still working with those individuals. We still provide services. We still make sure that they're getting what they need from the community. We have also, um, I'm sorry, excuse me. So with the overflow, we provide, we were open 63 nights of the season. CPD dropped off 717 individuals experiencing homelessness. We've collaborated with our partners in the community to provide outreach services out of the task force recommendations. It was recommended that we have some evening weekend services and we have implemented that. We have a collaboration with transitions homeless center and USC supportive housing where they do outreach for the city of Columbia. We have that evening person and they have conducted over 70 outreach events. They've made contact with over 200 individuals experiencing homelessness. They have made over 70 service referrals and they have provided 34 Greyhound bus tickets. And that's a program that the city has to where individuals experiencing homelessness. If you have family in California and they're willing for you to come in, them help you get back on your feet. We're able to see you there. Today's meeting is about bringing everybody together, filling in the missing parts. And I'm behind the idea when Mia talks about a one stop shop with everything in one place. Not that we just want to put something in a country someplace, but we want to have a coordinated effort at one property that provides emergency shelter, transitional housing, and permanent supportive housing. Some individuals require to be in a residential facility where they monitor daily, where they're making sure that they're taking their meds. All of this would be at the one stop shop, but we need our community partners to do that. We need Columbia area mental health and Laredad. We need mercy. We need all of the partners in the community. Every partner has their specific skill set and we need that because we don't have that. We're missing those pieces. And I'm just going to follow up and say we're calling for help from everybody. We want to serve the population with compassion and we'll do that with your help. Thank you. Good morning. I'm going to take a little page out of the city manager's book and say that we were called to action a little bit. So we were called to action a year ago or so, but really this year to focus on beautification efforts in the city of Columbia. And when we got a call to action on Elmwood, we took our crews out and we really inspected Elmwood and said, what can we do? So one of the things, several things we've done, we've repaired the fence on Assembly Street so citizens could not jaywalk across and that way it forces them into a safer atmosphere at the intersections. We're working on some fencing on Elmwood Avenue. We've mowed the right of ways. We've done some beautification efforts. One of the efforts we'd like to put forward and work with the police department on and continue to work on is being able to see through some of the bushes. So we did remove some bushes last year. We actually rebudified those this year and we've actually recently put mulch out so we can see distance through the building so we can see where people are, you know, littering or what they can do so we can provide extra services. The last thing we did that we really think it's going to make a big impact is we trimmed all the trees on Elmwood Avenue. We're actually still working in the corridor around Calhoun to trim trees. And this is going to allow for one thing that we think is going to help and that is these changeover to LED lighting. On my way to City Hall today I did see a Dominion contractor down here actually starting to make the switch over from high pressure sodium which will be a yellow light to LEDs. We think that will light this corridor up and hopefully help make it safe. So we will continue to work with all of our partners and our police department to make sure that we provide beautification efforts that are safe. Well thank you all for being here and we'll open it up for any questions from the media. Yes ma'am the BP pit stop, excuse me, which is a BP. As you know with this past year we had a nuisance case at Nain's Best and we saw a significant drop in activity in that area after that closed. We're trying to work with the owners to come up with creative ways that not only that they can stay in business but we can benefit the community. And those two spots if you look at the hot spots of service of calls it's not it's not only just criminal calls that we get their complaints from neighbors and residents and businesses around but we're also looking at the service calls. So we're talking about fire police and ambulances all going to these significant areas. 9-1-1 hot spots and that's one of them. And some of the other agencies in town I know that Oliver Gospel does the same thing so if somebody has family and benefits and has a place to go then we help them get there so that they can make sure the family's working with them to get the help that they need. Yeah ultimately the goal is to create it and I think Camisha had laid it out very well. You got to have the rapid component, you got to have the treatment component, you got to have the permanent housing and the temporary housing component. But you also have to have all the services and all those folks most of the folks that are entering those programs need that help. I think the last time we checked I think 37% of the homeless population had had mental health issues you know probably another 30 or plus is is addiction and then you know various others but having that service component. But the other pieces it's the clinicians, the crisis team, the healthcare piece, the treatment piece but also the other pieces that go together like being able to get a driver's license or get your IDs, get that the paperwork that you need to A, protect your benefits that you're entitled to but also being able to get you into the programs. And unfortunately folks who suffer from mental illness and addiction seem to lose their IDs in our thing so it's a start over process and if you've ever been and seen what our outreach workers and our social workers do it is a long process. So anything that we can do to shorten that time frame we want to do it and that's even even with the permanent housing vouchers and the other is there's a time frame, there's beds open, there's apartments open but getting getting that time frame compressed and by bringing all the services in will help reduce that time frame. I think first of all we have to identify a location that has it. It's got to be a location that has services or already existing services there especially to deal with the major two components which is mental health and alcohol and drug addiction. You know I think one of the things that we struggle with and we lose pockets I mean we had 45 different encampments that we've anything and some of those are services you were also you remember that we're the central for care for 17 counties for insurgent care when it comes to trauma. So all of those services play that some of that temporary housing is when people are here and they get lost in the system we've encountered several homeless people in some of our corridors and they're caught in between home or where they were at home and being here trying to get the services they need and I think the and I think Camicia also mentioned about residential care in there where you have folks monitoring working to make sure people are getting their medicines and and everything they need and that's important part of it and you can't do it when you're scattered everywhere. I'm sorry well I mean I think at the end of the day that the goal of both of those agencies is to provide service so if we're providing them a place to provide the best service they would do that but there's no reason to get buy-in if you don't have the location yet right. Absolutely we're going to continue to ask the state to participate and especially through DMH. Anybody else? Going once, going twice. Thank you.