 I call this meeting to order at four or two on September 21st. Erica, would you call roll please? Dr. Bussells, Councilman McDowell, Councilman Brennan, Chief Holbrook. Present. Mr. Kennel is out of town. Mr. Cook. Present. Mr. Wilkinson. Mr. Whitehead, has he- Present. Okay, thank you. He's on Zoom. Ms. Farrell. Dr. Cluce. Ms. McCullough, Judge McCullough. She's never here, sorry. Ms. Sutton. Thank you. Mr. Brock. Mr. Flores, had a death in his family. So our condolences to him. Mr. Dobbins. Ms. Skelton. Mr. Augburn. That completes the roll. Good afternoon, everybody. Actually, Dr. Bussells, can we get a motion to approve the minutes from August 17th, 2022? I'll second it. Well, you all accepted an amendment. I listed Ms. Avon in several instances as Dr. Saul's file. Go back and make that correction if you all will accept the motions with that amendment. Yes, motions accepted. Thank you. Can we just do a voice vote on that? Yes, please. Ms. Erica. Great, thanks. Like all in favor, you want me to go through the roll? All in favor. All right. All in favor? All right. Any opposed? Thank you. Wonderful. I want to welcome everybody here today. Thanks for sticking with us. This is the third. Task Force Preventing and Homelessness. We have come a long way. Learned a lot, had wonderful communication. I can tell you for me personally, I appreciate learning from all the service providers about the important quality of life services that you provide to a very important population of our city and our midlands and our state. So just real quick, this will be the last formal meeting of this ad hoc mayor's task force. There is still a lot of work to be done from our conversations and our education from you. The city has stepped forward to be a stronger partner with you, the service providers, help fill in the gaps that you need. We are listening to you as to what you need to be successful to serve the citizens that are in need, not just in need, but in hope of getting back on the right path. So we thank you so much for sticking with us for this third meeting. As you know, the timeline for our announcements for the Inclement Weather Center converting to a year long shelter were made a couple of weeks ago. And that was intentional because we needed to give our staff the time to pull that plan together. We heard about the importance of single resident occupancy units, and so we did our research and put together a plan for the SRO, the 50 units that will be at that rapid shelter, Columbia, the pallet provider that I think you're probably all familiar with. So focusing on the folks that need the SROs to get into that service process is something that we heard from you and that we took action on immediately. So we appreciate your support on that. It's not gonna solve everything, but we hope that it starts the process for a permanent solution to help the homeless population here in Columbia, the Midlands and in the state because I keep reminding people it's gonna take everybody, Columbia, the Midlands, the counties, the state to work through this and help folks. So the rapid shelter, the 50 pallets, we currently have job postings for homeless coordinator and two staff to help coordinate, communicate with you, the service provider. So if you have any good candidates, please, I guess, Ms. Wilson, we would send them to our job portal at the city or where else is the job application posted that they can find it? Okay, next week, okay, okay, fantastic and we'll open up the floor to questions in a little bit if anybody has some, but again, thank you for coming today. The input doesn't stop today. The work doesn't stop today. We're gonna work together as we move forward to bolster our services here in Richland County, Lexington County, City of Columbia and the state of South Carolina for the homeless services. So with that, Dr. Bussells, would you like to review the ordinances and the permits? Absolutely. So one of the other ideas that had come out of our discussions was finding ways in which we can coordinate the multiple feedings that occur across the city, especially those that are maybe pop up and don't have a regular schedule, but do end up being in places that the city may not know about and or residents may not know about. And so I'd actually like if it was okay for our legal team to come up and just provide a brief overview of this ordinance. This is a draft ordinance that we'd like your input on and then it would be formally submitted to city council for review upon our discussion here today. So would you mind coming up and just giving us a brief overview? Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. My name's Jacqueline Pavlichak. I'm assistant city attorney for the city of Columbia. Before you in your materials today is a draft ordinance that addresses the pop up distribution events much of our discussions in these task force meetings has kind of centered on feeding-based events. However, it's currently drafted in a way that's a little bit broader to help accommodate for unanticipated circumstances such as maybe a need for delivery of services, beverages, clothing items. So not just completely limited to food distribution. The ordinance itself builds on our current ordinance governing large group activities in our parks. So you'll see a lot of language in there that is largely mirroring what we see in just the regular event permit process. From there, it builds on a program that actually stemmed from the city of Miami and so we incorporated some aspects from that that we felt like it was hitting on some of the points that the task force and others had voiced indicating areas that we wanted to address and it also provides just for a deposit only instead of an actual fee so that the providers, the organizers are able to get their money refunded to them after responsibly holding an event. Right now, as currently drafted, it has just a number of five locations. That is just a general number that we're trying to look at and we anticipate that staff will look at the current facilities that we have available overall as well as the facilities, their location and where they are located in proximity to locations where the unhoused or other individuals in need of services are located, including places near public transportation that are easily to access. Other than that, it's a starting point and if there are points of departure, areas of concern, certainly welcome any feedback that we can get. Any questions? Of course. Would you mind speaking into the mics? Everybody can hear you. As far as the public places, I know it mentions there's five or will be five, no less than two, are organizations allowed to bring their own public places or are these going to be designated by the city and these are the only places that they are allowed to do these types of free distribution? As currently drafted, people can organize a free distribution event under the current permitting plan that we have in place. That plan requires deposits and fees and a whole lot of other stuff. Not always the most practical when you are trying to hold an event with purely altruistic purposes and modifying the timetable to should be able to help us to address immediate needs. In terms of the page number in your packet, I'm sorry. Well, no, I was just a general question. Are the city, is the city going to designate these places or organizations to have these things or can the organizations do it at the places that they have already been doing it or they feel is appropriate after they get the city's permission? So these will be at specific locations within the city that have got appropriate facilities, like bathrooms, for instance. Parking is a great thing to have, hand washing stations, so that when people are distributing food, they can wash their hands, important thing. And so they will be selected by the city, ascertaining the locations that are most appropriate, and also the locations that have appropriate features, like lighting, appropriate security, so that the people who are attending these events can attend events in a location that has already been vetted by the city. Gotcha, so if I'm implying for a permit, if I'm an organization and I have a place that's not one of these designated areas, it would likely be that my permit is denied? If it's not in one of the approved locations, absolutely. If there are locations that providers are currently utilizing, that they feel like it is meeting just the basic requirements set forth in the ordinance, by all means, please voice that to staff so that we can take that input. Also, if there are facilities or locations that these events have been taking place, and there's any concerns regarding those locations, perhaps there's lighting that needs to be updated or parking or anything like that, we certainly want to know what it is so that we can try to make sure that the locations that are ultimately designated are the ones that are gonna be able to suit the most amount of people and purposes, and ultimately serve the community that we're trying to address. Another question. Of course. As far as the draft, it says that I'm responsible. I'm just thinking of myself as an organizer or one of the people that wanted to do a free distribution event. It says I have to disclose all of my affiliates of other people who I may be affiliate with so that I'm assuming it's not for double permitting, but the way I interpreted that is, let's say if I was with her and I'm affiliated with her, if I have a free distribution event that we, then she can own it. Or it's like one per week together. I think maybe we can just modify the language to make sure it's a little bit clear in that point, but it should just be that, we just don't want people double dipping. There are a lot of organizations that want to provide services and want to help. They're likely are gonna be a limited number of locations to do that. And so depending on the volume of requests and whatnot, we can make modifications to best the needs for the city. Because it's dependent on the availability of the locations that you've already. Right. For instance, we know that Finlay Park is up for a lot of renovations in the future. That location may not be suitable for free distribution events year round. And so we want to make sure that we're pivoting where we can so that that critical location right now that is very frequently the location for so many distribution events. We want to make sure that we're accommodating that before it gets cordoned off or whatever it is that the plans are to do with the location. Also the last question, I'll apologize. No, of course. There's a provision in here that says that if you're having a free distribution event that like on the plates and the cups and the bags and stuff you need to have your organizations name on that. Name and the date. So this is, this helps us to track litter. Understood. And the date on there with the free distribution event, it helps the people who are receiving those food items to know the date that they were ultimate. Originally distributed, right? And that's, and I understand that point. I just wanted to make sure that that's just not an undue burden for the people that are trying to have these things going to get personalized bags, totes, stickers and stuff like that. No, no, no. That's not what it requires. It just requires labels. So you can feed those straight through a printer. Okay. That was my question. I had a couple questions too. Yeah, absolutely. In terms of what risks does the city take with this ordinance? There's always a risk analysis in law in terms of freedom of assembly. What's the boundary between an event and people gathering and sharing food that they bring in? I know there's the number 25, but in designing the ordinance, how do you all think about that in terms of clarity and think about enforcement in particular? Who will be enforcing this? The enforcement is, I believe it should be up through Parks and Recreation. This should be, this is a civil infraction so it's not something that is going to be enforced by law enforcement. The next part of your question, who enforced, sorry, I took it out of order. Oh, in terms of freedom of assembly. Freedom, okay. So there's absolutely the freedom to assemble, but the city has the right to implement appropriate time, place and manner requirements. And it does not restrict the ability to do it all over. There are private locations, for instance, people can do it on. And it's only governing the free distribution events, right? And so if people are distributing items in the street and blocking the street, that creates a whole lot of issues or distributing unknown items and things like that. So there are some parameters to it. However, presently, we don't believe that the current risk is. That the interpretation and enforcement would be then Parks and Rec that would make that determination. Likely parked in the current draft, that's how it would be. So Phinley, yeah, Phyllis will also ask some questions too behind me. Elaine Cooper worked with Food Nap Alms for years and was one of the founders of Homeless, Helping Homeless. And my husband also volunteers at the Inclement Winter Shelter, pretty much every day through the cold weather. So Phinley Park I heard is kind of, they're waiting on it. There was big discussion and now it's off. That's what the newspaper reported. There's no forward momentum on Phinley Park being remodeled. They're waiting for partnerships, whatever. So anyway, Phinley Park is open to the public and to the right to assemble and feed hungry people, to have picnics. And also what about churches? Do churches have to pay a fee because they're going by their religious beliefs, feed the poor, help others in need, love others, those moral thoughts that lead them. How much will they have to pay? Do you know? Which is what? What would they have to pay? If they did just go ahead and have an event out of the right moral compass that leads them. And right, and how much is this deposit? $150, just want everyone to do it so you can hear it through the mic. Okay, yeah, that's right, $150, okay. Well, so Miami ran into a lot of civil courts and problems that Food Not Bombs and other churches and other nonprofits did take them to court on. I just want the city of Columbia to be aware that that's still an ongoing situation in Miami. And I can supply you with that information from the founder, the actual national and international founder of Food Not Bombs who is based in Miami. So the Miami case was focused on eliminating feedings altogether and that's not what we are doing as our city attorney. So I think eloquently explained this is simply creating parameters to ensure that we don't have a duplication. Elaine, I know that this is your first meeting. I also want to point out that there's over 44 services that are dedicated to feeding already. So it's not that we don't have those services. I also want to be clear that if you are a church and you have a private property that you choose to feed on, this does not affect you. This is simply public spaces that the city has to take on the burden to clean up litter and deal with the aftermath of people coming in doing a kind thing but leaving a lot of consequences for us. I hear you on that and that was going to be my next question. I hear that litter problem. So what is the city supplying as regarding the litter? Are they supplying recycled containers? How many containers are they supplying for these sites to handle the litter? I think in my reading of the bill, if you are approved through the permitting process, the city will then know what you are doing and then they will provide the necessary resources. That's the point of the process so the city can know. I understand your concerns but I think that in my reading of the proposal, the city would be informed enough to be able to help and assist. I understand what you're saying but as you know in any situation where there's hungry people and especially people who really came out as a result of COVID and will still be coming out as there's evictions happen again and all of that, there's no telling how many people are going to show up at any event. So it's not like you can like plan for people who actually register through Eventbrite or anything like that, you know? No, I think with that I understand that. I think that the point of the permitting process is for the people that are going to do the free distribution event to come with as much information as they have to the city so that the city can plan accordingly. The city doesn't know that you're even doing this and so if you read the ordinance, it asks you in the permitting process for you to estimate how many people are gonna be there and it doesn't say that you can't overestimate and so I think the city is trying to do everything that it can to help with resources because like Dr. Bussell said, the burden is on the city that ultimately clean up if you don't and so I think there is a, and believe me, I went through this and I was looking to tear apart and I think there is a good balance here if it's used appropriately and you can get it in on time. The only thing I would say is the two days notice that may be some of the rub, especially when you're asking for resources and things like that, being able to turn a permitting around in two days, if the thing is two days away, that might be a future problem but the city attorney is here and she's here. Right, so there's a two-day requirement, just a two-day, is there any talk about extending that beyond two days? Right, but you couldn't, but not a day, okay? Well, I'll have more questions. I wanna go ahead and open it up to the task force and see if you all have any other questions before we open it up to the public. One is when considering the delegated locations for these events, will those spaces also be hosting other city events? So will free distributions be competing for time, not only with other organizations but with city-funded events and will that then reduce even further the access? Because I think we talked a little bit about how with five spots and maybe needing more or less or wanting to make sure that different organizations have space and time, if they're also competing with city-funded events, will that interfere with the time availability or will these be specifically designated for distribution events? It depends on what city council would like. Okay, well I just would note that I think that if, like for this place, right, is really a beautiful facility and well located, but it has a lot of city events and so if we're looking at spaces like this, just in the consideration and maybe thinking about that competition, that's a different type of availability competition that didn't exist prior to this ordinance and making sure that when we find places that are available, that they're not only convenient locationally but convenient with availability. That's just one comment. And then my other question is I understand that the task force here has had a lot of say and different kind of, different issues going forward, but specifically for meal service, is there any kind of consultation with folks who typically do meal service or free distribution events and asking them either what hurdles they've experienced or getting input from them because while we've had service provider input for this task force, I think that a lot of the meal service providers have not been able to have input and so I'm sure that they have had hurdles or obstacles that were not identified by this group and might need to be considered when... So the three new folks that will be coordinating our services, a lot of the roles to collaborate and align and engage different stakeholders with this new rapid shelter, they will have that opportunity for input. This is not something we're passing tomorrow, right? We wanna be very thoughtful and intentional, but we also know that there's a certain level of urgency. We've seen that there's multiple services. We've actually heard from people even on this committee that have experienced homelessness saying that there are so many options and duplication of services around lunchtime in the middle of the day that we're not spreading out our resources well and so that is really the intention behind this is to make sure that there is something available every single day and you don't have 10 groups doing the same thing between 11 and one on a Monday which is what we're seeing happening right now. Again, the caveat being if it's a private property, a coffee shop, a church, whatever, you can do whatever you want. This is specifically for city-owned property in spaces. And I respect and understand that I think I'm just trying to think of what we might have missed in our discussions so I'm sure that there are others that are going on but for instance, I've been a part of meal services where the donation of protein got delayed by a day and so we were planning for one day but had to push it and so that kind of hurdle we haven't really talked about so just making sure that that's put into consideration with this ordinance because there are things that are unique to free distribution issues that are different than generic experiencing homelessness issues that we've talked about. Absolutely, yeah. And so I can't remember exactly where it is in this draft ordinance but they're in the ordinance, or the draft ordinance rather, there is something in there regarding providing at least 24 hours advanced notice regarding cancellation. However, it may be that based on the reality of the situation maybe we just need to be more flexible on that or provide different parameters. Or even talking about just how to reschedule or push back and navigating conflicts but I just wanted to throw that out there for consideration and then two and a half brief other things for the affiliation and Judge Brock talked on this a little bit. I think that a lot of the food services that I had been participating in were working on doing more collaborative events because if folks are coming for meals then why not throw in a flu shot? Why not talk about how to apply for insurance? Why not schedule your mental health screening? And so there was a lot more partnership the more established that they got which was really great for service provision but if that's gonna then disqualify affiliated agencies from pursuing their own permits within that week or asking for more time, I think that that would discourage collaboration which I think is opposite of what we want as the task force, right? We're encouraging it. So that's just food for thought. And then as far as the two-day, if it's denied you have two days to appeal and then a final decision two days after that putting on my defense hat, I do have concerns that the city has the final say regardless of a denial, it seems like maybe even for parking permits the more you appeal it eventually goes to a court which is still a city court but a neutral body and trying to figure out how eliminating the city having the final and only say and having no recourse outside of the same people who enacted the ordinance that makes me a little stressed but I could be alone in that. And then finally, I promise I would get to the end eventually but it talks about any distribution for anyone and then it limits it to folks experiencing homelessness or are otherwise in need. Excuse me, I'm sorry, will you just point me to the- Sure, if that's 15.6, just looking at what free distribution event means. Gotcha, thank you. And thinking just kind of big picture as someone who's done organizing before and talking about the freedom of speech and right to assembly that Dr. Kluse brought up thinking about passing out literature on knowing your rights, passing out definitions of jury nullification. And I think that there have been specific suits in other states about distribution of jury nullification pamphlets around courthouses which are both public and could anticipate more than 25 people and that being protected speech but it would still constitute free distribution because it's a service, it's an item, it's information to folks who theoretically could be in need. So just thinking about is this only like goods or is this going to be information and what would folks who are doing that mean and thinking about there are some religious folks who stand on the corner and pass out their ideologies or small Bibles in places that could theoretically gather 25 or more. So just thinking about is this including information or are we specifically targeting food and like goods? And so I think that that definition is broad enough to incorporate that stuff and I think that that would be just something to think about and address from that standpoint but I believe those are all my kind of comments. Could I ask an additional question? So this is around I understand the permitting process understand thinking about locations and rationale for that. Is there a coordinating function that's included in the ordinance? Who would coordinate? And I appreciate the way that you framed it, Dr. Bussells in terms of we wanna be sure that we aren't overlapping services. So I didn't see it but I'm not versed in legalese. This would be something that falls under the three new positions that we are hiring. We are taking back the coordination of services that the city is directly impacted by or IE funds. And so this would fall the coordination of this and the letting people know about whether or not there will fall under that. And I'm sure that Parks and Rec would have a role as well because remember this is an existing ordinance that we're modifying to include this event. We already have a permit system for large events in parks whether it's related to feeding or not. The homeless services project coordinator would be the more likely. There'd probably be the person that triages it to the permitting process but they would be the point of contact for a lot of these things. And if providers or organizations have questions about hey, we'd like to do this feeding at Shannon Park. What days could we do that? Or we'd like to do it on this day, would it work for you? Thank you. Any events that are sponsored or in partnership with the city of Columbia would be not required? And also, I believe in there, there is a provision that should allow the city manager to waive the deposit. And that's also in just the regular permit. I would more about the frequency of a fine per permit. Okay. Thank you. Gotcha. Do we have a sense of how many distribution events are on private property versus public property? So we do know based on the cataloging of services that we did and of course it's not gonna capture all of the pop-up feeding events or some of the kind of ad hoc ones. But I believe if you all look at your packets, if anybody still has it, it was about four or five pages worth of faith-based organizations that had been identified as providing regular, weekly feedings. So it was about 44 organizations that we identified as a task force through this process. I'm sure we didn't get everyone but that's a pretty big number of groups. And that, again, that's only the ones that haven't either advertised or there's some sort of messaging that's saying we feed on Wednesdays on our property from X time to Y time. How they operate. But my understanding is that for operational overhead and that all of their food and volunteer services are donated. And so having the requirement for labeling and to go boxes and all that stuff could be cost prohibitive for some organizations who are regular providers of meals in the area. And so is that type of financial limitation on this assistance being taken into consideration? Will there be other waivers for these financial requirements? Because I do believe a lot of folks who provide the services, when they do the free distributions, they're distributing all of their donations. They don't have income or funding or grants outside of that. And so will there be leniency or even just like an ability to do clear communication and say this is what our limitations are? That would be entirely up to council and management. Yeah, I think ultimately, this is to make our services better. It's not to hinder. And so the fact that we do continue, there's always different events and different kind of contexts to even large scale events. Let's not even talk about feedings, right? Let's talk about some of the big festivals and stuff that we have. There's always a certain level of discretion in conversations that City Manager Wilson, CPD, all of these folks have. And we've always been able to adjust accordingly because of the leeway that is in this ordinance to do that. And if we're able to come to a mutual agreement, I don't see why that that would be an issue because the end goal here is to just be able to have a really clear understanding and coordination of what types of events are occurring in our parks. And I would just encourage openness in that being an option, because I think reading this, even if the understanding and the willingness for the conversation is there, reading this ordinance by itself without there being some sort of information of if you cannot comply or if this is not available to you, then there might be other options. Just, I mean, the, I mean, I read city ordinances all the time, so I can read it pretty quickly and have opinions, but I mean, that's what I went to school for. So a lot of folks who are doing this service, providing might not be able to do that in a way that allows them to understand that there is the option to work with the city. And so I would just encourage that communicative friendly atmosphere. Which we do right now. And most of the time, just to be frank and honest, because there hasn't been a tone set about the resources, the massive amount of resources, if I went and took a picture right now down probably Taylor Street on the hill, near St. Peter's Church on the other side of Finley Park, I would probably find an abundance of styrofoam containers that our very noble public works department will go out and try to clean up. And so I think we are more than friendly and more than compassionate and we're gonna try to strike a balance, but I don't know that a city ordinance, tone of it on any city ordinance really, particularly when you're talking about setting guidelines is always meant to be touchy feely and user-friendly. And I'm sure you recognize that because you're in the practice of law. So I think Dr. Bussell said it just perfectly. And anyone who knows me well and I've been doing this a minute knows that I'm more than reasonable. Absolutely, and I'm not trying to indicate that that should be included in the ordinance itself, but maybe in the Parks and Rec website in the advertisement where you go to the permits or something, not necessarily in the law. I think that an appropriate place for that will likely be on the application itself. If you are having any hardships complying with this law, please contact this or list what it is. And then the city manager, when they get that application, will be able to say, okay, we can work with this or no we can't, this is a hard stop. So you won't be surprised by anything and the person will know when they're filling out the application that hey, if I let them know, maybe they will work with me. And it seems like you're open and honest. From my understanding of reading this information, the city wants to hold the providers accountable for cleaning up. And that's what stood out to me when I read this. Now, the other items, it mainly talks about food and trash. So that's what I got out of reading this information. This is a great feedback, thank you. As you all think of some things, of course, this is still in its draft stages. Please let myself or councilman Brennan know. Do you have anything to add on this? Yeah, actually, let's talk about public hearings and public input in the process. Ms. Erica or Ms. Wilson, from here, this recommendation, let's talk about where the ordinance draft would go in the timeline to keep receiving public input as it makes its way probably to a work session so we can educate the rest of council and then to council for the readings. Yes, sir, that's exactly right. I mean, that would be the recommendation that I would have. I think the task force has done a great job of providing a lot of input. Again, even here today, obviously legal took a great stab at it. But of course, we need to now put it before all of your colleagues, but in a public meeting like a work session for you all to review it again as a full council. And quite frankly, I need to review it some more in the context of things that have been said today. And director Davis for parts and recreation and assistant city manager, Simons, who's over operations and parts of recreation are out of national conference. I don't know that they put their eyes on this in its totality. So there's a lot of additional steps and we'll make sure that all the input is taken into account. Wonderful. And so as the committee continues to review it with feedback as the service providers review it with feedback in the public. Is there, what's the best contact to send maybe email, comments, ask questions as we move on? It may be good councilman before it would come to a work session you're seeing. Right, right. We can look at maybe putting, I've been doing this anyway in the context of Rapid Shelter Columbia. This is where that homeless coordinator for the city would come in. Well, I was about to say the reason why I said we're working really quickly to get that those individuals hired is because I do need their assistance and until then we've been setting up a database just through my office when people interested in volunteering, making suggestions about the Rapid Shelter concept and we can do that with this as well. So we may just need to stand up on the website, homeless services, maybe whatever comes out of today's task force, Dr. Bussells, all of the great information, a compilation so to speak of things from the task force and that could also be maybe a place for people to submit questions, suggestions, observations. Great, thank you for that. We can do that. All right, if there are no other questions from the task force then we will move into our long-term strategies. So there's been a lot of different conversations, a lot of work that we've done over the last several months. I wanted to recap to all of you some of the strategies that you all have determined in terms of what you'd like to recommend to city council and then I'll open it up to see if there's anything else you'd like to add. So in addition to some of the shorter term changes that Councilman Brennan announced, here are some of the strategies that came out of this discussion. First and foremost, we'd like to identify and create an infrastructure for services after 5 p.m. We talked a lot about how that is a gap. Most services are provided from eight to five and so while we have expanded some of our mental health clinicians within our law enforcement as a part of the pathways unit, there still continues to be a need for us to create some sort of system that a business owner or a community member can call and be directly connected to a set of services after 5 p.m. We also talked about how we wanted more beds and single occupancy beds for the chronically unsheltered. Some of that you all are going to be able to address through the Rapid Shelter Columbia and the 50 pallets but our work still continues in terms of identifying permanent housing solutions for those that may be triaged through Rapid Shelter. And we talked a lot about feedings and of course I won't harp on that too much because we had a great discussion just now and we wanna continue to streamline and coordinate some of the feedings that are occurring across the city. We had some conversations about revisiting competency and I know that there's been some work already happening behind the scenes to address competency both with the state and with our local courts and figuring out how we'd like to move forward with that. We talked a lot about regional and state cooperation in terms of support for all that Columbia does. I wanna remind you all that we learned from the United Way of the Midlands that is the continuum of care provider that there are 19 counties in the Midlands and Columbia is actually the only city that has a low barrier shelter like transitions. So there's definitely been a push and there's been a lot of conversations for us to continue to receive regional and state cooperation and support and United Way shared with us that the funding formula that we received for the number of people that are experiencing homelessness is much lower than a lot of other states and so really pushing from a federal level to our delegation the importance of getting more funding to address those needs is going to be a long-term strategy that we are recommending to city council. And we talked a lot about how we don't want police to be the first point of entry and oftentimes that's really how it is because there's nowhere to go and I think that that is aligned with some of our conversations about the lack of kind of services after five. But we also just talked about how we'd like to see more of a presence of kind of the beat cops in our entertainment areas really leverage our yellow shirts program and make sure that we have resources to help people that may be experiencing a mental health crisis and frankly address those that may be engaging in criminal activity. We touched on and I will say that this is a win the 2013 task force which seems like a long time ago. They wanted to have the main's best convenience blue store shut down. As you all know we were able to do that and we've seen a drastic improvement in terms of some of the criminal activity that has occurred there. So shout out to CPD and the city manager for working with our community to make that happen. And then we talked a lot about how we need to coordinate our services as a city. And so that is where you're seeing this approach of us really having a homeless coordination housed in the city to help develop outcomes, shared understanding of success, work more collaboratively with our providers because frankly over the last several years our staff just hasn't had the capacity to be doing those things, to be attending the Midlands Area Coalition. And so now that we'll have a dedicated staff we really hope that it will be a way in which we can resolve some of the issues that we've seen in terms of working in silos or maybe not having a shared understanding of some of the things that we'd like to accomplish. Those were the major things that you all have said and talked about over the last several meetings. Is there anything else that you all would like to include in our final report to City Council? Any, yes? In terms of tracking and accountability, and this I guess would be part of the descriptions for the jobs, but having data available in terms of how many people are using the shelter and services, having that be something we can compare to different years. Currently with the emergency shelter that data is available and reported to the HMIS system. And we can track and see and we can identify needs. And so being able to do that in 2013, 14 when we last had a shelter open those data are not available at all. And so that's a real problematic feature of what we could do. So having that included probably in job descriptions I think would be important and interfacing and submitting data at HMIS is our capacity would be one thing that I would wanna see. Then secondly in terms of looking at tracking where people go when they leave. For us to be successful, the shelter, the homes, our emergency room and hospital, where do people go when they leave after that? And so that does put a lot on a coordinated position, I understand. But that ultimately I think linking it to the affordable housing task force and knowing whether we're effective. So I bring these up as a researcher but also as a taxpayer in Columbia. I wanna know that the money is going to something that will not move the problem somewhere else like from a field near Walmart when the sheriff closed down that particular site. I don't know what police chief Holberg, you were informed that that was gonna happen. But that's a coordinating function. That's an issue and he estimated there were 60 people that were there, 50 pallets, we need to have 50 pallets. That expands our capacity greatly but without a coordinating function from the county. Absolutely, yeah. And an interface and what that means to the police department. I don't know how you all were affected but I imagine that could have been a problem. Just so you know without particular situation there was coordination, quite a bit of coordination. We share very similar processes for when we identify a homeless camp, we engage our service providers, we provide notice in order to get people to services that they choose and we can't force that but we give ample amount of time to vacate from the property. All these properties have significant public health issues that are attached to it and oftentimes criminal activity as well, a lot of assaults, both physical assaults and sexual assaults. So it's important we identify them and that we get the right services to them but I think it is important to know where folks are going on the back end but I'm always very curious to know how they got here on the front end. We should ask the United Way but believe they track that as well in terms of what conditions people came to, what services they accessed. All right, well I actually wanted to pass it over to Jamar who we've had some great conversations in between the meetings. So as Jamar shared with all of us openly you can stay right there. He is someone that has engaged in a lot of different services for the homeless and oftentimes after these meetings we would have some just reflections together about how things went and so he wanted to share a little bit of his story and give some strategies that he thinks based on our discussion would make sense in terms of moving forward. So I'll pass it over to you. Good evening, can y'all hear me? I'm sorry I'm a little tired. I'm running on like eight hours of sleep since Sunday. But I shared when I first came to this group that I was homeless and I had been homeless over a number of years stemming from living in New York to moving to South Carolina. I'm not gonna get into how I became homeless because that's really irrelevant at this point. We're talking about my experience and how I felt and what I saw during that time and after the providers back then we talked about the Salvation Army, the Oliver Gospel Mission, way before transitions was even a thought. Salvation Army used to be on what is that, Richland and Assembly I believe. I mean, it was a cold, dark experience. You know, you're living in living conditions which were filthy. You know, the showers were nasty. The facility itself was nasty. I remember back in 1995 being in a small little hotel room with four bunk beds and eight grown men and we're all sharing this little itty bitty shower and toilet, you know. Ironically out of that experience, only one person out of that whole eight rooms has overcome the homelessness, one in myself. So if you start looking at the odds of numbers, it's not that great. Back when I came down here, there wasn't many places that was feeding individuals. I remember that. You know, you had the Salvation Army, the Oliver Gospel Mission, you had Washington Method and Church and on Sundays you had Senate Street. You know, the last time that I actually experienced some homelessness was probably back in 2014 and by this time now I'm in transitions. I'm not gonna talk bad about transitions. Just not gonna do it because the reality is if it wasn't there, I don't know if I would be sitting here today. Now, did I have some bad experiences there? Yeah, but it wasn't all bad because here's the reality for me. My reality was based off of a foundation that came from a group of parents that told me that I can be anything that I wanted to be. And remembering what they shared with me, I knew that I could overcome it. I just had to do something about it. So for me, I worked, you know. And in the process, I gained the friendship of a lot of the social workers and most of them are no longer there anymore and they truly and genuinely cared about the individuals that were there, but because of politics, their hands got locked on a lot of issues. What happened was after I left, they asked me to come back, which is really unusual for transitions because normally when most people leave transitions, they tell them you're not allowed back on the property for six months, but they asked me to come back and help facilitate a group, which eventually I wind up taking over the group, which was called men making a difference. And that was kind of my pride and joy. I didn't wanna do it because I looked at the fact that I'm not that far removed from the new. What makes me feel as though I can give you something back, but at the end of the day, I remember working at Ruby Tuesdays on Divine Street and this guy walks up to me and says, I know you. And I'm like, no, you don't. No, I know you. And I said, well, where do you know me from? He said, you were some facilitated that group and I came in your class one time. I said, men making a difference? He says, yeah, I used to live in transitions. I said, okay, how you doing? He said, man, I'm gonna tell you something. The things that you shared in that group, I didn't believe it. He said, but let me tell you where I am today. He said, I moved out of transitions. I got a little apartment. And he said, just like you said, you might not have much. He says, I don't have much. He said, but I got a girlfriend and she's willing to wash my clothes for me. He said, and also I've been off of alcohol for two years. He said, and I paid my rent and I've been living in the same place for two years. So I just wanted to thank you for what you shared. I currently have a second job at Advanced Auto. And one particular evening, another guy comes in and says, I know you and I was like, no, you don't. Anyway, a whole bunch of stuff took place between that customer and an employee. And I went out there to, as a buffer. And he says, I got it, transitions. He said, I don't remember, he said, I remember you. He said, man, when I left transitions, I walked out of there with 10 bags of clothes. I was like, what? And he said to me, he said, man, I got my apartment. I didn't have no lights on. He said, but my lights are on the day. He said, I've been on my job for a while now. He says, not only do I have a place, but I own five cars. I was like, dang, I only own one. And he says, I'm doing a lot better today. You know, and I happen to see him two days after that at the Waffle House and he says, man, I'll pay for your meal. I said, no, I can pay for him. He said, let me pay for your meal. And I'm saying all this to say this is that, even though the community, maybe the city, there's hope and there's always that fire. I also had the ability to be a manager at the inclement winter shelter. That's how I met a few of the people that are sitting in here today. And even to this day, if I walked down Main Street and a lot of those guys see me, they say, man, are you coming back to work at IWC? And I was like, I don't think so. Man, you need to come back and work at IWC. I always got the best rest when you was on duty. And I'm gonna share this with everybody, homeless people are not bad. They're just in a funky little situation. And if we look past what they're doing and look into their heart, what I found out is that we find out that these people are really good people. They're just in a bad situation. Even the ones with the mental illnesses, because even they have a glimpse of reality and if you talk to them, it's like, wow. So my experience wasn't bad, but the blessing is what came out of it through the people that I met. And I hope that the city, the community, the services can somehow uniformly get together and let's formulate a plan. I spoke to Steve Cook in Starbucks, who was in there about three hours? And the things that he shared with me blew my mind. Because these were things because I didn't know what was happening on his side of the fence. And it was just a normal company. Now you don't skip down on me, skip, so. But I believe wholeheartedly, and I'm nobody, I don't hold no titles. I'm just a man that sits here with the rest of you. That at the end of this, that we will be able to formulate an active plan that not just gives a bandaid to the wound, but we start to heal as a community in a city and grow from there. And what happens is when homeless people do come to our city, they say, look, I may not be homeless for long because they have it in place and I can be something. And that's all I got, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us and for lending us your experiences as we go through this process. So as Councilman Brennan mentioned, the work does not end here. There's going to be plenty of opportunities to continue to stay engaged. I would like to invite up Melanie Huggins and her team from Richland County Library who have a potential opportunity for us to continue some of this work and most importantly, come together to talk about some of the strategies and to develop that action plan for the long term, because our piece is just one piece for the long term to really make Columbia a place that you can access services seamlessly. So Melanie, yeah, we can have you come up on the podium. Thank you, Dr. Bessels, and thank you for that sharing your story. We got into libraries because we love books but it's really because we love people and that's most of what we do now is serve people and meet their needs, where they are and when they need us. So I'm not here to talk about the library. Actually, I am a little bit, but we do have an opportunity that we wanted to bring to this task force who we really do appreciate your work and we're looking forward to seeing the full report because it will inform our work as well. I'm Melanie Huggins. I'm the executive director of the library to have with me my chief operating officer, Georgia Coleman, who will speak to you in just a second and Diana Keene from my project management office. Over the past few years, the library staff has become really good at what we call service design and it's using a human-centered approach to solving community problems. We started using this methodology internally when we were renovating all of our buildings and building new libraries and thinking about new service models, but it became really clear that this methodology and these techniques, where you put that lived experience at the center of what you're designing, you take the thoughts, the feelings, the motivations of the people who you're trying to serve and you design around that, not the ordinance or the process or any of those things, but so we've got really good at it and we really learned pretty quickly that we could actually teach other people how to use this methodology and also take on bigger problems. So in 2017, we've created something called Do Good Columbia and Do Good Columbia, the first iteration of it was funded by the Central Carolina Community Foundation and what we decided to tackle was how might we make our riverfront more enjoyable and accessible? Cause at the time in 2017, everybody was still talking about how do we enjoy the river? How do we get down there? Where do we go fish? All of those things. So we got 113 citizens together over a two and a half day process. We gave them some constraints. We didn't want them to come up with an idea that would cost $2 billion. We said, you've gotta come up with an idea that can be completed within six to 12 months. So that put some constraints around their ideas. We had 13 teams, they pitched their ideas. We had a panel of judges would included city staff on that panel and they selected a winner and that winning team got $50,000 to take their idea and actually make it work. That is what now if you go down to Riverfront Park where the Water Works building is and all those hammocks and the mural and the signage that tell the history of that riverfront that's what came out of their idea. Last year, the Midlands Business Leadership Group so the CEOs of all the major corporations and employers in the community came to the library and said, we have a problem attracting black and brown talent to our organizations and once we do attract them we have a hard time keeping them. And we said, we think we can help with that. So we use the same process to interview over 60 employees of all across disciplines, all across organizations and we put together a report for the business community with recommendations of how to do a better job attracting and retaining their talent. So we're coming to you today because we have money to do good again. We have already gotten the funding, we're not asking for any money for that. We've got money to redo the process from a grant funder. When we applied for the grant, we thought we were gonna tackle the how might we respond better in times of crisis because we've had a flood, we've had the Allen Benedict Court's disaster, we've had all of these things happen and we haven't really seemed to get ourself together in terms of who does what when we have a crisis that's what we thought we were gonna respond to. But as soon as I found out about the task force and I contacted Dr. Bussells, your chair, and said, hey, I think I can get the grant funder to let us redirect a little bit and take your recommendations from the task force and do another do good around that. So basically what I'm saying is now that you know what you wanna do, we can help you figure out how you wanna do some of those things. So with that, I want George to just tell you a little bit about the process so you know we're not just a bunch of wackadoodle people that are trying to get involved in places we don't belong but we really do have this great skill set that we think we could bring to your recommendations. So George, I wanna let you talk a little bit. Sure, I don't know if I can click. Yeah, there we go. So humans in our design is the process that Melanie is talking about and sometimes it's easier to show you what it looks like than to tell you about it. But really it's a collaborative process where we bring together diverse groups of stakeholders and we really are centering people's stories, people's experiences, their thoughts, feelings and actions in order to design solutions that work for real humans. So design thinking teaches us to approach problems as questions. So if there's a challenge, we're gonna turn it into a how might we question. That's what we do at the library. So I wrote some sample how might we questions just based on what we knew of the recommendations, a little sneak peek that we had. But things like how do we connect and collaborate across agencies to serve people after hours? How can we ensure that the experience of people visiting the inclement weather shelter or in the pallet home village that it's equitable and respectful and compassionate. These are the types of questions that we could tackle through a do good process. We also know as Melanie said that great designs come from great constraints. So rather than thinking outside the box, we like to try to build the right shape box to think inside of. And so this is where you would help us to define what timeline are you looking at, what's the project cost, what partner organizations are required to be involved in the solution, other customized requirements. We can design and customize a process, a workshop process that would generate solutions that meet the needs that you're setting forth. And then we would develop personas who are really good at stories, as Melanie said. So, and we really value stories. So we love to collect stories and hold on to them and amplify them. And by talking to real people who are either service providers or have experienced homelessness, we hope that we would be able to create some personas, what we call them, representative stories that we can then design around. And if you wanna learn more about the process of do good Columbia, the work that we did with the river or with the Midlands Business Leadership Group, you can go to dogoodcolumbia.com and you can see a lot about the workshops that we did back in 2017, but also just how we approach design, thinking of problem solving in general. Now, because we extended our, we asked the grant funder if we could talk to you first before we went forward. We have to spend the money by April. So the soonest we could probably get an event or an experience or anything done would probably be December or January. The latest can be March. So if there's interest in this group of us being a part of taking these recommendations and putting together a process with the right people and some of them are in this room, our partners and on this task force and moving forward, we just need to know that what the city would need to do is be a collaborative, supportive partner and put some money behind whatever comes out of it. And I know you're already putting money behind this issue anyway, so it would just be a commitment to say, just like Midlands Business Leadership Group did and just like we did with the river, that it's not just gonna be getting together and coming up with a plan that doesn't happen, it's gotta have teeth. And I think that the homeless coordinator that homeless coordinator that the city is hiring would wanna be involved or at least to be a good starting point to have that person plus a lot of other people involved. So if you're interested, we just need to know so we can plan accordingly or if not, we will go find a different problem to apply skills to. So does anybody have any questions for me? I think collectively by the smiles that I'm seeing both in the task force and the greater room, this is something I think folks are interested in pursuing. So if it's okay with the task force, we can have you work with Erica to get their information and stuff. And then of course we worked with several other stakeholders, some of which that are in the room that are also helping us get rapid shelter Columbia off the ground, as well as whoever we hire in those three positions. And then of course the general public if there's folks that wanna be a part of that conversation, this is another kind of information gathering point for you to be involved. I think Melanie, my only kind of thing for us to consider is that the city of Columbia doesn't hold the dollars for homelessness, it resides with the Midlands area coalition on homelessness. And I think that there's a lot of opportunity there to look at the what and the how. And so I would ask that they make that same commitment because they have millions of dollars that are given out every year. And I think that that's where we can really move the needle. That would be great. We would love to have them involved. Any other questions or comments for? Yes ma'am. The homeless coalition's money is spoken for, that's HUD money, we can't just direct it in whatever comes out of this. That Julie Ann Avan, I'm with Mercy and also a member of Mock, Mock the continuum of care, those funds go straight into housing. So it wouldn't be something that we could just redirect. Right, I think what I'm speaking to is that there are many opportunities identified for better streamlining. The services that participate in the Mock and I think that the Mock should be a part of this conversation about collaboration and alignment because there is, as you all said yourself, a very competitive environment of homeless services. And we need to address that in order for us to really have a true continuum for people experiencing homelessness. Any other questions? Thank you. So I guess we will follow up with you on that and I look forward to hearing more about it. So with that, actually, is there anything from city staff or any, do y'all have any other comments? I don't, Dr. Bussells, I know that I try to always come prepared. I do have a few slides about the Rapid Shelter. If that's something you wanted to share with the task force, I feel like the task force has been so involved and I don't know that because things have moved so fast because they have had to move fast in order to launch by November one and we're still, there's still a lot of work to be done, but I didn't want to, I want to stay in my lane, but if you want the task force to kind of see a few intimate pictures of what's going on down there, I'm happy to show those if you have time. Would you guys like to see that? Yeah. Okay. One question, where is it going to be located? At the former IWC site. So that's not the first slide though. I think we're, Corey's getting us back up to speed here. So just for information's sake for the task force and your information on just the construction schedule, we've been, can you go to the very first slide? Oh, here we go. So very fluid, but the construction schedule, the construction schedule, we're moving along very steadily. I have to send lots of shouts out to several people in this room, Missy Kauffman, our Budget and Program Management Director, Chief Holbrook, Erica Hammond, our clerk, and I don't know that Kelvin Keesler, our General Services Director's in the room, but none of this would have happened to date as far as what you're about to see without him. So you know about the press conference on September 7th and right there after site clearing began, we've done engineering drawings because obviously grading and storm drainage has to be addressed as well as installation of new service lines and transformers from Dominion Energy have been installed. The site prep continues to date and then you'll see some additional things like sidewalk installation, artificial grass, fencing, leading up to the pallet shelters themselves actually hopefully arriving tentatively now on October 26th and at that point we'll be engaging our own internal forces and hopefully some volunteers with the anchoring and electrical connections for the shelters with the tentative still tentative opening of November the 1st. And then that'll take us to the next slide, Corey, which would show for some because I'm just not sure and I wanted to make sure that votes on the task force knew exactly what a pallet shelter looks like. And so it's a really good unit, 64 square feet. Most of them will be the shelter 64 that you see there and they include air conditioning, shelving, power outlets, fire extinguishers, heat, folding bed and an egress door with storage. And that was what really attracted us to the pallet shelter units because of how well equipped they are and safe they are. And again, I think I've said they've been deployed and there's about over 3,000 so far deployed over across the country with us being the first in the Southeast. There is a 100 square foot unit as well and we'll have just a few of those. Corey, you can go to the next slide, which again, just as the launch of the discussion of the launch of the press conference. And again, another view, hopefully of how the shelters will look when they're set up on site. So the site plan is the actual next slide and you can't see it too well, probably from your vantage point, but 40 of the shelters would be on the left side of the, in the middle there are the buildings that already make up the IWC as you have known it to be. And so the 40 on the left would be for men and then the 10 or thereabouts a little bit more on the right. And we're just, we're working through administrative guidelines and the question of couples and all that. And I really wanna thank Colonel Craig Currie with transitions who's given a lot of insight because obviously in their partnership through the United Way, they've already worked down at the IWC as far as the administration of that as it has been. So he brings a lot of knowledge and we're just tweaking several things and working towards our staffing model. These are just pictures on the next slide of the site clearing that began again on September 7th and 8th continued Currie all the way through September 12th and 13th. We're again, adding that new service, Dominion set transformers. There's been rough grading completed and gutter installation to date along with a storm drainage pipe has been started. So I only wanted to show this because I do want people to know that we take this extremely seriously when we are trying to work to provide as you all have. So rightfully noted, the need is there and we don't wanna just do something any kind of way. I mean, this has to be done right, it has to be safe, it has to be secure and there's a lot of real in the field work that has to go into it. So if you haven't heard me talk about it in depth, it's intentional. My approach is usually that we get the work done and then we're gonna roll it out at the right time in the right way with the right staff, with the right rules. And I just appreciate the patience and all of the compassion and concern that this group has shown in the work of Dr. Bussells and her colleagues to allow us to even attempt to do this. Thank you. Thank you so much for providing that update. I think that's, it's really exciting to see how we've hit the ground running. And of course, you know, you stay tuned as we get this off the ground. I believe there was someone who had a question, did you? Yes. Can you please come to the mic and say your name please for the record? Thank you. My name is Chris McGuire and I heard a lot of good conversation here today. But one thing I didn't hear is, what, do you all have anything in plan for people who are going to become homeless? Who are starting to feel the effects of what this is going to cause? That's a great question. So we had, at our last meeting, we actually had some of our great providers come in and talk about those services. So this task force is focused exclusively on addressing the chronically unsheltered because we identified that as a gap in services that there isn't necessarily an effort that's dedicated solely towards the chronically unsheltered. But as a part of the task force, we also cataloged, which is available on our website and I'm happy to point it to you, all of the organizations that do serve people, families that are just right on that cusp of about to become homeless. And so it was really important for us before we decided what we were gonna focus on to kind of get a lay of the land. And also, when you were talking about the clearing of the camps and stuff, when you go into there, are you, is sending an advocate for these people to have someone there to say, okay, this is where you can go. This is, you know, point them in a direction that they can go to instead of just going in there, clearing them out and just letting them wander off again into the street, you know what I'm saying? I mean, listen, I don't wanna be homeless, you know? And I feel like I'm about to be facing that within a few days, matter of fact, you know? I lost my job because I fed a homeless person my employee meal a month ago, so that I pay for. And I just don't think that, you know, that's right at all period, but I do feel like, you know, I was trying to do something out of the kindness of my heart for a 20-year-old kid who actually, he actually worked for it. He came in and he asked me, he said, can you feed me? I said, well, I can't feed you. I said, but I get an employee meal. I said, you can have my meal. I said, but I need you to go outside. And if you'll clean the parking lot, clean up around the back, I said, then I'll be more than happy to feed you. I'll defer to chief about the question regarding the encampments. Well, and I went, I guess, when they cleared out the one on Forest Drive the other day, me and my friend over here, we went by there and we didn't see anybody other than, you know, just, you know, just trying to direct the people where to go, where they can get services. You know what I'm saying? There's a lot of homeless people here in this town. I'm not from here. I'm from Florence. And I'm not used to some of these things. You know, I come from a pretty good family. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would become homeless. But I definitely feel like it may happen. And I don't know, I'm trying to prevent it as much as possible, but, you know, there's only so much I can do. You know, I'm trying to find work. Matter of fact, I just had a hit replacement as well. So, you know, it's just difficult right now. Well, I appreciate you being here today. And I will say that there are several providers in the audience that I think would be happy to connect you to services that exist. So, and I know they often hang out for a couple of minutes after this meeting. So please feel free to connect with them because I think they may be able to point you in the right direction. For the sake of time, I'm gonna let the next person, yes. And get with me after the meeting. I can direct you and I can also help you with a few job openings that I have just found about over this past week. Can I say one more thing? Also, I don't know if this task force actually would be in charge of it, but, you know what I'm saying? Maybe educate the employers that are in the town to be, you know what I'm saying? We have so many homeless people and I think they get a bad rap, you know what I'm saying? And a lot of the business owners are tired of it. They don't want the riffraff coming in in their business, disrupting things, but, you know, I was fired for doing what I did and I feel like I have felt like my employer has had an issue with the homeless community for, since I started there, over two and a half years ago. I was a third shift supervisor. So, you know, I just feel like maybe some education to the businesses out there wouldn't be a bad idea either to say, hey, you know, we're here to help and to love. We're not here to hate and put you down even further. You know what I'm saying? So, that's all. Thank you. Yes, last comment. Thank you very much, Dr. Bussles. My name is Tom Clements. I live in Earlwood and I just wanna add there's a little bit of a different perspective that you might be missing. I have volunteered at the IWC for seven years. I put in about 1,000 hours down there and I think I've been there more days than any staff person, not hour-wise. So, I've seen a lot. I think I know you, man. Do you know me? So, I'm concerned, you know, how the expanded services are gonna impact somebody like me. I'm very grateful that it's happening because the two things that volunteers, not volunteers, but clients coming in would say, why isn't this open all the time? We can't plan. It's 41 degrees tomorrow night and 40 tonight. What's the difference? And the wind is blowing. So, that is a great step forward. And the second thing is, and this is a perennial problem, there's no place to leave your stuff down there. I have seen people's stuff and all their papers get thrown out because they didn't wanna embody, you know, some kind of permanent type facility. And it would get tossed in the dumpster and sometimes I would dig through that dumpster to help them find their stuff. So, if there's any way to accommodate some place or somehow to take that into account because a lot of people, you know, they stash their stuff somewhere, stick it under a porch or fall asleep with it and it gets stolen. So, it would be good if there's something along with the facility for people to say, but I'm gonna be down there working a lot. So, I'm a little bit worried about some, a lot of the questions and I know you have a long list about the small homes and I will be observing it too. So, I just hope there's a mechanism, a good feedback mechanism for people who are on the ground observing things from the staff, people who are gonna be hired, but also from people like me. And I tend not to take a voice on this because that's up to transitions, but I'm gonna be impacted and I hope for everybody and the city and our community, it's in a positive way. So, thank you. Thank you and thank you for volunteering at the Inglumet Weather Center, we appreciate it. All right. Well, we are at 5.30, so we will go ahead and make a motion for adjournment. Oh, I'm sorry, one more comment. I didn't know if you were just standing or if you're waiting to speak. Hello, my name is Reggie. I have a group called Needful Things. I used to be homeless for six years here in Columbia. The only reason I'm not homeless is because I have an inheritance, but I provide informational services for the homeless and the needy. In Richmond, Lexington County, I've got about 160 resources right now. I'd like to know what your list is comprised of because I only have about 30 people that feed and not all of them are on a regular basis. Some of them are only once a month. Some one church in particular is only on a fifth Saturday. So I'd like to know where that is. Yeah, I'm happy to share that catalog of services. And I'd also like to know what $150 registration or whatever you want to call it fee covers the parks department when they were issuing permits. We're doing it for free. A lot of these organizations are living on donations completely just going to food markets to get food. They don't really have money to pay that. What is $150? What's costing $150 to register? I don't know what, why that amount? Jacqueline, you may be able to answer this, the way that I understand it, they're not paying to register, it's simply a deposit. When you look at the cost of cleaning up after feedings that we don't know about, it's much more than $150 when you factor in labor, materials and all of that. So it's simply a way to keep people accountable to make sure that they leave the place better than they found it. Well, there are identified locations where people are feeding. Are the cities applying adequate trash facilities there? No, not all of them, not all of them. I know that. I have a list for Richland County. These are all the resources I know of in this is Lexington County. I mean, if somebody had more that they can add to this, I'd be more than welcome to have that. I've also got a website with a lot more information on this. If there's something going on that I don't know about, then it's not really happening. When I first heard about the task force and I went to their location site, the website showing locations of different services, some of them didn't exist anymore. I don't know if that's been rectified or not, but, and then I went to a couple locations that were not doing what the website said that they were doing. So I'd like to know where you're getting your information from, you know, and every time you talk about the home as you talk about this number, there's 250 people that are homeless in Columbia when it's easily twice as many as that because there are some people that don't want to be identified. So you're not gonna come across those. The 250 is again, we're not talking about all homeless. This task force has been focused on a specific subpopulation of homeless. And that is around 250 people. We as the city cannot solve the entire problem of homelessness. We just cannot. Well, and the other question is, is there a law that says you have to be housed? There's not that I know of. If there's no law saying you have to be housed, why don't we, the city has got plenty of empty land that they can provide space for people that don't really want to be housed. I know two men in particular had decent paying jobs, benefits, everything to go along with it, but did not want to own a home. So I, you know, what's the deal with that? You know, why are people being harassed? And the sixth federal court district, they ruled unless you can provide viable shelter for people, then it is perfectly constitutional for people to sleep in public. And it does not include shelters like Oliver Gospel, which are faith-based. And it also excludes places like transitions that have strict regulations about being there. And we don't currently have any of those facilities. So we're not forcing anybody into shelters. So that's not a correct statement. We're providing some shelter for unsheltered people that may have been adverse to staying in transitions or a situation where they were, you know, bunked with others or they're around a lot of people. This is a sheltering philosophy that gives people kind of their own space. If someone doesn't want to go there, we're not taking them there against their will. It's just, it's an option for an identified part of a very vulnerable population. I'm not tracking on any criticism of what we're doing or what we're going about doing. Just, Finley Park, for example, it's a public space. Six federal court district ruled public spaces unless you can provide viable shelter. Like I said, it does not include anything we have here in Columbia when they are allowed to sleep in public. I respectfully don't agree with that. I look it up. And it's in the six federal court district, but it's always the versus I can't think of the other party. So I'm gonna allow y'all to continue this conversation offline, but I'm going to go ahead and, for the sake of time, we are now over. I'd like to go ahead and take a motion to adjourn. Motion, can I get a second? I'm motion to adjourn. Okay, a second. All right, all in favor? All in, all opposed. All right, thank you.