 difficulty getting this started. I think we are, I think things are working now. Maybe if the other panelists could turn the cameras on, just confirm, Raul. Thank you. Thank you everyone for joining us. Before starting this briefing, I want to take a moment to address the events of the last few days in Israel, the Gaza Strip. The attacks this past weekend by Hamas on Israel represent the most serious violence against Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East in 50 years. The intentional killing and kidnapping of innocent civilians are atrocities and have no justification and should have no place in the 21st century. I strongly support Israel's right to defend itself and the Biden administration's swift action to support Israel and attempt to ensure that the new violence that comes amidst the time of war in Europe does not spread further and have even greater impact on the region and for us all. I wish deep condolences to the people of Israel, to the thousands, I wish deep condolences to the thousands of families suffering from this tragic violence both in Israel and in the Gaza Strip. Thank you everyone for joining this briefing. This is one of several presentations that we are going to be making today to attempt to speak to the concerns and questions that I know are on the minds of many Brawontonians. Those questions include, you know, what's going on right now? Why do we see so many homeless people and public indications of drug use and drug trafficking and what is the city doing about these issues? From my perspective, the causes of these challenges that we're facing are and have been fairly clear for some time and in response the city is working extremely hard in many ways to address these causes. At tonight's city council meeting we will be focused on public safety, on drug trafficking enforcement, and on the response to overdoses in the community. This presentation is going to focus on our response to unsheltered homelessness which has been substantial and has expanded dramatically over the last several years and even over the course of 2023. These three big challenges, expanded homelessness, the deepening and evolving, worsening drug crisis, a shortage of police versus what we have seen in the past in this community. These challenges are related and they have been big changes from just a few years ago and the city's response to each of these challenges needs to be substantial as well and we have been rolling out new initiatives and efforts in each of these areas and we're going to continue to do so in the months ahead. Let me now focus in on homelessness. The first thing that is critical to remember and that frankly is often lost in discussions of homelessness is that homelessness is first and foremost a housing problem. We have gotten to this moment of crisis through decades of flawed land use policy and mistakes and as a result we simply don't have nearly enough homes for the need right now. We Burlington it for a decade now has been doing everything we can to reverse these trends and we are succeeding at those efforts. Right now there are just there are 990 homes that are either built or have recently been completed. There are comparable there are similar efforts going on in the rest of Chittenden County and to some degree across the state. These efforts to increase the housing supply which is the only way we will truly address this issue fully is happening but increasing supply takes time. What we are going to be focused on today is about sheltering about creating new shelter and expanding services that these are efforts that are critical until we can get to the amount of housing supply that we need and to help us with this conversation we have several guests who I am now going to turn the presentation over to. First of all we are going to hear from Sarah Russell who is our special assistant to end homelessness. This is a position that I created at the beginning or at the end of 2021 because we saw this wave of homelessness coming and we knew the city needed to move into an area where it didn't have a lot of staff capacity, did not have a lot of authority or experience. Sarah joined us in early 2022 and we are very fortunate to have had her leading this effort for the last year and a half now and she will be speaking to one of the coordinated entry effort which is one of the main tools we have to respond to this high level of homelessness. We are going to hear from Paula Dragon, the Executive Director of CBOYO who we recently had an event with Paul out at the newly expanded Community Resource Center and he is going to speak to how the early days in that expanded facility are going. I believe he is also going to give us an update on a new responsibility that CBOYO has just taken on which is the management of the former Champlain in which has been a shelter now for some time but under CBOYO's management is taking on a new form. Sarah will also speak to and I'll speak to an effort that we just announced at the end of last week which is the opening of a new winter warming shelter. This is a new winter warming shelter but I do want to just stay from the start. This is something that Burlingtonians have experience with. We have had winter warming shelters every year since 2014. They have an important part of how we get through the cold Burma winter. They help with disorder in the downtown. They save lives and I'm relieved that we are going to have the state's help in opening such a shelter again and we have Miranda Gray here with us who has been a key partner in this effort from the Agency of Human Services and welcome Miranda. Thank you for being here and finally we are joined today by Michelle Kaver who has had a number of roles at the local VFW post and VFW is serving as a key partner for this year's winter warming shelters. We will be using their site for this temporary shelter in the time between now and when the redevelopment of that site is planned to take place next spring. So with that I think we can share the PowerPoint and I'll hand over the presentation to you Sarah. Thank you. Sarah I think you need to unmute yourself. Thank you Mayor. We're going to the first slide here that talks about a recent increase in un-sheltered homelessness. The city continues to see large numbers of people who are living in shelters and when we say un-sheltered this means intense parking garages, vehicles and cases that are not meant for human habitation. I feel we're to coordinate the staff from various outreach teams who work throughout Chippin County and last summer they reported engaging about 80 people living un-sheltered. This number was really high compared to previous years when we were seeing about 40 or so people un-sheltered throughout the county. This summer has highest plain 227 people reported living outside across the county but primarily focused in the downtown area of Bloomington. We see this as a direct result of the motel exits on the first where we know 170 households were exited from those hotels. As of July 2nd, 256 households were eligible to stay in the program and those are known as the June cohort. In addition to the brand people who are un-sheltered, these same outreach teams have worked tirelessly to engage all households remaining in the June cohort motel program in enrolling in coordinated entry. They enrolled nearly 70 new households in towards seven less than 60 days and they were working to be connected to housing managers at this time. I'm going to talk a little bit about the coordinated entry system for those who are unaware. Coordinated entry is a head mandated system that ensures a no wrong-door approach for people who are experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity. This system enables equity and access to housing resources and allows our community to understand using data the types of housing support systems and programs that are required to ensure homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring. Coordinated entry ensures that each household receives some level or the same level, excuse me, services and support services and intervention. They also have access to housing resources and moves through our system as seamlessly and consistently as possible. All households that are enrolled in coordinated entry are based on a master list and matched with units and services to ensure that they access the benefits of homelessness quickly as possible. This list is reviewed on a weekly basis by direct service providers in Chippin, Anaheim. In the next slide, sometimes we talk about homelessness and we neglect to recognize the success that we see. So far this year our coordinated entry system supported 126 households with exiting homelessness into permanent affordable housing accompanied by support services when necessary. Because we track this data, we know that our system can house an average of 35 households per month. As we see the development of affordable housing with homeless dedicated units typically, we also see more and more people moving into housing. So currently, we have 66 households that have been referred to housing development and homeless dedicated units. Nine additional households have been referred to bathroom housing and permanent supportive housing. That's okay. I don't know. Can everybody hear me okay now? That's actually much better, Sarah. Thank you. Apologies. I didn't realize. So this next slide we're going to ask Paul to give us an update on CVOEO's operation of the Champlain Inn. So thanks, Sarah. Thanks, Mayor. And I really, we really appreciate the city's support for the new, with the warming shelter and for all the work that's being done. So thank you. The Champlain Inn, we took on the operations of the Champlain Inn last week. So on October 2nd, there are currently 22 guests there. The facility needs significant health and safety and repair. So we're not displacing any of the current guests. We'll be kind of working around them as we do the needed repair. We expect to host up to 35 to 40 guests at the Champlain Inn once we can get the additional rooms online. The new model will be different than the previous one. Guests, it will be open 24-7, staff 24-7. So guests can stay throughout the day and the night. They can stay as long as they want. There's no time limit to their stay. The only expectation is that they continue to work on their housing plan and all those things that will lead them to successful transitional permanent housing. There'll be a lot of coordination of services on site. We are also providing two hot meals each day for the guests that are staying there. So again, there's no more lining up leaving during the daytime and lining back up at night. Guests can stay throughout the day and there'll be plenty of housing advocates on site to continue to work with them. We don't have a timeline. The renovations are actually starting. We don't have a timeline for the full completion of the renovations yet though. More to come on that. There are 22 guests there now and again. We expect to go up to 35 to 40. Thanks, Paul. I wanted to also note in addition on this slide that we have seen some expansion of shelter capacity, such as the recently opened Elmwood Community Shelter and expanded capacity at CVOEO's Community Resource Center. The need outpaces both development of shelter and housing options. As you heard from Paul, the CRC can see as many as 180 people each day. In the last month they also saw 136 new people visit the CRC and of those 44 reported sleeping outside or in a car. So due to the significant number of people living and sheltered right now, the lack of a formal emergency warming shelter within the city is the reason why we intend to open a winter overnight shelter to ensure prevention of exposure deaths during the coldest month of the year. So for the last nine years, as you heard, various nonprofit partners have operated a seasonal warming shelter to ensure people without shelter could sleep inside as we see the temperatures drop. Recognizing our community partners are spread so thin right now, the city will take lead on opening the winter warming shelter this year. As noted in this slide, the shelters save lives, provide a stable and safe place to stay and provide connection with services. With funding from the agency of human services, this shelter will operate from December 15th through March 15th and will be managed by CEDO utilizing a temporary staffing agency and security company. To ensure we do not place barriers to access, the shelter will be staffed to support adults with substance use disorder and mental health and behavioral health concerns. Evening meals will be provided by feeding chitin and based on the need we anticipate offering about 20 program beds and 10 nightly beds. Thank you for that summary, Sarah. Rhonda, would you like to just speak to this point about this new initiative that the state is providing a critical funding for? Yes, thank you, Mayor. Just a few quick remarks. The agency of human services, specifically our office of economic opportunity in our field services division, can work closely with the city on establishing the BFW low barrier seasonal shelter this year. This project is just one example of the many ways that we collaborate through funding, training, technical assistance and coordination. We appreciate the partnership to determine what would work best in your community. The Department for Children and Families is committed to continuing to work with communities around Vermont to expand our shelter system. And sheltered homelessness is not something any municipality or the state or community partner can solve alone. It is only when we work together to collaborate on community-based client-centered approaches that will make significant progress addressing the most significant challenges we are now facing. Burlington came forward with an ambitious but yet realistic proposal and we continue to accept these types of creative ideas from communities across Vermont. Thank you. Thank you, Miranda. The city certainly appreciates the partnership on this project as well as with the Elmwood Avenue Shelter and the Champlain Inn and none of these cases would have been possible to move forward without partnership with the state. And even as we continue to, as we are going to need to advocate for further rations by the state, we are very appreciative for what the state has done. With that, I think, Sarah, do you have anything else more to say about the Wormick Shelter? I don't have anything else to say. I would like to invite Michelle from the VFW as this is an expanded partnership we partnered with the VFW or CBOEO did to open the Community Resource Center before it was located at Feeding Chittenden and we're excited to work again with Michelle and the VFW for this winter warming shelter. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity to say a few things. Paul, good to see you again. And on behalf of Howard Plant, VFW Post-782, I would like for the folks to truly understand that it is our partnership with the city means a lot to us. This allows us to expand the resources needed to address ongoing housing shortages as it relates to the unhoused and it aligns with the Veterans of Foreign Wars values and it's certainly reflective of veterans who have served their country and in this case we are able to serve our city where we've experienced 100 years of partnership in some way with burlatonians and so this feels good that before we take a bit of a hiatus from the public view that we end in this way and then return after the redevelopment construction is finished that we find other ways to continue to partner with the city to address unmet needs. Thank you Michelle for framing it that way. Thank you for all that you've done in your leadership roles at the VFW throughout your time in leadership. You've really worked to make good on that idea that the city and the VFW should be partners and I agree that this is another really important example of that and I am looking forward to the redevelopment project starting in the spring and what will flow from that in over the next couple of years. That'll be the subject of a future briefing however. I do have some final thoughts before we take questions about what we've been talking about in this presentation so far. Low barrier shelters and homeless dedicated units. I want to emphasize one of the things that Sarah mentioned I think I mentioned it once already too. This having a winter warming shelter is not new for this community. It was new back in 2014 when I advocated for it back then. We had many years of debate about whether we should have a winter warming shelter in those years. There were exposure deaths and there was a long process. There was concern whether we should have a facility like this. From my perspective that debate should be over. We operated this type of shelter successfully from 2014 until the start of the pandemic. For most of that time the winter warming shelter was in almost the very same spot that we're talking about right now. It's directly across the street on a lower level of the building that currently has the training point center in it. That is where our winter warming shelter was. It was operated in a manner that was very consistent with what we're talking about operating what we are going to do this winter. During those years the there were very few complaints from the neighborhood about the operations at the site. The business community, the downtown community was supportive of having such a facility and I think it was clear that such a facility improved conditions in the downtown. That is what we are attempting to do here again. We are attempting to prevent exposure deaths. We are attempting to expand services and we are attempting to have another support for that will help us. Another support that ensures a successful vibrant downtown. I know we are in a different moment right now and that there are new concerns about such facilities and I know that those I don't want to be dismissive of those concerns. We have experienced some challenges around other shelters and we have it is the city's responsibility to move to address those concerns if there are events around the shelters. There are problems around the shelters and that is what we have been doing and will continue to do. What I believe is really driving this problem however, what is driving the concerns that people have about the downtown and about what is going on concerns about drugs is not the existence of the shelters is that the shelter system, the treatment system that we have currently is overwhelmed by the current need and is not meeting the current need and when that need is not being met, the disorder that that causes is spilling out onto our streets. This is a facility that should help with that not further worsen it. Yeah I want to be clear though, this facility alone will not be sufficient. There are something like 270 total unsheltered people in Chittenden County and this we're talking about a 30 bed facility here. Clearly we will need the state to continue to make interventions to continue the hotel program through next spring as planned and to expand again for the winter time adverse weather conditions program so that we can make it through this winter. Without that I think we're going to have serious problems. In parallel we also need to return to the time when the drug crisis is understood as our top public health issue. It needs to be understood as a public health issue that also impacts public safety. For months I have been calling for a return to this as our top priority. It was our top priority for many years from 2014 when Governor Shumlin called us out, promoting his entire state of the state address to this. From then until the start of the pandemic this was the top focus and there was an enormous amount of coordinated efforts from all the stakeholders involved in the drug crisis to turn it around and we were seeing real gains in 2018 and 2019, especially here in Chittenden County but statewide as well. Those gains have all been overwhelmed and reversed by the arrival of fentanyl and meth in our drug treatment system needs to change dramatically and be expanded dramatically to meet this new challenge. We're speaking more about that tonight but I didn't I think we have to have that all in mind as we have as we discuss these issues because these issues are interrelated so with that we'd be happy to take some questions from the authority. And again it's been a little while since we've done one of these online briefings. If members of the media would like to ask a question please use the raise hand function and we will then enable your microphone so you can ask your question. Hi Mayor Weinberger this is Lauren with NBC5. I was wondering ahead of tonight's meeting with the board about 184 Church Street and finalizing the plans there. How you think shutting down that building and all the problems that it's attracted throughout the years will help with getting more people off the streets this winter? Thanks Lauren. So I think that what the city has done at 184 Church Street should be seen as another example of a city working on many fronts using all the tools that we have to address the challenges that we face right now. That building 184 Church Street has been a problematic building for a long time. It has been particularly problematic in 2022 and especially 2023 when we saw the incidents related to that building expand dramatically. I received a great number of complaints about that building in the spring and over the course of the summer the city took steps to set up the action that we're taking now where we were able to secure a very strong settlement agreement with the property owner to shut the building down, renovate it and either put it in either either bring it up to appropriate standards quickly and manage it much much better or lose the right to do that to some type of receiver. We finalized the agreement. We had a conceptual agreement right before the public hearing with the housing board review. Since then the agreement has been detailed and finalized. It was finalized last week and I think that property is now headed in the right direction. One of two things is going to happen. Either the current property owners are going to turn that around, make substantial investments and operate it as a much more successful building. There's no excuse not to. No other building in the city has the level of problems that we've seen there. You know that's going to happen and happen quickly or we're going to bring in other parties that have the ability to do that. This is a valuable downtown site. We need all the housing we can get in the downtown as I was speaking to earlier and want to see this site, this building returned to housing use as soon as possible. Lauren, do you have any follow-up on that or did that address your question? I'm all set with that. I also just wanted to ask your opening remarks about the war in Israel. I wanted to know if you had any other comments to make as a member of the Jewish community in Burlington. Thanks, Lauren. I made my statement as the mayor of this community as someone was great concerned about what was happening there. I have spoken out on it at international events previously and feel that this is an important time to do so here. We are really in a concerning moment for the world, for the stability that we've enjoyed since World War II. I think while typically I think mayors need to be focused on local events. We're at a time now where these international events have the possibility of dramatically impacting life here in Burlington. That's why I've spoken out in the manner that I have. Thank you. So I think Catherine Huntley had the next hand up and then we'll go to Courtney Landon after that. So go ahead Catherine. Hey, can you hear me? I can, yes. So you spoke about how the VFW will hopefully solve some of the issues that we're seeing downtown on house people. But there are some other issues, namely businesses leaving Church Street or downsizing from Church Street or other businesses that are hinting that they might be wanting to leave. Exactly how concerned are you that businesses are leaving our downtown? Thanks Catherine. I'm definitely concerned about it. Every time there's any kind of closure or change that definitely gets my attention, it's something that we discuss here within city leadership and we try to address as best we can. And sometimes we have the opportunity to work with property owners, businesses ahead of time. And when we can, we are as helpful as we can be in helping them deal with their challenges. And sometimes as was the case here, we don't get any advance notice, but then we work quickly to see that whole in the downtown filled as quickly as possible. An example of that recently, we recently lost the retailer Monal. My understanding is already is a retailer committed to come in and fill that space. And I think that that is an important thing for us to not lose sight of as we see there being some restructuring some changes in the downtown. It is true we have seen some departures and I'm concerned that we may well have more in the months ahead. At the same time, what we should give us, there are a number of things that should give us hope and confidence that we have a path through this challenging time. We look at cell phone data and we know that there has been a high level of visitors here. Again, this year, the activity in the downtown is comparable to what it was before the pandemic. Our gross receipts revenues have remained strong. I think maybe the most promising thing is that yes, it is true we have seen some departures at the same time. We are seeing a lot of exciting new additions to the downtown. Whether that is in the kind of restaurant entertainment area, we have seen in recent weeks, Santiago is open, a new unique bar retailer on main street with J-skis to the addition of the first new market we have seen in the downtown. In years, we were very close to the opening of the new downtown location for almost fall at the former site of Doberty, where the property owner there has made a great deal of recent investment. They make the headlines, but Northfield Savings Bank has made a major new investment on Church Street. If you haven't been in there yet, go check out the downtown headquarters they now have right on Church Street in their investment that they are making in the downtown. They were really clear about it. They are making a bet on Burlington's future. There are a lot of other people making that bet as well. Certainly the city place owners are making that bet with tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars of private investment there. We have their active investment efforts afoot new housing over on Hungerford Terrace, new housing down on South Champlain Street, a proposal for a redevelopment of the YMCA that has been fully permitted and is on the cusp of moving forward for hundreds, more than a hundred new homes there. Backing up all of that private investment, reinforcing it, strengthening it, is unprecedented levels of public investment that has been made in recent years. If you look at what we did in City Hall Park, what we did on Lower St. Paul Street, we're going to expand that dramatically. We're set up to expand that dramatically in just the years ahead. We have this $30 million Main Street renovation that is about to break ground and $50 million of additional infrastructure improvements that will help with economic development and quality of life on Bank Street and Cherry Street and two new streets through the development. Are we having some challenges like every American City right now? We absolutely are. Am I concerned about them? Yes. Do I also believe that people who continue to make a bet on Burlington and Burlington's future are going to win greatly on that bet? I believe that as well. I think that's what you're going to see in the months and years ahead. Courtney? Thanks so much. Just a follow-up on the 184 Church Street, the settlement that you've been referring to, will that be publicly available after the meeting or at some point? You know, Courtney, I'm not sure I know the answer to that. I would think the answer to that should be yes. I believe that it will be as an action of the board. I can follow up on that with you, Courtney, later today. Okay, great. One other question for the mayor. The council will also be discussing a pretty lengthy resolution tonight about public safety. Do you support it as written? Do you anticipate there will be any debates over amendments to it? What do you expect for the discussion on that to be tonight? Thanks, Courtney. I do support the resolution. I think I see the resolution as being very consistent again with what I've been saying for months, which is that we need to understand the drug crisis as our top public health crisis again, and we need to understand how it is impacting public safety in concerning ways as well. I think this is the council making full throated and detailed commitment to that call. I also appreciate that the resolution calls on other levels of government to give their part to help us address these issues. The city of Burlington, as was stated by our state partner earlier, the city of Burlington cannot solve these issues alone. We need actions from the prosecutors, from the courts, from state government, from federal government. These are issues that go beyond Burlington's ability to even Burlington, the biggest city in the state by far. We are making major efforts in these areas. I don't believe they can be fully successful without comparable partnership and efforts from these other government actors, and that's what the resolution calls for as well. I welcome that part of it. As far as whether it's going to be amendments, I really don't know how this is going to play out tonight. I am optimistic that there will be strong passage of the resolution. Again, another thing that I do know will take place tonight is there will be a detailed presentation given by the Burlington Police Department about the ongoing efforts the Police Department makes to enforce our criminal drug laws, drug trafficking, and there will also be a presentation that is in some sense related from the Burlington Fire Department about a new initiative that will be started in a matter of weeks here to address the level of overdoses we're seeing. I think tonight is going to be both a time for an important statement by the council as well as actually concrete action that is a good demonstration of how the city is continuing to innovate, continuing to work hard, continuing to bring forward new ideas to address these very challenging circumstances we are seeing right now. Okay, thank you. Great. I am not seeing any further hands, and if that does not change in the next few seconds here, I think we will adjourn and let I want to thank my guests all for being here again. I guess I would, does anyone want to add anything based on the discussion? If anyone else wanted to say anything before we sign off, you're welcome to, but you don't have to. So I've seen shaking heads. So thank you again, Michelle, Paul, Miranda, Sarah for joining this briefing. Thank you all for tuning in and we'll continue this discussion later today.