 I'm Michael Crane. Thank you for joining us for this special episode of Fort Worth Forward. We're here at Ridgely Theater on Camp Booth Boulevard to have a conversation about homelessness. Homelessness is an issue that's facing every single major urban environment across the country and I think we're doing some great things here in Fort Worth. So let's go. Good evening. Good evening everyone. How are you tonight? I want to thank you for being here tonight for this public conversation between Councilman Crane District 3, Camp Booth District and all of our service providers in the city of Fort Worth and Tarrant County. It's an honor for me to be here this evening representing Camp Booth District and I want to tell you just a brief synopsis of where we are tonight with this issue. So we are a six mile corridor. We cover 325 commercial properties and we are the advocate for those property owners and businesses that occupy. We are faced with some of the same concerns that you're faced with every day. We are working right now with private security and police to foster a program and cultivate some data to be able to have a true assessment of what the issue is and how to better deal with it. It is not an overnight solution and it is a team effort and it does take a village. So I want to ask you tonight to A, listen, B, ask questions and C, be respectful. All of us are trying to work for a better community and we're all trying to foster a better society for our future generations and the generations to come for Fort Worth. Tonight you're going to hear from several esteemed subject matter experts who are going to talk about their work within the community, not just on this side of town but all over Tarrant County. You're also going to hear from Councilman Michael Crane as he answers questions and talks about some of the work here in District 3. But first, before we move any further, I'd like to introduce our mayor, Maddie Parker. She means a lot to me as she services and lives in this area and it is very true to her. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce Maddie Parker. How is everybody? Good. Thank you, first of all, for such an amazing turnout for a public meeting. In all candor, sometimes you'll go to a public meeting and it's five people and we still show up as a city of Fort Worth. You've got a variety of different members from different departments from the city and also community partners, nonprofits to make tonight's meeting meaningful. You'll hear from experts today, but also please take the time to visit with folks that are in the back of the room and thank them for taking their evening here on a Monday. So this is home for me. My husband and I and our children live in Ridgley North. We actually walk past here often to go to dinner or go shopping in this area. And so many of you that live in this part of the community or if you live across Fort Worth, homelessness is something that's on the forefront of our minds every single day. And you have seen an uptick, especially during COVID and after COVID. But what you'll hear about tonight are the efforts the city of Fort Worth is taking on to really lead to be different and as a large growing city. Fort Worth is the fastest growing city in the entire country. And with that comes an immense amount of responsibility. And like most large cities in the country, homelessness is probably one of the top issues we grapple with every single day. But to give you context on why we're here tonight, there's a way to do this that really puts human dignity at the forefront, but also understands that you need the right kind of wraparound services to serve people that are in crisis because to be honest, if someone is homeless, they are in crisis. Oftentimes they have many co-occurring issues, substance abuse, drug abuse, mental health. I could go on. So that's number one for me is remembering that there's a human being at the center of this that we're trying to help. Number two is to preserve neighborhoods. Each of you are sitting here because you're concerned. You wouldn't have taken time on a Monday evening, 110 degree heat if you weren't. And so that's why I think tonight's set up. Congratulations to Michael Crane and his entire Tafts are putting this on. Because I think that the conversation you'll hear from today will both be informative and something you'll come back with and feel uplifted in a lot of different ways. You won't have all your questions answered and by no means is the city perfect. We're learning together and we can't do this alone just as a city, as a community. There's a few things we've done right that I think are notable. The first would be investment in affordable housing and housing for homeless. $26 million in this last cycle focused on this issue, partnering with our nonprofit partners. And number two, what does affordable housing look like in the fastest growing city in the country to prevent homelessness in general? Last summer, you may have heard us talk about the crisis we had with children and family homelessness in our community. And it was impactful to me. I've seen it firsthand. But when I visited Salvation Army, and I saw a mom trying to put a baby down for a nap at two o'clock in the afternoon in the middle of a homeless shelter, it'll break your heart, right? First of all, I couldn't get my little one down at two without a sound machine and all the perfect environment. And here was this sweet mom trying to make the best for she and her son. So in Fort Worth, we can be better and learn together. So last thing I'll just say is thank you for making Fort Worth such a great place to live and work and play. We're incredibly blessed. I get to travel on behalf of the city of Fort Worth across this country and visit with other mayors. And I joked last week at another event that I go back to DfE Airport and practically clipped a kiss the American Airlines plane I'm on, because our city is different. And while we have our fair share of problems, and we are imperfect, the way you solve these things is really working together as a community and we're really blessed to have community members that take this much time out of your day to talk about some of these toughest issues. I think Michael, Councilmember Crane is also going to introduce this topic. And many of you are from across the city of Fort Worth. But I have to at least acknowledge the Camp Buoy district and Lydia and her board and team for really helping put this forward tonight. And obviously the city staff that made this possible. Councilmember Crane and I had a conversation about a month ago, and some concerns I'd have from neighbors and friends that live in this community that see it firsthand as business owners, and as homeowners, and that wanted to hear this conversation here in District 3. So thanks to Michael Crane, thanks to Michael Crane and his team for really putting this forward and taking it head on. These are hard issues, and he didn't have to do this. And he decided it was important enough to really host it citywide. So many of you may be from across the city of Fort Worth and for that we're incredibly grateful. I'll stop talking. I'm going to turn it over. I think back to Lydia who's going to introduce Michael. Michael didn't want me to introduce him for some reason. I don't know why. Smart man, just joking. Lydia, come on out. Thank you all very much for being here. All right. So I just want to go over a few house rules tonight. First of all, it is warm in here. There is water on the third level of the auditorium. So please help yourself to that. The second thing in just a minute, we're going to have our speakers come out and the program is going to be moderated by Councilman Crane. At that time, he's going to allow each of our speakers to talk a little bit about the services they provide and what they're doing to deal with some of these concerns here and issues that we're facing in our community. When you came in, you should have signed in, I hope, and grabbed an index card. That is how we are taking questions tonight to be respectful in the interest of time so that we're able to not repeat the same question over and over but get to as many questions on as many different subject matters as possible. So if you did not get an index card, we will have somebody bring those around in just a few minutes and we ask and urge you to write your questions. We're not going to just open the mic up and take questions. We're going to take the questions and deliver them up here to the participants. So that's the first thing. The next thing I get to do tonight is introduce my friend, Councilman Michael Crane. I want to really applaud his effort for pulling this together, pulling me into this and saying, let's do this because we are here to really make sure that we're building a better community. So I'm not going to say much more than that. Without anything else, here's Councilman Michael Crane. Thanks. Thank you. Can you, thanks y'all. Can you hear me? Hey, welcome tonight. Thanks for spending the time to come out here. I want to thank Lydia in the Camp Booty District for what is really a culmination of months and months and maybe years of us having conversations about this but saying we got to pull the community together and pull the non-profits together in all the parts of the government and everybody else that are looking at this issue and what are we going to do to help resolve it and maybe solve it? I'll tell you right now we're not going to solve it tonight. This is a crisis that's been happening for a long period of time but it really was after many conversations with the Camp Booty District and the board members and other folks and the community members that I know that said we don't want to turn into the next San Francisco or Austin or all these other cities that we see where there's a homeless population that is rampant. So what are we doing to really be humane about it but at the same time make sure that we are doing what we can to keep the city clean and safe as we've said it is. So that's really the impetus for tonight and I'm looking forward to the conversation I'm having and I'll tell you this I have a couple of non-profits on this this stage. There could be a myriad of non-profits up here doing it because there are a lot of people here and friends here doing great work but I chose to that we have that we're really that can be representative of the network that's out there together and I know there are some questions and things that we'll ask as part of that but I'm cognizant of that that there are lots of people playing lots of roles here and so again thank you and now I welcome panel we'll just get started I've got forward police representing the forward police department chief Aldridge is here y'all let's come on out give a hand too as we're going. Lauren King with the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition Tara Perez the Directions Home Program the Fort Worth Fire Department Chief Davis is here and Debbie Rabila with the Presbyterian night shelter thank y'all I also would be remiss if I didn't point out we've got Fernando Costa I know here from the city I've got my colleagues Carlos Flores and Charles Lowrysdorf that are here on the council my wife is here thank you for being here tonight when we first met my wife and I I know Bruce Frankl's here somewhere she was getting up on Saturdays and going to wash clothes at the homeless shelter at the DRC so this is how long this 23 years that she's put up with me or 25 that she's put up with me that this has been an issue that I've at least it's been on my radar thinking about how do we do what how do we service them from the basic just getting their watt their clothes washed to then getting a job and having a place to go so with that I'll start this I one of the big things I wanted to do as we had this discussion was talk about myths myths of homeless myths of who who are homeless what they are and so I want to from y'all's perspective we'll start with you chief allridge let's bust some myths to start off with sure before I get started can everybody hear me yeah okay so I would like to acknowledge the MPOs sergeants commander ricks the hope team that's in the back they're the ones that are out there doing this work um yes please I'll be the first one to say if you do not know your MPO get to know your MPO they are one of the greatest resources we have in the city to help solve some of the problems that are going on so I'll cover a couple of myths whenever it comes to homeless you know the myth is all panhandlers are homeless well that's incorrect not all panhandlers are homeless and not all homeless are panhandlers you know we we can say that time and time again we have seen people that have gotten out of vehicles going to high profit intersections where they can go they can make a little bit of money get back in their cars and take off I want that myth kind of dispelled because everybody sees the panhandlers out there and go oh my god we got this epidemic of homeless people well it's it's not that we are a very giving city we're very fortunate the citizens are phenomenal but unfortunately I don't think they understand the risk associated with just giving somebody money out of their car at an intersection there are much better organizations you met some of them in the back whenever you got here those are a much more worthy cause than to put yourself in a precarious situation giving money to homeless one of the other things is that homeless individuals commit most violent crime that's absolutely false now it's not a hardcore rule that they don't commit any violent crime but there is a very small majority of the homeless individuals that commit violent crime they are looking to get very portable items that they you know to steal items from your yard from your side of your house from your vehicle they're looking for things that they can offload pretty quickly they're not looking to hurt people in fact you know if you if you get in front of somebody more times than not they don't even want to be around you I can tell you I've had time and time again driving through the city whenever I've not been at work you roll down the window you tell them to get out of here get away from you I'm going to call the police they walk off those are a couple of myths there's quite a few more whenever it comes to the homeless but in respect to everybody's time I want to give everybody else an opportunity Lauren so I'll go off your panhandling and also introduce yourself too as far as organization yet I'm Lauren King I am with I'm executive director for Tarrant County Homeless Coalition so the coalition actually works with all of the partner agencies hopefully that you know and love many of them in the back and so we make sure we have a coordinated response as a community so all of our shelters work together all of our outreach teams work together all of our housing programs work together and we are all moving toward a vision of a vibrant community where everyone has a place to call home you don't have to find what that looks like how they get there but we want everyone to have a place to call home and we want it to be a vibrant community for everyone including people experiencing homelessness and all of you all as well I was born and raised in Fort Worth I have a diploma for the city so we are there and that's what we do so one of the myths I'll build off the panhandling myth but kind of I think the stereotype really exacerbates this is that people are homeless for a long time in our community in fact they are not about 12 to 15 percent of the homeless population has experienced homelessness for more than a year the majority of the population is homeless for less than six months I talked about our partnerships and how much we work with nonprofits they are all very very committed to getting people out of homelessness as quickly as possible they often ask the question how can I end your homelessness tonight our goal is not to keep people in shelter our goal is not to keep people on the street our goal is to give people a place to call home so just know that that I know sometimes when you think about homelessness that stereotype comes in your head of a person who's been homeless for a long period of time that is not the majority of people who experience homelessness in our community so keep that in mind that about 85 to 90 percent of people experience homelessness for less than a year the other one is how you can help so also talked about giving things out handing things out we are a very giving city and so the best way to help people is by giving them stuff that is not the case I would encourage you to help our nonprofits we have a lot of systems in place to help people and if we can get in touch and make sure that an outreach team is seeing them a shelter is seeing them we want to move them into a place to call home and so we can do that just by serving them I will say if you feel passionately about food or clothing we have lots of people who are in housing and who are being cared for by our agencies that would love to have that fellowship and would love to have that experience with you so if you want to give I would encourage you to please give to our nonprofits that are existing in our city they are wonderful they do amazing things and figure out a way that you want to use your gifts to get back great Sarah okay I think one of the myths is there's plenty of housing and if someone's homeless it's because they don't want that housing I just want to share three numbers with you the first number is 32,000 that's how many affordable housing units that the city of Fort Worth is short 32,000 the second number is 78 percent 78 percent of landlords in Fort Worth don't accept rental assistance the third number is 350 350 is the number of homeless households that have rental assistance right now that are trying to find a place to stay great what in your organization tell me a little bit about what you do I'm with the city of Fort Worth in the homeless unit okay good evening councilman we're Jim Davis I'm the fire chief I'm very privileged to be the fire chief here for the last five years and I I think the first myth there's two that I'd like to get out tonight one is that the fire department just goes to fires everybody thinks of them everybody thinks of the Fort Worth fire department as being hey your fire department and that's true but the Fort Worth fire department is so much more than that almost 75 to 80 percent of the work that we do is in support of things that create an environment where somebody needs medical assistance be it injuries from an auto accident or a fall be it homelessness on different areas of our town there's a lot of stuff that the Fort Worth fire department all 978 members are trained to the basic emergency medical technician level and or the advanced level of being a paramedic work in conjunction every day with every partner agency that you spoke about including the Fort Worth police and MedStar and they are good partners in the community so I want to get that out first but secondly I think the biggest myth is that any one agency can do this alone and any one agency can solve this problem and it's not my problem to work on or solve because I just I'm the fire chief and I just go to fires the fact of the matter is we it's a community problem and a community problem requires a community solution and that is why the Fort Worth fire department is sitting up here tonight I'm here to thank everybody that we have a chance to work with because one of the things that happens is we are the safety nut of the entire healthcare system and I say that very confidently and not to offend anybody else in the healthcare environment but at any moment any given notice any one of you can take your cell phone out and call 911 and have the confidence that within 10 minutes somebody is going to be standing here offering to help you and if folks see somebody on the sidewalk see somebody in what they feel is in a 100 plus degree temperatures and not doing well on the street they make those calls Fort Worth firefighters police officers med star we all arrive together and try to solve that that problem those solutions require more than just let's get you in the back of an ambulance and transport you to the local emergency department because all that's doing is just moving the problem off of the street into another environment and so we are dedicated is the Fort Worth fire department with the support of city leadership to try to make a difference in the discussion on a day in and day out basis and that's why we're doing some of the things we're doing that's why I'm excited to be here tonight with you and my myth is community problems take community solutions we can't do it alone great so I'm Debbie Rambelay I'm with Presbyterian night shelter Presbyterian night shelter has been around for 39 years we're the largest provider of homeless services in Tarrant County so we see about 80 to 90 percent of the folks who are homeless in a given year in Fort Worth will come through our doors whether it's through our day shelter or one of our overnight shelters but more than that we we believe that getting out of homelessness takes three things one is shelter the second is income and the third is housing and so for for us we have done shelter very well for a long time the the second is income in 2016 we started doing some we started a social enterprise that today sends out 175 full-time employees that were homeless or formerly homeless that are benefited they have the exact same benefits I do they are an employee of Presbyterian night shelter the third is housing and as Tara talked about we are more than 32,000 units short an affordable housing in the city of Fort Worth and so we have part of our mission is to build housing for individuals that have been homeless that's great thank y'all for being here to have this conversation one of the things I'll start here with you Chief Oliver, just to talk about what you and Chief Davis to jump in here as well what you can and can't do as peace officers when you're working with homeless when you get calls and then really what people should do when they get calls that eventually will lead to the services that can be provided but what what can you can't do as a peace officer sure so what I'd first like to start off with is if there is a problem you see somebody you see somebody panhandling you have to call us if you do not call us we do not know that problem exists right I the way that we basically send our resources around the city is whenever we get those phone calls and even if even if it's a reoccurring problem it's a really it's a problematic issue and you see that person there time and time again that's where the MPOs come in specifically in west division but I know in other divisions they run details for panhandling specifically they run one or two details a month and they include our code blue members which are volunteers that help out the police department and they try and attack this panhandling issue so one of the challenges that we have whenever you're dealing with the panhandlers whenever you call us sometimes they're on private property so if they're on private property and the owner allows them to be on that property to panhandle there is really very limited that we can do okay we can encourage them to leave we can educate the owner and we do that time and time again but a lot of the onus is on that that property owner to let us know they do not want that behavior there and they want this individual gone so that's one of our biggest challenges you know out there and another thing is just because the individual is walking down the street even if they are holding a sign okay they can hold a sign they can walk down the street it's absolutely legal to do so but we do have an aggressive panhandling ordinance and so that ordinance is pretty well laid out that they cannot stand in front of you they cannot block your path they're not supposed to panhandle at intersections they're not supposed to walk out in traffic again you guys are the ones that live in the community you know where the problems are our officers do a really really good job at trying to address most of the problems but as you know we prioritize most of our calls and so you may call today and say this panhandler's here and you get really frustrated because it may take the officers a little bit of time to get there well we have different levels of priorities of those calls if somebody's being injured it's higher priority than a panhandler and so in those priorities sometimes it does take an officer to get there a little bit longer again I'm gonna man I'm gonna beat a dead horse which is our MPOs are a really good resource to tell us where these problems are occurring I've heard from some of the community members just tonight you know it's it goes well beyond the panhandling it's the prostitution it's the drug dealing and you know what we see those things across the city so if you think the issue is specifically in west division please don't think that you know 10 years ago you probably could have said the majority of our homeless population and even probably a lot of the panhandling issues were around the Lancaster corridor well that's not the case we got issues in far north we got issues in far east we got issues in northwest we got issues out west down south it's across the city it is not just one place and so our officers do a really good job that they educate the individuals one of the things that we want we don't want to criminalize a homeless person what we want to do is try and get them help we want to try and get them connected to these resources these are great partners I've dealt with every one of them one of the best ways to get out of the homeless issue is permanent supportive housing if we have the housing and we have the beds we can get them off the streets so one thing that Tarrant County did is they created a diversion center and a diversion center is an ability for us to take some of the homeless individuals to a area that has these services all concentrated into one and so they triage the individual they try and help them either A get jobs help them get services and they actually track them for over a year and so they keep tabs on them and they basically are trying to help them break that cycle of homelessness so I know for us I can't arrest my way out of this problem I just can't I need your help I need all the private partner help I need the council's help and they have been unbelievably supported every time that we've asked for their help so from my perspective it's more than just answering the call it's being able to provide resources outside of our control to be able to guide these people too Council Member I think I just added that from the other side from the medical healthcare perspective folks need to understand that as long as the person the patient is awake they're alert they're oriented they're not a risk or a threat to themselves or others they do have rights and we can't force services on them in a lot of situations we can't throw them in the back of an ambulance against their will back of a police cruiser and force them into some service that they're not willing to accept so with the exception of isolated cases they're we walk a fine line on making sure that we don't violate their civil rights along the way and I think Chief Aldridge would agree with me on that absolutely that's a very good point I'm glad to bring up the MPOs I want to say they're always my first call off first call to say what's happening what's happening on the ground they probably know this person and they probably dealt with them or if they haven't they will and one of the conversations I did have with the citizen one of my residents and a friend was well I said have they called when the problem happens have they called have they called and let people know because I have to as you know the city has to allocate resources in one way shape or form and the way we do that is with metrics what are the calls what's happening and the answer I got was no I don't want to get them in trouble there is there are some people that don't want to they feel like they're they're tattling on them and I was like but we can't connect them with services if we don't know they exist and I can't internally fight for resources more MPOs in certain areas or more whatever the gamut of resources if we don't have that log somewhere so Chief Davis I know there were two new positions created last year tell us about that and how they might work with the HOPE team and how that all works together and eventually how that sort of saves money so several years ago the police were really you know they were novel with the idea of standing up a team to go out and work on the community problems that they were seeing we fire department we approached the police department about trying to do it as a multidisciplinary collaborative team where the fire side is using their healthcare EMS knowledge to provide a medical assessment a medical approach because we were seeing an increase in call volume related to 911 needs in the homeless population so there was a trial project that was started data was collected there were wins there were challenges there was relationships developed and with council's blessing and the city manager's office really pushing us to think outside the box provide data that demonstrates that there's some value to the program it was fully funded with two additional full-time positions in this past budget year by council and in the city leadership so there you know that the police are providing their resources towards their end of the program fire is now trying to work collaboratively with JPS who has a presence all the other different teams to make sure that when folks are ready and willing to accept help or in need of some type of help that they didn't even understand that there's a multidisciplinary approach to it so that's how we're trying to make a difference that's great so what I hear too from public safety perspective someone's aggressive etc there are things that we can do yes and take them place it in divergent center or if they're being aggressive then they've broken a law yes so we can we can deal with them that way if it's a medical issue then we'll deal with it through the fire department EMS etc but we eventually connect them with services and that's the idea so Lauren I want to jump to you a statistic that's out there is 60% of Americans are one paycheck away from being homeless and I think if people were probably more honest with themselves and looked at their own budget and they lost their job tomorrow would they be able to continue to do the things or live the way they're living the answer is no but would they be able to stay in their house and do whatever so with that in mind we get some folks out there and I think there's a lot of misnomers of who comes in but let's talk about the services that are being provided because you have a coalition of members that are part of the Tarr County Homeless Coalition absolutely so as you mentioned right now I'll give you an example over the past year we've seen a huge influx of homeless families we typically had not seen that families were a very small portion of our population historically and it's people who have fallen off the edge like they had they were potentially living with someone else with another person who was on the edge and can't afford rent I think Fort Worth has also made the turn we used to be a very affordable place to live and not so much anymore so families who are coming to us are telling us my landlord raised my rent by three to five hundred dollars a month and even if I make fifteen dollars an hour I cannot absorb that into my budget and so it's not even evictions necessarily that are getting us although that does play somewhat of a factor so that's just an example of you know whenever people think about who's falling into homelessness for families often it is a math problem the numbers do not add up to pay for housing childcare food medications transportation all the things as far as what we do so the homeless coalition we are a true coalition and we have about 40 member agencies who go through a vetting process and actually provide services to people experiencing homelessness they are all aligned with the mission of everyone having a place to call home our partners are amazing I would say you would think in homeless services that all the shelters would be competing against each other all the outreach teams would be competing against each other that is not the case they're very very collaborative often if we have to make a plan around some kind of emerging issue all of them are going to be at the table to talk about what's my role in this they're always willing to take on new projects and think about how we can address something as the homeless coalition we are one of the things you may be wondering how do you know what someone experiencing homelessness if they're just going from place to place how do you know what they're getting so just so you know our community has a centralized database everyone enters into the same one so you can see where people have been and who has served them that sort of thing and so at the homeless coalition that really helps us see at the 30,000 foot level what are some trends happening our partners are in the trenches they're doing the work but we're trying to watch those trends to say back in April of 21 hey our family shelters are at capacity what's about to happen so over the summer people lose their primary mode of child care public school and family homelessness generally historically has gone up and so we were really really concerned when we hadn't even hit those summer months and so then started working with our our shelters and outreach teams to really understand what kind of response do we need do we need more resources what's this going to look like how are we going to manage this how are we going to pay for this because that's that's the constant question right so that's a lot of what we do often people who want to start nonprofits will come to us and say what should I do and we're able to talk about trends and how they can help what what that what that would look like but overall I would say we coordinate their response and really honestly in the homeless system I would say we've broken those silos down and we really do work across disciplines and we all I mean I would say above all our partners are very very committed to everyone having a place to call home and really I would say I hope to work myself out of a job at some point I would love to say that where we no longer have to address this issue perhaps there's no social issue that needs to be addressed but I think you know they very much are also not just in the business to say we're going to keep on carrying on and building new things just to perpetuate the issue but really wanting to solve the issue and address both the issue and also with the person who is in need at the time so well to point out to your Tarrant County homeless coalition but you're not a government entity you're a non-profit yes I appreciate that you get government funding but you're a non-profit that is true yes so we we are a non-profit when we started 30 years ago we were a true coalition our partners coming together and we've had staff for about 12 years now but yes we are a non-profit we do function as such and then also with Tarrant County name we actually serve Tarrant and Parker counties and so we have two counties that we serve that homelessness looks very different in Parker County so we work with them specifically on how to address homelessness there so we don't appreciate that because that's something that people often wonder does the county give you all your money no they do not we get from a lot of different sources but we are we are a non-profit here to serve the whole community yeah and jumping to press for a night shelter another non-profit I think Lauren you said something about minimum wage and just jumping to kind of some of the things y'all do at press for your night shelter but minimum wage is at $725 like true minimum wage right now and you but then you use the number $15 but I think if someone was actually making minimum wage they would have to work 141 hours a week to afford a small modest apartment at Fort Worth that's correct according to the national low-income housing coalition who who looks at specific metro areas and for Fort Worth they say you have for a one bedroom apartment you to to not be cost burdened which would be about 30% of your income towards housing you need to make 20 about $28 an hour I'm sorry that's for a two bedroom $28 an hour $24 an hour for a one bedroom one bedroom so we know most of our families are not at jobs that they're going to make $24 to $28 an hour which means they have to work if they're at minimum wage 141 hours a week our multiple jobs but y'all are doing something there let's talk about Upspire that you're doing as part of that which really gets in that idea you talk about shelter income and then housing as part of that so this is taking people and put getting them jobs in places where we need jobs why don't you tell people about Upspire what you're doing there so Upspire it's a social enterprise which means it's a for-profit organization that is run under or for benefit of a non-profit so we last year paid out $2.26 million in wages to folks who are either homeless or formerly homeless and I say that because they can start with us as someone who is homeless but then as they earn income they get a place of their own they can still be employed with us so those barriers that that get in the way of housing or get in the way of employment we help them get their IDs we help them with transportation to and from work to make sure that they're able to do that and we've had great partnerships we bid for contracts just like any other business would but we have several contracts with the city so you may see our Upspire trucks we do litter pickup in 10 different areas across the city we provide through waste management if any person that you see on the back of a waste management truck is an Upspire employee so we have about 40 folks that go out for that on those jobs every day as well and as I mentioned earlier about 175 people are employed every day that's great I know we use it in Las Vegas Upspire in Las Vegas Trail to pick up trash and do some other things there and these jobs that are somewhat hard to fill so I appreciate what y'all are doing there Jared tell us about the directions home program what how that works and what we're doing and how we kind of coordinate all together okay so directions home is the the two person homelessness unit at the city of Fort Worth and so the city has many responses to those experiencing homelessness and those affected by homelessness I mean you've heard tonight from Chief Aldridge Chief Davis their concerns for basic health and safety and the city also provides federal funds for our emergency shelters to take care of people's immediate needs and there's also responses to camps and camp cleanups especially since the state legislature passed a camping ban two years ago so those are some short-term responses to assist those experiencing homelessness and the neighborhoods but there has to be a long-term solution if not then what we're doing is just shifting the problem around one neighborhood calls and says hey there's lots of camps over here then people leave then the next week it's another neighborhood association or another business group and so there has to be a long-term solution and what we found is the only thing that can end someone's homelessness is housing and so at the city we have put a lot of emphasis on being focused on housing is the answer in the past couple of years the city has been able to allocate a lot of federal COVID funds about 30 million dollars largely federal to build housing and this housing is for different kinds of folks it's for folks who are disabled and have been homeless a while or for families and what this does is this is the solution to someone's homelessness now some folks when they go into housing they need something else they need services right so it's what we call housing first not housing only and so our partners provide those services to help people stay housed whether that's connecting with employment or connecting with healthcare or whatever their goals are but that housing is essential because sometimes my office receives a lot of calls about people experiencing homelessness in camps and I think sometimes there's an expectation when we say like okay we'll send out outreach or we'll send out the hope team that that person will disappear and that's not what happens you know we do have great services in our community we are offering them to people experiencing homelessness a lot of folks are accepting those services but what we don't have at our fingertips is housing and so that's why the city has been very focused on keeping that as our long-term goal and also want to point out it's not just the city funding it but we partner with other organizations a hollow part I know there's a ton of them out there that look at housing and their mixed income right et cetera right I don't know if you want to y'all anybody have to comment about that I don't want to miss over that it's only city putting funding because there are private developers that do this right there are private developers there are local philanthropic foundations locally they stepped up and created a pool of five million dollars to match dollar for dollar what the city was doing and there's also county funds and then a lot of federal funds due to COVID so it's definitely not just the city we're able to leverage our city funds a lot great well I'm cognitive I think there are questions out there Lydia throw it to you I want to cognize that there are questions to be asked anybody so you got it okay okay so our first question from the audience is what is the best way to donate goods new clothes blankets et cetera and which goods are most needed what was the last part and which goods are most needed so I can talk about that it depends on the season honestly so right now I would say water bug spray sunscreen chapstick band aids are all very much in need from both our outreach teams and also our shelters so they all have ongoing lists I will say our shelters have also been at capacity for a while Presbyterian night shelter one thing the homes coalition does is we check in with everybody to see what they need are we do we still have our polls so when people ask this question we can tell them sheets are in need towels are in need as our shelters are full they are blowing through these things and so if you have those definitely bring them another thing to do is we mentioned housing talk housing housing housing is do welcome home baskets so if you think about when you moved into your first place from wherever from mom dad's house from wherever that may have been you needed everything to start paper towels a shower curtain plates silverware a bath mat so we try to give people who are moving off the street and don't have anything a fresh start to life and a welcome home basket that's a great service activity for church groups civic groups assign a group brooms assign a group paper towels and that's a great way to get back as well one one of the things I'll say let's talk about this for a second because we've talked about housing a lot and and that will get to the root of it but permanent supportive housing what is that and why is that important in the system that we are because there is something we haven't really said is there's a population that are homeless that just want to live off the grid they never they never want to go into housing it's a very small population I think and we kind of threw out the number I think before to three percent but there's another part of the population that just needs to get through the system of sorts and they may be not permanently able to work etc so we got to figure out what happens to them and so we've set up permits for housing so just what kind of services are available there in the permit supportive housing that we haven't been setting up do you want me to talk about this so permanent supportive housing is exactly what it sounds like it is a permanent rental subsidy so it is generally federal funds helping pay rent for people long term I will say when I say permanent our average length of time there is five years to get back on their feet and get going and so it is for people who are disabled there are lots of different types of disabilities but it is for people who have disability and who have been homeless for more than a year so onsite we can well onsite it depends actually so there's permanent supportive housing actually everywhere it's not just in one location we actually have about 1200 scattered sites so they could be in all kinds of different apartments and you would not know how a person is paying their rent and I think it's interesting to point out there is there was a philosophy at one point in time that you put all the homeless people in one area and what happens though there is generations might grow up and they're not aspirational but what you want to do is put someone that's leaving you know someone that might be homeless or experiencing a home trying to figure out putting them in the same place and their kids in a place where they're seeing someone else leave with a briefcase every day and going to work etc because it's aspirational for them and we've kind of changed that and I know there's a lot of sometimes people like I don't want that in my backyard but it's already existing now and it's existing in a lot and again I get people go like well why are all the homeless in our area but it's it's really not and they're two separate things really so that's also a misnomer or myth I want to put out there sorry to interrupt you we don't ever just put someone housing and say see you later we have dedicated partners who are providing case management and helping them do whatever it is that they need right so if they need to be connected with benefits so perhaps it's a veteran who has been homeless for a little while and is not on VA benefits has served their country want is you know back in housing and needing that care so it could look like that often they get the question about where people going back to work it kind of depends on where they are if they have a significant disability they made it a little bit of time to recover from that but yes they may have the goal to get back to work but you have to also think about when we think about permit supportive housing it's people who are on a disability typically they're on a fixed income so if you know of anybody who is currently living off of social security if they can find an apartment for $300 a month to rent then good on them I don't think that exists and so often these are this is part of our aging population so people are getting older as they're experiencing homelessness so that's what permit supportive housing is it's housing plus services and those services are based on whatever that person needs at the time so council member if I can add yeah please half a million times a year in the city between police and fire people invite us into their homes to solve a problem right because we're in the problem solving business so when we talk about housing it's also important to talk about safe housing yes and what I'm what I'm getting at there is that comment was made a little bit ago I think by you one paycheck from being homeless there's a lot of folks that are sacrificing some of their own safety issues smoke detectors carbon monoxide detectors safe sleeping conditions for their infant food insecurity issues so when somebody asks what can they do my thought is dig in where your heart takes you as well right because there's so many different opportunities to give where you feel you can there's so many different people that are trying to help populations that are struggling in multiple different ways to actually prevent further homelessness and they invite us into their homes and the police officers firefighters at EMS workers in the city we've been we've been trained to look for you know just be observational right be be emotionally aware of your environment and we've been very fortunate to work with partners that cooks children's you know if we need a if we need a pack and play for safe sleep condition for a child we've got them if we need food to get somebody through the weekend to create a fix a food insecurity issue until they can be referred we have those capabilities but only because of the partnerships and so I just wanted to highlight that I appreciate that Lady do you have another one I do what is the best point of context to help a person start looking for services and for them to get into these services yeah I think I'll start there with if if they can get to East Lancaster True Worth Place is our day shelter and central resource center we have about 6000 people a year that come through there and it's the starting point and it is now that's for individuals rather not typically families but about 6000 unaccompanied folks come through there and we we can get them a scan card which is what they need to get into any of the shelters we'll do an assessment to see do they need to really spend the night in the shelter tonight or is there a way to divert them out of this out of homelessness before they ever come in and it could be something like I have an aunt in San Antonio and she said I could stay there but I can't get there well what if we could verify that's a safe place you have a place to go then we get you a bus ticket to go there because the cost of a bus ticket is much cheaper than spending six months in shelter and in homeless services so so we're going to that's going to be the starting point we're going to connect them to get to employment for we're going to connect them to get their critical documents which most people who are homeless don't have an ID or a social security card so to even get that job they need some of those things and and so that's a really good starting place I would say too you can pick up a pocket pal so our table is back staffs raising their hand so a pocket pal is a little pocket sized guide with all the services true worth places in there we also have a homeless helpline and the number is on the pocket pal so if someone is in need encourage them to call the homeless helpline we have a staff person that that works the helpline and will direct them kind of what the best place for them to go based on their needs that's great Debbie one of the things I have here a little note is that 1600 people were helped out of homelessness last year is that through your rapid exit program or do you want to talk about your rapid exit program I'm happy to talk about our rapid exit program it is a partnership with directions home with the city of Fort Worth 1600 is the amount of people our agency exited out of homelessness through a variety of interventions but rapid exit is is what what can we do to maybe someone comes in they get a job pretty quickly well now it costs a lot of money to get that first department rent is $1,200 a month you have first month's rent maybe last month's rent double deposit because you've had an eviction before and all of a sudden that's $4,800 just to get out well you can stay in homelessness until you possibly save $4,800 or if we can help you with some of those moving costs you can you can move out very quickly and not I always tell our staff that humans are very adaptive and and it's how we survive and so when they first walk into the shelter we serve in our men's shelter alone almost 400 folks and they walk in and go oh my god I don't want to be here by day 30 they are showing the next guy around well I want to get them out before that becomes so comfortable that they it loses some of the urgency and that's what the rapid exit program does that's great you Lydia okay so we need help removing tents and camps from behind and around specific locations how do we deal with that so again the MPOs so the MPOs have a hotline to the hope team and our hope team is a homeless outreach team they have a protocol in place what we need to know is where those locations are any kind of intel that you can give us if you know how many people are there how large it is because not only do we partner with the fire department we also partner with the code department code will come in and help us clean up those locations as well so really it's it's more about us knowing where it's at because once we know where it's at we can address the issue can we talk about My Fort Worth app for a second and address that protocol and the use of that sure My Fort Worth app is another way to report pretty much there's a standard list of things and one of those is camping panhandling it's an app that's on your phone if you don't have it please download it you can take pictures with the app that information gets funneled through the police department if it's a police issue if it's a code issue gets funneled to the code department that follow-up is usually done by our MPOs if it's something more urgent because it's monitored by our communication personnel then it will get sent out as a regular call for service but that is a great resource if you believe that you're tying up our 911 system or you believe the issue is not that urgent you can use the My Fort Worth app who has the My FWF how many whoever is not raising their hand download it because you can report every single issue in the city to that and sometimes it is a lot faster than calling or calling our office etc you know we get called about potholes all the time there are two pothole teams that do nothing except drive around the city and fill potholes but if you report through that app it automatically goes into their system and they may already be in the neighborhood and I've literally had people call the office and within a few hours they were like oh my god it's already full because it was already in the in the area so I'm saying for everything download it because it is outside homelessness and other issues you report every single city issue through that app Lydia so I want to interject really quick we've gotten a lot of good questions and we're not going to be able to get to all of them tonight what I do want to advise is that we are going to put together a webpage on the campberrydistrict.com website and try to address some of these from our subject matter experts if you do not follow us on Facebook please do I'm just going to put that out there so that you can get the notification when this goes live because I don't want anybody to walk away from here thinking we're not interested but it's going to take time to cultivate through all of these questions and to give a thoughtful response to how we are dealing with this so what is being done to help homeless with mental health problems especially the ones that might refuse the services sure so we have a variety of mental health services my friend Susan Garnett is sitting in the front row CEO of MHMR so we work a lot with MHMR and JPS we have a lot I mean I would say in general as a society we're missing mental health services we're lacking mental health services however for people experiencing homelessness there are a lot of services available MHMR actually has a specific outreach team that will go out and specifically deal with behavioral health issues you mentioned the diversion center so the county opened the diversion center which is for someone who actually it's not necessarily around homelessness but someone who's experiencing mental health crisis and needs a safe place to go and they should go into the jail system correct it's actually to divert them from jail so that our jail is no longer our biggest mental health provider which is the case at the moment not just for people experiencing homelessness in general the jail is the biggest provider of mental health services as I mentioned JPS also provides quite a bit of mental health services as well so we actually I don't know that I could say it's one thing however we have a lot of integrated services so for example we talked about permanent supportive housing for mental health services MHMR and JPS are on site and we'll go visit many of those residents who are in that type of housing so mental health services look a lot of different ways it could look like an outreach team going out it could look like someone being at true workplace and people accessing services there it could also look like a peer support person at housing development could also look like someone providing groups so mental health services look a lot of different ways and whenever I will say I just I think it's a myth that there are a lot of people who don't want to have a place to live and who want to remain homeless our outreach teams tell us over and over and over again that if they had a hundred keys 98 would be taken so and a lot of times you know if someone says no I don't want to be housed there could be a mental health something behind that or it could be something else but yeah so mental health services although I would say we need more in general as a city overall there are lots and lots of different ways that people can access those and I would like to add to that as well not only with the HOPE team the HOPE team has an MHMR practitioner that is available to them and rides with them at times but we also have a crisis intervention team which is totally separate from our HOPE team their whole job is to deal with individuals that are involved in mental health crisis so and they have mental health practitioners that are on their team that respond to calls with us so we have a lot of mental health resources available at our fingertips as well and council member the fire department has been fortunate enough to actually attend the same training crisis intervention training that the police and they've been invited us to that so these paramedics police officers firefighters are all functioning off the same sheet of music standing in front of but one additional thing that I think it's really important for the lay public to know is that not every person who appears to having a mental health issue is truly having a mental health issue there's two things that your brain needs to function and that's oxygen and glucose and if it's deficient in any one of the either one of those you can really have an appearance that you're having a mental health issue when in reality you're having a potential life-threatening medical issue that needs to be dealt with first and foremost so in a lot of situations these folks have to be medically cleared to make sure that they are physically healthy and before being deferred into some type of mental health evaluation correct you agree yes yeah I think one nuance that I heard in that question is if they don't want it was that part of the question yes homeland if someone is in their home and has a mental health crisis and they're not a harm to themselves or anyone else there's nothing the police aren't going to bust down the door and take them to jail or to the hospital they have the right to refuse that service home if you are without a house you still have the same rights so the police are not going to if someone is refusing service and they're not a harm to themselves or someone else they can't drag them to the hospital and force services upon them I think I'm correct but I think at that point we would alert other services that might be available to come out and assess the situation if it's not something that falls within y'all's realm and I also think that's a small a very small subset of people because professionalism of the forward police the forward fire department med stars an example working together two o'clock in the afternoon or two o'clock in the morning can generally get someone to cooperate long enough by demonstrating empathy to the fact that we're concerned for their health their wellness and we want to get them someplace for evaluation to at least make sure that they're in a safe spot until resources have time to intervene that's great I think we can do one more okay great are there any plans for the future for regular transportation to and from for mental health and substance abuse programs before and during placements into this permanent supportive housing transportation is that the question transportation so are there any sorry I'll repeat the question are there any plans to provide transportation so we yes that would be a supportive services a supportive service that our housing programs provide so that can be done in a number of different ways could be a bus pass it could be medical uber if needed it could be a case manager's car so there are lots of different ways however I would say that we we try hard to take services to people and to make services as accessible as possible for people because we realize transportation is a barrier and it's not something we want people to face thanks well thank y'all for being here today let's give them a round of applause please thank the Canterbury district for putting this together I also will point out over here what will be coming to the Canterbury district soon might be coming around the rest of the city as it gets through I know there's a little bit of guilt factor and about the panhandlers etc so this gives you an ability to make contributions to solution and say it's okay it's okay it's okay to say no to panhandlers we have a whole team that's out there looking at it and those are not necessarily as we've talked about but that gives us a method so I thank y'all for being here tonight thank you for listening and again we're gonna be around if you have other questions I know Lydia has other questions too that we do but we appreciate y'all being here tonight and beginning this conversation thank you thank you for joining us for this special episode of Fort Worth Forward I hope you've enjoyed the conversation we've had about homelessness as well as understanding all the intricate parts that really lead someone to being unhoused in the city of Fort Worth we have a lot of services and there's a lot of things being done here in the city but a lot more work to do I hope you're out there and you want to be part of the solution we'd love to have you again thank you for watching this episode