 Welcome everyone. I'm just given some very brief instructions to help you out. My name is Bill Hobbock. I'm one of the two pastors here at DCC. So just the housekeeping, there are water fountains right out that, down that hallway right over there to your right, as well as restrooms. So if you're looking for those, just head down that hallway and you should be set. I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to the lead on this, which is Christina Blackman. Great. Thank you Bill and thank you for hosting us here at your facility. We appreciate it. I'm just going to quickly introduce our panel and then we'll get started right away. Each will have a few minutes to talk about what they're doing in the space and then we'll open it up to questions. So to the far left, or my left, is Mayor Rob Davis. Next to him is Chief Pytel, Darren Pytel. From Yolo County, we have Tracy Dickinson. She's the homeless program coordinator, although I think her title slightly is different now. Our guest, Martha Teter, she's working with the Pathways Program, the Employment Pathways Program, and she'll tell you more about that. And Bill Pride from Davis Community Mills. So I'll turn it over to Rob. Well thanks for coming. We appreciate the opportunity to have a community dialogue and discussion, Q&A on this topic. I think, you know, in my 25 years in maternal and child health in Africa where we worked with extreme poverty and exclusion, we would often talk, and actually there's a literature on the whole concept of the final mile. The final mile, reaching the final mile down that road where people are the poorest, where health conditions are the worst, that's the costliest. It's very costly to go the final mile. In fact, you may pay as much in the final mile than you paid in every mile up to the final mile combined, because that's the intractable place, that's the place of deep need, and it's also the place that's hardest to reach. And I think as we talk about, I think the reason, you know, the homelessness that we're here to talk about today, really, the homelessness that we're here to talk about is really the final mile homelessness. We're talking about a syndrome, really, that shows itself as homelessness, as people living in camps. It's a syndrome. It's a combination of many factors that would include some mental health challenges, often, frequently, some very deep addictions to some very, very difficult substances. And then, probably, as we're learning more and more, most likely some really severe childhood trauma that sort of underlies everything that's happened since. And so, we have a final mile problem. I think if we look at the vast majority of homelessness, the issue of homelessness, the vast majority in this community, you don't know anything about. Because the vast majority are people who are maybe coming out of jail and needing a temporary residence and then get reintegrated. Or they're someone who's lost a job in a house and rapid rehousing helps them. Or they're school kids whose parents are couchsurfing. We don't even hear about them, oftentimes. Or there's a woman fleeing domestic violence who finds help in a local shelter and then moves into the next part of her life and her children's life. Those, that homelessness, I would wager most of us don't know anything about because it's not visible. It's not something we see. And most of the agencies that are working on it in this community do so in a quiet and consistent way and help people in ways that never become apparent to the broader population. What we're talking about, I think, based on the emails that I get, is the final mile, the last mile homelessness. And as I said, it's a syndrome. And I think we need to keep that in mind. What we're seeing when we see people choosing to live outside in camps that are evidently and obviously substandard for human living is a combination of factors that we maybe only understand in part and certainly do not fully grasp in terms of the way they enchain and enslave people. I know many people are saying, why don't we do more bringing the tools of the, you know, of prosecution? We should be, you know, we need to be moving these people out. What they're doing is illegal. What they're doing is detrimental to the community. And they need to be prosecuted for that. And I think, you know, Darren will probably talk more about that. But I can tell you, having talked to the DEA, I mean, I think many of us are at a place of saying, really? I mean, we're going to cycle people through the criminal justice system one more time. We arrest them. We incarcerate them. We find them. We put them back out on the street. They don't pay the fines. They break probation. And the cycle continues. Somewhere along the line, that's not, in my view, a solution. It certainly isn't dealing with the underlying causes that lead to the behavior that we want to address. And so I think we need to talk about that underlying behavior because cycling people through the criminal justice system may move them out of sight and mind for a time, but isn't really not moving us forward in terms of dealing with the real issues that people are facing. I think we're committed as a city. We're definitely committed as a city, and I think as a county, to move forward in a process known as Housing First, which is about helping people who are in those situations before we do anything in terms of service delivery to first and foremost move them into housing, get them a roof over their head, and then provide wraparound services. But let's be clear. That's not a panacea. To say we're committed to that does not make it happen. First and foremost, we live in California. And so housing, in case you haven't noticed, is at a premium in every community. We do not have currently the beds that we need to house. We do not have beds at the price that's affordable for people, even with vouchers to house. And so this council and the prior one has set aside resources to build out 30 new units. We already have several dozen in the city. We're looking at a voucher program that we can talk about more. But the idea is moving people into housing, and that's where the challenge begins, because once the roof is there and that's already a challenge, then the wraparound services that really are about addressing the underlying needs of the population in question become important. And lest we think that those are short-term wraparound programs, I think we need to remember that we're dealing with people that have gone down a long road and it's going to be an equally long road to come back. And so the services will need to be continued over a long period of time, which implies a revenue stream that we need to create within the community to pay for that. This will not be dealt with through one-off grants over short periods of time. We need to find out how to generate streams of revenue if we're really going to attack the challenge that we have. And so ultimately, I hope in our conversation, we need to talk about resources. We need to talk about resources. And so I hope we'll get back to that. I look forward to engaging. I have a fact sheet that one of our consultants, Joan Plenn, also put together. It's on the table over there. You can pick it up as you go out. I may refer to it, but also hope that we'll have an opportunity for good exchange on the true nature of the problem and I think the community is concerned about. Thank you for coming today. Just as the mayor said, we are also as the police faced with challenges with the homeless community. And I think we're kind of the first stop for most people to talk about how homeless are affecting some of the areas in downtown, some of the neighborhoods and everything from where homeless are living or where they're hanging out during the day time and the effect that it has on quality of life. So we've had to kind of deal with that and it's very difficult to deal with. So kind of the starting place is we get a lot of emails and a lot of letters saying that why aren't we doing something with the homeless and where they're living is a crime. They're illegally camping or not in an area where they're supposed to be. They're trespassing and committing criminal violations. And that's actually probably the number one complaint that we get. And the answer is really complicated. So the first thing that we have to remember is that being homeless in itself is not a crime. And until we have housing for every single human being in this country, we can't criminalize just being homeless. A person is able to sit down somewhere and they're able to go to bed somewhere. And if we don't have housing for them, then the real challenge is where are they going to do that? So that's the starting place for how we have to work with the homeless population. So for example, if a homeless person has no other choice and the only choice is to lay down a sleeping bag in one of the parks, that may be the best place that we have for them for that period of time until we can find some more either temporary or permanent solution. So there's particular times when even though it may be a technical violation of a local ordinance or law, the overriding principle that we have to operate under is the United States Constitution and specifically the 14th Amendment to Process Clause, which says that just because somebody is committing a crime, you have to take a look at why they're committing it and determine whether the statute is really addressing the underlying problem. Just as the mayor said, what we're really seeing in the population is a lot of mental illness and extreme addiction in some cases. The overall criminal justice system has changed very rapidly in the last five, six years, starting with AB 109 and then Prop 47. And each of these has had kind of an impact on some of the crime or nuisance behavior that people are talking about or concerned about. We get a lot of emails, you know, drugs are going on in the homeless population, the camps are full of people using drugs. Why aren't the police doing anything about it? Well, part of that is in the America I hit it on the head, you can only arrest somebody so many times before you realize that that is not the best way to deal with the situation. Under Prop 47 offenses that used to be felonies are now misdemeanors, they don't result in jail time, nor is there any incentive or part of the process that actually helps people get through the addiction problems and deals with mental health. Those are all systems that we're trying to improve and hopefully working with the district attorney we're finding different ways to deal with those difficult circumstances. So there's been some legislative changes that have really kind of compounded that problem. I think where the police, where we're transitioning, I just presented a strategic plan last night to the city council. An important component of the strategic plan is to deal with homeless services. Traditionally we've always looked to the yellow county to provide, you know, true help to those in need, whether it's mental illness or addiction or dealing with housing. And I think what's become crystal clear is the county has been cut and cut and cut and every person that I talked to at the yellow county says the same thing. Yep, we used to do that. We don't anymore. We can't afford it. And I think really what we're recommending to council and city manager's office is that we start doing some of these things within the city of Davis. Functions that were traditionally left with the county. We probably need to get involved in them if we're going to solve some of our local issues. So what we're proposing is putting together a team to go out and work specifically with the homeless, including having our own social worker and dedicated staff to dealing with some of the camps and cleanups and relocation when necessary, family reunification, addiction, mental health services. So really having a team of specially trained and specifically assigned personnel to kind of deal with all of the issues and help do case management and hopefully get them into either housing or programs that may help their particular need. So just like I said, really open to questions as we get there and having dialogue about some of these. Hi everyone, thanks so much for being here. My name is Tracy Dickinson. I am the homeless coordinator with the county health and human services agency. I was appointed to this role in August of 2015, so about a year and a half ago. And before that I was working in the county administrator's office doing a lot of analysis on this issue. So I have some history here in YOLO for several years. So I want to talk a little bit about my role. I'm not a direct service provider. So I'm not the one that's on the streets providing services to people experiencing homelessness in our communities. I really function more at a systems coordination level. And so a lot of what I do is work with our partners and we have a lot of them including our residents and our businesses to talk about what's working in the system that cares for people experiencing homelessness and what's not working and how we can fill some of those gaps and address some of the issues that are happening and kind of help move the collaborations along to do that. But that being said, the county as a whole is a huge service provider. I'm not an expert on the majority of our programs, but I know something about all of them and I can certainly get you to somebody who is an expert if you have questions about a specific program. But I wanted to just highlight a few of the programs that the Health and Human Services Agency does offer that people experiencing homelessness might benefit from. So we have some public health programs and specifically around offering immunizations at low or no cost and things like that. We are the holder of issuing public benefits. So when I'm talking about CalFresh or food stamps, CalWorks, MediCal, General Assistance and things of that nature. So when folks need a little help, that's something that we assist with. We are also the holder of a lot of the mental health services and substance disorder treatment services for the county. And so whether it's us internally offering them or contracting out services, that's something that we do a lot of coordination around as well. We do have a lot of direct homeless services that we fund as a county. Most of them are not internally offered by county staff. So a lot of them are offered through county contracts with nonprofit organizations. So, you know, some of our providers who we have a few of them sitting here are really the experts on the how we provide the services part of it. I'm going to pass off to Martha. Okay. Probably for the video, not for the audience. But anyway, I'm Martha Teter and I'm the board president for a new nonprofit called Davis Opportunity Village. I'm sort of here in a number of capacities. That's the first one. The second one is and I'm on the advisory board of a program that just launched Pathways to Employment. I'll mention a little bit about it. And the third is that I'm sort of a representative of ongoing faith organizations, concerns and coming from that viewpoint. So the first is Davis Opportunity Village. And we're a fairly recent nonprofit as of December, but we've been going for quite a while and we're dove for short. And the idea is that it takes a village. You'll see the little handout I have with the dove coming out of the house. And our purpose is threefold to advocate for services to when we see services not happening, trying to make that work, building micro housing, particularly village micro housing. So very small size housing, individual units and also about education, about homeless individuals to enable compassion and healing or wellness to occur. And many people who have been through the system many, many times. I want to give you some hope that there is wellness possible for every single person who's gone through the system. The consequences of homelessness is that life spans reduced 20 to 25 years, also from severe mental illness and disability and substance abuse. So there's a real equity and health concern. Our Davis Opportunity Village is both interfaith and a community group. The second capacity I'm here as the advisory board for Pathways to Employment, which just launched. And the idea is to create some jobs for homeless individuals that are downtown visible. And this program is just launched a few weeks ago. Actually, I think just this week we're on the ground. To build self-esteem could be a fairly small job at first. But then through a period, there's several stages where you might be employed. We're paying $12 an hour. We're fortunate enough to get some funding for this. Five individuals three times a week. And in the first phase, we're working at this lower phase. And then there may be ways to move through the program, maybe to build supervisory capacity for some people who are working. And then to progress to permanent jobs that might be available within the community. So we really want to work with the business community to create some opportunities for employment as well. And the third is the faith community itself. Many different faiths offer meal opportunities during the week and some chances to get to services. Davis Community Church offers a Friday faith in food where there's a chance not only to sustain yourself with more nutritious food, but also to sit down and talk and to be listened to and to have a compassionate ear. I would close by saying that the problems in our world are so difficult that we absolutely need everybody at the table. We need diversity of race. I don't see much diversity here, but hopefully there's people with ears to hear this who will hear the call. But we need diversity of race, diversity of socioeconomic status. We need people who've been there, who've been homeless to come and work on these difficult problems. We need people who've been traumatized, particularly the hardest kind of trauma, which is the most common in homeless individuals, is trauma as young children. And that has a different way to address it. People who abuse with substances are trying to heal the pain and the trauma that they carry around with them in their bodies every day. And we need these people at the table too. So I hope we can together develop some programs. And it's going to take, as Rob said, another revenue stream, and that may be also community contributions, because one of the wonderful things about Davis is we live in a community where a lot of people help. We've already seen that in many organizations and interfaith rotating winter shelter. So I invite you to continue this dialogue. Good morning. My name is Bill Prott. I'm the director of Davis Community Meals and Housing. And I've been involved with Davis Community Meals and Housing for the last 24 years. I've been the director there for the last 16. And I'm going to kind of give you a little overview of what we do in the community and probably mention a few other service providers in Davis who contribute to working with homeless or low-income folks. Like our name implies, we started a meal program back in 1991, which we do at St. Martin's. And we have meals there right now three times a week on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. And we generally serve between about 140 to about 175 different folks every week at our Meals program. We have, in the last several years, we've worked closely with interfaith rotating winter shelter and have collaborated with them to run their operations at the local churches by providing trained staff and working with some of the issues they deal with with the homeless population that stays at the shelter on a nightly basis. For the last 20 or so years, we've had a transitional housing program at 1111 H Street. And that program houses up to 16 homeless individuals, 12 men, four women. And they can stay with us for up to 18 months. And our staff works with everybody involved in the program to get the services they need, whether it's for mental health, whether it's for substance abuse, whether it's life skills training, whether it's getting counseling or getting jobs. It's pretty much almost anything you can imagine we help folks with on a yearly basis. We also have a program housing homeless families in Davis. We generally house five families at a time at a small low-income apartment community in South Davis. And again, they stay with us for up to 18 months. And we again give them a whole range of services to help them move out and move into permanent housing and to successfully transition out of being homeless. Most of the families who come to us almost 40 to 50% of domestic violence victims who are left homeless because of what occurred when they're domestic violence problems. Others come to us from various sources, but it's a program where generally throughout a year we serve about 12 to 14 families. And out of that, about 80% of those graduate into permanent housing. Last year, a little over a year ago, we started the what's called a new pathways program which is considered a bridge or a transitional housing program. And that's what we call a low barrier model, which means that folks stay in the program. Many of these folks have chronic substance abuse issues, major mental health problems, and they can stay in the program whether they're using or not using. And we try to work with them and get them housing vouchers towards the end of the program to move in their housing. During the time with us, they get what's called wraparound services to help them deal with whatever issues they came into, came into the program with. And hopefully at the end of six months to a year, we can find them some housing and move them out successfully into some place where they can get supportive services also. As Martha mentioned, we started the new pathways program, our pathways to employment program, early this year. We've been up and running about three weeks at this point in time and we've started folks getting on the ground. It's an employment program to help folks who are somewhat in our programs currently, but also others who are going to be homeless in the streets of Davis, find a productive way to make a living, become productive in the community again, get a regular job, peer employment regularly, and hopefully make connections over the next time with us, usually about four to six months to be with us to find some kind of permanent employment in the community. The last two programs we have are basically type of outreach programs, which is our resource center, which operates at 1111 8th Street Monday to Friday from 8 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon. And we generally attract between about 75 to 90 folks there most every day. They come to us, many of them are homeless, but not all. We provide almost any service you can imagine there. I mean, sometimes it's as easy as yesterday, I know there's a gentleman who came and needed an ID to get back to the train or a bus to go back to his home in Minnesota, and we helped him do the forms and go to DMV and get a duplicate ID card, which he did not have, so we can get on the bus or get on the train. We also help folks who are behind their rent, behind the utility bills, help get food. It's a place people can come to and get a whole range of services that they may not be able to get in the community elsewhere. We also have a street outreach program where some of our staff go out two to three times a week and work directly with the homeless in the streets of Davis to get them the services and referrals to services so hopefully they will take advantage of the local resources through the county and through other community organizations to kind of help them need to deal with the substance abuse of major mental health problems. The last couple of things I would mention is that there is another organization, I don't think they're here today, but Stake, which does a lot of work in the community for homeless and low-income folks through food and also trusted success and other types of programs, and they're the ones who have the money to help pay people their rent if they're getting evicted or if the utility is getting ready to be shut off. And the last big provider in Davis is Impala Yolo, which has two programs in Davis to have their domestic violence shelter located in Davis. They've been here for the last, I think, at least 20 years. And they also run the Family Resource Center, which is next door here at the corner of Fifth and D Street, which deals sometimes with homeless folks, a lot of times with low-income families finding resources and everything else they need. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. So just to give you some background, again, I'm Christina Blackman. I'm the CEO of the Davis Chamber of Commerce. Why we brought this forum together. We did two last year, some of you may have attended. But we get lots of people coming into the chamber and they're asking questions, complaining about some of the issues that are happening. That is both from business and from residents. And we also get a lot of individuals from the population that come in looking for services. So we try to refer them the best we can. What we do know is we need to have an open dialogue with the community about some of the issues that are currently occurring and come up with some positive solutions. And that's why you're here. And thank you so much for coming. We're going to turn it over to questions. We wanted to leave most of the time for questions. So if you have a question, we have a few in advance to get this started, but we'll throw it to the audience right away. If there is somebody that looks like we have, Dan has a question. And if you can just let us know which individual so they can address the question or if it's to the panel, we'll try to get through as many questions as we can. If we run out of time and you have a question, I suspect a few of these folks may be able to stay. If that is not the case, please seek out a Chamber staff member. We'll write the question down, give us your contact information, and we'll get it answered for you. Okay. So Sammy's going to come around with the microphone and we'll get started. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Dan Carson. When I worked for the LAO in Sacramento, I ran our health section for some time, and one of the big possibilities coming out of Obamacare was healthcare for single adults who were hard to qualify before unless they were disabled, and therefore you could not only get them healthcare, but that would open the gates to mental healthcare and substance abuse treatment, which is not to say that everyone that's homeless fits in that category, but obviously a number do. Have you either Bill or Tracy, have you been able to tap into that as a revenue stream to help pay for those services, or has it turned out as sometimes is the case in life that it was more complicated than that? I would say that Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act has brought MediCal to many more folks than they used to be. I don't really have a percentage, but I know that the number of folks coming to us who are homeless, having MediCal or some kind of insurance coverage has gotten much greater than it used to be. And so certainly the Affordable Care Act has brought medical insurance coverage to many homeless folks who are otherwise not eligible for it previously. I wouldn't say it's 100% at this point, but it's actually, I would guess 65%, 70%, 75% of homeless folks generally already have MediCal at this point, and when they come to us, if they don't, we usually try to get them qualified for it. I mean that's one of the basic services I think we offered everybody at this point in time. I'm not so sure it's translated yet to great care and the sums of use of mental health issues. I know there's been some discussion, I know we had a little discussion somewhere yesterday about that there was going to be maybe some use of MediCal and sums of use treatment, but I think that's still a little bit off at this point in time. Yeah, absolutely. So according to our 2017 homeless count, which was done in January, of the 500, a little less than 500 people that we talked to, over 80% told us that they had health insurance, which is extraordinary for that population. So before the Affordable Care Act was implemented, that was definitely not the case, because yeah, so about 70% of our homeless population is single adults or couples without children, and many of them were not eligible before. So that's a huge step in the right direction. Having health insurance does not necessarily mean that the person is accessing care. And so there's another step that I think there's a lot of work still to be done on. I know that our providers work very hard to connect people with care when they are having the conversations. Sometimes there's fear around accessing healthcare for whatever reason among folks that haven't been in a while. And sometimes, you know, our providers are impacted. So there's a lot of times there's a long wait for actually seeing a doctor when you need to. And so we're seeing, I think, use of the emergency rooms as a primary point of entry into the medical care system, still a little higher than we would like. And so that's definitely something that we're paying a lot of attention to. But having the ability to have your care paid for was a huge step. With regards to substance use treatment, we are rolling out the Affordable Care Act happened, and then there was a second thing, I don't know the technical terms, but a drug Medi-Cal waiver is essentially what we're talking about. California is rolling that out in phases across counties. So Yolo County is working on a plan right now. We've submitted it. We're working with the state on negotiating some of the terms of the plan. And until that's finalized, we can't actually provide the services funded through Medi-Cal. And specifically, you know, what we're looking at expanding is residential treatment. People can access outpatient treatment right now. So that will be a big change, but we're not quite there yet, maybe in the next year. Yes. I have one. I'm Mary Ann Kirsch. I volunteer for the Interfaith Rotating Shelter. And I have a question for Chief Patel. And I wanted to ask you this. This is a specific question. Okay. Because it happened to me. If you run into a person on the street who is having mental episode, what should the ordinary citizen do? And how can that person access help for the individual who's undergoing a mental episode at the time? Well, yeah. If you see any kind of behavior that may indicate the person is suffering from some sort of crisis, then you can call the police. We go out and do an assessment and determine whether they're able to take care of themselves or not based on any mental illnesses that's present. If they're not, then we can take them into temporary custody and take them to the hospital where they're evaluated by a doctor and potentially placed on a 72-hour hold. If we also have an embedded crisis intervention person who specializes in mental health, she works during the daytime, so I think it's Tuesday through Friday now. And if she's working then, and assuming that it's not a violent situation, then she goes out and does an on-scene assessment to determine whether we need to do the 72-hour hold or not. In many cases, you know, if it's not really kind of a crisis, then she's able to set up temporary reoccurring appointments to help the person through what they're going through. Oh, that's good to know. So, should you call the non-emergency number or the emergency number? If anybody's feeling unsafe, then you can call 911. But if not, then call the business number 747-5400, and that goes to the same dispatch center that just answered the phones in different priority. So, 7... Yeah, 530-747-5400. Okay, that's the right number to call. It's a non-emergency situation. Okay, thank you. Hi. I'm interested in the housing first model. My name's Marty West. So, two questions. One for Rob. What's the timing on getting 30 units built in Davis? And second for Martha, what's the timing on the micro-housing options? Right, so the 30... I think it's actually 36, and Bill might even up that number depending on how he's thinking about it. So, that's the project that Bill's involved in. So, we've entitled 90 total units of one bedroom on Fifth Street out beyond Cundit-A-Rai, out beyond Carlton. There's an empty field there. It was a land dedication site from the Mace Ranch days, and a year and a half ago, council entitled and awarded a project to neighborhood partners and Davis community meals to construct and then administer programs there. Of the 90 units, my notes are, and again, Bill may up it, 36 of those are set aside. What we refer to as permanent supportive housing. So, some of you may know of the Cesar Chavez Plaza over on Olive Drive. It's a similar model to the Cesar Chavez, which has 19 of those units. So, we got an update recently. The funding from the state, and again, I won't get into the Arcania of state tax credit or federal tax credit funding, but the developers are still seeking, I think, about a quarter of a million dollars to round out their funding to break ground on that project. But we do expect it, you know, hopefully in the next year to get going. We're probably two to three years out on actually providing the beds. We do have, and I don't have the numbers on it. I see some staff here. I'm not sure they do, but we do have the Pacifico complex in South Davis, which is going through a renovation, which should be providing some permanent supportive beds as well. Again, I want to distinguish that because all of the units at the Fifth Street, all 90 units are affordable in perpetuity. They provide housing for different levels of affordability. The permanent supportive comes with case management. So, permanent staff providing case management. Again, in the terminology, a case manager does not provide all of the services that an individual may need, but the case manager connects that person to all the services. So, again, we're probably two to three years out on that. What was not mentioned, I mean, Martha mentioned pathways to employment. We are also working with Yolo County Housing as part of the same grant. So, the grant that's paying for the pathways to employment is also providing getting, what we're referring to is getting to zero vouchers. Now, just to be clear, most of the low income individuals in the county who are in some form of affordable housing are receiving some form of housing voucher. The problem is the waiting lists on these are very, very long. As most people know, these are HUD vouchers for the most part. And so, what we're trying to do with the money that we've received from Sutter, which is approximately a quarter of a million dollars over three years, is to provide sort of upfront vouchers to those who are coming through the pathways program to more quickly move them into a permanent housing situation. As you can imagine, we still have the challenge of finding market rate or affordable units that the vouchers can effectively pay for. So, you'd have to match a voucher to an actual living location. I know some of the folks that have moved out of our pathways program, for example, have not been able to match their voucher with Housing in Davis, even though Davis is their home. So, there's that challenge as well. We are housing them in the county. I answered a little bit more than you asked, but I think the broader context of how we're taking a sort of a multi-pronged approach, that's why I said out of the gate, housing first as a model is a great model. Housing first as a practice in Yolo County and in California right now is a big challenge because of simply the lack of affordable housing stock that's there to put people into. And vacancy. We're at two-tenths of one percent in our rental market and Woodland and West Sacramento are not far behind. And I'll just use this as an opportunity to make one little statement. That HUD funding is at risk today. So, whether it's the money that we're giving to Davis Community Meals for some of the transitional housing for the Resource Center, that's CDBG money or other housing voucher money, at least the budget that was presented by the president is to cut all the CDBG and cut a large chunk of the vouchers. So, we're in an environment where I don't think that's going to happen. It could happen and then there's going to be a question of how, as a community, we pick up the slack. Right now we're in the visioning stage with the city on this because we're looking at funding partners that need to go through the city. So, depending on how that goes, one of the hopes is if we can get a design for the micro-housing that it might go up more quickly than other housing and the price tag might not be as high. But again, as Rob mentioned, we are focusing right now on permanent supportive so we also will need a revenue stream for continuing programs and how that we can creatively come up with that is a very big issue. If I could just follow up Rob's comments about Creekside. Creekside is 90 units of affordable housing. 44 of those units are going to be set aside for what's called extremely low-income folks which mainly are going to be homeless or at risk of homeless folks with what's called a special need, somebody with major mental health problems, substance abuse issue, physical disability is some combination thereof. And the great thing about extremely low-income housing is that for the folks who are just SSI recipients, if they were getting $800, $850 a month, the rent there for one of the units is going to be even a neighborhood of $250 to $300 for the unit, which is probably a third of what it is, or fourth of most of the one-bedroom units already existing in Davis. And we already do the same model over at Cesar Chavez Plaza, which we had up and running for almost 10 years now. And that was, that program was set up to have 19 units of special needs housing at extremely low-income rates. And currently because of a variety of different things with housing choice vouchers and program-based vouchers, we currently have about 43 special needs folks living there also. And so, I mean, the model is... What's your waiting list there, Bob? And the waiting list goes on for two to three years, unfortunately. And so, I mean, if you go in there and put an application now, you're probably not going to get your name called, at least for the year and a half, maybe two years. And Creekside is supposed to, was originally scheduled open in 2019 with the groundbreaking this year. I'm not sure we're on that schedule at this point, but if we are off, it's not going to be much, much different than I don't think. Maybe you should use the microphone. The amount of money that you need for these projects is so large that in terms of community support seems so small that we would raise. Is it a place where the community would feel that it make a difference? Because otherwise you need a much larger stream. Do you know what I'm saying? Are you talking about a stream for maintenance or for building? For anything. Would the small amounts of money help or is it that it takes so much that it's a drop in the bucket? So I'd like to address that just... I mean, I don't have a dollar figure that I'm sitting on, but I think we need to look in terms of relative magnitude. So we have a quarter of a million dollars over three years that we believe is going to help get the ball rolling. I would say that's probably a quarter of what we need if we're really going to address longer term. Let's say it's half. Let me just make a comparison just so that we get the relative magnitude of how we generate resources. So currently in the city, you have on your tax bill a $25 a year open space tax. Staff estimates that that generates approximately $700,000 a year. So each of you in your home paying $25 flat fee generates $700,000. That's already almost three times as much as we have from Sutter, and that's over three years, so that's per year. You also pay a $50 a year parks tax, which is coming up for renewal next year by the way. That $50 parks tax generates $1.4 million a year to the city for parks. And then most of you may have forgotten this. You also pay a $100 a year library tax. That generates $2.8 million a year. Now these are things that we as a community have decided we want to tax ourselves for. No city council has imposed them. No city council has said you must pay that. Every vote of this nature, and I think all of these, if I'm not mistaken, were special taxes, they are special taxes, meaning that two-thirds majority had to pass them. So I guess an open question is, I mean two, I think if you look down the row here until the folks sitting around the table here or the county that we could generate $2.8 million for programs related to social services, I think you would see them saying we can do a lot with that. So we need to have a conversation about how we think about revenue. We are willing to tax ourselves. We know for schools at much larger rates than even those. Will we decide that it's time to make a small contribution for the purposes of dealing with some of the social challenges that we've outlined? Okay, before the next question, I just want to thank Davis Media Access for being here. They've been great partners to the chamber. They are filming this forum and we'll have it available up on our website and we'll share it with the city and other partners. So I just wanted to keep you informed. I could just comment on that one more little bit. I think that there also is diversity of help that's needed. So in some case it's a need for land, like a half an acre of land. And in other cases it might be services that community could provide. I mean professional services is one thing, but also there are support services. And we're starting a wellness center is coming to Davis for mental health clients. And there is peer counseling there. So getting trained to be a peer counselor at a wellness center might be an opportunity. So there are opportunities for service that the community can give as well as financial. Sorry, I know you want to make a comment, sir. So let's talk about that in kind kind of giving. So case management, and I don't think we've done enough of this in the community. So I think Tracy could speak to the example of the bridge to housing program in West Sacramento, which I think arguably has been very successful. I think the success of programs going forward for populations that have special needs is really going to rely. We talk about the wraparound services or the permanent supportive services. Some of that is specific services, right? Some of that is specific mental health services or counseling services. But there's a large piece of this that I think because there's members of the community that have been involved for so many years and things like the interfaith rotating winter shelter, volunteering at Davis Community Meals that we have a kind of a uniquely equipped population that knew another piece of this case management, which is you might call it, some communities they call it advocates or some communities call it mentors. Some communities just call it people that come alongside other people. And that is the relational piece of willingly walking with someone who's moving out of a situation of maybe addiction, homelessness, living with their mental health challenges, living with their addiction to be in relationship, to be there to say, you know, are you going to your doctor's appointment? Are you maintaining your regimen? How are things going? That's really important work. And I think we often look at the, you know, sort of the nonprofit or the state bureaucracy as the, you know, sort of the experts in managing the situation. But I don't think we should underestimate the importance of the model, which I know organizations like Grace and Action Have and Davis Community Meals to a certain extent of relational being with people. Bill said to me one time, and I'll never forget it. And I quote him often times, you know, we need to be in relationship with people because every once in a while there's a moment of lucidity. And people in that moment of lucidity are ready to make a change. And I've seen this, I can give you a couple of cases when I was working with Bill and with his organization and others where people came to us and said, I am going to die if I don't get out of this. And at that moment, if someone's in relationship with them, then there's an opportunity for a change. And in some cases that change was we can send you home to your family. In some cases that was we can get you into an alcohol rehab program. And so I would appeal also as we go forward that we think about giving in terms of the time and we need mature people who can take rejection. Because a lot of the relational is about walking for weeks and weeks with people who will tell you I love you, I love you, I love you, and then tomorrow it's F you get out of my face. And we need to be committed to the relationship. And if we do that, then we have a possibility of moving beyond just to talk about financial resource to recognizing that the greatest resource we have as a community is the relational potential we have with the citizens of this community. So before I get off council, I really would like to see a mentoring program established around all of the services that we as a city are starting to roll out because I think there's real importance in going that direction as well. My name is Alan Golding and I first just wanted to say I'm very impressed with the compassion shown by many of the people in this room. But, Mr. Mayor, are you creating a magnet for homeless? You are, I believe, a little naive in thinking that 90 units is going to solve the problem. What it's going to do is attract 300 more homeless. If you speak with the police officers on the street, they will say anecdotally, off the record, that Davis has become known along the west coast as a place to come if you're homeless. How are you going to stop us becoming a magnet for homeless, not only in California, but the west coast? I think you need to be working on tools to control that. Give the police more power. And certainly, you do not have my approval to spend my tax dollars on some of the things you're talking about. Great, so I'll respond to a few of those things. You'll have a vote. If I ever come, if my colleagues ever come to request taxing ability, you'll have a vote. So rest assured, Rob Davis is not going to jam anything down anybody's throat. Second, I'll let Darren speak to what the police are seeing. Second, I didn't claim nor would I claim that building 90 units on Fifth Street is going to solve the problem. So let me just put that to rest. I'm not making that claim. In fact, I'll say building 90 units on Fifth Street will not solve the problem. We have an intractable problem. I named it. It's a syndrome of addiction, mental health, and trauma. Building a structure will not solve that problem. I want to be absolutely clear with you on that. I don't believe that. I'm not that naive. My field is public health. I understand how difficult it is to deal with syndromes. So I'm with you. Third, I've been to the League of California Cities conference twice since I've been on City Council. I've been to the sessions that are held at those meetings, which is mayors and city council members and city managers from across the state. I've been to the sessions that are about homelessness and how we're dealing with it. When I talked to my colleagues, mayors, mayor protems, they said what our population is most concerned about is that we're a magnet for homelessness. If you talk to the mayor of Woodland, he will tell you my population is concerned that we're a magnet for homelessness. If you talk to the mayor of West Sacramento, Sacramento, every mayor in the state is hearing the same thing from the population. There is absolutely no evidence that that's the case. Davis has the lowest per capita homeless population of the three major cities in Yolo County by a long shot less than West Sacramento and almost on par with Woodland. To me, when I look at the per capita statistics from around the state, Davis is one of the lower per capita homeless populations in the state. I don't see evidence for what you're saying and that's why I'm not concerned about that issue. I'm concerned about many issues, but I'm not concerned that we're creating a magnet because the data just isn't there and I'm hearing from all of my colleagues across the state that this is a concern of every population. So what is happening is that we are seeing an increase in homelessness across the state. We are seeing an increase in homelessness in our community. We are seeing an increase in chronic homelessness across the state. We are seeing an increase in chronic homelessness in our community. That is real. On a per capita basis, it is going up. On an absolute numbers basis, it is going up. Do I understand what's happening? Not completely. I do understand that the state of California has underfunded and has basically taken away resources from cities that were promised to cities to deal with mental health. We have a generation of unfunding, defunding, not funding, mental health. Somewhere along the line that catches up with us. The other thing I've seen, which in my 25 years in public health that I've mentioned, I have never seen anything as devastating as methamphetamines. I have never seen anything as devastating. I'd rather work with malaria in West Africa than work with methamphetamines in my community. It is the most addictive substance that I've ever seen, and we are in the middle of it. And so I get it. You don't want to spend the money. I'm not going to force you to. I don't agree with you, obviously, that we have a magnet problem. I do agree that we have a growing problem. And I do believe that that growing problem is a problem of untreated addiction, untreated mental health challenges. And we have choices to make as a community. If it's the community's desire that we defund and not deal with it, I don't think that that will make the problem go away. And that's my personal conviction. And I really do understand that people disagree with me pretty forcefully on that. I'm going to follow up to that, Rob, real quick. Whether or not that's actually true based on the numbers, it is a perception. We hear it all the time, as well, from the Chamber, is that we are a magnet. Davis is a very generous community. And the homeless have realized that they can get all the things that they need. Now, I don't know if that's true or not, but it is a perception. So, Darren, I would love to hear your feedback on that. Yeah, so, you know, we've been saying that Davis is a magnet for homeless for at least 25 years. When I was back on patrol, we said the same thing. So that statement is nothing new. And it's not a secret. We publicly say at meetings that we have a homeless issue. But we've had a homeless issue for a really long time. Just as the mayor said that he goes to the conferences and listens to other mayors talking about homeless, two weeks ago I went to the California Police Chiefs Association annual conference. And one of the main sessions for all of the chiefs in the state was to talk about homeless issues and what it is that they're doing to try to deal with the problem. And I heard from chiefs from the north to the south, from the big to the small, saying that the number one issue that they're facing in their community is homelessness and how the police officers can deal with the situation. So this is nothing that's different with every other community in California. The sad part was I listened to chiefs from all over the state talk about what they're doing. And in many cases, we're actually doing a little bit more to try to deal with some of our local issues. And I heard nothing innovative whatsoever from any of the chiefs across the state to try to address this problem. If we actually do the homeless team, outreach team that I proposed, that would be really unique. Nobody else is doing social workers within police departments to help deal with the problem. So as far as all of the services that we're offering, I think it is true that Davis is a very generous community. But we've been talking about that for many, many years. And the problem is a little bit more difficult than that. And at the police department, we really take a look at two different types of homeless. The first is those who are chronically homeless and really suffering from some sort of mental illness addiction, childhood trauma, something that they're not able to get their life back together and be part of a regular community. But we also have transients. And those are the homeless population where they're making a choice. And in many cases, homelessness is kind of a lifestyle. I see a lot of gray-haired people. Back in the 70s, you used to see a lot of people at on-ramps who were hitchhiking. And they were going community to community and just experiencing life in a different way than those who decided to make a home somewhere. Well, we don't see hitchhikers anymore, but we're seeing the same type of behavior in the communities that we have seen forever, which is they're just jumping on the train or taking a bus and going from community to community experiencing what there is to offer and then moving on. So as we talk about the chronic homeless numbers in Davis, we see it as kind of cyclical. We see there's times where we have a lot more and times that we have a lot less. As far as problems that we're facing with the population, there are definitely times that we deal with and respond to a lot more calls. And there's other times of relative peace. So I think it's just one of those things that's been here a long time. I think what you're hearing from the panel is there is no easy answer. From the police department perspective, we are an absolute supporter of the families or the home's first model and housing first until we get people and houses. So we're just putting band-aids every time we go out in the field and try to deal with addiction or mental health until we get people in a place where they're regularly receiving ongoing treatment for whatever the issue is, we're probably not going to eliminate their status as being homeless. So those are really important programs and I think we have to focus on that population. Quite honestly, I think most of you are really complaining about the more transient population, which is a little bit different. Now on that, the voters of the state of California have changed the laws very significantly in the past six years. Things that used to be illegal are no longer illegal. Behavior that used to land somebody in jail or prison, it's no longer doing that. Drug offenses, we arrest a person, they're out of jail in two hours. No matter how many times you're caught in possession of drugs, it's still a misdemeanor and there is essentially no punishment and really no incentive to get treatment. That was through a California proposition. So crimes that used to be state prison felonies, now they're county jail felonies and in most cases misdemeanors. We changed the classification of many crimes back to misdemeanors. Again, people keep saying, can't you lock these people up? And the answer is no. We have to find a different way to deal with people. And from the police perspective, since nobody is going to jail, the real answers are in providing social services. I just wanted to follow up on the gentleman's question about how many homeless are in Davis. Back early this year, we did a homeless census and we counted on January 23rd, 146 homeless people. They were either living in the streets, living in shelters, living at the RWS, living at Empower Yolo, or living at a CalWorks program that was existing, I think at Motel 6 in South Davis. Compared to the rest of the county, that meant we had 21 homeless individuals that night in Davis per 10,000 of population in Davis. That compares to West Sacramento, which on that night had 37 homeless people per 10,000 population. And 197 homeless individuals that night. I would just make a comment that throughout the year, I know our records show that we usually serve between 400 to 450 different homeless individuals throughout the year. Because many folks only come here, only here for a short period of time, a couple of days. They stop by my resource center to get some help and they move on. You know a whole range of reasons why they're only in Davis for a very short term. Certainly there are about, I would estimate, 70 chronically homeless people in Davis who have been here sometimes for 10, 15, 20 years. And they've been persistent, unwilling to change, and certainly presented some of the more major mental health and substance abuse issues that we've ever wanted to deal with. I would certainly add one other thing to, I think what Rob mentioned about methamphetamine use, because I know I'm sure you've seen the news, but heroin's actually become a pretty big drug issue among the homeless population also. Which of course is not good news. And that's a very intractable problem which has some very serious and detrimental life effects on somebody who becomes a hermeneutic when they're using or even after they've kicked their addiction. And I would just kind of make a few comments about, you know I know there's been some discussion about how mobile homeless people become, how they seem to be moving around. And frankly that's a function of a couple of different things. I think the major one is just a total lack of housing pretty much throughout California at this point in time. I mean we're hearing stories of San Francisco agencies placing homeless folks in Dixon, trying to put them in applications for housing in Sacramento because it just doesn't exist affordable housing in the San Francisco and the Bay Area to house the folks there. And we're seeing effects of that because they're moving around more regularly because the housing does not exist. And in Davis with a .02 vacancy rate and within the West Sacramento probably just in a single digits at four, five or six percent that just is not the affordable housing out there to do much of anything with many folks. Whether they have vouchers or not. Because many times vouchers won't pay the rent because the rent is too expensive for the voucher to afford. And that's become a serious issue deterring us really from implementing first the housing first model in a very successful way because the housing first model depends upon having cheap affordable housing you place folks into with a voucher not with a voucher and it does not exist. And we're spending a lot of time in the county doing what's called coordinate entry and other types of issues to kind of further folks with the most serious and more vulnerable issues moving to housing first. But the big roadblock is that the housing doesn't exist to make that happen. And until that's fixed, I mean more social services, more social workers in the street that all sounds good. But the plain matter of fact is that without the housing to support these people and put them in, they're going to remain homeless. And that's just the bottom line. I mean we've been working on housing issues around the county for many years and frankly I mean Creekside's going to bring in 90 units of housing. It's certainly going to solve the issue for about 44 people maybe more. But the plain fact of the matter is those 44 people are going to move in there and I'm going to guess within six months if they're all from Davis, there's going to be 44 new homeless people back in Davis backfilling where they've been. Sure. I think I have a question that might be something everyone here is also just as interested in and that's what Darren was mentioning that we have a completely different problem than homelessness that a lot of us encounters especially downtown in the parking lots when people are asking for money on the curb they are choosing a lifestyle and some of them, I'm not saying all of them, I'm saying some of them have made this a career for themselves, a lifestyle for whatever reason and don't accept the help that we have to offer. They don't accept the services. How do you motivate them to then finally say yes, I want the help maybe by not handing them money that they spend on drugs and alcohol maybe by handing them a business card a business card that you can pick up from any local small business any grocery store in Davis that lists all of the services mental health food, temporary shelter all the stuff that we all say we want to provide for them but don't give them the cash that doesn't always get spent on food it gets spent on drugs and alcohol that continue to keep them in the cycle that they're in where they're not asking for help because they're not clear headed enough to know that they need help business cards can we as a community donate money my business would be happy to fund 10,000 business cards to put throughout the city if the community could agree that handing them a business card to offer those services is a good way to go can I just add we talked the city has talked about a little bit about giving meters or some other programs like that and I'm sure each of you can touch on that a little bit yeah I let me just you know it's a controversial issue when people ask me my opinion about giving people on the street who are requesting money money I tell them I don't think it's a good idea and I don't think it's a good idea because I think it would be better to sort of dig down into what the need is and then figure out ways to meet it it's true I think a lot of folks you know do use the resources for dealing with an addiction I see that so I think alternatives but we're talking about a large population of people in the city who make their own individual choices about whether they're give or not and their reasons for giving are their very own personal reasons if I'm asked and I'll say here I think it's a bad idea I think it's a bad idea because I think there are if people are hungry we can feed them if people are in a crisis situation we can get them into you know a crisis intervention way if people are without housing we've heard that's a challenge but we can at least seek out and we do that I run into people a lot downtown who I help get to Woodland if we don't have beds here or get into help the person get into a crisis bed who was fleeing domestic abuse we have that we can help people in that way but I think folks that are that are you know again deep within an addiction looking for money I don't think it's a good idea to give people disagree with me on that but I don't think it's a good idea to give and I would rather that we put resources into strengthening the types of services that are currently lacking whatever method we come up with whether it's sort of a giving meter or whether we use a system of cards I think it would be useful to say you know to help people to have a more nuanced understanding that simply giving is not necessarily the best response to what's in front of you I think a much more appropriate response is to and we don't do this of course but is to try to understand exactly what need is being presented in front of you that takes more time and it's much more difficult he kind of said what I was going to say so yeah this is one of the most controversial issues in this community when it comes to homeless for every person that says never give anybody any money and don't provide services there's other people with the complete opposite view at the police department we always hear the complete opposite views for every time somebody's reporting a homeless camp and I want it out of here right now there's three people emailing going they're not doing anything wrong and kind of providing money downtown panhandling is the same way I do have thoughts on it you know providing money that's going to drugs alcohol and tobacco is never a good idea and that's commonly what is happening when panhandlers get money we're seeing a lot more drug abuse in the population than we ever have before so Bill mentioned heroin and heroin is really cheap but meth is even worse so when I first started law enforcement back in the 80s that was still during the old heroin crisis but by the early 90s meth appeared that nobody really did heroin and then suddenly about 2-3 years ago we started seeing heroin use again in fact we had many heroin related overdose deaths occurring here in Davis well now heroin the prices dropped significantly but the price of meth has dropped even more significantly five years ago an ounce of meth we were talking about $500 $340 to $500 depending on how much cut was in it now an ounce of meth is $60 that's $340 doses of methamphetamine so you know going out and panhandling for an afternoon most of the panhandlers are telling us they receive somewhere between $60 and $180 per day and essentially what they're doing is turning that into drugs so we're going out and actually all of the homeless camps really we're finding hypodermic needles either meth or heroin that's a very common now so most of the camp cleanups we do are hazardous material we're seeing more and more needles show up into the parks when we're arresting people for being drunk in public or in the influence of drugs they have money in their pockets and drugs in their pocket and again this is a really difficult issue because they're only going to jail for a very temporary period of time and not actually seeking help on the issue of how is it that we get people help well I hate to say it but it really is about relationship building and that's why I'm really supportive of the social service aspect and building relationships with the community we also see the exact same thing that the mayor was talking about you get these fleeting moments of somebody who says I'm about to die I'm going to help and the worst response that we can give is I got nothing right now but we can get you on a waiting list and that is just absolutely devastating and it's a lost opportunity but the more that we're able to build relationships with the population the more likely that we are able to align services and I think we do have to start improving many of the services that are no longer offered or should be offered I think it's time for maybe more questions a quick comment with the pathways to employment we're hoping that to set up giving mayors specifically to support the program so it gives an alternative so I have a couple of things to ask or to say I appreciate the part about developing relationships with the homeless I believe every human has value and deserves dignity but last week I received this long email from a neighbor it was sent to our whole entire neighborhood about all of the camps that are across the street from our houses including camps that are setting up at the church that's also on our street and the family's not comfortable they have two young children they're fearful of being out and about because there are people that are scary to them and I wouldn't just say they're bad people and they don't want to interact with them but they're fearful for their children and to tell you the truth I've worked with your code compliance folks before and I feel like we must know each other because there's always something going on but I don't ever see a response from the police and I'm told well we have to wait for two weeks of no rain and then we can go clean up the camps but they've been there for months and then they leave and they come back and it's been like that for several years and they're back and they've been there for several months and I know everyone needs a home but the litter and the trash and the shopping carts and everything it makes our environment look unfriendly and undesirable so what are we supposed to do I want to be kind to everyone I can tell you one of those guys clearly has mental health issues because he walks into the church parking lot any days for hours but nothing nobody responds to it I saw a man urinating in public this morning I called your non-emergency line nobody addressed it and I'm told that by the business that I was visiting oh this happens all the time we're so sorry it's not for you to apologize for so it's just like what do we do the issue of camp cleanups and dealing with some of the situations timely is very difficult the first part is the constitutional considerations on how we go about displacing people so really the cycle that we're in right now is displacement clean up displacement clean up and it's a never-ending cycle and that's part of the reason why you're hearing that Housing First is such an important model so right now as somebody calls in and says hey there's an illegal camp somewhere people are living there dirty, unsightly, a nuisance we have to go out and make contact and determine what's going on the first thing that we try to do is align services for the person and see if they're eligible for any type of relief in some cases they are so if there's something an emergency situation, domestic violence or something like that then we can get admitted to at least some shelter if not then they go on lists for other services we work with Davis Community Meals who goes out and does first contact with a lot of the camps and see if they can align services or not and then after usually a week we go out and start the process of eviction for a lack of a better word and then from there there's due process requirements for how long the person is noticed giving an opportunity to leave to clean up and then where are they going to go so and I can give you a real life example right now we're dealing with we will be on the 15th dealing with a massive clean up along F Street which many people are complaining about and we're also dealing with a pretty massive clean up over along the 113 near Sycamore we already know what's going to happen the F Street people are going to be relocated or dislocated and they're heading to Sycamore and the Sycamore people are going to F Street so this is this never ending cycle that we're in pretty much the camps are located in areas that are still in sight at times but not really on the beaten path as much and that's really the cycle until we're able to do some housing as far as laws dealing with infractions such as urination and public and things like that those are really difficult and challenging in dealing with the homeless population it's kind of unfair one of the things that I see for most of you in the room is I'm guessing by the way that you're addressed and appear that you have money you know when you don't have any money you're not going to pay criminal fines so even if we cite you that doesn't necessarily mean anything you may go to court, judge may impose a fine but you're not going to pay it we have some individuals that have 10 or 15 warrants for them for not taking care of previous fines that also can potentially lead to other problems and we're starting to experience this now as well in some cases where we have done unification which is helping somebody go somewhere else to hopefully be with family or somebody that can help them because they have warrants some cop in some other city or county state arrest the person in our warrants and guess what they have to come back here to yellow county and then we're right back in the same cycle that we were before so we're also very cognizant of that as well so it is difficult I did ask for some budget ads this year right now believe it or not there is no city department that specifically charged with camp cleanups the police department because we have code enforcement we kind of took it by default several years ago but without adding any real staff money resources to do it but we've been just figuring it out sometimes begging other departments to help out for so that we can do something we've primarily been using the probationers so the yellow county probation department to come and do the camp cleanups that's also had some challenges because right now some of the the camps are hazmat sites because of needles and all of the human waste so we've run into some issues with that but I hear that I may get a budget ad this year yes okay so now I've officially heard it I'm getting money this year so that we can actually hire people specifically to come in and clean up camps on a much more timely basis and I think that will be a really big help I'm also asking for another code enforcement officer I didn't get the wave on that one so we'll see if that happens and which would also speed up the process we haven't actually voted on the budget yet Darren so so we talk city manager Darren and I Joan Plinnell we talk about this weekly we I'll just say it I don't know what to do I don't know what to do I've been talking to the district attorney Chris Balkley who's been running the neighborhood court program here in town we think an opportunity he's experimenting in West Sacramento with a neighborhood court approach for homeless individuals I think he'd like to expand it here now neighborhood court is a restorative process the value I think for a situation like this is that we can train people who will sit on panels with folks who are being arrested for certain behaviors and we can talk to them more directly about the harms that this causes the community I think first of all there's very little relationship between a lot of homeless individuals and others in the community there is no relationship so neighborhood court does hold out the possibility of allowing community members who are trained to sit with folks and say this does cause harm to us this does scare us this is what happens when you engage in this behavior the principle of restorative justice then is that the person takes responsibility for their action and there's a plan put in place to try to avoid it in the future I'm Chris Balkley and I recommend that you do about this because Chris has been a real innovator in using neighborhood court for other low level crimes related to public drunkenness and other that mostly affect younger people in the community he's a strong advocate for it I think we benefited from it but when we're dealing with more entitled populations around public drunkenness for example or low level crimes there are resources available there are things that they can do to make the harm right when we're dealing with folks who are camping and creating a lot of hazardous situations part of making things right is starting to move in the direction of a lifestyle change and as I think you've heard from all of us services need to be available to enable that so one of the things that Chris when he started doing neighborhood court for homeless people in west Sacramento he called me up he called me up and said there aren't any services for homeless people I mean they're coming into our program and we have these things that we're asking to do and then there's no place to take them and so it's kind of nice when the DA becomes an advocate for you know mental health and other services but I think that's exactly what happens through a restorative process is that people begin to realize that we have a systemic problem and that we need to deal with it systemically and I just want to say what I said to you this is the most intractable problem that we have and I don't know what to say except to ask for patience as we try to put into place structures and systems that enable us to move more people out of those situations and provide them with the services they need and it is a long-term project we're just nearing one o'clock so we're out of time and if you'd like to remain if anybody can stay for a few minutes that would be great but in the last minute if each of you one sentence what do you think the solution in your mind will be for this particular problem if you can do it in one sentence I know it's a huge problem what do you think I would ask us to be patient and to be willing to engage in a relational approach to solving this problem you did it again to me yeah I was I was going to say the same thing be patient you know we get a lot of phone calls complaints but we're really trying to operate both within the law and trying to do best for the people that we're working with so be patient it does take time and I know that that causes frustration but we really do ask for patience I will third that patience and relationships I think they're critical and also the solution is housing so that's what we need to continue to work on yeah make way for innovative housing that is below perhaps the usual limits that are allowed and develop compassion I'd encourage everybody to go to acesconnection.com and learn about adverse childhood experiences and what happens how addiction feeds trauma, childhood trauma and how to get out of the cycle I would say patience, relationships and I'd go home and write on a chalkboard a thousand times affordable housing great that is the main issue well thank you all of you for coming today we hope to continue this dialogue I think we all can agree that it's going to take all of us working together to come up with a solution obviously housing and funding is going to be a critical need I had a comment made that perhaps if the city is interested in people who want to mentor or be a part of the solution how would they get engaged I don't think we have a program yet and I think that's you heard me say that's one of the things that I'd like to see developed before I leave office next year maybe they could be involved in the conversation about mentorship let's get in touch with Rob