 What we're going to do in terms of format today is a little different than past issues forms. We're going to allow some questions for Dr. Bussells and specific to the rat and shelter and then a break for questions from the audience and then Ms. Wilson is going to get up and do a presentation kind of to the slideshow review and questions paired with that and then we can wrap, you know, total questions at the end and by the way coffee's here so you will not insult me if you want to get it to be the thumbs. With that as background, we'll go ahead and get started with you Dr. Bussells. So if you could give us a little high level overview of the work that went into the opening of the rat and shelter, that'd be great. Absolutely, so in February we decided to create a Task Force to Prevent and Homelessness. The mayor asked me to lead that work particularly because of my experience around public health issues and I do believe homelessness is a public health issue. When you think about the different facets that go into what makes someone homeless, you think about mental illness, substance use, you're often one decision away from that happening, right? And so really thinking about the complex root causes of a complex problem was especially important. This is the number one thing that we have gotten calls about, sometimes complaints about, sometimes angst about from not only our business owners but our constituents as well. So I would actually say both on the campaign trail as well as now, this is a top three issue and we hear about it from all corners of the city so this is not concentrated just in the downtown core, we're hearing about it in Harveston, in the Garner's Theory area and this is also a situation that's not unique to Columbia and I want to be very clear about that. We've seen a national uptick of people experiencing homelessness and some of that has to as you can imagine do with the hardships from the pandemic, both economic and financial and social and some of it is also just the cost of living and the different challenges that come from that. And so keeping all of that in mind, I was lucky to already have some great relationships with folks that are providing services to those experiencing homelessness and I really wanted to understand the multiple perspectives that go into understanding this problem. So what ended up happening is that we put together a committee of concerned business owners, citizens, people that really cared about moving the needle on homelessness and then we involved the providers in terms of one-on-one conversations, we had kind of I like to say key informant interviews but really had some good in-depth conversations to really understand the scope of the problem and to really make sure that we were able to create achievable outcomes. When you think about homelessness as a whole, right, that's a very daunting issue to try and solve. But when you think about what our specific lane and role can be as a city, it makes it a little bit easier to think about what's possible for the city of Columbia and how can we lead as we have in terms of homeless services to really make a difference, to balance both the safety and economic concerns of our business owners and the social and compassionate side of addressing homelessness. And so we had an outside researcher conduct a study for us. We really wanted to understand the landscape of services in the greater Columbia area and so he cataloged all of the different services that touch any sort of population that may be experiencing homelessness. And like I said, we think about the whole population that includes families, kids, veterans, you know the list can go on because there's so many different facets of homelessness even within that field. And so we learned one thing that shouldn't surprise all of you and that is Columbia is known for providing good services. We have a lot of different options available. Now when you map that out, it may be even difficult to get there when it comes to when you have a car because they're all over the city or all over the county. A lot of these services are restricted by the funding that they are provided where they can only serve specific groups of people or specific age groups or specific genders. And so it wasn't that we didn't have services and we can always do more but we felt like people just maybe weren't talking to each other to build a true spectrum of continuum of care in a way that was serving the needs of our city. And we also learned this term that HUD uses, the unsheltered or the chronically unsheltered population. We found that there were very few, if anyone, working with specifically this hard to reach population. These are the folks that unfortunately may engage in criminal activity or we often get calls about from constituents. And they're really hard whether it's for trauma reasons, whether it's for just general hardships that have led to not wanting to trust the system. And so we work with CPD to kind of get an idea of how many people that is. And they estimate anywhere from 200 to 250, typically the folks that we're seeing the most visibly on the street. And we realize that our focus has to be that. So one thing I want to make clear as we have our conversation today is we're not talking about homelessness big, right? We're talking about specifically this population of the chronically homeless that or the chronically unsheltered that are often hard to engage. But really need the services and need to be able to engage in a way that works for them. And so we continue to work and understand I am a researcher by trade so I read a lot of peer review publications, got to talk with some of our national partners, got to talk with Mayor Wu's team in Boston to understand what they had done. And there's one thing that kept coming back and that was single occupancy units. So the traditional shelter model where you have many people living in one space often doesn't work for some of our hard to reach populations again because of trauma and substance use, mental illness, you name it. Given the high costs of housing in addition to just the challenges of getting more affordable housing in any city, we know that this would be something very difficult to tackle. And I think City Manager Wilson will talk a little bit more about how we got creative about that. But we knew that we needed to find single occupancy spaces where someone can live with dignity in order to then triage them into various services. Through all of the interviews that I was able to do and to talk with people I also learned that oftentimes people don't know what services are available and maybe we need a one-stop shop or a hub where people can meet where our, you know, chronically homeless or chronically unsheltered folks are and then, you know, put them out to the different services that they need. And so that was really where I felt it was important for us to step up and take a role and take a lead. And then lastly, you know, traditionally, the city hasn't coordinated or really overseen its funding in the sense that it gives up funding to a lot of its great community partners. But there really was no kind of person or go to in terms of homeless services within the city. And so a model that, you know, the task force learned from a lot of other cities that was working really well, including our neighbors in North Charleston, was this idea of like a homeless coordinator or, I say czar, I know you don't love that word, but somebody who can really be that point of contact that participates in existing systems and infrastructures that are created for providers really advocates for the needs of the city. Because one thing we've learned, and this should be no surprise to you all, is oftentimes Columbia is taking on the burden of the entire state when it comes to a lot of our services. And we need people to be vocal about that. We need really regional and state collaboration to ensure that if we're going to be known for the best services, then people need to support us both financially and in terms of making sure that we have everything we need for our system to work efficiently. And so we had all of these great conversations on the task force. You know, I was able to kind of summarize a lot of that into a memo for my colleagues. We had some really great, I think, in-depth conversations. And I remember City Manager Wilson saying, okay, you've done the work, give it to us and let us take it now and let us bring you back something based on everything that you've shared with us. And I have to give a shout out to my colleagues because this is really the first time that I've seen a council be so collectively on the same page in terms of we have to do something about this. Sometimes it's really hard and there are definitely uncomfortable conversations. The intent is never to, you know, go in with anything with ill intent, but sometimes tough love is required. And I have to say that the entire council, we said, let's do it. We have to do something. We have to do things differently because it's just not working. And so we had, you know, preliminary conversations with Ms. Wilson and that's how Rapid Shelter Columbia was born. So I'll pass it over to her. Oh, got a couple more questions. We'll pass it over to her in a second. You can summarize when you're talking to the service providers what their biggest concern was and maybe the concern different in the last two years compared historically. Well, I think in general, I touched on some of it. The number one thing I heard was it has gotten more difficult because of the COVID pandemic in terms of just financial hardships that often lead to becoming, you know, chronically homeless. Also, mental health and issues around mental health are at an all-time high. And, you know, I think in general, I also heard there was a little bit of, I'll be honest, a little bit of uneasiness that we took this approach of having maybe our concerned citizens and business owners in the beginning just be the ones at the table to really help us understand what they were experiencing. But then, you know, we started to have these really great meaningful in-depth conversations. In fact, I had a great one with Melanie and her team here at the Richland Library just talking about their experiences, got to do a tour of transitions, got to meet with my partners at Mercy and have worked with United Way for years. I think they began to really see how this is all kind of playing out. We really, really wanted to address the root cause. And that required us to take a very objective, intentional approach to understand where all of these issues were. And so, you know, I thought that the providers, they came and did these wonderful presentations to the task force. And we gave them some pretty, I think, spicy questions, right? We asked them, one of the things that we learned is that there's not many services after 5 p.m. What do you all think we should do about that? And every single provider that came and talked, they had some really great ideas about, well, this is, you know, what we need to do. We talked about collaboration. There are lots of services available. How can, you know, providers better collaborate? And, you know, our providers acknowledge that there is sometimes a very competitive environment for different homeless services. And that there's always room to be better and to do better in terms of talking to each other. And some of it's also, again, the nature of funding, right? South Carolina we learned in terms of federal HUD funding does not get, I would say, our fair share compared to the population that we served when you look at other states like Connecticut where their formula is much higher. So there's certainly work to be done in that sense in terms of bringing in some of those other opportunities. But I think they're, the number one thing they said, we're aware of these issues. We understand that this is a very delicate situation that requires balance and we're here to help. Great, thank you. Take a quick question from the audience. Anybody else got their bustles before we started on this Wilson's presentation? Yes, ma'am? So the cards, I wrote books on the ground. So our organization literally deals with the individuals in the cracks and crevices, Valensbury, Lexington, Columbia area. So to our understanding, and me speaking with about 100 unhoused individuals on last Friday, they're under the perception that individuals are being moved from transitions into the pub. So that's what I kind of wanted to get some clarity on to translate to the individuals that we serve out on the street because of course we know things are being said, but they're like, well, technically it's not helping us because we're still on the street if they're moving from one shelter to the next. So I'll let you add to that. But I would say that that's not true. Transitions is still a resource and partner. They are the ones helping us coordinate the rapid shelter, right? But we will be having our inclement weather center now known as rapid shelter open and we'll stay open in the traditional shelter format. But then we have 50 additional pods and there's going to be a referral system, right? We want to use the data and the systems that already exist to make sure we get folks into the system and we're able to get them to the services that we need. But I'm not really sure where that is maybe coming from. So we'll get to that. Let me answer your question. The answer is no, that isn't how it will work, but you may better understand it if we go ahead and go through the PowerPoint presentation and I'll make sure I specifically address that and be very clear about it. I wanted to say thank you to Niagara Bustles for all of our hard work with the Task Force for Vivid and Hummelsons, it was a heavy lift but it was, you know, the good work that Latin officials should be doing and she took it on very robustly and I wanted to commend her for doing that. She did a great job of really explaining how we have gotten to where we are and what I would say as part of her description is that this council has taken a pretty bold move from the standpoint of the investment of the dollars. They've more than doubled the spend on homeless services that the City of Columbia has traditionally invested. They have invested in human capital as a municipality and as a manager. What I always tell our citizens and our business owners is that we are about the work every day. The people who do the work have to make sure the water's clean and the trash is picked up and now as Dr. Bustles described, we're moving even more into a different era probably of how we address homeless services as a city by really focusing, as she said, on the chronically unsheltered because we are hearing from the business owners, the citizens, particularly those around city center who feel the impact of these chronically unsheltered on a daily basis. I see many of you in the crowd, our friends who work with us, our partners who experience behaviors on your doorstep literally that we really just can't tolerate as a city but we also have to balance how to deal with that with a compassionate and dignified approach and so before we have always had our traditional congregate shelters as Dr. Bustles described and they work well, they're doing their jobs, the very best of their abilities, what hasn't been an option for Chief Holbrook or others who face chronically unsheltered population on a daily basis may be exhibiting some behaviors that need to be addressed but may not be a behavior that requires or should require them being incarcerated is that they haven't had an immediate place to take these individuals and so we'll talk a little bit more about that but this presentation is gonna show you our attempt at beginning to provide that immediate place where individuals who are not already at transitions or not at all for gospel or any of the other congregate shelters will be potentially giving an opportunity to be assigned to a pallet shelter unit and it will be done only on a referral basis, only with the work of our homeless services director and I do like the terms are, I think it just doesn't work well for a job description, for a few resources director so we had to come up with homeless services, director of homeless services and we're so excited on it, show you a picture of Camisha Hepard who is our homeless services director been on the job and boots on the ground for not even two weeks, has been a seamless transition because Colonel Craig Curry who's in the audience, the CEO of Transition has shared her with us, she was his VP at number two person and she applied for this job and got it because she was just simply the best choice and she knows the population intimately. She has also a project manager that we hired Miss Mackinwall who is a young superstar, they both have their masters in social work from the University of South Carolina and Mackin has made it and it's said to me it is her life's work to work not only as a social worker but specifically with the homeless population and she has served us well in this community at Washington Street United Methodist running their soup seller and other opportunities she's had to network with all of our providers so it's just been, sometimes I say the stars aligning for us to find the right people not only in their professional backgrounds but who know this population that we're trying to serve and so let me show you a few photos of where we are, how we started and where we have landed. Kamisha and Mackin are not here with us this morning but we hope to have them with you in the future because we're launching today and it was the goal of the council for us to launch on November the 1st because that had always been the day when the Inclimate Weather Center, that's the title as we knew it, we're rebranding that title but honestly the operation of Inclimate Weather Center is the same as simply now the rapid shelter component that's the overflow so any individuals if you're speaking to individuals that are still looking for shelter on a cold night when it's 40 degrees or below or certain other triggers about Inclimate Weather they can still be shuttled, it's not no walk-ups shuttled to this facility, same setup as it has been but now in addition to those two Butler buildings you will see how we have deployed the 50 plus rapid shelter units, the pallet shelter so with that Corey, and let me thank that listen we can't do what we do without the best team in Columbia so Corey Williams with IT is here, Ms. Pamela Benjamin who's assistant city manager of administration Ashley Jenkins Wood from the office who does project management with me and I see assistant city manager Henry Simons who's over facilities for the city of Columbia and operations who really can help me talk about this you might have to jump up here Henry as far as how this came about in two months time, literally I mean, yeah so we'll show you some pictures so this is September the 7th when as Dr. Bussell's described to you the council had kind of come to terms with what could be out the gate an idea that really literally addresses the chronically unsheltered with a new option and we went on site and had this press conference to just sort of announce to the community and to our providers who are gonna be so integral in the success of this, what the concept is for rapid shelter. And I just wanna add something that this is a short term solution and I think that city manager will emphasize this this is not long term, this is a temporary solution to then allow our folks to get the services that they need, the task force was always to be a short term solution focused as well given the urgency of the issue so. Absolutely, again this was just the site as it's always been, always had been for implement weather center that's just the side of one of the Butler buildings for it. So this gives you a little bit of a feel for the original site plan as we thought or conceived it to become on the left side you see the majority of the units where they would be deployed for the men and the right side for the women. Those two big rectangles again are the Butler buildings that have always been in place down on Calvin Street for the weather center. That's just an aerial as work was beginning to get started with grading of the site. Another view this is near our canal near our water treatment plant. So there's just a lot of thought that had to go into this as many of you probably know we are very fortunate finally with funds from FEMA and the federal government to be finally moving forward with I don't want to talk about the flood because it gets emotional but some of the issues that we still dealt with since the 2015 flood. The pallet shelter site again moving forward as of September 29th. We had electrical meters set thanks to Dominion shout out to them for being so quick and working with us as they always do. Another aerial at this point, concrete is getting laid, sidewalks are being laid. And by now we're at October 11th. Really starting to see some progress. The units are heated and have air conditioning. So all of that had to be taken to account. We have restroom facilities inside the Butler buildings that have showers as well. We wanted to make sure that we would have enough bathrooms so we also invested in portable restrooms and want to make sure at certain times. So certain nights can sexually have to think about this. The nights when it's implement will have another population on site like they've always been. But the idea is to still keep some separation and stage the times for dinner, service for those who'll be coming on the inclement weather nights. But we also have to feed our individuals who'll be there 24 seven who've been assigned to a pallet shelter unit. So we were trying to, as we're going through this think about, you know, how is this really gonna work? And we have a great team who sorted all of that out. Invested in commercial grade washers and dryers. Turf installation, and quite frankly, it was just gonna be better for maintenance for our purposes. It's a nice clean look. You know, people who know me well, I was probably from a mom who taught for 30 years and a father who was a superintendent of schools for almost 50. That, you know, you gotta set a tone. You gotta set a tone that hopefully will instill in the individuals who will be assigned to these locations of pride. We wanna provide a wonderful atmosphere for them with dignity, but there also will be rules and regulations and dignity standards and guidelines that must be followed. This was a big day for us when the pallet shelters arrived on October the 24th. Pallet shelters are based in the Northwestern part of the country. So this is a new thing in the South, we do believe, and we've said this, as we research, it will be the first in the Southeast to try the concept. And so literally they came in on big 18 wheeler trucks were deployed and kudos to our city teams who just embraced this, wanting to establish teams of their own. They got a little competitive with it. We had a public works team and a parts and recreation team and the engineering and all of these different city departments who formed teams. And the teams had team leads and literally it was just like an assembly line. They learned the votes from pallet shelters taught them on day one how to do this and they did it. And I kept saying, slow down. I wanna be able to show everyone how this is done. But I mean, literally in two days they had built these units and they're in our wonderful city teams working. On October the 26th, yeah, a big smile that day. We were able to showcase for a lot of our provider partners the media, give them opportunity to see the concept as it was built out. And that's Camisha there at the bottom left really did a great job answering questions about the programming piece because so this was hard to get it stood up but I think the even harder part is now the implementation of the programming and working to make sure that every single day we have the right number of service providers from staged and staggered but Office of Veterans Affairs or Loradec or DMH Prisma Health has already said they wanna be on board. So we're really thankful that these partners are gonna step up but we need you all to help remind I guess our community partners that again the city can't do it alone. There's just no way that any of this works without those providers. The investment that I mentioned has been there we are creating jobs with this. As Dr. Bustle said, I've been saying it's no longer kind of the middleman approach although we were so thankful for the United Way's coordination with our various contracts over the years. That is truly the second difference here is that the city is now going direct with the providers we are going to rent with the contracts and transitions and the common and the salvation army. I see all our partners in the room to make this happen and that is just quite frankly accountability when you do that. That is Rapid Shelter, Colombia, the aerial view as of October the 26th is having a little lunch. And we had a wonderful community member from Cayna Grilled Hot Dogs and Hamburgers for our team. He did a great job that day. He can close it out for me. With, I think we have a photo of, oh and this was just our construction schedule. I kind of talked through that already for you. I talked about how the team leads were developed with the four to five volunteers per shelter unit. They've been anchored to the ground. These are, you know, just to be clear, these are very well done units. They are anchored, engineered, safe. They've been used for years and proven. See if we can get to Camisha and Mac and photos and contact information we have. So Camisha, how far as I described is our director of homeless services. Mac and Wall is our project manager. We'll have a third staff person who's, she's been hired, starts tomorrow, who will be assisting Camisha and Mac and working with our providers to set up, you know, all of the ground services. One of the other things that I think has been key to Dr. Bussell's point about after-hour services, after five, is that, you know, and it's been eye-opening for me to get in that deep in this as well. Some of that has also been the capacity to do it. So now we have our pathways unit through the Columbia Police Department where Department of Mental Health clinicians are assigned with members of CPD. They will be doing that type of outreach, but we really need the Department of Mental Health stabilization unit, which we keep, you'll hear me always emphasize that every opportunity I have, because even with all of this, those individuals who have mental health needs and need some stabilization before they're put anywhere need to have somewhere to go as well. And that system has worked in other parts of the state and we want it to work well with the capacity it needs in the Midlands. And so you'll hear our counsel and me talking with our state partners to push for that. We'll also have more street outreach individuals now funded through this effort, through transitions and through the city's team to be working after hours.