 Well thank you all for being here today. I want to acknowledge first my colleague Councilman Trevino who has been a tremendous supporter in creating compassionate policies in San Antonio. We talked about his night overnight in the courtyard about a month ago and it's very enlightening to be in and among the people who work in your area so thanks so much for your work. San Antonio is a charitable city we've seen that on a large scale people like to know our city from what happened in 2005 under Mayor Phil Hardburger when the world was trying to figure out up from down after the Hurricane Katrina and Mayor Hardburger opened our arms and said come come here we will take you in we will be neighbors we will be friends and we will be with you in your darkest times we've seen that recently in our city's response from organizations such as the chambers of commerce through our international offices on the response to Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and the outpouring support that this community gave to that those communities in the Philippines and we've seen it on a small scale every day the daily acts of kindness that people in this room undertake to make our community a better place for those individuals who most need it. Nowhere in this is the spirit of San Antonio's generosity more evident than our desire to feed our homeless neighbors. The goal of today's summit is to empower those who feel called to give and to make sure they do so safely and responsibly. I'm the chair of the city's quality of life committee. I've worked with my council colleagues such as Councilor Mitrovino and city staff to examine the policies that govern the feeding of homeless in San Antonio and to ensure that they protect the health of those being fed without hindering those doing the feeding. I want to make special recognition to Melody Woosley and the Department of Human Services the outstanding they work the work they do for the city every day. Certainly there are policies and we can all point them in any number of areas in our community that need to be refined. We began this discussion a few months ago at city at the council committee level because we identified this as being one of those areas we've been talking about as a community let's refine it let's work with our stakeholders. If we want to move the city forward we have a genuine interest in doing so we'll work together to make it happen. We agreed that this was an important first step coming to you the foot soldiers in this fight for your input and guidance so I want to thank you all each one of you sitting here today has input on this issue your all stakeholders and attendants certainly again thank you for being here to city staff for organizing the summit and most importantly those of you who dedicate your time and talent serving San Antonians in need this day is for you we are a city of compassion we are a city of charity and hope and today's discussion will only bear that out there's a lot of work yet to do ahead and we thank you for your patience as we begin to really work on how we refine our policy and move forward together as a city under those values so thank you very much for being here look forward to having the discussions with you turn it back over thank you councilman for kicking us off so a few orders of business let's take a look at this agenda real quick in a moment I'm going to ask Melody Woosley to come up and walk you through just a handful of slides to put the issue in context and then let me introduce lady Romano lady and I work at united way we're delighted to be here today as your facilitators and after the presentation we're going to walk you through a series of questions and we're going to try and have a focused conversation on some high point questions that we're going to do that for about two hours okay we're not going to take any any formal party breaks the restrooms are right outside these doors to the left there's some water in the back of the room if you require it okay let's see what I'd like to do is what go around the room very quickly and have you introduce yourself and the organization that you represent okay your name and the organization that you represent the quicker we do this the more time you're going to have the talk at the back end of this okay so let's start at this table right here so Monty Marshall Travis parking out of Methodist Church Edwin's eyes David Bodge horizontal mistress Brian Allison quarter little misery plus Travis Barton back to Methodist Church or what I have on the police department I'm probably late, so they are me we set up a coalition on them set up a channel I do the most names of the homeless about my co-host story hi ladies Kelly and I'm here from councilman works on these these five districts Hi, I'm Mike Russell with the State of the Streets Ministry. I'd like to talk about all the regional lines for your bonus. I call a meeting with the five guardians in the evening. Thank you, now. Frank Kielbos of the Society of St. Vincent's Ball. For a house taking you to the Streets Ministry. Bonnie Craw, Metro and Church of Christ direction. Mark Duff taking it to the Streets Ministries. John Clarence-Morigel of the G-Association. G. George with the Grace of this Culture. Nancy Cahn at the Basel del Rio Association. Michael Loutz with the Santa Plain Forestry Council. Alyssa Payne, First Presbyterian Church. Justin Holley, Professor and Visitor's Commissioner. Pamela Knott with that in the bridge, Amy. Dennis Clarence with the Chauffeur. Joe Jinger with the Chauffeur. Bill Holland with that in the bridge, Amy. Pam Holland with that in the bridge, Amy. Christina Edwards with the Resurrection Ministries. Paul Smiths with the Resurrection Ministries. Michael Wicks with the Resurrection Ministries. Jim Spicker, Professor of Sociology, specializing in the study of homelessness. Dr. Deffernette, Catholic Charities. Linda, so many Catholic Charities. Claudis Gonzales, Catholic Charities, all over the community center. Fran Thierry, United Way. Chris Putsche, Catholic Worker House. Here we go. Christie Claudis, Localist and Visitor. St. Mark's Catholic Church. You need it? Yeah. Jen, a few minutes. Jen, maybe the City Council District 1. I'm not ignoring the media. I just don't feel like you need to introduce yourself. Maybe he needs to be at the Library of Congress. Do you want to meet us on the front of the Library of Congress? It's down in the aisle, the Library of Congress. We're the Diego Library of Congress. Nancy Williams, Bureau of County Community Research. May the White House and Bureau of County Communities. Scott Atkerson and David Berhopel in the Center for Healthcare Services. Jessica Dominguez in the Center for Healthcare Services. Jessica Dominguez in the Center for Healthcare Services. Jimmy Richard in the Center for San Antonio. Raymond Gastro, Park Police. Robin Wooden in the Parks and Recreation. Phillip Covington, Parks and Recreation. Andrew Sassel, United Way. Baccarat. Have you got us on the side of San Antonio Police? Jennifer Marys, Office of the State Manager. Jeff Coyle in the City of San Antonio. Jim Marys finished City Development and Operations. Richard King, City's Department of Human Services. Richard King, City's Department of Human Services. Richard King, City's Department of Human Services. Okay, the shot piece in the back. I'd like to say thanks to Ramira for hosting us in your beautiful library. And thank you for all the terrific, you know, beautiful artwork that's here today. It's really awesome, so thanks. Okay. Now I'm going to introduce Sally Lucy, who is the Head of the Department and the Director of the Department of Human Services for the City of San Antonio. So good afternoon. Great turnout. And on behalf of the City of San Antonio, I really appreciate you all of you being here and showing up and participating in this event and in this conversation. So the City has a long history of commitment to addressing homelessness in San Antonio. As Tony said, I do direct the Department of Human Services for the City of San Antonio. And that includes coordination of homeless initiatives that the City is involved in, as well as management of the homeless investments that the City makes. So before we get started with our discussion, I want to provide that Tony will facilitate. I do want to provide some background and an overview of the issue that we're here to talk about and our review of homeless feeding policy as well as the goals for today's summit. And so as background, in April and May, the City Council Quality of Life Committee requested that staff provide a briefing on the current policies that regulate feeding of the homeless and compassionate feeding and also to conduct research on practices around the country and in comparable cities to San Antonio. Quality of Life staff council members recommended that staff develop policy options and recommendations that will support the compassionate efforts of charitable organizations and individuals as well as protect the health and welfare of the community and the homeless. Based on our review of best practices and the input that we received today from you, we will plan to present policy options and recommendations to City Council in the fall. And so the purpose of today's summit, I think it's important to start out and give you a framework of what we're doing here today. The most important thing is that we want to get your input on this issue. We're asking for your help to identify the barriers and challenges to feeding the homeless and those that are in crisis or are vulnerable. But even more importantly, we want to get your ideas and some of your ideas about the opportunities for feeding the homeless in the community. Additionally, we really want this summit to start the conversation. This isn't a one-time thing. We want to have ongoing conversations with you, the city does. But we also want you to have ongoing conversations between yourselves. A way to coordinate services and ensure that the homeless are being served in a safe manner. And so you've heard us say many times that the city does not have a law or a regulation regarding homeless feeding or that prohibits homeless feeding. The city code starts with and follows state law. That's first and foremost. And it's state law for food safety and then it also includes mobile vending and food establishments and distribution of food. These regulations apply to food that is sold or given out. And it also regulates distribution of food for all organizations as well as charitable organizations. The distribution of food on private property without the permission of property owners may also be subject to trespassing laws. And I know everyone here believes that food safety is important. I don't think there's any doubt about that. One of the handouts at the year table does talk about the things that any group can do. What is legal? What permits are available? What processes are open to provide food in a charitable way? And so now with your input, we want to identify more opportunities for serving the homeless. And so that's really the goal of today. And so in reviewing policy options our primary focus is to ensure the safety and welfare of the community while encouraging and facilitating charitable acts. Ensuring food safety is particularly important with vulnerable populations who may be subject to more impact from bad food. They have less opportunities to seek medical attention. It's important that we protect that. We're also concerned with protecting property in the environment. Whether it's public or private property, we want it to be left clean and safe. And to be frank, this is the challenge of homeless feeding that we get the most complaints about. And the mess that's left when food packaging is thrown on the ground or when bathrooms are not available. It's not happening with every organization. But it's something that would need to be addressed in any policy that we either review or develop. And finally, connecting the homeless to other services, that's the other thing that's very important to the city. We can provide food today and that's important, but we want to make sure that people have the opportunity to connect to services that help them provide food for the rest of their lives. And so how can we facilitate ongoing coordination and provide opportunities for coordination? One way is through the community's homeless continuum of care, the South Alamo Alliance for the homeless also known as CERA. So CERA is a network of providers and stakeholders in the community. It already exists. They are always looking for new organizations to provide insight and feedback on what's going on with the homeless. There are a lot of unique, there are multiple needs and not there's not one agency that can serve them all. And so CERA really provides a network of those agencies and we would encourage any of you to participate in that network. We have a membership from CERA here, the Executive Director, Billy Hubbard. And so hopefully through today's conversation you can get to know about that organization. And finally, you know, the human toll of being chronically homeless is high and it's also avoidable. We spend a lot of resources on emergency care for the homeless, medical, healthcare, justice system, social services, and we think it's important to try to avoid that. And that is really the reason for the city's significant investment in homelessness. In total, the city's annual budget includes $9.3 million for homeless services. The majority of that, yes, is at Haven for Hope, but a lot of that goes to community organizations such as Sam Ministries, St. Vincent DePaul, St. PJ's, organizations that are providing homeless prevention, rapid rehousing, and shelter services as well as mental health services. It's a comprehensive continuum that we want homeless people to have access to. And so, yes, Haven for Hope is the city's primary homeless investment and we do encourage the homeless and people nearing homeless to seek services there because they're comprehensive and transformative. And we encourage you to also, as you touch the homeless in a lot of ways, you're the front line and you have access and you have relationships with homeless individuals, and so we do encourage you to seek those opportunities and part of the reason we're here today is to have that discussion. And so, we want to dive right into our conversation and get started on that and so I'm going to turn it right back over to Tony. So now what we're going to do for about the next hour and a half is have a conversation. And the conversation is going to begin with what are the opportunities and challenges of feeding the homeless and the hungry because I don't want to keep myself saying the homeless but I'm also talking about people who are hungry because I think a lot of them serve them also, right? So it's not just, but for short time I'm going to say homeless instead of going to a whole new school. But I am trying to include anybody who's hungry out there. Okay? So, the first question and the lady's going to help me. So what we decided to do is split the room in half. So I'm going to be looking at this half of your mind and that half is hers. So you got to catch our eye. We have enough time. I'm going to ask everybody to limit your time to about one minute but I have four questions. Okay? That we have to get through in an hour and a half. And if everybody wants to have something to say, you get about a minute. Let's try not to go over two minutes, please. Okay? We're going to do a parking lot. Today we're talking about feeding the homeless and hungry people. That's all we're going to talk about. Okay? There's other stuff that you want to talk about. We're going to put it in a parking lot because one of the things we'd like to see come out of this meeting is to have some how many people don't need to go to another meeting. That would be me. Okay? But we want to meet with you and have these conversations on and on a treatment basis, okay? So we're going to ask you to do that. And we'll put these things on a parking lot and get back to the metadata time. Is that okay? Right? We're going to ask that we speak one person that speaks at a time. We're not here to challenge each other. We're here to provide facts and information. We've got all these folks here listening to you today. It's a great opportunity. So speak slowly and try not to talk too long with one person at a time. All the ideas are great ideas. There are no ideas in this room. Okay? And we're going to get as many as we can. We have people here describing and taking notes. Okay? So it's only about taking notes. There is a survey on your table. I'm going to tell you about it now. But I want you to pay attention now. But before you leave today, if you can fill that survey out and leave it on the table and we'll compile it. We want to know how we did it today. So your first question is... It's hard to get an inch. We're going to get an inch right with Tony. There are six seats up here. Those of you who are sitting in the back want to just pay attention. We're in creative manner. You're welcome. There's room on your survey board to leave comments. Don't be shy. Okay? Because I'm going to go. So what would you like to tell us today? And then two questions are what are the challenges and what are the opportunities for feeding people in the community. And I am going to call you just to get us started. You can task me. Okay. Anybody who would like to start? Yes, sir. Could you stand up and speak? Yeah, I find myself at a distance. I've been feeding my homeless and I've been drawing the paintings of them. And finding that in the citizens in San Antonio. And finding that it's illegal to feed the homeless. Many of the people that are on the streets that are homeless there are people that suffer from not wanting to be inside. You know, not liking to be around people and things of that sort. And, you know, I guess I'm just wondering a lot about the council members. Were you the ones that drafted up the actual formal complaint to have made it, you know, to push it all forward to make it legal to feed the homeless in San Antonio? Because I thought it was a matter of feed the homeless and I find it kind of awkward that the city of San Antonio is, um, you know, having, you know, driving up things. I'm not sure that we're here to talk about the legality of it. I think we're here to talk about it. Yeah. It's a challenge. It's a challenge. Thank you. It's not illegal to feed the homeless. We have if you do not have laws we have laws that regulate group safety. That's just one word. So that's what we want to focus on is how can we work within those to feed the homeless or have them do whatever to repeal the group safety laws. But, addressing the practices, I think Let me just make some comments the way I see it. We have food safety regulations in the city of San Antonio. So you are not wrong in thinking that somehow we have effectively made the work that many of you folks have done illegal because some of the requirements are such that prevent you from feeding the homeless. But let me answer your question. The purpose of today is to figure out what are our intentions for food policy? What are our intentions for being a compassionate city and feeding the homeless? And where do we misalign? Because I can tell you that everyone in this room council especially wants to have a brand for San Antonio says we are a compassionate city. If we want to help one another, we should be able to do that. So let's figure out how to refine the policies that Mellie is absolutely correct there is no law that says you cannot feed a homeless person. But you have to do it under certain conditions. And those conditions are ready for doing so. So let's figure out how we can better work on those policies. And what we want to do is get input on that process so we can figure out what needs to be changed. Do the businesses here in San Antonio say we are giving tax payer money to the council or supporting their salaries. We don't want homeless people down to them. We don't want them anywhere. And the city council says hey, let's just hang back and let's make a law saying it's illegal to feed the homeless and you have to have all of them. And this is the point. If that is the message that you're receiving from the city of San Antonio, that's not what we want to say. So let's help us create a better message with better policies. So I don't want to get into this is not the purpose today because this won't be helpful. If we continue to hear the same complaints, let's move from complaint to solutions. You have to find out the reason why. Let's do that. Why did you make this law? Well, neither councilman or I were here when those policies were created, but we're here executing those policies. We're telling you we want to do better. So help us to do better. Some of the food we serve is safer than what you get in a restaurant. There's a great comment. So let's go from there. So let's raise our hands and have comments that are going to be factual and informative for us to help create a body of knowledge that we have. We have a gentleman over here that has a comment. If you hold, I spent four months there. I got sick eating there. There too, there. I've never got sick eating in any of these other organizations I've been in. The regulations you put on them, they're trying to, they've got budgets, they're trying to follow, they can't afford necessarily to follow all these regulations that are put on them. Even my organization, Church of Porzana, you see, Travis Park and Agnes Church, we hear talk that the food bank is going to require every volunteer that goes into our kitchen to get food handlers per day. Okay, the city, that's not cost-effective for us. We get thousands of different volunteers coming in and out every month. If we have to take one of them ourselves, which would be happy because it's not in our budget right now. Thank you very much. I have a young lady over here. Yes, do it. I have a young lady over here. Sorry. Hi, so Elizabeth Haney here from First Puppeteering Church. We do a training program the last Sunday of every month. One thing that I would, this is taking a conversation a little bit different from what you just said. We could compile a list to know who is doing what and when. We need a last Sunday of every month, but somebody comes on a Sunday morning to church and wants to be fed. I would love to be able to recommend and I know even on Sundays, after we have lunch, the patients and the people are pretty sizable and sometimes they get on to take under the bridge or manage to move to the streets on Friday. So I just would like to get a better look at what we have, especially like yesterday we had our industry and two people pass out as a team and other things is what we are feeding them on with, especially with a lot of them being diabetic or having different health issues. You know, again I know any food is good food for somebody who is hungry, but is there a way that we can provide healthier options? Is that something that we should start to talk about? What's the best way to do that? I think over here we have a huge concern. My turn. At the same time, we can do the poor work feed, but we have been done as to what we can to complete. We are very concerned about the nutrition of the protective folks that we feed there. So what we do is they have a special diet, special stresses and everything else and we are looking for ways that we can, and this is where this group here can help us, set up sort of a nutritional role, so we are feeding everything that should be fed. And that's what we are looking forward to. We are going to change our ways, but I think it will be good for everybody else too. Yeah. I just wanted to add on what was said a minute ago. I've eaten in Haven, I've eaten in a lot of other organizations. There are, you know, every time I eat on the street, I never get sick. I go to Haven, I go to the courier, painless. You know, I've eaten with Brother Brian, I've eaten with Mark, I've eaten with Miss Diane, I've eaten in West Park, you know, probably almost every organization in this room, I've eaten in one, two, three, four, and I never get sick, but I go to Haven and all of a sudden I get sick. I mean, I don't understand why the city wants to push everybody towards something that's going to make them sick. I don't understand. Why is this something that's working? I don't get it with the child frame. I'm also a great chef and do have my food managers safety license and five of my volunteers have food safety food handle permits. If the city, I'm surprised to know that there's no law against being homeless, but boy, I wish I'd known that 13 weeks ago. It was safe a lot of grief and a lot of name calling from the city, but I'm here to work forward with the city. If they are really interested in food safety, then the ordinance needs to be revised. It needs to exempt exemptions for faith-based goods, emergent charitable operations. What we are willing to do in order for the city not to make us criminals, not to have $2,000 of class savings demeanors, we are willing to and we have many organizations around the country and goods emergent, take the food safety class buy the city for free offered four times a year valid for two years have every goods emergent individually if they want to do that take that class either by the city or online. It's free so it's not a permit de-generated issue and there will be a certified food handler in every organization during the preparation and the distribution of food. My knowledge there has not been one problem with the child frame with these other ministries I know the city knows that this ordinance on the books now is against the law you cannot make a goods emergent into a criminal you cannot give tickets to goods emergent and let me just say about this this violation for serving food out of an unpermitted personal vehicle I would like to ask why does every restaurant delivery service Domino's Pizza Jimmy John's Caterers there is not a permit to see issues like that although I was given a ticket for a ordinance for violating an ordinance that does not exist so with goodwill, with a lot of patience with a lot of faith I present to the city a revision that I have prepared along with my lawyers from the national firm of Aiken Gump here's what we worked on if food safety is really the concern then let's imagine keeping healthy food is not hard to do all you got to do is willing to do it Food Bank has provided us a lot of ways to do the things that we do at our church our meal is coming from 75 cents to $1.50 per person and I'm giving about a salad to deserve a main course so the proper food meal it's not hard it's got to be willing to do it it's not hard we're always going to have a court they're always going to be with us at any time so it's got to be within you to do what needs to be done I think what's the point after is there's the food safety regulations there seems to be selective enforcement seems to be the issue all of the foods I'd love to see those regulations equally applied to all the fiesta vendors selective enforcement of these regulations that's discriminatory I'm Ellen Artwood under the bridge and I think the longevity about feeding program that started once a week every Sunday under one of the bridges downtown in July of 1918 only missed two Sundays all that time we insist that they have a nutritious well balanced meal and to my knowledge and to Bill who's directing the program now it is knowledge nobody has ever got sick feeding our food people we lie on us we have quite a bit of attendance in our feeding and people know it is some of the administration from Haven for Hope has even come down to our program and said continue what we're doing because they cannot feed the amount and the quality of food that we can serve so again what are the challenges and opportunities I'm Lonnie Marshall from Pratt & Sparkin out of Methodist Church one of the challenges that we've been facing lately is our numbers have been increasing we feed four different times over the course of the week we feed on Sunday mornings and our numbers in all four of those settings have been on the increase and that's putting a strain on our resources in all sorts of ways not just space but also financial resources I find this a challenge and I'm familiar with it is more families that have a home that they're running from back when sleeping on the streets but they're hungry in their homes and they come to my back for a good food so as I said I don't know I actually mentioned that too on one line the food insecurity issue keeps popping up for us so it's redundant just because the city council is here hidden for hope but but from my time meeting there and talking with the residents many of the residents that are complaining that they've been sick on numerous occasions and within that many of the people that I talked with they said there's not enough food being served so it's about food safety and this is feeding the homeless and it's really about food safety I think we have to start at the core where it is being fed and cities paying for it first my name is Paul I'm a gardener my wife and I have been feeding the homeless for a number of years that doesn't matter as far we do feed nice nutritious meals we've been feeding twice a week and one of the things I'm wondering is it okay to feed at the park it's a nice setting it has picnic tables and it's safe and it's right in the open all year long rain, sleep, cold or hot a lot of the people that come there you know the homeless know where everybody feeds you know they know where Brian is they know where Joan is they know where we are they know where church and the bridge they know where they take it to the street and a lot of times they come to our feeding a lot of people they come from Haven for hope and they come to our feeding because they say they haven't had enough food with them they didn't get enough food I've never been to Haven for hope and I'm just going about what they said and so if we can be a supplemental food source for them that's what I was actually doing you know we're not a supplemental food source but you know we actually feed them a full course feed plus four and encouragement and all the other things that go along with the feeding is not just official but I know you don't want to get into all that and sometimes we give people rides back to their camps because you have a lot of the homeless that are campers and you have some homeless that you know they just became homeless and they don't know what to do and so that's where Haven for hope can give certain kind of services for that and like she said there are families who come the whole family comes and we have to feed the whole family so I'm just saying that's one of the challenges and that's one of the opportunities to be a contributing food source for each being part of the kingdom streets ministry one issue that I haven't heard the rest yet is something that we hear in the Liz Allen fact is regarding existing services and existing feedings that they often go to that there is a kind of a humanization on the disciplines there's not a lot of dignity there are heard like cattle there's really a lot of animals for someone living on the street struggling to maintain any sort of identity it certainly seems that that kind of thing would tend to first push them further down the road so that's one of the challenges to have I think I was too going to say thank you we forget about technique, respect passion we do that with everybody that we serve for the Catholic Charity we have a major issue we have to talk about God we see that the charity is under purses that the people come and ask for food it's like not three people but it was last year we serve seventeen hundred homeless especially our child we just open an office and come we serve five hundred people for food so when I see caring for hope thank God at the time we're trying to do partnerships with all of us together but that's six million dollars and I wonder everybody else in this room how much money is getting from the city to give to the homeless people I mean I'm thinking of the United Way but we get subsidized by the United Way and the cities are subsidizing the programs but I think there's a lot of people who are trying to do new things and just as for instance we just open up a garden garden in the west side we ask for money we couldn't get any money but people are coming now learning how to actually if they come to privatize the food countries we're trying to decent ESF classes GED classes we're getting close, we're getting costly because we know that we need to get to the food because now we're going to get a lot more people all of you guys, we're going to get a lot more people asking for food and we're not going to be able to do it but I think we need to start looking to what are the main causes of this and what can we do to actually eliminate these problems other challenges and opportunities Brian Wicks with Resurrection Ministries I don't have any particularly challenge feeding the homeless I've been doing it for 18 years out of a home kitchen and out of a personal vehicle without any incident the only challenge is dealing with their homeless issues, one thing I really like the city to understand and I'm sure I speak for a lot of ministries in the room when we provide all the food the inference has been made in the past in various articles that all we provide is momentary substance and they're not connecting people to comprehensive services but when I'm out there feeding food and I'm a minister I'm about the gospel I'm teaching them biblical principles because the main cause I speak for the homelessness issue is inner spiritual things that need to change on the inside of them mindset changes to make better decisions to want to get out of homelessness some of the people that we deal with, the chronic homeless some of the times that don't even want to go to haven because of all the rules and regulations they're not just haven they're not just beat up haven the other institutional areas they're going to come to people that hate and maybe in the course of ministering to them dealing with their issues and counseling and talking to them about these kinds of inner changes we might be getting some of those people to the place where maybe I'll try that place over there and try some of the other services which by the way there's a service that I can't offer I've directed people, well for that you need to go to haven by here the Salvation Army does that thing you know and as far as the law goes and it's hard not to focus on that because we all know that's the main reason we've all ended up in this room because of all this love of this salmon ever since the opening of a new program because instead of doing this for 18 years this has never ever been an issue until 5 years ago this thing about following in line with the vendor codes the food codes were tweaked to accommodate us as vendors then they were re-tweaked to accommodate us as food handlers and I'm with John you know since I was 13 I have taken a food safety course I'm not a licensed chef but I know how to handle food safely and I don't have to bring out good about healthy food I think anybody that would be willing to just take that simple course forget about all the vehicle permit from the kitchen and cook it out of because everybody in ministry that does this is very conscientious about good food are we not? I mean there is not a list of homeless people that have ended up at the emergency room for eating dangerous food poisonous tainted food we don't have bodies for swimming on the streets in the past now because the food was bad that list just isn't there I maintain that I don't want to be careful about this but it's always looked as though when this all first began in the seal to move everybody from one place to the other downtown areas this food issue is a weapon to try to curtail our efforts what I would really like to see is some honesty and some admission that that's what was being done that this issue has never really been about food it has been about the homeless we feed and where we feed them because we have nobody coming up on us we don't have any problems outside the downtown border it's only when we cross that border that we have a police roll up on us and if there's any challenge hopefully that's going to end with all recent events and today's meeting is looking over our shoulder whether or not a squad car is going to pull up I'm going to move to the next question so I'm going to get one round of last comments I just like to speak from brother today I have a home but I still struggle with food but I still feed the homeless from my back door brother pastor Brian and his organization and the people that work with him helped me build my self-esteem helped me feel better about myself gave me unconditional love and they brought me food when I was sick and hungry and that's all it is unconditional love any last comments I'm Amy Gray I'm chairman and assistant pastor of church and the bridge I would say that the question is very simple and it's simple of how do we weigh the common sense and the common good and I think that's what we're trying to figure out today is how do we weigh the common sense of it's not wanting to impede someone's ability to come out and provide love and affection and bigity to someone that's on the street and that may be the real will that they get all day with the common good or making sure that what we're giving them isn't something that's going to make them sick and I agree with what everybody said I don't know of any place and I've been a couple of ten years I don't know of any time when someone's got sick with us but rather to the point I like Ms. Cheever's idea of saying well maybe the city can do something like that and the handlers permit we don't want to be in the business I would think it's a city of people from loving on their brothers and sisters that are in the city that are less fortunate so we need to be about a solution to help them do that and maybe the right way is that but weighing the common good and the common sense are something that I think is what we're budding up against and how to do that and there's got to be a way for us all to reach the same goal because I come across people all the time that think that they're not important I would like to show them a snapshot of this room in one place that's just what's here that are interested in showing love and compassion to the people that are on the streets and that's what we all want to do but we've got to figure out how to interlace and interweave the common sense of the common good how we can go about keeping people without the feet but not restricting them to do that and keeping them healthy some of these folks all know as well as I do lead out of the dumpsters they are worth our best efforts to give them the best meal we possibly can and the best way that we can do it but that's something we've got to keep in our mind is that if we don't give them something sometimes it will go someplace else so how do we balance that and I think that's our question going once, challenges and opportunities one last thing, we're finding our society a thing we operate 67 pairs space conferences and we daily address feeding operations both with homelessness I personally visit dumpsters and get off Chipotle is what we get and things like that but those folks will never come down town we need to really look at getting them in the neighborhoods and we do some sack lunches and stuff like that but that's a big issue that's growing and with reputation or the story that gets around so we have to take care of it last comment to that Jay George, Grace Episcopal Church one of the things that I see as we sit around in this room is someone that Haven for Oak has already started and done some good at is possibility of creating partnerships the issue is downtown and the real issue is protecting property and environment to really about food safety then why not create some opportunities for downtown property owners for downtown businesses to partner with some of these ministries who are serving people who are right there why not create some other ways for SAPD department with some of these ministries there are a lot of really, really great people in the police department in this city they're amazing these men can create opportunities for them to partner with these I don't know what the answers are but I know that there are answers here in this room because of the work that's already being done and there are other opportunities that we just haven't tapped because we all exist in these lanes and we don't cross over and find opportunities to work together Mark Johnson my question or my challenge is about on Friday Saturday night it's very simple the stuff that Brian talked about and Mike talked about that's a good stuff I'm not that smart so many people we have challenges with restaurants and the places that we eat so we get asked quite a bit on both sides where they can go to the bathroom so I wonder how many public bathrooms so that we're not having our volunteers trying to go in the businesses or even the people on the streets for that matter going in the hotels restaurants, mass communities, facilities no wonder we think they should go on the streets in front of businesses because they should be in front of doing those things so when they're going to take a gun it just starts wheeling and they just spot on down with it because they got down on record and they're very big very big because you guys getting on this person most of those downtown businesses refuse them and there are very few public restaurants and it's either the ground or your fence I mean I don't want to be crude but what are you going to do we try to tell them to be conscientious about that against somewhere where there's a bathroom but that's very much not available as they should in New York they have portable bathrooms that you can go in to the bathroom clean up and come back out and it's in their own like every six blocks and they're free and they're free and they're kept clean next question so how many of y'all are actually feeding those just to pretty show you what I'd like to ask real quickly is a location and do you have scheduled time at ten o'clock I need that up if you don't mind we just want to get a record real quick turn around by table and hear that I think that's a first step towards the coordination one person for her organization we'd be essentially we'd be in a meeting anybody else here oh I'm sorry the person in the assistant's ministry just Monday through Friday and we prepare 75 sandwiches what we're finding is that it's usually the same people that are coming but I also like to comment can someone put this on Sarah because I'm going to start going to Sarah because we don't serve on holidays and we don't serve on Saturdays and Sundays and I often worry about our clients and where are they going and then another just real quickly speaking to the council I would advise that we do this in every district just what you're doing here in every district because we also have a days of all the location we're finding that there are many homelessness in the days of all the location as well we're seeing more and more expanding out so I would like each district to be able to commit have a committee have someone that is looking at homelessness issues thank you I'm going to send a bridge we can do three nights we can do stay here so we can send a night but we also have a small meeting which is on Monday nights and when you come back around to it I wouldn't want to talk about the Sarah board because I'm also on the board of directors and I think that there's a lot of people in here we get to be really territorial but the answer is to have a coalition to have all of us together so that we all know what each other is doing it's really really important that you have never been to a Sarah board or are not a member of the Sarah board that you come because we are the homeless services we are the umbrella and the coalition for this entire community and their county and instead of us fighting with each other or not knowing about each other we really need to come together one group every month in the forums that we have and say hey I can cover that because it's not a services provided by somebody else also we do a directory that has a lot of us camps on it there's a lot of the big shelters and a lot of the small shelters and some of your meeting services are already on that directory but we need all of us so that everyone can walk away with a small directory and say hey this is the base these are the times, this is the locations so I'm going to volunteer Andrew to help you put that together Andrew and my mother they're happy to help me put that together so somebody asked one of the people whose writing just asked me to ask them to tell you if there's times if it's in a certain time frame 6 o'clock 6 PM Thursday Saturday you can have church time yeah church time 7.45 we've been 7 days we're set up the savings of all the havens and most of our offices we do basically church based on location and we serve foods three times a week is it published? yes behind you I look at the thing we do, look at the location at 3 p.m. the last Monday of every Monday on the holiday or not at 1st Friday is 4 or 4 the resurrection ministry is Tuesday and Thursday night at various locations Austin highway to downtown and then on Sundays we have an under the bridge church service where we provide and another group provides the food on Tuesday night the gentleman's got the food and we're out there with faith in the coffee and drinks but Tuesday and Thursday and Sunday yeah John Schiebert we do Tuesday and we also help with under the bridge occasionally on Sundays for 27 years we've only missed 2 Sundays I do want to say that I have business cards and so I believe in communication because I am a former journalist so I hand out my business card with information for every person on the street where they can get a hot meal or get a meal so I believe in communicating so that's it we serve every Sunday for the 7 years and we're putting Austin's under 35% with Monday outside on Tuesday I understand you we serve based almost every Monday through Thursday for much breakfast lunch and dinner at Catholic worker house and then Sunday Fridays a couple of weekends at resurrection breakfast is 8 to 10 lunch is 11.30 and supper is at 5.30 and we also serve on holidays if they fall on a holiday including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we do not serve on Thanksgiving and we also have a list that we give to all members we have 2100 members with all of these but I see now that they have left some off the list and I reply to email that list but I think all of them are missing so we do it in collaborative a lot of times Catholic Charity's we serve walk-in basis on Monday through Friday 8 to 5 we collaborate with local loaves and fishes with one of the parishes they give us 75 anything that seats have we provide out of our pantry at any given time including clothing did we miss anybody anybody else so has anybody got any more opportunities for that I want to say thank you to all of you guys that are doing that it's important work and personally I want to say thank you very much so our last question do you currently coordinate with any other organizations while providing do you coordinate a little bit but do you, I'm going to change it up do you deliberately coordinate with other organizations do you find coordination that have two ways I think coordination is always a two way street I think it's sort of like dancing actually yes we coordinate with Brian he goes on Tuesday to Thursday that's the reason we go on Monday to Wednesday so we can coordinate so that we have a meal every day Monday to Wednesday and Thursday and then I mean it's free to go on and it's all at about the same time and it's all in the same general area so do you guys talk amongst yourselves do you tend to do the same folks how many people is that group we're thinking about like 300 so I'm just curious what other people are we generally had anywhere from 15 to 40 depending on what day of the month it is and the weather not on purpose but it seems to have always been kind of another of the law that we've all developed here too particularly in the days when the living zones used to be in operation we tend to try not to be infringing on each other's time everybody knows when everybody is feeding and if you hear the question about news streaming where all you got to do is ask your neighbor who the woman was first because they know who the woman really is they got them scheduled now they can tell you what bus to get on and get in there and I always try we don't want to be doing something while somebody else is because we want to infringe on their opportunity and we just have always kind of I mean I'm Tuesday and Thursday night under the bridge but I'm later they're earlier we just always try to make it where everybody's got their space and we don't have to call each other to do that as far as I know yes ma'am this is changing the subject a little bit but what we found under the bridge is people especially with disabilities came from the east side of San Antonio over to the west side of San Antonio we have people on projects we have people in wheelchairs powered wheelchairs all kinds of people with physical disabilities so that's an issue we have a lot of partners in that we have experienced over time that a lot of the tricks is one outside the downtown area looking for a place to serve and work so we have a coalition of folks that want to they prepare food they come down there and serve the food and get the experience of it with that so this is the partnership they get the opportunity to serve and before we get the food to serve because we don't get any federal or city money we basically get all the donations so that's when we get the opportunity to folks beyond so back to the opportunity piece of the question would it be possible for the city to offer terms and industries non-profits that this kind of must take a thoroughly clear money this sounds about so Mark doesn't take it to the streets my question again was is there a possibility an opportunity for the city to provide ministries, churches discounted bus tickets whether it be daily, weekly, bi-weekly monthly is that an option maybe the city can we provide hundreds of bus passes at the moment I would love a radio stream because they need to get somewhere or they have a doctor's appointment they need to go and get social that's a great idea but it's a little off subject I'm going to do my self-responsibility thank you thank you Mark they're going to help me account they'll get back to you I have something we have relationships as Brian mentioned with the food pantry we also food bank I'm sorry we do have relationships with other people primarily for our Wednesday evening program and our Sunday morning program Wednesday evening we have a number of other church groups or even students from trinity university for example who come and volunteer and help provide the meals and then on Sunday mornings in addition to feeding folks we have a medical clinic so we have a relationship with medical personnel students at the University of Texas who come in and provide those services any other comments on this subject any other challenges or opportunities do you have to forget anything basically what was already said hate for hope has an opportunity for the people in the city who gets money there how wonderful would it be to have satellites hate for hope satellites to different areas of the city so someone could go through it's all in that direction and we're so limited Ken has partnerships with 70 churches where one of the first started in the downtown area to serve the homeless new populations which are at risk and it's those individuals that are living on someone's silver feeding out of their refrigerators they're still homeless but we try to get those groceries then we have people that are actually living on the streets but how wonderful if we could pull some of that money and some of those resources and bring them outside where other people can east side, south side, west side and the north side and not be blinded to the idea that there aren't homeless there to see them every day because I'm going to get to you in one second I want to tell you where I want to go because we're actually a little ahead of time so I'm going to let this go for maybe another 5 or 10 minutes then I'd like to really hone in on coordination and how do we do a better job communicating not just with all of you guys in this room but maybe even with the folks you're serving to ensure some better coordination so I want to have a sidebar conversation about that but let's finish this so yes sir you know the thing is from the homeless standpoint I've lived in all over the city if you're outside of the downtown area your chances of feeding are very, very good there's a lot of places that are far right now that they eat out of them since that's all they have everybody wants to say they're downtown they're downtown they're going to go with the food they're going to go where the food is why can't we set up what we do downtown in another location I was talking to Mark the other day and I said you know we used to be on Friday and Saturday nights you pull that out until their organization came in and said you know we'll take plenty then they came back and said we'll put Saturday in the mail with Paul coming back on Monday Monday is going to be technical care of the homeless or as services that are available there's still not enough if you're put out of Haven there's nowhere to take a shower and tell me there's no other place to take a shower if you're put out of Haven if you shower or grab a spark if they're really on Sunday night okay I will just get ready to curate that because I looked at money and I was like you know there needs to be other I'm here to shower and laundry okay I've never heard that shower and laundry services services services services services services services services services services services services services services services Would you stand up on this? Is that aggressive panhandling? Or is that something you should put in here? Shut up. Shut up. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're talking about it, panhandling versus aggressive panhandling. Ask somebody in the audience how they feel. Pushing them, shutting them, getting in the face, making them uncomfortable. Yeah, that's aggressive panhandling. OK, then why are people getting tickets for asking for cigarettes? And not aggressive, if that's the case. I mean, you say it's not in liquid here, but out there on the street, it is. You get tickets for it. Well, this is people complaining about that. I was harassed the other morning walking down commerce because I asked a friend of mine if he had 50 cents I could borrow to run to the bank real quick. I was harassed for that. So I'm going to put panhandling on our parking lot to give back to. Right now we're just talking about the. Yes, ma'am. OK, I have a question and a statement. It's about communicating. So I think I'm in the right parking lot here. There has been a, I have found from anecdotal evidence people talking to me. I know Chief McMann has tried in September to give a ticket to Fitz-Americans, and that was not even just really laughter. Discussed in quality life committee, and he said he was going to engage the PR campaign. Well, I've come to find out that individual Fitz-Americans in the city are going into restaurants and past food chains with a homeless and asking to buy, offering to buy a hamburger, putting in a order or a taco, and have been told by the restaurant manager that SAPD has been around telling the restaurant managers and the cashiers that it is a crime. And if that is true, then we have a bigger problem than we think, which is a federal civil rights violation. And if there is to be some re-education with the SAPD, who I love, by the way, they have my back all the time. I'm going to have theirs. But if there's a whispering campaign to tell restaurant managers and cashiers that it is illegal for Fitz-Americans to buy a meal for a person in need, then we need to address that issue pretty quickly before it explodes. If I can respond to that, gentlemen. I can say emphatically, in fact, is that not true at all. We're not doing that direction. Chief McCoy, that is not something that we're putting up for all. Okay, can you please let the restaurants and the fast-food chains know that? Because I'm carrying other things. Okay, I'll get a list to you. Thank you. Okay, one last round. Okay, I'm going to just take a little minute. I'm going to put Scott Ackerson, Johnny, up on the spot and ask him to address some of the coordination issues that have been raised here. So I've had obviously a lot of challenges, a lot of opportunities, and working on collaborations. Number one, I was at a street feeding sum of six years ago before Hayden for Hope Demon was opened, and some of the same issues and concerns were brought up. And I will tell you, it was a very different organization at that time. The administration at Hayden was very prescriptive in how they wanted you to behave, what they wanted you to do. And I'm telling you, it's a different culture and a different climate now. I've met with several of your organizations. I already told Mark, I was going to put him on the spot, but I've met with, taken it to the streets ministry the first time that Mark and Mike came to the campus, they kind of looked at me like, okay, what do you want now? What do you want now? It really was an invitation to collaborate. And I said, I don't know what I want. I know that we need help. We've got 1500 people on that campus experiencing homelessness at any given night, and we can't do it all. And so we're talking about opportunity. There's great opportunity for collaboration in this room. So working with Hayden into the streets ministries, they're not under contract. My other half is Center for Healthcare Services to do some evaluation about what's working on the campus, particularly to the courtyard, what improvements need to be made. And then they'll be talking to people that they're competing on the street too, to say, what keeps you from coming to the courtyard? We're a learning growing organization. If you haven't been to Hayden in the past couple of years, and you have my personal invitation to please come and see what's different, we've got some fairly monumental changes happening at the courtyard. The original vision of the courtyard was to save sleeping, get people off the streets. We're now really looking at how do we effectively engage people over opening an integrated care clinic to provide for mental health needs, physical health needs. We're expanding all of the permanent roof line on the courtyard. We're trying to do some unification on the courtyard. We require a building across the street from the courtyard to provide additional services to the people experiencing homelessness on the courtyard, as well as job opportunities and sort of a step-up facility that's a climate-controlled facility. So if you haven't been to the campus lately, again, I want to invite you and I will personally give you a tour and show you around, show what some of the changes are. And one of the messages I've heard from many of the people that are competing on the street is partly about food and hunger, but it's partly about service, engagement, and fellowship. One of the challenges is many of your organizations don't have capacity to feed 5,600 people, which is 5,600, 700, which is what we're feeding on the courtyard. I think as a community, we have capacity to feed those 5,600, 700 and to create other methods to feed the margin of the house, those that have to choose a meal overpaying rent. So I think there's great opportunity in this room and I think this is our first opportunity to really think strategically how do we all work together to make this happen. So I would address any questions you might have. Yes. Give me your name. Yes, my name is Scott Packerson, ECK E.R.S.O.A. Thank you. Scott, it seems like this, I'm just gonna step outside the line a little bit here too. I think we're going to Austin and Scott, if you want to smack a little bit in the first program, because they've initiated up their, hopefully it is now running after the final get-up and their status on it at this point. Part of the resolution for helping them to rest the problem almost on the street and treating almost would be to provide opportunities to move beyond almost. And it looks like we might have an opportunity to implement some of the whole house first programs that are beginning in various cities around the country, California, Utah, Austin, where you provide opportunities for people to get on the street, not everybody. You look at them and find people who have the desire to do that, to move in that direction. And then as a group, we could provide the collaboration that's gonna make that happen. Absolutely, and there are housing first dollars that will be coming through to continue them. Part of the rationale of why I took the job at the Center, so I worked with Center for Health Care Services, then came from, because the Center oversees the courtyard. And frankly, many of you know I was one of the more helpful and critics of the courtyard. So what I learned is if you complain long enough, thought something, they put you in charge of it. And with a lot of work with the South Alamo Regional Alliance for the homeless, we're really starting to try to target the courtyard and target the chronic homeless. And one of the strategies for that is the housing first initiative, which requires intensive wraparound support, so that frankly, even by itself is not able to provide. But as a community collaborative, we can certainly provide those supports. And Quota's own ministries was another group that we've had multiple conversations about how we start to work together again, because we had a disconnect five years ago, and we're really trying to rebuild those bridges and partnerships with the community. Any questions for Scott or comments? I'm fairly new to mobile of the conditions as a core team member. I've just been a volunteer that made sandwiches in the kitchen a few times a year. But I know that Mobile of the Vicious founder, Mr. Graham, in Austin, Mobile of the Vicious is probably the largest, the last members I saw, they were the largest organization serving homeless in Austin. They also have a program, housing program, incorporated in homeless building their own homes. And it might be something that those are in charge of the city looking at, getting those who want homes a home. It might be worth talking to those in Austin about that. I've probably just called community first, and taken it to the streets ministry, hosted us, and Quota's home. I know a couple of our city councilmen are interested in going out to take a visit. We've come from the Turbinio for sure. So we're making arrangements to make that happen. We're looking at it as a potential model. And it's particular to chronic. And it's sort of, for lack of a better term, sanctioned in camp. I mean, people are looking for community. And so the only place they're finding community is in camp and in camp night. And that's what they want. How do we help them to get that home in that community? Scott, thanks for letting me pick up this phone. I'm going to use the next question. So you guys have been really productive. Do you think that this was helpful? I know I asked you in the survey. Everybody completed the survey, I'm sure. Right? But was this useful? Was this helpful to have this conversation? Would you like to do it again? Yes. If it happens, get a call. Get it out. Maybe Scott can get a hostess over and help you. We'll be happy to. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm not going to ask for one more round of comments from people who haven't had anything to say if you'd like. Well, I'm speaking for the Samaritans in the city, so I think I'm going to talk a little bit. But anyway, I do want to say that one of the reasons that my husband and I founded the Child Trains is to show our children of compassion. And it's hard to volunteer at some places when they have criminal background checks or age restrictions and everything else. So we started the Child Trains to show, to model for our children like my parents modeled for me. And so it's not just one-sided town. It's all over town. And it's where you find the homeless or hungry, working for. We ought to be able to show our children that we can take care of them. Because as I tell our children, it's not just my responsibility or our generation's responsibility. It's yours, too, and the next generation, too. So it's hard to show compassion when you're restricted in one area or by age limit. So I just want to say that's the reason why we founded Child Trains. Thanks for that. And either that's comments. OK, some of you haven't had anything to say. So this is your chance to hop in and let us care for you. Anybody? Yes, sir. My name is Jeff Baldwin. I'm with the Hemisphere Park. I'm the director of operations and got a manager with me today. I've just been, I think, inspired during the stories that everybody's telling. My job for the past 30 years has not been anywhere near downtown. I work with the tourists at SeaWorld. I work with Hemisphere. We're really open up our first park. And we came here because we know we're going to be dealing with homeless people This is the park where we use our restroom windows. And we want to make sure we're treating them with a lot of best health. And I just appreciate hearing everybody in this room. And I realize there's going to be a lot of resources that we're going to reach out to to make sure that we're supporting the efforts of the city. So I think it's been a very worthwhile afternoon. And I appreciate all the work that all of you are doing and having. So thank you for that. Yes. I'd like to take this time to extend the opportunity for you all as a ministry to come out on Sunday mornings to be a part of our unit of service. You all feed, you all serve. Right now, on campus, I'm a pastor, United Methodist pastor. And they have about 200 to 225 that come to service every Sunday morning. We have a brunch. We've been providing that brunch. But I would like to extend that opportunity for you all to be a part of that and come out and provide brunch. About 200 people, you bring donations, hygiene kits, whatever it is you might want to bring. Most of all, we want you to come out and engage with these folks to bring them to your church on Sunday mornings. So afterwards, there's an opportunity for you to talk, to find out the needs, the wants of some of these individuals, and wrap around them because they're going to leave here before one day. And like Scott said, it's 1,500 pieces on campus. And that unit of service is not just for people on campus. It's for both courtyard and campus. So children are able to come and be a part of that. Engagement in that service is friendly. It's secure. Everybody can come and just extend what you have to offer on campus. Like Scott said, we make a lot of different changes and a lot of different opportunities out of there. I hear the call for outside of downtown. Believe me, we feed hundreds of individuals throughout this at Hable for Hope. Outside of those encampments. Outside in the environments that where people don't want to come, they can't get in town. So we also provide bus pass for individuals who might need to get to the doctor, who might need to make appointments. I know people about this because I go give them. We give them up and we do these things. Make down the columns. We do all of the services. We're not just, we're out there to help. We're here to help. And we want you all to be a part of that. We want you all to extend your gifts and the things that you have to offer to be a part of what we're doing, not just in downtown, but we're doing it in American County all over. So there's just a couple of us and we can use your volunteer help and your resources to coordinate and to come together and be a part of the big vision, not just the little individual vision, but the big vision, that's to service those who are needs to be, okay? So I just want to extend that to two, zero, 20, 12, 14. That's my number. You can call it. You can coordinate. You can come out and get 30 to service start. 10 o'clock, we serve and work. And tell them who you are. I'm Ron Brown, Pastor Ron Brown. Ed Hayden Voho. I just want to reintroduce myself. My name is Bill Hubbard and I'm Executive Director newly appointed or newly selected for the South Alamo Regional. And for those of you who would like to learn more about our collaboration efforts and our responsibilities with federal laws, I've got cards from the Seattle Chapel View. I'm part of the organization and part of the process of solving these problems. And I would also like to extend a personal thanks to every single one of you who are out there for these folks. I've been involved in City of San Antonio low income projects since about 2000. I saw Bill with a couple of very good world plans, projects, collaboration, you can sit down, talk these issues through, look at the opportunities over kind of challenges, it'll be part of the solution. That's my role for an example to everybody else in the very city. But I appreciate being invited. And I would tell you in class, I would take this information back to the board, to which my board members are here and hopefully continue to be a conversation truly meaningful way to move this issue forward and get it solved so that we have viewers out there, thank you, thanks. Anybody else? So, Jennifer, you go to San Antonio for the big, we work with a good number of people here but I also want to extend the invitation out to anybody else here. You can partner with us in a variety of ways and we would love to make an impact on people you're serving and just help you all make it back to the community. So call us, bring your seven groups, it's our number, please remember let's just ask for the place to partner and we'd love to bring you in and discuss those ways you can partner and take them in. So Andrew, it works with us at United Bank in the overseas 21 month and he took a lot of notes about location and he just admitted to me that he's gonna have all that on our website, United Way website for you guys to edit by tomorrow. Yes. Okay, I'm going tomorrow. For you guys to edit, okay, just make sure we got the information right and then we'll give it to Mel and we can figure out what to do with it in there, okay. Well, what's that for? I'm sorry, yes. United Way, S-A-T-X dot o-r-g. You can just, that's right. Any other comments? Okay, the chief would like to say a few words to you so please welcome your chief, please. Thank you very much. And I think we'll say, from our standpoint, Hayden Poynter is a great partner and he's got the brand, Scott, thank you, yes. Okay, well, I'll just step over here. Go ahead. Okay. Well, I just want to say from our standpoint, Hayden Poynter has been a great partner and so I want to say thank you to Scott and Pastor Brown and really I know that a lot of our officers have probably at some point in time have taken somebody they came across that needed a meal that has taken them to one of y'all's locations and so I appreciate that. And really I think that a lot of times we see the issues and the concerns but really this is a great opportunity to take advantage of everybody's efforts so that way to make sure that we're all pulling in the same direction because I think this is a true reflection of what makes San Antonio the great city that it is and it's not police, it's not Hayden for Hope but it's everybody's unified effort that's gonna make a difference because we can talk about the feeding and how it's being done but really it's about what can we do as a community? What can we do in partnership to work together to make it work for the members of our community that really struggle at times? And so rather than look at, well, not in my neighborhood, not in my community we need to look at how we can do it as a community to serve our community. And so I just wanna make that comment and just say I appreciate everybody that stood up and had different things to say because really you all are a true reflection of what makes San Antonio the great community that it is so I just wanna say thank you. Okay, I'll talk to you afterwards if you like. First I just wanna thank Police Chief Trevino and Councilman Narenberg. I'm really proud to be working with people like that in our city who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work, find real solutions and I think we hope that today is not just about talk. It's about action. We're gonna do some things. So I wanna just kinda go over some things I heard. If you don't mind, I'm gonna just go over them real quick. I think we're kinda ahead of schedule so I can eat up a lot of time. So the first thing that I heard that I thought was really great was we gotta have the will. There's always gonna be this issue with us and so we gotta have that will and I think we're seeing it in this room. We really want to harness that. The second thing was just some of the great suggestions that Ms. Cheever brought out today which I really like, take a food safety class on the city, certified food handler and so forth and I think we can expand on that and look at some programs right away and know that we have the will to do that. But third is, and that's all it is, human dignity, right? I don't know how many issues I face at city council that simply deal with that simple issue. In the end, what we're here to do is to represent people and what that means is it representing their dignity. So I hear you, I think we all hear you. The fourth thing is businesses to partner with ministries maybe even San Antonio Police Department. I think that's a neat idea, that's really something that we can explore see how we can create partnerships. That's always a great solution, collaboration partnerships. I really like that one especially. I really like this one, public bathrooms. Many of you all know that I'm an architect and I've said it all along, there's nothing we can't fix with a little bit of good design. And so I'm publicly challenging local architects to help solve this one. This is solvable, I know it is. We've gotta have a solution for public restrooms. One that works, it's a design solution. I'm calling out architects. The next one is related to what I do, also disabilities, we talked about the issues with people with disabilities. That's another big one, it's true. A lot of the problems we see with people who have food insecurity have other issues as well. They have bad health, they're only gonna have problems getting around. The night I spent at Haven for Hope, I saw something very simple, like foot fungus. Doesn't seem like a big deal but I think anybody can tell you that that could quickly become an infection and become a big deal. And then that person ends up in the ER and who knows what else from that point. So I think that that's really important, I'm glad somebody brought that up because accessibility is a huge issue. Accessibility really, is dovetails nicely into, we call equality, equal access. And we should definitely address that. The seventh one was discounted bus tickets. Great idea, really great idea. I think that's something we can certainly start implementing, let's look at how we make that happen. Number eight, Haven for Hope Satellites. What I like about that statement was it was, it's an admission that Haven for Hope is really doing something great, right? So we can model some great things. So I think that's great, Haven for Hope Satellites, I think it's a great idea. I've had the privilege of having breakfast with Reverend Ron Brown. And I think, I got a lot of insight that morning and I really appreciate your hard work at Haven for Hope and all that you do and know that there's many people like Mr. Ron Brown at Haven for Hope. And you guys are an example here today. We talked about the issue of how outside of downtown eating is difficult. So it's an issue of proximity. And I think it kind of goes to that sort of idea of satellites. So we'll definitely be examining this idea of how we address some of these issues. I think downtown, the biggest issues with downtown have to do with the fact that that's where our city sort of our heart is, the most dense part of our city. We have a lot of areas for people to exist. So we're gonna have those issues, but on the satellite or on the perimeter areas of our city, it does become difficult to address feeding the hungry. The last one was one that I brought up when I spent the night at Haven for Hope, which was hygiene kits. I love it. I think we can do this. Mr. Brown already has some hygiene kits. I think we need to create a way to get more of these hygiene kits to these people. They can really use it. I saw it that night. I think we're gonna start. I wanna say that we did discuss potentially starting something in Prospect's courtyard overnight where somebody can potentially go take a look at people with some hygiene issues so that they can be addressed overnight. And so I wanna say, what's really neat about that is that it shows how Haven for Hope is responding. You can't have all the answers all at once. I mean, it's such a diverse issue, but they do have medical facilities. They're just not open at night when people in Prospect's courtyard are taking advantage of Prospect's courtyard. But by listening to my experience there and how we could possibly have somebody there overnight, that's a dressing part of that issue. So I wanna say those are 10 things I wrote down. I know there's more. I got another note here. From my facilitator and talked about the misinformation, how it's hunger is pervasive and increasing, and we gotta share resources. You know, that's really, really key. We wanna be partners. And this is what's most important of all. You know, us at City Council know that we're gonna be looking into this, not just the quality of life committee, but we'll make sure we'll be talking to other council members addressing this. This is a city issue, not a district one issue or district eight issue, it's a city issue. And we'll be addressing those things. So just a couple notes that I wrote down too. Yeah, knowing that there's not gonna be any easy answers, I think this is the great start. Let's leave with some takeaways. Let's implement some things right away. Wanna acknowledge the great work at Haven for Hope and how amazing it was that it got, how it got started, it got started with the compassionate efforts of treating the evacuees from Katrina, from New Orleans, and the great work that was done, Mayor Phil Hardberger, Bill Griehe, Patty Radle, and Cheryl Sculley. Know that there is compassion in the city. We're trying to find ways to make this work. So I thought about this a lot, and we hear about the Good Samaritan. And we have a lot of Good Samaritans in here. And I wanna say this from the bottom of my heart, Good Samaritans should not have to be in service of the city. The city should be in service of the Good Samaritans. And what that means is we need to find ways to get you guys to help you do what you wanna do, help you do the good that you do. And that's really important. So I just wanna express that. But most importantly, I'm gonna end with what my mother said to me growing up, and it's a Mexican Dicho. Some of you might have heard this one. As el bien sin mirar a quien. Have you all heard that? In English it means do what is right, come what may. And I would say that's really a great message today. One last thing I wanna leave you with, and it's a ritual that mean my great counsel, Aida Jed Mabius do every day, is we literally shake hands and we hug. And it seems like a silly thing. And I wasn't a big hugger growing up. But some of the best people hug. And I met Pastor Ron Brown, we hug. When I met Eric Cooper of the Food Bank, he hugs just like Jed Mabius. Really leans into it. So just know, you know, we want you to understand that we do have some compassionate people here. We are listening to you. And today before you leave, shake somebody's hand, give them a good hug, know that we're trying to do our best with this. Thank you.