Good afternoon and welcome to December's Detroit CLC meeting. We will start at five after allow people a Few minutes to transition and gather. Thank you. Applause.
No earlier
than me. Yeah, you all right,
good afternoon again, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Detroit Continuum of Care meeting, December 2024 it's been a great year, and we're happy to be here today to wrap up with all of you as we. Head toward calendar year 2025, without further do you see all of the information on the screen? We will have public comment at the end of this meeting. However, I do want to disclose early on that three of our groups in the initial agenda have been pushed to January. So we will only be here about an hour today, so we'll give you some of your time back this afternoon, but we will have public comment, and we ask that, where possible, you keep yourselves muted unless you're speaking, and if you're able, please share your video. We always love to see those who are participating in the meeting. Without further ado, we will move forward, and I see Miss Sternberg is up and ready for our first announcement of the day.
All right, thank you. Well, good afternoon everyone. Thanks for being here today. So I just wanted to give a quick update on the COC bills application, just to let everyone know kind of how that has wrapped up. So as a reminder, earlier this year, we held a competition for a unique Funding Opportunity called COC built. This was a unique opportunity that HUD provided for permanent supportive housing projects to get funding to provide some capital costs or hard costs for a PSH development so costs like new construction rehabilitation and also cost for supportive services. So this was kind of a special one time funding opportunity. We held a local competition for it, as we were able to only submit one application to HUD. As a result of that local competition, the project that was selected was full circle communities in partnership with the NOAA project for the PSH project that is being developed downtown at Woodward and Adams. That's PSH project that's been in development with NOAA full circle for a bit now. So there's was the project that was selected through our local competition earlier this summer, following that, or I guess it was September. So following that local process, and NOAA worked with full circle communities to develop and submit the full application that was submitted to HUD at the end of November. So just wanted to give the announcement that we submitted that application to HUD a couple days before HUD's deadline, they are requesting seven and a half million dollars. That is the total amount of funding that we had available to request, if supported, it would provide cost related to the rehabilitation of the project as well as supportive services. So we had expect to make funding announcements in early 2025 so hopefully within the next few months, we will hear good news that that project was selected, and we will certainly keep everyone updated when we hear but just wanted to give that quick update. Thank you.
Thank you so much for that update. Exciting news, more services coming to our community. All right, I'd also like to share during our announcement period that we will not be able to share Board election results today, we'll be sharing them hopefully in our January meeting, we are still awaiting votes for a tie for one of the homeless service providers seats, so we will make all of the announcements for new board of appointments in our January meeting. All right, our agenda now calls for consent agenda, and so we would ask for a motion from one of our board members to approve the November 2024, board minutes. Is there a motion?
Make a motion to approve. This is Tara.
Thank you. And is there a second to that motion?
I'll second. That's Erica,
thank you. It has been appropriately moved and seconded. We will have the vote appearing on our screen in just a moment. And we will move on to our next topic. While people are voting on the consent agenda, we have mister Beth Houser here to discuss our local subsidized housing prioritization plan.
Thank you. Dr, Curley, can everyone see my screen? Okay, okay, thanks. Dr Curley, hey, everybody gonna do a quick level setting presentation, and then am going to present a proposal that was voted on and approved in cam governance regarding subsidized housing opportunities coming from local. Housing commissions. So just quick level setting. What you see up on your screen is the current prioritization that we operate off of in our system. So we follow the vi spdat, then based on that score, we conduct a full spdat. And then there are considerations in terms of whether someone is unsheltered and chronic or non, and then, based on their scores there, they are allocated to different accrued groups. The section of the prioritization that we kind of focusing on today is the housing intervention section. So as you can see here in our current prioritization, permanent supportive housing is kind of allocated to the highest security groups, recognizing that those folks are experiencing some of the longer term homelessness and have a disability, and we recognize that those folks might Need more ongoing supportive services to both maintain their housing and hopefully eventually one, one day, move into more self sufficient housing situation. We also have rapid rehousing and transitional housing resources made available to acute group two and acute group three. These are more time limited resources, it could be anywhere from a few months to two years, based on the program, and then also highlighting that we have housing choice vouchers, which are made available to group two and group three in our system. When we refer to these housing choice vouchers in terms of prioritization, traditionally, we are referring to mister housing choice vouchers. So for acuity groups two and three, we would open up the wait list to those folks first and and add them to the wait list as they enter into the system. What we are talking about today is more of a one to one match, and I'll go into that in a little bit more detail here shortly. So this is single adult prioritization. On this slide here you have family prioritization, again, very similar to single, just some differences in terms of the family VI, spdat, full spdat scores within each acuity group, there's also other prioritization factors to consider, including whether or not the household is chronic, whether They're unsheltered or fleeing domestic violence, their SP out scores families than singles. So in a situation where we have a two bedroom unit available, we're going to prioritize a family for that two bedroom unit over a single individual, and then we take into account length of time, homelessness and this, here are some more prioritization factors for youth specific housing resources. The housing resources today that we're referring to, it's possible that they could be youth specific, but keeping in mind that youth involved in our system are not only priority prioritized for youth specific resources, but they are also in the general acuity group list as well. And this is just a quick reminder that for today, we're kind of focused on this housing intervention piece of prioritization so when we're talking about the different housing opportunities that this policy would cover, these are subsidized housing opportunities that are usually established through memorandums of understanding with a cam implementing partner, such as the city of Detroit or hand these would be situations in which it's a one to one match. So this would be different from the mission of pre app that we're accustomed to. This would be a case where the the housing commission would say we have this many units available, or have this many vouchers available, and we're allocating those units to the Detroit continuum of care. And as I just mentioned, sometimes housing commissions are allocated a specific number of housing choice vouchers. Sometimes they have specialty demographic housing choice vouchers as well. Furthermore, sometimes housing commissions can have specific buildings that are designed to be like low income housing. So for example, the Detroit Housing Commission. And oversees many senior housing buildings like the West Warren building, in which you have to be 50 or better to be eligible for those specific buildings. The age the rate, age range for those buildings varies depending on the building. So two proposals were brought forth to Cam governance. They are very similar, but proposed, the proposal that was approved has some additional language to target specific populations. I'm going to try and make this little bit more readable here. All right, so the proposal will bring for you, forward to you today is for subsidized household housing referrals coming from local housing commissions where the vouchers and or units have been allocated to an implementing partner or the continue continuum of care. The following prioritization would be followed, so acuity group two households would be referred to these projects based on their prioritization. We chose to start with acuity group two instead of acuity group one because we didn't we haven't necessarily identified ongoing housing support the way that we have identified them for permanent supportive housing projects. So acuity group two folks are eligible for time limited support through rapid rehousing, but they don't have ongoing supports. So this is why we chose to start with acuity group two. If the acuity group two list is exhausted, acuity group three households would be referred based on their prioritization at that point. So very similar to acuity groups two and three in our current prioritization, if we are able to get through the entire acuity group two list. These one to one matches would then be offered to the acuity group three list. This language was added in cam governance if the acuity group three list is exhausted, households timing out of rapid rehousing that need continued financial support would be considered. So that was in consideration of folks timing out of the Rapid Rehousing subsidy without an ongoing subsidy to support their housing, which is why this group was specifically mentioned here in this policy, households will need to meet the eligibility criteria for the specific housing resource and then be selected by prioritization. So if a local housing commission allocates a certain number of units from a building that only accepts folks 50 or better, then we would allocate the resource to households that have a head of household that's 50 years or better and is highest on the prioritization list. So it's important to note that they're going that folks or households will have to meet the criteria for the building, and then those resources will be allocated based on the prioritization that we outlined up here. Proposal B is different from Proposal A, and that resources that are not specialty or driven by unit size, for example, the housing choice of vouchers that are allocated to local housing commissions, so it's not attached to a specific unit. It's not a specialty voucher. We would proposal B would prioritize families with minor children that fall within this prioritization. So if a Housing Choice Voucher becomes available, that resource is going to be immediately allocated to a family that is highest on the acuity group two list with and that family would have minor children in it.
The reason why this addition was made is because it can be very challenging to house families in subsidized housing projects. So a Housing Choice Voucher allows us to work with any landlord that accepts the Housing Choice Voucher and can pass the inspection. So this allows a lot more flexibility for families with minor children to move out of sheltered or unsheltered situations within our continuum of care. And. And Chelsea, how am I doing on time? Do I have some time for questions?
Yeah, you have time for questions. Okay, so
I'm going to leave the language up here on the screen, open it up to questions for a moment, and then after that, I will drop a link in the chat for folks to vote, hopefully before the end of this meeting,
questions,
right, all right, hearing no questions. We'll take a motion and second to receive this report and so that we can prepare to vote. Is there a motion?
I motion that we receive the report. Thank
you, Miss Brown. Is there a second? I second. Thank you, Miss George, it's been appropriately moved and seconded, and we will await the link for board members to vote. Thank you for this presentation, sir.
Thank you. Dr Curley, I'm gonna drop that link right now.
Awesome. All right. Moving right along. We're actually ahead of schedule, Miss Sternberg will bring to us. Actually, I think this work group is not going today, correct?
I'm not sure which I'm here that I can present on the permanent supportive housing Yeah.
Excellent. All right, perfect. The permanent supportive housing work group will present today. Thanks, Mr. Sternberg,
you bet. All right, let me
share my screen.
Okay,
okay, so thank you everyone again for letting me present here. So we are, as you were here at the November board meeting, you'll recall, we're doing various kind of presentations on the different committees and work groups in the CSC, just to keep folks aware of the work that these groups are are doing and kind of what they've done over the past year. So I'm going to take a few moments to present on the permanent supportive housing or PSH work group. So starting off with kind of what is this work group all about. You may recall as well, in November, my colleague Tiana presented on the Rapid Rehousing work group. The PSH work group is very similar to the rapid rehousing work group, always focused on psh. This work group is staffed by an staff, so myself and Kiana Harrison are kind of the primary staff support Eleanor Bradford and Meredith Bosman with hand also participate with some additional staffing support as well. The work group is comprised of all of our PSH providers Detroit, so representative of the PSH providers. And right now, when I say PSH providers, I largely mean our COC funded permanent supportive housing providers, which is the majority of our PSH programming in Detroit as we move into 2025 and it's being sort of shift in our overall portfolio of PSH and who funds what we may see more than just our PSH or, excuse me, our COC funded PSH providers at this work group. But every PSH provider has at least one, usually it's two or three individuals from their organization who attend. The individuals who attend are largely program managers and some, perhaps case managers or frontline staff, so individuals who are pretty involved in kind of the day to day of operating their permanent supportive housing programs. And then we also have representatives from the navigation staff, Cam staff, and, of course, hand and HMS staff as well. We meet monthly. We meet on the fourth Thursday of every month, November and December. Meetings get pushed up a week because of the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. But for the most part, we meet monthly. There are times where we have light agendas, and so we forego a meeting and communicate through email. But for the most part, we do meet every month, usually for about an hour. Sometimes if we get chatty, it goes a little bit longer. But for the most part, we meet for about an hour. So the purpose of this work group is because there's kind of three main buckets of the purpose of this work group. One. For communication purposes, this work group, like our other work groups, the Rapid Rehousing or the shelter work groups that are comprised of those providers, is a primary needs of communication to the work group and to the providers on different perhaps funder requirements, you know, or requests from the funders, funders, meaning either in the city of Detroit or hand, in terms of the COC. So the things that these providers need to know as it relates to their funding sources. It's a way for us to provide timely and relevant updates related to the coordinated entry process, and it's a place for the providers to ask questions around anything related to coordinated entry, you know, reporting vacancies, receiving referrals, all those kinds of things that helps to facilitate that communication. We do a lot of HMIs data type updates, whether that's regarding updated reporting requirements, reminders of reports that are due reminders of different quality exercises. So it's one of the key ways that we do also communicate regarding HMIs requirements. And earlier this year, we used our work groups as a way to provide updates on the strategic planning process, particularly as we were going through that process through the first part of the year. So communication venue, again, is one of the key purposes of the PSH work group. Another purpose is it operates as a peer sharing opportunity. It's an opportunity for PSH providers to be in the same room with their PSH peers, to ask questions of one another, get advice. You know, just talk with your peers about various things that you may be experiencing as you're doing this work. And then one of the final kind of key purposes of the work group related to the peer sharing one but it allows us to address or respond to the needs of the providers that we're hearing or address best practices, it just provides a venue for us, meaning primarily hands, allows us a way to communicate, kind of all at once with our PSH providers relevant and important topics that we want to make sure they all know. So as an example of what I mean by that, I wanted to give sort of a rundown, in addition to the things I've mentioned abroad regarding HMIs updates and Cam updates and all of those good things which are set agenda items every month, also wanted to let you know the various things that we had on our agendas over this past year, to get you a sense of the types of things that we discussed in the PSH work group. So there were a couple of times where we brought the providers some specific information regarding some COC regulatory requirements that perhaps were, you know, things that we thought that providers maybe needed kind of a refresher on, such as the allowable unit sizes, what the COC regulations say around unit sizes, and what the regulations say if the qualifying member of your household moves out. So that second one in particular is one of those types of scenarios that comes up, rarely within the PSH kind of realm. And so it's one of those things where sometimes, when it happens, you can sort of like, be scratching your head and like, oh yeah, what is it that I do with this type of situation? So we try to be mindful of those types of scenarios that come up, those types of things that we're hearing, and then present that information to the entire work group, particularly if it's something that's tied to the regulations again, because, for the most part, these are COC funded PSH projects. Some other things we talked about this year, earlier this spring, we talked about how to prepare for the 2024 competition, particularly from the HMIs data aspect of it, the COC competition for renewal projects relies heavily on each mys data, so we went through the different factors that project would be evaluated on in the competition, like the questions from their aprs that data elements would be pulled from, just to really give a heads up and a reminder that if you need to run your APR, if you need to make any data correction, that now is the time to do that. So we really tried to give providers kind of that heads up. Some other sort of fun practicing things that we talked about is, you know, how you can verify a person's homeless status using their HMIs record, what to look for where to, where to, you know, find that information. My colleague, Eleanor Bradford, spoke with the providers about possible home ownership opportunities for PSH residents, just to kind of get a feel of if there was any interest in there, if that was something that we, you know, maybe we wanted to explore more. We talked. About moving up as well Eleanor particularly, let those suppression the part of her role. We bring to the group, also on a quarterly basis, the length of time data. So this is a kind of part of our data exercises, but every quarter, we will bring to the work group data on how long it took to move people into housing from when they received the referral from camp, when that person moved in, and then providers are able from there to also request their own individual reports, kind of dig into their own data, even in more detail. We, one of our interns from hand, developed a brief, a PSH brief, so that's something that can be shared publicly. So we got input on the language and the wording of that document from the work group. And then, most recently, we did a presentation at our work group around some upcoming PSH Low Income Housing Tax Credit projects that are kind of on the horizon. And 25 and 26 to give our providers, the PSH providers, kind of an idea of the different non cod funded PSH resources that we see coming online in the next kind of couple of years, to sort of give us, you know, broader perspective. But so this is really just the kind of, again, the idea of the types of things that we talk about, again, we do have those set agenda items around cam and HMIs. But then, in addition to that, we really try to kind of keep our fingers on the pulse of the types of things that we think would be helpful to our PSH providers, information, again, best practices, what's happening, what we're hearing from HUD or other spaces that can impact their program. So that is all that I have. Happy to answer any questions that folks may have around PSH work group.
Thank you so much. Are there any questions to that for Miss Sternberg about the PSH work group?
All right, hearing none we thank you for this update and sharing such transparency. Our agenda now calls for Miss Candace Morgan, we'll talk about the outreach work group, the mics. All yours.
Good afternoon. Everyone glad to be here. Unfortunately, I won't be the one sharing this great news. Just gonna introduce a couple of team members who actually will walk through the presentation with you. Following suit, following Amanda, talking about one of the COC work groups that it's actually the Detroit outreach work group, and the facilitators today are Clarice Perkins and Toya Yancey, and they can take it away. I believe they are here.
Thank you. So good afternoon, everyone. My name is toy yanson, and I'm going to go ahead and start the presentation.
So are our reg teams. The goal of theirs is to assist households experiencing unsheltered homelessness with basic needs such as food, blankets and toiletries. They are also offer services to assist them into getting into permanent housing, stable housing, by getting them document ready, which includes facilitating referrals to the emergency shelter or assisting them with getting birth certificates and things of that nature.
For our outreach meetings, the goal of the meeting is for our system partners to essentially get together as a collective and discuss the needs of the outreach operations we need the first Thursday of every month. Virtually, the partners that I'm speaking of are outreach partners that are funded by the city. VA funded special outreach partners street Med, the cam can and it's also facilitated by us. The goal is for us to send out, usually an email prior to in order to see if any of our system partners, such as hand or cam want to hold space on the agenda to discuss any upcoming events or any information they want to provide to the service providers. And during that meeting, we do a case to start. We do update, updates from our office from city of Detroit. We provide information for training system changes and outreach requests. Is also used as. Feedback from our partners. Some of the priorities that we focused on in 2024 was to increase the response of 24 hour coverage, to improve the coordination with our partners. We also had an unsheltered response pilot to streamline outreach request processes and to onboard our reach team for the city of Detroit. And just to break that down a little bit further, we partner with Wayne natural action agency in order to provide that city for our coverage, which means that there is an overnight shift from 12am to 8am and they're funded through June of 2025 we have also been working to coordinate with our partners, Detroit Police Department by having a ring group, which is a phone number that they are able to call the outreach teams directly in order to come out to wherever they are to assist those unsheltered individuals with either connection to cam or to shelter or general resources. The unsheltered response pilot was hosted by Matt White, who is part of a consultant group, he was able to bring a bunch of system partners to the table, to city, Detroit's hand, and I reach members, also some case managers. And the goal of that was to identify some individuals that were had been long identified as individuals that were unsheltered for long periods of time, and to see if there were things in the system that we can come up with ideas to get them moving along in those processes, if it's to connecting them to reconnecting them to housing, connecting them to the shelter, or To identify some resources that they may need to move them along. Next slide, we also work to streamline the referral process, which means that we were working to have a centralized place where outreach groups can go and they can see when we received a new outreach request, because there has been an uptick in those outreach requests this year, which Clarice will talk about later in the presentation. We were able also to use feedback from those outreach teams and from partners in order to kind of flush out that system as we went along. We were also able to onboard the city of Detroit outreach team. We have two new staff members, and they are their goal is to assist with the uptick in outreach requests that we have been receiving this year. Their goal is also provide basic needs assistance. Now turn over to Clarice.
Thank you. Thank you all for allowing us this case. I will discuss the outreach, the outreach request and encampment statistics. This data was pulled as of November 26 of this year, and it is particular to the year 2024 so as it relates to encampments, and these are the requests that come in specifically through DPD and other partners that have essentially noticed both sleeping on shelter in a specific space that they deemed essentially dangerous in a sense. So as you can see the numbers here, the total numbers for the year 2024 as of November 26 there were 59 outreach 59 enchantment requests. The months that we've seen the most requests were the month of March, November and January. So moving on to the income request for the outreach request, specifically this year, 2024 as of November 26 we've seen an incoming request number of 1314 the months that we've seen the most requests were in February, October and in March. So of those incoming requests, there were only 155 duplicate requests that spanned over 122 unique IDs, and that is essentially the individual household. So moving on to 2025 i. Opportunities that we want to explore, we will work towards the outreach recommendations where the strategic planning work we do hope to obtain feedback from providers and other system partners as we move forward in this work to better streamline processes, and we want to work on streamlining the encampment process to essentially make it feel better for our partners that are requesting services and the partners that are offering the services and more will be determined as the years go along, as we open the floor to outreach team to sort of tailor our focus for the year 2025 and that is the end of our presentation, we will open the floor to questions.
Thank you so much, and thank you for availing yourselves to be here today to share this most important information. And thank you for taking questions to the group. Are there any questions or comments?
I have a quick question. And Clarice, you may have said this, and I may have gone over my head. So I apologize you had the two charts that had the with the different numbers of requests. I think one was for like, encampment requests. Another was outreach request. Can you just clarify, like, the difference between the types of requests that those were and again, you may have said that, and I'm sorry
so with the encampment request, please chime in if I'm incorrect in any manner, however, those requests the origin comes specifically from DPD, or will get requests from GSB Regarding clean up, and essentially, DPD has identified a location where folks are sleeping unsheltered, and they sort have, like they sort of built up an encampment, or like there's tents, or like, noticeably sweeping materials, And for the outreach class, so there's specifically for reports like from the public, like our public, our private residents or our camp partners. And those requests are for folks that like call into the system or submit a form and indicate that they are essentially sleeping unsheltered. And those requests are routed directly to outreach team. So the difference, essentially, is the partners that or the origin of their request, the and the partners that are involved.
Great. Thank you. How does one refer a person to the outreach group to be considered if they saw an individual who was encamped for needing the support.
So we do have a public facing form that anyone can submit if you have witnessed someone sleeping on shelter and another way to access the system is through cam. So we get a lot of requests through our camp partners for folks calling the system, and they have found they're found to be in a place like unfit for human habitation,
and we can add that link to the chat the front facing form. Thank you,
Mr. Rosetta, I see you have your hand up.
Yeah, my question is, how do an outreach team or an outreach organization rather doing that.
Are you asking, like, how would an
organization get invited to the street outreach work room? Yes, I think it's just as simple as being on the invite, but I can defer to Tara, she's on the call to see if there's a different protocol to
call. Hey, everyone.
So I think typically there are two things. There is one where partners can come to the meeting that are not on the HMIs ROI, and that's the part where they're not talking about client level information.
So
there's that part of the meeting which, if you wanted to have your organization attend, that's that's fine, and if you are on the H, my, op, ROI, then you could stay for the second half. The meeting. I'm not sure if the meetings are still structured like that. Clarice, are they still structure?
Yes, they are. We do like the updates, the COC, I mean, the city of Detroit updates, and then we get our partner updates, and then at the end of the meeting, we move into the case console.
Yep. So Ella, if you want to reach out to Clarice and Toya and just you see me, you can do that. And if you can just note, if you're on the HMIs ROI or not, that would be helpful. Yeah, we'll put them in the
chat. Sarah,
all right, I don't see any other hands. Thank you so much again for joining us today and sharing this resource with us, and we look forward to the work that will be done.
All right, we are running quickly to the end of our agenda. We are now at public comments. I'm going to ask Miss Harrison to come on screen, who will lead us through public comments and public announcements.
Thank you, everyone. It is time for our public comments. I do have one request in the queue, but anyone else, if you would please drop me a message, or you can simply raise your hand if you would like to have public comment today, we're going to start off today with Rebecca Valerie. Go. Rebecca, the
floor is your? You?
Rebecca,
you have three minutes today. Thank you,
Miss Talarico, we do see your mic open, but we can't hear you if You're talking to us.
We did see you turn your mic on and off, but we still cannot hear you.
Dr Curley, I am not Rebecca, but while she is navigating her system, you may have been wanting to talk to or announce to the group that there is an RFP from MDHHS that's coming down the pipeline for Psh, I believe the webinar is the fourth, which would be Wednesday. I can try to find a link and drop it, or if anybody else I think. Amanda, you sent something out earlier today. If somebody could drop that link in the chat, then at least folk can have it. Rebecca, sorry, I couldn't do it better than you, but I tried.
Thank you both. Yes, if you all would drop that link in the chat, that would be greatly appreciated. You. It.
Turn it back to you. Ms Harrison,
thank you. I don't have any other messages. Is there anyone else here that wants to have public comment today.
I am scrolling through and I do not see anything, so I am going to call the public comment.
Hello, hello. Yes, my name is Paul sands, and I've been on the last three zones. And yeah, I'm trying to I've been living in my truck and everything, and Rosetta has been a great help to me. However, we have still not been able to get shelter space, and you know, we've been freezing, we're now in a vacant house, and we. You know, we just need to know, where is the help at for real.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you. Miss sands,
okay,
actually, I'm going to if one of our it's one of our members from cam on,
if you would stay on at the end of the call,
and we did this last time. I mean, really, I really want to know, and I'm sure if there's others on here that possibly are exhibiting homelessness, possibly they've had some luck. But, you know, I like to really get out the cold.
Yeah, I was just gonna say I can stay on the call. I just, I didn't catch the name, and I didn't necessarily want you to have to share your information in a public setting so I can get, I can stay on the call here and get your phone number from you. Ain't
no same in my game. I can't say my ass and my face at the same time, sir, I'm trying to get out the call. My name is Paula sands,
okay. And do you have a good phone number? I can reach you at 313-974-1599,
okay, I'm going to give you a call right after this meeting. Okay,
and what's your name? Again,
my name is Zach. I'm the coordinated entry manager.
Thank you so much, sir. I appreciate it. Very
welcome. Talk to you soon.
Zach, is she supposed to stay on it?
I'm just gonna call her to get it's 313-974-1599, is that correct? Yeah,
she, she's actually one of my clients. Okay,
that's how so Allen, thank
you so on
policy. Okay,
everyone have a blessed rest of their day.
Thank you. Too.
Thanks.
Thank you. Mr. Sands, is there anyone else that has public comment today?
I have a question. This is Tamara Gaines, from hand, as the COC manager, I definitely empathize with what's happening. We have a lot of families out here in the cold. My concern is that, you know, we have people calling a cam every day and to have the it's it speaks to, and maybe we this is just an a conversation that we just need to have our with ourselves with when it comes to the speed of coordinated entry and getting folks housing and things of that nature. But I mean, I just don't want to open up the floodgates to have folks, you know, in sympathizing with the situation, the carefulness of the concept that it takes attendance to a board meeting to get some help. There are plenty of families out there, and not just I'm trying to figure out what's the best way without opening up the flood gates of having family after family feeling as if they need to come to a board meeting to get help. If you understand what I'm saying with this, it shouldn't take that. But what can we is there anything further that can be done so that there is an there isn't a need to come to a board meeting to get help.
Yeah, Tamara, I think there's a lot of levels to your question. The way I'm going to approach this situation is just kind of ensuring that the individual that came off mute is, in fact, connected to the necessary systems and prioritization lists and things like that. So I'm just kind of verifying that information, and if we find that that information isn't up to date or isn't correct, then I'll work with the access point staff to see why or what needs to be corrected in this specific scenario, I think you raise a good. Point, but at this point, I just want to make sure that that individual is connected with everything that they're eligible for at this stage. So that's how I'm going to approach this specific situation. But I see Tasha and phrases.
Thanks, Tamara, as you are aware. Some of this just comes down to resources and what resources are available. So coming to a board meeting doesn't ensure that the resource is going to be available. And shelter is our probably most limited resource right now, most most requested but most limited resource as of right now. So I think there are a lot of folks out there who are looking and need services, and may not get that service that they're looking at needing, and that doesn't reflect on the work that is being done, but it's a reflection of the system as a whole and the resources that are available to serve folks who are in need. Okay,
I understand that fascia, but I would wonder also that is that there's transparency in letting folks know the the absence or the meagerness of resources I am, is a policy, a personal policy for me to not guarantee outcomes. And so hopefully some of these things can be exercised, because we can't promise everybody, that's just the nature of it. And so just to try not to get caught up in that, yes, there are things systematically that needs to happen. The we're living in a time where we don't know, come January what's going to happen with this country. And just to try to keep from over provincing folks who are already upset about their situation, that's all I'm saying.
Agree, yeah, I think we just have to be realistic.
All right. Miss Harrison, do you see anyone else?
Um, up here. Pasha, your hand is still up. Okay, thank you. You are next.
I really can't speak for anybody else, but this is really upsetting to me, and this gives us a perfect opportunity to look at the way that we show up and the way we do what we do when we come to this space again, accountability, and I can't stress it enough, we throw out transparency. We talk about accountability when we're putting together these charters. But are we really get comfortable because we show people through transparency how much money we're giving away and how much money is being approved, and then when people like this woman Miss sands, come on, we have no resources. Oh, we can't do anything about that. Meanwhile, we've given the organizations in the city millions of dollars. They're up on TV right now begging for even more money, the bed space has not changed. People are still sleeping under overpasses. People are still sleeping on the sidewalk. I live on Jefferson, and in a two mile stretch, less than two miles, I can point out seven homeless people who, if I get up in the morning, between midnight and six in the morning will be right where I point to them. I can almost set my watch to them being there. I can tell folks again. People came from out of town to a conference over here on the riverfront and pointed out to me it's a lot of homeless people on this street along again. We have to make these agencies accountable. I suggest that we not fund an agency, and we chose not to that agency got mad. People on this board got mad. But when you look at how much money we gave them and how much money we've given these other organizations, and how much money HUD has given them, and how much more we've approved, there's no excuse for this, and I understand why she's mad. She ought to be mad as him, you're sleeping out here in abandoned houses. Meanwhile, every time you turn around, something is being thrown up. Oh, we have more affordable housing. We need low income housing, and the people in this room need to start advocating for it. These shelters are turning themselves into landlords, tax free landlords through the PSH program, and we still have people with families sleeping literally in the streets, and we come into this space and this life, oh well, you know, we don't have anything available. You know, there's not much we can do. We're telling people to call a cam, and sometimes nobody's still answering the phone, and let's get it works. This is terrible, and we should be ashamed of ourselves. And folks should come in here every. Week, it should have been more than her on the line telling us what they going through, because maybe if they keep calling in here, at some point, we'll start listening and actually start doing the work that we are tasked with, and making these shelters accountable. Why are you sending people here, there and everywhere and taking field trips? Why are we not putting people in house? We have the city sitting right here talking about how much affordable housing they throw up, and nobody's talking about the low income housing. And when they throw it up, it's never enough. We have people sitting here wondering why there's no housing yet. When Michigan has a public meeting every month, nobody from this room is going to the table, and if they are, it's because it's part of their job, and they're not saying a word. Do better.
Thank you, Miss Brown for your comments. Next up we have Tammy black. Tammy The floor is yours. Hi, hi. I
agree with the last caller. I think that maybe some of these agencies need because staff need to put in some more housing. We need to do something. This is just not acceptable. It's coming into these meetings talking about what we're doing, all of this charting and all of these accolades and what you're doing. We don't need to hear that. We need some results. We need some results, and stop adding on staff. And let's get out here and get some housing for these people. I don't care if it's a hotel, create some more tiny houses. We need to do that. We need to cut, cut cost, cut costs, and put more people in housing. There's no excuse for this. I agree.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ms black.
Any other comments today? Right next up, we have John. John, you have the floor. Yeah, I just wanted
to say, I do think that it will be beneficial. And we talked about this, that internally, as an agency, I inquired with some of the people who are involved with the committees and the board, just about the lack of resources, about the lack of available housing, and that and just, I think there should be a state where we can use our collective power, the power that we have as a community, to try to acquire and at least make an effort. I don't see that. I don't I haven't seen that in you know, we do a lot around COC resources, and maybe we call ourselves a continuum of care, and so we only focus on government funding, but I think maybe we could find a space and think outside of that, and at least advocate collectively For more resources.
Thank you, John, for your comments. Ms, black. You still had your hand raised. Did you have another Yes,
I was just thinking. I have a building that's seven mile that has like 50 to 60 beds. We're just trying to remodel it, right, trying to find the funding to get staff to put in there for these people is like pulling hands. Keep trying to get money, trying to create, I'm trying to do a housing development that doesn't have any gas utilities. I'm doing solar energy. We need to look at creative ways like this to be able to put people in housing where they don't have all these overhead bills, give them skills so they can get jobs, so they can feel good about themselves again. You know what I mean, with which something's not working, you guys, it's just not working. We need to go back, like the gentleman just said, we need to go back to the drawing board, see how we can make these things work for people that are out here on the streets who need our help badly. I'm in my house right now. I'm sitting in a warm house. We get, you know what I mean? So I just, I just don't think it's fair. I think we need to go back to the drawing board. We can do this, but we just got to put our heads together and do it the right way that it's going to really benefit the people in need here. Thank you guys, thank you.
Thank you. Next up we have Amber Morman Amber The floor is yours. They going to reset the clock so. Okay,
Chelsea, if we can reset the clock, please, thank you. Okay. Ms Barnes,
so I'm going to be very, very short, but I just wanted to say I definitely agree with the things that were being said. But as far as like the governing organizations, I feel like they are making efforts to ensure that housing and resources are being distributed within the communities. I feel like the biggest like barrier that we're having is retaining people to work. I know that someone had said we need to cut salaries, but the reduction in salaries is why we can't keep people in here to monitor and manage the programs effectively enough to keep everyone in and out, like keep the door moving. So when another person is need, we've already pushed somebody through the program. And then we also want to look at the fact that we don't have enough landlords in the market right now we are looking, but when you have programs that are state and city funded, there's a lot of guidelines that these landlords have to abide by, which can also cut into why we don't have the access to All of the PSH programs that we can and spaces you know that we should be able to house people in. But with that being said, I feel like the more that we are, we're growing. We have implemented standards and procedures throughout all of these organizations that are set to make sure that we are watching everybody essentially like for lack of better terms, but keeping everyone on their toes and letting them know this is what we expect uniformly, and that is what's going to make sure that our programs are working effectively, efficiently and doing better. So right now, it's just it's only up from here, and with the new things that have been implemented, I do see that. I feel as if we're going to do a lot better in the future. So ultimately, that's that's what we need, just collaboration, a well resourced approach, and then we're going to come together and make affordable housing better for our Metro Detroit citizens. So
thank you, Amber. Looks like we have Tamara. Tamara, the floor is yours.
Yeah, when I mentioned, as far as addressing some of the root causes, one of my major concerns, and I've said this in meetings, you know, left nonprofit, you know, went to corporate, came back. At some point, we are going to have to address some of the national protocols that's keeping folks from being great. Some of the rules, you know, from a regulation standpoint, is just a bit I'll just say, and it's keeping it's doing more of a hindrance than a help. And we all know, some of you know some of the protocols, especially when we're dealing with drug addiction versus homelessness. You know, you can be, you know, an addict. If you go into a rehab, you lose your category one, status, all of those regulatory things you shouldn't have to choose between rehab and help. Some of those things we know that is hindering folks from being grading and getting both help for the, you know, for whatever they're going through, and then also for housing. We know that some of the rules just, just needs to be re evaluated, and so to be able to come together as a collective to talk about nationally, what, what's not working. What is it about, you know, coordinated entry protocols, that's just not working. What is it about, you know, some of the you know, psh protocols and shelter protocols that we know nationally is not working, and approach it from from that too.
Thank you. Tamara, next up, I have Marionette Cole The floor is yours. Call Hi. Good
evening. I believe that the program is working. What's happening is that, that we having more homeless people now. So the thing is, is so we need to open up more housing for the homeless people, but I believe that cam is doing a great job of what they are doing, but we also need some more housing so people can have that ability. You to get back on their feet and to have a better life, and it's okay, and I can understand why some people are angry, some people are cold, some people are hungry, but to keep in mind that we should do the best that we can in you know, anything we do, we should do the best that we can for them, but sometimes it may seem like they they not being helped, but, but they are being helped, but we just need more people to participate in in providing housing for them and food and clothing for them, because the world of the way it's going now is a lot of people is being abused on drugs and things of that nature, and it's hard for them to get housed or paid rent and stuff like that. So you have to look at the background, not just, not just they don't have a place to stay, but you have to look at their background. And why are they homeless, you know? So if you figure out why they homeless, like they may have a drug habit, let's, let's get a program to help them get out of drugs and so they can get back on their feet or, or they may be homeless because of being abused. Okay, let them get, get away from the person that they're being abusive. They're being abusive towards them, you know. So we need to dig more into the deep causes of why they are homeless also. But I believe that cam is doing a great job of what they're doing. It's just that we need more shelter and more people to help, and that's all. Thank you.
Thank you. Okay,
okay.
Looking down here,
I don't see any more hands raised at this time. Do not want to rush anyone. If anyone has another public comment, please just raise your hand where you can type in the chat. Allen, you're up next.
Okay, so
I did say
woman is my client that can't speak directly on what the issues are, but I would like to say a lot of the problem is we pick up clients, they end up with with the issues that weren't mentioned in initial contact, And we're having a major issue with shelter space. People are not being moved through the shelter system fast enough to allow new people to be brought into the shelter, and we've had those shelters shelters shut down as well, which limits the space even more. So we need to a get the, get these shelters to move a little faster, moving people through this, through their shelter system and B, we need to, we need to bring more shelter online. That's the end of my public comment. I need to
thank you. Alan, is there anyone else today that wants to have public comment? You?
Okay, I cannot see anything battery load. There is nothing else in the chat directly sent to me or public chat that I can see that needs to be addressed. Looks like Tara. Tara, you have three minutes. You are next. Sorry,
I know you were supposed to wrapping it up. I'd be I'd be happy to provide additional information about the shelter beds that has been brought online. We added about 300 beds to our system. That doesn't mean that we, you know, at any given moment, have availability for everyone to present this says that they want an emergency shelter bed immediately. So I do want to recognize that absolutely and there is an issue with getting people out of shelter right. The best way to create shelter availability is by ending people's homelessness who are in shelter, and that is done through a. Elementary housing, right? The solution to homelessness is housing, and so there are lots of opportunities for further collaboration and work. Part of the strategic planning process was creating funders council that funders Council will also be looking at pulling in folks from outside other sectors that also serve people experiencing homelessness, and how we can better combine and leverage our resources to to provide additional housing, to provide additional programming, to provide additional support, so that we can get people out of our shelter systems, get people off of the streets, from being unsheltered, and move them into the housing that they that they want, and that they and that they need. The other thing I just wanted to know, and I'll make sure that this communication gives to the hand for their newsletter, is that we will be standing up a drop in center where police, hospitals and street outreach teams will be able to take individuals who are unsheltered. 24/7, in order to get them off of the streets and have them make sure that they have someplace safe to sleep inside, there are two providers that will be providing those services, cast community social services. Ross commission will be providing more communication regarding those programs, so if an outreach team encounters somebody at, you know, 11 o'clock at night who is unsheltered, they want to come inside. That can be a location that they can be taken to directly. And those are all housing types as well. So we'll provide more information if that program gets online and rolling up. Hopefully, the goal is to have it activated this December, prior to the end of the year holidays. So again, we'll put that in the newsletter, along with some processes and some parameters for those folks. But it it will be able to provide an additional provide a safety net for those who are sleeping outside.
Mickey Tara,
all right. Are there any other comments?
I believe Miss Reed has her hand up. Angel.
Okay, you're next.
Thank you. I was just gonna say it's good to hear that things are being put in place. I just would really like to see organizations that are working with the client more directly be involved in those decisions and new initiatives that are in place. Oftentimes they're left at the sideline looking for the same type of resources, because individuals are coming to the organization, some of the grass root organizations trying to service the client. It is very disheartening to tell a family to go to Cam and it says that it's closed for the cam line and it can't get through. Then we have to try to figure out where we can send our clients, or they're sleeping like today and in a car. It's just not, not a good look on city who talks about the affordable housing and everything that we offer that when they go for the service or help, it's not available, and no one's talking to those individuals who don't get into the shelter, who are turned away, who aren't on a aren't on the list because they couldn't get on the list. So just as we are the board, we are supposed to be advocates that I'm still trying to find my way in that and how we're advocating. On the other end, we do a lot to try to ensure that we're working with the companies who are creating the spaces as a board, and I appreciate that. So I get to see that side of it, but when I look at the other side, it takes so long to actually help the individuals who need it, and we're getting them coming in all the time, and not to open it up to other departments is a disservice to families as well, because we have mihps and programs like that are also dealing with clients every single day, and they aren't at the table. So as we're making these adjustments and rules and plans, we need to include some of the people who are in working with the individuals, trying to get them into places. Thank you.
Thank you, Angel.
Are there any other comments today? Now the floor is open.
I can't find the button, but I just have a real quick one. Okay,
what's yours? All right, I just had
put it in the chat, but I know we've had some ongoing conversations about potentially being able to use the cam help desk as a kind of a pathway to to report some of these things, or to get some some help. I don't know if we figured out if that's accessible or not to like who it's accessible to, but just putting it back out there, just something to consider to maybe help some of these issues we've been talking about. That was all I had.
Thank you, Zach, I don't know if you want to address or Brenna the cam Help Desk. I know that the requests come in through the help desk, they are filtered and then shared with the appropriate cam party that can address whatever has come through that link, but I'm not sure you know, like, what the next step is once it is sent over.
Is there anyone that can address that, as far as the cam Help Desk link? And if not, we can circle back and maybe get some information out. Yeah,
are you just looking for the link? Or what
no Lydia was asking is the cam helped us link a possibility to for people to use if they run across, or individuals themselves if they need the type of assistance that was expressed here today in the board meeting, like
yes, and it has been used in that way. I mean, we'll filter. So whatever we get, we'll filter it to the appropriate party. So not everything that comes through cam is cam, but it'll come through. It gets there's a couple of people who are checking it and it gets filter appropriate.
All right, I think I got a thumbs up from Lydia. Thank you, Tasha for addressing it.
All right, any other comments today? During public comment? Yeah, kind of a short board meeting. So this is welcome conversation. Any other comments today or questions?
Scrolling through, I don't see anything left in the chat. I don't have any outstanding requests, and I don't see any hands raised at this time. If that is accurate, we will close out public comment for December 2, 2024 and this is our last board meeting for 2024 I'm going to turn it back over to Dr G,
thank you so much. Ms Harrison, and thank you to all of you who leaned into this public comment today. It actually is appropriate that we had time on the agenda to share candidly and lead into difficult discussions as we leave 2024 and meet again January 6, I just hope we take all of the passion and all of the insights that were shared here, whether you agree with them or not, and think about the real purpose of the COC, which is to eliminate homelessness and ensure that everyone has the housing that they deserve. We are Better Together, and I hope that we carry that as we contemplate how we continue to tackle this problem together. Have a good afternoon. Enjoy your December, and we'll see you on January 6, this meeting is concluded.
