Bangor homelessness committee reviews public plans, identifies service gaps

[1:42] Teal Vasquez: All right, it is 5:15. We're going to call to order this meeting of the advisory committee on homelessness. So today we do have a relatively short agenda from an items standpoint, however the topics are going to probably take up quite a bit of our time, which is why we determined to leave this agenda a little bit lighter. So our first agenda item is the discussion of the three plans that were submitted by community members. One by Sprague, one from Fitch, and the Bangor Opportunity Plan. That one is Russell? Justin Russell. Justin Russell. So with that, has everyone had a chance to review those plans? We'll open it up for comments, thoughts, questions regarding these three initial plans submitted by the public? [2:43] Melissa Ann Rhodes: Do you want to pick one and talk about it and then pick another one and talk about it? [2:49] Teal Vasquez: We can. I mean, so when I was reviewing the three plans, it felt to me that they kind of were looking at it from different perspectives. Right. Sprague was really more of a community wide strategic framework view on the issue, Whereas Councilman Fish's was more like the organizational management piece of it. And then the Bangor Opportunity Plan being more of an implementation roadmap emphasizing the housing and public health and all of that. So I don't know if it makes sense to start at the highest level of the plan that kind of covers that and then work our way down through more operational. [3:31] Jason Goodrich: So I guess that would be spring [3:50] Melissa Ann Rhodes: conversation, I appreciate your spring attention in the document. And it obviously showed that there was a lot of activity in 2023 when he was a part of activities and I appreciate the opportunity to have looked at it as in context of what's new now. That's kind of how I went at my review of this was what has been in place what is new now? And what are we looking at going forward? So I took my response to the next box [4:31] Amy West: comments. [4:39] Anthony T. Ng: Well, I felt like it was in the Roman numeral section. So just entry just for viewers at home. We've had some concerns, like who's speaking? I can't tell. So this has been a very fair question. So I felt like this was like 25 conversations that could be had. And so it doesn't direct anyone to do anything really like none of these are actionable. Almost any sense, like you could, you could go in completely diametrically opposite directions and still be meeting each of the 25 Roman numeral item. The point is that the conversation needs to be had. So he's pointing out the conversations, not pointing out like, hey, you should do this, you should do this, you should do this, as opposed to Russell, who's saying your specific actions to take. So that was my main observation. There wasn't a conversation in there where I was like, yeah, we shouldn't have that conversation, but 25 conversations is a lot to have. So we probably do need to think about any of those do we need to be involved with and how many are conversations somebody else can be [5:57] Amy West: taking the lead on. It's quicker. When did it actually come up? This is the plan. Someone from [6:03] Teal Vasquez: Spring, yeah, 2023. So do you remember the conversation that happened? I just want, I don't [6:07] Amy West: know the background, what happened when it came out 23. Was it a discussion and say, hey, we want [6:13] Bruce Hews: table this, or I don't know. I wish Councillor Sprigg were here, because I was not here in 2023. My understanding is that sort of as he was departing his time on council, he submitted the plan, and that there was not much discussion at the time, and [6:35] Amy West: that was something he came up with on his own. Was it the console chart? It was [6:42] Bruce Hews: something he did on his own. Yeah, I [6:47] Amy West: I think when I was reading it, I mean, maybe I, you know, I was not a good day or whatever, [6:55] Teal Vasquez: but it felt like it was very overwhelming for what we had to do, because as I said, there's [7:01] Amy West: so many pieces that I could say, oh, it makes sense, except, but the thing is, I know reality-wise there's no way resources. So I can make that work. So it's, it's, it's all, it's almost if, let's say the same thing, it's the same platform and all these things, like you come up with these ideas, but the top three Christmas wish lists is these three things, and then you work your way, number two priority, number three, I think. And again, I didn't see that. So again, it's up to us to figure, but it just felt a little part of it and [7:39] Melissa Ann Rhodes: what you said kind of rings in my ears, and I, you had said that they didn't, the document didn't particularly produce any outcome. So they really just more of a view, overview of the situations in many areas. So what I did in my review was actually make a couple of things that I was, I was compelled to in reading this document, because some of it rang true for me. I believe that the document talks about fostering and bolstering family homeless services in Bangor. That's one of the areas I would like to See this committee really work on is if we could say that Bangor has no homeless students, I'd be pretty proud to put my name and I think it's something that we can do. It also talks about the outreach system as it was then and it really hasn't changed that much in the last three years, so bolstering outreach services in the Bangor area I think would be a good outcome. And it talked about warming centers, they were just coming into play then and we have a few years of data on that, so one of the suggestions that I would make is making warmings a permanent part of Maine's emergency infrastructure. Right now it's it's funded in through emergency services, the grant changes every year, the funds the funds are applied for yearly, there's no grant cycle involved, there's no guarantee that the funds would be there and that's just the first concern around warming centers. So if we could focus on warming centers I think [9:24] Amy West: every day every time you come in well I think that actually would fit in the six months plan we got yeah and I could see this potentially addressing two things, one is obviously homeless who need it but you may also have a lot of angle residents is elderly whatever facing insecurity in terms of getting heat, they could also use it so you almost can hit a whole bunch of people and that we can help them then basically posting someone home you know but elderly for example can't afford to say I gotta get this up and found me home so I think we could kind of you know multiple targets with that even just simple thing for the six months [10:03] Robyn Stanicki: And when you say warming centers just to clarify, do we need day warming centers night warming [10:08] Melissa Ann Rhodes: Well I think that's a conversation that's something we should probably put on the agenda as a standing item and day and evening warming centers are currently they're only they're weather related you know and they're they're they're temporary and some of the conversations although [10:35] Amy West: night is probably it could prepare to night is when everyone stayed home so that's when they need it where in the daytime you could be busy running around for appointments and stuff [10:45] Teal Vasquez: so you don't need that only if you're how is it house yeah but if you're not housed they [10:51] Amy West: used to make ghost seems to go to appointments so which appointments like medical appointments [10:57] Robyn Stanicki: That I mean some portions limited, and also a lot of our folks that are unhoused and the highest risk, and often that usually needs the most visible, are folks that have severe persistent mental illness, and those folks struggle to get to appointments. So, and that's only a small portion of maybe a day a week. So having said that, having at that point probably [11:23] Amy West: Want these warming cells just rather just a place where you can sit down and sit warm. [11:28] Robyn Stanicki: I think uses interventional piece and the ones that we have, that's how we utilize them now. Absolutely, but I really did also think that what the point you made around folks that are vulnerably housed, we see that even still in the summertime folks get how they become wildly lonely and depressed, and they access them during the day just for the socialization piece or [11:51] Teal Vasquez: For food or warmth. So I think there's great benefit, and I do worry this winter especially [11:57] Anthony T. Ng: Sure with the fuel the way it is more people will be arrested. Yeah, and I think just on a point of [12:04] Melissa Ann Rhodes: Clarification, I think maybe from an agenda point of view these two things might be better off as separate conversations because the funding comes from different places and the expectations are slightly different. It might actually be better as a two agenda item understanding [12:23] Anthony T. Ng: Understanding. So is the funding for that state funding? And so I agree this is important, but I'm not sure whether the state this is I'm trying to do the same with who I who I am for the viewers at home this has been treat so I So I don't know what impact we can have on if we're saying, hey, the funding sources ought to be stable, but then the funding source doesn't pay attention to us because they didn't bring about this commission. You know, is one of them at daytime, is like daytime funded through city channels and nighttime through the state, or like, are they both states or? [13:11] Teal Vasquez: I would assume. [13:13] Bruce Hews: Bruce do you know the answer to that question? Does I know the nighttime warming shelters are funded through the state? Is the well funded through the state as well? I didn't think so [13:24] Jason Goodrich: Volunteer we just had that gentleman that ran the 100 miles that just raised 17 000 for them, but all their stuff is through their church contacts and through pretty much [13:38] Robyn Stanicki: that 's it volunteers and stuff like that and i know some of the day warming centers had applied for some city funded support right and that was in a while like didn't brick get some last year [13:52] Teal Vasquez: That was for the overnight. Okay that was for a warning. Yeah, but that came from city or opioid [13:59] Bruce Hews: Development, I don't know what where that fund came from, so we got a one-time general assistance payment that didn't have a lot of strings attached to how we used it, and we used [14:11] Anthony T. Ng: that to fund the warming centers. I guess my point is, gosh, it does seem to come from a lot of sources. Saying this ought to be permanent, it sounds like there could be a pretty significant price tag associated with that, so I just, I'm just putting that out there. But especially if a lot of the funding or some of the funding is from the state government, that makes it even harder, because it's not funding that we actually have any control over or recommendation to. Yeah, no, but we could [14:44] Teal Vasquez: possibly help identify what those sources are, because I would presume that there are a lot of grants out there, not just from the state, from public foundations, private foundations, and making sure that the organizations that are operating these facilities know where those funds are. That could be a recommendation that we could make forward. Is there a resource for these folks centrally located that shows where fun, city or otherwise, are available to help them be able to underwrite these things that we all agree are needed, but that's all, understand, come with the price tag. The city cannot just put a bill, an unlimited bill. But good point, like we can't tell the state hey give us more, like we can, but we should be able to say [15:35] Melissa Ann Rhodes: to the state with this funding comes from standards, you know, statewide standards, staffing ratios, training levels, you know, something like that. I think that there's an opportunity to in increase the service tenfold with a little bit of a little bit of [Carolyn Fish: a] little bit of preparation planning on this from this group. I think we could help a lot in what they're doing and what their mission is. Every year you'll notice that warming centers specifically have cycles, and those cycles run about three months. The open cycle runs from November through April, but then there's the closed and planning cycle that's April through August, and then there's the grant funding and preparation that's August through November, and then there's again the second cycle of November through April being service provision. So we're constantly cycling through this, through this with home, with warming centers. What part of the cycle are we in right now? People are looking at finishing up spiffing up their grants, getting their applications in right before they're viewed, which is the deadline is fairly soon. [16:56] Jason Goodrich: Yeah, we meet all through the summer, all the warming centers, and Jen Lawler, our coordinator. So we meet every month, you know, what do we need to do this month? And we're always getting prepared for the winter, you know, winter time. So we're pretty much on top of it. In the middle of the week or the finalize of everyone's grant applications, so and the grants [17:22] Melissa Ann Rhodes: Are through the continuum of care, right, the main housing that we give a pair the standards for those, there's a letter that comes in, the city has to support a letter. What I've always wondered what was in the letter, is it just say that it's an occupancy or is there other things besides occupancy that are in there. [17:45] Jason Goodrich: That's just a letter of support, right? It was, you know, what they've done in the years past, you know, how they support our unhoused. [17:55] Amy West: So it's all that stuff, yeah. [17:58] Teal Vasquez: So are we talking about potential funding sources for warming centers, or what is, [18:02] Amy West: If I can cut up a little bit. [18:04] Teal Vasquez: Yeah, not particularly, we're starting kind of the conversation with the spray plan,. And then it kind of morphed into a little bit of a, you know, where are the commonalities between these plans and the need to forming centers came up to kind of gone a little bit of a tangent, but I think a worthwhile one to have this opportunity to help us also wrap our heads around what we can and can't recommend or what we should and shouldn't recommend. I mean, kind of where our parameters are when it comes to looking at these things holistically. [Amy West: So] Not specifically to funding sources, more generalized, like, right, I mean, just to weigh in on the matter of budgetary issues like that is really where I did the bulk of my experience was at a probably second most high volume warming center and you know what I can say is you know we did a pretty amazing job with what we had but we were locally underfunded and the fiscal issues contributed to the quality that we were able to deliver and I think that you know if we could improve that quality not Only would you know it mean more lives saved and more lives rehabilitated because these people are not willing to take advantages of sort of to take advantage of services when they're happier and comfortable and they feel that place in their community but it means that we could offset some of the city's other costs in dealing with like a full acute expression of homelessness by putting these people in community with the provisioners of their care that they're gonna be seen anyways. I mean, a lot of the people that volunteer in South, our Warmington are, were people who were doing street outreach. They were street pastors. They were pastors of local ministries. They were recovery professionals. They were recovery coaches. They were Narcan trained, so it's like,, I think that, you know, ultimately the squeaky wheel gets the praise. And I think what most people agree when they look at Bangor is that in terms of the unhoused prices, we're a very, squeaky wheel, so why, dress ourselves up and say, you know, like, let's put a nice price on this, there is not a nice price to be had here, you know, this, like, this is going to take a pretty creative cut wherever we draw it from to create change. In my opinion, we're not going to be able to shuffle what we currently have and merely rearranging the pieces is going to create a needed infusion of new resources and outlooks to address the deficit that already exists there. At least that would [21:09] Anthony T. Ng: be my thought so if we think of council former council members breaks document is having 25 conversations to be had and Jay started us with a couple of them that the warming centers and the goal of every child having a home in Bangor another one that I think relates to some of the feedback that we got this week is number 10, work with organizations, I'll just leave out the names of the organizations, but to develop strategies to mitigate needle waste. And I know there's work being done around that and there's numerous organizations that are involved in various ways. But I think that relates to some of the messages that we got about something that's a concern, a concern for people, a problem for people certainly, that could be something that we have as like a, I don't know if that's a regular agenda item necessarily, but something that we should identify as a thing that has to be part of any plan that we come up with is reinforcing needle exchanges and needle waste is as a part of that conversation that we need to have and I [22:28] Robyn Stanicki: think also that is something I hear back from our folks that are unhoused as well, that they feel strongly about needle waste as well, and the majority of our folks want to be able to either have a part in solving those problems or have an easier way of disposing needles, so and that I think concern is not just from our house community but our own house community as well [23:00] Amy West: Yes, I've been out there and that's what I hear is more boxes [23:03] Robyn Stanicki: Can I help clean up, I get that a lot, is there a way for us to help too [23:11] Amy West: Obviously not everyone, but there's, there's a surprise, I think it would surprise. [23:19] Anthony T. Ng: Think of litter generally, I know a lot of house people litter, right, you know, most house people don't like litter, right, it's probably not different, yeah, I've [23:41] Teal Vasquez: seen on social media, but a lot of the unhoused are organizing and camping, yeah, I've been prescribing a lot [23:47] Robyn Stanicki: of exposure prophylaxis folks that are trying to do well in their community and have had accidental needle sticks themselves, and because of the HIV outbreak are coming and asking for treatment after a needle stick, and this is folks that are housed, this is folks that are unhoused, but feeling very strongly that they want to help clean up their community. [24:08] Amy West: You know, like a public service thing on how to handle needles, no one else did, you say that, oh sorry, now I have a public service on how to handle needles, I mean some people, you know, even the ones who want to pick it up, they just have no clue what [24:29] Robyn Stanicki: to do with it, and we learned, I think Bruce, were you involved in this, while we were trying to figure out there are guidelines on certain websites that are different, do you want to [24:42] Speaker I (unidentified): speak to that a little bit about the trash, yeah, I really don't want to talk about it, yeah, but I [24:49] Bruce Hews: mean I think so, the conflicting, there's conflicting guidance out there about what to do with needle waste and whether it can go in the trash, but for purposes of Bangor's waste stream, the typical guidance is to put the needles in like a used laundry detergent jug, and that is not good for us because of how our trash gets processed through a particular waste Center, and it essentially creates projectiles that are very dangerous, so yeah, we have in particularly in the city, we have a real challenge with properly disposing of the [25:25] Teal Vasquez: needles, so what is, how is that challenge communicated to the public, right, yeah, I know [25:34] Bruce Hews: some amount has been done, Bruce, but I don't know the details of what has been communicated. [25:39] Jason Goodrich: I mean, I don't know how it's been communicated, but I do know that we have areas where we could, they have all over town, right, that they can put their needles in, it's just people aren't using [25:52] Robyn Stanicki: And, you know, even like having been a primary care provider, it was not uncommon guidance for us to say your diabetic needles, if you don't have a sharps container, to put them in an empty laundry container or, you know, laundry detergent bin, and then you can throw that away. So this also is helpful for anyone that's disposing needles, whether it's for illicit use or for tribe use. [26:12] Jason Goodrich: And honestly, when I'm in campsites and I don't know about you Amy, a lot of these needles haven't used, they're there, they're, they open a package, they use a needle, and the rest of the needles are just left on the ground. It's so, I mean, that's what we're seeing. When you see, you go into a campsite, you see, you know, 30, 40, 50 needles, you're seeing probably needles that [26:35] Speaker J (unidentified): have never even been used. So right now we in the planning department are exploring the response by Casella and their recent pilot in the state of Vermont to work with a needle manufacturer to learn how to recycle those, because if you layer the EPA and the recycling aspect on disposal, there could be some work to be done there with getting someone to actually dispose of at medical facilities, but then also in the general waste. [27:11] Teal Vasquez: I was going to say, so what does this waste management facility prefer? I mean, what would they be capable of handling? Because shouldn't we, you know, sort of work from the top down if that in terms of our message, you know, especially if there's already conflicting guidance, shouldn't we just go with the end point where the bottleneck is? And I mean, is there something that they think could be used to dispose of them that wouldn't create projectile? [27:37] Bruce Hews: I presume sharps boxes. Yeah, I, they don't want, they don't want needles, period. I think this is the sort of the end result, and I think probably I am I correct Bruce that really Jen Gunderman is the one who's paid the most attention to this issue. So this is a topic that we want to dig into at a future agenda. I think Jen perhaps with our public works director would be the right folks to sit down and talk to you in detail and answer questions. [28:07] Teal Vasquez: Sounds like it's worth adding on to the list of priorities. I would agree, given the plethora of messages that we've received regarding the topic, I think it probably is one that warrants prioritization. So do you know, is Jen going to be available? She will be at your next meeting. Yes, I thought so, but just wanted to double check. So if we can add that to the agenda the next meeting, if everyone on the committee is okay with that, and then we can go a deeper conversation, because it certainly sounds like this is a conversation that needs to be had. It also sounds like one that we might be able to provide recommendations relatively quickly to council on things that [28:46] Amy West: they can do to help. Is there, is that data, are they short about needle city exchange whatever? [28:54] Bruce Hews: This that we can have before. Yeah, there should be because the city, well, I'll say the city has a contract with Wavanaki for, you know, pickup and disposal. We do have good data about anything that goes through Wabanaki, which I think would be helpful to you. So I can have that, you know. [29:12] Teal Vasquez: Something to give us a rough point. Brittany's hands off. I don't think she knows something. [29:19] Speaker I (unidentified): Sorry, don't be. I'm sorry that I needed to be remote today. Is there a, is there a map of disposal locations for the city, like including where there are boxes across the city? [29:37] Bruce Hews: Another one on our website. Sorry, I'm sorry, I should say that again. Is, doesn't our [29:43] Speaker I (unidentified): website have a map of all the needle disposal locations? Yeah, including the boxes across the city, just like I [29:55] Bruce Hews: believe so, but Bruce and I are both waffling as we look at each other across the [29:59] Teal Vasquez: room. No, that's okay. All right, it is on the city. So yeah, do we have a rough estimate of what total number of drop sites are? I was searching it. [30:10] Jason Goodrich: Yeah. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven sites. [30:15] Teal Vasquez: That doesn't sound like an abundance to me. [30:17] Speaker I (unidentified): I was going to say, that doesn't, yeah. [30:20] Teal Vasquez: Go ahead, Brittany, I'm sorry. [30:21] Speaker I (unidentified): Yeah, I mean, I was just, I can take a look at the website while I'm sitting here too. I was just thinking similarly that it's really interesting to hear about the waste management stuff because that is such like widely shared information amongst syringe exchanges and other folks too and like there are some syringe exchanges that are giving out laundry detergent bottles or other things so that so that things can be disposed of properly and i'm sure that there are many of our community members that are like spreading that information and then to hear that 's sort of counter to what we want to be happening, I think is also a problem. So thanks for raising that. [31:04] Robyn Stanicki: And a great thing to communicate to the public and keep them informed. Yeah, for sure. [31:14] Teal Vasquez: Awesome. So we will make sure that is on the agenda for the next meeting. If city staff can just have that information from Malinaki, the exact number of disposal sites that we have. [31:25] Robyn Stanicki: And the cost associated? I'm curious about that. [31:33] Speaker J (unidentified): I'm sorry? The city has three locations on its website. [31:37] Teal Vasquez: I can be on the other four. Okay. [31:40] Jason Goodrich: What we're looking at right now, we're here. So if we could just compile all that information [31:46] Teal Vasquez: for the next meeting, and then I think- And the cost. Amy had a great point. Yeah, the cost of operating. It's not just to install, but somebody has to maintain that would be, and also I don't know, I guess effectively. [32:02] Amy West: Like, how full are they? Because, like, I don't know, but the thing is I'm curious because how often they, you know, get rid of it and maybe, you know, clean up and things like that because [32:14] Teal Vasquez: Seven may not be enough. I mean, I'm just thinking, I mean, it doesn't sound like a net just, yeah, I mean [32:19] Amy West: I mean, if there's one that's, you know, very low volume, it's obviously the wrong place. Maybe move that one around. I just don't know. [32:26] Teal Vasquez: What I hear from folks who are unhoused and, you know, I think everyone knows that I like to be a bit of a problem is that, like, people don't really have a passion for creating needle waste, but they can't seem to find the needle boxes. They don't seem to be in the area where the use is. And so the people are having to uproot their schedule in one way or another to get there or at least it wasn't, you know, communicated [32:55] Amy West: as we've said fully although in some way the needle waste product needs to be like worth coverage camps because seriously otherwise if you set a location that means someone has to hold on to a single until they get to that spot and throw it out I think all of these [33:10] Teal Vasquez: are great points but if we're going to put this on the agenda for next week let's carry this conversation next week and move forward with the conversation for today or two weeks on here sorry and so many of these things I forget I'd like to move like to make an actual motion [33:27] Melissa Ann Rhodes: that we put winter warming centers as an agenda item standing agenda item on art [33:36] Teal Vasquez: Is there something specific related to winter warming centers that we want to tackle or is [33:44] Melissa Ann Rhodes: it a very general I think it's a very gentleman in my thinking it's a very general agenda item that something is almost always going on with a walking center whether it's the middle of the summer or if it's the middle of the preparation phase they're just giving the opportunity for us to pay some quick attention each time what's going on at the warming centers where are they in their planning and preparation are they yeah and how can the city support that would be just a quick check-in even every other yeah [34:23] Teal Vasquez: I'll second that all right we have a motion to put warming centers as a standing item on the is that something you want me to [34:32] Jason Goodrich: give an update on yeah that'll be something yeah okay I don't plan to do a motion [34:43] Teal Vasquez: Right, yeah, I think we're good, but we'll just, cool, we'll just make sure it's on there, and we'll, we'll get that update, and then, okay, we'll make it easy. All right, anything else with regard to the spray for both? And I know we went a little bit by far there, but you know. [35:25] Melissa Ann Rhodes: Mr. Spring identified mental health and substance abuse is an important part of a homeless response and what are providers to me and. [35:56] Robyn Stanicki: I also think that's something that when we're talking about communicating what work is being done through the public, talking about what services are being provided, because I do think that there's, again, this was 2023, but I had already been doing street medicine for three years when this came out, and it's kind of, I don't think people are aware of the amount of medical outreach that gets done, particularly with mental health and substance use disorder services. Like, I bet most folks don't know. There's a psychiatrist that is on our street medicine team, and also what work is being done, and then if there's questions about what that means for clients and how we can get folks to engage, because just because there's a psychiatrist on the team doesn't mean everyone gets, wants to engage in mental health support, but I think that could be something that could be communicated, and how does the city support organizations that are doing that work, because it is a very specialized type of medicine. That people, there's, it really truly is a specialty level of medicine that you do need extra training to do and do properly with a lot of support in a way that's different than a traditional medical office, so there are things in my opinion that can be done to support the organizations that are doing work or provide education for organizations that are interested in doing the work so that harm isn't done to the population. But similarly, I'm not going into the hospital do open heart surgery, I've. Never been trained to do that. I wouldn't want someone that has no idea what they're doing with street medicine thinking that they're going to come out and save the world. The incredible harm can be done to the population because they're quite vulnerable. [37:37] Amy West: I think in terms of medical intelligence, substance abuse, I think we need to figure out where the pain points are that you can quickly get resources in. I mean, street is one thing. The emergency room is another one. I mean, we are dealing with like half a ton of patients coming in and they're going places to go and we have these stuff, we try to find places, but we have no places to take them. So send them to. [38:02] Teal Vasquez: Can I talk? Yeah. So, you know, we were talking in earlier sessions about creating sort of like webs of, you know, going through the ecosystem of various resources, you know,, food banks. And one of the things that we talked about is like, sort of how there is the public narrative of what is available. And then there's the actual narrative for every person. So what's available, right? Because we say every shelter, you know, wants you. And then, you know, if you're doing outreach with these individuals on a daily basis, it's not necessarily approximate to the truth. And I'll say from my own experience, I tried to take advantage of crisis services a few months ago or weeks ago or whatever. And I found out a lot that was really interesting. I mean, one of my health conditions creates like chronic skin lesions. And ultimately I found out that I had to see a medical provider that they cannot furnish a medical provider if you wanted to see one but I would have to see one to be admitted or access crisis services even have an assessment to find out if you qualify to even find out if you can or cannot use crisis point blank you can't have that information until you've had the medical clearance so I got medical clearance I ended up like stranded at St. Joe's like 6 a.m. And then they medically cleared me and the doctor was like you know you're you're the president congrats it's awesome and then I found out that even though I was medically cleared and able to access crisis services well not able to access that the crisis team and their discretionary capacity still won't take me because they don't have any staff that feel comfortable addressing someone who might have skin wounds and I said that is just really curious to me because you know I broker this resource All the time I sell unhoused people and you know I don't have to tell any medical providers here that they have chronic skin lesions all the you know all the time you know oftentimes associated with their substance use disorder or complicated by it and I was like so what do those people do you know these intravenous drug users who have open wounds with delayed skin healing where are they going and they were fairly open with me they said well they're not going here like they were very direct you know like we're not you know like as much as we want to help those people if they're as you described we probably would tell them the same thing and I think again doing mental health I [40:55] Amy West: have to kind of highlight I think when people say crisis services we have a crisis services so because the crisis service to me is always psyched because that's mental health and we can do that and we would see I mean we but I mean what crisis service see no matter what the issue is because you're presenting whether it's home or emergency but promise the placement afterwards words where you're going to go so hospitals may not take someone because of medical issues shelters may not take someone because of medical issues or behavioral issues that's the matter we have patients who basically can't go to shelter because they're banned against the concept so it's like I they can't go anywhere because no one will allow them to come so I think they'll [41:36] Teal Vasquez: get the eval that's where what happens after not everyone actually gets an email though in reality like I said I couldn't even meet with the assessment person until I had the medical clearance I got it and either way you know and I just I wish that we had a way or we could create a way to shake these trees and find out you know where the hidden pain points are because we know you know from our own speculation and from the feedback that we've gotten where people feel that the pain points are you know and there's a lot of commentary you hear why are these people just languishing on the streets why haven't they gone to the ER why haven't they gone to crisis why haven't they it you know it's not it's not that deep you know they've tried they've tried [42:22] Melissa Ann Rhodes: And I have to say that the landscape of crisis services is in flux right now. It's changing. The crisis receiving centers are opening so that we won't have to go to emergency rooms to receive services. There's crisis mobile services that are just now emerging, and they're both being, they're hiring up with peer supports right now, and both of those switches pretty cool. So you're going to have a little bit more of a mobile service and a little bit of a service that's a little bit more detached from the emergency room for many people. So there are changes is coming and so in crisis services in the next few months all [43:13] Teal Vasquez: Right, anybody else have comments on this great proposal before we move on next? All right, so the next proposal that we reviewed, we are lucky enough to have the author here, Counseling Fish. I apologize for being late, and they just got away from me. I apologize. Your timing was impeccable because we were just getting to you. So what we've been doing, just to catch yourself up, just kind of walking through these and allowing everyone time for discussion, so I will open the floor for discussion [43:55] Amy West: And I don't [43:59] Carolyn Fish: Know that when I put this together, I was really looking, I didn't know what to do with it. I had two or three months to dedicate to some research, and I went to the University of Maine, resource director is very helpful, and just wanted to start to see if we could accumulate what, you know, what our resources were with non-profits pre-COVID. There were like 200 postcode, but there were 1300, and I didn't know where they all were, what they were all doing. I want to have a better understanding of that, and I Just got on the phone and started calling a number of communities and cold weather, the climates similar in population to ours. Only one or two were service centers. That's Bangor's unique for our size, to be this small yet we're a service center, and I just put everything that I found in our report, not to make recommendations, but just to give an overview of what those two, three months provided with the human focus, November, December, January, I think. So I thought I would just share that to see if There was anything out of that. I'll go to Jason who are putting so much time in both of those reports. I don't know if I can answer anything. I've got the expert here. Like I said, I'm here to answer and I just wanted to share that for you all guys. You know if we extrapolate anything that might be useful but you wanted to step over. I think the thing that I got excited about was and I think I didn't bring you had like a book of notes but one of the community mayors or chairs I had talked about a hub clearinghouse and it was a 24 7 and I don't want to take everybody's time. I think we talked a little bit about that and this particular chair was a community similar to our size I think actually looked bigger but they were not the service center they actually were a community that used the service center that had the hospitals and more resources but they paid a fee and they collaborated with that service center to have a 24 7 crisis kind of a clearance someone would call it was kind of a triage and this person had all the resources available and could kind of quickly decide and make some calls as to where the best contact how to hand that person off in crisis and that they had you know not just someone with substance use addiction but someone that might be coming to the community expected a job didn't have it didn't have any place to go could be somebody with a medical crisis I think a lot of perhaps our bcat deals right now but more new crisis thing and there was actually two or three trained people that knew all the resources and knew how to quickly be able to act on that because I think before someone had mentioned unfortunately the way we got work now when they're in crisis they need they need help at that time by the time we're getting told the crisis has passed or they've moved on we can't find them so in this particular a counselor said we're very happy to participate it was money somehow they had a working agreement with the service community and they contributed money and they contributed somehow there was a collaboration and they were very happy to be part of that service community and contribute to it so I thought that was pretty exciting. [47:34] Amy West: I think it just came up one of my previous meetings about having a blackboard where concierges like you call, they don't know where to go and someone can tell them aware but I think along that line it's we need to figure they just hopefully have a system of warm and off like let's say you know Amy is a resource I'm going to say I got to be a way to pass on let's just say call me over there I think the people would never do that or people put no don't know how to do that they saw them just they said no and they don't know how to navigate it so it's like a 988 below this kind of stuff it's great 211 yeah [48:14] Teal Vasquez: I think it's a I think it's a tremendous idea I mean obviously we do have like 211 but we don't have resource brokers who are dedicated to this sector of crisis and I also think that the like if we were to create or even explore the idea of the concept that, you know, we need a warm hand office to get anyone to take advantage of the services. Can I ask a question? Bruce, how often do you warm hand somebody off to access somebody that needs services? We've met somebody all the time. Every day. Call Amy all the time. [48:55] Jason Goodrich: I call you? Yes, we're always all calling each other to make sure the person gets the resources that they need so yeah I mean it's all of our jobs are that I mean maybe vice versa call me pack calls you know we're always kind of working with each other we did at the hope house at one time years ago had a phone it was a line that we had open to do exactly what you were talking about people could call they call that number then we do like a diversion version like we talk through their situation with them so that maybe we can help them get back to a family member or maybe we can help them get back into some whatever their situation is or we can help them get into a shelter so I mean we did that for two or three years right and so and then I think that number got out there so everyone knew that number I think it was posted on some websites and stuff and I think it worked really well honestly I think we have like a great [50:01] Robyn Stanicki: structure yeah informally for the warm hand I've made of it but there's there's no like centralized humans and the majority of our folks don't have phone access and phone access consistently so I think a brick and mortar or a place where folks can go at least during business hours but yeah I think there's a lot of good already going on there [50:26] Amy West: And then I know the police ladies on the bill to the same thing to they do a warm and all whatever services in but the one but one thing to remember though it should be small panel how much time does it take a lot of time so if you're multiple people calling you can freeze line because of the fact that you don't [50:42] Robyn Stanicki: have enough people to pass the you know the handoff well and also at least from like say a clinician's perspective the amount of time that's non-billable hours for some organizations again just reinforces the fact that there's not a lot of community organizations that are able to continue doing the work because it's wildly expensive and it's not reversible the folks that are still doing the work have figured out the workarounds to stay sustainable and usually what that means is you have a small group of people that are doing a lot of not made [51:16] Amy West: work and unless the one hand off is to a place where you can build and that's actually as a feeder system so you know yeah there's something that works I mean it's almost like you've got some outpatient services you know they're not gonna make money but you know they're [51:33] Teal Vasquez: feeding patients to you kind of thing like that however if you're expected to meet a productivity [51:40] Robyn Stanicki: activity expectations and I have 10 hours of patient time and I have to do 10 hours of patient time somewhere in there I also do additional five hours of warm handoff time but it's just the reality of it is it's a systems issue that is far above the city's level that it's more to [51:57] Speaker I (unidentified): do with healthcare reimbursement well and I think one of the larger issues is oh sorry is there's a little bit of a lag so I'm really sorry if I keep interrupting people oh you're perfect okay and one of the so one of the larger issues is that you know some of these systems that Bruce and Amy are touching on really get back to the like the larger problem of like they're not permanent solutions they're very some like very temporary in the moment does this place have a single bed for tonight can You go into the overflow for tonight, is there a bed at crisis, can we get someone to the ED, and like, and then we know all of those things aren't permanent solutions to the to the to the real problem. And so the infrastructure is important, but then to have the resources available to make sure to exist, to have the stock to exist, to make sure that people are there for longer than just a handful of hours so that the problem doesn't perpetuate the next day, I think is really the root of like what we're getting at, incompatibility again. [53:04] Robyn Stanicki: We offer, we do street, so I'll just use us as an example of PCHC to street medicine. We have scheduled visits and then we also added walk-in hours. So I have me as a clinician have an entire afternoon of scheduled visits and I will see anyone that walks in. So for instance, Friday in three hours I saw 16 patients, that includes mental illness, that includes, that includes traditionally scheduled patients, and you're getting phone calls for warm hand off that for most folks is not a sustainable situation which is why we have a hard time sustaining organizations that do the work, because you either burn out the single person that's able to do it or it becomes financially unsustainable. But at the same time, what happened [53:54] Amy West: is, if I've done it too, is that a lot of those won't hand off, this doesn't need to be done by me [53:59] Teal Vasquez: someone else, but no one's spending money, but that's getting, because you're having to pay for [54:04] Robyn Stanicki: somebody that's not available, and that just costs the organization money that they can't recruit, which is again why a lot of these organizations are not financially sustainable to do this kind [54:15] Teal Vasquez: of work. So a lot of work is not reimbursable and it's very expensive, and working numerous counties, I love these workers, I agree that it's not a permanent solution, I don't think that it should, it's not the kind of, it's not even the type, categorically speaking, of issue that should be addressed at the passion project by providers who are doing guerrilla case management in between seeing their patients and trying to provide for their families. I don't think that, you know, just looking at the calculus Is gonna work well forever or even ongoing? I think it would be great, like Counselor Fish said, to have like a durable, you know, outright solution. And I know that in an earlier session or maybe even before this group was impaneled, the city created an RFP pipeline for a shelter program, a daytime shelter program, and it specifically included a shuttle service. I think, you know, if we're, if we're already doing an RFP for that, you know, we're cognitively saying that is something that we would think over. You know, why not do it for something like this? Say we'll do an RFP for, you know, a recovery center or medical institution, a church, all of these sort of institutions who are covering homelessness, and say, you know, we'll give you a certain amount of money to hire these community advocates or whatever you want to call them, you know, and they can operate a warm line and broker those services. And again, if we've already carved some mental space for a shell service, bundle it with that in some way or another, say, okay, well, it's this hour, obviously you're not gonna be able to hop on the bus and get to, you know, whether in like internal or wherever you need to go, but luckily, you know, our partner agency or maybe even if it's in the agency itself, it's a recovery center or it's a church, maybe it's already there, you know, but there's a shuttle service that we can broker you to or and we'll [56:48] Jason Goodrich: pop you right down there. So what, Brittany, Portland has the whole, is it the Home Team, the van? Yeah, if I remember, I visited that years ago, and that was that funded by like downtown businesses and the hospitals, correct? [57:07] Speaker I (unidentified): Yeah, I don't know about the hospital systems anymore, but it was partially funded by the Portland Downtown District for a number of years. And then, yeah, and Milestone runs it, and so I don't know, I know they get some city CBG funding. And so like I'm not sure how else they piece it together, but yeah, I went for a [57:27] Jason Goodrich: ride with them one day, and the amount of work that they do to help people was amazing, and at that time this city didn't need something like that, but I believe that we probably do now. What's, is that coming out of the Portland [57:42] Speaker I (unidentified): Service Center? No, I don't know, part of them, it's part of Milestone Shelter, yeah. [57:52] Teal Vasquez: You know, I think that whenever sort [Melissa Ann Rhodes: of asking] This painful money question of like any, anything creative that we do is going to be associated with a super creative path. We should be looking at our, business partners and people who actually are going to be saving themselves money by, you know, joining up by contributing. Like we should be looking at those people who are already you know experiencing a burden or some pain or discomfort you know on a business standpoint like hospitals and say you know this contributing to this or putting into this fund could actually save you money downstream you [58:49] Amy West: know so [58:53] Carolyn Fish: So usually use a formal committee and I think too that you know with a communication hub where you are all professionals and deeply ingrained in your segment of day-to-day but in the public I'm more you know everyday person business and other business people we don't even know ourselves who to call so I think if there was if there was a clearinghouse and we even had a you know a stand thing or there was a well-known you know 2-1-1 but you know other than just 9-1-1 but the clearinghouse where I've had two situations in the last couple weeks where I went to a listing I had and somehow on house people had gotten in and there were there were a lot of needles and stuff around that I had gone there before the showing luckily but I wasn't even sure who to call I called Willie only because I know him and he said what do I do and he said well it's private property and technically I'm not supposed to but I'll come and take care of that for you I'm a counselor I didn't really know and then I Was surprised I just figured well Willie he said well it's private so really I'm not so I didn't know that so I think everyday people if they're encountering with the street I think part of their fear is they don't know what to do you know I think everybody thinks they don't want to see them they're scared of them and I think part of it is you know where they're not used to you guys are used to it you're familiar with it the everyday person is not they don't know if they are in a in a position Where they can communicate respond well, or if not, you know, they don't know who they should call to even help these people. So if there was a person, if there was a clearinghouse of someone that was sort of well grounded with all the different services and know who to call, and even for the public, that would be if it was for a ride, or a person seems to be in crisis, or I found somebody in my house, or gone to a listing and here's the situation and that it's not safe for buyers to come in, you know who do I have come help me with the situation and I think that goes back [1:01:01] Teal Vasquez: to what we talked about the last meeting about the communication piece, making sure, like we've talked about several items today, that I think we all agree the public is unaware of how are we as a city getting that information out to people in ways that they are going to receive it. I will tell you until I joined the committee I've never been on the city of Edwards website, so if you're just posting it on the website it's not getting very far unless somebody's actively regularly looking for it. We have to proactively try to get that information out to people. You don't want them having that negative experience of what am I supposed to do, because now they're in an elevated emotional state and less rational versus if you can hit them when they're irrational. I remember that Facebook post or I remember that PSA I saw, whatever it is, getting that information [1:01:59] Robyn Stanicki: a lot of the folks that are doing the work love to jump in and solve [1:02:12] Melissa Ann Rhodes: So what I'm hearing, I think, the idea of a hub is a centralized point of contact for triage and communication around all business. I was wondering, because we use the word hub in a couple of different ways. One of them is the hub seven coordinator, who we already have kind of a hub. And the question that I had was how does this differ from that hub and I think you've answered that for me. I appreciate that. So you're looking for a point of contact someone could call and say I have eviction happening in a few months, I'm looking for plan A, B and C, I'm still in the process. You could have somebody who would actually work in that way, triage. I know the Bangor area homeless shelter has a diversion, they have diversion funds and diversion program. I mean that's one of the places that folks call for diversion. I don't [1:03:09] Jason Goodrich: know it used to be go talk to Maria, I don't know if it's still good or Janice or Janice [1:03:15] Speaker K (unidentified): Or Janice, which I have to sorry to interrupt, but I have to say the diversion program has definitely been more of an active role in what I do, and my communications with them has been top-notch. They it's it was very difficult not long ago trying to get somebody. I don't want to ever evict anyone, but it has to come to that, still trying to find them some perfect or get funds so they're not unhoused. And just recently, like I really have worked well with them, and they 've saved a few people, and now we're working on you know payment plans with those people and so forth, so that is a great. They go to the map for people, they really do. It has been it has been a lifesaver for [1:04:04] Teal Vasquez: many reasons. They're not well known either, really, no, like together place, like I'm always talking about the diversion fund, and everyone is like, what are you talking about, you just [1:04:13] Speaker K (unidentified): Well, and honestly, as, you know, a landlord, it was when I first heard it was a phone call, and someone said that I'm like, okay, I know all these, you know, funds. I'm trying to get to GA. I'm trying to get to wherever I can. And I was like, you're who? You're what? And I was like, this is amazing. Okay, let me learn more. but the staffing has been great, and very the communication has been great, the follow-up has been great, which is really what is needed, because I can you know we try to take the extra step to make all these contacts, but it's nice to have somebody responding and staying on us as well to say okay, you know, I can gather, we can give them this, what if what can we work out for the remaining, you know, and then working together, which is key to keep people to keep up a house, so just on a side note of that like it's definitely been you should celebrate, yeah, it's definitely been a good [1:05:12] Carolyn Fish: program, it's good to celebrate, i think no she would be the person for the version, but it would be one place, like if i happen to walk into a list thing, who would i call, if there was one number or someone found someone that was in crises, or there's a whole multitude, this is when you call bcat, or this is when to call this person, so it would be nice if there was a 24 7 and a really common way to get that number out, so that it would help the rest of the kingdom that's not partially professional, you want to know also how they could communicate, maybe you guys each to be able to know who's, you know, you all know who to call, but the rest of them don't know, and i can't [1:05:55] Robyn Stanicki: Trip is enough, have some kind of place that folks that don't have a phone call us into it, yeah, for [1:05:59] Teal Vasquez: sure. In the same way CHCS has their lobby support, which is why I think dropping this over to like a recovery center is great, because one, that's almost what they spend the whole day doing, like that is like one of the biggest ways we build recovery muscle is by brokering resources and letting people know that they are resourced on a daily basis, and a lot of people just don't know what's out there or the landscape has changed, and I just think like for every centers of doing that, it's sort of in the same way that you know you were talking where they're burning up their wits at both ends and it's not sure how to get compensated for this, and you know like if they are, they're designed to be walking and they're designed to be accessible, they're designed to be low barriers, so like they're already places where do those factors alienate some of the population that may need those services. I mean we've talked a little bit about folks with high expectation versus low entry, are those with the high expectation less likely to go to the recovery center to get those services versus a centralized hub that is not focused on a specific subset. [1:07:21] Amy West: These folks are on a continual, they're not on the one point and that stays like that. So there'll be times when they feel they get benefit and there are times when they can manage on their own. There are times when they can't and they want the help. So I think we have to factor that, you know, even though the low whatever expectation ones, they still have moments when they can do much more stuff on their own. It's all at the end of days, the crisis, if there's no crisis, I, they have more time to process things, but unfortunately these folks do live in crisis mode, you know, like it's like whack-a-mole process kind of thing, so they basically, you know, that's when they would need, they would find benefit from this from a public [1:08:01] Jason Goodrich: the safety perspective. I agree with what you're all saying right now, because it's like counselor Fish outlined it in her proposal is the 24 hours. What we see is if somebody's in crisis, that's when the resources are scarce or they may need help at three in the morning, but then if we say resources available later, they may not seek to help them, so that's you're all saying the same [1:08:29] Amy West: thing, when people in crisis, that's when you can get things in, but that's when you can't find [1:08:37] Melissa Ann Rhodes: Anything, I just wanted to point out a distinction that something happened in the conversation. We've slowly moved from talking about a hub to giving it a bricks and mortar identity as part of a recovery center, and that's, that's interesting. So it became almost as a service of the recovery center. [1:09:00] Teal Vasquez: Well, I think Councilor Fish said earlier in the proposition that the idea was to have a brick and, or no, it was in full review to dialogue about people not having a phone. And I said that if the hub is not going to be useful to, there is functionally no hub for someone who doesn't have a phone, and those someones are all over Bangor. And so I think, you know, that is what we're, I think you're right, I think it kind of migrates, but I think that I think at the same time, it's, we're talking about the same thing, right? I think we're all in agreement. And now we've kind of gotten into the minutia, which probably isn't a place for us to be today, of where the said hub should be. But I think it's pretty unanimous that there's agreement, I think, that there is a need for a central resource for folks, and not just those who are experiencing homelessness, but also for the public to have those questions and run into situations, the housed and the unhoused. They need a single source to go to that is easy to communicate, it's easy for the city to share out there, and this is your resource, go get it, not this is your resource for this time and this is your resource for that time, and oh, call PD for this one, but Bruce is there if it's all the different things that play into it. There's got to be one place, housed, unhoused, you can go to and you know you're going to get the answer that you need, because it sounds like a lot of the resources are out there and there are people doing it. The problem is the lack of information and coordination getting people to those resources. Having that central point is what it sounds like is missing. [1:11:00] Jason Goodrich: We have really good, I mean, been doing this for a long time as Amy has it. We have really good structure bones here, and what we're missing is the gaps, is gaps in this, and that's what we need to try to figure out is how we fill those gaps really. Because, for example, I use when we find someone that wants to go into detox, Pat, and we get someone to detox, right, they go through that process, right, seven days, they're back out on the streets, right, back doing the same thing. So that's a gap in our community that we just don't have it, the next place to put that person, and when they're ready. And there's a lot of little things like that. I think that we as a, you guys as a committee, we could look at and see what we're doing really well, because we do a lot of things really well in this community. I mean, we have a low barrier shelter, we have, you know, the downtown shelter, which is a little bit different, is it, you know, higher barrier or two, but it just a little different there what they allow. We have the path team, we have lots of stuff in Amy's team, options team, we do really good work, the together place. We just need to figure out where our gaps are and how we can, I think when someone's ready, be able to fill those gaps. [1:12:22] Teal Vasquez: So well, I agree with all kinds of people. [1:12:31] Speaker J (unidentified): Who's that? Okay, I was just going to say something alongside that is that we do come up with really great ideas. We developed a tenant assistance program to fill that diversion gap, the one number that's on your fridge when it's all about to go downhill, but like we can't, it's not unified, we didn't fund the program, we created it, we didn't fund it, so it sits there as here's another potential tool, but no one is sewing those together to say here's the bruce's gaps and these ideas and we're going to kind of sew those together [1:13:14] Speaker K (unidentified): So just to kind of piggyback what Bruce was talking about and not to get too deep dived into it, but I have two boys that are have are addicts and had struggled for many years in this area, and as a parent trying to get them help was insane, and they are both out a state and recovery and running, one is running his own sober living now, and the detox here was released in that someday and exactly what you're saying, that gap almost killed him, so that gap that is there definitely needs to be filled, the only gap i could find was in new hampshire to get him help and follow that path of saving his life, which was detox to a more strict facility that, you know, these are your steps. You can't have your phone. You can't, you know, you still have to urine test, screen test. You can't work yet. You're going to then after that, you go to this next level of sober living where now we're going to help you find a job. We're going to keep you in this community. We're going to bus you to meetings. You know, it was this whole, it's a whole thing and it has saved them. It's three, four years of being sober but they cannot come back here. They come back here just as not good, right? There are good things happening since that took place and I think that we're starting to fill some of those gaps and like what you're doing on the street, what you're doing on the street, those necessarily weren't here when we were looking for those that help. So that's steps right but I think it's finding those gaps because we have many that need help and they just keep getting released back into the same pack that they've been in and it's all [1:15:10] Carolyn Fish: around them so just my two cents so I think also it's I think we have the private sector as well that we could pull into this clearinghouse because fresh started I know a couple of realtors I know Amy Baldwin, if you remember, she was the one who was in the last. [1:15:32] Jason Goodrich: Yeah, and sober look, that is great. It really is great. We're talking about people that are hardcore addicts that have been doing this for a long, time. And going into a sober living place with no really treatment is really not going to work for that population. And that's what we see on the streets, I would think, right? [1:15:54] Teal Vasquez: I mean, it's a it's a it's like the stages of grief right like and having a great fit [1:16:01] Robyn Stanicki: for folks where they're at is so important but I think again having a hub and someone that goes oh you'd be a great fit for this so we're living core no we got to get you back out of here and this is who we connect to having that centralized location I think so helpful. [1:16:16] Teal Vasquez: So we've had the conversation a couple times about mapping in jail get to you in just a second Bruce is it possible to have something for the committee in an upcoming meeting that kind of maps out where those areas that are missing are you know whether it's a journey map [1:16:35] Jason Goodrich: of you know if somebody's traditional I can put a structure together of what we have in our community and then I think talking through that as a group you know we can find out where those gaps are [1:16:47] Teal Vasquez: That would be incredibly helpful. The rest of the committee is okay. I'd like to have that. Do you think maybe not the next meeting but the following meeting? Is that enough time for you to [1:16:56] Robyn Stanicki: prepare for that? And I'd also be curious to add for like vulnerably housed folks, so we think the things like eating assistance, right, and all the things that as patients walk into your office and they're like, I'm hungry and I'm cold, refill my blood pressure medicine, you're like, wait, what, back up. So I think when we're thinking again, like it's a continuum of needs, so the highest risk, these are the resources that we have, the vulnerable, and then like, you know, like you're saying, I'm a military agent and I walked in, are so important even if we don't know exactly the information, like I would imagine [1:17:36] Teal Vasquez: painless would be able to get with water based on the risks. Yeah, okay, I've [1:17:45] Melissa Ann Rhodes: heard that there's a lot of bottlenecks and it's funny to me because each one of them comes back to the same solution so i'm going to say it each time i 've said it at the last meeting and the one before bangor has about 70 low barrier shelter beds and about 40 recovery beds at the bangor area homeless shelter so we've got a 60 40 split on recovery going on here in vancouver the hope house has a low barrier shelter but i don't believe that they have a day program a low barrier day program they [1:18:16] Jason Goodrich: allow people to stay, you can ask for that, but you do allow people to stay in during the day that are [1:18:20] Speaker I (unidentified): in shelter. Yeah, it's just folks that are and it's only, it's it's 56 beds, so far less than 70. I would like for it to be 70. Yeah, and so people who are there can stay all day but [1:18:38] Melissa Ann Rhodes: but nobody else, unfortunately. So looking at, looking at a shelter that was a recovery shelter connected with a low barrier day program that are not necessarily connected physically but adjacent to each other in the community and run together, I think this is going to take care of a lot of the bottlenecks that we've talked about. I just, in my cut, it just seems as though, you know, 30 40 beds of recovery focused sheltering along with a low pro, low barrier day program, come as you are, come on in, but if you really are looking to put your shoulder into it and lean in, we've got a shelter bed for you, can really lean into recovery and start a savings account, get on your feet. I think that's a missing point. We don't, we just don't have enough of it. If I could copy and paste the Bangalore area, it shall be regularly. [1:19:36] Teal Vasquez: I think there's [1:19:40] Bruce Hews: a need for both. Yeah, I agree. [1:19:44] Speaker I (unidentified): I would say, you know, I, there is, I think part of what is lacking when we like talk about this is that there is a continuum of needs for all sorts of people. Like Tony just mentioned, you know, it's like, and we need, if we don't have a spread of a menu of options, for people. We don't, you know, we need to have the ability to offer people what they need in that moment. And so I want all, you know, 40 whatever beds at the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter to be filled. And the reality right now, and what we hear pretty often when like as providers,, we get a blast of what beds are available every day, is that there are many times that those beds are empty because the people that, you know, our community is talking about, the community at large and the folks that are unsheltered in the parks or, you know, are living in encampments for one reason or another are not able to be successful at any given time at the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter right now because they're just not in the space to be able to rise to what you know the expectations that shelter has and that shelter needs to exist so that when people are in a space where they can meet those expectations they can go there you know the hub coordinator that we just keep that we keep talking about jen you know she doesn't reach out to hope house anymore to ask us how many shelter beds we have available on any given day, because the answer is perpetually zero. We never have an open bed at the Hope House. Once in a while, there's movement throughout the day where someone chooses to exit and we fill it the same day. But there are never times that we're sitting with empty beds overnight. So sometimes the folks that Amy's seeing on outreach or that Bruce is connecting with on the daily, even if they're calling someone at the Hope House, there often isn't the ability for them to get in to any of those places because they're just or to the Hope House I mean because there just isn't an option and so when I think about the folks that the small population of folks that we hear people talking about it is the sort of like low barrier entry point and options for people that we that we need to figure out how to be able to have access to that [1:22:26] Teal Vasquez: was for you [1:22:31] Anthony T. Ng: sorry [1:22:37] Speaker I (unidentified): i can't hear you oh i was just thanking [1:22:40] Teal Vasquez: You for oh yeah thank you too. Am I wild for thinking that the only day center sanctioned day center that is open not just to people who are already in a facility is the library? Brick Church is open Tuesdays and Potters days five days a week. [1:23:04] Jason Goodrich: I mean so I mean the downtown shelter has their day center that's open to anyone that would like to go in there. The Hope House obviously has their doors open for the people that are staying in that shelter right. You said the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter they have their day center open. I mean it's not big but it does you know anyone can come in and out of there the [1:23:29] Teal Vasquez: Bridge Church is open two days a week. Does the date space for Bangladesh shelter though [1:23:34] Robyn Stanicki: Still the same expectations applies for folks that are staying in shelter around you yeah [1:23:39] Teal Vasquez: So it's a higher expectation higher expectation yeah. There's also the clubhouse at the house I don't know club yeah I think you need a referral for that but still that but like yeah [1:23:51] Jason Goodrich: That's a very low there's an opportunity for people to be added to health issues to go down [1:23:56] Teal Vasquez: That path yeah but in terms of the gaps that you and Jay were talking about like one thing that I know just from my own recovery thankfully I am not in recovery from drugs or alcohol but you know we all are in recovery from something is that idle hands are the devil's work you know and in one way or another like people were saying like I think you know it is said all the time that like you know it takes at least three you know like relapses before recovery starts to stick you know and different People will give you a different number whatever number I think they're they're thinking how many times Yeah. Strongly done it too. Strongly done it too. And like right now with the way that it is where people don't have a way to get away from their idle hands, don't have a way to engage the community, we're basically just putting them in a pressure pot. Like we're putting them in a crock pot and letting them simmer right in the moments and right in the places where the acuity is the worst. Like, I know a lot of people who understand the compulsive part of their substance use. They understand completely. They know that if they are around substances, if they are around enablers, and if they are around dealers, that they will use. There's no question for them that will happen. But this is where they can go. They can go to the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, where there are expectations. They can go to the library, which is a library, or they can go to the Brick for one or two days. For the rest of that time, they're in that crock pot with dealers and people who are in different stages of recovery in them. And like a lot of those gaps, I can't say that they would vaporize, but like if we were, rather than putting them in a crock pot of dealers, if we were putting them in a crock pot of community where they can do art, where they can do reading, where they can do play therapy, where they can have good conversation, where they can talk about their faith or their background or whatever, and they can engage in the wholesome part of Bangor to a part of Bangor. I think that a lot of those gaps would really narrow very quickly, but we just don't have a space for that is truly full-throated in its commitment to that. We have a lot of spaces that are like, hey, we're doing X, Y, and Z, but why not throw in a little bit of day space? It just doesn't [1:26:32] Carolyn Fish: Is it a misconception by the majority of the general public that the majority of our unsheltered [1:26:41] Teal Vasquez: are from away? Is it a misconception? Oh, you know, if you're asking me, you know, just to speak, you know, not empirically, major,, major misconception. session and even the concept of a way is a concept that doesn't describe a lot of the unhoused well a lot of these people were born in Bangor or have lived in Bangor since they can remember all of their formative experiences were in Bangor but you know they're all over the country they're they're the train hopping I can't tell you some how many people I'm talking to someone they're like oh yeah I'm Bangor and you know I was here you know I remember when the art business open or whatever and I Wasn't even here for that, and then they're, they're like, you know, and then come summer, I'm, I'm down in New Jersey, and I'm somewhere else, I'm train hopping to get here, and there, you know, I think that one, you know, it is a big misconception, and then two, I think that there are a lot of people who fuel and grow misconception because they've, they've realized they can use it as a tool to turn neighbor against neighbor, right? Like people stop asking deep questions about the unhoused once they believe. [1:27:59] Carolyn Fish: What I ask is, you know, I myself, when we had the encampment, I would, you know, I cross paths, I would just say, you know, how are you doing? How did you get here? You know, where are you from? Do you have family? Do you have anybody to help? And from my interaction during that two or three months, I had several people say they were from Dover, they were nearby, or they came because friends were there, it was kind of their community, and nearly half of them told me, you know, they were from New York, Boston, Wisconsin, and I know other people downtown when they're running into them, a lot of people saying And I know our chief came to a meeting, a government ops meeting, I think, and gave us stats that for one month we had 40 new people That weren't, you know, I think they're out there every day and they kind of recognize people, and obviously in the summer there's more, but there are 40 or so new people, and the next month it was like 41. One, so these are people that are coming back to a community or family they knew, but we only have so many resources, and somehow we have to get a handle on, and you're right, it's complex, it's not that simple, but you know if Portland or Roosdick or Massachusetts or New Jersey or Missouri, I can remember speaking to the gentleman that he said strangest thing, last week we had three people from Missouri in the middle of winter come off the bus, and as much as we want to help everybody, you know, we only Have so many resources, so once we figure out where the gaps are, we have to figure out, you know, what we do have, what our limitations are, and how we can help, how we identify those we can help, and how we can identify those we can't help, because we can't help [1:29:57] Teal Vasquez: Everybody as much as we want to. You're right, there are a finite amount of resources, and there is an infinite amount of issue that needs to be addressed. I just personally don't believe, from my own experience and my own work and advocacy, that it is going to lead to a substantial improvement for away or from lifelong Bangor or for anybody, actually, to use a demographical approach to triage those resources. Sure, I think that is where it will be important is when we have to apply financial resources. And I think, Counselor, I'm not trying to speak for you, but I think if I understand what you're trying to say is one of the challenges we have to try to figure out how to manage is helping the people that are here not. We don't have the resources to help the folks that are already experiencing it in our community. And when we're adding more people, potentially, it's only going to exasperate issues. So how do we ensure that we're not adding additional, as we're trying to have conversations about catching people before they fall into that situation. Right, we were talking about that earlier, some of the resources at the bank were almost up, right, let's try to stop the dam, the water, so to speak, so that we can take care of the issue and take care of the people that we have now already needing the resources a little bit just [1:31:33] Robyn Stanicki: because. So for instance, you know, I'm not from Bangor. Part of the reason I moved to Bangor was I was a single mom and I was dealing with a wild family situation and I needed to look a place that was affordable that I could get a job and take care of my kid by myself, which is not an uncommon thing, to move to an area that has a resource that you see hope and future in. The same way that I know folks that are from Bangor that moved towards Portland because they discovered they have a medical issue and there's no medical providers in Bangor. So I think that's a really hard one to draw. And again, I think having a space, not necessarily even a physical space, but for instance a hubs, let's use that as an example. I don't think because we have a hub of information all of a sudden people are like, let me go to Bangor, I'm going to get everything I need, because the reality is the resources are finite. So if this was 10 years ago, the housing situation, say that Bangor is facing right now, I might not have Moved to this area because housing is limited and it is quite expensive now, so I think that's the other piece is if we're trying to set up a structure that can serve folks that are vulnerable, it's hard to predict what next year have been going to look like. So I totally appreciate that piece of it and understand that resources are finite. I just think it'd be really hard to define resources and how we limit them based on where this client might or might not be from. I think about some patients that are fleeing domestic violence situation, I think about folks that have severe persistent mental illness and their provider is here before they come here for medical care and they get discharged by the hospital. It's not the hospital where their heart breaks down and they're on their last dollar, yeah, or they're here for seasonal work, or there's so many situations. It's not necessarily that and they didn't necessarily come to Bangor specifically for [1:33:36] Teal Vasquez: the resources, but I think it's just really complex just with some of the data that you had [1:33:43] Jason Goodrich: discussed that I think she had with 40 new people that was discussed in our first meeting. I was taking e-cat data, we collected e-cat data, the people, 40 people that you referenced, but I think one of the things that you touched on is I feel like there's a bit of a difference between coming to Bangalore because resources are available, we have hospitals, and coming to Bangalore or being brought to Bangalore, being direct to general assistance. I think that might be one of the things that other communities may be missing is if somebody presents and are in need of general assistance, directing them resources as opposed to sort of Bangalore and then they end up being directed to general assistance because we're efficient. That's [1:34:43] Robyn Stanicki: right, that's not that person's fault that somebody said I'm putting you on a bus [1:34:48] Teal Vasquez: and i'm shipping you home that's not that there's a lot of different ways that people [1:34:52] Jason Goodrich: become homeless on our streets from our community. We have two major hospitals, we have a mental health hospital, we have 20 recovery houses, I mean I could go on and on, methadone clinics, and all these places discharge or,, or, you know, people are discharged out of their places. And, you know, if that person's on house in their community, they're going to stay around here because it's so that we have a bus system, we have jobs, we have all this stuff. I don't think that you're ever going to get to the point where you could say, Oh, that person needs to, we need to not help him. Because, I mean, honestly, I'd help him because he's a human being in front of me. I don't know, that's just kind of, I don't [1:35:39] Teal Vasquez: know if you can ever stop the inflow of people. And if I, if I can just, I don't think, I don't think anyone saying we don't know people that make sure it was never like nobody was implying we don't know. It's important to address the ideologies that, maybe that's not where you two are at. Maybe you practice this ideology and, or maybe neither of you truly have a discrete ideology about this at all. Maybe you're just going bit by bit, but you know, semantically speaking, it is important for us to dig into because it goes into or bruce said how are we humanizing people who are in bangor but you know if i can just say you know one thing is that like there 's a narrative that people shop or they're shopping for a place to go and somehow bangor is a high ticket item to be homeless which i don't know i personally agree with that i'm ending up here and they're sucking up on the precious resources and we get into this litigation issue where you know it's a very basic and alarming calculus like I said before, finite resources, infinite problem. And you two are, I think it was mostly you Alton, you were saying that, you know, plugging up the dam, you know, and plugging up the dam is important, but I don't know if that's what the homeless response team or group or the environment ecosystem, whatever you want to call it, is for. We're the dam physically, right? Like the people who are plugging up the dam aren't two, three, four stops before us. The way that we can address that component is by presenting a united front, not asking, well, if this person was shopped or farmed over to Bangor, couldn't they have just gone to Portland, has more money? If we continually play that game, which is what so many communities across the country and across the Main are doing, playing that came day in and day out of tag with an unhoused person, we're never gonna plug the dam or make the dam stronger. The best thing, in my point of view, that we can do, just make sure the dam is hella strong to begin with, just present a united front so that Portland is giving it 100, so that Bangor is giving it 100, and so that there aren't any communities that are saying, well, like, let's look at Portland, they've got 150, I'll give it 70. Like if we're all giving it 100, then you know, we have, we're closer to a solution than we are if we were, I think, somehow we have [1:38:23] Carolyn Fish: To come up with an equation so that there's only going to be someone in the perfect world, we'd have all the money to help, and I get what you're saying, it's complex, and when they're here, it's not their fault that they've been released from the hospital and they're out on the street, or they just got out of jail, they're going to start a new life and they don't have any place to go, so I understand that, but the bottom line is it's going to boil down to just limited resources, so how do we qualify Who's going to end up getting those resources somehow, one has to be together, somehow we have to figure out, you know, we can't, we're failing now because we're not reaching everybody, we have to figure out, well, what resources do we have, communication, communicating to the public looked at, well, most of these people really are from Vancouver, they didn't get, you know, they didn't, you know, throw a dart on the wall. And they weren't, you know, some of them didn't dig this, but they're here about how do we manage? How do we quantify and qualify and identify the limited resources we have? Who's going to be the recipient of those? Because it's going to boil down to that, we don't like to hear it, let the you get help everybody. But the reality is, it's taxpayers, when it comes from the city, me being on city council speaking and I can't speak for the council, but we would certainly want to participate in any way we can, applying for grants, being a partner, but a lot of, you know, we're going to have to come back to taxpayers for some of this money, and they're experiencing living it as well, the residual of all this, and they're talking among themselves, and they have their own myths and ideologies, so I think communication Yeah, I've had some misconceptions as well, and I know there's a [1:40:01] Teal Vasquez: A lot out there, I mean, I'm sure that I do too, and I do think that it's like you said, you know, it is heavily a communications issue, because a lot of people, when we're doing this resource analysis and figuring out who we can and why we can't broker resources, we don't realize that each one of these people is a potential resource to the community, each one of this person that we're paying our tax dollars to now could be paying their tax dollars towards our social security, you know, a year or two down The road maybe they're going to work longer than we do, maybe they're paying more. So real quick, Ben too, I just also want to point out, but I think it is our responsibility as a community to have conversations that are a little bit uncomfortable, right? And I get that this is not, it's not the perfect solution, the perfect conversation to be having, but it's one that needs to be had, I think, respectfully. And there's going to be more of these conversations where we're going to have to look at things that are, that are uncomfortable, and have those conversations. And so just reminding everybody to make sure that we're respectful of everybody in this group. We all bring an expertise, we're all incredibly valuable to this committee, and bring a perspective that's unique for each of us and incredibly valuable. But we also have to be comfortable having conversations and to bring up these points, right? The question's a legitimate question, right? But the answers are also legitimate, right? It's, it's hard to quantify, we don't know. I'm very thankful for this engage like that's one of the things that hasn't, oh I'm sorry I'm cutting off then, but I just want to say that I'll just sneak it in, it won't even have happened besides for once and you're going to be proud of me then. Okay, I just want to say that like I'm, I'm thankful that you engaged and you asked the tough question because like that's one of the things that has disheartened me being a citizen of Bangor is the lack of tough questions that people are asking and the lack of dialogue people are having, you know, not just with people who they know will automatically agree with them. So I thank you for that. We have about 20 [1:42:24] Anthony T. Ng: minutes left and I feel like Justin Russell's plan is substantial enough it would be great to discuss in a future meeting rather than president we had looked down to 2c and there was I had a few things under that I just wondered where we wanted to go whether [1:42:41] Amy West: those on the agenda just to piggyback on people's discussion about people coming from different jurisdictions this year and things like that, something that you can hope that to help initiate discussion with other jurisdictions, other municipalities, because that is, that is a concern, because we're going to do whatever we're going to take for everyone this year. I mean, we're going to say you came from them, we're not seeing you pass up, but at the same time we need to have that honest discussion Outside folks, yeah. And hey guys, yeah, you can't keep saying, you know, keep sending people fuss here. I mean, because if we don't have that conversation, they say, well, great. [1:43:25] Teal Vasquez: There's more resources, keep going, keep going, keep going. So say earlier Tony in an earlier session, like, why don't we ask these people for money? I mean, that's what you said earlier. Yeah, they can. [1:43:34] Robyn Stanicki: Contribute, yeah, they can do this, yeah, because they want to. I agree completely, because the reality of it is the question stands. Here's our resources, how can we use them the most efficiently? And boom, that's all you can do with that. You can only do what you can do. So in a perfect world, every single person that's here we get a shelter bed for, and we do this, we do that's not reality. Here's the resources that we have, and what I think this committee can do is here's the best way to spend this kind of. Money, here's where you can prioritize things, and we'll serve as many people as we can with what we have. And then I think also that gets us out of the semantics of like how many are here, how many are from there. But a hundred percent, I mean again, the other day is. [1:44:13] Amy West: great but if you don't it's you know reality is for them to say no we don't do that 's [1:44:18] Teal Vasquez: I mean, that's like we all know that's not happening, we know. So to Ben, sorry, no, to Ben's point, everybody is good with us moving the Russell plan to the next week, yeah, correct, or to a future meeting, because yeah, I agree, yeah. And then so discussion, so we've got three items there, Ben, I know you mentioned letter C, it comes before, C's a comes before C, so what in additional information does committee, does committee want or need from city staff? I know we've already asked, oh, he left me, that's why you. Yeah, you knew your ass, he knew I was gonna ask him his homework assignment. So we have requested some information from peruse, are there any other things especially pertinent to we discussed for the next meeting a couple of different items that we wanted to talk about, and we were talking about and we put on. We did the cooling center check-in, and we also did communications. What else did we do? We were going to talk about the hub. We were going to talk about the hub. And what that actually means, what it could potentially look like. So is there data that we, as a committee, feel like we're going to need in preparation for those discussions? So one thing that I want is I want to hear from more people than Bruce. You know, I want people because, you know, obviously Bruce is a literal expert in this, you know, as far as we can say an expert is. But you know, a lot of people are working in different sectors in the city, and you know, like our police, and then you know, yeah, data, and we have operations, we have all sorts of people who are experiencing a different facet of the gap. And I would, I would just like to hear from more people what they think the gaps are. I mean, isn't that some of the homework that we gave Bruce to give us a skeleton of the well, that's actually letter B. Oh, okay, what outside stakeholders do we want? And so I mean, I guess the question would be, do we want to try to invite like one or two, like I wouldn't, just be cautious of having a room full of 30 people that are, that are from all the different organizations because we will get no conversation done. [1:46:47] Melissa Ann Rhodes: Jay, I would like to see someone from the continuum of care come in and give us an overview of what at the state level is going on for homeless services. Also the region three homeless council representative, have them come in. Could also talk with Jen, our hub. I think it would be helpful for this group to have an idea of what happens at the state and federal level because those funding, those funding outcomes are forcing us to have conversations about the programmatic hands just like the warming centers, right? The CoC sets that funds main state housing pays for it, so they set the standards, and now we're operating with that, with that set of standards that we don't even really, may not even know as a group. Is that something city can help [1:47:35] Bruce Hews: coordinate? I just wanted to jump in and make sure you saw in the email from Robin on Friday that the hub seven coordinator is actually coming to present to council tomorrow night. I very much doubt that she's gonna be interested in coming for a second meeting. So I think it might be ideal if members of this committee could listen in to that meeting and then maybe identify what additional information, if any, you're hoping to get from her. That's tomorrow. That's tomorrow during council committee meetings. It only, when that is, as if I don't know, because I don't know, they start at 5 50. This is not an easy answer. They start at 5 15, but this item is very late on the agenda, so I can't give you an exact time when it will start. It will most likely be after 6 00 p.m. Is that on the box or [1:48:43] Melissa Ann Rhodes: It sounds like the hub coordinator is going to the government ops to give them kind of an overview of, so they're very much in the same situation that we may be in. We don't really understand the full job description of the seven up seven coordinator. I'll definitely listen in. [1:49:07] Teal Vasquez: I would, I would like to hear from case management agencies and see what they're saying, because these are the people who are throwing their heads against the wall on a daily basis. I would [1:49:18] Melissa Ann Rhodes: prefer to hear from OBH, the Office of Behavioral Health runs contracts for the case management. [1:49:28] Speaker J (unidentified): The HUD homelessness task force can come and speak with you as well. They've let you know. [1:49:34] Teal Vasquez: So we've just listed a lot of people, so I guess my question to the committee is, do we think it's worth having somebody for the next meeting, or do we start to have this, these conversations? Because it needle like harm reduction was the other thing that we're going to talk about the next meeting, so you know, those are some pretty substantial topics that may cause us to have like, oh okay, we, in order to get further on this product, this subject, we need this expert or somebody we think can benefit. Actually, well my thought is like why, because we have, we have such a great body of work here. I mean, we've got the good bones, we've got the plans, we've got a lot of issues, not issues, but like sort of compartmentalized structures here that we could throw our weight behind any, one of them from the, from the hub to homeless students. Yeah. To,, to just so we could you know to communications to including needle boxes like we already have some of the tools to fulfill our mandate here. Why would you know how many forms are we going to have and how many dialogues are we going to have like wouldn't it, I think it would be a little interesting. I'm saying that we shouldn't hear from these stakeholders, but I think it'd be interesting to just maybe start pivoting to conversations about the viability of just like let's pick three or four of these good ideas and leave us what we've done for the next meeting, right? We've chosen three that we feel like are one that we can have meaningful conversation and hopefully start providing recommendations to council, feeling that the harm reduction needle waste was a big one, which ties in communication, ties in some of these other things, [1:51:42] Robyn Stanicki: ties in the bank or opportunity plan, because there was some touch around legal waste in that I thought was interesting. [1:51:50] Teal Vasquez: So to your point, too, I think we've, that's what we've done, we've identified a couple of things. And so for the next meeting, we'll we'll try to tackle some of those to get to that point where we are making recommendations on things to counsel so they can do what it is they do well rather than go to each one of these people and have them come like I mean from my experience organizing like you talk to you talk to Barn or whatever they're like well you know it's we do want to be heard but we don't want every staff member to go there right now in fact none of them want to come as much as we love you so I feel like we could just do that like you know like say oh I'm comfortable you know if X talks about it or [1:52:33] Anthony T. Ng: why there's so many stakeholders I feel like we could list 80 different stakeholder groups what if we all email me as secretary I'm willing to be the guy yeah do my first thing in secretary two stakeholders that you'd like to hear from I'll pass on that onto Alton we can discuss it at the next meeting then we're gonna have to brainstorm it here we can just kind of name that'll be a maximum of 18 names and go from there [1:53:12] Teal Vasquez: Does that seem fair that seems like a great idea yeah I'd be happy to help with that too [1:53:17] Anthony T. Ng: Here yep I'm happy to repeat those stakeholders do you want to just thank you myself do you [1:53:24] Melissa Ann Rhodes: want to miss the person's name or do you want like a kind of a justification as to why [1:53:28] Anthony T. Ng: My feeling is I'll pass it to all of them we'll discuss but having some justification may be [1:53:35] Teal Vasquez: helpful because I mean I know I am not necessarily a subject matter expert in all of the minutiae that you like your skill set is very different than mine and your knowledge base is very and so you may throw some names on there and I'm like I don't even know what this title is right [1:53:50] Anthony T. Ng: If you just said Mary Smith and then I'm like which Mary Smith are we talking about like you know like Mary Smith had a homeless XYZ you know yeah right so just a little context [1:54:01] Jason Goodrich: could be super helpful a little bit little is important awesome [1:54:06] Teal Vasquez: Sure okay let's just say does anyone have anything else that we would like to discuss [1:54:12] Jason Goodrich: us this evening on [1:54:17] Anthony T. Ng: The agenda or otherwise not this evening but other week's agenda items. One thing that came up repeatedly in the packet and the emails from members of the public was mental health, and I heard several times that people addressed mental health, like why aren't this. Sometimes it was blue paper rain, and I feel like there's a lot of different perspectives around blue paper, and we have a number of people even in our group who have more knowledge, but I do certainly about blue paper grain, and by that I mean involuntary middle of somebody to a mental health for mental health. That's a standard phrase. I wonder if we could just get a little bit of information about that at some future meeting. Doesn't even need to be the 22nd, sometime before the end of the year, if we could get some information, because I feel like people often have a an elevated sense of the power of the state to put a person in a mental [1:55:21] Amy West: health facility. Yeah, probably help us. Yeah, the whole thing is like it's, you know, when the voluntary process is a tool no different from anything else, and I think this is true. I'm [1:55:36] Anthony T. Ng: I'm concerned about time. I just wonder if we could do it. No, I'm not saying it here, but I'm just [1:55:41] Amy West: I'm just even having a discussion here because it's anything that really you basically have to take away some of the civil rights. Yeah, when you do that, I don't, you know, I don't think that's a tool that we want to be using in any kind of format. I 'm not recommending that we use it. [1:55:55] Anthony T. Ng: I'm saying the general public had to believe that somebody with a MD or whatever can go out and just remove your civil rights, and they want that to happen more often, and so I think you [1:56:10] Teal Vasquez: have the same react. We all have the same. Yeah, actually I have to tell you it's actually not [1:56:15] Amy West: as much as me, sometimes it's more him, because they assume he, they actually not even remove, they want him to take someone away period. It doesn't matter what he takes them to, right, so [1:56:26] Anthony T. Ng: I think that's what they're looking for. So I just think some information so that we've got that, so that we all have a common sense when people talk to us about it of what the actual rules are. The other thing that I thought looking at the messages is a lot of folks have a sense that unhoused people shouldn't be in a specific spot, and I wonder if a conversation we could have at some point in the future is instead of saying unhoused people shouldn't be in this park or that park, which could be a Conversation we talked about how stigmatizing that could be if instead said we talked about places where we did think would be a more likely place for homeless services to be provided. If people are providing feeding services, if people are handing out propane in a given park, you're gonna have unhoused people going to that park. And so I think if we were to talk in a more positive sense about where things probably ought to happen rather than places where they yeah shouldn't happen because the Constant refrain is well you always list places that can't happen and no one says what can't happen and that stops us from making good judgments sometimes about you know or it can take a month and a half to determine should this sidewalk be passable or whatnot. So I think framing more positively well we have other places access that we want one services to be provided can be a more positive conversation and get away from some of the negative well you can't be on this space kinds of Conversations [1:58:07] Teal Vasquez: I just wonder if that could be yeah I think that's one of the things that we need not just like our city partners help with but we need our elected officials to put their face their money where their mouth is on and get behind this thing. Yeah I mean at least for me that's what I think I don't want to hijack your thing but like it's part of communications right I mean I get that it's a personal thing but you know most of us aren't in the sector of people who are saying well they shouldn't be Here most of us have this table right now right otherwise those are [1:58:40] Anthony T. Ng: Just two things I'd like to see on future agendas not a not a tonight thing yeah but you know it'd [1:58:46] Teal Vasquez: Good to talk about at our communications anything about an agenda item for our next meeting is to [1:58:51] Anthony T. Ng: Talk about that's what my suggestion was at the end of that yeah you said a future meeting doesn't [1:58:57] Teal Vasquez: Have to be next meeting so I thought you know anyone have anything else before we call this