Bangor council hears revaluation, homelessness updates

[0:58] Susan Hawes: We are live. Good evening, welcome to the city council workshop. It's Monday, March 9th, it's 5 15. We are in the council chambers around, excuse me, around the table we have Councillor Deane, Councillor Fitch, Councillor Carson, Council Walker, Council Leonard, Council Beck, we have City Manager Carollynn Lear and Councilor Beller and Sue Hutz. So we will not have an extremely long agenda, but we're going to start with the city manager update. Yes, so I have really just a brief [1:37] Carollynn Lear: update. So following up on the Cross Insurance Center hosting high school basketball, the manager of that facility Jake Berkowitz sent me stats. Over 11 days of basketball there were about 40 000 guests in the building, which was about a 25 increase over last year. So that was exciting to hear that lots of people were enjoying our investment in the Cross Insurance Center, and I did go on class B finals night with my family. Was very exciting, very close games, and it was probably some of the most passionate fans that I've seen in a while. So very exciting. The second item I wanted to talk to you about was it's the season for our congressional delegation to receive congressional spending requests for the upcoming federal budget. And we've received a request to submit a letter of support for a submission being made by Covenant Health, which is the nonprofit that owns the nursing home that our public health department also shares space in. And they're making a request to receive money to, I believe it was $3 million to do a number of building upgrades that will benefit the nursing home and its residents, but will also benefit our public health department who's located in that building. And they've asked us to submit a letter of support for that application. And so long as no one objects, I will submit that letter of support. Are there any objections? [3:44] Susan Hawes: You may submit. Do you have a question? [3:48] Speaker C (unidentified): Well, the only question I have is how, what portion are they going to be sharing with this? I mean, this $3 million, they're going to be the wig. The government's going to give it to them. Are they matching it with anything? Are they doing anything about it? Or they [4:04] Carollynn Lear: just want free money. I have not seen the details of their application, so there is a spot on our CDS funding application for the applicant to indicate whether they're going to match the funds, but it is not a requirement. I can get back, I can ask that question, but I don't know [4:22] Susan Faloon: right now whether they've committed to match it. Also brings up an interesting question [4:26] Speaker C (unidentified): Question. What portion of the property that was government property is still in our hands, and who else has property out there? I didn't realize Health and Welfare Department was in a rented building. They are, yeah. [4:44] Carollynn Lear: They own the whole building, we just rent space [4:48] Speaker C (unidentified): and I don't know the proportion. No, it doesn't matter the proportion. I was just curious because I had heard somewhere that there was another building that the university owned out there that they were selling. Yes, yep, I never heard it here, but I heard it on [5:01] Carollynn Lear: the street. Yes, I believe I have heard on the street as well that there's a building that [5:07] Speaker C (unidentified): we sold that is now for sale. Yeah, should we, if we ever sell any other property, should we have a reciprocal agreement where they return it to us because it seems, but we know if the property's not going to be there you only get it once, we're not making land anywhere. I have a problem with not controlling what we did own. I mean, that's certainly something that we could [5:33] Carollynn Lear: start negotiating into purchase and sale agreements. Presumably the person buying is going to be willing to pay less now if there are, you know, parameters about getting the property back to the city. Understand, but certainly that's something we could talk about as a component of [5:53] Speaker C (unidentified): evaluating those agreements, because I'd hate to see us end up with no ownership out there and they turn make a carnival out there or something, you know. It's obviously a stretch, but you know what I mean, so [6:08] Carollynn Lear: no objections about the letter of support. Okay, the next item on my list is just a note that the National League of Cities conference in DC is next week, which means that a couple counselors as well as our assistant city manager will be absent for Monday's committee meetings. For that reason, I anticipate that the agenda for Monday will be flight. But because of the timing of the parks and rec item we will need to have a referral to at least finance committee on Monday, so we won't be able to cancel the evening altogether, but otherwise my direction to department heads has been to keep the agendas light to avoid folks missing important discussions. Question [7:10] Speaker C (unidentified): yes, what's it cost us to send three, oh [7:14] Carollynn Lear: Gosh, Courtney, do you know off the top of your head, budget, I guess I should ask the counselors, would come out of the council budget and ours is the city managers. If I had to guess, it's probably six or seven thousand. And then the last item on my list is we just got an email this afternoon about the chamber annual awards event on April 15th from 5 to 8 or 9 p.m. I'll send you an email or David will send you an email about that soliciting your interest in attending, but we can coordinate your attendance if you're interested in going. And since Courtney's going to DC, I told her I would go to this one, so I'll be there. There and I think probably folks from Community and Economic Development will be there as well as the airport. Yeah, so that April 15th then an email. Well, that is all I had [8:21] Susan Hawes: on this today. Any questions? Next up we have the city assessor update. Good [8:41] Phil Drew: evening. Good evening, Phil Drew, city assessor. Just distribute my memo on this update. So I think a few weeks ago I was at a meeting, there was a discussion on the conversion of data from one software to another software and I just wanted to start with that. In December, this past December, we've already begun the process of trying to test two softwares, our real estate software working with the city's tax collectors software. It's quite a, quite a process. It's not as easy as you would expect you would think somebody would dedicate an individual and dedicate the time and work on it until it's been completed, but that's not how they work. If little bits and pieces, so we're diligent every week worked on it and I think we're very close to a successful test on the conversion. As far as the KRT appraisal re-evaluation progress, they feel pretty good about their residential property inspections so far. What they've done is they've been to all of the properties that they've inspected the exterior of the properties and as of March 26th all of those properties that were not inspected inside already have received an inspection request letter over the last six months asking them, do you want it to come inside and have very accurate property data? It's up to you. So they've all received those letters and then in April there will be another pass on the residential properties, that is there'll be a data collector in the neighborhoods seeing if they find anybody at home, just a third, a third attempt to get as much accurate data as possible so that's progressing on the commercial properties that they started at the end of 2025 they think they're about a month behind so they're not going to hit the march 26th or 28th deadline for property inspections they've mentioned the weather obviously in january in february but they're a thing and they're ahead of schedule on their inspection of the sold properties that are used to build the tables on the value side and so they're ahead of schedule and for This council and for me, they still believe they will be able to give us the real property values in the first week of June. That's usually when the council meets to have their first real discussion on budget and values. So my department will take care of the personal property values. The real estate values will come from KRT. They tell me they're able to do it. They will at least have the majority of work accomplished by that time to have a fairly reasonable number for the household to utilize, knowing that it's obviously going to change over the next month regardless so if they if they couldn't come with a value at that time that would be a major game changer so let's see how they progress and what they report and then so with all the commercial industrial properties in the city at the end of that memo is an example of an income and defense questionnaire here a two-page questionnaire then all commercial industrial large apartment property owners will receive and one approach to value for commercial properties is what is its value using the income approach. So all these forms are sent out, they're mailed back, the ones that are completed, and KRT will aggregate them and basically develop market data for the different property types. For industrial property, you might have a warehouse. What does it rent per square foot, and what is the, what is the expense ratio for that type of property? And they can develop a value using the income approach of value, which is the most prevalent for commercial properties. So no single individual property will be valued on their own income expense questionnaire. So to know if someone calls and say, what's all this election of data on my business? Well, we're not collecting operating business data other than rent and expenses for commercial property. Property, so just so that you're at least somewhat aware in case you question. Yes, how do we handle [Speaker C (unidentified): non-profit property so] If it's owner occupied, then that owner doesn't have information fully able to complete the form because they're not, they're not renting from themselves. But if they rent, if the property owner there rents to the nonprofit, they can provide that information if that's how it's [15:12] Speaker C (unidentified): So if the nonprofit owns a building that they rent out, they have to fill out this portion of the building. Like John Bapp says, houses that people live in that are not part of the education community, are those taxed now or not? [15:27] Phil Drew: Correct. They would be asked to complete the form. [15:30] Speaker C (unidentified): But if they give it as part of the salary for the headmaster, his house, how do we handle that? Oh, there's a specific statute, but is it on this little literary and scientific? So it'd be reviewed on this form that you're showing us. Yeah, everybody gets the, everybody gets the appropriate [15:50] Phil Drew: questionnaire to complete. Now some people can just give us expenses, right? Maybe they don't have it rented out for income, but they can give us their expense structure, so those can be aggregated so that when KRT looks around the city, they're like, okay, fine, structures of this size with this use and this expense structure, and we can incorporate that into the model. Yeah, and as far as the success rate on the second page for inspection success, so we're currently at about 35 percent, and now I look at my international association of assessing officers, what do they report as typical? And so they say the typical range is between 20 and 40 percent, with 25 to 35 percent being common for communities that conduct outreach. So we're kind of at the typical, and then it's really up to the property owner. So I would always encourage property owners to allow an inspection. It takes a short period of time because I go back to the property data in 2026 is likely to be used in 2036, so if it's wrong in 2026, it might be wrong for 10 years, the data that goes into the valuation law. So brings up another question. Yeah, doesn't [17:41] Speaker C (unidentified): the property owner have a right to come in once a year and tell you if he's changed things in the property or that things are wrong on the listing? They can unless [17:56] Phil Drew: you have clear evidence or invite someone from my department to inspect that property, the data will stay the same. Okay, because you have to, you have to choose the standard is the standard accurate data from own property standing at their property that's given to you or you walking through the hall [18:20] Speaker C (unidentified): So if someone puts in a new kitchen and that, obviously, they had to get permission to do it, or they had to get some kind of building permits, you don't review those, or do you? We do, I thought. [18:34] Phil Drew: So we just wanted to request an inspection. Yeah, just when we look at the revaluation contract track in section 8.11, but this kind of gives us the their completion dates that they had projected. So we see that they're going to partially meet the data collection deadline of the 26th, except for the commercial properties, and the commercial properties really benefit as well from the interior inspection as the residential properties. And so are there any concerns on the June first week of June value at Caretiers proposing to deliver it diligently monitor their progress what [20:03] Daniel Carson: Do I do if I receive an email from somebody who says I've listened to this wonderful presentation on Monday, but I never received a letter for an interior inspection? What do I do? Call Phil [20:22] Phil Drew: at 992-4211, and he'll have a conversation with you, and he'll give you the phone number for KRT so that you could call their scheduling staff if you so choose to have the interior inspection. Because during that call, I can, I can just explain to them the data that we have on file that KRT has access to. Yeah, because I would say that, let's say that we had it in very good condition right now, and they were thinking that they didn't want an interior infection, well, KRT might walk up to the property. Okay. Let's see what the assessor has currently, very good. I don't see any reason to deviate from that. But that might have been very good in 1993. And maybe over the 30 years, it's worn out a little bit. And maybe the ratings should be lower. So it's always, I would have that discussion with any caller to just give human idea. [21:41] Carolyn Fish: Can the entity owner obtain the current condition and evaluation? [21:48] Phil Drew: Yep. Okay. I would email it to them. [21:52] Carolyn Fish: There's no way to access it online and you have to request it? No, you can. [21:56] Phil Drew: You can go to our parcel viewers and there's a PDF of each property and you can read through [22:01] Carolyn Fish: the data. That would be from 30 years ago or is that from now? [22:05] Phil Drew: That would be from April 1st, 2025. You mentioned that for some reason they don't meet that delivery date of the first week of June. It would be a game changer. What would that scenario look like if they aren't able to deliver those valuations by then? I think if that doesn't happen, then I would hope that we could have a Zoom call with the president. Them and hear directly from Ken Rogers, as opposed to an email, and have him address the council and explain what's happening, why it wasn't produced. I think that would be the most effective. This is the first reevaluation I've ever gone through, and I kind of analogize it having a contract with a builder for a home, and I would want to show up to the home every afternoon and see what the progress is. Sometimes you just have to sit back and know that you have a contract and they have a delivery date. And sometimes you have to sit on your hands and just wait, but I think it would be appropriate to get something specific from, well, I just, I appreciate all the data you have here. It's clear you're being very diligent on this and saying that, so I appreciate that. Other [23:54] Susan Hawes: comments, questions? Did you have the hand up? I [23:58] Speaker C (unidentified): have my hand up, and along with the counselor, is there a penalty for him? Yeah. Oh, we do? Oh, good. That's what I like to hear. I don't need to hear what it is. I just like to hear that there is one. [24:14] Phil Drew: I think it starts at hundreds per day and then goes to thousands. Sounds good to me. I hope we don't have to use it. Well, I agree, it's there, but it's nice to have it there. We too many times don't have that, so I learned something after the fact, and that was the data conversion to the software that KRT would use didn't have a deliberate date. I didn't think of it. KRT didn't think it would be necessary, but they delayed things where we thought we would start in the summer, really didn't start with residential inspections until December of 2024 because they had to wait for the data to be loaded into the software wear, so two delivery days, conversion and reevaluation, lesson learned on my part. Yeah. [25:22] Carolyn Fish: Other than conversion issue and looking at the time frames for January, we're just talking about a matter of days, and the commercial evaluation would be in a little more significant delay. There really is anything that jumps out to me that would alert me to expect a major delay. Is there, am I missing something? Do you have any concerns? No, they've been to, they've been to [25:48] Phil Drew: A thousand of the two thousand commercial properties, so they're diligently working on those thousand now. The one thing about the commercial properties, we have extremely accurate data on the structure itself. So if KRT can develop their valuation models once they get all of the income and expense questioners back at the end of April, then they can diligently develop those tables because I think most of the commercial inspections are really verifying what we've already have in our records because I think we have extremely good records, that's [26:37] Speaker C (unidentified): it, that's it. I'll ask one more question, okay, just for the fun of it. This farm that the commercial companies are filling out, are they going to have to do this annually now? [26:50] Phil Drew: So we use it sparingly now, but we're not going to, we're not going to necessarily send this out every year. [27:04] Speaker C (unidentified): Well, the equivalent of a revaluation year because, but if someone has an apartment complex that's 50% rented this year, yeah, and 100% next year, yes, are you going to change the valuation? Yes. Well, how are you going to know that if they don't fill out a form every year? Because we'll be doing an inspection of everything every year. Well, [27:29] Phil Drew: you described something that you, I would know has changed, right? Yeah. [27:39] Speaker C (unidentified): So with the revaluation, yeah, I understand the revaluation. I have an issue with that. I'm just saying from year to year it can change, correct? And if they don't fill this form out annually, continually, I mean, this year they may have had a good year, next year, next five may be bad. Are you going to take that into consideration every year? Like if I wanted to bring it in every year, could [28:02] Phil Drew: I guess, yes, absolutely, okay, yeah, so they have control, yeah. But generally with the revaluation, what you do is you set values, I understand, and in the future it may be more so along the line of just letting values stay the same for a few years as opposed to currently I change values every single year? [28:28] Speaker C (unidentified): We do change values every single year, but basically by changing them in the areas, we say this group of, you know, this correct neighborhood has an increase, this neighborhood has an increase, and by state law they're not required to submit anything on an annual basis, commercial progress, right, okay, I really have to request it, yeah, but we could [28:57] Phil Drew: Yes, thank you. And completing the form really allows you to move forward if you wanted to file an abatement, right? If you file an abatement and you didn't complete this form, well, usually then I understand that, but I'm more concerned about the other. The appeal is barred until they complete the information. Yeah, I'm more concerned about an increase in valuation, but they're not [29:26] Speaker C (unidentified): going to probably report because they don't want their taxes to go up, right? Assessors have to [29:32] Phil Drew: to discover. I know. It's worth coming going into the weeds. Yeah. [29:44] Susan Hawes: No other questions, comments. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. Next we have the homelessness response coordinator update. [30:15] Jen Gunderman: I Jen Gunderman, director of Bangor Public Health and Community Services. [30:19] Carolyn Fish: Ruth, Homeless Response Coordinator [30:21] Jen Gunderman: and I are here to give you an overview of the focus of the work that he is embarking upon. So what I've done is I've put together for you sort of a one pager overview. The first thing on the left is a triangle that we've been using in our department recently to really delineate the work that we do in homeless response and the different roles that take care or lead the responsibility of those roles. I thought it'd be helpful for you to see that there isn't replication or duplication even within our own department and that there are certain positions that are tasked with very specific roles in responding to homelessness. So that's kind of an overview. I'm happy to answer any questions about it, but I want to sort of hand it over to Bruce has been, who's been in the position now for maybe a couple months. Yeah, and sort of in these first couple months, Bruce will describe he's been doing a lot of listening, a lot of troubleshooting and sort of getting a grasp of where he wants to focus for the rest of the calendar year. So Bruce and I worked together to come up with these sort of key areas and then also put some measures by them so that we can come back at different times and tell you how the work is going compared to those measures. So I'm going to hand it over to Bruce. He won't go over every detail but just to sort of give you some highlights, excuse me [31:48] Unidentified speaker: So the last month and a half I've been really out talking to a lot of people that are unhoused and get to know their situations. I mean, running the shelf for 16 years, I knew a lot of people that are unhoused, but it was more specific to that population up there at the Hope House. So I've got, I've gotten out to meet more people and get relationships and build trust with them, but also been out talking to a lot of landlords, seeing what their concerns are and how we can maybe help them just as much as we're helping the unhoused people and the struggles that they go through. And my next step was to go out and talk to business owners and community members and see how they can do. And I think me and Jen are gonna open, have like a office hours so people can come in and talk to me if they need to brainstorm some solutions and stuff like that to help like every, everyone in the community. And I've been trying to help with getting some housing opportunities. We've been looking at a shared living model that's been working, but we've run into some barriers on that and trying to overcome those barriers a little bit it. And then I'm working with a another agency on trying to do some progressive housing where a person could go in for a certain amount of time and be able to work on their barriers and be able to get to a better place where they can go into independent living and be ready for the landlords when they, when they are, when they, when they have the opportunity to building a thing, tenant ready, readiness program, something where it's kind of like we had Rent Smart in the, in the shelters when we were, when I was in the shelters and it's kind of like that, but trying to put our own spin on it a little bit, give a people, give people that are, you know, unhoused the opportunity to work through a program and see where they are ready for housing. Do they need to go into supportive living housing? Are they ready for independent living? Or they need some time in transitional housing and, give those people the opportunity to do that so [34:01] Jen Gunderman: and the last piece down here is a is a strategy that i'm taking responsibility for because i'm a data geek is to be getting more regular reporting on the data around homelessness in the bangor area with our new hmis contractor so that i can come to you regularly with quarterly meetings on you know what was the last zip code that someone reported so that you understand people who've been residing in Bangalore for a while and people who haven't been breaking it down by different categories. So that's one of the areas that I'm focusing on in part of this plan is how do we get regular data from the HMIS system. And the last thing that I'll mention is also on here is understanding the role between Bruce's role and the Hub 7 coordinator role. You know, the Hub 7 coordinator is a lot of coordination of external partners, where Bruce's role is more around sort of programming inter-city coordination, while Bruce is not providing direct service, as you can see the top one is Bruce is providing technical assistance to direct service providers. Bruce has been doing this a really long time and has many not just tricks of the trade but some best practices of what can work and what can work, so this is also a way of like almost like training the workforce in real time, so we've had a number of organizations and case managers reach out and say Bruce can you help me through this problem, and so he's been able to do that, so not a direct service provider but really supporting the direct service providers when they encounter some big challenges [35:44] Carolyn Fish: with, you know, with our new homeless committee we're putting together, do you see yourself working with that, so that we know we have tens of non-profits where there seems to be a lot of duplication, so we're really hoping that, I know it'll take time and coordination, but if we could better streamline the services to be more effective, so that the individuals can also maybe have a better experience and we can see better results, and I don't see any of the service providers in, you know, in your graph here, but it would be kind of interesting to know what other outreach non-profits seem to be an integral part of this to help organize and stream streamline the experience better, and I also wondered with housing, I know housing affordable portable housing and housing, the inventory that could support these individuals with unique situations. How much of it is housing issues? How much of it is lack of mental health service for the individuals? [36:49] Unidentified speaker: Yeah, I mean, I would say that it's a lot to do with both. I mean, it's we have a lot of people struggling with mental health out there, and I think that's a big part of it and you know just trying to work through every situation differently really honestly is how I approach things because every situation's been different. [37:11] Jen Gunderman: So and I think the key to what Bruce has been doing I think he totally undersells himself one of the keys that he's been doing is in the situations one of the challenges that's on the ground that we're seeing is that people who are experiencing significant complex issues are just being and giving a voucher and put in an apartment and they are not being successful that way. So particularly with the readiness program, providing technical assistance to case managers, just to say, okay, this person just can't go into an apartment and then we expect them to be successful. So it's a combination of how do we make sure that those that coordination of those wraparound services and we do have a housing affordability issue. So looking at, Bruce has been looking at these creative models around share housing,, about some other project-based work. So it's working with both at the same time. [38:05] Speaker C (unidentified): Councilman? Well, we've had a homeless coordinator before, correct? [38:09] Jen Gunderman: We've had a homeless response manager. [38:11] Speaker C (unidentified): That's different than what he's doing. So are we reinventing the wheel with, not that I'm saying it's wrong, but what happened with the progress made by our last person? Was there any progress made? [38:24] Jen Gunderman: So when that position was first filled, the immediate task was to close the encampment. And that position spent the majority of their time closing the encampment from when they were brought on in that summer of 2020. Gosh, time is elusive now. Up until March of last year. So that person's position was predominantly taking care of that encampment and getting it closed. Since that time, the position was sort of rebuilding and then Jenna moved on from the manager position. We changed it to a coordinator position because one of the things that we learned when Jenna was in it is that position needed to be a combination of system stuff and still being really aware and building relationships on the ground. And so that's where we came up with this position and these strategies. So we built upon what we learned from when she was in the position and then match that with what we're hearing on the ground of what's needed. [39:27] Speaker C (unidentified): So we weren't terribly successful first time around. [39:31] Jen Gunderman: I would disagree with that. I would say we closed the encampment. So that was a huge milestone. That was a very difficult task to take on, particularly for someone new in the position. And then we build a lot of relationships along the way. Jenna and the position did some workforce development training, built a relationship with our hub coordinator. So there were a lot of successes from that time that we've learned from to revamp the position that's [40:01] Phil Drew: So good. So I think that this is mostly about getting people housed. The other thing I was going to bring up is about having a plan in the winter. You know, as you know better than anybody, I mean, the city stepped in and took a what would have a disaster and saved a lot of lives by investing money into warming centers and just looking at like what Portland does, where they end up applying for the money and then they either have the shop that they run or they will subcontract out. Is part of what you'll be doing, Bruce, is to make sure that the efforts coordinated from our level and kind of avoiding that scenario again. Well, I meet with [40:40] Unidentified speaker: them or talk to them daily as it is right now. And one thing that we do is we do a yearly end of the meeting year when they close down their shop, and we start talking about what next year is going to look like and what we need to do for that and how we can do it more efficient, [40:57] Jen Gunderman: you know what I mean, that kind of stuff. I think that's actually one of the lessons we learned from the last time around is that we needed to be more intimately involved in these conversations with the warming shelters on a regular basis and having that debriefing meeting and a planning [41:09] Unidentified speaker: any start to plan immediately for next year. We start from like when they start closing, we start [41:15] Phil Drew: talking about next year already. Okay, and just a comment too is just to say after news came out that you got hired, I just heard nothing but just great things from the community, so thankful that you've taken on this role. So I also want to say I'm appreciative of the work you're [41:33] Susan Faloon: doing, and you know, thanks for being here. Thank you. Yeah, same on that, but that's not what I was gonna say. When you say that you're meeting with the members of the unhoused community, like how are you, me, are you going to them, are they coming to you? No, I mean, they can [41:50] Unidentified speaker: Come to me if they want to. I've had many people come to my office and talk to me in my office, but I go to the well, I go to the warming centers, I touch base with the downtown shelter out there with Archie and Boyd, go to the Hope House still, and that space for people there. So I'm always kind of interacting with people everywhere, transitional housing. I went up and met with Leading the Way the other day, the transitional housing about probation. So, you know, trying to reach out any way I can to anyone that may be unhoused or are unhoused. [42:29] Susan Faloon: And so wait, well, can I ask a little question? So I'm guessing there are still encampments [42:36] Unidentified speaker: out there? Yeah, I've not that I know of right now that are no, there's pockets of little ones [42:45] Jen Gunderman: here and there. Okay, but not what we've experienced at least in the past two years, and I suspect that [42:52] Susan Faloon: will change with the weather getting warmer, probably more people and the warming shelters [42:56] Unidentified speaker: be in the next month and a half or more. That's [43:01] Carolyn Fish: a fish with the outreach that we're doing with our unchildhood and our homeless and with better weather coming, is there a strategy or communication or a method of dealing with, for instance, I heard from one of the shelters that a few weeks ago there happened to be, you know, an exodus from Missouri, the state of Missouri, that came to Bangor. So I'm all for taking care of and doing all we can for our residents and assistance, and that even broadened my thinking to our local communities that don't have the resource, but I have an issue with taking care of Missouri's people and everybody else's. So do we have a strategy when we identify these individuals? It's not doing them any favors by giving them a one-way ticket when we don't even have enough housing for our own vulnerable. So what is your strategy when you come across these individuals that have that, you know, been dropped off physically or one-way bus [44:09] Unidentified speaker: to get to Bangor? And I get to have know them and know their stories and why they came to Bangor, Maine, or why they came, and I look to see if there is a way that they can go home, and you know, if is there a way that we can, you know, go take you, help you get back to your home and what the resources that you're familiar with. But I mean, a lot of the time these people are moving around the whole country. There are people that just don't have really a home to be honest with you. They, there's no way that They can really call home. They've been doing this since they were 18 years old, some of them, you know what I mean. And Greyhound is the last, this is the last stop for Greyhound. You know, a lot of them go from one city to another city, from shelter to shelter, until someone finally takes the time to help them. You know, is that our city? I'm not sure if it's supposed to be our city or not, but you know what, is a human being in front of me. I hear you, but we only have so much tax money. You do, and I understand that too, I do understand that. So I think one of [45:16] Jen Gunderman: the things that, you know, Bruce just elaborate on, but I've heard BCAT say it, I've had other organizations outside of the city say that when someone is encountered from outside the city, the first question is how can we get you back to where you have support. That's like always the [45:32] Unidentified speaker: first go-to question. That's the first thing I ask when I talk to someone. Yeah, where'd you come from, you know, how'd you get here, you know, is there something you want to go back to, you know, yeah. [45:46] Jen Gunderman: I've also heard BCAT call the entity, the church, or the other organization that may have sent that person this way to say you have sent somebody to a place that does not have the resources to support them, please don't do it again. That's been going on for [46:03] Unidentified speaker: a long time. I mean, the shelter happened all the time over the years. People would be sent to the shelter and I would have the same conversation with the cities that sent them. So we've been doing that for a long time. [46:18] Speaker C (unidentified): That brings up a question. What percentage of the people you're dealing with are from away? [46:25] Jen Gunderman: So that is the data piece that we'll be working on. We won't know that until we get the data from HMIS. People need to report their last zip code, and so we're going to be getting that report regularly. Isn't that on the [46:39] Speaker C (unidentified): sheet that you use when you check them in, their last zip code, that gets entered into the coordinated entry system. So what was the experience last year? We should know that. You're doing this annually. I don't have that data in front of me. Not a wild guess. I'd like to know. [47:01] Joseph Leonard: So I actually very much appreciate this model that is going to bring a lot of order when stuff hits the fan. So for the last few years we as a city have started to notice that at some point during the summer it usually varies between each season but sometime between June and August sometimes it's late september that's when the city usually gets a surge of more people coming in that require these services i guess my question is will this new strategy be able to handle that surge that influx of people and if not what is what is the path toward mitigating those issues because we know what's happening like we know this summer we are going to have a surge of people coming in and it seems like it doesn't matter how often we have these conversations we just know that these issues are going to come and there doesn't seem to be any foreseeable way out of it i mean i would like to hear off otherwise if you guys have thoughts on [48:14] Unidentified speaker: Well, I think having conversations of how people are coming into our community, right, with those agencies. I mean, there's a lot of ways that people come into our community, and maybe having conversations with them on how they can help support us. People come in from hospitals, they come in from recovery homes, they come in from a lot of different ways, Job Corps. I mean, there's lots of different ways that people become homeless in Bangor. It's they come in for a service, they fail at the service, and they. End up on the streets, right, and I think, looking at those places or not looking at those places do amazing work. Okay, the person's just is not a fit for their program, right, and just figuring out how we can work with them on maybe having better answers than putting maybe people on the streets, so follow up to that is. [49:13] Joseph Leonard: I don't want to name names, so don't answer this question, but of the ones that usually have the most people that cause the surge to go up, is there a way that we can develop a better relationship with these programs or entities so that we can develop best practices for that organization so they can at the very least give us a heads up of hey, these are people that are in the program right now, these are ones that are starting to fall behind or something like, I don't know the best methodology for. this but just getting that heads up would be i would assume like pretty helpful to you guys knowing just who's coming in and whether or not they're they're on the on a track to potentially going somewhere that isn't productive for their own individual lives which we then have to carry the bird I [50:16] Jen Gunderman: Think in a perfect world that would be fantastic. I think what's happening right now is like going back to do we have the ability to do so the housing stabilization that's one Robert Thompson Street Outreach caseworker that's a one on Tricia's here. And so they work in collaboration with the PATH team and others. There is not enough. I know that we worry about duplication. There's more of a gap than there is a duplication. There is not enough services to provide the support for the demand. This is a balancing act because the more that you ramp up services, you can also be a place of high service delivery that could attract more. So it's a dance of trying to figure out how to meet the need, but also be a place that doesn't become really high demand, if I'm saying this correctly. Am I saying this correctly, Bruce? Yes. [51:26] Unidentified speaker: That's yeah it's kind of walking that fine line right like we could open as many services we want to it's just you know that's good could have the tendency to attract people like she's saying but then we also have what we have here now and that's what's in front of us and we need more so [51:48] Jen Gunderman: And Jonathan's break even mentioned this and he was like how do we balance that between providing good service delivery and not being a place that creates more demand [51:59] Unidentified speaker: What's happening right now is that workers outreach workers case workers are they're going on to the next person they're just going right next right and so the people aren't getting the best care because we just don't have enough so they you know they house someone and they leave them there right when they really need some more supports and what happens is the caseworker just because of the deed is on to the next person and doesn't really give the person probably the care that they need [52:30] Phil Drew: Okay that's very enlightening thank you council Carson you had your hand up [52:35] Daniel Carson: Yeah did you take it back down no I remember you know I had forgotten for a second but okay so winter is coming, which is always here, right? We had the experience of the railroad encampment needing to be closed, right? Probably partially as a consequence of previous encampments that had to be closed. And if I look back far enough, I'll find more encampments that had to be closed. So when it gets warm outside, people are, right, we're going to have a surge. We know that happens. We know that there is not enough places for people to be inside, which means they're going to be outside, which probably means that another encampment will form if we're not paying attention. And so what I want to know is, are we paying attention or do we have a plan to pay attention to outdoor spaces to ensure that we don't end up with a railroad encampment that has to be closed in December of all times? [53:34] Jen Gunderman: I'll jump on this, and if you want to pop. So one of the things that is on Bruce's strategy is interdepartmental communication. So that is going to take multiple departments, police, Parks and Rec, public, for us to all be working together to make sure that doesn't happen. And again, Bruce has only been on the job for, we haven't jump started that yet, but I think that's the first strategy is our department's conversations about what we're going to do once we see some congregations starting to happen. Does that make sense? [54:09] Unidentified speaker: Once we start to see that pop up and just get down there and start to really talk to people. And I think just I mean, the city has what they have for expectations and guidelines, right and ordinances and we just have to go by those and you know, just try to find safer places, hopefully tell some people that are in shelters so we can get people into shelter right and that's been [54:35] Susan Hawes: the challenge yeah thank you the people who are housed house yes one of the ordinances that we've had for years though has either been overlooked or not looking and to go by is we don't have camping in the city we're not in the camping city that's the number one that gives us the right to keep people along and if that's what it's going to take to keep these large encampments from showing up again that was almost like a blind side everybody knew that there were a few there and then it was like one day it was like holy that's like Central Park. So I think we're not, you know, we're nine people that sit here and share ideas with what we hear from constituents up there. And no one right now is feeling comfortable or particularly happy about the way we're handling the homeless and how what is our strategy going to be and how are we going to do that so this will come up many times i'm sure because if we don't it's going to be winter again as you said and we're going to have the same strategies that we had last year at this time so we really need to stay on this topic and keep the conversations going and if it's more updates or whatever that we have to do we'll Have to do them, but it'll be important. Any other questions? Of either, thank you. Okay, we have, yes, you want to make a motion? [56:44] Daniel Carson: To one MRSA section 40568 personnel matter and one MRSA section 4056d labor negotiations. [56:55] Susan Hawes: Proof will be going to executive session. Thank you. Okay, I moved and seconded. We do need a roll call vote. We start over there. Yes,, yes, and I will offer BAF.