Welcome to the March 26, 2026, Social Service Human Relations Board Meeting.

This meeting is being recorded.

The chat function has been turned off.

If members of the public would like to comment on an item, there are multiple options to do so.

If attending via Zoom, digitally raise your hand, and Secretary Mana will announce when it is your turn.

You will then have the option to unmute yourself and proceed with your public comment.

Email your public comments to Secretary Mana Ayan at GMA N N A H A Y O N at Alameda C A.gov.

Before during the meeting with your name, the agenda item number you're referring to, and your comment.

Comments submitted during the meeting before the conclusion of the public comment section will be read into the record.

Her email address is also on the meeting's agenda.

If you're calling in by phone, please email Ms.

Manayan as we cannot see you raise your hand.

You can also dial star nine to raise your hand, and we will call on you to provide a public comment in person.

Please complete a public comment slip with your name and the agenda item number you will be speaking on.

You will be called when it is your turn.

Comments will be limited to three minutes.

The public has two opportunities for public comments.

First, under agenda item two, public comments.

Comments from the audience may concern matters not on the agenda, but must deal with matters subject to the jurisdiction of the Social Service Humanity Relations Board.

Second, under each agenda item, there will be an opportunity for public comment on a specific item.

Each item follows a format similar to City Council meeting.

First, after a presentation, we will ask if there are any clarifying questions from shrub members for staff.

Then we will ask if there are any public comments on this agenda item.

And after public comment, we will open the item for discussion and a vote if recommended.

We are now calling this meeting to order at 7.03 p.m.

We will be doing a roll call, and actually all votes will be by roll call tonight because we have people who are not present in the room.

Robbie Kreitz.

Chantel Carter.

Present.

Bernie Wolf here.

Joe Bryan.

Michelle Buckholz.

Here.

Samantha Green.

Here.

And Scott Means here.

And I think they both have to say why they're attending remotely.

Or they have to do that.

Okay.

But Sam, yeah.

So you're supposed to say.

Hi, I have Stick at Hope.

Thank you for the record, yes.

And we also have joining us from Housing Human Services Division, Josh Man Aon, program manager, and Shelby Neal, Administrative Specialist.

We're going to go on to item two, not agenda, public comments.

The city welcomes speakers, providing public comment, but please be advised this is a limited public forum.

Comments from the audience may concern matters either on or not on the agenda, but must deal with matters subject to the jurisdiction of the Social Service and Human Relations Board.

Comments will be limited to three minutes.

Comments concerning matters on this evening's agenda will be heard when that item is called.

If speakers fail to follow these rules, they will be warned, and if they continue to disregard the rules, their opportunity to speak will end.

Okay.

Um do we have any people who would like to speak?

Yes.

Looks like we have a public speaker.

Public comment?

We have a public speaker.

We have great.

So whenever you start, we'll start to the clock.

Whenever you're ready.

Okay.

Unfortunately, the person who did this is not here.

But let me be absolutely clear.

You have no right to publicly speak about me that way.

You are not a doctor.

You are not an evaluator.

You're not a therapist.

And not anyone with authority, training, or personal knowledge to make statements about my mental health.

Yeah, you chose to sit in a public meeting label me anyway.

That was arrogant, reckless, stigmatizing, and completely inappropriate.

I came before this board to speak about real issues affecting real people.

I came before this board to speak about real issues affecting real people instead of doing what you were there to do, which is listen, ask questions, and follow up.

You chose to dismiss me with a cheap personal attack that says far more about your character, judgment, and fitness to serve in a representative role than it does about me.

You are supposed to represent people.

You are supposed to be a voice for the community.

But what you actually showed was content.

You showed that when someone speaks in a way that makes you uncomfortable, rather than address the substance, you insult them, degrade them, and try to discredit them in the public.

You can roll your eyes.

I don't care.

Your opinion means nothing to me.

That is disgraceful.

Let me remind you of something.

Raising my voice is not a diagnosis.

Passion is not a diagnosis.

Being hurt, frustrated, or speaking forcibly after being ignored for four and a half years is not a diagnosis.

Disagreeing with the board does not make someone mentally ill.

Telling truths that you do not want to hear does not make someone mentally ill.

What you did was weaponize a mental health label as an insult, and that is ignorant, offensive, and beneath anyone claiming to advocate for vulnerable people.

You do not know me.

You have never spoken with me privately, you have never investigated what I raised, you have never followed up, and still you felt comfortable smearing me in front of the public.

That was not representation.

That was cowardice.

And I will not stand by while you or anyone else tries to erase my life, my work, my credibility, and my voice by reducing me to ugly stereotypes simply because I spoke up.

So here's what I expect.

I expect you to publicly interact your statement.

I expect you to acknowledge that what you said was inappropriate.

And I expect this board to start behaving like adults who are capable of listening to public comment without resorting to insults, stigma, and character attacks.

Thank you very much for this is how you talk about it.

I'm sorry, I'm very sorry to do that.

Who come before you, then you are not serving the community.

You are failing it.

You do not get to humiliate me and call it concern.

You do not need to defend me and call it opinion.

And you do not need to hide behind your seats on that board while acting in a way that is unprofessional, prejudiced, and cruel.

You need to do better.

You sit there and you say you want to know.

You want to know.

You want to know.

But have any of you read the contracts?

Have any of you read the contracts?

Have you read the contracts?

No.

You still haven't.

Have you read the five-year plan?

That is over with.

No, you haven't.

Have you ever come down and spoke to the community of the stuff?

Um, thank you.

We are back.

Uh it is 7:41 p.m.

I'm sorry about the disruption.

Um, we are going to continue on with the minute item number three.

Yes, minutes.

Um the review and approval of minutes.

Um, I'm gonna put forth a motion to approve the minutes for February 26, 2026.

Do I have a second?

Second.

We have a second, we have to do a roll call vote.

Robbie Price.

Oh, yes, I have Gentile Gardner.

Yes.

For you all.

Joe Bryant, yep.

Michelle Buckwells.

I abstain, I wasn't at the meeting.

Thank you, Samantha Green.

Yes.

Scott means gotta keep me honest there, Michelle.

All right, we got the minutes done.

Now we're on.

We're here on my tree.

Okay.

Um there are uh items four, uh, the presentation on school board-based centers by uh Kyle Sinkopf and Catherine Sports Golden Media Family Services is going to be postponed till the next meeting.

Item 4B, UC Berkeley Public Health Project Update will be postponed until the next meeting.

Um 4C discussion on social services relations board work plan.

Each year, the shrub presents an annual work plan to the city council for its consent.

Shrugged the annual work plan is typically approved by the board at its April meeting in order to be presented to the city council at its first meeting in June.

The Social Service Human Relations Board will break up into committees to discuss over overall impact of each group.

And we have decided that those work groups are going to meet since they are under quorum.

We're going to meet independently in those groups between now and our next meeting.

Rather than doing it tonight.

Who are the members of the work groups?

Okay, so those that would be you know the first one I sent you.

Because if we meet in person, we can have three people.

So we don't need to actually have it set up.

Do you happen to the one where you have people and multiples?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we draw me to read the checked in to, yeah.

Do you mind if if Shelby reads in?

So the Road Home and Age-friendly work group would be Samantha Green, Michelle Buckholtz and Scott Means.

Almida United Against Hate would be Gerald Bryant, Chantel Carter, Samantha Green, Domestic Violence Committee would be Bernie Wolf, Robbie Price, and Chantel Carter.

Is that correct with everyone?

Yes.

That's great.

So we don't need to actually vote on that.

No, and we'll be um scheduling meetings with you all to meet in committees.

Okay.

And you don't have anything else to say about okay.

That's fine.

Um we can pursue this.

All right, so the rest of it, will you be part of those movies?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, just give me a usually on the committee meetings that we have monthly.

Yeah, I'm probably like the ones that you and I have on Monday.

Yeah, we'll just add the folks to our meeting to make sure it works with their schedule.

How long do you typically meet?

31 and a half hour.

Oh, okay.

So you may need a little longer, that's all.

Yeah, that's perfect.

Because you already meet you for an hour, to have an hour and a half meeting.

That's too long.

Okay, great.

Um, then we can move on.

Is anyone else have any questions or comments about that?

Great.

Um work groups.

I um I think Bernie, you have something.

What's that?

Oh, for the work group report, um, item 4D is for board discussion only.

Did you say you had anything?

No, I'm gonna defer until next meeting.

Oh, you are gonna defer, okay.

Well, do you have anything that you need to that's like important in terms of dates or anything like that?

Nope, everything is something that can be discussed later.

Okay.

You should report on your open mic.

I'll give that credit.

We did out, we did do our open mic.

Sorry if we all did not get a chance to attend.

It was wonderful.

The young folks came in and they spoke really well.

Some of them showed their artwork.

Their artwork was really impressive.

These were very nervous kids.

Most of them were not used to public speaking or even being in a crowd of the type that we had.

So it was very nice to see them come together.

There were enough prizes, and everybody got a prize.

Um I didn't really see that I was hoping to get more of was uh more of the adults to come in and actually spend time see what was going on.

The kids were there, they they showed up in force to take care of what they knew was rooting for their friends that were up there actually.

So overall, I have to say it was wonderful, wonderful program, and looking forward to next year's season of non-violence.

Yeah, I I love that blast, Poet.

And she was 11th grader, so that means you might be able to hear something again next year.

Next year.

That's my hope.

Yeah, they have the rest of them are all seniors.

Yeah, I have to say she was pretty remarkable as the only goes in.

Her story was well well written or well discussed.

I'll just say well discussed.

I'm very surprised to hear her uh speak of such a topic and speak with real heart.

So yeah, yeah.

I recommend it.

Thank you, Gresha.

Um, and just for um the one thing for um the uh age-friendly almida is we will probably we will be having our survey guide in May.

Great, along with Holder Americans Month, which also is May.

Uh anything else, uh Samantha or Michelle on work groups.

I just announced that we have upcoming overdose uh prevention trainings uh uh scheduled throughout the city.

Partnered with a great uh Alameda County based community partner to leave lead those trainings.

Awesome.

Yes, I will tell you the dates in just one moment.

I believe it is May.

Um we have one on May 7th.

We have one on June 11th, and then we have a third in July.

I believe it is July 29th.

So those are three overdose response training dates.

Where are you gonna be located?

It will be held at the um Albert H.

DeWitt Officers Club, also known as the O Club.

Oaklope, which is on the base.

Yeah.

Only other thing is uh Scott and Michelle and I have been discussing a well-being survey and the potential of doing uh community satisfaction survey.

Um so it's uh kind of a standard, it's like if you uh say like the happiest places on earth, right?

Those just came out recently.

Um they do it as an annual report.

Anyway, there are global measures that people do.

Um we can't get it down to the size of Alameda from the um data that they pull, and so we thought maybe we would try and get our own sample of community residence in Alameda to see kind of where we were on that happiness index.

So it's something that we're discussing as a group.

Yeah.

That's great.

Thank you for remembering St.

Matthew.

Um, all right.

Uh we can go to item five, staff communications.

Um do that.

Okay.

You can skip that person.

Okay, so staff updates for housing and human services.

We have CDB C D BG funding recommendations will be taken to council for approval on May 5th.

This will include public services, economic development, capital improvements, residential rehab, carry forward projects, and home HOME projects.

We're also seeking approval for the 2026-27 annual action plan, which covers our achievements over the past years, goals and objectives for the upcoming program year, citizen participation efforts, etc.

The Housing and Human Services Division is currently conducting a community needs assessment.

Our goal is to better understand the needs and priorities of our community as it pertains to human, social and housing services, so we can improve program service delivery.

Your responses are anonymous and will help us shape programs and resources that support residents.

You can find the link to the survey on the City of Alameda Housing and Human Services website under the community needs assessment survey section, and you are all invited to fill it out as well.

Community survey time extended to allow for multiple language accessibility.

It was brought to our attention.

It was only in English.

Yes.

For an additional 30 days for the uh for several languages.

We had a second stakeholder session that occurred on March 11th.

That is part of that needs assessment process.

Our engagement specialist team continues to work diligently moving people off the street and into shelter.

In the month of March, they exited three people into transitional housing and five into emergency shelter from unhoused homelessness.

For an inclusionary housing update, the city's program administrator, RISE Housing, recently held a workshop with the moderate income weight list members who opted in to be considered for the three homes currently being sold in that program.

The city has reviewed some of the completed application files with RISE and has issued decisions that will be provided in the waitlist ranking order.

And that concludes the staff updates.

Thank you.

This is a non-comment item.

Okay, so move on to uh oh, statute port on the uh city of Alameda's housing community services.

Is that separate?

That's what I understand.

Oh, you said oh sorry, yeah.

I'm a little bit shaky too, I think.

Um communications.

I'm just gonna jump right into a couple things real quick.

That's okay.

Uh the League of California Cities met today, and they've adopted a change in language.

They're now using the term older adults as every time possible instead of seniors in reference to older adults.

Um they don't mention the word elders, but you know, that's also a nice one throw in there.

It shows a little extra reference and respect.

But um, yeah, so older adults instead of seniors.

And with that in mind, um the um American uh uh sorry.

Uh older Americans month this year, the theme in May is going to be champion your health.

And I'll be talking more about that in April and leading up into May.

But I actually uh wrote and submitted a proclamation to the mayor for consideration to read in May to in honor of that.

And that is something for especially the new members here.

You know, the proclamation is something that can be you know done through um through the process of the city uh to you know recognize things that are happening.

Um anyway, just for that.

Is anyone else have anything, any other board communications?

We're good.

We're all good, really, okay.

Well, then without further ado, we will what time is it?

Mike uh we will adjourn this meeting at 7 54 p.m.

It's gotta be a record.

Hi, Sam and Michelle.

It was uh feel better.