And there's also seating up front here for you guys if you want to come up front.

And also, could you state your name and titles for the stenographer for the record, please?

I thought I did, but I will do it again.

Did you need us to do it again?

She got it.

She got it.

Yeah, okay.

Okay, we'll begin with Councilwoman Bennett.

Thank you, Chairman.

And thank you for the presentation.

And I am excited about the work that you all have forecasted.

However, that is work that is still in process.

And we have 600 folks that are touched monthly at the Smithfield Street shelter.

And those folks have no place to go because there's no alternative right now today or June 20th when this is set to close.

So that so though the Second Street Commons is there, that is not adequate to really service the population that really is in need of these services.

So for me, my question, and this is my main question is what provisions will you make before you close Smithfield Street shelter.

I visited the shelter yesterday and visited there last Thursday as well.

And there are people that are there that are definitely in need, and these are people.

And so I don't want to see another Schumann situation where we close something down without an alternative.

And so that's my question.

Thank you.

Um I believe Andy kind of addressed that, but I'll um I'll have him go through it again because there have been outreach workers down there.

I was just down there today myself.

Um I was not on Smithfield walking through, walk through Strawberry Way.

I go down there frequently.

I don't go into the shelter.

I don't think it's appropriate for me that staff goes in there specifically, but I try to go down there as well to get a sense of the number of people and some of the services I think that they need.

But please, Andy, go through what has been happening in the transportation and things like that.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, there are certainly a lot of people that that use the shelter.

Um our assessment of the data and and working with um the the operators that the vast majority of people that use the shelter have used it for um for less than a week over the course of the the period.

Very many most people stay for one or two days.

Um that's that's how we kind of arrived at this list of about 125 people that um they're using it very regularly along with um uh with the operator of the shelter.

So we feel very very confident that we've already transitioned 60 people to uh from of that list to other shelter locations, and we're we're adding 112 additional beds to the system from there that will continue to be available to people.

So um certainly recognize the need, but um, but we feel like we've we've we've we've um been able to line up new beds and transition people successfully.

Um there's we're working with um other partners um to continue to support this.

Um there's a new transportation pilot that's that's beginning uh has begun this week to help uh folks that are trying to access these services to be able to be able to move around uh to different locations to access services and to receive those supports.

Thank you.

I have one more.

Um so you mentioned uh East End Cooperative Ministries, Light of Life, Second Street Commons as uh other alternatives to Smithfield Street.

Um however, again talking to the folks who use Smithfield Street, uh often they're being turned away from some of these other places because these other places are higher barrier places and will not allow them or have you know banned them from, which I don't even understand.

That's a whole different conversation.

But um, yeah, so what happens when this no barrier shelter closes and we only have the alternatives of higher barrier shelters?

What happens to those people who don't who can't meet those barriers?

Like for so for example, um, I believe in one shelter, I can't remember which one, you have to have a driver's license or some sort of ID.

Um, that would be a barrier for a lot of folks that are unhoused.

Another shelter does a metal detector, and I know that personally because I've do I have done clinics there and have had gone through that metal detector at EEC.

So that's also a barrier.

Folks are going to be triggered by that.

So how are we making sure that these alternatives are as low barrier as as Smithfield is right now?

Right, Andy.

Yeah, so um, I mean, I I would say that um what we define as low barriers, there's sort of a spectrum of of what that means.

I I believe um, you know, DHS, we want all of our shelters to be low barrier.

Um sometimes there's there's some confusion or misinformation about that, but um uh you know the shelters that we're talking about that are adding capacity um have already had a lot of successful transitions of people from um the Smithfield shelter to those locations.

Um we are um working very closely with them to eliminate those barriers.

Uh you mentioned the ID issue.

That's something that we've worked closely with TMP SBG that's operating the shelter to be able to provide uh sort of a printout of the client's record to kind of supplement that so the ID isn't required.

Um yeah, I think um, you know, all of these are offers and and we hope that people will accept them.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.