And there's also stating 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.

Do you need us to do it again?

She got it.

She got it.

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 these are people.

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 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 period.

Very 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 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 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 Smithville Street.

Um however, it's again talking to the folks who use Smithville 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 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 um, how are we making sure that these alternatives are as low barrier as as Smithfield is right now?

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 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 um TMP SBG that's operating the shelter to be able to provide a sort of printout of the client's record to kind of supplement that so the ID isn't required.

Um so uh 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.

President.

Councilman Wikowski.

This question may be over your pay grade, and so it's completely fine with me if you you know aren't able to answer or don't feel comfortable answering.

It from my very limited understanding of this issue, it really seems like the uh the best solution is things that we offer at like Second Avenue Commons where it's really a wraparound kind of service.

And so where my question is is um as we're coming up to budget time.

Should we be as members of council and the administration considering whether we need to fund and and create um because the need apparently is there, and uh, you know, with the lots of talk in the news about recession coming and things like that, I I I don't have a a bit of the stomach good feeling that the situation is going to improve dramatically over the next you know, the near term.

Um as I said, I recognize that this question really kind of moves into uh outside of your area of outside of your realm, uh, but that's certainly a question that I have right now, knowing that we're coming into budget, and should we be thinking about uh funding for um an additional facility that would be able to provide all of these services uh in the best way?

It's actually a very uh that's a very good question.

Actually, we've been in that process for some time.

Um for some time I've been, you know, the director has um, you know, talked to us about you know, can you know can we find more space?

And sometimes we have to retrofit a space, or can we try to find a building or an old hotel or something that we can modify?

And she, yes, we've supported that.

A lot of our funding comes from the state, federal government.

We match, we we often we say in our grants, we have about a billion dollars in grants, you really only match about one percent of that.