And living in the community surrounding some of these encampments that may or may not exist right now.

So before I keep going, it looks like maybe technology is not working right now.

What's up?

I'm here.

If you can hear me.

Okay, he is on Teams.

Okay, we can hear you, Mr.

Tars.

So what I'll just do is real quick, just kind of um before we uh cut to you, Mr.

Tars.

Um, we will I'll just kind of give a brief little overview.

And then if you're able to hang on, hello.

Um, if you're able to hang on uh throughout the meeting, great.

Uh, because some of my colleagues may or may not have questions specifically for you.

If you have to jump, it's okay because again, this isn't the last conversation.

Um wonderful.

Um, so um, like I said, a couple months ago, this first came up, and it came up because really the Jordan encampment closure, the chaos, the confusion, the anger, the lack of trust that uh got enhanced during that.

Um, the idea came up to make sure that that doesn't happen again.

Um the idea of this ordinance is to set standard operating procedures.

We don't have any as a city, we don't have any at the administrative level, we don't have any at the legislative level.

Um, and just we have standard operating procedures for what time we put trash out, we have standard operating procedures for how we go out to bid.

Anything that we do as a as a city, we have procedures that we must follow.

I think when we're bulldozing people's homes, we ought to have procedures.

Uh so again, I I could go through all the different changes that I made um based on feedback from colleagues and uh some members of the public, but overall, the summary is uh the changes make the ordinance more flexible in terms of the administration's ability to um put people in place that would be best to handle this internally and more flexible with who the administration is working with.

It's the Commission on Homelessness and possibly some other service providers as well.

Um it also makes it more realistic, like something that could actually happen in the real world.

Um, it clears up some of the concern about private property versus public property.

This ordinance is only for public property.

Um I have a footnote at the end.

This is not handle private property.

That's a whole other conversation.

Um I would say um, yeah, I'd say those are the kind of overall areas that have been changed.

Uh so with that, I'm going to out of respect for your time, Mr.

Tarz, I'll just jump to you.

And if you have any comments that you would like to make, feel free to do so right now.

Thank you, Counselor Gerlock, for inviting me uh to Clerk Hanlin for enabling me to testify remotely, uh, and to the members of the committee for considering this important ordinance, establishing a clear and constructive process for addressing encampments in Ellentown.

Uh I'm Eric Tarz, Senior Policy Director at the National Homelessness Law Center, but I'm based uh just a little bit south of you in Philadelphia.

Um and I've worked across the country to help develop evidence-based policy to end and prevent homelessness for communities like yours.

No matter our race, our gender, our income, or where we come from, we all need a safe place to sleep.

We thrive and our communities thrive when everyone is housed.

Homelessness is increasing as too many of us struggle to afford a place to live, and housing that people can afford paired with supportive services is if needed is the most effective way to ensure that everyone in our communities has that safe place to live and that encampments exist for as short a time as possible.

While much more would need to be done, this ordinance is an important first step that sets Allentown up for a win-win situation where both housed and unhoused residents come out ahead by creating a clear process that will help move people off the streets permanently rather than simply moving people to a different park or street corner or worse, ticketing or arresting them and leaving them worse off and further from housing than they were before.

I urge you to pass this ordinance and see for yourselves the better results that you will get.

This ordinance is based on a similar one passed by Kit Sap County, Washington.

And while it requires a shift in the approach the city will take to encampments, I cannot emphasize enough that this will result in benefits to all involved.

No one is choosing to live in encampments.

They are there because of the lack of better choices.

We are all feeling the squeeze of rents rising faster than incomes.

And we know that there aren't even enough shelter beds to get everybody inside.

The people who are living outside in encampments are improvising imperfect solutions to their basic human needs in the absence of better options.

If a city tells people that they can't be where they are without providing a better place for them to go, then their basic needs for shelter do not go away.

So they will have to improvise again imperfectly and probably somewhere else that the city does not want them to be.

But if the city takes the time to engage people and develop a plan for where they can go, they are not only addressing the encampment in front of them, but at the same time preventing the next one from developing.

While your house constituents may have to look at that encampment for a little bit longer while people are placed into shelter or housing, they will be grateful that when it is gone, it is gone for good, and they don't have to look at that same encampment a few blocks down the road a week later.

This bill ensures a proactive rather than a reactive approach, which again, while it may take some more time up front, saves a lot of time on the back end.

Ideally, it'll be an opportunity for outreach workers to connect with unhoused individuals and help them access housing and services.

But even if people are not permanently housed, by requiring the provision of sanitation to the encampment, the city helps both encampment residents and the surrounding community ensure that the collateral consequences of people's imperfect improvising living outside does not negatively impact the community.

And planning ahead also ensures that the relationships that service providers develop with encampment residents are not disrupted so that they can continue to work with them to get them into housing and services rather than having to start all over again and keeping people on the streets for longer.

It prevents the harmful stress and medical complications that happen when unplanned displacement happens.

And even if people ultimately do move to a new outdoor site, they'll do so in a planned way with support so that they won't lose documents, medicine, and other important items, and they will be closer to being able to be housed from their new site rather than uh back at square one.

The decisions you make now about how to solve homelessness are also decisions about racial, gender, and disability justice.

Because black, indigenous, and other communities of color, LGBTQ folk and disabled people are already more likely to experience housing and job discrimination and have less access to generational wealth than white cisgendered currently abled people, members of these communities experience homelessness more often.

Additionally, when a person has a criminal record or unpayable tickets and fines, they have an even harder time finding a decent affordable place to live.

Across the country, polling shows that 72% of Americans reject plans to jail, ticket or fine people for sleeping outside if there's no other shelter available.

I haven't done polling in Allentown specifically, but I can tell you that if you are working to end homelessness rather than just move it around, your constituents will support you.

Please pass this ordinance, and I'm happy to stay on as long as you need for any questions.

Thank you so much.

Um I will go ahead and open it up to the committee or I mean anyone on the dial since there's only four of us right now.

If anyone has questions or comments for anyone, including Mr.

Torres.

Uh Santal.

Um Ms.

Gurlock.

I feel like last we left off.

Did the mayor's office state that they were going to give us what their SOP currently was?

I feel like back in October, November, I remember you or someone making the request and saying, Hey, could you let us know what your procedures are so that we could they ever give anything to us?

Do you think we currently do not have an SOP from the administration?

Okay.

So that's so they have not provided one.

Okay.

Um that was first question.

Second question, I know we've talked about this about collaborating with Lehigh County, and since they may have some resources that are ready to go when it comes to folks that are already trained and qualified and and they're doing what this ordinance is asking to be done.

Is that have there been any conversations or any chances to see if there would be any willingness to lean on them in some capacity with this?

Um, so I would say that Lehigh County, I think they are named somewhere in here.

Um, but I could make sure of that if they're not named as a partner, not necessarily taking the lead, but a partner, yeah.

They would have to be.

I mean, the county, the I forget her name, but she she attends the commission on homelessness meetings.

It would I guess her, yes.

So yeah, I just think I I just uh you know, in the interest of listen, um just thinking about it in a way that like why are we doing why would we duplicate?

Like if they're doing something, if they're good at something, like maybe we could lean on them and and you partner with them on certain aspects so that we're not duplicating services and trying to you know get our employees trained, and and it's it could be difficult where like they just they're three blocks up the street, and uh maybe we can work with them.

Um all respect to the commission on homelessness.

Do they have the capacity?

I mean, I see them mentioned in here a lot.

Do they have capacity for the proposed involvement?

I mean, they are a volunteer organization, and again, all respect to the I just want to make sure that they're able to actually play the part that is being written here.

So that was one, yeah.

I'm glad you you brought that up because that was one of the original concerns that I attempted to address through just through some language changes.

So um what you'll notice.

Um now I did mess up, I called it the homeless commission, which we're not supposed to call it, it's the commission on homelessness.

So um you'll see it either says HOC or COH and or service providers, so that it wouldn't just be the Commission on Homelessness.

Because I mean, I don't know, there could be an encampment where most of the people are engaged, say with street medicine, and maybe that is the service provider that's being um uh collaborated with from the city.

Okay, fair enough.

And like I said, I mean I know they want to play a part, but sometimes it just comes down to bandwidth and time, and I just want to make sure that you know it's it's they're in here a lot.

I see COH a lot.

Yeah, yeah.

They I mean, and I think maybe even specifying representatives from uh COH instead of like what would look like the entire commission, because from what I've seen, just from outside perspective, whenever the encampment closures have happened, it's been representatives from the Commission on Homelessness that have been in leadership.

So I think saying representatives instead of CO, yeah, let me write that.

Sounds good.

Um I do have some other questions, but it involves some other departments.

So I'll I'll hold those for when those folks are present.

The only other concern I have is public property, page one, probably the middle of the page.

Um just to be clear, um, that includes any governmental entity.

So that could be state property, federal property, county property.

Is that something we want to think about?

Just from I don't know if we can Yeah, no, I'll add the word municipal.

Okay, yeah.

But I mean, just um, because if it's county property or federal property, like I don't know if we have the rights to I don't know.

But I'm just gonna I don't think we do.

I I don't know.

I'm just throwing it's a legal question maybe.

And also um I'm not gonna I'm just gonna be honest.

My concern also is um, you know, sidewalks, public alleys, just making sure that um you know we we be mindful of um of residents and small businesses throughout the city that I don't know if the sidewalk is part of this.

Let me see your right away.

Yeah, um that could be a I mean sidewalks are in the right-of-way.

Um public alleys, I'm not sure if there's room.

I mean, I don't know.

I just that's the only concern I had um with um with the public property aspect.

Yeah, um something to think about.

Uh understood.

Um I think that what would help with that, um, especially for the business community, um, this ordinance would establish a number so that instead of calling the cops, EMS, and all these different folks, and no one can do anything, it would establish an actual number that business owners could could use and to uh Mr.

Tarz point instead of right now they're popped upside of your shop and then a week later they're popped upside the brew works, and then instead of pushing people around, there'd be a number that folks could call, and again, it might take a little bit longer, they might be there a week instead of a day, but at least when they're gone, they're gone and hopefully helped.

Okay.

All right, I'll let I'll let others um contribute for now.

Um thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

Yeah, a few things.

Sorry, you want to go?

No, no, no.

Okay.

Um so first off, I think that any time we provide clarity for both neighbors as well as the city, it's always a good thing, regardless of whether or not it's addressing uh homeless engagements or anything else.

Um I'm I'm I'm all about trying to find clarity on things.

Um I think with this uh I do appreciate a lot of the adjustments you made from the first uh iteration of this.

Um I think this um has addressed a lot of the concerns that people had brought up.

Um I did have one question.

Um I know that uh council president uh Napoli said about the county.

Do we have a list of what they would do if this was if if there was an encampment on county property versus municipal city property?

Do they have an actual SOP that they follow or so to my knowledge they do not based on the conversation, just one commissioner, um he was not aware of any kind of SOP that they have for county property.

Okay.

Do we know if Bethlehem has anything?

I'm not aware of that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Just trying to take a lay of the land of what's around us.

Um so a couple things on here.

Let me go to the next page.

Uh so um I did want to note I know you called out about the sidewalks.

Um, they in the priority section of two and three, there is some criteria to that, whether or not it's like an above speed limit and below.

So I don't know if that's something that also maybe could be tweaked if there's a concern we could maybe narrow things down on that, um, or that I could see this.

Uh on section four um item B.

Uh that's a I I think that that should probably be moved to like the definition section.

I'm not sure.

I don't I'm kind of new to the legislation process, but that seems like that's a little bit more defining of what it is.

Um, so that might need to be moved.

Um so on section one second.

That's uh section four item Five.

So the only thing I I saw that it said um a fixing the alerts to tents and structures.

Um my only concern would be if the city is directly putting something on a tent or uh if they're duct taping it or or putting pins in, you know, that's could dramatically impact someone's shelter.

So I would say like maybe if we define how to to do that in a manner that's not going to necessarily destroy something.

Yeah.

Um section five, A1 and B1, those seem to be somewhat in conflict one another with one another.

So I think where I'm getting a little confused on that is the note of 72 hours for the city to try to remediate a hazardous condition, and then the 72 hours for removal.

Um so I think just getting so I'm understanding that we're looking at an incident occurs, there's 72 hours that the city starts to try and remediate that hazardous, and then the clock starts to 72 for when they would start to alert before removal.

That's the intent, but I guess that's a conversation.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um then um I did want to call it here.

I believe in reading this, I know there was some concerns on that kind of stuff for parks.

I do believe that's addressed in the fact that parks are considered priority one emergencies.

So I know that that does significantly limit um exposure to parks, which I know a lot of people were were concerned about.

Um I think section six, so for training, um I know that uh President Napoli addressed this slightly, and I think uh I just want to make sure that we're really really focusing on if the city's going to do any training that those only on frontline um you know support that we're not you know we're not mandating that we have to train everyone in around the city.

Um so because that obviously can get pretty burdensome.

Um although I would support everyone having training, um I I do understand that the there is a cost to that.

Um I think for the record keeping, so the only question I have on that one is just really how that data is being managed.

Um I do think it's important that we're identifying where that is because anytime stuff gets documented, it has the possibility of being the word I'm looking for, but it I would like to make sure that we're we're we're being very clear of who has access to data and then what where that's being stored.

So I think that that should be outlined.

Um I know you you noted here for uh written records.

I don't know if it's something that we could focus on, um, and this would be something that the city IT might want to speak to, but if there was a uh Microsoft form or something like that, that would be easy for the homeless commission or anyone to be able to get that data put into that stored into something that's city-based, um, that might be easier than paper, but again, paper might be easier.

So depending on where you are with cell phone coverage.

So um I think that's oh um yeah, one other thing.

Um so for section six a letter K.

I don't know what that is.

So um yeah.

That is the well it in this area we've got to do.

You might need to we have to be all formal and official.

Can you just come up?

Yeah, yeah.

Sorry.

There's a button on the bottom.

Right here?

No, on the on the mic itself.

Right there with that.

Hi.

Okay.

Um the spadat is well, it is what we used to use in our COC as a housing assessment tool.

It is utilized when somebody is category one or for homeless and they go through our coordinated entry system and it puts them, it goes through uh an assessment that identifies their needs and puts them on a list, the by name list for possible programs such as rapid rehousing or permanent supportive housing.

So that's what that's for.

All right, thank you.

You're welcome.

Maybe outlining that a little would help on that case.

And I think just in thinking while we're we're we're we're discussing this, if there's I know we can't outline what the county does, but if we have some complimentary legislation that they have, it'd be nice to be able to reference it, but I don't, you know, I don't if they don't have anything, then we're kind of starting to the ball here.

So perhaps they would, you know, yeah, this might help to um motivate that direction.

So I think this is all I have for Random.

Thanks.

Thank you.

I'll let you go.

I just quickly want to add it could be an opportunity to for discussion.

Um we do have a committee meeting with Lehigh County on March 5th in council chamber, so be a workshop.

Um so that could be an opportunity to maybe have a conversation.

It is public by the way.

So um market calendar is March 5th, 6 o'clock.

And um it's something that um we're looking to do some more collaboration with the county.

Um just want to mention that.

Sorry.

Yeah.

That that would be great because I mean the one commissioner I did speak with.

My idea was that they would do this countywide, but then they quickly pointed out we can't tell municipalities and townships how to operate, but they could for their own property.

They they could have a policy that would govern county property, and I didn't think about that.

So I think you have a you make a good point when it comes to the state and uh and the county.

Also, does the state have anything?

Oh, I don't know.

That's something to also find out, right?

Um, the state, I mean, they had Bill 780, that was to criminalize homelessness, and then they had the shelter first act.

Neither of them have passed though.

So yeah.

Okay, all right.

Thank you.

Okay, anything else, Mr.

Pongo?

Yeah, I definitely thank you so much.

Thank you for the taking the time on this.

So I just have a couple of little things, but I think from my you know analysis of the legislation, I think immediate hazard is a very important definition that I think should definitely be in section one.

If you know you guys are opposed to that.

I I think it's it's you know the basis of a lot of stuff, whether it's 72 hours or 60 days.

Um so I think you know, I think that's worth considering.

Um I'm just kind of curious.

So section three mentions that the city will work with the COH to and service providers to conduct a risk the risk assessment.

Um I'm curious, just because I know obviously we need to be in some level broad to allow flexibility, but I'm curious if at any point that broadness could create any friction.

So I'm is there an instance where it says so the city will work with the COH.

So is there you know, ever a potential instance where maybe COH is saying, hey, our risk assessment is that it's not an immediate threat or versus maybe a representative from the city is saying another thing.

Um, and I'm just curious on is there an established kind of group determining that risk assessment?

I know it's essentially a representative from the city and you know, some you know, some folks from COH, so I'm just curious if um that could ever just the way that it's written led to butt heads.

Oh, yeah, there will be friction.

Yeah, I mean, I I mean, even just like if you think about the in uh the closure down at the river, um was it a floodplain, was it not?

Um it was that kind of situation.

So I again if you want to come up, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I look I know um this this to me, this is a committee meeting, and it should be more like conversational, so I don't think we should have to, you know, have cards and all that for a committee meeting.

Sure.

Okay, so I'm Christina, by the way, Deep Hero.

Uh, if in case some of you don't know me, like um Mr.

Tars, thank you for coming and lending your knowledge from uh your organization.

I really appreciate that.

Um so I'm the one of the I'm the co-chair for the commission on homelessness here in Allentown, and and um quite frankly that that part of the ordinance scares me as well, makes me nervous to who is gonna deem an immediate immediate hazard.

Um my fear is that possibly anyone can come up with any kind of reason why something would be an immediate hazard, and then the homeless camp would have to leave in 72 hours, which we know would be really detrimental and harmful to the people living there.

And I don't know if the commission has the because we are like you said, a volunteer group of people, but we are the service providers, and we also do have representation from the county, from the hospital, from the police, um, and from various other uh and businesses and uh behavioral health, and I can go on and on.

Our commission has grown quite um exponentially over the past year to really be a wholesome balanced group of individuals that are specifically working day to day with the unsheltered population.

Um, but perhaps this should be more of a the unsheltered coordinator at the health department and even emergency management could be a part of something in developing what the risk assessment would be for the sites along with street outreach workers.

Um Riley is here tonight, and he is from the conference of churches.

He's also a commissioner on the homeless commission, but he is the primary person in our area for um street outreach for the adults in the encampment.

Um so I'm sure that his knowledge and expertise would be valuable in developing that risk assessment and also going alongside with uh the people that are doing it.

Just a suggestion.

Um but I had I'm really excited.

Also just had a note about what uh Mr.

Napoli had said about having the county be more involved with this uh ordinance.

I think that um, and I'm happy to hear that there's a committee meeting already for more open discussion between city and county because we've been lacking that for so long here in our area uh in our community.

So I think there's a lot of collaboration, good collaboration in our unsheltered community between county and city happening already.

Um, things that we've developed through the commission, like the multidisciplinary team for people that are literally at risk for dying, um, that are living outside and coming up with case conferencing and planning to help those individuals from getting from uh getting into a more stable safe situation.

So I think we can build on that, and I think the commission has already started that, and we should you should lean on that to move forward with the ordinance.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Hello.

Hello, everyone.

Hi.

Can you hear me?

Sorry, but there's another buttons.

Oh, here we are.

Okay.

Um so yeah, I'm Riley.

I'm a street outreach manager for the conference of churches, and um, you know, I was involved uh heavily during the summers uh sweep, we'll just say a sweep.

Um it's easier for me to say that.

Uh and I think it just, you know, my main point coming from the beginning was that we wanted to reduce the harm, right?

Because there was a lot of people involved, and it was such an abrupt decision, and it really threw service providers into a spin as well as city council.

And um, we had a lot of people here in August just trying to uh seek understanding and um grant more time because it's such a big decision that affects so many people.

And um, I can tell you, you know, it was it was difficult for me as a provider um watching people go through this uh you know the days of the the cleanups were traumatic.

Um they just they did what you you guys are talking about.

They moved over onto the sidewalk.

Um there was no plan in place, and so like when all these things happen really fastly, uh it doesn't give us time as providers, as city um officials, and um, you know, it doesn't give us time to plan.

So uh some things that you know I remember like noting is you know the communication piece.

That that was probably the central piece that lacked uh between the city, the providers, um, the communication piece, you know, the assessment.

We're talking about a risk assessment.

Um from my recall, it was you know, I worked with the city trying to prevent some of this as we were going through this cleanup.

So prior to this, in November of 2024, the city had placed dumpsters down at this creek, and uh we worked around people and threw stuff away that wasn't that the roll encampment buildups, and then spring of 2025, we led citywide um volunteer cleanups, and that came out of the commission on homelessness.

Uh a lot of people participated in that.

Um it was it was open, there was no harm, there was no harm.

Um, so we ended up doing three cleanups around this centered area, and um a lot of buy-in from you know, waste management and um you know the police and obviously the homeless encampment.

Um, of course, the people down and the residents down there were all upset still, but you know, we were working towards solutions and building, you know, this it wasn't meant to be this harmonious community that would live there forever.

Um we were working towards providing services to then pull people out slowly, and it just takes time.

And so I think patience ran thin, and this emergency plan was kind of hatched overnight, and uh it was sprung on everybody who was down there, and I think this is the important piece is that if we can get some of this stuff in writing, and I don't know if we want to be married to it, right?

Like, you know, some of these things you want some flexibility, but it requires both parties to like the city, the people living in the camps, the providers that it requires an openness, and uh that's what I would really like to see uh you know be manufactured from this.

So you know there was one other thing that I was gonna say, but um it slipped my mind.

Do you guys have any questions for me?

Do you guys use wanna any feedback?

I can kind of give you a play by play of how it looked from people down at camp.

From are there people still out there?

Um, yes.

Are the outcomes tracked?

No.

Do people go back to the same spots?

Yes.

Um how much money did the city spend?

Man hours, police, um just the salary, the removal of items.

Uh, was it environmentally safe?

No.

Uh, people's stuff were buried on bulldozed on the spot, and while everyone watched, and that was like the hardest part.

But like you guys should be thinking about how we can be, you know, saving some more money for constituents, and uh that was a big piece.

So floor's open if you have any questions.

Um thank you, thank you, Riley.

Um we have a home, an unsheltered coordinator.

Are they playing?

I I'm just honestly don't know the answer.

Are they playing a part with the COH?

Are they yes?

Yes, her name's Daniel Minio, and she has taken on a leadership role in that.

Okay.

Yeah.

And has there been any conversations with her on any of this?

Like from because she's part of the administration.

Is there been any collaboration with her to this point?

I haven't because my understanding is as counsel, we're not allowed to talk to employees.

Okay.

Okay, fair enough.

And you make a good point because this is kind of where it can get tricky where you know, people disagree with certain aspects of things.

And so I think this needs some clarity.

Like, you know, if she's gonna lead the charge on something like this, is she also going to be a city employee that is influenced by you know powers that be.

But that would be my concern.

The only reason I brought her up, you made a good point about needing more openness between everyone.

I mean, that's just the world we live in, no matter what we're doing, there needs to be openness.

And I just I I haven't met her yet, but um, just curious the role she's playing in the situation today, but also going forward.

If I may answer that as the fact that Danielle reports up through Dave in the Department of DCED.

Danielle's role has been to coordinate the roles of community service agencies who are funded to provide this work.

Danielle is not a boots on the ground frontline service worker by job description.

I think she was found herself in that situation because of the timing of her arrival and the encampment closure.

But if you look at her job description, it's one of coordination of services, and it's one of housing of data.

It is not one of leading the effort to remove an encampment.

And I just need to be clear that we did not and do not within that role have the bandwidth to be the agency that makes the decision or calls the shots.

I mean, that is a responsibility that has to be shared among various city departments.

That's not a DCED decision.

We don't determine that there's a safety risk in the floodplain.

Danielle doesn't determine that there's a bulldozer needed.

Danielle doesn't call the shots that there's personal property that belongs somewhere.

That that's not the role of the person we put into place.

And as I read this ordinance, that appears to be falling in many ways on the commission, which is of concern to me and Danielle's relationship to that role.

Thanks for some clarification.

I honestly I knew that we had one at recent hire.

I just didn't know exactly what they were tasked with or what their roles were.

So thank you.

Can I answer that as well?

Can I address that as well?

Yeah, yeah, go come up.

I know you two have worked a lot together, like back being in.

Um and what you just said, uh Vicki, um, Danielle, uh, that is her role, and that is exactly what she did from the time that she started at the city of Allentown.

She her unfortunate circumstances started pretty much about a couple of weeks, right?

Before this all went down.

It had nothing to do with her uh the decision or anything like that.

But she took on that role of the coordination of the service providers.

Um, and she was she we she developed a service hub that we kind of piece together out of necessity of the situation to get break down the barriers from the city and also bring in county providers and other service providers that may have not been engaging with the individuals that were down there that do need the services.

So she did an excellent job at being the coordinator for that.

So I understand she's not the lead person, as Vicky said, but she can provide that coordination.

And um, just to clarify, I I don't know if Riley knew this, so it's not his fault, but data was collected for the entire time down at the service hub, including outcomes, where individuals ended up.

Did they end up in shelter?

Did they go to treatment?

Did they end up in housing?

That all lives in the health department.

That's where the data is kept, and that's where the record keeping, in my opinion, should be kept.

Um yeah, it I echo with what Riley says, though, it was a really traumatic situation from the minute that it hit us all that Jordan was gonna be uh swept, and I I know there's gonna be more sweeps coming forward, so it's just inevitable.

Um so having a policy, having a procedure, an outline procedure of working with individuals, the individuals that the service providers, and I keep going back to the title of this.

It's to reduce harm to the unsheltered neighbors.

That's what this is for.

It's not okay, city, you need to do A B N C.

And if you don't do C, you're gonna get in trouble.

You know, that's not what I see this, and maybe I'm being naive as from my role, but we need some kind of procedure so the people that are living there don't that it reduces the harm to them.

And it shouldn't be in a perfect world in a perfect world.

I wrote down just some notes about it, like displacement would never occur without immediate placement.

That's a perfect world, right?

What does that mean?

Until like we it's not just about musical people, you know, they're people.

You can't just move them around and expect um them to figure out what they're gonna do to get out of the situation when they're just like fighting for survival at that point.

Their tent is being taken away, their medication, their documents, all things needed to progress in that continuum of care.

Um these sweeps, everybody knows it breaks down trust, trust that sometimes takes years to build with some of the individuals that live down in an encampment.

And we're back at square one because that trust is gone.

But if we were gonna be in a perfect world, maybe we can work with the county on coming up with solutions of where they can go placement without sweeping, before sweeping, before somebody has to move.

Does that make sense?

So that's what this ordinance is about.

It's not about making the city do something the way that we want them to do it.

We want to reduce the harm to the individuals that are down there.

That's it.

And if we can get the county on board, even better.

I mean, again, in the perfect world, uh, so if if if this ordinance were to pass with these changes that I've I've listened to tonight, um, perhaps we could come back and amend this, and we'd be able to say, hey, look, um, you know, you can't do a sweep until you've made the resources provided by the county available to the folks of this encampment.

Right now we can't say that because that doesn't exist.

Um I just wanted to point out, because Riley, you have brought up cost.

Uh so the cost um inclusive of the parks department, public works department, CED, finance and risk, legal uh council, police.

It doesn't include EMS, it doesn't include fire.

I don't see them on here.

Uh the costs are uh 261,602 and 14 cents.

I have questions, some deep dive, but I won't get into that not tonight.

Um but just from a raw number, I mean, just think what that could have done to actually help people, because that is a huge waste of taxpayer money.

Huge waste just moving people around and making it worse.

It could have funded the YMCA for to be open possibly year-round, which is our emergency shelter, which we don't have an I I don't need to remind you, but I will.

We do not have a 365-day a year emergency shelter in the entire Lehigh Valley.

So yeah.

Um, so you had mentioned um some of the concerns that you had with um with how the the roles are, and I'm just wondering, not on the spot right now, but would you be open to volunteering some feedback for either guardrails or some language to help uh adjust that to maybe make that a little bit more clear?

I can I cannot I can only speak to the role of DCED in this initiative, and I'll be honest, the role of DCED is relatively minimal.

We we have one person, we have Danielle, and she's that's a newly created position, but I can tell you from the DCED perspective, we have an awful lot of partner agencies that are funded year round to do work with this population.

Those partner agencies, I am making the leap, are working with every person in the encampment all the time offering these services, like all the time.

So when an encampment issue has to move, we in DCED aren't doing anything any different other than trying to help the agencies mobilize, because we've already made sure that somebody knows there's an encampment, that the street teams are already connected to them, that they're being offered time at the Y, they're being enrolled in the emergency housing program services.

If they're a substance use disorder patient, that they're being offered um help.

If they are um experiencing, if they're elderly, that the area agency on aging has been notified.

So to me, in this role in this committee, I can say that Danielle will gladly coordinate those partner agencies.

I can say that we will gladly collect data that they submit to us and tabulate that data, but from the department of DCED, and I believe that that's why this was never really in the department of DCED.

The coordination, the risk assessment, the determining that there's imminent danger, the the removal of the encampment has been handled by the other city departments.

Um, you know, law and and um fire and police and everyone else weighs far more than the expertise of DCED.

And our role technically is to rely on the experience and the knowledge of our partner agencies, which I'll be a hundred percent honest.

I was recently informed that very few of them have an emergency plan, which worries me to death now.

A couple of them experienced real true emergencies during the snow or during you know, situations, and they themselves, as partner agencies, don't have an emergency plan.

And I'm trying to connect some of them to our EMA who will help them create one for their own agency, not yet dealing with the public in an emergency plan.

So I I think we have a whole network that needs some overall, but I can't I can't speak to this ordinance as written, other than this does have things in it that in DCED, I don't have anybody that could possibly perform.

But I can't, I can't speak to this ordinance as written, other than this does have things in it that in DCED, I don't have anybody that could possibly perform.

And I think I guess so.

What I hear you saying, and I and I I support what you're saying saying that I think there is a need for overhaul.

And I guess what I'm trying to come up with is is the role of the coordinator then to orchestrate that between all the city departments and all of the various organizations.

Like is that is that the um the job description and the role?

The role is to coordinate the community-based organizations that work with the city.

But again, to Mr.

Napoli's point of view, human services is at the county.

So although we can say this is a senior who needs all of these services, it's up to the area agency and aging to get them for them.

Although we can say this is a substance use disorder, it's up to the county's uh drug and alcohol program to get them for them.

If there's children involved, it's up to the county's children and youth to get them for this.

So that's part of the struggle.

Part of the struggle is that Danielle can identify the conference and street medicine and and all these folks and can say this person needs a recovery plan.

But she's got to hand it off to the county.

And the county is who uh has the this is the data we need to make sure that substance abuse disorder patient actually gets into treatment.

Like, so we can be in this rat wheel over and over and over again, unless there's a true partnership between the city and county to get those services to happen.

That's where I think players are incredibly frustrated because there's a massive disconnect.

And you know, okay, the city's making a determination that this is eminent.

There's a county EMA who's making that decision in other townships and municipalities, or is that their own EMA?

Like there's a disconnect.

And the disconnect unfortunately also connects to what we all talk about, and that is the money.

Now, although we can talk about how many dollars the city spent out of DCED, I can tell you that those aren't I don't want to say physical dollars.

Those are time that was spent that wasn't spent on some other city dollar.

Like Danielle's time on this would have been spent in a different way on this, but those hours are logged into that amount.

So, you know, all the people that are involved in this whole process are taking that time from other work in what they're doing.

So it's not as though that money is all sitting there to be reallocated.

A lot of it is the time that it's taking to try to coordinate this effort, which is also complex in in DCED.

Like this is Danielle's job to coordinate the data and coordinate the agencies, but what do you do when the agencies don't know what to do or don't have a resource?

Like they can all say there needs to be a plan to house these folks, and that's the ideal.

But if there isn't any place to house these folks, we're back in that rat wheel.

If I may interject a little bit.

So uh sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Go ahead.

I was gonna say, Director Kissler.

So I I think kind of what I'm hearing, and I think Jeremy, you're on to this.

You I think you said it kind of succinctly, but the idea is, you know, going back to what uh Christina kind of mentioned in an ideal world, I think so the decision does not lie with DCED.

The physical boots on the ground to provide these services did not does not live with DCED.

What my the way I understand it is that the data and information is provided to DCED.

Our director can, you know, direct that data to the right location, at which point non-city agencies and services, community groups, whatever it is, then go and render those services.

So our position or specifically DCED's position is to take the data and then get that kind of part of the process moving.

And in my mind, the first question I then have is do we have a standard operating procedure or do we need to create one?

So that way, in the case of if we know that there's officially now an imminent hazard, that means okay, let's get at the imminent hazard, you know, standard operating procedure.

We know that we need to uh we need to contact all these agencies, we need the data from this specific encampment to know this, this, and that, and that's kind of when it starts, not necessarily to organize the you know, the clearing, the sweeping or any of that.

It's just who to call and when to call it.

I can't, again, I can't answer that because the trigger for an encampment removal would never lie with DCD.

Agreed, and I'm not saying that it would.

So I'm not sure how that connection even happens.

I think that Danielle gets notified of an encampment by the service providers who find them, by the police officer who saw it, by the whoever sees it.

And then Danielle's job is to make sure that those folks who are funded to do this work know it's there and know that there's five people there, there's 55 people there, there's, you know, if she has that information.

And from there, I think we truly rely on the agencies to say, yeah, we know it's there, and we're working with five of them, and you know, we found housing for four out of the five or whatever.

And Danielle is that repository to try to be able to say to city council, the county, the United Way, whoever's being asked to help that this is an issue.

Now, the other thing I'm gonna add is we've had discussion about the year-round shelter.

The why can't staff the year-round shelter?

Like they haven't been able to get the funding, or when they have funding to make it with people who want to staff it.

So getting people to do this work is incredibly challenging.

Now, I don't know again if other nonprofits have risen up and said we'd take a shift, or we'd, you know, help with that, or if there's been any partnership.

But I agree that the lack of a year-round shelter poses a real hardship.

And I don't know, even if the funding was provided, whether the manpower would be there unless it was in partnership with others.

Yeah.

Definitely all those comments are appreciated.

And I do just want to circle us back though to uh something Christina said.

We're not in that ideal world.

Um we're just we're not so this if if we were in this ideal world, whoo, baby, this ordinance would look much different.

Um, but yeah, this ordinance is just to reduce the harms.

We don't have that year-round shelter, we don't have housing, we don't have a safe camping, we have nothing.

Um so yeah, until then, we gotta work with what we've got, and that's just to reduce the harms.

I've made notes all over.

Um I think the the big thing will be uh some of the language I'm gonna play around with uh and adjust is so like originally in the original ordinance.

I had very specific departments, very specific positions named to allow the city to have some flexibility as to who those folks would be and what departments would you know kind of be on this coordinating team.

I just said the city, and then in the definition said that the city is any member of the administration, the department, or any staff that would be inclusive of the coordinator uh for homeless services, that would be inclusive of emergency management, that's inclusive of everyone.

Um I'm also hearing that perhaps we do need to spell out uh the risk assessment team though, uh what that might look like.

Um, but then I'm I'm also hearing we can't quite do that.

So I have to think on that and and and uh figure that out, honestly.

Um Mr.

Tars, do you have anything else?

Um I'll say uh one that having a regional approach um with the county, with the other cities, even uh does make a lot of sense um and can help make sure that you know uh because people experiencing homelessness, like you know, they don't know if they're on city or county land um and what laws might apply in one place versus another.

Um, and often like individual, you know, police officers and other folks don't know.

So like having something where you're just sure this is applicable to all public lands in the area would be definitely beneficial.

And um you shouldn't let the lack of something already moving at the county level hinder you from taking the first step.

Like that I definitely wouldn't want to see uh that um the the fact that this county doesn't have something similar already uh hindering this from moving forward on its own.

Um, you know, the city can provide the leadership uh and then help it move up to the county level, hopefully.

Um the other thing I uh I would say is um in terms of the immediate hazard section, um in terms of where it belongs in the ordinance.

I think that you know it makes a lot of sense to have it up in the definitions.

Um I think the um we that that language is included um because it's you know it was deemed necessary um in this other county in order to help it get through the political process um uh I haven't heard from local uh service providers there um how much it's being used versus um you know the regular procedures um but that's the concern is that you know that is an exception that um could swallow the whole if it's not actually implemented in good faith I definitely uh hear that concern from uh the folks in the community and so like yeah sketching out who gets to make that determination uh the final call on whether or not uh that exists um would be important and then I think the monitoring um and seeing you know is this being overused is it um swallowing the whole and then coming back and amending the ordinance if uh uh if it looks like it's not working as originally intended um would be a way uh to go but again I wouldn't want to see uh you know details like that hindering trying to uh put something in place because at the moment you know not having anything in place allows these situations to come up where nobody's happy where the the resident and the housed residents, the unhoused residents, the service providers, um the elected officials nobody's happy with what's going on.

So having having something in place, seeing how it works, collecting the data and then coming back and amending if necessary I think um is the way to go rather than trying to get everything absolutely perfect because it to as people have said we are not starting from a perfect situation the perfect situation would be nobody becomes homeless in the first place given that people are becoming homeless um and given that there aren't enough there isn't even a year-round shelter like it's clear that people aren't there by choice um and so how can we make this as good a situation and even in kind of trying to help them out as as the um uh representative from uh the department was saying um you know people are going out making outreach offers all the time um but if there isn't permanent housing or year-round shelter to connect people to you know what what are they offering what what are you know what can where else can people be and so we're trying to make the best of an imperfect situation and hopefully this helps make it at least a little bit better okay thank you um and I just want to we're at time but I just want to say one last time any comments or questions from the dais any comments or questions from the public um yeah yeah Mr.

Navali um you know when with the with previous pieces of legislation that I've done over the last couple years like predatory tolling detransfer noise you know our city clerk and I we we flush a lot of it through legal I don't know when's the appropriate time to make sure that we're not out of bounds on anything in this document.

Just is there a plan to work with our solicitor or someone to figure out if there's I just don't obviously when we pass legislation we don't want to have unintended consequences or effects.

Well I mean when I introduced the original ordinance I created a Google Doc and shared it with the legal department shared it with everyone I got no responses but um I would love to have uh some sort of response from the legal department um especially once this um ordinance is reintroduced with all of these changes um incorporated yeah it would be great to have have their um your opinion yeah yeah yeah more than happy to give you more legal advice and opinion on this or in an executive session or on the floor um but I I know Adam has looked into this topic extensively and what more than happy to schedule an exact session deal.

And Maria.

Yeah, yeah, that that would be great.

Um Maria first.

Yeah, yeah, Maria, we can go with Maria and then see what the administration has.

Um I'm more than open.

Like I said, no, I don't want it to come off negative.

I just know that every piece of let we just want to make sure that the final product actually is final and works and doesn't have any thing that comes back to haunt us down the road.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

And I mean the good thing is we have the homeless law center, so we have a uh ver a variety of legal opinions to lean on.

Okay.

So I know the March uh 5th meeting.

Is that that's is that just to discuss communication or is it specific to the subject?

So that's uh that's something new that I wanted to try this year.

It's uh it's an opportunity to get the county and city council in a workshop setting.

Um we are not gonna be here, we're gonna be out there um working with the county on its agenda.

It's gonna be an agenda um driven meeting, and uh the idea is to find opportunities for collaboration, but also find opportunities for um ways we can maybe um find opportunities to do legislation that benefits our residents and uh helps the county.

So it's just it's just finding ways to work together to get more done for our residents.

So it's a workshop setting.

Okay, and um if you have uh something you you think that we can try and fit on the agenda, I'm happy to try.

So it sounds like that's something that could potentially lead us more towards uh county to city based um approach to this.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Yeah, definitely this should be a conversation, and maybe by then, well, by March 5th, we potentially would have reintroduced the new one.

So the new ordinance.

So yeah, um, unless there's anything else, um, I'm going to um we do have discussion priorities.

I don't know if we want to go over that tonight or wait till the next meeting.

I don't I don't know that that was that on the agenda.

I so yes, but you do have a meeting at 6.15.

Maybe you could pick that up.

Yeah, yeah, I think yeah, because we have a meeting what, like a week or so from now, two weeks.

Yeah.

Yeah, I didn't think there was either.

Yeah.

Okay, so yeah, next next meeting we'll talk about budget.

I'm not budget, uh uh committee priorities.

Uh so thank you all for your insight for your ideas, concerns.

Um I will once again make some changes to this so it is uh actually something well that will work.

Thank you again, and this meeting is adjourned.

Oh, okay.

I'm not having the next committee, so I'm gonna see that.

Okay.