Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Community Planning and Housing Committee with Denver City Council.

Your community planning and housing committee starts now.

This is the community planning and housing committee of Denver City Council.

It is August 19th.

We will start with council member introductions.

I'm Councilmember at large, Sarah Parody, and we'll go to my left, sir.

Good afternoon.

Darren Watson, fine district nine.

Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3.

And I think we have at least one member online.

Yep.

Hey guys, the Mandasaur District 5.

We have an early start today because it is a jam-packed agenda.

Thank you all for being here a half hour ahead of time.

And we will start with community planning and development.

I think Liz is already at the front of the table.

On a rezoning at 800 15th Street, item number 251186.

Thank you, Council Members.

I'm Liz Weigel with Community Planning and Development, and I'll be presenting this rezoning application.

It's at 815th Street, and it's a request to go from the downtown core with the U01, which is our adult use overlay, to the Denver Theater District, and retaining that overlay.

Okay, so this property may be familiar to you.

I think you heard a case across the street last night at City Council.

So this is at the corner of Stout Street and 15th.

It's about a 0.29 acre property.

It's currently occupied by the A Loft Hotel, Denver Downtown Hotel.

And as I said, this is a request to go from our downtown core district to the downtown theater district to allow for the construction of electronic message center signage, which we can also call digital signage, and help serve as a gateway to the Denver Theater District.

I went the wrong way there.

Okay.

Okay, I'll walk through the location and context.

This is located in Council District 10, Councilman Hines' district within our central business district.

And as you can see here, it's located right at that edge of our existing what says DTD is our theater district zoning, and it's currently in the downtown core.

I'm just calling it downtown core, downtown center.

It does not allow for off-site advertising, and it's otherwise identical to the theater district zoning.

And as I mentioned, the U01 is our adult use overlay, and the applicant is not proposing to change that.

Here you can see the existing context.

So you see the existing hotel there in the bottom right corner.

And you see the uh adjacent uh properties around it.

And it is right there at that corner of 15th and stout, uh, leading as you go down stout away from 16th Street and towards 14th.

You do um you're right across from the convention center there and the performing arts center uh to the north.

Um so the uh existing and the proposed districts, as I said, are essentially the same.

They have the same um allowances in terms of new buildings that would be built and building form standards.

Uh the difference with the theater district is that special signs are allowed in that district, um including animated or flashing and off-site advertising.

Um, the special signs uh are subject to a theater district district sign plan, which would be something that would follow the rezoning if approved, and that theater district sign plan goes to the planning board and they have criteria that would they would consider any changes to that theater district to allow uh this site to be part of that district sign plan.

Walk through our process.

Uh this application was accepted and noticed uh back in June, uh, and it went to Planning Board on August 6th.

Uh it is that committee today, um, and tentatively it would be heard by city council for a public hearing in October.

Um, planning board, when they uh heard this case, they did recommend approval.

Their vote was a seven to two vote.

Uh they did have a discussion about uh the allowances for off-site advertising and general discussion about uh signs and how they contribute to uh high quality urban design and community benefits.

Uh they expressed hope for the downtown the forthcoming downtown area plan amendment that it will provide more guidance on potentially uh a more comprehensive update to the theater district and lessen the need for individual rezonings going forward.

Uh two-date staff has not received public comments on the application, but we have received one letter of support um from the upper downtown neighborhood association.

I will now walk through the review criteria.

As you're aware, we have three review criteria consistency with adopted plans, furthering the public interest and consistency with neighborhood context zone district purpose and intent.

Um in this area, we have three adopted plans, our citywide plans, comp plan 2040 and Blueprint Denver.

Um, and we also have the downtown area plan.

Um, as many of you know, we are currently um undergoing an update to our downtown area plan um that we currently have a draft out for public review.

Um given the timing, this application is reviewed against the currently adopted plan, which was from 2007.

Um so staff does find uh consistency with comp plan 2040 that's outlined in the staff report.

I will highlight a couple of the recommendations.

Uh, one is contributing to high quality urban design.

Do you find that the allowance for um additional signs could add to the vibrancy of downtown and more connections towards the theater district?

Um that also contributes to the vitality of arts and culture and expanding our participation in it by allowing for the additional signage and that connection towards the uh performing arts center.

Um, in I'll give a quick summary on Blueprint Denver.

Uh, this area of our city is identified as within downtown.

That's our regional center.

Uh the streets around it are arterials, most of downtown is arterials.

Um, and it is a place where we uh recommend growth, vibrancy and the 24-7 lifestyle.

Um, and both the existing district and the proposed district uh would be consistent with that, those goals of Blueprint Denver.

We'll now go to the downtown area plan.

As I mentioned, the the currently adopted plan was adopted in 2007.

Um it does have this map that you can see on the slide here that generally shows where the districts um are recommended, and you can see that this site is right on that edge between what is called the theater district, um, which has its center kind of on the Curtis Street leading into the performing arts center, and what's called the visitor district in the plan.

Um, and given that location right on the edge, we do feel like it's appropriate uh that that this rezoning go forward and that it meets the goals of the plan.

Uh, there's also language in the plan, recommending supporting again theater district and um having enhanced signage that supports that.

It also speaks to the general culture of downtown as having that brand identity, having uh really supporting the arts and this cluster of arts and culture happening in downtown.

Uh so now uh on to public interest.

We do find that it uh furthers public interest, as I said, we find it consistent with the plans, but we also feel that it does support uh that growth and vibrancy in downtown.

And we further find that it's consistent with the neighborhood context, zone district purpose and intent.

And I'm happy to answer questions, and we also have the applicant here and uh uh David Ehrlich from the theater district.

We do recommend approval.

I missed that one.

Sorry about that.

First in the queue we have Council Member Torres.

Oh, thank you so much.

Thank you, Liz.

Thank you, Liz.

Um the planning board, no votes.

What were those on the basis of?

So there was a healthy discussion, I'd say, around signs and their whether they do contribute to kind of the qual high-quality urban design and vibrancy, kind of a just a debate about that, and not feeling that we have enough.

There was there's not a lot of guidance around signs and how we should interpret signs within the plan and and also not necessarily feeling strongly on how they address equity and those pieces.

So there was just discussion over feelings around signs, whether we had enough direction there, and whether we were kind of overestimating how much they may do for downtown, I'd say like that was sort of the general feeling, and then there was uh discussion about hoping that the downtown area plan can kind of help with further evaluation of any expansion.

Yeah, okay.

Because it's um, I assume it got to be more than just a revenue generator or that there's a part the different another purpose.

Yes, so that the um the theater district, the the sign plan itself does require that contribution of from off site advertising that would go to public arts in downtown.

So there's definitely a general revenue generator.

Um but then there's also we see as the downtown area plan speaking to that vibrancy and supporting the arts and culture and um wanting more guidance on like where that boundary should be and how we should feel about signs around it was sort of some of that conversation.

And those were both the I mean they as you as you know probably they didn't say exactly when they voted what they were voting for, but that was like the main conversation that came from planning board on those topics.

Thank you.

Um can you show slide 19 again?

And this one shows kind of what the boundary of the theater district is, but I I don't know exactly which line is the boundary of the theater district.

It's roughly be it's shown, it is fuzzy.

I would say it's between this on it's so the it is roughly shown between Champa and Stout, I would say like that line line.

This so this is the theater district.

If you can see my hand here, this hatching here.

Oh, and that the line is more showing like routes through the so that's showing that um, so it's still within the hash marking.

Yeah, so it's like right at that edge because that it seems that the line, and that's where the the zone district is today, is at the alley line.

Oh, I see.

It's like an L shape.

I could probably show you the got it zoning line, maybe.

So it kind of looks like kind of rather this one in the alley today, and that's that's roughly when you look at that area plan where the bubble is showing the edge being is that that alley between Champa and Stout.

So even the one last night was outside of the both right at that edge.

Yeah, um of where that line was shown in the do you know if that boundary is gonna change or is it already under discussion?

The draft uh downtown area plan is out for public review right now, and it does show potentially expanding um the theater district area and how that can help support um the arts and culture and and those aspects.

So yes, that that's under consideration in the draft plan.

Okay, got it.

Um and is there uh guidance for that?

Uh whether the signage faces stout or faces 15th.

Does that matter?

The plan itself, I would say today, and probably in it speaks more to having arts and culture and vibrancy in that area than it does to exact speaking to exactly where signs should go.

I would say the that the theater district sign plan, and again, David's here if you if he wants to speak to any more of the specifics around it, um, but it does have um criteria about what should be considered in specific signs that get placed or where where they get placed, and planning board would consider that as well to minimize impacts that be.

I think there's not immediate residential currently here, but if there was, or just those impacts are addressed in the criteria that planning board reviews, and then as individual signs get so as they figure out where they're gonna put it, yeah, it still goes back to planning board.

The district sign plan itself goes back to that sort of the it's like an overall document.

Okay and then individual signs are reviewed against that district sign plan as they come in for a permit.

Okay.

Um, really quickly, David.

Can I ask you if what if there's any follow-up on that piece, how it's determined where the sign goes?

Yeah, um, I think that was well stated.

There are a couple different factors that go into play.

So um we make a recommendation as well as to approval or denial.

And when I say we, the theater district board, it's comprised of key stakeholders in downtown.

So it's city representatives, DDP, etc.

Uh, what we look at is we look at a couple things.

Um we look at gathering areas and sort of placemaking areas.

So if you notice a lot of the signs in the Denver Theater District face uh larger sidewalks, uh you have the convention center, and the reason we do that is because we get 20% of the time and we do art and cultural activities, so we want to make sure people can see them and gather and have 15 minutes of a nice experience.

Uh we also definitely take into account to your point uh residential issues.

So we have uh members of Brooks Tower and the SPIR on our board, uh acting as residents advocates.

And so another issue would be, and that was stated, uh, what is the impact on residents?

Um, and so I think all those factors go into our recommendation.

We then go to planning board and you know, say recommend.

Um, but it's it's really kind of an interesting um uh holistic approach.

Uh it's not, you know, we we allow planning board to look directly at size, and we look more at how will this interact with the community.

Okay, super.

Thank you so much.

Um thank you, Madam Chair.

Great.

And I needed to welcome Councilmember Lewis and Councilmember Tom Ramaro Campbell.

Um, and then the next in queue is Councilmember Well Hidroz.

Thank you so much for that.

Um yeah, I was just looking through this.

I see there was no public comment, but it sounds like there was some public outreach outside of the neighborhood association.

Yeah.

Um, I'm curious to the applicant what um prompted this application, what prompted like wanting to do this project?

Yeah, absolutely.

Uh I'm I'm Jonathan Gandhi, uh one of the owners of JBK Hotels.

Um, you know, we are a local minority minority owned business in Denver.

We've been here for 15 uh 12, 15 years.

We started the project 15 years ago.

Um around that time, 15th Street was quite uh neglected.

I would say most of the activity was happening along 14th and 16th Street.

We took a abandoned Burger King and we were able to build this um this building.

Um we believe that the the district itself, kind of the entry to this convention center and to the theater district has a tremendous um opportunity to kind of bring people in.

Um there's obviously a revenue component for us, but we also think that since COVID downtown has really um you know not been the same in terms of generating excitement, generating interest in in um in visitors and and then also in the arts and culture.

So we think that this provides a great opportunity to to be able to bring that back to start bringing that back and to again create that entrance to the theater district right now, the boundaries uh down an alley.

So it's a little bit confusing when it's going down an alley.

Um, whereas we have kind of a main thoroughfare, we have the light rail going by there.

Um it was approved for 8 8015th Street in this committee uh July 8th, so clearly it's um it's got some support, but also just creating that that very clear definition of hey, this is a theater district.

Um, as council member Heinz mentioned before, we have the second biggest theater uh behind behind uh New York City.

And so a lot of people don't know that when they're visiting.

We have tremendous uh number of visitors coming to the convention center.

So um how can we how can we take advantage of that?

Is really um you know what we're trying to do here.

Great, awesome.

Thank you for that.

I did have a question for Trinity.

What is a visitor district?

The visitor district um it speaks more to where you would have hotels and like some of the I guess it's a little bit different.

It doesn't have the actual theaters in it, but it has the couldn't, I think the convention center uh is in part of that, and so it's just speaking more to like where we'll be welcoming to visitors coming into downtown.

So it's like a slightly slightly different definition where theater speaks to more of actual theater action is more like a hotel district or yeah, we're we're welcoming to outside people coming to stay in Denver, go to the convention center.

That that piece.

Interesting.

Okay, thank you.

That's all I had.

Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you.

Um councilmember Sawyer online.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I actually just teams you um the previous council members got all my questions.

I think we all are kind of sharing the same um wonderings around what why um you know why these multiple rezonings coming through um right now for the sign plan when the um when the new area plan is out for a new uh draft in draft form right now.

Um so but I think we got I think we're there.

I don't have a problem moving this forward to the full council.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um and then I have council Marvel Campbell.

Thank you.

Um and you might have covered this and I missed it.

I'm trying to visualize the signs.

Um how big are they?

Like what are what size signs are we talking about?

Like how is interactive?

I don't know.

It might be best.

Um so one of the important parts about the theater district and what essentially city council set up 17 years ago is the sign plan itself has to be to be blunt yellow boxes that are the maximum size.

So they're generally like you know, 14 by 48, uh, either rectangular or um or horizontal.

Uh it's kind of a standard industry size for selling, so they're they're approximately 14 by 48 in terms of size.

Uh but the sign plan itself, uh, as was mentioned earlier, uh, will have literally a yellow box that you cannot exceed in terms of size.

So what we decided to do was we wanted the public to know, and it's a public document.

Uh, every single sign that's allowed in the theater district, someone can look at first and say, oh, okay, this is where it would go on the building, and this is how big it can be.

Um so it's all there for the public, it's there for council.

Uh it's a long-winded way of answering your question, but approximately 14 by 48, you know, is uh a standard size, and I would say this sign will be close to that um in terms of its actual size, but it will not exceed uh what's in the sign plan itself.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, uh 14 feet.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um 14 feet by 48 feet.

Um, do you anticipate there is the plan to have these be um adhere to a building, or would they be freestanding?

They're not free standing.

Uh almost every single sign in the theater district is uh is adhere to the building.

Uh and we're also not allowed to have rooftop signage.

Uh part of the analysis that we go through before we make a recommendation, I should have mentioned before, is we do a very basic architectural analysis.

We say, okay, how does this fit in with a general architecture of the area?

Um so you're almost by definition ruling out poll signs.

We don't allow like signs you see on a highway.

So again, long-winded, but yes, this will be uh on the building affixed in such a way that we say uh as our recommendation, it fits in with the architecture of the building.

Um these would all be digital signs, signage and again so they could go brighter, darker.

Well, a couple things on that.

Uh the sign plan itself, again, specifically says what type of sign it can be.

So there's like 10 different kinds of signs in the industry.

Um not all 10 are allowed.

In this case, it could be static or could be digital.

Uh, this one will be digital.

Um we prefer digital because again, we take 20% of the time and we give it to art and cultural institutions for free promotion.

Uh so this will be digital, and then to answer a very important question that you just asked um in terms of brightness, uh, the industry has reached the point where you can turn down remotely the brightness of these signs down to like one percent, et cetera.

Um, and I think this is really important.

Um if you're driving in the highway and you see a sign that's too bright, you would have to call planning and call the company, and you would have no real direct way to say that sign's too bright.

Every single sign in the theater district, the media company and/or the landlord signs a contract with us called a services agreement, and that provides a bunch of operating requirements.

One of those requirements is if you get a complaint about brightness, you have to turn down the sign within two hours or four, I think it's four hours.

And you have to notify whoever complained of your action, and you have to take remedial action.

So yes, it'll be digital, yes, it can be turned down, but most importantly, we have a contractual right to require appropriate operation in a sort of urban environment.

Um, and so if we ever have a situation where there's a computer glitch and it goes too bright, um, they'll have to turn it down far faster than any other sign in the city by contract.

Yeah, thank you.

Sure.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

That just I think helps sign.

Yeah, great questions, everybody.

Um, I don't see anyone else in queue.

I don't have any questions, just pausing in case anyone who didn't ask questions wants to.

Um, all right.

Um, do we need a voice vote?

And if not, thumbs up to move to the floor.

And I know I have Sawyers.

Okay.

Oh, sorry, motion second, things toys.

Moved by Torres, seconded by Romero Campbell, and everybody thumbstepped.

So thank you.

I really appreciate that.

That was super good context for all of us.

Um, and then next, we have two items from host.

Um, the first, well, a set of items, two presentations.

Um, first we're gonna hear about the rapid resolution contracts, which are items 1194, 1196, 1197, 1198, and 1199.

Um, and then we will separately hear about the Salvation Army rapid rehousing contract after that.

And I think it's Kevin Kelly and Jamie.

Yay.

You guys can introduce yourselves when you're settled and um and start when you're ready.

All right.

Uh hi everybody, my name's Kevin Kelly.

Thank you very much for the opportunity.

I'm a program officer at host, and I oversee our rapid resolution contracts.

Everybody, Jamie Rank from the executive director of host.

Good to be with you today.

Thank you for coming.

Absolutely.

And today we'll be talking about our 2026 and 27 contracts.

Today we're asking for your approval on five contracts.

One with the Denver Rescue Mission, the second with Salvation Army, third with senior support services, the fourth with St.

Francis Center, and the fifth with Volunteers of America.

Uh these five contracts are part of a cohort of 10 contracts that all exclusively provide rapid resolution services.

The other five contracts are below the $500,000 threshold, which is why you don't see them here.

We will touch on them though at the end of the uh presentation so you can hear about the great work that they're doing.

And I will hand it over to Dr.

Reif to talk about how this fits into the spectrum of work for host.

Uh council members, you have asked for a couple things repeatedly, and I am really glad to share this graphic with you today.

Um I wish Councilmember Cashman was here because this is one of the things that he's asked me for repeatedly.

So I want to talk a little bit about how we're trying to do sorry, that's really small.

Oh, okay.

We're squinting out of interest.

Okay.

Um what we've tried to do, and we sent a memo last week, I think that was last week, around um contract improvements and things like that to you all.

So we're trying to do is present the contract in Transos because how we've done them before is like we're over here, and then we're over here, and then we're over here.

And it's hard to see the full like work of host.

So what I've done is created this graphic for you that kind of runs through in order of how we kind of do things.

So prevention, so preventing homelessness before it starts, then diversion or rapid resolution, so trying to keep people out of the homelessness system or rapidly resolve their episode of homelessness, our outreach and our unsheltered response and the facets within that shelter, how we rehouse people, and then affordable housing.

So our goal is that every time we come to you, we highlight the section of our work that we're talking about.

So today we are going to be talking about diversion and rapid resolution, which falls kind of within those buckets.

Thanks, Kevin.

Thank you.

So yeah, uh, as Dr.

If was saying, rapid resolution is one of the tools that we have to either stabilize a household that is at risk of losing their housing or uh unfortunately has lost their housing, and we will work to get them rehoused as quickly as possible.

Rapid resolution is a nationally utilized model and it works on two uh two core principles.

The first principle, just as the name implies, is to get people housed or stabilized as quickly as possible.

We shoot to have that happen within 90 days or less.

In reality, most of our the folks that we serve will be exited positively from the program within a week, maybe two weeks at the most.

The second principle is that we're doing this through one-time uh financial assistance.

We build that out to be very um flexible and allow for a lot of creativity to meet a household's goals through our budget.

Um the idea is to really build upon a household's protective factors, things that they have going for them, like existing relationships, income, that sort of thing, um, to get them housed or stabilized as quickly as possible.

What this looks like in kind of day-to-day practice is a lot of good old-fashioned rental assistance, down pay, or excuse me, not down payment assistance.

That's always nice.

We do get some people who are homeowners through this program, um, but more deposit assistance and things of that nature.

Um, and then more on the creative side, we see a lot of use around reunification services, uh, stabilization services for emergencies, and then also stabilization for income, especially around employment.

To give you some examples of real-world examples, uh, this past year we had a participant, their bike was how they got to and from work every day.

That bike was stolen, unfortunately, uh, which put their income at risk and their housing in kind of a precarious situation with the lack of income.

So our case manager used the funds to pay for a replacement bike, stabilizing the household.

Another example on the reunification side.

This past winter we had a household who was trying to reunify with family out of state.

It was going to require driving through some pretty snowy and mountainous conditions on some very bald tires.

Uh, it was not safe for them to make that trip.

So the case manager used the funds to purchase a new set of tires for them, and they were able to reunify with their family safely.

When we're thinking about who rapid resolution is a good fit for, it's gonna be about five to ten percent of people experiencing homelessness will uh will be able to take advantage of this program.

And while that doesn't sound like a lot, it's worth noting that around 66% of people experiencing homelessness will self-resolve on their own.

So when we're thinking about kind of that remaining 30, 34% of folks who need services, rapid resolution has a pretty big role to fill.

In terms of who is going to be uh able to take advantage of the model, it goes back to those two core principles.

If they are a household that will be able to be stabilized or housed within that 90-day period, and it's really only gonna take one, maybe two of those financial interventions, they'll be able to take advantage of this model.

So while this is a relatively small program, it is very important to the overall health and functioning of our homelessness resolution system as a whole.

Um, and that's for three core reasons.

One is that this is a very cost-effective program because we're housing or stabilizing folks so quickly, we usually have that one-time cost.

It's usually a pretty low cost in consideration to some of our other interventions.

Um, so it is very, very efficient in that uh regard.

The second thing, and this is probably the what I resonate most with this program, and I know our case managers love about it, is we're sparing the households that we serve a lot of trauma by exiting them so quickly.

We're keeping them from languishing within the homeless uh homelessness resolution system.

And we know that the longer somebody is experiencing homelessness, the harder it is to exit the the barriers, the trauma, all of that really stacks up.

So this program is one and most importantly, very humane, but also just very effective at getting folks out of the system before all of those things can occur.

And then lastly, um the one of the real benefits of this program is it uh maintains and preserves our more intensive and costly programs for the folks who really need them.

Um so those are things like rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, and even shelter beds.

Uh our current cohort of contracts started in September of 2023, and their first full year of operation was through 2024, uh, the end of 24, that is.

During that time period, they serve 787 unique households.

94% of those unique households exited within 90 days or less.

95% of the households served exited to a positive outcome.

So that's either permanent or stable housing.

Um we've we've also seen a number of other positives with these programs.

One really exciting one is it's proven to be exceptionally effective for black and African American households.

Um typically with our other programs in homelessness resolution, we usually see around 20 to 25% of households served will be black or African American.

For rapid resolution, it's been 34%, and they're exiting at a 95% positive exit rate.

So that's very exciting to see.

Another demographic that's really benefited have been families.

They make up 21% of the households served by the program.

And that's largely due to having three providers who specialize in serving families, two of them kind of split between single individuals and families, and then we have a third one that exclusively serves families.

And then lastly, uh rapid resolution is not just an individual program, it's a model that can be um added and incorporated into any homelessness resolution program.

So think about our outreach programs, our shelter programs.

And so what we've been doing over the past year is training up all of our providers on how to utilize this model, plug it into their existing programming, and we're also working to free up their budget so that they're more flexible and they're able to offer these services to the folks that they serve as well.

This table here shows our, and sorry, I know that's a little small.

This is our um our current cohort of 10 contracts.

The ones on the top are with the asterisk are the ones we're asking for approval on today, and then the ones on the bottom are below the $500,000 threshold.

These are all two-year contracts.

They are chunked out though, year by year, so they each have their own yearly budget.

Um, and this will take us through the end of 2027.

That year we'll put out an RFP and start a new cohort in 2028.

So the first contract we're asking for approval on today is with the Denver Rescue Mission.

Second is with the Salvation Army.

Third is with senior support services, and I wanted to just call this contract out in particular.

Um, they are serving a very important um service right now and need.

Um, senior support services as an agency only serves people who are 60 years and older.

And we're seeing in Denver and across the nation a huge um spike in people experiencing homelessness for the first time after turning the age of 60, uh, which obviously brings about a lot of different concerns.

There's a ton of barriers that come with that.

Um a lot of that is in part due to rising inflation, the gutting of our social safety network for at the federal level, um, and it's really putting the squeeze on people who are on fixed incomes and really just one emergency away from losing their housing.

So senior support services is doing a phenomenal job in protecting our seniors through this program.

Uh the fourth contract we're asking for approval on today is with St.

Francis Center.

Fifth is with Volunteers of America, and this is our first one.

They split their um their funds between families and single individual households.

And then moving on to our ones that all of the rest of these are below the $500,000 threshold.

First up is family promise.

They exclusively uh provide services to families.

Then we have Colorado Village Collaborative, the Gathering Place, uh, and they exclusively serve people who identify as women, trans or non-binary, and they also serve a large number of families.

Then we have Catholic charities, and lastly, Colorado Coalition for the Homeless.

So thank you very much for the time.

I really appreciate it and happy to answer any questions that you all have.

Thank you.

That was um amazingly efficient for the amount of information and I I understand this much better than I did 10 minutes ago.

Um, so far in the queue, I am starting with Councilmember Torres.

Oh, thank you.

Again, um we never know if we're first or not.

Um thank you.

Thank you all.

So just the practice of starting it under 500 and then bringing it back for an amendment is what I want to ask about.

Um, so four of the five that we're expanding or adding to were started under 500.

An additional five are being started under 500.

Just kind of walk me through why that happens.

If the new five will like if we anticipate that we're just going to be expanding them and then they come to council.

But how we arrive at some of that process, you mentioned an RFP going out.

Would that be for the under $500,000 ones that have already started as well, or is that just like a different cycle of something?

Thank you for the question.

And just to clarify, all of these have been operating for if I go back from this September 1st start date.

So they all started at the same time.

We put out an RFP at this point.

This was really when we were seeing a lot of newcomers coming to our shelters, and we were concerned about seeing just more numbers there and wanting to make sure that we were prepared to really meet the need there.

So we put out an RFP in early 2023, um, based our current cohort of contracts really off of the size of the shelters that were applying.

So larger shelters got larger contracts, smaller contracts or smaller shelters got smaller contracts.

Um so that kind of led to the the current funding cycles.

And so this it was kind of a uh a little out of sync with our normal time frame, not starting on a January 1st time frame.

And so we extended the contracts out through the end of 2024, and then that kind of kept them rolling through.

So that brings us to the the current cart current contract cycle.

And then as Dr.

Reif was saying, we're trying to tranche all these so that you're seeing them all at the same time.

Um it just so happened that about half of these were below that $500,000 threshold.

Does that answer your question?

I I think so, and maybe Dr.

Reif, if you want to comment on why we're starting five new ones under 500,000.

Um if they'll all go through the end of 2027 and then get um cut back up in a different RFP cycle.

Just kind of like I don't I don't think it's um maybe it's strategic, right?

That you start it um at a lower amount.

Um, but I just I feel like if we're expanding it, um, we probably assume that they're going to be offering much more services for a longer period of time, and we'll eventually come to council.

Yeah, I think also some of these organizations are smaller, right?

So they don't see as many people, and it's also like we have to retrain staff on how to think about when you interact with people.

So some of them are starting smaller because we are starting a different practice for them, which is when someone shows up at the door, the first thing you say is not, here's a bed for you.

But rather, let's have a conversation.

So that is something we're gonna have to roll out.

And some of the smaller organizations, they just don't see the number of clients as some of as the larger ones who are over 500,000.

So it could be that we continue to grow if we continue to see the effectiveness.

Um thinking of like you know, senior support services.

I anticipate that might grow, for example, because we are seeing more and more seniors that are at risk of losing their housing.

Um, but we do tend to start smaller with some of these contracts because it is a new practice for many of our providers.

And that's I think what I'm I'm I'm looking for in terms of explanation and not that um like it's faster, right?

To start a contract without coming through council.

Oh, gotcha.

You know what I mean?

I know what you mean.

Okay, so why are why would we be using the under 500 um uh channel, right?

Where we never see we don't see it until it comes back for an extension.

So that's that's I think the rationale that helps me understand why a smaller org might start with a smaller amount as opposed to we're gonna start you small, so we avoid council, and then we'll go back when you've proven something or I don't know what no, it's it's generally that these are smaller organizations, and we're trying to get money into community where people are, right?

And that in the organizations they know how to access.

And for some of these organizations, again, it's either they don't do this work a ton or it's gonna take training up with their staff.

And I think that's a really helpful um pipeline for some of our small nonprofits to become potential vendors, but you don't know until you do, and you don't want to do too much, because then you might get over find yourself overwhelmed.

And that's and we also don't want to put them in the position like oh we gotta spend, we gotta spend, we gotta spend.

Like we try to right size it and then see how it goes with them.

Okay, and glad to see the gathering place and Colorado Village.

They've done good work in my district.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Great.

Check who's actually next to my queue before I say too much.

Also, welcome to Council President Senoval.

Um Council Pro Tem, you are up.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, and thank you for the presentation of um for these contracts.

I was on slide seven, um, it has nine one twenty-three through twelve thirty-one twenty-four.

It has nine one twenty-three through twelve thirty-one 24.

So are some of these contracts in the rears as well?

Like paid service.

I know that there were contracts that had come through previously.

Are these similar to that of we are catching up in our payment to these organizations?

Thank you for the question.

No, these are so this cut these contracts do start a kind of a strange date for us compared to most of ours.

And that was only because we had the funds available and we were seeing so many newcomers starting to pop up within our shelter system.

We felt that it was urgent to start them at kind of a unique date.

But they are all, they've all been paid as normal.

We were able to start these programs right away.

Took some training as Dr.

Reif was saying, but we started these right away and have been on time with all of our payments in terms of invoicing and everything like that.

I think your question is what is the start date for these contracts?

Start date for these contracts.

Apologies.

January 1st of so let me.

So the that slide, slide seven, is just the program impacts.

That's just how we that was the program into that's not the contract.

That's a good question.

Okay.

Yep.

Um, so these would start in 26 or January 1st of 2026.

And then so this contract, they're broken out.

They're two-year contracts, but each year will have its own individual budget.

So you can see here, this is Denver Rescue Missions.

This this is their first year budget and 2026, which will bring them through the end of that year, 2027, which will bring them through December 31st of 2027.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's very helpful.

Um, I also have another question about the salvation army.

So there are contracts that they're not going for, contracts that they won't be receiving moving forward.

Um, this is for the rapid rehousing.

Do you think that that's more of a sweet spot special?

They have for specialty for them, or like I'm just kind of trying to figure out some of this the relationship with the Salvation Army.

Yeah, great question.

So this one is for rapid resolution.

We're about to talk about rapid rehousing, don't you worry.

Um yeah, I think one of the things we're really trying to do is figure out who does what well, right?

And give them the funding to do the thing that they do well.

So Salvation Army, one of the things they do, they run a lot of shelters, they interact with a lot of people.

So have them having the money where they can divert them away from it is great.

I think there are other strengths that they have, such as rapid rehousing and things like that, where they do the services really well.

And again, I think it behooves everyone for us all to work in the lanes in which we um really thrive.

You're welcome.

I appreciate that.

Uh I don't have any other questions at that time.

I think you answered um more.

I just wanted to get to where we with our relationship and uh Salvation Army and host and kind of our path forward with them.

So I appreciate that.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Great.

Um, I have Councilmember Alvidos followed by Watson.

Thank you.

Uh thanks for this information.

When it comes to so this rapid resolution services is separate from the rapid rehousing.

Okay.

And this will can also help people stay housed that are at risk of homelessness.

Yeah.

Those are two really exciting things.

Let me just check my questions to make sure those are my two questions.

Um in the case of like a job loss, which we know is a leading cause of homelessness.

Would this be able to help someone maybe with that time?

Yeah, thank you for the question.

That's a really important one.

We see a lot of employment stabilization.

So to give you an example, we had a household who on the prevention side, they were working.

Uh the uh person who was working supporting that rent payment was unfortunately in a car accident and was unable to work for a month.

So we were able to use these funds to cover that month of rent for them.

In terms of long-term support, other programs like St.

Francis Center's employment services, Bay Aut Enterprises, that's where we would probably lean more on long-term employment services.

So this can kind of rapid resolution is really meant to help for the short term, three months or less, ideally.

So anything under there we can absolutely support folks on, and then anything past that, we typically look to refer them to more specialized type programming.

Is that is that yeah, that does help.

And then with like, for example, CVC who runs a tiny home village in my district, that is totally separate from this type of program, right?

Because the people there are not looking for assistance to say housed, they're just in shelter.

So I'm curious, like, how are they coming into contact with the people that are housed or CVC is uh, and thank you for the question.

CVC is very unique, and they do a really uh great job in a very creative way.

So they do support some of their uh micro-community residents with um getting housed through these programs, but they also do a lot through what they call their alumni services on the prevention side.

So they they call anybody who has exited their program an alumni, and a lot of them have been placed into exterior housing, whatever that looks like for them, and they maintain contact with them, and as emergencies come up, uh they are able to use these funds to leverage or leverage these funds to keep those folks housed through those kind of one-time financial assistance payments.

Okay, and these contracts are a max right.

So are they billing against this due to costs they've incurred that they have to pay out?

They're all reimbursement.

Okay, thank you.

That was all my questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Watson, followed by Lewis.

I'm just saying your explanations or giving or clarifying stuff.

I didn't even know I needed clarifying.

So I'm just saying bring him back.

Um very helpful.

Um I I knew nothing of that CBC process and very engaged with that from your first tiny home uh from Global down to Five Point.

So very interesting.

I I wanted to first um um applaud the slide three.

Um I thought this is so great and helpful with clarifying your why and what you're actually presenting and and and delivering.

Um, because sometimes it's some of these terms are the same rapid rehousing, rapid resolution, and rapid all of this.

We are not very creative.

No, no, no, no.

No, if you're doing your thing, we're trying to keep up.

And so I thought that was very helpful.

I also thought um, and I have a question to the end, but I also thought the listing of demographic information, which the five-year plan highlights some of this stuff, but often in your presentations we don't see the outcomes.

So when you speak to um African American households specifically when it comes to permanent stable housing and that impact, we have targets within the five-year plan for that, but we often don't see how the contracts you're delivering hits those targets, and I thought that was very helpful.

So it's kind of a um, yes, please let's um have more of that.

My question was uh it was my interpretation that Bayod was doing some rapid resolution.

Oh, maybe I'm confused on rapid rehousing.

Can you clarify?

Because I as far as what their integration is in rapid resolution, or they have a separate contract that they're doing or definitely um and thank you for the question.

So uh Bayod is an operating their microcommunity, they will do rapid resolution through that contract that is separate from these 10.

And we provided training to all of our shelter providers.

I've done upwards of 30 trainings on how to utilize this model for all of our providers, um, shelters, outreach teams, things of that nature.

Um so that's them leveraging those funds, uh, which is great to see.

We've we've seen a lot of uptake on that, and we are providing ongoing technical assistance, and that's kind of that global rapid resolution and implement implementing it throughout the entirety of our system, separate from these 10 contracts, uh, if that makes sense.

It is it is a little confusing having specific programs.

This was the whole rapid resolution dollars, and these are difficult contracts, but it's helpful to know that.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, Councilmember.

Thank you.

Thank you all so much for this work.

I know it's been a long time coming, and I appreciate your partnership in getting this done.

Um, and I I want to commend you and be in responsive because I think this is a reflection of lessons learned.

Um, and I think it's important for us to be able to lift those lessons learned when we improve our processes.

And one of those is with the Salvation Army in particular, where you heard from them directly that they had felt like they had maybe traveled a bit out of their scope, and so now they're able to really focus on where they operate in their mastery, and I think that's a win-win for not just the city, but also for the Salvation Army and the folks that they are serving.

Um, and so thank you for doing that work.

I actually only have one question is if I can have the contracts um for each of these because they weren't in the file materials.

Um, and I it was helpful to see the last slide where it had the outcomes, but I'm just curious as to what the outcomes look like for each of these contracts, and if you are all are moving in this batch of contracts to um the new contracting accountability metrics that you correct, yeah.

So that's what I wanted to see.

Okay, yeah, we'll um make sure that those are included.

Um yeah, that's a great question.

That's it.

Okay, okay.

Thank you for your work.

Um, thank you.

And I just wanted to, I don't know if it's a question, but I one of the things that I think was helpful for me to see during this presentation was that you're all working to actually make sure that all of our outreach and shelter programs that were otherwise funding or that are you know existing in the city have this resource so that they can basically divert people from like even becoming shelter guests necessarily or or whatever ends up happening there.

That makes a huge amount of sense to me as um like a reason why we would have many small contracts across the many providers because any provider that's seen people come in their door should be able to like offer this if it's a way to um get people back housed.

So I don't know, that was like my little aha moment.

Um just see if I have any actual questions here.

Um, I don't think that I do.

Um and so with that we can I think continue to the next presentation, um, which is about rapid rehousing.

We're gonna do an obsolete end.

Good lord.

I thought you were strategic.

No, let's that was oh, I think Council Member Slur may have just raised your hand, actually.

So I'll give her the space task for caution and then is that true?

Nope, I'm good, thank you.

Okay, thanks.

Um so yes, let's let's get a vote to move these through to the floor as a group.

Um does anybody need a voice vote on them?

Nope.

A motion.

Okay, move by Torres, seconded by Romero Campbell, thumbs ups for everybody.

Okay, great.

All right, and with that, we will move on to rapid rehousing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Government.

Thank you, Kevin.

Voting schmoding, apparently is my problem.

That's all I'm content.

Hello, folks.

My name is Evangeline Benger.

Uh, I go by Eevee, I knew she her pronouns.

Um, I am the assistant director of homelessness resolution over at host.

Um, I will start by saying I have a very thick Kiwi accent and a propensity for speaking really quickly.

So if you need me to slow down, just wave out and I promise I will.

Awesome.

So today uh I'm seeking approval for 25-1195.

Um and it's agreement between host and the Salvation Army to provide rapid rehousing services to folks experiencing homelessness in the city and county of Denver.

This program will serve over 200 clients and support with financial assistance for participants, like rental assistance, utility assistance, move-in costs, and it's coupled with critical time intervention-based case management for up to 12 months to support client stability.

Um it's a total contract amount of 5 million and 50,000, and it's an 18-month contract term from January 1st, 2025 to June 30th, 2026.

I just want to acknowledge right off the bat, yes, this is a contract that uh was poised to start in January 1st of 2025, and we are bringing it to you late.

One of those reasons being that there was uh this is a new contract, there was a previous contract that executed these services.

That one ended in March 31st of 2025, so there was some crossover there.

Um we did that deliberately to uh make up for any sort of budget concerns that were coming up in the previous contract.

And I'll pass this part over to Jamie.

Okay, here's the traffic again.

Um so here it is.

So today we are talking on this contract about part of our rehousing efforts.

So this is rapid rehousing.

Um Evie's gonna talk more about it, but this is one of the tools we use to rehouse people and provide them financial assistance.

Awesome.

So what is this contract uh specifically about?

It's called transformational rapid rehousing.

We all love that word transformational in this work.

Um, but this one offers 12 months of case management support.

Um and that is based in evidence-based critical time intervention practices.

Um so it's time limited and you're planning for exits from the beginning.

And it's really about supporting clients as individuals, meeting folks where they're at and tailoring their case management support to what they need.

Um it is up to 12 months of rental and utility assistant assistance, um, and also supports clients in increasing their own income through access to Dido's workforce development team, as well as supporting benefit acquisition supports.

Um it supports housing central command, which I will get to in a moment.

So all of the referrals for this program have gone through housing central command, and they're operating in very close partnership with host.

So to give an overview of housing central command, this is um the space in host where I sit.

Um it's an emergency management tool model that we use to rapidly um maximize our resources and connect folks to housing as quickly as possible.

So it all of these participants are referred through our coordinated entry system.

So they complete an assessment when they get to shelter, and that is how they're matched to our program.

That's to try to remove any bias from selection.

And our focus is really on rapidly barrier busting for folks to get them into housing as quickly as possible.

This is a really information filled slide, so I'll give you a minute as I talk through it.

But these are sort of the four pillars of the housing central command or HCC.

So the first starts at that intake level.

For the most part, it's happening at shelter, but it also might happen in the outreach stage as well.

Where folks are focused on vital document acquisition, meeting their daily needs in shelter, and just sort of having sort of light case management less intensive than what we do.

Once they have a referral, once we reserve a referral for them, they come into navigation with us.

The goal is to get folks housed in 30 days.

I'm really proud to say that our average right now is 28.6 days to get folks into housing, which is pretty remarkable.

Our navigation team is mobile.

Our referrals come from all of the all-in-mile high sites, not just TSA specifically, even for this program.

And through navigation, they have support with move-ins and we provide furniture for everyone.

In tandem with that, we have our unit acquisition team.

They hold an inventory of housing units for us, so folks have choice in what they're applying to.

They're also separated out by barrier level.

We have the units for folks who need something with lower barriers, and then we have units for folks that maybe have less backgrounds that are concerning when it comes to housing search.

And then where this contract supports is our housing stabilization.

So again, that's based in critical time intervention, best practices.

It's including basic needs.

It's mobile, it's meeting folks in the community where they're at.

And is proving to be really successful.

We really started to implement this critical time intervention in April of this year, and it's proving to be quite successful.

So our housing stabilizer role or mission is to support clients into ongoing stability through these best practices.

It's a one to 20 stabilizer to client ratio, and it's 12 months of support.

So, like I said earlier, it's tailored to each person, so they're addressing needs for one person, it might be resolving that food access part in the first couple of months of their housing for someone else.

It might just be that they're really ready to work, but they need help getting connected to that workforce.

And all of it is about increasing connection in their community so that theoretically and hopefully they're staying in that unit that we've matched them with.

I also will note here that all of our units are at or below fair market rate.

Housing stabilizers identify an exit plan with folks from the beginning.

So the moment someone is in housing and enters the housing program, the conversation around what are you going to do at the end of this 12-month subsidy is happening, and that's happening the whole way through.

Just so it's never a shock to folks when they reach the end of their 12 months that their subsidy is coming to an end.

And then the stabilizer is also working with the landlord to resolve any conflicts that might be happening, just providing a little bit of a middleman and helping teach our folks how to resolve conflicts should they come up once they're stable and on their own.

So the budget overview, again, this is an 18-month contract from January 1st through June 30th of 2026.

The average household cost is around 25,500, which is pretty standard for a rapid rehousing contract.

It is a continuation of support.

So everyone who is enrolled in this program is already housed.

It is just continuing that rental support.

So it's a really critical piece.

The other piece of that is the stabilization case management that's happening.

We have over 200 folks in housing right now through this program.

So it's really critical that we keep that going so that we don't have 200 folks entering back into shelter or homelessness.

Other things that are included in this are client support costs.

That could be anything from groceries to what Kevin was mentioning in his presentation.

It could be supporting someone getting their car back up and running so that they can access work and things like that.

We are working to get all of our stabilization teams trained up in rapid resolution and understanding how that we can get creative with our client support costs to support folks.

Financial assistance that includes things like security deposits it also includes utility assistance rental assistance is just that rental assistance and then there's also professional services involved if someone needed their unit cleaned after they vacated and things like that.

Staff training and mileage is also included because this is a folks are expected to be mobile.

With that I feel like I spoke really fast but I'd love to know what questions you have.

No, we appreciate the clear and concise slides and actually we put we gave ourselves a lot of extra time in committee today but um we've been moving kind of quick so um I will watch for council members getting in the queue but first I have councilmember Ramar Campbell.

There you go.

Okay I know it's like okay I was going to go after tourist um thank you um for the presentation and and rapid rehousing um as I mentioned earlier I did have a question um and thank you up front for saying that these are kind of back in the rears and looking forward um for uh for these contracts the I'm looking for my notes real quick um my assumption is and I just just for clarification in the larger housing um rehouse rapid rehousing that this does include children and families it looks like in slide six I believe um that you have the different navigation and um components in there different demographics I would be interested to know a little bit more about families with children and consideration for um the current school that they're attending and trying to find something support that continuity for kids to be able to stay in their current school.

Yeah I will oh sorry no I was just gonna say go ahead and if you're being an empathetic like yeah yeah yeah active listening um I will say that these contracts because of the shelters where we receive our referrals from a predominantly the non-congregate shelter sites and the microcommunities we mostly serve um adult households and single adults however we had have have had a couple of families come through or folks um who are looking to reunify with their children in those instances our um case managers have been really helpful and absolutely want to ensure continued stability for families so um if it means taking a little longer to get them housed to make sure that they're matched to the right housing resource in the right location and unit size we do work on that with them.

We do also often refer families over if if they are open to it refer them over to a family specific program that is just because we want folks working right in the lines of work that they're experts in.

Our um navigation and stabilization teams are really great at that like adult population and we want to make sure that folks are connected to the family population serving groups as best we can so does that mean that the families um and I appreciate that attention to to the nuance and and helping people connect um does that mean that the families that are that come from a family shelter are they're not going through the central housing command or that's a different thread.

That is correct yeah so um they go into I believe a different queue in our in our um coordinated entry system families go through a queue of their own and only connected to family resources yeah it's kind of like having parallel lanes so we're talking about the single adult lane right now but there's also a family lane because we want the people again that are best equipped to meet families and find those kinds of units and also be considerate of schools and where families want to live and all of those things.

This contract specifically tends to serve single adults but we also have the contracts that serve um families as well and they're kind of one community queue that we have there's another community queue for single adults.

Okay that's helpful I I will just it's more a curiosity of thinking about I would imagine they are studios in one bedroom um type of apartments or or housing that you're looking for um on a separate note will you be coming back with one with a contract specific to the family and rapid rehousing yep those will as well come back through and um we will have these types of conversations as well for those types of contracts okay I'm just wondering about like the availability and the the oh yeah how much is in the in stock availability that are you know multi-bedroom yeah like the difference in like we're doing 28 days here and how long does that take for a family to find a home that's um sufficient for their needs.

Yep, those will as well come back through and we will have these types of conversations as well for those types of contracts.

Okay.

I'm just wondering about like the availability in the how much is in the in stock availability that are you know multi-bedroom families.

Yeah, like the difference in like we're doing 28 days here, and how long does that take for a family to find a home that's um sufficient for their needs?

Okay.

And I will just add, if I may, the um housing connector is who we work with right now for our unit acquisition team.

And whenever we've had someone come up that maybe has a need for a greater size of apartment or unit, they've been able to still supply us with like more than what we need for inventory for those units.

Um so they're really well connected in the community to make sure that we have inventory available for every need.

Okay.

Um thank you.

Thank you, thank you, Madam Chair.

Great.

Um, I have Councilmember Torres next, followed by Councilmember Alvidos.

Thank you.

Um, can you show that slide six, which is the um central command structure?

Um is this does this funding take folks through this entire um flow chart?

Or is it a particular section that that it that this contract focuses in on?

Yeah, this contract focuses on that fourth pillar, and I think that's a really great clarifying question there because I was throwing a lot of information at you at once.

But yes, this one is focused primarily on that housing stabilization pillar.

Okay, perfect, thank you.

The um last slide that's in um the appendix around programmatic expectations.

Do we do we have any expectations around um how long they're stable once they're placed?

Like how long if they're still stable after a year, after two years.

I don't know if that's within our responsibility or just kind of thinking about long-term stability.

Yeah, it's it's not listed in um in this logic model as it stands.

It's definitely something that we want to promote, but we're not necessarily measuring in this specific contract.

Um we do can we do have a goal of them having 70% of households exit to permanent housing at the end, um, either through subsidized housing or stability on their own.

Um, but we do not have on here the the year following.

No, that's okay.

Yeah, and that might be hard to do, but um I wonder if if we see them back in the system again, it would be a big indicator that they lost it after certain periods of the time.

That's actually a really good question, and something I know in our data system we've been working on for really long time.

We call it returns to homelessness.

Right.

And so what we're starting, I think getting better to be able to do because we have longitudinal data now and our homeless management information system.

And this is something like it might be good for us to start considering as we look to the future, right?

So we've got the current data, but are we seeing families here and then popping back up here or single adults, obviously?

Um, and I think we've gotten to a much better point on that, but I that might be something I kind of return to with MDHI and say, like, how are we doing on being able to measure returns to homelessness?

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, of course.

Thank you both.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thank you for those questions.

Um, Councilmember Alvidres.

Thank you, committee chair.

Um, again, thanks for all the info on this.

Definitely very important work.

I think one of the hottest topics that we're seeing right now, and one of the most concerning things is evictions.

And so I'm wondering are you all tracking or getting how do you find out about them?

How do you get involved?

How do we help people that are going through that process with either of these programs?

Thank you for that question.

I think that's a really great clarifying point.

Um, so because we have the unit acquisition team, they have been so helpful uh in helping us with any property partners that are looking to pursue eviction and trying to talk them around from that and instead have mutual lease decisions explored, which is at no um no risk to the client, right?

It's literally just saying that lease is null and void, and I am going to move out.

Um, and so we've been able to do a number of those.

I don't have the exact numbers for you, but that has been a primary focus for us this year to try to avoid if if housing is not working for someone for whatever reason, trying to avoid having them have an eviction on their record and instead return to shelter with that mutual lease rescission and be reassessed at shelter and rematch to a more appropriate fit for them for housing.

Okay, and then when it comes to the units that you're talking about and the rehousing person that's finding these units, I wonder are they just working with like huge landlords that have a lot of um inventory or how are they identifying the properties that will meet the needs of the people that are in need of housing?

Yeah, I think the beauty of their partnership is that they are so um strong in the community that they're working with all different sizes of landlords, so they're working with some of those larger conglomerate style uh property partners, and then they're also working with a lot of like smaller uh sort of more individual landlords who have maybe one or two properties.

Um and that has been hugely beneficial to us, especially in matching folks that have higher barriers, um, is having that like those mixed options for folks.

Okay.

And so if I was an individual being served by this program, could I help find that property that meets my needs?

And what does that look like?

Yeah, we do have an expectation that it's it's um they use the inventory for that, but the clients see the whole inventory themselves, so they can say, like, I don't like the location of this one, but I am interested in this one.

Um, and they can all go to them beforehand as well before they submit an application to make sure that it is the right fit for them.

So there is choice in that, but we don't typically see folks go off of the inventory and go find their own unit.

Um, I think we've had it happen once or twice where someone has been like, hey, I've been talking to this landlord, and then we've been able to connect them with housing connector.

But if we go through the inventory, there is more guarantee for that um property partner that they get that ongoing 12 months of support as well as just the client getting 12 months of support.

So, what is the process like for me as a property owner to become a member of this?

Uh, you know, what are the benefits or drawbacks for me?

Yeah, so um this is all very it's sort of varied uh depending on on the partnerships.

Um but it would be that you have someone to talk to as a middleman to continue to support you if you were having any issues there, so they can submit um tickets to um support tickets to the housing connector team, who then has a a weekly case conferencing call with all of the stabilizers to say, like, hey, we got word that this person is having an issue over at this property.

Can we help resolve it together?

Um so that is part of the the package.

Um the other thing being is that it is like a single rent payer.

So your rent is coming from one resource and it is being paid um on a consistent basis same day every month for one year.

Yep, so for the whole duration of that lease, as long as the per the client is actively engaged in the program.

Okay, and how do we make sure after that year that they're able to take over and that they're capable of paying rent after that point?

Yeah, so that is through the ongoing stabilization case management support.

So folks are it's typically weekly meetings, if not more frequent, that might look like an in-person meeting, it might look like a phone meeting, it's really tailored to the client.

Um but with that exit planning happening from the very beginning, folks are always aware like your subsidy is going to end at the end of this 12 months.

You're very made very aware throughout the whole process when their lease end date is, so that it's never a shock or like I haven't made any plan to continue on here, I'm not sure what my plan is.

They're also working with them to connect folks back to shelter if if it's not if staying in that housing, they haven't increased their income enough to be able to make that a reality in this moment.

Okay, thank you.

Of course, thank you for making sense.

Thank you so much.

Um, I don't have anyone else in queue unless anyone wants to get in.

Um, and I have just a few questions, so hopefully we're gonna get done really early and didn't need the early start.

But um one question I had was um, and you alluded to this a little bit, but um, what's the what are the total number of providers with whom we have ongoing rapid rehousing contracts?

I know there's like Jewish family services, I mean I know we have a few.

A lot.

I'm happy to follow up with you on that.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, and curious, I would love to see the list of all of those, the dollar values and when those contracts end, just so we can anchor that in our brains, like we've just done for the um rapid other words.

Rapid resolution ones, um the even rapider ones.

Anyway, yeah, that would be great.

And then um because I also just want to kind of look and see when the next uh wave of those will be in front of us.

Um, and then I'm also I wanted to just double check the um Salvation Army, well, the sp the specific contract being with Salvation Army.

I know I had some conversations that basically we want to finish up this entire period of support for um clients that are already being served.

And I think this goes through June of 2026, is that right?

That's correct.

Um, so how many families I've I saw the total number under the whole time frame of this contract.

How many families are like still in their 12 month period?

I may have misunderstood that it may have been on the slide, but yeah.

Um I believe, and I may have to follow up with the really firm number.

It was 193 this month is the the total number of enrolled households that changes and varies each month as leases end and things like that.

Right.

But and am I so I just want to make sure I'm understanding this then that basically what we're doing is um finishing out that year of support for people that are already in that funnel because it's ending now in less than a year, so we're just continuing out that 12-month period for everyone who's not who's still in in the middle of it.

Yep, that is correct.

And then they're also providing case management services for folks entering into housing as well.

Got it.

Just because there's going to be some crossover there as we start new contracts for stabilization in 2026.

Okay, councilwoman.

It looks like rapid rehousing, kind of the type of presentation that Kevin did will come to committee on September 9th.

Great.

Yeah, that um the comprehensive overview of like all the programs and okay, cool.

Um the other question that I want to ask was just um I know this isn't information that we that can be shared yet, but I think we would love to hear for everyone on this committee after tomorrow if any agency partners that you all have worked with, either on the employment side within DETO, um, within host itself, within DDPG, like anyone that's um played a role internally to the city in supporting either of these sort of programs or types of contracts has been impacted by layoffs, like if any or or if any positions related to that have been um frozen and eliminated just for a heads up for us, because we can see that these things are working well, and so it would be helpful to know if those things have happened after after that information you know is available.

Um the last thing I'll say is that I think it would be great for us to have in this committee a presentation strictly on housing central command after looking at that slide for a while.

I'm I have all kinds of questions, but I won't I won't ask them right now.

I think it would be great for us to like focus on that as a group at some point when we have time on the calendar.

We'd be happy to share that because it's been incredibly effective.

Cool, good.

We're actually really excited about this.

Yeah, the slide got me super interested, so let's do it whenever we can.

Okay.

Um and with that, I will get a motion in the second.

Um great.

Move by Cendable, second by council pro tem or those.

I don't know.

Um, does anyone need a voice vote?

And if no, can I get thumbs ups to move this to the floor?

Make sure Sawyer's good to go.

Okay, she sounds good.

Thanks.

I was just looking in the chat.

All right.

Um, with that, I will give you guys back 45 minutes from which I already stole half an hour earlier.

I don't know.

Thank you.

Thanks, host.

We appreciate you.

Oh, and we have some things on consent.

Those are going through to the floor.