We got a recording on.

Unmute and record.

All right, everything that Alderman Morgan and Kelly are saying is not recorded.

Good.

We're now alive is what you're trying to say.

Yep, we're on.

All right.

So I'm calling to order the Human Affairs Committee on June 15th, 2026 in the Aldermanic Chamber.

This has been duly noticed in two places, including the city's website, in accordance with the requirements of RSA 91A to Roman numerous two.

Let's start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance.

All right.

Alderman Morgan.

Here.

Alderman Senate is here.

Alderman Ravan.

Alderwoman Kelly, Vice Chair.

Here.

And Alderman Lopez, Chair.

I am here.

You have four in attendance.

Also joining us is Director Bobby Bagley, Director of Health and Human Services.

And Alderman Patricia Klee via Zoom.

I know our only order of business here is that we have a presentation by Wendy LeBlanc.

First, I guess, does anyone want to make public comment?

Seeing none, discussions enter our presentations.

That's you.

The discussion, the presentation to be done by Wendy LeBlanc, who is coming.

Do you want to have a seat?

You don't have to stand up if you don't want to.

Where do you want me to go?

You can take any one of the chairs.

Okay.

Hi.

My name is Wendy LeBlanc.

I'm the director of HIV services at Harbor Care, but I'm also the chairperson.

You guys are on mute.

We are unmuted.

You're muted in the chamber?

Nope.

How about now?

Can you hear us when we're talking to you?

I can't hear anything.

Hmm.

Thank you.

We can't continue until they unmute us.

I can check them and look online now.

The button says unmuted.

Nashua CT.

Now I can hear you.

Interesting.

All right.

Problem solved.

We did it.

Ms.

LeBlanc, would you like to continue?

Thank you.

So after the board of Alderman met to discuss the proposed resource center, um, and I watched that session, it seemed that there was some maybe misunderstanding of what the continuum of care is, who we are and what we do, so thought it would be a good idea to come and share that with you tonight.

I didn't know there would only be two people that I didn't know about the continuum of care that I'd be presenting to tonight, but hopefully you'll get something out of it.

Thank you.

I would not be discouraged by that because it the other aldermen do typically watch the committees.

Oh, great.

It's also going to be you and on YouTube on the city's channels.

Okay, thank you so much.

So I'm gonna talk with you about a number of things regarding the continuum of care today, and you can see the agenda listed here.

Whoops.

So the Greater National Continuum of Care.

The COC was developed by HUD in 1994 to coordinate the distribution of several competitive homeless assistance programs prior to this process.

Organizations applied individually for funding from several homeless assistance programs.

The COC, to be clear, is not a grant-funded program.

It is a group of community members who meet to promote the community-wide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness.

The reason that I say this is because I want it to be clear that there is no body, uh, there's no formalized structure, there's no funding, there's no bank account, there's no anything like that.

We're a bunch of providers and community members that work together to try to um meet the community's needs.

And in New Hampshire, there are three continuums.

One is Greater Nashua, one for Manchester, and one for the remainder or the balance of state.

So what is uh COC and what are the relevant organizations to the COC?

So you can see the list here, it's primarily nonprofit homeless providers, but also victim service providers, faith-based organizations, governments, um Alderman Klee and Alderman Lopez regularly attend our COC meetings.

Um Alderman Gregg is also on our executive committee along with Alderman Klee.

We have the public housing agency school districts, we have Barbara from the Nashua PD is also on our executive committee for folks experiencing homeless or formerly homeless persons.

So just last year we decided to undertake a strategic planning process, which I'll talk more about at the end, but just to make you aware that for many years, so since 1994, so what's that over 30 years?

The Continuum of Care has been working to bring this money into the community.

HUD offers a notice of funding opportunity each year that we respond to, and that is the primary goal and focus of the continuum of care.

However, in Nashua, we have so many other interested parties that don't get money through this process but want to contribute to the ending homelessness and feel sometimes that the HUD priorities, guidelines, and activities were a little too narrow, and they wanted to expand the work of the Continuum of Care.

So this is our revised purpose that we just came up with in the last year.

So the Greater Nashua Continuum of Care exists to inform and connect a collaborative network dedicated to ending homelessness in our region.

We coordinate the exchange of data, insights, and resources between organizations that provide direct services, bringing together both HUD compliant approaches and innovative community solutions.

So through facilitating strategic information sharing, coordinated planning, and cross-agency partnerships, we strengthen our collective ability to create eight sustainable pathways from housing instability to permanent stability for all people in Greater Nashua, and our complementary tracks of federal compliance knowledge and community innovation insights share a common infrastructure, enabling our member organizations to make better informed decisions and take more effective actions while ensuring no one falls through the cracks in our system.

And then I'm not going to read this through to you.

You will receive this in the minutes, and you can take a look at it here.

But this is the vision, this is our vision, and I highlighted the word vision.

This is not happening yet, but this is what our goals are.

That we want to operate as a thriving self-organizing ecosystem where all of these things happen to primarily serve as a national model for balancing federal compliance and local innovation, but to really make sure that everything's working the way that it should be.

And then I've listed here for you the cities and towns that comprise the service area for the Greater Nashua Continuum of Care.

So in general, this is again HUD funding and our entire process is outlined and mandated by HUD.

We're charged with designing a local system to assist sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness and providing the services necessary to help them access housing and obtain long-sterm stability.

This system is called the homeless management information system or HMIS.

Our responsibility is to promote community-wide planning and strategic use of resources to address homelessness, to enhance coordination and integration with mainstream resources and other programs targeted to people experiencing homelessness, and to improve data collection and performance measurement.

So the coordinated access or coordinated entry program is again a HUD mandated system that they charged us all with the creating a system so there's no wrong door and anybody can get connected to services.

And so the way that we do that in Nashua is there's two different ways.

That's that 844 number.

It gives you three options.

So these were for would be for folks not literally homeless, but someone may be fleeing domestic violence and therefore temporarily homeless veterans who are homeless or folks facing eviction, it will route them to those agencies that have specific programs.

But if somebody is literally homeless, then they should hang up and call 211, which is the state coordinated entry line run by the Granite United Way, and they receive the information from the client that's calling, and then they send that information down to Nashua for us to connect with that person.

And the reason that this is important is to keep in mind that it does provide options for diversion prior to referral, and for those experiencing chronic homelessness, they're added to the by name list, which we're going to talk about next.

So this is the system map and the roles.

So those who enter into coordinated entry would be folks doing street outreach, folks at emergency shelter or day centers, and what they're going to do is try to find some diversion technic.

Can you stay with this relative for another week?

Can you go here?

They're going to triage basic needs.

This is an old slide, they were doing a COVID assessment, and then they do the entry into the system, the HMIS system, and the by name list creates a prioritized list of everybody in the state who is homeless and chronically homeless, and then once a housing program in Nashua has an opening, then we would go to the by name list, find the person who is the most highly prioritized, the most vulnerable person, and then they're taken off the top of that list and provided with housing support.

So the housing programs are the ones that receive the referrals, and those who are the initial contacts with the client enter into the HMIS system.

This is our annual point in time count.

Um every year on the third Wednesday of January, we all count the number of individuals experiencing homelessness over a 24 hour period.

And you can see that in the first section that folks that are in emergency shelter, transitional housing, or a safe haven program are still considered homeless, even though they're sheltered.

And then those that are unsheltered are the folks who aren't staying anywhere.

They are outside in places not meant for human habitation.

And then at the bottom you can see the total number of chronically homeless folks.

Again, those that are in emergency housing or safe haven, and the 29 chronically homeless folks that are unsheltered in Nashua in early January.

So here's your definition of chronic homelessness.

A person who is a head of household with a disability that either lives in a place not for meant for human habitation and has been homeless and living in one of these places continuously for at least 12 months, or has had four separate occasions in the last three years, totaling 12 months.

So at this point in time, the only folks that are getting into the housing programs that are managed and funded through the COC, which are the Harbor Homes, Harbor Care, Permanent Housing Programs, people have to be chronically homeless in order to get into one of those programs.

So again, the most vulnerable folks are getting added to the programs.

So that's before I move on, that's just a general overview of who the continuum of care is, what we do, and what our basic functions are.

Now, each year we need to apply for funding.

And this is called the NOFO, the fund uh notice of funding opportunity, and they give us funding for eligible housing and service projects, COC planning, and the collaborative applicant must submit the application as part of the competition.

This year's NOFO was released on June 1st and is due August 26th, so we're just in the process of getting this started.

We've not put out the public notice yet, that will come before the end of the month.

And the COC application, our responsibilities for this application are to set funding priorities based on HUD priorities.

So HUD is going to tell us what they're looking for, and we're going to do the best possible job that we can to write our application to meet what HUD is looking for.

We facilitate a collaborative process for the development of applications, we approve the annual submission of applicants, and we and this and the COC designates an eligible applicant as the collaborative applicant to apply on the COC's behalf.

So basically they're saying they want one organization to take the lead in the every community and submit the applications to HUD.

They don't want to be granting to a bunch of individual agencies.

So Harbor Care, formerly Harbor Homes, is the collaborative applicant.

Our role is to prepare and submit the application, applies for the planning grant on behalf of the continuum.

We participate in the development of the government's charter, and the Harbor Care communicates with HUD on behalf of the Continuum of Care.

So this shows you now, some of these next slides are going to get a little cumbersome.

I'll do my best to explain them and then see if you have any questions.

So the continuum of care program funds must be used for projects under five different categories known as program components.

So I want to mention that I put this PowerPoint together primarily before this year's NOFO came out, which just came out June 1st.

What's interesting when HUD issues these NOFOs, they they let us know what they're looking for, but they haven't actually even released the application yet.

So we haven't seen the actual questions or how we need to respond to them.

We just are seeing a general overview of what they're looking for.

So historically, these are the programs that are funded through the continuum of care funding.

So permanent housing, permanent supportive housing is the category our ongoing permanent housing grants fall into.

Rapid rehousing is this is one category funded by our new youth funding, which we'll talk about a little bit more in a minute, and transitional housing is the other category funded by the new new youth funding.

And then they do provide funding for support services only, the homeless management information system that we mentioned, they have a joint transitional housing and rapid rehousing program, the planning grant, which the continuum uses for a variety of things, and then any safe havens award prior to 2012, which ours was.

So a safe haven safe haven is sort of like a small group home where folks that are living there are completely disconnected from any services.

Again, they were chronically homeless, and this is their starting point to get connected to all sorts of services, benefits, and then hopefully get them moving on into a better long-term solution.

Matching funds.

So this is one of the biggest challenges is that HUD requires each program funded by the COC to match the grant award by putting their own dollars in, equaling 25 to 30%.

And this can make it difficult for small organizations to accept COC funding.

We're getting almost three million dollars now in COC funding.

So if you think about 25% of that is over a half a million dollars, so it's a lot of work for Harbor Care and our lovely volunteers and community members that work to raise that money.

So to give you a little bit of history about the funding for the continuum of care years ago, we had a number of support services only programs.

Those were things like street outreach, employment services, and then transitional housing, which is housing with services where somebody can stay up to 24 months, they're paying a portion of their income towards their rent, but again, they're developing additional competencies so that they hopefully can get a job or they can go to school and they can improve their situation to move on.

Permanent housing and consolidation of those grants is what we've primarily had.

But in 2012, HUD came to us and said, we don't want to pay for support services anymore, and we don't really want to pay for transitional housing anymore either.

We really want all of the money that we're spending to go as much as possible to go to long-term permanent housing.

That was when Harbor Homes decided to close their emergency shelter.

That was when a lot of things changed, and we really started moving all of our funds into permanent housing.

Some of the community members that had support services only programs voluntarily gave up those funds so they could go into the permanent housing so that we could score better on our application and keep these funds in the community.

And in 2012, that's what they had us do.

And that has now changed this year, which we'll get to in a minute.

But because of this history, historically, the only agency in our community that has received the bulk of these funds has been Harbor Homes for their permanent housing programs, with the exception of the HMIS funding and a little bit of money for the planning grant.

Now we also have the youth homelessness demonstration project is new funding that came online two years ago.

We'll talk more about that in a minute.

And then I'll tell you a little bit about some of the new administration priority changes in 2025.

So the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project was funding that was first awarded in 2024.

Other COCs had been awarded this money previously, but we had not been successful in applying, or we actually hadn't applied.

But then Stepping Stones was here, encouraged us to apply.

We we did apply, we got the money, and then Stepping Stones closed.

So the money went to the front door agency stepped up and applied, and they were awarded this money.

So for the first two years of this funding, it came as a separate pot of money with its own requirements, restrictions, and so forth, but after two years, it becomes part of the general COC notice of funding opportunity process.

So this year, when we apply for our renewal funds, we'll also be applying for those youth funds.

So this was just a why did we choose the front door?

Because they already had key components of this program serving youth and serving these types of programs.

The current youth homelessness project has transitional living, rapid rehousing, and supportive services.

They're working on getting the host home model up and running.

That's not up and running yet.

But again, because the front door already provides those services, they got the that contract.

So here's the big news for you to hear.

This year, uh we are only guaranteed 60% of our renewal funds.

So let me talk about this a little bit.

So for the past about 10 years, when we've applied to HUD for our renewal funding, they will say you need 2.4 million dollars to renew all your projects, but we're only guaranteeing you 90% of that money.

So what you need to do as a continuum of care is you have to decide which programs are more important, performing better, spending their money, meeting their targets, and which ones are not performing as well, because if we don't score high enough on our application, we're gonna lose 10% of our money.

This year they have changed it so that we're only guaranteed 60% of our renewal funds.

40% are competitive, and they're likely to not fund permanent housing programs.

So what we've seen, I don't know if you were aware, but in November of last year, HUD released the NOFO, and it was immediately challenged in court by a number of housing advocacy organizations around the country for it not meeting the requirements of the law for COC funding.

And so we had already had a little bit of a hint of some of these changes that were coming.

Um but what they're basically saying in a nutshell is that they no longer want folks to have ongoing long-term permanent housing unless they're elderly or disabled, which is really what we'd had been doing right along, except now their uh definition of a disability has changed, and persons with active substance use disorder are no longer considered disabled.

And so what they're doing is they're saying what we want to see is you to take as much as possible of your permanent housing money and move it into programs that would be for short-term, transitional housing, and support services.

So the idea is we would take somebody from an encampment, put them into transitional housing for a maximum of two years, and provide them with enough services and support so that by the end of that two years, they should be able to get a job, earning enough money to pay fair market rent for an apartment in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Do you think that's realistic?

I do not.

But that's what the federal government is asking us to do.

And so what they want us to do is put more money into supportive services and transitional housing, and anybody that is going to be in these housing programs are going to have mandated service requirements, which has never been in place before.

So folks are going to have to receive at least 20 hours a week of supportive services, which means the programs are gonna have to figure out what those are, how to get people to go to them, and so on and so forth.

And if people don't participate, then they'll be evicted from their programming.

No more housing first, we'll talk about in a moment.

And substance use disorder is no longer a disability.

Uh what HUD is saying is that if somebody is in active substance use, then it's not a disability, but they are if they are in recovery from substance use and abstent at the time, then it is considered a disability.

I don't quite understand how all of that will work, but some of this we're still kind of trying to figure out.

So what's going to happen is when we apply for these funds, the 40% of comp the 40% that's not uh guaranteed, if we try to keep that money in our permanent housing programs so that all of the I think there's about 70 families currently that are housed in the Harbor Homes Harbor permanent housing programs, only 60% of them will be able to stay, and 40% of them are going to have to leave.

So we're so uh because HUD has basically said anything that you put in the 40%, if you put in another permanent housing program, we're probably not gonna fund it.

So you're better off taking the 40% of the competitive money and trading it from permanent housing into transitional housing andor support services only.

So that's what we're working on trying to figure out that model and who are the folks that are the most vulnerable, that would be the 60% to stay and the 40% that might need to move.

So, as I mentioned, the housing first model that's no longer supported by HUD.

Housing first is securing permanent housing for chronically homeless first, then offering supportive services for underlying issues.

Housing first emerged as an alternative to the linear approach in which people experiencing homelessness were required to first participate in and graduate from short-term residential and treatment programs before obtaining permanent housing.

Many studies have shown housing first to be a much more cost-effective model, but HUD doesn't like it, so we can't do that anymore.

And anyone in our programs is going to be required to get services.

So these are the priorities for HUD for FY26 that we will need to look at when we submit our application, reducing homelessness, especially unsheltered homelessness and encampments, and the fact that the city of Nashua actually put that in uh that I'm sorry, I don't know the right terms, that law on the books about no public camping.

Where we will actually score higher on our COC application because that's what the federal government is looking for.

They're emphasizing self-sufficiency, measured through increased employment income and exits to unsubsidized housing, prioritizing substance use treatment and recovery, including sober housing and required treatment participation, encouraging supportive service participation requirements, increasing competition for funding through a lower tier one, that's the 60%, and a higher tier two, the 40%.

And now this year too, those youth grants also are gonna be competing for that 60% because they are also permanent housing programs that the front door is running currently for their youth.

So we're all working together though to see how we can manipulate our programs to become transitional housing instead of permanent housing and still do their best to meet the needs of the clients.

So that's that redistributing funds from permanent housing to transitional.

And we will continue to partner with law enforcement and other first responders to address encampments and public drug use and equal participation for faith-based organizations.

Faith-based organizations have always been able to apply, so I'm not sure exactly what they mean by that, but they put it in there.

So this was our 2025 award.

This does not include the youth funding, which came which is going to be included this year.

So this is showing you that a permit, so we these are the three permanent housing programs at Harbor Care, the HMIS program, and all of that totals 2,427,000.

The CO so COC planning is sort of separate.

We don't have to include it in the 60 or 40%, it's almost sort of guaranteed.

But as I mentioned, in this year's competition, the youth funding will be now included in our renewal mounts, making them compete with ongoing projects.

So our total estimated renewal demand for current projects is just over $3 million, but we're only guaranteed 60% of that.

So it's it's a bit concerning.

So as I mentioned, our annual application has uh renewals, and then it has these bonus projects.

Now, bonus projects are something that we apply for every year, uh, but they only get awarded if we score really high on our application, which I'll talk more about in a minute.

And then these are the different steps of the application.

I actually think, yeah.

So bonus projects, so funding amount is based on a calculation from HUD equaling approximately half a million dollars this year.

And those categories would be transitional housing or support services only, and then they also have a separate domestic violence bonus that could be applied to.

Now you might remember that I mentioned at the beginning of this presentation that HUD requires a match of 25 to 30 percent from any grant funds, and so in the past, uh bridges has applied for this DV bonus money, but that match money is just sometimes a huge barrier, so they're not able to continue competing for those funds.

So we really encourage, when I say we, I mean uh because I work at Harbor Care.

Harbor Care really wants other community members, uh agencies to get this funding.

We don't want to be the only one funded through this process.

But if nobody else wants to apply, then Harbor Care will always apply for the bonus funding to see if we can get more into the community.

So what happens is um let's see, yeah, I'm gonna go back.

So what happens is there this annual application is in two parts.

The first part is the community exhibit one, and the second part is the individual program.

So Harbor Care submits three grant applications for their housing, the front door will submit an application for their youth, the state of New Hampshire will submit the HMIS grant, and all of those will be submitted.

But the community exhibit is the is what HUD is looking at to score us.

And what I mean by that is they're looking for all those things that I mentioned in the priorities, among other things.

For example, this year they um and they let us know in November that they were gonna want additional representatives on our executive committee, three locally elected officials.

That's why Alderman Clee and Alderman Gregg and one of our state reps are now on our executive committee.

That's why Barbara Costa is now on our executive committee representing the local police because that was a requirement, and they also wanted a member from the business community.

So one of the managers of a local St.

Mary's Bank has joined our executive committee.

We just found out when it came out they also want somebody from workforce development.

So we've got to look for somebody that fits that.

And if we have somebody from every one of those disciplines, then we'll earn four points.

But if we only have, if we're missing any, we'll only get two points.

So there's like all these different things, and they want to know everything that's going on in the community, not just what's going on at the two agencies that are getting funding.

So we do ask the whole community.

Um, Director Bagley's team, grant writer helps us, let us know what's going on at the city that we can tell HUD this is what we're doing, and we're trying to do all of these things to eliminate homelessness.

So that's an overview on the funding and how it comes in.

And then the last thing that I wanted to share on a slide was the strategic planning.

So as I mentioned, the continuum of care has been going for 32 years now, and it's been following the HUD guidelines, and my job as the chairperson is to make sure that we're doing exactly what HUD tells us to do so we can continue bringing that two plus million dollars into the community to house our most vulnerable folks.

But we felt that it was getting to the point where folks that didn't get funding from this process maybe were not feeling quite as engaged.

So we undertook a strategic planning process.

Um the Nashua Rotary gave us a grant, and we hired some consultants, and this was their slide that they developed on how we're evolving, how we end homelessness together after listening to over 40 community voices from service providers to business leaders, from government officials to those with lived experience.

The COC has redesigned how we work together.

So our new direction is a dual track that maintains essential federal funding while creating space for community innovation.

The structure are five interconnected committees working with a clear purpose, coordinated entry and data, that's connecting to people housing efficiency efficiently and tracking and measuring that.

Housing solutions is to build landlord partnerships and housing pipelines, community innovations is to test local solutions beyond federal programs.

Measurement and learning is tracking both compliance and community impact.

We'll have a policy and advocacy uh committee advancing systemic change.

Uh what changes is committees now have a clear decision making authority, they meet with purpose-driven agendas and measure success through both HUD metrics and community outcomes.

And this full plan can be emailed to any of you if you want it.

Um I think that's the end of my slides.

Primarily, the reason that I wanted to speak to the Board of Alderman was that I wanted to let you know that while the continuum of care does does res the continuum of care does not receive direct funding.

Uh the agencies within the continuum of care can get some funding to provide services and housing, but as you can see, we expect a pretty significant reduction after this year's application.

However, we do have a new consultant helping us with our application.

We scored very well last year.

One of the challenges with our application is that a lot of it is based simply on data.

And as you know, uh Nashua New Hampshire is a little bit more expensive place to live and a lot less vacancy than other parts of the country, but we are competing against the entire country.

And so when they're looking at data points such as number of days homeless, um, or how long did someone somebody in a shelter before they got into housing, those metrics are just they're much longer here in New Hampshire than they are in uh uh rural place in Arizona.

And so that's why we can't write and narrate our way out of data showing that people are staying homeless for a long time because there's just not enough resources and to meet the need here in Nashua.

So it's basically a bunch of nonprofits that come together to strategize.

A lot of other things have come out of it.

I like to share my story as the HIV director at Harbor Care.

A grant came online in 2005 that a city had to apply for, and because of the relationships that I had developed at the COC, specifically with Bob Mack at City Welfare, I was able to say, Bob, can you talk to the mayor about applying for this money?

And we did, and so now we're we're bringing in um another million over a million dollars every three years to house people living with HIV in Greater Nashua because of this relationships built through the COC.

So there are other things that happen at the COC, but the primary function is to apply for this money.

And I think that there perhaps were some other thoughts about really what the continuum of care is responsible for versus what the city is responsible for.

So I just wanted to kind of clarify.

I don't know if anybody has any questions, but I've pretty much shared what I wanted to do.

I have a couple of clarifying ones to start with.

Um, first, how many member organizations are participating in the continuum of care?

There are quite a few, and because there's no um attendance requirement, uh, we don't necessarily say, but we have at least 40 or 50 organizations and at least 40 or 50 individuals that come to our meetings every month.

Um, as you know, uh Charles giving me my next question is usually the attendance sheet that goes around is several pages long.

Yes.

So your average attendance at the first Wednesday of the uh month meeting is over 40 people.

The upstairs room is packed every single month.

Yes.

And I think that's worth pointing out just because the continuum was described in at least one meeting as a fragmented system, but the reality is you're regularly bringing in people from 40 different organizations every single month that aren't necessarily directly getting funding but are still committed to helping collectively address the issues.

Absolutely, and that's yeah, kind of what I was trying to say.

The networking that takes place and the programming that people can develop together through that networking system is tremendous.

So that's again why we're talking about all of this, that there is a lot to gain from anybody and everybody coming to this meeting, planning and working together.

Yes, but you're right, it is a very connected and collaborative group.

And it's very well organized too.

Um, I think generally Miss Blank does a great job of organizing the meetings in advance.

She sends out what the agenda is going to be.

There's very detailed minutes that come out of it, and as you can tell just from this presentation, there's multi-level strategic planning that's taking place.

This isn't like a bunch of people just sitting around chatting.

This is very intentional development of projects, introduction of programs, and updating.

Correct.

So I wanted to kind of put those things out there because I know that was what we had talked about as a purpose for coming in here.

But I want to open it up to the committee and see what kind of uh questions or comments committee members have.

Um thank you for the presentation.

Um couple of questions, and I and I think you answered it, but my brain still kind of information, yeah.

Um so am I right that Harbor Homes or Harbor Care is um is the good is the funding.

Collaborative applicant.

There you go.

Collaborative applicant um be just based really solely on financial stability.

Yeah, and it it this was again about 10 or 15 years ago, HUD said you need to choose somebody to be your collaborative applicant, and because Harbor Hare got Harbor Harbor Care gets the bulk of the funding and has the most had the most experience working with HUD in the community, it made sense, and that was a decision that was made by the full body back many many years ago.

Uh is that something that would be revisited if like because what I'm seeing is all of a sudden the priorities got flipped.

We they were this way, it got flipped, and now it's flipped back.

So if all of a sudden the the services that Harbor Care provides were not the top, then something like I'll just pick a different one, bridges.

If domestic violence was the number one and they were the main, then would that vote be would that be up for a vote?

I think I don't know for sure the answer to your question, but it's not likely.

I think unless the collaborative applicant wasn't performing their duties appropriately, then potentially HUD might ask for somebody else, or if the continuum in general felt the collaborative applicant.

But again, the benefit of Harbor Homes is because it is a very large organization, and we we the strategic planning group at Harbor Care, our executive leadership is coming up with plans to flip the programs to the transitional housing and support services.

So collaborative applicant role, it's not necessarily because you get the funding, it's also just because you have the bandwidth to deal with all of the communications and all of the work regulation with that.

Yeah, thank you.

A follow-up, if I may.

Sure.

I just lost it.

Maybe it'll come back to me.

So nonprofits are mission-based, and it's my impression that Harbor Homes doesn't feel like having 40% of their residents that believed they were going to have permanent supportive housing leave.

So I would imagine they'll pivot.

And Harbor Homes has a pretty decent history of pivoting in gross terms, changing programs, you know, as needed to meet these.

That's partly why they're the collaborative lead agency.

Um so am I right in assuming that that's no one's trying to throw the game here and say, oh, well, I guess we don't have funding, so we'll just churn people out.

The idea is, okay, well, we need to retain this, and anybody who's eligible or higher performing, those are ones we can try to look at as from a transitional housing perspective, not only because of those people's vulnerability, but to protect the people who have a lot more indicators or challenges or barriers and wouldn't successfully transition into a that kind of a program.

Correct.

The good thing is that we have seen guidance because typically if a person has permanent housing currently, they can't move into a transitional housing program because you have to be homeless in order to move into transitional housing.

So these folks that are in permanent housing would typically not be able to move into transitional housing, but there is a caveat in there, and there is a mechanism so that worst case scenario, I believe, and please I I can't say this a hundred percent, but what I believe I understand is that people can transition from the permanent to the transitional, so that would give us two years to continue to help stabilize those folks before they were actually moved out.

Um but again, I I'm not a hundred percent sure on how it's all gonna work, but that's my sense.

It would be nice to not have 80 more families out on the streets.

Correct.

Yep.

So my sense is uh Harbor Homes does not plan to displace anybody immediately, and they will figure something out.

Um I was trying to formulate my question.

So I know that we have a very different way of going about social services in New Hampshire.

I don't know if you'll know the answer to this, but I'm wondering if COCs in other states still have that sort of collaborative applicant.

Uh and and is it always a nonprofit or are you?

It doesn't have to be so the balance of state in New Hampshire, the state of New Hampshire is the collaborative applicant for the balance of state continuum of care.

Manchester it's a nonprofit, another nonprofit, but it does yeah, it can be anybody.

But it does yeah, it can be anybody.

It doesn't have to be a nonprofit.

And how did that get decided?

I don't know the answer to that question.

I have 18 more questions, but I'll hold.

I remember mine.

I have a point of trivia just out of curiosity.

How big how many grant writers is Harbor Homes have to navigate this approximately?

Say that again, please.

How many grant writers or administrative staff does Harbor Homes have to manage this?

Ballpark.

Well, there's the planning grant funds that I referenced pays for the salary of a continuum of care staff person who is sort of like my admin person, because I have a full-time job, and this is like a volunteer role to do the co the chairmanship of the continuum of care.

Um but all of the leadership at Harbor Care, the finance staff, our executive leadership, they're all involved in this and donating a lot of their time and energy that's not paid uh to do these grants.

And again, that's that part of that match.

Because we have to come up with about a half a million dollars a year, and that can be both in cashing and staff time.

So the staff time that the leadership uh uses can go towards that match as well.

But yeah, there's a big group of people, and they're really smart.

They understand a lot more of this than I do.

I'm just the chairperson of the meetings, I'm not the main grant writer.

Well, my impression of the organizations involved is the city is the next biggest one, if not bigger, but we don't have that kind of capacity, to my knowledge.

Um, but I jumped on your question, so Holderman Morgan.

Thank you.

Yeah, we I'm sorry, we do have a total of uh three full-time grant writers at Harbor Care.

If that was answering your questions, that was your question.

Somebody asked.

Well, now I have a follow-on because of your question.

It sounds like if you are I can't remember the title.

Collaborative applicant.

There is some money that goes to a role to support it.

That's what you said.

The planning grant money can be used for a variety of different things according to HUD.

And we when we apply for funds, we tell them what we're gonna do with our planning grant money.

It's about a hundred thousand dollars.

So it's supporting a staff person and it's also supporting the consultant that writes our application for us.

She's an expert in understanding what HUD is looking for and knows how to formulate the grant application.

So we're spending a good chunk of our planning grant writing our application to get the planning grant money again.

Um and when there is, and the other thing that it's being used for this year, people with lived experience that are participating in the youth planning grant are were able to collect stipends for their time and energy.

The youth that were supporting the application, uh, so some of the planning grant money is paying stipends for people with lived experience as well.

So there's a whole bunch of different little things that that gets paid for through that planning grant.

The continuum of care, uh sorry, Harbor Care as a collaborative applicant receives the planning grant, but we discuss with the executive committee how we're gonna spend that, and it's not a Harbor Homes only decision, it's an executive committee decision.

Understood.

Oh, good.

Uh Alderman Morgan, and then I gotta give Holdman Senate a shot.

Thank you.

Uh what two-part question?

What do you hope we take away from this?

And what do you need from us?

I don't need anything.

I what I hope you take away from this is understanding what the continuum of care is a little bit better and what our primary focus is.

And as Alderman Lopez said, there was conversation that there were some aldermen that believed the COC is a fragmented system, and I wanted to make you aware that every nonprofit service provider in this city that would work with somebody who may be at risk for or experiencing homelessness, is present at the continuum of care and working on our subcommittees or serving on our executive committee, and it is very well coordinated.

But that being said, we are all individual nonprofit agencies with our own missions, our own budgets, our own everything.

And so it's not like we're all one big pool of money that we can just all do whatever we want.

We all get our own grants and we have to do what our grants say.

The continuum of care really is HUD making us jump through a lot of hoops to get the money that we need to serve.

This is the most cumbersome grant application I've ever worked on, and I've been writing grants as well for many, many years.

It's it's the most cumbersome.

So yeah.

Thank you.

So it's a large group of penguins on a shrinking iceberg.

Yes.

Uh Alderman Senate.

Well, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

And I'm glad you ended on that note about HUD making you jump through hoops.

Because my question was um relative to the application.

You had kind of indicated at different points during your presentation that it was a um excuse me, sort of a point-based system.

You get certain points for certain elements like the disciplines that you have represented on your executive board, you lose points for maybe not having as many disciplines.

I was wondering if across those there was any weight given to like certain points in certain categories versus certain points in other categories, because you would indicate it like you're gonna score a little higher this year because last year the city passed the ordinance um outlawing um encampments throughout the city.

Is that given more weight by HUD than the disciplines that you have on your board because the priorities coming from Washington?

Um I don't know if I'm phrasing that well.

No, I think I understand your question, and what I can tell you, I mean, in and this is all um public.

There's a website.

You can you can Google COC competition and read the read the NOFO.

When you read the NOFO, it shows you again, they haven't submitted the put out the application yet, but it will say this uh having those people on your board is worth four points.

This is worth two points.

Um having uh whatever, no encampments in your community allowed might be worth three points.

And so it's all just points depending on the different thing.

And the what I was sharing was that the data stuff carries a lot of points, and that's nothing that we can change.

We can't change what the data is.

Now our data committee has been working, and we've all been working to re make sure that our data is accurate.

So, and that, you know, again, it's based on individual human beings putting data into a system in a busy work day and making sure they're updating everybody's records and stuff like that.

So there's a lot to it.

But to answer your question, I don't know the for sure yet, but it's like every section um it tells you how many points you'll earn if you're able to fully address their question, and you can tell them you're doing X, Y, and Z, then you'll get this many points, and it's just again about good writing, I think, and good explanation, but that's why we need so for example, Director Bagley will have uh the grant writer uh that works with public health come to some of our grant writing meetings to help answer questions about what's going on at the city.

The grant writers from the front door and the soup kitchen and uh Marguerite's place, they're all gonna also participate and help us make sure that we're all capturing what's going on in the community so we get as many points as we can.

All right, thank you very much a lot.

I'm hoping I don't know if I quite answered your question, but I didn't know.

No, that that covered a lot.

I I I suspected it was a little bit like that, and it sounds like just like within sections, like not to minimize the work, but it sounds like these horrific visits we used to have when I worked in retail.

It's like you get an easy 30 points on your corporate visit if your entrance sign is clean, but then you could lose 60 more if your tags were faded, and it's like you know, I mean it could be I don't know that they're losing points, but it's only gain points if you can if you demonstrate clearly that you're doing XY.

Yeah, sort of an imbalance across the you know, more here, less here, yeah.

So you did identify that they had emphasized the participation of faith-based programs?

Yes.

Despite the fact we already did.

Um and from attending the um continuing care, I do note that there are some changes to the the data collection questions in HMIS that were instituted pretty much on day one of the new administration, which affect what the picture of homelessness looks like if you start to redefine populations a different way.

Um Alderman Kelly had her up first, but then I'll make Lee.

Other McKelly?

Question one is how long do you have from when ManoFa comes out to having to fulfill the grant application?

So it's due August 26th, and so we will be working on it, and it'll be submitted by August 26th, and they're supposed to let us know by December 1st of our award.

And each program is on its own sort of fiscal year calendar clock.

They don't all start and end at the same time.

So each each individual grant has a different timeline.

Follow up?

Yeah.

You guys had a little bit less time though, because the NOFA was kind of all over the place.

We usually get about two months.

We actually gotten three months this time, so they've actually given us a little bit more time, but again, they haven't released the application yet, but they've given us enough that we're getting started.

And we've like, yeah, there are we're familiar with that because we also do the HUD um awards here.

Yeah.

So it's like a broken slinky where they tell us we have to be completely ready, but then we don't actually have everything to do until they decide to send it to us.

Yeah.

The um the question that Alderman Lopez asked about um religious participation.

Have you guys been tracking that?

And um, I know that there are religious um institutions that were no longer recognized in the last two years.

I don't know that one-to-one.

Yeah.

Um, and is that going to affect it?

I don't think so.

Um basically I think what they're saying is just that if a faith-based organization wants to apply for funding that we should welcome them and treat them the way we would anybody else, which we would anyway.

So I okay, I think it was just there's a to frankly, there's a lot of rhetoric, political rhetoric in the NOFO, and I think that was just another part of the political rhetoric that was in the NOFO.

I'm good for that.

But Alderman Clee as our hand up.

I know.

She's next.

Alder McLee.

Thank you.

Um Alderman uh Lopez.

Um first off, I want can you hear me?

Yeah.

I can hear you.

Okay.

I didn't know if I was creating an echo there or not.

Um what I want.

Oh, sorry about this.

I'm getting an echo back.

What I wanted to um, I'm sorry, what I wanted to sit comment was I hope that I'm not the person that you felt was um saying that you were fragmented.

While I did use that word, I would have never meant that.

I meant fragmented in the sense of that everybody has to apply for their grants kind of more or less on their own, and some of their criteria will overlap.

Um, but um, and and that's what I meant is that because the system doesn't allow one group just to do for this and one group to do for that, they have to do their on their own and they have to each meet a different criteria.

That's kind of what I meant by that.

When I did make that kind of um side comment um at a meeting, but what I want to say is that um the continuum pair and you know, Alderman Lopez used to tell each of us that we should go to these meetings, and I strongly recommend that the aldermen do go.

Just go to one or two meetings so you can see how these incredible groups of people do meet, and all those committees that um Mr.

Blank kind of showed to them, they're all working so hard.

There are days that I feel like I'm getting inundated with minutes, but I do read all of them, and they're absolutely amazing.

Um the work that they do and all of these groups do work together, and I can tell you that I've spoken to some of the groups separately, and what I have learned is that if someone is no longer um able to work within one group of of you know individuals, they will start call making calls.

They'll call the front door agency, they'll call Bridges or call that saying, Can I move this person into your group?

Can you help them?

We've exceeded our you know, our limits and so on.

They are just constantly working.

Um and you know, Wendy did comment about that they do a lot of this on their own.

I believe that's to be true.

I have sat in meetings um from Zoom, the classes that I'm taking, and I can see that the people that we have going there, they have to kind of like blank their screen because they're still working while they're attending all of these, all of these meetings and and so on, and they're just amazing people.

So um I want to echo my colleague uh Alderman Lopez's words.

Go to one of these meetings once in a while.

I I missed the last couple um for personal reasons, but um I will be at the very next um executive committee and the next uh COC meeting.

So uh thank you.

I would I would just want to point out so that uh Mrs.

Blank doesn't have to, is a lot of the organizations are part of an interactive or an interorganizational agreement.

They do intentional wraparound services.

This is communicated to the clients that they're working with, sometimes even offered as a okay.

Well, we're having a lot of trouble progressing you in this kind of a situation, but we can get a group of people, basically, everybody that you would spend the next two weeks going to one on by one on yourself, we can put them in a room and in 45 minutes probably come up with a a resolution.

So that kind of interactivity is very much a part of what the continuum has evolved into doing.

While I I know we were focusing on the financial part, you put a bunch of social workers or case managers in a room and they're gonna try to figure out how to solve problems.

And I think it was mentioned the data is not movable when we track X number of people who are unsheltered, then the only way to solve that is to help them get connected.

So the continuum's role is to improve its data and its outcomes to continue to advocate by more effectively pooling and coordinating resources.

Is that a fair summary?

Okay, Alderman Kelly.

Uh thank you.

Are the subcommittees open to the public as well?

Sure are.

Every committee is open to the public.

And is there a schedule where you can find where those are when they meet?

Um I'm not sure that our website is a hundred percent up to date.

Neither is ours.

Pardon me.

Okay.

We have three websites going on right now.

But um, I mean, I'm happy to provide it in any way that I can.

So how could I get that information to you?

If you send it to Donna, she can share it.

Okay.

Um the reason I ask is because I have gone to COC meetings, but it's a really hard time for somebody who has a nine to five days.

I saw you all going up and it's like, oh, I know all of you guys.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, but if they can get involved and see some of the work that's being done in the smaller strategic committees.

I'm actually really interested in data.

Yeah, oh great.

Um, I know through my work um in the community and my my actual work with my agency that data is is kind of one of the geeky things that can help us.

It's interesting to hear what you're saying about our data in Nashua and how that gets skewed, but also data sharing across different organizations and how that can better streamline finding you know those chronically homeless people and getting them.

Yeah, and I mean like there's all sorts of things that are happening, like for example, at the data committee, we've now come to a point where we're all the agencies have agreed to share their individual data at our data committee meetings, not to call somebody out for not going doing a good job, but if somebody's data is a little not as good quality as another agency, let's provide some technical assistance.

Let's get together, let's figure out what this agency can do that this one can't.

And there's all sorts of working together and collaborative solutions.

Again, I really just wanted y'all to know that ultimately the continuum of care brings in about now almost three million dollars a year, but it's very prescribed of how we can spend it, and it's primarily housing subsidies for people.

And so once those subsidies are full, which they are now and have been for quite a while, and we're not going to place anybody new because we know that we're gonna be cutting 40% of those vouchers that you know, so we don't want to do that.

Um but that's who we are.

We we don't have the resources or the um uh the or the fix every issue of homelessness in the city and find shelter for every single person when the shelters are full and this money is for permanent housing.

I just wanted it to be clear what the COC was, what we can do, and what our very big limitations are.

Could I follow up?

Yep.

Um it has been predicated that a need gap assessment needs to be done in this city.

Someone who's pretty close to us, that sounds like a good first step.

Is that something you think the COC should be involved in or could facilitate?

Well, um the the thing is is that there are needs assessments that have been done and are being done, and Harbor Homes did a needs assessment like a year or two ago, and things don't change all of that much in a in a short period of time.

But absolutely, if the city wanted to take on doing another needs assessment and wanted some help uh facilitating it, we would be happy to do that.

I mean, I I'm just one person that works at one agency.

I can't say what every other agency is willing to do, but my sense is that yeah, we want to help, we want to do whatever we can to make it all work.

That follow-up?

Sure.

Uh it's interesting to hear that a needs assessment was done recently because I think some of the you know pushback on Mulberry was like, do we know what we need?

Are we ready for this?

Right.

And I just don't think that that information bubbles all the way up to everyone who sits in these seats.

I agree.

Versus the people who are in it every day.

Yeah.

I would just do a relentless number of assessments that say we need more shelter capacity, we need more low-income housing, and we need a way to get people together to tell them where it is.

But it comes down to the person who's who's listening and making decisions as to when they're gonna actually look at the needs assessment and believe it.

I have nothing to say to that.

Sorry.

I think we should jump during I did want to point out um on behalf of the COC, I guess.

You identified three million dollars of HUD money, but you also pointed out that that's matched, so that's a greater value to the city.

And again, the majority of the people who are coordinating their resources and their smaller programs much more effectively in the city are doing it because there is a central organizing body, even if it's not necessarily uh a 501c3 or a an institution.

So the COC in my mind has always been a force multiplier.

People with the smaller and and more nimble nonprofits can connect with the larger ones, and the larger ones get a lot of new ideas and a lot of new programs from that.

I think maybe one example might be the gathering place ultimately connected with Harbor Homes and became connections and then spawned off into hearts.

And you know, some of these programs when they're first starting out, they need the the big brother big sister approach, but they're able to really realize themselves through the community that the continuum brings together.

Um any further questions from the committee.

Right, seeing none, thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Clicker right here.

Oh, thank you.

Yes.

I'm just gonna say it into the record if I could, that there was a wish list from the presentation, which is this presentation as well as uh the schedule of the subcommittees.

I feel like there was one other thing.

Can you say where the wish list was?

I didn't hear that.

Uh we had requested as a follow-up to this meeting that Donna receive this presentation, which she probably already has, as well as when the subcommittees meet, because it's not on the website.

But I thought there was one other wish, but I can't remember it.

I would express the sentiment that I think if we are not able to engage the full board by inviting them a week before, maybe we should be asking uh President Wilshire to have a special board meeting where we do present on this, particularly where funding is likely to be grossly affected.

I think the full board needs to know.

I mean, my response to you is I agree with that, and it will be interesting to know once the NOFA application comes out, how well we think so.

Maybe after the application comes out but before it's due might be an interesting time frame to talk about that, although it's due in August and we only have like one meeting in July.

Yeah, and we'll be looking down the barrel of the warming station coming online.

So it's this the summer's tricky.

This is the time we have to be working on this.

Um to that end, maybe we have a earlier um conversation around warming sense shelter and how that progress is going.

Perhaps our next meeting.

We can do it here.

We don't always get a lot of full agendas here.

So well, right now we're all spinning around waiting for the C D PG things to move forward.

So um, and this is worth pointing out to the public that um some comments were made about the cyclical natures of grants.

When a nonprofit starts, they're assigned uh a year cycle based on when they apply now.

Um and in the past, the federal government cycle used to be starting in the fall, and then at some point it changed to July.

And i you know, institutions like the continuum and a lot of the organizations that are part of it are older than that.

So that's why you have those different cycles.

But historically, we're right in the middle of a quarter coming towards the end of it.

All the local municipalities and states are doing their budgets, so we don't get a lot of sudden money dropping out of nowhere, which is part of the role of this committee.

Yeah.

Um new business resolutions.

You jumped way ahead.

Did I?

Communications and unfinished business.

That's why we had a clock.

Because there's none of which communications.

Okay, communications.

None.

Unfinished business?

None.

Clerk appreciation section?

None.

Uh huh.

I appreciate you.

New business resolutions.

There are none.

New business ordinances.

There are also none.

Table and committee.

Nothing.

General discussion.

There is no other than what we just discussed.

Okay.

Um public comment.

Anyone wishing to make public comment?

Yeah, I guess there is none.

Oh, wait.

No, you loved.

Bob left.

None.

Bob was here, buddy's gone.

Okay.

Remarks by the Alderman.

None.

Um next week is the Pride Festival.

Saturday.

Saturday.

This Saturday, sorry.

Um Juneteenth is on uh Friday.

That's gonna be from two to six in um Le Parc de Notre Renaissance Francais.

Definitely encourage everybody to to go.

I've been watching the organizers organizing, and they have a lot of really good um groups.

That's gonna be a great chance to meet a lot of people in the community.

Um and then way off in the distant horizon is the Tree Streets Block Party on July 11th.

Okay.

I don't know why I would think to do that.

Oh, Alderman Klee.

Thank you for doing that.

Alderman Clee.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I did I did want to comment, it was mostly to thank you for um uh bringing them to the um to your committee, and um I would also like to echo um Alderwoman Kelly's comments about uh I think if we could get this to the full board, whether it's before or after their their um uh application, I don't think it really matters.

I think it's it's time to highlight them so we can see what they're doing.

But I also don't want to um I don't want to water down the fact that you know a resource center was going to help to kind of um bring these groups together um in a single building and so on where they could all work together.

I don't want to give people the impression that we the city don't have to do anything because we have all these groups.

You know, the continuum of care is incredible.

They they do phenomenal work.

I'll echo that over and over and over again.

Um but the idea of the city having a resource center that would allow all of them to, you know, maybe work in at the same physical facility.

I know it's not all of them in one group, but just kind of helping and so on.

So maybe like a macro level versus a micro level intervention.

Exact exactly.

And I and I think you know, the city, and when I um when I do go to these classes that I was that I had mentioned, one of the things that I find amazing is listening to these um different organizations that speak about having basically just what I kind of mentioned a resource center that um can be the uh catalyst uh of helping people, not with the grants, but it's these groups helping others.

And um, as I talked to one person, they used to do that.

Let's call around and call around and call around.

But if you have a central um uh point of entry, and I mean obviously harbor care is a big um part of that, but um you know, Director Bagley, and I know that Tonya's gone, but um Director Bagley has worked so hard on this.

I just don't want us to see us lose that resource center.

Um and um and that's it.

Thank you.

All right, thank you for your comments, Alderman Kelly.

I have a comment and then I remembered what the other thing was that I would like.

Um the thing that I would like, and I'll say on the records that we have it, is we had talked about um needs assessments that were done, maybe I know she said harbor care did one, but I don't know if any other in the last couple of years.

Uh I'd love that that data.

So putting that out there.

Um and just response to Alderman Klee's point.

I mean, obviously that is the point of the Red Resource Center.

I you and I both live in this world, and oftentimes people don't know what resources are available, especially when they end up in this space where they're homeless, and you get people who are calling, you know, the wrong agency that can't help them and then being frustrated because they don't know where to go.

So that was the idea of the resource center.

Harbor Care does this kind of housing, they can help you if you have this, and part of that is complicated by the HUD funding, right?

Because they have that, they can only do X, Y, and Z.

So that's why you might call them and be referred to the soup kitchen or somewhere else.

But sometimes that also has the effect on the person who's in dire crisis of feel like they're kind of being pushed around.

So I think that was the intent of the resource center.

That's why I was so passionate about it, and I think that's why Director Bagley was passionate about it, was let's get the information out there and that single entry point for people to help better.

And I know there's two one one, two on one?

Yeah.

But I just I I think that there's a there's a lot of information that people just don't have their hands around.

There's so much.

211 is very thorough, but it's also statewide.

Right, correct.

And you can have a toolbox, but if you don't have somebody to show you how to use the tools, you might not fix what you're trying to fix.

Correct.

So I think that was the important part, and I also think you know, sort of having that in-person face-to-face community and ability to help people with the wraparound services uh was was the idea there.

Uh but ultimately I think what COC does and what the city does is everybody's taking a little piece of it, and no one person's gonna fix it all by themselves.

And I think that's the point while we keep saying we can't solve homelessness.

We absolutely can.

I sat down one day and I wrote out exactly what we needed because I know and we know.

So I think the thing that's getting in the way is how do we fund it?

Yeah, as an observation, it was pointed out that in 2012, as a direct result of HUD changing its priorities, then Harbor Homes at the time closed one of their shelters.

The shelter was not operating, it was operating in a massive loss.

It was because it was paired with another program that they could operate it at all.

The capacity of it was about 35 people.

So we're feeling that hit right now.

And we look at the unsheltered people.

That's some of the missing capacity that we we would have needed.

Well, and we're going back and forth in remarks, but that was one of my biggest frustrations with the ban.

I understand that that's gonna help us with our application, but even Manchester put in more beds when they put the ban in, and we were at capacity and then put the ban in.

And that was always my biggest frustration was if we feel this is the right way for safety, whatever, fine, then where are these people supposed to go?

And then we still don't have that answer.

Whether the reason the resource center wasn't gonna fix that, but we still don't have that answer.

And I would I would much prefer better for my own city.

All right.

Any further remarks by Alderman?

I'm good.

I wasn't even gonna give word bars.

Yeah, we do this.

I say this as a chair, we do this every time anyway, like we go through the discussion point and then in the remarks.

We should just flip them around, but I mean is what it is.

We can be a little less formal in committee.

Can I get a motion?

Motion to adjourn.

Move to adjourn.

Uh all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

We are adjourned.

809.

At 809.

Okay.