Good afternoon and welcome to the life enrichment committee meeting of today, March 10, 2026.

The time is now for P.M.

and this meeting has come to order.

Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit a speaker's card for items on this agenda.

If you're here with us in chambers and you would like to submit a speaker's card, please fill one out and turn into a clerk representative to my left or right before the item is read into record.

Online speaker requests were due 24 hours prior to this meeting.

The meeting came to order at 4 p.m.

Speaker request will be due no no longer accepted, be no longer accepted, excuse me, ten minutes after the meeting has begun, making that time 410 p.m.

With that, we will now proceed to take roll.

Present.

Present.

Thank you.

Councilmember Wong is excused.

And Chair Five.

One excuse Wong.

And before we begin, Chair Fife, do we have any announcements?

Yes, I just have an announcement about a change in the order of the agenda.

I'm going to move item Sven regarding HAP 6 before item um, I'm sorry, HAP 6 before item six.

So item S7 will be heard before item six, the homeless strategic action plan.

And the rest of the items will go in order.

Thank you for your announcements.

Once again, item S seven will be heard after item five.

Moving to our first item of the day, approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting held on February 24th, 2026.

I'll entertain a motion.

We do have a motion by Councilmember Gallo, seconded by Chair Five to accept their approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting on February 24, 2026 as is on roll.

Councilmember Gaio.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Wong is excused in chair five.

Aye.

Motion passes with three eyes, one excuse Wong to approve the draft minutes of the committee meeting held on February 24, 2026 as is moving to item two, determination schedule outstanding committee items.

You do have one speaker, and this is also your pending list.

Uh that is also being uh put forward by Nia Bonta and others, and is designed to address the high rate of unpaid fines for illegal dumping.

It will require the DMV to refuse to renew the vehicle registration for any owner or leasee who has not made a payment for illegal dumping violations.

So I hope that you will look at this bill and support it.

Uh that Senate Bill 1218.

That concludes your public comments for item two.

Thank you.

Do we have any changes to the pending list from the administration?

Oh, hold on.

Do we have a parliamentarian?

I do apologize.

Okay, so thank you.

Um I wanted to regarding item two.

I would like to reschedule items three and four from the March 24th agenda, the library agreement with the city of Piedmont and the library agreement agreement with the city of Emoryville to the April 21st life enrichment committee meeting.

Yes.

Uh the April 21st, life enrichment.

Did we hear public comment on item two?

Okay.

I just need a motion on item two on the agenda.

I'll make uh a motion to move the pending list with the amendments.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Chair Fife, seconded by Councilmember Houston to accept the termination to schedule outstanding committee items as amended with the amendments of made to withdrawing items three and four, item three regarding the library agreement with the city of Imoryville, and item four regarding the citywide cooperative agreements on the March 24th life enrichment committee agenda and rescheduling it to the April 21st life enrichment committee agenda.

On the roll, Councilmember Gaio.

Aye.

Thank you, Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Five.

Aye.

The motion passes with four ayes to accept determination to schedule outstanding committee items as amended.

Moving to item three.

Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to execute an amendment to an existing professional services agreement for the American Building Services, increasing the current agreement of 250,000 and additional 750,000 dollars for a new total agreement amount not to exceed 1 million dollars and extending the term end date from December 31st, 2026 and June 30th, 2029, genitorial and cleaning services at early childhood facilities, and you do have two speakers.

Thank you.

And we have Scott Kim here to present on this item.

We will put two minutes on the clock if you need additional time, just let me know.

But you have the floor for your presentation.

Thank you.

Hi everyone, Scott Kim, program operations manager for the early childhood and family service division of human services departments.

We are here to ask for uh additional dollars as additional ears to the current professional services agreement for American Building Services who provide nightly janitorial cleaning to our centers, and they also provide monthly pressure washing of the outdoor play areas as well as some seasonal uh custodial and cleaning services such as um hardwood floors, stripping and waxing, uh as well as some electrostatic cleaning when there are outbreaks of communicable diseases like ham for the mouth.

Um they are a local city of Oakland firm, family-owned, they've done a great job for us.

They're responsive to our needs when called, and they were awarded this uh PSA out of a grant or sorry, out of a RFP.

They're responsive to our needs when called, and they were awarded this uh PSA out of a grant or sorry, out of a RFP, and this extends the um the term of the the amendment with extended term of the PSA as allowed by that same RFP.

Thank you.

Was that the whole two minutes?

Yes.

Does do any of my colleagues want to take the rest of those two minutes?

No.

Well, I will say some things that stood out to me about this report is that this was there were no waivers.

This is just an extension extension of an existing contract that went out to RFP.

Correct.

And it's going to a locally locally owned small business.

It's a family-owned firm, and those things mean a lot.

So uh I appreciate your presentation, and I will entertain questions or colleagues questions from my colleagues, and then we'll hear from the public speakers.

Councilmember Guyo.

Yes, certainly know the work that is being done.

And uh so with that, I am I will make a motion to approve uh Steph's recommendation.

Councilmember Houston, and then Councilmember Wong.

Yes, through the chairman through the chair.

I'm glad you said that about local participation because I looked them up and it said that the headquarters was in San Leandro.

So that was the first thing I caught my attention.

I was like, oh my god, do I have to go through that?

Um so their local farm, and how long have they had this contract?

And it's through the chair.

Is uh it started July of last year.

And uh yeah, they are based in Oakland.

Good, good.

Because I looked them up and it said San Leandro, so when Councilmember Fife mentioned that and I heard you say that it brought joy to my to my heart.

So um thank you.

I'll second um council member Noel Gayo's motion.

Okay, moving to our public speakers, David Boatright and Ms.

Sada.

I have uh excuse me, my apologies.

Oh, good.

Um so uh thank you for bringing this.

I'm just wondering do we have a sense of just the cleanliness in our in our early childhood centers?

Are there federal requirements that we need to meet?

There are.

So we are under the Head Star performance standards.

They also reference something called caring for our children, which is a nationally recognized uh regulations or requirements and recommendations for caring for kids throughout the nation.

Um we're also under uh Title 22, which is child care licensing for the state of California, and they also have requirements for cleanliness, health and safety.

And I assume that we've because this is really important.

This is like disease outbreak and you know, kick smoke small kids, all of that in these centers, and so it sounds like we've not had issues, right, with this contract.

Yeah, ABS American Building Services have been really responsive, they're on it.

Um we don't get complaints from our center staff about the cleanliness of the buildings that they service.

So um yeah, so we've been happy with them.

I'm good now moving to our public speakers, Mr.

Salah and David Bowright.

And I keep saying uh you can't have staff come in here and say they did a great job.

You have to have a performance matrix evaluation of the of the work that has been done.

And y'all too, y'all y'all just let anybody tell you anything, say, okay, that's great, y'all doing a great job, thank you.

Nope, you can't do it that way.

You have to have some valid tool that says they've done a great job.

Now, are we talking about people who are at the site all day long?

Or we are talking about people who come in at the end of the day and clean up because every site needs to have a constant availability to respond to cleanliness and safety issues.

So, what is going on with this contract?

So, why do you have a contract that ends in December of 2026 and you have the need to bring it at this point to say we want to extend it into 2029?

What brings that?

What's the source of funding for this?

That you're willing to spend the money, is it funding outside?

So you have 11, you have 12 centers, one of them is closed.

I I just don't understand the the the capacity you have to accept anything.

You're talking about how important it is, but you will rubber stamp it, and all that's important to my what I just heard is oh, is it in Oakland?

What is the work they are doing?

Who is the monitor of their who is the official monitor of the work that they do and where is their report?

Councilmember Houston?

David is a good question.

Oh, we have go ahead.

Councilmember Houston, you have a quick question.

You might.

Okay.

Through the chair.

I did have one question because it it just jumped out at me when it said 250K was that, and that is through the chair.

Did that 250K go through the city administrator just approved it to get it going, and then they added the $750,000 on top of it?

Why did these numbers just jumped at me real quick?

So how did that happen?

Hold that answer.

We're going to hear from our public speaker, and then we're going to get back to that.

This is an easy question if y'all could answer it.

How many times a month do they clean these facilities, these 11 facilities?

Can somebody I mean that's real simple.

You're not risking anything.

Well, I think one of our council members will ask.

Thank you for your question.

Thank you to the public speakers.

So you can respond to Councilmember Houston.

Yes, the original PSA did go through the city administrator's office uh for $250,000.

And it was because we needed a urgent, or we had an urgent need for a professional service agreement to continue these services.

So the reason why we're coming now, even though the RFP allowed a contract through 2029, which we're asking for now, is so that there would be no gap in services until that as uh allowed by that RFP, which they were awarded.

And can you give me a brief scope of their work and how many times a uh week or day they think they provide nightly nightly custodial services?

So nightly custodial services as well as uh monthly, twice a month pressure washing of the external play areas, as well as some seasonal work, such as uh when carpets and rugs need to be steam cleaned, as well as uh they do something called electrostatic cleaning where they spray sanitizer to start try to um reduce the threat of com communicable diseases.

So do the chair send me the scope of work.

I like to see that, please.

Sure.

Are there any more questions or comments from the body?

Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion.

Oh, I I believe we have a motion and second, Guile Houston.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Guyo, seconded by Councilmember Houston to approve the recommendations of staff, and this is to be forward to the March 16th, 2026 special city council agenda.

Unroll, Councilmember Gaio?

Councilmember Houston.

Councilmember Wang.

Uh I.

And Chair Five?

Aye.

Motion passes with four eyes to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the March 16th.

2026 special city council agenda and through the body would that be on consent as a request order?

Thank you.

Moving to item four.

Adopt a resolution waiving the request for proposal requirements and awarding a contract to Attawa Transportation Corporate Court DBA at WA Fine Art Services to select African American Museum Library materials for a five-year term and an amount not to exceed $300,000, and you do have two speakers.

Thank you for being with us, Director Turback.

We're going to put two minutes on the clock for you to give your presentation.

Great.

Thank you.

Um thank you, everyone.

My name is Jamie Turback.

I'm the director of the Oakland Public Library.

Uh at How Storage Facility is a storage facility in Oakland where we have uh archival materials from the African American Museum and Libraries stored.

Uh these materials have been stored at this location for 10 years.

This um resolution would allow us to continue storing those materials without moving them for another five years.

Uh the funds are budgeted and available in the library department's allocation of the general purpose fund.

And I'm available if you have questions.

We will hear from our public speakers.

David Boltwright, Miss Asada.

If my math's right, that's about $60,000 a year.

Uh sounds kind of high for uh even if it is a controlled atmosphere storage.

How can how can these items be accessed if they're in storage?

They're gonna be there for 20 years now, right?

Coming from a museum or getting going to a museum or there was something in the the report about processing the items already in storage not yet complete after the prior five years, if I read right.

So it makes you wonder how many of them are there gazillion of these items there or what to 31 years contingent upon availability of funding.

So if there's no funding, then we have to get all this stuff hauled away to somewhere else.

So that seems a little questionable something to think about.

Thank you so I don't even go to the African museum anymore.

I used to try to support it, but uh you can't be serious about having a space for African American um targeted group, and you have books that all the books are on reserve.

You can't take them out.

They just sit there and you can come and look through them and put them back on the shelf.

That don't make no sense.

Then you have a space upstairs for exhibits, it's a very small space.

Very it's not a museum per se.

It's it's a library that was turned into a museum.

And what's in those that they taken care of?

Yeah, everything is good for the black people as long as you don't see it.

You you hold it on the stuff.

You had the African American collection of books at the West Oakland library, and you start throwing those away.

A collection.

You didn't stole them, because I got a lot of them in at my house.

I go around to your library's public library and pick up the African American books you're throwing away all the time.

So a contingent, like you say, contingent on the availability of funds.

That means if you find the money.

She is 22 now.

So just saying.

That said, um, Director Turback, can you tell us what happens if there is no uh if funding runs out, what does happen to the collection?

Yes.

So the funding is budgeted from the library's um budget.

So we have a we're entering the mid-cycle, so we know we have funding next year, and every two years, all of you pass a budget.

So all that language means is if that something should happen that the library funding disappears, we would not have that funding.

I do not project that to be happening anytime in the next decade, but that would be the plan.

And we would have AMLO to move the items too.

Um these are items that are overflow, they're boxes of archival materials that have been donated by various um significant African Americans who have a relationship to Oakland.

Uh, we retrieve those items when researchers or others want to review them, and then we return them when um they're done using them.

And the reason they're there is because the location is not large enough to store all the items.

Right.

And there's some some maintenance things that last I talked to friends of AMLO that we need to adjust as well or try to address around some plumbing things at the at the library that is creating excess water, from what I understand.

I don't know if that's been fixed.

The African American Museum and Library is expected to undergo a renovation in the next year.

And we have several million dollars set aside for that that was matched by bond funds from the state.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

Are there any questions from the body?

Councilmember Wong.

Thank you.

So this is not this comment is not just directed at you.

It's more of a general comment.

I've been starting to say this in public works.

I I do agree with the public comment that we need to have more metrics in these reports when we're asked to sign off on uh spending money.

For all I know, just for exaggeration's sakes.

This could be a $300,000 contract to store one item, you know.

So I just want to have um more in writing uh as we vote on these things.

Um unlikely to be just one item.

I'm sure there's some yes, I'm sure it's many, but it's like this kind of level of detail that I that I want to see in these reports.

Um and then the other thing I just wanted to know about is because there was a recent theft with the Oakland Museum.

Does this uh contractor have security protocol in case um you know it's a security facility?

Okay, okay, great.

Well, with that I'll move the item.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Wong, seconded by Councilmember Gaio to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the March 16th special city council agenda on role.

Councilmember Gaio.

Aye, Councilmember Houston.

Uh Councilmember Wong.

I and Chair Five.

Aye.

Motion passes what four I'm to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the March 16th special city council agenda and through the body with that be on consent.

Thank you.

Item five.

Adopt a resolution waiving the competitive multi-step solicitation process and awarding a contract to interfaces in.

For the Oakland Public Library integrated library system, including computer computer hardware, software, and maintenance services for a five-year term and the amount not to exceed two million dollars, and you do have two speakers for this item.

Thank you, Madam City Clerk.

Director Turback, you again have the floor.

Thank you.

Um again, my name is Jamie Turbach, director of the Oakland Public Library.

Uh this report recommends approval of the continuation of the Oakland Public Library's integrated library system, which is a software platform that is the technology backbound for purchasing, cataloging, circulation, and searching of library books and materials.

The ILS is developed and maintained by Innovative Interfaces, which is an Emeryville-based company, and it's been used by the Oakland Public Library for 20 years.

There are only about three to four public library ILS vendors in the world, and this company is the most local with many of the employees living in Oakland.

The library requests permission to extend this contract for five years in an amount not to exceed two million dollars over a five-year period.

Uh the ILS works well, and staff and patrons are skilled at using it.

Migrating to a different platform is estimated to cost over a million dollars in staff time and take one to two years.

The expense is paid from the library's measure D fund 2243, and there's no impact to the general purpose fund from this action.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um question through the chair.

What justifies the $750,000 increase that I'm looking at?

And I'm I got a couple of questions.

And the next one is we've had them for 21 years, and in 21 years we couldn't, is no other company like from Oakland that could do this, especially with the new technology that we have with AI and all the just uh the high-end technology we have.

Um those two questions for right now.

So the costs have gone up because there's additional products we've um integrated with them.

So for instance, this platform also coordinates our Link Plus system, which is the system that allows us to or patrons to borrow books from other library systems.

Um the other systems, ILS systems in the world, there's one called Bywater that's in Santa Barbara, OCLC is in Ohio, Cersei Dynex is in Utah, and those are the others.

It's a very specialized kind of technology software, it's not um like an app or something, it's very um complex because it integrates purchasing patron records and um material cataloging colleagues.

We'll hear from councilmember Wong and then our public speakers.

Thank you.

Where are we with just um like ebooks and audiobooks and all does this system enable that?

Because I I think it would be good to just I know many library systems are moving towards this, and that we move to modernize and uh allow for patrons to access these items from from the convenience of their home.

Yeah, ebooks are cataloged through the system.

Um ebooks also sometimes have third-party vendors so that you could check out directly from an app provided by the ebook, or you can search for the ebook through this system.

But anything that gets checked out to a person goes through this system because this holds all the patron records, which have to be very secure so that pay people's privacy is protected.

And audio books, because I know like DC New York Library, they they move towards like Libby and these other Libby, all those products integrate with the system.

That's what the integration part means.

Is that everything that anybody could ever check out goes through this system?

Okay, cool.

I'll move to adopt staff's recommendation.

Moving to our public speakers, Miss Asada and David Bowright.

So related to fines and fees, you don't collect any more fines on overdue books.

What you do is have a replacement charge after 30 days for overdue books.

I don't think y'all followed through with that.

I know I got an email about a replacement charge.

I ignored it because I didn't know what the hell it was talking about, and I never heard back anybody saying I had a book that needed to be replaced.

I think we losing a lot of money because we don't have anything in place that mandates a system of actually collecting replacement charges after 30 days.

Uh you do have a collection of a fine if you use some of the equipment uh tools, and then you say Oakland Public Library Court is available to residents of California.

How do you keep up with that?

Anybody in the state of California can take out a book and do you go?

Anyone can walk in and get a card as long as you can show you live in California.

That makes sense.

Okay.

And so none of your replacement fees are publicly highlighted in any recent reports.

And I don't have an Oakland, I don't have a library card.

My library card is with San Leandro, because I'm so sick of this library screwing around with African Americans materials.

And if I did find a book on the shelf, I'll just take it out.

You want to say something?

That concludes your public speakers for item five.

Please return your books, everyone.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Wong seconded by Councilmember Gallo to approve the recommendations of staff and the forward this item to the March 16th.

Special City Council agenda on roll, Councilmember Gaio.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

And Chair Fife.

Aye.

This motion passes with four eyes to approve the recommendations of staff and afford this item to the March 16th special city council agenda on consent or non-consent.

Consent.

Thank you.

Moving to item S7.

This item does require an urgency vote as the item was placed on the agenda beyond the 10-day noticing.

And to staff, can you please state the urgency reasoning for on the record?

Thank you.

And to staff, please state the urgency reasoning for this item being placed on the agenda at the three-day.

Apologies, sorry.

The urgency finding was due to the fact that the um receiving of the funds was an April 1 start date.

And that was the need for the urgency binding.

Thank you.

We just need motion.

I'll make the motion to accept the uh emergency findings.

Thank you.

We had a motion made by Chair Five, seconded by Councilmember Gallo.

To approve the urgency unroll, Councilmember Gaio.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Councilmember Wong.

Aye.

Thank you.

And Chair Five?

Aye.

I would now read the item into record.

Adopt a resolution.

One accepting or appropriating authorizing agreements.

One accepting or appropriating authorizing agreements for A up to 23,000 23 million 29,455 and 86 cents from the state of California in homeless housing assistance and prevention round six funds B up to 441,350 from the County of Alameda, winter relief funds may through May 31st, 2028, C up to 4,209,693, 300, excuse me, from the Oakland Housing Authority from the Oakland Path Rehousing Initiative, and two awarding a grant agreement some professional services agreement to the homeless service providers in tables one and two for the terms and amounts identified using high cat high HHAP accounting and local general purpose measure queue funding and three accepting and appropriating additional grant funds from the above funding sources for fiscal year 26 through 27, authorizing the city administrator to increase the agreements identified and move funding identified in table one and table two using such funding or additional funding that the city council has appropriated from the programs during the terms of such agreements.

And you do have one speaker.

Okay, thank you for being here with your presentation.

Is this the first time?

Second?

My first time.

I thought so.

I thought so.

So is seven minutes enough for the presentation if you need more time.

It's actually more than enough.

There we go.

Seven minutes.

Good afternoon, Chair Fife, community members and members of the public.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

My name is Shallan Keener, and I serve as the manager of community homelessness services division within the human services department.

I am here to request your support for the resolution to accept and appropriate HAP Six, Winter Relief, and Opry funds, which together will allow the city to extend several critical shelter and interim housing contracts.

This item is urgent and essential.

Without the approval of this resolution, the city of Oakland risks losing 452 shelter and interim housing beds.

Placements that thousands of our unhoused residents rely on.

The people currently residing in these programs would face immediate displacement, and our outreach teams would lose key placement options for those living outdoors.

The resolution before you authorized the acceptance of up to 23 million in HAP 6 funding, a little over 441,000 in winter relief funds through May 2028, and over 4.2 million in Oprah funding from the Oakland Housing Authority.

These funds would support programs and one consultant, enabling us to amend and extend agreements through 2027 and continue services that provide both safety and pathways to permanent housing.

Shelter and interim housing remain a core component of Oakland's homelessness response.

In fiscal year 24-25 alone, programs connected to this portfolio serve 781 people, the majority of whom face complex needs.

40% with behavioral health challenges, 48% with chronic health, developmental or physical disabilities, and 70% identifying as black or African American, reflecting the racial disparity of homelessness in Oakland.

Ensuring continuity of this of these programs is critical to both public health and racial equity.

At the same time, looking into implementing elements of result-based accountability and transparency are key priorities for our department.

With one with new leadership in place, including our debt our director, deputy director, and myself, and the support of city administration, we are fully aligned with strengthening our pro performance and contract oversight frameworks.

As part of these extensions, we will strengthen contract language to better define performance expectations, reporting requirements, and outcome measures.

These updates built on the city's framework established after the 2024 audit report and our ongoing monitoring practices.

We are also investing in our internal capacity.

In partnership with HCD technical assistance team, we will be conducting an all-day contract management training for all CHS staff in early May.

This will equip the team with improved skills and tools for monitoring, data review, and provider support.

Ultimately, our focus is twofold.

Prevent the loss of 452 beds and maintain the shelter capacity our community urgently needs.

Strengthen provider accountability, oversight, and system performance, ensuring investments translating to stronger outcomes and more permanent housing exits.

We welcome the opportunity to return to life enrichment committee in six months with an update including data on performance on program performance and the impact of these strengthened measures.

For these reasons, we respectfully request your support in approving this resolution so that the city can accept these funds, extend these contracts to 2027, and maintain essential shelter and interim housing capacity for Oakland residents.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Well done.

Thank you.

You know, what we heard in our presentation from Shallan.

And I want to articulate that many of the changes that we're starting to see now with HSD now that we have more consistent leadership, is uh an adherence to the audit that was done a few years ago, the homelessness audit that was done a few years ago, where the council at that time did demand more oversight, more transparency, more um just a better understanding of how our tax dollars were spent on these uh on these programs, which the audit showed that we have a lot of work to do when it comes to the city.

Um I'm happy that you're here and and taking on probably the biggest issue that Oakland has to tackle.

Um that will be done more vigorously because there are a lot more people paying attention as the problem continues to just plague our city.

So that said, I will entertain a couple questions from our colleagues, and then they can then we'll go to our public speakers.

I will recognize Councilmember Houston and Councilmember Wong.

Through the chair, you did a great job.

Thank you.

And that's what the county does, and that's what we have to do is bring result-based accountability.

And when is the contract up through the chair?

Is in June?

Is it June?

Can I when is the contract?

I mean, when do the the contracts get renewed besides the one you just spoke about, Councilmember Fife?

Well, if we pass this today, then it will go to the full city council on the the next next Tuesday, the 16th.

And then but our contract approval to once it passes council will be immediate so that we can it can be in place for April 1st.

Okay, but don't their contracts renew in June through the chair.

No, not all of them.

Some of them are due to expire.

So but if may I chime in as city administration?

So there are several contracts.

One that is uh expiring uh March 31st, so would need to be renewed by April 1st, and then there are other contracts that are ending, so they're all slightly different time frames and would need to be renewed.

So in the process of that renewal is when staff will be following up and modifying the scope of works to add some of the stronger language.

That's music to my ears right there.

So when those contracts come up, we're gonna be able to modify them to put a result-based accountability data, metrics, and all those things in there.

Similar, could we um grab some of the language from where the county has on because they have a great, great um language about result-based accountability?

So, through the chair, if I may again, uh Sophia Navarro, Deputy City Administrator, uh, I will be working closely with the team so that we can consider and look at those.

Um, I know that we have an internal process for how we monitor and provide oversight, but we'd be happy to look at Alameda County's language and see what might be implementable for City of Oakland and appropriate.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Wong through the chair and uh Shillan, we even you and I haven't been able to discuss um like I obviously want this to pass because it's important.

I don't want that uh aspiration to happen, but I do also given the audit and given a lot of widespread concern.

I think any time where I hear both concern of our holding our providers accountable not only comes from like you know, ta you know, homeowners that are very conscientious of the taxes that that they pay, and also the unhoused community themselves say the same thing.

I think that is those are groups that don't often overlap.

And when I hear the same thing that they are seeing um misuse of funds, that I think it's really important that we dig into provider level uh outcomes and we really get to that.

So um I um and and then also given in light of the the homeless action plan that we're about to see, and we're likely going to be asking for more money that we absolutely need more funding, and I think we also need to demonstrate to the public that we are using the current funding that we have uh wisely.

And with that, I did actually want to introduce an amendment um uh for the for the staff resolution.

Um if you wouldn't mind displaying that this has been discussed with uh this uh the attorney as well as uh staff okay, and I think colleagues you all each have a copy on your desk as well.

So the amendment reads um they are over there.

Thank you, Ms.ada.

Maybe I think maybe the one microphone.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Just to read the amendment into the record.

Uh it reads further resolved that the city council directs the city administrator to provide written reports to the life enrichment committee every six months regarding all programs receiving funding from the funding sources accepted or appropriated through this resolution, including current or future allocations of such funding sources, including but not limited to homeless housing assistance.

So these are the HAP funds, Oakland Path rehousing initiative funds and county relief funds.

The first report shall be due no later than six months after execution of the associated agreements.

Each report shall include program level performance metrics for each provider and program receiving funding from these sources, including total contract funding amount, number of individuals served, number of uh percentage of clients served who identify as black or African American, number and percentage of participants exiting to permanent housing, housing retention outcomes at six and twelve months, average length of stay, program capacity and average occupancy or utilization rates, program level exit to perform uh permanent housing outcomes for black and African American clients, uh any newer enhanced performance metrics andor benchmarks established by the city administrator, we shall be informed by historic performance and data from peer jurisdictions and performance comparison uh table, some summarizing program level metrics and or benchmarks.

Further resolve that if the program funded through these sources fails to meet benchmarks established by the city administrator, the city administrator shall implement appropriate remedies, which may include default notices, correction corrective action measures, performance improvement plans, technical assistance, non-renewal or termination, and shall include discussion of such measures and the next required six-month report to life enrichment committee, and further resolve that the city administrator shall incorporate the program level performance metrics and benchmarks reported pursuant to this resolution into feature funding recognitions for homelessness programs supported by these funding sources, including contract renewals, extensions, or new funding allocations, and shall provide to the city council a summary of how program performance uh informs such funding recommendations.

And that's thank you.

And that's the amendment.

Um just I also wanted to make a quick comment that I thank you for the uh table that you had sent me.

Um one of my observations was that you know one of the programs costs sixty thousand dollars per exit.

That's the home base uh HCEB program, and one of the programs uh the while the BFWC programs cost about $17,000 per exit.

So I don't know if you have thoughts around why one is so much uh lower costs per exit to perfor uh permanent housing, but it I think it's this stuff that uh I I do want to dig into.

And then one other really concerning thing that I will say that I had heard from our uh unhoused community this week is that and it and it makes sense, even the danger of the performance metrics themselves is there may be certain providers knowing that we're holding them to certain performance metrics, maybe like uh falsifying the data to make it look like their performance metrics are better than they really are.

So I'm seeing from multiple people that um, and I'm not saying this is everybody, but that um because of the incentives that you know you have someone who is clearly on the street, homeless, and they're being told when they then they're in the HMIS system, they go to a service provider and they're being told you actually already have housing, so you're double dipping into the system when they don't actually have housing.

And so um anyways, I just want to both point out the need to drill down into performance metrics at the provider level and the also the danger or the the um the inadvertent consequences when we don't also verify that that data is is true.

Did you want to respond at all?

Because if if not I have some some comments and concerns, I do want to r really support, I want to support council member Wong, your desire for greater transparency, and I concur that we're hearing the same argument from folks that are unhoused and um some people that are housed, and some service providers if I'm if I'm being honest, and it has been the goal of this council, number one, to work with city staff in conjunction, understanding their capacity to address these issues, which is why things are shifting now.

There's been a lot of turnover, there's been a lot, it's just been tumultuous with HSD and um Shallan, how long have you been with the city now?

Two months exactly.

To the day.

That's exactly my point.

So the things that you're requesting, they're already some of these things are already in process.

And because as the chair of life enrichment and someone who's just been on the ground working on these issues for many, many years, I would like the opportunity to digest these amendments with city staff to understand what their capacity is.

I haven't had a chance to read through this because we're just getting it.

I would like to entertain these amendments after staff has had a time, has had ample time to review it.

I understand that the city attorney needs uh would it's not a requirement, but I'm asking for um your partnership and giving us more time to digest what's here to find out what's possible.

Again, many of the uh oversight desires that you are sharing today have been expressed by this council and previous councils.

We're hearing about results-based accountability from council member Houston today.

So we're all on the same page, but we I again I don't want to be redundant and recreate the wheel if it already exists.

I see you're articulating some things more clearly than maybe perhaps has been stated before, but I want to give everybody the opportunity that you know we had members of the public asking for the printouts, and I just got it just right now.

Totally amenable to making things stronger and clearer.

I just need a little more time.

If I can comment, um many of these metrics were uh actually metrics that I received from the staff.

Just it they were not public facing, they were ones that I just received from Shallan actually uh in an email.

So I I don't think, and Shalan, you're uh I welcome your your comments on these amendments, but uh I don't think any of the metrics that we're asking for here are things that are not already captured in our systems, they're just not provided.

Um right now they're just not available to the data in in this report.

And I also constructed this amendment that way all of this would be reported uh in six months, so it gives the staff time to actually uh develop out some of the the requirements that we have here in a read reasonable time frame while also making sure that we go ahead and approve the uh resolution today, given the urgency finding.

Understand.

Um before I go to council member Houston, uh Shallan, did you have any more to share?

No, I didn't.

I think um to your point, you did mention these questions, they were asked of us, and we did pull the data, but it's not data that we regularly pull.

I think that's the distinguishing factor.

Um, and so I was clear on the six months benchmark, but I wasn't so much clear on um the level of detail needed.

So that's the disconnect that I do still have, but understand.

Okay, thank you for that.

Councilmember Houston and Councilmember Guyo.

Through the chair, what I I like these questions, I do.

Um, are these these these pieces that to put into it?

But some of them kind of match, and and I think they'll fall under the result of based accountability piece because we were on that meeting together.

So um I feel that if if we let Ms.

Sophia um lead this and put those result-based accountability together and take lead with what the county has already been working.

They move by result-based accountability because we all know that um we keep getting this money, have one, have two, have three, have four, have five, have six, and we're worse than we were from the very beginning, right?

And this is the same money that they said we would lose with my EAP, and we didn't, so but I better get off of that.

So um I think that I'll I'll I'll I'll follow my uh Councilmember Fife's lead.

I think that if we give you both the the right to put it together and let's look at the result of case uh result-based accountability, I think we'll come to um to agreement on that it'll match what you have here.

This is what I believe.

Councilmember Wong.

Colleagues, can I just push back a little bit?

I think there's a difference between saying the term results-based accountability and making sure that we as a council direct and really make sure that it happens, you know, and it's not just the county's obligation.

And I think we've heard frustration, wide spread, widespread frustration that are are we really doing the oversight that's necessary?

So I I'm just I'm just saying that you know we can say it, but also we need to establish the framework that we want to see that accountability, and what are even the metrics that we want?

So this is a proposal to say this is what we're looking at.

Um beyond just saying the term, you know, it sounds good, right?

Results base accountability, but I also think we need to take the extra step.

Yes, Councilmember Houston.

I mean, I'm sorry, Councilmember Gaia was in the queue, and then Councilmember Houston.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

And to the staff and to the public is, you know, it's being straight up front about the reality that that exists here in Oakland.

At least what I see daily on the street.

You know, and it changes daily in terms of the numbers of people I see coming into Oakland from other cities.

And the first sense, hey man, where are you from?

I ain't seen you around here in Fruville.

Oh, I mean, I just came over from Fremont.

Oh, I came over from San Jose.

Or I came over from San Francisco.

Or they bust me for San Francisco and they gave me 400 if I stay in Oakland.

And so, you know, I think the reality is we got to be real with the numbers.

So the question that I have for you is on page seven.

Uh it says collectively the programs on table two serves 781 people.

781 people, but yet at the same time, I keep hearing that Oakland has 6,000 plus homeless populations here in the city.

And the numbers keep changing, but the reality is that you know, can you you understand that well in terms of the situation that we have in Oakland?

What we're having to do now to doing that.

I mean, you just I just saw you on TV about under the freeway.

All right, and you move them from that side to go to Kent's side and they come to my side and they keep growing.

And we continue with this problem, and because the the this the area that I'm trying to advocate is make sure that around my schools, they're safe and clean.

And oh, you don't have a right to be laying in front of the door and doing your drug thing in front of my schools.

Nope.

But then the city is not implementing or enforcing that across the city.

Uh so for me it's the question is when we talk about here collect collectively the programs uh serve 781 people.

But what about the other thousands that are on the street?

What do we need to do to fix that and serve that or address that issue?

Because they're in communities, well, Carol, you see them in your neighborhood, and certainly in mine and yours in East Oakland.

So uh can you share with us in terms of what are what about the other thousands of people that are not being provided the services that are being recommended?

Sure.

Sure.

I did want to clarify that 781 is for fiscal year 24-25, and it only pertains to the programs on that chart.

It's not for all of our other programs.

So the other sources of funding that are also um funneled through CHS, it doesn't include all of them.

So that number is just for this fiscal year and just for this funding source.

Okay.

If that helps clarify a little bit.

Yeah, then the last question I have for you is I I still strongly believe that Alameda County needs to play a greater role in the service level.

And so you have down here Alameda County Homeless Action Center for Legal Services.

Where is that located?

On San Pablo, the Alameda County Legal Services is located in San Pablo.

The homeless action center, I think you um reference the homeless action centers on San Francisco.

San Pablo San Pablo one on Franklin.

And Franklin.

And uh, but anyways, I I agree that we need to be more up more up front and share with the public what really happens in Oakland and the streets of Oakland, and so we can address that problem not just Oakland, because Oakland is in the county.

Oakland is in the state of California, and we need to have greater cooperation uh when it comes to serving the community that we currently have.

And so um so I would welcome that information more on a more often basis so we can deal with the immediate problem that we're living in.

And uh and most of all address the needs of our children and families, so we're trying to motivate, discipline, and create a future for.

Thank you for that information.

Thank you.

Of course.

So I'll just I'll I'll I'll wrap with this and then I'll entertain a motion from well.

I I'll I'll thank you, Madam City Clerk.

I want to say that there are people in this city who've spent a long time trying to get our arms around this.

We've been pushing for greater accountability, pushing for solutions that actually address the issue, and we have got to consider the reality that the department we actually don't have a department of homelessness, Councilmember Wong.

But the individuals that have been tasked to address this through HSD for the last several years, it's been extremely difficult to do.

So part of what we're seeing is improper staffing in in our departments to really oversee some of the results that we would like and that that Oakland residents deserve.

And what I'm asking for the future, and and I will I see that your your hand is raised, um, is that when you have amendments that are coming to life enrichment to let me know before we get here so I can really digest it, partly to manage the agenda, but also to include the historic uh knowledge of what's been done.

I'm hearing our staff say that they did not go into detail around they didn't get to um actually think through the detail.

They pulled data for the first time and didn't necessarily get to digest this information either.

I think our outcomes and our desired our desired outcomes are the same.

I just want the time to be able to uh address what's been done, what hasn't been done, and um manage manage the committee uh in light of uh in light of those things.

So I I apologize that I'm kind of stumbling over my words, but I hope you understand what what I'm trying to explain here.

Um and I do want to give an opportunity to hear from our public speakers, but uh I'm gonna give you a a few uh seconds to respond.

Thank you.

I now did give you a heads up, Carol, but anyways, yes.

But I I will just say that um you know, when it comes to you know the these metrics, what I what I would like to know is if a the next report in six months, like let's say I think the housing retention outcomes would be a challenging one to put forward in six months.

I think we can just say, you know, to be delivered at a future date, but I think it would be remiss because I didn't see the program level metrics for this report.

And I know the data was there because I received it, but I just think that the public also deserves to receive it, and I totally understand that we are growing the staff capacity.

I also think that we should still hold ourselves at least accountable, because this at least sets a timeline by which in six months we need to um provide this information to the public of how the spending is and how these programs are functioning, the performance that they are uh that they're meeting in terms of the data that is available, you know, and anything that isn't available, okay.

It's not available, but let's at least fulfill the the data that we know that we want to see.

I mean, there's some very basic things.

Number of individuals served.

Gosh, I hope we have that data at a pro program level, and I know that we have it because you gave it to me.

So that is my argument, and I will make a motion to adopt the step staff recommendation with the amendment.

That is what I was going to suggest, and I will say to everybody here, no shade.

I've been organizing for 30 years, so I paid the cost to be the boss with the hot sauce.

So when I'm in this chair, it's either chair Fife or Councilmember Fife.

Okay.

That said, it I've been in committee.

I well, I've been watching committee since since the finance committee this morning.

I wasn't present in the in the chambers, but I was watching that.

I watched public works, I watched all the different committees, and then you know, CED.

So the first time I got word that you wanted to make amendments was at 156 around 2 p.m.

while I was in CED.

That was not the documents, it was not the amendments themselves.

It was just Councilmember Fife, I want I have some amendments to HAP6.

Totally fine.

That's not the collaboration I'm asking for.

So when I'm asking for a heads up, I want to I want to know what's being proposed.

It's completely up to you if you want to do that, but just to be in partnership, so I can manage this um this committee effectively and get the outcomes that we all want to see and that Oakland residents deserve.

Let's talk through this kind of stuff.

This is a big deal.

This is a big deal.

And I want to make sure that staff have what they need so that they can provide what our residents deserve as well.

And sometimes staffing can impact that, um, especially for new staff.

This is there's nothing wrong with what you're saying.

I'm just saying I don't want to be duplicative, I don't want to waste time, and I want to do what's right by the people.

Um that said, happy to second your motion.

And if we have not heard from the public speakers, madam city clerk, I would like to do that.

Call in our public speaker, Ms.

Sada.

Uh Councilmember Wong, I just want to encourage you to continue to do what you're doing in terms of looking at more transparency and accountability.

We need that.

And I haven't seen it to the level that is need it needs to be.

And for example, in uh San Francisco in February, a homeless nonprofit woman was charged with embezzlement of I think over two million dollars of money intended for homelessness.

So that label fraud that you used, we we kind of keep our eyes open for that because it's necessary.

Uh however, with this particular item for which you will asking for some feedback on what we're trying to work on.

Uh this item uh covered tr uh transitional youth permanent housing services, rental subsidy, and rapid rehousing programs.

So it's quite a bit that's covered uh for you to want to have some feedback on this item, okay.

Uh I didn't get the young lady.

What division is is this uh represented from human services?

Because I tried to look at what division is it.

I didn't see it.

I looked it up, okay.

And this is the problem.

We have no stable uh way of dealing with homelessness.

We have jumped around in many different arenas and we haven't put our foot concrete solid into dealing with homelessness.

I recommended long time ago we needed a department of homelessness, as uh we do need it, but I want to encourage any council member to to proceed to have a level of accountability and transparency that holds us to making sure that we accomplish what we need.

That has not happened, so you keep doing it, please, ma'am.

And again, I will reiterate that is exactly what I'm asking for.

But if we have every single council member talking to staff about their definition of what accountability looks like, we will have direction from eight potentially eight different people and won't get anything done.

I appreciate you wrapping your arm arms around this, and you can you can say what you need in order to accomplish the goals that have been laid out for you from the city administrator, the mayor's office, the council, all of that.

You can come to this committee and voice what you need.

I want you to understand that.

And then we will we will engage um uh as well.

I mean, we do need all of these things, which has been stated for years.

We cannot get the solutions if we don't have the staff in place.

We are working towards that, we are working towards solutions with more accountability, which is why we see a lot of the changes and shifts happening with the programs that are being funded and the ones who are who are being discontinued.

That is happening.

We are in the process towards that, and we can't lose that history.

So I just wanted to reiterate that.

I I do we have a motion and a second?

Motion second?

Here we go.

And then I want Councilmember Houston.

Did you have an additional comment?

What's the division?

Can I answer it?

Through the chair.

No, go ahead, go ahead.

Go ahead, Councilmember Five.

Division is called community homelessness services.

Community homelessness services.

Thank you.

So through the chair, uh before I just heard that it was several contracts that have several ending dates and starting dates.

Is that true through the chair?

Ms.

Sophia, is that true?

Or yes.

Okay.

So but I would like what I would like is what what council member Wong and everyone is wants these results to to for these contractors to know what they have to provide before they sign that contract.

They got they have to know what results they have to provide.

So are we saying that we're gonna be working it through and then come back after six months?

They need to know what results they have to come back with up front.

I mean, we don't want to do it while they're after signed or through that six month process.

So the first one you said is in March.

Am I right?

That the reverse renewal is in March because they're different contract times.

The the urgency finding was uh issued on the record because of a contract ending March 31st.

Right.

So we need to know that language that Councilmember Wang and I was talking about and yourself about the result-based accountability, what they have to um actually how they have to perform to be able to get that next money because what we're all saying here is the same thing that we've dished out money and have not gotten the results that we need to get.

That's clear.

Everybody knows that.

So I just want to make that share.

That's gonna be my ass that is done prior to renewing these contracts, please.

And I'm gonna say please.

That's understood.

If you want to speak to that, you can.

I I will also say that the city has to do better.

Some some of the contracts over the last few years have had challenges because we haven't always sent our payments out on time.

There, there's multiple reasons why this institution has seen challenges when it comes to addressing homelessness.

I mean, it's challenging all across the country.

If I'm being honest, all across the world.

So we have to do right internally and demand higher accountability from our service providers.

Maybe some service providers shouldn't be service providers.

We know we don't have enough in the city of Oakland.

This is a complicated issue, and I don't want to do it a disservice by over oversimplifying um what needs to happen in order to address homelessness in Oakland.

I'm not saying that's what anybody's doing, but I do want to lean on the progress that we've made and also listen to.

We have staff for the first time in in months where we've had an a churning of people in this department who have not been able to deliver results because they haven't been there, or we've overworked the individuals who have been there.

So there's a lot that goes into the history of why things have not worked out the best.

We are on the right path.

These are the right questions being asked.

I want to reiterate that.

And I want to give give the staff the space to go through what we're asking so they can deliver it.

We have a tendency of telling staff indirectly through the city administrator's office in every department what we want done, not even asking, can they get it done?

And I don't want to give the public any misconception about what's possible.

That's all I'm saying.

We have a motion in a second.

If you don't have anything else to share, then I would like to call the roll.

I did want to add, sorry, one thing.

Um as it relates to adding the items in the agreements, that is the intent.

And the there's a line here that says the first report shall be due no later than six months after execution.

So it wouldn't be due in October because the contract would not be executed by then.

Does that mean hopefully I clarified your question?

Yeah.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Wong, seconded by Chair Fife to approve as amended the recommendations of staff and the four decided until the March 16th special city council agenda.

And with Councilmember Wong's amendments that was stated on record by councilmember Wong.

On roll, Councilmember Gaia.

Aye.

Councilmember Houston.

Aye.

Councilmember Wong.

I and Chair Fife.

The motion passes with four ayes to asset to approve the recommendations of staff and the fourth decided until March 16th.

City Council agenda, special city council agenda.

And that would be on consent.

On as a request on non-consent, please note that this is a special meeting.

All right, moving to item six.

Receive an informational report from the Office of Homelessness Solutions on the City of Oakland's 2026 homelessness strategic action plan.

And you do have three speakers for this item.

Okay, we will put it's 513.

We'll put 10 minutes on the clock for now.

If you need more time, you could just take more time.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, I do have a presentation.

Let me make sure my clicker is working.

Oh, so nice.

Um, all right.

Thank you so much.

I'm honored to be here in front of all of you, council members, and thank you for making so much time also to meet with me and review the homelessness strategic plan overview.

I know it is a massive document.

When I set out to work on this, I was determined that the city could have something that was short and sweet and digestible.

But you know what, as Council uh Chair Fife said, is a very complicated problem.

And we received input from a lot of different very insightful folks, and now we have an 80-page homelessness strategic plan and a 40-page accompanying racial equity impact analysis.

And so even though I don't expect any of you who are so super busy to read the whole thing, I do encourage you to skim it and look there when you have specific data questions.

Um, there's a lot in there that I'm not going to be able to get to today.

Um by way of introduction, I'm sorry, I am Sasha Housewold.

I'm the interim chief homelessness solutions officer for the City of Oakland.

And I have the honor of leading the standing up of our Office of Homelessness Solutions, which is a new way that the city will be able to coordinate across teams like community homeless services within HSD as well as the encampment management team and the work of housing and community development department.

So I was really excited actually to sit through the beginning of this council's agenda because I heard a lot of concerns from you all on committee that are directly addressed in the recommendations of the homelessness strategic plan.

And so I just want to mention those really quickly before I dive into my PowerPoint.

I heard from all of you, but especially from Councilmember Wong about accountability and from Councilmember Houston about results-based accountability.

I want to emphasize that that is clearly articulated as one of the highest priority goals under interim solutions, especially in the homelessness strategic plan.

Also, you called out the need, Councilmember Gaio, for us to be collaborating more closely with the county with neighboring jurisdictions, and to be coordinating across departments, Missisada.

So that collaboration with the county for investing in what works here in Oakland is detailed in the strategic plan.

Thank you, Councilmember Gaio, for pointing that out as such an important thing for us to do.

Then the capacity building of HSD and Community Homeless Services Division that you got to see with incredible, our incredible new manager, Shalan Keener, is going to continue.

And under the leadership of DCA Navarro, there is continued kind of building up of that department and division.

And that is also articulated and pointed out as a high priority within the homelessness strategic plan.

So what I'm going to give you today is a very brief version of a presentation that I gave to Homeless Commission on February 25th, and a small selection of the data that are in the full plan.

Folks have pointed out that we have different types of programs and investments that help resolve one part of homelessness spread across a lot of different parts of the city.

And so that is one of the reasons that Mayor Lee implemented the Office of Homelessness Solutions to tie together the work and has moved forward the homeless strategic action plan as the way that the Office of Homelessness Solutions, together with HSD, CAO, CHS, and EMT all operate together under one umbrella, all moving in the right direction.

So it is a broad plan that guides strategic investment for five years to reduce unsheltered homelessness by 50%.

It is not a replacement for the work and the planning and the accountability that CHS does.

It is not a replacement for an encampment management or encampment abatement policy.

It is separate from those pieces that are about implementation of critical core functions of our homeless response system.

Creating the homeless strategic action plan followed the racial equity impact analysis model that starts with naming our desired future condition in this case if homelessness in Oakland occurs, it will be a rare brief and one-time experience, including for those most impacted by racial disparities.

We then use data.

We then use data, we use quantitative data from the homeless management information system, from the pit count, from our programs, and we analyze as much as possible disaggregated by race, what we are seeing in terms of what's working, what's not working, and where we're having inequitable impact by racial identity.

We then worked with the impacted community to deepen our understanding of the problem to really truth test what those data were showing in terms of racial inequities, and then we designed our strategies accordingly.

We will need to continually bring back to this body and to council accountability and results how it is going, right?

We don't know yet whether every component of this strategy is perfect.

Probably not.

We're gonna have to see, and you are gonna have to see whether the guidance that is in this document is going to truly and rapidly address homelessness.

And so I urge you to move this this item forward so that all of the different departments can begin with the implementation part.

Um in terms of uh how we did that circle back with community, we actually were very lucky in terms of not needing to reinvent the wheel.

We were able to build upon work that has been happening since 2021, especially with the intensive outreach and engagement that happened for the 2021 Centering Racial Equity in Homeless Systems Design Report.

That's a long title.

Um, but it also has a wealth of information in that report, and that we're gathered as the result of I think 10 different conversations with over 50 people with lived experience.

We also benefited as a city from technical assistance from a HUD TA provider.

They came and they also hosted six different uh discussion groups, particularly with folks with lived experience, and then building upon that, the homelessness strategic action plan team had 10 community conversations that included not only folks with lived experience, but about 20 organizations that are closest to homelessness in our city.

So the folks who are working as direct service providers, as housers, um, and as uh researchers and sort of luminaries in the field who have done the most recent um studies of homelessness in Oakland.

We also built on the Bloomberg Initiative, a year-long initiative in which leadership from the city of Oakland met regularly and identified what the scope should be for a strategic plan.

So we used that scope to guide the next phase of work, and finally now we are doing broader public meetings with two commission meetings.

This meeting at Life Enrichment Committee and hopefully pursuant to the discretion of this body, a meeting, at least one meeting at City Council.

All right, so very quickly, I'm gonna for the benefit of the public, primarily, I think most of the council members on this body already are so familiar with this information, but I am going to go over some of the foundational data that guides why and how we need to address homelessness in Oakland.

So we know that homelessness is fundamentally the result of deep poverty and housing precarity, meaning we don't have enough deeply affordable housing, and folks just can't afford the rent.

So we also know that clients in Oakland's programs typically earn far, far less than even what counts as quote, extremely low income, according to HUD, right?

That is 30% of area median income.

Our folks are earning $18,000 a year, which is well under 15% of median income.

And so you can understand then why so many folks are uh precariously housed, sleeping on couches and come into homelessness predominantly because of a housing related loss.

34% of people enter homelessness because of a housing loss, 19% because of job loss, 18% because of a health-related issue, and 17% because of a household breakup or loss.

So 59% of new homelessness in the city are among folks who identify as black, whereas only 22% of our city's population identifies as black.

So we are not yet making traction against the deep racial disparity that exists in our homeless system.

And the primary focal point and goal across different pieces of this plan is to make sure that our programs and our policies are moving the needle on that, are making sure that we are not continuing to have that extreme disproportionality throughout our system.

So as you saw, right, you saw racial disproportionality and entrance into homelessness.

We have about 2,500 people in total becoming homeless, newly homeless from Oakland each year.

And that is an enormous accomplishment, but we're not keeping pace with inflow.

So we also are seeing that because we don't have enough exits for folks, we don't have interim or permanent housing, durations of homelessness are lengthening.

Over time, we've seen chronic homelessness, which means you've experienced homelessness for at least a year or repeatedly.

We've seen that rise.

Now, because each day spent unhoused impacts health, physical health, mental health, and substance use.

That also means that more and more folks develop more serious mental illness, develop more substance use disorder as they are living for longer durations outdoors, and we see higher levels of acuity and vulnerability among our unhoused in Oakland today, with about a third experiencing either mental illness or substance use disorder, and many folks experiencing two or three disabling conditions.

So to sum it up, we know that durable poverty, systemic racism, and the decreasing availability of deeply affordable housing are driving homelessness in Oakland and they are driving racialized homelessness in Oakland.

We also know that homelessness is rising not because our programs are failing fundamentally, but because we have an imbalance between inflow and outflow.

Too many folks are becoming unhoused.

And in order to address both sides of that equation, the inflow and the outflow, we need to make investments on both sides of the equation, and we did some modeling about where and how much we need to build up our response system, and found that if we wanted to get to functional zero over the next 10 years, the city and the county would need to find another 3.2 billion dollars above what is needed to maintain and improve just our existing system, our existing programs.

So it is a tragic but very real fact that we are not likely to get to functional zero within the duration of this five-year plan.

With the investments that we recommend, we think we can get to 50% reduction, but we will still need to have humane and strategic engagement with unsheltered neighbors because there will still be unsheltered homelessness here in the city.

So meeting our goal is going to require investment across these five content areas, homelessness prevention, engagement with unhoused folks or access and coordination, encampment engagement and neighborhood health, meaning mitigating the impacts of unsheltered homelessness on neighborhoods as well as those who are experiencing it, interim housing and permanent housing solutions.

And the reason that we are looking at investments that are that broad is because if you invest in just one piece of the system, like say we go 150% with our city resources exclusively on building up interim housing and shelter.

Well, guess what?

Now we have a lot of folks flowing in there from unsheltered homelessness, those yellow arrows, but they get stuck.

And folks don't exit out to permanent housing solutions, which means our interim housing then has to build more and more and more year over year and becomes permanent housing for a growing population rather than part of a system that flows people through from unsheltered homelessness to a permanent housing solution.

We also need to, of course, invest at scale in targeted homelessness prevention to dramatically bring down that 2500 in flow or new homelessness that we're seeing annually.

All right.

So I am going to talk about a selection of the five-year goals and one year goals that you can find in the whole plan.

There, it's this is not complete and comprehensive, but I wanted to give the committee and the public a taste of what some of the highest priority goals and strategies will be.

And I look forward to the conversation.

So, in terms of prevention, we hope to scale up our existing, well researched and extremely successful targeted homelessness prevention program in Oakland.

It already runs, it is managed by BAC CBA Community Services, and it has excellent evaluation outcomes from our research partners at Stanford and beyond.

So scaling that up to prevent inflow means increasing both city financial commitment and ensuring that we are increasing county financial commitment through Measure W to that prevention program.

In terms of outreach and engagement with our unsheltered neighbors, we know that many folks who are living outdoors can't navigate this fragmented system of services and shelter, not to mention the fact that in order to get into permanent housing, you have to be, quote, document ready, which means that you have to have reams of up-to-date documents about your residency status, your income, everything under the sun, that is very difficult to come by when you don't have an address.

So as a very first step toward getting everybody in the queue in the system for the city and county funded services, we need everyone to at least have a recent coordinated entry system assessment.

We also in year one can work toward better coordinating what the city already does.

So we already invest, thank you, committee members for investing in outreach through our partner, our nonprofit partner, Operation Dignity.

We have funded positions within the community homeless services division.

And we have macro.

So I'm sorry, this this is actually incorrect.

It says community homelessness solutions.

That should say community homeless services division case managers.

But we don't have really clear work plans and operating procedures that distinguish the roles that each of these entities are playing, and we also don't have a consistent way of tracking the way that everybody is connecting with and touching the individuals who are living outside within the homeless management information system or elsewhere.

So we're building that system of data tracking and coordination right now.

We also need, of course, to respond to the impacts on neighborhoods from unsheltered homelessness.

Even though unsheltered homelessness is ending it truly is going to be dependent on the availability of interim and permanent housing solutions to move people out off the street.

The police department, fire department, OPW, et cetera, all come together to address unsheltered homelessness and its impact on the neighborhood.

In the coming five years, we need to really double down increasing trash removal, deep cleaning, and making sure that even if there are unsheltered people, that does not mean that there is rampant illegal dumping, that there is trash spilling out all over neighborhoods, or that people are ill-behaved, right?

Our unsheltered neighbors, just like our house neighbors need to have good neighborhood behavior, good neighbor expectations.

These are already built in to the city's encampment management policy.

But we have not always been the best because we are responding to fires and to emergencies.

We've not always been the best at communicating with people what is expected.

And then in year one, uh, we need to be strategic about the way that we are closing encampments because we need to make sure that we are closing those encampments in a way that they will stay closed.

I hear all of you complaining, not complaining in a bad way, but in a very valid way that we have constant re-encampment and and from neighbors too, right?

We all get probably dozens of emails a day from neighbors saying, hey, you know, you recently closed an encampment, people are already coming back.

It's only two weeks later.

That's because we don't have either the shelter beds or the people to go out and do encampment closures to be able to keep every part of the city clear.

So we have to identify those places equitably across all neighborhoods, not concentrating folks in one district, but we have to identify places that are critical to our economy, our commerce, our infrastructure, our schools, and our neighborhoods to keep clear.

Um identify then similarly equitably low sensitivity areas so that we don't have continue to have low sensitivity areas concentrated in D7, D6, and E3, right?

All of the city of Oakland needs to take equal responsibility.

Interim housing.

You know, bottom line, I think we all know we don't have enough beds.

The total sheltered count in sorry, total unsheltered in the city of Oakland as of 2024 was about 3,600 people.

We only have about 1,200 beds.

They are all around our city, and they are of widely ranging performance outcomes.

So in year one, we hope to improve that performance, working very collaboratively collaboratively with the community homeless services division.

Um over the five years, we also aim to uh pull in that measure W funding, pull in state funding and recommit city funding to add up to 860 interim program beds.

Now I heard from you all in talking about our year one goals that you not only want to see performance improvement, but you always also want to see a goal of adding beds.

So you'll see in that final bullet, I already added that per council member feedback.

And finally, I want to move on to our permanent housing recommendations.

We know that permanent housing is ultimately the only permanent solution for homelessness, right?

People need a place to live.

That doesn't necessarily mean deeply supportive, deeply subsidized new construction, which I think is what people have in their mind when I say permanent housing.

I mean all different varieties of permanent housing.

We need shared housing where folks can live with a stable roommate.

We need ways that people can live for a short time on rental support and then stabilize with the help of a case manager and job training.

We also need more vouchers, so working collaboratively with the housing authority and advocating at the federal level for vouchers, but we do know that when the city invests in permanent housing, whether it's permanent supportive housing or deeply affordable housing in a mixed income building, 92% of our unhoused folks remain housed and don't return back out to the street.

So it is it is working, but um we can't do it fast enough or at scale enough with our present resources.

I do want to mention that one great advantage to investing in permanent housing and one reason that it stays centered in this plan is that we are able to leverage state funding so well when we invest in permanent housing.

It's something we can't do unfortunately to the same degree in interim housing because the re the sources just aren't there.

So we generally fund our interim housing about 100% with city resources.

Um also are supported by the county, but that's not the case for permanent housing.

Sasha, I do want to ask in the interest of time, how much more time to do?

Yeah, one more minute.

Thank you so much.

So thank you, Chair.

I appreciate the extra time.

Um our goal is with permanent housing to create another 730 new permanent housing exits through vouchers and units, and our goal in year one is to expedite those measure U commitments to properties that leverage state and county resources maximally.

In order to get there, we need to boost up what we are investing at the city and county level.

This is showing what we are currently investing in rough numbers.

The dark green is the city, the light green is the county.

We have a gap above our 122 million that we think we're gonna be able to continue without increased advocacy.

We will probably be able to continue about 122 million annually between the city and the county.

We need to close that gap of 284 million dollars.

And the good news is our continued collaboration with the county and continued um advocacy on behalf of Oaklanders means that we can close a substantial share of that gap with Measure W as well as with Prop One resources through the Behavioral Health Services Act.

And beyond that, the plan articulates how we're going to work with philanthropy and advocate for federal and state resources to continue to close the gap.

I will close out just by saying our next steps are to do a presentation at full council with your um discretion and to begin implementation under the new Office of Homelessness Solutions and a new chief officer, which will not be myself, although I will be supporting the transition.

And then iterative improvement, right?

Do see critique, correct due.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for that.

We'll go directly to the public speakers.

Uh, and then we'll hear from the committee.

Want to call your name?

Please approach the podium.

State your name for the record.

You do have two minutes.

If you hear your name and you are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand so you're easily identified.

In-person speakers will be taken before online speakers.

Jennifer Finley and Jeff Levin.

Damian Scott.

Reverend Scott.

Excuse me, not Reverend Scott, Damian Scott.

Ms.

Asada.

I have to block this out because my pressure is gonna go up.

Um this issue continues to be uh eliminating important components.

Gentrification.

Studies have shown that gentrification is a significant factor driving homelessness among black communities.

Y'all won't talk about it.

You say that you brought up the causes of uh homelessness.

You won't talk about that.

Immigration.

Immigration has been shown to be a factor in displacement and homelessness of African Americans, and not only in Oakland, all over the country.

You won't talk about it.

Systemic inequities and racism is a cause for homelessness, but you won't talk about it.

So if you're not willing to go into the deep dive of why, why African Americans are the majority, we only 19% of the population, but we y'all got all kind of numbers.

You say 50, sometimes you say 70.

And the the point in time study or survey is only an estimate.

You don't have no system in place that accurately can give you how many people in this city are homelessness.

And your prejudice towards homeless people.

I hear you say it many times.

We got to stop these homeless people coming into Oakland.

But you don't say nothing about stopping people coming illegally uh from out of the country.

I hear y'all say that all the time.

You don't even believe that homeless people belong in Oakland.

So until you change your attitude about what is the cause.

Moving to our Zoom speakers, Damian Scott, please unmute yourself and begin your two-minute comment.

Thank you so much.

Uh Damian Scout, East Bay Housing Organizations.

I'd first like to applaud city staff for the great work they did putting together the homelessness strategic action plan.

Uh we believe this is a great example of how to develop plans through an equity lens by starting with equity and a disparity study first, and then developing strategies that address these disparities by focusing on the most severe needs and most glaring disparities.

We also want to applaud the extensive community engagement, including consultants with impacted persons and a comprehensive approach that covers everything from prevention to encampment management to interim and permanent housing.

Rather than just approaching this as a more piecemeal uh fashion.

Uh, we also want to highlight that uh this plan makes clear that our unhoused neighbors are not outsiders.

You know, 60 to 70 percent had their last permanent housing right here in Oakland, and 85% of the black unsheltered residents have lived in Alameda County for more than a decade.

The presence of a large number of unhoused people in Oakland is not a sign that we are somehow attracting people from elsewhere.

It instead tells us that our housing system has failed, our residents, our black residents in particular.

The solution to our housing crisis is more dignified and affordable housing.

And this plan is a necessary start to achieving this goal.

Thank you.

Moving to our next Zoom speaker, Jeff Levin.

Please unmute yourself and begin your two-minute comment.

Thank you.

Uh Jeff Levin speaking for East Bay Housing Organizations and following up on my colleagues' comments.

Um I want to draw attention in particular to the plan's discussion of encampment management.

Um the discussion here, I think correctly balances the need to reduce the neighborhood impacts of encampments while also recognizing the needs of unhoused persons and treating them with dignity and respect and acknowledging that forced relocation of people in encampments as a racially disproportionate and negative impact on unsheltered people, particularly black uh and African American residents who are grossly overrepresented in the unhoused population.

All this made clear in the report.

The report correctly notes the city does not have sufficient shelter and interim housing to accommodate the population living in encampments.

And if we just keep doing sweeps, we are just pushing people around from one place to another.

Um we need a more nuanced approach.

And this report calls for such steps as increased sanitation services for encampments, engaging encampment residents themselves in those efforts, increasing engagement and notice before closing encampments, greater clarity and identification of so-called high and low sensitivity areas that recognizes, as I said, in the absence of sufficient interim and permanent housing, we cannot just chase people around from one place to the next.

You fix a problem in one neighborhood, you cause a problem in another.

Um also uh the discussion of approaching the issue of people living in vehicles with an understanding that our policies must not leave people worse off in a more precarious and hazardous circumstances than before.

We have long advocated that the solution to homelessness is in the word itself.

We need more affordable homes.

As uh Damien said, we need to expand the supply of housing.

The cost of eliminating homelessness is enormous, but we can make a significant thank you for your comment.

That concludes public speakers for item six.

Okay, I will open up the floor to my colleagues.

Do we have questions, comments?

Councilmember Houston.

Through the chair, I was looking at I don't know, they're not numbered, but it says encampment response five year one.

This is I really like this.

Is it is in line with the EAP.

It's talking about low sensitivity areas, high impact um neighborhoods.

I really, really like this.

Uh you mentioned um what about private funding?

Is this going after private funding also, Ms.

Sasha?

Yes, one of the kind of core reasons for having a strategic plan is that it shows that the city knows what we're doing, right?

We have a plan, we know how much it costs, we know where we need to put it.

It's a foundational piece for doing philanthropic fundraising, and so that is um that's part of its purpose and goal.

So again, through the chair.

Um, so I'm in I'm in line with this.

Uh I like to move it to council.

So are we gonna be able to move it to 316?

But I want to move the EAP at the same time.

I think I gotta go to rules on that one.

I'm not sure, but what would be the next um council meeting meeting that we would want this to go to, Chair?

April 14th.

14th.

Not the sixth net March 16th.

That's a special meeting.

Well, all the April.

I don't know.

We'll talk about it.

April 14th.

April 14th.

Um I'll let my other colleagues speak.

Let me um make a couple of phone calls.

Uh Councilmember Wong.

Thank you.

Uh, through the chair.

Um, I thank you so much for this.

This is uh excellent work.

Um, I did want to comment on a couple areas where uh I feel really great about this.

I'm especially excited about your emphasis on diversion and problem solving.

And I might be biased.

I did work on this in Massachusetts, but I think for me, this is really where the coordinated entry system has been a failure, if I'm being honest in my opinion, where because that system prioritizes those with the highest acuity, it's creating these perverse incentives actually to push people to acute homelessness instead of helping people earlier in their homelessness experience.

So I think this is really if we think about this as a public health crisis to solve this at stage one cancer instead of stage four cancer, this is um this is exciting, and I think it's also really important that this diversion and problem solving method that you're um advocating that it's also targeted for those who would be best equipped to be on a path to self-sufficiency.

So we're kind of on the spectrum of most acute homelessness to early in their homelessness problem.

We're kind of taking it from both ends of of the um population.

Um I do want to also look at investments into family reunification, um, especially for those that are not from Oakland.

So uh because your plan is still all also still solving homelessness for f only 50 percent at the end of the day, and so we're not gonna be able to house everybody, and so I think if there's ways that we can um perhaps you know use family reunification or deprioritize those that are not from Oakland, um I I think that is something that we should look at.

Um and then finally I do want to just talk about the the goal of um interim shelter and um I think I was reading that we have about 0.39 interim beds for every unsheltered person, um, whereas other cities that I think are more the model that we want to strive to are at about 0.7 interim shelter beds per person.

So um I we we've had this discussion.

I'm wondering too if there's maybe something to be said about a surge strategy about not just dividing up the number of interim shelter beds you've proposed in strategy year by year, but front-loading that and um and looking looking at that.

Um since I know uh San Jose is is a city that's really invested in that surge model.

Houston did the same thing.

And um, I know I am sick of meeting with our encampment management team, and every time we talk to them, well, there is literally no shelter beds left in the city of Oakland.

So um, yeah, that's just my my comments on this.

And then finally, I would just say, because I think you've had this ni nice breakout of uh the funding that is needed.

If you have an estimation of what we could get from each of these funding sources and what's left over that way, I mean it looks like we need a ballot measure or something to fulfill that gap.

Thanks.

I apologize.

I was talking to the clerk, um, Councilmember Wong.

Were there any direct asks that we that you made?

Just uh comments, comments and yeah, okay.

My feedback.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gu and then Councilmember Houston.

Thank you for the information.

And you know, it comes down to it's not about what we say, it's what we do.

It's not about what we say what's but uh what what we do.

We can write all the plans and all the developments, but it's what we put in action.

All right, and this is one of the challenges in this city we've had for many, many years having grown up here in the East Oakland.

All right.

So for me, to you is what has the homeless encampment commission played a role with your information, your presentation, and your movement forward.

Have they reviewed that?

Thank you through the chair.

The uh homelessness commission has been involved, they received an initial briefing and discussion in June of 2025, and then uh report back and further discussion February 25th.

Okay, then secondly, are there models cities that perhaps you can recommend to this council to take a look at in terms of the progress they've made in terms of moving forward addressing the what addressing the the homeless population or addressing the housing needs?

I mean, I follow everything from New York City.

I mean, I know in New York City and visiting New York City for many years, they have the worst problem.

I was surprised to hear that.

How bad it is in New York City.

LA is certainly we know LA and LA is what over they got over a hundred thousand homelessness, where New York City's got 121,000.

But anyway so traveling down to cities like Oakland then you know if there's there if there are cities out there that perhaps we can model how do we can invest the resources that we have or the services that we can provide to you know help us address the problem that we have here considering that I keep hearing from the county that we have in Oakland we have 6,000 homeless people out on the street that are looking for support looking for housing and so forth and so with that you know the question that I have is for you is what is the interaction or the cooperation within some of our public entities from for ex an example even from our churches.

I mean Jesus was out on the hillsides preaching to take care of the poor to deal with the poor he didn't say go out there and help the rich and help those folks he was out there without a cathedral.

And so what is the cooperation within our churches in terms of addressing housing taking care of some of our needy because what I what I see today I go to from one church to the other all I see is the security guard on the front door I can no longer just walk in and out of the church man I we got to go through a security guard.

I was hoping the angel would be out there greeting me but nowadays we they're not there greeting me.

But then then the other issue is the other one that I did that I would like you to follow up within our Oakland Unified School District system.

We have many I grew up here when we had 74,000 students enrolled in Oakland Unified uh but now we only have 3000 and so what you know what properties what facilities can we temporarily use to house some of our residents that are on on the street and that includes some of our young people that are out there on the street.

So you know I would like to get that kind of feedback from you beyond the local funding within the city or within the county the cooperation from other governmental nonprofit organizations that we ought to be able to work together to serve our community.

Thank you for that information.

Thank you.

Councilmember Houston I will add that it is 555 and uh public safety begins at 6 p.m.

Yeah I I moved it because I I yeah I did I moved it because I wanted um because I see it's in line with what um we're trying to pass but I wanted just to say I think 4146 it can work.

I like that I wanted it to be 316 but I think 413 4146 can work as long as it's like a special meeting so we can have the um HSAP and the EAP at the same time that'd be great in my opinion.

And as I stated before I it is my personal perspective that the EAP needs to be its own meeting.

We had a hundred people over a hundred people come out to speak at the last uh time that we heard this it's a controversial issue um a lot of people have a lot of opinions and to give it the time that it deserves so we can actually uh debate the issue I think it needs to be its own special meeting but if the if you have a different perspective please share that you can change my mind but just the reason why because I see the alignment and if if if if they have concerns about the EAP or the what you call it the HSAP we can talk about them at the same time because just like um Councilmember Guyo said what churches did they speak to what committees did they speak to with the EAP we went and vetted it through the city attorney's office.

We've edited it through the police department we've edited it through the the fire department we've edited it through the EMEAP I mean EMPs we've edited it so what I was saying was that um it's and I'll have a meeting with the mayor tomorrow about some technical changes so it's basically set I don't think it I know individuals have a lot to say but it's basically set in my opinion so I feel that they should go at the same time because they're in unison.

I understand that they're related um but I would I we're not scheduling the EAP right now that has to come to rules so you should bring your perspective on Thursday to the rules committee and state that to try to get it scheduled because we didn't schedule it yet.

I think it's pending pending no date specific so definitely come right now we have to um wrap up this item it is an info report.

Can I get confirmation from city attorney's office on that?

Yes, that's that's correct.

If the um item will be scheduled less than 10 days from now, but if the item is scheduled to April, you actually don't need that.

Um Thank you for that.

And I definitely encourage that supplemental to be added to this report.

I I think that's important.

Um but I did have several questions, but I also want to recognize look looking at my watch that we have um only a few more seconds in this meeting.

Uh Councilmember Wong, I'm going to give you 30 seconds and then I'm gonna just run through my questions.

And a second outstanding.

Thank you.

So I'm gonna run through my questions.

They can possibly be answered in the supplemental as well, since you're adding a supplemental.

So I'm just gonna list them out and then we can go to open forum.

Number one, you state that under strategy two, the plan highlights rapid diversion uh to expedite stabilization for those who are newly homeless and or lower acuity, recommending a potential pilot.

As it stands, our potential pilots, well, not potential pilots, our existing pilots have returned people to homelessness, return people to the streets, and um with a closure of several encampments, we just see this recurring movement of people from one corner to another.

So I'm exploring the pilot that you're suggesting, and I wanna understand if there is a specific recommendation for this new approach.

Don't have to answer any of these right now.

Um, strategy three, you point out that 90% of the city is already designated as high sensitivity and suggest new priority no camping zones within the high sensitivity areas to establish a data informed framework for assessing and responding to encampments.

I would like exposition on the goal of no camping zones and how it would help with meeting the objectives of this um action plan.

Number three, and oh an oak glitter and the co-managed encampment pilot is a program that's based out of Oregon, I believe.

I I've heard the mayor speak about it, but I wanted to know what does that entail in Oakland, partially because there are programs similar to Glitter in Oakland that that offer these services.

And I I want to know what this pilot would entail.

And would it reflect the model the city piloted at Third and Peralta?

I'm very interested in knowing the similarities and differences of that particular program.

The plan states that the city can't effectively solve homelessness without also solving black homelessness, and I think it should be noted that the city can't effectively solve homelessness without prioritizing black homelessness explicitly, and I want to know how we do that in light of state laws that don't allow us be it ties our hands to actually addressing the issues that we know are the core of the crisis.

So I want to know how you you plan on on doing that and how some of the targets uh of these strategies would you know intersect or run a foul of Prop 209.

Number five, my fifth question is the plan highlights the need for better collaborations with the county.

You don't have to write these down, I'll email them to you.

Don't worry about it.

The plan highlights the need for better collaboration with the county and even assigns roles and responsibilities under each strategy.

Has the county agreed to any of this?

And will there be a push to formalize an agreement with the county?

We've been in conversation around a sacramental plan and modeling uh city of Oakland actions after what's been done in Sacramento.

So I want to know if the county has agreed to anything.

And last, I want to understand how the city plans to better identify and coordinate with the county as it pertains to services for the unhoused and um services that address only issues that the county can address substance abuse, mental health, physical health, and um those sorts of things because those are the things that we hear so much from our constituents.

I've I've seen so many women, elder women walking around my district unclothed with mental health issues that I I can't call macro enough.

So I want to know how we're going to engage with the county on managing those things that they should be managing and how we're gonna coordinate.

This is a major area that the county needs to step up, step on, step up on to support the city of Oakland because they are the health department for our city.

So those are six questions that I have.

I will forward those.

I will also send those to the city clerk because I would like those responses in the supplemental as well.

Thank you for your time.

Through the chair, um, some of those may be more appropriate in a legal opinion or a legal disalcing.

That's fine.

I'm happy to get that from if it can't be this especially round 209.

Yep, I hear you.

Okay, so can I recommend that you delete that from that one question?

And then our office will follow up with you, and perhaps the full council is appropriate.

Sounds good.

Um councilmember Houston, and then we will go to our public speakers.

So this is to you, Councilmember Chair Fife, and and this is real critical.

And I heard you say it, I heard um council member guy, wang, I heard another council member say it that and and see if we can get this done as soon as possible.

It's very important with before the EAP or after the EAP, EMP, whatever, whatever you want to call it, is the low sensitivity and high sensitivity maps, Chair Fife.

That is so critical, no matter what we're doing.

I'm listening.

Okay.

No matter what we're doing, we constantly everybody's saying we pushing them here, we pushing them there, we push.

We need that no matter what, Chair Fife is the low and high.

They're putting the map together now.

Um, I heard.

So I'm a uh I wish that we all push that to get it so even now, pre implementing on this and and the EAP, we need the low and high sensitivity area so individuals know where to go where they're not re-encamping.

It's very important.

I just wanted to put that out to all my my council members and the audience and everyone.

That's all I wanted to say.

Thank you.

Thank you, and thank you, Sasha, for your presentation.

Uh, I think we're gonna have a couple words from our director of the Department of Race and Equity, and then we will move the agenda.

Thank you so much for a few moments of your time.

I forgive forgive me for butting in.

But I want to just put on the record that our approach to addressing the needs of all residents of the city of Oakland does not require that we run a foul of Prop 209.

Um, our methodology, which actually is reflected in the plan, in the details of the plan, gets at this without race specific strategies.

We're well aware where the line is.

We're also aware that we have to make sure that the system serves everyone, including the unserved black residents, in order to um solve the problem of homelessness in Oakland.

So we have uh we have an approach that will will work fine for you all, and we've got our eye on that ball.

We're very careful and have been for nine years.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Flynn.

So I'm I'm amending the recommendation.

I was just uh speaking with city staff.

We can move it up from April uh, what did I say 14th?

Yes, to March 16th, and support of of what you're saying to try to get this plan in front of the city council as soon as possible.

So we're gonna move this item to full city council on March 16th, and I was asked by the city clerk to reread the question, so I'm gonna read read those into the record.

Um regarding the rapid diversion pilot program.

Can staff explain these interventions and if there's specific recommendations for what the city will pilot under strategy three.

Can you expand on the goal of the no camping zones and how it would help meet the objectives of the strategic action plan on the Oak Glitter and co-manage encampment pilots?

What does this entail?

Will this reflect the model that the city piloted at Third and Peralta and at East Lake?

Fourth question.

Um how will the city address targeted racial demographic issues and homelessness in light of Prop 209?

Oh, I'm gonna take that up scratch that, scratch that.

Um it's number four now.

Will there be has the has the county of Alameda agreed to the roles and responsibilities that have been highlighted by this plan?

And will there be a push to formalize an agreement to facilitate these efforts?

Lastly, how will the city, how does the city plan to better identify and coordinate with the county as it pertains to services for unhoused individuals with addiction and mental health disorders?

that scratch that scratch that um number five well it's number four now will there be has the has the county of alameda agreed to the roles and responsibilities that have been highlighted by this plan and will there be a push to formalize an agreement to facilitate these efforts lastly how will the city how does the city plan to better identify and coordinate with the county as it pertains to services for unhoused individuals with addiction and mental health disorders and that's my last question yeah thank you so I made the motion I just need a second thank you we have a motion made by chair five seconded by councilmember guyo to receive and forward as amended this item to the March 16th 2026 special city council agenda with the amendments of councilmember five stated on record excluding the fourth amendment from the city attorney on roll council member before you vote um do include the request for the supplemental because it's coming on the 16th and I want to also include the supplemental from um the Office of Community Homelessness solutions sorry I'm mixing up the two different different folks so including those amendments as well I mean the supplemental report for the community engagement piece and the feedback from the council members engagement piece got it I will restate my motion we have a motion made by councilmember five seconded by councilmember guyo to receive and forward at as amended the this item to the March 16th special city council agenda with a supplement to be included by the city report and the city council excluding item four from the city attorney on her amendment councilmember Gallo thank you councilmember Houston aye thank you councilmember wong I thank you and Chair five aye thank you the motion passes with four eyes to receive as amended receive and forward as amended this item to the March 16th special city council agenda and that is on due to body of this on consent on consent with the supplemental report once again by the the community and the city council community engagement engagement thank you move into open forum five thank you chair five all right jennifer finley and missada so last uh september I think your governor vetoed five reparation bills because they would violate state law proposition 209 and could pose a legal risk y'all violate the federal government's uh immigration requirement about illegal immigrants you don't follow that law so I'm demanding that you don't follow proposition 209 since you're in the business of ignoring laws you have you ignored the Constitution of California that says you had to be 18 to vote you said 16 we're gonna do it anyway so don't come in here talking about proposition 209 no more whatever needs to happen for black people do it and don't throw 209 if you bring up 209 I'm gonna bring up that you allow illegal immigrants to come in here against the federal law thank you for your comment Mr.

Sada moving to our Zoom speaker Jennifer Finley please unmute yourself and begin your two minute comment my Jennifer Findley District 2 um I support strongly the push for data and transparency accountability nuance I love to hear that drilling down not accepting surface answers council member wong as a resident of your district I would like to see you apply the same attitude and enthusiasm toward opd toward opd's data toward fair um staffing and toward the overtime um as public safety chair you sent the opd overtime item to finance this morning um that kept it kept you from uh needing to push back on um on opd or opo a it means that the public is less aware and available to make public comment because it's first thing in the morning you need to be consistent and focus on the facts and um we need consistency we need follow through we need to work on data in all of our um in everyone's work that's all thank you thank you for your comment that concludes your comments for open forum thank you for your time and participation this meeting is adjourned