It's about uh 5 35, and we want to keep this on schedule since this is a publicly noticed meeting.

Um, and and the reason for that is because you have three supervisors here.

You have a majority of the board, so we have to handle it like a Brown Act uh meeting.

So um, my name is Rich Desmond, um, Sacramento County Supervisor representing District Three.

Just a little further away.

These are very sensitive mics.

Thank you all for being here.

Um I know it's it's difficult to come out for a meeting in the middle of the week, but this is an extremely important project to Sacramento County, and we made a commitment a long time ago as this thing as this project started moving that we would come back regularly to the community to report back to you and hear from you at certain when we would hit certain benchmarks.

And we are one of those benchmarks right now where we we actually have a design, and there's going to be a this is going to be coming to the Board of Supervisors uh within the next few weeks about going out for a uh a bid on this project.

So this seemed like an appropriate time to reconvene with all of you.

Um and uh supervisor Phil Cerna here on my right represents District One.

He'll say a few words in a moment.

Uh Supervisor Sue Frost from District 4 will also say a few words.

But I think what the three of us being here, I think it speaks volumes about um the Board of Supervisors really are our our alignment on supporting this project and supporting Sacramento County's approach to uh dealing with our homelessness crisis that that affects all of us in in so many different ways, whether you're someone who's suffering from untreated mental illness and addiction without housing on the streets, to a business owner or a member of the community who is being challenged with some some difficult uh um uh homeless encampments in your community.

Um it means a lot for the three of us to get together to be at this meeting.

So I really appreciate my colleagues being here because this is on the border of all three of our districts as well.

Um, and then before we move into the program, I'll introduce a few other people.

Emily Helcon, where are you, Emily?

I'm right here.

Oh, Emily Halcon over there, our director of homeless housing services and and homeless housing and services.

You'll hear from her, Natasha Drain from our Department of General Services.

Um this side, Brian Lowe, also with our Department of General Services, Julian Andrade, one of the contract architects from NOR associates, and then one of the operators of this site, this project will be um Jessica Bruce with CityNet.

She's sitting over here.

And I also have sitting up here, and they won't be providing presentations, but Ron Lint the Commons, one of our our community prosecutors from the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office.

And Ron wanted to come, as did the one of the sheriff's deputies who runs our homeless outreach team.

And I I think that's important as well, because what it does, it demonstrates that the county is primarily interested in providing services for people so we can improve their lives, but also having a balanced approach and working hand in hand with law enforcement when criminal actions occur and and they need to hold some people accountable for those actions.

So I will now turn it over to Supervisor Cerna to say some opening remarks.

Great, thank you, Supervisor Desmond.

So again, as uh as Rich mentioned um at the outset of this particular um project and effort to address the needs of both those that are unsheltered in this area as well as uh the local community of North Highlands.

Um we also want to make sure that we're being extremely transparent.

And this is now is it the second or third third, third, third meeting here with uh local neighbors, see a lot of familiar faces.

You know, I've had the good for fortune, as I mentioned in the past, of representing this area uh two redistricting exercises ago.

Uh but nonetheless, uh the uniqueness of the convergence of three different supervisorial districts uh that brings along with that the focus concentration of three out of five board members.

I think uh bodes well for a thoughtful uh project and effort, uh, one that uh will necessarily benefit from the input that we get from all of you that we have the honor of representing.

Uh we don't claim to have all the answers, and this needs to be somewhat of a team approach between uh your county board members and uh county staff as well as yourselves taking the time uh to uh participate in meetings like this.

I will say too that um things are very fluid.

Uh what has changed since the last time we convened here?

Well, quite a bit.

Uh we've had another um uh by my annual uh count of our census of uh the unsheltered in our community and the broader community.

We do that every two years uh working with the federal government with HUD uh to understand the nature, character, characteristics, and order magnitude of homelessness in our community, just like uh communities across the country.

Uh of course, I think we now know from uh the media reports following the the last uh point in time count that uh the numbers have actually um come down.

Um I will tell you as um one member of the board.

I don't, and I have never put a lot of stock in those numbers.

I've not put a lot of stock in that exercise.

It's obviously very needed.

We need to understand who we're trying to help.

Uh, but the fact of the matter is is that it's a very limited ability um uh effort to try and and understand, especially the extent to which folks are unsheltered here in our community because it relies on one or two nights of volunteers showing up to go out and do the interviews and the counting, and if we have bad weather or for whatever reason we have fewer volunteers that show up, that can dramatically affect the numbers.

So I'm of the opinion that we're still uh very much in the same place that we've been in for um a few years now in terms of the order of magnitude and the challenges that we face, regardless of what the point-in-time uh count uh tells us.

Uh we've also had a recent opinion by the US Supreme Court on uh grants pass, and some of you I know have been following that um uh that uh legal matter.

And the decision by the Supreme Court essentially uh gives cities and counties um across the country uh much more latitude than the last time we met here uh in terms of what we can do to both balance the needs of the unsheltered that need uh our compassion, need our assistance, uh, need um you know a robust continuum of care to get them to a place where they can succeed, but it also I think balances out the needs of local communities who rightfully so are very, very fed up, and I think you can count us as well in many respects, fed up with the impacts that come along with um what was presumed to be kind of the um open ability to just uh pitch a tent anywhere.

Well, we know now know that that's not uh legally um the case.

So again, I just wanted to thank everyone for showing up tonight and uh look forward to uh hearing from you, and I'll pass the mic to my colleague, Supervisor Sue Frost, representing District 4.

Thank you, Supervisor Cerna.

Well, first uh I want to thank the staff who and the consultants who have worked so hard uh on all the safe stay uh facilities and put together some amazing uh ideas on on uh on them.

I want to thank all of you for coming.

I see many leaders from the community of North Highlands here, and I know for those people in my district, that was one of the things they expressed when we began having this conversation around doing a safe stay on on Watt Avenue is how is it gonna affect the businesses and the community?

And um, we really appreciate uh Emily and everyone that you have uh arranged these community meetings so that everyone can be here to not only express their ideas and concerns uh but actually get um get an idea of what this is gonna look like.

The first two safe stays, I'll never forget the first one.

It was not easy, it was in Supervisor Kennedy's district, and there were um there was a lot of controversy around it, and those first two are up and running, and not only are they running as smoothly, I think pretty smoothly from what I'm hearing.

Um they're they're almost full, and there's people transitioning um through, and we're having some good success there, and not not without challenge, but the benefit that we have here is that we can learn from those other two facilities and the programs there and improve on it.