Good afternoon.

The time is now 1 05 p.m.

on Wednesday, May 13th, 2026, and the City of San Antonio B session is called to order.

Madam Clerk, please call roll.

Councilmember Mickey Rodriguez.

Councilmember Villagaran.

Here.

Council Member Monguilla.

Councilmember Castillo.

Councilmember Galván.

Here.

Councilmember Alberete Gavito.

Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

Present.

Councilmember Spears.

Here.

Councilmember White.

Mayor Jones.

Mayor, we have corn.

Thank you.

So we have two items for discussion today, the shelter and housing framework as well as an update on the 2027 bond process.

Eric, over to you for our presentation.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

So our first presentation is on the municipal bond program.

And we have taken the comments that we received from the council in January at our session and have incorporated them in a presentation to you today on a proposed process for our bond uh program development.

So a municipal bond program is frankly any city's opportunity to invest in the community and the infrastructure and finance that capital investment over a period of time.

It's a comprehensive process that we have begun.

We still have a lot of work to do.

That comprehensive process goes through major um milestones, such as identifying the need, council discussion, and community engagement.

So this afternoon, one of the things that I'm looking for uh from you all as a group is some feedback on the guiding principles that will lay out and propose to you, the process and the timeline.

We've got two timelines in the presentation because in January, there were at the January presentation.

Uh there were some comments about either of May 2027 or November 2027.

So we've kind of laid out both timeline options.

And um uh one thing you will not see in the presentation uh is is what an actual bond amount would be.

You know, given last week's conversation um in where we're at with the tax rate.

Um, we did show share some projections in January.

Um, all of that information in the tax value is still preliminary, so I would anticipate bringing it back to the council as part of the proposed budget in the certified role in August.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Mark to Mike.

Mike is gonna uh be assisted by Troy and Veronica on a couple of components and on this first presentation.

Mike.

Thank you, Eric.

Uh good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Uh again, I'm Mike Shannon, uh capital delivery director.

And uh as mentioned, I'm gonna talk about uh as we uh prepare for the next uh bond, uh the 2027 bond, and I'm gonna develop uh this presentation is really developed to walk you through a key process items, where we're at, where we need to go.

Uh we'll talk about a few things, and as mentioned, uh Troy and Veronica here uh to talk about a couple items uh related to it.

So first and foremost, uh we're currently in the middle of the 2022 uh bond program, and this is just a high-level status, uh excuse me, excuse me.

Uh high level status of our 2022.

We had over 180 projects that were uh approved by voters uh last time in 2022 bond, and we're at 66% completion, uh either complete or under construction.

That's a metric that we uh follow along with the bond.

Uh you'll see the numbers there.

You know, uh 59 completed, 64 under construction, design 63.

Uh we're in the fourth year of the five-year bond, and what that means is uh a lot of those projects, so uh almost 40 of those projects that are in design will before the end of the year come to you all with a solicitation for contractors to to move into construction.

Generally, what we look for, and if you look at last year's, I'm sorry, last bond uh at this time, uh, we were shooting for over 90% of our projects complete or under construction as we ask voters to consider the next bond.

So we are on uh on track for that.

Uh, but certainly you'll see a lot more activity uh between now and the end of the year when we uh bring those construction contracts.

You've you've actually already seen an uptick in them on the um uh the Thursday agendas.

Um, I'm gonna hand it off right quick to Veronica.

She's gonna talk a little bit about the affordable housing bond uh progress, and then I'll bring it back to me.

Uh we can talk uh talk a little bit more about the bond.

Thank you.

So the 2022 affordable housing bond focused on five funding categories, including home rehab funding, uh creation of new homes to own in our homeownership production.

We have funding set aside for rental properties, including rehab of existing affordable rental properties as well as production of new rental housing, and then our fifth category was permanent supportive housing, which created new housing specifically for individuals who have been chronically homeless and living with a disability.

Through the housing bond funds that we've awarded, we have supported over 5200 homes that have been produced or preserved, including nearly 1,200 homes specifically set aside for the most vulnerable in our community, including families below 30% of the area median income.

In total, about 81% of all of our awarded funds are complete or under construction, and the remaining 21% remains in the pre-construction design phase.

So now I'll turn it over to Troy to go over our debt management plan.

Thank you, Veronica.

Troil at Chief Financial Officer.

Good afternoon, good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

Um, before moving into the following slides talking about the proposed 2027 bond program, I thought there'd be value to just briefly summarizing or recapping my presentation in January.

Um, given kind of where we are with property values, and basically talking about what was our approach to alternate approach to basically managing our debt management plan and our bonding capacity.

As we talked about in January, historically, the city has structured bond programs around maintaining a fixed debt service tax rate.

Our current debt service tax rate is 21 cents per hundred dollars of valuation.

Using that same tax rate and applying that against our current valuations, as we talked about in January, and as Eric mentioned, we are seeing our bonding bonding capacity diminished, not at the same level we had for the 2022 bond program.

If council would want to move forward with a larger bond program, it could be because it could be pursued if city council is open to moving to more of a variable debt rate strategy.

That variable debt rate strategy, what that means is the rate may increase or decrease annually based on property valuations.

And last week when Freddie presented the forecast, um, he was presenting that our taxable values have actually declined more than what we were expecting based on the current forecast, a bond program comparable in size to the 2022 program, would require a tax rate increase to meet the bond repayment obligations.

Conversely, stronger than expected property value growth could allow for a lower tax rate or allow us certain levers to move things back and forth forth in terms of a shorter bond uh repayment program.

This approach would support funding a higher level community um community improvements and infrastructure investments for our community.

If this is something the council would consider, we can certainly move forward and do additional modeling and also work with Mike and his team on the propositions on how we would structure a tax rate to support these level community improvements.

Thank you.

I'll turn it over to Mike now.

All right.

Alright, thank you, uh Veronica and Troy.

So uh those are just some high level updates of where we're at with the 22, certainly the debt management plan conversation that Troy just touched upon again.

But this is really where the meat of this presentation is uh talking to you about as we move into uh the process and developing the next bond, uh there's some certain things that I want to talk about.

So, for example, uh the bond program categories.

The five categories that you see up there, right, are are ones that we have used historically over the last several bond cycles.

And it's very basic infrastructure, basic uh priorities.

Uh we're we have uh five buckets there.

Uh we actually had six propositions last time because the facilities uh category was split into public safety and non-public safety facilities.

But uh again, streets and bridges and sidewalks, of course, drainage, flood control, parks and rec, as facilities as I mentioned.

And then, of course, last year, as Veronica mentioned, their last bond in the 2022, we had the 150 million dollar uh allocate allocated to the housing bond.

Uh, that was uh the second time housing was on the bond uh program, but it was the uh the first significant one.

Uh we did in 2017 we did the 20 million dollar um uh uh part of the program uh for that.

So we are proposing to start here.

Uh these are the five categories where most of our citywide infrastructure needs uh fall into, and uh we'll move forward.

Uh one of the other things that we typically talk about at this time is uh as we start identifying needed projects, uh what are the guiding principles that are moving uh the projects onto a list, and as we guide through a lot of conversation with you, the community internally with city staff, uh city manager's office, uh, uh boards and commissions, eventually bond uh committees that I'll talk about next.

Uh, we have these guiding principles.

So uh these are the guiding principles that I'm proposing for the 27 bond.

Uh most of them are the same, but uh I'll just talk about a couple.

Uh the plan alignment.

Um, we used to use one called connectivity, like how how these infrastructure projects connect us as a community.

Uh well, one of the things we're we're talking about.

Look, we have so many plans that we've adopted over the years.

We have our city's master plan, which is the essay tomorrow.

We have things like hazard mitigation plan, bike network plans, those type of things.

So these projects, these infrastructure projects generally need to be aligned or they should be aligned with moving us forward with those planning documents that have already been passed by uh the mayor and council, whether it's this mayor and council or previous over the last let's say decade or so.

Public health and safety, I think that's obvious.

Uh most of our projects are help us uh provide um better health and safety uh for our community, whether it's facilities, whether it's drainage project, streets, et cetera, uh parks and recreation.

Resiliency, that one uh is certainly one we have to consider.

How are we gonna you know continue to bring more resiliency to our community?

Uh how can we withstand um you know natural uh natural or man-made hazards, those type of things.

Uh certainly the example of flood control is one in 2022.

We were talking a lot about COVID and what was that was uh doing to us and what projects could help us there.

Uh so resiliency I think is a guiding principle that is still important to us.

Uh the next one is called economic viability, though.

This is one that I I put in there, and I'm proposing that uh look the conversation that Troy was just talking about that you all have been talking about over the last couple budget cycles, certainly with the forecast probably next week and as we get into the budget, is we have to be very clear as to our economic um, you know, plan moving forward or forecast moving forward.

And while that is never um absolute, uh we have we we're we're gonna have to be tight on the belt.

And um, when we're picking projects, some of them cost more and certainly cost more long-term.

Uh, that may be a facility that's needed that's gonna inherently require some uh long-term costs when that uh new uh facility gets operational.

Uh but again, something we need to talk about uh that doesn't mean any project is not gonna happen, but just certainly something we need to talk about as we pick these projects.

Last, of course, council input.

Uh, as we talk about uh the process moving forward, uh, you all are the ones that eventually approve a list of projects that we can put on a vote for really the voters to approve.

So, of course, uh, not just today, but as we move forward, and you'll see in the timeline, there are many stops along the way that you're gonna see me.

You'll be sick of me.

Um pause for dramatic effect.

Thank you.

Um, but you will see me often, and we'll be talking about this, and we'll need your input as we move this process forward.

All right, so uh one of the questions we get asked, and certainly through the process is how we're determining needs or priorities.

Uh we have a lot of needs.

There are more needs than we probably can afford.

That's uh I think every bond cycle that we've ever talked about, at least in my research going backwards, the need is always bigger than we have available.

So we're gonna be fighting for priorities or to try to determine the priorities.

What I have here is a list of um of of uh priority-led uh topics that we're using.

Uh, but we have adopted plans as I mentioned.

We have department assessments that have we've looked at departments.

So, for example, San Antonio Police Department looked at their facilities um a few years back, they had a facility assessment that helps guide us as to what their priorities at least were a few years ago and as we're moving.

Uh fire department I think is going through one uh this year, uh, but we have other departments and other facilities that have done those similar assessments.

Um we have multi-phase projects.

So, for example, you all just passed um uh ceiling channel phase four in district seven that was just passed by council um this past week.

That is phase four of a regional drainage project that we've been working on since uh early two thousand uh mid-2000s, that we know that's a 20 to 30 year project to fully uh get the benefit of that regional drainage improvement.

Um we're on phase four now, so uh we'll probably be considering phase five at that.

And we've been talking about that for over a decade.

Uh we have other examples of that as well, but we have other projects that uh are shovel ready.

Design is complete or almost complete.

Some of the conversation in the past through the previous bond or other capital uh investment has been hey, we should already invest in this project at least to get it shovel ready for consideration as to when the next bucket of money, if not the bond or another a grant or other funding is available.

So we do have a list of uh projects that are in that stage.

Uh so that'll be something that we consider.

Uh we have other projects in 2022, did not make the list.

We call it below the line, right?

We had 1.2 billion dollars of capacity uh last time.

As I mentioned earlier, we had more need than that, of course.

So throughout this long process, city council, city staff, the bond committees, we wrestled with all these projects to prioritize what we could afford.

And once we got to 1.2 billion dollars, there were several projects that were considered below the line.

So we're looking at those to see if those still have the priority that they had back then or more priority now, or even less priority, but those are certainly a number of projects that we're gonna look at and consider.

We work uh always with boards, uh city boards, and you know, we have a number of them.

Uh the library has their library board, the parks has a parks board, uh certainly uh housing has the housing commission, uh, those type of things.

Last time uh last time after the 22 bond process uh was done, we stood up two new boards the Stormwater Advisory Board, the Streets Advisory Board.

So we're working with those to not only go through a process of understanding what the needs are, how to prioritize, those are helping us develop a priority list, and we're incorporating that uh in when we bring projects to you uh later this summer.

Uh lastly, leverage funding.

Um certainly there's there's always projects we look for leverage funding.

Great example is if we have a project that uh we can work with uh the state on.

Maybe we put 20% of the money up and they put 80% or whatever that leverage funding is, can we make uh the funding go further uh by partnering with other entities like either the county or state or others?

So there's a number of examples that we have there.

We've done that.

Uh we've also had projects where we have given funding to other uh entities, um, and I'm sure that'll be part of the conversation to leverage that for a benefit to the community.

Uh so those are some of the categories.

I think it's I try to list them very basic.

There's a lot in in each one of those, uh, but that's where we're uh what we're using to determine needs, and we'd like some feedback on that today.

I'm gonna pause again and ask Veronica to come up and talk a little bit about uh moving forward with the 27 housing.

So thank you.

As mentioned earlier, the 2022 housing bond focused on five specific funding categories.

And as we look to the potential of a 2027 housing bond, um we've learned a lot by administering the first one.

Affordable housing is the foundation of a healthy, thriving community.

Our housing investments have been very impactful, and there is additional continue need in the community, especially in areas that have not yet been supported by the bond.

Several considerations have emerged as we look forward, including the need to continue supporting deeply affordable housing.

Um this housing connection is very important to helping the most vulnerable in our community.

So with the next round of housing bond dollars, you maybe want to consider continuing that emphasis on helping families at 30% of the area median income, up to 50% of the area median income and beyond.

We also want to consider more inclusivity around our housing options for the unhoused population beyond just permanent supportive housing.

This would be in alignment with our homeless strategic plan.

You'll hear more about the homelessness and housing connection in Mark's presentation this afternoon and how our housing bond could help support the city's investment in this area.

As mentioned earlier, we are already set aside a small portion of the current housing bond for proactive strategic land acquisition along our transit corridors.

So with the next housing bond, we want to consider maybe what that looks like.

And finally, our current bond does support the creation of new affordable homeownership opportunities.

So in the next round, maybe we consider broadening the range of incomes for whom we are creating those homeownership opportunities.

This summer we will be organizing and hosting community conversations, one in each city council district, to better inform the public on what we've done with the 22 housing bond and collect feedback on the impact.

These sessions start next week on Monday, and we look forward to hosting and hearing directly from the community on how we continue to invest in affordable housing across the city.

So I'll turn it back over to Mike.

Thank you, Veronica.

Okay, a few more slides till we get to the end.

So the other thing I want to talk about is uh the community bond committee.

So if you think of last time and and others, we generally uh look for the mayor and council to appoint and create uh bond community bond committees where we get members of our community uh once we have a draft list of projects that we think we can afford based on our overall capacity.

Uh you all will then direct us to send this over to those committees.

Last time we had five committees, uh they had 30 people each, so they were pretty big in size.

Uh, but their job is to actually review those projects, uh, lead more community input during those meetings.

Uh it's a three-month sprint of many, many meetings, uh, but each of those categories get uh projects vetted uh significantly through the community input process.

Those bond committees will review those, make recommendations, they will make recommendations to any changes, and they will eventually bring back a list of projects for your consideration.

So that's certainly a big part of the process.

Uh, the city staff certainly facilitates that.

Uh, but again, your role on that is usually to appoint committee members based on whatever approved categories we come up with.

Uh we'll probably be looking for that sometime mid to late summer to start thinking about who those people are that you want on them.

I had a I had some questions already from some of you, but that'll be the part, and when I look at the timeline, you'll see that.

But uh we certainly think the community bond committee process is a significant part of uh developing that final list and getting the support from uh eventually from the voters.

So, as Eric mentioned in the get-go, uh, here's the proposed timeline.

Uh, the purpose of this slide is really to tell you there's a lot of work to be done.

So, if you look at that left column, that really just highlights a number of big rocks that we have to continue to work through to get to a list of projects that we want the voters to consider.

So, we have the May and 27 uh timelines listed there for your consideration.

Certainly, we'd like some feedback on that.

Uh, but you'll also see uh we've highlighted uh B sessions like today, several other B sessions and A sessions.

Those aren't the only ones that we can do.

If we need to do more, we'll do more.

But we're just talking about the big significant uh items that we'll be working on.

But you'll also notice a few things.

So, and that in in the um May June uh time frame, which is now, we're here talking about the process, getting some feedback today.

We're also uh internally staff.

We're trying to identify uh potential projects uh based on a lot of priorities and needs.

We'll also be working with uh not only internally but externally uh getting some cost estimates because we want to be able to bring back to you a list of projects that have cost estimates that are that have been uh vetted.

Uh so we'll be scoping and cost estimating those this summer.

Uh we'll also be hosting, and and I think I talked to many of you already, but uh I think that the priority would be to engage the community through some bond 101 sessions this summer.

Uh we're working with you all, working with your neighborhoods, working with your president's councils, whatever that may be.

Uh, but we think there's value and certainly getting in front of uh the community talking about what a bond is, the kind of the bond 101 stuff.

Certainly community engagement during probably the budget town hall process.

Uh, we'll probably uh a big part of that conversation or at least a a part of that conversation.

Uh, so a lot of it's tied together, uh, as uh Troy was mentioning, and then we'll be back later in the summer showing you probably a list of projects to consider and and we'll kind of consider that back and forth before we give it to the uh council committees.

Council committees usually work if we were looking at the May schedule.

I'll just use that one, the May timeline.

That would probably be October through December-ish, somewhere around there.

Uh, the key would be that we would have to approve that and get a call for a vote in February, and then you'll see the different timelines uh there on uh for the November.

But again, I think we just put that out there to show you some of the big uh things that we'll be working on and some of the big steps that we have to do.

A lot of little individual things that we're working on to develop it.

Um but with that I will uh just kind of summarize uh for the feedback that we're looking for today.

Again, as Eric mentioned, today today is really about the process, right?

Um we have a lot of work to do.

Uh we need a lot of input from you uh and the community, but these are the things that I kind of presented today, things like our guiding principles that I'm proposing, uh, how we're determining our needs, some of those uh kind of categories that I listed out there, certainly the election timeline again, uh community engagement, doing things this summer into the budget season, and then certainly through the community uh bond committee structure and process, uh, and then certainly anything on the proposed propositions.

Um I showed you the five categories there, but uh that's what I'll be looking for feedback.

Certainly, we're here to answer any questions you have, and uh that'll conclude my presentation today.

Great.

Thanks, Mike.

Appreciate that.

In case it's helpful um for those listening or for any of my of my colleagues, um, and as it relates to one of the things you specifically ask about.

Can on the on the timing piece, um, the last time that this was before the voters, May 2022 election turnout was eight percent.

Um, obviously was something so significant we'd want to hear from as many of our neighbors as as possible.

So can you talk a little bit about, or maybe it's for CNE, but uh a little bit about how we go about um uh engaging with the public around no kidding, hey, there's a vote uh on the the bond in in particular, considering there there won't be other major things on on the ballot this time.

Yep.

So let me uh take a stab at that mayor.

So the the uh because eventually um the council calls for an election, it it turns into a campaign.

So um independent of the city, there's a campaign organization that helps with that.

The city's role in that is that um there becomes um uh in executives um and and you all as elected officials the opportunity to do uh fact-based um informational sessions on the bond program.

And um, you know, when we when I look back to the 2022, that process really began um for the council at the time and uh the executive staff in the December-January time frame and ran all the way to uh voting.

Um there are certain rules that we have to adhere to.

We can't advocate or vote yes, we can't advocate until we will vote yes or no.

But um the materials that get prepared in terms of the bond brochure become critical guidelines for us, um, informational pieces, and and there becomes uh it's almost like a speaker's bureau.

Now, part of that, as I mentioned, is handled by uh certainly the elected officials and the executive staff, um, but but separate and apart.

Uh there's there's a campaign that's generally organized, and they also become part of that speaker's bureau.

It's a little bit different because they don't have to adhere to the requirements we do.

Um, but um that that would need to be organized probably as we get into the fall and a separate uh and apart from the city.

If I could add to that real quickly, Mayor, what while Eric's correct, we can't advocate for or against any particular bond package.

Uh the council can certainly always uh call upon the community to go vote.

Certainly familiar, and thanks for Eric and Andy.

Certainly familiar with it with the campaign.

Um, but in in light of eight percent, uh, speaks to what other things we may want to look at to encourage more of our neighbors to participate in in such an important process.

Um, and as we you know just took steps to to move the municipal elections from from May to November, recognizing one higher turnout, lower costs, wanted to ensure we were considering those sufficiently as part of this.

Okay, um Veronica on the housing bond plea uh piece, please.

How have we traditionally worked with um the San Antonio Housing Trust and their bonding capacity uh to think about how we overall increase supply in our community?

Understanding not all of that needs to come from city bond money, right?

But they certainly have a key resource there.

So how have we thought about collaborating with them and using that capacity to help meet our needs?

Yeah, absolutely.

So for every one dollar of housing bond funds we've put into the community, that's leveraged a little over seven dollars back.

Um a lot of that is because we're not the full amount, so by partnering with the trust, and they have to compete for the housing bond dollars just like all the other entities, all of our solicitations are competitive, but many times they're not asking, I say all of the time, they're not asking for us to fund the entire project because they're able to offer the tax breaks that they do through their PFC.

They're able to leverage other funding sources, so our bond dollars go a lot further than they do perhaps with other entities.

Um the other way we've partnered with them is on the strategic land acquisition.

Uh, we will be granting those dollars to the housing trust and they are right now looking at different options along the green and silver line, um, and then they would be the entity that would proceed with the competitive solicitation, or um as mentioned in the housing supply task force report, they could identify a specific special population that they want to create housing for and then move forward with that solicitation.

I think that's helpful.

I I would um certainly appreciate um a clearer under again because we're dealing with a much smaller amount of money, and because the housing trust has their own bonding capacity, and then when you couple their bonding capacity with then um other incentives like tax exemptions from us, all of a sudden, you know, there's a lot of not our money that is building housing.

So I'd welcome understanding, you know, a short white paper or something that helps us understand what type of housing that might be best focused on addressing.

I don't know at what level that is maybe most appropriate, whether you're talking about the 50% AMI or whether it can in fact be helpful with the 30% AMI, but looking at other people's money and how it can help us, and to the extent it can, I think is really helpful as we are looking at um the overall supply that we want to create, of which, as you just pointed out, we don't have to create all of it ourselves.

The um and we know we recognize that 30% AMI is in fact the hardest.

Um can you also provide us something that helps us understand the the gap in our in our community?

We know we want more of it, um, but to the extent we can think about our investments in this bond as um uh uh uh opportunities to to chip away, right?

Um and and increase and get closer to what we want to be, but absent an understanding of what the current gap is in our community.

I think it's hard for us to judge how much we'd want to allot specifically to that.

So if you would um provide that as a follow-up, thank you.

Sure.

Mike, just for everyone's edification, if if you would, it came up in our in our session.

I found it helpful.

Um, but if you would just level set with folks on the status of the 2017 bond.

Sure.

Um, so the 2017 bond uh is not a hundred percent complete.

We're at ninety-eight percent complete or out of construction.

Um we have actually three projects that are uh still in design.

Uh two of those are street projects, one of those is a parks project.

Uh so I'll talk about the parks one first.

Brackenridge park, for example.

Uh that one's been stuck stuck in litigation uh for quite some time, about four four plus years.

Uh we're actually you know moving the needle on that, uh, working to get um uh significant phase of that moving forward, possibly this summer.

But uh certainly litigation um you know did slow that one down.

Uh there's two other projects, ProBant and Roosevelt that were part of the 2017, some good investment there.

Uh, those actually were um we have to redesign those.

Actually, we we went down a path, those were part of the text.

Buyback program uh uh not buyback program.

Turn back.

Thank you.

Um I misspoke there.

Uh the turn back program where those are state facilities that they were gonna turn back to us so that we would really control them and fully maintain them.

Uh through uh a series of discussions and stuff that changed.

We had already designed pretty much those projects, so uh those designs had to really be uh scrapped and started over.

So we're well we're behind on those.

Uh but 98% complete or under construction, a few other PED mobility type projects that were finishing up the public art piece uh of that 2017 bond.

We still have some leftovers there because we're waiting for some of those projects to finish up.

Uh, but again, 98% complete.

Uh would love to say 100, but uh a few extraneous circumstances there.

Thanks, Mike.

And I thought that was helpful context because as folks uh begin identifying potential road projects that they want, them understanding those that may frankly be susceptible to that same unfortunate hurdle, we'd want to at least recognize going in, and if you wanted to um at least know that going into it or at least prioritize others that didn't come with that same hurdle, then we could save ourselves some time and potentially some some heartache.

Thank you for that.

In the um when I was looking at the the list of other uh of previous projects and and just because I think it is um helpful um in terms of an ROI analysis, for example, um when we think of economic development.

Um I saw the um the funding, for example, that went toward um the port in the last one, uh Brooks in the last one, as well as um Texas AM, uh San Antonio, forty forty million just for those three projects.

How have we traditionally um understood ROI on what I would consider kind of economic development projects, frankly minus the the AM project that but the other two, right?

Um how have we traditionally looked at ROI for those?

Well, I think uh those projects that you mentioned, I think are a great example of uh we we've invested from a policy standpoint.

Our SA tomorrow and those uh development regions, so one, it's it's clear that those are growing, those are creating jobs, those are uh the needs for the infrastructure, you know, roads and drainage projects, those type of things.

Um certainly that's that's what brought those to the attention of prior prioritization.

Um I don't I don't think I can answer the return on investment in terms of economic value.

We could we could certainly work to bring that back to you.

Um I'll work with uh some of our other departments to get that.

But but clearly, I think the idea, as I mentioned, uh SA tomorrow, we have these 13 regional centers that we've highlighted as hey, we are gonna plan these are economic, whether it's those that you described, medical center, some of the others, those are areas that are either growing or need to grow more, and we need to put our infrastructure dollars there to help facilitate that, or to keep up with that, if you will.

So uh I think that's would be my answer today.

If you'd like to more analysis of that, we could certainly do that.

I appreciate that, and then I'm gonna um I know Eric has something to say, but the um when we are looking at those, other than hey, this meets our plan, right?

Really uh going back to the conversations we've had in other areas is where does the dollar go the furthest, and to the extent that some of these bent business entities can in fact show a different ROI, not just were part of your plan, but actually, for example, Port San Antonio, when you invest in this thing, that allows it to come off the books of other entities, which makes them actually more competitive when they compete for contracts, etc.

etc.

So if there is a way in which we could consider that kind of ROI, um I think that would be we'd be better informed as a result.

Um Eric, did you want to add something?

Yes, ma'am.

I was just gonna say that beyond the the 13 regional areas in in the 2022 bond program, we did not do the type of analysis you're describing.

So um, but here you hear you loud and clear.

I think and and I think you all talked about this in in January.

There are a number of um, although you you you laid out three of them.

There are a number of outside groups.

Um, and so a similar analysis that would take into consideration, um, we can take a look at, but we certainly didn't do that last time, and we'll we'll need to do something different going forward.

Yeah, all of a sudden we've got to get real creative when there's less money, so or scrutinize these a little bit more.

Absolutely.

Okay, I'll save the rest of my comments for a bit later.

Um Councilman Munkio.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, yeah, I think I would also like a little addition analysis on at first.

I was a little confused on what you meant by economic viability.

So you're talking about leverage partnership bond projects, not necessarily like road or infrastructure projects.

Well, I'm talking about all projects to tell you the truth.

Um I think you know, when when we when we uh look at project, and I think we've done this before.

This has been part of our program, last several bond cycles.

Probably before that is when we invest in infrastructure, uh, it's usually not one and done, but it does cause um some long-term cost.

Uh, but it might be different.

If we if we improve a drainage channel, we improve a street infrastructure.

A lot of times our maintenance cost or maintenance of that street is a little bit less early on.

Um, whereas if we build a new facility, which may absolutely be needed, we just have to have that conversation that we are signing we are signing up for really a long-term cost.

I'll give you an example would be uh the police station that we're we're uh building right now in district three.

That that that police station has been talked about for over a decade.

We're excited we're building it, it's gonna come online next summer, but that does come with long-term cost that we're absorbing, and that's for other parts, whether it's parks or facilities, et cetera.

So I think the idea where we're putting that in there is we want that conversation to be loud and clear, um, so that when we do approve these bonds or the voters approve these bonds, we know not only what we're doing in the next couple years, we're doing more long term.

So that was my intent with that proposal.

Careful when we talk about a dollar for dollar return on something like a sidewalk that's residential in nature and highly needed, right?

Around a school, maybe that's not gonna be an economic incentive or something like that.

This is Councilman, yeah.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Part of the forecast you saw last week in those out years, we have in their programmed um facilities that are being constructed from the 2022 bond program that we need to we need to pay the light bill, we have to we have to be able to pay the operating expenses.

There's a some of you are familiar with a a local school district that is kind of rethinking about the investment of a bond program because of the operating expense.

This is just making sure that as we go through this process, we keep an eye on what that impact is and we were able to deliver on the back end.

Right, yeah, and if new facilities and parts of town are our priority, then we deal with that right uh as we go along.

Um, so that's what I would also ask you to do some looking at Zarzamora, right?

Because you talk about before these bond packages, these bond projects in my mind are supposed to be if you're investing 25 million dollars.

How long should that road be taken care of before we have to do it again?

Uh Zarzamora was a 2012 bond project, I believe, and it was done at the end of that program, uh, a failing street now.

So they know that work was not a very long-term work, and it probably is gonna be again in this upcoming bond.

So that's um we've got to look at how we're building the roadways, places like that that have soil conditions that are rough, we need to take extra care of and build that into the cost of the project because we can't come back 15 years later and say we have to do another 25 million dollars.

It just doesn't make sense like that.

So I appreciate that.

Um, I would also say I do strongly believe we we need another housing bond.

I think we do need to have it at the same level or greater, and I think we've got to do a deep dive into what projects have been happening.

I know NHSD are working on that already, uh, and talk about leverage partnerships.

I think every project is a leverage partnership with every dollar right in the housing bond.

So they're very important.

I think maybe it's also shifting what our priority is if we are successful with that in the first three years of that five-year program, uh, because we want to make sure that we're not um flooding the market in some areas of town, right?

Because I understand that for some of these deals, the economics behind it is that we will lease up by a certain amount of time, and if you have five you know low income properties right next to each other, the leasing up of those properties is a bit challenging.

Um so maybe it's also like if we get this money refocus on what the first maybe couple stages are.

I think Mark's gonna get into that on the next presentation about really homelessness was a bucket, but maybe not as much investment as we needed to have all together.

So I would just say that, and I know you're you're working on that also.

Yes, yes, great.

Great, thank you.

And then the um, and then as as Mark will highlight as well, the bucket of permanent supportive housing was was very narrowly focused on only one type of housing, so maybe considering expanding that definition.

Absolutely, that'd be great.

Uh and I do think we have to have our traditional um committees with every uh category.

I think that's very important.

And I I didn't see the numbers yet, but I know you guys are scrubbing the numbers for what it would look like on the debt service tax if we wanted, you know, a higher bond amount.

I don't know what that is yet.

I guess you guys are still waiting for the the numbers to come back in.

I would say, unless it's an outrageous percentage point, you know, having 1.2 uh again, at the very least, is important, right?

Maintaining the investment that we had in the last bond is extremely important for us.

Especially if we're talking about some of these other bigger projects that are gonna come out uh on top first and sort of reduce the district pie, the piece of pie that we all get, right?

So I'm thinking you know, housing bond takes out of that amount first.

The entertainment district portion comes out of that first, and second, I should say the rest is kind of divided among ten districts.

So we want to make sure that we're getting um as much or more uh take home projects as the last bond.

So that's important for me again to just figuring out what that percentage looks like uh based on the numbers from the county.

Uh and something else I talked about with some of my colleagues, and I I do believe in it strongly, is that if you go to slide with all the I think it's slide five of all the bond categories, this mirrors what was in 22, correct?

Yes, okay.

So in the conversations that I have, I think it is worth having an additional proposition, making it six propositions, the six being entertainment district specific.

Uh I understand the arguments against that.

I understand that's not your recommendation, but I do think it's there's value in having that be its own category.

I think embedding entertainment district projects into uh probably would only be improv A, streets and bridges and and sidewalks.

Um puts too much of that together, and I think it is really a separate conversation to have.

I understand that's never Troy, did you want to add something?

Yeah, I just want to provide a little bit of clarification.

So we have been working with outside legal council and our bond council on that very question.

Um, you can have propositions specific to the district.

You can or can I?

I can, but with a caveat.

You can have a general bucket called the district that has streets, parks, facilities in it.

Back on that slide that was up there.

What would have to happen was you would have a general streets proposition, and then you'd had a you would have a district streets proposition.

You would have a drainage and flood control general proposition, then you'd have a district drainage proposition.

So you may have multiple propositions related to the district for each one of these categories that are up here.

Sure.

So but are you prepared to say that the district is gonna have all of these, it's gonna be in every single proposition?

At this point, no, it may be so it may only be one extra.

Well, there may be streets or maybe a park.

Um, I think there's a good chance there's more than one.

Right now, I can't tell you how many there would be related to the district.

Well, you know, that information's helpful to have.

I don't think we have even have a dollar amount yet on what that looks like, and that helps inform our decision.

Uh so I hear you on that point.

But um, you know, that's news to me, right?

That it might be three different propositions that you're trying to get that entertainment district into.

Um, so that's a level of transparency I think we still need to have and have a number attached to that, especially as we're considering the total cost of it.

Um, but you know, I think there, and that's that's all thank you.

I think there is some precedence.

Um obviously the Alamo Dome was its own proposition.

Obviously, that that was a via you know, tax or uh half cent tax that was approved in 1989 for that, but I think it is certainly worth having something separate for that.

And I understand there's connectivity points, there are things that may be right outside that district that you could say are part of it.

I think we have to make a line and say what investment are we asking voters to pay for goes into an entertainment district versus a traditional bond package that has other things in there.

So I would certainly welcome feedback from my colleagues on that, but I think it is worth looking into.

And again, really need to have numbers, really need to have scope of projects for that uh that you're asking us to consider and and place on this bond.

So those are my comments for now.

Thank you.

Mayor, just uh real quick on a couple of things.

Um, go ahead.

Um, one um so one thing for for you all to consider, and it's something that as we have further conversation later on in the year around need, um, and it's to your Zarzamora point, um, there are probably um parts of town where we would look at as part of the need.

I'm looking at art over here, we would probably look at a different type of road construction.

Um, high traffic areas may require concrete um, not asphalt.

Um, concrete is gonna be a little bit more expensive, but the investment is different.

The city's typically not done that.

We have done that in some areas, um, but but that's that's just kind of a marker that I think that's a further conversation for for the staff to have with you all in terms of prioritization because as many of you know, sometimes a good old asphalt road in some parts of our city um don't last.

And and so that certainly has a maintenance impact on us down the road in our annual budget.

Um, secondly uh to the downtown issue, uh so we're scheduled to bring back to you all an infrastructure um estimate in September, which lines up with the the timeline that that Mike uh that Mike outlined with you, and we'll see what it looks like.

It it's not gonna look like it did last June, um, and and we'll keep you abreast of that.

And then and then lastly, I think I think what Troy's saying is that it depends on what it is, but you're right, we don't know what it is.

We just want to answer the question that you can't have your own proposition.

You can that the council can designate that.

I would I would district or downtown or geography aside, um, the city nor other cities have typically geographically located a proposition.

Um, and I would go so far as to say that schools don't do that either.

They don't say uh Walsh Elementary or um uh Via Gomez high school, right?

It's for facilities, and so I think the council as you have those conversations in the at the end of summer um and get into the the nitty-gritty of it about propositions, just be you should be mindful.

We should all be mindful that we may be setting a precedent for geographical base propositions.

Go ahead.

Just a couple points, thank you, Eric.

And I would also say in the analysis that you bring back to us, put in there if you can, if you don't already have it, the PFC opportunities that may exist in that.

So if you can do some of these infrastructure things through the PFC, obviously realizing there might be something else pushed out or timeline-wise pushed out longer for the other things we're considering.

That's an analysis I think that would be helpful for me to to make some decisions.

Uh and the second piece is I would say more than geographically speaking, it's a project-based situation.

Uh, and you know, whether people are for or against this, it's a radical reenvisioning of downtown, uh, especially in that very specific area.

So I think it merits its own.

So I know that's a subjective thing.

That depends on your take on things.

I don't think it sets a bad precedent about north side bond, south side bond, things like that.

Um, but I do think it is worth uh an evaluation to see what's possible.

No argument, Councilman.

I and but it's not it's you're it it's it's very objective, actually.

It's not subjective at all, but it's very objective, and I think I think it's worthy of the conversation.

I will I will share that in the 20 seven in the 2012 bond program and the 2017 bond program, and not so much in the 2022, but some of you that may have been part of the conversations, there were there was there was a lot of conversation around what was categorized as citywide projects, and and more so in 2017, and one of the guiding principles of 2022 was that we weren't gonna have citywide projects.

Um and and and to a certain extent, those citywide projects were a very objective in the sense that they were either streets or parks in in the 2017 bond program.

They became a little bit like lightning rod issues, and I think that's probably part of the reason why the council wants to have a conversation about a downtown proposition or district proposition, whatever we call it.

But there is a little bit of history we've gone through, and and we'll be more than happy to be prepared for that conversation when we get to that point.

And I'll just say really quick citywide, I think could be subjective because all of the green organics receptacles waste comes all the way to district four, right?

That's a citywide product of things that come down one street in district four.

Half of those trash in the district, as half the trash in the city goes to Colville Gardens and D floor, right?

That Covell Road was not considered citywide, despite the fact that everybody's trash goes down that street.

But other parks and things were considered.

So I think there is a level of uh subjectivity and what we define as a citywide.

So that's all I would agree with that.

And that should have been a concrete road, probably.

Yeah.

In case it helps anyone else's comments, um, Eric, just to refresh, how did folks um distinguish between citywide versus regional?

Um you know what, Mayor, that's a white paper we can prepare for the 2017.

I mean, it was it was such a lightning rod issue.

I I'm making it map more than it probably was.

It was it was a bit of a lightning rut issue in 2017, so much so that we avoided it in 2022.

And so we'll uh you know, we can prepare some material that Broadway uh Broadway uh street project was a citywide project.

Uh the Hardberger Bridge.

Sorry, I'm I'm distinguishing because there's on the list, there's citywide and then there's regional.

How did you all just differentiate between the two?

Because on the list, for example, Hemisphere Civic Park is regional.

So how was that regional versus citywide?

There was a different definition that was applied, and and we'll go back to 2017 and provide it to you.

It it in both cases, regional and citywide, we did not utilize that in 2022.

So we'll we'll go back to um uh the 2017 and prepare that.

Well, in in regional, it was a regional park in name only, but there was a category regional in prior bond programs.

Yeah.

Like we had a regional park in district nine district six.

That was not the same, that was that was truly the definition of regional.

It was not the regional category from previous bond programs, which which is why in 2022 we got away from all of those categories because they became they became um they became um points of debate that we wanted to avoid.

Councilman Key Rodriguez.

Thank you.

Thank you all so much for the presentation.

I am incredibly excited uh to get the ball rolling on our next bond program.

It's often one of the only opportunities that we have to make really, really large capital investments in our facilities, libraries, parks, bridges, drainage, uh, and some of our other major needs.

Uh, and so I would start off by saying that I'm supportive of the proposed propositions, including the housing bond.

Uh, and I think we would need to prioritize no barrier shelter and permanent supportive housing uh should we proceed further.

Um, projects that can't happen without significant public support, and so of course deep affordability, but also the permanent uh permanent supportive housing and no barriers, no and low barrier shelter.

Uh, I do maintain my position and agree with Councilmember Mungia uh that we should add additional propositions to separate some of the uh downtown investments uh relating to Project Marvel.

Uh, I think people will likely support all propositions once they've made their way through the committee process, but there is an interest just as this discussion was happening uh in understanding investments on a neighborhood level versus the continuation of a second and third decade of downtown.

Um I also do support a May election, and though I continue to be supportive of moving our general elections to November, in this instance, um, the need is tremendous, and as months go by, costs go up and projects get more expensive, and so there's a sense of urgency associated uh with the bond that we need to meet.

And so to that end, the the difference between May and November is an entire solicitation period.

And if we put projects on the ballot in May, we could have multiple shovels in the ground by November.

Uh regarding the structure of the bond committee, I support a model similar to last bond cycle where the mayor appoints the trichairs and committee chairs, and each council uh and the mayor appoints three people per proposition.

Um I think that was solid last time, and I think the more people involved, the more uh eyes on each of these projects, I think the better uh the better and more likely the propositions are to pass.

I would recommend that we have these members appointed sooner rather than later and that they be present and maybe appointed even prior to those initial public community meetings.

That way they can hear constituent feedback through a lens of responsibility and to make some FaceTime with the community so we can introduce folk, introduce the community to these individuals who have been appointed.

I think there's a lot of benefit there.

One of the challenges, and I would like to pose this question, this isn't feedback you were asking for, but it's feedback I think is important.

Council will put forth a list of projects for the committee's initial consideration, and as the process moves forward, the committee will negotiate uh dollar amounts for projects.

For example, they might say rather than a $10 million library project, they'll support an $8 million project and move two million dollars elsewhere without fully considering how that impacts the viability and the scope of that project.

Uh so I don't know how we address that, but I think maybe as we get projects sent over, we identify some of the untouchables or we better communicate what is possible within certain dollar amounts for individual projects, uh specifically projects that can't move forward without without that full funding.

Um lastly, we've touched on that, and this is a guiding principle, I think, for both of those two.

Lastly, we've touched on the issue of support for external organizations in our general fund, and that's been a point of contention and debate.

And I maintain that we have a responsibility to support programming and initiatives that uh allow nonprofits and our community partners to operate, especially those that won't happen at the scale that we need without public support, but as it relates to capital improvements and expansions of certain facilities and organizations' uh property, um, we may have to reduce the amount of funds or support that we give to those external organizations, especially if they aren't operating on city property.

Uh, we have a lot of our own needs internally, and I want us to do what we can to get as much capacity as possible because we need to address the needs of our facilities, and that might mean limit it limiting how much support we might give to some of those external organizations.

I would like to, on the topic, but also not on the topic, um, I would like to ask for my colleagues' support once again for a project special to my district.

You will not be surprised or blindsided.

You all know I've been working on development of a new D2 Senior Center uh at Copernicus Park for the past three years and some change now.

We purchased the land, we funded design, and design is currently underway.

We will have a shovel ready project in the coming years, and the last step is to identify funding for construction, and it's going to be, you know, with the cost of materials, the cost of building these kinds of projects, it's going to be a $30 million plus project, but we've identified a path forward to fully fund the project using inner city tours dollars so that it's not dominating any one of our propositions.

But it comes with some council action.

Um so the existing senior center, as I've explained before, is a leased facility shared with an electric and auto supply shop, and so I want to replace it and move those operations.

Um I would like to in the coming months extend the life of the inner city tours through 2050.

This would allow us to issue debt through the TURS without impacting our capacity elsewhere and to fully fund the project.

So getting support from you all today will give staff a little bit more confidence so that we can proceed in that direction.

And I would certainly appreciate y'all's help because I feel like we're this close to the finish line for this project.

The inner city tours has been successful as a TERS largely because of increment created at the hands of gentrification and displacement.

And so the opportunity to utilize this increment for a project that will serve the public good is one that I think is owed to my district and to my constituents, and so the relevance to this conversation and why I ask for your support in that extension and funding mechanism is so that we can take these $30 million plus out of the competition for bond dollars.

So dropping that there, thank you all for the presentation.

I hope you've received all of my feedback.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Councilman Galvan.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mike, Troy, and Veronica for the presentation today.

Um, couple quick things.

I think for the housing bond in particular, well, one question on it.

Um for the rental and the homeownership uh portion of it.

Are those only production or is it also rehab within both of those?

I know we're gonna have the community conversations.

We just wanted to see what the current framework is.

On the uh consideration slide.

Yes, yes.

Yes.

So we're not recommending buckets, we're just noting that the um so those amounts focusing on deeply affordable housing, 30 and 50% would focus on rental housing.

Okay, I see.

So it still could go into either production or rehab, etc.

Yes, I don't want.

Okay, thank you for that.

Um I think similar to some of the things that uh my council colleagues have shared, and I know we talked about it during our pre-meeting a little bit too.

I got the right words for it this time, uh, but talking about uh the housing trust and how we can kind of continue to coordinate with them, continue to do that work with them.

Um, in the interest of, I guess, trying to be as flexible as possible, be able to move as quickly as possible with the growing housing needs.

Um I would be interested in seeing some form of analysis or some form of, yeah, I guess analysis is the right word for it, uh, a comparison of using our evolving loan uh through the housing trust by give by granting money to from the housing bond directly to them.

Um, and that way that fund can be used a bit more flexibly uh for any kind of um rehab uh or production or deeper affordability, kind of serving as bridge gap financing through the housing trust itself, and that way the money can come back into the same fund uh and hopefully continue that work in perpetuity versus continuing to have to solicit housing bonds for years to come.

Uh it's an idea that I know Montgomery Maryland uh has incorporated and commissioned.

Other states are doing it, but that's a statewide level.

Other cities, including Chicago and Seattle, are taking a look at that as well.

I don't know what it looked like here.

I don't know how it would meet the current market here as well, but I'd be interested in seeing how it could continue to kind of strengthen that leverage that the housing trust has to again be more flexible, but also to uh I mean to provide more funding uh for the continued housing needs in our city, uh, hopefully at deeper levels.

Um, just be interested in seeing I guess the comparison of what that could look like versus our current housing bond structure, um, and even just if it's different levels of of scale there.

If we're doing a smaller bond level for the housing bond, how far could that go um by being in that kind of revolving loan fund versus uh the kind of current gap financing that we do?

Sure.

So you're talking about like a specific set aside that would go straight to the housing trusts and then allow them to use that how they decide.

Correct.

And that kind of framework.

Yes, yeah, yes.

Sure, we can look at that.

Okay, thank you.

Um then for uh the guiding principles, this is more for Mike.

Uh, thank you, Veronica.

Um, of course, these are overarching when towards the plan alignment and resiliency, um, but I think a little bit as a kind of similar to the conversation around uh the materials we're using for concrete to kind of look at that longevity of a project.

I'd also be interested in seeing how we can better coordinate or incorporate uh complete streets and the kind of bike network plans.

I know it's kind of part of it already.

Uh but being at the beginning, uh looking at uh evaluations of street safety as our as our outcome there versus simply repaving a street or something of the sort.

Um similarly, I think with resiliency efforts, sustainability efforts too.

How can we incorporate uh sustainable materials in some form?

Of course, understanding that the upfront cost may be a bit higher, but looking at the comparison to the longevity of the project itself, right?

Whether it's a facility improvement, energy efficiency, what's the return investment there, or even water um uh sustainability efforts there, what is that impact to our operational costs?

Um and then, of course, with construction materials with uh maintenance in the future for not only facilities but also infrastructure itself, uh just kind of seeing what we can weigh there at the beginning of the conversation versus towards the end as an add-on.

Sure, and I think I think you hit on it.

That conversation for each of the projects as we move forward, right?

And the economic, I call it economic viability for lack of a better term.

But are we are we thinking not just short-term and long term?

Uh whether whether it's a facility, I think we use facilities as the previous discussion, but you you nailed it.

I mean, what type of streets are we building?

Um are they gonna be more complete streets that have bike infrastructure, additional landscaping that hit a lot of other other planned, you know, initiatives, uh, but what does that mean long-term?

And and I think that as long as we're having that conversation, is I think Eric even emphasizes we want to have that with each of the projects we're moving forward.

So so we're informed uh to pick the right projects.

Okay, thank you.

That's helpful.

Um I think similar to Councilman McKee Rodriguez's point around the the uh community bond committees.

Um I mean I'm open to uh the similar the one that we did last time, as well as any kind of additional ones that maybe it's two or three people or two people instead of three, but either way, open to having uh to continue to have the committees, but in particular, looking at ways to have our folks be appointed sooner than later so that way they can be a part of that conversation.

I know we talked briefly about um how are they're able to kind of review the not only the current project list that we have internally, but to also add any others and understanding what that time would be.

Of course, I know that requires design and everything else too, but still giving them the opportunity to kind of say, you know, I'm seeing all these ones, these are great.

Can we add in this one or at least review this one that I'm also seeing in my community or I'm hearing from other residents?

Um I don't know what that would look like fully.

Uh, but trying to understand, I guess, where that could fit within the timeline.

What will we need to do to have them on board in that way to be able to do that kind of work with us?

I'll just I'll just add, I think to that point is um in January we had this conversation.

We had a similar slide up on on the generic timeline of the big steps that we need.

What I heard back from you all, which I totally agree with, is that we need to do more community engagement, more of those conversations, uh, maybe start in the summer, those bond 101s, part of the budget town halls, maybe maybe appointing, you know, your selections earlier than we would have normally last time, and and and then identifying why that's helpful.

So all those things you just said, I think they're they're aligned with what I'm proposing.

I I don't have it fully fleshed out, certainly wanted some of that feedback today, but uh based on the feedback we get from you today, which is hey, let's develop something for the summer, let's develop something for the the committee appointments.

I think we can come back uh and work with you all to maybe put a little bit more fine-tuned schedule of what that looks like, and then uh and then we'll just execute it that way.

Thank you.

It's helpful.

Um, I have here.

On the sports district portion, uh, I'd be supportive of uh separating it out in some form um and kind of going into more details about that could look like what that would all, yeah, what I guess that would all incorporate.

Um the debt management one.

Um I mean, of course, I think we still need to see the numbers for it, but I'd be interested in seeing what the variable tax rate would look like in terms of creating expand air capacity compared to what is currently available.

Um, and we'll get that information later.

But uh at this time, I guess I'm open to seeing what that would look like.

Um I think for the elections.

Uh I'm still kind of weighing it a bit, but I I'm leaning more towards May just given the the inflation that we're seeing and the high need there.

Um supportive of Council McKee's point uh for the senior center that he's been working on uh really diligently uh seeing how they can uh increase our capacity within the general bond um work there.

I think that's all my feedback.

Otherwise, great presentation.

Um feel good at this moment.

Uh I'll chime back in if any other questions come up.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Councilman White.

Thanks, Mayor.

Uh thank you all for the presentation.

Uh Mike, I usually agree with uh 99% of what you say.

Um maybe it's the one percent today, or maybe I just disagree with you on your uh your meat and potatoes comment on the second half of the presentation.

I think the meat and potatoes was right up front uh on this variable tax rate uh discussion under absolutely no circumstances uh should we consider the variable tax rate because it's not really gonna be a variable tax rate.

This is gonna mean a tax rate increase for the citizens of San Antonio, and to do that right now, to me is just um an absolute non-start or should not be considered.

If you look at the uh the five-year financial forecast, property tax valuations uh declining 2.1% this year, flattened 28, and then recovering the couple years after that, but only at a rate of 1.5%.

So, you know, any suggestion that this variable tax rate could could mean uh lower taxes in the future, frankly, is is laughable.

It's gonna mean an increase uh in our property tax rate for our citizens, and under no circumstances should we consider that we need to live within our means, and if that means a six hundred and twenty-five million dollar bond, um then that's exactly uh what we need to deal with.

I will also point out for folks that talk about um you know tough five financial uh you know times and sometimes we need to we need to increase rates and things like that.

We we've lived through um, you know, we haven't raised the tax rate as Eric mentions to us in in 30 plus years, and we've lived through uh COVID-19.

Uh the the pandemic, of course, a few years ago.

Uh we've lived through financial crises back in uh 2007-2008 range.

Um we lived through 9-11, we've lived through a lot of um really unfortunate things and and have managed to have bond programs and not raise taxes and under no circumstances again, uh, should we do it now?

Um, and yes, the same goes for raising SAWS rates, CPS energy rates too, and we know we've been having those conversations at the same time.

So uh let's not do that to the people of San Antonio.

Um, in terms of the election date, I I'm for the the May of 2027.

Um bond election, I think I think that makes sense.

I think if we can get it done by then, um we should I did like um Mike where where y'all talk about economic uh viability um in the program that being one of the factors that makes all the sense in the world.

Uh let's not um put ourselves on the hook for dollars down the line um with some of these projects that frankly we're not going to be able to afford.

Uh so to look at that now going into the bond program, I was I was really pleased to see that it makes it makes a lot of sense to me.

Uh the district specific uh bond proposition uh that was mentioned.

I I am I am not for that.

Uh I don't think we need any um any district specific proposition.

Um I did have uh I did have a question here, I thought I covered maybe I covered it.

Um in terms of councilman McKee Rodriguez is um senior center, um, I would I would want to see that proposal fleshed out a bit, but it but it is in uh in his district, and if we can help him get that senior center done um through the TURS, uh you know I'd I'd love to um to see that to see that happen.

So um that's really all I've got.

I'm excited about the bond program.

These projects do um add to our community, certainly, um but we don't need to stretch ourselves uh too thin.

We do not need to raise taxes on the citizens to have a bigger bond.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you.

Um Troy, a point of clarification just based on um you said the bond council's uh advice at this point, and in case it informs everybody anybody else's feedback on their support for a district specific proposition.

As you described, um, for example, streets, bridges, and sidewalks, you would then have to have a separate district, streets, bridges, and sidewalks.

Yes, correct, okay.

In terms of the actual mechanics of it, if somebody voted for the big one, but not for the subset, would that subset of funding just go revert back to the um the original larger bucket?

I don't believe so.

I can get that clarification from bond council, but unless you could even write it that way if you write if you say no here on the district part, this money will in fact revert to the larger pot, if you will.

And that's where I would need to get clarification as far as how it'd be styled.

Sounds good.

Thank you, appreciate that.

Well, we'll go back and study that, Mayor, working with finance and our bond council.

Yeah, because I think that then raises the question about if it's not approved and that's a significant chunk of money.

Does it just work where does it go in the interest of efficiency?

Could it just grow go to the larger bucket?

Okay, thank you.

Um council member Viegeran.

Thank you, Mayor.

On May 7, 2022, the San Antonio Public approved the propositions for the city's 2022 bond program totaling 1.2 billion and including 183 projects.

As we enter this year's bond program discussion, the guiding principle I am focused on is simple.

Make every taxpayer dollar go further.

As we have this conversation, and because it has been so interesting up until this point, there's just a couple of things.

Anytime we want to talk about 2017 bond and why the changes came, I will be more than happy to talk to y'all about that.

It was a different city manager, it was a different time, it was a different council, and thank goodness, towards their leadership, uh Terry and I saw great success in 2022 for our bond projects.

Oh, and district district two too.

I'm sorry.

I know.

Southeast side, Southeast Side.

So we were able to see that because we moved from that regional to citywide to having conversations about what was significant to the community.

And as we look at the categories, and if we're gonna get to add new categories, which you know, thank you for opening that up, Councilman Ninguia.

I would like to see a category, if we could possibly look at our education and from early childhood, and we we talked about we've talked about pre-K for SA all the way to adult continuing education, which is a lot of what Ready to Work does and a lot of what our delegate agencies do.

So when we look at categories, I don't want to be limited to this special district because as we have this special district, I I am in no doubt that that will pass.

What I am concerned about is if we move to a special district and we keep the bond at a 600 million instead of going to the 1.2 billion that we need, is that the voters of San Antonio will go in and say, you know what makes my tax player payer dollar go further, is if I vote for the downtown district and the downtown housing and the downtown flood and drainage rather than for that in different parts of town.

So I think we you really do need to spell it out because what I'm hearing is not that we would have just five categories, but we could have up to ten categories if the sports and entertainment district comes forward and says we're gonna have affordable housing in our district this round.

We're gonna need I I can tell just based on this streets and sidewalks is gonna be in that.

I know you see it, Troy.

But if they put a park there, if they put a housing there, if we want to fix up that um park police facility that sits in the middle of hemisphere, that's all gonna be separated into another category, and we could have up to 10.

So instead of that, I would rather see have the big categories and have our committee members look at how we divide up those dollars.

Uh so I think the amount needs to stay uh at the 1 billion, preferably the 1.2 billion.

The date, I'm in agreement with um my council members, council member Galvan, but should probably be and Councilman McKee Rodriguez should be May 2027 because of inflation.

I think as we look forward, the top priorities for me, of course, is seeing how we can get South Texas Parkway, the infrastructure around Texas AM, uh, streets and sidewalks and drainage control there, the Roosevelt Corridor, of course, uh, which has been a great example of what we do when we move from phase one to phase two, and um of course I think we need to support the tours and have a larger conversation about how all of the tours that we have can help when we start that development, can help take away from what we're spending in the bond because we're using our churs, and we've seen that successfully happen over in Brooks, and I want to make sure that that continues.

So I think this conversation with the THERS probably should be have uh sooner rather than later.

Um, the one thing that the conversation about housing trust, I'd like that when we have our second conversation to be cleared up because Veronica, I know that you will go and you will ask, but sitting on the board of housing trust and knowing that they are run by a different board and a different entity, is that we can't overcommit for them because there may be things that they can and can't do.

They have a lot of big big projects that if you're following us on the meetings, which are are televised or out there in the internet, you you know they have projects that they're working on.

So to uh task them with some of the things that I've just heard lately, I'm not sure that it's within their capacity at this point.

So let's make sure we take that into consideration.

Uh the other is the um bond committee and composition.

I believe this year uh we should look at the tri-chairs and get that uh because this is all been by practice, but I think we should start formalizing the process and make sure that the tri-chair bonds are approved by the majority of city council as we move forward.

So I'd like to see that come forward in a proposal or let us know if we need a uh CCR to get that done.

And I'm in favor of doing the housing bond 101 program and making sure that um my residents kind of understand where we're going from here.

We what happens in times like these when we are financially uh we're not seeing the federal support or the grant opportunities that we've seen in the past, or we're not sure what they're going to look like, is it gives us the opportunity to get creative, it gives us the opportunity to work with our stakeholders.

When we talk about streets, bridges, and sidewalks, I think we can leverage our school partnerships with our districts and meeting with our districts and the public-private partnership.

When we talk about parks and recreations, I think it's important that we understand what's happening in DC, and if we can start if we do have phases two and three of certain park programs that we can take out and get that federal funding for, that we have that ready to go, and then when we talk about facilities in our city facilities, we do need to have a clear conversation about rebuild versus remodel, and especially in some of those fire stations and uh police substations.

Housing is critical and important, and um we had been we've been successful with our ship goals, and I think we need to continue.

I think any conversation that uh does not include the city being uh a critical part or this being part of the bond is short-sighted because we understand that it takes one closure in one of our adjacent communities, like Del Rio, like Casterville, like Uvaldi, that'll bring people to San Antonio looking for work and jobs, and we need to have the housing stock here at the various levels for people to live in.

We know that's gonna be multifamily, we know that's gonna be single family, and that's what a housing bond allows us to do is making sure we're maintaining with the growth we know is coming, and then the growth that could possibly happen if we see another um another crisis come out.

So, as we move forward, I think we need to take that into consideration.

Uh, I'm looking forward to seeing what sort of options we have if we're going to do a sixth category.

I'm not I'm not above talking about the sports and entertainment district, but please take into consideration other categories that we can have that kind of incorporate some of what what we are discussing today.

So thank you, and uh I'm I'm hoping TPR will call me so we can talk about 2017 bond.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Mesa Gonzalez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um, I think it's important that we build upon the progress that we've made in 2022, and so that's how I'm looking at this next bond package and making sure that we're clear about uh the priorities that our communities have, and that my district is already every neighborhood association meeting.

I am asked questions about the next bond project, and they have projects in mind that they've kind of kept in their back pocket as well.

And so um, I know a lot of our residents are doing the same thing all over uh the city.

So I guess I'll start with uh I think it's slide two, three on the uh 22 housing bond progress.

Do we have a um on the homeownership rehab and preservation?

Do we have and you guys are working on this?

But uh, but if you can provide how many applications were received versus funded, do you have that number handy or you can just provide that at a later?

Sure.

So we've changed um you're talking about uh the the home rehab program uh we've changed the way we do that now we only accept applications for um when they're complete ready to go so we can look at what our latest numbers of how many um have been applying uh recently since we made that change and then do you have like a breakdown demographic I guess district wise of where those applications are coming from sure yeah we can get that for you and then is there a wait list for eligible homeowners that maybe didn't get this round so we went through all of the previous applicants and followed up with them got current documents um and now we have a new round for call uh we do have application appointments all the way through July and so we will open it up again um when we get closer to that point for anyone else who still hasn't been able to get an appointment.

And is the homeowner rehab focused on single family or is there some smaller multifamily units in there as well so the one through the bond is funding um owner occupied single family occupied single okay um okay sounds good thank you on the debt management plan can you kind of help explain this as much as possible on the variable tax rate is that variable tax rate allowing for new capacity it would I mean based on the current forecast and what we've seen taxable values declining uh in order to get to a one point two billion dollar bond program you would have to increase the tax rate the current tax rate that we have today won't produce a 1.2 billion dollar bond program so over the future based on what values are doing under this variable tax rate you would have the ability to increase the tax rate or decrease the tax rate depending where values are falling but we would have to levy a tax rate because once we enter into a contract with the voters for a 1.2 billion dollar bond program we have to have a way to pay for it.

And the tax okay okay we'll think about it next um thank you on I think I concerned a little bit about you know the 600 million or 625 I think that was the size of our 2012 bond and knowing that our infrastructure is what it is but our city continues to grow I don't want us to kick the can down the road in that sense where we have a smaller amount um but the needs are still there right um and so you've got residents waiting five years on these big projects that you know might have to wait another 10 years because of that and so I know we have a while to go on this but that those are just kind of some initial concerns I have um on the smaller uh bond capacity uh amount so I look forward to just kind of hearing more on an update on that in the future uh and I have a question on the specific to the sports and entertainment district there's also work that we're doing on the conven the convention center is in that sports and entertainment district piece so is it are those projects but for the district they would not be considered is that how we're the convention center um or just in general with the sports and entertainment district if we do have its own uh its own buck or its own you know category are those how are we determining but for are we saying but for the sports and entertainment district these projects would not be on a list.

Councilman I think I understand your question I'm gonna try and answer it if I'm wrong.

Please go at me again I'm trying to understand if there's some needs now in this same area.

Imagine an event day at the Alamo Dome right there are some improvements that we could do now we know that there are things that need to happen now around access off the interstate around how the intersections work around the dome around the rest of downtown so I think we can break it out for you and set up what we think we need now and where the line is for the district and and have you react to those are the needs that you would have had whether or not we had an arena vote.

Correct.

Okay.

That's what I'm trying to do.

Yep.

We'll try to we'll try to categorize them and and we can get your feedback on that.

Yeah I mean I'm I'm open to the idea.

I just want to make sure that that project is specifically there because of the sports and entertainment.

Right, the new plan I guess um okay let's see.

I'm supportive of the um May 2027 uh bond because I I do appreciate the that cycle just being on that's really the only major thing on the ballot is that is that uh those bonds and um November 27 we've got constitutional amendments I believe on the ballot as well so those will come before those bond projects and that's a long list of amendments that are coming our way I'm sure so I'm supportive of the May 2027 bond.

What else what else the community bond committee um I was in the mayor's office at that time when the last community bond committee was set up the bond oversight committee I think they're very valuable so I hope that we set it up in the same way I know that's a good uh good thing for us as far as just getting our residents involved I can already tell you the residents that are ready to go and excited for those bond oversight committees and I mean it the they are ready to um get the get the call and and get asked so I would appreciate the same oversight committee structure talked about May I think that um I think we were talking about Jalen right your your pitch on the senior center.

Absolutely come bring that money my way to the Bob Ross Senior Center when you're done because I we are the oldest senior center the first senior center in San Antonio and that needs a lot of love and so since we're talking about specific projects I'll throw in the Bob Ross Senior Center is a huge priority for me and the residents that use that space every single day.

So thank you.

Those are all my comments right now.

Thank you.

Councilmember Castillo thank you and thank you Mike and Veronica as well as to your teams you all have been great stewards of public dollars and I know district five residents have been extremely grateful for the impact and we know there's much more needed in our community and I'm reminded of some of the site visits that we that we've had with the public works team where constituents show a petition of signatures that they gathered in the 80s and the 60s of them requesting a sidewalk in their neighborhood and because of the 2022 bond dollars and some 2017 dollars we've been able to make an impact and meet that community need so extremely grateful for capital improvements the public works team and grateful for NHSD because in district five alone we've seen the rehabilitation andor construction of over 700 affordable units in district five so grateful for that work and thankful that you all have been stellar stewards of public dollars.

So I'm eager for us to initiate this process I'm supportive of replicating the 2022 bond committee process and I agree that we should initiate that conversation sooner than later to ensure that our appointees can hear from the community and their shared our shared constituency on what the goals and priorities are.

I do believe there's value in weaving in any CIP projects that uh all 10 of us have identified and earmarked funding for example Martinez Park in District 5 following the 2022 uh conversation uh the process was already ongoing and constituents came up with this plan to invest in Martinez Park but we had just missed that conversation so using CIP we've constructed a master plan uh to improve martinez park so um that's a park that we'll be continuing to advocate for but highlighting uh many of us have UCIP dollars to plan uh in preparation for the 2027 bond um so that's something that I would like for us to see uh us replicate in terms of the process if it needs to be codified I'm I'm supportive of that as well um again with the guiding principles I'm supportive of what uh Mike's laid out um what I would uh encourage and I'm sure it's part of the process is that we continue to use the equity at this when analyzing the projects and the areas in which those projects will be placed um with the housing bond um supportive of the recommendations I know I didn't see home rehab explicitly explicitly stated on there um but I would encourage and I'm assuming that that's going to be included in the process um but as we enter the next B session conversation uh and we discuss what the housing bond can look like, I would like to lean on uh Mark Carmona and Patrick Steck in terms of what they're seeing the need in terms of addressing homelessness.

I know um within the San Antonio Housing Trust, for example, we've talked about uh how we can expand opportunity for more shared living spaces uh whether that's for um whatever the the demographic may be uh there's a need for us to think more creatively of how we can meet more need in our community and be more impactful with housing bond dollars.

So eager for that conversation, of course, to weave in what we learn with the next presentation to continue to chip away at the needs and goals.

And I really appreciated uh how you highlighted, Veronica.

One housing bond dollar uh it stretches into seven dollars.

So it's just great impact and grateful for uh the San Antonio Housing Trust again for being that impactful partner in terms of what the standards of housing that end up at the end of the pipeline.

Uh so just very eager for 2027 uh with that would be supportive of a May 2027 election, as folks have highlighted, the cost of services uh continue to go up.

There's one project in our district, not bond related.

Uh, delays have increased it by several thousand dollars, so I can't imagine moving it to November the cost that that would uh uh fall on the taxpayers in terms of that delayed timeline.

Um in addition to that, I am supportive of Councilman McCree Drew's plan using TERS to support a senior center in his district.

I know it's not common for council members to name something after themselves, um, but I believe the the work that the councilman has done in district two uh has been very impactful, and I think it's something council should consider whether it's a park or senior center, but it's been uh great to see uh the councilman work towards uh creating uh a space for seniors and everyone in district two and citywide um to go and enjoy the senior center and the community that you're working towards the building.

And uh I I didn't see it on the presentation, but I want to ensure that we continue to support our public arts so um the funding allocated towards supporting public art projects.

Is that something that will be baked into this?

Yes, uh councilwoman, it's not part of the presentation.

It was not intended to take that out.

I think that's gonna be an important part of the conversation.

It has been for several of the bond cycles.

Uh it was 1.5% of uh each of the propositions minus the housing last time.

So uh I know that will be part of it, and we expect that, and then wherever that lands based on uh the process, and then certainly you all um that that's definitely intended to be part of the conversation.

Great.

Thanks, Mike.

And then lastly, in terms of the housing bond conversation, right?

Uh of course, we I I would be supportive of increasing from 150 million to whatever we have the capacity in terms of the housing bond.

Uh, and lastly, I would be supportive in terms of exploring uh separating the downtown uh the sports district propositions into their own, allowing uh the public to weigh in in terms of investment, um, and that's something that I would hope that we can see uh in the 2027 bond.

Those are my comments.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman Spears.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you so much for the presentation, Mike.

I know that y'all do a whole lot of work to get us here, and um I really appreciate it because it gives us something to start diving into.

Um so I sort of have the same.

Here's the first thing I want to say.

When I'm up here speaking, I want everyone to just understand that I'm an advocate and I'm listening to what my residents are saying.

So when you see me, I'm a hundred and forty-five thousand people behind me.

And I'm gonna share with you some of the things that we've been talking about and we'll continue to talk about in my district.

Um, first, I had a couple of questions though.

On these bond projects, when we wait, are they always gonna go up in price?

Like we passed this in 2022.

Always it's gonna be more when we start to spend those dollars in five years later, correct?

Yeah, generally construction gets more expensive, and when we plan a project, uh and we'll be scoping and estimating projects now, we build in some inflation estimates.

Uh, sometimes that holds firm.

Uh, sometimes we may be a little more conservative.

There are sometimes we're not as conservative.

Uh, so but we do build that uh inflation in, but we really haven't seen construction costs go down in recent memory.

Yeah, um how how are we going to be?

I want us to be looking at how we're going to be prioritizing projects based on necessity versus desirability.

Uh and then um I did have a question too on housing.

I see that I saw this in a document.

Will future affordable housing bond language continue to allow undocumented immigrants to qualify for the housing assistance so many of our housing bond projects also layer federal funding and we do require as part of our policy um identification for anyone qualifying for services and since again many of our um housing bond funded like the rental housing or rehab um layer the federal funds they also require um that documentation of uh of an individual's status so that's not necessarily always a city requirement a lot of times it's a federal requirement that we're responding to as well that we provide housing for undocumented no that they have to have um you know social security card or uh some sort of legal status well because in our bond recommendation uh the housing community bond committee recommendations it had in there undocumented immigrants sure so that is the parameters that the housing bond committee established um but since we have proceeded with moving towards issuing gap solicitation that includes both federal and bond funding usually um we have to usually fall back on what the federal requirements are for projects like both okay um I just and then I wondered too why we why we focused so heavily on housing I know it's important but we haven't talked as much about all these other areas today.

Well I think the intent uh councilwoman is look the the 2022 bond we talked about housing that was really the first time we had uh housing in uh you know a significant part of our bond 2017 we had 20 million dollars that was actually the first time and it was a result of a charter change I believe it was uh to allow that so we kind of dipped our toe in the water the need was there in 2017 we wanted to just give an update of a significant relatively new piece certainly drainage streets parks facilities those have been in the category in the bond categories go back decades um still very important uh they still got most of the dollars in the 1.2 billion so it was not intended to minimize the importance of those it was just to highlight um kind of the update of the new housing bond that was added last time that makes sense um so sorry you just sat down but as say tomorrow projects the stone oak regional plan they're having a fit about the Stone Oak regional plan Stone Oak's pretty well built out and there's all these questions about why are we why are we even this doesn't match what we want or need anymore and they're not feeling heard and my question is when constituents are pushing back like we had a public meeting this week pushing back about something how are we responding to that how are we tracking that how I mean we say call 311 but you're in the room with them and they're talking to the experts the people doing the project and hearing we don't want this anymore we no longer need this doesn't solve our problem you actually already fixed our problem five years ago like things like that it's their frustrations come out and then they get apathetic and then they don't want to come vote on the bond and then they feel unheard it's a whole problem.

Well certainly after that meeting uh that is atypical certainly usually we're at those meetings and saying thank thank goodness you're here we've been waiting for it for a long time we have a lot of energy effort put into this process that I just laid out it's a year long plus project process to determine the needs we're fighting for the dollars to get into the bond and then get approved so now certainly you had an example in your district that we went out there there was some pushback as to the the need of that project I still need to work with you and and really our team on that because look, that project's been approved by voters, and part of our job is to deliver that project to address some some flooding and street needs.

I think we need to dig in the specifics and have more conversations.

So again, um, like we're here to deliver the projects that are needed.

Uh, certainly if things change, we have to address that uh again, a little bit unique circumstance that I'll continue to work with you and those residents on, but that is very atypical.

Usually when we are at those meetings, they are ready to go.

It's been a long time coming.

Hurry up and get done.

Uh but um I I think we have more to come on that one, I think I would just say I hear you saying it's atypical, although that's not exactly how I'm hearing it, because I've got some other projects, mainly on drainage, quite frankly, and I'm so glad.

I love to talk about water and drainage.

It's one of my favorite things to talk about because I want to reiterate this one thing that came to my attention.

The scope of every drainage project, at least for us in District 9 and 8, I believe, when we're over the recharge zone, has to be thinking about watershed and how we can keep that water filtering into our aquifer.

And to find out that some of these projects are not doing that, is just a lost opportunity to build resiliency in our aquifer.

And um, I think that should just be first top of mind when we're talking about drainage and flood control topography, and because you know, this will greatly affect my colleagues down in the clay areas of town.

I don't I don't want that.

I want to trap it up in the bedrock, the Flintstone area, and let it just pour into that aquifer.

And if we're not thinking that way about drainage and stormwater and watershed, we've just got to always look at that, and that was that was shocking to the residents as well.

Um, I I think I think councilwoman, that's one you and I talked about that we're looking into all of our drainage projects, especially over the aquifer, they do get they do have to go through the TCEQ process to make sure we're meeting all the standards for the aquifer in those protected regions.

So yeah, again, I'm still looking into those comments that would I wasn't at the meeting with you, but um, I do know that's built in, and I think I'll work with Art and our stormwater team to make sure that you know those are there for every one of our drainage projects.

But I believe they are, but you brought up one, there was a conversation that there was some questions on.

Yeah, and you know, we've got new floodplain maps coming out.

See, that's the other problem with the way you got get new information, and then this project you actually fixed it with a quick little culvert fix.

Um, and now it's a 17 and a half million dollar project that nobody wants, and that's that's what I'm trying to wrap my head around.

Is how do we claw that back?

Can we claw that back?

Since we've waited so long and nobody wants it anymore, and the economy changed, and everybody feels differently and would vote differently today.

I don't know how to respond to those situations, and so we're just gonna keep engaging with our residents during this process as much as possible because to the mayor's point, we have to have huge turnout and engagement.

It's it's because then you deal with people saying, Well, I don't want this, I don't like this, and and then they didn't vote in it because they feel that no one's listening.

So I want to make sure that they feel heard, and that we are listening.

Um I would say too, I found this document called Necessity is the mother of innovation.

Balancing the budget through rapid assessment of core services.

Does anybody here remember this document?

Justina, no, uh, it was drafted here actually uh in 2011, and it's a really good document, it's only like five pages long.

I would love to see something like that again.

Uh it really hones in on what our core services are and what we really need to do in our in our city, and I think it was done around the time when we were in the same situation financially, and I think um my office was gonna ask if we could get something like that, and I have copies of it if we need it.

Um, I am very leery of a variable tax rate because I think when you give an inch, people will take a mile, and um I I just can't I all I hear is I can't afford it, I can't afford it, Misty.

I can't do it.

And I'm not sorry, I guess I'll sign up for the next one.

Thank you.

Um, council member core.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, can y'all tell me um about the tax, the variable tax rate?

How would that um change the median bill that we talked about last week?

So we had a property tax rate conversation for M and O, which would increase the bill by 17 dollars for a hundred fifty-six K home.

What would this do?

Potentially, I know that's hard to to make a determination on because it's variable.

I think that's something as we get more information from the appraisal district, we can come back to you and present.

In theory, as values are going down, applied against that stagnant or historical tax rate, and their tax bills going down in theory, and we have to model this, but it should level out their tax bill over time.

And our debt service tax rate, which is what we're talking about for this point.

Yes, ma'am.

Also has changed over the last couple of years.

Our debt service tax rate has been constant for about the last 20 years.

We have not changed it.

And what is it at right now?

21 cents per hundred dollars.

Got it.

And that's the max that it could ever be at right now.

No, it can actually go up.

We have a debt, we have legal debt caps.

We can go up to a dollar fifty.

So we have a lot of capacity.

Got it.

And what other cities keep a fixed debt service tax rate?

Um I have the information.

I can go back and look.

Um I don't want to say anything incorrectly, have to provide the information, but there are a lot of cities too that also do the variable rate method.

I think what would be helpful for us because it's really hard to make a statement when we don't know what the impact could possibly be, like the comment that was actually just said, right?

It does this mean someone's bill is gonna go from uh like increase by five dollars by a hundred dollars uh for that median income home.

And so it's hard to be able to make a statement if we don't know what the impact would be.

So maybe we give at the next presentation we get some examples of if you know we were to change it to a variable tax rate, we have a million dollar or a billion dollar bond, um, this is and these are potential scenarios.

So three scenarios where uh our rates are increasing, and this is what the rate would be, uh property values are are decreasing, this is what the rate would be, et cetera, like three different potential scenarios where it's conservative to aggressive.

Absolutely.

Once we start getting down into that detail, we'll provide that information.

Okay, and and I would anticipate that councilwoman that that would be part of the August presentation when we have the certified role.

Okay.

Um, so then based on the timeline slide, I think it's slide 11.

I was just a little bit confused about that timeline slide because if we go to May, which I understand why my colleagues are saying that, and I absolutely support that.

I think it's the one right before this.

Sorry, slide 10.

This is stating that we've already done steps one and two for a May 2027 bond because it's May 2026, right?

It means that we've started that.

We that's gonna continue through the summer.

So we've um, you know, we've we talked in January about a 2027 possible 27 bond.

Actually, in August, we talked about possibly a 26 or 27.

So this conversation is happening, but uh certainly initiating and developing a program and thinking about it.

So city staff to try to lead up to today, we've been thinking about you know what a 27 bond could look like, May, November, and then we're starting to identify projects.

So my team and I over the last month or so working with some other city departments, just pulling up old records, old needs, kind of some of the things I talked to you about uh on another slide was what are what are the potentials?

Um right now it's very it's very you know um there's some holes in that.

There's that we don't have a lot of detail on those.

And that's what we need to build out through the summer until the time, for example, where it says that we will um we will identify uh staff will present to you um some potential projects, which is uh maybe I think it's in that August uh time frame.

Staff recommended projects and community meeting process.

So the hard part about those two things that I just heard is we're identifying potential projects and we don't know what our capacity will be till August, and so that makes it difficult for us to be talking to residents and saying like we're collecting ideas, we want to know what you have because we don't want to set false expectation.

I mean, we're I feel like we've already our history has is is gonna help have us set false expectations in terms of how much bond we've been able to take out, or that we've been able to take out, but I'm just wondering um how that timeline works if we do, which I feel like so many of my colleagues have said they want to push for May.

How does that and how when will we know what our capacity is if we go in May versus November?

We'll go in August with the certified rule.

So we won't know in August.

The certified rule that we get the end of July is gonna help us with the setting of our operating budget, and it's gonna set the capacity requirements under either fixed rate or a variable rate option that we'll present to you in August.

Okay.

And I would just add so as part of the like identifying potential projects I don't think we know we don't we don't need to know where the line is yet at least we don't as city staff as we're trying to identify potential projects we're working with other city departments for example talking with the library talking with them about what their operational needs are what they've been planning for what their buildings that they need to to uh renovate uh or or or DHS with the senior center I think we we talked about the old the oldest senior center there are some needs there that we know about and what once we know the where the line is that'll help us with the priority and how much we can afford but I think I can still do that with whether it's you know a 500 600 a billion I think I said it earlier there's probably more need than we have whichever number we land um so I think there's enough information for us to get started but very quickly to your point we will need that number to make some firm decisions later in the summer I think after the after the tax rate is there is that okay I think in August when you guys come back because I mean for me if the difference is between 600 million and a billion dollars May versus November is worth it right so I just think it and I understand inflation costs and I understand that point but I just need to know what what we're giving up by giving up those six months and I also to councilmember white's point would like a holistic image of what MO if the if we increase the MNO rate what would that mean for an average um rate if we change this to variable what would that mean what would a CPS rate increase mean what would a SAS rate increase mean so we can get a holistic picture because this is all a lot all at once so I just want to see what the impact to our most underserved communities would be.

That's where my focus is it's the people that are at that median and below that we don't want to unfairly impact and so that's the lens that I'm looking at.

Support council member McKee Retriguez's point on senior center from the inner city tourist I said on that board so I'll be happy to vote on that with you.

On the downtown district conversation so I know you guys are going to come back and identify and I think that's really important because for example if we do um want to RFP out the affordable housing lot the D5 lot for affordable housing on hemisphere would that be considered if we wanted to save allocate dollars from the affordable housing bond for that project would we have to separate that out to say we want to fund that in the affordable housing bond.

I think that would up that would be up to you all to decide um and and you know the of the categories that's the only one other than maybe park but I don't think that'll really come be part of that infrastructure update do you guys in September the D5 or any related downtown housing the council could or you could include it as part of the general housing property.

I just think we should do what we do for one for all of the buckets so if we decide that we're gonna split out infrastructure I think we should do that for affordable housing too would be my thought there.

What about the magic theater?

If we wanted to pull the funding for the magic theater would that be considered for um a part of like the downtown district project the the the issue there as Troy mentioned at the beginning is that that's a city facility so it would probably have to be under a separate proposition if we followed that path.

Okay.

Or I'm sorry or it could be part of a facility proposition for the city.

Yeah so I'm just pulling out projects that are included in the district that I think are really important that we have been previously funding that would cause us to go out on like if we do this we have to really think about all of the impacts of pulling out these propositions and making sure that we want our voters to vote every single person to vote on the magic theater because I think that is just it I am worried that it becomes a slippery slope of okay what about the playhouse everybody from the city comes to the playhouse, should that be it's in its own uh proposition.

So I'm just wondering where we draw that line, and so that's what I'd like to get feedback on in the next conversation.

As far as the housing trust conversation, really quickly in that last minute.

Five of us sit on the housing trust board, two of us are on the executive or on um serving in uh vice president and and treasurer role, and we have the majority on the voting for the PFC.

Uh, if we allocate my worry if we allocate just dollars to the housing trust, we are basically saying we don't want to create a sense of competition in the affordable housing marketplace, like any other uh industry.

Affordable housing is an a competitive industry, and if we just say we're funding only housing trust, which I I have a fiduciary responsibility housing trust, might create a sense that we are only wanting we're not um creating a fair competitive marketplace for all of the organizations that are doing affordable housing, and then opportunity home could come back to us and say, hey, you should be considering us in the same way because they do developments as well.

So I just think it gets a little bit tricky there, but I wanted to share that.

Of course, I support the how affordable housing plan in general.

Thanks, Mayor.

Great, thank you.

Um Councilwoman Alderata Gabito.

Thank you.

Um, and thank you, uh Mike for the pre-brief.

I and after reviewing the um the deck and and the pre brief, sorry, working mom, and had to go to my my daughter's school conference.

So um, just had a few comments.

I'm good with the current categories.

I think that you know the previous bond um processes have worked well.

I'm not supportive of a separate bond to Councilwoman Kore's point.

I mean, they're the the usage is gonna be from all over the city, so um definitely not in support of us taking out uh a separate bond for Spurs related projects downtown.

You know, I I agree with Councilman Corps on the expectation setting.

It's hard to let residents know what kind of bond we're expecting when when we just don't have those answers right now.

But I will say this uh last Saturday I had a coffee with the councilman.

We had probably well over 80 people packed at Texas Star In.

And we talked about uh the potential sales rate increase, we talked about a potential property tax increase, and we're you know, and just all of this, and there was I mean overwhelming sentiment um against it, you know.

I mean, this is a hard time for residents, so whenever we're talking about a potential increase, um, you know, it's it's gonna be it's gonna be uh very difficult to push that on to them when we're all dealing with higher gas prices.

We're all dealing with the economy, which is out of our control.

Like, you know, uh I'm not saying that this this is a this is something caused by the city of San Antonio.

There's obviously um outside factors that are um weighing on us, but right now is not the time to be looking at um increases uh tax increases or uh rate increases on our residents.

I agree with Councilwoman Via Gran about the tri-chairs being uh approved by a majority of city council, and um those are all my comments, and and we we'll work with y'all on on different specifics.

But yes, I I see the chicken and the egg.

We're we're when we don't have specifics, it's hard to set those expectations and our expectations accordingly too.

So thank you.

Councilmember Spears on the second round.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, so I um I uh how are we gonna write the ship on the value the taxable values?

Because I mean, how are we gonna take out more debt for the tours if there isn't a forecast where that goes up?

Are you referring to Councilman McKee Rodriguez's?

Not in specifically, no, just in general, like I mean, because we issue debt on the tours, right?

And that's based on future forecasted revenues of taxable values.

It is, yes, ma'am.

But it were forecasted to go down.

But we we've those forecasts in the TURS align with what we do with our what we see in value property values.

They're not separate apart, they're they're uh they're they're a part of that overall.

Um and I think that's one of the reasons is specifically that I think that Councilman McKee Rodriguez is talking about part of that adjustment is also the alignment of time and when how long that tours is available.

Am I answering your question?

I think so.

So you've already accounted for the fact that the values are going down in your in your borrowing capacity.

It always has to be adjusted and amended.

Okay, just like our annual budget.

Okay.

And the issuance of any debt, I mean, there's I'll use uh um I'll use Brooks as an example.

The issuance of any debt, and generally all the all the use of the Brooks tours has been for infrastructure and street work.

So they issue debt, we issue debt with them, and that debt is paid for out of the TURS, and it's um it's a certificate of obligation.

Any debt that we issue through a TERR still has to go through the council for approval, the boards first, the council second.

Okay.

Um I'm supportive of the bond committee process.

Uh I I can't see a way to get behind the variable tax rate.

And I think there are unintended consequences if we start looking at district specific propositions, um, just researching it at all will show that that's been a problem in other cities.

And um I or I would urge everyone to be looking a little more closely at what that does in other markets.

Um to my colleagues' points.

I mean, that is really the the basis of what I'm trying to say is everyone's in my district is saying we can't do all these things you're asking us to pay for.

We just can't do it.

And on the arts and culture piece, and I'm I know this is gonna probably ruffle some feathers, but they almost had a fit that there was an arts and culture sculpture put in an area on an a roadway improvement that for 300 and 350,000 dollars.

They there I just don't know how to justify that on a road improvement, and um and also the placement of it is gonna block their vision that they're worried about.

Um I just that's a really hard one for me to talk about because they just it doesn't tie together for me how you how you build in arts and culture when you're trying to do infrastructure like that, because I don't think that's what they're voting on.

I don't think they're even thinking about that.

They're thinking how you gonna help me get my road improved so I can get home, or there's not so much water collecting on the road, or that's the stuff they want fixed, they just want their roads to be better.

So all the fluff around it is is very, very unimportant to them.

So um I really appreciate what councilwoman core was saying about the holistic picture picture of what they're we're asking for uh with dollars, percentages are hard, and that's even hard if it's something that they want because when you start talking in percentages, it's worst-case scenario every time I do it.

I think most people do it.

You start going, well, what does that mean?

And um, so we need to see dollars and cents, and that that will help tremendously in our discussions as moving forward.

So thank you.

Would anyone else like to speak on the second round?

Okay.

Thank you, Troy, Mike, Veronica, for all of the uh the certainly for the presentation and then for the clarification.

Um on the guiding principles, uh, I shared with Mike, but um have a a real appreciation for the economic viability, and as soon as we talked about it, and I was like, Oh, you're talking about long-term sustainment costs.

Uh, this reminded me of being at the Pentagon, and you'd be gifted all these planes you didn't ask for, uh, and then have to sustain them for the next 30 years.

And so I can appreciate um how we think about not only the cost to build the thing, but now how we need to think about um uh sustaining that longer term, which which really gets us into thinking about um kind of the base level of service we should think about for each of these public services.

I think the senior center um is is a is a great example.

I was just with uh our seniors at the um at Rosedale for their senior Fiesta.

Let's just call it that.

Um, and uh, you know, certainly how we as a community can commit to making sure that all of our senior centers have a basic level of service.

And I don't I don't know enough about um Councilman McKee Rodriguez, the senior center that you're putting forth and and how that may differ in service higher than or less than, for example, than Walker Ranch.

But when I talk to folks, Walker Ranch is the is the example, right?

And that's what everybody wants.

And frankly, that's what everybody deserves.

Uh, what I don't know enough about is if we all committed to that, what then are not only the build costs, but what are the long-term sustainment costs as a result of that?

Um so I would appreciate just kind of as an intellectual exercise for us to know what those costs are and how we might look at that in this bond.

Um, I think that'd be very helpful and and goes to what um our our seniors, frankly, everybody is is really wanting to understand is you know, why can't I have that?

Right.

So I'd appreciate that um that analysis, Mike and team.

Do we have a sense of how many of the projects that we funded last time came with leverage funding?

And were those point, excuse me, were those projects given additional consideration in fact because they came with leverage funding.

Uh I'll I'll say uh the easy answer is yes to the second question.

Uh we do have the list of them.

Um, not sure I have that with me, but we we can pull that out.

If you look at the bond uh guide that we published and we still have online, we actually call that out in every project which ones are leverage funding or not that we're doing.

Uh I could follow up with that uh with you and the council fairly quickly.

Certainly, and and my focus would be one is it that you know this is a public facility one, two, does it come with leverage funding?

I think we just as much as we can leverage other people's money.

Certainly this time we need to we need to do that.

Okay.

Mayor, we'll we'll do that, but just to answer the part two of your question, how much consideration was it given?

It was it was part of the consideration that the council gave, but I wouldn't call it necessarily a driving because the council was dealing with the council was dealing with uh drainage needs or street needs or parks needs or and so it was a factor.

I'm not sure it was certainly helpful.

What would be more interesting for us to provide you all from Mike is what the initial leverage request was and what it was at the very end because it changed over time, and and and I think that might help kind of clarify the how that how that process moved through the council.

Yeah, and thank you for that, Eric.

I appreciate that.

And you know, to the extent we can actually also encourage folks to consider things a leveraged opportunity.

I know we're going to talk about this a little bit with Mark's presentation, um, and and frankly, the need to look into private dollars, public private partnerships that can help us better fund these things.

Um, a greater contribution, for example, from philanthropy local at corporate as well would be would be helpful.

So I, you know, how we understand what the leverage opportunities are currently, but how we might also consider creating more space for those uh would be would be helpful as well.

Because again, I can empathize with a lot of my colleagues here that are not interested in in increasing the property tax rate, so that means we just got to ask for more.

Okay.

On the determining the needs, um, I do support uh separate proposition for arena-related infrastructure.

I do want to prioritize on the flood projects, um, projects related to the Kleinfelder report.

Um, we want to make sure that uh that report and its recommendations were implementing those recommendations as quickly as possible in the interest of public safety and and resilience.

Um, do we, I'm sure we have it, but I'd welcome as in light of additional uh renewed analysis that helps us understand investments that we can make either for the hundred-year storm, right, or for the 25-year storm events.

I'd like us to understand what risk we have in the community as a result of where some of our infrastructure is vis-a-vis those requirements, on the facility on the city facilities, um Eric and I, you and I've we've had conversations on this numerous times, um, but laying out very clearly uh the projects that are more expensive to maintain than they would be to just go ahead and and replace.

I know that's a longer list than we would like it to be, not only you know, because there are our our facilities, but also because our workers, our city workers live in those, uh excuse me, work in those facilities, and we might we want to make sure those are um top notch.

When we're thinking of economic development, as I mentioned, you know, some of the other things, whether it be the port or other or others, but there's also this component when I go to, for example, Rosedale.

Rosedale hosts the conjunto festival.

Forty-five thousand people come into that festival like every single year, um, and yet there's not proper parking.

Um, I just am very I I welcome understanding how we might be, and I don't want to move it from Rosedale, that is not the headline.

Um, but understanding how we invest in that infrastructure that has significant um economic returns uh for our community.

So how we prioritize uh a project like that in light of this hosting this very unique cultural event, but also uh um uh tourist event is something that I'd I'd want to help.

I'd welcome your help help um factoring into our analysis and other projects, other public facilities that might that may fall into that.

On the home ownership piece, um, I want to make sure that we're we're trying to solve um or or thinking about this the same way.

I I certainly can appreciate um helping people enter home ownership.

I think what I'm more concerned with, because ultimately what we're talking about is people building wealth, right?

Home equity.

And so if we're thinking more about how many more people can we help build wealth, how many more people can we help build home equity?

We might be looking at a different solution than single family homes on large lots, right?

To my colleague's point about are we looking at uh more multifamily solutions, smaller units, etc.

So, you know, an analysis of of um, you know, how many people are we putting in a single family home versus how many more people could we help if we're thinking about helping people generate equity and wealth is leads potentially to different solutions.

Veronica, if you'd like to say something to that.

Sure.

So our solicitations are usually very open to different types of housing.

Uh what we tend to get back is a standard single-family home on a large lot, uh, some of the homeownership funds did go to converting a mobile home park to uh like community land ownership, community ownership.

Um, and then in the home rehab category, we also use some of the funds to incentivize community land trust.

So we we can be creative with the funds.

Um that's just kind of more traditionally the largest percentage of the housing that we built with the homeownership.

Thank you.

Um but uh to be to be clear, please uh take back for your for your team kind of a maybe another approach that helps us understand if we were focused on helping more people achieve equity, right?

Home equity, um, would we look at different solutions, right?

Different requests from from the community in terms of investment opportunities.

Okay.

Mayor, just to just a quick follow-up question.

So, but would you so what you're talking about is in order to potentially increase someone's opportunity for home equity, that are you saying that that for us to look at potentially doing less rental and more ownership models?

Um say that last part again.

Well, less less rental and more ownership models, right?

Because we do the the current the first housing bond did a mix, right?

Because it was our first time.

Right.

Um part of what part of what the second time around is narrowing down on a focus in in are you are you asking us to make sure we look at maybe.

I'm not necessarily looking for a different mix, but I'm saying when we are looking at home ownership, um, that we're thinking more, not necessarily about how many people can can purchase a single family home on a large lot, but how many more people home ownership with the end goal being home equity.

All right, right.

Right?

Because we want people to build wealth.

I just don't want you to my goal is for not for you not to mow a yard.

My goal is for you to have equity, right?

Yeah.

You can feel you can tell how I feel about mowing yards, by the way.

Okay.

I would appreciate.

I think we you we all appreciate that things are just more expensive than they were in 2022, but all those blind below the line projects, if you could refresh the estimates on those, because those, frankly, you've all put a lot of thought analysis into already.

I imagine there's probably still community interest in those.

Where are those fair based on additional input as of now, I think would be helpful, but just to get us a sense of of how much the costs have increased on those would be would be helpful.

Thank you.

Okay.

The um and and then lastly, I I do want to make sure.

Um, well, I'll come back to that point.

In terms of the election timeline, I I think with significant the significance of these investments, um, we do take the time to hear from as much of our um neighbors as as possible, and given that more of them, as with everything, they're paying more attention in November than they are in May, which lends itself to uh to um uh additional input and and feedback and potentially participation um from them.

So I I would still support a uh a November election.

I know that's different than many of my colleagues, so okay.

Thank you again for uh for all the hard work that it went into that.

Uh Eric, we look forward to hearing in August uh what will be the variable text, right, so we can determine uh what makes the most sense for our community.

Okay.

All right.

Second presentation.

Yes, ma'am.

Uh, just thank you for that conversation on the first topic.

I know these are these are large large issues that that you're wrestling with, and we appreciate the conversation.

We got a lot out of this conversation today.

So the second uh presentation uh, Mayor and Council is on a briefing on our long-term shelter and housing framework uh for community um homeless response system.

Um you remember that we created the homeless services and strategic strategy department in this year's budget, and one of their main purposes was to reorganize.

One second, Eric, we're gonna wait to get quorum back.

Okay, we'll recess then for a 10-minute break.

Eric, over to you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, so the second presentation is a update from Mark Carmona on our uh newly created homeless services and strategy department that we created this year.

Um, and Mark is gonna lay out part of one of the major tasks that he had this year was to help identify and set a framework for our long-term shelter and housing as it relates to our homeless response system.

So a lot of good work.

This is uh kind of the initial presentation, and uh, turn it over to Mark to you'll see a lot of commonalities.

I'm I'm glad we had both a bond conversation and this presentation on the same day because there is some overlap as it relates to our housing bond.

Mark.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Council.

My name is Mark Carmuna, chief housing officer and director of the department of homeless services and strategy.

When the department was created, uh, the primary charge from the city manager was to create a shelter and housing framework uh as a proactive response to meeting the needs of the unhoused.

Uh our department wants to thank close to home, the HUD designated continuum of care lead agency, the homeless management information system, the HMIS team at Haven for Hope, our nonprofit agency partners, some that are in the audience today, and our fellow city departments, particularly human services, metro health, neighborhood and housing services, and integrated community safety.

Each of these partners contributed by providing data and improving the resulting framework.

The purpose in this framework really is how do we build out something that's comprehensive, balanced, and coordinated to create a meaningful reduction in homelessness in San Antonio.

We are just as some process touch points.

We are building off of six recommendations.

So back in 2020 to 2025, there was a homeless strategic plan that was in place that was that was developed and implemented under the leadership of the Department of Human Services.

There were six recommendations that came out of that plan.

It was implementing a single collective impact leadership group for the community, which was created then the homeless huddle and our and close to homes, homeless strategic plan advisory board.

It was increasing investment in community-based housing and service options.

Our housing bond, which was discussed today, built out those units and concrete and the capacity for permanent supportive housing.

It was increasing capacity effectiveness of outreach.

At the beginning of this plan, there was probably system-wide only about five outreach workers across the whole community through the city's investment, but through investment of partners in the homeless response system, there are now 39 outreach workers in the system.

We have three clinicians as part of our outreach team and partner agencies have also built capacity in the clinical space.

The fourth thing was calling upon an analysis to identify high utilizers within of people that are experiencing homelessness.

The city worked with STRAC to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of permanent supportive housing for high utilizers, and we also developed a community court with the DA's office, municipal court, and community court 15.

We wanted to detail prioritization policies and targeted interventions to effectively connect unhoused people to stable housing, and our first start in that was the creation and establishment of a low barrier shelter in a hotel.

This first started in 2021 in a 45-unit hotel, expanded to 2023 to 185 unit operation funded by the city through the end of this fiscal year.

And then finally, increasing focus on consumer engagement and equity, building on the COC's Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program, and partners, as uh like Sam and others.

The community has utilized lived experience throughout RFP processes, COC governance structure to the uh lived experience advisory board and on their board of directors.

Umother area in terms of process touch points is we want will obviously presenting here today.

Uh, we'll want to conduct internal and external stakeholder work sessions in the summertime.

Some of the system partners that we want to be involved in that are our local funders, both local, state, and federal partner agencies, our faith-based organizations, obviously our COC and our partner agencies in the audience, Strac via Bear County, Chambers of Commerce, the Healthcare System, Criminal Justice, and a number of other systems in the community that touch homelessness.

So working with our COC, we were really able to do a deeper dive into HMIS.

Historically, the cities utilize the point in time data for policy and potential funding recommendations.

But for this framework, we conducted a deeper dive into HMIS to identify our three focus areas.

As you can imagine, there were a there were many aspects and areas that we could have looked at, but these three focus areas really rose to the top in our analysis.

The three areas are preventing homelessness, guiding people off the streets, and keeping people in housing.

In FY25, we had over 1,700 people experience homelessness for the first time.

If we're not addressing the prevention of homelessness, any positive gains we have in getting people into shelter, housing and services is replaced by a new set of people coming into homelessness.

This doesn't make sense to us.

Guiding people off the streets in FY25, we estimate that there were over 4100 people that were unhoused on the street.

Through engagement through outreach and other methods, we were able to get 2800, over 2800 of those folks into shelter or housing.

That leaves us with a gap of 1327.

And then finally, we had 609 people that access shelter in FY25 but still return to homelessness.

Why?

Why did that happen?

What are some of the factors that we're coming into play?

There were some questions that I think came up in some of our briefing sessions about what was causing uh folks to kind of end up in homelessness in the first place and I think what we're learning was that um people uh were coming in due to some external factors you know evictions housing affordability economic factors were driving some of those elements so we have many response system interventions that are involved in in this work and we wanted to organize these different interventions into the three focus areas so when you consider preventing homelessness there's three interventions I think that are important to point out the first is short-term rental assistance so NHSD provides just over 1900 they serve over 1900 households through the rental assistance program we have the the VA and United Way and others also provide rental assistance in this space diversion and rapid exit provide some immediate solutions to prevent shelter entry or quickly exit the city funds 4000 to close to home to operate a diversion program in which we're trying to divert people from homelessness and then Haven for Hope has a shallow subsidy program that that has a similar function so both of those those interventions serve our current capacity of over 5100 households annually that we serve although not in that capacity calculation we do think that housing vouchers which provide an early connection to rental subsidy is an important strategic consideration kind of moving forward.

When you look at our second focus area of guiding people off the streets there's probably the most of the interventions fall into this bucket street outreach which I've talked a little bit about where people were our the system wide street outreach workers are going out on the streets connecting with people engaging trying to get them into shelter housing and services site abatement is the balance that we provide in terms of being able to address health and safety needs of people living in encampments and the neighbors that are around them as at the same time trying to engage people into higher levels of services and care.

And emergency shelter continues to be a viable intervention to be able to as you're engaging people off the street to get them into a first place or a shelter bed to start the engagement process with them.

Our third focus area is keeping people in housing so this is really once people are in shelter how do we begin to identify the next phase of housing for them this could be interim housing which we define as transitional housing and rapid rehousing assistance housing vouchers again come into play the housing vouchers that assist us in the rental assistance but as I was sharing also with the mayor it also helps us on the development side project based vouchers are critical in the development of building out permanent supportive housing those that were involved in the commons at a second trails saw where the utilization of 88 project based vouchers from the housing authority helped get that project across the finish line and then finally permanent supportive housing which is long-term housing rather wraparound services, but specifically looking at those folks that are disabled and unable to care for themselves long term.

I know there was a question about the breakout of the current capacity that we have in the system of 5991 households.

The breakout of that is transitional housing.

We have, according to the homeless inventory count, 335 units of that available.

Rapid rehousing, we have 974 units that are available.

Vouchers represent the most, which is 3,508 vouchers, specifically set aside for people experiencing homelessness, and within that number is 1,200 VASH vouchers.

And then finally, our permanent supportive housing capacity is at 1174.

Finally, we put in investments for homelessness that the city provides in fiscal year 26.

So you can see 4 million in preventing homelessness, 19.8 million in the bucket for guiding people off the streets and 6.7 million in keeping people in housing.

I will say this this cannot be, and we're not proposing this to be a city-only funded or implemented framework.

The partners listed here on this screen are vital to the implementation of any proactive system improvement that we identify and implement.

But there are future partners that we need to engage that are not on this slide.

From the business community, more from the healthcare sector, criminal justice system, faith-based communities, and others are missing.

These systems are impacted by homelessness, and our goal is to bring this framework to them and determine how we can collaborate and all push in the same direction.

To that end, some good news.

Critical functions.

And we hope that this sets the pace for other systems that want to get involved as investors.

So when we consider the first focus area preventing homelessness, we already did identified what the gap is in terms of the number of people coming into the system.

We also think that it's essential to consider some upstream strategies as we look at this.

What are clear pathways that we're connecting people that are coming in for rental assistance in this area to affordable housing?

I mean, we would need to do further analysis, but I think for my own look, I can see where the city's investment in affordable housing, specifically in deeper levels of affordable housing, deeper affordability, has uh made the market available for people to be able to access some of what they need in the housing space.

But how do we continue to build on that?

Behavioral health.

I think we're seeing more and more day in and day out a clear path in the behavioral health space.

I want to thank Jesse Higgins, our chief mental health officer, who has gone out with our encampment teams and our outreach teams to better understand what we're dealing with out there, and is beginning to identify some partnerships within the city and then externally that we can start to build on.

We have to look at child care and early childhood education as an upstream strategy as well as workforce development.

We think it's important to standardize case management across the provider network so that the process is as seamless as possible for someone that's coming in to receive service from us.

And then finally, exploring donor-advised funds as an ongoing source of rental assistance.

This is something we became aware of that's happening in other parts of the country where you would explore a public-private philanthropic partnership to expand access to tenant-based housing assistance for residents who are both cost-burdened and housing unstable.

Guiding people off the streets.

We identified the 1327 unsheltered numbers that are still on the streets today.

When you look at our basically, we have a bed turnover rate of about 2.4, 2.5 a year, meaning that a bed turns over and serves 2.4 or 2.5 people in a year.

So using that calculation, we estimate the gap in the emergency shelter space to be 550 beds.

During the winter storm, we had 474 people that came out of on the street or from an encampment into a shelter.

That tells us that there's a growing number of people that need day center services.

Right now, the day center that Corazon operates is at about 300.

I know that they're working on a facility to increase the capacity, but we wanted to identify that as a gap.

Hopefully, you understand that we have a clear gap and behavioral health connections, both in the outreach area and the abatements areas.

We're also looking at enhanced, we're in conversations now with Text DOT on enhanced coordination around abatements and looking at some of the strategies that we have in place.

I think the strategies part of this probably is the most area that we're interested in initially.

Part of our strategies need to consider encampment decommissioning with the focus.

I know that uh district two has a CCR that was implemented while a councilman was on parental leave, but we have looked at that closely.

But we think models from Houston and a model models from Oklahoma City can give us some ideas.

But the reality is to run through that process of decommissioning to have that focus will require additional resources in shelter beds, in housing, in treatment services, but also what some of the deterrence are that can be put in place, but that has to be done together.

We think outreach restructuring to maximize connection and mental health services makes sense to us when you consider the three clinicians we currently have on our team.

How are we better utilizing that?

When I first started at this department, I met with each one of the teams out of Claude Black, and that's this team really said we're not maximizing, we're not utilizing the clinicians we have in the best way possible.

I would say how can we also better utilize the entire breadth of outreach capacity we have in the whole system?

How can we be more strategic?

When you consider the number of recurrent abatements that go on within a year, can that be a target point for us to begin to look at uh utilizing our resources and we would need more outreach capacity in those strategic areas to be able to do that?

How do we begin to do that?

I think that's one of the things that we want to talk more about, but I'm interested in getting feedback from you all.

Workforce development connection, not only with ready to work, but the establishment of a day work program, also part of the CCR.

We looked at the Denver Day Work Program, we've looked at a few others in Austin and Albuquerque.

But my own experience at my time at Haven for Hope told me, helped me understand that for people that have been chronically homeless for a while that are now in shelter, that a day work program could be a viable option for them as they are just considering employment again and the need for income before maybe that they would be ready for something like ready to work.

I could see ready to work being more effective on the prevention side because it's a people that are coming into the system the first time may have just lost a job, and I think would be better qualified to want to connect with ready to work or maybe even be more interested.

We need to consider consider leveraging city bond programs, and we just had that that conversation around transitional housing, shelter capacity, and permanent supportive housing.

Neighborhood NHSD hosted uh bond stakeholder sessions last summer, and the need for transitional bridge and shelter capacity came up.

We support the development of a jail diversion center, and in light of what's happened recently at Laurel Ridge, we definitely support the need for increasing capacity for psychiatric hospital beds.

This is a big hit for us in the community.

Keeping people in housing, we talked about the 609 folks returning to homelessness.

We also anticipate that there's an additional 866 that are currently unsheltered, part of that 1327 that need housing.

So we're showing a gap of 728 units of interim housing that's both transitional and rapid.

Uh more vouchers, specifically 283 vouchers that are available that could be available and we would utilize, and then 464 permanent supportive housing units.

This number aligns well with the ship, which still shows us with the need for 500 in the community.

So I liked seeing that our analysis suffered uh surfaced a similar number.

Strategies and to this end is how do we again maximize future city bonds?

But we want to actively partner with our housing authorities on the voucher side, look at creative funding tools, like we did uh in permanent supportive housing, use you know, utilizing project-based vouchers, li tech equity.

What are there other tools that we could utilize creatively to build out the capacity that we need in some of these other areas, especially if bond dollars are gonna be used?

I'm thinking of Veronica's comment of uh for every bond dollar we were able to leverage seven.

How can we do something similar in this space?

And again, we think the exploration of donor advice funds makes sense for us.

In summary, our framework identifies three areas we're focused on preventing homelessness, guiding people off the streets, keeping people in housing.

We show you our capacity, and we show you what our gap is.

So, next step for us is we want to implement any feedback we get from the B session today.

We want to facilitate these work sessions in the summertime with the partners that I talked about earlier, and some that are listed on the screen here, and then we would come back in August for a final framework plan that I would uh present as part of my budget presentation in August.

That's my presentation.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mark.

Appreciate the presentation.

Uh, let me also just thank you for the write-along uh that I for me was very helpful to not only see unfortunately an abatement taking place in real time, but then to be able to sit down with one of your mental health professionals and understanding just what a critical resource they are and and how much more need help they need.

So that was helpful for me in thinking about what your uh department needs to look like and and frankly be protected from any funding cuts in light of um how much you already do with with so little.

If I may, this is this is a really helpful snapshot in time, and I think it is helpful that we just had the bond discussion so we can think take a longer time horizon outlook on this.

So, what would help me and maybe also some of my colleagues is what are some of the planning assumptions that you have?

What does the population, what do you anticipate the population looking like, for example, at the end of 2032, 2031, so that we can think about that in the context of our bond deliberations, right?

Help us know where you think this demand is is going to go, so we're not so we can account for that.

And I see Katie in the back who has shared the stat with me that is like impressed in my head, which is a hundred dollar increase in the median rent in our community leads to a nine percent increase in the unhoused population.

Are we still is that still accurate?

Katie or or Mark, what what it does is speak to the fragility in our community.

So thank you.

Yes, we love that statistic too, because it really paints a picture.

Um, that was a national statistic, so we can check and see um where we are now.

But that's part of our partnership is that we're working right now on a five-year strategy with some objectives and key results that we'll be monitoring.

And so the gaps analysis that's been done is a foundation for that, but we still have some predictive analysis that we're doing.

And so at the state of homelessness in August, we'll do kind of a five-year reflection, what things will look like if we don't take action and set ourselves up for launching a five-year strategy in partnership with the city and other partners.

Great.

That'll be helpful.

So it sounds like we'll have that to inform our our bond deliberations.

Thank you.

Um, and Mark, you hit it on the head, with unfortunately some of the loss and in critical resources in our community, whether you're talking about Nix or or Laurel Ridge, as well as the federal changes that are allowing for for more folks to be um become unhoused.

It's really important that we're taking a longer look at this issue.

What would be helpful and the stat that I appreciate from from our pre-brief, and you shared it here again, is one bed serves 2.4 people a year.

Um is that a is that an average statistic?

Uh is that excuse me?

Is that a statistic that we see in other communities?

Are we on the lower end?

Are we on the higher end?

How do you help us understand that statistic?

I think we're probably in the middle range, and so I think we'll go back and we'll evaluate that.

I got that feedback from you in terms of how do we raise that from 2.4, say to five, right?

I think some of that is in shelter operation itself.

Obviously, if there's ample amount of housing and so supportive services that are available, people could move through the shelter system faster.

But we will do that analysis.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Yeah, and I wanted to one help folks understand one, what the stat is, but if we if we wanted to move that metric, what does it mean in terms of where how much more housing we need for people to go into, and what are the other services that are required to get them into that bed in the first place?

So, you know, what assumptions you may and I get it's not going to be perfect, but if we wanted that to be five, right?

Five people a year, what helps us get there?

Thank you for that.

I think as we think about this and um related also to our our previous conversation, as much other money that we can tap into, I think is super helpful.

So your gap analysis of the vouchers that we need today appreciate that.

Do we have an understanding of how many those vouchers would help veterans in particular?

And I say that having you know not only um gone to the um uh pavement for hope, but also for the um the hotel downtown.

Understanding a large percentage of those folks are veterans, but then they can also then easily tap into other people uh other resources, right?

So when we think our when we're thinking about the voucher gap, how much of that could be is a VASH, somebody could qualify for a VASH voucher or or something else.

So what it does is lend itself to a more targeted approach and how we increase our supply of vouchers in the community.

Can you speak to that a little bit?

Well, what I can say, Mayor is that I was struck by your comment to me when we went on the ride along of how the city of San Jose has I think has 200 more vouchers than we do.

We're at half our size.

Um when we looked into a little bit more, I think what we learned specifically on the VASH side uh was that you know the VA locally would have to approve this, but if they allocated more VASH vouchers without case management, we would uh working with uh organizations like Endeavors and NVOP could provide the case management here locally.

So that's a strategy for us to really pursue to see.

I'm I'm more interested in getting the voucher because what we're finding, especially in the homelessness side, is that we if we have a homeless veteran that has a VASH voucher, we don't have trouble finding them housing.

And usually it's housing where they want to live, right?

Not to go there, but but I'm just simply saying how do we get the resource here?

Um, and then how do we um leverage local case management resources to be able to carry that out?

Yeah, I appreciate that.

I know um councilwoman Mesa Gonzalez has talked about the importance of that as well.

So certainly appreciate anything we can do to get more vouchers in in the community.

You also I appreciated your uh your comments during our pre-brief in case it's helpful for others as well.

The the other community that really needs a targeted approach are our foster kids, right?

So can you help me understand what that what the current approach is, what the strategy looks like, how we might be able to think about that given the unique needs of that community and their overrepresentation in our unhoused.

Well, I think a couple things come to mind.

Uh DHS um hosted um, I think it was maybe a year and a half ago.

Um, looking at Patrick, who who hosted it, um, kind of a larger conversation about um needs of youth, uh what grew out of that was a specific focus on foster care that then was picked up by the housing trust, ULI, and some others in a charette that brought in housing developers, foster care youth themselves and agencies, and I think that's resulted in the housing trust having a project now that's gonna be able to provide housing.

Um I and and some other initiatives that are underway right now.

Um I think we're learning a lot in terms of the services that are provided in the community.

It's a growing need.

Uh we have an opportunity through, and and I know it's called FYI, and I I think it's fostering youth towards independence.

Um, but those vouchers are available.

Uh we recently um was in a conversation with the statewide director around this.

So I think that there's some system intervention, leverage opportunities around this specific population.

It's growing, it's in its importance at the federal level.

Um, and this administration has a real specific focus on foster care youth.

So I think those things line up in our favor to help us leverage what investment we're putting locally to get more.

Okay.

I'll specifically be looking that in your in your briefing, uh, your budget briefing, uh, your targeted approach for foster kids, for veterans, and then for seniors.

Um, when I was at Haven for Hope, I asked them what was the difference between the population they serve today and the population they serve five years ago, and they said this old this population is older and they have more mental health needs.

So I appreciate your your focus on that, and of course, ask for resources associated with it.

One of the things I also um asked Mark to provide is a better picture of the true fragility in our community.

We know how many folks are unhoused, we know how many folks are at Haven for Hope, and then some of these other providers, but also understanding how many people are living, right?

Kind of in in the hotels uh these week by week or by month.

I think that gives us a really good idea of where we are potentially likely to see unhoused folks um or those entering the unhoused community.

So, as much, Mark, as you can help us figure out what that what that population looks like, and uh, you know, recognizing that those folks are already paying quite a bit for their for the for that housing.

Um, there is the exception that um folks that are living in those hotels, if they stay there for 30 days or longer, they don't have to pay the the visitor tax.

I want to make sure that we are have a campaign that helps people ensure that they should and should they know about that uh exemption and they are taking advantage of it because again, these are some of the most vulnerable in the community.

So, welcome Mark, how uh a campaign, a public an information campaign that helps us do that.

Um, and then lastly, uh there's some great research done, some recent reporting.

I think some of the housing, some of the housing huddle saw this as well from Texas housers.

The the real concern that some of the those with the highest rates of eviction are in fact those that are receiving public financing, tax exemptions, or operating the income-restricted uh facilities, which of course support our low-income renters.

So are there kind of some initial thoughts around policy solutions that you all think would be helpful to ensure that you know those that are um that are receiving our incentives are not also in fact some of the highest evicting in our community?

I think it starts with data and data analysis.

I think it's looking at who's receiving that service, trying to break down some of those populations, understanding what that is, to see if there is any would be any potential policy recommendation that we would make to council or any kind of form.

Um I think looking at some of the studies you've referenced and then cross-referencing that with what we understand our local situation to be as a starting point, Mayor.

We'd have to dig deeper into it.

Okay, you didn't talk about it here, but it may inform some of my other comments my my comment, my colleagues' comments excuse me.

Um the the staff that you got, and I'm not trying to get into the budget conversation, but when you think about the infrastructure that you need, not only as a new department, but also as I was again the conversation, very helpful conversation I had with your staff in terms of uh mental health professionals on your team that allow them to do the kind of work that helps with either the outreach or connecting them to other resources.

Can you spend maybe just a minute on that to level set?

Thank you.

Yeah, I I would say, you know, when you look at the plan itself, I think you know, uh the ability to really be able to access in some form or fashion the mental health and treatment substance use treatment services, I think is first and foremost.

What does that look like either from a capacity side or or treatment service direct side?

Um case management I think is continues to be an ongoing function that's really important, and then I would say finally, Mayor, you know, in the role that the city manager laid out for us uh for the student department on the strategy side.

How are we able to assess, evaluate, through data and and policy support, um, how we're doing.

Uh if council decides to drop a set amount of money into preventing homelessness as an example, and we push that button.

What's the ripple effect that's gonna be across the rest of the interventions and across the system itself?

So I think those are some just some initial things that we'll look at when we have internal discussions in our budget process.

Okay, thank you.

Um Councilmember McKee Rodriguez.

Thank you, Mayor, and um thank you all, everyone who participates in this system.

Thank you all for everything you do.

Uh, and beyond the people who came here today, I know there's a lot of folk who are on the streets right now and are participating in some way who uh are employed and play a role in this issue.

Uh, thank you all.

I know this is very emotional, uh emotional, laborsome, difficult and challenging work that feels like um it feels never ending.

And uh so I just want to extend that appreciation and gratitude verbally.

Last year, as you mentioned, former council member Castillo Anguano worked with my team to file a council consideration request calling for implementation of a day labor program similar to Denver Day Works, uh, increased options for very low to no barrier shelter to increase housing options for houses residents who are especially ineligible for existing low barrier shelters and other housing options, and then third, a cost benefit analysis and recommendations based on um the return on investment of these various strategies.

So evaluating allocations to our partner agencies, rental assistance or eviction prevention, uh post-eviction housing assistance, uh and homeless prevention and diversion funds and encampment abatements, and that ROI uh analysis would advise which of these strategies are getting people housed, preventing homelessness and reducing homelessness in a way that is worth our investments, so that we may prioritize our our dollars based on data.

So this was a request that was built alongside outreach workers, including city employees and partner agencies who are doing work alongside our houseless community, including Leo's own experience with the Thrive Youth Center.

Um so I would request that the information requested in the CCR be heard and presented at a B session uh prior to our budget discussions, especially since that was such an interesting sound, especially since it was filed eight months ago.

Um, and I appreciate some of that was uh just shared here today.

I am happy to see the day work program mentioned as a strategy, in addition to increased shelter capacity through our bond program and other leverage funds, but I do want to of course emphasize the kinds of shelter that don't exist today, the kinds of shelter that would get people to say yes to getting off the street and getting housed and to accept services, and I think the last component that's missing in this request is the analysis on the return on investment.

Our dollars are thin, as I just stretched as I just mentioned, and as we've heard for the past several weeks and months, and so as we make investments, the spirit of this CCR was to uh have clear data to inform the actions and strategies that we actively pursue and why and uh using the encampment sweeps and abatements as uh as an example.

Are we seeing people accept services as a result of these abatements, or is it something else that's happening?

Are we seeing uh people magically find housing because they've been told that they you know can't be at this campsite and their belongings are thrown away and they're separated from their animal.

Is there something is there value to the encampment abatement that I'm not seeing?

And I would probably I I hypothesize the answer is no, which is why I support the move towards a new strategy, which is the uh decommissioning.

Would you please describe that strategy for us?

So when we think about decommissioning, I think I'm councilman.

I think I'll just reference the Houston model.

And so looking at um a housing surge, they really look at first identify well, it's a two-month two to three month process where they're first engaging with a number of different outreach workers, which hence my comments around strategic utilization of the resource system-wide.

Um, then based off of that, they have a housing surge where they identify housing for folks that are in encampments because you will have um I don't have an exact percentage, but I think a good percentage of people that are in encampments today that would would say yes to housing if it was made available to them.

And then I think the final piece of it would be the the ability to access and utilize the mental health and substance use treatment services that are available just to be able to get people from that situation.

But a lot of this I think makes sense to me on the front end with engagement uh because you won't, unless you're working at commit that encampment on a regular basis you have to build out some of those relationships and I think doing that in a systematic way seems to make sense so those are some of the elements that are in that model.

It's a different way of doing business it's a different way of approaching encampments.

But I think if we're looking at decommissioning in some of these particular areas that we're spending a lot of time in encampments it makes sense to me.

Thank you and I'll emphasize the what I really want to see out of this this new approach is that or what I hope that we address is that currently we spend millions of dollars on uh encampment sweeps and what we see happen is the folk go out there they clear the encampment two hours later it's back and so we're spending this money and we're not seeing any return on investment all we're doing is eroding trust preventing they see city employees coming and they immediately do not trust them and so how do we how do we make the job of our outreach workers a little bit easier.

How do we make it more likely that someone is going to see a city uh a city emblem and say okay I can get help here versus hey this is an entity that has routinely caused harm made it harder for me to live I have to bear the I have to bear the environment and whether that means being rained on or it means living in drainage channels they're experiencing trauma over and over and over again and so this is an approach that I have repeatedly asked us to reconsider as a as a council and as a body and as an organization and hopefully this is a step in that direction.

Thank you.

Mayor just one um so councilman um the the broader plan that mark laid out is gonna require and it's more than just the city an investment in in in the filling of gaps that we do not have and and so those folks that we inconvenience um in terms of an encampment um we need we need a place for them to go and and we have a gap in our community right now and so the struggle here is that um and and you all hear it too we'll hear it during the budget I'm sure we have for the last two or three is that is that there is a part of part of this plan is making sure the public understands the plan as well like what Mark just laid out to all of you because there's a fair amount of the public that just wants to call 311 to eliminate a uh an encampment right and and so making sure that what Mark's laying out to you all is communicated to the rest of the community and the business community about how we solve is going to be key because we are dealing with the fact that there are parts of our community that want immediate reaction right they they want they want something done in as quick as you can order it online and um and I think we'll get there but but I think it's a constant balance and there obviously there's some components of this in terms of space and additional housing and facilities and support that we're gonna need and I don't think it's gonna happen overnight and but but I just I want you to know that we're cognizant of that I you know your your your ask of that hasn't fallen on deaf ears but I feel like we're dealing with two ends of the stick here.

I hear you and I'll um so I've heard this this evolution at my budget town hall meetings over the past four or five years however long it's been at this point and folk who at one point were saying we need more abatement we need to just clear them out they're now seeing hey you do these abatements and nothing is changing and so I imagine this is a feeling and this is a sentiment that is growing and evolving and it just takes council members not caving and not saying hey you know if you want an abatement we'll give it to you no matter how ineffective it is.

It takes saying, hey, we can do this, or those millions of dollars that we're spending to uh do these routine abatements that aren't resulting in any sort of positive, like no positive change.

We can instead invest those dollars in the outreach that we're doing so that they will accept services so that the encampments that you see aren't so large in the next couple of months, they're not so large in the next couple years, and eventually they're gone long term.

That needs to be the communication that we're having with our residents, especially at these budget town halls.

Okay.

And I also just want to flag what you've just mentioned again, what we need, and I want to continue the conversation that we were having last week about cuts to our budgets and overspending.

This is an area we are not spending enough on, and I don't think we can at this point.

And so we're going to need um as much advocacy as possible at our upcoming budget uh work sessions at the community uh meetings and in real on in real honest conversation with us, these are areas that we cannot afford to cut.

These human services, the homeless outreach, all of these areas, we can't afford to cut them, and we can't afford to not grow them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Aldra de Gabito.

Thank you, Mark, for the presentation.

And you know, I will just say this.

Uh, you know, during our our briefing, was that yesterday, the day before, um, you know, I I left uh feeling extremely confident in the plan, knowing that you uh and your team are doing such great work.

Katie, you um have uh continuously done great work, and so I feel that um this if it just felt more focused, more targeted.

So I I'm I'm looking forward to seeing um it play out.

I think what you were talking about strategic staffing of where we're seeing um issues arise is important and and I hear Councilman McKee Rodriguez were you know, and I've often said cleaning homelessness homeless encampments is a little bit like marbles in a box.

You know, we move it on one side of Bandera Road, it goes to the other.

There are pros and cons.

I mean, you know, I I definitely think um a pro that we have to contend with is that you know, if we don't do anything about the encampment, they become permanent fixtures, which has its own set of issues.

Um, but also too, I will say the uh resident feedback when we do clean up the encampments is very much a message of gratitude.

Thank you.

Because this encampment was getting unruly and uh this and that, and you know, people were doing all sorts of stuff there and stuff, so um I I don't necessarily think it's a silver bullet answer, but there we have to outweigh the pros and cons.

You know, that that's that's all I'll say on that.

Um I really appreciate it about the plan that we're pulling in partners, you know.

Homelessness doesn't fall on the city alone.

We've had our business community tell us for a long time, and our economic development partners, it's hard to attract businesses here, um, when we have so many homeless in a certain area or or uh you know, and and and so I do think that bringing them their innovative style of thinking and just bringing them along, tying arms uh looping arms with them and and marching for forward on a goal together is helpful.

Um they they can play um extremely important parts in the solution.

So I am really um thankful that you all did that, um, and and I I will offer for me, and just like I mentioned to you already, if there's ways that you all need to leverage me or my team to create those partnerships, happy to.

Um, happy to to be a resource there.

Um of the things I I know uh we was talked about earlier was um was our foster youth, and I know that I've been um on this issue for a while now because having served on the Bear County Child Welfare Board, you see that when our foster care kids quote unquote graduate from the foster care system, you know, they've been focusing their whole life on surviving, not on thriving, right?

So they don't necessarily know how to go get that ID.

They don't know how to get the apartment, the job, but life skills, and so um I know the through project is a wonderful nonprofit in district seven that helps them get those life skills and helps them transition, but I definitely um agree that that is a place to almost stop the bleed, right?

And so I'm looking forward to seeing us continue to stay targeted in that area and and making strides there.

Obviously, with Laurel Ridge closing, we we also need to figure out a way, a coordinated way to address this, because we will see uh the impacts um in our community and our residents.

Um, one of the things I know that an area that we can also help with is uh we discussed with you about rental assistance.

My team often sees the same folks coming back to our council offices and I'm sure all of us see this with our council offices the same folks coming back for rental assistance again and again so I I know that we offer the suggestion of looking how we can improve follow-up case management to prevent reoccurrence uh maybe do a more comprehensive review if they've come back to our office or equipping our council offices when we are seeing the resident come back again and again on um on how we help them uh find a more sustainable answer rather than returning back back to us um I know that we had a great discussion on leveraging our faith community uh city church which is a church in district seven is definitely on board with being a partner and they are an amazing partner um and so however you know give us our our marching orders to connect them with you and uh and and uh or build out that that partner list um I think all of us probably have churches or organizations in each of our respective districts that would would want to help being a willing and and long term committed partner um let's see you know I I definitely know in looking obviously at the funds going to this uh this continues to be um a high usage of our taxpayer dollars um and and while I agree it it needs homelessness needs uh funding so that way we can continue to do the right things I think one of the the things that stuck out to me the most after our conversation yesterday was how effectively y'all plan on using these dollars so I was really thankful on that yes it's a big dollar amount but what we had seen in the past couple years is us investing more and more but the problem getting worse you know and I'm not saying that this is going to be the silver bullet plan for the problem to stop getting worse but but we have to try new things and so I I'm looking forward to to seeing how we um kind of chip away at this together.

Those are all my comments thank you.

Thank you councilwoman Vyakdan.

Thank you I'll start with slide four uh what I don't see here is any um breakdown between men and women uh in any of the slides do we have that yes okay I need I need that because telling me 609 people uh access shelter but return to homelessness my questions are how many were foster youth veterans seniors how many suffering from mental health addiction issues were justice involved and then of course uh men versus women on terms of that um so I appreciate how succinct you wanted to be in the presentation uh all of these guides are good preventing homelessness guiding people off the streets keeping people in housing um and I and I am making moves to kind of help with that in terms of budgeting and prioritizing how what we prioritize in our budget and how we do that but in order to do that I need to know who my audience is if they're men if they're women I know in my neighborhoods who the audience are because my neighbors tell me the the person with the addiction the person with the mental health issues the woman that you know just uh you know got is getting abused by her husband so she's constantly on the street we know those stories but when we get them placed in in these numbers I need to know how I can help them.

Katie I want to thank you for being here.

I know you were tri-chair of uh our last bond committee when it came to housing to make sure we stayed on, not Tri-Chair, you were the chair for housing committee, making sure we stayed on track and we did that.

As y'all know, permanent supportive housing, I think is the key.

Pete hears that from me all the time.

So does Mark and the rest of the community members at San Antonio Housing Trust.

But I know that trying to take that out into the community is difficult.

The other thing is I do agree with uh councilman McKee Rodriguez that over these five years regarding abatement, it has to, it has been an education process with our communities and neighbors and saying, okay, is it is there criminal activity going on?

Is it not criminal activity?

How often are they coming back?

Is it new people coming back to that location?

Cause it's it's you know, well wooded and guided.

So they're they are engaging with the community members and the partners to learn more about what is happening out on the streets on how to best describe the situation.

The one thing my community, in terms of abatements, what we try and get on top of is the living in the ditches.

We know the danger uh that can cause with the flooding.

So that's one where it's a non-negotiable.

The ones behind the park or in the wooded area, and as y'all know on the south and the southeast side, we have some of those that abatement.

We're like, let's send in the counselors, let's have them have the conversation.

Who from the neighborhood is is giving somebody money who's walking into the neighborhood and and asking for dollars because they're gonna stay.

We tell them they're gonna stay there as long as you keep on giving them money to um to move along and stuff.

They're not they're not gonna move along if you give them that 20 bucks.

So I think that's important.

The other thing I wanted to talk about, and this goes back Veronica and and Mark a little to what we talked about the voucher system, identifying how many households we have, um, how many units we have, because it looks like we're gonna move forward in that, but really identifying what hotels that are working as low barrier shelters need to stop moving as hotels.

It's not uh okay, you can't charge them visitor tax because no, if you're not gonna, if you are going and I'm thinking about my motels and hotels down um uh pressa and Roosevelt, if you are gonna function like that, you are no longer a hotel.

And you need to come into uh guidelines and you need to function as a housing possibilities, a very expensive one if you're charging by the week, or a low barrier shelter.

That's how we need to designate.

So I don't know if we need to go, and Eric will talk to Jeff about this and uh to my council colleagues.

If we know good, if we need to go to the state and get a designation for that, or if we need to create an ordinance here to say if you are renting out a space for more than 30 days for more than six weeks, because you know that's when they get, and I have a lot of veterans that get their their stipend and and are not applying for the vouchers, but they're getting their disability, and you're you're letting them stay and then just charging them extra that last two weeks, then you are no longer functioning as a hotel.

You are functioning as a low-barrier shelter or as an apartment complex, and that comes other out of a new code, and we have different requirements for you.

So I think we really need to look at that as we do that and then look at our partners, and there's so many out there, and I appreciate all of you that are here, and I know Haven for Hope is in one location.

But if they have counselors and community members that can identify these locations that are functioning as shelters, as low barrier shelters or are uh as a type of housing, that we can get out there and get them the wraparound services that they need or the help that they need so that we can get them on a path to more affordable housing and get them on that day labor program.

I think we need to do that because what we're seeing is um people work around the system, motel operators, uh people work around the system and not and not being held to the standards that that the government basically wants them to hold to the standards if they're going to get uh the help that they need.

So I really want to look as we as we look into that and we talk about guiding people off the streets is sometimes guiding people off the streets is guiding them out of those motels that are basically exploiting them and y'all know I can tell all sorts of tells about the ones on the South side but as we move forward I think we we need to as council members do our part and make sure that we are talking to our community about prioritizing their their needs their budgets where where they spend their money is what they value and making sure that they understand that they need to spend it on the necessities as they move forward.

The one thing we talk about in terms of things that lead people to homelessness they're like it's that it's that accident it's that um it's that loss of a job it's maybe your car going out so you can't get there but where we're not talking about and what what I plan to talk about with my community members is it's those big changes it's that child that you always wanted to send to college that is now in college but you're not it it's hard for you to afford it it's about that multi-generational home where you were counting on grandma's you know Social Security and we lost grandma and not now we don't we don't have her there so she can't watch the kids my child care did that we we paid for her funeral expenses the debt she went into there are just a lot of things that are happening within my community and when in within a multi-generational home that we need to sit down and talk with them there that if we don't help them with that and get them connected to the partners that that could lead to first time homelessness.

So I think I'm glad that you guys are recognizing that there's those things we always used to say it was one uh one illness away or one job loss away but now I'm seeing in a multi-generational home it's a lot more things it's that kid that got the it got the got accepted into UT but the scholarship doesn't quite cover all of it it's the parent that had to go into a nursing home facility or pass it is a lot more things than that.

So as we move forward I want to take those kind of upstream issues into consideration and see how we as council members can work and and help navigate our um our community the best so this isn't an easy fix.

I know that there's gonna be people saying that um you know this isn't this isn't working and this isn't working but my challenge is you know find me a solution find something that works because this is this is a reality for a majority of people within this nation and and in this city thank you.

Councilman White Thank you mayor um Mark thanks for the presentation and uh I agree with with councilwoman I'll just take a view to I I like the framework I like the framework the three pillars um this is this is good you know how we fill the gaps how we pay for some of this I think is a real question and so when we look at the homeless our homeless program overall I think the first thing we have to do and really with any program that we have here is what does success look like and and to me um we're never gonna eliminate all homelessness but but to get homelessness to uh as as low a percentage of our population as possible um should be should be the goal.

So preventing homelessness number one of course and then number two if somebody does become homeless success to me is if we have a you know an able-bodied human being how quickly can we get them um back into being a um you know productive member of society right I mean to me th that's what success will look like now there's gonna be folks um that have you know some sort of issue of uh of some type where maybe they they never can be that and certainly we need to have a safety net um for those folks and and the permanent supportive housing and things that have been talked about earlier um I think are great there um but again what is success to me is if somebody falls into homelessness if we can't prevent it right we start there and then they fall into homelessness how do we get them back um into society as quickly as possible and so um I think your your framework here um speaks to a lot of that um you know I just my quick math is about 30 million dollars or so it looks like in um in direct spending here in in 2026 for the response system um but there's there's there's gaps uh uh as we've talked about so um 550 beds and 1475 um housing units and and I'm looking at uh I guess slide ten so to close the gaps the plan is well we're gonna engage our gauge our partners uh ask ask members of the community and and really find a way to to close the gap there so really thank you for the question councilman and just to make comment um we're operating under the the auspice of what would success look like so it's I think that's a motivator for us but who operates in what lane I think is the first step for us.

Yeah so as the as we've talked to the chambers you know that their their focus is on preventing homelessness their focus is on um you know helping people that are um needing mental health treatment so if those are some lanes they want to take and they want to put dollars into that that can be outside of our system we just needed everybody pushing in the same direction and and I should mention since you know you brought up the the business community folks jobs yes right creating jobs um needs to be a part of this plan and and I think councilman that's why we talked some about the day work program which I we contemplated that came from the CCR you know people have to build their confidence and momentum in working to then be able you know to contemplate ready to work as a next step for them but yes definitely what does that look like for people when you look at Haven's study of 15 years you know uh providing services to over fifty thousand people sixty five percent of those folks councilman that went through got what they needed one time and never showed up in the homeless response system again so what is that service mix look like and I want to bet that some of that's gonna be employment you know access to employment services and other things but we need to better understand what that is to make sure we're taking what we're learning from that and building it across the system if we need a sprinkling of that kind of service intervention for to help prevent homelessness then we should be looking at doing that.

Yeah um on slide um maybe it was four 1327 unsheltered individuals who were engaged but didn't move into a shelter how many were turned away because of capacity issues versus how many are just declining services we'd have to find out councilman so that's something we can follow up on we just know that we engaged over 4100 yep 2800 of that number we did engage into shelter and housing and left a net of 1327 now whether that was a capacity issue which I don't think on the shelter side or what the issues were we'd have to find that out.

Alright well that would be some good information and and you know I'll take this moment to talk about you know I I disagree a little bit with councilman mckey rodriguez on the on the uh encampment abatements I think that program which was started a couple of years ago I think now really does serve a purpose I think you know we get calls to to our office all the time about these encampments set up you know near neighborhoods and things and people are worried about safety and other issues and so I think the the encampment cleanup process actually has worked really well yes, it's true that oftentimes, or at least some of the time, uh the the folks come back and it has to be done again, but but but I I do support that process.

Uh what I'm told though is a lot of times um to the point I just made about our people declining services, they are offered, you know, to go to the sh to the low barrier shelter or whatever it may be when they're out there in the abatement process, but people are just saying no, right?

Well, I I think it's all really about engagement.

I think the more that you can have consistent engagement with someone, I think the more that you can build up a trusting relationship with that person in the encampment, the better off you're gonna be, the higher probability you would have that somebody would want to go to shelter.

And to the councilman's point, I think we have to contemplate things like no barrier shelter, especially for the chronic homeless that have had situations over and over again that's caused them to fall back into homelessness.

I I think there has to be some different kind of options for that.

But um, I mean, I've gone out on a few encampment abatements, and you know, for some it's I'm waiting on services.

For others, it's some waiting on, you know, I'm waiting for this.

Um, we we would just have to find out what that 1327 broke out looks like.

You say no barrier shelters.

So, what would you say?

I hear from people in my district all the time when they when they look at the low barrier shelter, and I asked this question last year.

The folks that go to the low barrier shelter, um, they're not required to receive any uh wrap around services.

Is that still the case, I'm assuming?

I'm not aware of that.

I think that they are receiving services at the shelter.

Well, if they want to.

Again, and I could be wrong now, but my understanding is the folks at the low barrier um hotel downtown were not required to take the to receive any additional services.

And so I had people, and so whether you're talking about that or a no barrier shelter, where I guess they they wouldn't be either, um, providing housing for someone who is then not taking the opportunity to try to get better, and is is in this housing paid for by the public, but with but with no attempt to help themselves, that strikes a lot of people in a negative way.

So, how do you speak to that?

Well, I I would say when I think about no barrier, I'm not thinking about it in terms of service provision.

I'm thinking about it in terms of there's no barriers for you walking in the door.

Right.

So would those people in a no barrier have to receive services?

Well, that's where you can begin to start to engage people.

Is if if there's no barrier for you walking in the door, you can walk in who you are with what you have on.

And I'm thinking of what I see at Corazon when I go there, they they operate pretty much at a no barrier level, meaning anyone can walk in that door.

Okay.

They start to have greater levels of success because people start trusting them from the very beginning when they walk in.

That's gonna be very inducive for people to want to create and say yes to services.

If you walk in the door, councilman, right?

If I walked in the door right away, I don't know that I would want to receive services.

I'm just trying to get a hot meal.

I'm just trying to sleep, I'm trying to maybe take a shower and wash my clothes and make sure my dog is with me and cared for.

We saw this at Haven, but over a period of time, once people are sleeping again, once they're eating again, they can start to contemplate and think what's next for me.

What's the average length of time people stay at the low barrier hotel?

Uh right now I think it's right at a hundred days.

It's a hundred days.

And um, where is the most likely destination for somebody to go after they leave after a hundred days?

Transitional housing for a couple of years or rapid rehousing for a couple of years.

They could go to a family member, they could go to permanent supportive housing, so there's some options for them.

But do we have statistics on where most folks end up after uh the low barrier shelter?

We have some breakout for you.

We can share that with you.

Okay, that would be great.

If if we could just follow up on those on those two points, uh that would be great.

Appreciate uh the presentation.

Thank you, Councilman Galvan.

Thank you, Mary.

Thank you, Mark, for the presentation, and thank you to your entire team who does I mean tireless work every single day.

Um my social services team, particularly Christian and Krista often work with folks in uh in district six who are not only dealing with homelessness who are concerned about homelessness and also folks who are on the brink of homelessness, right?

And it's the same issue each time, right?

It's someone who just can't make the rent, it's someone who's had an emergency in their life, it's someone who uh something's just shifted in their life in some form, or someone who uh has been on the streets for a long time and is trying to find a way out.

Um I think to Councilmember Viergon's point, right?

Poverty is pervasive when folks are struggling with it.

And to your point, too, and we talk about the low barrier shelter component, for someone to be able to readjust back into normal life after not having to being able to brush their teeth every single day, or the things that we do for granted, um, it just takes a while, and it is what it is.

As human beings, it takes a while for us to neurologically reset into a frame where we can be on think beyond what's in front of us and our very own survival needs.

Um, especially it's of course compounded when you have additional stress on you, like the harsh effects of weather, the harsh effects of society uh that may not always look at you the right way, and all these different things.

Um, and then of course, we know if there are things around uh drug abuse in some form, it all adds up, right?

And so being able to get to that last point is critical.

And so I I think we have to find a way to get to more expansion of low barrier shelter here or no barrier shelter in our city.

Um I know it's difficult.

I know folks are always gonna have a bit of concern with it, but at the end of the day, right?

If we want folks off the street, we want folks not circling in and out of the jail, um, they're going back out into the community, all costing taxpayer dollars each and every step of the way.

The best thing we can do is give it that opportunity for that individual to be able to finally have that reset moment, that reset time, to be able to excessive services, and you know this.

Um, but it's critical that we as city council uh do our best to do that.

I'm grateful for the housing bond conversation we had earlier, focusing on PSH and continuing to look at that.

I know it's not the only solution there, but it's a critical component.

Um I think those two are the major ones here.

When we talk about folks who don't accept or struggle to accept services, um that's part of the trust, right?

Sending someone into somewhere where they don't where they aren't accepted, where they aren't able to get to that stability point.

Um, yeah.

I'll stop there.

Um again, appreciate the the entire department and the work that y'all do every single day.

And I think a little bit to that last point is just when I talked about this on the campaign trail a lot last year.

I talked to residents across the district, and we all said, right, different parts of our district, Marbach and uh 410, Military 90, even along uh and underneath a lot of our other textile properties and highways, um, folks often ask us, what is the the struggle here?

Um, and it was two things that I always talked about.

Well, well, three.

One being everything we just went over, two, um, being our outreach workers are extremely limited, extremely at capacity, not only for our city, but across the entire city, uh outside of a city services.

Um, and then three, right, it it's getting that access to that service.

If there's not the actual systemic back end of it, I can send as many Irish workers as possible, have as much resources that they can physically carry with them, but there's no way to get them to somewhere else.

We're doing almost a disservice there.

And so I'm grateful for this framework that looks at it holistically.

Um I think I know my residents are eager to see this.

Uh, it's been the number one survey response to district six for a long time during our budget surveys.

Um, and so I think there's just a continued focus here and interest in seeing how we can get this uh get this done, frankly, in the most uh compassionate way possible to I think Councillor McKee's point.

Often the calls uh one of my staff members takes uh is about folks along Marbach uh and 410.

Um, and we have to go through, right?

When the boulders were implemented there under Text Dot, it pushed people out of it for a little bit, and it went straight into the neighborhoods.

And then residents had mixed results and said, Well, I didn't like having them there, but now they're also nearby my family and everything.

It gets a little difficult there when they're at services to get them out of the way into better spots, and so there is a concern of public safety now closer to me.

It's not a great solution to have them stay in the same spot, but there is a little bit of back and forth there.

And so I appreciate the look at coordinating with tech stop, but I think it's always gonna come back to seeing how we can kind of create the largest system, systemic uh solutions here.

And what on that point, I think I don't know what the evaluation is for looking at.

Of course, housing needs to be everywhere in different forms and everything of the sort.

Um, are we looking at different neighborhood hubs as well for services beyond uh kind of coming to the downtown area and looking at some of the different hotspots that we're seeing and seeing if there's ways that we can create those focal points for folks to get to.

Yeah, councilman, I think we have to.

I think we have to, and I'm I'm just remembering the briefing I did with Councilman Mungia, we have to also engage the faith community in the local districts.

We talked about this with D7 yesterday, with councilwoman and her staff.

Um those faith communities, those hubs probably have a lot more trust and validity with the unhoused, most of the unhoused that are are in areas, certain areas are probably areas they grew up in.

Right.

And so uh so they know that hub, they know that location, they've known the history of that location, they know that church.

We have it is contemplating in the plan.

The question now becomes in, and we're starting to work with a group called Good Acres, which is doing a lot of work with faith communities in in housing and in some other areas, but we want to build out, and this was one of the things we talked with the councilwoman about yesterday, is with the church that she has that's that they're telling us is ready to go.

How do we engage them?

Because the question is always um what can we do?

But my question back to them is always, how long are you willing to do it?

Right, uh, because I think that's the thing, you know, that the church has to contemplate or the hub has to contemplate is this isn't a one or two year or even three year thing, this is an extended period of time, and I think having honest conversations with them about what do they think as a mission or a charism or whatever you want to call it, what do they want to so yes it's contemplated in the thought.

That's great.

Welcome ideas that you would have on that too.

Yeah, I think it's great.

I'm glad I'm I'm eager to see the conversations go through later this year with the rest of the framework, the next steps there.

Um, excited to see that's gonna be a focal point there because I think it's just critical, especially when we look at the farther out parts of our district.

I know Councilman Gia, I talk about that pretty frequently.

I mean, we're just further out of the downtown urban core, and so folks don't want to go all the way out there.

Um so anyway, so grateful to see that as a part of it and open to seeing how we can braid city resources within those uh neighborhood hubs, whatever they may look like, um whether it's within a church or it's within uh city facility or whatever it may be, uh interested in seeing how we can kind of have our resources on site or some nearby in some form.

So I think in particular, when we talk about our average workers, I was gonna get a bit more into that one, is thinking about um, you know, uh one per district is is difficult.

It's of course helpful for us to be able to reach out to somebody directly, and that's extremely great.

Um but when it's district six, which is extremely large, going from Alan Ranch to Old Highway 90, it's just tough to try to get to each person every single day, right?

Um and create those relationships, all those things like that.

Um I was wondering, I guess, with that coordination more so with the other uh outreach workers uh outside of our the city of San Antonio, um is there gonna uh have you all looked at a single system to kind of report to and kind of conduct that kind of not report to but to for folks to reach out to to get the support they need in terms of I think what ACS in the way of course it's all our own programming, right?

But there's one email that we can all reach out to and they're kind of filter through the process to figure out how to send someone out there versus reaching out to the same person.

I think we've contemplated some of those ideas.

I think it's really a question in my mind of how do we get to our homeless response system partners that have capacity and how do we begin to design it?

Yeah, and what do we think based on the experience with people that they're working with daily?

I think it should work from from the bottom up.

What are they experiencing with the people that are what they're working with daily and how do we build out that system to be able to maximize the capacity that we have?

Um because I mean historically the city has used a geographic distribution at deployment.

The question you know that that I pose to you all is does that continue to be effective?

Right, you know, or should we look at while still meeting the needs of uh constituents in your district, utilize a more strategic approach, and that's what we're contemplating.

Yeah, that's great.

And I'd be interested in seeing what that what that capacity threshold is, right?

So that we can kind of unlock it for us to figure out where our our investment goes.

Got it.

Um I think that'd be the most helpful to figure out okay, if that's the threshold that we're gonna get, then let's figure out how we get there.

So that way when someone calls 911 and 311 and non-mercy line, it goes into that system and we are able to go through that.

That's a good thought.

And then of course, needing the rest of the system created too.

Um, okay.

Well, I don't think I have too many other uh questions.

Um really appreciate everything um y'all they're doing.

Um yeah, I'll stop there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Um Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um, you know, the homeless response partners, that slide always gets me because it's just uh just a reminder, right?

Of of how much of this is a team effort, and it really does take a village here.

And so I think you could say that about a lot of city departments and the work that we do with our nonprofit community.

Um I think there's partnerships pretty much in probably every department in the city.

Um, and to I think remind ourselves of that as well on council is important to know that we're not the only ones here making the decisions or ideas.

There's folks out there doing the work every day um that we talk about up here right on the dais.

So um I had a couple of questions on just making sure that the what is it?

The ship refresh and the shelter and housing framework, those are two different, you know, workshops happening.

So where's a collaboration or is there a point person?

So between the two.

Right.

So as Chief Allison Officer, I work in both spaces.

Okay.

So I guess I'm a point of contact, but like for example, when we looked at the analysis on the need for the gap analysis on permanent supportive housing, we were working with NHSD as we were pulling together the data, and then we were able to see how closely it still aligned with the need that we had in the ship itself.

So from my perspective, councilwoman, the housing and homelessness are natural, they fit.

It's kind of why one of the reasons this opportunity was when it was presented was made sense to me was because of that.

And so, yes, as the ship refresh goes, and we look at, and that's why I referenced the housing bond sessions that NHSD did last summer, because it identified those additional needs for transitional housing bridge and shelter, and so which ties into unhoused has been a component of the ship from the very beginning.

Okay, thank you.

And on the response system interventions, I think slide four or five.

Can you break down right those the 19.8 million?

Just because we've heard about the the homeless huddle and what's important, I think in Huddles is that I'm sure everybody at the very beginning just says, like, what do you what do we do?

What do you do best?

Who does what best?

And so getting just a better idea of what partners play a role in each of those.

We can break that out for you.

Would be helpful just to know right who does this work best or does the most of it.

Um like who's in what lane?

Yeah, essentially, which I think we're all trying to ask that question right now too, right?

So making sure we're in the right lanes, and that helps me just better understand what partners are doing what work, um, and just how much money too of the 19.8, uh, how much of that is going to the day center, how much of that is going to the street abatement, um, that would be helpful.

Okay.

Just to clarify one thing, councilwoman, the city that's just the city's investment.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

Got it.

Versus what?

Well, you mentioned the day center, so that's the well it's in here.

It says day center.

But we've found the day.

Right, yes.

Yeah, yes.

We will break out the 30.5 by lanes in that 19.8 bucket for you.

Okay, awesome, thank you.

And I just, you know, I I think it's important that I guess can you unpack before I I make that statement?

The goal under the preventing homelessness, um, reduce the number of new homeless individuals annually through prevention and early intervention services, ensuring homelessness is rare.

I is there, I'm just curious what you think.

Have you found that there's significant differences in terms of cost between the upstream prevention programs versus the sheltering and rehousing?

It's much more cost effective.

On the front end, on the front end.

Okay.

Yeah.

If you're able to catch people on the front end, you provide rental assistance, you're able to connect them to affordable housing, behavior health treatment, or child care that's maybe covered by another system funding, versus you know, uh time and shelter or even the uh although the expense of permanent supportive housing has shown to be very cost effective compared to everything else.

I think in any experience tells me in any social serving kind of system approach, prevention is always the best cost-effective function.

Yeah, I'd be open to that.

I mean, if if um we get there and in how we shift dollars more towards that uh front end, right?

Um to make sure that we're preventing this at all costs, right?

So, when we can go back and just look at what data we analyze to be able to kind of and then what we can pull, excuse me, what we can pull from the uh what we can pull from our data analysis and share it with you.

Sorry, it's okay.

Thank you.

And I also just you know, those three um focus areas, it's very clear, right?

In all the strategies that public-private partnership, and I think it's important as you know, we're we had our you know, budget six plus six last week, and so it's very clear the the strains that that we're under, and so just making sure that our nonprofit partners, philanthropy, our business community are involved in in a really uh strategic way, right?

Um, you mentioned earlier in the presentation that um I think it was that you said the chamber wants to task force prevent homelessness.

Well, we all want to prevent it, right?

Right, right.

But what does that mean?

Right, and so that's where I'm looking for like a deeper dive in in a especially when folks like that come together, right?

A really deeper dive in um making sure that whatever dollars raised, where does that go really to move the needle on what we're trying to do here?

So um that's important to me.

And let's think, I think that's it.

On the donor advised funds, do you have any examples of that?

What that looks like or other cities have used.

The one model that we've looked at is from San Francisco where they've utilized the donor advice funds, and I think it really in a lot of intents and purposes services a housing voucher in a way.

Okay, that where it can help on the rental assistance side in particular.

Is it on the landlord side?

Or is it is it an in is it for the landlord to accept the voucher or is it on the tenant?

I think it's structured differently, but I think it's it's direct assistance.

It's a separate nonprofit that runs it.

The city's not necessarily involved.

Sure.

Uh maybe they're identifying helping people being brought in, but you have a third not uh third party nonprofit that operates it and gets the funds into either the landlord or the person.

Okay.

Um I think those are all my questions for now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Mungia.

Thank you, Mayor.

I would just say to some of the comments that were stated earlier.

It's it's difficult to ask folks to get off the street.

Um, and then when they get to housing, say, well, you can only have housing if you're gonna follow X, Y, and Z conditions.

So I think low barrier is certainly the way to go, and I think it doesn't do us any service to say, well, you have to have this, you have to pass this sort of test, you have to have this.

So I think ensuring safety for everybody in these types of places is important, but it's difficult to say both things at the same time.

So I just wanna put that out there.

And our response system, I see you know it's about thirty point five million dollars on the, I think it's slide five.

Um is that include solid waste and um SAPD time that we've kind of seen in other presentations?

The solid waste time as an actual cost councilman is in the 19.8 bucket.

The SAPD is an indirect cost that's separate.

Um we have that number.

We can we can get the indirect cost from SAPD and fire.

Uh but the the the cost that solid waste has is part of is counted as part of the 19.8.

Okay, great.

Yeah, we can get those numbers.

The indirect cost is about 23 million 23 million.

And that's includes police and fire.

And that's just for police and fire?

Yes.

Okay.

But not in the 30.5.

It doesn't include solid waste.

It's not in the 30.5 council.

Thank you.

Um and I bring that up because I think in previous fiscal years, the amount of indirect services that we were spending was far outweighing what we were actually spending in direct services.

So I'm I'm glad we're kind of going into the right direction on that.

It's really important.

Um, and as far as rental assistance, I'd give a shout out to my director of constitutional services, Johanny.

She does a fantastic job getting people housed, um, who, you know, sometimes are living in the car, uh, and sometimes folks are living in an apartment and they, you know, are about to be evicted and and don't have anywhere to go.

Um so I would welcome some uh rental assistance profiles maybe that we could see uh because I'm worried that you know it is it a lot of folks who are maybe seniors who do really do not have another opportunity to have a second income or to grow their income to what it is currently when they're still experiencing a crisis.

Um, you know, is it uh young mothers with children who already are employed?

So I just kind of want to see what that picture looks like and then how we're allotting it because I know I know it's a it's a limited fund and remind me, is it five million dollars?

Yes, you yeah, yeah.

And I think we do kind of a couple times a year because it is such a high demand that if we were to put the whole $5 million dollars at the very beginning of the fiscal year, it would all be gone, uh, with no repeats, right?

So I think that's a very devastating thing to understand.

Um, and so that's really good information to have.

I do want to give also a shout out to the street outreach workers.

Um they're out, you know, every single day in the community as a staffer I've gotten to go on so many site visits with them and see the work they do and and the communication that they have with folks that you know SAPD just will never have, or somebody with a suit will never have that connection, right?

Um and I, you know, as you do the intake over the summer and you and you talk to folks, getting their opinion is really really important to me.

And getting their unfiltered advice, right?

Because they're on the street talking to people every day.

Um and we have certain luxuries here that I think filter our input also.

And so I welcome that information.

And councilman um, you know, Galvon took some of my points earlier, but the mobilization of resources is something I've talked about for a long time, right?

Again, we have people Marbach and 410, Patrenko 1604.

They're not gonna go, you know, downtown to to do to get services, and uh it was interesting.

I had a conversation with a resident once, and he was complaining a lot about the homelessness of Marbok and 410, all these folks homeless out on the street, and I said, Well, there's so many people here.

Would you would you want us to is it would it be okay with you if we put a shelter here so that you can take these folks and maybe they wouldn't be on the street and they'd be in a home off the street, and he said, Well, no, that's gonna attract more homeless people.

And so you kind of, you know, what with the general sentiment, you kind of run in circles like that, and I think we have to have better conversations with residents about what that means, but definitely I think you know, the um faith-based places are are definitely a really good way to go.

And it could also avoid a controversial zoning case by partnering with those folks because I I is my opinion, wouldn't need a zoning change to do that if it's already a faith-based institution, um, and actually I would ask um, I'd like to ask Jesse a couple questions.

Um, so Jesse, I know that you they mentioned you went on on some site visits, and just kind of talk to me very briefly about what are some of the mental health issues and crises that you're seeing out there.

What do you what do you see when you went out there?

Yeah, thank you so much.

So good afternoon, Jesse Higgins, chief mental health officer in the health department.

And um, first of all, what a great experience.

I highly recommend you taking the time to go out.

I was able to go out on the first day of an abatement where they do the assessments and then on the next time when they go to the same group where they actually do the abatement.

And I do um just want to talk about how our city staff is so keenly aware of sort of the meta context of what's happening.

They're trying to be really trauma-informed and they're trying to be really compassionate, and that was across all solid waste police and our homeless services staff.

Um, but it's still really complex complicated and complex, right?

We've got that balance of what's safe and healthy for you right this minute, and and how can we get you into the right services and engage and give trust.

So we're seeing people struggling to trust the system, struggling to um get into a shelter or a house or a facility or whatever it is that's actually gonna meet their needs.

And so we've got to build out the immediate um need that that would be substance use and mental health treatment.

Sometimes we do substance use, you know, and you're they're going into detox or residential treatment, sometimes it's a mental health treatment, but then we've got to build out shelter capacity that meets needs for people.

Um we've got to build out a shelter capacity that meets the needs for community.

That's a lot of times what you have in an encampment or you have in and on the streets, it meets the needs for autonomy.

We know that that's huge in our unhoused population, but also meets the needs for actually their mental and physical health needs, and so um we've got great options for that, but when we don't have enough of that, and when we don't have that, that transitions into the actual transitional or permanent housing, then that's where we get people either not wanting to leave those transitional or those shelter beds, or not being able to stay in the housing that they're placed in.

And I would just add real quick, and are you seeing, you know, I'm not aware of all the different things going on, but is it like schizophrenia?

Is it paranoia?

Is it high anxiety?

Is it maybe mental health caused by certain types of drug usage?

Like what what was that kind of that you saw?

Right.

So it's hard to identify that within a brief meeting, right?

Because drug use and organic mental illness that includes psychotic features like schizophrenia or paranoia can look very similar, right?

And so that's why our clinical um street outreach staff that we've got, the three that we have.

If we can engage them in a way that helps actually follow the person, um, instead of being program or site-based, which is what a lot of our services are like now, um, then I think if we can have better outcomes, um, and really getting to know the needs.

It's hard to tell just on face value what people are dealing with, and a lot of times we assume that it is drugs, and it's not necessarily.

Absolutely 100% agree.

Um, and I think you know, doing a deeper dive on that would help us more because you heard some folks say, Well, and I've heard this from residents too, right?

Well, you know, why don't you have a jobs program?

Why can't you pay the money to go clean or do something?

And I don't know how many of these folks that we're encountering are able to do that the very next day, right, or something to that nature.

So um, you know, further deeper analysis on on what's happening out there is important.

And also, right, if somebody had the opportunity to housing to get housing right away, are they in a mental state where they could handle that responsibility too, right?

Because there's different responsibilities that come with having your own home.

Um, and so I think having that help would help us kind of see where in the network there are gaps to do.

So thank you.

Absolutely.

And I would say um, you know, it being a top priority in the budgets and and what we see and what also we don't see, right?

District 4 is home to a lot of vacant parcels that are have very, very large acreage with a lot of encampments, you would never see that driving it.

It really is a crisis.

Uh I think we do need to start having real conversations, as tragic as it is, right?

But we need to know how many folks are dying while they're homeless, right?

We we need to know that for the public.

When I tell the public that I encountered a woman who was homeless who said she was sexually assaulted twice by the same person who, by the way, did not seem to be homeless is a real real tragedy.

When I go to a homeless encampment site, and someone said, Oh, that that's a memorial for a stillborn baby that was uh you know homeless woman, um, homo homeless woman's baby is a real tragedy.

So I think those are the types of things, you know, health care is a big component, right?

How many homeless women are are pregnant?

Huge health care gaps that we have no clue about.

Uh, and these are our neighbors that are dealing with that.

So important information I think we should have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman uh Spears.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um Mark, I want to say thank you for taking on such a complicated important issue, and you did a really good presentation, and I appreciate you trying to take a different approach because it is a lot of money, but more importantly, it's a lot of people that we really we really need to try to solve as many of their problems as we can and find them back in their communities and and living a fruitful life.

Um but I had a couple of things I wanted to touch on myself, and a lot of it's been touched on by my colleagues, and um I'm so happy that Councilman Mengia brought that up about the 23 million in indirect costs, and we were reminded that our first responders are often the first touch to these people, or maybe the first touch that week, and so their training and their expertise in that area, we need to be reminded of of how they interact with our unhoused population.

Um slide five.

I agree with Councilwoman Mezigan's allies, but she was here.

Uh, that we should, if you can identify for us the the leaders in those different tracks, uh, I think honing in on who's doing it best is a smart approach, and then we just uh really get behind them.

Um I've been to Corazone and and work with them a lot, and I like what they're doing.

Uh one of the things that I hear often is that need for an ID can open doors in ways that that we can't what Councilman Menguia was talking about with the stillborns, like that's a big problem.

They can't they can't access the wraparound services without an ID.

So that's something that seems so simple to collaborate with our partners on and to do uh often a real program we can scale up so that they have an ID.

Interesting to note about the encampments.

So Haven doesn't have a contract with District 9, so they don't come out to District 9.

They'll accept District 9, anyone out in District 9.

They don't come out there.

So the encampments abatements, while I appreciate that we want to de you want to decommission that, I don't know that we can do it entirely.

It's something that this is the number one concern in my district about safety for everyone, safety for the those who are homeless and for the residents, just natural feeling of safety.

And then those who are on drugs or other substances, it's it's scary.

It just is for them and for anyone around.

On that note, we know that people often use drugs and alcohol to cope with other things, be it mental health, or maybe they're as a veteran going through PTSD or foster youth who have nobody.

So I think it's wise that we look at treatment and prevention is is the best course.

Totally agree there.

We're seeing our federal government move toward that trajectory, treatment first over housing, and that I look forward to working with my colleagues on the legislative and government affairs to go pursue that route at the federal level and at the state level, and I think that we should be thinking about that.

Um there's a reason they're doing that.

They're seeing the results, and to your point, it's less expensive and and it's effective.

Um the low barrier shelter, I'm so conflicted about that because I see what what my colleagues are saying about you need that.

Um it's a it's expensive, but it's also too um when you when you sort of mix people with varying degrees of homelessness for different reasons, right?

Because domestic violence is a number one reason too, and that means there's lots of kids.

And then are they being exposed to drugs in a low barrier shelter?

I worry a lot about that.

It'd be nice if we could have, I don't know how to do that.

I I do say I have concern about hurting everyone together with different reasons for their homelessness.

Um, first-time homelessness, we want it to be the only time last time, and so preventing them from getting into high-risk behavior scenarios and environments is gonna be key again with the prevention side of it.

Councilwoman, if I could, I will say that that's part of the assessment when somebody comes in, and just a reminder that family violence prevention services does operate at shelters, so we're mindful of that.

Uh if children are involved or families are involved in terms of what's the best placement for someone as they're coming into the system.

And that I would like to see that expanded too to foster youth, right?

Because they're they're super at risk, their numbers are scary and um very heartbreaking.

And then I bring out the seniors too, to what the mayor's talking about.

This one's really hard for me because I they don't have a future earning capacity, um, maybe they're there are their medications are too high.

Um, and there's so we're an aging aging city, so that's really an area that we're seeing a surge in the state of Texas because there's so much growth.

Maybe a spouse dies and illness happens, those things can get people to where they're homeless and living in cars or couch surfing or whatever it is that that they end up trying to do and capturing them and and finding housing.

You know, we don't talk enough about affordable housing for seniors.

It's just not talked about enough in this city.

And um I really think we need to be thinking very, very because people live a lot longer now.

That's a good thing, but you know, it's hard to plan for that too.

Um I want to remind everyone too, when we're talking about raising taxes and raising rates on people, we don't we need to identify that vulnerable population that would then maybe become unhoused because of those increases.

So we need to really look at that as well.

Um, let me see.

I just I just appreciate the work here.

This this is a problem that I don't think ever goes away, but the most we can do is really keep tackling it and find really good examples and be the leader in this space.

And I think that's what you're trying to do.

And you know, showing our city that that the transparency about how we're spending tax dollars in this area, and then so as they see measurable results in the city, that's gonna be super helpful.

I know also that it takes a lot of touches and outreach to what Councilman McKee Rodriguez is talking about.

That's true.

It's important that you, but it takes a lot of outreach, a lot of touches.

That's from what I've learned at Corazone before they'll accept services for whatever reason, different reasons.

It doesn't matter, that's just the reality.

So it's something that's very sad.

I don't think any of us like it like seeing anyone in that situation.

And you know, it's important to realize that circumstances could be different for any of us than we could be in that position.

So thank you for taking this on.

Um, I look forward to more continue talking about this, and I appreciate you being so careful with everyone's tax dollars.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Castillo.

Thank you, and thank you, Mark, for the presentation.

I wanted to also thank our city manager Eric Walsh for creating this department in response to public input over the last uh budget surveys.

Again, as we know, uh homelessness and housing continue to be in the top uh two all throughout the city of San Antonio.

So just appreciative that there's this effort and that uh Mark is leading this initiative, but also wanted to extend my gratitude to all the homeless partners for the work that they do and to ensuring that we continue to house and keep individuals uh in shelter.

So just extremely grateful.

Um, but I would be remiss if I didn't also highlight Katie Wilson and her work in leadership with the last bond conversation that we had.

I think uh the result that we got to was uh the result of your leadership serving as a tri-share and guiding the conversation about how we can have the greatest impact with the 150 million dollar housing bond.

So um grateful for the continued work.

Um, in terms of the framework that's laid out, I do appreciate that you have highlighted uh the importance of working with um or restructuring rather what encampment outreach looks like.

Um, this is something that uh our constituent services team uh extremely grateful for Cynthia and Christine on our team who do the relationship building and work with your team and our outreach workers to connect folks to resources, is that we continue to hear similar to my colleagues that the trend in which um constituents are expressing frustration and that an encampment is cleared and then a couple of days later it's back up.

So they're also understanding that this isn't necessarily a solution.

Uh, and again, whether it's out of compassion or out of sight, out of mind, the solution is identifying low barrier uh housing to get folks housing out of the street uh or the vacant lot, whatever the case may be.

So I'm supportive of that recommendation.

I'm grateful that the recommendation from the council consideration request on a workforce is being considered and discussed.

Um so I appreciate ready to work also being identified on this list.

Um in terms of where there's opportunity for preventing homelessness, and we talked about this in our one-on-one.

I'm grateful that geodiversion's included there as a potential point.

Um, but I would uh encourage that we continue to work with the Bear County Reentry Center.

Uh I had an opportunity to sit with some of their case managers, uh, and essentially when folks are released from the county jail, they have an option to go to the reentry center, and they're tracking what those needs are of individuals that are being released and what they may need support with, and what's surface to the top as a top needs is housing and/or utility assistance if they are housed.

So I think there's opportunity to catch folks before they enter homelessness by partnering, uh, whether it's data sharing, whatever the case may be, but an opportunity to catch individuals because uh Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies has found that formally incarcerated individuals are 10 times more likely than the general population to experience homelessness.

So if we have that opportunity, and of course, all the service providers in the shallow downtown, I think there's an opportunity for us to better triage uh individuals leaving the system.

Uh, so just wanted to highlight that and grateful that uh Mark's got connected with Ida to talk some more about what that could look like.

Um, but again, it's it's an it's preventing folks before they enter homelessness.

In terms of the mental health conversation, um, I that's something that uh I I hope this body continues to have concern conversations about with urgency.

Same thing doctors at the Bear County Jail have shared that they're seeing a trend of individuals with dementia going into the county jail.

And sometimes whether the time serve, because whatever the case may be, they're back out on the street, and they're literally back out on the street, right?

In need of mental health services.

So I I hope as this framework moves forward and we plan that we take into consideration just that need and of course the work of Jesse Higgins and her recommendations as well.

Um I hope we learn a lot on Friday.

Yes.

And I I'll be brief because I'm supportive of the work that you're doing.

And again, um, as we have the bond conversations, my expectation is that we do prioritize the needs that uh you and the homeless providers present to us as needs uh as a priority uh with that bond conversation.

But those are all my comments.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Corps.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you for this presentation, Mark, and everything that you are doing to lead this organization.

I think Eric, the departments that you created this last year have been already proven to be successful.

So I think those who are really great, and I think it's great that you are leading this and getting to see the work at a whole scale versus in previously when you didn't get a chance to do that.

So thank you for all of the hard work that you're doing and for being opening and willing to hear ideas.

So I want to echo a couple of the comments that are already been made.

I know Councilman Mesa Gonzalez asked for a breakdown of those um components on that slide.

I think it's slide five.

I agree, I would like to see that as well, but I also want to better understand what percentage of of the whole is our portion.

So just, you know, you mentioned, like, for example, the day center, how much are we contributing to the whole of the program?

So if it could be like if you could get that for us as well.

Obviously, we're covering 100% of site abatement, but we're probably only covering five percent of day center, and then if there is a way to track from that investment all the way up to the support that it's providing, right?

So for the day center, what is the metric that we're tracking for the day center, how much of um support are we getting there versus for site abatement?

How many site abatements have we done with those same dollars?

Um, just so we can better understand the metrics.

One of the things that uh you asked about was some of if you can bring that slide back up.

That's uh the street outreach program.

I've talked to you about, and we had a conversation previously.

I have gone out with the street outreach team, I've talked with them several times with a lot of our stakeholders.

We have some several hot spots in district one where folks that live around the area are uh constantly frustrated because they don't see an improvement in the support that's being provided to the in-house program.

And so I just want to know what the ROI that we are is that we're looking for our street outreach program.

I know they're out on the streets all the time doing the work, but how are we measuring the success of that?

Um, I wanted to better understand that, and also retention of our staff.

Like I know we have a vacant position right now for D1 on the street outreach team.

Just cut filled.

Oh, really?

Yeah, they just uh identified somebody and I think they accepted the position.

That's awesome.

Yeah, so now we're completely staffed.

That's great.

And we've had some turnover though in that team, right?

So and I'd like to better, it's a hard job.

I understand it's a really tough job, but also I've heard from some folks that there are we you know lifting up lived experience in our hiring for those positions because from what I've heard and seen, folks with lived experience have the best success at connecting with other unhoused folks.

And so I just want to make sure that one, we have the right setup for the team and that it's set, it is still um created in the right way.

I know there's two people for district one because it was advocated for by my predecessor, and then there's one for each every other district, but how are they is their time being equitably?

Like, we always go back to this equal is not equitable conversation, right?

Because we're I want one person for each district, but do we is that the right breakdown of staff?

And I mean, it's a street is just a street, it's a made-up boundary, sorry.

Sorry, and so um, like, how do we better make sure we are allocating that staff equitably for where the need is, right?

If we know that there are certain areas that need more energy and more time, FaceTime with folks, are they getting back and talking to them?

Because sometime if they see the same person every day, maybe they will be ready the next day when when an outreach team member comes.

Uh, the second thing that I asked for, I don't know if any of my other colleagues would benefit from this, but some of my stakeholders don't know what the outreach team is doing.

So they will say, Oh, we don't see anything happening, you're not even trying, and when we tell them about all the different ways that we are trying to create support, they don't know that.

They don't know that, oh, an outreach team member actually went out there and spoke to the all of the individuals in this encampment area, and so one of the things that I've asked for is more stakeholder engagement from the outreach team.

So if the outreach team can actually dedicate some of their time, and I know this takes away time from connecting with our in-house, but take some time to go out and talk to the individual stakeholders in certain areas, i.e., um, you know, we used to have an encampment right there on Culebra and talking to all the businesses there.

We obviously have some on Fredericksburg Road and going out and talking to the folks that are feeling that their businesses are being affected to say, hey, this is what I did today, these are the people I'm talking with.

Here's my card, call me and I can help.

Just more of a bridge rather than just focusing on the um working on those relationships.

And I don't know if that's it's just an idea.

I'm not sure if that's like completely it takes away from their time and not the right focus, but I feel like if there's at least someone, it's kind of like our safe officers, right?

Our safe officers are a great contact for people in our community to say, hey, this is issues going on, and then they know what's happening.

So I'm trying to see if like there's that bridge that can be made because our safe officers, quite frankly, don't know what's happening with the street outreach workers either.

They don't have a direct connection there.

So maybe that's the right idea is to connect them better to our safe officers.

Anywho, I just think there needs to be more communication because there's not, and so it gets directed to our offices or at least my office.

Um, so the other question that I have is um I the slides, the total number of dollars that includes our our delegate agency funding that's going out.

Correct.

Okay.

Um yeah, if you could split that out so we can see who's getting which portion.

I mean, this is a great, I love this, and just like being able to like double-click on each of them is what I'd like to see.

Yeah, and then the last thing, Councilmember Gulovan mentioned this ACS email that ACS email sometimes gives us a little bit of anxiety, only because I'm like, we sometimes it gets, you know, the the notion that like if it's coming to multiple people, who's the person to respond?

Um, and so I I like the thought that that he's recommending though, about like how do we create more funnel to ensure that it's going through a single line or we know everybody's involved in the process of being able to provide a solution right now?

It's like you call one agency, then you call another, and then you call another.

So I get the franticness of like how do we help people?

So, but also at the same time making sure we're still figuring out a way to create more collaboration, which is I think was the intent of that.

The last thing is on HMIS.

I'm glad to see the improvements.

I feel like it's been long coming.

I was like one of the first conversations I had with Sam like a couple of years ago about the challenges with HMIS.

Um, I would still love to see geolocation included on it.

It's not when you don't have a lot of information about individuals, at least knowing what where they are is helpful so that you can say like we have people here that we are helping.

Um so I I really hope that that will come very soon, and then also for um just the the partnerships with like information and how what how we're sending out information about the work that you are doing, even if it's more updates to the uh the website, the encampment website, whatever it looks like, but also doesn't just include cleanup, but includes like what we're doing to help.

So if we can show both that you know, this is being cleaned up right now, and I understand the the debates on cleanup, I totally get it.

We asked the other day how much money had been spent on an air the same hotspot area because it's so much repeated and to their coming back.

And I feel like it's a both and solution because I also hear on the back end if we do nothing, it looks like we're doing nothing.

And then there's frustration there too.

So I feel like it's a we have to figure out how to show our community.

I mean, Councilwoman Castillo said they eventually learn it's not the right solution, and I think that's what we we have to figure out how to show and communicate that better to our constituents, and that's all of us.

I do too.

Um, but at the same time, they do see in uh at least like a couple of days that like the trash is picked up and cleaned away, and so maybe there's a way to do cleanup without totally I don't know.

Anyways, I support your proposal moving forward, and um it's a very tough challenge, and I'm glad to see that we're still making progress on it every day.

I actually do think we're making progress.

I know one of my council colleagues had a difference in opinion.

It's still obviously a challenge, but so are sidewalks.

Like we're always gonna have challenges, but I do think that from the first day, I think three years ago where we set a target of this is how many people we were gonna uh provide housing for, and we've been moving towards that.

I think we've got to keep setting targets.

I think it was like three years ago we set we were gonna do that for the first time we put a target on it.

We got to keep doing that and keep reaching that.

And um, I think Councilman Vieignon mentioned the point about the hotel situation.

We have to just come up with uh a full-time low barrier housing, really true low barrier housing, because like we do get feedback sometimes that even the low-bearer housing is not low barrier enough.

So maybe there's like a pre-low barrier housing and a low barrier housing, but I'd love to advocate for that in the bond as well.

And last plug, Mark has taken a great leadership of talking to some folks that have been doing pre-built small studio prefab permanent supportive housing sites across the country.

And so he's spoken to a couple of providers about it, and we've been thinking about how can we create more cost effective prefab permanent supportive housing?

And I think there's really to there's always comments about innovation, so I think there's an innovative ways to do that.

Thanks, Mayor.

Councilwoman, if I could just say real quickly, we're developing newsletters by council district that'll go out quarterly to give you that picture you're looking for.

We'd love to get your feedback on it.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mark.

Just a couple of final um questions and and comments.

Um, really appreciate the work of of your team as well as Ronica's team and creating the um helping to create the uh special supply housing task force report uh that uh thankful again for um Councilman Mungia's leadership on that.

So in your budget request, would like to see how some of the recommendations or your asked there speak directly to funding solutions as identified in that report for as we talked about, some of the most vulnerable in our community.

That's the disabled LGBTQ youth and and seniors.

For clarification, what what exactly is the um the connection between your department currently and and the ready to work program?

I know it's been alluded to, but just to what's the finite connection between the two departments?

So when I was operating solely as chief housing officer, we had create the the ready to work at Create and has an existing MOU with the San Antonio Housing Trust to have a presence at each one of the housing trust locations moving forward as a site for people to be able to do training.

I think now moving forward with this new department mayor, I think that probably the first opportunity for us really is around the state work program and ongoing workforce moving forward.

So that's really what Mike Ramsey and I are having conversations on right now.

Okay, thanks, Mark, appreciate that.

Um the uh one of the points that you mentioned in the uh the right along as well is there's a uh connectivity issue between different systems talking to each other and then having sufficient insight into you know who's being helped in what way, um, whatever you need from so I know some of those systems are out of our control, they may be federal, the VA, for example, but if we can help in that, or if you've identified other uh ways in which we can help unstick things and please help us uh know how we can better advocate for that at various levels.

Out of curiosity, is walk Walker Ranch is open from seven to eight Monday through Thursday, and then Friday, seven to four.

Is that considered a day center?

I don't know.

It's a senior center, but does it also qualify by our definition as a day center?

I will double check that okay, yes.

I think as we're thinking kind of creatively about how we meet the demand.

If if it does that, then in this presentation, how it's contemplated, no, the answer is no.

But we do across all the DHS senior centers, do see people experiencing homelessness accessing those services.

And so our department works with DHS to go out there almost weekly uh or monthly to ensure we're connecting the right resources for those folks who are going to the centers.

Okay, that's helpful.

Thank you.

I'm gonna have follow-up points on that later.

Okay.

Um one of the things during the extreme weather event that we had um recently, I stopped by a couple of the uh the warming centers.

One of them was Garza, and I spoke with folks that were homeless.

Um, and uh they had um poor feedback unfortunately about how they had been supported during that, i.e., uh they were told to reach out, they were told they would get a phone call from from somebody in the housing department that that never did.

So they ended up kind of making their way themselves to to the warming site.

So I'd welcome in your budget request, right?

If you have a line in there that helps us understand what your surge capacity needs to be, especially in tone in times like that, um, that'll help us better support you so that we can better support those folks.

Um just a couple final points here.

One of the things that you also mentioned, um Mark, and if you want to uh if it requires follow-up in a paper, that's that's might be easier.

But um the the resource of Oxford homes, um, can you how does your plan think contemplate engaging with entities like that?

And I just did a quick search on on my phone, and there's in our community for women, there's like 16 spots.

For women for men though, it's about shy of 50.

So to the question earlier about disparity among gender, but those are also well sufficient of insufficient rather of what we need in our community.

So, how how does your plan contemplate um incorporating those resources uh in or incentivizing those in our community?

Yeah, I think it probably in the the second and third focus areas of the plan really in terms of uh guiding people off the streets, especially if you're dealing with substance use issues, that an Oxford home, you know, if you've gone through the initial say substance use treatment uh an Oxford house can can, whether it's for men or women, can be a next step or a step down for you.

Um that's outside of the current ecosystem there, so I think it's one first identifying not only the Oxford houses, but the the the high number of mom and pop locations, and you and I talked about this a little bit that are operating in the community.

Um they you know we need everyone in this effort, so what's the path that we're creating towards that?

I mean, when I was at Haven, we had a number of people that would graduate from Haven or they would leave the shelter location and go to an Oxford house.

Three or four people lived in the house, it was more of a setting for network for them.

So we can dive a little bit deeper into that, but that's how we're thinking about it.

Yeah, and I appreciate the resource that it serves.

I was more um interested in how we are incentivizing, i.e.

to we need to increase the supply.

And so if that looks like um some help with property tax or or what have you, if that's a the kind of a cost-efficient way to increase the supply of a resource that we need, I'd like us to understand what that might look like.

Thanks in advance for that.

Okay.

Thanks so much, Mark.

I hope you uh um feel the support for your work here and and you know the questions that you heard were more about how we can help you more.

So thanks for taking the time to be so thorough.

Um, and that is the last comment.

I know we've got public comment here, 15 folks, 15 folks signed up for that.

Um thanks again to to all the presenters.

The time is now 5 32 when this meeting is adjourned.