Okay.

Good morning.

And welcome to the next session of the budget review committee of May 7th, 2026.

Our committee lays on Sarah Jordan will go over instruction for today's meeting.

Sarah?

Thank you, Council President.

As previously mentioned, the budget review committee will convene for one continuous meeting starting Monday, May 4th, 2026 through Friday, May 8, 2026, beginning each day at 9 a.m.

The meeting will continue until the entire agenda is complete.

Department budgets will be heard in the order of the agenda subject to the chair's discretion.

Throughout the continuous budget review committee meeting, public comment will be taken during each sub-item.

The public may also comment on any departments not listed for a formal presentation on the agenda during sub-item S additional department review.

This information and instruction is also available on the budget's review committee's agenda on the city's webpage.

While the public is allowed to attend the meetings in person, this meeting is being televised and live streamed on the city's website, and council administration will continue to make arrangements for the public to comment using the Zoom webinar platform.

Additionally, members of the public who wish to provide virtual testimony must enter the virtual queue by raising their hand before the virtual queue closes.

This queue will close when the last virtual speaker finishes speaking or five minutes after in-person testimony ends, whichever occurs first.

This will allow for better meeting management between the two platforms and ensure the council is able to manage and conduct city business.

Members of the public will have one minute per department listed with a maximum of three minutes total.

We appreciate the public's cooperation.

Council President.

All right, thank you, Sarah, for reviewing those instructions for the benefit of the public.

A quorums now present.

And also in connection with specific items of business on the agenda.

However, the city must make sure that no one person or group of people disrupt the meeting in a way that prohibits other speakers from expressing their ideas and opinions.

So to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to address the council or the committee, the budget review committee.

So if I think their conduct becomes disruptive, if the disruption continues, I will rule the individual out of order, and if the disruption continues further, I will declare a recess so we can restore order.

At that point, I will direct the individual to leave the room, and if the individual refuses, police will escort the individual out of the building.

And if we have to repeat this process of warning and recessing the meeting, all members of the public will be excused from the council chamber.

Once again, we have these practices and procedures to protect the rights of other speakers who wish to address the council and to allow the council to conduct the public's business.

Haven't heard.

Please don't clap.

Um, just drop submeeting thumbs up or snapping your fingers.

It's a great way to show support for something that council member says or a member of the public says, thumbs down, conveys the opposite uh feeling about a comment.

So, with that warning in place, I will now call the budget review committee meeting of Thursday, May 7, 2026 to order.

Sarah, please call the roll.

Thank you, Council President.

Council President Lakava.

Present.

Committee member Campbell.

Committee member Whitburn.

Here.

Committee member von Wilbert.

Council President Pro Tem Lee.

Here.

Committee member Campiel.

Here.

Vice Chairman Moreno.

Present.

And committee member Ila Rivera.

Chair, Committee Member Foster.

Also attending the meeting today is senior fiscal and policy analyst Amy Lee from the Independent Budget Analysts Office.

Chief Deputy City Attorney Kathy Steinman from the office of the from the City Attorney's Office.

Chief Financial Officer Rolando Charrell and Policy Advisor for the Mayor Todd Gloria, Chris Ackerman Avila.

If you're in person, please complete a speaker slip located at the entrance of chambers and place it in the top of the box indicated at the speaker's lecture and in the front of the room.

Please do so in a timely manner to ensure proper meeting management.

In person testimony will conclude before the virtual testimony begins, and members of the public can also join the webinar by computer, tablet, or smartphone by accessing the link which is listed on the online in the preamble language of the agenda on the city's webpage.

If you need to participate by telephone, you may dial 1669-2545252 inputting webinar ID 16032-6900 pound.

This information is also available on the agenda and it will appear on the screen during the public comment period for each agenda item.

Please note that if you're watching via City TV 24 or online, there may be delay.

Please participate via the audio on your phone and your TV and computer when it is your turn to speak.

If you wish to speak to a particular item, please wait for that item to be called and then raise your hand to speak by tapping the raise your hand icon or by pressing star nine on your cell phone or landline.

If you raise your hand during a non-comment period, your hand will be lowered.

Chair.

All right.

Thank you, Sarah.

Got this beautiful script here.

All I have to do is read it.

My apologies for getting out of order.

So again, thank you, Sarah, for reviewing those instructions.

A quorum is now present.

First, we'll start with committee members, mayoral staff, city attorney, independent budget analysts.

Any comments?

Kick us off.

Not seeing any.

We will now take up our information agenda.

As a reminder, these are informational items only during our budget review committee hearings.

So no emotions are required.

And as Sarah mentioned, public comment will be heard after each sub-item.

Sub-items have been categorized to follow areas or branches of the city.

Therefore, several sub-items include multiple city departments.

For these sub-items, the department official will introduce.

We will hear a presentation or presentations regarding all the departments included.

After each department's presentation, council members will have an opportunity to ask staff questions at the conclusion of the sub item and after public comment.

Council members will have the opportunity to provide concluding remarks.

With that, we will begin this morning's hearing with sub item I.

Sarah, please introduce subitem I.

Thank you, Council President.

Subitem I, homelessness strategies and solutions.

And again, if you're watching on City TV or the live stream and you'd like to call in to speak, please dial 1-669-2545252.

Inputting Webinar ID 160 332 6900 Pound.

Chair.

Thank you.

All right, I'll turn it over to staff.

Please introduce yourself for the records and let us know how much time you need.

Alright, good morning, Council President, members of City Council, Casey Smith, Chief Housing and Committee Development Officer.

I'm here with Sarah Jarman and her team from the homeless strategies and solutions department.

Here to present uh the HSSD uh budget for FY27.

Uh before we get started, just a big shout out to all of our city departments who support HSSD.

Um this takes a village to support this department, and there are so many impacts across the board.

So uh big shout out to all those city departments, and again, thank you, Council.

Thank you to IBA and city attorneys uh for your patience as we move through this, uh, your questions and for listening to staff and the public uh for this important budget.

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

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

We will need about eight minutes, please.

Good morning, Council President and members of the budget review committee.

My name is Sarah Jarman, and I'm the director of the homelessness strategies and solutions department.

Joined with me today are Deputy Director Katie Keach and Assistant Deputy Director Bijan Mostafavi.

Today we are here to present the homelessness strategies and solutions department's fiscal year 2027 draft budget.

The homelessness strategies and solutions department leads the city's efforts in addressing homelessness.

The department's mission is to prevent and end homelessness through person-centered, compassionate, and equitable services.

The department is responsible for creating and coordinating programs and services for individuals who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

Through collaborations with other local agencies, service providers, and city departments, the department works to provide a comprehensive network of services that offer prevention, diversion, and housing resources with both immediate and long-term solutions.

City-funded programs include emergency shelters, safe sleeping, safe parking, coordinated street outreach, diversion services, and storage.

The department currently has 15 full-time employees.

One notable change is that while the number of FTEs in the department remains the same, the budget proposes a reclassification of one program coordinator to the classified service.

Our adopted fiscal year 2026 budget totaled $53.8 million from the general fund.

Our proposed general fund budget for fiscal year 2027 includes a $3.3 million increase for a total of $57.1 million.

In fiscal year 2026, the department received approval from the city council to establish the Homelessness Revenue Account Citizens Oversight Committee in alignment with Measure C.

In addition, the department was awarded three new grants totaling over $28 million.

The awards include two federal community project funding grants, $1.2 million for the safe sleeping program, and $1 million for shelter operations.

The third award is round six of the state of California's homeless housing assistance and prevention grant program.

The city was awarded $25.8 million.

All three awards will be brought forward in the future for council's approval to accept appropriate and expend.

This fiscal year, the department also implemented operational efficiencies, which included the temporary consolidation of the safe parking site located at Aero Drive.

With capacity available at the new HBORCS location, the city consolidated the Aerodrive site in November, which is anticipated to save approximately $160,000 this fiscal year.

Another operational efficiency includes the reduction of security services at the Storage Connect Center, which reduced security services from 24 hours a day to during hours of program operations only.

This reduction provides an annual savings of 222,600.

As you likely saw, the 2026 point in time count was released at the end of last week.

While the count is truly representative of a point in time, it is used as a metric for funding and operations.

This year's count showed a 6.6% decrease in unsheltered homelessness in the city of San Diego, marking the second year of such progress in a row.

Overall, there has been a slight increase of 92 people in sheltered and unsheltered homelessness combined, linked to an increase of people in shelter programs.

We also saw a 50% reduction of unsheltered homelessness along the San Diego River, which, as you know, is an area the city has focused on, specifically with a state encampment resolution fund grant.

Our department is focused on providing a variety of services to ensure individuals have options that best meet their needs.

After seeing an increase in unsheltered individuals residing in their vehicles over the last few years, the city worked to address the gap by nearly doubling the capacity of the safe parking program.

The HBARC site opened in May of 2025 and added 190 spaces to the city's safe parking program.

The site provides space for both standard-sized vehicles and oversized vehicles.

Through a collaboration with the San Diego Unified School District, San Diego Housing Commission, and Regional Task Force on Homelessness, the temporary safe parking site at the former Central Elementary School opened last year.

The site provides up to 40 spaces for standard-sized vehicles and prioritizes families with children.

Focused on reaching individuals where they are, the city entered into a delegated maintenance agreement with Caltrans in July of last year.

The program allows for city contracted outreach teams to access state right-of-way along a five-mile stretch surrounding the downtown area.

From July 2025 through January 2026, 95 people residing in this area have been served, and 17 people have secured housing.

The house number has increased since the slide was prepared.

The FY27 proposed budget includes several significant budget adjustments related to revenue.

The department's proposed budget includes an increase of $10.1 million dollars in transient occupancy tax revenue to support homelessness services.

In addition, approximately $2.4 million in revenue from the opioid settlement fund is included to support shelters that serve high need individuals and provide access to substance abuse treatment.

The County of San Diego will be providing 1.5 million dollars to support ongoing operations of the shelter for survivors of domestic violence.

Approximately 31.3 million in Measure C revenue is also included in the FY27 proposed budget to support homelessness programs.

There is no funding and unrestricted general fund this fiscal year.

This slide shows funding source allocations between FY23 and FY27.

A few notes I will call your attention to.

First, the department has decreased reliance on unrestricted general fund.

Previously, general fund totaled 25 million dollars in FY23, but decreased to $0 in this fiscal year.

A decreased reliance is offset substantially by $31 million in Measure C allocations.

The uncertainty of grant funding in FY27 is offset with TOT reimbursement.

While we remain hopeful that we will see additional grant investments from the state of California, the FY27 proposed budget does not assume a $1 billion investment in a future statewide hat round.

In addition to significant revenue adjustments, the department's fiscal year 2027 budget also includes significant expenditure adjustments.

As mentioned on the previous slide, the county will be providing 1.5 million to support operations of the shelter for survivors of domestic violence.

The department's proposed budget includes 1.5 million in expenditures to match the county's support to fully fund the program.

An additional $214,000 is proposed to support the expansion of the Haven Family Interim Shelter.

And in addition of $325,000 is proposed to support security services at the old central library located downtown.

The table on this slide presents three options for homelessness services reductions to meet the department's target reduction goal of $3.8 million.

Option A includes the partial reduction of the 16th and Newton shelter.

This would decrease capacity by approximately 200 to 250 beds.

This option would also eliminate the safe parking program at the former Central Elementary School and eliminate security services at the old central library downtown.

Lastly, option A would reduce the eviction prevention program by $200,000, which would result in operational impacts on the program.

Option B includes the elimination of the safe sleeping program at 20th and B, which would remove approximately 186 spaces.

This option would also eliminate the safe parking program at the former Central Elementary School and partially reduce the eviction prevention program by approximately $49,000.

Option C includes the elimination of the fourth tier at the OLOT safe sleeping site, which would result in a decrease of 40 tenth spaces.

This option also includes the partial reduction of the family reunification program by $46,000.

The program could be reworked into services offered at the hub in addition to the diversion program that will be funded by the newest round of state of California HAP grant funding.

Option C also includes the elimination of the safe parking program at two sites, including former Central Elementary and Aerodrive locations.

Security services at the old central library are also proposed to be eliminated in this option.

And lastly, option C proposes a partial reduction of the eviction prevention program by $2.1 million, which would result in significant operational impacts.

As previously mentioned, the city funds a variety of homelessness services.

We currently have a total of $1,478 emergency shelter beds for a variety of populations, including single adults, seniors, families with children, and survivors of domestic violence.

From July 2025 through March of 2026, we have served over 2,900 individuals with $497 exits to housing.

Another sheltering option we fund are our safe sleeping sites.

Across the two locations, we have a total of 767 spaces available, with each tent space having capacity for up to two individuals.

So far this fiscal year, we have served nearly 1,600 people and 142 people have exited to permanent or long-term housing.

Our safe parking program provides another type of shelter option for individuals and families experiencing homelessness who reside in their vehicles.

The program has a total capacity of 455 spaces.

As of March, the program has served 1,056 individuals, including 216 children and almost 200 individuals have exited to housing.

Outreach is a critical component of our emergency response system.

Outreach workers provide basic needs assistance, street-based case management services, and connections to critical resources.

The city currently funds 41 outreach workers who have served almost 5,000 people and connected over 530 people to housing this fiscal year alone.

The family reunification program is a hybrid outreach and rehousing program.

The program connects individuals experiencing homelessness with their families or loved ones who are able to provide a stable living environment, build support systems, and help establish long-term housing.

The program has reconnected 210 individuals to housing this fiscal year.

Lastly, the city offers storage space for individuals experiencing homelessness so they can keep their belongings in a safe and secure area while they attend appointments, go to work or school, or work with housing navigators to seek housing opportunities.

The city funds two storage facilities that have a total of 900 bins.

This fiscal year, the average utilization rate across both sites is approximately 97%.

The department reviewed external contracts and services.

There were no suggested reductions for FY27 that weren't already reduced.

The department regularly reviews contractual budget needs, which includes zero-based budgeting reviews during the budget development process.

This concludes our presentation.

We are happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you for the presentation.

We'll turn it over to the Office of the IBA for their comments.

Thank you, Council President Amy Lee with IBA's office, and thank you to the department for their presentation and for coordinating closely with our office during our budget review.

Our review of the HSSD budget starts on page 195 of our report.

As with prior years, the council is only being asked to approve the general fund and TOT fund allocations in the HSSD budget.

Other funding sources, primarily state half funds, will come before the council separately.

The department's presentation reviewed the significant proposed adjustments, including the three options prepared by HSSD to meet a $3.8 million reduction target assumed in the proposed budget.

Before turning to those reduction options, I just want to note a few items.

First, it was recently brought to our attention that the $2.4 million proposed expansion of opioid treatment beds to be funded by the opioid settlement fund are no longer being contemplated at the Veterans Village of San Diego campus, but rather other site options are being explored.

Second, the proposed budget includes 5.7 million in additional revenues beyond proposed expenditures.

This is because baseline expenditures are not fully reflected in the proposed budget.

Specifically, 4.9 million in expenditures for existing programs was not included due to a last-minute change in funding sources.

HSSD requested these expenditures to be added back in during the May revision, subject to review and approval.

The table of program level expenditures on page 210 of our report indicates that HSSD fiscal year 2027 expenditures would be closer to 62.1 million between the proposed budget and the May revision if approved.

Third, beyond the options for the $3.8 million reduction target, there are proposed program reductions included in the proposed budget, including the closure of the Neal Good Day Center and the elimination of downtown public restrooms operated by the department.

I'll focus the remainder of my comments on the reduction options prepared by the department, but I am available for any questions the committee may have on the department's individual budget adjustments.

As you heard from staff, the proposed budget assumes a $3.8 million reduction target of general homelessness services, but defers the program specific reductions to council discussion today and through the rest of the budget approval process.

The three options are summarized in a table on page 200 of our report.

As the department already summarized these three options, I will just note a few items for consideration.

All three options share three proposals.

The elimination of central elementary safe parking due to low utilization, the removal of security services to physically secure the old central library facility, and various reductions to the eviction prevention program or EPP.

APP provides both direct legal services to assist low-income tenants facing eviction and additional services such as flexible one-time funding, which may include paying for groceries, hotel vouchers, transportation, and rent-related expenses.

Under option A, the reduction of 200 to 250 shelter beds at 16th and Newton, this would result in an estimated loss of 9 to 11% of citywide shelter capacity or 19 to 24% of single adult beds.

Without replacement beds, this reduction in isolation would likely increase unsheltered homelessness.

According to the Housing Commission, this option should be considered in conjunction with a proposed closure of the day center nearby, as cutting both would significantly reduce supportive services for individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

This option would also reduce EPP by 200,000, resulting in reducing flexible funding by half, but rent-related expenses would still be prioritized and direct legal assistance would still be maintained.

Under option B, the closure of 20th and B safe sleeping would reduce safe sleeping capacity by 24%.

Although safe sleeping connects unsheltered individuals with case management and key basic services, under federal definition, participants are still considered unsheltered as safe sleeping is not recognized as shelter.

As a result, the closure of 20th and B would increase street homelessness but would not impact unsheltered homelessness.

This option would also reduce EPP by 49,000, resulting in flexible funding for hotel vouchers and grocery cards being reduced or eliminated.

Direct legal assistance would still be maintained.

Under option C, EPP would be reduced by 2.1 million, a 71% funding reduction, which would reduce direct legal services by 71% and eliminate all other EPP services.

For reference in fiscal year 2025, 234 tenants received full legal service assistance, and more than 2,000 tenants received limited legal assistance through EPP.

This option also eliminates safe parking at Arrow Drive.

We know on ERA Drive, because this is a temporary closure in effect in the current fiscal year with no significant service level impacts.

Council may wish to consider this reduction.

While three options are in front of you today, we want to emphasize that council is not limited to these options.

Modifications or an altogether different package can be developed as long as the general fund budget is ultimately balanced with other reductions in the HSSD budget or elsewhere in the general fund.

Our review provides a framework on page 204 of our report for council to consider to guide discussion by specifically focus on how to prioritize services and populations served across the three major program reductions.

So to the extent that council has two shared top priorities among maintaining capacity for emergency shelter, safe sleeping, and eviction prevention, the remaining third option may be worth considering for reduction.

If council members support or oppose any one of these specific three options that was presented by staff, you should communicate that today so it may be considered during the May revision.

Regardless of the discussion today, if there are options that have been presented or otherwise modifications or alternative reductions you would like to see, we encourage each council member to be as specific as possible in your final budget modification memoranda due to our office on May 20th.

Our office will then use that information to formulate final budget modification recommendations.

Our report this year also includes additional context on four of the city's main homelessness interventions.

Each of the city's homelessness interventions serves populations with different needs, resources, and housing barriers.

As funding decisions should consider program outcomes to a reasonable extent, council may wish to request additional program outcomes and details to inform funding decisions.

Our office will be available to support council members as you evaluate these or any other alternatives you may wish to explore.

Next, I will turn it over to Selena.

Thank you, Amy, and good morning, Council President LaCava and members of the budget review committee.

My name is Salina Viega, and I'm here to summarize the division of race and equities review of the homelessness strategies and solutions departments FY27 proposed budget found on page 204 of the IBA report.

While our full analysis identified eight equity implications, my comments today will highlight three equity implications.

Among these is the 3.8 million set of homelessness services reduction options presented in the issues for council consideration.

These reductions pose the most significant equity concerns, particularly for communities already facing limited access to transportation, supportive resources, and economic stability.

When critical services are reduced, the impacts are not isolated.

Burdens shift to other systems, including emergency response, clean SD, and the public realm.

Unhoused residents remain members of our community, and disruptions in one part of the system ripple across others.

To reach the 3.8 million reduction target, each option combines a major service reduction with smaller shared reductions, such as cuts to safety services and safe parking supports, along with reductions to the eviction prevention program.

These packages differ in their primary impact area, but all carry disproportionate consequences for people with the fewest alternatives.

Option A is a reduction at the 16th and New In shelter.

This currently serves 320 individuals, many with complex behavioral health needs, chronic medical conditions, and limited mobility.

The proposed reduction lowers capacity to 200 to 250 beds, which would disproportionately affect individuals with the greatest need with the fewest available alternatives, creating additional barriers for those who already are least able to access traditional shelter models.

For option B, the closure of the 20th and B safe sleeping site.

This safe sleeping site supports approximately 180 tenths, offers double occupancy when needed, and includes 88 accessible accommodations.

Residents who rely on this site often cannot safely access congregate shelter due to trauma histories, disability, behavioral health needs, or the need to stay with partners, pets, or belongings.

Closing this location is likely to increase unsheltered homelessness in East Village, an area already experiencing high concentrations of people living outdoors while reducing access to safe, stable alternatives.

Option C the reductions to the event eviction prevention program.

This carries a $3 million total budget and has served over 2,000 residents through March 2026.

The proposed reductions include for option A, $200,000, option B, $480,000, and then option C, $2 million.

Prevention is one of the most cost-effective and equitable interventions in the homelessness response system.

Reducing this program increases the risk of families, seniors, and low-income renters falling into homelessness, especially in communities already experiencing housing instability.

Council may wish to consider the outcomes achieved by the eviction prevention program as part of evaluating these reductions.

Beyond these three options, additional proposed cuts, such as closing the Neil Good Day Center and a limiting downtown public restrooms would remove essential daily needs services, including restrooms, showers, mail access, and a safe space during the day.

Losing these supports reduces the stability for unsheltered residents and may heighten public health risk.

Further reductions to shelter capacity, safe sleeping operations, and specialized programs for youth, families, and residents with substance use disorders could widen existing gaps for people with disabilities or chronic health conditions.

Taken together, these reductions across shelter, prevention, outreach, and basic needs services have the potential to significantly affect the city's ability to provide equitable access to housing and crisis response.

Thank you.

This concludes my comments.

I welcome any questions.

Alright, thank you both.

We appreciate the input of the IBA and give us additional perspectives.

So I'll turn it over to my council colleagues for questions on this department.

We'll start with council member Woodburn.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Thank you to HSSD, the IBA, the Division of Race and Equity.

And I really want to appreciate and highlight what we just heard from the Division of race and equity, which is that when you reduce services to people experiencing homelessness, you are really just shifting costs to other parts of the system.

What I think about my vision for this city.

I want a city where every resident takes pride in San Diego, where every resident feels that this city makes their life better, and where every resident believes that this city gives them an equal opportunity to achieve their goals.

But my vision actually starts with something much more fundamental.

I want a city where every resident has the right to survive.

When you leave this city hall after eight o'clock at night, you have to zigzag through people sleeping in the breezeway, or at least trying to sleep.

Some of them are just lying on the bare cement, shivering in the cold.

We should look at and remember their faces, because many of them are asking us for help.

Many of them have asked us for a shelter bed, and we have told them no.

We have told them we don't have a shelter bed for them.

So they shiver in the cold on the bare cement outside City Hall.

And some of them may not survive.

Amid that reality, it is incredible that we are sitting here talking about reductions to homelessness programs.

These are life-saving programs, very literally.

It feels uncomfortable to talk about progress when people are still dying on the streets.

But because of our programs, the number of homeless people dying on our streets has at least gone down.

In 2023, 624 people who are homeless died on our streets.

624 people died on our streets.

In 2024, that number at least dropped from 624 to 488.

I mean, they're eager to see a further reduction when the numbers come out for 2025.

There has been a lot of discussion about the most effective way to address homelessness, especially on a limited budget.

There are certainly tough choices to make.

When it comes to homelessness and arts and culture funding, it cannot be either or.

How safe people feel when they're visiting our parks and visiting our city has an impact on our TOT revenues.

We must make people feel safe when they're going to Balboa Park, whether going to the convention center, our hotels and restaurants and elsewhere in our city.

If we cut our homelessness budget in the wrong place, we risk losing growth.

And we risk forcing more people onto the streets.

That is why I will request that option A from the PowerPoint, which also appears on page 198 of the IBA's review, be the additional reductions if we must have them, that are incorporated into the mayor's Bay Revise.

Option A reduces the number of beds at the 16th ed Newton shelter, which year after year floods during the rainy season, which causes millions of dollars in additional cost and temporary relocation fees to our budget.

City staff does a great job of getting the residents out of 16th ed neuted and up to the Balboa Park Activity Center for safety during the floods, but it is very expensive and it does put a lot of strain on the system during those times.

What additional point?

I would like to clarify that when we see programs like the eviction prevention program being moved from economic development to homeless strategies and solutions, it makes it look like homeless strategies and solutions and TOT costs are going up at additional three billion dollars.

When in reality, that is just shifting muddy from the general funded economic development to TOT and homeless strategies and solutions.

Historically, millions more in general fund and TOT went to HSSD, but thankfully Measure C has relieved both of those funds to some degree over the last few years.

I want to thank the city's homeless strategies and solutions department for putting together this budget proposal.

These were obviously very difficult decisions to make because of the limited budgetary situation that we find ourselves in.

And I want to thank the many service providers and the many people who have come here today to speak about the impactful work that is being done to rebuild lives through our City of San Diego homelessness programs from safe parking to safe sleeping to shelter beds, all the funds that we give to prevent homelessness.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Alright, thank you, Council Member Upton.

Uh, we'll go next to Council Member Campio.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, sir, for your presentation and your hard work on this.

Similar to earlier discussions we've had about parks and recreation and libraries, I'm seeing the presentation of options provided as a helpful way to start a conversation, but certainly not the only option to balance the budget.

This is an area of our budget I have a lot of questions about, and I agree with my uh colleagues who've said for years that uh we need to do more, and I think that what we have in front of us, we can see a different and better path forward.

We've seen a pattern throughout the process of this week where it does seem as uh as Council Member Whitburn pointed out that there's a pitting of two concepts against each other.

Um I don't question whether the investment in homelessness is worthy, it's at once an economic issue and a behavioral health issue and a public safety issue and a humanitarian issue, but I want to ask questions to understand how it's proposed and any of those options that were on slide nine are strategic.

Um certainly they're not optimal because of the amount of funding we have, but uh we're gonna talk about that in a second about why those particular areas.

Um my first question is given what I've heard from the public leading up to today, and I'm sure we're gonna hear it in a minute when they are able to speak.

What was the degree of coordination with stakeholders when we determine these reductions?

Because our five-year outlook for several years has shown that this year was going to be a very difficult year.

And uh certainly after passing last year's budget, we knew that there was more cutting to be done.

Um we'd always hoped it'd be less than 120 million, but we could see it coming for about a year.

What was the coordination?

How early did we start talking to people we have contracts with, whether it's Father Joe's villages or it's a downtown partnership or any other number of great groups, JFS to say um we got reductions coming and we need to plan a year in advance.

Thank you, Councilmember.

My answer is that it varies.

I think after last year's budget cycle, we had quite a few conversations with folks, maybe not every single provider, on what what next year will look like.

And frank reality that not only this per this fiscal year, but the next fiscal year, it is gonna hurt.

Um so I can't commit to every single provider that I've had a conversation with.

I can tell you I have had conversations with multiple providers about how devastating these cuts will probably continue to be even after the cuts we took last year.

Certainly, okay.

I guess uh considering that this department is really has employees itself, but also is contracts with outside groups.

When we have the mayor's office and the Department of Finance tell our internal departments, give me a 7% reduction recommendation.

Where's it gonna come from?

They obviously gave you that same number.

At which point, since we have so many contracts, did you turn out to them and say the mayor's told me to cut seven percent?

Tell me, contractor, where can we cut 7% from your contract?

How did how does that conversation go through so that we know that with a long runway how to get this done in the most optimal way?

This one's hard because a lot of a significant amount of the funding in here did not have any contracts associated with it.

That happened pretty quickly, so that runway was not very long.

Okay, all right.

Um slide nine, you gave us various options.

Um I noticed in one you have medium reduction of eviction prevention program, small reduction small medium, and then one that was very, very large.

Um as we were looking at that one.

Can you explain why that was considered?

Because I brought this up many times, and you know that the question I often ask is are we doing enough prevention?

You've adequate you guys have adequately answered.

It's not just prevention, it's there's three, four or five steps in the ladder.

You got to fund each of them adequately.

Um, but what I hear from my constituents is prevention is what they want to see us spending a lot more money on.

Um, tell me why the money in the eviction prevention program is is better cut than something else.

It's not that it's better cut than something else.

If I can take a step back and I explain how we got to these three options that might help with a little bit of context.

As we were looking at reductions, I think no matter what, no one's going to be happy with the reductions that are listed.

No one would be happy if we swap one out or another.

But when we look at the spectrum of services that we have, to your point, council member, on one end of that spectrum we have prevention.

On the absolute opposite end of that spectrum, we have shelter, and we have services in between those two.

The thought process behind these options, and to Amy's point, I want to be very transparent.

We are open to suggestions, input changes.

You don't like it, you tell us.

But looking at how we can keep the system from completely dismantling.

So, yes, we have eviction prevention on that list.

That was a really tough decision.

It was that, or to put hip on that list, for instance, and we know those people are receiving monthly resources, that would be a bigger hit to that constituency.

We have shelter on the other hand.

We have bodies in those beds to do all of one and all of one, not necessarily the case.

We tried to come up with options that at least had a couple of opportunities, especially knowing that this council has different priorities.

We know certain council members have priorities more for the front end, certain have for the other end.

Certain council members would probably like this money to be spent somewhere else.

That's the reality.

That's kind of how we got to this process.

I'm happy to speak on the if I can speak on the shelters too, if you don't mind how we came through the up to those two.

I've been before this body a couple of times with a comprehensive shelter strategy.

In that strategy, I've been very clear that there are shelter options that are not permanent in nature.

Two of those are 20th and B and 16th in Newton.

In addition to that, those two were identified, frankly, for a lot of the topographical issues associated with it.

As Councilmember Woodburn mentioned, the 16th of Newton shelter has flooded three times.

We've had to move 324 folks three times out of that shelter and had to repair it.

Um, 20th and B, similarly, that site floods as well.

Um, and so as we look towards permanency and the bad choices that we have in front of us, um, that was what our department came up with as the best available option.

That being said, we are open to suggestions.

Okay.

Well, so you gave me some good details there that say these particular spots, there's an environmental issue that leads to more cost, right?

Okay.

So, what was the similar uh cost benefit analysis of the eviction prevention program?

Um to keep a person in their home certainly is less expensive than finding a shelter bed that we don't have much more of in the first place.

So, was there some sort of analysis that said we don't think that this is paying off?

It doesn't keep people in their houses, homie, their homes long enough.

What was the sort of granularity of of of effectiveness?

Because you just pointed out these things flood, that's expensive.

We want to save that cost.

That's a reasonable answer.

But eviction prevention program, what was the oh, this is not working, or this is not the highest use of the money.

What was that data-driven uh analysis look like?

Frankly, it was to not disrupt the spectrum of interventions.

So it's back to that spectrum where it's not all on one side and all on another eviction prevention being on that front end.

That's why this that's why it was listed here.

Okay.

So the eviction prevention program was balanced against other preventative programs that you feel is more uh effective.

More effective might not be the right phrasing, less disruptive to the elimination of the program.

Okay.

Understanding this, I feel that that when you have the conversation out with the public with the f folks who uh work in this this um in this discipline to try to help unhouse people, being able to say we see very effectively this one, and we don't see as effective in this one, that jumps out so that you can we can understand the reasoning, even if we can disagree on the numbers, but um on the slide, it makes it seem like that isn't what is valued.

But I can hear what you're saying.

Is actually that um you think that that's the least bad option.

Neil Good Day Center, 948,000 in budget savings, but the budget also includes 570,000 in program reduction window support.

So essentially, we're only gonna save 378,000 from net on not supporting Neil Ga Neil Good Day Center.

Um material costs the city lose about 800,000 provided through our partnership with uh Father Joe's Villages, um, but there's also grant funding provided to them through through other avenues.

Um, looks like we're only saving roughly 400,000 to lose around a million dollars from a nonprofit and partner resource, including the individuals who won't be served.

Um what was that 400,000 balanced against?

Did you have a spreadsheet?

Did you have a table that said if we're gonna get 400,000 back, we need 400,000 more effective there because I hear year after year that this is one of the most effective uses of what is really 400,000 and not 948 in budget savings.

So just to level set and be perfectly true, that 570,000 is not just associated for the window of the Neil Good Day Center.

That 570,000 will have to be applied across the board.

So for instance, if we if we choose to eliminate a shelter program, either one, for instance, we are going to need funding and probably a suspension of intakes, and that will be a portion of it.

So I will just caveat with that.

So the overarching question, however, unfortunately, of course, the Neil Good Day Center does provide a significant amount of services to the community, but to your point about efficacy, we had to make tough choices about housing focused programs.

Um we did identify that this one, although provides great services.

Father Joe's is a wonderful partner, the housing placement rate isn't as high as other programs.

So this one did come to the top of that list.

Okay.

So there was some piece of data that made you say this is what we're gonna go with as opposed to this.

Yes, okay.

Um do you do that with every single contract, every single program, every single provider?

You have a sense of success rate here versus not here, and that's what it was based on.

Yes.

Okay.

With a year's, how long have you been keeping that data?

We have years worth of data, okay.

Do you communicate to the providers I'm seeing less success in this than we are hoping for?

What can we do to have that push up?

Because we want to work with all these providers, serve all the people they're serving.

Do you communicate to them like, hey, next year when there's a big budget deficit?

We're not it's not a threat, it's just the effectiveness is not as as good.

It I do think we hold our providers very much so accountable between ourselves and the San Diego Housing Commission.

If something doesn't look right, we do address it.

I it I want to be cautious, just knowing the good work that Father Joe's does too, although there's not housing placements, they do provide services at that site, and and those are life-saving services.

And please don't get me wrong.

It's just unfortunately we had to make a decision.

I'm not getting you wrong.

I just want to make sure that this is when people's lives are on the line in such a concrete way.

Human suffering is so bad that there is actually um not just it's a bad decision here, it's but there's a there's a concrete number you looked at and said, I'm sorry, but it's got to be this one.

But and that's what it sounds like you're saying.

Um very briefly on the veteran village of San Diego.

They said they don't need 2.4 million dollars uh currently budgeted.

Um see the housing commission has requested it.

Um there's a reference in their May memo that the Veterans Village San Diego is struck and request the 2.4 million dollars to the location to be determined.

I see Lisa.

So uh I got an organization saying they don't want our money, and um, but I still see a memo from y'all saying we want that money and we're gonna put it somewhere else.

What's um what's going on?

Um, sorry about it.

Good morning, council member.

Um, when we were working with Veterans Village of San Diego, this was last fall.

We had originally built a budget, excuse me, looking for about 70 beds at their site that were at that time unfunded and underutilized.

They now at this time have um committed those beds to another program.

So um that site is no longer available.

We understand and respect that we kept the money ask in the memo because this is opioid settlement funding, it can go for a very specific thing, which is those recovery beds.

We still feel they're very much needed in the system.

We released an RFQ in late February looking for providers and sites to move this funding too, which is why we've kept that budget ask in.

We're looking at sites right now so that we can potentially program that um funding somewhere else.

Understanding that VBSD has other plans for their beds.

Okay, so we're not gonna we're not gonna be doing that project then with them.

Not not with VVSD, but we are we're looking for other sites through our RFQ process.

Okay, thank you.

Um, just very briefly uh how is coordination this year with the county compared to previous years because um given that they uh are responsible for a lot of what's going on.

Um how has that relationship looked uh over the last year?

I know that there was disagreement over reducing a shelter.

Um, tell me about that.

I can absolutely speak to just my personal interactions.

I will say I think seeing the 1.5 million dollar investment into the DV shelter is we're very grateful for that.

I can only imagine kind of the situation we would be in if we didn't have that 1.5 million additional to keep that very successful program open.

Uh I'd also like to maybe touch on, I think public health is doing a really wonderful job of helping keep our constituency safe, really monitoring vaccination rates across our shelter system.

Um so I would say that has progressed far more.

Understood.

Okay, um better this year than the prior years.

Okay.

Uh I'm eager to hear what my colleagues have to say about this.

Obviously, uh this is amongst the uh uh toughest areas for city government to um address has been for decades.

Um, you know, I s uh hearing from the leadership of Father Joe's villages, hearing directly from uh Deacon Jim, knowing uh they're in agreement with what Councilmember Woodburn says.

Um obviously I I've talked a lot about prevention, but the grand scale of what we're about to see with the federal government cutting funds for housing.

Um, the flow of people who are unsheltered is in my fear going to be much higher than we've seen, and we've seen numbers and decreased in unsheltered housing over the last year.

So uh I like the way Council Member Wooder put it.

Um, when people are gonna die, they need a bed so that they don't.

So I'm gonna be looking at I I definitely agree with my constituents who talk about prevention, but uh we hear the experts out there saying shelter beds immediately, immediately to prevent death.

So uh I will be looking at that as we move forward with suggestions, and I appreciate your good work in helping people stay alive.

All right, thank you, Council Marvel Campia.

We'll go next to Councilmember Ilo Rivera.

All right.

Uh thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Sarah.

Um Amy, Salina for your analysis.

Um I want to want to start by uh thanking Councilman Whitburn um for what you shared.

I I think there's I've said this to many people.

There's nothing more haunting to me than walking out the door of this building and seeing folks sleeping there.

Um it is a daily reminder of the work that needs to be done.

Um, and I appreciate that you see it and you care about it in the way that you do, um, and we can't look away from it.

I so thank you for continuing to see to see it and um commit to working on it.

Um because ever each of the people who are out there deserve that commitment.

Um I appreciated Council Member Campillo's questions about communication with some of the service providers who will be impacted by the cuts.

And Sarah, I think I I heard you when you said there was kind of this kind of general heads up given last year.

A you know, we're we're in a tough time and it's only gonna get more tough.

Um, as that general concern started to narrow.

I am concerned about the timeline that we are giving folks to pivot.

So I do want to understand, and I don't I don't know whose job this is to communicate these things.

I don't know if it's yours, I don't know if it's someone in the mayor's office.

But what is the, in fact, I'm gonna actually step back because it's not specific to you.

I had similar questions yesterday.

So let me let me step back.

When a constituency group or a community partner is going to be impacted by budget cuts, what is the the mayor's office's philosophy on what that communication should look like when that communication should happen?

Um what is our standard in place for communicating with community partners who we depend on to serve San Diegans?

Thank you, Councilmember, for the question.

Uh, generally speaking, it is a team effort between homelessness strategies and solutions and the mayor's office to communicate with the providers, acknowledging that budget decisions are moving quickly ahead of the first draft release.

Um, so that does give us limited time to do it, but we do we have had conversations with them, um, some providers more often than others, especially considering impacts for that.

Right, but but is there a standard practice in place?

Is that is it as soon as we start to consider it, we're gonna check in with them to understand what the impacts would actually be.

Uh, is it once a final decision is made, we're gonna tell them a final decision is made.

What's the what's the standard operating procedure?

Yeah, I wouldn't say that there's this the standard per se, because um, for example, right now there is no final decisions.

We have options on the table for all of us to consider um and to continue those conversations.

Right.

That was actually my concern is that there is no standard operating procedure, and as a result of that, we are leaving community partners from homeless service providers to uh leaders in the arts and culture community to youth, um, youth advocates in a situation where they don't even have time to build the bridge to where they need to get, and it makes our job that much more difficult because as we're trying to weigh the impacts of the decisions, um groups that might be able to mitigate the impacts of the budget, don't have the time to do that.

And I know that this is a a um a process that involves a lot of evolution and considerations, but I think that that speaks to the necessity of bringing folks into the fold earlier rather than later to understand which groups are best positioned to pivot, which groups aren't the on the ground understanding of what those decisions would be.

And it's not happening.

Neil Good Day Center, I'm gonna use as an example.

I can understand why it's a thing that the city would pivot from.

However, if this if it were to go to go away completely, I think we'd also agree that there'd be huge impacts.

And without giving Father Joe's time, I think we're gonna leave the city worse off than we would have if we would have given them some more time.

So I'm gonna follow up a little bit on the um the options that we were presented.

I was really appreciative to see that the housing disability prevention program and eviction prevention program were fully funded in the proposed budget.

And then I learned in the IBA report that actually further cuts would be needed, and the EPP is on the shopping block.

That was frustrating, disappointing, and I have I have a huge issue with that.

I we've had this conversation on the dais for years now.

The the role that prevention plays not just in keeping, I'll I'll definitely need the extra three, Council President.

Um not just the role that prevention plays in keeping people off the streets, but what that means for the people who are on the streets today.

Because more people on the streets means those who are on the streets are competing with more people for the too few beds that exist.

The service the service providers, the outreach workers, their work grows, which means the people who are on the streets today have less attention when they already don't have the attention that they need.

Um so it feels um pennywise and pound foolish to cut prevention programs that we know are working.

Um the shelters that you showed, um Sarah, I don't know if you can pull those back up.

There was a slide with the various options that we have and with the clear understanding and caveat the slide right before that.

The one that shows one more.

There we go.

Um that each shelter has a different population with folks with different needs.

The exit, the success rate, the exit rate is extremely important to me.

Can you help us understand?

Um like I can do rough math as I look at that, but length of stay, total cost when you factor in length of stay, um, how that weighs into the decision making process of what to pull back from, what to invest more in.

Sure, thank you, council member.

To your first point, I think one thing that's crucial is that we obviously have an array and spectrum of services.

So in addition to the two shelters listed, um, in the proposed reductions, there are also shelters that accommodate that same subpopulation.

So there's shelters for single adults, and there's also safe sleeping at OLAT.

Uh with that though, if it's helpful, I do have for you, of course.

Um, I think you all received kind of the cost per bed night of what we're looking at, but I know that that's not necessarily always of interest to you.

I think one thing that might be important with like.

It's not that it's not of interest, yeah, and I'll just the clock's been running while that answer is provided.

It's not that it's not of interest to me.

I think that it it needs to be taken into account based on the length of stay as well.

So I have the estimated cost per housing outcome for 16th and 20th and B.

For 20th and B, the estimated cost per housing outcome is just shy of 47,000.

For 16th and Newton, the cost per housing outcome is 40, 94,000.

Okay.

And the and the the other options that are up there.

Uh I do have it for family reunification, which is just shy of three thousand dollars, and I do have it for aero safe parking, which is eight thousand three hundred dollars.

Okay.

Do we have it for safe sleeping?

Do we have it for safe sleeping was forty-six thousand nine hundred and fifty.

Almost forty-seven as well.

Okay.

Um I appreciate that.

And I think it it it speaks to the importance of prevention because we we're the prevention piece on a per person basis is significantly less, whether that's housing and instability prevention program or the eviction prevention program, those folks who don't get the help that they need end up on the streets.

If they end up in one of our shelters, it can range from 47,000 to 94,000 to eventually get them back to where they were, which was in a house.

So that is why I continue to emphasize the prevention piece.

It's not because I want to prioritize the needs of people who are in housing over the people who are on the streets.

The people who are on the streets have greater needs.

It's because I believe we can serve more people on the streets if we keep more people in their home and actually begin to see a reduction in the number of people who are on the streets.

So pivoting away from prevention when we know it's working, and when we know the costs are when folks become homeless, again, I have huge concerns with.

And I I said it a couple days ago, so I'm gonna do it.

We I heard a false choice between homelessness, the housing instability prevention program and eviction prevention program.

That is definitely a false choice.

Um I will acknowledge that I'm in a minority here, but knowing that the the role that the effect that homelessness has on public safety, both for the individuals impacted and the community as a whole, seeing these sort of choices put in front of us while the police budget grows 15 million dollars, I that is one of those things that I'm I'm I am really wrestling with.

Um so thank you, Sarah, for the for the responses.

I appreciate the the the direct answers to the questions that I asked.

Um will reiterate how frustrated I am in the lack of communication with the partners who we depend on to do the work with people experiencing homelessness and preventing people from experiencing homelessness, and we'll ask that we do better on that front because we can't make informed decisions if the experts on the ground don't have the chance to provide their expertise to us.

Thank you, President.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Ila Rivera.

We'll go next to Council President Pro Temple.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Ms.

Norman and the team for the presentation.

Um let me start by noting that the mayor has stated that homelessness is one of the core services of the city.

Uh as we heard yesterday, it's one of the four pillars for this budget.

And I'm just gonna take the liberty of noting that what's not in those four pillars, since we had a long discussion about them in the last couple of days, are libraries and parks, which I think is why we see hundreds of cuts to staff and the proposal of options to close entire library branches or recreation centers.

Given the mayor's high priority for homelessness, uh, I think that's why I'm even more perplexed as to why he can't seem to present us a clear plan in this budget.

So here we are again, um, this time apparently on an item that is one of the mayor's top priorities, and he wants us to pick between his options.

So let me drive dive into a couple of curious things that I see in these options.

Um I'm gonna ask you all to to help me answer some of this.

But first off, Sarah, what's the what's the shelter capacity on our shelter programs on average any given day?

Low.

Down to it it's 97, 98 percent full.

Exactly.

And that is not counting uh safe sleeping.

Safe sleeping uh right now, if I checked a couple days ago, that's hovering anywhere between about 70 to 95% on any given day.

Um and I would note that number has really not changed since the day I've been in office.

Uh and probably for most of us, I imagine.

Um, and so I think is it safe to note that if we were to reduce shelter capacity, we should expect unsheltered homelessness to rise.

Uh that would probably be a fair uh comparison.

The only way in which I could say that we would be able to meet the same amount of services we have today is the influx of diversion dollars that will have into the system.

So for instance, we have 1.3 million dollars in how going towards diversion.

That specifically at this point is set aside for shelter flow through.

Um, but there's only so many people that are eligible for diversion as we move forward.

So it's it's possible.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Um given that, I mean I would agree with Council Member Whitburn on the importance of maintaining shelter capacity.

I mean, is that something the mayor agrees on?

Yes, which I find interesting since the options seem to be full of considerations to close or wind down shelter operations.

Um, I don't think you were the one who made the decision to move the eviction prevention program under your department, correct?

I did not make that decision, Casey?

Yeah, that was an that was an operational decision to align, as I commented on yesterday, um uh council president pro tem to align um budget and funding in the appropriate department.

Um, you know, we've got a lot of relationships, uh, MOUs and other things with between HSSD and Housing Commission.

Uh, we felt that money was better positioned uh within the HSSD budget than in EDD.

Thank you for explaining that again.

Um of all things under homelessness, Amy, you highlighted this a little bit, and so if the IBA could um just help us again understand what were the items on the top of the priority lists supported by council members when it came to homelessness.

Um I believe a fair number of those priorities did focus on prevention.

So reiterating support for the housing instability prevention program, the eviction prevention program, additional resources for prevention and diversion at the housing commission.

So the eviction prevention prior uh program was high on that list.

Uh as I recall, seven council members supporting it.

Yes.

Only seated by uh the housing disability prevention program, which had eight.

And so I would agree with council member Whitburn who notes that the only reason the HSSD budget looks like it's actually not going down is because this program has been moved into it.

That's a significant amount of funding.

But I'll also reiterate that similar to what I said yesterday, it's an odd move to make at the time that we're in, because uh logistically, I understand the operational decision, but again, that department is being proposed in this budget to be moved into the department, and the at the exact same time in order to make cuts to the department, it is in the position it is in the list of options for every single option to be reduced.

So does the mayor care about what's on the top of the list of the council's priorities?

Council member, I'll just note and reiterate what the office of the independent budget analyst said.

These are options which you certainly have the flexibility to consider and um move around with.

So these are not the only options that you have.

Do you have a recommendation of the options we should take?

I'll let uh I don't know if Sarah wants to take that answer.

Well, I'm sorry, Ms.

Startman helped quite a bit in putting these options together.

I'm asking from an administrative administration standpoint if there's a preference for the options that you'd like us to take.

I operationally speaking, I think option A would probably be the option that has the least operational interruptions.

Can you align option A for us once again?

Sure.

Uh option A would be the partial reduction of 16th and Newton, the elimination of central elementary safe parking, the elimination of security at Old Central Library, and the partial reduction of the eviction prevention program.

How much of a reduction are we looking at at 16th and Newton and for the vision prevention program?

For 16th and Newton, it would be 2.978 million.

That'll be approximately 200 to 250 beds, and the partial reduction of EPP at 200,000.

Impossible question to answer, right?

You're just making it so more people hate me.

No, no, no.

So actually don't so don't answer that question because I I think I think that that's my point to make that these options are somewhat silly, because the reality is without eviction prevention being moved into them, every single one of them would require us to consider significant reductions to shelter operations.

I mean, it's it would seem.

The reality is a significant portion of our budget is to fund shelter, some odd 60% somewhat like that.

So when we're looking at a large target reduction number at 3.7 million, something there's going to have to be shelter at some point in it.

That's the reality.

It is very unfortunate, but it is the reality just based on how our budget is structured.

This budget isn't driven by a coherent strategic framework that's somehow aligned with the council's priorities.

And in fact, yes, we all have different preferences up here, whether it is advancing prevention programs or maintaining shelter.

I don't think those are two choices that we have to make against each other, especially when homelessness is being pitched as one of the pillar priorities within this budget.

So that's why I would encourage my colleagues not to pick between those options, but rather to determine which of the shelters and programs you would prioritize protecting.

And furthermore, we have to be asking what reductions are not being considered.

I will point out that in all three of the options, there is not a single reduction of staff.

And this is not an ask that we reduce members of Mr.

Armin's team, but you had 15 full-time employees last year.

I assume that carries over in this budget this year as well.

And so in a time where we are suggesting austerity across the city and making hundreds of reductions in libraries and parks, because they are not one of the four core pillars, we're not making a single reduction option within this department, while presenting the council members with options to eliminate the shelters that we're trying to defend or the prevention programs that we care about.

It's a choice that doesn't make sense.

Let's talk about real uh logistics for a moment.

Um, the Neil Good Day Center, and I'll take my three minutes now just since I know that's gonna tick.

Um I understand that there have been discussions with Father Joe's, which operates the center, and and I might invite you up here just to talk about it, because I know in our discussions you've mentioned interest in trying to find ways to operate even if the city did not have the capacity to support that.

Yes, Councilman Josh Bohanen with Father Joe's Villages, and that is correct.

We are committed to the services that the day center operates.

Um without city funding, we we would continue our best to operate, but at significantly reduced capacity, less days, less services offered, we wouldn't be able to give storage.

Um we would have less security, so there'd be less opportunity for respite for individuals, operating less days of the week.

Um so we've gone through that scenario, and we've also worked through other scenarios.

If if the site itself is closed, what are some backup plans that we have as an organization and how can we gather together our existing resources to fill the gap that would be left by the day center?

But that takes time that we need to fill together.

Thank you for answering that question.

And maybe more so now to the housing commission as a whole.

If if someone, and I know Lisa just slipped out, great timing.

We can wait until she gets back.

Uh or someone could possibly answer this.

Thanks, Lisa.

So for for both the Neal Good Day Center and 16th and Newton, if any portion of those operations were to be reduced or wound down, what would the timing be in order to do that?

I mean, it's not like we say we're gonna shut down a number of shelter beds at 16th and Newton, those folks are gonna go July 1st.

Right, right.

So our recommendation for 16th and Newton because it's such a large shelter and based on um historical attrition rates, what would happen is we'd have to freeze intakes across the system.

We'd have to look for alternative sites, and we'd have to move people out of 16th and Newton into those spaces that open up in shelter across the system.

So based on historical attrition rates, when we freeze intakes, we're looking at probably about a nine-month window process at 16th and Newton in order to make sure that everybody that's in that shelter today finds shelter or housing in another location.

We would all obviously use a lot of our diversion resources to try to focus on that too and get people out of shelters straight into housing.

For Neil Good Day Center, we would recommend probably about a six-month transition so that we could strategically plan how to place those services throughout the community, understanding that Councilmember Whitburn has heard a lot from the business community and the community in that area about Neil Good Day Center, and that it doesn't really feel like it's meeting the community's needs to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness.

Our recommendation would be to try to stand up those resources throughout the city, not just the downtown area and leverage existing programs.

Um we would recommend about a six-month planning process for that.

So maybe about a six-month wind down so that those service needs are still being met for the people who need them.

Thank you for sharing that.

When we look at the budget options that are being presented, are the timelines for potential windows or attrition needs factored into the options, or would that actually necessitate a speedier window to accomplish that budget savings?

I can confirm that it does account for the window Lisa mentioned for 16th and Newton.

I would have to get back to you on the wind-down for the Neil Good Day Center.

And and in that option, how much is that reduction to 16th and Newton?

In uh option A?

Yeah.

It's short of three million and about 200 to 250 beds.

Basically the entire site.

The site's 324, 326.

So I know we worked on this together.

Um, so we kind of worked on what that budget would look like together.

Um, that's assuming there's a sort of about 120 beds that we can stand up elsewhere.

If there's not, it's going to take longer.

Right.

Um, and and we could go over that.

Um, we could not end up achieving that same amount of savings if we can't find an additional site.

And also, obviously, those bed funds would need to move with it.

So there's I think there's still some work to be done based on where the council lands.

Thank you.

Um and finally, let me talk about some big picture items that I think we do need to consider as we move forward.

One is that have funding uh from the state as we know it, as I understand, is set at 500 million dollars currently in the proposed budget.

That is a significant reduction than some of the previous years we've seen, but there is an effort ongoing at the state to try to increase that funding and the state's budget doesn't complete until the end of June after our budget process.

So if HAP funding were to be increased from $500 $500 million to something between that and the billion dollars or so that we've seen in the past, um, what would be the first programs we would look to additionally protect, reinstate to to keep moving if that funding wasn't locked?

I think it's a tough question to answer.

What if we were to receive the full 1 billion, we would anticipate an additional 12-ish million dollars into the system.

Uh, we likely wouldn't have access to those funds until at least late towards the end of the fiscal year.

It's highly likely that that additional funding that we're not planning on would have to help fill gaps in FY28.

Although if if the process speeds up and we get that money faster, then I think we could reconsider.

But right now, there's a big unknown.

Um I think this is an important discussion.

It's one of the reasons why I believe that this council, although we have not historically been able to exercise this, really does need the ability to offer mid-year budget adjustments because there are changes in significant factors that could really alter what is happening here, even a portion of that funding would replenish every dollar that is being thrown on the table right now to eliminate eviction prevention programs, to uh eliminate shelter programs or significantly reduce them.

And I would not like to see us um conduct these windows only to turn around uh if the ch state changes course um by the end of June.

Um I think that that really does close my questions.

Um I I appreciate the answers here.

Um I agree that homelessness is is a challenge the city must continue to address.

I think there's a fair argument whether it's any more or less a core service these days at the city than anything else we provide.

I have a hard time arguing that it is any more so important than the libraries and parks that our residents visit every single day.

Um it it was not the story in the city a decade ago uh when little to no funding was dedicated to this.

And so if we're going to approach this, I continue to believe it has to be a collaborative effort.

Um the county participation is uh obviously something that is good to hear, um, but we need more of it uh as we move forward, and we need a plan.

We need something that is clear that's being presented for it to us that is not just a series of numbers that results in shelter bed loss or people being put back on the streets.

We need an understanding of how the city plans to move forward with the limited dollars we've got.

We also need a proposal that allows us to consider what happens if the state does um add additional funding that we have often counted on.

Otherwise, we're just sitting here spending these hearings arguing over options that literally don't get us anywhere.

Um and so I thank you for the exercise and I appreciate the additional time.

Council President.

Everybody's getting a lot of additional time.

This is an important conversation.

So I really appreciate uh my colleagues' questions uh and uh Sarah's um and Chris's your responses.

Uh Amy wants to weigh in again.

Thank you, Council President.

I think I want to just quickly reiterate that council has the option to take or support any of the options presented as is, but you also have the option to uh provide modifications, provide a different proposal of reduction packages.

So to the extent that prevention is something you want to protect, and you don't want to see any cuts to eviction prevention program.

We will note that under option C there is 275,000 in savings associated with eliminat safe parking that is currently being implemented in current year without any significant impacts.

So to the extent that you would like to swap any of the proposed cuts to EPP with that reduction for safe parking instead, that is something to consider.

Council President, if I can just quickly respond to that.

My only answer to that would be let's, and this is really to my colleagues.

Let's stop sitting here pretending like we have to take any of these options.

I think at the end of the day, uh, with the lack of a plan being presented to us, it's inherent upon us as a council to actually deliver a plan that we think we can pass for this year's budget.

Thank you.

Uh thank you.

Um Prote Amway, I think that's really the key to this whole week, isn't it?

Um we'll go back to Councilmember Whitburn.

Thank you, Council President.

Uh I really appreciate the thoughtful comments of Council members Capillo and Ilo Rivera and Council President Proteb Lee.

Uh I agree with the council president pro Teb that it is remarkable that we are looking to close a shelter at the same time.

The shelters are full.

The potential for that to set more people out onto the streets.

Uh if we have to trim the shelter budget, a shelter that floods is probably the best option.

Although my first choice would be not to close that.

Uh I also appreciate the commitment that we have heard to try to ensure that if that shelter does have to close it, nobody would be put out onto the street and the efforts to accommodate uh those folks elsewhere.

Uh I also appreciate my colleagues' uh comments about the importance of prevention.

Uh I could not agree more.

I mean I have consistently supported the eviction prevention program and the housing and stability prevention program.

I think uh shelter and prevention are both essential.

They serve somewhat different populations at times.

Uh some of the folks who are facing eviction uh at housing stability uh it it it in many cases are those facing blood economic challenges.

Uh some of the folks who need shelter uh are some oftentimes those who uh have experienced a myriad of other more fundamental challenges uh that sometimes result in chronic hopelessness uh but we need to help those facing economic hardship stay in their homes, and we need to help those experiencing chronic homelessness get out of g get off the streets.

Um I do have hearing the comments of my colleagues, I do have one question about option A.

The partial reduction of six teeth at neuted is listed as essentially a three billion dollar reduction.

Yes.

Uh the partial reduction of the eviction prevention program is listed as a two hundred thousand dollar reduction.

That's correct.

Right.

Um the two hundred thousand dollar reduction to the eviction prevention program is probably a larger percentage of that particular budget.

The two hundred thousand dollars would be to the sixteenth that do.

What if, let me just ask you, what if we did not take the two hundred thousand dollars out of the eviction prevention program, it instead made it a 3.1 billion dollar reduction to sixteenth, what would that look like in terms of the wide doubt of sixty to do?

Uh, Councilmember, if you don't mind, we would probably need to run the numbers with the housing commission just to have a full uh to be to be perfectly honest on what that uh window would look like, uh, because we would have to calculate just what that what that burn rate would be for the total budget.

I understand.

So we it would uh presumably you would have fewer beds available once we get down to the right number that'll equalize us for the rest of the fiscal year's contract.

So I would have to do a little bit of that.

But I appreciate I appreciate your wanting to look at the data.

Uh the last thing I do, and one thing that I would not be able to support is uh doing something that would actually result in forcing people in a shelter to end up on the street.

But if there is a way to manage that such that we could continue to fund the eviction prevention program, uh I think that would be worthy of exploration.

Uh okay.

Well, I mean, we could look and see what the potential there is and and revisit that.

Uh thank you, Council President.

Uh I'll uh thank you, Councilmember Woodburn, uh, for those follow-up questions.

Um, thank you to the department.

Um, I'm gonna take a slightly different um track, kind of level set, you know, how we got where we are.

Um I think about we're probably around the one-year anniversary that the city attorney's office prevailed in measure C being past.

Pretty big deal.

Can you imagine where we would be if that litigation had not been successful?

What is it, 35 million in this year's budget?

And last year's.

Can you imagine what would have happened if the labor council, building trades, social justice organizations, and the lodging association, unlikely partners, hadn't got together to put measure C, worked very hard to get it past way back in the day?

Um, to the point that Protem Lee mentioned, um, there's 500 million in the current budget for HAP.

We didn't always have 500 million, it'd been a billion, it got cut, there was strong feelings that we didn't know what number might be put in.

We still don't know where the governor is going to land on on HAP given some of his talking points.

Has the mayor's office been active at Sacramento to argue to restore the one billion?

100%, Council President.

The mayor has made a handful of visits to Sacramento in the last um several months to half a year to advocate to the state legislature and the governor on the importance of HAP.

We have made clear to him the implications that we're not able to get that full funding, and he continues to advocate um not just there as an individual mayor, but um as part of the big city mayor's coalition with the 10 largest cities in California.

Okay.

The challenge in the Pro Tem uh was quite eloquent in your answer, Sarah, that even if that happens, do we take budget cutting actions today?

No, excuse me, not the budget actions, but we take the implementation of an adopted budget when that money is out there, maybe.

Also remind us anything that we're actually eligible and qualified for.

Have we gotten all the money from the feds?

I'll say that with a smile in the state that we're entitled to that would make this your the budget happen.

Or is there anything outstanding?

I'm not entirely sure what would be outstanding.

Obviously, there's a larger conversation about what just federal funds are coming into the system as a whole that tangentially affect our department.

Okay.

Um I'm gonna be rude and correct you on one thing from my perspective about the spectrum.

You'll hear me during the course of the weeks talk about why that I don't like about BRC, because we tend to take these conversations in silos.

This department is here, so we talk about this department, we drill in, my colleagues did a fabulous job.

And I would argue that the spectrum is really prevention and housing.

People that are housed to keep them in the house, and to create the pipeline that gets people into housing.

So what EDD does, what housing commission does, trying to supplement a very complicated funding mechanism to build affordable housing, is really what we really need to do.

And in the meantime, um, as Councilman Whitburn and my colleagues have been very eloquent, how do we help those folks that are not there yet?

Either not ready or there's no housing there for them to move move into, and that's the larger conversation.

So it's not only what we do with this department for that interim, but bridge to home that we didn't even really talk about in yesterday's conversation, advocacy to make it easier.

Uh we talked about DSD and their expediting permit processes.

So I think it's important to kind of remember all those other components again that gets us to where we're at.

So let me drill in.

Some of this might be repeat of good comments and questions that my colleague raised.

Eviction prevention and diversion.

Help these people probably are smart enough to know.

Help me remind me what's the difference when we use those two different nomenclatures.

Sure, it depends on kind of how you slice it.

So I would consider eviction prevention more of a traditional prevention program.

But diversion doesn't have to be limited to that.

So diversion can span I think a little bit more of prevention and diversion.

I would call eviction prevention more so you're already in that home versus diversion resources.

Obviously, can be used in our shelter system amongst our unsheltered community.

But I do think there is overlap in that.

Yeah.

Well, and I would agree, maybe I'll use different words, but I would agree with my colleagues that it is inhumane to think that your choices between shelter and getting folks off the street into a shelter or some kind something off the street versus prevention and keeping someone who is or a family that is currently housed and keeping them housed, or as you said, one little chunk of money that would take someone who is on the street and actually get them back, whether that's family reunification that seems to have a high degree of success, seems to be a little more cost effective.

I don't want it's people centered, not dollars.

Um I'm also supportive of funding eviction prevention as well, given the success that we see with those programs, as well as family reunification given the success that we've seen.

And I know that the success of those is not just about the dollars, but the service providers and those who the case managers and how they work with those individuals to identify them, give them the options, and get them on to a better path of success, which simply kind of meets housing.

I think this has been asked several different times, and you've very graciously answered it every single time.

I'm still a little confused about a proposal that doesn't sixteenth and nuisance, a problem, right?

It's a huge number of beds, but it has an infrastructural problem, right?

You have a dry winter, which we don't want, it's good all year round.

Uh we have a winner.

The partial is that because we're not partially closing it, but it's how long it would take to close it, and that's why there's reduction, or are you actually thinking about keeping some beds in 16th and Newton?

Or is it I think what Lisa kind of mentioned that is like, no, no, we're going to figure out how to save 100 plus beds someplace else that we haven't identified.

So, what does that line item mean to you?

At this point with the proposal in front of you, the underlying result would be a reduction in beds at 16th and Newton.

A future decision of that site would come with additional uh layers of conversation.

Okay.

Um, so I'm gonna ask a question that everybody in this room knows the answer to.

Have we found a replacement for 16th and Newton?

A physical location?

No.

Okay.

Um let me circle back with the same question about.

Yeah, it's hard to think that we're going to spend precious dollars repairing, relocating.

As humane as all that effort is, those are not where we should be spending our dollars.

Closing 16th and Newton isn't a good option either, as everybody I think has stated.

Um day center.

I think a lot of the comments we're gonna hear today from the public is going to talk about Neil Good.

Um, one can argue that it's inhumane given the condition that Neil Good is it and everybody's talked about what that is.

We can also talk about how humane it is, because it even if for the poor physical condition, it is an extraordinary service that we can't seem to find.

Have we had any success in terms of finding an alternative site?

Not talking about the funding, that's a different question, but a physical space that would replace Neil Good because nobody seems to be willing to put in money to fix it to a better condition.

I assume the answer is no.

I don't have a physical space at this point.

Okay.

Yeah, the answer is no, uh, Council President.

So I think the uh navigation center, which I think is called the Hub now, its life is pretty short, right?

That won't be around for much longer.

That's my understanding.

Okay.

Because it could be converted, independently, torn down and rebuilt to affordable housing.

So I know that was one thing that people are floating around, people being me.

Um so I you know, I I guess I'll close with the the last comment that uh council president pro Tim, we options are being put in front of us.

Um at some point, the budget is not the mayor's budget, it is our budget.

Um it's much harder for us to navigate budget decisions, um, given the complexity, given the interrelationship, given the funding strings, as you remind us of, but on the other hand, that's kind of where we're at.

Um to the mayor's office keep us informed about HAP in terms of what the council can do to encourage our representatives up there and especially the governor about how important it is.

I will say that I did join Path and other providers up in Sacramento, um, and the love they gave for what the city is doing was pretty extraordinary on the housing side that we're creating this pathway or pipeline to housing, um, that we are actually quite serious on how we spend our dollars and how we're building housing.

Um, not enough.

No one's getting a padded deck, no mission accomplished line, but there is recognition.

I think that serves us very well in terms of talking with the Governor's office to get that back up to a billion and the humanity that goes along with that.

So anyway, um I think I'm gonna close there with that.

Um thank you, Sarah, your entire team.

Uh thank you to all the providers that you contract with.

And we'll start to dig in and see where we can land.

Um with that, um, we'll close this item.

And unlike uh the previous days, we only have one topic on this item.

So not seeing anybody else in the lights, no additional comments by the IBA.

I don't know how you're gonna be able to help us, but we're really gonna lean into the IBA.

Not for policy decisions.

That's uh that's our role.

Uh but numbers running is what you all do very well.

I think it's going to be critically important.

So, um, before I go to public comment, I made this observation yesterday since I'm chairing the meeting.

Uh I think most of you know, and if you don't, the refreshment room, the hallway, and the bathrooms have speakers, so everything that is said here is heard.

So one, two, three, four.

So we still have a quorum.

I know some people disagree.

We have a quorum, in my opinion.

We're gonna continue with this.

Every comment you hear can be heard in the back if they're not sitting in the chair up here.

So, with that, please, Sarah, please proceed with public comment on sub item I.

Thank you, Council President.

Subitem I, homelessness strategies and solutions is now open.

Each speaker will have one minute.

We've received 52 speaker slips here in chambers.

If I call your name, if you can please come to the front of the room, and if you've been seated time, if you can please be sure that people that seated time are in the room, I'll call your name and you can just indicate with a wave.

We will begin with Suede Johnson.

Your group will be followed by Jacob Edwards and Teresa Smith and Josh Bonin.

And Suede, you have been seated time by Robinique.

Is Robin Ek present?

Oh, thank you.

Karen, and Carla.

Great.

And so you will have a total of four minutes on the clock in front to manage.

Please begin.

All right.

Thank you, Council President, and the members of City Council for the opportunity to speak today.

My name is Sway Johnson, and I'm proud to serve as a part of the on-house care team with the downtown San Diego Partnership Foundation.

Every day, our teams, which include coordinated outreach, the family reunification program, the hub, uh shelter at Lot O, and our workforce readiness program.

We're working directly on the streets with individuals who do experience homelessness.

We're building trust, connecting people to services, and helping people ultimately move towards stability.

We have seen real progress through the city's investments in coordinated homeless response.

The Safe Sleeping Program has provided hundreds of individuals with safer and more stable environment while reducing impacts to the surrounding neighborhoods and the people connected and connecting people to housing, health care identification services, and case management.

For many individuals, it's been the first steps towards recovery.

We've also seen a lot of success through our coordinated street or coordinated street outreach by working closely with the city's homelessness strategies department and our partners, including ESD, SDPD, 211, the Housing Commission, and outreach organizations across the region.

We've been able to improve coordination, reduce duplication, and connect people to more resources faster than ever before.

Additionally, through our workforce readiness program, we are helping individuals who are experiencing homelessness, reconnect to employment opportunities, earn income, rebuild confidence, and ultimately transition in a housing connected uh transition into housing through connected supportive services.

These programs are proving that when people are given the opportunity, support, and dignity, that lives can change.

We want to thank the city and the homeless strategies department for their partnership and leadership.

We would also, but we also know that there's still much more work that we can do.

I don't think anyone, including us service providers, would say that we are anywhere near where we need to be yet.

We see every day that with additional resources, stronger regional coordination, and expanded services, we can do even even more.

That is why we respectfully ask for your continued support and funding for these critical programs.

We also ask for your advocacy to ensure the city of San Diego increases its partnership and presence in our streets, particularly in addressing the growing mental health and behavioral health crisis that frontline outreach workers encounter every day.

Homelessness is not a challenge that any one agency can solve alone, but together through partnership, accountability, sustained investment, we can continue to make meaningful progress for both our unhoused neighbors and our communities.

Thank you for our time.

Thank you for your time and continued leadership.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jacob Edwards, please approach elector, and you will have one minute.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of uh city council.

I would like to offer a special thank you to all the human service professionals.

Um do the hard work every day in the trenches, uh, supporting homeless services.

Thank you for what you do.

City council, I think it's time that we start confronting things at this city hall for what they are.

Um, we confront things for what things are and not what things appear to be.

Enough is enough.

I would like to say, um, for what's going on at the safe sleep sites, uh, the true intent behind those sites is completely unacceptable.

The disposal of U.S.

citizens is completely unacceptable, that uh should not be tolerated.

I hope the governor's office is paying attention to these um city council meetings, that the governor's office needs to be well aware that cutting homeless services is not acceptable whatsoever, that homeless services are very important for the stability and well-being of our communities.

Governor, you must not cut funding for the homelessness services.

Thank you for your comment.

Thank you, City Council.

Our next group is Teresa Smith, and you have been seated time by Daniel Rubin.

Is Daniel present?

Thank you.

Kelly Spoon, Nancy Vera, and JJ.

Great.

So you will have a total of five minutes.

Thank you.

Good morning, council members, and thank you for your time.

As many of you know, my name is Teresa Smith, and I am the CEO of Dreams for Change and the operator of the 20th and B safe sleep site and two-thirds of the OC site.

I wanted to start by telling you why safe sleep is important to me.

And it started with one of our early clients that I was able to connect with.

Sean came to us as a carefree hippie who only really wanted to just live peacefully outside and not be harassed.

He'd asked for a referral into the site.

So I alerted our San Diego Hot team to go find them and bring them on in.

They knew exactly who he was because he spent 20 years out there on the street.

Um so they brought him over to us.

And we spent six months just going to Sean.

Hey, how can we help you?

We're here to help.

And he'd come back to us.

I'm fine, I got my tent and not being harassed.

And we started watching his health decline.

And we kept offering medical services.

Let us get you connected, let us get you help.

Again, he was just fine.

Then all of a sudden there was a knock on the door.

It was Sean.

He was ready for that medical assistance.

That led to case management, that led to housing.

And now we're a year and a half later, and he's still in that same apartment after spending 20 years on the streets.

I'm here to show that the safe sleep program is a critical component of the shelter system and needs to be kept at its current funding levels.

The city's own Office of city auditors just released report that clearly states the Safe Sleep Program is a key factor of the reduction of the public sleeping that we're seeing on the streets.

So who are the individuals that are making it to the safe sleep program and off the streets?

Well, when we're comparing the safe sleep residents to those who are experiencing homelessness that are not making into the program, those in safe sleep program are experiencing a 59% higher rate of mental illnesses.

The rates of our residents with disabling conditions are 53% higher.

And the substance use disorders is 23% higher than the others that are being experiencing homelessness.

They're out there on the streets.

So the program is reaching the most vulnerable in the most critical time, as evident by the number of lives that it is saving.

Jeff is one of those such residents.

He overdosed six times over the course of two days.

And our staff was there to narcant them and bring them back each time.

After the 12th time of his overdose, he finally came to us and said, Hey, I think I'm ready for some detox and some recovery type services.

Our team was able to connect him and send him on his path to recovery.

As most nonprofits, we understand that budgets are tight and that there are competing priorities.

But the safe statement inherently has multiple added values.

What other program leverages medical services, behavioral health, harm reduction, pet care, connections to benefits, and any really other services that they may need, veteran services, right there on site, at no cost to the city.

And we're saving lives.

So I am recommending to the council to not cut the safe sleep budgets and to main its current funding level so that we can continue to see improvements on the streets of San Diego and continue to save lives like Sean and Jeff.

Thank you guys for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Josh.

And Josh, you've been seated time by Monique.

Is Monique present?

Thank you.

And Deborah?

Thank you.

So you will have three minutes.

Please begin.

Hi, Council Josh Bohan with Father Joe's Villages.

We are San Diego's oldest and largest homeless services provider for 75 years.

You know, every year we do the stance with the day center.

Funding is always reduced for it.

We have these conversations during the budget process and funding is historically restored.

And so we knew we'd be doing this again this year, and we knew the outlook of the budget was brutal.

And you all have really tough decisions to make.

But what makes this year so different is when we read the budget, it wasn't just a reduction.

The words in the budget were closure.

Closure of the Neil Good Day Center, which, you know, a facility of that size, it served 6,700 people last year on doing good clients, San Diegans, who are unsheltered, who have nowhere to go to the bathroom, nowhere to take showers, nowhere to do laundry, nowhere to take a rest during the day.

A closure of a physical space of that size that serves that many people will have serious implications on the entire homeless continuum.

Where are outreach workers gonna go to find their individuals that they're working with?

Where are our health teams gonna go to find people for their medication refills or for their follow-ups?

And so, you know, what we ask, and and you're gonna hear from plenty of people today talking about what the day center offers.

And really what I want you to do is listen to these comments and take in the wide breadth of services that are available to the community that can really only be done at a physical location.

And I think the council members have done an excellent job of kind of describing the challenges we're gonna have of closing a physical location for day center activities.

We have to have a physical location for day center activities within the city of San Diego.

It is a critical piece of our entire continuum, and without it the other services are not gonna be as effective.

You're gonna have less people exiting homelessness, less interactions with your case managers, you're gonna have more police involvement because there's gonna be number of people to go during the day to get off the streets.

There's gonna be nowhere to store your things, so you can go to your job, go to your your doctor's appointment to get healthy, and all these will have consequences.

Um, but you're gonna hear today from the outreach workers whose blood, sweat, and tears, go into the day center daily.

You're gonna hear from volunteer groups, including a 16-year-old who's here with his parents who volunteers at the day center, is gonna talk about his experience serving our community, having a physical location to get back to San Diego and to others.

You're gonna hear from health workers, you're gonna hear from our new our uh our food services team, right?

Hope bridge people built that trust, build that comfort, and build that relationship to help improve people's conditions in their lives.

A day center is more than just a physical location, it's a place, it's a it's a foundation where trust can be built with the homeless services system.

It's a reliable spot where people can go and know that I will be cared about, um, I will be worked with, I will be seen, and I, and I will be safe.

And so if we lose a physical location of a day center, that's a serious impact to the entire continuum, and that must be part of your considerations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I will invite the next group of speakers to come up to the front of the room in the reserve seats.

We'll begin testimony with Paul Delecio.

You will be followed by Patricia Chagnon, Levi Shears, Joanne Trevillio, and Helen Coyne and Paul, you have been seated time by Elisa.

Salisa present.

Thank you.

Samar, Sebastian, and Chelsea.

Great.

So there will be five minutes placed on the clock for you to manage.

Please begin.

All right.

Uh, thank you very much for hearing us and uh it's an honor to be here.

I like Mr.

LaCava, I did have to start with one uh correction that the day center doesn't house individuals.

Uh the day center exceeds every single one of its outcomes.

Housing is not one of the day center's outcomes.

The day center is one of the city's most successful programs, if not these most successful.

We report to other funders on other reports the housing that we do.

For example, we housed 20 individuals in March alone.

20 individuals.

Many of you talk about prevention and diversion.

Shelter diversion hub for San Diego is the Neil Good Day Center.

And we do, we at Father Joe's bring money into the system that we're not even reporting to you to do diversion out of the Neil Good Day Center.

To say that the day center doesn't do housing is like saying a hospital doesn't do heart surgery because you're only looking at the pediatric department.

We also did more than 3,000 shelter referrals last year.

Right now, there are more than 25 clients standing in line at the Neil Good Day Center to get into shelter.

The only place you can walk into and get a shelter referral in downtown San Diego.

Tell me what other program does that for under $900,000, pays the other half of their budget out of donations, and provides all the other services that the Neil Good Day Center does.

The East village has seen significant gentrification over the past decade with the opening of massive housing towers, such as the red and yellow towers, and businesses such as large sports bar complexes.

God's extended hand closed, mental health clubhouse closed, 16th street bathrooms closed, homeless dub closing and closed, 16 free showers closed, and next, the day center, the alpha tent on 17th, Father Joe's villages.

And what's the reasoning behind all of this?

Well, I'll tell you what we hear.

We're not meeting the business needs.

There are people on the streets because of the day center.

We should shut down fire stations because there's fires in the area.

We should shut down hospitals because there's six people.

We should shut down a day center because there are unhoused people.

Solutions and causes are different things.

Right wing, left wing, and center research.

Listen, many causes to homelessness from drugs to unaffordable housing, from mental health care to poverty.

None of them list a day center.

In 2016, KPS reported, we looked at relocating and just sort of forced everybody down there to the East Village.

Said Mike Spencer, associate director of city planning.

In 1989, at the opening of the day center, the head of the United Way, Terry Riggins said, we have more homeless men now than ever before.

You just have to look around to see that.

When, and I've always said this, when there's a lot of people on the street, we say we have to open a day center.

Then businesses move in and say, wow, there's a lot of people on the street, and there's a day center.

We need to shut down that day center.

Then we hear the day center is not doing what it's intended to do.

The day center was doing its job during the HEPA outbreak, it was doing his job during COVID, and it's doing its job now.

The day center was the only center open to the public during COVID.

Uh the day center is one of the city's most economically successful programs.

Contract outcomes increase every single year, and the day center meets them.

3,161 shelter referrals in 2025.

In 2025, we were contracted to serve 5,000 clients.

We serve more than 6,000.

And this year we'll be more than 7,000.

Many of you reference the RTFH count that is that we're having a decrease in street homelessness.

Our numbers are increasing at the day center.

What does that tell you?

Where are people going for help?

Next, we hear you need to control these people.

The day center serves its purpose.

It does not control people, it serves people.

Imagine the East Village without a day center.

The East Village is safer, cleaner, and healthier due to the day center.

It is a respirate place for those who have nowhere else to go during the day, most importantly, women who cannot rest at night on the streets because it is unsafe for them.

They come to the day center and sit behind our security to be safe.

The day center fills one to two dumpsters every single day with trash and food waste that would otherwise be on the street.

The day center operates public restrooms in two locations and has active programs to combat lice and scabies.

The day center is a recovery gateway for many San Diegans through our Are You Done Yet events and every single day?

And medical services happen every single week at the day center.

Finally, we hear we need to cut our budget.

What program does over a hundred thousand direct services for under a million dollars?

What program raises money and has volunteers for half of its budget?

If the day center is one of the most successful programs, if it's serving its purpose, if it's a great deal for the taxpayers, and it's needed by the clients, why are we closing?

We often have, especially as politicians, a choice between the influence of money and standing by your constituents.

If you want hundreds of constituents to lose showers, then vote to keep the day, then vote to close the day center.

If you want hundreds of constituents not to be diverted for homelessness, then close a day center.

If you want thousands of constituents to lose their mailing address, lose their mailing address.

There's no other mailing address for our clients downtown.

Then vote to close the day center.

And finally, if you want your constituents not to get shelter referrals, then close the day center.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment, Patricia.

Hello.

My name is Pat Shagnan, and I serve on the programs board of Father Joe's Villages.

I am concerned about cuts to funding of the day center and other homeless services.

Homelessness is a personal to my family.

My sister became homeless after escaping abusive marriage.

And two of her three children later experienced homelessness as well.

I have seen firsthand how homelessness can tear families apart and continue across generations when people do not get the support they need.

My nephew received support through Father Joe's Villages and now has stable housing for himself and his two children.

That is why cuts to the day center and other homeless services concern me so deeply.

Shelter referral services, health care, housing support are not extras.

They are lifelines that help people regain stability, dignity, and hope.

If you want to truly address homelessness in our city, save the day center.

Thank you.

Levi.

Hello, my name's Levi Shears.

I'm with Father Joe's Villages.

I have some concerns regarding the proposed cuts to funding for the Neal Good Day Center.

The loss of the Day Center will mean that members of our community who are experiencing homelessness will be without one of the few safe places they have in the community to sleep, shower, receive their mail, and take significant steps towards stability.

It also means that our neighbors who are just now experiencing homelessness for the first time will lose access to one of the resources that help them navigate this continuum of care in San Diego.

And without the day center, I fear that we will see short-term crises turn into long episodes of homelessness where folks are engaged in high cost interventions, including law enforcement, emergency rooms, and uh the over the already overcrowded shelters that we have.

I worry that by funding that by dis unfunding the day center, we will see a crisis that will continue in San Diego.

I ask you to please fully fund the day center in 2027.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Joanne.

Hi, my name is Joan Truhill, and uh I'm also a worker at Father Joe's Villages.

And so I'm gonna tell you my story.

I actually uh, I actually it was it how did I say okay?

I did experience homelessness and addiction that I've been cleaning six years now, going on seven in September, and I utilize the day center and Father Joe's villages of when I was an addict.

Uh I'm a recovering addict, thank God, and you know what, they gave me the opportunity.

I started off as a volunteer, and they gotta like it.

Some of the, you know, the boss got a liking to me and we started working, and it helps me because when I go to the village every day, and I think about looking backwards, I look forward, and I see why was that at one point, and it helps me, it helps me gain all that back, and I couldn't do it without them.

And I help others, I've been working for Father Joseph for four years now, and I help others when I see them get out of prison and I see them coming and I see them in the addiction.

I see them and I go, go to the day center, go to the day center and help.

You know, thank you very much, but uh, please don't shut down the day center.

Thank you, Helen.

Hi, my name is Helen Coyne.

I'm the culinary arts instructor at Father Joe's Villages, so I help people who are wanting to get their lives back together and um get into the industry.

We help them find meaningful jobs in the industry.

We're employing several people at the Sheraton Harbor Island, and these are really good jobs.

The starting point for my clients is the day center.

That is where they get the help that they need, and and where we can offer those services where they can find the shelter, and once they're in shelter, we can give them the services they need, whether it's health care.

I work closely with the executive chef, and we provide nutritious meals for people, and without those, without healthy food, how can you live?

Right?

So we we're providing healthy food, we're providing shelter, we're providing help to get people to get the skills they need to get meaningful employment and to get housing and to be self-sufficient.

Please do not close the day center.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And inviting the next group of speakers to come to the front of the room, please.

Paul Scheck, Celeste Mont, Elena McCollin, Myrna, and Thomas LeBelle.

And Paul Shek, you have been seated time by Jesse, is Jesse present.

Thank you, Deborah.

Thank you, and Raina.

Excellent.

So you'll have four minutes, beginning with Paul.

All right, thank you.

I am Paul Scheck, and I'm the manager of the Neil Good Day Center.

Last year, 6,712 unique individuals came through my front gate to provide to seek help and services.

That's a big number.

Big number.

Why would they come?

Because the day center is part of the solution to end homelessness, not the problem.

The Neil Good Day Center is the only place in the city that does walk-in shelter referrals, guidance and resources.

Many of the people that come, I'm gonna say 2,000 that came were newly homeless individuals, scared, uncertain of how to navigate the system, and what to do next.

They can walk in.

How do they get there?

Well, I hear it every day.

211 refers me here.

Other organizations bring their clients to us.

If we're not there, where are they gonna go?

6,712.

Are they gonna be in your jurisdictions?

Do you have a day center ready for them?

Because they're gonna be there, they're not gonna disappear.

The Neil Good Day Center is truly part of the solution, not the problem.

The truth is you do not become homeless one day, and then go someplace and get keys to an apartment the next.

That's not how it works.

There's an in-between time that needs to be addressed.

That's where the day center comes in.

We provide paper people a mailing address so they can get the very documents that they need to get housing.

We provide a place for storage so they can store their belongings.

A place to stay clean in our showers.

Imagine if there is no showers, where will they shower?

In your constituents' business bathrooms, perhaps.

6,712 unique individuals received 97,000 services from my staff.

What other program in the city does that and is half funded by Father Joe's Villages?

So we pay half of that.

Very economical.

Hundreds of people access our program daily just to use the bathrooms.

Where are they gonna go if we're not there?

That's a lot of people.

That's a lot of toilet paper.

That's a lot of things.

Women in the elderly that are unsafe to sleep at night come into my program every day to sleep on our hill because it's a secure environment.

That's really important.

Think about that.

If you were out on the street, if you want to increase the vulnerability of women and elderly on the street, then go ahead and defund this day center.

But if you want to support the city's most successful and economical program, like it was mentioned, we exceed our outcomes by 200% or more every year.

And we do that just by opening the gate.

What we're talking about here is not shutting down a day center.

We're talking about shutting down the day center, the only day center.

Where else are people gonna go?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Celeste.

Morning, council members.

My name is Dumas Celes.

I was born here.

I was raised here in this amazing city.

And today I work in human resources at Father Joe's Villages, supporting the people who do this amazing work.

I've walked these streets my entire life, including along some of some of you council members as well.

We've seen what this city looks like when systems are working, and we've seen what happens when they're not.

People know where to go when they need help.

Outreach teams know it, community members know it.

And when someone is struggling, people can just go and say that go to the day center.

That trust, that outreach took years, a lot of years and time to build that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Elena.

Good morning, City Council members.

My name is Elena McCullum, and I'm with Father Joe's Villages.

I vividly remember the first time I came to the day center to visit it, and the first thing I saw was people sleeping exhausted under canopies that filtered out the hot midday sun, but safe within the walls enclosing the patio of the day center.

Why?

Because it was not safe for them to sleep the night before where they were on the streets.

As Councilmember Whitburn pointed out, as so many of my colleagues have pointed out, you will be hearing about the many services that the day center helps people connect to.

And you have heard indeed already.

It's more than a respite, it's the beginning.

It's the connection point.

They get access to hot nutritious meals, access to emergency shelter, the prospect of long-term housing, of escaping homelessness at last through case management, job training, health care, therapy, and so much more.

Please do not close the day center.

Where will people go?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mirna.

And Mary Mirna, you have been seated time by Anthony.

Is Anthony present?

Thank you.

So I'll place two minutes.

Two minutes.

Thank you.

Good morning, City Council members.

My name is Mirna Davalos, and I work at Father Joe's Villages.

And I live in City Council District 7, where my husband and I are raising our five and our three-year-olds.

And I am deeply concerned about the proposed budget cuts to homeless services, especially the day center.

I was initially relieved to hear that the mayor was prioritizing homelessness and then shocked to learn that there was any cuts for homeless services.

Cutting these services will not reduce homelessness, it will make it harder for people to exit homelessness and regain stability.

Recently, my five-year-old had his first awareness of homelessness.

He said, Mommy, I saw homeless person today.

Excuse me, what makes you think that they were homeless?

He said, because they were sleeping on the ground.

I asked him what he thought about that, and he quietly said, That's not good, mommy.

It's not nice.

I paused initially, not really knowing how to respond, but he looked at me and confidently said, It's okay, mommy.

The people will help him find a home so he can have one like I do from the mouth of a child.

My son instinctively understands something we cannot afford to forget.

When people are suffering, we help them.

Please do not cut funding for the day center or other homeless services.

In a worsening crisis, this is when you when we are supposed to lean into compassion, dignity, and solutions.

I want to be able to look at my children in the eyes and tell them that yes, the people did help them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Thomas Lavell.

And Thomas, you will be followed by Dr.

Latha Sandar, RJ, and Kay Rafana, if Kay Rafanon, if those individuals would like to make their way down to the big front seat.

Thank you for your patience.

One minute.

Thank you.

Thank you, members of the city council.

I also want to express my appreciation to uh city staff and the housing commission.

In my experience, um, you've all been great collaborators, and this is a really difficult situation with the budget.

Um, I've been with Father Joe's 11 years, the collective time with the colleagues in this room is approaching two centuries.

Service of San Diego, and I love these people because they save lives.

The day center, there's so many stories to tell, and it's an entry point for people.

And I think about the father I met on the point in time count last year, who was waking up his four daughters in a tent in the park, getting them ready for school, and his phone was dead.

He needed some place to go to charge his phone.

I personally am in recovery.

Last week I was at a meeting, talked to somebody afterwards who'd fallen on hard times.

He needed a shower.

I connected him to the day center.

We are better than this, and I appreciate your consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Dr.

Sandar?

And you have been seated time by Olivia.

Is Olivia President?

Good afternoon.

Thank you.

And Sanita?

Excuse me.

Thank you.

Three minutes, please begin.

Good afternoon, respected council members.

Thank you for the opportunity for to speak on behalf of my less privileged neighbors.

I'm Lata Sunder, and I've been involved with serving the homeless at Neil Good Day Shelter, the center for over three decades.

And the rest of my volunteers and service members in one of our two nonprofits have been serving for over 50 years.

I'm also in a board member of a couple of different nonprofit organizations, which help homelessness as well as provide scholarships.

So I'm saying all this not for any other reason except to say that there are hundreds and hundreds of people who truly care in making a difference for our less privileged neighbors.

Specifically with respect to Neil Good Day Center, we make sure you provide uh fresh food, uh, fruits, living essentials like blankets, toiletries, clothing, shoes, socks, a lot more.

During COVID, we supplied thousand tens of thousands of face masks and hand sanitizers, and uh the sc the scholarships go to the Avid programs, which take kids who are underprivileged, and many of them are now serving as leaders of a community.

Along with all the members of our different nonprofits and uh the private uh entities in our in our volunteer group, we are dedicated, totally dedicated to helping the less privileged uh for the last several decades, and I can absolutely 100% more and more vouch for the very critically important role played by Neil Good Day Center.

Uh I personally visit the Day Center at least four times a week.

We go in, mingle with all the homeless.

I have friends over here.

Uh Isaac is right here, Sean, and Mike, and many others who can have to make it here.

Um I've known them for decades.

Uh, this is a very well-managed and highly effective site, which provides very essentially and critically necessary uh access to facilities such as restrooms, shower stalls, laundry, mailroom, uh, the computers for employment, so it is much needed rest from either the sun or the rain.

And I've seen this with my eyes day after day.

I've been in Calcutta, so you can imagine we should not be comparing ourselves to such situations.

This is California, this is San Diego.

We should not be having this at all.

And it's a it's also an interim program which can save lives, several lives before newly homeless people find shelter.

It's a haven for hope, right?

And it also provides a safe and convenient access to look a location for the for us to provide, for us uh, you know, entities, uh nonprofits like us to provide fresh fruit, snack backs, food, toiletries, and other things like I mentioned.

And many of them tell us thanks for loving us, thanks for caring.

These are human entities, they have numbers, and uh, I know you understand that, and I so appreciate the way you all spoke up for this.

Um, I have um neither uh I or my colleagues at uh the fellow volunteers has in the last several decades seen a big reduction in the number of homeless, to be honest with you.

And in the 60 years of life that I've uh come to realize that I guess I'm out of time.

Okay, this does conclude your time.

Please do not cut the funding from the bottom of my heart.

We are willing to help in any which way possible.

Thank you.

Thank you for your concluding statement.

Our next speaker is RJ Arenson.

And you have been seated time by Ann.

Hamilton, Rob, is Rob present.

Rob and John.

Is John present?

Okay, that will leave you with three minutes with the two speakers present.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you to the council president and the members of the council for allowing me and the other supporters here today to address all of you.

My name is RJ Aronson, and I'm a I'm 16 years old, and I'm a sophomore at Scripts Ranch High School.

I have a younger brother, Sammy, who's in eighth grade.

I want to take just a couple minutes to tell you all why the Neil Good Day Center is such a vital part of our city's efforts to help the homeless, and why it has a special meaning for me and my brother.

My brother and I are avid basketball players.

A few years ago, we noticed that our feet were going so fast, it seemed like every two months we were getting new basketball shoes.

My brother and I thought that there must be a way to donate our lightly used shoes to the homeless or other people in need.

We talked with my parents, and we were fortunate enough to be put in touch with the Neil Good Day Center and Paul Shek.

Paul told us that the shoes were one of the most needed items for homeless people and that we would work with us to get them distributed through the center.

My brother, my brother and I thought that this sounded like a great idea.

So we decided to start an annual shoe drive to collect as many lightly used shoes as possible for the homeless.

Over the last four years, we have had a wonderful partnership with Paul and the Neil Good Day Center.

And in total, we have collected and donated over a thousand pairs of shoes.

We would have never been able to do, we would never have been able to get all these shoes into the hands and onto the feet of so many people in need without the incredible work of Paul and his staff, and it would be a devastating loss if they had to close their doors.

I will never forget our first drop-off day.

It was certainly eye-opening for a kid from Scripps Ranch who really took a lot of things for granted.

There were hundreds of men and women inside and outside of the center, many with just the clothes on their backs and in bare feet or wearing only socks.

When we started unloading the shoes, many people came over and asked if they could have a pair.

It was both heartbreaking and incredibly rewarding to see how grateful everyone was to have a new pair of shoes.

Through our partnership with Paul, my brother and I have seen firsthand the huge impact the Neil Good Day Center has had on the community and the commitment of Paul and his staff to helping the homeless crisis here in San Diego.

The center provides the only place in San Diego where displaced people can do essential functions of living.

Showering, doing laundry, having a safe place to rest or sleep, storing personal items, and getting their mail.

More importantly, it provides them with the dignity and hope that comes with having access to all those things.

This is very important when trying to obtain the ultimate goal, transitioning them into permanent housing and employment.

In conclusion, I want to remind the council that when you ask the average San Diegian what they believe is the most serious issue facing the city.

Most of them don't say potholes are public safety, even though those are important.

They say homelessness.

In addition, our homelessness problem is one of the first things our visitors and tourists see when they come to the gas lamp or take in a game at PECO.

We understand that you have difficult decisions to make with limited resources, but my brother and I would respectfully ask that you not cut the funding for this vital resource for the homeless population in San Diego.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Time by Jennifer.

Is Jennifer present?

Thank you.

So two minutes on the clock.

Good morning, Council members.

Gay Rafinan with Father Joseph Village's Rapid Rehousing and Permanent Supportive Housing.

Housing programs.

When people have access to resources, it shows up in the community.

Case in point, we work with clients during 2016 hepatitis A outbreak and COVID 19.

Eliminating the day center will not reduce street impacts.

It will shift preventable issues onto police workloads.

People will start knocking on residential doors and businesses.

The day center also caters to group of individuals who are stabilizing and managing trauma, and some may not be able to enter the shelter right away or get into permanent housing immediately.

They rely on case management and housing navigation at the day center.

Keeping the day center is the responsible choice for public health, safety, and community stability.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I apologize, Rob Irving's slips got shuffled, so he was separate.

Is Rob Irving in the room?

Okay, great, thank you.

Sorry about that.

So Rob, you've been seated time by John.

So you will have two minutes to speak.

And as you're making your way up, if these individuals would like to make their way up to the front of the room, Lisa Kreyer, Lori Lipsman, Joanne Franciscus, and Hilberto Vera.

All right, two minutes, please begin.

Good morning, Council members.

My name is Robert Irving, District 3.

I'm very lucky to be a director of Father Joe's Villages and recently just finished off being the several years of being the chair.

I'd like to talk to you today about dignity.

Let me start by saying I applaud the council's efforts on finding uh shelter beds and maintaining shelter beds.

But while we work towards that goal, there are still thousands of people on the street, and we can't abandon them while we're working to find additional shelter beds.

I'd like you all to imagine for a moment that when you got up this morning, you weren't able to wash.

In fact, it's hard to remember the last time you had a shower.

Actually, you don't have very many clothes, but you haven't been able to wash those clothes for weeks.

Oh darn, also, it's hard to find a place to go to the bathroom.

It's hard for any of us here to imagine that's the case.

But everyone on the street experiences that.

Well, they experience that unless they have access to the Neil Good Day Center.

And there, they can wash themselves, they can get clean, they can experience some dignity out on the streets.

If we want to, if you if we won't consider San Diego, and what the residents who are housed see when they walk down the streets, and what our tourists see when they walk down the streets.

Imagine how bad it will be if the homeless on the streets don't have someplace to go to the bathroom.

They can't wash their clothes and they can't take a shower.

The tourists' experience of homelessness in San Diego is going to be significantly worse.

The day center also provides an entree into services.

We know.

Is that two minutes?

It is going to be slow.

Thank you.

If you would like to expand on your comments, you can submit a written comment at Council Committee at San Diego.gov, and we will post it and circulate it to the council members.

Lisa?

And Lisa, you will have one minute on the clock in front to manage.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Dr.

Krieger.

I am attended Tulane School of Public Health and attended UCLA School of Medicine.

I also worked and cared for many of our homeless at the clinic at Father Joe's.

Thank you, all of you for all you do in keeping the health and well-being of our community at the forefront of all your decisions.

As you know, prevention is key in public health.

If our homeless are not able to have access to clean water and facilities to wash and clean themselves in their clothes, we put our community at risk for diseases with fecal oral transmission like hepatitis A and many others.

We are not a third-world country.

We should not restrict access to clean water.

I can't tell you how many times I've cared for patients at the clinic with soiled genes and fecal matter running down their legs.

Truth.

I'm so sorry.

Ms.

Lippmann, thank you.

I'll place one more minute on the clock.

Thank you.

Some of our homeless have jobs in the service industry.

They prepare food, and they work at our San Diego County Fair.

Many of them thankfully have those jobs.

Can you imagine receiving a soda from someone who just pulled up their genes and handed it to your parent?

Again, fulminant hepatitis A kills.

Those who are most susceptible are over the age of 50, and they my last patient in the ICU is waiting for a liver transplant, had no prior illnesses and was in his late 40s.

There were 400 hospitalizations with this last epidemic.

I don't know, maybe it was too far for you to recall, but that was just in 2017-2018.

We had a major crisis then.

It is going to be much worse because actually vaccinations, people are reluctant to get them these days.

So I beg of you, please do not create another public health crisis.

It was hard enough last year.

Thanks.

Thank you for your concluding remark, Joanne.

And Joanne, you have been seated time by Setza Lopez?

Thank you.

So you will have two minutes.

Good morning, City Council members.

I'm Joanne Francisca, CEO of the Legal Aid Society of San Diego.

We provide free legal services for lower-income San Diegans to address the root causes of poverty and inequity, and we run the city's eviction prevention program.

Each year, the EPP helps thousands of San Diegans avoid eviction and homelessness by providing a one-stop shop of outreach education, clinic assistance, legal representation, case management, and emergency financial assistance.

The EPP started in 2021, sustained a funding cut the next grant cycle and has not seen an increase since, despite overwhelming demand for services.

Every year, funding runs out prior to the end of the grant term, and we are forced to reduce services, including this year when we have not spent any grant funds on emergency financial assistance since August.

So any reduction in funding will force us to decrease legal services, which would mean more people falling into homelessness that could have been spared.

Homelessness prevention is a crucial strategy in dealing with the housing crisis, and the EPP is extraordinarily effective and efficient.

From July 2024 through March of this year, the EPP provided legal representation to almost 4,000 households of the cases resolved to date, more than 92% avoided homelessness.

It would have cost the government an estimated $50,000 per individual per year to address homelessness after it occurred.

By contrast, the EPP helped prevent trauma, save taxpayers' money, and reduce the strain on emergency services 92% of the time, and did so for an average one-time cost per household of just eleven hundred and forty-eight dollars.

At a time when federal safety net programs are being cut and more people are facing financial and housing instability.

Every dollar invested in the EPP is a morally and fiscally responsible investment that benefits the entire city.

Respectfully, the IDA's proposed cuts would be catastrophic to the city's progress in addressing homelessness.

I urge you to maintain level funding for the EPP.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And our next speaker is Gilberto Vera and Mr.

Vary, you've been seated time by Marnie.

Marnie present, thank you.

And Mr.

Vera, before you begin, I'm going to invite the next group of speakers down.

Dominic Lemendry, if you can please come down.

Is Ian Rim.

Gloria Cruz and Steven Russell and Mr.

Vera, you'll have two minutes on the clock.

Please begin.

Thank you.

Good morning, Council President, Council members.

My name is Gil Vera from Legal Aid Society San Diego.

I'm the director of our housing justice collaborative, and I'm here to speak in strong support of fully funding the City of St.

Diego's eviction prevention program.

EPP is one of the city's most effective tools at preventing homelessness, and the data clearly shows that the investment works.

From July 2024 through March 2026, the EPP served nearly 4,000 households, helping more than 8,000 San Diegans and over 2,500 children.

In the same period, the EPP also provided over 2300 court-based clinic services, answered more than 3,500 hotline calls, and made over 4,000 referrals, and conducted over 50 education outreach events across the city.

The EPP also delivers real tangible outcomes for families.

Because of the EPP, our attorneys were able to assist a family facing an unlawful eviction.

We determined that the notice was illegally was invalid, the unit was unpermitted, and the land and the tenant was facing landlord intimidation and discrimination.

With EPB support, our attorneys fully litigated the case, negotiated a resolution where the tenant received over $10,000 in relocation assistance, nearly $14,000 in waived rent, the return of her security deposit, and critically no eviction on her record.

Without the EPP, this client likely would have faced an unlawful eviction and possible homelessness.

Instead, a relatively modest investment in legal services prevented displacement, avoided downstream public costs, and helped her move into stable and safe housing.

In short, the EPP saves homes, saves families, and saves taxpayer dollars.

Given the rising rents, increasing eviction filings and federal funding cuts, reducing the EPP now would jeopardize the progress we have made as a city in preventing homelessness.

I urge the council to at least maintain EPP funding at the three million level.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

And for the public's awareness, we have 12 speakers left here in chambers with 10 hands up currently in the virtual queue.

Dominic Lemendry, you have been seated time by Max Dobson as Max present.

Thank you.

And Gabby, thank you.

So Mr.

Lemendry, you'll have three minutes.

Thank you.

Good morning.

My name is Dominic Lemandry, District Director of the Ballpark District Community Partnership.

The ballpark district's cleanup crew is responsible for cleanliness, safety, and public realm services within the 22 blocks surrounding PECO Park.

The ballpark district is a neighborhood.

It is a home, it is home to thousands of residents, the central library, MTS headquarters, small businesses, San Diego Padres, E3 Civic High School, and major employers.

Our district also includes Imperial Avenue from the ballpark district or from the ballpark to Interstate 5, which is the most challenging and highest crime areas in San Diego.

Since July, we have removed nearly half a million pounds of trash from city sidewalks.

This is a difficult work.

This is difficult work, and our team is out there every day helping the neighborhood clean, keep the neighborhood clean, safe, and accessible.

We work closely with city SDPD neighborhood policing, DPW abatement teams, and property owners throughout the neighborhood and have made meaningful progress.

We appreciate the collaboration that has made that possible.

We also want to thank Councilmember Whitburn for his leadership on the unsafe and camp unsafe camping ordinance, which has been an important tool in helping reduce unsheltered population in downtown San Diego.

At the same time, we want to be candid about the challenges that remain.

A significant share of the city's total shelter beds, homeless services, and encampments are located in and around our neighborhood, creating real impacts for residents, workers, and businesses.

We support preserving shelter bids because they provide an alternative to sidewalks or freeways, and we believe the city should prioritize programs that move people off the streets and into shelter, housing and/or treatment.

With nine or ten shelter requests currently going unfilled, any shelter closures or reductions should have replacement bids in place before existing ones are taken offline.

Services such as showers or mail should be operated within existing shelters whenever possible rather than through standalone facilities.

The public safety impacts are also significant.

According to SDPD data, 16th and 17th Street between Imperial and J Street make up only, or excuse me, Imperial and K Street make up only 0.02 square miles within central division based on geography alone.

This should account for only 0.02% of police related activities.

Instead, it accounts for 15 times more calls for service, 20 times more crime cases, and 30 times more rest than would otherwise be expected.

When one neighborhood is asked to support a disproportionate share of the city's shelter and homeless infrastructure, it must also be provided with public safety resources, cleanliness, and street level support needed to manage that responsibility and prevent conditions from deteriorating.

Commitments were made to this community, and those commitments matter.

Our neighborhood will continue to do its part.

We are proud of the progress that has been made and ask that this work continue through a balanced coordinated and citywide approach.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Azine Rim.

And you have been seated time by Tassi.

Tassi President.

Thank you.

So I will place two minutes on the clock in front for you to manage.

Greetings.

I've got a book.

The name of the book, 35 years doing good.

The book is the name the book is about the day center.

And also the book is about homeless people trying to do the right thing.

If you give them the opportunity.

A lot of babies were born that year.

Now, 35 years later, and I met some of them on the street that was born and raised in the city of San Diego.

And by closing the day center down, what are you doing?

You turn your back on them.

So I plead with you on the behalf of the Day Center and the good work that it does and the many people that it served every day because I see it every day.

I talk to clients every day.

I am a homeless person myself.

I'm an advocate for them, for the community, for the police department, for the business people, for everybody.

I'm not against nobody here.

Only I'm asking for opportunity.

But the last chapter is up to you in this book.

Thank you very much and have a good day.

Thank you for your concluding remark.

Our next speaker is Gloria.

And Gloria, you've been seated at time by Jacob.

Jacob President, thank you.

So I will place two minutes on the clock for you to manage.

Good morning, Council members.

My name is Gloria Cuscardenas and the chief impact officer at the San Diego LGBT Community Center.

The center is grateful for the quick response from the council last year during the budget process, especially during times where we're looking at federal protections for LGBTQ plus people and transgender individuals are facing increasing threats.

I am here to request to continue support of our substance use disorder treatment services.

Last year we received vital opioid settlement funds to sustain this program.

However, as the current budget does not yet reflect the reallocation of those settlement funds for the upcoming year, I am here to formally ask the council to ensure that this funding is sustained.

For the second year in the role, the center has not received CDBG funds.

Therefore, the opioid settlement allocation is not just a request for us, but it is a lifeline for our community.

Our SUD services mitigate the harm causes by criminalization stigma and systemic inequities.

We provide trauma informed care that helps our communities with resilience and navigation recovery.

This funding sustains our staff.

Many of our employees are LGBTQ individuals who are already bearing the brunt of a whole style political climate.

We have proven that with the $300,000, we can deeply impact those struggling with the substance use.

Imagine the reach that we could have with even greater support.

We also ask for more clarity regarding regarding the total remaining opioid settlement funds balance.

The center meets every requirement to administer these funds effectively.

We urge you that the city developed a strategy that prioritizes trusted community-based agencies like ourselves who already are doing the work on the ground distribute more funding.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Stephen Russell and Mr.

Russell, before you begin, I'm gonna invite the final group of speakers up to the front of the room, Jeffrey Burrs, Blair Beekman, Natalie Ratchke, and Kenna.

Please begin, Mr.

Russell.

Good morning, honorable chair and council members.

My name is Steven Russell.

I'm the president and CEO of the San Diego Housing Federation, where we believe that everybody has a right to a safe and affordable place to live.

We're also a uh one of the founding partners of the basic needs coalition.

The homeless strategies and solutions department provides absolutely critical services that stand between vulnerable San Diegans and the street.

The proposed cuts would severely reduce them, uh critical these critical services.

Homelessness is a housing problem, and the solution to homelessness encompasses the entire spectrum of services that this department uh provides.

Removing any one of them creates breaks a key link in the chain that brings people to housing.

Uh the end goal is permanent housing for everyone, but uh you know it's gonna take a while.

The recently released point in time count suggests we may finally be at an inflection point in this crisis, and to pull back now to pull back support just when we're reaching this pivot point would be more than short-sighted, would be tragic.

These are not line items, these are lifelines for individuals.

Please protect them.

I'll also say I may be the only one in the room old enough to have met Neil Good.

Uh he could have been our first gay council member, could have actually could have beat uh uh Bob Filmer as council member and talk about prevention.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jeffrey.

Good evening.

Uh thank you, Council members.

Um I'm here representing Brightbird Properties, uh, which uh manage the property uh 101 16th Street near uh near the New Good Center.

It has frontage on 17th as well.

Um, and uh my family's been property owners, uh that actually for over 100 years in the area, so we've seen a lot of transitions uh over the years.

Um I'm surely not an expert on homelessness, but I do know the additional costs that don't get reflected uh in these budget numbers.

Um, you know, frankly, I know I think Father Joe does a good job.

Josh, you know, you know uh gave uh us an opportunity to to look over the site and see what they're doing.

They're doing a good job, but the site's too small to do what they're what they really need to do there, and it creates spillover and uh we spend a lot uh in prevention.

Thank you.

Thank you, Blair Beekman.

Hi, Blair Beekman.

Thanks a lot for uh previous words from Council Person Maro Campillo on um uh what we don't do this year.

What we cut this year is gonna have to be brought back in the next year.

And he brought up the ideas of foresight and long-term planning.

An interesting concept.

It's my understanding that uh uh Father Joe's Villages can uh balance out some of the costs and that uh the the day center can be opened five times a week still and it'll be closed on weekends.

Can can we have assurances at least that is taking place and try to at least compromise from there for it to be six days or seven days a week, and that budgets can happen uh for the future?

It's a great place.

I get my mail there.

Think of that.

I if I don't have mail there, I am not allowed employment.

I mean, it cuts off a lot of services if a person doesn't have a place, a mail residence.

Please uh consider that, how important this center is for people.

Thank you in a number of ways.

Thank you.

Natalie.

If anyone wants to donate their minute to me, I'd really appreciate it.

I have a few things that I'd like to touch bases on.

I'm in district seven.

I have an EHV.

I'm not here to tell you about all the statistics that you already know.

I have used legal aid and they have helped me win a case from being evicted.

The fact of the matter is, standing here, I'm insulted, I'm insulted by the government in which it stands that HUD has created this problem and it's been passed down and it keeps getting passed down, and then you gaslight the public.

Mr.

Kintley, great saying, it's like those are only two options.

I believe that those are not our only two options.

They lead us to believe that they are.

I'm calling.

I'm an indigenous person of the United States of America of the first federally recognized tribe.

I've spoken to Sarah Jacobs, still waiting to hear back.

I represent the majority of the people with these EHBs, even if I don't know them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And our final speaker is Kenna.

My name is Kenna Ledbetter, and I'm a fundraiser with Father Joe's Villages.

I'm concerned with the cuts proposed the Neil Good Day Center.

In my work, I'm often asked, what solves homelessness?

The answer I've come to is the ability to look people facing homelessness in their eyes without turning away from seeing them.

Dignity.

Where will people go to use the restrooms without the day center?

Where will people go for rest, especially in the summer heat to come?

Where will people go to get their mail for their services that they began to accept?

Where will people go to do their laundry?

Where will people go?

Please keep the funding for this program in the budget.

Please keep this program.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Council President, this concludes testimony here in Chambers.

Okay, um, just for meeting management, and this is not locked in, so I apologize.

After we take the remote callers, we're going to go a recess.

And hopefully by the time that comes, we'll actually figure out when we're going to come back.

Um, it's looking like 1 30, but hopefully I'll make a formal announcement uh before we actually recess.

Everybody can plan accordingly.

And my apologies if anybody was here for the or anybody that's here for the housing commission, but um we'll need to take a break and then come back maybe as early as one thirty to pick up the housing commission and then the other items uh that were scheduled for uh this afternoon.

So please proceed with the remote callers.

Thank you, Council President.

I'll begin the five-minute timer for all those in the virtual queue to indicate if they wish to speak to sub item I, homelessness strategies and solutions.

As a reminder, each caller will have one minute.

We will begin testimony with Andrea Ebbing.

Please unmute and begin.

Hi, this is Andrea Ebbing.

I'm asking you uh counsel today to not look at me as the victim of um these people that I'm about to speak about, but more of an executive, so more of seeing eye to eye on this information I'm sharing.

Um I just want to mention that there was like $600,000 that went into a shelter ready app by the DA's office who should not be working on homeless solutions.

It's health and human services, it is not her issue.

Where's the money?

The bed, the app doesn't work.

Um she's focused on retail while Prop 36 is driving incredible homelessness.

As she fills those um facilities like uh Los Cleaners and Bailey, people are losing their homes left and right.

I think we need to make sure that Day Center stays open and make sure those prevention programs not focused on addiction, focused on keeping people in their homes, would be incredibly important.

If you prosecuted violent crimes in DV, we'd have so much less homelessness.

Prop 36 is driving it as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Bradley.

Please unmute and begin.

All right.

Thanks for taking my call.

Here's the homeless strategy.

Vote to put Mayor Todd Glory in jail and give him a cell phone and don't let him out unless he comes up with 50 million dollars.

You can call all his mayor buddies, his guys, he just went to France on our dime.

Call up the French president, ask him for some money.

Don't let him out in the jail.

And then we can have water balloons and guys can charge like pay 20 bucks for a water balloon to throw them out in jail.

And don't give them a little just one blanket and very limited food and just have him raise the money, man.

Everybody wants to talk to Todd, but he's not around.

So he'd be in jail raising money.

He'd be up to good stuff on the phone.

And he's got a lot of guys on his phone line.

He'd call the call the governor, get a few million off him, call the mayor, different mayors in all the cities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Peggy Walker, please unmute and begin.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Thanks to all of you who emphasize prevention.

This is especially applicable to drug use prevention versus harm reduction strategies to reduce substance use related homelessness.

There's no better example than yesterday's massive DEA raid in Los Angeles, where 10 million dollars in drugs were seized from traffickers dealing blatantly in homeless camps and public places.

Addressing this, an LA official called policies such as free needle and pipe programs ineffective, saying they only add to the problem.

And he added, letting people use drugs with no consequences is failed policy.

San Diego's homeless are also easy targets of rampant drug dealing by criminal gangs and cartels.

So I ask you, please, let's increase prevention strategies to stem drug use problems before they start.

Thank you.

Phone number ending in 8700.

You can unmute by pressing star six.

You will have one minute.

Thank you, Sarah.

Joy Sanyata.

A CMRIM just spoke to all of us.

I first met him about 2008.

He was a debit.

He wasn't a dedicated managing the public comment speaker for years with me.

He's real and true.

A CMRim.

He's real and true.

I love you, see him.

It's so wonderful to see you.

It's been years.

Please listen to him.

And so I'll finish with this.

My default on this, and I said this before you'll hear it probably.

Yeah, I just feel good about it.

My default on this is we stumble, even as we live the miracle.

Love to all.

A great morning.

Thank you.

Catherine Rhodes, please unmute and begin.

Hello, this is Catherine Rhodes.

Please fully fund the Neil Good Day Center to Father Joe's dream for change, Teresa and Homeless Strategies.

Please contact me because I know of the annual 20 million available in former RDA funding from the 1992 agreement for cooperation with the county for the poor in downtown.

We could actually expand Nilga Day Center, not close it down.

It supports sleeping sites.

So anyway, um great fabulous news.

Finally, the city's very first tiny home community will be opening up in June at um at the Compass Station on Cass Street and Pacific Beach, run by Carol Blake and the Shoreline Community Service.

This tiny home model could be used everywhere.

It could actually be used at Lotto in Balboa Park.

We could put these tiny homes in Barracks H.

Um, I have so many solutions.

Please somebody contact me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The five-minute timer has expired.

We have nine hands remaining in the queue.

We will take no other callers on subitem I beyond these remaining nine hands raised.

John Brady, please unmute and begin.

Good morning.

Cutting the budget for homeless strategies and solutions will lead to more suffering, more instability, and yes, more deaths among people living without homes.

We cannot continue to say homelessness is a humanitarian crisis while simultaneously reducing the very system designed to prevent people from dying on our streets.

And this budget puts the failures of the strong mayor form of government front and center.

The fiscal challenges facing the city were not a surprise yet.

And instead of a coordinated transparent process that brought together departments, service providers, advocates, etc., we are facing a broad-based reduction of seven percent.

At the same time, residents are being asked to absorb cuts after years of costly and questionable top-down decisions from Ash Street to other bad real estate deals that have eroded public trust.

This is not about a Republican or a Democrat.

Mayor after mayor, we have the same structural problems.

A budget replacement reflects our values, and if we choose to balance budgets on the backs of people already living in the making.

Our next speaker is Shuna.

Please unmute and begin.

Thank you, Council Committee members.

My name is Shine Ball.

I'm a veteran and military spouse speaking on behalf of Veterans Village of San Diego.

VSD would like to thank the San Diego Housing Commission for updating their budget priority memo clarifying that a 72-bed bridge shelter site has yet to be determined.

That said, we remain vigilant regarding the mayor's proposed budget, which includes funding to place a bridge shelter on our campus.

Implementing this proposal would displace members of our veteran community who are currently occupying those beds.

Thank you for your testimony.

Becky Rapp, please unmute and begin.

I have given you permission to speak.

Please unmute and provide your comment at this time.

Okay, Miss Rapp, we will return to you for one final opportunity.

Judy Strang, please unmute and begin.

Yes, good morning.

Judy Strang here.

I have three thoughts that I'll sum up in 60 seconds.

One, the Board of Supervisors, and I mentioned it before.

I don't understand why we can't have a more coordinated effort since Health and Human Services is a department that's part of the county for whom this is a responsibility.

Two, the speaker who congratulated you for the language you've been using around prevention.

I too say that.

We need to look at the beginnings of the problems that we see with drug abuse within the homeless population.

If all the messaging from the city made it clear that drug use never had a good end result, and three, you only have so much money, you can't house everybody, brutal as that may sound, but it seems to me that at least a day center or a drop-in center could be a place where people can get clean, where they can plug in their phone, where they can have a mailing address, where they can speak to case management.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Patricia Fillet, please unmute and provide your comment at this time.

Can you hear me?

We can please proceed.

Okay, thank you.

Kettner and Vine failed from the perception after one billion dollars.

The city would not own the property.

Sunbreak ranch is your model for social housing and services.

Currently, Alcahone Transitional Living Center, CEO, Dr.

Julie Hayden runs that model at 95% success rate of addiction rebound.

Expand this and use this site as the model.

We can no longer allow no six times later as an answer.

Otherwise, we will not solve homelessness in our lifetime.

And we'll continue to repeat the pattern of response and approach.

Taxpayers are paying more, but the industrial complex is stronger.

San Diego in California cannot absorb the over 200,000 homeless with addictions as the welcoming motif.

Find a way.

Thank you, Council members.

Thank you.

Sharad, please unmute and begin.

Hello there.

Can you hear me?

We can, please continue.

Thank you very much.

Um we must find more efficient and cost-effective ways to address this crisis and prioritize funding for programs that provide shelter beds and maximize resources to programs that place people in permanent housing.

Now that's not a quote from me, that is a quote from Mayor Todd Gloria.

I fully understand his rationale, and I agree with it.

Um in his uh initiative, which was called the San Diegans Together Tackling Homelessness Initiative.

Um it aimed to raise 370 million.

He only got uh 1.3 million, and that is fine.

Uh I understand that there are limitations on funding.

Um, and I understand that Todd Glory is doing everything that he can uh to solve this problem.

What I believe uh you uh, and I think you already realize this as a community, and I think uh what you need to communicate to Todd Gloria, who is also interested in solving this problem, is that the Neil Good Day Center is San Diegans Together Tackling Homelessness.

This is a grassroots initiative.

Um that is partially funded by you, partially funded by Father Father Joe's villagers who've been doing this for Lord knows how long.

Um, thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Thank you.

And as a reminder, the five-minute timer had concluded.

We have three hands remaining in the virtual queue.

If anybody else raises their hand, we will be taking it down.

You could submit comment to council committee at San Diego.gov.

Kelly, please unmute and begin.

Kelly.

Kelly, I've given you permission to speak.

I see you have unmuted.

We cannot hear you.

Can you hear me?

We can, please proceed.

I want to point to Council to page 210 of the IBA's budget review.

I highlighted 1.18 million general fund allocation for downtown street outreach that is entirely redundant.

We already have a citywide coordinated outreach program.

There is no need for the separate siloed line item.

I urge you to redirect that 1.18 million to keep the Neil Good Day Center open.

This day center provides vital housing focused services that practically nobody else provides.

Please follow the data on page 210 and eliminate any duplications to save critical services.

Please prevent the mayor's office from passing things that fall under our noses.

Thank you.

Daniel, please unmute and begin.

We can, please proceed.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for the time and the council for your leadership.

My name is Daniel Fellas.

I'm part owner of the Patriot Apartments direct, uh looked on 16th Street between Kane and Imperial.

The back of my building is directly opposite the center.

We provide housing, so you need housing to the committee.

I work with all the projects, Alpha Project, um, uh the House Housing commission.

Um to anyone who has vouchers, we provide uh uh display needed housing to the committee.

And what I've seen the past, I also live on site, and what I've seen the past three years on this 17th Street is abysmal.

If you want to see the walking dead movie, just come to the 17th Street, and you have to see it in life in real life.

I've seen everything from prostitution, drug use, drug peddling, human trafficking, um stabbing, I've been verbally assaulted, uh, probably daily.

Uh, just trying to keep my my my property uh clean and I have families living here, I have children, I have single mothers, I've single, you know, I've could that live here because I need to.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Thank you for your comment and returning one final time to Becky Rapp for an opportunity to provide comment at this time.

Becky Rapp, I've given you permission to speak.

Please unmute and begin.

Becky Rapp.

Council President, this concludes public comment on sub item I.

All right, thank you, Sarah.

Uh one last opportunity for council members to weigh in with concluding comments.

I see Council Member Elo Rivera's on the light.

Thank you, Council President.

I mostly want to say thank you to the folks who spoke and stayed around.

It's such an important issue, and you sharing the perspectives that you did is incredibly important, and I just want to acknowledge that.

I'll also say that hearing from from young people who understand instinctively that people shouldn't live on the streets and should deserve deserve to be cared for.

Um healthcare provider who's seeing patients showing up in soiled clothing, um, people having their basic needs unmet, folks who have been served by the eviction prevention program and avoided homelessness as a result of that.

Um all of that is incredibly powerful.

And I don't know if there's a single issue that we discuss that makes me is heavier and also just quite frankly, like mix fills me with rage more than this conversation because these choices, and I know I keep saying it and there's a broken record, so apologies to my colleagues for having to hear it over and over again.

But it's because it is so unsettling to me that we're having this conversation in one of the wealthiest cities in the richest country in the world, and that's like the it's like the ultimate false choice of having people living in those sort of conditions while such affluence and and abundance is experienced by others.

So that's why we talk about making tourists their pay their fair share.

That's why we talk about asking corporations that are worth billions and paying arounding air and local taxes here to pay their fair share.

It's why we talk about taxing people who own empty homes while people can't even find a place to go to the bathroom, let alone uh sleep at night.

That's why my me, my office, we are so motivated.

It's this issue.

Um, so I just want to say thank you again for not allowing us to turn away from the issue, and there are people who are experiencing the impacts of it.

I want to say thank you to my colleagues who won't do that, Councilmember Whitburn again.

Thank you.

Um, it does not have to be this way.

And um I appreciate the opportunity to have a real conversation about it because we need to continue to have real conversations about it.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you, sir.

Okay, with that, um, that will conclude sub item I.

Right.

Uh so uh we will now take a brief recess and return for sub item J at 1 30 or shortly thereafter, assuming that we have five council members here in chamber.

So that's the goal.

All right, thank you all, everybody.

And again, apologies for any for those who folks who had shown up this morning for a housing commission.

Um, A few of our recent initiatives are shown on this slide.

They include adjusting our rental assistance, participants, families' contribution towards their housing.

HUD recently approved those adjustments, and we have started notifying families about the changes, which will take effect in October.

These updates are necessary for us to prevent ending assistance for hundreds of voucher families.

Instead, we will be able to continue to assist all the families currently in our rental assistance program.

After years with minimal or no rent increases at our properties, we must also take the action of raising rents while staying within the limits of the California Tenant Protection Act.

This will generate additional revenue while ensuring we maintain our units as quality affordable housing for families who rent from us.

And we have raised our fees for land use activities.

These changes realize cost savings that will mitigate our need to continue to draw down reserves in fiscal year 2027.

Along with other initiatives in our strategic plan, these efforts will also create a more sustainable fiscal outlook for the future.

With that in mind, we are proposing a fiscal year 2027 budget of $688 million.

We will go into more detail about changes from last year's budget later in this presentation.

This slide shows our budget over five years.

This slide shows our budget over five years.

Budgets have been higher in recent years due to new funding sources such as the state's home key program, which launched in 2020.

Christelle will now go over objectives, deliverables, and uses of funds.

With this budget, we'll dedicate more than 341 million to help approximately 17,000 low-income households pay for their rental housing through this through the federal Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program.

We'll also continue to assist emergency housing voucher families through the fall of 2026.

This is when we anticipate that the remaining federal funding for the emergency housing voucher program will run out.

Emergency housing voucher families will continue to be prioritized for the new project-based voucher housing units that come online for up to one year after their rental assistance has ended.

Our budget includes 191 new project-based voucher units for households with low income or experiencing homelessness in fiscal year 27.

And we will support our SCHC Achievement Academy to provide career planning, job readiness, and personal financial education programs and connect participant to community resources.

The Achievement Academy, along with our partners, will assist families as they prepare for the updated family contribution amounts that will be implemented later this year.

The proposed budget also supports the creation and preservation of affordable housing.

We have proposed committing up to $22 million in gap financing for developers to leverage with other funding sources to increase the affordable housing supply in our city.

The funding sources for this notice of funding availability will be 13 million of federal home funds and 9 million from the city's affordable housing fund.

The budget also includes approximately 6 million in city neighborhood enhancement fee funds that we will administer for affordable housing preservation, subject to approval from the housing authority and city council.

Including our nonprofit affiliate, the Housing Commission will continue to own or manage over 4,100 affordable rental housing units in fiscal year 27.

We have also budgeted $7.9 million to rehabilitate housing commission on units.

This support our ongoing commitment to provide quality affordable housing.

In addition, we have dedicated $3.4 million towards assisting up to 40 households in becoming first-time homebuyers.

Next slide.

6.5 million and it includes 53.3 or 70% of city funded homelessness programs and 23.2 or 30% of housing commission programs funded by grants and local funds we administer.

It is important to note that the homelessness budget you see today related to city funded programs is STHC's proposed budget that we submitted to the city.

It will be adjusted at the city finalizes its budget.

In our current fiscal year, through the end of March, the program we operate directly have served nearly 1,900 households.

989 households experiencing homelessness have secured housing through our rapid rehousing, diversion, and landlord engagement programs.

Another 757 households have maintained housing stability through housing instability and prevention programs.

The city funded and continuum of care programs we administer have served nearly 9,000 households year to date through various homelessness programs such as shelters, transitional housing, rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing, and supportive services.

We continue to work with the city's homeless strategy and solutions department and the mayor's office as the city develops its fiscal year 27 homelessness budget.

The city funding will support ongoing operations of over 1,300 shelter beds and 87 transitional housing beds.

It will also continue to support homelessness services program, including the housing instability prevention program, the eviction prevention program, the homelessness system coordination services, and storage centers.

We will wrap up our presentation with a few slides about the proposed uses and sources of funds.

The proposed budgeted spending for FY27 amounts to 558 million.

That consists of 359 million for rental assistance programs, 101 million for real estate, which include 21 million for capital expenditures, 72 million for homelessness, and 26 million for operation support.

For uses, we'll start with personnel costs.

The FY27 budget reflects the impact of the staffing decision made, the recent reduction in our workforce, and eliminating performance incentive for all staff in fiscal year 27, results in an 11.9 million savings in personal in personnel cost.

We'll discuss further the changes in personnel in the next slide.

The decrease in housing program expense reflect the anticipated impact of the changes to the family contribution amounts in our rental assistance and public housing programs.

This slide also shows 3% increase in property expenses, professional services, supplies, and other items.

This reflects the increase in insurance expenses, maintenance and protective services costs for affordable housing properties.

And lastly, the capital expenditure decrease is mainly due to the home key related property acquisition costs in fiscal year 26 that will not reoccur in 27.

In fiscal year 27, we'll have a net decrease of 41 positions.

This reflects the 58 position, the 58 eliminated position discussed earlier in this presentation, of the addition of three positions for property management of the newly acquired Starling Drive property, a direct hire position to serve as our homeownership advisor through Wells Fargo grant, and an additional 13 positions to bring direct property management of more STHC properties in house.

This aligned with action approved in the Housing Commission strategic plan to reduce costs and strengthen property management services at the agency's permanent supportive housing sites.

Next, we'll look at the anticipated sources of funds.

The table on this slide shows a comparison of the funding sources for fiscal year 27 and 26.

We have three main funding sources: federal, local, and state.

I want to highlight some of the higher variances.

In the federal funding section, you'll see a decrease in the row for moving to work funding.

We have budgeted an estimated 350 million from HUD in fiscal year 27 and approximately 17 million in HUD health reserve drawdown to cover to cover our rental assistance expenses.

As the changes in family contribution amount take effect in the next upcoming fiscal year, we'll start to see savings in the amount we spend to provide rental assistance.

Which means over the next year, our spending will begin to align with our anticipated HUD funding, and the funding gap will significantly diminish as we move toward fiscal year 28.

So while we will need to continue to use our reserves to cover to cover the program cost in 27, the decrease in moving to work funds in this row reflects a reduction in the reserve amount we will use compared to fiscal year 26.

The home funds increase is due to the anticipated funding of loans based on when development achieves specific milestones.

And you'll notice large decreases in the federal and state section for the funding related to the HomeKeep Plus acquisition.

The acquisition of Stalling Drive property took place in March 2026.

In FY27, the budget will include the $8 million set aside to complete the rehabilitation of the property.

In the local funding category for real estate, we are expecting an increase in revenue due to the scheduled rent increase at Housing Commission Affordable Rental Housing Properties.

You'll also note an 11% increase in city general funds and other local funds.

This is mainly due to the addition of the $6 million of city neighborhood enhancement fee funds anticipated for preservation efforts, which is partially offset by adjustment in funds in other categories.

In the state funding section, in addition to reduction related to the home keep project, you'll note a decrease in other state funds, mainly related to the timing of the draw of the in-field infrastructure grant funds, which was awarded as a multi-year grant.

Federal revenues continue to be the primary source of funding and accounts for 72% of new revenues with MTW fund more specifically representing 64% of the budgeted removed revenue for fiscal year 27.

Please note those are preliminary estimates.

We just received notification of our federal award for MTD MTW voucher funds, and we'll analyze and incorporate to our final budget.

Last year, the Housing Commission established a new methodology for minimum operational reserve targets to ensure we maintain financial stability, meet operational obligations, and are prepared for emergency and unforeseen expenditures.

This methodology was informed by best practice reviews and third-party consultant recommendations and was reviewed at the board and housing authority as part of the agency's presentation on the fiscal year 26 budget.

Ensuring we achieved minimum reserve level become ever more important as we see ongoing uncertainty in funding appropriation at the federal, state, and local levels.

The methodology includes a minimum reserve level needed to address the critical urgent need of our agency.

It also includes a target stabilization reserve levels for sound fiscal stability based on industry best practices.

The $58 million of reserve projected is still significantly lower than the minimum reserve target of 70 million and well below just recommended stabilization target reserve level.

It is worth pointing out specifically that the reserve levels that are most concerning are the agency's voucher reserves.

You can see the minimum reserve level should be about 28 million.

This is the cost to pay one month's worth of housing assistance payment on behalf of our voucher families, which is why maintaining at least the minimum reserve level across operation is so critical.

And I'll go over briefly the different reserve level with a little bit more of an explanation in some detail.

So our minimum reserve level include a replacement reserve, which is there to fund major repairs, capital improvements, or replacement of critical infrastructure, with recommended reserve level of three years of the physical needs assessment.

With a property portfolio of 4,100 units at an average age of nearly 50 years, having the funds to support major infrastructure system replacement and repairs is critical.

A debt service level of six months of debt service payments to ensure our contractual financial obligations are met.

Next month, we'll be recommending that the housing authority approve the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget.

The budget will be adjusted as needed as additional information become available, including guidance from the city on the homelessness budget.

Now I will turn it over to Assena for closing comments.

Fiscal challenges often require difficult decisions.

We have made those decisions to prepare our agency as we develop the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget.

As we have throughout this process, we remain committed to providing the ongoing support that families in our programs depend on for their housing as well as supporting our staff.

When we receive more information and make necessary adjustments if needed based on the HUD funding letter that we received in the coming weeks, these principles will continue to guide us.

As we have discussed today, in the coming fiscal year, we will continue to use our reserves to assist our families and serve our community.

But the efforts we have discussed with you today and other initiatives we are undertaking provide us more fiscal stability and move us toward a stronger financial footing for the years to come.

This concludes our presentation, and we are now available to ask any questions you may have.

All right, terrific.

Thank you very much for the presentation and the work to prepare for it.

I will turn to the Office of the IBA.

Thank you, Council President.

Amy Lee with the IBA's office.

Our office's standalone report on the housing commission budget provides various breakdowns of the Commission's proposed $688 million budget, which the Commission's presentation did a good job summarizing.

There are a few items I would like to note for council's consideration.

As discussed in the presentation, due to various fiscal challenges, the MTW reserve is below the minimum reserve level and the stabilization target.

According to the Housing Commission, if there are disruptions in the flow of federal funds, depending on the length of the disruption, the housing commission may not have sufficient MTW reserves on hand to continue funding housing assistance payments due to the below minimum levels of reserve.

The general contingency/slash operating reserve is also below the stabilization target, but is expected to be above the minimum reserve, largely due to cost containment and revenue generating measures.

Council may wish to better understand the housing commission's fiscal outlook, especially in regards to rebuilding its reserves, and learn about any additional risks or uncertainties that could impact the housing commission's financial stability in the coming years.

The housing commission's proposed budget also includes additional resources for prevention and diversion efforts.

Council may wish to learn more about these efforts in relation to the housing commission strategic plan, the needs identified in community action plan and homelessness, and the current uncertain funding environment.

Lastly, council expressed support for continued funding of the Affordable Housing Preservation Fund.

This follows a $5 million allocation from the neighborhood enhancement fund or NEF to provide an additional and initial allocation to the preservation fund, which, due to implementation delays, is reflected in the Housing Commission's fiscal year 2027 proposed budget, along with a $1 million increase.

An agreement needed to facilitate the transfer of NEF funds from the city to the Housing Commission is planned to go before council in May or June and would allow future annual NEF transfers through the budget process.

However, as the agreement is still pending, there is no NEF transfer to the preservation fund contemplated in the city's fiscal year 2027 proposed budget.

Council may wish to consider allocating any remaining NEF balance estimated at 2.6 million as of the end of March to the Housing Commission's Affordable Housing Preservation Fund as part of the city's fiscal year 2027 budget.

That concludes my comments.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Amy, for that.

And thank both of you for your flexibility in coming back at 130.

So with that, I'll turn it over to my council colleagues, or uh any questions, comments.

All right.

Councilmember.

Sorry.

Um, thank you.

Um, and thank you for staying.

Um, obviously, this morning's conversation was important and uh needed um, needed to take a little bit more time.

Um can you talk to us a little bit more about the diversion collect collective and and um what went into putting it together, putting the funds together, how that's gonna be useful in the context of the moment that we're in.

Absolutely.

So um, when you look back to the community action plan on homelessness, it very much focused on prevention and diversion as an important part of the spectrum of services.

So if we can slow down the rate of people falling into homelessness, then you know our shelter beds pet capacity increases, right?

We can serve people that are in are that are street homeless.

With limited funding resources available and understanding how critical shelter is to the system, we have looked to fund develop other ways for prevention diversion.

And to be honest, it's sort of has snowballed.

So I mean we started having conversations with price charities.

We've had conversations with the Cushman Foundation.

There were conversations that were happening that happened to the county with Tara Lawson Remer's office, and the fund has just continued to grow.

So we have the diversion collective, which looks at working with 20 service providers throughout the county, although a lot of the money obviously is going to be proportional to the city.

So we're looking at proportionality across the county for that, um, working with service providers to basically push it out through programs they already have, so really achieving some economies of scale, but then we've had additional funding that has come in through some other philanthropic uh agencies, which is really helping offset and support folks in our housing instability prevention program and seniors in particular.

So it's continuing to gain momentum, and we actually expect to see additional funding come in, which would really I think make a big difference in slowing down those those who are coming into homelessness and keeping them stable in their homes.

I appreciate that, Lisa.

I think there's a couple things that stand out there.

One, the benefits of the community action plan and and the you know time that went into that, the partnership.

Um you have seen this coming, like the the financial challenges for a while, they were compounded by decisions at the federal level.

But because you like you you started taking actions earlier, um we're I think making more strategic and and well guided um decisions housing commission than perhaps in other places you don't have to respond to that last part.

Um but so I want to say thank you for that.

That's that's helpful, that's really and it's important.

Um is there anything from the from Amy's report that you want to add any color to or feel like it's worth responding to?

Because I always find the questions or points raised by the IB to be helpful, and I'm curious how you you know what you think about it.

Not only helpful, but it's been great working with Amy, she's always very collaborative in sort of digging in and understanding um our programs and then helps us think about the questions that we should either be asking ourselves or that we want to make sure we're sharing with the council.

Um I think the comment on reserves, obviously, um reserves are critically important.

We've made that clear as we walk through the presentation, but we also have to balance reserves with the needs of our families and and the people we serve.

You know, as much as it would be um in the best interest of the agency and the community overall to get to minimum one month reserve levels and voucher programs.

We do not foresee that in the foreseeable future.

Our focus is really gonna be making sure that we can maintain housing for everybody that's on our program today and um and make sure that people get to stay in their housing.

So we we have to balance those needs there.

Beyond that, as far as sort of risks and uncertainties, you know, we spend a lot of time um focusing on our policymakers at a federal level and our policymakers at a state level, having them understand what sort of what the negative is, like what happens if you don't fund, who's impacted, who gets hurt, what does it help, how does it impact communities throughout our country, not just our city, and really advocating for for those funds long-term.

So that's um that feels a little bit more tenuous of a reserves plan, but it's really an important part of making sure that policymakers at the state and federal level understand what the impacts of their decisions are and understand how effectively we use the funding that comes to us um at our city level.

Thank you for that.

And then anything with respect to the preservation dollars that that Amy spoke to with the preservation, um, we've been working um with the city and with the city attorney's office in identifying the vehicle that gets the funding over to us.

I think um a possibility to identify a way to create um sort of funding that is specifically allocated to preservation on an annual basis, assuming that you know good work is being done and that there's a permanent vehicle in place would make this a lot easier so that we don't sort of run into the lengthy time that it can take for us working together to figure out how to move funding around.

Does that make sense?

Sort of I think so, but that identifying that resource.

Do you see that being something that drawing from something that exists within the city already?

There's the resource in NEF, which creates sort of an on ongoing funding that there could be a portion that comes over to preservation, but there's also sort of um codifying the vehicle that moves the money over and having that be like on a three-year term or something like that, so that that can just happen and we can keep moving, and we we don't have to come back continuously to kind of like make those adjustments.

Got it.

Amy, is that make sense to you as well?

Um yes, I agree it makes sense to have ongoing allocations from the NEF because those funds are set aside for housing affordable housing preservation.

Um, and housing commission does have that uh sort of uh sort of uh function and um infrastructure available for them or they're developing it.

Um I think in our report, we just noted that currently that mechanism to transfer those funds is not is pending approval, and so for fiscal year 2027, there could be a gap if there is an additional action say noted in fiscal year 2027 budget to allocate these funds over to housing commission's preservation fund.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

And uh we've candidly scheduled June 23rd for the preservation fund to come to council.

Well, there you go.

Uh, Council President Port Camille.

I'm sorry.

Um thank you, Council President, and thank you for um presenting uh all of this.

I know it's been a challenging series of discussions, not just this year, but frankly in the last uh year or two as well.

Uh, from the very moment I think that you stepped in.

Lisa, you've acknowledged the budgetary challenges that were likely to be faced and the direct impacts that those would have on the individuals and families that the housing commission is working to serve all the time.

Um and so I I did want to ask I something that I find to be I don't want to say remarkable because this isn't something to celebrate, but um this was a very difficult budget year for for you to try to piece together a series of mitigations that determine how you would not just balance the budget but how you would move forward.

Um, and as part of that, there was uh a number of reductions that were made from a staff standpoint.

And so can you share a little bit, for example, for the MOU that you have with the city of San Diego in terms of the services that you're providing for homelessness.

What reductions had to be made on that end, knowing that you were I mean you were providing staff and time from a housing commission standpoint as well.

So you're you're talking about the um the the funds that come over for us to contract.

So we we administer, I think it was nearly 50 contracts across the city um for homeless services with service providers.

The majority of that is city funding, some of it's continuum of care funding, some of its AHF.

Um in general, our admin rate is about 5%, and we have for many years now had to offset actually covering those costs with our own local reserves or low a local funds that we generate.

So it doesn't the funds that we get don't fully cover our costs.

But to make sure that we stay within our costs within that contracting department, that administrative department, we did end up reducing three positions there.

So we looked across every department of our agency to look at where we could tighten um and and still get the critical work done that we needed to do.

We ended up in that particular department.

Uh there were three positions.

I believe in RAD there were twelve, I can't remember.

Um, but it 12 and rad.

But it depends we we tried to look sort of proportionally across every department.

But yeah, we reduced by three positions.

That does mean that we will be doing um less levels of compliance that we have been able to do.

We're very involved in working with our service providers on outcomes, meeting contract expectations, site visits.

We will definitely have to go down to what the sort of standard minimum would be.

We've always gone beyond the minimum into sort of higher best practice levels there.

We're not gonna be able to continue to maintain that.

Um I think that's an important highlight because I think folks tend to forget.

I mean, yes, the city is contracting with the housing commission to provide some of these services, but your administrative costs have typically been further than what we're providing to offer that, and instead of reducing it on the programmatic side, you've really tried to find ways to either cover that internally or now to try to find reductions administratively to continue to maximize the amount of service that's being provided.

If I'm if I may, council member, since you're mentioning it, as we talk about um whether it's transitioning day center to multiple other locations, winding it down, winding down 16th and Newton, we don't have the staff bandwidth that we used to have to do things as sort of quickly as we have been able to do that in the past.

I think I've mentioned that as we started talking about reductions in the first place.

So not only are we talking about being really thoughtful in how we strategically transition or wind down from a sort of a uh a client standpoint and client experience and doing it in a thoughtful and strategic way.

I'm also frankly talking about it from the bandwidth that our team has to do that and make sure that it's successful.

Well, thank you for sharing that.

I certainly think we have a lot to learn from the experiences that you've gone through and how you've uh ultimately navigated that.

Um I too wanna give a shout out to the use of the neighborhood enhancement funds to be able to support preservation and um that we are looking forward to that coming uh to the council uh given when we talk about all the different strategies we have to address housing and homelessness, that keeping affordable housing stock available in the city needs to be a growing part of that picture, knowing that there are thousands and thousands of units that will have expiring covenants, and without a collaborative effort, engaging other partners outside, it's gonna be challenging to ensure that those stay affordable.

We could build all day, but if we can't keep the units, um that's gonna be a challenge for us all.

So thank you for that work.

Thank you for the presentation of this budget.

All right, thank you, Council President Pro Tem Lee.

Um, not seeing anybody else in the lights.

Um, I'll offer some concluding questions.

Thank you for the very good work.

And as my colleague said, navigating the changing environment, trying to make things work and the everyday surprises the federal government throws your way.

Um so a couple of questions.

One did the housing commissioners make any changes to your draft budget.

So we um did our board workshop last month, um, and there were no recommended changes.

It goes back for approval tomorrow.

Okay.

Um, two, at the risk of stepping on somebody's favorite allocation.

Uh you're adding additional funding for the ADU finance program.

Are those flexible dollars or are do they have strings on them that locks?

It's a fairly small amount, but Christelle can explain um where that funding source comes from.

Yeah, so you're seeing uh one million that's coming from actually um probably a year on budgeted amounts, um awards that have been uh committed uh uh and are just in the process of being dispersed.

Uh so does our spoken for, and then there's a small location that's coming from Calhom, and that is restricted for ADU programs.

Okay.

In today's world there are no small amounts.

So but thank you for clarifying uh uh that uh that restriction.

Um as I mentioned, we do have the preservation fund scheduled for uh June 23rd.

Write that in in pencil.

June is a very um busy month.

Um I don't think I'll have any other questions because apparently I'm losing my voice.

Uh but thank you for the very good work and uh navigating the challenges.

So not seeing, excuse me.

Uh not seeing anybody else on the lights.

Uh Natalie, please proceed with public comment.

Thank you, Chair.

The public comment period for sub-item J, San Diego Housing Commission, is now open, and we have received six speaker slips from individuals in chambers.

We will begin with Stephen Russell.

If you could please approach the lectern.

You'll be followed by Lori Lipsman and John Brady.

Well, good afternoon, honorable council members Stephen Russell, president and CEO of the San Diego Housing Federation, here to support the budget for the San Diego Housing Commission.

First, I want to give kudos to Ms.

Jones and her team who have taken a lot of really aggressive steps to make sure that the fiscal uh balance of the agency is maintained.

Uh these were difficult, difficult challenges, and we remain as the federation committed to helping those households who are affected by that in ways that we can through economic development and our resident services.

We certainly want to back up her these these challenging times.

Uh, I just want to highlight two elements of the budget that are extremely important to the affordable housing fund, which is uh notably one of the few really locally generated sources of revenue to close important gaps on deals to make projects actually pencil.

And then the investment in preservations necessary to prevent the loss of NOAA and expiring deed restricted housing.

Both of these are extraordinarily important efforts.

Both need far more funding than we're able to give them, but please let's protect what we have.

Let's look forward to the future where we can generate more.

Thank you.

Thank you, Laurie.

Good afternoon, council members.

I'm Lori Lipsman, pronouns she, her, and a constituent of district three.

This morning was rough.

Housing is essential, affordability is a subjective term.

San Diego has roughly 102,000 million air households, 140 billionaires, major corporations generating billions in profits.

Please hold in wealthy individuals and corporations accountable to ensure a city where everyone has the resources, not just to survive, but to thrive.

Thank you.

Thank you, John Brady.

You've been seated time by Matt Kearney.

Matt, thank you.

So you'll have two minutes and you'll be followed by allegedly Aja.

Good morning.

Sorry I could not be here earlier for the previous comments, but I wanted to come up and say that what there's a plan here.

The great job.

There's been a lot of work over the course of the last year, knowing that we were gonna have a budget shark ball, right?

So there was a lot of cooperative effort with the various agencies that are engaged, and there's still some unknowns.

That did not happen with the city plan.

And I really feel that we need to take a look at why that happened.

Okay, to just say 7% across the board, across all agencies and functions in the city is not a reasonable approach to a budget.

And I feel like we need to take a look at what this strong mayor form of government has resulted in in terms of its influence over the budget, its influence over the projects in your districts, and whether or not you want to be cooperative on things that might or might not be a good idea in this city.

At the same time, I did want to talk about some of the issues that some of my members have, particularly Natalie, who's been here, which is a place-based project voucher is may or may not be movable.

So you are there and you're there for the rest of your life.

That's not necessarily a reasonable uh trade for where she was over the course of 10 years.

That's why she's struggling and hoping to find a better solution.

Uh, at the same time, the quality of the management in a particular property varies greatly.

And I think you're struggling, you're bringing in in-house pri uh property management to learn more about that.

We know that there's properties that are owned and managed well.

Wakeland is a great example, but there's also properties where there is no cooperation between the case managers and the project managers, and there's no way to really significantly influence that because we don't have enough skin in the game or regulation around it.

So uh property management is going to be key moving forward in terms of quality of life, and we've got uh we've we hear issues consistently in some of the properties that are out there.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Allegedly, Audra, and you've been seated time by Liam.

Thanks.

You'll have two minutes.

When you guys talk about preservation, what I think you're doing is you're preserving homelessness because it's a business, you got to keep it going.

And just earlier today, I couldn't be here while Dreams for Change was here, and Teresa Smith coming probably to get more money because there's a federal lawsuit against the city, Dreams for Change, and downtown San Diego partnership.

And the city is trying to basically abuse the homeless more by claiming you know that it's not a shelter where they're staying, that all of these things aren't taking place.

However, the city is on the site.

The city is there every day, knows exactly what's going on with the code violations, with rat infestations, with deaths, with rapes, with massive fentanyl use and overdoses, and yet you guys sit up here, Stephen Whitburn laughs at me when somebody dies.

When I told you that Tammy died, you laughed in my face.

That is your district, and the fact that you guys have 72 million dollars that you're getting to prevent homelessness, you're keeping people in that place.

They can't get out of there.

They literally will die quicker or on your steps than to get into housing.

So for you guys to sit here and virtue signal like you are doing anything beneficial for the homeless besides keeping them there, it's a disgrace.

Because people shouldn't have to just believe that you guys are going to put them somewhere and then suffer the consequences of your lies.

And you guys sit up here silent, and you have your city attorney in there trying to defend you guys when you guys should be cutting dreams for change in downtown partnerships contracts.

Especially when such egregious things are happening.

You are putting people in danger of dying in a fire because of how many tents there are.

You can't even navigate to get through it.

You guys need to fix this.

Thank you.

I also have a speaker slip from Jacob Edwards, who I do not see in chambers, and Natalie Rashke, who I see her hand is up in the virtual queue.

So we will now move to the virtual queue.

I started the five-minute timer for those two indicate that they have public comment for subitem J.

Catherine Rhodes, please unmute.

You'll have one minute to speak to subitem J.

Hello.

Please discuss the tiny home community on church parking lots on Cast Street and Pacific Beach by Carol Glanton of Shoreline Community Service.

This should be a citywide model for tiny home communities on faith-based community and nonprofit properties using county homeless funding to buy the tiny homes.

It took Carol Blanton two years to get her ministerial permit from DSD and San Diego Housing Commission.

This should have taken a month at most.

What are San Diego Housing Commission's future plans to put these tiny home communities citywide on church properties?

The San Diego Housing Commission only admits there is a few thousand single-room occupancy units that were destroyed in downtown when there was 10,000.

So a solution is required.

San Diego Housing Commission to admit 10,000 units were destroyed without replacements, and then add 10,000 destroyed SRO affordable housing units as debt to the successor agency recognized obligation payments with cooperation of the county.

Then all the housing for the new center city can be paid for as a step to the poor.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

We have three hands remaining up in the queue.

Natalie Rashki, please unmute and provide your comment.

Hi, Natalie Rashke.

I just want to understand how come HUD is not being held accountable.

With information at our fingertips, there's a history and a pattern where they've gone through neighborhoods, broke up families, and continue to do this.

They make programs and then they disable them, they disable them early.

They have gone through colored neighborhoods, broken families, promise to rebuild, never rebuild.

They build highways.

They owe that to the people.

And when it comes to some of these management companies, one of the apartments with the project-based voucher, they depleted that fund faster.

They earned a lawsuit, they are a lawsuit.

They made the algorithm go up the same account, and now they're getting the funding for project based.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Our next speaker is Tony.

Please unmute and begin.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Hey, how's it going?

How you doing?

Good morning, Council.

Hey, just wanted to speak to uh this project.

I wanted to say, if we can stop the street sweeps, I know that that would be enormously beneficial to our homeless community.

Um I think that that's uh one of the big challenges that we have is not having enough uh affordable public housing, obviously, but not enough shelters and from what we've heard from some of the speakers um in council today.

Um there's obviously not enough uh supervision in what's happening in a lot of these shelters.

So if we can get more money in supervision, more money in shelters, as opposed to putting it all in SDPD and in the surveillance uh state.

Uh that would be enormously beneficial.

Uh and that would go a lot further in uh protecting the people of San Diego than uh just uh giving more weapons, uh, more more uh uh munitions uh for the police department.

Uh so thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Blair Beekman.

Please unmute and begin.

Hi, Blair Beakman.

Um again, uh, thanks to the words of Council President Campillo today.

You really inspired myself to consider that uh if what we have to cut this coming year, we have to be really considering again in the next two to three years.

And maybe we can talk more how programs can be brought back in a three two to three year time frame.

That would help Mayor Gloria a lot and how to talk about it and offer more flexibility and how to discuss uh look how we can do that uh the future.

Uh I'm really interested in items uh for this portion uh that uh you know the large uh encampment uh that we have the government-sponsored encampment like San Jose.

Can we uh parse it out into smaller encampments uh around the city, around downtown that could help uh alleviate uh the burdens of the current program?

Uh, hope the mission is this center that uh offers storage for people like me.

Um they want to expand and do shelter services.

Check them out.

They're really good.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Our next speaker is Zoom user.

Please unmute and begin.

Henry Hare, thanks for taking my call.

I think it's about time we have a non-for-profit accountability meeting.

Have all the NGs up there and open up their books.

How much are you making from all sources?

How much your top guy pay was top five guys.

What they think, 350,000, 200,000.

There's a lot of fraud going on.

Uh the city of San Diego people, they need to see what they're actually doing.

Where's the money going?

All this money we got, even the start with the YMCA.

And one page booklet on money spent.

What are the salaries?

Who are they actually helping?

Because it's the it's the homeless machine, man.

That's all it is.

They're just making money on the homeless.

And I say give the homeless directly the money instead of paying all these other guys to take care of them.

Just give them a thousand cash each.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Our final speaker in the queue is Patricia.

Please unmute and begin.

Thank you.

Now that the midway rising is going forward and the increase of 4200 housing units, how many of these are reserved for homeless, addicted, extremely low, low income?

Maybe now as a city asset, consider to allow double the numbers for ELI and LI folks.

Between here and bringing online El Cajone Transitional Living Center, we may be able to reach 70% reduction.

And before the World Olympics, LA 2028, where will those folks go?

Find a way.

Thank you, Council members.

Thank you.

And Chair, this concludes public comment on sub item J.

All right, thank you, Natalie.

Uh okay, one more opportunity for council members to comment on this particular item.

Not seeing any such requests.

So thank you again to the housing commission.

Uh, and this will conclude uh item J.

Okay, I'm going to step away and I'm gonna ask uh Council President Pro Tam to chair the next item.

I should be back shortly.

Thank you for stepping up.

Do you want your time?

Okay, thank you.

So let's go ahead and move to sub item K.

Subitem K, San Diego City Employment Retirement System.

And if you are watching on City TV or the live stream and wish to call into the meeting to speak to subitem K, please call 16692545252 when prompted.

What input Webinar ID 160 332 6900 pound.

Council President Pro Tem.

Well, go ahead and pass it over to you if you're uh ready.

If you've just introduced yourselves for the record.

Thank you very much.

On behalf of the San Diego City Employees Retirement Systems Board of Administration, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to present the SD SERS administrative budget for fiscal year 2027.

Presenting the budget today will be myself, Greg Rodemaker, SD SERS Chief Executive Officer, and to my left, Ted Lasalvia, SD SERS Finance Director.

We anticipate this presentation will take about 15 minutes.

Thank you.

Moving to slide two, SD SERV's mission is to deliver accurate and timely benefits and ensure the trust funds safety, integrity, and growth.

The organization is focused on providing quality service to our approximately 28,000 members and prudently investing the $13.3 billion trust fund using long-term risk management and diversification strategies.

This is important as the SD SERS investment portfolio funds the majority of the plan's benefit payments.

Moving on to slide three, the authority to approve the SD SERS budget rests with the SD SERS Board of Administration.

The SDSERS Board reviewed and approved the fiscal year 2027 SD SERS budget as presented here today at their March 13th, 2026 meeting.

We believe the fiscal year budget demonstrates a continued commitment to effective and efficient operations with an understanding to minimize our administrative costs.

Moving on to slide four.

For a financial statement reporting, SD SERS is a fiduciary component unit of the city.

In practical terms, it is a small independent agency focused on just one task, administering the retirement benefit program from a single office location.

The majority of program expense is salary and benefits.

Please note that SD SERS represented employees are covered under city negotiated MOUs, and all employees are classified and compensated using the CERTIP city personnel department's construct and guidelines.

Moving on to slide five.

SC SERS is committed to delivering on its mission in a cost-effective manner, continually right sizing its staffing plan to meet operational needs by leveraging cost efficiencies from using technology, changing operations to streamline processing, and cross-training team members to facilitate operational responsiveness.

In 2010, SD SERS staffs 65 employees.

The staffing level was reduced over the years due to operational efficiencies through leveraging technology solutions and assisting the city outsource retiree health care benefit administration.

The staffing plan for fiscal year 2027 is for SD SERS to remain at 50 positions.

Moving to slide six.

And about that same in fiscal year ending 2026.

Excuse me, 2025.

Moving to slide seven.

SD SERS is considered a mature plan based on the number of retirees receiving benefits, drawing money out of the plan compared to the number of employees currently working and contributing money into the plan.

Currently, the ratio of working city members to city retirees is approximately one to one.

In other words, for each working employee, the city has one retiree.

For perspective, the federal social security programs ratio is approximately three workers for every one retiree.

Prior to city reopening the previously closed plan tiers, the risk the ratio was one worker for two retirees.

Over time, the city's plan demographics will continue to become more mature as the number of retirees continues to increase in relation to the workforce.

Administering a mature pension plan requires thoughtful approach to cash management.

Moving to slide eight.

The blue bars on this chart represent the employer and employee contributions paid into the plan from 2016 to 2025.

The red bars represent the benefits paid to retirees and their beneficiaries over these years.

The gold line represents the net difference between the cash contributions coming into the trust and the benefits paid out of the trust.

It shows the city's plan and a negative cash flow ranging from about one-half to 2% for all years except for 2023, when there was a significant cash inflow from reopening the city plan tiers.

In 2025, this negative cash flow is approximately $51 million.

The negative cash flow is paid by the SD SERS investment portfolio earnings.

SD SERS, you could say operates as a profit center for the city's pension plan as the pens as the pension plan.

Over the next over the 10-year period covered by this chart, SD SERS investment portfolio funded over $1 billion of pension payments, which would have been in the city's budgetary obligation if we were pay as you go system.

The next slide.

SD SERS funding strategy is to ensure we pay benefits to city employees as promised by the city.

SD SERS is working towards achieving 100% funding ratio for the city where we have enough money in the bank to pay for all future city plan retirement benefits.

This chart is a speedometer dashboard on the city's funding, showing the city is in the good funding zone.

A technical definition on good funding does not exist.

Experts commonly say below 70% is not good.

Between 70 and 90 is good, but could be better, and it's best to be above 90%.

So the city is in good shape, working on better.

Importantly, SD SERS has a solid funding actuarial model for the city to achieve 100% funding level in a reasonable amount of time.

The most recent actual valuation estimates the city's plan reaching 100% funding in approximately 17 years in 2042.

Slide 10.

The SD SERS Board of Administration uses four funding objectives in determining how to bring the city's plan to 100% funding status.

One of the objectives is providing plan sponsors such as the city, a stable and predictable contribution cost.

The goal is to avoid significant changes in the employer's contribution in relation to their workforce.

The underlying construct for funding the city plan is to base the employer's contribution as a percentage of the working employees' total payroll.

The blue area on the chart is the city's annual general funds salaries, wages, and benefits as budgeted from 2012 to uh 2026.

The city's general fund pension contribution, or ADC, to SD SERS is expressed as a percentage of the general funds salary and wages and benefits as the gold line.

The chart demonstrates the general fund ADC is relatively stable and predictable, with the ADC ranging from this time from 21% to 26% of the total fund salary wages and benefits budget.

The funding model is working as intended and delivering stable and predictable cost as a percentage of the city's workforce cost.

Moving to slide 12, Ted Lesalvi will now review the various SD SERS budget components approved by the SD SERS board of administration at their March 14th meeting.

Good afternoon.

And looking at the big picture, our administrative budget is 19.4 million dollars.

This is up only 1.2% or approximately 232,000 from FY 2026.

This results from salary, pardon me, contractual increases for IT support, and salary step increases, and which I will cover here in the next slide.

With respect to salary and benefits, it's the largest component as you saw on that pie chart that Greg had shown.

For FY 27, we're protecting 12.4 million dollars.

There are no cross-the-board salary increases in this value.

We do have step increases though from the negotiated MOUs with the city and their member unions.

And as a result, we have a slight increase to wages associated with salaries and benefits.

Benefits are a pass-through cost that the city passes on to SD SERS, they're primarily composed of health and retirement benefits.

Our general operations budget for FY27 is $3.3 million.

This is actually declining by $29,000, but the four largest elements are primarily fixed cost items that have step increases on an annual basis, rent, actuarial services, and insurance, as well as depreciation for the capitalization of our capital expenses.

And turning to information technology, one of our critical areas.

The budget is projected to be 3.3 million dollars.

There's approximately a 2.7% increase, and this is primarily due to contractual increases for pension system support, network services, and this is offset by a reduction in technical support labor as we have reallocated resources from technical support labor to pension system support.

And looking at the legal fees, we project a budget of $415,000.

This is up approximately $15,000, primarily driven by increased fiduciary council costs, offset by a decrease in projected litigation and legal tax and compliance expenses.

Lastly, in looking at our capital expense budget, we are projected to be six at 695,000 for the coming fiscal year.

Approximately an $8,000 decrease.

We are in the first third of a multi-year IT modernization program.

So we expect projects like this in the future, but we will control costs wherever possible.

Moving to slide 18, our great CEO Greg Rodemacher will now discuss our priorities for FY 2027.

Our key fiscal year retirement uh priorities are delivering quality customer service at a reasonable cost, investing the portfolio assets for the long term, and operating with a governance structure built on a foundation of integrity and transparency.

This concludes our prepared remarks, and we would be glad to address any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

We'll turn next to the IBA for any comments.

Thank you, Chair.

I'm Lisa Byrne with the Office of the IBA.

Um, our review of SD SERS budget was released Monday as IBA report 2614.

The SD SERS board, or excuse me, the SD SERS budget was approved by its Board of Administration in March, and it doesn't require approval of the City Council.

City does manage the payment of SD SERS employees, salaries infringed and invoices SD SERS for those costs.

9.3% of the budget is allocated to the other plan sponsors, the unified port district and the airport authority, with the remainder allocated to the city of San Diego.

The costs are charged through the annual pension payment, also known as the actuarily determined contribution or ADC.

The fiscal year 27 budget includes 50 FD FTEs as was discussed, unchanged from fiscal year 26.

However, SD SERS does plan to add one information technology position and reduce a vacant payroll processing position as a result of efficiencies.

Turning to investments, the most recent SD SERS annual comprehensive financial report.

The net investment income was over a billion dollars.

Lastly, our report highlights fiscal year 25 investment allocations and expenses.

Investment expenses were almost 47 million dollars or 0.37% of the fair value of assets under management, which totaled $12.5 billion at June 30th, 2025.

That concludes my remarks.

I'm here for any questions.

Okay, we'll start by turning over to the council members for any questions for the department or for the agency.

I don't see any, we will go ahead and proceed with public comment.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tem.

The public comment period for subitem K is now open, and we did receive one speaker slip from individual in chambers, allegedly Audra.

Please approach the lecture.

You'll have one minute to speak to subitem K.

Then we will move to the virtual queue, and there are three hands raised in the virtual queue.

Man, it's so scary to think about you guys being in control of people's retirements, especially with the way that you mismanage the money that you get from these people, just on a regular basis, and how you have to keep coming back for more, and how just one investment could totally make people lose everything that they've been waiting to get.

Um it's just it's very scary to think about that that's the way that the government works and that you guys make money, but the people's money that you're taking to make that money off of, they're not getting that money, and then you take it and you mismanage it.

I mean, you give it to people to prevent homelessness, and all they're doing is creating it and making sure that it continues.

So it's just really sad to see that um people's hands are in lives are in your hands in so many ways, and you guys sit here and and virtue signal as though you're you're doing benefits to the people, but in reality it's it's proven that you're not.

Thank you.

This concludes public testimony in chambers.

We will now move to the virtual queue.

I've started a five-minute timer.

There are three hands raised in the virtual queue.

Zoom user, please unmute.

You'll have one minute to speak to sub item K.

Henry here.

I'm glad you guys function with integrity, man.

That's cool.

I was wondering why you guys haven't talked to uh Miss Integrity, Nancy Pelosi, who's the biggest stock trader of all time, 10 times better than Warren Buffett.

She just made like 40 million just a few months ago.

You gotta get a hold of Nancy, the Democratic speaker of the House.

And you guys are Democrats, I think.

How come you guys ain't talking to her, man?

Inside track to Nancy, and they're actually doing the old Nancy Hammer at home depot now.

It's flying off the shelves.

But anyway, that's good.

You guys are paying all the benefits with money you make.

So maybe the city doesn't have to pay any more money.

Just let you guys run with the ball on the investments and pay everyone off and get rid of the drop program.

Get rid of drop.

That's an abomination.

We need to hire the young guys or cheaper.

Let the old guys go, let them retire.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, phone number ending at 870.

Please press star six and begin.

Uh Joy Sanyata.

Thank you.

I um first of all, thank you for your words.

Ensure safety, integrity, and growth.

Those are great words.

And of course, I'm really supportive of AI and IT, and some of your increase in expenditures is going into that area.

And I really, really uh congratulate you on that.

I didn't have time to do the work I wanted to, but in the UK, the Union Tribune, I'm sure you read it.

Was a very uh I didn't like the article myself, but it was March 14th, 26th.

And uh it it just talks about things that I didn't like associated with what we're doing with our pension and so forth.

Uh, excuse me, I'm if I'm sounding a little bit disjointed, but I um okay, here we go.

So there's three things in the article that didn't like appetite for risk, willfully guessing, unduly conservative.

Thank you.

This does consider a liability.

Thank you.

Sorry, thank you.

Our final speaker in the queue, Blair Beekman.

Please unmute and begin.

Huh.

Hi, Blair Beekman.

Thank you.

Interesting words from previous public comment.

Thank you.

Um, I like retirement board things.

Uh I think they tend normally to be conservative, and they look at a long view, they talk about economic forecasts, you know, five or ten years into the future, and how to plan for that.

I mean, we talk about that openly in the public meeting process.

We don't do that regularly.

And so I like it for that.

So um, I don't quite know how San Diego's works that well, but uh it offers some fiscally interesting ideas in how to uh plan and budget.

And I hope um the work of retirement boards if practice.

Well, can be uh counted on, actually, and how to be planning for our budget things, and that we talk more here in the budget over the next five to ten years and not just the next two to three years.

Um, so thank you for this item, and that uh we we take a long view in how to talk about our upcoming budget issues uh like the retirement board does usually in their meetings.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Chair, this concludes public comment on subitem K.

Thank you.

Uh, we'll now turn back to see if there are any final council member concluding comments on sub-IMK.

We'll start with Council Member Campio.

Thank you.

Uh Council President Pro Tem.

Uh thank you very much to SERS for being here in the presentation.

Um, just going off of what the independent budget analysts uh pointed out, um return above the discount rate this last year, and noting what Los Angeles County had with 9.7 this last year, San Francisco had 7.8% return, Orange County somehow had 14%.

It's all over the place, it's unpredictable sometimes.

But it sounds like you you had a good job with our um returns this last year.

I know this isn't about your budget, but since you're here, um I know that each of those jurisdictions, San Francisco has a 7.2% discount rate, Orange County has seven percent discount rate, LA City has seven percent, and we're at six point five percent.

Are there any how often do you revisit the concept of that discount rate?

Because it seems like for the last several years you've been shooting over it, which is a great thing.

Um, just wondering how often that's revisited.

Yes, the the actuarial valuation is a funding model that readjusts itself annually, and on a uh period of every three years, we invite the actuary to come in and take a look at both the economic, so that would be the investment return, inflation, and non-economic, that would be more of the demographics, rates of retirement rates of disability, and to challenge those assumptions, such as the 6.5%.

And so, not really looking backwards so much, but looking forwards, what do they anticipate uh if those assumptions are appropriate or not?

So, short answer once every three years.

Understood.

I appreciate you you've pointed out that you don't look back, you try to look forward, sort of thing, but it sounds to me like for many, many, many years.

If you look back, it looks like you're looking forward was always less than where it actually ended up.

So at a certain point, um, what goes into actually adjusting that?

It doesn't seem like you've ever adjusted it upward when you have many, many years of having a good output, but you always seem to keep it down or steady regardless of the fact that you overshoot with your returns every single time.

So uh previously I talked about our long-term not every single time, but many, many times.

Our long-term perspective.

And next year we'll be celebrating our hundred years uh anniversary.

So when that must be an interesting celebration.

So it at the beginning, the pension plans were um limited to what they could invest in, short-term paper.

Um, in the in approximately the nineteen eighties, early ninety, or yeah, it's probably the nineteen eighties, the prudent investor rule came in.

And so pension plans used to have assumed rates of return two, three percent that climbed up depending on what inflation was doing.

But when the prudent investor uh rule came in, pension plans started raising their uh assumed earnings rate up to eight percent, and it was up to eight percent for quite some time up until about the dot-top dot com crash.

And that's when um many pension plans said that is probably a little bit too aggressive, and we started seeing more plans dropping than we had the global financial crisis, more plans being more conservative.

And when we talk to the actuaries when they're looking at this, what they're looking for is not a particular number, but what is an acceptable range?

Um, their actuarial standard is you should have at least a 50% chance of making that uh investment return.

Um you can be a little bit more conservative or a little bit more aggressive, but you need to be within a reasonable range.

And the actuary says that six and a half percent is very tight within that reasonable range.

Um it may be a little bit more conservative than a lot of the pension plans in California.

I think there's probably about 10% of the plans in California at that level.

Um, but the average uh investment uh earnings return is around seven percent.

Um I'm sorry, target, not not return.

Uh target is about seven percent.

We're a little bit below that, but again, this is the actual evaluation is a funding model to try to project what the contribution should be in the next year.

The real you you pointed out the real result is how much money did you actually earn?

And we're very pleased that the uh at least the uh U.S.

stock market has been running uh particularly well, and so we did return 9.4% uh in this last fiscal year, and we're off to a good start this year.

But those markets are cyclical, and I liked how you pointed out there's a lot of different pension plans with different investment returns, and that's because not every pension plan invests the same weighting to risky assets.

Um we're more middle of the road, uh which you kind of saw in our returns where when the markets are running hot, uh we're we're not gonna do as well as let's say CalPERS, the state plan, but when the markets are doing poorly, we're generally uh higher than those those uh pension plans and just kind of more more stable understood.

Uh well, the market's doing good this year as of the last month.

If you ask you a month earlier, if this report was a month ago, you'd say it was doing terrible.

So I appreciate what you're pointing out.

It's not easy.

Um you say we're running in the middle.

I agree with that.

It sounds, but our discount rate is running at the very, very low end.

So I appreciate your explanation and uh please invite us all to your hundredth celebration.

We certainly will.

Okay.

And the public, yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Seeing no other colleagues with comments, uh, I believe that we'll go ahead and include conclude.

Subitem K.

Thank you.

With that, the council president has returned, so I'm gonna go ahead and turn the meeting back over to him.

Thank you, Council President.

Pro Tem.

Uh, so with that, I think the last item of the day.

Natalie, please introduce item sub- subitem L.

Subitem L, San Diego Convention Center Corporation.

And if you're watching on City TV and wish to call into the meeting to speak to subitem L, please call 1669-2545252.

The webinar ID is 160 332 69 00 pound.

Council President.

All right.

As you settle yourselves in, introduce yourselves for the record and let us know how much time you need.

Thank you, Council President.

Oh, that's loud.

Um, we need 15 minutes for the presentation.

All right, when you're ready.

All right, I just begin.

Yeah, all right.

Uh so thank you, Council members.

Uh uh, members of the budget review committee.

Uh, my name is Will Rodriguez Kennedy.

I'm chair of the Convention Center Corporation uh Board of Directors.

I'm here to introduce our team to present our budget for fiscal year 2027 before the committee today.

I'm joined by our deputy CEO and Chief Financial Officer Martin Maddox, and our Chief Infrastructure and Modernization uh Officer Corey Albright.

And we are uh dedicated to our public benefit purpose of hosting conventions that create economic benefit and good jobs for the San Diego region funded by outside visitors to the destination.

Our team is committed to continuing to book premier events that provide these economic benefits for San Diegans, including the hotel and sales taxes that help fund our core city services.

Today we would like to provide both a short and long-term look at our budget to inform future decisions.

As we have listened to the committee this week, we certainly understand and identify with the difficult conversations and decisions that the city is facing during this budget year development process.

This makes it more important to remain focused on preserving a growing TOT in years ahead.

To share more about our financials, I'll turn it over to our deputy CEO and CFO Martin Maddox to carry on.

Thank you, Will.

And as our chair said, the San Diego Convention Center's budget reflects the same themes that the city's been hearing this week.

When maintenance and operational support are deferred, costs don't go away, they actually compound and become even more expensive to address.

At the same time, the city net at the same time as the city navigates this difficult budget season, it's important that we protect the assets that generate revenue.

The convention center drives hotel stays and visitor spending, and continued investment is important for us to remain competitive and to protect the tax revenue that supports city services over the long term.

The convention center serves as one of the most important public assets that economically benefit this region.

As you can see for fiscal year 27, we're budgeted to welcome over 700,000 attendees who will contribute more than 30 million dollars of tax revenue to the city and generate an economic impact of 1.34 billion dollars.

But these numbers represent jobs.

Conventions create hotel demand and generate taxes for the city, as well as increase activity at restaurants, bars, and attractions.

They lift the airport and travel spending and support small business that thrive throughout the region.

And you know what's great about it?

It's all generated from visitors that benefit San Diego residents and city services.

Convention centers are built to drive economic activity with reinvestment typically coming from the value in which they create.

Our peer cities use taxes from hotel stays to help fund facility enhancements, expansions, and rental discounts to attract premium events to the city.

San Diego has historically relied on the convention center to absorb those costs.

And while it worked at a time, and while it worked for a while, when needed investments could be deferred, it was fine.

But with this, but with the age of our building and the volume of deferred capital obligations, it's making this approach unsustainable.

This slide is important because it separates operations from structural obligations.

Operationally, we perform well and we continue to attract high client high event, high value events.

In fiscal year 27, we do have a slightly fewer number of events, and that's mostly due to the cyclical nature of our event rotations, and we also have a lower mix of medical and corporate events that generate strong bottom line revenue for us.

The pressure on the reserves is really coming from the items highlighted in purple.

And those items are increased maintenance, needs due to aged equipment, capital renewal, and debt obligations.

These are all costs that our peer cities don't fund through their operations, but instead are supported through dedicated sources like TOT.

Reserves are intended to stabilize temporary conditions, not permanently replace long-term reinvestment strategies.