Okay, this is the meeting of the San Leander Human Services Commission.

It is two minutes after 7 on October 22nd.

I believe we need to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

Indivisible.

Shall we repeat that last part?

Exactly.

Thank you.

Pedro, can you take attendance?

Yes, thank you, Chair.

World call.

Chair Fry?

Here.

Vice Chair Alberg?

Present.

Commissioner Bailey?

Present.

Commissioner Lum?

Yeah.

Commissioner Mason?

Here.

Commissioner O'Brien?

Here.

Commissioner Picardo.

Commissioner Reed?

Here.

And Commissioner Robey.

Here.

And for the record, I have one excused absence from Commissioner Picardo.

Also in attendance are Kate Hart with Save.

And Jennifer Jennifer, your last name, I'm sorry.

Dow Raoul.

Dell Rebel.

They're both with Save.

Also Rachel Matthews with Front Porch Community Service.

And Human Services Manager Pedro and Ho, who will be serving as today's secretary.

Thank you.

Then we will move to announcements.

Yes, if I may, I have a couple announcements that I want to share with the commission.

First, when I came here in July, I presented about our age-friendly uh work and some of the work that's happening at the senior community center.

And so we do have a couple events that I wanted to uh promote.

Uh I believe in our conversation we talked about engaging people and also soliciting support uh from volunteers.

And so here's my also ask in case you're interested in volunteering for either one of these two events.

Um so on October 31st, I'm gonna go ahead and pass uh the flyer around on October 31st.

We have Halloween Bingo.

Uh so join us for a spectacular afternoon.

It's gonna be from 2 to 3:30 at the San Leandro Community Center.

Uh it's gonna be lots of treats, fun games, uh, and of course Halloween Bingo, which is a very popular at our senior community center.

There's gonna be uh prizes, and so um feel free to share this information uh within your your networks.

Uh and again if you are interested in in volunteering, um please go ahead and contact our awesome staff member Cynthia Lopez.

Uh I'm gonna go ahead and pass her cards around as well.

And so um and so that's our first event happening uh uh um in a few weeks.

Our second event is the uh the annual senior Thanksgiving luncheon, and so last year was uh the return of this event.

Uh we had not done it since uh COVID, and so we had uh a full house um uh uh the event uh filled up uh very quickly and so um so again if you know people that uh are interested in participating, please uh contact please feel free to share this information.

Um it's scheduled for November 26th from 12 to 2 p.m.

at the San Leander Senior Community Center.

And so um we are this year we're we are partnering again with uh Spectrum Community Services.

Uh some of you may know that Spectrum actually provides uh a um hot meal uh program at the senior community center every day, and they also do a lot of really good uh prevention work for us.

Uh last year they provided the food, everybody seemed to be very happy, and so this is an awesome event.

Um so if you're interested in volunteering again, feel free to uh get in contact directly with Cynthia Lopez and you have you have our contact information.

Um so thank you.

Um does anybody have any any questions or comments regarding either one of those two events?

Oh that's great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Um consent calendar.

Uh has everyone had a chance to review uh last month's September uh minutes.

Yes, ma'am.

I would take a motion to I'll make a motion to accept the minutes.

A second.

All in favor.

Aye.

Okay.

Post.

Abstains.

I will abstain just because I wasn't present at the last meeting.

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

Is it okay if we do a roll call?

Just to Chair Fry.

Yes.

Vice Chair Alborg?

Yay.

Commissioner Bailey.

Abstain.

Commissioner Lum.

Yes.

Commissioner O'Brien.

Yes.

Commissioner Reed?

Yes.

Commissioner Robey.

Yes.

And Commissioner Mason.

Yeah.

Motion carries.

Okay, moving on to city staff's reports and announcements.

Thank you, Chair.

Just a couple things.

You see it on your agenda, but just a friendly reminder.

It's hard to believe, but this is your last meeting of 2025.

And so the next meeting is scheduled for January 28, 2026.

And then the second uh update is uh as you many of you know, uh San Leandro as well as many cities participate in um biannual point in time count.

It's our opportunity to assess um study the number of unhoused individuals in our community.

And so the next one is coming up, it's uh it's to be scheduled for January 22nd of 2026.

And so um just as in the past, uh, in order for us to get an accurate count, we rely heavily on our staff, but also on volunteers.

And so um if you are interested in participating and you're available, uh of course we will we'll have more information about this um in the next few months that we can that we can email to to the group.

Um but please please feel free to reach out to Elsa and uh to let her know in advance if you are interested in volunteering.

Uh I can't emphasize enough how important it is that we get an accurate count.

Um I know some of you have participated in the past.

It is a very early start to the day.

Um I think we're out there 6 a.m.

before yeah, before we see this live, yeah.

Uh yeah, we've got it for many years and all um, and so um and so last year we had a lot of really good volunteers, and uh Elsa does an amazing job of coming up with a plan and a strategy um that we all follow.

And so um, so yeah, look forward to hopefully seeing many many of you there.

Any any questions or comments about about the county?

Thank you.

I would like to say that if something does come up between now and the end of the year, and people feel we need an emergency meeting, we do have the ability to call that and organize for that, get it posted on meeting central and make sure there's uh round at compliance.

But uh, have a great holiday.

Um public comments.

Do we have any public comments?

We don't have any uh public comments uh in person, and we did not receive any via e-comment.

No e-comment.

Okay, moving on to presentations.

The first presentation we have is from Save.

And I will move out of the way, so if you would like some share Augustine.

Hi everybody.

Thanks for having us back again.

It's great to see you.

Um, I'm Jennifer Dalrell, and the executive director at SAVES.

This is uh Kate Hart, who I know you've seen bunches and bunches of times and needs no introduction.

She is our director of programs, and um just happy to come back and chat with you guys about what we're up to.

Um you would have thought Kate and I would have divvyed up who's talking about what, so it's gonna be really smooth.

Uh about two years ago, um, we went through a strategic planning process and adjusted our mission just a little bit.

Our revised mission is uh let's say provide safety support and resources for people to live for intimate partner violence and engages communities in the work to end violence.

We felt like it was really important and high time that we build prevention into our mission.

And our vision is communities where people are safe, supported, healthy, and free.

That's us.

Just the other day.

Yeah, that's from our candlelight vigil a couple weeks ago.

There's something to add to that.

Nope.

Next slide.

Well that you talk raised.

So yeah, just a little bit about how we started.

We were founded in 1976, and so have provided 49 years of community service.

We're um gearing up for our big 50th anniversary next year, which I'm sure you'll hear lots about as plans get into place.

And we started as a real grassroots effort.

A small group, like four or five tri-cities women recognized the need in the community and literally got together around a kitchen table and decided to form an organization to provide support.

And they uh we started out with volunteer staff in a six-bed house that was donated actually by one of those women that was around the kitchen table.

Her family had property they weren't using, and she told her daddy he needed to donate the house so that they could use it for a shelter.

Um, and happily he did.

Um and we have grown uh at this point to about 24 full-time staff, a 24-bed safe house, and a range of um comprehensive services that I will talk more about that are designed to meet the needs of survivors however they arrive to us wherever they are in their process.

So talk about our programs and services.

Um so our crisis response services are kind of at the core of what we do.

Um, and that uh that program is made up of our 24 hour crisis line, um, the walk-in services at our empowerment center, which really is kind of like um uh it's sort of a live crisis line.

Like for many many years, all we had was the 24 hour crisis line, and we could do amazing things through the crisis line.

We can get people into motels, we can transport them, we can do all kinds of things, um, but we didn't always have like that in-person contact.

And so when we opened the empowerment center, um, we really thoughtfully thought about you know how do you create a space where you know we take a hotline call and then we can just kind of invite that person to come on down and sit face to face with someone and really talk about what's going on and get all the help that they need.

Um, so that team provides those services, which include emergency motel stays, assistance with food and transportation, um, they do temporary restraining order assistance and court accompaniment, um, and because we have access through the county to a translation service, we can provide up to um 300 different language translation in 300 different languages, and every person who works in that program has access to that service.

Um, if you call our crisis line at 3 a.m., the person answering can connect to a translator and provide translated services, and also all of those other things kind of happen 24 hours a day, too.

If you call at 3 a.m.

and you need a motel, the person answering the line can remotely set all of that up and provide you a lift and get you to a motel.

And that's just a picture of our empowerment center, which um well, I guess maybe happily next time we see you, we'll have different pictures.

We are moving our empowerment center next week to a new location in Fremont.

Um, and and hopefully it will look warm and cozy like this.

We really put a lot of effort into trying to make the space feel like a safe place and a warm place and a place where people can can feel comfortable.

May I ask where in Fremont?

You're moving to.

Um, we are moving to Kearney Street, which is across the street from Kaiser.

Yeah.

Perfect.

We also have a 24-bed safe house.

Um, and the thing I most like to talk about about our safe house is we really um try hard to be what's called a low barrier program.

So when folks call and they're in need of shelter, um, we really the things we think about are would they be safe at our shelter?

Can we get them there?

Can we provide them with what they need?

Um we don't spend a lot of time on um you know thinking about like um maybe there might be drug and alcohol use, or maybe they have mental health like we don't screen out for those things.

We screen everybody in and folks come to us how they are, and we do the best we can to provide them with the services that they need.

So while they're living at the safe house, they get case management, peer counseling, they have access to more traditional therapy, um, and of course, we work with everybody on finding a long-term housing solution.

And some of our long term housing solutions happen in our DD Housing First programs.

And with that program, we are able to provide people with move-in costs and kind of medium-term subsidies, like up to a year or so.

We can provide assistance with utility bills, we can help with car repairs and other things.

We can provide emergency food and clothing, kind of anything that relates to helping that person or that family stay stably housed, we can provide assistance with through that program.

And then coming on board any day now is a project called Mariposa, Mariposa 2, and that is a HUD-funded project.

We got a HUD grant for $800,000.

$800,000 through the COC competition.

And that will enable us to house we're projecting 19 families.

Yeah, families through the rapid rehousing for you know, and if you guys are familiar with rapid rehousing, it could be three months of subsidy, it could be up to two years, kind of depending on what that family needs.

And we're a little tentative because we were just getting into contract and trying to get the locks set up and then the government shut down.

So we're a little bit like yeah, huh?

What happens now?

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, once that project comes on board, then that essentially kind of doubles our capacity to provide housing to people.

So we're super excited about that.

Next slide.

And then we have our community education program, um, which currently is made up of two staff, adding a third.

Um, and those folks do our 40-hour domestic violence counselor training.

Um, they do a lot of work with youth leadership development.

We have a group called STYT, which is stronger than you think, um, and those folks work with us to do uh the leadership development, and they and we send them back out into their school communities to do education with their peers.

And um we are uh have been moving into kind of consultation and training services.

So we have a couple of opportunities in the pipeline that would allow our com-ed team to um go out into the community and provide uh training around um like domestic violence, uh general domestic violence and um and like working with survivors.

We're looking at at some opportunities to train folks working more in the homeless services field to get them kind of you know equipped to work um more effectively with survivors, and that program um we serve many thousands.

I'm trying to think my last year's number was about 4500 youth, I think that we saw in different uh school settings and and different educational settings.

Next slide.

And we obviously serve San Leandro survivors, which is why we're here.

Um, so we serve about 90 San Leandro survivors each year.

Um, the grant that we receive from you all uh supports that those front-end emergency services provided by the crisis response team.

Um so folks calling our hotline who are San Leandro residents tap into all of those services I talked about earlier.

Um, and then we work, of course, our crisis response team is really great at um at connecting folks with the longer-term services in the agency.

So um, so Stanley folks who call us connect to that team, and then you know, if they're a good candidate for longer-term housing, then that team can uh refer them into the housing first program.

Um, if they need you know long-term therapy, then the crisis response team can get them hooked up to therapy.

Um and then the other piece of that um the work we do that's San Leandro related is we receive reports from the San Leandro Police Department and review those reports and reach out to the survivors named in the reports to provide to connect them to those services if they desire that.

And next slide.

And then the other work we're doing with San Leandro right now, which is separate from um from our CAP funding, is um our community ed team is um has received funding to deliver uh healthy relationship and violence presentation, violence prevention presentations to different community groups and schools serving San Leandro.

We're going to be offering eight peer educator trainings, targeting San Leandro youth leaders, and then in collaboration with other community organizations like Building Futures and Family Violence Law Center, we will be participating in at least one big community event focused on violence prevention.

And I think that's it.

And we're very grateful for your ongoing support, definitely.

Any questions?

What's uh the average stay of someone who comes to a shelter?

Um I think if I do the actual math, it comes out to around nine months.

Um, but a lot that's kind of like a lot of people who stay a year a little bit more, and a lot of people who stay three or four months, yeah.

It's hard to say I agree, but yeah, it'd be that's that's nice, thank you.

Yeah, we don't have a hard um exit date from the from the shelter, it's not 90 day stay.

We used to be a 90-day stay, and now it's kind of why don't you stay until we can get you housed?

Um, and as long as folks are working on a housing plan and trying to make progress, um, and obviously not, you know, um the only reason people ever really get exited from the shelter is if they behave you know inappropriately or cause cause danger in the shelter.

Um, but other than that, it's really about you know, if they are working on a housing plan and moving in that direction and we can support that, then they tend to stay as long as they need.

Do you have a shelter in San Leandro?

No, we don't.

You're able to support families with young children then, too?

Yes.

Yes, our shelter takes both um uh survivors with families accompanying them and and survivors who are coming in as singles.

And we also okay, yes, we have um we also support families with um dependent adults or extended families, oftentimes through our hotel program.

We recognize that um somebody's leaving a violent home, they need to take you know, grandma with them or and and so we want to make sure we have the ability to serve the whatever the family configuration that comes to us.

Do you have a particular hotel group that you guys are working with that provides these hotel rooms that we keep that confidential for safety reasons?

I mean, the short answer is no, we actually use an independent privately owned motel.

Um, but yeah, we don't disclose no problem.

I understand.

Yes, please.

Um, two questions actually.

Um 90 90 beds, I think is what I saw there.

I mean, yeah, we have 24 beds.

Sorry, 24 beds.

So, how often are those beds full?

Like and if they're full, do you uh somebody calls in, do you collaborate with other organizations to get them support they need?

The beds are almost always full.

Um, we do um take into consideration um like uh like Jen was saying, we'll take kind of different family configurations.

So um in some of our rooms are shared, but let's say we had a mom with like a teenage boy, um, we would give a whole room to them because it wouldn't be appropriate to share with another family.

So sometimes the census is up or down, depending on like how we need to fit people in the house.

Um, but we're as full as we can be all the time.

Um, and most of it would we have folks move out, we fill those spaces, I would say within 48 hours usually.

Um we don't have space available, um, we do use the motels as Jen mentioned, um, as much as we possibly can.

That gets very expensive to house people in motels, so we can't do it as much as we would like.

Um, and then we work really closely with um building futures, Ruby's Place in Hayward.

Um, we'll even we were very uh closely aligned with uh next door down in San Jose, so we'll work out to get people down there.

Um, and and all of the DB shelters, all the domestic violence shelters kind of work that way because a lot of times people aren't safe calling the shelter that's in their home city because it wouldn't be safe for them to stay there.

And so if we've got folks from Fremont who need to flee, we'll call Building Futures and try to get them settled over here and and vice versa.

They call us when they have folks that aren't safe to stay in San Leandro, and we all try to support each other in that way.

I know you mentioned women and children and some younger folks, but I'm just curious.

Could we do we do a lot of work with older adults?

Older that are being impacted.

We do um I would say it's the way the the age breakdowns are on our reporting.

Um it's you it's like 60 and older folks calling, and it's a small percentage, like maybe five percent of the folks we serve in a year, but we do get those calls.

Okay, yes.

Are you able to support male and male identifying folks?

We do.

Um anyone who is female identifying um is uh eligible to come into the safe house.

Um, if we have someone who's male identifying, then that's when we use the motel.

And when I say motel, they're rooms that have kitchenettes.

Um we have um the crisis response team will go there and meet with folks in personal.

We're bringing them over to the empowerment center.

So they really do get you know all of the services they would get in the safe house, it's just a different living environment.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for the support.

Yeah, appreciate it.

So moving on to item six B.

Okay, excuse me.

Rachel.

Home porch, home front porch, home match.

I'll explain it.

Thank you.

Okay, hello, my name is Rachel Matthews.

I am the um program director for Home Match, which is a front porch community service, so I'll explain that.

Um, and and I work for Alameda County specifically.

Um, so Front Porch is an organization that owns about 60 um senior residences.

So if you've heard of St.

Paul's Towers or San Francisco Towers or the Oak Center Towers, most of them are low income, but a few of them are market rate, and all of those communities pay some money every year to our community foundation, which which uh pays for programs such as Home Match, and then we have a couple other programs, which uh when we go to the next one, does it?

I think it talks about those all.

Whoops, sorry, exactly.

So we have those market rate communities and affordable housing, and then we have three categories of support programs.

So housing is what I do, home match, and then we also have social connection programs, and that that's like um uh senior center without walls type of thing.

So there's um programming available pretty much 24-7 for people who really have a hard time you know connecting with someone outside of their home, and so we make that possible.

Um, and then creative aging, we have um Ruth's table, which is a um art center at Bethany Center, which is also one of our um facilities, and it's a free open to anybody who wants to join.

But again, the programming a lot of it is geared towards seniors, but it is for anybody in the community, and it is um free for people to use those services, and it's Ruth Osawa, so it's her table that she worked on, and so it's called Ruth's table.

Um and then uh yeah, community service programs, blah blah.

Same thing.

Uh we can skip this one.

I don't think we want to watch this.

So how much is LouCoin?

Yeah.

Um, okay, so how match is a home sharing program, and what that means to us is that we work with people both who have a room available in their home.

It can also be an ADU, an in-law.

You can be the owner, or you can also be a renter if you have permission from the landlord.

And but you need to be living on site.

So again, this person you might have a room in your home, uh, ADU in-law on the on the uh property, or it can also be like a duplex or up to a triplex.

So we start by visiting the the space.

We actually go to each house and look at it, walk through it with people and talk about what are the shared spaces, how are you comfortable sharing your space?

Are you comfortable sharing your space?

A lot of people have not thought about this, and they're like, Oh, they want to sit on my couch.

It's like, well, yeah.

They do actually, you know, it's like so.

Sometimes we're we're really walking people through this whole what if they thought this was a good idea, but then they were like, oh, wait a minute, they're gonna use my kitchen.

Oh no.

So, you know, that's kind of interesting, the learning curve that we have with people.

Um, and we run background checks on everybody, we verify their identification when we're there, and the application that they complete while we are there with the home providers again is asking those questions of how do you share the space, but then also things like do you smoke?

Do you have pets?

Are you okay with if they have a pet?

Can they have guests over?

How long can those guests stay?

Do they need to ask permission?

Um, you know, all these different things, and like uh your kitchen, if it's uh particular, is there a day or a time that you don't want them to be in your kitchen?

Like your girlfriends come over on Tuesday nights and you play poker and have shots and you don't want anybody else in there.

Um, we need to know that.

So we could tell that person, hey, you know what, we have this room available, but these are some of the rules to that situation.

So then by the same token, we speak with people who are seeking housing, and um, those persons, we ask them the same type of questions so that we can try to connect people based on what are their commonalities and commonalities based on their the way they live, right?

We're obviously not talking about their their um you know their religion and their all that kind of stuff.

We don't get into that.

Um, if they are sharing a space with someone, the house versus like an in-law unit or something, they can have a couple of preferences, they can have the preference of the gender, they can have the preference of familial status, meaning once you move in, can you move in all your friends and neighbors?

And they can say no, one person only in the room or whatever, and then also pets, and that includes service animals.

So those are the three um exemptions or exceptions if they're sharing the actual house with them.

So a big piece of this is the economic support that it provides for that home provider who oftentimes uh people forget that the person just because they own a home doesn't mean they can afford their insurance and their property tax and the utilities because they're you know, 75 maybe or 80, and they've been retired for 20 years and they get 1,200 a month.

And it's like, oh, how does that work?

It doesn't.

So this way they get to stay in their home, they get a little bit of income, and they also get some social support, hopefully.

A lot of people like to have some um, you know, contact with the person who moves in with them.

There are also some people who absolutely don't want any of that.

They're like, oh no, I don't want that person to talk to me.

You know, it probably evolves, but you know, initially, some people do have that preference.

Um, but at least they know somebody's in the house, they're not there by themselves all the time, and so it's a safety issue as well.

And then affordable housing comes out in that um the person who is seeking housing, obviously, it's usually oftentimes, but not always, um, you know, a more affordable to be renting a room in someone's house rather than getting your own apartment or renting a house or something.

Okay, you know the next one.

Um so risk mitigation is a big piece of what we try to do, and that is obviously by running background checks on everyone when it comes to the seekers.

We are also verifying their income to make sure that they make at least two times whatever the rent is that they want to pay.

So if they say, you know, okay, I'm filling out the application, and I think I can pay $900, then we need to see proof that they make at least $1,800 a month.

That's pretty low bar.

Most people don't want to pay 50%, but these days, 50% is actually becoming more and more common and terrible, but true.

Um so we are proactively engaged with them.

We do interview each person, you know, individually.

Um, in addition, like I said, where we go to the physical house.

Um, we make the process pretty easy and comfortable.

So we go and visit the home, make sure it's livable.

You know, there's a home I'm working with right now that happens to be in Sound Leantra, and it's it's in my process of my sniff test.

The woman has a lot of cats, and it like emptying the cat boxes has not been her top priority.

So she does need somebody to move in with her who maybe can help with um uh you know, helping her keep the house clean and emptying those cat boxes.

So I had to kind of find someone who is used to being around a lot of cats, and I found someone who smokes, so like she doesn't smell that well.

That's right.

Okay, you know what I mean?

But that's like the kind of thing of where I'm trying to like, how do we make this work?

And both of people comfortable without you know, me having to go back so many times I've already gone back twice and like open the door.

Oh, no, not ready yet, I'll be back.

Call me again, you know.

Um so you know, we do a little bit of that.

Um making the process easy and comfortable, like I said.

So we do the listing for them, we um list it on, you know, Room's Craigslist, uh Facebook Marketplace.

We have a um on our website, we have a um uh like uh an online uh you know what am I saying here?

A catalog that they can look at.

Also, if someone applies through, let's say Alameda County and our office, they can still look at and also be um eligible for any of the rooms in Contra Costa, San Francisco or Marin, where we also work.

So we have one database that we all share.

We just have it broken out by by our counties, but then if you want someone to switch counties, you can just check a box, and then I can see your person as well.

So we do a lot of that.

I poach a lot of people when and when and where I can.

Oh, here's someone who has a good income, and etc.

Um the compatible matching is that we are again matching them on how they live in the space, how they're gonna be comfortable, their quiet hours, their all this kind of stuff about them and how they you know live every day.

And then when we introduce them, what we do is we we introduce them just with a phone number and email, and obviously their name, and we do not give the anybody the address at any point.

So just like the safe house that they were talking about, we're not giving up that information because maybe after a conversation or two, they're like, uh I didn't feel comfortable with that person.

So we can always be the bad guy for that person and say, you know, we can make that call.

Uh, they didn't really feel that this was a good fit for them, you know.

And and and the same for the home provider, they can say, I don't think so.

That didn't really, I didn't get along with that person.

Okay.

When they do meet, we always recommend that they first have the first meeting off-site, so that again the person doesn't get focused on the house, and instead they decide, do I actually like this person?

You know, do I do I think that we have some common um ground that we can speak to each other?

And that's much more important oftentimes than you know, they're looking around at the house.

Oh, well, that's a great kitchen.

I don't like her at all, but I'm sure I can make it work.

No, we're trying not to have it work out that way.

Try to flip that script a little bit.

Um, but we are also involved with ongoing map support, so that's like where we become kind of like case managers, but not officially, but basically, yes.

So, you know, um, Joe keeps parking in my driveway, and we agreed that he was gonna park on the street, and I'm parking in the driveway.

Joe, in the agreement of which I have a copy, and I'll explain that to you in a minute.

Remember, you weren't gonna park in the driveway, and Anna is annoyed.

Can you like stop doing that?

Or is there a reason you are doing it?

Like, what's going on?

So we help people work through things when they just don't feel like they're connecting properly, or the person isn't understanding them, or maybe they just want a third party to hide behind.

That's okay.

We also have in-house mediation.

Um, we have third-party mediation, so we can keep kind of escalating because let's creep it up to the next one.

Do we resolve this?

No, next one.

Never had to use any of that so far because I I've worked with seniors and in-housing stuff for many years.

So I usually find my way around it.

Um, obviously, we're creating housing stock.

That's one of our most important things is we're creating instant housing stock.

So when someone calls us up, for instance, today we went and looked at a home, and um, you know, we run that person's background check.

The background checks have been coming back.

If someone hasn't moved a lot in the last couple years within 24 hours, so that person's house will probably be active tomorrow.

So people say, well, what's the timeline?

The timeline is not really how quickly can I make the room active.

It's it's how quickly can we find someone who we think might be a good match for you and who you agree and you actually like, and then do you want to meet them once, twice, five times?

Do you want to meet three people?

Like what's you know, what's your what are your criteria?

So we've matched people as quickly as within a week had someone in a in a place versus I have people who've been on my board for two years because they really actually don't want to have the space available, but their daughter told them they had to do it, and so they say no to everybody.

Well, okay, that's okay.

We'll continue to try.

Maybe we'll get lucky someday, and that person will get a house.

Okay, go ahead.

Um, so it these are obvious things that you guys probably already know a lot about.

Can't build it, you can't build enough, and you certainly can't build it fast enough or with enough money.

I think that the average now is like almost a million dollars.

I think this is actually coming down, but probably in the last couple years it was a million dollars per unit in 10 years.

So obviously they fast-tracked a lot of things because that's pretty unacceptable, but um still expense, it's still more than you know, our service of which we don't charge either party anything.

And but we did get some money from San Leandro, and we do thank you for that.

Um, and then as we know, most many adults are cost burdened because if they are retired, their retirement just doesn't go anywhere, and it's really not possible for them to you know live in their home alone anymore, even though they may want to, but it really isn't that that uh possible for many reasons, and then the social isolation piece is huge because increased risk of dementia 50 percent when people live alone and aren't engaging anymore with someone outside of their little maybe you know, I I talk to my sister once a week or something like that, but it has to kind of be a little broader than that, and so rather than just sitting and watching TV all day, at least if someone is coming through a couple times a day, hey, how are you doing?

What's going on?

Can I have a cup of tea?

Oh, I was gonna have this French fries.

Do you want some?

You know, something as simple as that gets the person out of their own, you know, head.

So okay.

So I mentioned most of this.

Um, what I didn't talk about is the match agreement.

Okay, so after we have the home visit, we compatible matching, we've introduced them, they like each other, they want to move forward.

Then we come back to the house and meet with both parties at the house, and we have a an agreement that is 30 pages long, so it's no joke, and half of it is a standard lease agreement.

How much is the rent?

When is it due?

What is the deposit?

How am I gonna receive the funds?

Um, what is a 30-day notice look like if you ever want to give one?

Because then maybe it won't work.

What's a three-day notice?

What are the very specific things that you can that you have to criteria that you have to um address particular criteria for a three-day notice?

How does that work?

Um, so we walk through all that with them, and then the other part of it is um house kind of rules slash expectations.

And so this is we go through with both people again, you know, talking about that kitchen, the shared use of space, the people coming over, um, noise, um, you know, uh just you know, do did can the dishes sit in the sink overnight, or did they need to be washed right away?

Do I have to put everything in the dishwasher?

Can I start the dishwasher?

Do you start the dishwasher?

These sound like crazy things, but those are the reasons that people don't get along.

It's like, oh my god, they ran the dishwasher and it wasn't all the way full.

It's like, okay, well, then why don't you be in charge of the dishwasher?

Okay, problem solved.

Okay, okay.

So, you know, it's like things like that that that cause um these issues, and so we talk about can they show the condiments?

Who's buying the toilet paper?

You know, if it happens to be a shared bathroom, um, who's buying the cleaning products?

Are we sharing cleaning products?

You know, does anybody have um allergies to perfumes to um cleaning product smells?

We try to go through all of this stuff, have it down, have it written down, both parties are answering these questions, and everybody gets a copy of this agreement, and then that's how we go on with the ongoing support is now we have a copy of that, we got to know you guys pretty well, and um we're we're open for you to call us at any time, and believe me, they do, and some people call all the time because they're bored and lonely, and it's like, hey Rachel, and it's just like oh my god, okay, what do you want to talk about today?

Um, so the other thing is if we don't hear from someone, we call them quarterly.

So we always call them quarterly if we don't hear from them, and frequently people will have saved up their grievances, even though we'll tell them please don't wait.

If something is going wrong, tell us right away.

That then it's gonna be really easy to solve in most cases.

If you wait until you're really mad and you've been backed into a corner, and now you absolutely lala, don't want to hear what the other person is gonna say, it's gonna be really hard to resolve this.

So, and I definitely have had that issue where people will well, you know, and you're like, oh no, gee, you know, if this happens again, you know, make sure you tell us right away because we'd really like to be there to help you with this.

But we do go through all kinds of support, and that could be helping them, you know, we don't get along that well, and why is that we can either fix it, we can help them, you know, give a 30-day notice, and that could be from either party.

Um, and then we would help both parties after that by either hoping to help that person find somewhere else to live, and then helping that person find a different roommate, if that's what either one of them wants.

So if they want our help again, maybe they say, No, I tried it, I don't like it, never mind.

You know, we cannot guarantee that I've not lived with this person myself.

I can't guarantee you that it's gonna be great, but you know, you can get out of things easily without it being drama and without um having a and any kind of legal action, which is what we're really trying to help people avoid.

That's where things really go off the rails.

So that's that.

What else do I have?

Oh, I think I have a little video.

Is that right?

It's coming up.

Oh, but coming up, coming right up.

So profile successful participants, obviously, communication is key and adaptability, you know.

Really, you know, people who have thought about this and you know aren't gonna be really annoyed if you know they well, you know, that's my chair, you know, and I don't like when they sit in that chair, you know.

Okay, well, you need to tell them that, and that's probably okay.

But you know, being a little bit flexible with things is really helpful, obviously.

Um what we tell home seekers, you know, one thing is it's not emergency housing per se.

However, that being said, we have housed a number of people who were living in their cars.

I've housed two people that have been at that safe park um place up on Fairmont.

So that's very exciting to me.

I don't tell the provider, this person's living in their car, but if they have you know, steady income, they have a clean background check, they have fallen on hard times, they lost their housing due to some you know ridiculous situation.

They're they're working on all this stuff, they have support with that.

Um all the person really needs to know is yes, they have enough income, yes, they're a good fit for you.

Um, you know, obviously, if someone is having you know, mental health breakdown, that isn't who I'm going to try to connect with an 82-year-old woman who might need some help around the house.

But it has worked out in a number of times, and interestingly enough, some of the longest matches have been those, which I find actually very interesting.

Um these are just two particular people, and I think we have um a video, a short video.

My husband died, and I have been room.

I uh got in contact with them when a home match contacted me, and I'll say I was a skeptic, but they were so solid and outreaching to me that I began to believe and become part of it.

Look, um I really like oops again.

Okay, well there it is.

Well, you get the idea.

They get along great.

Life is beautiful.

Interestingly, a lot of people think that we only work with seniors.

It's just we don't.

We work with anybody 18 and older, but most of the home providers are single women that are over 65.

And there's quite a few matches we've made with people who are in their 70s, 80s, 90s with people who are 18, 22, 30, and they just they're getting along great.

It works out wonderful.

Um, you know, initially they might be, oh, I want somebody my age, and it's like, okay, well, I don't happen to have anybody who's 95 right now.

Um I have this guy who's 19 and he's very mature.

Would you like to meet him?

And surprisingly, they've worked out.

So that's always exciting and fun, you know.

We see that a lot with our volunteers at work, like a lot of our volunteers are young or high schoolers, and they get along so well with residents.

It's it's it's amazing.

How long has your service been available?

So um about 15 years in Marin in San Francisco, which is where they started, and then um Contra Costa and Alameda County both got started right when COVID came along.

So there were three years that it was supposedly active, but not really.

Um, so at that time we really only had some matches in the Fremont area because we had funding there, so we only worked in that area very nominal.

And now here I have been here two years.

Wait a minute.

Three years three, it'll be three years in February.

So I started in February, the other person that I work with started in February, and we've made about 80 matches during that time in Alameda County, and that's we have not really focused yet on the Tri-Valley area because it's extremely long distance for us to drive from our office in Oakland.

But if we get funding, we'll have another person to be there, you know, uh a little bit in the Tri-Cities area, Fremont-ish.

Mostly we've been around this area.

So Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro, Hayward, Castro Valley, um, you know, a little bit of Alameda.

Right now, we've had, I think, four matches in San Leandro in the last year.

Um, and one of them is a woman who just one her match moved out, and another person just moved in, and it was because that person works uh part-time in Florida, and so it was getting a little difficult to go to Florida.

So that that had you know came to a natural end, and she is 86, and I think that the person that just moved in with her is in her 30s and is somebody who you know commutes to San Francisco every day, but she lives, you know, in San Leandro, not too far from here, and um, so yeah, this is the second one with her.

So some people do you know continue on the journey when when the person moves out.

Um, and some people stay like I know you're asking before, like how long do people stay like at the shelter?

And we've had matches that are five, six, seven, eight years.

And then some of them that you know, by design were maybe a traveling nurse for you know, three or six months, so it's wildly all over the place.

Um and uh yeah, like that.

So I may have a potential client.

Okay, how do we I'll give you my card?

Okay.

At the end of this, I think there is uh there's phone numbers, yeah.

So all the counties, these are all these numbers you can get to any of any of us through these, you know what I mean.

And some people will call one of us and will realize oh, you know what, you really want to, you know, be in Contra Costa or your house is actually in Contra Costa.

A lot of people in El Cerrito call and it's like, no, you're not actually Alameda County, but I'll connect you with somebody who's in your county.

So there's like that.

Any other questions?

No, that's very quick.

I have one, yeah.

I'm just curious.

Um when it comes to matching, uh, do you have folks who speak different languages?

Like, how do you navigate that?

We do have um staff that speaks a number of languages.

Um we have, you know, obviously we have Spanish, we have Mandarin, we have Cantonese, we have a Malaysian uh dialect or two.

There's someone who speaks like three or four languages from you know, Indonesia, Malaysia.

I'm not really sure what all those languages are.

So there's there's that, and then we have translation services that we can use, probably not as robust as whatever they've got, but um so uh it's interesting.

We have not had um a great use other than Spanish and and Chinese are really the the majority of who we hear from, and I think that's a lot of that is just you know how different communities are, you know, and how supportive they are with their family members when people are in need, and who isn't all I'll say about that.

Thank you.

So that's that's it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Does anybody else want my card?

Or I could just leave some here or yeah, okay.

I'll just leave some here.

Yeah, shoot them out.

Yeah, exactly.

There you go.

Sorry, okay.

Thank you.

Thank you guys for being on this commission.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we have the almost gone.

Okay.

Thank you, Pedro.

Thank you, Rachel.

We'll see you next time.

Okay, do we have any action items?

I don't hear any action items.

Uh commission reports and announcements.

To start.

Thank you.

No, I do not have an action report.

Commissioner Bailey.

Um, I have nothing to report at this time.

Okay.

Commissioner Lum.

You don't have anything either.

Oh, Commissioner O'Brien.

Commissioner Mason, nothing for me.

Commissioner Rogue.

Just my appreciation for all of you.

And I wish you a wonderful holiday, safe with your families and with your friends, and that's it.

Be safe.

Commissioner.

I would like to make comment about that last presentation.

Well, that lady's got a work cut out for don't they?

Don't they?

Oh my gosh.

Imagine they must go through one.

That's absolutely amazing.

I just want to see one of the questionnaires about what you like, would you like those things?

That's that's that's kind of expensive.

The reports, but 30 pages longer than it's like, wow.

But no, that's uh that's a great project.

And I can't imagine what they go through on a daily basis.

Wow.

That's my report, that's my comments.

Okay.

Um, I'd like to let folks know that at April showers there will be a Thanksgiving dinner uh for homeless marginalized on Thanksgiving Boys and Girls Club 11 to 1, and that generally gets everybody through fed, and then uh Eric Anderson construction provides lunches to go.

We'll have full turkey.

That's I don't think we do stuff it.

That's a marina, right?

Marina and San Leandro Street.

Yeah.

And frequently we'll have folks that were the day before at the senior center, but they like to have Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving tour.

And so that come by and everyone's welcome.

Thank you.

Are any volunteers needed?

Uh no, they actually have volunteers signed up and they sign up usually in July.

Yeah.

That was that was my first push into human services.

Is I wanted to show my six-year-old that you have to work with other people and help them.

And I called the Salvation Army, and he said, Lady, we've had volunteers for six months already, but let me tell you something.

There are people hungry every other day of the year, and they could use your help then too.

And I went, ooh, gut punch.

Okay.

Um make a motion to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor.

I thank you.

Have a wonderful holiday.