Recording in progress.

Good morning, everyone.

I am Matt Bruman, Word3 Councilmember and Chairperson of the Committee on Human Services.

Today is Thursday.

No.

May 6th, and we are meeting in person in room 120 of the John A.

Wilson building and virtually via Zoom.

The time is now 9.05 a.m.

Today we are conducting the second of two budget oversight hearings on the Department of Human Services, or DHS.

During the first budget oversight hearing, we heard from public witnesses who sounded the alarm about the harm the proposed budget would do without significant changes.

We heard from witnesses that for years the district was making significant progress in the war on poverty, reducing homelessness with more humane shelters and making bold investments in permanent housing while implementing a model version of TANF that put children first.

We also heard that this budget r risks reversing that progress.

It cuts domestic violence services by 700,000 at a time when domestic violence is surging.

It deepens rather than prevents the cuts to TANF introduced in last year's budget.

It underfunds existing permanent supportive housing so significantly that DHS would enter next year with 30 million to 40 million less than it needs to maintain our current number of vouchers, and it eliminates civil legal services funding, cutting dozens of district jobs while depriving hundreds of residents of council.

I should say I know that this is not the ideal world from the perspective of the agency as well.

We are in a very difficult budget time, and we're seeing the challenges of that budget reflected here.

But it is clear what the challenges and the problems are.

Today I want to discuss how we solve them.

How we'll use today's hearing to explore how we can best deploy our limited resources to preserve our progress.

How to protect bridge housing and shelter capacity, preserve legal and victim services, and mitigate harms from reductions in cash assistance.

I look forward to the conversation.

Before we begin, I would like to commend DHS for its work supporting the committee and educating the public this budget season.

The agency's April 24th budget oversight forum with the Fair Budget Coalition answered many of my most pressing questions and made a complex agency budget accessible to people who are most affected by it.

Before we proceed, I just have one note on logistics.

Should any of my uh colleagues join?

Council members will have 10 minutes each to ask a round of questions, and I will generally turn to my colleagues in the order they arrive.

I invite you all to uh join us at the table in front of me, which you have uh considerately already done.

It is the practice of this committee to place our government witnesses under oath.

I invite all of our government witnesses, including staff in the audience who will be testifying later, to raise their right hands.

Do you swear or affirm under penalty of law that the testimony you are about to provide to the Committee on Human Services is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I do.

Thank you very much, Director, when you're ready, you may begin your testimony.

Good morning, Chairperson Fruman, Committee members, Council staff, and members of the community.

I am Rachel Pierre, Director of the DC Department of Human Services.

I'm joined today by our Chief Operating Officer Tanya Mortensen and our agency fiscal officer, Hayden Bernard.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify on the department's fiscal year 27 proposed budget.

Mayor Bowser's Growth DC budget is a statement of confidence in our city's resilience, its strength and its continued growth.

Human services represent more than 21% of the mayor's fiscal year 27 budget proposal.

That reflects the administration's long-standing commitment to ensuring that growth reaches every resident.

At DHS, our responsibility is to make that investment count by offering programs that move people towards stability, responsibly stewarding the safety net systems that this district residents depend on, and spending public dollars on programs that produce real and lasting outcomes.

When I appeared before this committee for my confirmation last fall, I commended are committed to maintaining the progress we have made and strengthening our trajectory towards meeting the needs of all residents.

In fiscal year 27, we will continue to deliver on that by reforming how families exit shelters so that transitions are sustainable over the long term.

By partnering with community partners and customers to shape the temporary assistance for needing family hardship policies rather than designing them behind closed doors.

And by improving workforce outcomes by strengthening the grant agreements that govern our employment program.

Today, I want to tell you directly where we stand on each of those commitments and how the Grow DC budget will make it possible.

I will begin with economic security and TANF reform.

First, I'd like to address the changes to the TANF program reflected in DHS's fiscal year 27 proposed budget.

Beginning October 1st, we will implement a step down for households who have reached received TANF benefits for more than 60 months.

I recognize that this is difficult news, and it was not a decision we made lightly.

Many families have relied on this program through extraordinary difficult circumstances, including a global pandemic, a housing crisis, and rising daily living costs.

This change will have real impacts, and we are focused on managing this transition responsibly.

That is exactly why, before finalizing any policy, we are building a hardship framework from the ground with the community in partnership with the National Academy of Public Administration.

DHS conducted a series of working group sessions that brought together council members, advocates, service providers, and most importantly, our TANF customers.

We want to make sure that the people most affected by this change have a direct role in shaping the cash benefit protections.

The results of those sessions will be published in a report in the coming months, and the hardship policy will be in place ahead of our October 1st step down.

Our fiscal year 27 proposed budget also reflects an 11.5 million reduction in the TANF employment and education program.

This was a decision rooted in the mayor's focus on fiscal responsibility and investments that deliver results.

We looked hard at which investments are moving residents into jobs and careers, not just program participation, and we are refocusing on what works.

DHS is closely working closely with the Department of Employment Services to strengthen referral pipelines and fill the capacity gaps that data has identified.

This work also positions us to navigate changes to SNAP under federal law.

Studying June 1st, new work requirements will take effect under HR1.

We are communicating proactively with customers so that anyone who can meet work requirements does not lose their benefits, and our cross-agency coordination with DOES means we will have the referral infrastructure to support them.

Federal changes have also significantly shifted administrative costs for SNAP.

The district is now responsible for 75% of program administration costs.

The Grow DC budget adds $22.8 million of dollars to account for this shift.

A critical part of managing additional costs is improving our SNAP payment accuracy rate.

Under current federal law, the district faces a penalty of up to $50 million annually by fiscal year 30 if our payment error rates remains too high.

That is why our team is aggressively pursuing a comprehensive plan to make significant progress by fiscal year 27, not just as a performance goal, but as fiscal protection for the district.

We are also investing $2.12 million to transition EBT cars to microchip technology, which is the same security standard used in the commercial sector.

Benefits theft harms the very residents who depend on these programs most.

We estimate chip cars will reduce benefit theft by up to 75%, and we will help to deliver meaningful protection for district families who rely on these lifeline benefits.

Turning now to homeless services and sustainable housing exits.

The Growth DC budget builds on more than a decade of Mayor Bowser's investments to make homelessness in the district rare, brief, and non-recurring.

My commitment at my confirmation was that was to ensure that when families leave shelters they stay housed.

That means moving away from exits that cycle families back into crisis and instead supporting them through transitions that hold.

Grow DC gives us the tools to do that.

This fiscal year, this fiscal year 27 proposed budget also comes with some difficult trade off and does not add new housing vouchers for families.

Given the constraint budget, we had to make hard choices and we prioritize making sure that families already match or in the LISA process get house and stay house.

In fiscal year 26, we've matched 187 new vouchers across permanent supportive housing and targeted affordable housing programs for families.

We are tracking every one of those cases and getting those families across the finish line.

We are also doing work this year to build on to build more sustainable housing exits for youth and singles.

DC Flex has expanded to youth and singles, and we are piloting shared housing models that expand the range of stable exit options available beyond traditional voucher pathways.

These pilots are part of our broader effort to match the right resources to the right households rather than routing everyone through a single exit strategy.

On homeless prevention, the Grow DC budget increases funding for the homeless prevention program to $9.5 million, allowing us to help approximately 3,000 families avoid entering shelter.

It also provides $7 million for the emergency rental assistance program to support roughly 750 households facing emergency housing needs.

We are also expanding our bridge housing model.

The Aston and E Streets have demonstrated that we can bring people in from unsheltered homelessness and prepare them to successfully sustain longer-term housing.

The fiscal year 27 budget also includes 28.4 million dollars to expand this approach and open a third site.

It also includes capital investments to modernize and build new shelter facilities, continuing Mayor Bowser's commitment to creating spaces that treat residents with dignity and support the path back to stability.

Next, I want to highlight our work and youth and family services.

Growth Growth DC maintains our capacity to invest in young people and families before challenges escalate.

Programs like ACE, PASS STEP, reflects the mayor's understanding that early intervention is both the right thing to do and fiscally responsible thing to do.

I am particularly proud of the true and C reduction program, which has now expanded to 10 schools, and we will plan to expand to 18 schools next school year.

The 2026 media report shows meaningful progress in reducing truancy and chronic absenteeism.

These investments help families intact and put people, young people, on a path to long-term success.

In closing, I want to take a moment to recognize the people who make this work possible.

None of what I've described today happens without the men and women of DHS who show up every day for district residents, often in the hardest moments of their lives.

We have navigated the pandemic, a housing crisis, federal policy upheaval, and rising fiscal pressures without losing sight of who we serve.

I am proud of our team, and they deserve to be recognized.

Mayor Bowser's Growth DC budget is about building a city where both is real and broadly shared, where the district's strength is measured not just in economic indicators, but by whether our most vulnerable residents have a real shot at stability.

This is what DHS is committed to delivering.

The fiscal year 27 proposed budget reflects hard choices made responsibly, investments directed where they produce results, and a continued commitment to the residents who need us most.

Thank you again, Cheferson Fruman, for the opportunity to testify before this committee.

I am prepared prepared to respond to your questions.

Thank you very much, Director Pierre.

I'm gonna start on the on the Aston and shelter capacity.

And you might have seen yesterday at the administrative meeting that I spoke to this and referenced uh a pretty strong interest in trying to utilize the full capacity of the Aston.

And part one of the things that's out there is you have 25 million dollars in the budget to purchase a new property that would it's now called for trans for bridge housing, but in a certain sense it replaces it can be thought of as replacing Adams' place, but maybe that's not fair.

In any case, we do have some history of when we buy properties and then when our customers begin to be able to use them.

I think the Aston, the property was identified for purchase in January 2023, and the site opened in November of 2025.

So it took two and a half years.

And this I think comes from your pre-hearing responses.

Um, the site opening in September 2025, so close to the same two and a half, two, two and three-quarters years.

Um, the 25 million dollars that is in the supplemental budget, I take it.

DGS has not yet identified a site, and we just talked about the kind of timeline.

If DGS identified a site tomorrow, am I right that we could expect us opening in the spring of 2029 or something like that?

Given the history with the Aston and E Street.

It really depends on the site identified or the site um acquired and what kind of work um it needs.

Some sites are closer to turnkey than others.

So what we really want to make sure is that whenever we we buy a site, we try to make sure that it's that we make renovations that fit our needs.

So it it would depend on the site identified for acquisition.

It would take a while though.

Yeah, it's uh yes, but I can't speak to how long it would take because the site, as you mentioned, has not been identified yet, but it would more than likely not be totally turnkey.

Yeah, and um so as we think about such a purchase, we should think about that.

I think, at best, a medium-term solution, not a short-term solution in terms of adding capacity.

I would be um so and then also the to the total capital cost of standing up the asset and the East Street respectively were $33 million for the Aston and $45 million for E Street.

Um at the Aston, the cost of acquisition alone was $26 million.

Does the $25 million in the capital budget for acquisition include funding for repairs and renovations at the new site?

Is it and would that what makes us think it would be adequate?

Um so you're right, because we have not identified a site yet, it could be more, it could be less.

I do think that the um the target for a site is to serve a hundred um individuals.

So it could be a smaller site than E Street in Aston, so that the funding could be adequate, but it really depends on what the market offers right now.

Okay, and then question thirty-nine, you provided a very useful timeline of sort of the changing levels of capacity over time as things open and things close.

Um the big picture of it is today, it looks like our current year-round capacity is $1,795 in the um, so $1,795 in terms of low barrier shelter is it's the height of hypothermia.

In terms of year-round beds, we have a decreased um capacity, it's about 1300 and and so forth.

Yeah, once you do, but um, okay, but and then over time as things open and close by the time we get to the winter of 2030, even with this uh we we will have lost, we'll be at 1672 according to your response total capacity.

So down 123.

Is that I'm sorry if you were a few minutes.

Yes, all right.

I'm tracking.

Okay.

And right now, in terms of turnaways, I mean we are experiencing turnaways from our low barrier shelter at this point, aren't we?

Um it it at this time of year, yes, it is very possible that we're gonna do that.

Sort of the shoulder season between Yes.

Um so we'll see over time less capacity, but and hope maybe the problem will get significantly better, but it but uh uh worrisome.

I had characterized the 25 million as being a replacement for Adams Place, but do you think of it as that way?

No, I don't think of it as that way.

Um while um it's really focused on acquiring an additional bridge housing, and there's still a commitment to replace um Adam's space.

Right, and so there's still there's still a need to replace Adams Place, which would and that would be uh on the order of 120 bets.

How many beds is Adam's place?

How many beds?

It's one seventy-five.

175.

But I suppose I mean when one way of thinking about it in terms of replacing it in terms of preserving the man the status quo, 123 beds would keep us to where we had the same total capacity now as we had in 2030.

Well, you mean 123 beds?

What are you referring to?

Uh I'm referring to the table, which I think is in response to question 39.

And I'm looking at the top at 1795, and then at the bottom at the 1672 is the total capacity.

Yep.

And so um so.

So I I guess I'm gonna try to give you a chance to.

So what I can tell you, Councilmember, is that when we do close, we would not close um Adams Place without having a replacement site for Adam Space.

And that that's not replacing Adams Place with a not congregate shelter.

So our plan right now, I mean, we still have um atom space for another couple of years in terms of the lease.

Um so we would stay there until we are able to to find an alternative site.

The plan to replace Adam Space had been Green Court.

Um the that plan has changed.

Um so Green Court is no longer in the district's um inventory, but the plan is to have a one, at least very close to one-to-one replacement sites for Adam Space before we we take Adam Space offline.

I hear you.

And so, and there had been money in the budget before for that, but there's not money in the budget.

Because yes, but Green Green Court was acquired for Adam Space to be an atom space replacement.

Not sure what the plan for Green Court is for the moment, but it was acquired to be an atom space replacement.

Okay, so I guess what it's so the missing line on this table is the replacement for Adams Place, which in principle there is a commitment to do, absolutely, but where there isn't dollars for it today.

So and just trying to be candid with everybody out there, we heard testimony about it.

In this environment, I find it very hard to see setting aside twenty-five million dollars for new bridge housing site that would get us a hundred beds and not having money for uh a future replacement for Adams Place when it would take a while to get those bridge housing beds online, and we have the Aston that is sitting there with 90 beds not utilized.

And I know that there have people entered into agreements about what it is that should be done around this, and I respect that the people who were part of those agreements are pretty deeply committed to those agreements, but in this environment with the b all of the budget pressures that we're facing, I have a very very hard time seeing leaving that space out of the mix.

And so help me, is there another reason other than the agreement that had been entered at the time why we should not be activating the other 90 beds at Aston?

No, I don't see another reason.

Right now we still have capacity at E Street, um, Councilmember, and we're focusing on building that capacity.

We're happy to report that we're almost at a hundred beds right now, so we still have uh uh um about 70 to 90 beds that we can still feel fill fill at E Street and we're working towards that.

And that's for my perspective, this has just been the priority to make sure that we get E Street at capacity, and until we have that capacity until East Street is full, then um, and perhaps you know, revisiting the Aston um in addition to another site that um the mayor wants to bring online, but that's been the focus right now, just to get East Street at capacity, it was also slower to kind of get going, it's been slower to fill.

We're trying to figure out why some people say no to bridge housing.

We've had a lot of folks say no to to E Street, but we but we are making a lot of progress in terms of getting that setup capacity.

So that's just where the focus is to get that setup capacity.

That's we have the budget, we have the money in our budget to get each street at capacity, and that's what we focus on on.

And and we've been tracking this with you, the progress on, and it is interesting that people are not accepting certain options.

I I think scarcity is could have an impact on that.

I mean I think people may have felt like they had a whole a variety of different options in previous years, and that's not gonna feel like the case, and so we'll see what uptake looks like.

Sounds like we're getting closer on filling.

So we're getting closer.

I mean, it's not a it's not low barrier, so participation in case management is required in a way that it's not in low barrier shelter, so that we have so that's where you know we've seen, but we want to make sure that people take advantage of the case management that is offered at um the bridge housing sites.

Okay, so if we said we don't want to use this 25 million for some few purchasing bridge housing, instead we wanted to activate the Aston and uh and get more quickly get the 90 beds there.

How would you suggest we use the 25 million?

Should we dedicate it to a uh a fund to replace the Adams Place?

So council member the the executive is committed to replacing Adams Place and also it committed to bringing additional bridge housing site.

So I know that you know, I'm talking to my colleagues at DGS, they are still you know um um identifying the market, looking at the market to try to get a Adams um site replacement.

There is a site that um both agencies are interested in, and if it becomes available to be a replacement for Adam Space, that would be purchased.

Um, but where is the money for that?

I'm not sure.

I don't know.

And anything I could could say would just be just you know my my guess.

I mean that almost suggests to me that if we set it, I don't know whether or not 25 million would be enough to do that.

I haven't had conversations with your DGS about what kinds of numbers are being bandied about.

But um but that makes it sound like we might be able to make the Adams Place replacement site happen relatively quickly if the money were there and expand bridge housing if we did the the move on the Aston.

Um so uh trying to take that all in.

If if I don't know that I I want you to tell me um on the public record what kind of dollar figures being talked about, but I probably will ask you different times.

I honestly don't have that number, but I'm I could I could get that for you.

Okay.

Um but it and if the 25 million were repurposed, am I right in taking from this that a good use for it would be to fund the replacement of Adams Place?

Or do you see a different use for it?

Um I having an additional bridge housing sites in our um inventory is something that we would be very excited about.

You know, we could look at um different use than our current bridge housing, and we could have it with more um focused services, maybe for folks who have more behavior health needs.

There is definitely a gap in our inventory to to have like a site base with you know very focused um behavior health services.

So this is something that I would be very excited to have in our inventory.

Um we have different models in in um in mind, you know, maybe like a PSH plus for folks sometimes who I don't want to say fell out of PSH, but some you know who may need additional more support, and we are missing that middle space in our inventory, folks who are not necessarily um reach the level of intense needs to go to St.

Elizabeth or to be committed, but who for some reason or another are not able to maintain their PSH um slot or you know get evicted or because of behavior health reasons, we don't right now have us have uh this intervention in or third um bridge housing site could be a solution for that.

All right.

Well, and you and I have had a back and forth about this now for a year and a half and filling out that continuum of care I do think is an important thing.

So that's that is helpful.

Um and I don't know operating cost wise, what you think something like that a PSH plus site what if it were a hundred beds what do you think is the scale of operating costs for something like that?

Well we have right now approximately approximately 3.4 would be would be would get would get us close.

But what's exciting about potentially like a PSH plus is that we can also leverage Medicaid funding for the interventions for the services two ways for behavior health services but also um looking at housing supportive services for um residents who who are eligible who may not have a housing voucher so we would be able to leverage Medicaid for the services.

And what about if it were a replacement for the Adams Place site what's what do you think is the operational cost for something like that.

What do we have um I I probably closer to what we have in our budget now.

Yeah I think it's about uh 4.4 million a year for the operating cost.

At Adam's place.

But that's for 175 beds and I'm thinking that you're I thought the replacement might be more like a hundred beds so would it be a lower figure or no you want 175 beds and 4.4 million?

That would be based on 175 beds yes.

Yeah the one the whole hundred beds would be for a bridge housing site.

Well low barrier we try to replace one to one as much as possible.

Okay well I'm trying to be transparent about what it is that we're thinking about in this space and want to be in a back and forth of with you I I think it's pretty clear to me that we will try to light up the 90 beds at the asked in in the committee we'll see um and then the question is what happens with that 25 million and uh let's be in conversation about what's the best thing for us to be doing about just as a reminder council member we don't have operating costs for to extend the asset in our budget for 2027.

No I I recognize that's a that's part of the challenge that we would need to deal with some of that there's there's money for operating of the new bridge housing site including in 2027 I believe and I think that's not going to happen.

So then you but you look like you're reaching for it.

Well we had I have shared with you council member because as you mentioned it does take time once we acquire a site so even if we acquired it this summer is very unlikely that we would be operating at Fiscal 27 and we would be using the 3.4 to help with our LRSP deficits.

Yeah.

You're right that you have shared that with me and we'll get into this in other places and you can imagine the source of frustration because there are a lot of places and I know you have you have money that comes in from lots of different places in different ways and it goes out in different kinds of ways but tracking your budget and identifying what everything is for is a challenge and so the fact that it is identified as one thing but maybe used as a different thing somehow we got to figure out how to have and it is not an easy thing in your world in particular but we need to have a closer correlation between the descriptions of what things for and how it is actually used.

One of the goals established by the ICH for homeless homeward DC 3.0 was providing low barrier shelter year round and we talked a little bit about the net reduction although I think that what you were saying is if Adam what's missing on that table is that Adams Place will be replaced and so we should see a tiny marginal increase if I'm seeing 123 reduction and we actually, did 175 replacement of Adams Place, then in the next five years we'd add 50 or something like that.

Are you worried about increased turnaways given our capacity and um and concern about potential growth among our unhouse population?

So we we are still committed in to providing shelter year-round, low barrier shelter year-round.

So while we do our best and we track um turn aways, it it never feels good to know that we have to turn away, you know, individuals, but it would be but we we it does happen in the summer.

So we we track it and um but um we do know that in the summer months it does happen that we may have a few that singles that we turn away.

And last year uh we were facing a little later into the year the concern about the encampments and federal policy on the encampments and you had you you were great.

I mean I think your team and the deputy mayor's team uh did great work in that era.

Um but you had resources that you could deploy that you could add that were not um so you had a kind of accordion that you could use.

Are there other things out there that besides the things on the list that add up to the 1795 that provide potential capacity and if we face uh increased turnarounds?

Yes.

Because we we are built for a right to shelter for almost four months out of the year.

So during the hypothermia season, we go beyond our right to shelter doing um cold weather alerts.

We almost operate as a right to shelter for that whole season, not just when we have cold alerts.

So that means that we have sites that we know how to um activate and a significant like pretty short um notice.

We don't like to do that, but we know how to do that, meaning that we can we if uh we needed to bring somehow there was a emergency and we needed to bring additional hundred beds um this weekend, and we have the resources to do that in terms of you know contingency funding because of the emergency, we we have the infrastructure to bring additional beds in a relatively short amount of time.

And and where would that funding come from?

Do you have a bucket of contingency funds?

We don't, but if the if it becomes an emergency and then the the EOM uh makes available contingency funding for us, then we are we we have the infrastructure to do that given the right resource, given the resources.

So it's not in your budget, but it's it's in the overall budget.

Right.

And what about would you have to draw from other places in your own budget in order to do that?

So once we get the commitment that we will receive the funding, um it becomes a cash flow, you know, balance, and you know, we we have not expended all our resources, we'll make you know these beds available.

We usually um also if depending on where we are in the year, we still have funding in our contracts, and then we um figure out how to modify the budget for those contracts later in the year.

Okay.

Alright, I'm looking at a kind of slideshow breakdown of funding in this uh homeless services continuum of care space, and I mean you did this as a presentation, and you broke down the changes to the continuum of care budgets for families, individuals, and general, respectively, and we have a sense then of where reductions in those lines were targeted, and we know which individual programs are in the family and individual line lines.

That breakdown only emphasizes for me how confusing the budget is.

What why is the homeless services budget organized in this way divided across these three programs?

I'll asked Tanya to to respond.

Okay.

A little difficult to see.

So is there something we should do about this?

Is oh please.

Yeah, it's based on the funding.

When we get federal money, there are certain um service we provide.

If you get TANF, you have to provide maintenance of effort.

So you have to separate it, you can't commingle the funds.

So if we are using TANIF, we have to show what we spend.

So we have to delineate families.

So that's one of the reasons we had to break it up.

Okay.

You want Richie Part?

Yeah, I was I was just gonna say we're always open to working um to reorganize this in a way that makes more sense.

Um, you know, our goal is to really be transparent about where the money's going, what we're using it for, so we're always open to working with uh counsel on that.

I think we got a lot going on, and so we're not doing that right in this minute, but I could I guess I could see in a in a committee report having uh and Dan can correct or stop me, having some sort of a reference to encouraging uh uh process of looking at the organization of the way in which things are reported to try to increase transparency about the links between sources and funding and uh so maybe that's a maybe that's a thing that we'll do.

It's not not a thing that's gonna happen in the next two weeks, but just a marker of our experience of dealing with the budget underscores.

Um our experience of um this time in the budget where we're I am better equipped than I was a year ago.

What's ex what becomes clear is that it's confusing.

And so maybe we can make it better.

Um you only have uh one of the things that I I got a note saying that um folks are having difficulty hearing the witnesses, so please be sure to turn the mic on, pull it close to you, speak loudly.

I speak softly.

We can also start all talking softly to each other forgetting that there are people who are trying to watch.

So uh we'll let's all try to project.

You only have five point six million or twelve percent of your maintenance of persons budget in shelter operations remaining for direct services in FY26.

Is that the natural consequence of the structure of your contracts and seasonal changes?

Or are you gonna have to transfer additional funds into this line in FY26?

No, I believe that's um I'm not exactly I'm not seeing in front of me exactly what you're looking at, but I believe this is probably about how we need to fund um our contracts up front.

Um it's it's not a matter of running out of funding.

Okay, so it's we see five, we see twelve percent that is left, and we think okay, we're in May, so there's four more months of or uh, but you're saying it's upfront payments.

Yeah, we would obligate all of the funding up front, and then we're paying it out as um the provider's invoice.

Well, that worries me a little bit.

So the funding is obligated already.

So what you're saying is what may not have either um not been obligated yet, because sometimes we don't want to um get everything that just stuck on contracts, so we so, but we are not anticipating running out of funding for our services for this fiscal year.

You feel good.

And the 5.6 is in the predicate of the question is it's something about the way in which the contracts are paid or seasonal, and the answer is yes, it's something about the way the contracts are paid.

Yeah.

The answer to the question.

Okay.

Um I also see the budget the shelter operations budget is cut by 4.1 million in each year in FY28, 29, and 30.

What what help me understand why there would be those reductions?

So it's working to improve efficiencies, and then um, if we need to do something else, we'll work with um the budget, the the budget semen formulation for fiscal year 28 and so forth, but we're always looking on how we can improve um um and outcomes.

All right.

I mean that looks like, so is that a thing where there's like a nine percent reduction that gets imposed or something like that?

I don't know.

I'm looking at if 5.6 million was 12 percent, then 4.1 million is probably on the order of 9 percent.

But so there's a 9% reduction, and there is a mandate to find efficiencies, or you believe you have already found the sufficiencies?

We always look to find efficiencies, but we also don't anticipate that it would change any policies in the program.

Like we don't anticipate uh change in a right to shelter policy, for example, or you know, for providing shelter year-round for families.

Okay.

Um the way I'm hearing it is that you have a mandate to do the same with a little bit less, and that you feel like you will be able to achieve that, but not that there is a plan.

The 4.1 million reduction is doesn't reflect, oh, we identified this efficiency and that efficiency.

It is a mandate to find efficiency.

Right.

And then we also can revisit at fiscal year 28 formulations sort of spend.

Um and like a lot of things, this is is driven by a budget decision, not a policy decision, and you everybody has to make the numbers balance.

The fact that there would be a mandate to try to increase efficiency, I think is healthy, right?

Uh but that's what it is.

Okay.

Uh last budget season, DHS anticipated exiting 37 families a month to FRSP with a $36 million budget.

This year, DHS uh proposes exiting 62 families a month to FRSP, also with a $36 million budget.

I think this is in response to question 21 B.

How many families have exited shelter to FRSP so far this year?

Um I do have that information.

Just give me one second.

Um, first and then so I don't have exactly.

I know we've been averaging approximately 37 to 47 families exiting each month.

Uh so we have about 62 entries per month that we are able to um serve this year.

I'm trying to get the exact number of families.

So do we have d to date it looks like we've served 536 families?

But I'm not sure that this is how many if there were some families who started next um last fiscal year.

But I can get you that exact number how many new families we had this fiscal year.

I think it looks like we've had 549 families, new families this fiscal year, and then we plan on having 744 new families at fiscal year 27.

But you're asking how many a month?

Yeah, I mean that was so it's seven months in the fiscal year so far.

If it's 509, did you say?

549 for the whole year, I believe.

I don't think we've served 549 families this year yet.

Oh that's you just go ahead.

Yeah, it's been about 200 so far this year, and we expect to uh have about 500 entering this year.

In the coming year.

So yeah, so the 200 this year and seven months, that would be about 30 a month in the fiscal year.

Um or are you saying 200 this calendar year?

200 so far this fiscal year.

Fiscal year.

So that is like the 30 month, and then the projection is more like 60 a month in the next fiscal year is the goal, but it's the but now we we only have 10% of the money that is approximately 10% of the budget for this year remains available to the agency.

So how is it?

Yeah, the difference is because we no longer have to pay for continuation of services for families who appeal.

Um oftentimes the budget also included new families and then families who had exited, but we were we needed to basically keep them in our books.

We've changed the um regulations last year, and while we when we exit families who are in appeal, we no longer have to kind of continue to provide to pay for the services.

Can we add on to that?

Yeah, Tanya almost said something.

Yeah, and I think what can you hear me up here?

Yeah, yeah, sure.

I think what you might be looking at is again um how we structure our our grants and contracts, and so this is what you're probably looking at is the contract that we have for the rental processing here.

We pay that up front so that that's available, so it's obligated up front.

That's why you're only seeing 10% remaining.

It's the same thing about obligating that balance.

Okay.

Still leaves the question of okay, if it's this fiscal year it's 30 or 40 a month, and next fiscal year it's 60 a month, and this fiscal year it's 36 million, and next fiscal year it's 36 million help me.

How are we serving that many more people with the same number of dollars?

Yeah, it's because we started out with a a large number um of uh yeah of of folks that hadn't been exited yet.

And so that was still in a few extra.

So this is working through that.

That's right.

So we've now gotten that number down, we've exited a lot of families, we no longer have continuation of services, and so we're sort of balancing out as we go into fiscal year 27, able to serve more every month.

So and then and what's the cost per family or for this?

So if it's if it's 60 a month, that's uh 700.

Well, yeah, 720 in a year, um, and 36 million dollars.

Is that how much per per family per year?

Per family per year.

Per family per year, um, we have about 44,000 dollars, 562 for this year, and we know that it increases a little bit each year with rising cost of rents, everything else.

So we have projected 46,518 for next fiscal year.

Okay, so then so the 46,000 times the 720, that gets you to the 36, and you feel like you can make that work.

Okay.

Um, my impression is you're really trying in the FRSP space to only assign FRSP to families that are have a prospect of increasing their income, maybe working already.

How's that going?

How is those matches happening?

So we we had to modify a little bit as we um it as you know it's a new process.

We started to try to focus on um families who were already employed.

Um and then we had to open that eligibility a little bit to to focus on families employed and or who are connected to a tech provider and working towards employment so that we don't have an eligibility requirement of already being employed before going into FRSP, but but at least connection um with a tech provider and working towards employment has is eligibility.

So if they come into shelter and they're not yet connected, they we spend more time with them in shelter to get them connected before enrolling them in FRSB.

But FRSP is not the only exit that we've been using.

Okay, we'll we'll come back around on this, because it it the plan is I think three-quarters of the people who are in shelter might exit to FRSP, and so how will how ready will those folks be to build their income if they're not ready to build their income?

We're in the same problem that we're in right now, and if the key is uh that they've been connected to a tech provider, being connected to a tech provider is gonna have to be a whole lot more meaningful in terms of prospects for increasing income than it has been to date.

So we'll get to what your thoughts are in the TEP world later.

Um I've been joined by uh my ward five colleague Zachary Parker.

Uh I had I would turn to you, but I also could if you would prefer go through some of the cost pressures in the voucher space that that you might find interesting.

All right.

So uh we spoke the other day about the 500 PSH households who are currently supported by emergency housing federal emergency housing vouchers.

Is it your understanding now that the proposed FY 27 budget includes any funding to keep those families housed?

No.

Okay.

And then I think how does the 12 there's also a challenge of keeping our full complement of permanent PSH uh voucher families and housed, and I take it there may be cost pressure.

I think I threw out a number of 12 to 15 million.

Does it is that consistent with what you would expect that it would that we could face a cost pressure just to keep people who currently are housed with the voucher that it would take like 12 to 15 million in order to protect and ensure that they can stay housed and paid for?

Yes, let me let me modify my first answer.

So I my understanding is that the housing authority has enough money to keep those families housed for the first quarter until the first quarter of the next fiscal year, so until December of 2026.

This is the EHV.

This is a fiscal EHV so it's partially no.

Okay.

Um and then yes, so that the second piece of your part of your statement is is accurate.

So just to keep and people housed, 12 to 15 on the PSH generally, and some dollar amount for the 500 EHV for the second for the three quarter the last three quarters of F by 27, which is gonna be a significant number.

Yes, um.

And so together, I don't know, do you have a ballpark sense of what that would be?

For the EVs?

Yeah.

Uh we believe it's about 14 million.

Okay.

So the two things is that 14 million for the year or for the nine months?

Um for the year.

For the year.

For the year.

Okay, so it could be more like 12 uh for the for the nine months.

So we're looking at 24 to 27 million, just to keep people who have roofs over their heads now to keep to keep paying them because it doesn't mean they won't have a roof over their head.

And one of the things that's pretty troubling about this is for the landlords that we would privatize this social cost.

They would have folks living in their apartment buildings not having rent paid for them, and they likely would have to go through an eviction process so they would observe the cost of this.

But we're talking 24 to 27 million.

But just a reminder, Councilmember, the Majesty Housing Vouchers, those are federal vouchers.

So this is something that the rest of the countries is dealing with as well, because they're negotiation with HUD, who is not providing the resources to keep those families housed.

Oh, 100%.

This is not an accusation.

This is trying, here we are in the budget process and trying to be very clear-eyed about what it is that we and the and others on the council would need to do in order to preserve the status quo.

And I don't know whether we can, but I want to be able to say to my colleagues, this is what it takes.

Like uh other years there's been a conversation about how many more vouchers are we gonna have.

This year the conversation is can we keep the people who are housed housed and paid for?

And even that will be it was a stretch for you and a stretch for you before this EHV thing, because I think your understanding about how the EHV was going to work.

It's been a shifting target, and DCHA has a different view today than they had three or four months ago.

And we got we've got a very serious challenge.

Part of the dynamic of that is when folks give up a voucher, you were not doing turnover vouchers, and so we'll see an erosion of the number in even if we could keep everybody housed, we're gonna be able we're gonna see an erosion of the total number of people who are benefiting from vouchers, both at the local level and at the federal level.

So I think I mean we we tracked through a bunch of different numbers, but you're basically confirming them that we looked at what what was what were the costs in FY25?

What were the costs in FY26?

Given what's happening, what's our projected cost for FY27?

You've done the same thing, and you identify 12 it it could it be higher than 12 to 15 million just to pre preserve what we have.

So we're looking at you know other opportunities within a budget to um reallocate funding, you know, towards that, but uh but that's probably the the number that we are yeah targeting.

Anything else about to that, Tanya?

Anything else to add?

No, I think 15 million is is a fair estimate of what we have not been able to, what we don't at this point have a plan to cover.

Okay.

I think I'm gonna leave it on that sober note and turn to Councilmember Parker.

I mean, I do it goes back to a theme that we were just talking about, like you're gonna look for money in other places in your budget, and there is a frustration like that's the so much moves around inside of your budget trying to track it and is a challenge.

But on the other hand, to the extent that you can to keep people housed, let's let's make sure that you do that.

Uh I will now turn to Councilmember Parker and if you have an opening statement, uh feel free.

Thank you, uh Chairperson Ferman.

Um, you know, by way of an opening statement, I would just say I think this is one of the most consequential agencies as it relates to human services.

Um, it's pretty sobering just what is happening in the budget.

Yes, there are federal pressures uh as you all were just alluding to, but there were also choices made, and I think um people are not fully aware or appreciate the consequences of of what's in this budget.

So I'm hoping we can jump in.

Continuing from the conversation you were just having, how many people might be affected from the erosion of those vouchers?

So we're talking about an elimination of what roughly 25 million dollars.

You're citing that's in part because of federal cuts.

A couple of things.

For us, we are committed to keeping everybody who is not just housed housed, but anybody who's been matched, who's in the lease of process.

So we'll continue to lease up families who've been matched this year, all the way into fiscal year 26.

So that's a commitment that um I'm sorry, 27.

So we'll continue to lease up additional.

Through February, right now.

So we have been we have um in our budget in our plan to continue to match up to 34, I mean lease up, up to 34 families a month start into next fiscal year until February.

But all of the families who will be leased up in the next fiscal year have already been matched this fiscal year.

But that is a commitment that we have to continue to anybody who's been matched, anybody who has vouchers in hand, anybody who's in the process of looking for an apartment, the commitment is that we will keep them in February of next year.

Through all of next fiscal year.

What I'm saying about February of next year is when we will be we will be at capacity in terms of having leased up everybody who's been matched.

And the commitment is to keep everyone who is on a local voucher house this fiscal year and the next fiscal year and beyond.

But the 500 go ahead.

The conversation about the PSH vouchers and the roughly 25 million or so that will be short.

There will be individuals that are currently housed that at some point there won't be funding to keep them housed.

So how many people might that impact?

We have 514 households.

So a distribution of mostly singles and some families and families.

Okay.

And you know, I think Councilmember Fruman raises a sobering point that that burden is going to then be transferred to landlords who are wanting to keep people housed, but also having to go through the process.

What type of engagement communication or support is DHS providing to landlords to say, hey, we're going to run into this fiscal cliff shortly.

Yeah, so council member, these are the 100% federal vouchers administered by the housing authority.

And we were just but we we support those households with services, PSH services.

So the housing authority just made us aware actually, we just actually, Councilmember Freeman flagged it um to me uh Friday because as of last week um before last week, the housing authority reemphasized over and over again that they would be able to support to continue to support those house those households with federal funding from HUD.

So these are HUD federal vouchers.

I get that.

But so so we do not administer those vouchers.

So just to answer your questions around what kind of engagements we're doing with these um landlords, this is I think this is a very important thing.

So you would say that's the housing authority's responsibility.

Yes, that is correct.

To your knowledge, has the housing authority issued any communication or do they have a plan to your knowledge?

Not to my knowledge, but I think but but um I think they are still working, trying to work with the federal government and HUD and the Hard Partners to try to understand if they would reverse um that decision.

This is I think it's fairly new development, but um but but they have a little bit of time.

Okay.

I wanted to come to TANF.

Yes, um, and I'm not sure if that's already come up so far, but we know that TANF recipients uh who have been in the program for 60 months beginning this next fiscal year.

Should nothing change, uh, will begin being exited from the program.

Um and the task force that has been assembled as working on a hardship policy to provide support to these group of individuals and residents.

Can you speak more about what that hardship policy might look like for TANF recipients that are being exited?

Sure, one clarification to your statement, Councilmember, is that they're not going to be kicked off for having met 60 months studying in October, but they will lose 30% of their benefits.

It will begin a step-down process.

That eventually will lead to them being exited from the program.

That is correct, but at least but in fiscal year 27, what we will not see.

I'm sorry, what was the second part of your question?

But what is the hardship policy for those individuals who will uh begin being stepped down through the process?

So we we had a work group that involved members of council, TANF customers, advocates, you know, providers, and so forth.

They have we're still working through the final recommendations.

We are now assembling a smaller group to sort of, you know, propose uh the recommendation.

So that hardship policy has not been finalized yet.

Okay.

And from that working group, are the documents public or will they be made public?

Specifically, will the report from it's my understanding there is a final report?

Yes, that will be that we that report will be made public.

Okay.

Um what is the cost if we wanted to reverse the step-down process for fiscal year 27 or to delay it, what would be the cost of that?

We have that time handy.

Uh for uh fiscal year 27 for the 30 percent, it would be uh 12.8 million.

Okay.

Do you have the numbers for the rest of the financial plan?

I I do just a second.

No worries, no worries.

Uh so for 28 uh fiscal year 28, the cost would be 21.8 million.

So for fiscal year 27, we're looking at roughly 12 million, 28 that jumps to.

I'm sorry, give me that number one more time.

Yeah, in fiscal year 28, uh now it would go to a hundred percent um that would go to a full elimination of benefits for beyond 60 months, and so the cost to restore that would be 21.8 million.

Okay.

Councilmember Frima has his work cut out for him.

Um well, I want to keep moving for the sake of time.

Um, the UDC PAPS program, which provided educational and occupational training for TANF recipients, had its grant uh canceled for fiscal year 27.

Um are these services or supports being provided through another avenue via DHS or elsewhere?

I think we would wanted to make one correction around the TANF cash.

Yeah, I did.

I just wanted to make sure that the number that I gave you would restore to what we had originally as the step down uh that we were planning, so that would restore to the 50% for fiscal year 28.

If we wanted to restore to 100%, it would be um it would be basically double that.

So it would be 43.2 million in fiscal year 28.

Got it.

It's even worse.

Okay.

Um and then the UDC PAFS program.

So that was um canceled in fiscal year 26, but it was um so it's currently we're not operating it.

We brought some of those services in-house.

And then we have other services through our you know, Snap and Tep program.

Okay, and when you say you brought those services in house, can you elaborate?

So the the team is you know working with um um our um um customers in our other snap providers to just identify what what services we can offer in-house before we refer to other SNAP programs.

We're working to create like a boot camp for clients who are um to to assess them before sending them or referring them to other providers.

Okay.

Uh once oh since uh you brought that up.

Uh the district is now responsible for 75% of the administration costs.

Yes.

Um if the payment error remains low, will that translate into additional federal funding?

No, so so the administration, the administrative um distribution is uh is across the board, no matter the error rate.

So all of the states are now responsible for 75% of the administration costs regardless of their payment error rate.

I see.

Okay.

Um that I am out of time for this round, uh, but I um thank you.

Uh I don't if you if you only had a little and you wanted to be efficient, I would give you more time if you feel like you're gonna want to pull another round.

Great.

All right, wonderful.

Um the uh going back to the what councilmember Parker was asking about numbers of families and individuals.

There's two pools, right?

There's the the EHV folks, which is 521 families and or individuals, and then there's the PSH folks who there's the spending pressure around, who I think you were saying is about 500.

So the extent the I think I think what he what Councilmember Parker was had been asking if I'm remembering correctly was if we're talking about 12 to 15 million, how many families or individuals is that on the PSH side on the spending pressure from PSH?

It's hard to quantify it in that way because it just really sort of depends if we're talking about a household uh the the um the lease amount and so forth.

So it would be hard to quantify like how many families would or households would lose their um uh rent because the plan is for us to not let that happen.

Right.

Um but I'm just I'm just doing math in my head.

So if it were 40,000 was an average, and it's not necessarily that would be 25 for a million, and so then when times uh 12 would be uh three hundred, four hundred folks, four hundred units.

So we're talking about between the two things pressure on the order of uh 900 individuals and or families.

Not being precise, but just trying to have the scale.

And and part of what I'm hearing you say is we're not gonna let it happen.

We're gonna keep people housed.

And the challenge for us in a budget context is the implication is we're gonna find the money somewhere, which means we don't understand, and so where it will come from.

And have you identified where you think it would come from?

Well, the the um the executive has said that they would help us in execution, so so it's not inside of and we we reviewed this, it's not inside of the DHS budget, but somewhere out there, the executive is is made a promise we're gonna keep people housed, they're gonna find it someplace in this $22 billion dollar budget, they're gonna find the uh, maybe a combination could be a combination of our budget.

It could be something that we visited, you know, after uh um different revenue projection, but that's the commitment to keep the people folks' house.

But I think Tanya was add something.

Yeah, no, just in terms of you know what the impact would be, we really think about it more in the aggregate just because of the way the budget is structured, and so we'd be looking at how how many months can we pay everybody's rent?

And so what we're really looking at is towards the end of the fiscal year, we start to really have a problem.

And so we need to identify additional those additional cost saving measures or get some additional cash towards the end of the year.

So it's really an August September challenge that you get to in terms of being able to cover the full month rent for everybody in the program at that point.

I don't know if that helps, but it's more if we think about it that way.

Well, it does help.

I mean, what it tells me is we'll deal with it in next year's supplemental, if we need to, but that and that is the kind of clarity that I was looking for, so I appreciate it.

Did that happen this year?

I mean, have we had cost pressures?

And where did the money come from this year to the extent?

How much money had to be brought in and where did it come from?

We received six million at a supplemental.

And but I mean where it came from, who knows?

It's in the supplemental.

So did we see it coming?

I mean now I see it coming, honestly, and so we're talking about it, and you see it coming.

Did we see it coming last year?

Well, the funding was poor rated in our budgets, so we we knew that there was a possibility, but what happened is that we we we leased up families in households and we caught up on the fact that we needed money for the full year.

And so we we did, and this is part of like we're we're trying to house people, it's good.

And we're gonna deal with the cost pressure challenges when we get there, but we saw it coming.

Yeah.

How much of the increase year over year?

Like in the chart that I didn't really work you through, and the costs were 92 million in expenditures in FY25, 123 in FY26 plan, 135 in the FY26 27 budget, but we're thinking it's gonna be higher than that.

Um what's contributing how much of that is about rent increases?

Yeah, uh there rent increases and cost escalations there do play a role in this.

Um we were looking at this because of these questions, and uh we did see that there's um from 2021 for family rents alone, it was about a 10 million dollar increase because of rent escalations.

Most of this is really due to we've caught up, and so we are now going to be entering a year in 27 where we essentially have everybody leased up that's in the program.

Um, so but starting in 26, we knew we were starting to get there as well.

But again, that cost escalations do play a role in this.

Uh we think it's about 10 million dollars again for family rents from 2021.

And at the DCHA hearing, I asked the acting executive director about this, and she said they're not giving rent increases now.

Are you giving rent increases?

How does it work for you?

Or is it is that all their department and they decide?

They just stop the rent increases and then we will follow suit because it it they send the rent standards.

Yeah.

On this, I'll just editorialize just for uh second that um I have a bill about rent stabilization, and in talking with a number of big landlords, they charge the rent stabilized rent.

They advertise the rent and they charge the rent stabilized rent, and they, in my opinion, are doing the right thing.

Um then there are others who are charging who are working the system and getting very high rents.

With the with the rent freeze, the ones who did the right thing and are charging the rent stabilized rent, now they're disadvantaged.

They may raise the rent on the rent stabilized customers in their building, but they won't get a rent increase for the voucher tenants in their building, even if the costs have increased and they would otherwise so they'll be disadvantaged in serving and have a disincentive to serve voucher tenants.

I really think.

I mean, let's work together on figuring out how to rationalize the payments in this area because there's not enough dollars to serve all the people we need to serve, and overpaying anybody is a mistake, uh let the record reflect that the director shook her head.

All right.

Uh you say in your response to question 32B that you anticipate only 10 families exiting PSH F and TAHF combined in FY27?

Is that a typo?

How is that possible?

What question?

Twenty thirty-two B.

So three hundred individuals and ten families.

Yes, that is correct.

Seems like a low number.

How is that possible?

How do you arrive at that number, do you know?

Well, just from from churn, what we what we observe.

I mean, usually the only way we lose um families is somebody you know moving to another state or passing away, so we see that more um for for singles.

So this is just historically what we've what we've um what we've seen.

Okay.

Rather than start a new topic, uh I think I'm gonna turn to council member Parker.

Okay, awesome.

Uh I wanted to jump to housing support.

Yes.

What sort of shared housing models is the agency modeling and what impact, if any, is this having on at risk populations?

So we're very excited that we're piloting.

Um sh we are starting with the young people, youth.

So for the first time, we are uh we have um flex um DC Flex for young people, and we're working with one of our landlords for for young people exiting um transitional housing.

We are working on roommate matching, and the way DC Flex works is that you get seventy-eight hundred dollars per year to basically flex the funding, but to pay um uh to go towards your rent, and we are currently in the the design piloting phase, and we are gonna start with young people and kind of do some lessons learned and then um expanding it to singles.

I love that.

When you say young people, is there an age group you're focused on?

Sure.

So that's so um for us is the transitioning age youth who will be transitioning out of transition housing after 24.

So these are the group that we're gonna start with in terms of like the the room matching, working with some landlords to allow for individual leases to support um that process.

And is it you're going to distribute the funds to the young person or will the flex program pay the landlord directly on that?

So the way it works is that there is um funding that's uploaded in a bank account for the household, and then they are able to only draw down up to the amount of their rent each month.

So to ensure that their rents are covered.

So they have to show a ledger, they have to show that they're not behind more than you know, that one month.

Um, and um, that's the way DC Flex works.

Okay.

How many families and individuals currently have access to DC Flex?

We have um we have over 500 families enrolled households enrolled in DC Flex.

The majority of families, I believe it's about 415.

I can get the exact number.

Um, then um 438.

And then um two years ago we started, we received um a hundred slots for singles and we distributed between singles and youth.

So we have we'll have about 41 slots for youth.

Got it, and that was gonna be my next question adding.

Um, and then for the non-youth, what is the allotment for them?

Is it the same seventy, eight hundred dollars a year?

Yes, so it's seventy for for singles and eighty four hundred for families.

Got it.

Uh the budget contains $28.4 million for the agency to open a third bridge housing site.

Yes.

How many people do you anticipate being able to serve at that third site?

100.

100?

Yes.

Okay.

And I know there's been some discussion around capacity versus those housed.

I'm assuming your is that the total uh capacity of the building that the building itself or this bridge housing site would hold, or is that the total that you are looking to house at that location?

So we a site has not yet been identified, but in terms of this the size that we're targeting, we're targeting a building that could provide bridge housing for a hundred beds.

7200 for singles, 8400 for families, and then for this youth pilot, it will be 7200 for them.

Understood.

Yes.

How do you calculate that cost?

Um it's I think it's all on costs, um, divided by the number of families that we can serve.

So if let's say we work with councilmember Furman and multiply that by X amount and add more to that line item, should we interpret that as you will have the capacity to house more people?

Not necessarily because it depends on the sites that we have, right?

Because by law we have to provide non-congregate um housing or units for families in shelter.

So if we were to get at capacity, even with our extension um sites, which we track very closely to not get at capacity, we have capacity right now in the system.

But worst case scenario, if we maximize all of our non-congregate um sites, building and so forth, we would have to move into shelter, I mean to hotels and hotels would be much more expensive.

Understood.

And then before I move off of housing, two more things.

So just putting a pen in the conversation you have with council member Fruman.

What I'm taking is we ought not to wring our hands about trying to solve the funding gap for the voucher crisis because it sounds like the executive is working on a plan or will come up with some type of long-term strategy there.

What the commitment is for to make sure that we keep everybody who's house housed and everyone who's in a lease of process.

That's great news.

That's because I thought we were going to start telling people.

Sorry, uh time is up.

And then, secondly, this is way in the weeds.

Um, but I visited Sasha Bruce and their drop-in center, long-standing organization that's doing work, and they received um, I'm paraphrasing, so what I interpreted from our conversation is that they received word that their drop-in center wouldn't have funding for the coming year.

And can you just speak to how do we end up here that such a long-standing trusted partner is now scrambling trying to find funding for a drop-in center?

So, council member, as you know, in terms of procurement process and laws, we have to resolicit any programs that we had, and last summer we issued a new solicitation for all of our standing drop-in centers, and then there's a you know ranking criteria to identify who ranks you know the highest.

One of the um new um ranking criteria for our drop-in centers is um um whether or not a site was ADA accessible.

It's important for all of our young people, it's included including young people in wheelchairs.

That was my understanding they made a commitment to come into compliance.

So they made uh they were giving additional time to show their plans to get into compliance and based on the um review panel, after reviewing those plans, they were not um adequate.

There was another um application that met the ADA compliance that we did.

So they unfortunately they were not selected, but they were given notice and they did not lose it within the first month.

They were told that it had until the end of the calendar year, so they we continue to fund them until December of this fiscal year, but December of last calendar year.

That's it.

Understood.

And there was some discrepancy whether or not it was because of the ADA compliance.

So you're saying they didn't get the grant because of the ADA issue.

They lost, yes, they lost some some points in their ranking because of the ADA compliance.

Understood.

And um I'm assuming the agency provided feedback to what it are the expectations for the ADA compliance.

We've had many conversations.

I've spoken to the executive director myself on many occasions, but also I asked my team to give feedback to them.

We've had several conversations with Sasha Bruce to explain to it.

Understood.

If we as a council were to find funding for this drop-in center, because again, I I can't even think about what might happen if a trusted partner just doesn't um let me cut to the chase.

If we find the money to support them outside of the specs of that grant, what impact of any might that have on your internal processes, or would you discourage us from trying to do that?

Um I I don't know if I can speak on the you know, I think that I may have to probably have a conversation with uh our legal counsel to see how we would then fund a program that we're not currently funding outside of solicitation.

But let me just say this and you know, Sasha Bruce being um operating is is a is a net positive for the young people that we serve, right?

So this, you know, they are our partners and other um contracts as well.

They also received a new grant from us for the for domestic violence work so in a space that they were not historically in.

So if um they and I'm very pleased to know that they've been able to continue their operations with private funding.

So that's that's basically what I feel comfortable answering at this point.

Their presence is continuum is is positive.

They are doing private fundraising.

I I will speak for myself, and I'm interested in supporting it possible.

But I I know sometimes when the council leans in when there are contracts and things involved that can complicate situations.

So I would love to just work with Councilmember Fruman and your team that just make sure we're not overstepping while trying to ensure that they can keep their doors open to young people that count on them.

So that's good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh thank you.

Councilmember Parker and thank you particularly for those questions.

I mean, we've had a little bit of back and forth on this, and since our last conversation, I have not had any other conversations, but there is a different perspectives about where Sasha Bruce was in the process and where they um and what how much space they had to come up with a plan that worked and what the feedback from the agency in any case I hear you that from your perspective, you went through a contract process and you feel like you complied with your contract process.

For us to step in, I think does not disrupt your.

You did you complied with your contract process.

Strength not weakened, and and that would not necessarily implicate decisions that you made, but it would be in I believe in our prerogative to do something like that, but we can keep that conversation going.

Um when we last spoke, you briefly mentioned a change in case management for survivors of domestic violence in PSH.

Can you describe what that change is?

I think you're referring to the um the domestic violence vouchers set aside that we have in within our emergency housing vouchers.

So we have about 41 households in our um that that were attributed to domestic violence providers to provide services.

We are just trying to identify efficiencies in our budget, council members.

So we have now, I think about a million dollars in our sole source, and some of this funding is to go towards the services.

So we are proposing a 200,000 dollar um reduction in that line item.

Um to see if there are some families that we can serve within our um housing support services so that they we can leverage Medicaid and we will do that.

If not, we'll continue to serve them through that contract.

So that is we are just proposing about $200,000 cut in those because we think that we can find efficiencies through that one item.

And this is one where you think you can find deficiencies and you have an idea of how you might find those efficiencies.

Exactly.

Not just a mandate, please go out and find deficiencies, but you have an idea.

Yes.

And so I mean, my next question was how much would it cost for us to restore to make sure that we got the services that we have it always intended to give?

And I think I'm hearing you say you don't need to do that because we're going to be able to cover it in this other way.

Um there were $700,000 in local cuts in this space.

Can you break it down for me?

So it's $500,000 now if you take the $200,000 and you put it aside.

So for the last couple of years, we've had one-time funding added to a baseline for domestic violence of end or tune of $500,000.

We've been very transparent with the community that they've been one-time.

So we can't, they're not baseline funding, obviously, because we've had it the last couple of years, they've been baked in to the providers, you know, operations.

Um so we so we have about five providers who were distributed these one time funding to kind of support um um additional services, you know, victim services, flexible, you know, financial support and so forth, and they will not do this funding that's this funding is just not in our budget for next year.

And this is this is not driven by, oh, there isn't a need.

This is uh the mayor's policy of where it was one-time funding, you're maintaining baselines that the mayor had created as opposed to after council one time funding additions.

Right.

So it would be helpful if council puts it in our budget for as a baseline, but by putting it in one-time funding, it kind of puts us in the situation that we it appears that it's a cut, is just that the one-time funding was not restored.

Right.

Um, but doesn't the the idea that there is an acute need out there?

That is not disputed.

No.

I mean, and we are seeing this is the this is a particular area where we are seeing uh a real increase in domestic violence.

And so this is one that we will look to see if there's something that we can do.

Uh I had questions on is there a policy rationale, et cetera.

There, no, it's just that it was one-time funding.

Yes.

Um, there's also a reduction to PSH from eliminating domestic violence-specific services for survivors and shifting their case management out.

We spoke to this.

Uh and that's the 200,000.

You think you're going to be able to figure that 200,000?

So it's so the the uh the the hole that needs to be filled, uh described it as a whole is the 500,000.

Um, I understand that agency also risks imposing a significant cut to DV providers by making them adopt program rules that are inconsistent with the violence against women act the under VAWA.

Uh for instance, services must be voluntary, and providers who mandate services cannot get federal funds.

I understand DHS has been informing providers that it will be forcing them to adopt HSRA program rules that among other inconsistencies with VAWA do require services.

Is that a decision DHS would consider revisiting so that we don't force providers to choose between district and federal funding?

Do you do you do you know the dynamic that I'm talking about?

Yeah, but um but but we would be, yes, we would be I'll look at it a little closely, you know, council member.

I mean, for us it's very important that, you know, victim of domestic violence when they come and receive new services, they feel safe.

Their safety is, you know, at most important.

So we'll work with the community to understand where the the rub is.

I think what it is is that a lot of our housing programs they are governed by the HSRA, so then if it's if it's not a program that's under our homeless services reform act, this is where oftentimes we are limited in terms of where the regulations that govern certain, you know, funding, but we'll work to, you know, with the the providers to understand um where there may there needs to be maybe flexibility on their parts maybe to understand to ensure that you know they meet the the regulations on our part.

This is the kind of thing like required voluntary, and it may end up being that the difference, which in uptake isn't very different depending on how you label it, and if a person rejects voluntary services, it's not clear that they would be particularly compliant in mandatory services.

If there's a change we need to make, because we don't want to leave federal money, we don't want to inadvertently disqualify providers from getting access to federal money because of uh provision that we're imposing.

So let's work together on that.

Okay.

Um the proposed budget eliminates $600,000 in funding for the transgender non-conforming workforce development grants in the youth transitional housing budget.

During performance, you said this program would be implemented on a smaller scale and would serve 20 individuals.

That's 30,000 per placement.

Why is the program as costly as that?

You said why is the program as costly?

What is your question?

Yes.

Yeah, why is this program so expensive per placement?

So we we have proposed to cut this program um the last couple of years because we were not seeing the outcomes that we felt we needed to see in terms of young people being employed.

So this was something that was also cut um or paused last summer when we were um because of the the budget situation the the mistake that Congress made in our budget.

So this year it was restored, but we've only um added one provider.

I think it was um um the word is escape me, but they're gonna come back to me.

Um but anyway, we already had um one provider and we just proposed eliminating this program because we're not getting hips, we're not getting um the outcomes that we um felt were for such an expensive program.

What we've done is we've um required all of our transitional housing providers for young people to have an employment specialist and to help them kind of connect with their broader workforce development programs throughout the city.

Okay, and which career path was the program focused on?

Which career path?

Yeah.

So they were basically just targeting um LGBTQ um young people who sometimes need also more case management to to enter the workforce.

So they were culturally sensitive and and helping them and provided some um follow-up and um job placements.

So there was a workforce.

What I was at what I was asking is which areas of work were you getting trying to train people or get people linked to my impression is it's something like hospitality and cause.

I I'm not sure.

I think the different um providers may have had our, you know, different specialties.

Okay.

If funding were no object, would you recommend supporting or eliminating this program?

Like some things are cost pressure things where you've cut at them.

Some things are uh our efficiencies that you're looking for.

On this one, if we had the money, would you want to do it?

It it didn't seem like we were getting that.

I'm not sure DHS is the right place for this particular program.

It does not appear that we were getting just really really good outcome from this program.

Okay.

All right.

I think I guess before starting another topic, I think I'll turn it back to Councilmember Parker.

On the domestic violence uh partners or any housing partner.

Um I've heard instances where residents uh were not receiving supports that they were supposed to receive, or there were certain experiences in the housing uh complex that you know they were complaining about.

What is the accountability uh mechanism for providers that are partnering with DHS, or what is the recourse that either a tenant and or someone concerned um can explore to address what's happening, all of our so from a family service administration.

So we don't provide direct services, but all of our staff are we have program staff and contract staff to track um compliance and outcomes and so forth.

So when I have not heard any complaints on the DV side, I have to say, so that's why I was asking my colleague if it's if it's we've seen it in the the OPRMI space.

It's kind of like you know, making sure that we are communicating how folks can um share grievances, but we we we monitor for compliance, we monitor for outcomes.

Um we do posts in all of our shelters and all our sites where um clients can um share grievances or make complaints.

Um so that's that's what we're doing.

And they can reach out to who to make those complaints.

Uh yeah, we we do for um for concerns about what might be happening with one of our providers or in our shelters.

Uh we can uh there can always be a complaint filed with our office of uh program monitoring and it's our OPRMI team.

Um they can file a UIR with them.

We also have a phone number um that you know where where our team can be accessed, and they will look into any concerns about treatment in our programs.

Awesome.

Uh I know you may not have it offline, but if you can get that number, um because when uh a neighbor brings these concerns, you know, um I know that may not be something necessarily I elevate to the director, but it would be nice to be able to point them.

Yeah.

I mean, I will say, you know, council member, anything that comes to you, feel free to elevate to me.

Because you know, I we can't I don't have eyes everywhere, and it it's good for me to also see, but we but all of our program rules also have to the clients who they need to call in terms of escalation per program, but but but anything that comes to your attention, please make sure that you can always reach out to me.

Yeah, and the phone number is listed on our website.

Um that is 202 671 4460.

So that's that's a number uh folks can call and that's for the office of program OPRMI, yes.

Give me the name one more time, I'm sorry.

It's Office of Program Review Monitoring and Investigation.

Got it.

Okay, truancy.

I saw the mid-year report uh which tracked progress through February of this year, and it seemed like good news.

I think it's worth noting that we haven't really moved the needle on truancy as a city, and so this is a glimmer of hope that this pilot and DHS seems to be uh showing signs of progress.

It's worth noting the mayor and her budget also included um a BSA but also funding to make the program permanent, which I personally support.

Uh the report mentions that 71% of students that were true at this time last year are no longer for this current school year.

Can you speak to the steps the pilot has taken to reduce uh truancy that seems to be paying off?

Yes, so thank you for for acknowledging um the the glimmer of hope that this program um is bringing in and and our teams have been working very hard, so I appreciate you uh for recognizing the work.

Um so we are now in 10 schools.

We were able to unboard three additional schools in the last couple of weeks.

Um and while it was a slower start because of hiring and so forth, we are um I'm very excited about what you know what we're seeing.

I mean it's it is a pilot, and then it's gonna take a while for us to see the magnitude of the impact that it can have.

But right now, the way it works is um when for high school for high schoolers that we are in for high schools where we are operating, anyone who has reached 15 um absences or uh more, they call, they get referred to us, and our triage, we identify which is the best path.

Sometimes it's just um truancy education, brief case management or longer term case management um with pass.

We really find that these intervention really works for families because we are able to do things that the schools cannot.

Like we don't just provide services in the school, we are in the school as well, but we are in the community, we're in the home where young people naturally um exist, and we do think that, and then we are able to also connect them with our other programming um within YSD.

Yeah, I I think this the secret sauce is the case management support that these young people um are receiving.

And if I could be on my soapbox as the chair of the youth uh count committee on youth affairs that oversee CFSA, a great team, uh but they aren't providing case management support.

In fact, they're screening out most of the cases that are referred to them as it relates to Trinity.

Um, and so again, I know it was a small uh sample size.

Um do you plan to update the report at the end of the school year to account for the new schools you're bringing on?

Yep, absolutely.

So we'll have another report at the end of the summer.

Nice, okay.

Well, I'm gonna be advocating.

I think we have some headwinds that some people don't trust this uh path forward, uh, but I'm gonna be rooting for you all in hopes that we can keep pushing.

We appreciate that, Council.

Um I wanted to switch to workforce development.

Um, the budget includes a reduction of over 600,000 for transitional housing um youth learn, which has been used for to fund workforce development for LGBTQ youth in particular.

Does this reduction result in an elimination of the program altogether?

Yes.

Okay.

And then last year, I believe I worked with council member Funan to fund this program.

And one of the critiques that I heard from one of my colleagues is well, the workforce development is only focused on cosmetology or the the participants only are uh seeking out cosmetology and it's not as expansive as it could or should be for the dollar amount.

Can you speak to the effectiveness of the program and or the reasons why it was eliminated?

So the reason why it was proposed to be eliminated in first place is because we were not seeing the outcomes, a little bit of what you that you've heard from your colleagues too.

We're not seeing the outcomes that we were hoping to see.

Last year we had a stop work on that program specifically, specifically when we're looking to stop funding um because of the the issues in our budget, you know, held with the CR in Congress.

So this one of the programs that we had stopped in the middle of the the fiscal year.

Um it was restored in our budget this year, and then we were going to issue another solicitation, but again it was restored as as one time.

So we were careful about issuing a new solicitation for just half of the year ultimately.

So what we decided to do this year as opposed to issuing other solicitation, we had a provider who still had an option year left in the program.

HIPS was that one provider.

So we didn't continue to only fund hip hips for the rest of this fiscal year.

And when you say fund hips, are they employing um I think it was like trans individuals through their workforce development?

Yeah, workforce, exactly.

So they're helping, you know, place um trans individuals to their work.

And so if we wanted to fund this program, I imagine those same concerns would exist in terms of the effectiveness.

Yeah, and if we if if we if you wanted to to refund this program, we would issue a new solicitation.

So they would not be a program that would start on day one because we would have to look at the program model to make sure that we have better outcomes.

We would not be against it, but it but I just really want to just preface that we would not be issuing a grant in the beginning of the fiscal year.

We probably would use maybe the first the first quarter to redesign the program to so that it could lead to better outcomes.

Understood.

Um and then related but not on workforce LGBTQ youth homeless service providers uh like the Wanda Austin Foundation or SMILE are worried about the six percent budget cuts embedded in the budget.

Um I believe it's to the tune of about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, if I'm not mistaken.

Uh can you just speak to or justify the rationale behind those cuts?

So it would be a cut that is distributed across the board to all of the the providers.

So there is a there is a cut in youth homelessness, and and so that is so each provider would probably feel the six percent reduction in their total, you know, grants.

Um we plan to just work very closely with each provider to help identify cuts that have the least impact on young people, and for us that means preserving beds, shelter beds.

So we do we we we recognize that is it's just a difficult budget year that we would just work with the providers to make sure that it has minimal impact to the young people as much as possible.

And is that the dollar amount the 148,000 figure?

Are you talking per provider?

The overall reduction is approximately 1.6 million, but again, that would be distributed across the provider pool.

Uh I'm talking in terms of the youth line item in particular.

Is it 1.6 million?

It's yeah, it's about 1.6 million total.

It's coming out of two distinct lines in that budget.

Okay.

Um I'm gonna leave it there.

Um I would just say editorially that I'm also really worried about our supports for uh families and individuals receiving benefits.

Um while I know this is some of it's out of your control, I do worry and I look forward to working with my colleague uh Councilmember Fruman to think about how can we drastically ramp up supports to get people connected to jobs to protect and preserve those benefits.

Um, so more to come on that, but thank you for your testimony.

Uh thank you, Councilmember Parker.

We are now joined by Word 7, Councilmember Wendell Felder.

Uh Councilmember Felder, would you like to make an opening statement or start and start your first round?

Sure.

There you go.

Uh thank you, Chairperson Fieldman.

Uh Director is always good to see you and members of your senior leadership team.

I'll be hopping back and forth between different hearings.

So I'll just go ahead and chime in.

Uh director, could you provide me with an overview of the Nailaro shelter?

So we have two buildings and nailer road.

Um they are, I think I believe that both of them are offline right now for renovations.

One of the sites was used for hypothermia extension um this season, this past hypothermia season, but they are currently offline for renovations.

Did you share the projected timeline for completion of those renovations?

Yes, yes, it's fall 2027.

Okay, and you said there's two buildings.

That's right.

Okay, uh, I noticed that the project costs uh nine million dollars, but two million dollars was allocated in FY 2027, and then in FY20 6, um there was 7 million that was allocated, but none of that money went to use.

Could you explain why that was the case?

Uh that would be uh just the status of the project, actually.

Uh yeah, it's currently DGS is uh working at this point on evaluating the design build contract bids for award.

Uh, and so those have not yet been, the awards have not already been in place.

Uh so it's really just a matter of when the funding is needed to complete the project.

Okay, and you said by next year it will be projected fall 2027.

Okay, and how many beds?

I believe it's 28 beds.

Okay.

Yeah, I believe it's 28 units.

I can find their apartments.

Um, so yeah, it's 28 units total.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh the FY 2027 proposed budget implements TANF step downs beginning October 1 for households receiving benefits longer than 60 months.

Um could you speak to what protections are being considered for families facing housing instability?

So we will continue to have a strong um we will continue to have a strong safety net in terms of our housing and in terms of our you know, TANF cash program.

Um, for families who are um who have received the TANF cash benefits for more than 60 months, they will experience a 30% um reduction to their benefits in fiscal 27.

So we will we we have studied communication with our um customers.

We are in the process of also finalizing a hardship policies for folks who are either not able to work and not continue to um engage in activities to find employment, but the we will spend the next year and a half ensuring that we help um support the families and get them connected to services as much as possible in anticipation of the potential loss of benefits in fiscal 28.

Uh with the 30% reduction in those benefits, how is that uh being articulated to those families who may be receiving those benefits?

So, and it so this does what we have done already and what we plan to do.

So we have started just communicating that and um sending notices to families, updating our website, um sending you know message on social media, but we do recognize that there are a lot of changes that's happening in the public benefit sector in general, just changes to TANF and SNAP, as well as Medicaid, um, increase work requirements.

So we are um working with the Department of Healthcare Finance on uh communication um vendor, the kickoff for that so that we can create a communication campaign.

So the kickoff of that is scheduled for tomorrow actually, and then we'll have a timeline of of the different activities for the kickoff.

Now, with so many changes and policy, uh how will you evaluate um success?

What metrics are you guys implementing to make sure that with these policies there's no loss in communications with our most needious residents?

This is so so this is where we recognize that we needed to do something, you know, to enhance our communication and the tools that we currently had.

So that's why we will be working with her, you know, uh outside communication vendor.

Um we want to we've been working, we've been with our agency partners to make sure that they are very much aware of the the changes as well, so that we are distributing any materials that we are creating to other agencies such as DCPS, RC, and whatnot, because they also serve the same residents.

Um and then we'll this will just be an ongoing communication.

There are a lot of changes happening at once, and we we uh don't take it lightly that this gonna require a lot of behavior change for our residents to kind of continue to receive the benefits, and our job is to make sure that not just that we communicate, but we also enhance our services to help them um have better outcomes when we they they receive services from us.

Are there in any internal conversations with other sister agencies who may also be providing some type of support to the same individuals that are receiving benefits from DHS?

Absolutely.

So we're working, we've increased our collaboration with the Department of Employment Services so that we can help identify just three different lanes for when folks are coming to receive either SNAP or TANF so that we can make direct better increase our referral system to DOES.

Um so that's something that's ongoing, really working with also the deputy Mayor for education, the city Administrative straighter and and to look at across our system where we need to make sure that we we bring other entities together in order to help people get connected to stay connected.

Thank you.

So the TANF and employment workforce programs, we have about seven vendors that we support, and they are um they play two roles.

They also provide um incentive cash payments for where families are engaged either in work activities or you know who get connected to work.

They also support our two-gen um activities so to encourage families to engage with not just um improving their um education and employment outcomes but also the outcomes for um their um their children as well.

Now with the 11.5 um million dollar uh reduction, which is proposed in your uh FY 2027 budget.

How will this impact that program?

It will impact us because we'll probably lose two providers.

We'll go from seven to five.

Um we'll lose two providers.

Um with the reduction in providers, how are you looking to make sure that there's no reduction in services?

So right now we recognize that we we have a lot of providers who may have um residents in their like enrollment who are not participating.

So we're going through all of those um roles to ensure that we do outreach to folks who are not participating.

But if people are not participating, then they will they may get discharged from our you know TEP providers so that we can give opportunity to other um residents who are you know participating.

But there are two pieces.

We recognize that we need to improve the outcomes from the TEP program.

So this year we are looking to retool in terms of contract modification um some of the outcome measures that we expect from our TEP providers, including changing the payment structures to reducing the baseline payments, and then shifting the structures of how we provide incentives to both the client and the providers.

And in next fiscal year, we plan to redesign the program completely and we'll issue a re a new solicitation at fiscal year 27.

Now I notice uh you you talked about a reduction in providers.

Uh could you speak to how you will uh maintain your workforce development and employment outcomes following the reductions in this program?

Yes, so we are working to modify our current grants to improve um outcomes and change the payment structure, and then so we help um connect families and households to you know um high paying um vocational programs so that they can have a job at the end of the programs, and then next year next fiscal year we'll issue a new solicitation to have improvement in the program.

Oh thank you.

And I know with with such a massive budget and so many programs, you have to make some decisions.

Could you speak to what metrics inform the decisions of the lead to this reduction?

So we look at we looked at um efficiencies and where we had um opportunities to one where we have some underspend.

So this program were under spending from what we had budgeted into the program.

So the overall real impact to the to the TEP program is about 3.4 million, not necessarily the full 11 million because it was we the there were unspent funds there, um, and we are looking at the programs the providers that have better outcomes.

Uh thank you uh for that.

And um you mentioned you are working internally with other DC government agencies.

Could you speak specifically on how you're working with DOES around workforce development gaps?

Yes.

So DOES um is already one of our SNAP ENT providers, but in the last couple of months, we've improved improved our working relationship to just really identify where they may have additional capacity through their American Job Center to looking at, you know, the way we're thinking about changing the referral system for customers um who are receiving SNAP.

Is right now not everybody needs our SNAP ENT program.

So you know, after the assessment, after a customer comes to receive to check for eligibility for SNAP, they may be self-sufficient enough that they may not need the services of a SNAP ENT provider.

So we may make will make referrals directly to DOES, either to American Job Corps or any other of their workforce program.

So we're looking at um creating three different lanes so that we can have three different paths of referrals versus the one referral path that we had currently, which is just to our SNAP ENT providers.

Now Director Ward 7 and 8 continues to host a substantial share of the district's shelter and bridge housing infrastructure, including facilities such as AO1 East and other low bearing shelter operations.

Uh my question, Director, how much of DHS's FY 2027 um budget uh goes towards homeless services and shelter operations uh being invested east of the river, particularly in ward seven.

I don't know if we have it um identified per ward.

I can tell you that the you know our new shelter in 801 East is is is it is it is one of the best ones that we have, you know, where we have you know visitors from other jurisdictions, we do like to kind of show case our 801 east.

So we are modeling other shelter renovations to make sure that they are kind of up to par with the one that we had in 801 east, but the but the funding distribution is not really identified per ward.

I know that the mayor Bowser's strategy was to make sure that we had at least four family shelter or shelter in each ward, um, so that it can the the shelters uh distributed throughout the city and not concentrated in one area of the of the city.

All right, well, I just a follow-up to that.

Could you speak to how you guys evaluate um what's the words I'm looking for?

Can you uh could you express how you guys evaluate geographic equality when determining whether a shelter or uh bridge housing facility goes into a community or yes?

So we have a heat map that identifies where all of our shelters are.

Um, we it's it's it is important for us that we that we we distribute we distribute where our sites are.

Currently, if we have a site replacement, we try to keep replacing in the approximately the same area.

Um most of our shelters are distributed throughout the city.

And my last question, could you speak to what investments accompany those shelter facilities?

In terms of improvements?

Or uh investments or services that normally comes, yes.

Yes.

So we we provide case management in all of our shelters from family shelters from you know low barrier shelters.

We are looking at potentially having a different case management model in our low barrier shelter.

Um in the past couple of years, we've implemented a housing-focused case management for in our low barrier shelters to include to ensure that everyone in shelter has a housing plan so they know what what services they qualify for because um a lot of sometimes families or I'm sorry, singles were hoping to get a voucher.

And the reality is that we don't have enough vouchers for everyone, and it's important that um individuals know what services and what exits they qualify for so that we can move towards that particular exit.

Thank you, Director.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Felder.

Uh we'll go back for a second on the on the um the youth homelessness and the six percent cut.

Um you do say I think that you want to do this and identify reductions that will have minimal impact on services, and you want to make sure I guess the goal is no loss of beds.

Um, and this is another one of those places where I think there was one time funding, and so the reduction, whether it's a reduction or non-renewal of one-time funding is an open question, but the question of whether or not this can be done without a reduction in beds.

We have providers who are worried about that question.

What makes you think it can be done without a reduction in beds?

We've talked about a number of different things where there have been cuts or non-renewals, and in some of them you have a strategy.

In others, you have a mandate to find efficiencies.

What's the situation here?

Do you have a plan for how this can be done where we avoid loss of beds, or you're gonna find one?

We're gonna be working with the providers to ensure that this is kind of like a North Star and really understand why the reduction if why that would be the only option to reduce beds so that because that's a commitment.

We want to make sure that we don't have reduction in beds in our system.

Yeah, I mean it.

This could be another one of these things of front loading payments and where we are in the year, but it appears that only 8% or 44,000 of the youth PSH budget remains available to spend in FY26.

Is that a reflection of spending pressure in that area, or is that a pre uh reflection again of the schedule of budget payments?

It's not a spending pressure, no.

Um so it's it's part of contract design, it's that big upfront payments and then payments over time.

Right.

That would be uh how we have to obligate the funding for our our vehicles.

Yep.

Yes, that's one of the reasons.

Um we one of our mandates is to ensure when you have a contract that we fund a contract for the whole period of the contract.

That's what we try to do.

Okay.

I mean, and this is there's a lot of cuts out there, and um you're gonna work with the providers to try to make sure that we avoid, and if we can't avoid, then I guess what I'm hearing you say is that there is a commitment from the executive to try to to backfill from some other source so that we don't.

No, I I mean I can't say that for the youth.

I think this is what we are hopeful that we are able to minimize the impact by not removing any beds in the youth system.

If it's it becomes to that, you know, the only option, we'll we'll revisit that.

But I but but right now that is the plan to try to minimize the impact on um the residents we serve, and and the the biggest impact would be loss of beds.

Go ahead.

Yeah, um, so so our youth shelters are not all that capacity, but we know very close to capacity, so we would not we want to always make sure that we have um you know some wiggle room to see those increase capacity.

Yeah, I guess what I'm trying to figure out is I mean it there are different kinds of cuts that are out there and we said this already, but do you have some reason to think that you might be able to secure six percent in savings without having to have an impact on bed?

Do you see some sort of uh uh inefficiencies that point in that direction, or it's just a hope that you'll be able to find it?

Currently, so hope that we'll be able to find it.

Okay, in response to question 46, you shared that although you hired a contractor to conduct HIPAA risk assessment, the agency will have an ongoing need to conduct these assessments and will use existing FTs to do so.

DHS previously shared that the contract will go from March to December of 2026 and will cost around 168,000 dollars.

What's the rationale for hiring a contractor rather than leveraging existing resources?

So we did have um some key staff out on on approved leave.

Um so we really needed to bring in some of that extra support.

We also knew that um we had a little bit of catch-up work to to do to make sure that we did a very comprehensive across the board agency-wide risk assessment, um, particularly looking at HIPAA, but we really needed to do that work comprehensively.

Even if we had that staff on board, it was a it was a pretty tall order.

So we needed to do this work to catch up, and then going forward, we anticipate being able to do this with our onboard staff.

And how many FTs do you think you need in order to be?

How many FTs do you think you need in order to do this ongoing work?

We have uh we have again a filled position who would sort of take the lead on coordinating that work, and we did have some uh vacancies that we are now very close to filling if they haven't already come on board with our security team, who are also you know part of doing those ongoing uh risk assessments.

So I think we have the FTEs we need.

Uh we've been able to fill again the ones on our security team, and we'll have uh the other position is just on leave.

Okay.

And the contract that you have will it focus on existing information sharing, or will it also be designed to try to help the district gain a better understanding of additional data sharing opportunities, such as improved coordination in the homeless services system?

Um this is a tricky area, and you don't want to make a mistake.

On the other hand, there's all of these disparate information sources that and folks could benefit from having access to it.

To what extent is this an audit for weaknesses and to what extent is it a review for opportunities for increased and improved data sharing?

I think what we're hoping to see is both an understanding of where we may have some gaps now that we need to make sure we are we have the right um uh we're doing the right things to address any gaps, as well as recommendations that we're expecting from the vendor about anything we need to be thinking about doing a little bit differently going forward.

Okay, uh during a recent budget presentation, the agency said an apparent $2 million enhancement to HPP was supposed to go to alleviating PSH cost pressure.

Your response to the prehearing question says that an errata letter will suggest lowering the budget for HPP by two million.

Is the idea that that will then move over to fund PSH?

Yes, that is that is um if it's submitted, yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

And when do you think we can expect that errata letter?

I'm not sure.

Yeah, I have no idea, Councilman.

Arata letters.

Last year there was something that was coming in in a rata letter, and I thought, oh wow, that's great.

It's solved, but it's not solved.

It's a suggestion to us of how uh how we ought to solve it.

Um, okay.

Uh we we talked about Sasha Bruce.

Shirley's place and Muriel's, is that right?

They um the healthy babies.

So Shirley's place, how is the decision made to reduce the funding for Shirley's place?

You know, council member, as I mean, uh, you know, it's a very tough budget year.

The district currently operates and sponsors three drop-in centers, the downtown day services center, Adams Place, Day Services Center, as well as 801 East.

Um it's one of those you know difficult funding decisions that um is spayed through the source source, and that we we we made a decision to to be move.

Okay, it's just difficult budget, it's not they're not doing great work, it's not there might not be a need.

It's we have three, we need to find reductions in different places, and so this is a place.

Okay, so truancy.

Good for you.

You had council member Parker come out and chill for you.

Yes.

Shill is not a fair word.

Uh so when we look at the data, I I don't I don't find it as compelling.

Um the I mean, in terms of changes in GPA from people who participate in the program, it feels like GPAs go down for everybody, but they go down more for the folks who participate even compared to where was you were unable to reach a parent to the extent that there's gains in attendance after briefcase management, the number seems small, and the magnitude of the gains, I think it's 2%.

Um in school year 24 25 and school year uh 25 26, it's it's negative 4%.

Um the number that folks seem to be focusing on this 71% whose attendance to explain unpack the 71% number for me.

Gladly, thank you, Councilmember.

So the first 71% is from the it only focuses on the schools who were in the first year of the pilot and also in the second year of the pilot.

So what the number represents is that 71% of the young people who were referred in year one this year were not referred in year two because they did not meet the level that would require for them to be referred, meaning that they've attended more school this time by this time this year than they had last year.

Well they attended it is they've missed less school at this point this year than they missed last year at the same point.

At the same point, yes, it is compared.

That's the comparison.

Yes, that's the comparison, yes.

Um then what percentage of so these were kids who who had crossed the 15 absence threshold.

There's still they could still have 10 absences, right?

But um, these are kids who crossed the 15 threshold last year and so and all of the kids in those schools who crossed the 15 threshold are referred.

Okay, and if you didn't cross the 15 threshold, you're not referred.

You're not referred.

And so then I'm trying to figure out what is there a control group.

Um is there a way to see because one of the things, like some of the results that we see, they're not particularly different for people who went through case management for at all, or 30 days or 60 days or 90 days, or the parent refused.

As I look at different data sets, the impact is hard to see.

What would I compare this 71% to?

Is it another school?

How many kids were truant in one year and then were not truant in the next year?

Yeah, I mean, if we we we're not tracking that, but if you wanted to track, just say another school that had high truancy rate that we did not provide services for, who would have been referred to our program had we been in that school, and whether or not the same group of kids are true in again the the following school year.

That would be like a control group and a school with high truancy rates, but that who are not enrolled in our pilot.

Okay.

And so that's 71% figure, and that that's helpful because that gives me a way of testing it, testing that figure.

That seventy-one percent figure is one data point that you all are using to say this is working.

It's promising.

It's promising.

Uh I I want it to work.

I just also want to make sure that we're spending our dollars in the truancy space in the way that is gonna have the biggest impact, and I'm struggling more than my colleague.

The fact, if my colleague's not struggling, suggest maybe my struggle is not going to be uh we'll won't go anywhere, but in any case, I'm struggling to see the significant impact.

And you point to the 71%.

Is there any other data in the mix that you would point to as showing promise?

So so the data is preliminary, Councilmember.

And let me just also just remind you in terms of where we are with the pilots.

So we started in year one.

Last so last year we were in five schools, four out of the five schools that we studied in last year, returned this year.

Last year, last summer we were also in a hiring freeze, so we were not able to necessarily get to the capacity that we needed to be.

Um but we still pushed on, and this year we extended our footprint by opening six additional schools, not just five five additional schools, because one of the schools that we were in last year decided not to kind of continue, and this year we were in we are in ten schools, including one middle school.

Um, where do what where I see outside of just the 71% of you know to be turned true and see, where I see the program being successful is that this is the really the only intervention right now that exists that is proactively in the community in the in the school in the and um in the households for the young people.

Um we don't have any other programs out there.

A lot of the programs sometimes kind of focus on what's happening in the school, and we are seeing you know progress with um a small uptick of families saying yes to case management this year compared to last year.

We anticipated originally that only 25% of the families would say yes to case management.

Last year that number was 42, this year that number is 407 percent.

So the data is still preliminary, but we are seeing um we are hopeful.

Okay, but okay, so another promising figure is more parents accepting case management.

Um, I guess I then look at um average so receive brief brief case case management and improved attendance, um it looks like in 2024, twenty-four-twenty-five that 47% of the folks who received case management improved their attendance, and that was 18 kids.

In 2025-26, it's 29 percent improved, they receive briefcase management and improved attendance, but unable to reach parent and improved attendance in 24-25 was 36%.

So it's 36% if you couldn't contact the parent, 47% if they engaged in brief case management.

In 25-26, unable to reach the parent, 23% improved attendance, and 29% if they when you were unable to reach the parent, and 29% improved after receiving brief case management, and it doesn't look like a lot.

Is that a question, Councilman?

Yeah, no, it's uh it's a thinking out loud.

Okay, let me um in the last two school years, 51 students or 10 percent of all students referred improved their attendance after participating in case management.

Participating students' GPAs not only get worse after participating in the program, but they decrease much more than the students whose parents were unable to be reached.

Um, so I want in the March 31st report released on Monday morning, DHS said there are 383 referrals this year.

In the agency's response to pre-hearing questions, the agency said there have been 406 referrals.

Is the data received in response to pre-hearing questions just more recent?

Or what what explains that difference?

Yes.

So the yes, there's data that was from the report, there's data from the prehearing questions, and then we have just updated data.

What what was the what is the the question?

The question is one one the March 31st report says 383 referrals this school year, and the answer to pre-hearing questions says 406.

So is it just that the answer to pre-heared questions comes later and there's been more folks who we are currently at 850 referrals for this year?

Referring to that.

850.

So that went up by 404.

That more than doubled since prehearing questions.

So on pre-hearing questions.

So we had yeah, we had 249.

I don't know if the prehearing questions may have been um from the data of the report, the mid-year report, but I I checked the data so I could so I to make sure I had the most accurate data for today, and it's 847 referrals so far this year.

But remember, we just added three schools in the past couple of years, a couple of weeks, and then you know, whenever we're in the school, we do get like an influx of referrals because there are already a lot of kids who reach that threshold.

So then yes.

But then you also have a phenomenon of where you might had a kid who was at 14 and not referred, and then three weeks later they're at 16 and they're referred.

And that's what we see, obviously, later on in the school year that we do we have an influx of referrals because you have to get to 15 days and you hopefully you're not getting to 15 days in this absence in the first quarter of the school year.

But sometimes you do for very true kids, but obviously, as the school year progresses, this is where we see an influx because now a lot more kids are reaching that threshold.

All right.

Well, I guess I'd like to ask that you rerun the 71% number because there will be more kids who have been referred and how many of them were true at last year.

It's a it's a moving target, so I just ask that you you take a look at it.

Um I think I don't think I'm gonna spend the time on the record to go through every single one of these data points.

We may we may do that.

Uh I think I've established there are folks who are encouraged and you're encouraged.

I want to be encouraged.

I'm a little more skeptical, and we'll just have to keep having a back and forth about it unless let me just give me just one second.

Okay, so what we do want to go through, I think we've been trying to get some numbers, and maybe we uh everything's a moving target, but let it let me try to go through a couple of these things.

So the 71% figure.

What is that?

What's the 71 71 percent of what?

What's the number?

What is it and what is the number?

So it's uh uh I have to see if I can get the actual number, but basically this is what this you're asking what the 71% represents.

So it's the totality of kids who were referred to the program.

Whether they we were able to reach them, what do you know?

About 10% of kids were not able to reach, whether they received just um truancy education, whether they received um brief case management, or they were referred to paths.

So it's basically the totality of kids that were referred, regardless of the intervention that they received.

That were in a school that was in both year one and year two.

That is correct.

So four schools, and then excluding the seniors that were in for in year one.

Okay.

So then I do then what is that number?

How many how many kids is that?

Because what was the number of referrals in 2425?

It was uh smaller number 400 in uh 479 students.

Um, yeah, so 479 students, but that was in the end of whole year.

Oh, and so these are the kids who were referred up to that point.

So not all of them, because it's up to the point of the mid-year report.

So then the schools that we brought in later in the year last year.

So those numbers may not have been included in that 71%.

Okay.

Yeah, I do want to understand it more clearly.

Um, it's uh it's a hundred and thirty-one students.

Who are the base number there?

Yes.

It's 131 students that were no longer truant out of out of the 185 students that were referred for the first schools in the pilot by the time we ran that data for the media report.

I see.

And so, a hundred and eighty-five.

Okay.

The hundred eighty-five was the totality of kids that were referred.

This step.

Uh to that point, yes, in the four schools.

Yes.

And not including seniors.

Exactly.

Okay.

Um do we know how many of those kids are still in the same school?

I mean, do we is if if a child moved schools, they wouldn't they would turn up as not being truant in the covered schools.

Um I mean, so I I'll look.

If they've if they've extracted for seniors, I'm assuming they may have extracted for kids who are no longer in the in the, but I can dig down the data a little bit more.

Okay.

And then is there a breakdown?

So this is 71% of those who were referred.

Then there is how they responded, they accepted briefcase management, or the you were unable to contact the parents.

About 10% that we we can't contact the parent, about 10% that we have no contact with the parent.

Is this in the 71% or is this just generally?

So just generally.

Just generally from the kids who are referred, we see about 10% that we can't contact the parents.

Even you know, we look in whether or not they touch any other spaces in our system to just have access to maybe updated contact information, but overall there's about 10%, whether they just don't re return our calls, but it's about 10% of families referred that we are not able to make contacts with.

I thought that number was higher.

But in any case, I wonder if you could if you could be able to tell us what's the for what percentage of the students in that 185.

If you broke it up into engaged in briefcase management, did not engage in briefcase management.

What percentage of the ones who engaged in brief case management uh were not truant in the next year, and what percentage of the ones who didn't engage in brief case management were not truant in the following year to see.

I'm looking for sure.

And just I just want to just make sure that you're also aware that truancy education is a piece of intervention as well, because sometimes you have parents who just may not know that the young person does not go to school or that they reach a threshold or the you know that they have to um get their kids to school too.

So that is also part of our intervention.

So not just discounting intervention starts, whether or not they say yes to case management or not, the intervention starts at true and see education.

Yeah, okay.

So that don't think of unable to reach parent as meaning no service was provided whatsoever.

Some service may have been provided in that.

So don't think as if the family said no to case management that no service was provided.

Right.

Right.

Okay.

All right.

And then, and this is the same, and you break the data down in different kinds of ways, and so you have folks who engage in case management, and then you have folks who completed case management.

And I'd also be curious in that 185, how many of them completed case management and what percentage of those were not truant in the next year?

Okay.

No, I don't think I have that data.

No, not in that way.

Because you're looking at the subset of kids.

Yeah, I don't I don't have that.

Okay.

And if there's a war room somewhere, maybe it can be generated, or maybe that's yeah, I mean we have an analyst.

I don't think, but I don't think you can do it in real time, but we can follow up.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean another thing that's been pointed to is uh is an argument that the the participants' GPA's decline slightly less than non-participants' GPAs.

Um this is figure 27 on page 30 of the report.

That students who receive no interventions had a median GPA decline of 0.28, while past participants had a median decline of 0.26 and brief case management participants had a median decline of 0.21.

I mean, doesn't that strike you as a particularly significant?

So I can tell you that what we measure through the CAFIS is that the majority of the child of the kids enrolled in the program have improved in scores in the CAFIS.

Our interventions about truancy, not necessarily, you know, uh um like grade point average and so forth.

And the kids who get referred, especially the kids who are who are referred to past, are the kids who are having the most significant barriers.

So it so missing multiple days of school plus have you know behavior or probably some proximity to the juvenile justice system is we we expect that that accumulation would lead to a decrease in um you know GPA.

Systematic issues take time to improve council members.

So I would not see unless we were offering just targeted tutoring services.

I would not necessarily, it is a data point that we track, but I would not use that as a measure on whether or not our interventions are working.

Maybe a long term perhaps, but we know that in a very short period of time, three or four months, um, or even a year over year, that a GPA would be is not the measure to focus on for this program.

Okay.

In those questions we asked for each of the last two skill school years, how many and what percentage of all students referred to the pilot, improved attendance and got two very different answers.

The response to question 100 about the current school.

Being with you know another counselor at school to understand you know the the young person's um behavior concerns, checking attendance with the counselors, um coming and meeting the the kid at the school itself.

That's why we have relationships with the school so that the school knows who we are, they allow um um the our case managers to attend to to come to the school.

They can support the family by attending school meetings, parent teacher conferences, um sometimes just kind of checking with the school to make sure the kid is there that could be an agreement between the case manager and the young person hey you said you're gonna go to school tomorrow and I'm just gonna show up to make sure that you're in school okay and then I s I also see only 18 students have received concrete supports like clothing food and transportation part of the when we talked about this last year was the idea that DHS was particularly well positioned to provide those kinds of concrete supports seems like a pretty small number why why do you think the number is so it could just mean that this is not what was the needed intervention for that family.

Okay well um I'm pretty sure the number is higher now again as we froze increase so we could I could so the the final report will have updated numbers so we can add some of these numbers if there's data that you need kind of in between we can see how we can get some of those numbers for you.

Yeah let's work together to get some of these numbers I mean the big the big thing that's on the table for me is this is three point five million dollars I I supported this and supported it last year I want to support it but I also want to be careful that we if we're spending three point five million dollars on truancy that and we should spend more than that on true spending we should be spending it in a way that uh has the biggest impact and but and I would but I would caution Council member to pull something before we have an opportunity to really see the impact.

If it's a pilot it's in second year we're really in terms of a year and a half in terms of the data that you're looking at it takes time it takes time to establish um um to kind of change them so we have to be careful in terms of studying things and not seeing them through because then the investments that we made in the year one and two they would have been wasted investment if we're not able to kind of continue.

So I hear you on that and I mean there's there's a couple of things I mean one is it too soon to say this is not effective another is is it too soon to say that it is definitively effective and we would make it permanent a different approach would be to extend the pilot for a year and see what the data shows in the future I imagine you would like to see it permanent as part of the mayor's BSA.

Um w it's all on the table for us at this point and I think uh I was told that Deputy Mayor Kine reached out and wants to talk with me about this so I've invited you all to make the case for it and uh council member Parker is clearly a supporter it's my job our job to really scrutinize everything and to the extent that dollars are not being deployed in ways that have as big of an impact to have the courage to move them and I don't know that this is that's the case here but it's on the table.

Thank you but also getting it permanent allows us to be flexible in terms of the m the schools that we go into and make some pivot in the program as we're getting more data to make sure that we are actually targeting our interventions and where we see the data identifying better outcomes.

Okay so where we are right um probably fifteen more pages of questions so my inclination would be to take a break, have lunch rest a little and come back is that work for you 30 minutes can we say 40 minutes?

Okay.

And we'll come back at twelve forty and we have to do that Welcome back, everyone.

It is now twelve forty-three, so a couple minutes later than from our recess.

Oh, look who's here.

Maybe uh do you want to go right away?

Okay.

Okay.

So the interagency council on homelessness.

Uh there's the elimination of four DHS funded positions at the ICH.

And to be clear these cuts and other cuts that DM HHS eliminate every position except for the executive director.

I mean, is that right?

That every position at the ICH other than the executive director would be eliminated.

From a budget.

Why did you decide to eliminate four filled positions here while leaving the agency only one employee in place?

I said the proposal is that it gets removed from DHS's budgets.

Um we we've already have a lot of vacancy savings and cuts in our program.

We've already lost a lot of positions, so that maybe it could be filled by another agency's budget, but that was just the the rationale with this.

But is it are they filled in another agency's budget?

It's done in DHS's budget.

No, I'm not sure if it's somewhere else.

I don't believe so.

So this was done in order to have a cost savings and some more flexibility inside of your budget.

That's correct.

But then the consequence of it is that the positions are gone so far as we know.

Is this another one where there has been some indication by the executive that they intend to backfill this in some way, or is the are these four positions likely to go away in and on October one?

None that I'm aware of, Councilmember.

Okay.

So I mean the ICH has statutory responsibilities, and uh including producing heat and winter plans, an annual needs assessment, an annual report.

The agency was previously unable to perform some of these functions because the executive because there was a hiring freeze.

These cuts will almost certainly interfere with our ability to uh to meet those needs.

Are you planning to bring severe weather planning in-house?

How are we going to deal with that?

So we it's always in collaboration with um the community partnership, our staff internally and the ICH.

The ICH definitely plays a role in just the convening of the different work group, including um shelter operations work group and so forth.

We will we are hoping that we just continue to be able to to work with the ICH and um the community partnership in our internal teams to make projections and also to build the capacity of our system for our winter plan.

So I mean it seems like you're gonna there will be the position of executive director of the ICH, and then that person will continue to be part of the team that works on these things, but no other further support.

And is the idea that you think that you have the capacity in that context to do all the work that needs to be done that this is an efficiency that you're gonna be able to find within the system?

Yeah, so it's it's well, it's part of just the the trade-offs and the difficult positions that we are with our budget council member in terms of having to identify what other positions that we need to fulfill like the DHS's mission and understanding that we've already incurred a lot of you know cuts to our personnel and we have just around you know enough funding in our PS budget for the few priority positions that we have in route to be hired and to also maintain current level of of personnel.

So that's that's how this decision was made to to propose these cuts.

And did you think about doing a BSA that would change the requirements for the ICH?

Was there a reason why you didn't do something like that?

There's there are requirements on them in law, and we're setting them up so they won't be able on their own to do those things.

Any thought to modifying the law?

Um not necessarily.

I would there is a there is uh a space for the ICH, so I do think in terms of their um the work that they do in collaboration with us, um, that it's it's impactful.

Um, so I would you know support the executive the ICH to remain part of our operations.

Um but this this was a very difficult you know budget year in terms of what we needed to prioritize out of DHS's budget, um, and it was important for us to try to maintain the position that we have now and the the crucial positions that we know that we need to fulfill our mission.

I guess I'm trying to understand as a practical implication.

What is it, what does it all mean?

And I there has been at different times a desire to have the ICH have it uh almost an independence but a footprint in the space.

And what I'm hearing these changes will do is it will exist in name but be more uh a part of your agency, the director will work with you and the community partnership to do certain different things.

And so it's a loss, it feels like a loss of independence of the ICH as a practical matter.

The director will not report to me, no.

We will continue to work in collaboration.

Um and you know the same way.

I I I don't want to speak for the director in terms of the limitations of her work plan and what she what that's gonna take with the positions that she's losing, but um the structure will still be there and the structure is that um she the direct the executive director report to the city administrator, not to DHS.

Yeah, I mean it turns into more almost like um Budsman kind of it's she loses her staff, so her capacity to do different things decreases pretty significantly, but she's still a player on the scene.

Yeah, and that position also is embedded within DMHS, so maybe there's some functions that other members of I'm just I'm just speculating at this point because I don't know how DMHS is going to be structured.

Um so I I really don't want to answer for how she plans to um restructure her workload or how the the DMHHS plans to restructure their workload to kind of meet their um the statutory obligation.

Okay, another another area of uncharted territory.

I am gonna put a pin in it for now and welcome uh I've been joined by at large council member Christina Henderson and Councilmember Henderson if you have an opening statement or you just want to proceed to a round of questions.

The floor is yours.

Um I'll just go straight to questions.

Thank you, Councilmember Freeman, and good afternoon, Director Pierre.

Um I want to start um with some questions on around housing.

Um the Ashton, which is in board to um is only housing right now a hundred individuals, is that correct?

Yes, Councilmember, that is correct.

Is the provider able to take on more clients?

We don't have it in the budget right now to take on more clients.

Okay, but the capacity of the building is more for 190.

Yes, the the building has a capacity of 190.

Okay.

So to go above the 100, we would have to add additional funding for the provider to be able to do so.

Yes, and we have to get authorization to do so.

Authorization from who?

From the executive.

Oh, okay.

Um, all right.

Um DHS has opened an additional non-congregate site on E Street.

Yes.

Um we actually heard testimony in my committee on committee on health, um, from one of the health providers who is hoping to um start a medical respite program at the E Street site, which I think is um meets a different need, but a need nonetheless, especially for our hospitals where on any given day I've got individuals who no longer need the acute level of care at a hospital, but there's no place to safely discharge them to.

And this would be an excellent opportunity for um that my understanding is that the E Street site also has a 190 bed capacity as well.

Yes.

How many um well okay?

So at Performance Oversight, there was um 54 individuals there.

How many are there now?

96 96.

Okay, so it's going up.

Yes.

Is this site going to be a capped at 100 too?

No.

We'll get to the capacity of the building.

Okay.

So um I guess in the how you um my question is how you all are sort of managing um in terms of individuals who they need this support.

You have a cap at the Ashton.

Are we just referring them to E Street at this point?

Is that how you guys are managing?

Yeah, we have a we have a waiting list, but we're also um are working to be at capacity for E Street.

So that is the focus right now, getting to the 170 beds.

At East Street, we're also, I think you studied your statement with the respite beds.

We also um projecting to have 25 respite beds at E Street, um, which is included in the 170, 10890 capacity.

Oh, I see, okay.

So you're setting aside.

Um I know that the organization, trying to remember which one, I think it's some.

I think it's some.

No, no, Merriam's kitchen.

The other provider, yes.

Um, I think they're trying to identify some additional funding to be able to bring that on full fully.

But um I think it's a really good idea.

Um, okay, so the FY26 supplemental that we have also adds 25 million in capital and 3 million in operating to find a new bridge housing site.

Yes, which is estimated for 100 beds.

Um now when we add things to the supplemental, I have to assume that it's like shovel ready, we're ready to go.

Are you ready to go?

Is there a site?

No, that's not a site.

Um, I think we had DHS had may have had identified a site that did not um that was just not um necessarily appropriate, but we don't have a site identified right now.

Okay.

Um do you have a provider picked out?

No, we don't have a provider picked out because we know that it's usually takes at least a calendar year, um, to operate.

So you it's either we have a new solicitation or we identify where we have capacity, so no, we would not have a provider picked out.

Okay, so capital is one thing, right?

Capital can sit, gain friends and interest as it sits and weights in terms of allotment, but operating is something completely different.

And so the idea that there's three million in allotment for this fiscal year.

Next fiscal year, the 3.4 is.

No, it's in the FY26 supplemental, which is now.

No, the 3.4 is actually um in the fiscal year 27 budget.

Okay, so there's only capital in the supplemental.

That's correct.

For this purpose, yes, okay.

But still begs the question of why if you guys don't even have a site.

Because that it was the hope that the site that may have been flagged was be personal.

So you guys had thought this was gonna be a site that worked, it turns out it didn't work.

Yes.

And so now we're gonna go through a process with DGS to identify a new site?

Yes.

Okay.

Do we feel like they could reach that over the summer?

Um hopeful.

Okay, we could all operate on a little hope uh these days.

Um, all right.

Uh in order, okay, for the E Street site, just to confirm they have the operating dollars and capac to be able to up the capacity that they currently have.

So there doesn't need to be any additional money there.

No, okay, all right.

Um I want to ask about vouchers.

So um in the FY26 supplemental, the mayor is proposing to add $6 million to the um permanent supportive housing families account at DCHA, and the DHS budget um also includes a six million dollar increase to the maintenance of persons account, also for PSH families as well.

Um, is my math right on that?

I think so.

Okay, great.

All right.

Um, so are these increases for this current fiscal year to address higher programming or rental costs, or is it to add additional capacity?

It's not to add additional capacity, it's to maintain capacity.

So what we're currently dealing with, yes, not dealing with that's a poor terminology with the current occupancy.

Yes, um, okay.

So we're adding a combined what feels like 12 million dollars in both accounts, two agencies.

More.

I think you said 22 for 22 in the CHA and it's six million for DHS.

Oh, I had six and six additional.

I think, yeah, I believe that the housing authority received 22 million dollars, and we received six million, but I don't want to speak for them, but this is my understanding that they received 22 million dollars.

Okay, okay.

That aside, the point still stands is that we're making this increase in FY26, but the FY27 proposed budget doesn't reflect these additional dollars for you all.

Um it only increases the program line by 389,000.

Yes, because we do not have additional vouchers in our budget for fiscal year 27.

We only have um sufficient funding to keep the families who are in the households who are currently housed or matched going through the NISA process.

But you told me the additional six million was for maintenance of this year.

Yes.

Wouldn't you need that for maintenance of next year too?

Yes, but you don't have that.

So we have a budget pressure, okay.

So we're gonna start FY27 with a budget pressure.

That's what I'm trying to get to.

Yes.

All right.

Because I feel like your agency in particular always gets put in this scenario where you start the year behind.

With a pressure, yes.

Okay.

All right.

Um, I'm gonna leave that where that is.

I want to ask you about the New York Avenue shelter project, which I've asked you about before.

Um I have a particular interest in, not just because of the shelter piece, but also because that piece of land is um currently the animal.

Well, it was it was the animal shelter, and now it's gonna be that building demolished, thank the Lord, and then a new structure will be built there.

Um, that current capital project balance for that project is at about 60.8 million dollars.

Um, and the capital budget proposes an additional four million dollars for FY27.

So, what is the timeline that DGS has given you about this project?

Which it has been stalled for good reason.

We had to make some moves of design and one had to move, one agency had to move in order to make that building vacant.

I guess demolition still needs to happen.

It hasn't happened yet, and then going forward, but what is the timeline that they've given you?

So right now the new timeline for being it online is fiscal year 30th.

There was some delays because we have to go back fiscal year 30.30.

Mm-hmm.

We have some delays because we had to go back in design, the program and design was out of budget, was over budget.

So we have to kind of go back to kind of keep the um the program within budget.

So it's gonna take us three years to build a shelter, a big shelter.

So as we have to go back to design.

I mean, stalled because we have to go to zoning first, so we had to go through all of this process.

Because it wasn't zoned for people, it wasn't.

It's it's not zoned for that, so I I'm getting that.

Well, we went through the zoning process already.

Oh, so you've gone through zoning.

Yes.

And okay, what's the next step?

The next step is we we are going through redesign.

So we had a beautiful state of the door design with you know indoor outdoors, how we like get similar to 801 East.

The design just pushed the budget out of budget, so we had to sort of kind of go back to the drawing board with the new design.

So we had the design stage.

How long does it take to do a design?

I don't know.

I don't know if you have the timeline, but but you can understand sort of the frustration here.

Yes.

I recognize the okay, we had to move one piece of the puzzle before we could get to the other one.

But the idea that it's gonna take us three years to build a new shelter that I feel like we have been talking about for the better part of a decade.

Yeah, I mean, we're we're giving Ezra Klein like material here around abundance.

It's like eight months for design, but but yes, I mean we would love to be out of New York Avenue Shelter 2, but it's about eight months of design and then everything else.

Okay, I'm over my time for this round.

Thank you.

All right, thank you very much, Councilmember Anderson.

We we did have some conversation about this cost pressure issue, and I think director correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it looks like on the order of 15 million dollars in cost pressure on the PSH side separately.

There's the emergency housing voucher side from that's federal and DCHA, although administered or supported by DHS, maybe another $15 million in cost pressure on that if the Feds stop paying for it.

Uh so significant then also on the $3.4 million.

I think in the back and forth, and correct me that the agency may be thinking that $3.4 million might be partly used or used to blunt the cost pressure on the PSH side.

Yes.

Okay.

Um subtitle 5H uh clarifies that ERAP is not an entitlement and that approvals for ERAP are subject to appropriations.

In response to question 55, the agency indicates it needs to move the subtitles so that when ERAP is zeroed out in FY28, it will not be on the hook for FY27 funds from applicants that are still pending.

Yes.

The HSRA, as the agency acknowledged, already says that none of its services are entitlements and all services are subject to appropriation.

Why do we need to go out of our way to say that again?

And doesn't the move to say it again suggest that it wasn't why would you do it if it were already the case?

So why do this if it's already the law?

Is to ensure that we are, I think I'm re I'll repeat a little bit of what you said is that we're not on the hook for applications that we're found to be eligible, but we don't have any funding for currently in the past couple of years, the current practice is that we've committed to when we when we project how many applications that we can support for any um fiscal year or whenever the the portal opens.

Because right now we do not have funding in our baseline budget in fiscal year twenty-eight.

We want to ensure that you know, whether it's through appeals or anything, we are not being we are not responsible that a judge may find that you know, hey, this is an application that you've accepted that the family is now eligible, and you should be responsible to pay for the application.

That is the need for the subtitle.

So even if it has not been legally an entitlement, we have treated a processed application effectively as an entitlement, and so we have a kind of carryover issue, and you're protecting against that carryover issue in FY28.

That's correct.

Um that's what we've seen in past appeals.

Yeah.

And the idea that it's zeroed, I I have a hard time picturing that ERAP will stay zeroed out in a future year.

I'm not I don't I'm not saying that it will be filled in in this year, but it just is been a uh priority.

Why not wait and see if we uh provide funding or if the city provides funding for ERAP in FY28?

Okay.

It's a question.

So you said why wait?

Why why why wouldn't we just wait?

Well, it's not it's not in the mayor's proposed budget, so then in order for us to balance and ensure that we are being fiscally responsible and not obligate us for something that's not in our financial plan, it was important to introduce this in the BSA.

Yeah, I guess I mean I think you weren't obligated before, and maybe it's maybe it's to have this conversation to be to warn people that this is what's out there.

Well, we so what we found, council member is is in appeals when we deny applications because of lack of funding, they are overturned and we are required to pay with next year's funding.

We're not gonna have next year's funding, so we don't want to be obligated for something that's not in our budget.

But okay, all right, so regarding subtitle 5a, the rapid rehousing subtitle, uh is the subject of this subtitle the subject of any appeals on the the question of when exit is to occur, is clarified in this subtitle, is the question of the date for exit the subject of an ongoing appeal?

Do you know?

No.

And how many appeals are out there for FRSP exits at this point?

I could tell you how many appeals I had that number.

Um I can pull that for you.

How many appeals we've had in this fiscal year?

Um, I have it somewhere, council member, just maybe if you give me a couple of minutes to kind of get back to find it in my notes.

If I could get that to you for you, Councilmember, because I know I actually asked that specific question.

No, I can't find it.

I mean, I guess I in terms of an exact number, it would be good if you could get back to me.

But also, I mean the concern had been this could create an or an enormous cost pressure if there were a lot of appeals.

And I guess the bottom line question is has that fear materialized or has it worked out better than we had feared?

In terms of us being able to get through the appeals.

Yes.

That's worked out better than there was a time where there was a lot of concern about this, but it worked out better than that.

Yes, in terms of yeah, I don't know if we've we've we've tracked any appeals specific to that subtitles.

We've we've tracked appeals from FRSP just in general, and we know how many have been overturned, but I don't know if it is if there's been a difference specific to that subtitle.

So total appeals for FRSB this fiscal year has been about 537.

So most people who get exited from the program appeal.

Do appeal.

And do you know how many of those have been successful of the 537?

Um I think um I do this is data that I did as this morning.

Um we had um in fiscal year, we had a hundred and we had 140 in fiscal year 25 and 104 in fiscal year 26.

That were successful, yes.

Overturned appeals, yes.

And then um, where are we?

I mean, there had been a a backlog of folks who had been in FRSP who the idea was we need to this was supposed to be a temporary program.

We it needs to be a temporary program.

How many folks who have have been in FRSP for over a year or up to two years are there still now?

So I think your question is about have we been able to get through the backlog?

That's the question.

Yes, we've been able to get through the backlog.

So right now we are making we are to have a smaller group of appeals and as people are getting exited in in 12 months.

Okay, and so then this subtitle.

The problem has not turned out to be as large as feared, and this subtitle will just make it crystal clear so that we don't get into a backlog situation again.

Is that a fair characterization of that that it's not so much that it has a big impact on existing folks in the system now, but that it protects us from the problem that we had in the past?

That's correct.

Okay.

I did want to clarify.

I'm sorry, one thing because I think I misspoke a little earlier.

Um we are not we don't specifically track appeals that are related to this.

So we don't have good data on that at this point.

There may be some that are coming through now.

We are aware of one, and that was decided in our favor.

So I just wanted to clarify that.

All right.

Well, that's um thank you for clarifying that.

Yeah, I get it, but the big picture is that the number of appeals, I mean people routinely appeal the uh successful appeals are down this year compared to the previous year.

You feel like you're working through the backlog, and the idea of this subtitle is to make it crystal clear going forward, and uh that answers my set of questions and my time is up, so I will turn back to Councilmember Henderson.

Um thank you, Councilmember.

Uh still on the same topic of housing, emergency housing.

Um so I uh visited with the um new CEO of Unity Health Clinic last month when I was at uh their clinic in board eight.

And um we talked a little bit about the plans for the renovation for CCMB downtown.

And um I learned through the Unity folks that the plans for the CCMB site does not include space for a clinic, um, which has been an integral part of the model at the current site location.

Um now I understand from subsequent conversations with GMHS staff that C CNB objects to the clinic be on being on site, despite much evidence to the contrary that it's actually beneficial to have the clinic be co-located.

Um what conversations have you all had?

I mean, the the shelter is going to be built on district land, and so I feel like we have some say in this, but um, if we think about from a public health infrastructure standpoint, the nearest clinic, public clinic, right, um, to the CCMB site, yeah, you you're traveling quite like I I'm actually sort of um scratching my head to sort of think about like you're now having to go either deep into ward six or um up to Bradford of the city as the closest locations.

What conversations have you all had with them?

So so we're in agreement that that clinic is very vital to not just the residents at CCNV but also to the population we serve, the overall you know homeless services, um, homeless community.

Um, what's CCNV, they are not they are they are not in agreement to have the clinic be embedded in that original shelter, but they would like for the clinic to be on their land.

So they have that whole parking lot in the back.

So there's just only one parcel that they would did they want to just have just a shelter.

Okay, that would be in phase one, and then the other interests on East Street, they would be happy to have a clinic there.

The issue is whether where the funding would come to.

I mean, it's all great to have a second structure, but if there's no budget for said second structure, then what are we talking about?

Hope, I guess, again.

Um I wanna I hope we can keep talking about this because I feel like again, we're looking at it from a map, and also what is the in the best interest of clients, some of whom have chronic illnesses, chronic diseases, take medications, etc.

Having the clinic there is a no-brainer in terms of being able to receive those services.

Now we're gonna tell people like here's a bus pass and good luck to you to get to your doctor's approval.

Oh, I'm in agreement, council member.

I think it's it's a negotiation between the city and and RICO because it is it is going to be on CCNB's land, but with district's funding, and it comes to the agreement of so there's no agreement has yet been made.

So there's no finalized plan for CCNV, by the way.

So what you may have heard is um what RICO is stating, like this is what we even unity is communicating to you.

This is RICO would prefer not to have nothing is final.

Nothing has been finalized.

So this is and so I support having a clinic.

Um the mayor has not made a decision on any finalization for CCNB.

But but the message out there, because Rico has been very very vocal about that, he would prefer not to have a clinic being embedded, but nothing has been finalized.

Okay.

Um let's talk TANERF really quickly.

So um, I actually brought this up at my DCPS hearing last week, and I'll tell you why.

Um in the UPSFF, which is how we fund school's formula, we have this designation called at risk.

And one of the ways that students are designated at risk is if your family qualifies or is enrolled in SNAP or TANEF.

Well, I've got changes happening on both my SNAP program and my TANF program.

And the school system, well, DCPS anyway, I'm not sure about charters, no one is adjusted for the idea that we might have thousands of families who today are SNAP and TANF eligible who may not be so in the next school year, and how does that adjust?

Because it could be for a paperwork reason, it could be because of lack of being able to find a job, but like the need for the child has not changed.

And I encourage them to have a conversation with you all because it's not just around this additional funding for UPSFF, but it's also like does your kid qualify for after school.

I don't know.

Right?

And in terms of those.

If you're looking for a medical exemption, here's the form for that.

When will all of that be available for the public and for community organizations who want to assist folks?

Sure.

So it's two things.

So we have been communicating to customers, sending notices every month around the changes that are coming.

Right now, when the a customer is up for um recertification, we're talking about SNAP.

They will come in and this is when we'll assess them.

We'll screen them for any type of exemption, we'll screen them from like ABOD.

If they don't qualify for any exemptions and they are identified as being ABOD, we will make sure that they let them we let them know.

They would not lose their benefits right away.

They will have up to three months to kind of get in compliance.

And at which case we'll make a we'll help them, you know, create a plan to get in compliance.

So either they participate in SNAP ENT and you know can look for employment, or they participate in work fair program, which is um volunteering as well.

I've heard your I yeah.

I'm just talking about like one of the forms gonna be ready and available so that folks can have conversations with folks of like this is what you'll need to do.

Yeah, so we uh we've update, we've been updating our website as much as possible.

We are also communicating with a lot of our um providers.

We had uh uh briefing with all of our sister agencies a couple of weeks ago to include DCPS to include um Aussie and all of the other um entities that serve the same constituents.

We've updated our website.

We are having ongoing communication with you know providers or snap.

Okay, form.

So I don't know exactly what forms.

Maybe I'm missing something in terms of like so.

There are a lot of information on our website in terms of, but that's not gonna be but if you're are you talking about like the someone in order to get the medical exemption, there's a form.

So yeah, so it's up that's uploaded on our website, I believe.

Is it?

You wanted to add.

Um what format and model will people have to submit in terms of the work requirement stuff?

That's what I'm talking about.

So I acknowledge the first.

So so June 1st is where everything starts.

June 1st is where our systems are gonna be up to, right?

That's when the start, yes.

I'm asking that in an effort to prep people, right?

We've got varying literacy rates.

Yes.

So somebody's gonna have to sit down with somebody else to say, hey, no, this box is where you put the X.

So it's when the people come to our service centers for recertifications.

So we we also then scan screen them for any exemptions.

We let them know what paperwork decided can start.

Um, in the same vein as like before you go to the DMV, they actually go to the website, and then before you even are able to get a number at the DMV, they're checking to make sure that you have all the documents.

So you're not wasting your time or theirs getting to the window and not having everything.

The reason I'm asking this is for the same thing.

Yes, I don't want to waste the time at the service center.

I want to make sure that folks have what they need when they come.

The only way they have that, if you are not telling me what I need on until June 1st, then you know you see what I'm saying?

Yes, so so there's so the DMV tells you what forms to bring, what forms to bring, how many identification pieces you need, etc.

And then before you even take a number at the DMV, they check so that to make sure you have everything.

So our website has all the information to let folks know what are the changes that are coming.

I'm don't I don't suggest that it's enough just in our website, in addition to the fact that we have to make communicating with with people.

But as it relates to what exemptions people will qualify for, we can't do that until they come back for research recertifications.

So then anybody who's whose recertification is in June, June 1st is when we're gonna start rescreening people and say, hey, fill out this form, um, because you may qualify for exemption, or you know, provide this paperwork and so forth.

Even if someone is um not exempt or they're an ABOD, they won't lose their benefits that when they come in navigation.

I'm just trying to think about it from a customer serious standpoint.

But I already got come to you in person.

You know how frustrating it is to like make all the arrangements, whether it be child care, transportation, et cetera, to come to you and then bring somebody to say, Oh, you gotta come back.

So you can also do it online through district direct.

We need our systems are just not going to be ready to accept any new forms or anything before June 1st.

It's not even what I'm saying, accept it.

Just want people to see so that they know, okay, this is what the format is going to be.

It allows for, and I sure, your staff can certainly help walk somebody through it, but your staff is also probably not a trusted voice for a lot of folks.

So if there are community organizations who are desiring to help, prepare people, okay, right?

That's why I'm saying, like, if we wait till June 1st and it's the day of my appointment.

So, so your question is what kind of training are we providing to the rest of the community to make sure that they understand the changes that are coming that we're communicating.

That's not even my question.

It almost feels like we're gatekeeping.

I just don't know what the form says.

That's what I'm saying.

Like for some people, it's just literally like, okay, this is what you're gonna have to fill out.

This is what you're gonna need to bring.

Let me help you, Miss Johnson walk through it.

Let's walk through the process together before you get to the service center.

Like it's like the meeting before the meeting.

Yeah, so did the information to get to apply for Snap and TANF is online right now.

So that's not new information.

What's going to be different is how we screen and are able to kind of collect um information to see if people are qualifying for ABOD or meeting their work requirements.

So this is the systems changes that we've been making.

We are training staff, we are we are having listening sessions with advocates with our providers and so forth.

But the system, so maybe this is the form that you're thinking, that new system is not going to be available until June 1st.

So it's gonna be in June 1st, it's gonna be online, it's gonna be in the service center, and so forth.

So that is the date.

But in terms of what is coming, we have we we are doing more in terms of communication.

We are working on a communication campaign for all of the changes that are kind of happening at the same time with work requirements as it relates to SNAP, as it is to Medicaid, etc.

Okay.

Over my time.

Okay.

I'm gonna follow up on a couple of these things on the on the form.

One of the things that I have heard, maybe you've heard as well, Councilmember Henderson, is a desire by some of these major highly credible community organizations that are trying to strategize now on how to help people avoid it uh losing their benefits.

Even if the form was only finalized and shown on the website on June 1st, are you open to engaging with those folks just to, you know, beta test it and talk with them about how it is that you want to approach this because that might help give comfort.

I hear you that for the first people who come on for recertification on June 1st, June 2nd, June 3rd, they wouldn't have gotten the form in advance, but everybody else for the rest of the year would be available and the organizations could be working with them.

Can you wrap them into this process so that they can help you as much as possible?

Yes, and that work has started.

I I I we have been bringing the community along.

We are having sessions with you know advocates, providers, in terms of where other entities who are interested in becoming host sites so that they can participate in our workfare program, so that you know they can be a volunteering site.

That portal is now open, it's been open since April 27th.

So then so, and then we've sent communication, we continue to send communication about how other providers can become host sites and be um work fair.

We have advocates briefings.

We are we so we have been doing this work.

I think maybe we're Councilmember Henson and I may be maybe not understanding each other, I think it's because it's it's it's she's talking about a specific form that is just basically the application form that the changes will come on June 1st.

But right now, um, people can still kind of go and apply and um for their benefits, and nothing has changed yet.

And then when people come for recertification, we will assess for any exemptions that they may be eligible for.

But we have we have shared with the community and our websites what are the types of exemptions that would automatically be um approved.

Uh so I hear you.

I mean, uh big changes are coming, scary for thousands of people and for the people who advocate on their behalf, and so whether it's a it's a new form or it's a new emphasis and different things that are maybe needed, educating people up front and engaging them up front is important.

Glad to hear that it started.

I think I would encourage as much of it as possible.

You can't have 30 people draft a form or draft a guidance, but you benefit from folks who are on the front lines giving feedback along the way.

So I would encourage you, as many people sort of have their heart in their throat about what this is all gonna mean.

I mean, it is scary what this is all gonna mean.

Keeping folks informed and bracing everyone as best as possible, I think is uh super important.

Uh I'll just touch, I wasn't gonna ask about the CCNV, but uh councilmember Henderson has when I'm new to this, and it looks complicated.

Um there is the current plan of just building the shelter and not using the rest of the site doesn't look like the greatest idea to me.

It sounds like RICO also would like to have a bigger vision of what might happen there, and whether or not the dollars that are in place are enough to really build uh a shelter on the scale that they are talking about.

A lot of questions around this, but we should, and sort of an appeal to council member Anderson, like we should be trying to engage on this to get to a result that makes sense that includes a clinic that includes the new shelter, and may include other development opportunities on that site.

Um eligibility determinations in response to question 63 DHS shared the reduction in case in the case management budget line from 24 and a half million to 19 million, and the claim was it won't cause any disruptions to case management services.

How's that gonna work?

If there's a five and a half million dollar reduction in that line, we're gonna be able to do the same with that with 25% less money or 20% less money.

Yeah, so for that reduction, uh what you're seeing is the change in uh the amount of the of the matching funds, and so that's why you're seeing that decrease.

I don't know if that's making sense to you, but so that's a decrease in the federal funding for SNAP ENT that we were anticipating where we would only be getting the 25% match.

So the budget was aligned to that.

Um there's also you're seeing there as well some smaller changes uh that represent uh changes to um the personnel services side of the budget um for positions that we weren't able to hire there, but the major decrease there is really reflecting that shift in the federal funding based on the lower amount that we were anticipating getting based on the change in matching requirement.

So going to the 25% versus the 50%.

I did want to clarify though that since um since this time, this is for SNAP ENT, we have been able to clarify that that change in matching does not apply to SNAP ENT.

Um, so we are going to be able to adjust that uh during execution.

So we will adjust the federal funds back to the 50 percent.

And then the number that would push this number back up to something like $24 million because but it would be federal dollars that are complementing the $19 million?

That would replace out the federal dollars that we reduced to align with what we believed was the new federal budget for that program.

And those federal dollars, if I'm hearing correctly, are the lion's share of the five and a half million dollar reduction, but not the entirety of it.

So the federal dollars return, it moves you closer to the 24 million, but not necessarily to the 24 million.

Right.

It would align back to how we are funding the program this year at 5050.

Um that's one that we pass through those federal dollars and the providers have the matching funds.

So we're not budgeting the local match for the SNAP ENT program, with the exception of some smaller dollar amounts that are um our own administrative cost for running the program.

Okay.

You shared that the reductions in the eligibility determination staff are a deliberate right sizing of personnel services and FTE count.

I mean, I think it's a reduction of 55 FTEs.

I mean that's that's a big number if that's right sizing, why didn't it happen before?

Help me understand how how 5055 FTE reduction is right sizing.

Yeah, so those 55 um positions being eliminated that you're seeing there, uh those are positions that historically, I mean you're right.

This is something that's happened year over year, and so we've uh you know for a long time carried a lot more vacancies that just haven't been funded in our budget, and we weren't able to fund because they we didn't have the the money to do it.

It's um they didn't align with how we were earning um on the federal side in order to support the positions and we didn't have the local matching funds as well.

And so what we did um we really had to change the whole structure of our budget going into fiscal year 27 to right size it so it's more accurately reflecting the positions that we can actually fill uh going into that year.

So the 55 positions are not positions that were funded in a way that we would have been able to fill them at all.

And so it sounds a little counterintuitive, but when we say we're not expecting impact because we weren't we weren't able to fill them, they're not in our prioritization for this year.

We knew we didn't have the funding to do that, so it made more sense to just go ahead and right size the budget, change the way we were doing cost allocation up front, which entail the number of shifts in our budget, um, but those 55 positions would not have been filled.

Okay, so these are sort of on paper reductions.

It's not that there would be fewer people at the call at the call centers and such, it's just no, not as a result of those fifty-five, we would not have been able to fill those positions.

So, yes, it does not entail a shrinking of our um FTE footprint.

But this also goes to the way money moves around inside of this agency.

I mean, if they were on the books, then they were part of the budget, but you realistically knew you weren't going to fill them.

And so the dollars in the budget associated with those positions, it was it could have been kind of a piggy bank to be used for other things to deal with cost pressures.

Am I understanding that?

No, those are because the federal dollars um are that's funding that we would have to earn, and so you know how we can fill the FTE's aligns with um how we're able to earn on the federal grants, if that makes sense.

So it's based on the random moment time sample, and we're only able to collect as much and use as much as we're able to as the RTMS reflects, as well as what stays within our allowable um caps on our federal funding.

Okay.

Aiden, did you want to add anything to that?

Um, so when you have a federal grant, especially SNAP and TANF, you get an allocation for the year.

But the federal government will only allow you to draw down for time spent on federal programs.

So they could approve $100 million for you, but once you start doing the cost allocation and measuring the time people spent doing that activity, you may only be able to draw down half of it, 75 percent of it.

So we will budgeting the positions and hoping we could earn it, but it's all based on time spent on federal activities.

And so if I went back a number of years, I would see a delta of something like these 55 positions of they were on the books.

If you could you had authorization, but you had to earn it and you didn't earn it, and so you're not just taking them off the what you would see if you go back, you would see that there's a lot of unspent federal money.

It's not money we can use because you have to actually earn it.

So if you look at last year's budget, you would see that in the federal grants budget at the end of the year, there was like a lot of money sitting there.

It's not money we can reallocate anywhere.

We have to actually show what time you spent doing SNAP eligibility, Medicaid eligibility, taliff eligibility by using and a random moment sample.

It's just an you get an email randomly and it says, What are you doing right now?

And you have to go in and say I'm working on SNAP.

This is the case number, and then it's a statistical calculation to determine how much you can draw that.

Okay.

I've gone I've gone well over, but I'm gonna I'll come back to this.

Um Councilmember Henderson.

Thank you.

This would be my last um round because um my laptop's dying.

Um in our hearing with um, actually, we haven't had the hearing yet, but my pre-conversation with the staffer department of healthcare finance when it came to SNAP funding and the shift in terms of administrative costs.

There's some a lot of things that are kind of shifting in the healthcare finance world as it pertains to DCAS because of this new sort of shift.

Um how much additional are we now having to pay with local dollars because of that change from HR one?

So just administrative shifts.

So we were so it went from 50-50 to 7525.

Right.

And so we um that cost for us is about 22.8 million dollars.

That's in our budget for next year, okay.

So we have so some of the shifts that we're kind of seeing is related to that, not a deficit.

Okay.

The benefit is still 100% passed through.

Okay.

Um, I'm going really quickly, and this is gonna seem random, but I'm trying to hit a bunch of different spots.

Okay, um, are you all planning to implement Sunbucks this summer?

Yes.

Okay.

Um are you guys going to be the agency that's doing the bulk of the work this year?

I think it's in a in um collaborations with DC Health in Aussie.

Okay, but it is happening.

All right.

Okay.

Uh domestic violence funding.

Um, so we had a very interesting conversation with uh criminal justice coordinating council last month.

Um, and the percent of homicides in the district that are attributed to domestic violence is at its highest, it's been in 12 years.

Um, and this has probably gone up since then because I think there have been at least one additional homicide that has happened since this data that has been related to domestic violence that have happened in the city.

Um we're seeing it in the numbers, we're hearing it from providers, but this budget shows a decrease in about 700,000 in domestic violence services in subsidies and grants.

Um I think earlier you told Councilmember Freeman that um some of this is due to efficiencies.

You think you can realize?

Can you unpack that?

Sure.

So just about two, so it's two different buckets.

Okay.

So that's 200,000.

That's that is used to provide services to the households who were housed through the emergency housing vouchers, the federal vouchers.

We do think there's efficiencies that can be leveraged on that, because it's going through our source source.

It's about a hundred a million dollars in that bucket, so we're unpacking it.

We think that some families may be able to be served through um being able to draw down Medicaid funding through housing supported services, and some would just stay with the regular providers.

Okay.

So, but there's a five hundred thousand dollars.

So the delta now, so the two hundred, we do think we can fix it internally in terms of just efficiencies, but not uh not uh uh reduction in services.

Okay.

The 500,000 is it's it's just we had a one-time funding that was just not one time local, one time local funding that was just that was put by council last year that was not um that was not part of our base budget.

That's not recurring.

So we had to work with the providers we had warned them that we could not ensure that there was gonna be in our budget for for the following year because they were they were one time okay.

Okay, all right.

Um let's go to turn C.

So uh how much are you all proposing to spend in FY27 for the Trinity pilot?

I'm gonna call it a pilot because I think this will be what year three, maybe.

We're in year two.

Um go ahead if you have the number.

Oh, you just turned your mic off.

It's 3.5 million.

3.5 million.

Okay.

So the truancy reduction pilot uh program report came out a couple of days ago.

I haven't had a chance to sort of fully look into it, but I if you read past page one in terms of the executive summary, um, I think things are questionable and not as rosy necessarily as been presented.

So you all said that 71% top line number of the students who that participated last year as of February, but so 71% of the students who participated last year had not yet accrued enough absences to refer to merit a referral to the pilot program.

So the pilot threshold is 15 days, which is greater than the number of excused absences, unexcused absences for high schoolers that we have within the law.

So 71% of the students were approaching or past the definition of chronic truant.

They had not met, they had not yet met.

All right, so we're they're not yet there.

Um, one of the metrics then would be how many of those 71% who were not yet there when you guys first started your uh engagement, they never actually became truant.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, because well, since it's 71% who are not truant, still means that we have 29% who were truant.

Okay.

Um, of the interventions the pilot provides skill building is the most commonly used.

Um what what's that?

What is that?

What is skill building for showing up on time?

Well, that is showing up on time.

So it's case management that's really sort of kind of targeted.

Um, making sure that folks are ready to go to school in the beginning of this the school year.

Um, so what one of the things that we we're excited about the pilot is that when kids are referred at the end of the school year, we're able to continue to work with them throughout the summer and get them to start their school year on a better footing the the following year.

So it's about um we all of our um students receive a KFIS assessment assessment, so we we measured them on seven different domains, and we really uh just target the improvements in their um behaviors based on the results of the CAFES.

Okay.

Um in year two, you all have triage 91 people as of February.

Most of the parents declined services.

You referred 31 people to briefcase management, nine have completed it.

After 90 days, fewer than 50% of the students whose parents agreed to accept the briefcase management services, approved their attendance.

Um you guys think this is working?

So we it's promising, it's showing promising hope.

No, not hope.

It's more than hope because hope it hope is, you know, we don't have any data to kind of to kind of um show the results.

We think this is preliminary, council member.

This is a pilot, okay.

We are in year one and a half, really.

Yeah.

Last summer there was uh you know hiring freeze because of you know what was happening in our budget.

Yeah, this is the first year that we have um four schools, four out of the ten schools that we're in that were on boarded from the very beginning of the school year.

So we need really more information, really more data and more time to really um assess like the true impact of the pilot.

Yes, but I think part of that needs to be understanding why everybody's declining.

Um the five students that were referred to the more intensive intervention pass, none of them accept it.

So we seen an and so just to tell you what we thought was gonna happen at baseline.

We originally projected that just about 25% of the families would say yes to case management.

In year one, we've saw that number be actually 42%.

So that became a baseline.

42% of the families that we that are referred say yes to case management.

There's a slight uptick in that acceptance of case management to 47%.

So we already are seeing more families saying yes to the services that we had even anticipated when we launched the pilot program.

Okay.

To what extent are you guys taking referrals outside of this pilot system?

And let me tell you why.

So I um last month or I was just saying a few weeks because I don't actually know if it was last month, but a few weeks ago I did a ride along in 4D.

And the very first call that we got was a parent had called 911 because their child would not go to school.

So of course I'm like, that doesn't seem there has to be something else going on because why would a parent get to the point of calling the police for their child not going to school?

Go on a visit.

Child had already missed something like 80 days of the school year, and the parent was worried about what the court has told me if they don't go to school, I'm gonna be charged for educational collect, etc.

etc.

The officers who again, this is not a violent situation, this is not a criminal matter, but like be, you know, they have to respond.

And essentially I watched three officers attempt to be social workers for this family for 30 to 40 minutes when they could have been on other calls that were actually criminal in nature.

And it would have been as terms of closing the loop as opposed to them just sort of finishing their report and saying this was a domestic situation and kind of explaining XYZ.

Um, you know, they attempt they offered, we'll give you a ride to school, we'll do all the things, XYZ.

It would have been good for the follow-up for MPD to say we're gonna we we need to refer this to DHS because you all have the expertise to have done more there than what was done.

And when I talk to the officers, it's actually not uncommon for them to get these types of truancy related calls.

When in fact, like those families are the ones who they're calling for help.

Yep, they probably would accept your services, but I feel like they're it I know you can't do all things for all people, but I feel like that's one where we can through past that that can be a community referral.

We do take pass through community referrals, not just to the school system.

Does MPD know that this is an option?

Um, obviously we need to do a better job communicating because in this particular case, um, they may not have realized that this was an option, but it is an option.

Okay, but I'm just suggesting that like if you have in the school system, and I know these are folks who are approaching the the being chronically truant.

But then over here, I got a whole population of parents who are asking for help, desperately for it, and then they're calling the wrong agency.

Yeah, but I think you're making a point, council member, for our truancy program and what the mayor envisions is to be to go um district-wide in all of the schools.

Our plan for next fiscal year is to maybe start with the younger school with the younger grades, like ninth and tenth grade.

But then if we were in the school, I'm not sure what school that you're referring to.

Um, is but that they could call us, they could refer to us, the family could say we need services, and we have the ability to go in their home.

So then once the connection is already made with the case manager, the mom does not have to call the police.

They can call the case manager directly, and this is this stuff that a case manager can do.

They can go to the to the house, and maybe it doesn't mean that the child is gonna go to school that day or even the next day, or even the following day, but the next three days or the next month can be spent on building rapport and really try to unpack why this child is not going to school.

And we know that case management and rapport building takes time.

So that's why you know the plug for me as a let us let this program work and kind of getting, you know, but for year three, are we going to more schools?

Yes.

The plan is to expend to eight additional schools in year three and focusing on the younger grades so that we would we would shift the program model and not have referrals from for grades 11 and 12, but only get referrals from 9 and 10th and the other schools that we would be.

I would I would I'm asking you to make this, I don't know if it's a reach out to Chief Carroll or Deputy May mayor P.

I don't know how it works, but like or even you know, Director McGaffin, right?

There are families who are calling for help.

Yeah, um, and if the services are there we just we need to make the connection in in a more real time way um thank you my laptop died thank you council member thank you very much council member anderson on Sunbucks you were definitive last time we talked it was more of an open question I think there was hope that there would be some sort of a donation where's the money coming from some for Sunbucks.

Sure and you're talking about this year.

Yeah.

Yeah so this year it's being it's being funded by a combination of federal funding and then matching local and uh donation funding.

And we're good.

We're good for this year yes.

What about next year?

So yeah.

So next year we would anticipate a similar uh split in terms of we would still need to match it 50 percent um we anticipate having federal funds and then we would again have to um identify local or donation funds to match it.

So there are some funds already budgeted um but we are still we would still need to identify the additional funds to support the program.

We are planning to run it in fiscal year 27.

The other thing I would say is just the cost we would expect that to go down pretty significantly next year since we've been doing so much of the building this year and last year as we're setting up the program so the cost we would expect to be significantly less going into next year.

So this is when where there isn't enough money in the budget but you have a pretty high level of confidence that you'll be able to fill in the gap through donations because you have in the past and the cost is going to go down so the the gap to fill could be smaller.

Yes we we anticipate being able to fund the program next year.

Okay.

Back on the on the 55 positions that we didn't earn like um when we hear about wait times at the at the drop in centers and we hear about and snap error rates could we have hired more people had them devoted to this kind of work and then earn the federal dollars did you not without additional local matching funds.

We would have to get local funds to match and what's that match look like it varies from year to year.

That's why it's a random moment so from year to year the amount changes because um you may not earn the same amount each year on average we on SNAP we the total is about 44 million.

So so 44 million on the federal side and we may need 44 million on local that's the full authorization might be 44.

And that's only at 50 50.

And so in that world how much did we devote on the local side um 44 oh so we so we did use it all that we used it all 44 million in match um 44 million on the other stuff.

But uh I guess I'm not following because there was this idea that there's an authorization up to a certain amount and we would have to have expended the work in order to qualify for it and but and we didn't we only got a portion of it.

Is there a way for us to have done more work had more people doing the work so that we could have qualified for the federal dollars.

You look like you want to do no because we're limited and and I think that's what uh Hayden was referencing too we're we're limited by the amount of local funding that we have to match to the federal uh revenue that we're earning on the on the grants.

So we still need the local matching funding.

And every year we've had to take pretty deep vacancy savings um I so this year we had to take eight point five we took eight point five million in vacancy savings, which puts us just at the point where we're able to have sufficient local funding to cover the positions that we have budgeted in fiscal year twenty seven and that's been uh the case year over year is making as we've come up with our budget um we we have to make decisions about that and so we've had to um you know take a pretty significant amount of vacancy savings every year and then we've often had additional uh local reductions that council will also propose, and so that's been an ongoing thing, but it just means we don't have sufficient local funding to fill more positions than we are currently planning to.

And we also have to just still um commit to the colas that the unions could negotiate for union workers.

Yeah, I hear you.

I mean, but I may have this wrong, but it does sound like the investment of local dollars.

We could be leveraging federal dollars with additional local dollars invested in this space.

So we could do two dollars worth of work for one dollar, one in local dollars.

So it's an argument against cutting the local dollars because of the way in which it could be.

Well, some positions, not all positions, basically eligibility staff, yes.

If we had more local dollars, we could hire more, yes.

That is that is true.

Yeah, yes.

And do we have enough?

I mean, wait times are can be long.

We we just we just can't prioritize only eligibility staff in a hiring process.

So we we do hire more, you know, we've had higher more eligibility staff this year, but whenever we lose some of our vacancy savings, it also prohibits us from being able to hire on both sides where we do get the federal match and where we don't get the federal match.

Okay.

Um we're gonna have uh there's a lot of change on the horizon, and so you're gonna have a lot more people, I suspect, coming to the service centers.

Maybe is uh as council member Henderson was saying, you know, they come for the first time for the recertification, they learn that there's other things they need to do, they have to come back again, and and so the workloads strikes me as likely to uh to increase.

Do you think the workload in the service centers is gonna be able to do that?

They don't necessarily have to come back.

They can they can upload information, they can they we don't necessarily anticipate an increase.

We've actually seen what happened in other jurisdictions is that the workloads have decreased because some folks are um not applying or not eligible for the for the benefits, or they may choose not to comply with the work requirements, but we they don't necessarily have to come back.

So you're not assuming an increase in the workload at the service centers as a result of HR1 at this point, not at this time.

Okay.

The supplemental in the supplemental budget, can you please describe what the 790,833 is for the SNAP error rate improvements?

What what is what's that money for?

Uh so the 790,000 is for specific interventions that we are funding in fiscal year 26 to address the error rate and really work to aggressively to get that down.

And so it's funding a few different projects that we are working on this fiscal year.

And what are they?

Yeah, uh so uh there's there's three projects um all really tied to some of the highest causes of errors that we've seen.

Uh the first one, which we're really excited about, is um expanding income verification.

Um and so that's really expanding.

We already have an existing contract with Equifax, so we're using um some of the funding to expand that contract that this year that accounts for 190,000 of the 790.

So I'm sorry, Equifax is like a credit agency that has data on people's incomes.

It's income verification, yes.

Okay.

Uh the second project that we are doing is um optical, it's OCR or optical character recognition.

Um, and so that is 200,000.

Um we are in the final stages of procurement with that one.

Um that really is allowing us to um cut down on errors from um individuals having to like input information from documents by increasing optical character recognition, uh use of that in smart scanning.

Um so we're working to get that um in place as well.

We're in this final stages of procurement for that project, but also a very high rate of our errors come from just not getting the right information transposed from some of the documents that we have.

Um and then the third one is leveraging AI for what we're calling an AI goalie, and that's um going to really help to flag in real time where errors are occurring and catch them at that point um before the errors are made.

And so those are the three projects that we're working on this fiscal year.

The AI goalie is 400,000, but all really tied to what we've identified as the highest source of the errors that we're seeing.

Um, and those things, they haven't been started yet.

You're or some of them have and some of them haven't.

Yeah, they're they're all in in progress.

So the for the Equifax, we already have an existing contract, and so it's really about expanding that existing contract.

Um, but that is uh that is already in progress, and then with the optical character recognition, the OCR, that's in the final stages of procurement.

So we're trying to work as quickly as we can to get these implemented with you know funding coming this year.

And the AI goalie also a thing, yeah.

That one we are we're in process of uh contracting now, and then we'll really be accelerating the uh the timeline on that as as much as we can, and that will be built into DCAS.

And then is this one-time investments or are you gonna have to do those again next year?

These are one-time.

And it's in technologies that then can be used for an extended period of time.

Yeah, that's the goal is to do as much um upfront work, um, but we are looking to potential um funding sources to continue and then to expand on this work in fiscal year 27.

Um so we do have uh a couple of these two reinvestment plans that are we're still waiting for um FNS approval, but these are built into uh the reinvestment plans that we've submitted.

Okay, uh in the supplement supplemental budget, can you please describe what the 375,193 is for in the EBT chip card purchases?

Uh yes, and so we are moving to um implement chip card technology in our EBT cards, and the 375,000 is to get started on the implementation work this fiscal year.

We also have funding in the budget in uh fiscal year 27 to continue to move towards that implementation.

Okay, so this is just phasing in the implementation.

It's to get the work started, yeah.

Gotcha.

Um I understand that while DHS funding for DCAS has decreased by about 4.5 million.

DHCF's budget reflects an approximate 20.9 million dollar increase.

What's happening here?

What how why is the money moving around in this sort of way?

And how are we doing in terms of maintenance of DKS?

So the um we have seven million dollars in our budget that we are going to do an MOU with um healthcare finance.

That is just 25% of what's needed.

They needed to mod to um budget three times that amount.

That's why you see the 19.

So that's the matching what we are sending them.

They do the match for it.

Uh-huh.

Um the reason every year we have to submit something called an advanced planning document.

And based on what you have to do, the cost allocation changes.

So a lot of that came down to the fact that we had uh the cost allocation change and then the matching requirement went from 50 to 75 percent.

So that's where that increase decrease came from on our side.

And the increase on the other side is that they have to increase their match.

Are the overall number of dollars essentially the same, or is it an increase or decrease in support for DKS?

Um, I think I'll have to go back and pull it.

Let me see if I have a breakdown of it.

I don't think I have a breakdown of that specific because it's embedded in um it's embedded in information system, so I cannot see, but I can get that to you.

Okay.

Um I mean there have been issues around DCAS and challenges around DKS.

How is the operation of DKS has the operation of DKS improved or stayed the same or gotten worse from your perspective?

I mean we we we work in coordination with them.

They in terms of ensuring that they put they make the upgrades that we need to get our systems ready so it continues to improve.

Um is there I mean this I actually this year I haven't heard a ton about DCAS.

So uh it's sort of the dog that has embarked.

But are there things that we it's a behemoth and it's important?

Are there things we should be focused on that we need to do in order to have that system work as well as possible so that all kinds of benefits that could come from it?

Yeah, I think we you know you you mentioned there's money in the the DHCF's budget for you know DCAS improvements and so forth.

I don't want to speak to exactly where that money is gonna go towards in terms of the categories, but there are you know funds allocated to continue maintenance and improvement, and then we are working on the the items that Tanya has mentioned that that will help us in terms of our decreasing our areas and so forth, and all of these will be sort of kind of add-ons to the class.

Okay.

Um moving over to some workforce things and starting with SNAP.

Um it sounds like you have an agreement with DOS DOES to provide services to up to 550 people eligible for SNAP ENT, is that right?

Yeah, that's correct.

T DOES is one of our SNAP ENT providers.

And what factors do DHS staff use to determine which SNAP ENT participants they would refer to DOES?

So they they I'm not sure.

I mean, I think based on um just the assessments at the end of um when s it's based really on choice.

So we do an assessment and then we provide the list of SNAP ENT providers that are in the system, and then the client or the resident gets to choose which provider and DOS in that case is one of our SNAP ENT providers.

Oh, so it's not an assignment by you, it's just a presentation of a menu.

Yes.

And folks might go to.

Okay, so it sounds like three hundred and seventy-five SNAP ENT participants were enrolled in project empowerment in FY25.

And 37 were employed, uh 10% success rate, which is higher than success rates in some other places, but not very high.

What kinds of things you you said there's and this is gonna be a theme coming up around a number of different programs, but you said you're engaged in conversations about how to improve that.

What are what are the things that you're talking about to improve that on the uh SNAP ENT DOES side?

So they would just there are providers like they are another provider.

So then all of the changes that we're making in our contract, then they would be it would be applicable to the to the um to the contracts with DOES as well.

And what are those kinds of what are the changes that you're talking about?

Sure.

So for this year, uh I think I've shared in two parts.

So the the changes that we are um um well at this time we're not changing, I'm sorry, I'm getting myself a little bit confused.

We're not changing the SNAP program this year.

We're only changing TEP, and DOES is a SNAP provider, not a tech provider.

So we're not making any changes to the SNAP um program this year.

So then what kinds of things might you contemplate if you if we wanted to get over 10% success rate, what what could we do?

What are the things we could be doing?

Like we are working with the, you know, all of the providers to make sure that within uh with the work that we're doing with the WIC, you know, Councilmember Um Fullman, I think you're part of those conversations too.

Well, we really need to look at um engaging more employers to really ensure that the the trainings that are offered through our SNAP um ENT programs and our tech programs really are um jobs that are gonna that trainings that are gonna lead to to jobs.

So that's part of the work that we're doing through the WIG, that's part of the work that we're doing with our providers to review the trainings to make sure that there are jobs at the end of the trainings, but really leveraging employers and our work is is something that we think will have you know great outcomes.

Um in response to question 18 CHS provided some of the indicators that the agency uses to evaluate and evaluate employment related performance for SNAP ENT participants served by DOES, but not the actual metrics from FY25 and FY26 to date.

We asked for this in writing, but can you give us an idea today across the job retention, obtaining employment and average wage of enrolled individuals and median quarterly wages in the second quarter after the program completion?

How did how did DOES perform?

So we have information for fiscal year 25.

So for DOES, I think we said job retention, we have 42 customers that that retained jobs and that were employed, the average wage was about um 19,873 dollars, and then the medium median quarterly wage was about 21,000.

We don't have yet this information for fiscal year 26.

So 42 who obtained or retained jobs?

Yes.

Out of the 300 and I think this is the 375.

78, yeah.

75, yes.

Okay.

And that 42.

Um I wonder if the 42 includes the Marion Barry Summer Youth Employment Program, folks, because there's 37 from Project Empowerment, and then is it five from Mary and Barry?

I believe it does, yes.

And Marion Barry in terms of the number of participants, that's 706 participants.

Yes, that's definitely a higher number, yeah.

And help me understand is it that the Marion Berry Summer Youth Employment Program, like five out of 706 is not very good.

But is there some reason why I should be looking at those numbers differently?

That it's not really all of the 706, or what why would that number jump off the page as a?

The way I understand the program is that it's a lot of them also participating in in um just activities.

They may not receive employment at the end of the program, but they um they are receiving like apprenticeships and higher education and and so forth, but they may still be in those programs and not necessarily leaving the programs to get um employment.

So it's a different way.

And idea might not be that all these 706 people are gonna find employment, a whole bunch of them.

It may be that they're just having a summer experience.

Exactly.

They could set them up for future employment.

So I shouldn't put the five over the 706.

Exactly.

The goal is not necessarily for them to enter the work space right now.

A different area is um uh so in well also in response to uh to question 19, you shared that the purposes of the MOU between DAO DHS and DOES is to define the roles of the WIC and DHS related to the operation and continued development of the local workforce system.

This cost is 320,698 in FY26, and proposed cost of 230,500 in FY27.

What what what is what are those costs about?

Are those FTEs?

What is the uh I believe it's the FTEs for the WIC.

Um, but you know, in terms of so the MOU is for the uh Yeah, so I guess to to support the just the work that they're doing through the American job centers.

Um we do have our co-located at the American Job Center, um, and to do outreach identifying, referring customers, sharing information as much as possible.

So I I don't know if it's for um personnel costs for the WIC staff, but we that this is the work that we do in coordinations with them.

Oh, I mean, could it be in effect a transfer to WIC in order to support staff?

Is that the idea?

Um I it it could be.

I don't know if you have the information, Hayden.

I don't I really don't know.

You can follow up.

Okay.

Um the agency response to question twenty, it looks like 50 out of 73 people supported by a partnership with the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement ones were connected with employment.

That's a pretty impressive number, but how does DHS determine who's referred to ones?

Um, I don't know, I don't know.

I don't know if it's uh I don't know.

I don't know if it's kind of a self-referrals or direct referrals.

I think they they may work under reverse referral model, meaning that their clients come to them and then they um then they may think that they are eligible for SNAP benefits and they they refer back to us, we can certify them and then they are able to then leverage federal funding.

Yes.

DC central kitchen has a kind of like a similar model as well.

Either they can be referred or cut or or they may receive um clients directly and they do a re reverse referral.

So I'm sorry, DC Central Kitchen, that's different.

That's DC Central Kitchen may have people who come to them, they say, Oh, you you would qualify for these benefits, go for these benefits, then they would be referred back, and then they can then leverage a SNAP ENT federal funding and they have their local match.

I mean, in some senses that makes me worry more about the number of people who are connected to employment because it could be people who came to you who already had employment and they get qualify for benefits and get referred over and then they get employment.

So for the people who weren't connected to employ do you follow me?

No.

So uh say we we talked before 395, 375 folks through project empowerment.

And it could be, and maybe maybe I'm maybe I'm gonna garble this, but it could be that um and 37 of them were connected with employment, but if 20 of them had come through DC Central Kitchen, where DC Central Kitchen had already engaged them, and they came to you, got the benefits and then got referred back and got the job at DCC Central Kitchen that they already had, then you would take the 20 out of the 375 and out of the 37 and you'd be at 17 out of 35.

No, I don't think you should look at it in that way.

They're going through either a DC Central Kitchen or they're connected to the ones.

They're not employed yet.

So this is a training ground.

So whether or not we do referrals are from us or they go themselves, but this it's it's just it's it's it's um that those outcomes are just included, but I wouldn't look at that they were already employed before that they came to us and then they got their benefits and were counting those employment numbers.

Okay, I mean they may not have already been employed, but they may have already been connected to a work prospect and came to you through that work prospect, and so then connecting them to the work prospect the is less about what the program did and more about where how they came in.

So just one thing I want to add is that the SNAP ENT program, so that's not necessarily a workforce program that we administer, it's an opportunity to leverage federal funding to existing workforce program, right?

So then if the if if somebody is enters a workforce program and they are then eligible for SNAP, then they then the the workforce provider, if they're qualified provider already can leverage this federal funding, but you should is you shouldn't think about it as the same as TEP per se when we're designing and we're contracting.

There's no local dollars that go to the SNAP ENC, it's just the f the money passes through us and they're able to leverage and pull down federal funding.

Okay.

Back on the ones for the 50 positions that folks were connected to.

Do you do we have any idea whether those are full-time positions or time limited positions?

Yeah, they have they will full-time positions.

So and again, across job retention, obtaining employment, average wage of enrolled individuals, and median quarterly wages in the second quarter after the program completion.

What are the do you have the actual outcomes for folks who pass through the ones program in FY25 and FY26?

Yes.

Yes.

So we have um 50 um residents who receive jobs, retain jobs, and they're employed.

The average wage was about 13,115, and the medium quarterly wage was about 7,000.

Um, terms of that's what that was fiscal year 25.

In terms of fiscal year 26, we have um 25 job retention customers, but we don't yet have the information for the average wages.

Okay.

Related but different is workfare and um I think you you referenced uh a solicitation for workfare partners going out at the end of May.

Is that right?

Will there be a solicitation for work partners going out in May?

Um how much will the workfare solicitation cost locally?

So it's it'll come out in June 1st.

So this is a really an another opportunity for us to leverage federal funding.

We're hoping that we'd be able to leverage 100% federal funding for workfare.

It appears that we may have to be to um to provide 100,000 dollars in local funding for workfare.

So it would be 100,000 in local, and how much do you think in federal that would leverage?

A 50-50 match.

So it's two hundred thousand dollars.

Yes, um, and is it uh I have a calculation of three hundred and seventy-one dollar cost to serve one individual for that workfare program?

Yes.

So what is that?

What is how's what's that money for?

So is that recruiting folks who will host the volunteers?

How is that gonna work?

Recruiting um sites, um, the administration of ensuring that um the they gather the documentation um for work requirements and and so forth.

And what kinds of things, what kinds of projects are these workfare projects?

What what are we having people do?

It depends on the site.

It's depends on the site um that's been identified and what the volunteer opportunities that they have.

But I mean give me an example.

Um an example could be um working at a um that's food handlers for example food handlers, for example, um working at you know donation closets in a shelter, working doing some um janitorial work in a church or in a community center that they've they're already a part of um etc.

And is it managed by DHS staff or a local or a vendor?

So a vendor.

So we'll have four of our SNAP ENT vendors who would be basically managing our workfare program, and then they would be also responsible for recruiting and managing our host sites.

And why the vendors is opposed to in house staff for this?

Because we're not so the the structure is through a SNAP ENT, so it's an extension of a SNAP ENT program, we're not SNAP ENT DHS is not a SNAP ENT provider.

So then the SNAP ENT vendors already have an existing infrastructure of gathering documentation and and work requirements and so forth.

Okay.

And work requirements kick in on June 1st.

The solicitation goes out on June 1st, I guess, and is the idea.

Can um to be one of our of our host sites.

So going to Councilmember Henderson's w where she was at, you won't the rubber won't hit the road until June 1st when people come in for renewals, start to come in for certification of their staff.

And you want to have this in place by June 1st so that when people come in, you'll be able to say to them, here is an option for you, and that'll be a way, and there will be like 500 slots like that.

So we are scaling up to get to 1800 slots.

And the 200,000, does that get you to 1800 slots?

Yes.

And where are you in terms of recruiting for slots?

We applications already open.

It's to a portal.

I don't have the updated numbers in terms of what how many applications we received and how many slots we have secured, but we've we've started there it's increasing now.

We started receiving applications.

But is it like we got 20?

And we if I was looking at the thermometer and you want to get to 18, 1800, is I have you got have you been able to secure meaningful number of slots already?

I'll have to get back to you with that exact number, Councilmember.

I don't have it handy.

But that'll be a thing that will be ready for folks as they come in and and remind me how many folks are on SNAP.

We have about uh 84,000 individuals in SNAP.

So in the month of June when people come in for certifications, I guess if it was smooth throughout the year, you would expect to have about 7,000 people come in for certifications.

Is that people benefiting from SNAP or heads of households benefiting from it's head of households and remember it's for an ABOD category and not 100% of our beneficiaries are ABODs, right?

So households with a child under the age of 14 is not um required to participate.

So we have certain categories um of eligibility, folks with disabilities, you know, who are um and and anybody over the age of 65.

So we identified at about eight to twelve thousand of our uh beneficiaries are ABOD.

It could be in this category that they need to be um participating in work requirements in order for them to stay to qualify.

And so then 1,800 workfare slots could that's a significant fraction of the 18 to 8 to 12,000 people who you think could be vulnerable.

Not to get too far in front of myself, but on the TANF side, remind me again how many folks you think will be in that ABOD category?

I don't know if we have an overlap of the ABOD and TANF.

I can tell you that half of the TANF recipients are at the 60 months, but I don't know if we have an overlap of TANF in ABARD, it may be smaller because again, ABARD, most of uh a lot of our TANF families have minor children in the household and um for ABAR, as long as you have a child under the age of 14, you're not subject to it to work requirements.

Okay.

Um the committee was pleased to see that the executive included funding for the EBT chip card transition in the budget.

In response to question eighty three, DHS shared that they estimate all active cards can be replaced by June of 2028.

Will the 2.1 million in the budget be able to fund the cost of the entire transition.

No, not the entire transition, but it will give us the funding that we need in fiscal year 27.

There will be some additional cost going into fiscal year 28.

And those costs, is there money in the FY28 budget to cover it?

There is not currently money to cover it, no.

So there's money, there's money in the supplemental, and there's the like the 300 some thousand that we talked about to get started.

Yes.

Then there's the 2.1 million in FY27, and what's missing in FY28?

So in order to fully fund the transition, we would need $1.6 million in fiscal year 28.

We haven't um that hasn't been built into the budget as of now.

Okay.

There are also ongoing costs that would we would need to also secure in order to continue to replace out cards.

Okay, and so and what resources would DHS need to come into compliance with the October 27 deadline 2027 deadline set by the public benefits legislation.

So is that would we need to accelerate the FY28 money or is it physically not possible to do it?

It's physically not possible to, you know, we since we've been trying, we've been planning to implement for quite some time in terms of what we're able to do now that we have funding identified and on the horizon to at least begin the implementation.

We're moving as quickly as we can, but there are just some realities about how long the process takes.

So as of now, we are working to get a contract in place with the EBT card vendor to begin this.

We think that that can happen by August, so that's that's good news.

That's sort of the first part of it.

But when the vendor is able to actually begin their process is really dependent on the vendor, we can't control that.

As of now, we the information that we have is that um the vendor believes that they can start in March of 2027.

So it would be, yeah.

So it would take a full year from that time.

Uh that's a little earlier than what we had cited in some of our because we're still working on all these pieces, but um we're really looking towards uh March of 2028 to have this fully implemented.

Okay, so that uh that's helpful.

Um there was a in the there's a reference to a waiting period from September 2026 to February 2027, and that's from the time of selecting the vendor to the vendor being able to get started.

And is it that there's one vendor out there?

Yeah, it's our EBT chip card vendor, so it's FIS, so it's the same vendor that you know that we have a well that uh the it's the same vendor who does our EBT cards at this point, so it would be a modification to um the contract with them.

So it's all, I mean, it's pretty clear.

There's good you know the vendor, they've told you you know the price, they've told you what the transition period is, it's gonna be what it's gonna be.

Yeah, and of course, if we can do it sooner, we would be um we would be happy to do that, um, but it that's not the information that we're getting now.

Okay, um DHS and the mayor are both referenced cuts to TEP at 11 million.

However, looking at the budget line for TANF jobs and training, the reduction appears to be 15 million from 35 million to from around 35 million to around 20 million.

What what's the difference in these references between the 11 and 15 million?

Yeah, so the cut to um the cut to TEP this year is 11.5 million, um, but we also took a reduction of 3.1 million this fiscal year.

That was taken out of placeholder attributes, and so we're essentially correcting that in the fiscal year 27 budget.

But the actual reduction that we're taking to that line is 11.5.

The 3.1 is this year, it's just that it's being reflected in the right place in fiscal year 27.

Okay.

So while it may have looked like it was gonna be 35.1 million, um, it was 35.1 million last year, but 3.1 million of it came out, so that gets you to 32.

And now that's where the 11 million, that's the 11 million gap between the 20 million and the 32 million.

Yeah, are you trying to figure out how much is is the actual reduction to the TEP portfolio itself?

Yeah, so there's also some underspending.

Um, so if the actual change in terms of what we have to spend for TEP in fiscal year 27, it's about a four million dollar change from what you project you will spend in FY26.

No, um so it from the actual budget for TEP.

We are shifting, yeah.

Say it one more time, I'm sorry.

I think what these answers yes.

Um we are just aligned in the budget with um expenditures in 27.

You're aligning the budget for 27 with expenditure with project with projected expenditures.

We have looked historically realigning it with what we would normally spend.

Yes, but the 4.7%.

There is there is some there's a reduction as well, but there has been underspending, so yes.

And so for this year, we're actually planning to spend on TEP about 23.7 million.

So the additional funding has been repurposed to cover other gaps.

I see.

So wait.

This year you're expecting to spend 24 million, I'm gonna call it what was that.

Approximately, yes.

So and then the budget for next year is 20 million.

20.1.

And so the reduction, the actual reduction off of historic use of the program is four million for 24.

Yes.

Some of it is money that had been there and hadn't been used for that purpose and could have been used in moved in other places at other times, going back to a theme about there's money in all kinds of places at DHS that moves around, and that this is one of them.

But the actual change to the TEP program is a four million dollar reduction.

That's right.

And that four million dollar reduction, there's seven providers now, and you're gonna go down to five, and so is the idea that and what was the contract with the two providers who are not gonna be extended.

Is that cover the four million?

Yes, the other way around.

So, yes, we'll we'll have funding in our um budget for five providers versus seven for next year.

Okay, um so and I want to go back to the EBT card in FY28 for the 1.6 million in FY28.

What's that for?

Is that for buying cards?

Is it for something else?

The EBT chip cards.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh so most of that, let me just see where I've got the full breakdown.

Yes, so the the biggest chunk of that would be for the card replacement, um, but there are also costs in there that continue um the technology um transition as well.

And a cause will be more expensive with the chips, so that's part of it as well.

Okay.

Um during working group meetings that DHS convened in March, the TANF recipients expressed a desire for career opportunities that have a career ladder to truly help them grow.

To what extent are changes and it sounds like you're in the midst of conversations about this that are fairly significant, but to what extent and and before when we talked about this in the SNAP side, you made it sound like the biggest thing is connecting with better with employee employers, but what are the kinds of things that you're thinking about specifically as ways to try to improve the efficacy of the TEP programs?

So actually, and I misspoke because it was about the TEP program, and I talked about SNAP, but because we actually don't design the SNAP ENT program, but we help design the TEP program.

It's coming from our local funding.

So there are pieces that we're doing this year.

For example, we are re restructuring the payment structure.

Right now we have an incentive, we have a higher baseline, and then we have incentives built in.

We are moving to decrease the baseline funding and then changing the incentive structures so that we could we have um higher incentives, more instructions for activities that are really geared towards um um employment.

We are reducing the just I just want to make sure I understand.

So this is to the provider.

So the provider, you might have a contract with the provider that says we're gonna give you two million in baseline payments, and you can earn three million in incentives by hitting certain marks.

Yes.

Is the base payment what what kind of proportion of the compensation will be base payment and incentives in your new world?

So it was the base payment would still be a bigger distribution of the total overall payment, but what we're doing is reducing the base payment.

So I don't have that final number, but that's what we're doing, reducing the base payment.

Exactly.

So these are the things that we can do in this current contract here without having to have a new solicitation.

I think I shared with you because unless we re we issue a new solicitation, there are small changes that we can make before you know OCP says, hey, this is a whole different program, you have to send a new solicitation.

So we're looking at um changing the base structure and changing the incentive structure and really focusing on incentives for activities that will lead to employment, reducing also the number of incentives you can um receive, whether it's a provider or the client for job search activities to not encourage just receiving incentives for just looking for jobs but not actually receiving a job, and then also then increasing the incentive for leading for landing employment and retaining retaining employment.

Um we also have two gen activities that were currently folks can receive incentives for these two gen activities.

We are removing those incentives from the two-gen activities, but we'll encourage you know households and and parents to continue to to stay engaged in those activities.

So while we may not incentivize it financially, there will be continue to be part of the the culture and case management.

And are you in sort of ongoing negotiations with the providers trying to hammer this out, or is this something that you're doing internally?

We are finalizing it and internally.

We're looking at potentially, you know, cutting, you know, up to 40% of the base payment.

Yep, some providers may decide not to come on board at that point because it's gonna be in the next fiscal year after you know, for when it's it's time to renew the the contracts.

What is some of the things that we're looking at?

We're working through it with the with OCP.

So, and one of the things you said was incentives for connecting people with a job and for them retaining the job.

That's one set.

But another set of incentives was activities that are likely to lead to a job.

Yeah, so job search activities or um um some training, you know, programs and so forth.

So there are incentives built in for enrolling and trainings, completing trainings and whatnot, but we don't want to just keep giving incentives for just completing a bunch of trainings that do and not employment.

So that will limit the job search activities.

We won't necessarily remove the incentive payments altogether for some of those activities, but we're reducing um that amount, but also mostly um increasing the incentive payments when people either land a job, um, then retain employment and then earn off um the TNF program as well due to earnings.

So there's the incentive structure for the providers and the incentive structure for the customers.

Are there other things that you're looking at doing to make changes to the TEP program?

Around outcomes, the the next piece of it in terms of program we design will be will be mostly um from when we resolicit the the contracts next year.

But the biggest thing, and it may be that this is how you do it through contracting process is by changing the incentive structure.

Yes, and it's already a performance-based outcome, but then really focus more on incentives for outcomes versus incentives for outputs.

Okay.

In response to question 78, DHS says that it does not track TEP providers' compliance without with the outreach requirement, which requires providers to schedule an orientation within five days for each referred customer.

DHS also doesn't track compliance with the customer engagement requirement, which requires tech providers to engage customers at least once every two weeks.

How can DHS assess the level of support to rest residents if the agency is not tracking compliance with these kinds of requirements?

And are you thinking about tracking these kinds of uh requirements in a in a revised contract?

So so one is is to ensure that we are also keeping up with our you know monitoring um outreach efforts are recorded in our catch system, so they are being tracked.

Um I don't think we have a uh I I'm not sure and if it we have a performance base for meeting certain activities and outputs.

I don't believe that our contracts are punitive if they don't meet those those um those um targets, but this is something that we'll we'll look at also.

Okay, what is the average time, average wait time people currently experience from the time of TANF enrollment to connection with a TEP case manager?

So currently I think we're at a couple of months because we do have a wait list.

And how do you anticipate the changes that you're thinking about for TEP having affecting that wait time?

We anticipate that initially the wait time may be longer because we'll have fewer providers, but what we are will be really gonna be focusing on is ensuring that once the just the outreach and engagement for people who are enrolled but not participating, so that we can get through the wait list.

What we don't want is to hold slots for folks who are not um participating with our with our providers, and currently that's the case.

So we're working to sort of going through all of these folks who are not engaged, making outreach so that we can um free up more slots, and then we'll be very much more diligent in doing this.

So there will be an increase in there could be an increase in wait times and and any reduction to the funding for TEP, which would reduce the number of TEP providers who were available could have could continue to lengthen that's correct.

Um do you have just in what's being proposed now?

Do you have any kind of estimate of how big of an increase to the wait time it might be?

Right now it's four months.

Um I don't know right now how long it would be.

We would how much that might increase.

Yeah, that might increase by yes.

In terms of the data, I'm gonna review some data that I've seen that looks different than what I'm used to seeing, but um it's not great the connection of people to work.

Are there states out there that are doing particularly well at this?

Well, I don't know in terms of engagement, but for us, you know, council member, we were in a very different sort of kind of culture.

You know, no penalty for lack of engagement and also no time limits.

We we think that next next year we'll have better data and to see we expect that um the engagement would shift with the implementation of time limits, but also increased sanction.

This is also feedback that we had received from our tech provider that they did not have necessarily any reinforcement tools for lack of engagement.

Um so at some point we had excess capacity in our TEP providers so that we restructured our contracts to merge um the educational and training component um to it, and then um now unfortunately we have a wait list, but then the part of the restructuring was because we had excess capacity because of lack of engagement.

Um you went you went recently for some sort of an aspen institute, and was that to folks considering how to respond to work requirements from around the country?

Yeah, so it was a little bit different than I had um anticipated.

So the idea is that it would bring the our human services partners and our labor partners.

Um Director Hughes was supposed to also travel with us, but she had a conflict at the last minute, so she could not um she could not attend because a lot of um states have a very different structure than we do because we have the states and we have state monitor local administration and so forth.

So they have a very different models.

I think all of us are dealing with the same requirements to HR1, but the you know different states are different varying degrees of um error rates and so forth.

So while it was good to connect with other leaders who are in similar positions, I can't say that the takeaway is that I truly understand how we can leverage what they are.

But it's the beginning.

So do those connections are always good to just be able to kind of make a phone call to say, hey, how are you addressing this particular um issue?

But it wasn't necessarily very concrete ever takeaway from last week's um convening.

Okay.

Um looking for a silver bullet somewhere.

Uh we have talked about poor performance and TAP outcomes, but and maybe you can flip to your response to question 78 that has a table with data around job placements that looks different than my expectation.

Um so if you look at it, you see the different vendors, number of TANF customers served, job placements monthly average, and for this, the monthly average for job placements for all of them are over 200, which if that were the case, that's like 2400 for each of these entities, and one, two, three, four, and that would be a lot, but I don't think it's a lot.

So what what what am I missing here?

No, I think um I think the the table that you're referring to, it doesn't mean 200 are placed in a job each month, but rather 200 plus are assigned to each provider to pursue job placement activities, but not necessarily that they've been placed in jobs.

Okay, so TANF customers served for the first one, 372, 232 a month have been assigned to some sort of job-related program, and then but then it's not showing how many of those ended up getting a job.

Yeah, it's uh it's 200 assigned to pursue job placement activities.

That does not necessarily mean that two of them, or even that they were placed in job, but they were assigned for this purpose.

This is when the engagement speaks, you know, comes in um play.

I see.

They've been assigned to this, so the providers are doing outreach and whatnot, but that does not represent um um in employment, it just represents them being enrolled in the TANF program.

So, uh, so the the discouraging data is still the controlling data that uh that was a misinterpretation of those numbers.

Um how are you prioritizing if you're going from seven providers to five?

What's the criteria?

Is it the ones that want to stay on?

Is there performance-based criteria?

How are you deciding which of the so we'll start with um and how we will um go from seven to five?

Um I think it's gonna be based on performance.

So we have not identified who are the two providers who are going to be um cut, and and then we will it will be based on attrition, looking at from the clients who have been assigned or enrolled, how many are participating, the number of outreach that we need to do to then get them off the roll and then backfill the wait list.

So it's gonna we're it's going to be a first come first serve in terms of and then going through the the wait list.

Okay.

I understand 97% of TANF beneficiaries are also enrolled in SNAP.

If DHS experience capacity and constraints in TEP, to what extent can the agency serve them in SNAP ENT?

So if that's if there's capacity, so providers can do either participating in TEP TEP or SNAP ENT.

We can't do both.

They can't do both, but if there's capacity in the SNAP ENT program, somebody who's on TANF can do that and they can use that to meet their TANF requirements and their SNAP requirements at the same time.

If if they receive SNAP, yeah, if the SNAP customers, great.

Yes.

Okay.

Um the TANF state plan requires DHS to inform families about the availability of the earned income tax credit.

How much did EITC communications cost in FY24 and FY25?

And to what extent?

How much is budgeted in FY26 and 7?

We don't we don't do communication or outreach for the IETC.

You're not letting people, are you letting people know that it's out there and available to them?

No, I don't believe this is something that the activities that DHS does.

Do you want to add to that?

Yeah.

Sorry, I keep turning it up.

Um the only thing I would add to that is uh we do have a grant with DC Hunger Solutions and um EITC is incorporated into their outreach activities.

I do think in terms of sort of the incentives, EITC is a big incentive, and so uh if we're trying to improve the efficacy of our TEP programs, making sure that people understand that it's not just the modest wages that you get from that job, but you also can get the EITCs.

That's a that's important.

So they do also come to present.

So the the outreach is not done directly through us, but it do also come to present with to our providers, the EITC leadership to our TEP provider, they go to our TEP provider meetings.

Um so they provide flyers, they do do some information, but through our tech providers, okay.

Um so moving to TANF more generally.

If a hardship policy is implemented in TANF, you'll have a significant increase in the number of people who are exempt from TANF requirements due to hardship, which you indicate you plan to implement by expanding power.

My understanding is this would mean folks who are exempt and are in power will not have access to TEP child care subsidy, transportation assistance, and behavioral health and substance abuse support that are otherwise available to TANF beneficiaries.

Is that right?

So I you know, I'm committed to make sure that we find a way to solve this because we have heard that it's an issue.

We heard it during the work group, we've heard it from from um you know DV providers and so forth.

Right now, power is gonna be the vehicle that's probably gonna be the easiest for us to implement our the new um hardship policy.

But but but I I think we have to find a way to ensure that folks who are exempt from power, and and I mean from from um work requirements.

I think there's gonna be different categories because if it's a D V issue, it's gonna be very different than a I don't know another issue.

But currently power is already is the vehicle that's going to be the easiest to implement how we screen people for um for hardship policy but I think it's a separate issue then what we've heard from the DV community and providers on how to ensure that getting an exemption does not preclude you from continue to receive some of the services that you would need to potentially even step out of the exemption.

Yeah so and we heard we heard this a fair amount in the TANF working group was and and one thing I want to add power customers have access to child care right now.

So it's I think it's about the incentives that they don't have access to the incentives through the TEP program and so forth.

Okay it's okay it's around it's not around the child care because the child care actually was the most that was the thing we heard that they that it wasn't available but you're saying it is available did is that a change or is that no not that that no not that's not my understanding I mean we you know there's gonna be a wait list I'm not sure how if I don't think power customers will be prioritized for the wait list but um but but right now power customers are TANF customers and all of TANF customers have been eligible for child care.

Okay and the uh the hardship policy I think I got an email yesterday saying the your the teams working on the report will see the report it may be circulated internally to the working group on May 18th and then I don't know what it will show.

And then the goal would be to implement a hardship policy by October is that right?

Yes that doesn't mean it's going to be the first time it's going to be implemented I mean circulated but it will be in place to be implemented by October.

Yes.

Yeah no but I think the working group recommendations should I should see them for the first time on May 18th.

Yes you may preview you probably would see them before the general public.

And I believe that your office was invited to be part of that small group.

Oh okay great.

Still comes in here we are going through this budget process a hardship policy and the way in which a hardship policy would be implemented in open questions and we're getting close to when we would need to have our committee report finalized.

If somebody could check to see how many power participants are benefiting from child care uh support.

So a hundred percent of power customers have been eligible for child care um council member if you're asking how many elders how many folks in power take advantage of child care that's a different story.

Okay that's the question okay yeah um let me see if somebody can get that information okay.

Okay and I don't there was a miss you heard it I think I don't know maybe it was just in my group but I thought that there was a fair amount of conversation where folks were saying that that uh child care wasn't available is that a I think people are scared that child so I what I've heard is that everything's happening at the same time people are going to lose their you know step down from their benefits and lose their child care and you know potentially not be eligible for SNAP but but that's not child care has always been available for power customers so that's not a new change.

I'm not sure that the system is that the providers are I'm pretty sure providers and advocates are aware of this.

It may have been it's been in conversation because it's true that all of it is seems to be happening at the same time.

That next month we're gonna have uh well this month actually, we're going to start implementing a wait list for child care, and then next month SNAP, and then December, step down in TANF.

But child care has always been, it's still available until um yeah.

So, I mean we had been hearing about this and had been thinking about okay, what do we do to make sure that child care is available?

Child care is available to people in power to the extent that it's available to everybody else because there's a wait list.

There doesn't need to be a change to do that.

That it's already available.

It's already available, yes.

And right now we only have just about 100 residents in power, so that's it's a very small number of people.

I don't know if how many, but I can try to get how many have access to um child care well have used um the child care, but if they've been eligible.

And what about transportation services?

Are they are transportation services available to folks in power in the same way that they might be for Tana?

That I I'm not sure.

That could be the the fix that we need to do.

No.

Yeah, so I mean I think that the committee has heard um in response to question 77.

DHS says that serving the current 114 power customers in TEP would cost a hundred uh one point zero three million.

This is about nine thousand per person.

What what's can you break that down?

What is that for?

So we're basically it's about the cost of adding additional providers.

We if we have a tech provider, just solely focus on TANF.

That's about the cost of having another provider.

To serve this hundred and fourteen people.

So if you had a new provider, you would you think you'd need a million dollars in order to have this provider serving, but um are the power do the power folks already get the benefit of TEP or no?

No, so that's the that's the issue that's yeah.

So giving them access to TEP.

So child care, set that aside.

Transportation, maybe there are some costs associated with that.

It's through TEP that it's through TEP that that other TANF customers have access to transportation and the other services that the um currently power customers do not have access.

I see.

And other incentives payments as well.

But if we wanted to just make sure that we have dedicated um uh provider dedicated to power customers, otherwise they would have to go through the wait list.

So they could, but they wouldn't necessarily get services right away.

Okay, and so in the 9,000, but it's yeah, it's just because the idea of power is to is to um they waive them from having to participate in workforce activities, right?

Work requirements and so forth.

So and TEP is the vehicle to provide those services.

So that's where a little bit the the concerns are because they they get a waiver from participating, but then they want to participate, and we don't have right now the infrastructure to do both.

So in a sense that you're in power because you don't have the ability.

You have an exemption.

You have an exemption.

And so if we opened up TEP to you, it almost undermines the idea that you would qualify for the exemption.

Right, because we we almost want to prior prioritize folks who don't have an exemption who need to work, otherwise they would get sanctioned.

If you're in power, you're not gonna be sanctioned.

So we should prioritize folks who could get sanctioned by not participating.

Yeah, so I'm just trying to wrap my head around this because it's it's making me a little dizzy, and we are very close to the end.

So uh, and it could be that they need different services while they're in power.

It's not necessarily TEP.

Um and it could be when we the way we redesign TEP, TEP may not be no longer be um attractive to them because it was about not having access to the incentive payments that you can get through through TEP that power customers felt excluded from and those incentive structures are going to change right I see so maybe it's a different services that they need.

And the uh I mean one thought is in on the one hand I think I'm hearing you say TEP doesn't TEP seems like an odd fit for power because power they have an exemption from work requirements.

On the other hand I'm hearing you say if we had folks in in power benefit from TEP we should have a separate provider so that they don't have to wait at the back of the queue but I mean what if we did it where they just got in the queue and then would there be additional costs?

I think it I think this is about really assessing what are the services that they need that they feel like they need to get through TEP it may not be TEP because TEP is to get people connected to jobs and employment and did they get the incentives to get them to that goal.

If the if folks are in power it's because they want away from having to participate so then so that's why it was built in a way that well if you don't want to participate um because you have an exemption so there's but there's a gap of services and if it's uh according to you know the providers and it's about if it's about just the incentives or the transportation maybe there's another way to understand what other service gaps are and um and see if if it's top and how do we redesign TEP to get them to participate.

And the this getting the incentive structures right and getting it so people are advancing towards work does strike me as super important.

And here I worry about somebody who might want to have access to the incentive for having gone to uh training with no intention ever of getting the job and now we've got people spinning their wheels and filling rooms with people who are just spinning their wheels you should it doesn't I I worry I wonder if that's the best use in terms of the transportation I think DHS has shared that TAP at the transportation assistance costs about two thousand per participant how how many TANA participants have utilized the full two thousand in FY24 and FY25 yeah can you repeat a question council member um the TAP it the transportation assistance looks like it costs about two thousand per participant I think that's what you guys have said.

How many TANF participants have utilized the full two thousand for the tap it program in FY24 and FY25.

So that's actually a two that's a tuition assistance program it's not transportation assistance.

I believe it's a pretty small number I think we have it somewhere I'm looking for it.

I just wanted to clarify its tuition assistance it's tuition not transportation.

Do you have how much it is it's it's we're looking for how much it is but I just wanted to clarify that.

Okay.

All right I mean one of the big things that's out there and you talked about this before is the 60 months and you know we got the 30% step down and before it then moved to be a 50% step down and I think there was then going to be another step down after that and be phased out now it's falls off a cliff in the next year.

Is there a policy reason for that is that a budget thing so it's it's no policy reason at this point.

Um, we're hoping that you know with improved revenue project revenue projections that they can be reinstated in a financial plan, but it is it was done to to balance the financial plan.

So if there's an opportunity to reinstate in fiscal year twenty eight then for that.

Alright, so it's another one of those things.

Got to make the numbers add up.

Okay.

Um, as you know, the tap it is 90 P 98.

98,000 dollars.

So that if it's 2,000 forty-nine people and they get tuition assistance to go anywhere or UDC or someplace else.

Um, we have it's with Aussie, so I'm not sure which colleges.

Okay.

Um, as you know, Aussie, speaking of Aussie, has announced that a uh that a wait list for child care subsidies is going into place beginning May 12th, as DHS has an important role in determining eligibility for the subsidy and communicating with the public.

I have several questions about how DHS and Aussie are coordinating.

When a family applies for a subsidy, how will they be notified of their place on the wait list?

Um so the families are gonna are determined to be eligible.

The families who are determined to be eligible will be notified of their priority group um assignment through email, um, and families who are found eligible in an open priority group, they may enroll through the you know child care subsidy program and receive their subsidy.

Um, and families in a closed priority group will be notified their assignment on the wait list, but through email.

Okay, and then that's what you hear on initially, and then what sort of updates will be provided.

Are you going to be providing updates to the it would come from Aussie, not necessarily through us?

We determine eligibility, Aussie administers the program.

And then okay, so maybe these are all questions for Aussie.

And Aussie may or may not say the expected timeline is you're reaching for it.

So the MOU with RC is 150 98 K is for the program, and then we pay for 0.4.5 of an F D.

And that brings it to the 150.

So the MOU would also be for TAP it is 150k.

150K 98 is services and the rest is for an FD, a part of an FD.

Okay.

Um, and on this child care subsidy, the the idea of okay, you apply if you qualify, you get told in this new world where there's a wait list, here's where here's which group on the wait list you're in, and you hear that going forward, and your role is determining eligibility.

Once you've determined eligibility, your work here is done, and it's Aussie that is keeping them up to date about where they are on the web on the wait list and when it is that they may be able to get a slot.

That's correct.

Um, will DHS and Aussie uh be publishing a regularly updated FAQ addressing common questions that the agencies expect families and providers have might have regarding the wait list?

So uh um Aussie has updated, I think they they've regularly updated uh FAQ addressing the wait list.

We have communicating communicated broadly with our families that uh wait list is approaching.

We have signage and all of our shelters, all of our service centers, our Virginia Williams Family Resource Center, so that um to try to get the application in um as quickly as possible, but then the the updates to the program are on Aussie's website.

Okay, and then um what are you doing?

I mean, you have folks who need to recertify in order to qualify, they're in, but they need to recertify if they fail to recertify and they get knocked out, and then they need to reapply.

The the consequences of being late on recertification are high.

What are you doing to warn people about that?

So we'll continue.

So we we are as much as possible through, you know, the campaigns that we're gonna do around all of our services.

Just ensuring the importance of people the families kind of keeping um track of, you know, their benefits.

Part of the work that we need to do also is a case management education so that they know the information and they also can um relay it to customers.

So again, in collaboration when Aussie has student developed materials, we reuse them.

We amplify their communication, and then we create our own material for our sites, like all service centers and so forth.

And then it's about also case management education so that they can also relay the importance of recertification to their um clients and whatnot.

And for all these materials for all these materials, how many languages are they generated in?

I'm yeah, I don't want to speak for Aussie, but I believe English and Spanish is the that all of that materials is generated in both languages.

We're gonna have all these folks who are stuck, and we don't have ironclad answers for them, but is there anything we can do to try to help them?

Yeah, for I mean, for k for kids who have um for families who have children who are three and over, um, pre-K three, we're encouraged kind of pre-K three versus your child care.

In some cases, kids stay in child care until the age of five.

Um, we um make referrals to kind of head start, you know, um, and and see where they can receive other um subsidy support.

Child care has been has been the tool that we've referred families to.

I mean, is there much unused head start capacity in the city?

Um, I've heard that they're not at capacity.

Again, I'm not Aussie or D CPS, but I have heard that they're not at capacity and this is a ref you know, or referrals, but we have universal pre-K3 and pre-K four, meaning that we have a slot for anybody, any kid who um who qualifies.

Okay, all right.

Well, I think that covers it.

Uh let me just pause for one second to make sure.

All right, this concludes today's budget oversight hearing.

The time is now three twelve, and this hearing is adjourned.