Yeah, yeah, but didn't he said I could go if I said you can go on and the recording start?

I'll start the recording as soon as you can.

Recording in progress.

Good morning, everyone.

I am Matt Freuman, Ward Three Council Member and Chair of the Committee on Human Services.

Today is May twenty first, twenty twenty six.

We are meeting in person in room five hundred of the John A.

Wilson building and virtually via Zoom.

Today we have a quorum comprised of uh Ward Five Councilmember Zachary Parker joining us virtually, at large council person uh Christina Henderson and Ward Seven Council Member Wendell Felder, um, joining us here in the hearing room.

Today's agenda is limited to the committee's report and recommendations on the fiscal year twenty twenty-seven budget.

This committee oversees the agencies that provide some of the district's most essential government services, the Department of Human Services, also known as DHS, administers the district's homeless services system and maintains the district's public benefits programs.

The Office of Cable Television, Film Music, and Entertainment, or Aquami helps us sustain the district's thriving creative economy.

We're now also joined by at-large council member Robert White, and I will, in the interest of courtesy, note that my remarks will run on for seventeen double space pages.

So just as a heads up.

And the Office of Lottery and Gaming, or OLG, which regulates and overseas licensed gaming in the district.

When the council received the mayor's proposed budget only five weeks ago, we were given a Herculean task.

This committee alone had to contend with $130 million in reductions from FY26.

The rationale given for imposing these cuts rather than finding savings elsewhere or raising revenue was the social services do not grow the economy, create new jobs, or keep families in the district.

The committee agrees that government investment in economic growth must be a key driver of the district's recovery, that growth is essential to preserve access to services, and that maintaining the basics must take priority over funding new programs and program expansions.

However, the basics must include fundamental human services like access to shelter, legal counsel, and subsistence cash benefits.

An economy in which child poverty and homelessness are increasing is neither stable nor flourishing.

The collaboration and dedication I have seen from my colleagues since we received the budget represents the council at its best.

We came to address to address shared priorities and focused on the biggest challenges confronting district residents.

What we achieved at the committee level, we achieved together.

And I can say with confidence that the committee budget we are voting on today represents our best work, and in that I really need to, and I will multiple times tip my hat to uh my team, which I think has done incredible work on this budget.

This year, doing our best work meant having the discipline to prioritize restoring existing programs over pursuing new opportunities.

It meant shoring up rather than expanding our agencies, and it meant finding new creative ways to grow our economy.

In drafting our recommendations, the committee was guided by three principles.

First, the district must find new ways to expand its economy and generate revenue.

Now more than ever, the district must attract and retain new employers, and in some cases, entire new industries to reserve reverse the contraction caused by the disinvestment of the federal government.

Still, government incentives must also be deployed responsibly.

The district must scale investments to demand and deploy mechanisms for recovering investments that do not advance district policy.

Second, preserving the existing social safety net is not optional.

While the district should implement efficiencies and realize reasonable savings, it is an imperative to protect the core safety on which our residents core safety net on which our residents rely.

A resilient safety net is also a prerequisite to growth.

Finally, accessible, beautiful libraries are irreplaceable public goods.

There are no other publicly supported spaces that are open year-round to all, let alone public spaces that facilitate lifelong learning and career training.

A thriving neighborhood library system is a must-have, not a nice to have.

Our investments began with homeless with the homeless services system.

The 2026 point-in-time count of residents experiencing homelessness found youth and single adult homelessness to be flat relative to 2025.

Family homelessness, however, increased significantly by nearly 16%.

The mayor's proposed budget, however, reduced funding to the homelessness continuum, cutting millions of dollars in grants and decreasing the number of available shelter beds.

It also funded no new vouchers, depriving DHS of its most important, most powerful tool to end homelessness and underfunded existing vouchers by over $26.9 million.

With the exception of the $26.9 million gap, the committee reduced every significant reduction in the homeless services area and added single system capacity.

First, with the support of the Committee on Public Works and Operations, the committee invested $1.56 million to fund up to 90 new bridge housing beds in the existing district-owned space at the Aston.

The committee also preserved $25 million in capital funding and $3.4 million in outyears operating funding to open a hundred-bed bridge housing site that deploys PHS, PSH plus, a PSH plus model of care.

This new site will serve unhoused residents with the most profound needs, helping them to stabilize and transition to permanent housing.

These investments prevent a reduction in the capacity of homeless services in the capacity of the homeless services system, turning a projected net loss over time of 23 beds into a projected net gain of up to 67 beds.

The committee also partnered with the Committee on Housing to create a pipeline to housing stability out of the family rehousing stabilization program, or FRSP.

In FY25, 75 families returned to shelter after participating in FRSP, the family rapid rehousing program.

The committee moves a BSA subtitle to disrupt this cycle of family homelessness, requiring DHS to refer 38 families to the District of Columbia Housing Authority to be matched with new vouchers funded by the Committee on Housing.

The Committee also reinstates funding for youth services providers, fully restoring a $1.5 million cut to extend transitional housing that would have required 6% reductions at all youth providers.

Additionally, the committee reversed a $500,000 reduction in domestic violence services grants, restored nearly $200,000 in funding for the interagency council on homeless staff, and made several targeted investments in individual providers.

Specifically, the committee restored funding for drop-in centers operated by Everyone Home and the Sasha Bruce Youth Work while sending $250,000 to Friendship Place to support its AIM Hire program.

The AIM Hire Jobs Placement Initiative has successfully transitioned hundreds of unhoused residents into sustainable employment and will be essential as thousands of district residents stand to lose public benefits in coming months due to work requirements.

Elsewhere in DHS, the committee preserved funding for the truancy reduction pilot program.

The committee extends the pilot for one year to allow the full council to decide whether to make the program permanent after learning more about the program's efficacy.

The committee also restored $3.5 million in civil legal services funding cut by the mayor by mistake when she eliminated the CLEAR program.

This reinvestment will prevent hundreds of district residents from having to face the legal system alone.

Some of the committee's deepest investments were to preserve public benefits.