REALTIME FILE

Meeting ‑ CCSWW Tacoma‑Pierce County 
Coalition to End Homelessness

Friday, May 15, 2020

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>> Good morning.
>> I can't see anybody else.
>> Good morning, all.
>> How are you?
>> It is Rosemary.
>> Hello, Rosemary.
>> Hello.
>> Hi, Maureen.
>> It's like our meeting has been seized by the Census Bureau.
>> Ah, I did it.  Can you hear me now?
>> Yes.
>> Good.
>> All right.  Good morning, everybody.  I hope Friday is treating you well.  While I am not somebody living in the trenches, I have kind of got that feeling this week.  I think I ended up with a set of back to back meetings all day yesterday, so not going to do that again.  This is how I am feeling.  But I don't actually work with folks experiencing homelessness, so that's probably not a legit point of view.  Although I like the harkening back to the helmet of my basic training days.
	Anyway, we've got a good program cooked up today.  Got my chef's hat on.  And we are going to kick off with some announcements from Larry Seaquist, and Laurie Jinkins is going to pop on and give us a little welcome, and then we are going to roll into some Coordinated Care updates about Medicaid and how Coordinated Care has been changing a little bit.  That was mostly in responses that kept coming up around Medicaid, and hopefully that gives us a chance to get a little bit grounded in some of the COVID‑19 changes around that.  We are going to get updates from most of the folks doing homeless prevention, and we are going to kind of roll it up with our usual set of updates.
	So I appreciate, again, everyone making time to be here, and Mr. Seaquist.
>> Thank you, and good morning, everyone.  I announced yesterday that I am running for county executive, and because of that I have withdrawn, resigned, from the community of the Continuum of Care Board, and on that board I represented us, this coalition.  So I have encouraged ‑‑ I will encourage you working with Gerrit and Valeri from Associated Miniseries to think about who might take that important seat.  The community of care is reorganizing itself.  It is in fact a very important federally chartered board that's going through some growing ‑‑ not growing pains, but growing processes, so that's an important thing that someone from this group could do.  And of course just speaking for myself, as you know from my presence here admiring all of your work, the op‑ed that Gerrit and I wrote a couple weeks ago about our concerns about the increased wave of homelessness that's headed for us, I will continue to be deeply involved in homeless, homeless strategies and prevention, and I will try to be here as much as I can because I enjoy listening and admiring what you are doing, and walking away from this group all charged up.  So thank you very much.
>> Thank you, Larry.  And we all know how to get ahold of Larry if we have any questions or things that we want to kind of touch base on relative to what they have been working on until we get a representative there.
>> Send me an e‑mail, LarrySeaquist.com.  I would love to talk to you.  Thanks very much.
>> Thanks, Larry.  And as always, putting yourself out there to get elected or not elected is an act of bravery, so hats off to Larry for offering to serve our community.  And speaking of community service, it's hard to get more excited about a community servant than Laurie Jinkins.  I see that you are on.  Thanks for spending us few minutes to help us get grounded for our meeting and kind of turning the microphone over to you, Laurie.
>> Thanks, Gerrit, and thanks for inviting me.  You know, it's interesting how much sometimes my good intentions don't turn into action because these are meetings that I have been intending to come to for awhile, so it was great to get the invitation because it really pushed me to move and do it.  For those of you who don't know, unfortunately I am only going to be on for a couple of minutes.  If you have time, I am happy to answer questions, but I am working at the Health Department in my other job besides speaker right now, so I have morning meetings every morning because my responsibility is to keep the operations of the Health Department going as we move through this pandemic.
	So I mostly just wanted to come on and first of all thank you all for all that you are doing.  I think Pierce County has a coalition like none other in the State of Washington, or maybe the nation, in terms of the ways in which you all convene every Friday, work through issues, support one another, figure out what the priorities are, understand how not deeply we have addressed the issues, like we are just at the surface kind of trying to deal with every emergent need as it comes, but you all keep working on long‑term strategy, while addressing the short‑term strategy, and I mostly want to say thank you.  
	But I also want to tell you that the House Democrats have been working very hard on housing and homelessness issues, and I am not going to go through the bills that passed last session, but we did have a number of pieces of legislation that took steps forward in terms of renters' rights, in terms of foreclosures, in terms of all sorts of things.
	But I also want you to know that we have about I guess a month or six weeks ago, I convened groups of our members to start working on different issues.  One of those groups that was convened was the Housing and Homelessness Work Group, and partly we were motivated by looking at the CARES Act, and what the CARES Act did and didn't do to help Washingtonians and what else we might need to do.  Many of you know of Nicole Macri.  She has been very active on that group, as have other members.  Nicole has actually been convening a landlord and tenant group to work on landlord and tenant issues.  
	But I am going to look at my chart really quickly because we just got a report from Representative [indiscernible], and I want to tell you some of the things they are working on.  They are working on the governor's eviction moratorium that you probably all realize there is a lot about what's going to happen when that moratorium is lifted, so that group is working with the governor's office on that.
	They are looking at possible payment plans to help renters and some renters assistance, and representative [indiscernible] are also working on a best practices forum for small residential landlord and commercial landlords to better communicate with tenants, what the real moratorium is.  So people can have a realistic expectation.  They are also working on rental assistance funding.  Mostly through the federal CARES Act, and I will talk a little bit about our state budget before I finish this morning, but advocates, as you all know, are pushing for congress to put $100 billion, that's with a B, in rental assistance for people across the U.S.
	I talked to Representative Kilmer this week.  It's really unclear what's going to happen with this next package, so we are going to have to kind of see how that enrolls.  They are voting on the floor of the house.  The real challenge is in the senate for us right now, and in the White House, so keeping an eye on that.  And there is also ‑‑ there has been a joint letter from the senate and the house drafted that's ‑‑ the state senate and house that's been sent to our congressional delegation.  We are doing some foreclosure moratorium and forbearance, and we did send out a letter on the federal delegation on that, led by Tina Orwall in the house.  So working on that, and then working on kind of I guess how homelessness is going to change, and I would say expand, as we get deeper and deeper into this recession.
	We are quite aware of how many people are projected to become homeless during this time.  I would just say that we are really early on in both revenue and other projections related to this recession, and we are only expecting that the next revenue forecast will be worse than the current one that we have.  So we have an informal revenue forecast here in Washington State that shows us to be about $700 million in the hole in terms of our budget by June 30th of this year.  I just want to put that in context for people.  We ended the session on March 12th with $860 million in the bank, in reserves.  So when you add those two together from March until the end of June, we are now $1.5 billion likely in the red in terms of the state budget.
	That's projected to double by the end of the next fiscal year, which will be June of 2021.  And then that number of 3.5 billion is expected to double again in the following biennium.
	So that's what I am spending most of my time on.  Gerrit, I am very sorry, you asked me to be inspiring today.  I guess I just feel like it's important for me to be clear with such a great group of advocates about the struggles that we are going to go through.  All of us are going to want to invest money in addressing these issues relating to housing and homelessness, and relating to working families and poor people.  That's what our focus is going to be, and that's what it has to be, and I won't even mention ‑‑ I mean I won't even talk very much about our immigrant and refugee community, which the White House is actively hostile to.
	But it's going to be ‑‑ we are going to be in for a very rough ride.  We are going to have to do budget reductions.  But I would also say that at least from my perspective, and I think the perspective of my caucus, we know that the only way that we move through this is by actually adopting new forms of revenue and probably doing budget reductions.  We can't do everything that we are going to have to do with one or the other.  We are going to have to do both of them, and we are going to have to be extremely creative, and we are going to have to have our eyes on our values.  And I think the House Democratic Caucus has shown over and over again where our values are on housing and homelessness issues and on so many others, so you can expect us to stay right there.
	With that, I want to really ask you all to continue to be the extraordinary advocates that you are, because that's the way that things get done, is having really firm advocates and people who are creative in their solutions come to us and think through these things.  We don't have all the answers, and we will rely on you to help us get to the right answers.  Finally I also want to say I know my seat mate Jeannie Darneille is frequently on these calls.  I don't know if she is today or not, but she has been an incredible advocate around these issues and she will remain an incredibly strong leader doing this work, too.
>> Thanks so much.  If there is times and places we can lend our voice to work to get more resources through taxation, through the federal government, just please consider us a tool in your toolkit to bring some relief to a lot of the folks that are living on the edge.
>> Yeah.  Definitely, I will.  Again, I am only watching one screen, so I don't know if Maureen Howard is on, but Maureen is really excellent at sending me summaries ‑‑ there she is.  Hi, Maureen.  She is really excellent at sending me summaries of what's going on, suggestions, best practices that you all have discovered, so make sure to keep on doing that.  For me in the speaker role it's unlikely I will be doing all of that work, but it's very likely Representative Ryu and Representative Macri and others, I send that information off to them for work, so please keep on doing that.
>> Well, great.  I am not going to ask for any more of your time, and thanks so much for stopping in.  It's great to have you looking after the needs of our vulnerable.  So thanks so much.
>> Thank you for the excellent partnership, you all, and thanks for all you are doing.  Larry, I love you.  You're great.  [Laughs]
>> All right.
>> All right.  Take care, everyone.
>> Thanks so much.  Okay.  Our first presentation is Coordinated Care, and talking a little bit about Medicaid and some of the changes around Coordinated Care as they flex to respond to COVID‑19.  So I am going to hand things off to Ruth Bush.  I totally didn't even look to see if Ruth was on.
>> Good morning.  Can you hear me?  This is Ruth.
>> Good morning.
>> I was on mute of course.  Good morning, Gerrit.  Thank you so much for having me and thanks everyone.  I am going to take a little bit of your time to give some updates from the healthcare sector.  Gerrit, would it be okay if I share my screen?
>> Please.
>> Undisable, please.  And while he is looking at that, you know, I think Coordinated Care is so grateful to the work that this coalition does and all of our kind of sister agencies that address issues of access to affordable housing.  The numbers that we serve are primarily Medicaid or at the very low income level for the exchange, and 80% of them receive a subsidy in order to have access to health insurance, so we know most of the members that we serve have a lot of crossover with folks that are crossing your desks and your agencies every day.
	Let's see.  Trying to do the screen share.
>> Is that working?
>> Whenever that gets going ‑‑ not yet.  It says disable participant screen sharing.
>> How about now?
>> Yes.  Okay.  Here we go.
>> Looking good.
>> Thumbs up?  All right.  Very good.  Let's just go here.
>> Yes.
>> So most of you probably know who Coordinated Care here, so I will give a very brief overview.  We are a Washington‑based health insurer, and we are local in Tacoma.  Our headquarters are right in downtown Tacoma.  We have 400 staff, and a few satellite offices from Tacoma and Seattle, Wenatchee and Yakima.  And we have the pleasure of ensuring over 230,000 individuals across Washington.  And our mission statement is to transform the health of our community and we do that one person at a time.
	Who do we serve in Pierce County specifically?  So we have three products.  Coordinated Care, Apple Health, Medicaid, the traditional Medicaid.  We have Coordinated Care Apple Health Core Connections, which is our [indiscernible] care program.  And we have Ambetter, which is our exchange program.  I will tell you a little bit about all three.
	First to go back to the beginning here on the left, our Medicaid product, we have 164,000 members in that program statewide, and 23,000 of those live right here in Pierce County.  So this is obviously our largest program that we have.  From a quality perspective there are five Medicaid plans in Washington, and were awarded the second highest rated quality plan for the past two years, which are we are pretty proud of.
	Our foster care program, which a lot of people associate with Coordinated Care, and that's how they know our name, we are the sole source foster care insurer in Washington.  We were awarded that contract back in 2016, so we have been operational a little over four years now, and we serve a little over 24,000 foster care individuals statewide, with 3400 in Pierce County.  We cover the kind of traditional foster care members, someone who is in out‑of‑home placement in a foster home.  We serve individuals that have been adopted, children who have been adopted into a forever home that are receiving adoption subsidy, and then we also have the opportunity to provide Medicaid coverage to our alumni foster care population.  And these are individuals who have not been placed in a forever home and at the age of 18 has aged out of foster care, and the Affordable Care Act extended coverage for those individuals up until the age of 26, so they have access to Medicaid until the age of 26 regardless of what their income is, and they remain in our foster care program.
	And then last on the right you see the raspberry pink, that is our Ambetter product.  We have the second largest exchange plan in Washington and, like I said earlier, about 80% of our members on the exchange receive a subsidy to help them have access to health insurance, and so those folks really are bouncing between Medicaid and Ambetter depending on their level of income in a given month.
	So now I am going to tell you a little bit about how we have shifted operations during the COVID‑19 pandemic.  We are lucky to have our leadership act pretty quickly and transitioned to work from home and satellite work within the first couple of days and weeks of the pandemic here in Washington.  But all employees are still here for you.  We still have our local customer service represent answering phones Monday through Friday.  They are all doing it from home now.  We have our nurse advice line still available 24/7 to get access to information after hours and to get help with access to healthcare and prescriptions after hours.
	All of our clinical employees, our parent company has committed to allowing those employees to join any medical reserve they like, and we are paying them three months of their salary while they join the front lines of clinical work addressing the COVID crisis.
	From a provider perspective, testing or treatment that an individual would need related to COVID diagnosis, a provider does not have to get a prior authorization to render those services.  We are also reducing a lot of requirements related to treatment in home health, or your durable medical equipment or in a skilled nursing facility, meaning that the prior authorization requests are less to receive that.  We are actively discharging from those facilities and helping essentially make access to care as burden‑free as possible right now.
	We are also extending prior authorizations in facilities like residential treatment facilities, up to 120 days, because we want our clinical workforce focusing on giving good quality care, and not right now kind of the administrative process of care, which is exchanging information with their health insurance.
	We have also really following a lead of the healthcare authority expanded telehealth services.  All of our members, no matter what program you are in, have access to telehealth services for behavioral health [indiscernible], but we pay providers the exact same amount, if they are rendering an in‑person service or a telehealth service, they get reimbursed at the same amount.
	We are also accelerating points payment because we know cash flow is very important to our provider community right now, given a lot of services that are being cancelled or postponed that are not critical.  We are averaging ten days of receiving a claim to paying our providers right now.  We are pretty proud of the ability that we have to really accelerate getting cash into the hands of the provider community.
	How are we supporting our members?  We have any out of pocket costs related to COVID screening treatments and testing, of course Medicaid you never have to pay anything when you are on Medicaid, so this would only be applicable to our exchange product, but there is no out of pocket costs related to COVID.  Also encouraging and supporting the use of telehealth by distributing smartphones to all of our Medicaid membership.  We have doubled the amount of minutes available to our members, and the amount of data, at least through the end of May, likely to get extended, because we want to make sure people have access to receiving telehealth services when it is offered.
	Making sure that members have access to early prescription refills and mail delivery to help lessen the amount of time they have to go to a pharmacy.  And then we are doing really targeted outreach to our ‑‑ to certain member cohorts.  These are folks, one group of course is those who are unstably housed, folks that are pregnant, also to people with chronic conditions or that we have seen based off of patterns are in a high risk outbreak area or in a facility that have had a recent outbreak to COVID, so doing outreach to them, making sure they get connected to testing and other support they may need.
	We are also doing a lot of community‑related initiatives right now.  We have donated a little over $250,000 to housing shelters and food banks across the state to help lessen the demand to access to healthy food.  We are really excited ‑‑ our employees are helping us embark on a 1 million meals campaign, and we are right now matching any employee donation.  Our company is matching, and we are at 800,000 meals already distributed across the State of Washington through Tuesday, so we are super happy about that and our employees are really stepping up.
	Also distributing Wal‑Mart gift cards, around 750 Wal‑Mart gift cards around the state to our provider partners to give directly to our members who are in need right now.  And then this is ‑‑ we are in the middle of a donated PPE campaign to federally qualified health centers and behavioral health providers, as well with the foster care contract we are connected to the Department of Child, Youth and Families, and we are donating PPE directly to child, youth and family social workers who are going into the homes to insure the welfare of children who are at risk.
	Just a couple pictures here of our staff at work, and this is at the Emergency Food Network, EFN, in Pierce County.  And the next one is after social distancing took place, you can see we all had to stand a little bit further apart during the bag stuffing.
	Okay.  So earlier I talked a little bit about telehealth, and I want to highlight that a little bit more for you.  We have a partnership with a company called Teledoc, and this agency allows access to healthcare 24/7 for our in‑network Teledoc providers, for all of our products.  It's zero cost for Medicaid, foster care or Ambetter, 24 hours a day you can get ahold of someone.  I am hearing a two‑hour average of you getting on the phone with a doctor or health technician to address whatever concerns you are calling about.  And our website right there teledoc.com/coordinatedcare, that's how they can sign up.  You can use it for basic issues, like cold, flu, fever.  We have dermatology on there.  And pretty unique to Coordinated Care, we have access to behavioral health services via telehealth on Teledoc.  There is an asterisk there because that is available for members over the age of 18.  Because of privacy laws related to minor healthcare, that is not available yet to the pediatric population.  But behavioral health and medication and counseling, you can get access 24/7 you can get access to practitioners.
	Continuity of care, we have those three programs of Medicaid, Ambetter and foster care, which mirror the same networks.  You have access to the same doctors and providers as someone might age out of the foster care system or get reunified back with their family.  They can stay with Coordinated Care and Medicaid, and they don't have to have a disruption with who their provider or care coordinator is at Coordinated Care.  
	Same thing with Ambetter.  Right now during COVID, there is a lot of job losses, a lot of income changes.  If you were on Ambetter we are making sure that our members know you can stay with us on Medicaid and you likely qualify.  You can keep your doctor, and it's really a unique ability as income changes or family situation changes with child welfare to seamlessly go with our programs and offer that continuity.
	Another unique thing about us, we have a MyHealthPays rewards program.  What's different about ours, it promotes like the other health plans, access to monetary reward for going to the doctor.  So you go in for your child welfare or child well exam or your adult well exam, we load money directly onto a Visa, and what's unique about ours is you can use that anywhere.  We have seen our members use it to help with utilities, buy everyday items at Wal‑Mart, pay their Netflix, pay their rent, buy cell phone minutes.  It's actually pretty cool how varied the ways are that our members are using this to help with just everyday items.
	And lastly, and thank you for your time and I am happy to answer any questions, but the last thing I want to mention is we want to help.  Please let us know.  Two ways that we are thinking of that we might be able to help is to come and talk to your organization about health insurance during COVID.  We can give this presentation or something similar about how Medicaid is responding to the COVID‑19 pandemic to any of your organizations.  We would be happy to do that.
	We also have a community education team of clinicians who do no‑cost training to anyone in the community and they usually focus on trauma‑informed care and child welfare related issues, but right now we are also offering a self‑care and coping with stress during COVID training, particular for our frontline health workers, and anyone in the healthcare community that would benefit from this.
	Let me know.  Let Charlene Fitzgerald, who joins this coalition weekly know, if your organization would like either of these.  We can do either presentation at no cost, join a staff meeting or schedule something one‑off to join you.
	And that's what I have.  Again, my name is Ruth Bush, the senior director for Medicaid with Coordinated Care.  Really appreciate your time.  My contact information is here, and, Gerrit, let me know if anyone has questions.  I am happy to answer anything right now.
>> Thank you, Ruth.  It does look like we have a few questions.
>> Okay.
>> How long does it take to see a doctor in your program, and are there doctors available throughout the entire Pierce County?
>> Yes, there are doctors available in the entire Pierce County.  If you are talking about telehealth, with Teledoc there is about a two‑hour wait to get ahold of a doctor through that program once you sign up and request.  We also contract with primary care providers throughout Pierce County, Sea Mar, Community Health Center, MultiCare, et cetera, CHI, and depending on which provider and what the issue is, you should be able to get in, if it's urgent, within 24 hours.  If it's not urgent, I think it's a standard seven‑day wait time for primary care.
>> Another question was from Sherri Jensen ‑‑ that last one was from Joy.  And, Joy, there is no provider on Key Peninsula, so don't even think that.
>> [Laughs].
>> Sherri Jensen asked, how do participants apply for smartphones, and how long does it take for them to receive them?
>> Yeah.  So no matter what Medicaid health plan you are enrolled in, that Medicaid health plan, if you call the 1‑800 number, the member services number or if that person has a care coordinator, you can call them and they will help fill out the application.  At Coordinated Care we have double the minutes and the like it make sure members have more access.  But just call us, and we can help.  If someone from the Coordinated Care team types our member services number into the chat box, that would be a great help so people know how to get ahold of us.
	I want to say there is a little bit longer delay because of the need for smart phones, but usually a two to three‑week wait time to mail it out.  If someone is experiencing housing instability, we can drop it off or it can get mailed to a shelter, so there are some options there.
>> So there is a question about the cards from Joy.  How do you give the cards out?
>> The cards get mailed after ‑‑ the Visas get mailed after someone does one of the health activities that we are promoting the well child or well adult exam.  It gets mailed to whatever address we have on file.  It can get a bit tricky with the population that I am sure you are serving, so if you know someone who has gone to an adult well exam but hasn't gotten their card, again, you can call us and we can reroute it to a right address.  And I see a question about Wal‑Mart.  We don't make you do Wal‑Mart.  Typically we use that as one of the places where our members go, but you can use the Visa anywhere basically.  Oh, the Wal‑Mart card, we did do that.  They did not donate the card, and I don't know why we chose them.
>> All right.  I don't think I see any other questions.  So thanks so much for coming.  I am a big fan of Coordinated Care.
>> Awesome.
>> Employees have been on boards I have been on for a long time.  When this COVID‑19 thing started we got an e‑mail out of the blue from Coordinated Care saying, hey, I get you got some extra needs in your shelter, we would like to get you some money, here is a form, fill it out, and we will get you some.  I think it really kind of echoes the sense of responsibility Coordinated Care feels for its community, so thanks so much for all of that and for being a Medicaid provider, and for being headquartered in downtown Tacoma.  Yay.
>> Absolutely.  It's our home.  I put my e‑mail and phone number in the chat box if you would like to get ahold of me.  I appreciate your time.
>> Thanks, Ruth.  All right.  Maureen, we've got you right in the right spot this time instead of at the end when people's brains are full of everything they have already heard.  Hopefully they are fresh and ready to soak up all of the goodness.
>> Thank you.  Good morning, everybody.  So first of all, our friendly IRS has discovered homeless people and that they are eligible for the stimulus checks, the economic impact payments, and the IRS is running a social media campaign.  And either Gerrit or I will figure out how to get this out to you, because until you have seen the IRS ‑‑ what do you call the thing, the logo, that has a heart in it?  So not exactly what I think about the Department of Treasury and people who are experiencing homelessness.  
	The program with Seattle Credit Union is now going to appear in a national credit union journal next week, and I will send the link out.  It turned out that the director from the Michigan ‑‑ I think the Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness, her husband is the editor of a credit union journal.  When I talked about this program on a call, she said my husband would like to know more about this, would you talk to a reporter, so Cora Banks and I talked to a reporter, and I am not sure if she got to Theresa Power‑Drutis or not, but it's a partnership between the coalition and the Seattle Credit Union, and it's out there with me identifying myself as a volunteer with the coalition on advocacy and policy.
	So we don't have a lot of rules for how to figure this out, sometimes, so hopefully that's okay.  So here is the deal.  The accounts are real Seattle Credit Union accounts.  They are available to people experiencing homelessness, whether they are sheltered or not, or if they are in a program that's part of our homeless response system.  So we have a way for the applicants to have Seattle Credit Union pay the $5 membership fee.  We have a way for shelters and homeless programs to verify that in fact these applicants are at their shelters.  This is their address because the Seattle Credit Union has to meet certain federal and state requirements around that.
	Theresa Power‑Drutis last agreed to coach people, frontline staff, agreed to do training, but now it's going to rest on frontline providers I think, case managers and navigators and outreach workers, asking really simple questions.  Did you get your stimulus check?  Yes or no.  If they didn't, do you have a Social Security number?  If they do have one, they are potentially eligible.
	So then it's, would you like to get that check by direct deposit?  If the answer is yes, then do you have a bank account?  If the answer is no, then it's would you like a credit union account?  If they get a paper check, they can still set up an account with Seattle Credit Union because they can deposit that the way ‑‑ not me, but I think anybody who actually understands how to do this, deposits checks all the time, you take a picture of it, you endorse the back, you say it's for the deposit only to the Seattle Credit Union.  And so this is part of what I see as long‑term sustainability for people.  It's an option.  Everybody won't be able to use that, I know that, but I also know there are people who are working, there are people who do not have fraud ‑‑ if you have bank fraud, if you have identity theft, then you are not going to be eligible for an account, but there are a whole lot of people who could move out of the un‑banked system into the banked system through this process.  And so I am going to keep encouraging people to try and make this happen.
	And the guidance is out.  I will update it periodically.  I will send it out periodically.  Gerrit and I will figure out how to get it on the website some way that that you've got it there.  And, folks, this could be a real big deal.  All right.  This could really be life changing for a lot of people.  And we will just keep going shelter by shelter, program by program, and trying to make this happen, this opportunity happen.
	Okay.  Now quickly through other things, as Laurie Jinkins said, the house is voting actually probably now on the Heroes Act.  There is 175 billion, as in boy, for housing and homelessness.  100 billion of that is for rental assistance.  That's Denny Heck's bill.  What will happen, it's a $3 trillion bill.  All right.  Mitch McConnell said it's dead on arrival, but there will be a long period of negotiating on this bill.  Will something pass?  Probably.  Will it have $100 billion for rental assistance?	We don't know.  
	What we do know is that the Washington's democratic delegation and the house has signed off, that we need to ‑‑ Senator Murray has signed on in the senate.  The alliance is reaching out to Senator Cantwell to make sure she is signed out.  We need to keep advocating, even with the republican members of the delegation, that we have ‑‑ we desperately need this rental assistance.
	We don't ever go back to big congregate shelters.  All right.  We don't even go back to anything like February until we either have a vaccine, we have real treatment options available to everybody who is infected, and we have rapid tests that are accurate that can be done every day.  All right.  This is a different world.
	So, all right.  That being said, at the state level, the Department of Commerce is really emphasizing keeping people who are housed already housed.  So they are really looking towards as much rental assistance money as is possible.  Now they can't do scale without federal money, but absent federal money the focus is going to be how do we keep people who are housed housed.  To me this is an accurate statement, the arms rate of navigators trying to get people into housing, and that's really what it feels like to me, as I look at what you all are trying to do.
	And looking at the changes already in the housing rental market and the changes that are likely to come.  So the other thing he noted was that there is a ‑‑ at the state level, and I don't know about the county because I didn't ask yet, but at the state level there is a massive loss in the document recording fees money, and this is money that supports the homeless grants and the youth grants, the consolidated homeless grants and the youth grants.  So this is going to be an important gap there.
	They might have to reduce some contracts, amend them.  They are not there yet.  And they are aggressively ‑‑ Commerce is trying to ‑‑ aggressively trying to get out the $40 million in the budget for shelters, so they are going to be moving that process forward.
	One thing from the Walla Walla Department of Health that I thought ‑‑ maybe it's happening, and I just don't know, but they have hospital teams who are doing weekly medical rounds at the shelters, including the encampments.  So if we are not doing that, that might be something to put on the list.
	Locally, I sent out the city information, and I know Erica is going to be following me here, so just try to pay attention.  All right.  I am trying to slim it down to not everything possible to read, but just a few things, and how to comment on the county.  The county is out on the CARES money, on the money that Human Services is put out.  Read page three.  The eligibility for the CARES money is different from eligibility of other funding sources that the county has handled.  So read that section in terms of what your program can and cannot do.
	Lastly, two things.  One is, I really encourage you to organizationally plan, plan for now until the end of December, plan for the next calendar year, and really look at not sort of a wishful thinking of what might happen, but, you know, sort of like if you plan for the worst and you hope for the best, so that you are ready.
	How do we limit transmission in the population of people experiencing homelessness?  How do we see that nobody dies.  And the other thing now is prevention, and I know rental assistance is next.  So I encourage you to think about prevention.  It's not that it isn't happening across the county.  The more I look into things, the more I see, but what I don't see is any kind of countywide coordinated system that a normal human being who is at the risk of losing their housing could easily find their way into and be helped.  And there are lots of ways to do this.  You know who has access, who is eligible.  How do we target?  What are the mechanics?  There is lots of pieces to that.  The City of Seattle Housing Department has a repayment plan, a rental repayment plan, that they are willing to put out and share.
	I just encourage you to think how we can use the existing systems.  Can we lengthen Rapid Rehousing commitments from six months to a year?  You all know, you've got the names of everybody.  There are 15‑, 1600 people in Rapid Rehousing and Diversion.  A number of those people are likely at risk over the next six months of losing their housing, so you know who they are, and you can figure out how to get to them and what they need and how to build that in.
	And how do we prevent anybody whose unit is changing?  If this market starts to shift, and these mom‑and‑pop owners, or even some of the large ones ‑‑ there is a 27‑unit transitional house near Theresa that is on the market.  How do we hold onto these housing units so that they remain available for people who are so desperately poor already?  And that's a bigger question than we are going to answer, but we got to be at the table and keep asking that question.  How is it going to happen?
	So, once again, thank you, thanks for letting me do this.  So that's it.
>> A bunch of comments in the chat that they all want you to represent the coalition on the CoC, Maureen.
>> [Laughs].  We can talk about that.  I was on the original one, before it was the CoC, when it was The Road Home.  I got so frustrated that I left.  All right.  I have a low frustration level at this point in my life.  I think people on this call need to think about who really is the best.  All right?  It needs to be ‑‑ because a lot of things I can do without being on a given committee or board, but these committees and these boards and these task forces, these are an amazing way for people who are newer to advocacy to quickly learn, and that's how ‑‑ a good part of how I learned, by ending up on these kinds of groups, you know, 35 years ago, almost 40 years ago.  I can hardly believe it.  So think about that.  Think about who in the group wants to learn this, wants to do it, and I can help that person.  You know, we can all help that person.
>> I'll throw my hat in as a candidate.
>> On that note, Al, anybody that would like to be a representative, you can shoot me an e‑mail.  If it's one person, it makes the selection process easy.  If it's a few, we will figure out what we want to do.  Al has put his hat in the ring.  What we are looking for would be somebody that would be a regular attendee of the CoC meetings, which Al is, and somebody that would keep an eye on the CoC's intersection with the coalition and keep us informed about what the CoC is up to and keep the CoC informed about what we are up to and interested in.
>> And I think there is another point, too.  This position comes out of the old coalition, and that preceded this current coalition, and I think that we should draft like a sort of expectations of what this person is going to do, a job description if you will, so that there is a regular expected ‑‑ you know, it's not accidental, but a real disciplined kind of invitation for information, these are the issues the CoC is going to deal with, here is a way to provide input, and then a report back.  This is a real job.
>> Yeah.  At some point we need to get ourselves slightly more structured as a coalition.  I was thinking about how nice benevolent dictators can be, so I was briefly looking for quotes about benevolent dictators.  I recall some correspondence between Voltaire and Catherine the Great.  So I went back to read a little bit, and there is a quote, trying to find people to articulate the way I think the world ought to be.  But, yeah, I highly recommend the benevolent dictator.  You can't do better.  Sprinkled with an occasional assassination.  That's like, okay, yeah, I don't want that part, so.  
	All right.  Thank you, Maureen, for the update.  I think we are ready to red into the homeless prevention update.  So I thought last meeting we were all rather curious about what was going on with different rental assistance, homeless prevention programs, where they are, where their funding was, what sort of need they were getting, and I thought and asked the different homeless providers to come on.  I don't know that all of them are here.  I think Sean Dennerlein with the Veterans Bureau is working on some other things right now, but I would like to hand it off to Yuni to learn where we are with the City of Tacoma's rental assistance program that LASA is operating.
>> Good morning.  We started processing the applications.  We had ‑‑ we did receive over a thousand applications through the lottery link, but after we went through and weeded out the non‑City of Tacoma, non‑COVID‑impacted and also people who weren't on a lease, we end the up with 563 eligible applicants there.  So we have started reaching out to them.  We are having trouble contacting people.  There are people who have provided incorrect contact information.  We have a lot of landlords who are not able to give us the response about if the mortgage is backed by FHA, Freddy Mac or Fannie Mae.  There was one multifamily complex that was not on the website for the National Low Income Housing Coalition, so we asked that landlord specifically and somebody in the office said, yes.  Then when we called to verify for another client, a different person said, no.  So then we got referred to a general manager.  Then that person had no idea either.  So that's kind of a holdup there, so we are still trying to work around that.
	And we have attempted to contact some of the applicants.  Only half of them have responded back.  We have received ‑‑ started receiving the additional paperwork we need, and we are getting some process and we are getting ready to cut some checks.  So that's going pretty well.  We have referred some families over to MDC.  We sent a list over last week.  We had gotten permission from the clients to send it over, and we have another list that we can send over today for some more people.
	I did get a message back from Multicultural Family.  We have referred some families over there, also, because they have a piloted homeless prevention project for our African‑American households.  So we referred some families there, and they told us that of the 27 families, they have been able to reach 25 of those families and start working with them, also.  We received some referrals from Share and Care.  There has been a couple people that they applied with us, applied with Share and Care, they actually had two open applications, but we are getting them into the right spot, so we have been working well on that.
	And we will be ramping up the focus on the processing, the applications next week.  We got more help coming in.  And we do have our phone lines.  We have been told by some people that our phone lines were not allowing people to leave messages, so we are addressing that right now, and we will have someone on the phones at least in the morning until about noon, Monday through Friday, to help answer questions, if somebody is looking for an update on their application, if there is someone who is contacting us for direct referrals, if anybody needs technical assistance or language assistance or special accommodations, we do have ‑‑ we will have people here to accommodate that, too.
	Let's see here.  Oh, so Maureen is asking about the direct referral, so I am actually going to share that link right now.  Okay.  Well, I will have to share it in a second.  My screen just froze, Maureen.  I'm sorry.  So we are still taking direct referrals, so one of the things that's happening is we are getting a lot of e‑mails from providers that will say we are interested in the link, and we have sent it out.  We are still trying to get them sent out to more organizations.  
	If someone calls here, like we have had some calls, oh, I got a referral from my case manager at Comprehensive life, we helped walk them through what they need, what's going to be the requirements, what's the eligibility, and just to make sure that you know they are prepared, and then I ask them for their case manager's name and I share the link with them and let them know that we have talked with their client, and so Tacoma Community House, because they do work with a lot of people who maybe English is their second language, or maybe they are a little unsure how to access services like this, and they have been helping us get their documents together for their clients, too.  So that it's been helping get the process going.
	We have one apartment complex ‑‑ oh, sorry.  No, they do not need to be U.S. citizens.  We are not asking any questions about citizenship, immigration status, and we are not asking for Social Security numbers, either.  So the most important thing is they have to show that their income or employment was impacted due to COVID.  They do have the house ‑‑ the current household income needs to be 50% below AMI or below, and they need to live in the city limits and they need a lease or rental agreement and we do need permission to speak to their landlords.
	As soon as I can get it, I will get the link shared.  For the direct referral link, providers can either share it with their clients, they can share within the networks, or if they need to actually help their client through the process, they can do that as well.  And so, you know, any providers who reaches out or is interested in using it, we are not screening out providers based on what their mission statement is or something like that, so because I think that the work we all do is trying to help address disparities.
	So I think that's pretty much all I have for that update.  I will ‑‑ I do think that we will probably have to hold another lottery since we only had 563 households in that section, so I can't give any dates yet.  I think we need to go a little further in this process, but I can ‑‑ already we've got people who are telling us that they don't need the assistance anymore, so they declined services.  And we have had to decline some people because their applications actually increased their income since COVID 19 happened.  So, yeah.
>> Maybe you don't need to do a lottery if you have more resources than there is demand?
>> Well, you know, that's something that ‑‑ that's why I am like saying maybe on that one because I think as we get closer to that point we will see what everybody else's resources are at.  I think that we have been having weekly communications, so just knowing each week how to update and figure out what those next steps look like, so, yeah.  I feel like it's just a day by day and week by week thing right now.
>> A question from Megan Capes about what translation resources are available.
>> Oh, so if someone calls here, we actually have access to City of Tacoma's language line, and so what we can do is get their name and phone number and then we can call the language line and request for translation, and then they call that person on a three‑way call.
>> Have you guys ‑‑ are you guys advertising those translation resources and the fact that you are not requiring citizenship?
>> It is in part ‑‑ so basically everything, when we advertise it, it is advertised that way.  When you actually access the application link, there is a welcome message that pops up and says all of that, and also when it gets down to signing the disclosure it reiterates the fact that we are not asking for that type of information for immigration and citizenship status.  
>> So there was some comments about delaying use of these rental assistance resources until after the eviction moratorium has been lifted.  Has there been any discussion that you have heard from the funder giving you direction one way or the other around ‑‑
>> So that's something that we discussed early on, and so because we know that we really won't know about that eviction moratorium until the day comes, so we do have a date that we were planning on using these funds by, but we do have the ability to go back and revisit at that point what's going on.  So I would say that there is definitely the possibility for us to, you know, talk to the city about that, so we already pre‑addressed that, so it's definitely something we are expecting to talk about as we get closer to the end of this month.
>> Great.  Maureen, did you want to kind of focus in a little on the question about the direct referral?  I am not sure I can translate that well.
>> Yeah.  So the people ‑‑ so people of color can still apply for the direct referral.  Right now because we are going week by week, with MDC having available funds for Tacoma residents, it would be nice to ask someone who is not a person of color to try with MDC first and ask the direct referral to be open for people of color.  We will keep reevaluating what those processes need to look like, but right now there are definitely a little more resources than we are used to seeing for rent assistance, and I have noticed if you look at the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation page for their COVID‑19 funding, it seems like a lot of nonprofits have applied for some housing funds, and other people have told me also that they applied for rent assistance funds for their own clients within their organization, so I think that those funds might start to dry out and then we might need to ramp things up next month, so.
>> Yeah.  I think that one of the most helpful things that you can do, Yuni, when you have the space, is to really think through and share with us all of the questions and decisions and considerations around the racial equity.  Because this is a huge issue for everybody, and so I think the more examples we have of how to make this a fair and equitable process, the more it serves the common good.
>> Yeah.
>> And the more it begins to influence how we design ‑‑ I mean the county has $3 million on the table, and the city already in their actions around the CDBG is already putting reallocated CDBG and CB money into rental assistance, an additional 650,000.  So what have we learned?  What are the questions that need to be asked?  What did we learn?
>> Yeah.
>> And did we get where we wanted to go?
>> Yeah.  And that's why I feel like with this, time is definitely something that's beneficial on this.  One thing that I am finding is that we did start to get the calls of people, like, oh, my gosh, I just now heard about this rent assistance, but now the lottery link is closed, but thank goodness my case manager at KWA knew about this and referred me over.  And so it just shows that, you know, when it's a first come, first served, it's the first people who have access to the information, it's the people who know what resources are out there and how to find resources.  You know, there is all these networks where they can pass these resources through, but there is still a big amount of people who have given up on access to resources or, two, they don't know that they are there.  So I find that we are ‑‑ you know, we did get much busier with the direct referrals when the lottery link closed and it was a lot of, I just now heard about this.  
	What we are finding when we are working with ‑‑ like there is some Hispanic families that we have worked with, and when they have gotten through and they realized what the experience is like, they are then sharing with their friends and their neighbors.  And we have had a couple apartment complexes actually thanked us for being supervised support because they know they do have tenants that do no have the same type of documentation a lot of other people have.  Another thing it's a win when you can identify which apartments are willing to rent to people who may not have all the documents, too.  So that's been a great experience.
	And Tacoma Community House was really great at giving some insight and feedback on verbiage and how to kind of shape some questions, and so there is also someone from the Tacoma Human Rights Commission, also someone from the Immigrant and Refugee Affairs Commission that I have been working with just to help get some insight there.  And I have asked them ‑‑ I am inviting people to also provide feedback, too, because this is a learning lesson for all of us I think, and I agree, Maureen, it is something that needs to be shared, and so I do think that, you know, having the direct referral was very good for reaching people, and I think that we still have a bunch of people we need to figure out how to reach them.  Gerrit, I think you are muted.
>> I am going to figure out how to do video conferencing yet.  Jessica.  Jessica, are you on?
>> [Away from mic].
>> Let me go ahead and say that's a no.  So Mr. Huff, you want to give us an update on MDC's rental assistance?
>> Yeah.  MDC's energy assistance program has a little more than $300,000 in rental assistance that's been allowed by the Department of Commerce and released.  As of two days ago we had about 30,000 of that we have been able to commit.  But unlike the City of Tacoma dollars that Yuni's group has been working with, ours are a bit more restricted because they require the tie‑in to our energy assistance program, which does include the requirement for identification, those kinds of things.
	We are doing outreach to try to drum up more clients, working through the list that Yuni has provided as well.  And the biggest challenge, just as Yuni mentioned, is just working through all of the paperwork requirements to make sure that everybody has everything lined up.  We don't have a time limitation, so these dollars we can trickle out as we find the clients, but the challenge is folks are not necessarily feeling the ‑‑ because of the moratorium still being in place, there is not really that push and impetus to do things right now for a lot of folks, so we are working through that challenge just like the city did with its program.
>> Great.  Thanks, Rob.
>> Mm‑hmm.
>> And it looks like Sean Dennerlein with the Veterans Bureau is on the line.  Sean.
>> Okay.  Can you hear me?
>> Yes.  Welcome.
>> Sorry.  Yeah.  Thanks for having me, Gerrit.  I am sorry for the last‑minute joining there.  My team and I are actually the ones running the temporary care site, so things are a little bit busy.  But wanted to give you guys a brief update on the Veterans Bureau and what we are doing right now, so we have expanded our emergency rental assistance to be available to any veteran within our district status guidelines, regardless of AMI.  So we have gotten pretty gracious with that, and we are seeing a pretty big uptick in utilization, but kind of what Rob has outlined here is that we are ‑‑ from our case manager standpoint we are seeing a lot of folks who are navigating other government systems with unemployment insurance and all those things, and so, you know, priority for rent is pretty low.  And so we are trying to encourage veterans to get to us, get to us early, so that way we have a better grasp on the need rather than letting those bills stack up and making it a little bit more difficult to get those payments out.
	The county also has funded us through the CARES Act, an additional fund that has pretty much doubled what our capacity is, so with those dollars we are going to be even more gracious and we are planning to do more widespread assistance for multiple months and potentially even back payments there, expanding to mortgage assistance and the like.
	So that will be 80% AMI, and the county is still working through what our official dollar figure is on that, so that will largely drive our frequency of payments, so we are looking at doing one to three months, but, you know, when we get those final numbers that may expand or it may detract, and there is a lot of ‑‑ you know, that's sitting with our finance department right now.
	But those will be really gracious.  That's going to be regardless of discharge status, 80% AMI, but we are trying to get those dollars out and be pretty gracious.  We hope to have that up and running by June 1st.  Stay tuned.  I will send an update to Gerrit as soon as we know.  We have been meeting with the VA folks and VA‑funded programs to make sure we are integrated there to try to give those other programs some relief.
	And the county's logic here, basically these veterans are used to having these dedicated routes for them, all these programs, they are getting overwhelmed and burdened by an additional need, whereas those veterans are less likely to go over to the general public programs.  But we are also planning a coordination campaign and advertisement campaign to make sure that the veterans know that there is a dedicated route to them so they can go that route rather than trying to ‑‑ rather than having them go to these programs for these dollars for the general public.
>> Thanks, Sean.  Any questions for Sean?  All right.  I asked a couple of our funders to kind of give us a window into the future of rent assistance, prioritizations, when they want to see the funding come into the system, so Erica Azcueta with the Tacoma Neighborhood and Community Services Department, I saw you were on the line earlier.
>> I am here, Gerrit.
>> Great.  Welcome.
>> There haven't been any determinations on the additional funds that we continue to apply for.  Obviously rental is assistance is a topic that comes up because we anticipate that need won't go away and will probably increase.  We stay in touch with LASA to monitor how the program is going.  I want to openly apologize to Janet and Yuni for the overwhelming amount of phone calls and e‑mails they have been receiving from city staff.  They have been awesome partners.  Contracting program modification is something that is common for us, that folks that we fund are experiencing a shift in the way they operate their program, because a lot of people have reached out to us to see what we can do to move things around, and that's something that we know will probably happen with the rental assistance program we fund, especially with how fluid the COVID‑19 pandemic has been impacting the way we operate, well, everything.
	So we are staying close in touch like Yuni said to see if there are any changes that will needed to be made, and we will discuss that and communicate those to the group if that happens.
>> Cool.  Thanks, Erica.  And Jeff Rogers is going to give us an update on ‑‑
>> There is a question.
>> Erica, there were layoffs announced this morning in the newspaper in the city.  What's the situation?
>> For the entire city?
>> Pardon me?
>> For the entire city or ‑‑
>> Well, there were additional layoffs announced in this morning's paper that included things like the mental health, the Neighborhood and Community Services among others, and I wondered do you have any idea what those are and what the impacts are going to be on our efforts with homelessness?
>> Actually, Erica, can we ‑‑ are you going to be around a little longer, Erica?
>> Yes, I will.
>> Cool.  Why don't we loop into this when we do our government updates and just kind of wrap up the homeless prevention funding right now.
>> Okay.
>> Cool.  Jeff.
>> Yes.  Good morning.  What I can share, just be aware that we are used to sharing something and it changes not tomorrow, but this afternoon, so what I am sharing is tentative.  We are penciling everything in because there is a lot of people [mic cutting out].
>> We are losing your audio here, Jeff.
>> Sorry.  [Mic cutting out].  Our first round of applicants will be due next [mic cutting out].  There is $3 million penciled into that for [mic cutting out].  The conversation we are having today is potentially that this dollar amount will go up, so that's just a preliminary number.  It looks like that number may go up.  I would encourage agencies to apply, and we are building this ship as we sail it.  We currently have Share and Care doing a rental assistance program for us.  It's kind of been slow.  They are not getting the demand that we expected that they would get, so internally we are having conversations how we get the word out that this program is available.  Any advice that anybody on the call may, we would appreciate.  We are just trying to figure out the best ways to get the word to make sure that everyone is aware that these resources are available.
	And I will say we are waiting for this coalition to provide us feedback on how best to spend these CARES Act dollars.  The 3 million we have in this notice we put out are CARES Act dollars.  The money that Share and Care has are internal dollars of Pierce County's homeless program funding that the Pierce County Council decided to put out into the community for rental assistance.
	So, yeah, that's an update with our prevention, rental assistance program.  We are coordinating internally with our energy assistance program because people who qualify for the energy assistance programs also qualify for rental assistance and they have a chunk of money in the funds that they could use the same way that Metropolitan Development Council has their funding and we are coordinating with other departments who are everything rental assistance, because there are different groups doing that.
	Lastly there is a group of people in our department who are working on a plan that includes some funding for domestic violence programs.  That's been separated out and some other people are working on that, so there is some dedicated dollars for the domestic violence programs that will be coming out soon as well.
>> Great.  Any questions for the county regarding homeless prevention?  Cool.  Thanks for the update, Jeff.  Much appreciated.
	Okay.  Last week's meeting we spent some time talking about what we felt priorities were for the CARES Act funding for the county.  But also thinking beyond that a little bit.  All that information came to us, from our small group breakouts, and I plan to put something together, which I failed at, and Megan Capes and Rosemary Powers offered to do that work, and so they have brought all of that together and Megan is going to give us a little bit of an update on where things are right now.  Megan.
>> Hey, all.  It's good to be with you this morning.  For folks who don't know me, I am Megan Capes with DSA.  But I just dropped a link in the chat rather than screen sharing to view the Google Doc, just so ‑‑ yeah.  So Rosemary, wonderfully and amazingly, combined basically all of the conversations and went through all like the recordings and notes to compile a recommendation list to the county and about how they could use their CARES funding.  And then I went back through and edited it a little bit.  So just for ‑‑ just to let you know, page one is a letter explaining a little bit of overview about what is the coalition, what was this meeting in which we had for two hours, and like how can we be a resource to offer recommendations for how they could use their funding to support the needs of the community, not just in Tacoma, but around the county.
	And then there is a short list of the focus areas, youth shelters, safe parking lots.  We decided to split those because they were such ‑‑ even though they were in the same meeting, there was so much in depth that had to go in there.  As well as hygiene resources, equity in homelessness prevention, as well as behavioral and physical health resources.  Page someone an overview letter and an invitation to come and join and we want to be a part of the conversation as these fundings get allocated.
	Pages two through four are more like detailed analysis and working in what were some of the ideas and recommendations.  I really like getting things out in bold because as we know a lot of elected officials in governments, and even us right now, are taking in a lot of information.  [Laughs].  So making things really easily scannable, but also ability to come back and be looked at and read later for more information.
	So one big thing that we have done and added are some like online resources to links.  What I found with DSA and like offering recommendations to the city is that officials or even folks inside of government really like to look at what has worked in other cities to like address problems, so that gives ideas.
	So if there is anything that you have an idea or like a resource that we could link in here, like one example was with the unsheltered campers and the like urban campgrounds, we linked the Tent City USA report by the national [indiscernible] homelessness and poverty.  Feel free to look through this.  I can e‑mail this out to the coalition later for folks who are not on this call.
	If anyone would like to like do some work and help with the final editing or sending it out, please shoot me your e‑mail, or add your e‑mail to the thread, so that you can help us out.
	One of the big conversations that I wanted to have with you all was about strategy on like who should this letter be sent to.  Of course Pierce County, but I also ‑‑ I just want to make sure that we have support from the coalition to like send this letter on behalf of the coalition, so that's one thing.  As well as if this should be sent out to ‑‑ if there should be any following steps on strategy, maybe sending it out to the press.  Because I really, really think that some press allies like Matt Driscoll or KNKX or some folks with Crosscut that I have talked to would be really interested in this, because these ideas of how homelessness is something that's really hot right now, and caring for folks experiencing homelessness during this crisis.
	So if it was something, a direction, that we wanted to go, then my recommendation is that we maybe have some folks work on like a press release.  I want to hear your all's thoughts and what you think about this.  Thank you, Rosemary, and Gerrit.  It was a team that put this together.  [Laughs]
>> You are muted, Gerrit.
[Laughter]
>> It's not my day job.  So we do need a process of what to do with this letter.  You are right, Maureen.  I was trying to get some polls together, but I failed.  Apparently I can't put polls together or unmute myself successfully.
	So it sounds like we have a few more edits to make and maybe we can be ready to make some decisions about who to send it to beyond the county next week?  Does that seem too late?
>> We could ‑‑ one option could be using like the hand raising tool, and if we do want to vote today, that's something I have seen in other like decisionmaking meetings.  But I think the quicker this goes out, because isn't it due on the 20th, I think it should go out fairly soon, but I want to make sure everyone feels comfortable.
>> Well, I mean in a way I feel like we all kind of decided we were good sending it to the county, and does anybody have any objections to sending it ‑‑
>> Who decided we were all good?  I think I missed something.
>> Hello.  This is Rosemary.
>> Yeah, Rosemary, go ahead.
>> One of the things ‑‑ I don't know if everyone has had a chance to look at the letter, this just happened, but we were clear in it to say we are not a consensus group at this point.  These were ideas generated in conversation, and it may be without a process for some kind of decisionmaking around this, we all support all of these ideas, if that could be strengthened to indicate that this is a variety of things we think the county should at least take a look at.  There is not agreement about them, but some are highly prioritized in many of our conversations.  I agree with Megan this should probably go out sooner.  And we heard from the county that they are deciding about some dollars right away, so I would like it to happen as soon as it could.
>> So I still think we have a really critical process decision.  We agreed to talk about, to respond to Heather Moss' invitation to make recommendations on how the CARES Act money should be used.  I'm seeing this letter for the very first time right now because I clicked on the link.  So the first thing I see is that the description of the coalition is different from the description of the coalition that the coalition puts out.  Some of this stuff sounds petty, but over the long haul it isn't because we don't have like an executive committee or something.  And I don't ‑‑ I believe we do have time to get it right, and I think we are pretty close, but I still don't know what the process is for how we are doing this.
	And I think on the ‑‑ oh, God.  Something else that Gerrit had sent out, it was a question of are we ‑‑ if anybody says no ‑‑ I know, it was the THA letter.  If anybody says no, we won't sign on.  There are parts of this we don't agree with, and Gerrit went back, redrafted a section, sent it back to Michael Mirra.  Yes, we are getting other comments, we are getting a new draft, I will send that draft back to you to look at.  
	So a part of the discussion all the time has been how we preserve the integrity of the coalition as this open table, and how do we move to something that allows us to put our name on something.
	And I just think we got to get it as close to right as we can.  And part of that, if we are going to do a media thing, who speaks for the coalition?
>> Well, I for one am tapped and I have zero emotional or other energy to put into doing that work.  I am happy for someone to take that, that task, on to completion.  Theresa?
>> So I think these are all good points, but there is this immediacy to this.  I would ask that we put the letter out to the whole coalition.  I think they did an excellent job of making it clear this is not a consensus document, and I want it to get out to people as soon as possible.  I also think, if there is something like please put this description of the coalition in, that would be really easy to change, but I don't think we should wait until next week.  I think you should send your comments by Monday so we can get this out on Tuesday.  I don't think we should be limited by our weekly meetings.
	And that people should really understand that we are not asking them to sign on to all of the ‑‑ I mean you would have to be ‑‑ if you read it, you would know that no one is asking the coalition to say we 100% agree with all of these things, but we need to get it out right away.  It's been a lot of work for all of you who are engaged in it, and I want to support that getting out.  I think the media thing is a really excellent idea, and Maureen raises a good point that when we put things out to the media that say this is coming from this coalition, it is important that we be thoughtful about it.  So that balance between getting things done rapidly and getting them done perfectly is where we are right now, and I go for trying to aim for both speed and as accurate as we can, so Monday would be my recommendation.
>> I totally agree with you, Therese.  I think offering a soft deadline for people to offer feedback, so that we can get it sent, like with DSA, if the coalition didn't feel comfortable reaching out to the press I could connect with the housing working group and see how we can support boosting the work on this in that way, because we have developed some connections.  Yeah, so.  Also if not, that's cool, too.  [Laughs].
>> All right.  Any other comments?
>> In line with the notion that there is not necessarily going to be unanimity on every issue, it might be a good idea to include how many people in the coalition expressed support on whatever issue.  
>> Theresa?
>> I just think maybe that's something to think about going forward, but at this point that feels like it would just ‑‑ it would ‑‑ I don't think at this point we need to do that to get these recommendations out quickly, Al.  I think that that also means that people who didn't particularly ‑‑ if they go back over the transcripts it would be really hard to do, and if we start sending out that everyone voted on these things, it starts feeling like we are trying to go for a consensus.  These are just ideas that at least someone in the coalition thought were good for considering.  Sometimes it's not a bad idea to put that out there.  These are ideas.  They may not have popular support, but they may be just the idea that is needed.
>> Well, to be clear, I was not particularly thinking that this ought to be done with this particular message, but it appears to me if we are developing a process, and the process recognizes that there will be differences of opinion, we could essentially do like ‑‑ report the poll results when we send something out.  Otherwise, I don't think we have to do that.  It just occurred to me.
>> All right.  So looking at the chat, listening to you all, we are going to get any comments to Megan, Rosemary and me relative to the document by end of business on Monday, with the goal of having this out late Monday, early Tuesday.  Does that sound all right?
>> And then who speaks for the coalition?
>> It's written in the ‑‑ I don't think it comes from somebody.
>> If it goes to media.  Who speaks for the coalition?
>> I think the media campaign should probably be postponed at this point.  I think individual agencies could describe their own experience to the media and they would have that ability to do.  I hear your points really well, Maureen.  I think it really points to the need if do want to have the opportunity to say what kind of support different issues have, that we include that in a conversation that happens relatively soon about how do we maintain the coalition's flexibility that allows people who may not be able to take positions to be full participants in a group.  That's something I think is essential for us to maintain, is the encouragement that we have a collaborative working group rather than we have a consensus or advocacy policymaking voting group.  So that's a conversation we need to have about our differences, about what we think the coalition should be, and I think your points are really important to consider in that process.  I am willing to be part of such a conversation, but I think this is ‑‑
>> All right.
>> It has to go out soon.  So thanks.
>> So no media campaign.  This goes to the county with it clear that it's information collected from last Friday's meeting with some editing afterwards.  Excellent.  Thanks again, Megan and Rosemary, and Al and Maureen and Theresa, folks that are helping us do what we need to do in the right way.
	Government updates.  I saw Carrie on there somewhere.
>> Good morning, everyone.
>> Good morning.
>> Okay.  So I am going to report out on some questions that Maureen Howard sent me.  She had three questions.  One is about the shelter strike force.  The second one is shelter recovery, so, Maureen, imaging you mean the Temporary Care Center for Recovery?  And number three, the Puyallup site.  Number one is a shelter strike force.  So we are in the pilot phase of testing and contact tracings within shelters.  We started with a local shelter, and more info to come, but we have started, yes.
	All guests and staff that want to be tested got tested, and as we move forward will be tested.  Health Department does receive the results and notifies the individual tested.  Please remember that testing capacity and availability is based on supply chain and availability every liable testing methods.  So we have published a COVID‑19 public health long‑term testing and investigations plan, so I will send that out later today for my Friday updates.  It is on our website, though, if someone wants to look it up in the meantime.
	I am glad Sean is still on the phone.  I mean on the line.  This is about the TCC.  The Temporary Care Center is in partnership between Pierce County Human Services, and the Health Department.  Together we manage the facility and coordination of guest services to support, and the TCC is funded by the FEMA dollars.  So if anybody has questions, you can maybe put it in the chat box.  And maybe Sean can help me field those, field the answers to those questions.
	As far as ‑‑ I mean as for the Puyallup site, it's called Puyallup Temporary Emergency Location.  At the site, it is at the Puyallup Rec Center parking lot.  They have porta‑potties, they have handwashing stations, and the guests are allowed to shower in the recreation center, and they do have 24/7 security.
	Currently they have 13 tents, they have six cars and one RV in the safe parking lot area that is right there on site.  They also have ten rooms at a hotel.  TPCHD support staff, Daisy and David, that you all know, helped to coordinate services for MultiCare, CLR, Valeo, Greater Lakes Mental Health as well as Dispatch Health.  They do wellness checks at the hotel as well as at the camp, so they are there attached to the Puyallup DOC.  The Health Department's involvement, how this all started, was the City of Puyallup requested a handwashing station for the Temporary Emergency Location, so that was deployed, and the next request came from the Puyallup EOC to have the support at the Temporary Emergency Location.  Therefore, Daisy and David was sent there to help provide services, wellness checks, and it has been a really, really nice partnership between Pierce County Human Services now, John Barbee, and as we speak John Barbee and Naomi from the Health Department is talking with the Puyallup EOC and the City of Puyallup currently, so that's why John couldn't be on the call.
	But we continue, like I said, to meet with the EOC and the city, and we provide guidance, that's what we do.  The Temporary Emergency Location is what they call it, has been fully funded through the Pierce County Connected funds, the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation and the United Way Pierce County funding.  So I hope I answered your questions, Maureen, but that's going to be my update, and I will be sending out some information about the long‑term testing and investigation plan.  I will send that copy out today to the coalition.  And we also have contact investigation infographs, so I will send that out as well.
>> Thanks, Carrie.  Go back to number two.  So when the Unified Command Report talks about a Shelter Recovery Task Force, they are only talking about these temporary Health Department‑related sites, the quarantine and isolation?
>> Yes.
>> Okay.  All right.
>> That's the only one we have so far, so.  Okay.  Thank you, Maureen.  Thank you, Gerrit.
>> Wait a minute.  I want to know how you ‑‑ how we mirror what the Health Department is doing with the Puyallup site, which is basically an encampment, on other encampments across the county.  You've got two Health Department people there.
>> Mm‑hmm.
>> Applying to it, working, coordinating, all that kind of stuff.  How is that replicable?  I mean I think that's a good thing, so what do you need to replicate it?  [Laughs].
>> Well, the request came from the city itself.
>> Okay.
>> So I think we would work with the city.
>> Okay.  But it came from their Emergency Management piece?
>> The city requested it first, and then they sent it to the Puyallup EOC and then they sent it to Pierce County EOC.
>> Like we would need to go to ‑‑ I don't know where.  Gig Harbor city, I don't even know if they have an EOC or not.  Do all cities have an EOC?
>> As far as I know there is one in Lakewood, Puyallup and Tacoma.
>> Oh, okay.  All right.  Well, we can go to Lakewood.  Somebody who works in Lakewood, you could go to Lakewood and see.
>> Mm‑hmm.
>> Okay.  Thank you.  Thanks.
>> You are welcome.  Thank you for all your ‑‑
>> STUDENT:  There are some other questions, Carrie.  You are not off the hook yet.  Let's see.  From Kelly, has there been an updated process on testing, such as those working in the field and accessibility to testing?  What's the process?
>> Well, right now, like I said, it just depends on the availability and based on supply chain.  Right?  So as we get more supplies, then our investigations can increase.  But I will send out the document and in it it lists the plan based on the supply chain.
>> Cool.  That would be very helpful to have.
>> Yes.
>> I have zero sense of what's going on with testing in Pierce County.  I don't know if you use up every available test every single day.  I don't know if you don't have enough tests for people that are showing up with symptoms at the ER.  I don't know if you have a hundred extra tests every day and that you are arbitrarily choosing to use them for contact tracing, but also comprehensive testing of shelters.  I have zero window into what the realities of the decisions are relative to testing and testing capacity.  So I think that ‑‑ I think we are at a point where it's not just nosey to ask for that information, but it will actually be informative as we make requests.  It seems like a lot of things, as Maureen is pointing out, have to do with you have ‑‑ you don't get what you don't ask for, and I don't know how irritating it is to ask for something you have no capacity for.  It would be great to know what capacity you have so we know what we can ask for.
>> Well, what I can do is let me see if in next week's call we could get someone from the investigations team to be a part of the call and so they can answer a lot of your questions ‑‑ 
>> Sure.
>> ‑‑ in the testing phase and investigations.  How is that?
>> That would be excellent.  And just some of the philosophy behind some of it.  Honestly, it is completely befuddling as somebody that encounters a huge number of people that end up getting tested, I see people that ‑‑ you know, I showed up to the ER and they tested me.  Well, did you have any symptoms?  No.  But they said they test everybody in the ER.  Okay.  That's a little weird.  I get those narratives all the time and they don't seem to mesh with other narratives I hear, so.  Joy had a question.
>> So I am going to go circle back to what Maureen was saying.  So what are we doing for those folks that are on the river?  Is there no shower, handwashing thing set up out there?  Because I went about a month ago and it was just like mass chaos.  I mean, you know, organized mass chaos, but mass chaos.  So what are we doing for them?  And the second part of my question for you, I spoke to Kitsap County Health Department day before yesterday because I had a person in my own community ask me did I know what they were asking when someone tested positive for the antibody, and she had a phone call from Kitsap County Health Department, and I don't know if those folks are trained, but it's what's your birth date, what's your last name, where have you been, without explaining why we are calling, who we are, what we are going to do with this information, and, yes, you have a choice as someone who has tested positive for the antibody to not give information about the people that you are currently been around.  We are going to put that onus back on you for you to go tell those people, I tested positive for the antibody.  If you can answer both those questions, that would be great.  Thank you.
>> Thank you, Joy.  Good questions.  I am not the person to ask about the investigations and contact tracing questions, so like I said earlier I will get someone from that department or that team to be a part of the call so they can answer those questions.
	As we move into the recovery and resilience phase, a lot of your questions will come and will be directed to that group.  So unfortunately I can't answer your questions, but I know who can.
>> Thanks, Carrie.  We had a question from Theresa, I think.
>> Yes, you do have a question from me.  My question is I think there are so many people ‑‑ I hear it from everywhere, Gerrit's questions about the testing, how many tests there are, all of that.  I don't think it's just that group that wants to know that.  Even more useful than someone talking with our group, would be you hire an extra website person or an extra writer or whatever it takes, because I know things are moving really rapidly, and I want to say I have sent so many people to your website because it has a lot of great information.  I think for the most part you are doing the commendable job of getting the information out quickly and the e‑mails you are sending are really good, but to have something on your site, for not just providers, but for anyone who wants to understand better could go and see this is what they mean by not having enough testing, and it could be updated daily if you hired somebody to do just that.
	Also the answer ‑‑ I want to see a place where people can go and look at what you are doing with that Stability Site that you are the ‑‑ the emergency site.  Because if we don't share that information, it won't be replicated.  So something easily understood, really clear, out on your website, right away, would be the perfect solution more than coming ‑‑ than that perp coming to talk with us.
>> Theresa, will you please send me an e‑mail with what you are requesting, and then I will get that to our communications team.
>> Sure.
>> That's it.  Thank you.
>> All right.  I think I got all the questions out of the chat, so thanks so much for the update.  Ivan, did you have anything else from the Emergency Operations Center?
>> Yeah, Gerrit, I can do a real quick ‑‑ it's just a real quick EOC brief, no major changes, but just for ever one's awareness.  I heard someone asking about test kits.  Our operation section provided 100 test skits, CHI [mic cutting out] as well as performed a prevention education visit as a long‑term care facility.  At our community branch we delivered results to individuals who were tested at the shelter site recently.  Deliveries continue through the end of today.  Coordination and planning continue for the sanitation and hygiene sites located at Sprinker park.  CARES Act notice of funding availability is out and applications are currently being received.  The task force continues to work on [indiscernible] and work continues with shelters and service providers to move to recovery planning.  We continue to support operations at the temporary care site, which began operations April 8th.  To date that site has served 20 guests.  And our logistics section in the EOC received eight pallets of PPE from Department of Enterprise Services for tier one orders.  Currently we have two pods sitting out in the parking lot to expand our storage capacity in the EOC as we continue to receive supplies and distribute them according to DOH guidance on the warehouse.  In fact staff are offering delivery to some end users as well.
	And then a real quick plug for being very proud of the Trauma Resilience Team, a division of the Medical Reserve Corps out of the Tacoma‑Pierce County Health Department, who provides support to local organizations involved in the response.  Yesterday they delivered the presentation to United Way volunteers and it was well‑received, 20 participants on that training and webinar.
	If anyone on this call is interested in receiving that support for your organizations, you can meet with Carrie or myself offline or Gerrit as well.  Thank you, guys.
>> Thanks, Ivan.  We are kind of running short on time so you know how to get ahold of Ivan.  His e‑mail is on the agenda.  Valeri, any other updates from the county?
>> No.  I think Jeff covered all of them today.
>> Cool.  And exciting to see more resources coming on line all the time.  I would love to hand it over to Erica, and I think a couple things I was interested in, Erica, that I had sort of shot an e‑mail about, were, again, the changes in staffing at the Neighborhood and Community Services, and kind of planning around the movement of TEMS from MLK to east Tacoma.
>> So there was a presentation on TEMS, an update that was made last Friday at the special council meeting at 2:00 P.M.  I can send a copy of the presentation that was made to anyone who wants it, or I can send it to you, Gerrit, and you can send it in followup notes.  
	That was done by my director, Linda Stewart, gave an update of what that's going to look like, and the presentation has a prospective timeline and budget in it.  If there is any followup questions, let me know.  There will be ‑‑ it is going to council on Tuesday for approval of the lease agreement because the property that we are wanting to use is owned by THA.  So you can sign into council on Tuesday to hear more about that.  There will be more information provided during that time.
>> Could you answer a couple questions about it now?  I saw in that presentation ‑‑
>> I can try my best.
>> It said 800,000 to a million dollars, but it doesn't have a time period.  Is that an annual budget?
>> Prospectively right now we are looking toward the end of the year.
>> Okay.  So that would be 800 to a million to operate it through the end of December.
>> That's correct.  And that includes setup costs.
>> Right.  And there was a question about shower facilities.  They are heavily connected with the Recovery Cafe and using their facilities.  Is there a similar plan over there?
>> We are hoping to have those facilities available to them on that site.  I mean obviously.
[Talking simultaneously]
>> The prospective site obviously is pretty far away from the Recovery Cafe, so those contractual negotiations are happening right now, and so when all of those things are kind of decided and secured, then we will have our answers for you then.
>> All right.  Cool.  And the staffing at Neighborhood and Community Services?
>> Yeah.
>> I was totally shocked that something where we are throwing millions of dollars into housing, homelessness and human services, I was rather surprised that at least two staff in that area, that I work with around homelessness, are being furloughed.
>> It's not furloughed.  Temporary.
>> They are not working for the next month.
>> Yeah.  There was something in the paper that indicated not just our department, but all the other ‑‑ a bunch of other departments are being impacted as well.  I think a lot of people have seen that the city will be experiencing some significant revenue impacts, and this is just one the ways that we are trying to address that.  I do want to stress that there is coverage in our department, and for all of the funded providers out there just know that we still have the operations to make sure that everyone will receive their payments through our contracts.  We will have staff available if you have any questions about it.  So there will be coverage.  Of course we will be absorbing some extra work, so there may be delays in response time and we ask for some grace as those things happen, but we do have coverage in our department to make sure those operations still continue.
>> Great.  Thanks for the explanation.  Do we have a sense if that is going to be the first round of many, or that it's going to be somewhat temporary?  Can you talk a little bit about that?
>> So we do have right now the ‑‑ in the paper it says May 11th to June 22nd.  I think we are going to see what our revenue really looks like for the rest of the year, and then we will know more, but this is kind of what we are working with right now.  The situation is very fluid, but this is a way we are operating for now.
>> There is a question about the TEMS budget, and about ‑‑ if that has to be approved by the council. 
>> I hate it when I mute and unmute and I start talking.  I am so sorry.  Yes, council does have to approved the budgets.
>> All right.  And ‑‑
>> I have a question for Erica.  I guess like the budget like personally just seems really high for this, and I think that's partly because of wanting the desire for 24/7‑staffed facilities.  Is there any ‑‑ is the city looking into alternative options that are not 24/7‑staffed?  Because I don't think that everyone experiencing homelessness needs that.  [Laughs].  Yeah.  So, and it seems we could be serving folks without the high cost.
>> I don't think that that's something to explore.  I think the approach isn't saying that everyone needs that, but we do want to make sure that the individuals living there feel safe and that they feel that there is someone staffing there.  So that's kind of one of the avenues that we want to make sure that when people move in they know that there is someone working there all the time to support them, so that's the strategy that we are looking to employ.
>> Did I ask the question about if the council has to approve that funding, or is it something that's already allocated?
>> Everything goes to council, all of our initiatives will always go to council, just standard operating procedure for us.
>> All right.  And we are so near the end here.
>> Erica is here.
>> All right.  Two quick questions.
>> So but council didn't actually approve like the rental assistance program.  They were briefed on it.  And it seems to me that there are times when existing contracts get ‑‑ I don't know the rules, and I don't know what city council has to approve versus being briefed on, and what county council has to be approved versus what the county executive's authority is.  I am not looking for an answer right now, but I think that that would be information that would be really helpful to us going forward so we know where to be good advocates and how to be better advocates.
>> Okay.
>> Gerrit, I have a question.
>> All right, Al.
>> I am not sure who it's too.  Probably Erica and maybe Jeff or Valeri.  It strikes me that we are going to have a wave of budget short falls in various governmental units around here, and I am wondering if there is any way that we can establish some kind of a connection between the homeless coalition and I guess it would be human resources or something, to have some kind of early warnings when that's possible and have a chance to say whether that's really going to screw things up that we are trying to do.  Or to help minimize getting screwed up.  Is that a clear enough statement?
>> Erica?
>> Yeah.  I think I need some clarity to be able to provide guidance, if you don't mind, Al.
>> Are you saying you would like to know ahead of time ‑‑
>> I am not sure whether it's even feasible, but if it's possible to have some kind of early warnings when layoffs have to come that impact human service providers, that we have some kind of way of knowing and being able to give input.  If there is going ‑‑ if a particular layoff is going to do a lot of damage to the network.  I don't expect an answer to that right now.  I just raise this issue because I think we are going to be facing it several times.
>> All right.  We are a hair over 11:00, and I think I am going to go ahead and wrap us up without any shelter updates.  I think that there is an awful lot of shelters coming online and motel programs that are kind of being developed, so hopefully we will be able to spend a little time next week on that, although I see Luiz just turned his camera on.  Did you have anything you wanted to toss in.
>> No.
>> When are you opening up for women at the Rescue Mission.
>> We hope to before the month is over.
>> Very cool.  I am going to try to focus next week a little bit around what's going on with the shelter and motel options.  There could be another dozen organizations, eight, ten, within the county providing motel vouchers and things like that, so it might be useful to know what those are so we can direct folks if they are targeting specific populations.  I am thinking of funding from the county and funding from the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation.  So I will get to work on that, and I opened us up with a census video and I am going to close us down with the census.  I continue to be eager for all of you to reach out to people.  I am sure all of you have absolutely indicated to the federal government how many people in your house and the other nine questions that you have to answer as part the census, but give your mom or cousin a call and just remind them about how important it is because without all of us counting, we get fewer of the federal resources that are coming in to serve folks right now.  Because it's all about the money, money, money.  Isn't that a good end?  I thought that was a good end.  Thanks, everybody.
[End of meeting]