REALTIME FILE

Meeting ‑ CCSWW Tacoma‑Pierce County 
Coalition to End Homelessness

Friday, June 5, 2020

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>> Well said, well said, indeed.  As we start off this week's meeting, it is hard not to feel the weight of our racist society and have that melt into a lot of the work we will do.  How do I bring us into this meeting?  What do I say?  A friend said, well, Gerrit, as a white man, maybe you should just shut up and listen, with that I hand it off to elder Montgomery.
>> Good morning, everyone, and I hope I can put some things in perspective.  What Gerrit has asked me to do is very weighted responsibility.  I know each one of us has to cry when we see the angst of the young girl of the video he played.  From a place of reality I have been in her shoes.  Growing up in Mississippi.  But let me put some things in perspective, and this is specifically for the collaboration.
	Since March, COVID‑19 put us in a very perplexing situation.  But with good leadership and strong management teams and having systems in place to effectively collaborate we are able to continue to serve our community, and in the end we are serving our community by addressing the needs of the homeless, and we are able to do this because we have been equipped with some tools called empathy, being one of the most important.  And it demands a level of transparency and honesty.  So that our jobs can get done.  And I will say that coming out of COVID‑19, when we began to open up, as a collaboration we will come out better, more proficient, more efficient, as serving the people of our county.  Because we have systems and teams and management and leadership that equip us to do our work efficiently.
	As we consider ‑‑ and COVID was a global ‑‑ impacted us globally.  It put as in a position as a world, as a people, that we have no history precedented, we have nothing in history, no book we can read, we have nothing to tell us how do you deal as a people when you are impacted like this globally.  Especially when you are connected like this, the way that we are connected in this hour.
	And statement COVID put us in this position, here we are today, black people are dying at the hands of law enforcement.  It also has hit us very hard, and it also is a global issue.  And unbeknownst to any of us, on March the 3rd, here in the City of Tacoma on 96th and Ainsworth, Manuel Ellis was also according to the medical examiner killed by the police.  They have his death certificate as death by homicide.  But we come to the table today because of the global impact that the George Floyd murder Ahmaud Arbery, Breanna Taylor, and if you all would allow me, the lady in Central Park who was walking her dog and when a black man encouraged her to leash her dog, she felt so empowered that she could call the police, that they would come and effect her will upon this black man.  She felt the police was so much her partner that she could do wrong and be encouraged by somebody to do right, the police would empower her in her wrongness.
	We are in an interesting day, and I just want to say to us, that this has made our job more difficult because it's obviously wrong that's done by trusted community partners called law enforcement.  We trust law enforcement.  I say to us, it is right for us to be confused.  It is right to be angry.  It is right to demand justice.  It is right to demand accountability.
	I am reminded of the scripture that says, be angry, but sin not.  It is right to be offended, but it is not right to offend others with your anger.  So with open and honest communication that we have learned from our homeless training, we should be able to have these communications, conversations.  We can have the hard conversations that have been passed on to us by our forefathers who would not have these conversations, who passed on to us a heritage of hatred.
	I say to us as a collaboration, even though we are small, we have been equipped with some tools that can make us the catalyst for change.  We are a tool to converse, we are a tool to look people into their eyes and try to probe into their deep places asking the hard questions, and being honest enough with them so we leave the conversation with everyone better, we leave with a plan.  I say to us that here we are just as we are going to come out of COVID better, even though we have tears in our hearts and confusion and perplexity in our mind, if we ‑‑ as we do this right, we are going to come out better.  We are going to come out because we are going to trust each other better.  We are going to ‑‑ when we can, we are going to embrace each other better, more honestly.
	And on that I just want to say to us that there was a narrative that comes out of COVID called social distancing, and I hope ‑‑ you know, I totally understand what is being conveyed to us, but I want us to not totally accept that narrative.  Not that I am trying to change anything, but let's be honest.  We need social gathering.  We need physical distancing for us to be safe.  We need to physically distance, but we need social gathering.  Curt Franklin has a song that says I need you, you need me.  We are all a part of God's body.  We need social gathering.  Let us be open enough and honest enough to gather socially, and this is one of those ‑‑ Gerrit, I am humbled that you would ask me to do this.  I really feel the weight of it.  But I don't shy from it because this is very serious.  For me this is death and life.  And I just want to share with you all just ‑‑ I am going to say this and then I am through talking, Gerrit.
	I oftentimes tell groups that the greatest gift that my parents and foreparents and then before them, the greatest gift that they gave to their little black children in the south was when they had the opportunity, and some would say they had the responsibility, to teach us to hate, they didn't.  They taught us not necessarily to love, but they didn't teach to us hate.  They taught us how to forgive.  They taught us how to deal with the most difficult hatred, the most difficult systematic pain.
	And because we were able ‑‑ because we dealt with it, even in tears, we actually come out better.  Because had sewn us in hatred, because they did not heat us hatred and we did not learn hatred, and I say this to the [indiscernible] hatred entered into our hearts.  Let us use the tools we have been equipped with.  We are blessed to have a very powerful leadership, very powerful teams in the persons of Catholic Community Services and Associated Ministries, and the other collaborative agencies.  We are blessed.  Let us take this, let us be proud, let us be honest, let us be empathetic, let us come out of this better.  We have the tools.  God bless you all.
>> Thank you so much, elder Montgomery.  I appreciate you.  If you are not familiar with the work that elder Montgomery is doing, it is worth getting familiar.  It is going to make a difference for a lot of folks.
	I got a super, super, super packed agenda today, so I am excited as we flow through it.  We have added a few things since I sent the agenda out.  I got a quick little poll for you.  I don't know necessarily when you first realized how racist of a world we live in.  I myself was a little bit late to the game I would say, so I was just curious if other people recall when they sort of first came to the truth about how racist of a society and how discriminatory of a society that we live in.  So while we are doing that, I am going to hand it off to state representative ‑‑ I am going to screw your name up, Beth Doglio.  I asked if she could talk a little bit, kind of about what things are happening with the state relative to COVID‑19.  Just kind of a short update on where they are and where they are going.  So if I could hand it over to you, Beth.  You need to unmute there, Beth.
>> Sorry about that.
>> Perfect.
>> Thank you for your very, very important words this morning.  Really appreciated hearing from you.  It's a hard time that we are living in, there is no question about it.  There is no manual about how to be a leader.  When we have so many things that have come together to create a significant amount of rightful indignation and unrest in our communities.
	I did want to take just a quick second, you mentioned Manny Ellis and his death at the hands of a Police Department.  I think there should be an independent investigation into that murder, and so the governor does have the authority to ask the Attorney General for an independent investigation.  I would hope that ‑‑ and the Tacoma City Council is actually addressing that I believe today at a city council meeting, but it would be helpful to call the governor and request that specifically, and his number is 360‑902‑4111.  It's absolutely essential that that be an independent investigation.  Independent criminal investigation.
	So thank you for all of the work that you are doing in your community to make sure that people have housing.  I actually am prepared to talk a little bit about what we did last session, and I think in terms of where we are with COVID we are very ‑‑ as a legislature, it is very unclear whether we will come back into special session.  There is not agreement around that.  But I think that we will be doing everything possible to protect housing funding and social safety net, the essentials, to make sure that people have the means to continue moving through this economy, which is very compromised right now.
	I did want to take a few minutes just to update people on some of the things that we did do last session.  And I will say one very positive thing around the state budget, the capital budget is not terribly impacted by the downturn in the economy, so all of the investments, I think, you can't hold me to this, but I am thinking that all of the investments that we made in the capital budget, which over the last four years we have put $288 million into the housing trust fund, and this past session we expanded that to address shelters.  That was something that was very important to my community.  I serve in the Olympia‑Lacey‑Tumwater district, district 22, and our city has really stepped up to make sure that people have immediate shelter.  You know, ultimately the goal is to get people into long‑term shelter, so we actually did provide some additional funding this year, and I work really hard to try to get a pot of money to help shelters, you know, improve facilities, and also just, you know, maintain and continue forward.  Because a lot of shelters are struggling throughout our state.  And many communities don't even have shelters.
	So that was a big issue, but there was also a significant amount of money put into other different pockets in the housing trust fund this past year, a record $175 million in the capital budget.
	So I also wanted to call your attention to the bill 1590 thy prime sponsored and moved across the finish line this year, which does allow local municipalities to vote council on a small sales tax that will help local governments to house for 60% below the AMI and 40% can be used to address mental health issues in the community.  So this is something that Olympia did via the vote of the people, all right in statute.  We had that ability to do that, to take that vote.  And took my community who is in a severe crisis, just like many communities across this country, three years from start to finish to actually move those dollars forward, and once it got in front of the voters it passed overwhelmingly, by over 60%.  I felt like we elect our council members, we are in a crisis with housing, council should have the ability to either take it to the vote or to do that councilmanicly.  That is something that are the Tacoma ‑‑ I did work with members of the Tacoma City Council on helping to get that bill across the finish line, so that is a tool that is open to them right now.
	Also just wanted to talk about another bill that may change some of the work that you are doing in your communities right now.  We reformed the property tax exemption, so low income units, when they are serving ‑‑ well, 50% AMI and below actually get a property tax exemption.  We moved that up to 60% to be more consistent.  And then the other thing is you have to do a yearly survey, a nonprofit housing provider needs to do a survey, and now you only have to do that survey every three years, and so you will continue to get that property tax exemption even if the person's income rises, which is what we want.  We get people into affordable housing, and we want salaries to go up, income to go up, but what happens ‑‑ unfortunately what was happening under our old law was that the nonprofit housing lender had to pay that property tax exemption because the salary had gone beyond the 50% threshold.
	So that is a law that should have our nonprofit lenders spending less on taxes and more on actual services for the people that you all are providing services for, so very excited about that.
	I am also excited about our mobile home park work that we are doing to help mobile home parks become cooperatives.  This is a tool working with the Northwest Cooperative Association.  It's a really neat model.  They become a co‑op, and the state has some funding available.  We put a little bit of money in because sometimes it doesn't quite pencil out for the residents to bond together to purchase the land of the mobile home park, so there is a little bit of money available at the state level to do that if you are finding that in your community.  That is a tool now that you have, and that does put those mobile home parks into permanent affordable housing, low income housing, in perpetuity.  So another great tool. 
	Those are some of the things that we did and tools that are available for your community right now.  I want to talk quickly about housing supply and eviction reform.  We moved that from three days to 14 days.  That was an important thing.  And then we came back because the landlords were sort of going around that law, and we came back and fixed that.  It seems so reasonable that people have more than three days to figure out what their next step is if there is an eviction.  Of course we are ‑‑ the governor has extended the eviction ban moving forward, and I don't know when that will be lifted, but that still is in place, which is a really important thing for all of our communities. 
	Housing supply, we have done a lot of work to try and encourage more development, make housing, because we have such a shortage of supply, we have tweaked the laws a little bit to try and make our housing more dense, and also sort of, you know, a little bit more streamlined around the permitting process for our communities to work on some zoning changes that allow for less expensive development and also more dense development. 
	So those are the couple of updates from the legislature, and we have a really great housing team in the Democratic House Caucus, and I'm sure that the legislature will continue to do good work in this in partnering with all of you.  But please feel free to reach out to my legislative office if you have any needs, or things that you want to work on or really important budget items that you are nervous are going to go away because we will be cutting the budget, please reach out to me. 
>> Thank you for that update, and thank you for your service to the community.  Some of you probably know Beth has also put her hat in for the federal representative ‑‑ I don't know if I said that right.  And so hats off for throwing yourself into the melee one more time.  It's a packed field, soon, we, again, appreciate your service. 
>> Thank you. 
>> We have a new shelter provider that has taken some time out to come and talk a little bit about the work that they are doing.  Altheimer Memorial Church is one of the sites operating a temporary emergency shelter for families, and Pastor Clark agreed to come and just tell us a little bit about what they are doing.  I think we want to listen mostly from the side of what we can do to support their work, so Pastor Clark. 
>> So, hi, everyone.  Actually Pastor Clark will not be in the meeting at the moment, so I will be doing the presentation for the shelter.  My name is Kendra Jenkins, the administrative assistant here at the church, and I bring greetings on behalf of Pastor Clark as well as the family here.  We are an overnight shelters for families with children.  We take in families through referrals and call‑ins.  We opened our doors on February 27th.  Each family in our shelter has their own room, access to Internet, computers, and now we have laundry services.  They do get hot meals every day, all prepared by one of our church members who does have her own catering business and bakery.  We have been blessed to have several other organizations, agencies, churches, to donate things like clothe, toiletry items, baby and essential needs and things like that, but we couldn't do what we do without the amazing core group of staff and volunteers that we have, so a great big thank you to United Way for listing our shelter on their volunteer website. 
	Much like every other overnight shelter, we did have to adjust our hours from 12 to 24 when the state order went into effect.  We did initiate cleaning guidelines to reduce exposure to the staff, volunteers and residents.  I am happy to say we are able to remain COVID‑free, which is an awesome thing when you have this environment and everyone in and out, so we have maintained a COVID‑free environment. 
	Once the Stay Home, Stay Healthy order was lifted on May 31st, we did have to return to a 12‑hour schedule, but instead of 7:00 to 7:00, we did 11:00 A.M. to 7:00 A.M.  They only have to be out for four hours.  As of last night we have been able to return to our 24‑hour schedule, so we are back to being 24 hours.   
	Since we opened in February, we have had two families move out due to securing their own housing, and one more family from what I heard last night should be preparing to move into their own place next week.  
	Our shelter has a maximum capacity of 11 rooms, so we are able to house 44 individuals, 11 families.  Since we are new we are having to learn who or what different service providers are, as well as contact persons for each.  If there aren't any other questions for you, I want to thank you for allowing me this time to share a little bit about the shelter with you all.  GMAC does stand for Give Me a Chance, so that is the actual name of the shelter.  GMAC Overnight Family Shelter.  Any questions for me?
>> Sounds like you guys are crazy put together.  Are there some other services that you are kind of struggling to get?
>> Well, one of the things that we did not have in the beginning, and I don't think we full will he thought about it was case management services, but what we have, what is great, those residents that came to us on referral, they have been able to maintain the case managers that they had prior to coming to us, so a lot of them have done that, but MDC has been gracious enough to step up and basically offer case management to our shelter residents.  We did get that agreement done, but of course COVID happened, so we haven't been able to go back to everyone being able to have those case management services done on site, but that is coming. 
>> Cool.  I don't see any questions.  I know that you definitely sent at least one request out onto the LISTSERV, so you know how to track down this amazing set of folks if you find yourself needing anything.  I got a question from Theresa. 
>> I want you to know there are some questions in the chat, so maybe those people could unmute and ask them. 
>> This is Joy.  Can you say one more time, Kendra, your capacity, and if you have room right now, if there is capacity right now?  What's your total capacity and what do you have available?
>> Our total capacity now is 11 rooms.  We have expanded to open up the last four rooms that we have.  As of right now we do still have three rooms that are open.  All of rest of them are full. 
>> So there was a question, which was and how do we make referrals to you. 
>> So far what everyone has been doing is just calling me here at the church, which is 253‑572‑6751. 
>> How long can the families stay there?
>> They are actually stay up to our six‑month window, but we so far have not had too many people have to do ‑‑ we don't expect everyone to maintain and stay for that six‑month period. 
>> What's the name of your church again?
>> Altheimer Memorial Church of God and Christ.  We are located ‑‑ we are in the Hilltop area right behind Bates Technical College on Yakima. 
>> Dr. Power‑Drutis. 
>> [Laughs].  So are there any requirements around any sort of religious requirements around staying there?
>> No ma'am.  We don't require anybody to practice or attend services. 
>> Will you be closing after six months?
>> No ma'am, no ma'am.  Pastor Clark had a nudge and he believes he is in it for the long hall. 
>> Is that open to all the ethnicities?
>> Yes, ma'am. 
>> Gerrit, one more question. 
>> Yes. 
>> So, Kendra, thanks for coming on. 
>> Yes. 
>> So you are not operating under the city's temporary shelter, but you are now a regular emergency shelter operation?
>> We are only regular or I guess what you consider regular being 24 hours through this duration with COVID going on.  When we initially did our contract and we initially opened we were only a 12‑hour overnight shelter.  So once all of this kind of calms down and everything kind of opens back up, we will be returning back to our 12‑hour schedule. 
>> But you've got ‑‑ your permitting is such that you are not under the city's temporary permitting process?
>> Oh, no ma'am. 
>> Great. 
>> This is Tiegan, I am going to step in.  Actually they are under the temporary shelter ordinance, that is correct. 
>> Well, thank you, Tiegan.  I am learning. 
>> Sorry, Kendra, to interrupt.  Wanted to make sure the question was clear. 
>> Thank you so much.  I thought she was talking about overnight emergency versus all day.  Thank you for clarifying.  I appreciate it. 
>> So, Tiegan, they will need to be re‑upping after six months and they can stay operational under this for up to a year if they get that additional six months, am I right?
>> Yeah.  The current six months of the contract, it ends in August for the first six months of the permits.  We are in the process of applying for the extension right now.  So that process is under way, so they can continue through into next year. 
>> Yep. 
>> In an ideal world our churches would not have to provide these services.  It would be done by professional organizations.  However, almost every one of our professional organizations, shelters, et cetera, started with a church, so this is the dawn of something perhaps long‑term. 
>> Kendra, do you have a website?
>> The church has a website.  I am in the process of working on one for the shelter, but it is amcogic.com is the church's web side.  Like I said I am working on one for the shelter. 
>> What's the physical location of the actual shelter?  Is it in the church on in the neighborhood somewhere?
>> Correct.  So the way the church is set up we do have our annex building, so next to the main sanctuary that is attached, and that is where all of the rooms and the shelter resides.  We are at 1121 South Altheimer Street. 
>> All right.  There was a comment from Todd saying maybe in an ideal world every church would be participating in a ministry like this.  So, yes.  Thank you so much.  We are going to shift over to a group that I invited to come speak.  It's a technology company.  They will probably fill us in a little better, called Unite Us.  And they put together a tool to help track referrals better.  This is something that I think it's being used in a number of communities across the country, and as being ruled out with I think the leadership from some of our health providers in King, Pierce, Thurston, Snohomish.  I am going to get it all wrong and they are going to correct me.  I thought it would be of interest to us as a way.  I know there are some ways we track referrals within our community from one agency to another, and I know that that system is not terribly uniformly used and there are frustrations with it.  So I thought, hey, let's find out more about another option and ways that our agencies can connect in with Unite Us.  It looks like they got their presentation all cued up.  Here is the baton. 
>> Thank you so much, Gerrit.  My name is Gracious Gamaio, pronouns she/her.  I am a community engagement manager here at Unite Us.  Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be here with you all on your tight jam packed agenda.  I am the point of contact for the Unite Us Washington network.  I am locally based here in Sea‑Tac and prior to joining Unite Us was working at a nonprofit in the South King County area working on community health worker programs and mobile health. 
	Most recently I focused on program evaluation and I am looking forward to learning from you all today and being able to share information.  I am joined by my co‑host, Molly Blumgart, and I will give her the opportunity to introduce herself as well. 
>> Hi, everyone.  Molly Blumgart.  I am the national deputy director at Unite Us, pronouns she, her, hers.  I am based in New York City.  I have been working at Unite Us for almost three years now, and kind of similarly to Gracious came from a background in a nonprofit work, specifically focusing on public benefits access, SNAP enrollment and also with the rollout of the ACA public health insurance enrollment, as well as anti‑poverty and workforce development programs. 
	And I will kick it back to Gracious. 
>> Today we want to make sure that we answer any questions that you have, so please as we are going through our presentation f anything comes up that's a little bit unclear, please do flag us in the chat box below.  If you are not already familiar with Zoom, even though this is probably your hundredth meeting even today, you can have that show up on your screen by clicking on the bottom tool bar and activating chat.  From today's presentation I hope that you all take away a shared vision of what we mean when we talk about the network that we are working on in Washington.  Also who is involved, our funding partners and our work, so providing you all with information there.  And then Molly will be providing a software demonstration so that you can get a sense of what the platform looks like.  Ultimately we want to be able to provide information on how you all can get involved, so at the end we will provide those next steps. 
	And so taking a step back providing you all with information about Unite Us, we are a tech company and we are started in 2013.  Our co‑founders are both veterans, and in the process of transitioning out of active duty they were experiencing challenges navigating the health system and supportive health services.  From my background in community programs this is not anything that's surprising to me and for many of you all you are probably thinking that, yeah, it's very common, hard for communities to access these services when it is not made for the community to access services. 
	So in the process of doing this that's where Unite Us was born.  Our early networks were focused on the veteran population, military members and their family members, but we have since expanded to provide the infrastructure for these coordinated care networks in 36 states across the U.S.  So this means that we are partnering with different community organizations, government agencies such as those listed on the screen, and health systems to coordinate care for those in need. 
	I want to reiterate, we are not just a tech company.  We are partners on the ground.  We bring our background from community work to this and that's the lens that we use.  It's all about learning from you all about how this would look like in Washington and being able to have a community‑wide approach. 
	So while we bring best practices and lessons learned from our other networks, we take the lead to understand how we may do this work together here in tandem in Washington.  I want to take a step back, get some leveling out here and talk about what we mean when we say a coordinated care network.  Our vision is it's community centered and based, so that we are coordinating care for community members, which is at the heart of it all.  And our focus is on getting people connected to the right service, and being able to do this quickly and efficiently.  Our focus is also on service providers such as you all, and being able to save you time, and keeping in mind that you all already have existing networks and partners in place.  It's very evident here in the coalition.  We are supporting the work you are doing through electronic referrals and being able to connect each other.  Kendra shared, how do we connect to this work.  Oh, give me a call and we can talk that way.  Our platform makes it so you don't have to give phone calls to each ‑‑ for each referral and you all get an integrated view into what your client looks like, or what their care looks like.  So it's not just did this referral get accepted, but was the client, was the family that I connected, actually connected to that service.  What did it look like afterwards?  What other services did they get connected to so at that each organization has an understanding not only who am I serving at my organization, but how I am contributing to the community, what impact my organization has on the community and where can we as a community come together to inform the discussion and identify any areas where we may do better, and areas of opportunity. 
	And so lastly I did want to reiterate here that we are outcomes focused, so the vision here is to allow a place for everyone to track outcomes together.  So not just showing you like what happened at your organization, but what's ultimately the outcome of that referral.  So this is generating powerful data that's informing our community‑wide discussion, and like providing visibility into the client's care and into that integrated whole person care. 
	So with that, Molly will talk about what does it look like for Washington. 
>> Yes.  So we want to just outline what's going on right, so right now we are focused on the three counties you see here, King, Pierce and Snohomish, and talking with community partners across these counties about potentially participating in the network, what this would look like for them, and then actually providing access to the software and getting this off the ground. 
	We are also ‑‑ we started in the veteran and military member space, so we are lucky that in Washington there is an existing network called Washington Serves that does focus on that population.  And then we will be billing off of those existing relationships and existing partners in the state.  So it will be all kind of one network.  Everyone together, those partners can refer to new partners coming on board and vice versa.  And then we will be growing across the State of Washington, so I will have some additional counties that we plan to launch over the upcoming months.  And then just the long‑term goal is to support a coordinated care network across Washington State. 
>> We do have amazing partners in this work, so I wanted to highlight out here.  At the core of what we do are our network partners.  These are agencies that have decided to participate in the network, either by sending and/or receiving referrals, updating client information as well as maintaining their profile so it's reflective of how they participate in the network.  I want to share here that our partners also guide the work that we do, so it's informing what are we doing well, where do we need to improve, as well as guiding our footprint.  So where may we expand to include more housing providers, more substance use providers, more food assistance program, so you all are partners on the ground in this work. 
	And so our network partners and the relationships Wenatchee here are very crucial to the work that we do, and we often get asked, what does it mean to participate as a partner, and I want to emphasize here that access to being a network partner is available at no cost to community‑based organizations and to most federally qualified health centers.  I wanted to get that out there so that's not a barrier to you all participating.  We often get asked what does it mean to participate, and honestly that's up to you all.  It's your lead about what participation looks like.  It can mean that you want to send referrals.  It can mean that you want to send and/or receive referrals, so we take your lead in determining how it looks for your organization.  It's not all your programs have to be within the network for you to participate.  You can decide I actually want to do a smaller like trial run and just do this one program with five employees at a time.  And we are happy to grow and scale out with you, so seeing how that's working for your existing work flows and where can we improve so that you can potentially roll out more programs.  And we understand that capacity does change.  We learned like six months, like this could change, so we are very versatile and flexible.  So if your capacity is changing and you realize that your eligibility requirements have changed, we are keeping that updated so that the eligibility requirements, your participation is up to date. 
	We do want to emphasize that you all are in control of how you participate in the network.  And then we also have funding partners, and these are groups that have catalyzed a creation of our network, and so funding access for community partners and providing strategic guidance.  Molly talked about the Washington work we do and we already have our veterans focus network, and this is funded by the west care foundation.  The broadening of the network in Washington State has been made possible by Community Health Plan of Washington, Kaiser Permanente and Northwest Physicians Network.   
	You may be thinking, do I have to be a member of these organizations to be a part, and the answer here is, no.  Our work and our participation, our services, are available to any community partner in need, any community member, so they don't have to belong to any of these funding partners or be members of any of these organizations to be involved in this work. 
	In King County I want to say we are partnered with HealthierHere, a community information exchange, in 2017, and so as part of the work to enable this whole person integrated care, and since then HealthierHere has convened more than a hundred clinical and community and tribal partners to develop a shared vision for what a CIE, or community information exchange, in King County may look like.  Their focus is having it be locally observed and managed by the community and to strengthen care coordination across clinical and community organizations using different technology platforms.  It is an important first step in being able to enable referral sharing and communication between organizations. 
	Recently HealthierHere was awarded funding from the King County vets, seven years and Human Services levy to lead a consortium, and planning and implementation of a regional CIO.  In the next coming months HealthierHere will be advancing this work in King County through an advisory board to assure the governance of the work is inclusive and represents multiple perspectives and interests in the region.  So we hope that you will also engage with them in this effort.   
	I did want to share here that we are also in partnership with Crisis Connections, which provides a direct phone line for community members.  Many of you are familiar.  So that community can get connected to resources.  Lastly, we are your partners on the ground.  Molly and I here to support you all, leading up to launch and after and learning about this is who is missing from the conversation, let's loop them in.  I am happy to provide an introduction.  Or, hey, this seems like we need to work a little bit more.  So learning from you all and how to best implement the network here.  Again I did want to call out, please leave any questions that you have, and Molly is making sure any questions you have will get answered. 
	I did want to provide a high level overview so you could start visualizing it.  Say, for example, you have a client, this is a common work flow for many of us, and in the process of working for that client you are a housing provider, and you identify that they actually have a food need.  Not only are you working with them around housing, but you are learning more about them.  Through this food need you as the housing provider may not provide that service, so as a network partner you are able to log into the Unite Us platform and be able to collect information about that client, such a who they are, how to get in contact with them and anything related to that food need, and log into the network and be able to say, okay, like who can I get them connected with, what eligibility requirements do organizations have.  This is work that you are already doing, but it's a new approach. 
	So through this network you are able to best figure out based on either proximity or program eligibility who would be a good partner to serve your client's food assistance need.  I did want to reiterate here that food assistance provider and everyone do not have to go logged into the platform at all times.  You receive an e‑mail notification once there is an action that determines your review or requires your review.  So, again, not every referral, you don't have to accept that.  We are mimicking real life where capacity is very dynamic, and sometimes you are able to accept and serve a client, sometimes you are not able to.  For our example today, we are able to serve this client, they would be able to then provide that food assistance care, and then, say, for example over the course of working with that client they identify additional needs.  This is our any door approach where that food assistance provider would be able to take that same approach, log into the network, create a referral, say for example for clothing, for education, and then they would be able to provide that same information and send it off to another provider.  In this case a primary care provider. 
	So this takes you through the whole entire work flow of one example, and now Molly ‑‑ I did want to talk about privacy and security.  This slide snuck up on me.  Different users, different partners, how are you maintaining privacy and security?  We want to highlight this is of utmost importance for every client, for every community, so we have been operating in two different ways.  
	The first is on consent.  On the front end it requires the capture of informed consent for every client that enters the network.  So this is in order to share their information with the partner or partners who will be helping them.  This consent is captured one time, and it lives on the client record.  So it is an event‑based consent rather than time‑based, and can be removed if a client requests to remove their consent from their records, so that information is not being shared moving forward. 
	This consent I want to emphasize does not replace the consent that providers already use to share information with other partners.  This consent form is specific to the use of the Unite Us software.  And so that's the consent part.  Unite Us applies with applicable law to maintain the privacy and security of clients' personal information.  This includes HIPAA, 42 CFR part two, et cetera.  What this translates to is us maintaining administrative, technical and physical control to ensure the safeguarding of clients' information from unauthorized access, use or disclosure.  We are regularly audited to make sure we are compliant with these very important standards and we take these very seriously. 
	Our permissions engine helps us determine which users have access to sensitive information, such as mental health, substance use, legal information and/or a shared record.  They would not be able to view or access this information, and this complies with standards such as 42 CFR.  Now I am going to shoot it off to Molly who will provide you all with more information. 
>> Thanks so much, Gracious.  Alrighty.  So I wanted to provide information around ‑‑ or examples rather of how organizations have used Unite Us in other communities, and I know that not all of you are housing providers in the room, but given the focus of this coalition, thought it would be helpful to provide an example of how a coordinated entry system in Oklahoma uses the platform alongside their work. 
	So in Tulsa they have adopted a coordinated entry program that they call All Doors Open that leverages the use of Unite Us alongside their access system, so their coordinated entry lead uses Unite Us to screen clients for need, and then clients in crisis are referred to emergency services through the existing kind of work flows and those that are in need, instead of diversion or prevention services, are referred out into the community through Unite Us. 
	And there is a quote here that I will leave you to read if you have time, but they really attribute the success of their overarching All Doors Open program to this ability to address those needs outside of housing and homelessness, and engaging sectors like mental and behavioral health and employment, and this focus on prevention and diversion, but also accompanied by the data that they have access to as a community through this network has really resulted in being able to have a tangible impact on client outcomes, as well as organizational efficiency among the partners within the coordinated entry system. 
	And next I am going to provide a quick software demo.  So I will go ahead and share my screen.  Okay.  So the first thing I want to highlight here is that I am about to sign into our training platform, so everything that you see in here is fake data, including the kind of partners in the platform that you will see.  Any partners that you see that are in here are not necessarily partners that have signed on, but just to give you a picture of what this could look like in your community. 
	So when you first ‑‑ so I think someone mentioned or brought this up in the chat, but Unite Us is a web‑based platform, so you don't need to have downloaded any software.  You just need access to the Internet, and then a laptop, tablet, desktop, et cetera.  When you register you will be able to determine which staff should be participating and kind of what their role should be through the network, but we are going to imagine today that we are logged in as a program manager at a housing organization, and I will just quickly do a speedy demo of a couple key work flows. 
	So the first work flow we will imagine is that this individual, maybe a case manager, is meeting with a client and during the course of that meeting they have identified a need that the client has that their organization doesn't have the capacity to meet.  So this ‑‑ our case manager Sheryl could log into Unite Us and quickly refer the client by clicking on this plus sign in the upper right‑hand corner and clicking new referral.  The only kind of required field here in order to create a client are first name, last name, and date of birth.   And this is what the system will use to determine if a client already exists with this information.  So it doesn't have to be an exact match, but enough to see if someone else in the community has already worked with this client in the network. 
	Then you are asked to provide some kind of basic information about the client.  Again, these kind of default to undisclosed, but you can provide as much information as you would like, or as the client would like rather.  And then contact information.  So, again, not required, but as much information as you give here allows the recipient organization to actually reach out to this client and get in touch with him or her. 
	Alrighty.  Okay.  You can also provide the client's address here or just another address in the community, mailing address if they are at a shelter, et cetera.  And this is helpful just we will see on the next page in order to really sort the results that you see based on proximity to where your client is based. 
	So we are going to go ahead and enter this information, and then move on, reminding me that I need to tell what kind of phone this is, and move on to the next page which is where we are going to create our referral. 
	The very first step in the referral creation process is identifying what need your client is presenting with.  So Unite Us has this taxonomy that we use to identify needs so that you can say what your client is looking for and the organizations out in the community, sign up to say, hey, I can help out with this need.  If you know what you are looking for you can start typing, or you can scan through that list.  It covers social services, clinical services, et cetera. 
	Once you have selected the service type, then the system will identify all of the partners in the community that have registered for the platform to say that they can provide a help with this need.  If you know what client you are look ‑‑ sorry, what partner you are looking for, you can just select it from here and move forward.  So this works most well when you have these really strong relationships in the community already.  One thing that folks ask about is, you know, I have really great relationships with my partners, I don't want to lose that, and you can still maintain those tight relationships.  This is just another way to get information to them and coordinate around your shared clients. 
	But if you are not sure who to refer to, you can browse through the options here, filtering based on languages that staff speak, residency requirements, or, again, that distance from the client's address.  If I want to look specifically within five miles of where my clients live, I have this one ‑‑ you know, it sorted my options down from five to one, and then I can click into this organization and learn more about what they actually provide, including a description of the services they provide, as well as eligibility, so who is actually eligible for these services. 
	Once I have determined a partner is a good fit for my client, I can add them here and move forward with my referral process.  I would put in a quick description.  We can't imagine this now in July, but she is looking for a winter coat.  Or June rather.  Also want to highlight here that for this were multiple agencies that could assist with this need, you can add multiple organizations here.  And what this will do is send out, so we will just say potentially this organization could also help, it can send out the referral at the same time to multiple organizations, and if you check this box here once the first organization that's able to help the client accepts the referral, any outstanding referrals are automatically taken back by the software, so that those other organizations don't have to worry about reviewing something that's no longer relevant. 
	So that's one thing to highlight.  And then if your client does have another referral or other need to address, you can submit multiple referrals within the same referral work flow.  We will move forward with just our one referral here.  And at the next stage you are asked to provide some more specific information around the need.  So we are at the clothing and household goods assistance forms, which is pretty basic here.  This is our training environment, so not exactly what it would look like, but you can imagine if someone were referring to housing, it could be a little more robust and could be specific to the information we know is helpful for housing agencies and people working to know if they are able to work with a client. 
	Once you provided all the information in the referral, you are given a last chance to really take a look, see if anything needs to change, if you need to come back to this later before sending, you can save a draft, but we will submit our referral. 
	Before this agency that we have referred to can actually see the referral, the client needs to consent to having their information shared with this network.  So there are six different ways to capture consent in the platform, understanding that partners work with clients in many different ways.  So there are options for if you are meeting with ‑‑ excuse me.  Meeting with clients in person, if you are talking with clients over the phone, if your clients have access to e‑mail or a smartphone or they do not.  So there are all these different options here.  We can send a request for consent via text message, via e‑mail.  We can have a signed ‑‑ or a paper copy of the form that's signed and uploaded.  We can do consent by attestation, if your client doesn't have a phone or e‑mail address, but we are quickly going to do the on‑form consent to move through this process.  Alrighty. 
	Okay.  So just want to highlight that once you send the referral, you are direct to your dashboard, and this is the view that gives you insight into your organization and what's going on with your organization within the network.  A little bit like an e‑mail folder, so we can see all the referrals that we have sent out and their status, and we can click into them to learn more.  As the referral center will also get e‑mail notifications if we would like whenever someone takes action or leaves a note on this referral. 
	Then very quickly on this side, if I am a referral recipient, again, this is whoever your agency you decide should have this role, I will get an e‑mail notification when a new referral comes in, and I can review this information about the client.  So I will see that description that was entered by the referral sender.  I will be able to have access to that housing assessment to get more rich information around ‑‑ or more structured information around the need that has been identified.  Any documents that were attached to the referral I can access here.  And I can also leave a note for the referral center.  So if I want to document interactions I have had with the client, maybe I have left a voice mail with them ‑‑ excuse my very lax note taking here, but you can see that that adds to the referral timeline.  And that will, again, kind of allow for that coordination and collaboration among partners. 
	But ultimately you will be looking to take action on a referral, and you have a few different options if you are not able to serve the client, you can reject a referral, and that's totally okay.  There are no dings against partners who reject referrals.  You know, if you don't have capacity or the client is not eligible, you can note that, and that's okay.  Additionally if you know a partner who are can serve a need, you can send the referral forward.  If you get in touch were a client and they no longer need the services or are no longer interested you can close the referral out, or you can accept the referral. 
	One thing I will say about closing referral out, it does require noting has the need been resolved or not, based on that need and the service type, there will be outcomes to choose from, so collecting that rich data to tell our story more broadly as an organization, but also in the community.  If we accept the referral, we will show which program and who will be primarily working with them, and we go ahead and enroll them into that program. 
	I won't go through this whole process here, but just noting that when a referral is accepted it's turned into a case.  Again, this is that longitudinal tracking, so you can see not just, yes, the referral is accepted, but ultimately once my organization has worked with this client, our housing provider could see if this client actually got connected to rental assistance.  So this allowing to tell the full picture. 
	Once we are working with the clients, we now have access to the client's full record and we can see this broader picture as to what's going on with the client across the community, so we can see who else are the primary points of contact for the client, kind of a general timeline of what's going on, referrals that have been sent for them, cases that they have open, but, again, this is restricted, so if some other partner sent a mental health referral to another partner in the network, I would not be able to see that because I don't have a need to know.  I was not a participant in that episode, so that will be blocked in that way. 
	I want to highlight your reporting access.  All of this data you are creating in the software is your data.  Unite Us does not own your data.  This is data that's provide by the partners and you have the ability to actually use it to support your organization and support your work.  So you are able to export information around the clients you are serving, the referral you are sending and receiving, the services you are providing, and get that raw data to really do that data analysis. 
	There are also high level reports that you can see, just kind of across the board what's going on in your community, who are you serving, what needs are most prevalent, and how our partners are participating.  Because it was asked I will quickly show, because I am an admin at my org, I have the ability to update information at any time.  If something changes I can edit that information and change different eligibility criteria, as well as updating information about my users. 
	To wrap it up, were we in production environment, we have a full team of folks that are supporting the partners in the community, so once a partner is trained and on the platform, we don't go away.  If you have questions around how to do something, our team is here to support you and typically responds within five minutes to questions about the software.  So I will go ahead, so very quick demo.  Sorry for the speaking very rapidly, but hopefully that was really helpful to give you some sort of picture of how your organization might use the software and participate in a network like this.  Alrighty. 
	Now that you guys have seen the software, wanted to just kind of highlight why the partners choose to participate in networks like this in other places.  And Unite Us was built based on kind of understanding the pain points in the traditional referral process.  We get feedback all the time both in meetings like this, as well as from our partners and users, about pain points in the referral process, and that's what the system is trying to address.  Whether that is having a secure way to exchange information about clients, so providing a platform that's compliant with all these fun acronyms, or, again, providing a way for you to understand what services are available in your community, you know, when eligibility is changing, when capacity is changing, having access to that within this dynamic software, and being able to view all that information to appropriately match clients with a service they might be eligible for, allowing that sharing of client information with another organization, so that they ‑‑ once they start working with a client, they already know what's going on.  Your client won't have to tell that story over and over again.   
	And your client only has to go to an organization and request services from an organization who has said, yes, I can accept this referral, I am ready to start working with them, so they don't have to hear no over and over again. 
	Another common pain point we hear is that lack of visibility and what happens when you make a referral out for your clients, so having this way to see, yes, the referral got accepted and what happened is really impactful for a lot of folks and saves time for those partners that do kind of track down their clients to figure out what happened.  This is a more efficient way to really get that picture. 
	And then lastly having a way to have a robust dataset for your organization about how you are impacting your community and connecting to other partners, but also this community‑wide dataset to understand where are our gaps in services and kind of strategize around that together. 
	Gerrit, how are we doing on time?
>> You are doing fine.  I don't know that we really have time for questions, but there have been a number that have flowed through the chat that you have been answering, so I think the goal of this presentation was to give us all a sense of what's possible, and you said you might talk briefly about next steps, so maybe we could wrap up with that. 
>> That sounds great.  Yes.  And I have made note of any questions that we were not able to answer within the chat box, and I am happy to follow up with you so all questions are answered.  My contact information is list the here, and next steps for joining us in this network is to fill out our partner registration form and, Gerrit, if it's okay we can send information out to the larger groups so they can click on these links and access all the information. 
	This partner registration form will let our team know these are the programs interested in joining the program.  This is what participation looks like for these programs and this is the staff that we would like to have be users.  We make sure that staff are trained, that you all understand how to use this platform, so that partner registration form is that next step. 
	Also thing you for inviting us to your presentation.  We know that not everyone that you all work with is in this virtual room, so if there are additional partners that we should be reaching out to, crucial community partners, please do let us know that we can make sure that we are engaging them in these efforts so they are part of the work. 
	Lastly we understand we just shared a lot of information, and please do take the time to sit with that information and think about what that can look like for your organization, but if something does come up and you are figuring out, hey, I actually don't remember what she said about that, I am happy to talk directly about what this could look like for your organization and just start envisioning together and brainstorming how we can have you join our network.  I am happy to have a work flow meeting and my e‑mail is there if you would like it talk further.  Lastly is to attend a software training.  This is for any staff at your organizations that you would like to be users, and this insures that everyone has their questions answered, what does this do, we go through all that to make sure users feel comfortable and ready to hit the ground run to go connect communities to resources. 
	Again, thank you so much.  We hope you first understand what the work we do is, steps for getting involved, and we are happy to answer any questions.  My contact information is listed there, and we will be reaching out to those questions that are unanswered.  So thank you so much, Gerrit, and thank you to the coalition. 
>> Great.  Thank you, and I apologize to you and I guest the rest of the crew for making this such a short presentation.  I think there is a lot more we could learn, but you are going to keep rolling on.  So, again, really appreciate the enthusiasm for serving the clients, that Unite Us is expressing. 
	I am going to shuffle the schedule.  We have Heather Moss with Pierce County Human Services Department, and I think she is going to talk about a couple different topics.  We recently sent a letter of funding recommendations around the CARES Act funding, and have had some feedback already on suggestions that were included in that.  There is some discussion last week around safe parking that I think John Barbee wanted Heather to chime in on a little bit.  And the last thing is I sent a rather long letter from the coalition‑ish to the Health Department requesting some guidance in a number of different areas.  And those areas really have to do with the Health Department's recommendations around testing and how we should be developing our shelter kind of response, kind of with our awakening to the dangers of COVID‑19. 
	And I don't know that she will address any of that, but at some point there will be a presentation by the Health Department, kind of a substantial where we are now and what we know kind of presentation.  So I wanted to let you know that's in the cue, and hopefully that was enough time for Heather to get all cued up.  I see you are ready, to Director Moss. 
>> Thanks, Gerrit.  Nice to see you all again.  It's been a few weeks.  I came to you I think it was maybe three or four weeks ago talking a little bit about the CARES dollars and what our plans, preliminary plans were for spending those, and asked for input from you around prioritizing ideas of how we would spend those dollars.  I appreciate the information that you gave back to us.  A couple weeks ago you sent us a letter with ideas for how to use those funds, and I am proud to say we align on a lot of those and we are actively pursuing many of them.  
	I got off of a call with a few staff from the Department of Human Services where we are talking about the opportunities to invest in capital infrastructure, so maybe smaller facilities for scattered site shelters or a large facility, which was one of the recommendations, actually those were both recommendations that you brought up, looking at potentially converting or using a hotel for a short period of time, or buying a hotel for non‑congregate shelter settings.   
	I think it will be interesting to see how we approach shelters over the coming year, is because it will be that long I imagine while we are still transitioning to this new reality, where I think we will see more of a blend of non‑congregate and congregate settings.  We have been meeting to talk about what that looks like and how we can support some of those efforts. 
	I will comment briefly you also made a suggestion of looking into campgrounds.  We have done that.  We've got a short list of campgrounds across the county that would potentially be candidates for short‑term sheltering.  I am not sure how that's going to work out now that we see camping is one of the allowable activities in phase two, so as we get closer to phase two in opening those things up, I think there might be some competing demands on those spaces are people are anxious to get out of their homes. 
	I will talk about safe car lots in a second, but I want to scroll down and make sure I touch on some of the other highlights from your letter.  You reemphasized the importance of hygiene during this time, particularly for our unsheltered population.  I totally agree with that, and we have been working really hard, and I don't know why it's taken so long, there is a lot of complicating factors it seems, but we have finally gotten to a point where we have four sites open across the county for showering and other hygiene uses, three of them at the YMCAs and the fourth at the Sprinker Recreation Center out in Eastern Pierce County.  Those are being staffed by Valeo, so a great opportunity and partnership within our employee businesses who are employing formerly homeless people, so a great opportunity there. 
	We also know that the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation, the Health Department, some of our current shelter providers, are expanding the use of hygiene stations, whether handwashing, porta‑potties, and other things.  One of the other things that you focused some time on in that letter is racial equity.  And particularly given the issues that we are facing now and the deaths of not only George Floyd, but Manny here in our own backyard, we have a lot of work to do in that area.  I have been working with the leadership team in Human Services to talk about what we do to make sure that we are inviting more people of color into the conversations that we are having about services, and have more people with lived experience involved in the decisionmaking around how we put our funding out.  So I imagine you heard from John a little bit about that last week, but I am more than happy to answer questions about the additional review committees that we are putting together and different opportunities that we have for people to come in and have ‑‑ be a part of those conversations.  I want to make sure we are being equitable in how we are distributing dollars and not contributing to many of the systemic racism that we need to work on dismantling. 
	I think those are the highlights.  Oh, behavioral health.  The other thing that you put in your letter is an urging us to consider behavioral health needs.  You are absolutely correct.  We have dedicated about $1.5 million to behavioral health resources.  I am in the process now of working with Elevate Health to help us put together a grant opportunity for behavioral health providers so they can meet increased and changed demands around behavioral health needs.  You have all seen some of the information from the Department of Health.  We expect to see a spike in substance use disorder and we want to make sure our system is prepared for and ready to respond to.  Those are some highlights of some of things that we are doing in response to the letter that you sent to us. 
	The harder conversation to have is around safe parking, and I will just start by telling you that I met with my counterpart at the City of Tacoma, Linda Stewart, and we are aligned in this opinion that neither the city nor the county are in agreement with you about the importance of putting together a sanctioned safe parking space.  So that being said, there are lots of opportunities for it to happen outside of public engagement.  Right.  Ultimately a church could put up a safe parking site for up to I think it's 90 days without a permit if it's no more than 60 people.  So there are options to pursue, but I just think it's important to be clear on the outset that neither the city or county are going to be interested in facilitating that process or funding safe parking am. 
	I guess I should tell you a little bit about why and get ready for all of the questions and concerns, and I want to hear your feedback, absolutely.  But I guess the first thing I would say that we are challenged with in this situation right now is making sure that the issues that we are addressing are related to or caused by COVID‑19.  And we have very specific guidelines in the dollars that we are putting out, that there has to be a causal relationship.  I while I know it's a horrible thing and we need to help them come out of homelessness, I don't believe that passes the test of something being caused by COVID. 
	The second thing is I don't think that facilitating someone living in their car is the most humane response.  I believe that we are doing a lot that we can to put dollars into more sustainable shelter options, whether that's expanding our shelters to allow for social distancing, or creating actual more capacity or funding hotel vouchers for families to be in hotels for a short period of time, while we assess longer term options for them. 
	And I also worry about putting dollars into that when we only have so many dollars to spend.  I think it is very evident when we saw at People's Park what happens when you put together a site that is somewhat sanctioned but not fully managed, and I would imagine that it would take a substantial investment, much like the City of Tacoma experienced with their Stability Site, to stand up a site that is safe parking with adequate lighting, adequate hygiene stations, management of that site.  So I think those are all of the big reasons why I don't see us as the county or our partners in the city supporting a safe parking at this point in time. 
	I just want to end, though, with reiterating all the things that we are doing, and I believe that we are investing in new resources and sustaining and supporting current resources so that we can do the best that we can to support all of our homeless individuals and families across the county. 
	So I will pause there, and wait for you, Gerrit, to either facilitate questions or if you have questions that are coming up in the chat box, I am more than able to entertain those. 
>> Sure.  Why don't we start off with Theresa.  Unmuting?
>> Unmuting. 
>> Awesome. 
>> So thank you, Heather, for coming, and for talking with us about this.  I do think there is a lot of evidence that more people are going to be homeless as a result of the COVID, and so you are responding to the homelessness issue as that's something that is impacted by COVID, and to say that people choosing to live in their cars falls outside of that seems odd to me. 
	Also, if the city and county are not willing to provide spaces for people living in their cars, then I guess what I would ask is come into our neighborhoods and provide it for us then because we are the unsafe parking lot, and if the decision is people aren't doing it, we are not seeing more of it because of COVID, but you are hearing from the people in the community, we are seeing more of it, we are seeing people.  But I just read a thing about somebody who is working on cars who says this is the first time she is having people to come in to say I need to have my car repaired so I can move into it.  So I think ‑‑ I mean I am asking to stay open to the possibility that that read isn't accurate. 
>> I hear you, Theresa, and I appreciate you sharing that.  One thing I will say is that I totally agree with you.  We are looking at data all the time about the midterm and long‑term effects of COVID‑19, and we expect 40% of our businesses aren't going to reopen.  Right?  So there is this huge downturn that's coming our way and we are working really hard on everything we can do to mitigate the growth of our homeless population.  We are putting a ton of money into rental assistance and mortgage assistance.  We are double down on diversion so that we can keep people from becoming homeless who actually do have a home now.  So we are also getting ready to launch additional funding into our domestic violence system so that we can prop up families who as they come out of isolation, as they come out of being stuck together at home, that we have opportunities to house them quickly and effectively so they don't end up in their cars. 
	I would love to hear more from you about what that might look like.  I know that we see people living in their cars.  I see it every day on my walks around my neighborhood here in downtown Tacoma.  What are ways to support families that are living in their cars outside of the safe parking solution?
>> Well, of course the safe parking solution is the most rational one from my perspective, just living with people who are ‑‑ I have lots of neighbors who live in their cars, and when I listen to them and I see what their lives are like, if they had a space, even if a space they had to pay a certain amount where they could safely park their car and use it at their home, that would to me be ‑‑ it's like a no‑brainer.  That would be better.  If I were in that position, and I could tell you if I was suddenly without my home, I would be much more likely to get into a vehicle than go into a congregate situation.  That's true for a lot of us.  We may all be there.  It's not as if we are going to have more money coming in.  We were unable to house these people who are living in cars before we had the economic downturn.  Now we have an economic downturn.  It's much more likely there will be more people living homeless.  Cars and vehicles are compact living quarters, and instead of looking at them as a nuisance, if there could be a twist in that perspective to say just think about using parking lots as a way ‑‑ with a lot of safe distance, there is a great model in San Diego ‑‑ not San Diego.  Anyway, I think you got the info about the model that's in southern California that's been working really well. 
>> I am look at that again. 
>> So I would just say instead of saying, okay, tents we can deal with, but vehicles we can't, vehicles actually have a lot going for them.  I think there is even ‑‑ when we look at the need to keep the mobile home parks we have, why not think about recreational vehicle parks?  Because people are going to be desperately homeless, and so say we can't have them do that because it's not as good as we could do if we had the money to do that is not going to help.  Meanwhile, yes, I don't want to have a porta‑potty on my street.  I don't want to have a big trash can on my street.  But would I rather have than an a safe people to wash their hands, yeah, I would.  I don't know that my neighbors will all agree, but I know that it's breaking our hearts to see this, and please reconsider.  That's all. 
>> Thanks. 
>> There has been a lot of things coming and flowing through the chat.  I don't know that I am going to be able to do them justice. 
>> I will just ask the question. 
>> Al. 
>> Actually two questions.  One is ‑‑ this is really more for the city.  They were sounding like they were going to offer support services like porta‑potties and hand washing if churches open their lots.  Has there been a change in policy as far as you know?
>> I don't know what their policy is on that.  Is Erica on the call?
>> I'm here.  Hi.  Sorry.  So it is still a part of our temporary shelter regulations.  It's still in there. 
>> Okay.  The other question part of the question is, this economic disaster that we are facing is a product of the COVID‑19 pandemic.  How is it that you can rationalize that indirect are not eligible for services?
>> Maybe I didn't explain myself correctly.  I am not ‑‑ we are trying to put our CARES dollars into prevention so that we don't expand our homeless population, so we can help them pay rent and utilities, help people meet those costs.  So I am not suggesting that it's not related to COVID, but to the extent that we have people that we miss, that we can't help, that end up homeless and living in their cars, are trying to come up with other options that are more sustainable beyond the immediate short‑term of setting up a parking lot to put them into something that's more sustainable.  Put them in a hotel room where they actually have beds to sleep in, or direct them to one of our current shelter operators where they are connected to services. 
	I don't think that setting up a place where they can safely park their cars helps us kind of move the ball forward in terms of getting them out of homelessness. 
>> It's a transition toward what you are trying to accomplish, and you don't have the capacity in the entire community to house everybody from the get‑go.  So this ought to be part of the continuum. 
>> There are many ways to fill that continuum, I agree.  This could be a part of it, but I see us wanting to put our county dollars right now in efforts that are more sustainable and more proven to get people into a permanent solution. 
>> I would love to see a pilot that tried a very low cost safe parking, that provided a place people belonged, that had a place they could pee.  You know, which is more than they have right now.  I don't know.  I wonder if there is ways to do it that can be at a price point, which isn't the Stability Site. 
>> Yeah, that could be interesting to see, and I think there are ways to do that if you have a private owner, landowner, who is willing to entertain it.  Like I said, I believe looking at the county permitting, that's allowable for up to 90 days for up to 60 participants. 
>> And so I am going to wrap this safe parking segment up.  Janet Runbeck is on, as is Colin DeForrest, and both of them are working actively to put together a safe parking pilot project, or actual project, and so that might be a way for us to funnel our suggestions and our advocacy for safe parking to kind of package it up in a way that might be easy for the City of Tacoma or for the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation or for the county to kind of respond to and potentially provide funding for?
>> Let's take a look and see what they come up with. 
>> You comfortable are that, Janet, Colin?
>> Spoiler alert, we even have a name for it, and it's called Safe Parking Network.  Our county loves our Emergency Food Network.  The Emergency Food Network is not a food bank that provides direct services.  They support a network of food banks.  We have come up were a model that would be a Safe Parking Network, and would partner with CBOs and an organic movement of agencies that recognize the need for providing humane services for folks who would not do well in congregate settings, and in fact congregate settings as we know is a health hazard at this point.  Stay tuned, and we will be knocking at your door. 
>> I am pretty sure you heard we did testing at Nativity House for COVID‑19, and we are very pleased to see that we did not have any cases, so I think despite the concerns around congregate settings, there is a way to do it safely.  And we are allowing for ‑‑ we are putting a lot of money right now into hotel rooms for people who can't be or shouldn't be in that congregate setting as well.  So I think there are options out there, other options.  So, yeah, I look forward to hearing what you guys come up with. 
>> Thank you.  I, again, appreciate both the City of Tacoma and the county making time out of their schedules to ‑‑
>> Absolutely. 
>> To attend this meeting and to actually both listen and hear what's being said.  I don't think anybody here has an agenda on what we are trying to do.  We are just trying to figure out the best way to serve our community, and I want to say how much I appreciate that openness to considering things that are really hard to work through, how to could do what's best.  So thanks, everybody, and I think we all know how to get ahold of both Erica with the city and with John Barbee and with Heather Moss and Valeri Knight with the county. 
	So I am going to slip on out.  Thank you, again.  I feel like another item we are cutting short because I put too much stuff on the agenda.  So I am super excited to slide into a new provider in our community.  If you haven't had a chance to see the news that Wellspring, which has been providing family services and housing in King County for a hundred years, a long time, is expanding their operations into Tacoma.  They have a grant to be doing Rapid Rehousing, and just received the grant from the Housing Authority, county, city, Tacoma School District project, to be bringing housing services into and homeless prevention into the schools, into Tacoma schools, so I would like to introduce the housing director.  I can't remember exactly what your title is.  Walter Washington, and Kara Cooper.  So handing it off.  Trying to hand it off. 
>> You are muted, Walter. 
>> I just said some very profound things that you all missed.  What I was saying is that in ex the exchange that I just witnessed, I appreciate that consideration moving forward, not just convenience and comfort, and certainly in King County I am a part of so many conversations where it's about convenience and about the comfort of the people in the room.  So I want to appreciate that.  Gerrit, to you, I think you led with that in the way that you opened the meeting, and I wish every meeting that I have been a part of over the past couple of weeks has led with someone like the elder making the statement that he made.  These meetings are very, very difficult for me.  I am know I am not at a hundred percent just with external pressures and all the things that we are dealing with. 
	I will talk about Wellspring, and I won't take too much time.  I have been in homeless services for about 15 years, am a Seattle native, but my grandmother on my father's side lived at the house where I am right outside now on Cushman Avenue, so the Hilltop was my second home.  
	So anyhow, went to Washington State University and wound up teaching in Teach for America, and found out that I could not have the amount of impact that I wanted to have in the classroom because children were arriving with issues that I was not [indiscernible].  So moved back to Seattle and got into nonprofit management and began working with foster care students at Treehouse, and then I began working with homeless teens and young adults at Youth Care, and began working with similar adults at Compass Housing Alliance.  Emergency services director, had 11 programs, 95 staff in my department. 
	After my last project here, which was the first 24‑hour shelter in King County, I moved to Sound Generations and worked with those who are aging ungracefully.  At Wellspring over the last two‑and‑a‑half years, I get an opportunity to work with the entire family.  We want to end the cycle of homelessness, it takes a lot of partners in collaboration, which I am excited having new partners within Pierce County extending that mission. 
	Within the Housing Department we have 14 different programs, seven of which are prevention programs.  So when we talk about homelessness, we are talking about stability services.  Not just somebody who is literally in the streets, but somebody who is jumping between auntie's place, grandma's place, staying with a friend.  We are talking about stability.  So we talk as much about stability as we do homelessness at Wellspring.  We do work with families primarily, although we have programs that work with single adults. 
	Through our two new programs, we started a contract on Monday, which is super exciting because we know that work will be prevention‑forward as well.  We have similar work happening right now in Renton School District.  Recently we were awarded an opportunity, supporting nine schools in the City of Renton.  On the call is Rita Lawrence, who is moving from the City of Renton into the project supporting up to 30 some odd schools in this area.  Super excited about it. 
	I know we are short on time.  Maybe I stop there and field a couple questions if anyone has any, but super excited to be a part of this collaborative and thrilled to meet all of you.  I met some of you and you have been so gracious to send E mills of welcome and I am looking forward meeting face‑to‑face sooner than later to have the type of celebration and kicking off that we anticipate having and talking about how we have shared impact. 
>> Thanks, Walter.  I don't see any questions right now.  So welcome, and I think we will get to know you guys more as time moves on.  We just got them connected in with our coordinated entry improvement meeting, and I suspect that they will be a presence in our community that's going to really help us to, you know, hit families.  Hit is a terrible word.  Support families in a way to help them be more successful.  When you look at the things that are long‑term impacting, there are schools in our school district that have higher turnover than they have students in a given year.  More students are leaving and going to a different school in the year than they have actual students in the school, and that mostly is based around families' inability to maintaining housing.  If you can impact a few of those students, those will be long‑term successes for families and schools in the program. 
>> I should say a couple more things.  You reminded me.  The spirit of the project is really anti‑displacement with an element that anti truancy.  We want to keep them in the community and current schools they are at, because we know about the trauma associated with displacement.  What's happening with the rising costs in the area, we want to make sure these families are staying connect and building resources around these families with the hope of doing so.  Once the Tacoma Urban League opens back up, we will have six or seven staff at the Tacoma Urban League by the end of June, hopefully, as our aspiration.  We have three currently and we are aggressively hiring.  So if anyone on the call has any talent that would be a great fit for this program, please do e‑mail me. 
>> Excellent.  Welcome to the community.  And contact information for Walter is in the agenda, so if you got questions or ways that you want to support their work, connect in. 
	I had a request from ‑‑
>> Thanks. 
>> Awesome.  Thank you.  And I had a request from Megan Capes for a little bit of time to talk about a campaign that the Democratic Socialists of America, Tacoma branch, is putting together.  Megan.  
>> Good morning.  Super, super quick.  So the Tacoma ‑‑
>> You are a little quiet, Megan. 
>> Oh, sorry.  Can you hear me better?
>> Good. 
>> So Tacoma DSA wanted to support you all [away from mic].  We just this morning did a letter campaign [away from mic].  But it specifically concerned about how unsheltered folks [away from mic], concerns from you and from other folks around the county, especially one big concern is for folks to have access to 24‑hour bathrooms.  Folks go to the bathroom, whether they have a house or not, whether they have access or not, so I think specifically pushing on the county to help, this is a major issue that needs to be solved.  This is particularly big, a really hot issue right now in the City of Puyallup.  As the sanctioned encampment has set flows with their only 24‑hour accessible bathroom is [away from mic]. 
>> Megan, your voice keeps coming in and out.  Can you get closer to the mic?
>> Okay.  Does that work?  Sorry.  So please share.  It has a list of demands, like access to bathrooms, as well as echoing your concerns about like prioritizing safe parking, and also purchasing vacant hotels and motels for shelters.  Take a look.  Please sign, please share if you can.  That would be great.  Thank you so much. 
>> Thanks, Megan.  And, yeah, we didn't catch maybe all of that, but appreciate the work that you are doing and the link Megan went ahead and put in the chat, so go ahead and read that over and throw some support behind it.  Democratic Socialists of America are very clear communicators about what our most vulnerable in the community need in order to stay safe. 
	I am going to give Jennifer a little bit of time to give us a quick run down on the moratorium on eviction extension and some of the changes that were included in that proclamation from the governor.  Jennifer.  I should make sure people are still in the meeting before I hand it off.  Looks like Jennifer is gone.  Dang it.  All right.  I am going to do a quick poll, and then we are going to jump into advocacy.  I don't think it will take too much of our brain.  So I am going to hand it off to Maureen, but before I do that, I am going to do a quick poll on hazard pay.  We were talking a little bit about what different agencies are doing around hazard pay, so increasing pay because we are putting folks into the way of danger, and so I am going to throw that poll out there, and hand it off to Maureen. 
>> I want hazard pay.  No.  Okay.  Good morning, everybody.  Thank you.  I am going to be really quick.  Jennifer Ammons did send out a message to the entire distribution list about the key parts of the new eviction moratorium, so check your inbox. 
	And so just in the interests of time, and because I have been sending out some things to everybody, okay, so if we ‑‑ so what do we do?  Elder Montgomery started us off well.  What do we do with our sorrow, with our anger and people like me with real fear for the future of our democracy.  So I think right now we work so here's the work.  Make sure that everyone in your program, everyone in your shelter, actually last that stimulus check, everybody who is eligible.  If you need help, Theresa will help, Jennifer Ammons will help, I will help.  We will continue promoting the Seattle Credit Union bank accounts.  We are going to do statewide access on Monday, and I am actually talking to another entire state. 
	So that's one thing.  The second thing is I want to just spend a minute on rumor control.  There is so much money out there right now that it's hard to keep track, but let me just talk about the state Department of Commerce for a minute.  All right?  All right.  The state budget projected shortfall over the next three years at 7 billion, like boy, dollars.  The governor has required every state agency to bring back a recommended list of 15% of their general fund dollars.  Those are State of Washington dollars, not passthrough federal dollars.  A lot of the money that the Department of Commerce has is actually passthrough federal money.  So there may well be cuts in homelessness and housing programs, but there are no cuts as of today.  We don't know as Representative Doglio said this morning, we don't know if there is going to be a special session or not.  The feeling is that everyone is waiting until the state revenue forecast comes out June 17th. 
	And there will be some sort of response after that.  We do know that to the extent possible, Commerce is pushing money out as fast as they can.  They are trying to protect as much of the homeless and housing dollar pots, as many pots as possible, and we know that many legislators are trying to protect the money as well. 
	We know because Commerce has already told us that they may amend existing contracts, and the city has already said that.  And I presume the county will, too.  It will be funding‑dependent.  Some programs in the city are running on the 1/10th of 1%.  That money is down.  Document recording fees, I haven't heard what the county has said, but the state has said that money is down.  So the landscape is changing.  Let's see.  Okay.  So that's for sort of where Commerce is.  Get on the call or listen to the recording.  The leadership on the housing and homelessness side and the Department of Commerce are on the alliance call every Wednesday.  Those calls are recorded.  And you have to register, and I have sent out the registration.  The summary that has the registration, so register. 
	In that summary that went out yesterday to everybody, there is a link to thank the governor for the eviction moratorium.  The National Housing Law Project called it the best moratorium in the country.  So not perfect to be sure. 
	Last thing, CARES Act funding.  So because there is so much money flowing and it is coming from so many different federal agencies within that third COVID bill, the federal bill, there are no stupid questions about the money, so when people are talking about money that's available or money they think that somebody is getting or maybe not getting, or whatever, close the loops.  Ask.  Ask what's the course of the money.  What are the eligibility possibilities for the money?  What are the restrictions on the money?  And this is going to get even more complicated when you are talking to people, or those of you who work in multiple jurisdictions, because only four counties got the relief fund, the City of Seattle, that 157 million with that December deadline.  Every city got money from the state pot, and their use deadline is the end of October.  If you are the person who is responsible for finding, managing, reporting, whatever, on money, make sure that you ask all the questions you need to ask so that you are clear on how this money can be used and by when, and it's just ‑‑ you know, it's like how wisely, how equitably, can we use what we have.  How do we get through today while we try and plan for tomorrow?  Everybody across the country is modeling in some way or another.  Everybody is trying to figure out when is the eviction cliff, what kind of eviction defense fund do we need, what kind of eviction legal services do we need, what kind of foreclosure protections do we need, and how are we ever going to get unsheltered people safely inside and at a bare minimum, bathrooms.  As always, thank you for letting me do this on your behalf. 
>> Thanks, Maureen.  And I appreciate all of that action happening at the state and the federal levels.  I had a quick update from Yuni with LASA.  They are the provider of the City of Tacoma's homeless prevention funding, and she said that they initiated a new outreach last week, and so they had an increase in the number of direct referral applications by 50%, the weekly average of referrals tripled, and they have less than a hundred lottery applications remaining to process, and they brought another staff member on board to support the project.  They are going to ask payment arrangements for rent balances, and they are still coordinating with Share and Care, MDC and the Multicultural Family and Hope Center.  I got all that in.  
	And so I am going to kind of ask if ‑‑ let's see.  Health Department, do you guys have any items you want to cover?  I don't know ‑‑ Manu, did you have anything?
>> I believe Naomi was going to speak on some updates. 
>> Are you on, Naomi?  We might have gone on too long. 
>> Possibly. 
>> So definitely on next week.  Naomi I think had some time slotted for next week, so we will definitely hear from her then. 
>> Gerrit, it's Emily. 
>> Hey, Emily.  Emily. 
>> Long time no see.  I am only here for one more week, but one quick update that I see that Rob already noted is that Pierce County has been approved to move to phase two.  The Health Department just put out a news release about a few minutes ago about that, so please check that out.  I am sure there is going to be lots of information in the news, but it's going to be effective today and the details are available in that news release.  I don't know any more than you all do. 
>> Thank you, Emily.  You are going to be here next week?
>> Yes. 
>> So I expect we get to do a little bit of a sendoff.  So if folks could bring a nice thought about Emily, we will take some time to narrow down all of your nice thoughts about Emily to just one, and we would like to celebrate the excellent work Emily has done supporting the health of our clients over the past, what, year, year and something?
>> I have been at the Health Department six years, but this role has been two years at this point. 
>> Two years.  Time does so quickly.  We are definitely going to miss her in the community, and we will have a chance to say thank you next week.  Do we have anything from Emergency Management, Ivan?  I am going to mention people's names that aren't here for awhile.  I know Ivan was on at one point, probably had to head off.  Anything from the city?  I know you guys had a ‑‑
>> Town hall last night. 
>> How did that go?
>> It was great.  For those of you able to call in, thank you so much for participating and providing feedback and questions.  We always appreciate an opportunity to collaborate and hear input from the community. 
	It was recorded, and so I am working to see when that will be available.  I think if it's not late today, maybe Monday.  So the moment the recording is available for those of you not able to listen I will send it out right away so you will have an opportunity to listen to that. 
	And then our study session or council study session on Tuesday at noon, we will have a brief update of our budget biennium for 21‑22, the process and what that's looking like, so if you want to get an update on that and I urge you to call in.  That's all I have, and I apologize, I am late for my next meeting.  You all have a wonderful weekend. 
>> Thank you, Erica.  I think with that, unless do you have anything Valeri Knight?
>> Just a reminder that the CARES Act funding for round two closes today at 4:30.  We will also be releasing dates for all three of the next anticipated rounds, so there is a timeline created around three, four and five, so you can plan ahead.  We have also implemented questions and answer sessions in between those rounds, so those dates are going live today as well, Facebook media and stuff like that, so we ask you to share with as many as you know so we can get as many new applicants as possible so we can serve people of color and folks with English as a second language.  The last thing is the affordable housing [mic cutting out], and that is due June 12th, so that can be found on our website.  I don't touch that process, so I have no answers, but I know it includes some capital stuff.  So take a look at that and see if you are interested.  And, no, the phase two does not change anything about the congregate shelter operations at this time. 
>> Cool.  I saw a lot of no updates from our shelter providers, so I think with that we will just kind of go ahead and, yeah, finish getting ourselves ready for the day in whatever manner that happens to be.  For me it's, yeah, finishing tying my bow tie.  It's supposed to tie itself.  I don't know.  Anyway, fun and games.  There we go.  Yep.  Finish tying our ties, and tip our hats and say, have a good week and keep doing the good work, and serving the homeless is working towards racial equity if we keep our eyes open wide enough.  Take care. 
[End of meeting]