Robb Huff 26:28 All right, so, um, we, it looks like we're up to around 26, or so people, and I know people are still filtering in because I'm getting emails asking for the link. But, Rosemary Do you want to kick us off. Rosemary Powers 26:44 Sure, I been asked to do a welcome to new e bowl and I see some folks I haven't met before on today. But if you're new, coming to the first time or have been nice to meet in person and one of the things we did was to go around the whole room and we learned a lot of people who are doing wonderful things with folks who are vulnerable at all stages of the kinds of things we do. So some people have been doing this kind of work for 40 years and some people just started a few weeks ago and so we have all kinds of talents and resources to present and share with one another. So just briefly if anybody is new today that just if you haven't met me doesn't mean you're new, but if you're new today. If you could unmute yourself, and introduce yourself just with your name and if you're associated with any group to say that, so we can have a chance to know how to connect more with you. So just raise your hand or just unmute yourself and let us know who you are. I guess I'll Gerald Williams 27:51 go ahead and get started. um, my name is Gerald Williams I am the shelter manager for the Tacoma rescue mission. I'm sitting in for the weekend Nate today who couldn't be here. So this is my first time because Unknown Speaker 28:04 I didn't even know how to unmute myself so that Kevin Glackin-Coley 28:07 the thing Rosemary Powers 28:08 thing welcome. Unknown Speaker 28:10 Thank you. Rosemary Powers 28:27 All right. Well, thanks. Gerald for being here and so if anybody else is new here, we will have some discussions in small groups and some presentations, you're welcome to stay until 11 and at 11, we have a group anybody can stay to help us plan for next week it's an Open Table we're all welcome and 11 the magic will stop, but the planning will continue Robb Huff 28:54 the pre magic Rosemary Powers 28:56 pre magic casts. Robb Huff 29:00 So to kick us off this week, I know we're gonna have, we're going to have our. This week on the streets update. And I believe this was going to be. Nora leader or lighter from the Catholic Worker. Unknown Speaker 29:22 Yes. Unknown Speaker 29:23 Yes, Nora Leider 29:24 I might. I should have introduced myself with the new people, it's been a very long time since I was at this meeting. But I understand rosemary, Mary if this is correct to just talk a little bit about what we're doing and what's different since COVID has started, is that correct, Rosemary Powers 29:37 yes. So, Nora Leider 29:39 the brief picture of what we're up to the Catholic Worker has been around for about 30 years, and our main focus is transitional housing for folks who have been coming out of shelters or living in their cars. And, and also until also folks who have been released from the immigration detention center. Now there are very, very few people being released right now. But that has fluctuated over the years. So what right right now mostly we have people who have been staying in the shelter or living in their cars, who are living in Guadalupe house the the central house in our organization our community. For typically about nine months. It often stretches more but that's what we plan for and folks who are living with us, are, are saving money and are working with staff members each week to look at their goals and plan for getting a job or working on mental health, working on their futures to build a network for themselves as they move on in the future. And so during the one of the other things that we do is weekly provide a meal and an open house which is partly about providing food but really much more about providing some community and connection and a chance for people to sit down together, week after week and get to know one another folks who have been on the street, but also people who are supporting our community are present at that meal. And that's something we've had to see Saul together during COVID we really, we, we didn't know a way and couldn't find a way to serve. What was typically 50 or 60 people, a meal and sit together safely. And so that's something that we've, we've put on pause until COVID is done until you know until restaurants can see people safely. We figure we're really not an exception. What has continued is a transitional housing, and we've made some small changes which include having a covid test for folks before they move in, and for the beginning period of their time living with us to be more isolated. We've had to make a plan for if someone tests positive in the house and health department's been incredibly supportive in that we haven't had any positive tests so far, thank goodness, but we do have our procedure in place and embedded tested a few times when people suspected that they might be ill. But that all has has resolved really well. We have also found that there is greater need to be connected with and and support the people who are camping on our block and kind of in our immediate neighborhood. There are many it fluctuates so much from one week to the next and always has. But, we find that it during some periods, particularly in the summer, we were having a really large camp in our neighborhood, and our main strategy was to talk with those folks as much as we could to find out what they needed, and to work with them as much as possible to meet the needs, we were able to meet. And that meant that we added a lot of trash cans on the street, because people did express that they wish to have a place to put their trash and wanted in the pile on the street there just wasn't anywhere for it to go. We also we've always had a water fountain. That's kind of outside of our garden for anybody to use, but we decided we needed to modify that to make it safer to use for people who were filling water bottles. It was one of those really old, like you would have in a school you know a little water fountain with the button on it, that people had to hold their hand on while they were filling something. And we've, we've modified that to make it much easier to fill containers which is most of what people were doing. Let's see. It really has, has the, the biggest shift i think is the way that we've become much more intentional about about meeting the people who are living outside and figuring out a way to to support what they need, more, more regularly, and the, you know, there are everyone sees the, the camping, that's going on everywhere in our neighborhood at this particular moment. There's a little bit less than there was two weeks ago but we know that that changes. So that's that's most of what we're up to right now. Of course we're having our meetings outside we're wearing masks in the house, all those ordinary things. Maureen Howard 34:03 So far so good. Robb Huff 34:06 So does anybody have any questions. Al Ratcliffe 34:13 Order are the most frequent meetings that folks that are in your neighborhood expressed to Nora Leider 34:21 folks who are outside. You know, very often blankets. But also, we had a series of meetings as safely as we could in the summer to talk about what was wanted and needed. And one thing that came up pretty regularly. It was a place for people to cook. And that's not a need, we've been able to meet in an organized way outside at this point but it's something that came up really regularly, the things that were simplest we we went ahead and did place to put trash better water access, bathrooms, always. Robb Huff 34:59 Were you able to accommodate bathrooms. Nora Leider 35:02 We, we really worked hard to have a conversation about that. And we're not able to settle on a place, and a way. We really hope we hoped in the summer and we really hope in the future to be working on changes that are with the people who be using the services. So, we began forming a schedule of folks living in their cars or in their tents, to be the people tending the, making sure that the porta potti was useful and safe and clean and all those things that did not come to its conclusion, and that's partly because we are half a block from Nativity house and Nativity House says several porta potties in their parking lot. And as kind of an interim measure, they are believe at this point still opening the gate that has a staircase between g street in their parking lot and making those available more often. Our main question was, where do we put it, and how do we make sure that each day it's clean and safe and usable and, and how do we do that, as, as a cooperative effort with the people who are going to be using it, and that the pressure of that kind of came off as we found this other alternative that was going to be the hardest one and one I'm sure we'll still be looking at in the future. Robb Huff 36:24 Thank you. Any other questions before we move on in our agenda. Well thank you very much for the update in perspective, from what you've seen in your corner of the neighborhood. Nora Leider 36:47 Thank you. Awesome. Robb Huff 36:51 All right. So, our first presentation and today's agenda, like to welcome Jax hermer from the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department Jax Did you need to present slides at all and if you do I can make you a co host. Jax Hermer 37:09 That would be great. Thank you so much. Robb Huff 37:11 Okay, let me do that here briefly. And if you want to just introduce yourself. Jax Hermer 37:15 Yeah, hi everyone my name is Jax, I am a nurse at the health department. I've in communicable disease I'm an advanced practice nurse and I'm on a team of folks who are helping respond to COVID and I work with Carrie Chang who you all know and love and, and we're involved in our how he really educating folks who are at increased risk and disproportionately burdened by COVID. And so I'll just be presenting today on the latest information and make sure we're all up to date on things I'm sure some of it is very familiar and maybe something will be new. But there'll be time for questions. Okay, I'm going to share my screen. Okay, do you see my notes section or do you see the main screen. The main slide. Seeing the main slide, great, wonderful love when that works. Okay, hi. So let's talk about what we're seeing in in Pierce, as you all have heard in the news. COVID is out of control. Currently across the country. And in Pierce County and King County and Snohomish County and across the state. So right now we're seeing higher case counts than ever before. Close to twice as high as the highest peak that we last saw in the middle of summer. That's very overwhelming and scary. And basically what we're looking at here are daily case counts. not rates case counts in Pierce County the first wave that you see, was when the pandemic first hit Pierce County. And then we put in place. The stay at home order and cases went down significantly, and the cut and then just like leveled off for a very long time. And then as we opened into phase two in the safe start guidance, people started being more liberal with their activities and cases crept up. And because our cases are so high right now it looks like that was a low bump, but this was extremely stressful and a huge deal when this was happening. June to July. These were really really high case counts and very overwhelming to our system and our hospital system and a significant growth of cases among younger folks, particularly between 20 and 40. We didn't see as many deaths among in this phase, but we just saw a huge amount of social gathering and. And then, and then we put in demand into place mandatory masking laws and cases went down, asks are very very effective and you can see this downward slump, as a direct result. However, since really Labor Day, people have been much more liberal with their activities are not wearing masks regularly in public, or going more regularly into stores and restaurants and in having people over to their home. And they're having social gatherings and so this dramatic increase in just indoor gatherings, is what we're seeing right now, causing a very intense, increased spike of cases. So, we also have continued to see disproportionate impact of covid across different racial and ethnic groups that are directly related to experiences of racism, discrimination and stigmatization in our society. People who are black, or Native American or American Indian or Alaska Native have twice the rights of COVID compared to white people in Pierce County. People who are in Latin next have rates about two and a half times the rate of folks who are white, and folks who are Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander have rates, about four times, the, the amount of folks who are white. So, we are paying very close attention to these trends and doing our best to work with communities impacted, to try to understand and adapt and Unknown Speaker 42:17 adapt our practices as a health department to better support these more vulnerable and highly more impacted communities. So a little bit about you and protecting yourself. In general, you can prevent covid, by keeping gathering small by wearing masks washing your hands, covering your face when you sneeze. You should keep six feet distance from everyone outside of your household, especially indoors but outdoors as well. You should be wearing a mask. Anytime you're around someone who is not in your household masks are very effective airflow. So, you know, if someone was ever in your home that isn't in your household hopefully you can keep that time limited ideally less than 15 minutes. But if they are inside everyone is masked windows and doors are open to air humid air purifiers are going, anything to keep as much airflow as possible to dissipate the impact of covid stained elevated in the air at your face level. Now, you should get tested. If you have any new symptoms of COVID. That includes lack of taste or smell or sniffles or coughing or a tightness in your chest, or if you've been around anyone outside of your household for an extended period of time and they tell you that they've been sick, whether it's the COVID or something else, but if you think you've been in close contact with someone that has COVID you should seek testing. Ultimately, it is up to your healthcare provider to determine whether or not you get the test. Right now we are not looking at a testing shortage and so it's an excellent time to seek testing. You can get tested. You know you can reach out to your health care provider, you can reach out to community health care that's taking folks that don't aren't their patients and don't have insurance, or we have a number of different testing sites that we regularly update weekly on our website. So the website to get our community testing sites which are free, it costs, COVID testing is TP ch d.org, forward slash COVID tests. And again the update that weekly. So we've heard a lot about COVID vaccine. We know that Pfizer biontech just put out a press release last week that they found some very promising effectiveness results. That is very exciting. I want you all to know that Pierce County to comperes County Health Department and the Washington State Department of Health, which we are following their lead very closely are very committed to only promoting a vaccine in Pierce County that has proven to be safe and effective. So, we are not going to be swayed by political politics, we are really going to only promote the vaccine that we truly believe to be effective to stop the spread of covid. We also know that there is going to be a dramatically limited amount of supply of the vaccine when it is first released. So maybe we will see some vaccine this year, but the people who will be able to get it are the people who are most impacted by being exposed to COVID. So those are first responders and healthcare workers that directly work with people who have COVID that is going to include not just your like nurse or doctor but the janitor or the aide or the community health worker that is directly working with folks who have COVID. We have the state has led an effort to really do a lot of community research and come get community input on how to create an allocation and prioritization plan rooted in equity. And then, folks who live or work in long term care facilities that are over the age of 65 will then pre egg will also be prioritized in that very first phase of, who gets the vaccine. Unknown Speaker 46:43 And then at every phase, going forward, it's very much rooted in, who is most impacted. And who is most vulnerable today to these, but we imagine it will be some time before the vast majority of the population has access to the vaccine. So, if we, I don't want to give you any timelines because we really don't know but just know it's going to be a slow rollout because we're looking at very little vaccine available when a huge amount of people fit into this very first category of who might be eligible for the vaccine. Another really important thing to keep in mind right now is that we're in flu season. Luckily, we haven't seen a lot of flu yet in the community and many of the things that we're doing to prevent COVID are effective at preventing the spread of flu influenza and flu mean the same thing. influenza. In the past, causes more hospitalizations deaths, and illness than any other vaccine preventable disease. So, in Pierce County last year we lost 13 people the year before we lost 42 people to influenza, the same people that are more vulnerable to covid are more vulnerable to influenza so we need to continue our really rigorous efforts to protect our more vulnerable populations so that we can keep, keep, and protect our community and family safe. Now that the issues that come up for us around flu and influenza are that it is extremely challenging to determine if you have flu or influenza. So, if you have any symptoms like flu or influenza, you should seek testing, and to their provider will help you determine what steps to take. If at any point you're feeling short of breath and you're feeling at risk. You're feeling uncomfortable you're feeling at risk for your life you should seek emergent care right away. Our number one priority is to reduce the spread of influenza in the community as well as COVID, so that we can not increase the burden on our healthcare system. The more people that need our hospitals means the less people that can access them when they need them. So, the number one thing we can do as a community right now is get our flu vaccine. It is available, it is effective at preventing reducing the severity and shortening the duration of flu should you get it, the more people that have the flu vaccine, the less likely and less easy it is for flu to jump from person to person in our community, the less hospitalizations, we'll see the less impact on our health care workers and health care hospital system. And we'll just be able to have fewer deaths in our community. You should not get the flu vaccine if you think you might have covid, that is not because they can't be taken together. It's just because we want to protect our health care workers and not further their exposure to COVID. It is available now. You can get the flu vaccine from us going to TPC hd.org forward slash flu. We have many different flu clinics across the county that we can give to you it is free for children. You're it's free if you have health insurance and if you don't have health insurance you can come to us and get the vaccine for free. Lastly, COEs vaccine, the COVID pentelic not code vaccine the COVID pandemic is a really truly trying time on all of us and our interconnectedness and interdependence, is more real, and present than ever before. And so the, what we can do for each other is staying home, getting these vaccines and reaching out and caring for one another, staying connected even when we're physically apart. So thank you for everything you are doing for your communities for your networks for your families. Thank you for helping us. Stop this pandemic. And this is my email address, you're welcome to send me questions and we have time now for some q&a. Robb Huff 51:16 Great, so if anybody has questions feel free to unmute yourself or if you want to raise your hand and do it that way or put something in chat, those are options to Al Ratcliffe 51:33 towards the current turn around and to get the results. Unknown Speaker 51:38 Yeah. So, depending on where you get tested but on average about 24 hours right now. Sara Irish 51:46 Have a question, What are you guys doing to reach out to the communities of color on regardless of application prevention. Unknown Speaker 51:57 Absolutely. So we are just like this meeting we are regularly going. We have a team of cultural liaison from the communities most impacted by covid that are regularly present in community coalition meetings and community network meetings. Sharing updated information about COVID. We also have funded 12 organizations rooted in the communities most impacted by COVID and our are substantially paying them to adapt our public health messaging and tools to be more effective and resonant and grounded in their language and network and community and culture to educate their community Sara Irish 52:46 on those lines, could you provide a list of their organizations that you can start working in pain, to do the work for like for example for the lucky next community I would like to know who is the early, the liaison, and which organizations are the ones that are doing the work. Unknown Speaker 53:06 Yeah. I wonder if Carrie Are you there is this something that you could help with. Yes, Unknown Speaker 53:16 I can help you, Sarah. Thanks. Robb Huff 53:28 Any other final questions for Jax I see Jan with her hand up. Janet Runbeck 53:33 I think we're reading that the mortality rate is going down, which is not seen by some as a reason to be less cautious, or even believe that the pandemic is real. Can you speak to the new data that is arising about folks who survive the disease of COVID but but not surviving well there's. It seems to be that data is coming out about long term, perhaps, permanent effects neurologic and stuff like that so I am really afraid of the messaging of the mortality rate going down. And therefore, it's no big deal. So, can you speak to that, please. Unknown Speaker 54:23 Yeah, great question. Nurse Jan. I think you hit the nail on the head. It is true that rates are increasing among younger folks who tend to survive COVID. And we have put in place such strong precautions in long term care facilities that rates of mortality have gone down. So, if you don't know you know initially we saw COVID breaking out in in long term care facilities that predominantly has folks that are over the age of 65 and as such, we've seen the vast majority of our deaths among older people. And now we see our rates of COVID among younger people who are generally healthy but folks are surviving and continue to feel very sick for a very long time. It is taking a real toll on quality of life, it leads to significant amount of chronic fatigue. It is an inflammatory disease that is having a very long effect on people's ability to feel active and engaged in thinking clearly again and so it is true while it might not take away your life, it is impacting on a very long term, the quality of the life that you have once you have it. So, great points. This department of health I don't know if you all get those, you know, I would. This is such an excellent time to make sure that you're signed up to your local public health websites and so I'll put in some into the chat, some links for you to sign up but you know I it's a great opportunity to be getting messaging and press releases from the State Department of Health, which is right now has a real campaign on sharing the story of a woman named Susan who's my age in her late 30s, who is really struggling with the long term effects of COVID and. And then, for, for us, we have we're putting out regular blog posts about, you know, just like how to stay safe. if you're gathering for the holidays and getting updates on on new illnesses that had should they be coming up like that you know we were really concerned about the multi system inflammatory syndrome and children which is the effect of covid, even though on young young children who even though may not have gotten very sick from COVID are having very serious inflammatory reactions to having healed from COVID. That isn't necessarily taking their life but is causing months and months of recovery, because it is literally shutting down most of their systems. So, there is much to be scared about with COVID. Robb Huff 57:30 Theresa you had your hand up. Unknown Speaker 57:35 I, Theresa Power-Drutis 57:35 I'm sorry I don't get. I'm in Oregon code, I'm on the Oregon coast, and I have a low bandwidth so hopefully I don't get cut off. I just, I want to say the health department the Pierce County Health Department has done great information out there that's easy to use. As I have gone to Texas yet. I'm hoping have that chart. Unknown Speaker 58:04 Like popping in people's faces when they hit your website. And all I wonder if you have really conveys to people that difference between. Robb Huff 58:19 Alright, Teresa you're cut all the way out for some reason. Unknown Speaker 58:23 Sorry Teresa, um, I'll make sure my email is in the chat and you can email me your question. Nate Blackmer 58:34 I've got something real quick if it's okay. So my name is Nate I work on the homeless outreach team and comprehensive and Unknown Speaker 58:42 you say you work in the health department, Nate Blackmer 58:43 no no no homeless outreach comprehensive I might have accidentally said like, Unknown Speaker 58:47 Hey what's up Nate Blackmer 58:48 yeah right hey how's it going. So, you know like, it's pretty well known that like studies of poverty and sickness go hand in hand right so are there discussions being had about distribution of vaccine to more vulnerable populations specifically obviously as this is the coalition to end homelessness right. Our concern is homeless people right whoever I'm demonstratively worse house health outcomes to most folks, and would probably I would hope be stacked pretty high on the rate of who's gonna get like early access as far as the general populace goes. Is there any discussion of that happening. Unknown Speaker 59:21 Yeah, I'm going to show you a special thing that no one in the public has seen it is not confidential, but please don't screenshot it because it's going to change. But I just think it's important. So do you all see this one slide. That looks like a blue wave. So this right now is the current plan for how we will be distributing the COVID vaccine, it's going to change. Please don't screenshot this, but it's taken from the framework for equitable allocation of COVID-19 vaccine from the National Academies of medicine. This is and then informed by over 17,000 respondents of a survey and 400 respondents have focus groups and key informant interviews that the Department of Health conducted between October, really, September October November so far. And so, equity is going to be the driving factor behind how we distribute the vaccine. And we are also weighing like impact of the visit like the physical impact of COVID, the or risk of exposure to COVID. And, here let me use that exact language. So, I'm sorry, give me a second. These are, it's. So, I don't even know if I can tell you anyway yeah here we go. So we're its value is based on the highest valued. The the risk of severe morbidity and mortality, the risk of inquiring the section. The risk of transmitting the disease to others. and then the risk of negative social impact. And so these values in addition to who is most impacted are all being weighed is, I'm so grateful to not be in the room making this decision. It is a horrible ethical quandary, but ultimately, What is mostly been decided at this point between all of our diff all of the different independent bodies that decide vaccine and decide how vaccine will be distributed, is that we're first going to see high risk workers and health care settings and first responders and then people in long term care facilities, people with. And then, and then through that web like people who are have disabilities people who are homeless people who are in prison people who are black and Alaska Native and Native American and Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander are going within those groups will be prioritized first. So you're going to see a lot of like how how at risk are you. Let's get you the vaccine first, but we also need we are also experiencing. I'm going to take this away before I get in trouble. We're also experiencing that, you know like, people are scared that even the distribution of the vaccine is going to be another clinical trial of the vaccine, and so we are working with a significant amount of resistance of fear and mistrust and. And so we need, we are really going to rely on you all as our community partners to be helping promote the COVID vaccine. Because it is going to be the most effective way to stop the pandemic. When it is available. Robb Huff 1:03:08 Well thank you so much for the presentation, there's a lot of great information there. Any. I see Theresa has posted. Yeah, Unknown Speaker 1:03:18 I'll send you our, I'm going to put in a bunch of you guys keep meeting and I'll put in a bunch of resources into your chat box. Robb Huff 1:03:25 Awesome. Well thank you very much for making time to come here today. Jax Hermer 1:03:29 Absolutely, thank you so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it. Robb Huff 1:03:34 You all have a great day and us well, stay safe. So I'm gonna do a little audible on our schedule and shift the safe parking update to be next. So, Jan and Colin did you want to kick that off. Janet Runbeck 1:03:55 Um, yeah yes if I can go first, because we've got some great news, you know every once in a while on the road to Damascus you meet a Reverend that shines the light. So, Colin was able to have a zoom meeting with a couple of leaders masters in the practice of faith, who absolutely gave an amazing boost to our effort and so in a Reverend voice is going to just take a couple of minutes because he has to leave. But I'm going to let Reverend voice just introduce himself, and the impact he's had on on the work we do so. Take it away, Reverend voice. Robb Huff 1:04:46 And you are muted right now, miss. There you go. Yeah. Reverend Boyce 1:04:58 Hello everyone. Some of you I know some of you I don't, I did spend some time working with associated ministries on their quarterly community meetings. I am the commissioner for homeless ministries, with the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia. That's 103 parishes and missions in Western Washington. I'm also on the bishops, I had the bishops homeless taskforce, which we are promoting a lot of the ideas that came from Hb 1754 to all our churches in Western Washington. I worked with Bill kerlin Hackett for two years in getting Hb 1754 through Olympia. And as of June, 11 2020. That bill has passed. It is now active. I would highly encourage everyone to get a chance to read it because it sets a ground floor where churches, and communities can start working together at housing the homeless on church property. This has been a hard fought to get this through. But when it did both sides of the aisle in Olympia. Were proud of the fact that they work together on getting this bill passed, and I really want to pass that on. This was a ecumenical, and both sides of the aisle effort to get this done. It does. Oh, as somebody asked, Do pre existing local ordinances still apply. No. This overseas overrides all previous issues. If there are any problems with the local community, please reach out to me. I will be joining you every Friday at nine o'clock. In order to to throw my voice in here. I would highly encourage everyone to start talking to your pastors and rector's about, you know, what can we do to help the homeless. So many are still living in tents on curbs, and in the woods. Let's give them a safe place. And now we can use churches to do that. churches have been pushing for this for 30 years. And now we have the tool to do it. And I would highly encourage everyone to look into this. Unknown Speaker 1:08:10 Yeah. And, oh just to let you know I'm at Doyle's right now where I will be meeting bill Curlin at 10 o'clock so it's just a matter of him sitting down at the table with me. Robb Huff 1:08:23 Well thank you so much for joining us and for the update and for all your work on this I think this could be really transformative. Kevin Glackin-Coley 1:08:29 Jeff Are you sure you're not Catholic if you're meeting at an Irish Pub. Reverend Boyce 1:08:33 Uh, Unknown Speaker 1:08:35 I'm an Episcopal now me in the Catholic Church at our discussions, a long time ago. Robb Huff 1:08:44 Calling. Colin DeForest 1:08:46 Yes, well, I would just like to say thank you to Jeffrey and Bill. As mentioned as Janet mentioned we had a just a great meeting with them. Earlier this week, and just they really shine the light on a lot of things around this definitely gave us some energy and some direction, after that meeting, I would say that we also had a meeting with the county. Some county leadership just to discuss the house bill be transparent with them. Let them know that kind of moving forward. Are the hope is that this will kind of be our guiding document, honestly a lot of what's of what we would have what the county or any cities are going to require us to do, or ask us, or what we as the safe pardon network we're going to require ourselves to do all aligns with this as far as background checks, you know, no sex offenders and in the plays, having some very basic rules. Social distancing, and even goes a little bit further than I think what we would have done. So, I don't think it, it's by no means is this some loosey goosey just, you know, we're gonna start setting up safe parking all over the place. I think this just gives us some foundation as Jeffrey had said, and some guidance and truly the hope is, as the county and as the city of Tacoma has said on multiple occasions, they really want to be a partner with us in this, and honestly I think on all ends. It just makes the process a whole lot less onerous. And if, as we've talked about before, if this is genuinely something that we want to do in our communities. This just gives us a pathway and a process to do that without jumping through many of the hoops that we potentially could have jumped through if we were going to have to set up, you know, kind of try to shove this through an ordinance that or a temporary use permit that really doesn't align with safe parking. So we're really excited about this, um, you know another example I would say is, we still I mean there's there's full intention and it's called out in the ordinance, or in the in the bill. You still need to you know contact in neighborhoods go through that process, have a community meeting so these are all things that will still most definitely be in place. So yeah, I just say thank you to Jeffrey i think it's uh. I'm really excited to have him to lean on now, and I'm going to lean pretty heavily possibly Doyle's, um, and also, bill, bill, bill has just been great with this also. I know john and i were really excited about it and you know outside of that what I would say is, we talked to two more churches this week. So as I've kind of said for the past few weeks, we're getting upwards of around eight churches, I would say that are talking. Pretty spread out evenly and now it's just a matter of, we, we still have a couple of them I've kind of shared this information. Some of this ordinance information told them to look at it. And we're just kind of seeing what the next steps are going to be so really excited for what comes next. And I guess I'd say that's about it Jan I don't know if you have anything else to add Janet Runbeck 1:12:08 a one, one last piece is that the language from House Bill 1754, was sent to Lakewood city of Lakewood, all the council members the city manager, the chief of police and the mayor, they immediately responded with that the city of Lakewood officially does not allow safe parking, with the exception of, and then they they copied and paste the language from from 1754 said they would immediately abide by everything in 1754, protect, a particular to say parking and early in 2021 will codify the language of 1754 into the ordinances of the city of Lakewood. It was amazing. It was just amazing and I give a lot of credit to Collin to who's kept his ears open for every possible angle on approaching this particular issue, and then doing a little bit of research I think Pierce County is one of the last of the larger counties of Washington to even have, think about safe parking I think we are slow coming to the table. And so I'm proud of this coalition. A Colin and everybody else who has taken a different approach to handle this particular social determinants of health and with that this public health nurse will mute. Robb Huff 1:13:46 One question I had is, has there been a conversation yet with the city of piala. Colin DeForest 1:13:53 There has not so I am today one of them I drafted up an email, I'm gonna send a PCP ops way try to schedule a meeting with them. I've talked to the church computer all up, and involve leads and just kind of give giving them a heads up on this and pass them along the information on the bill so I'm hoping to them, and then I'm also going to reach out to the city of Tacoma and try to set up a meeting. We've already done with the City of Tacoma and it was positive but this this shines a new light on the city of Tacoma conversation is exactly what this bill is about because we met with the planning department and they were scratching their heads saying, I don't know where this fits this doesn't really, I guess we could try to do this we could probably pop it in here. It's an exact exam. To me it's exactly why we have a bill like it kind of cuts all of that out so those conversations are definitely to come up to say that Jan. Jan is real quick to give a lot of thanks and props and Jan behind me poking me in the back at most all times, we wouldn't be where we are at. Not just jam there's everybody in the safe parking network group, and someone asked for information on it if you want more information email me I'll put my email on the in the messages, and I'll, we'll get you on that list but it's every Monday at noon, we have a meeting this Monday. The last thing I would say is we have, um, who's on it this week for Dr press, so not just expert who's done 10 years he's going to join us via phone, that will be in his new meeting he's going to be driving back, or driving to California to get back to a study so that's all I got. Robb Huff 1:15:49 Fantastic update. Yeah, Maureen. Maureen Howard 1:15:56 Great work. Wonderful. One thing to keep in mind Lakewood was really important because the mayor of Lakewood is one of the special advisors to the county executive. And one of the things I would think about out loud. One of the things I was about when you go out to the other jurisdictions. I would quote what the city of Lakewood has told you, I I'd literally attached that, because these mayors are all working together in on the housing side in that shape group. And so, I, I would freely share what they're committing to something to think about. Al Ratcliffe 1:16:48 A good idea to send that language to all other mayor's in the shape group, encourage you to do that. Robb Huff 1:17:00 Fantastic. So any other last comments before we move on to our brainstorm session. All right, thank you so much. So, Kevin. Kevin Glackin-Coley 1:17:27 Yes rob him here. So, this kind of ties in nicely with what I was hoping to have us look at in our breakout session today. But before I kind of outline that very quick I do want to just give a bit of an update I've been talking with a couple of agencies and it looks like we have one that is willing to take on the inclement shelter voucher program hotel voucher program, which we're working to get funded as well so hopefully we'll have more news on that next week. But at least that would help us on inclement weather days having access to some other beds. The second thing and I've talked to Michael Yoder about this and I've talked to a couple others is, is how do we approach churches. And this is an idea that I got in a conversation with Nick later on I don't know Nick if you are now you are if you're still your wife. Where has your name there. But if I'm trying to, how do we approach, local congregations, not just me Collin and company are doing the, the safe parking but the idea of approaching congregations about accepting one family, or one household if it's an individual and making a commitment to provide supportive housing to them until they're able to move, you know, as they're going through the process to get into more permanent housing. And so how do we make that outreach to churches. And one of the things that we're really looking for and I'm going to thank Mike Yoder for this he offered to help put it from bullet points into kind of like a messaging to churches, but how, what are what would be the ask of churches. What are the things that they would have to think about in order to do this so that when we go out I'm going to talk to the Tacoma ministerial Alliance on Tuesday and so we reached out to other faith communities, how can we make a consistent request of how they might do this approach of welcoming into a into a space, whether it's a church home space or a church member space, an individual or a family and provide them support so that's kind of the framework. And then what basically what Sophia in our groups we can have those conversations report back but then just email it to me or Robin, and then we can work on getting that into a coherent approach. Robb Huff 1:19:50 Sure. So, just to go over the instructions for folks before we go into breakout rooms is there just a single question or two that we want everyone to try to address and then email us back. Kevin Glackin-Coley 1:20:03 Yeah, well I think it's what does what would a congregation need to think of, if they're going to welcome somebody into the house and just taking the wisdom of everybody here who would think, well there's COVID restrictions there's background checks there's all these different things we can get them all in one place. So we can try to put together I guess kind of an FAQ for churches that this is what you need to consider before when you say yes to this. Right. Carolyn Reed 1:20:30 Hey. Hey Kevin Carolyn here. Have you talked to Jan Monroe from St Francis Cabrini she's been doing this, Kevin Glackin-Coley 1:20:39 oh no I have not but if you could, message me her contact information, I will. Carolyn Reed 1:20:44 Okay, yeah, she's been actually getting churches to commit to hosting a family or to or rotating a family around, you know, different churches out I'll, I'll look up her contact information, Kevin Glackin-Coley 1:20:58 I did not think it was an original idea, so it's good to know somebody out there is doing it and I'll follow up with her. Robb Huff 1:21:04 Thank you, and and just for further background before COVID. She was a regular attendee at coalition meetings as well. Good. Unknown Speaker 1:21:11 Very good. Robb Huff 1:21:13 So why don't we break out for. I'm going to set up eight breakout rooms. Why don't we spend 15 minutes kind of going over thoughts responsive to Kevin's question. And then, what I will do is, we can put our email address in the chat. Afterward, for folks who have taken notes during the meeting too, to respond back to us. So, it'll take just a moment for me to hit the hit the button and send everybody to rooms and let's have a good conversation until about 1013. Yeah, designate one Secretary that'd be great. And just so you know this is not one of the meeting rooms. So, if, if you're hanging here that's fine to take a break from the meeting, we'll come back here at about 1030. Good morning Julian we are in the midst of Breakout Room conversations, do you want to go to a room or just kind of hang here until we're done. Reverend Boyce 1:25:47 Well, what's your room. What are the choices. Robb Huff 1:25:52 So what they're doing is they're talking about how to have coffee, what, what churches would need in order to sponsor families for throughout the winter till they can move into more permanent housing. I do have the first room only has two folks in it so if you want to go there I can easily send you there. Reverend Boyce 1:26:14 Before I do what are the other rooms. Robb Huff 1:26:17 They're all considering the same question. Okay, so, Unknown Speaker 1:26:20 I'm sure, similar to the one suggestion. Robb Huff 1:26:25 Okay. Great, thanks. Thank you. Just to let everyone know and another minute we'll be closing the breakout rooms and coming back here to hear what people's ideas were. Welcome back everybody it'll be just a few seconds here before everybody's back in the room. Al Quintana 1:37:51 Does anybody on here know how to change the name on the, the screen name. Robb Huff 1:37:59 So we have it locked down right now but I can change it. What would you like me to change it to, Unknown Speaker 1:38:03 I just put owl. Okay. Owl Quintana qu INTAN A just al Quintana Thank you. I logged in through another my other account so it showed up as my email. And usually, it has my name on there from my work one but I got in here kind of late, Unknown Speaker 1:38:25 so Oh problem. Robb Huff 1:38:26 Did I spell your name correctly there. Unknown Speaker 1:38:29 Yeah, just, just that out, not out. Take the A off and just out quintile, Robb Huff 1:38:34 got it, got it. Al Quintana 1:38:36 Perfect. Robb Huff 1:38:37 That'll work out right now. Al Quintana 1:38:39 Thank you very much. Robb Huff 1:38:40 Yep. All right, so why don't we do some quick report outs from the groups. Did everyone assign somebody to take notes in their groups. We can start with room one which was Charlene Julian and Kevin. Kevin Glackin-Coley 1:39:05 Yeah, and we had Teresa power dirt is on for a little bit until her bandwidth issues overtook her. So we had a kind of a broad conversation and kind of identified a few things one background checks was really a caution to do that on a case by case basis and it's really helped churches not understand that they need to understand the person and the issues behind them. Though there are some moving sexual offenders some some things that are just no goes to start with. What kind of special behavioral health needs mental health, substance abuse, how might they connect to the community to provide those supports or to make sure they're the folks who are staying with them are connected with those supports if they can't do it. Are they equipped to handle children, and what special needs my dad and Intel. We kept going back and forth between churches could do this in their parking lot, not as a whole safe parking system but just one car, but really we're looking towards How can we help them find a way to house people in a structure. Make sure the church as much as possible can know what they're getting into before they do it if what are we asking them to do, or what is it that they're able to do and they can say they can we can do it for a week we can do it for a month. We're really helping them do that process and not feel like they have to do what, churches, a is doing if they're not able to do that really look again at the at the bias against our V's if they're going to welcome up a person in a vehicle that's sometimes particularly with kids that's the best model and how can you set that up properly. How again I think we said this, but how long a commitment is the church making. And what are they capable of doing and how and how might they have that conversation with the, with the family they're welcome at a time so those were kind of the key things we had. Right. And I will, I will email that to myself Robb Huff 1:41:08 to yourself, that's Yeah, that'll be efficient. Yeah. So room two was Carrie Chang Judy Flanagan Rita Lawrence, Valerie Knight and Verna Unknown Speaker 1:41:19 warning Valeri Knight 1:41:21 came up with suggestions I'll type them up and send it out. So one really figuring out if churches are still meeting remotely how are they going to support someone in person, sanitize and prep the space restrooms showers for everybody, providing items so it was cleaning the food laundry and transportation blankets. We spent a good amount of time on services how to make sure that everyone in the church has the proper services and connections to outreach, as well as access to a 24 hour outreach line, what we don't want to see and we know what's going to happen is, somebody's going to have to be removed in the middle of the night or have a mental health break down any of those number of things that can and will happen, what is that church supposed to do at three in the morning, and who is going to be there to support that church so, and then the other big thing that I was going to what we talked about was ensuring like a matching program like we know not all churches are fully accepting of LGBTQIA plus folks, and yet we know a large population of our homeless folks are LGBTQIA class so we don't want to trauma to re traumatize folks experiencing homelessness, but we know we can't change our church right like that's not gonna happen. So we want to make sure that people are placed in a space that they're accepted wanted, and that this isn't turning into something, it should not be so that was a big thing that we chatted about for a long time but I have a full two page list so I will type it up and send it to you. Unknown Speaker 1:42:41 Awesome. Valerie Can I say something real quick. Unknown Speaker 1:42:43 Um, Unknown Speaker 1:42:44 Judy had a good idea about I think it was Judy about creating some kind of an info session or, you know, offering information to churches about the population that they might be serving so that their perceived expectations would more closely match what would actually happen if they were hosting people. And then, let me see someone else said have it creating some checklists for church to help them see if they have the capacity as they're going through the decision making process. Unknown Speaker 1:43:17 Great. Robb Huff 1:43:19 So room three was Alan Brown. Looks like amerigroup, Jennifer m Heymans and Mike Yoder. Mike Yoder 1:43:32 Alan Do you want to take it. Alan Brown, we talked a lot about work that Alan and and Nick in are already working on to revitalize. Some of the assets, some of the core tenants of the old family housing network which I think will be a beautiful model that that Kevin can roll out to other congregations but but Allen's doing the work. Can you briefly report on that, Mr Brown. Alan Brown 1:44:02 Sure, yeah actually Nick lighter and I have been working on this for several months, and identified a church that is willing to host one family. And we worked out policies and procedures with them. We have an mru with them that was just approved this week. Actually, and we'll probably get ready to start it within the within the next few weeks. Starting with. Starting with one family and we're, what, what we're doing is drawing from our Rapid Rehousing program, and in families that have been referred to our Rapid Rehousing program. And there's always a period of course, while the family is looking for housing but Nate may need shelter right now. So, yeah, we're, Unknown Speaker 1:45:12 we are getting that started now and we're, we're looking at this as a pilot that we can, that we can learn from. I mean we've we've tried to plan for all the contingencies, but we know that we're gonna, you know, learn things. And, and have this pilot church, be able to inform our future efforts and they can even be a part of recruiting others from their own experience. Robb Huff 1:45:52 Awesome. Any other thoughts from that group. All right, let's move on to room four which was owl. Carolyn read, Maureen, Stephen Sprague and Taylor. Carolyn Reed 1:46:12 Yeah, I'll just we had a few things to discuss but I'll give you most of it in the notes. We thought to be a little careful the language of how you title the program. Maybe not adoptive family. But maybe lift a family build a family ministering with a family. Without getting too religious, you know families aren't feeling like forced upon with the religion aspect, also have shared housing, do some background screening placement. I don't know if they do casework to get them house but you know maybe having another organization do the case work to get them house, another model we talked about is a sanctuary model us like with immigration type of things we commit to one family and, you know, host them and a house or whatever and put all your resources behind it. And also make sure there's rapid COVID testing available. Robb Huff 1:47:17 Thank you, Carolyn group five had Audrey, James Pogue rosemary and surina. James Pogue 1:47:24 Yes, so let me grab my notes real quick. So we have a couple of ways we went to thinking about how different congregations can participate, either adopting families or people as well as what they can do to provide ancillary supports we talked about churches could like adopt a shelter or adopt outreach team to provide like outreach donations blankets bags clothing tents or adopt a shelter and put like a Giving Tree type thing and then people could sign up for items that they need and then the congregation could work with the shelter to to get personalized kind of Christmas style gifts, makes working with like shared housing to expand host homes, using the existing model that already exists where we do matching and sharing would be easier. So that shared housing program would do the screening for the faith community, and there would be a little bit less of a learning curve and adopting a family through that process. Also the from the, the very first presenter talking about a place for people to cook their food. If a shelter or was our nice shelter but if a congregation had the ability to offer you know hygiene support showers or places for people to cook food that could be helpful for some of the people living without ability to cook. We also looked at could a congregation adopt a family that already was in a shelter and use the shelters kind of the screening criteria, we had the same concerns that Valerie shared about making sure trauma informed care was part of it and then not all individuals living in the, and homeless shelters or encampments are going to be interested to receive support from from different faith communities or if they are, would there be undue expectations or trauma put on by the faith community trying to do their best to assist the person but also inadvertently causing more harm. So, if there is criterias whether they know him or not, he could rely on either the shared housing services or the shelters to offer kind of a level of screening so we don't have some. Let's just say misalignment of expectations when we try to do housing options. The other thing we talked about too was kind of expanding our pool of faith communities so some of this would be cold calling churches that honestly appear to have the bandwidth so we would look not at the small churches that are really suffering during this time but we'd look at maybe mega churches or other large congregations that are currently not part of associated ministries, or not a part of the coalition or haven't offered supports and they could do the same thing they could offer giving trees or something or they could do the host home. The other thing we said is maybe we expand with churches mean that we look at faith communities beyond just Christian churches that we have a variety depth and breadth of faith communities out there that some that have come to our coalition and stood up and said they want to be helpful and other ones that maybe they haven't come to the coalition but have a heart to give back to the community so expanding beyond just traditional Christian. So those are our suggestions. Robb Huff 1:50:28 Awesome. Group six which was Dana, Jeffrey Oscar and l kuntala. Dana Peterson 1:50:38 Yes, we had a pretty good discussion. Jeffrey was out of this has been has been already done in other places and it's important for us to maybe not reinvent the wheel but just learn from others. We talked a little bit about my, my church many years ago, which has since closed but it had a had kind of a very kind of a bad situation when we took in a homeless couple, and we allowed them to stay in the park or parsonage in the basement. What we did wrong there and it was. That's the thing about the screening being so important. The couple went in and we we took rent money and that was not a good thing to do and the next thing you know there was not two people that were 12 people. And so it we had to experience a costly eviction and that, Unfortunately, was an experience that left kind of a bad taste for some of the members of the church so. And also, perhaps setting it up to have a mentor church, kind of similar to what Alan was saying about. They're going to start it off with the one church and then as more more Come on, kind of a mentor role in guiding them through and the you know the common things that they're finding that are working or not working. So that's pretty much all we have to say Robb Huff 1:52:13 rate. Thanks for that perspective. Room seven. This was Amanda Collin Gerald Jan and Nathan. Unknown Speaker 1:52:25 Yes. Um, Colin DeForest 1:52:27 I think the stuff that has already been covered we covered but I would just quickly say, education, you know education to the church was a huge piece kind of a description of what homelessness, looks like the different phases, but really I think kind of lessons learned and kind of what is a big piece of the safe parking network is just really having that support from the people that people from this coalition supporting those churches and just having someone to somewhat lean on. Clear expectation setting I think that is huge. I think oftentimes we go into these things and it's so expectation setting was said and then in mind, super important to always understand what success look like now if you're doing one family is that does success look like two different things for one is it letting that family stay as long as they can, for the other side is it getting that family house. Within a month and if they don't, then it's not successful. So I think having a clear expectation of what success looks like. I think a key piece of this is, can it be financially supported, I think, churches are strapped right now so really I think it's kind of that thinking outside the box way of looking at what does the church have to offer. What are assets that that church has obviously you know. Examples are parking lots, you know, we're looking at safe parking in those parking lots, but oftentimes those parking lots can be used for tiny houses, can we get 520 houses in a corner of a parking lot or on your on your parcel. So I think it's really looking at what are the assets and how can we financially support that church. Got to speak to the mission of the church, you know, this practice of your mission I think really tapping into that, that's something that's also come up with the safe parking network is huge. And then like I said I think just being open minded and thinking outside of that box as everyone has said but it's you know the idea of, well, maybe that church has a widow who has a big house and they would be willing to. And so that right there is okay well that's, you know, so I think that's a little bit outside the box but that shared housing idea obviously making sure we're checking all the boxes and everything but, yeah, that's about all we. Robb Huff 1:54:48 Thanks con, and then Group A twitches a small group, Laurie and Paula. Paula Anderson 1:54:57 Okay. Um, so, so some of the things we talked about are the essentials that the church needs to realize and so this would be some sort of information we would give to them, of the option so maybe a checklist or something that says are you going to be doing this for 12 hours or you Only you need to be doing it for 24 hours you're going to do families, you're going to do individuals on how are you going to feed them or are you going to feed them restroom security, different things like that all of those choices that the churches can make with this network, the safe parking network information that we have it's up to the church how much or how little they want to participate. So I think that that's a really good thing but but in order to help them understand that we can use some experience so one of the things that we were going to try to that we were looking at is offer training which I think that's already been mentioned Vallejo does training and de escalation and trauma informed care, and other things and that would be a good partnership to to have the layo help us with training ons, on, on a church also freezing nights, as you know was going for 17 years, we have training and freezing nights, every year, all the volunteers get trained, and it also talks about disc de escalation. How to handle homeless, you know, different things of that nature that might be useful. And then one of the other things that we came up with is if you have a few churches that are going to do the 12, hour and a few churches that are going to do the 24 hour, can you create some sort of church Co Op, so that they can learn from each other as well after we've, you know, given them as much training and information as we can on the 12 hour churches would maybe have some different needs and and support needs then the 24 hour church, if you're doing families are you going to be connected and can we arrange for connections with the school districts to make sure that the students have a place, possibly in the church to be able to do school, and then also the tools a laptop or an iPad or whatever it is that they need. So, the connection with the networks and the service providers and the school districts if they're doing families, things of that nature are going to be really important. And so probably it would be good for those of us that are in the service provider field, to be able to help them with those connections maybe we just introduce them, and then pass that on. So those are. And then the last thing that I thought of I don't think I mentioned it to Lori, was one of the churches that I am currently bringing the new home mobile resources response team to is also considering doing safe parking. What the first question she asked me when I said that to her was can you get your church which my church is close to that can you get them to send us some volunteer so this is one of those smaller churches that we were talking about. And so I think it would be really good also to somehow develop a list of churches that maybe don't want to put it in their perkin parking lot, but could have people interested in volunteering and and doing that, helping other churches that are. So, those are those are resources that are very valuable. And I don't know Laurie Do we have anything else. Laurie Davenport 1:58:49 Now the only thing else we talked about a little bit was giving churches ways to deal with neighbors who don't like the idea of what you're doing. I we experienced that here United Methodist for our offices, and it can be really, As you know where you are, even more so it's just really frightening sometimes the, the amount of opposition there is the harassment that takes place and I think if there were a way to, you know, give people some ammunition maybe do some marketing about, you know, why this is not scary why this is a good thing, you know, will be really helpful. Robb Huff 1:59:32 Great. So all of these suggestions if you get the opportunity, please email them to either Kevin or I if you send them to me I'm going to end up bumping them over to Kevin so Kevin's email is in his chat name there. You can put it. Do you want to put it into the chat as I already did somebody had Kevin Glackin-Coley 1:59:54 put it into the tray. Great. Thanks everyone. Yeah. Robb Huff 2:00:00 All right, so we've got a couple of items still left in our agenda today including running through our government updates. So why don't we get started with those. Valerie Do you want to offer an update from Pierce County. Valeri Knight 2:00:17 Sure Unknown Speaker 2:00:18 yeah I'll offer an update and then I have to jump off I actually have a scheduled call with MDC, and 30 so I'm a little late but that's okay. Robb Huff 2:00:24 I can't get away. Unknown Speaker 2:00:26 I blame Robert. Um, so, I've been out for the last two days if you have an email I'm getting back to it, I had some medical appointments, so I'm back today in full force but I'm so against on rental assistance. Before our a wrap. We have served 1451 people, or households, I should say, households, for a total of $3.2 million. And that is a complete spin down to date of 39%. And then for carers we have served 1914 households for just over 4 million, and that is a spend down, 55% and that includes the new $5 million that was just put in a couple weeks ago. So we have served a total of, you know, however many added up because I didn't do it earlier, we actually just implemented tune in games which is very cool. So, we have contracted with Pierce County housing authority and to come out and authority to do direct service to their households. So we gave telco money to both households to both housing authorities so they'll be able to serve their low income households directly, they will have to go through the portal it'll be very fast, to help support all of those households and low income and subsidized housing. And so that contract just went out, Tuesday, and then we are finalizing it today. So that's a quick moving change that we have implemented. We did hear back from the state. We have access to the last 50% of our iraq dollars which is great because there was that worried that they would take some of it, they're not. And they actually asked we want it anymore. And so we're working with the state to see what the needs are. And we have implemented, up to six months of services to Iraq cares is going to stay at three, but we'll do a warm handoff if there's a need to for anybody who's being current service do cares. I will have your demographic report for you next week actually Jeff Rogers well because he's back. He will have your demographic report for you next week so Jeffrey, our data team is working on finalizing that report right now so other than that we are just rocking and rolling. The big question we get all the time is have we been extended past 1213, we have not these dollars must be spent by 1230 and invoiced, the very first week of January so if that changes, believe me, you'll know because I will be so excited. So, that's what I have for today. Robb Huff 2:02:44 Thanks Valerie. Do we have anybody on today from the city of Tacoma with an update, not seeing anyone. So let's move on to the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department carry any updates. Carrie Ching 2:03:03 Um, no, I think Jack's covered a lot. Um, but I sent out an email yesterday with the flu and covid Mobile schedule. And I'm going to put in the chat, chat box. The Pierce County's COVID Mobile testing schedule as well, because it tells you whether it's walk up, or drive through for just COVID Dobby doing that in a second. Thank you. Robb Huff 2:03:32 Thank you, Carrie. And I don't see anybody from the Pierce County Emergency Management Office, with us, is there anyone here with an update from that girl. All right. So, that queues up Maureen to talk about advocacy and whatever she would like to share with us this morning. Maureen Howard 2:03:59 Thank you. So, I think we can wrap it up, probably fairly quickly, and leave people some time this morning at the national level, there is no relief in sight. You know as much as I do from watching the news, and reading whatever tea leaves you read. It doesn't matter how desperate the need is until the senate acts on a relief bill that has some parity with what has already passed the House, and that Trump is willing to sign. There will be no relief at the federal level, absent federal relief. This will simply be horrendous coming the first of January, at the bare minimum. We need an extension of the CDC moratorium. Well we get it, I don't know. We have a gap from the end of December, until January 20 when President Elect Biden takes office, and hopefully in that stack of executive orders is something that begins to address the needs of people experiencing homelessness, or at the brink. At the state level. The governor's office reached out to the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, and said what about shelter needs, because everything they Lyons was putting forward was about housing, which we all know that it's a desperate situation or about rental assistance, but not actual shelter. So everybody's kind of scrambling to try and figure out, are the shelters set for the winter, the existing shelters. Are they set, are you set on into 2021, I see at least one head saying no. So that's I'm going to be following up with some of you. You know in small groups to try and get your status and I understand. I ran nonprofits I ran shelters, I get it. If you declare that you have a need. You look weak. This is not what needs to happen. You need to be able to say this is what we have to have going through this winter, going into the coming year, we are living in this pandemic well into next calendar year. And that's just the reality of it. So, if you're running a shelter. Look for an email if you don't see one from me, please reach out. Now the legislature will have its regular working sessions, its pre legislative session, November 30 and December 1, and we'll get some idea of where the legislature's interest is going forward into that session and so we'll be a range of, you know, the whole lot of advocates will be watching. What are the homelessness issues they're highlighting what are the housing issues they're highlighting what are the supporting service issues they're highlighting, so that we get some idea now we know from call earlier this week that some of you probably followed the University of Washington and King County Human Services study on the folks who moved from the sea, the huge congregate shelter in downtown Seattle into the hotel rooms. Immediately when pandemic when we realized the how the pandemic spread. And so they they've got a research project, and they're. They've been presenting findings their report, since housing Washington in the homelessness conference, they're gonna they've been asked by Senator cooter to present to her housing and I forget the rest of the name of it, committee in the senate during the working days. So that's getting increasing visibility. I know some of you are working on trying to expand your congregate shelters, again, please, please, be very careful on doing that. We've been really lucky and keeping the incidence of COVID down, I think, pretty low. With respect to all of the homelessness work that you all are engaged in and we need to keep it like that. So, if excuse me if you're not paying attention to the emails that I'm messages I'm forwarding from the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance. I encourage you to do that because these webinars that they're providing as preparation for the coming session are really good. And you can they're free and you can just click on them and watch them anytime. So, and spread that with your, your friends. It's a particularly interest. I think it's particularly important to watch the one on the Housing Trust Fund, so that people really understand the State Housing Trust Fund. So, there's a level of which it's all really pretty amazing to me that we have such an enormous State Housing Trust Fund, remembering when we stood in committee rooms and the lenders in the state of Washington told us we would bring down the lending system, the banking system in the state of Washington. If we went forward with just trying to get the interest on the real estate escrow accounts. So, to, to look at the potential of 200 and 50. million new dollars, as the request for the State Housing Trust Fund on top of everything that's there is really pretty astounding. And if you are young and advocacy work. So, it's a long haul. But there are moments of wonder in it. And there are people who are wonderful in it I sent out the first tribute on Tony Lee. If you knew Tony Lee, that you know everything about him. Except maybe that nobody he didn't know how old he was, but if you didn't know Tony Lee and you're working in homelessness or any poverty issue in Washington State, you are doing your work because of what Tony Lee did with the Washington State Legislature. He was the smartest kindest funniest. Just incredible person, and he taught, everybody all the time, Tony. Tony never kept a secret about how to do something or make something happen. Tony shared that so that you. You were always more prepared for whatever you were going to do after Tony, talked with you or after you share this, you know, a stage with Tony, or you followed Tony in your testimony whatever it was. He shared it all, and it just made a huge difference. And all of us who are fortunate enough to be able to work with him. So if you're if you want to be an advocate be a Tony Lee advocate. All right, other things. We are going to have a new county council. And so we need to think about how we want to work with them we still have some time. The city of Tacoma budget, I sent out the neighborhood and Community Services information. You all may have some questions on that as well. This budget is pretty far down the line, but that doesn't mean that we can't ask for clarifications and we know there'll be modifications, as we go forward. We've got a number of coalition working groups. And one of the things, which is really pretty exciting. But one of the things I really want to ask everybody if you've got a working group that you're part of and everybody in that group looks like me. Then, go looking for some other folks who don't. That's our job. And it may be, you know, everybody's got a lot to contribute but not everybody knows how to get to the table. They want to join and so please take a look. And, and go looking, and ask the folks who represent other communities to help you do that if you're coming like I am from straight white elderly community, highly educated. Lots of privileges over life, then reach out to some folks who don't have that same profile and let's get these working groups broadened. The other thing is, we've got a brand new state senator Tawana nobles, and so we want to get ready to welcome her and work with her. We've got a brand new state senator, but not new to the legislature and Chris gildan from Gallup, same thing. We got to be able to work with him. We did not get some of the people that we wanted, but we thank them for help Larry still on. We thank them for running, Because that's huge. And we want to help them figure out how to do some of the things they wanted to do by running. Even though, somebody else, actually won that race. Um, let's see. So there are two things that are really hard, I think, to talk about still this morning. One of them is that we've been really focused on E wrap and the county's cares money and the Veterans Program money and now the money that's going directly to the housing authorities for rental assistance. And that's really critical to keeping everybody who is housed housed. And even so, that's only a sliver of what we actually need. We're going into 2021, with almost no assured rental assistance money unless the feds Act, or the state acts, or we are able to scrape some money out of like Community Development Block Grant CV allocations. We're not going to have rental assistance money, and any amount that we need. So we're going to be faced with. Do we want funds going into keeping shelters open, and even opening more. Do we want funds going into the support services that we know are so critical. Or do we want funds going into people who are at the brink of losing their housing. These are going to be really horrible decisions for us to have to weigh in on, but we need to think about it and we need to use that reality as the impetus to lobby in every way we can for the state to come forward with funding, even if it means additional document recording fees. If it means some kind of a progressive tax if we did nothing but tax, the transactions of the, you know, mega mansions, that would be something, or the people who own them. And I know your organs, your, your organization's will have different positions and so will you. But I urge you to listen to everything that's put on the table as thoughtfully as you can and you can always act as an individual, so long as you're not a Fed there's some Hatch Act things that preclude you if you're a Fed federal employee. By, and you may have restrictions, through your nonprofit organization, you may have to use your own phone, you may have to use your own personal email. You just need to know what the policies of your organization, are you may have to if you sign a petition or any kind of a sign on you may have to sign as an individual, or you might have to note that your organization is for identification only or something, you have to be, you might have to be really careful. But, and some of the nonprofit's may be able to take positions that are much more public. So, and if you have a network like I see Mike Yoder and I'm not sure who else is heading a no network here. Reverend voices on with the Episcopalians you may have the capacity within your structure, to be able to take more public positions or to guide the members of your structure so these are all things, now's the time to get those pieces in order and figure out what is it that we can do that we need to be able to do that we need to be ready. What is it, we already know, we need. We need good data, we need to know how to present it and how to explain it, and defend it. And we need stories, we need stories of the people who are impacted by the absence of the resource, or who have benefited because of the resources and don't think Kelly's on the call, but think about Kelly. Last year, talking about the 49 childcare facility she called to try and find childcare for her two boys, so she could go back to work and how when she finally got childcare, they were at opposite ends of the city of Tacoma. So, just, you know, look for people who are willing to tell their stories. Look, we can, the alliance will help them learn how to do that. You yourself may have a story. So think about do care, are you ready to tell that story. The only thing you can't do, is you can't tell somebody else's story in a way that identifies them. That's a story held in trust. But again, we can help you do that. So, like, Garrett was going to talk as part of associated ministries program last night, and about people who live with chronic mental illness and are homeless and I said oh don't forget my friend who pours the vitamin C on the trees, so that they pull you pours orange juice on the trees, so they get their vitamin C, you'll, you'll never know who that person is. But, that sort of brings it home for me, and a lot of other stories, held in trust. Here's the other awful thing. unemploy, I think, and I haven't had the courage to double check. but I think a lot of people who were in that first wave of layoffs, got those first unemployment benefits beginning in late March, may now be bumping up against the end of the combination of their state and federal unemployment benefits. I think it's 26 weeks for the state plus they got an extra 13 under the federal under the cares act under the unemployment part. I'm hoping I'm wrong, but if I'm not. We're going to start seeing a whole new group of people who don't have that income because no matter how low it was, it was income. And so that's going to start to affect people's ability to remain in housing. And on that awful note. You know how to find me. So please do. And if I don't respond right away. Keep at it, because you'll bubble up on the list, which seems to have gotten more burden lately. And we'll talk about encampments next week. Hopefully if we have time because on this county contract that I have. One of the things to look at in 2021 are self managed encampments safe encampments. I'd like to live in a world where we weren't spending any time trying to figure out how to make people living in tents safer. But that's not the world we're in. And I thought, Nora did a wonderful sort of intro to that this morning and so think about what she talked about and how the Catholic Worker community works with the folks who are living intense and in vehicles on their street, and what have that attitude. What of that experience. We can adapt, many of you are outreach workers or you know the outreach workers folks who are going out to the encampments and so how do we help people be safer. During this winter. In the midst of this pandemic. So, as always, it's an honor to do this. Thank you. Robb Huff 2:21:47 Thank you, Maureen. Um, so we have a couple minutes left, So I'll open it up to anybody who has items for the good of the order anything. Nate Blackmer 2:21:58 Yeah. I don't remember hearing anybody talk about the fact that we had had a homeless person past from exposure and the last week, accurate for some that we know of for the season. That story is going to be the narrative of the season for us like we're going to have a lot of that right so I don't know if anyone is. It's always a terrible thing right it's tough to talk about a tragedy as a political opportunity right because it is both things like it's awful and it's inhumane as shitty, but we need to be using this to talk about the fact that it is an emergency people's lives are on the line and not in the figurative, but like, literally, people are dying because of a lack of action right so however however folks want to take that and run with it like that's on them but like, it's already started and I think that we need to be talking about it. Robb Huff 2:22:50 Thank you. Kevin Glackin-Coley 2:22:52 Thank you. Thanks to my may for bringing that up because I meant to mention it I did confirm with the police department that a gentleman experiencing homelessness died on November 5, I was on a porch of an abandoned house. Natural as it were causes, though I don't know how natural that would be one thought I had Michael in back in the day, associated ministries, and it's harder to do now with COVID used to do moments of blessing at scenes of homicides and I'm wondering if there might be a way just to bring in the church community to do a moment of silence, or blessing at at this spot where this gentleman passed and if that should happen again just as a way to bring it into that, Mike Yoder 2:23:32 yeah we're open to consciousness. Yeah, we'd be happy to organize that we, we, in the days of run vignette and then we tried beyond him to keep it going and just automatically show up at the site of every death but we just haven't had the bandwidth and it kind of came down to only me and the staff member who showed up, but the majority of the time were there so that didn't seem to be the community interest to keep doing it. When we didn't need to do it for ourselves, necessarily, but if there's a community desire to have a moment of blessing type remembrance, then we'd be happy to, you know, to bring our, our, you know, helping in staging that and we still have a, you know, email list to get the word out to show up and to do that kind of commemoration if there's. We've been waiting for the community to ask us to do it now instead of just proactively doing it. Robb Huff 2:24:30 I think it'd be a great idea. Maureen Howard 2:24:32 I don't know if we can actually show up. Mike Yoder 2:24:37 We have, like, we have maybe stance, you know, stand in a circle, six feet apart or something yeah it's it's challenging. Yeah, Maureen Howard 2:24:47 there might be something maybe, Dr. Christopher I keep thinking back to his coming to the coalition meeting and really having a real commitment to people who were living on sheltered and maybe that might be something that the TMA might be interested in partnering with. Kevin Glackin-Coley 2:25:05 I'm speaking with the TMA remotely Of course on Tuesday, so I'll add that to my list of things I bring to them. Maureen Howard 2:25:12 Well I don't know Mike has a really good relationship with Dr. Christopher So, yeah, Mike Yoder 2:25:16 let's, let's mention all, all of us can be mentioned as it'd be a beautiful, you know, role for them to take on. I think a lot of a lot of the, the tragedies of death on the streets. May be we know within the Central City area I'm just going to guess. So, yeah, there'll probably be TMA member churches nearby and if they want to, you know, embrace that, you know, within their neighborhoods I think it'd be a beautiful expression. Maureen Howard 2:25:51 They think this gentleman. I think the place where he died is actually not far from the tiny houses there on McKinley, I think he was at the 800 block of 56, East 56th. I think that's not far. Although my geography over there is imperfect. Robb Huff 2:26:20 So anyone else with items of general interest for the group before we move into our planning portion. Unknown Speaker 2:26:29 This is Julian I'd recommend if anyone. I've discovered this recently, you can actually save that stat discussion to your hard drive. If you don't want to lose all the data in it because when you leave the meeting. If you haven't done it already you'll lose that data. Thanks. Robb Huff 2:26:44 Thanks Julian and I know we've got a smaller group of us still here but just a couple of reminders about scheduling going forward. We're not anticipating holding a meeting on November 27 which would be the day after Thanksgiving, so that will be the first of our holiday breaks from the coalition. And then in December. Christmas and New Year's both fall on a Friday, so we won't have meetings on those two days, so as always feel free to stay with the call if you'd like to help was planning for next week's meeting, and hope everybody has a good weekend and a safe weekend and see you all next week. And for those of us hanging out How about a five minute break. Transcribed by https://otter.ai