Public Health Committee (PHC) Meeting Transcript – 11/09/2021 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 6 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 11/9/2021 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 11/9/2021 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [1:05:13 PM] . >> We're going to get started. I see on the virtual dais -- we'll get to approving the minutes. All in favor? That is unanimous on the dais with the mayor pro tem and the mayor off the dais. As they will be for the rest of the day. So discussion and possible action on the calendar. Any comment on the calendar? I think we've pulled some of your offices and heard feedback. Any concerns or issues with the calendar as it's presented for 2022? If not, I'll entertain a motion on that, please. >> No concerns. >> Okay. Vice chair Fuentes moves approval. Council member kitchen, would [1:06:13 PM] you like to second? >> Kitchen: Yes. >> Note, colleagues, we have cancelled the July meeting and have left open the possibility that during budget time on 8/3 that may be another meeting we choose not to have at that point because we have budget going on. We had initially -- we talked about having the public health committee meeting every other month. We talked about that a year or so ago. Now with the resilience work and homelessness and other issues that come up on a more -- that are less on going but more temporal issues -- you know, it seems like we need this monthly schedule but I'm open to feedback on that. >> I agree. Given the sizable investment the city has made towards reducing homelessness, it makes sense to have monthly updates and of course the critical work [1:07:15 PM] of the community resilience hub, along with food access, child care -- all those topics are very timely >> Tovo: Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So let's take a vote on the calendar. All in favor? That is unanimous of the committee members who are here today. That brings us to the conversation around homelessness. We're going to start with an update on the downtown community court. Colleagues, we have a presentation about the downtown community court and the important work they're doing and then Ms. Gray is going to do a presentation on a couple areas with relationship to homelessness -- to the homeless strategy officer -- office and we'll take up our second topic of the day. I believe we have about 10 minutes scheduled for your piece and about 20 minutes scheduled for the presentation piece from the homeless strategy officer, from Ms. Gray [1:08:16 PM] and we have time left for questions before we move to the second topic. Welcome. Thanks for coming across the river to be here with us today. >> Thank you. Good afternoon, council members. There are a couple of slides. At the end of Diana's powerpoint, if you could please bring those up >> Tovo: Is this the order you would prefer, or would you rather go after Ms. Gray? >> I'm fine going first, if Diana is fine with it. >> I'm fine . You'll want to continue to forward. It's the last two or three slides. >> Thank you very much. Good afternoon, I'm here today [1:09:17 PM] to provide some high-level updates about the work that the community court is doing to serve the individuals experiencing homelessness in this community. Our intensive case management services continued through the pandemic. We have never shut down our services, so what we did do for intensive case management is we served to a full-time and community model. Prior to that we were having individuals come to the office to meet with case managers part time and part time the case managers would meet with them in the community. Now it's primarily meeting with individuals in the community and what that means is we've had to provide our case managers with access to city vehicles. We unfortunately only own five fleet vehicles and we have 14 case managers that have to have [1:10:17 PM] a vehicle to be able to serve their clientele. So we've had to rent several fleet vehicles so that these individuals are able to access their clientele in the community. As a best practice to make it more convenient for the individuals and to engage them in the community that they belong to but also to minimize the amount of foot traffic in the facility so -- to keep people safe in respects to the covid-19 pandemic. Again, these individuals are working from the perspective of a housing focus and person-centered approach, and what that means is that we are -- we create treatment planning specific to the individual's needs, and so we will find the service. If we don't provide it ourselves, we will find the service that they need to help [1:11:19 PM] them be successful and help them acquire the long-term stability they need to get in and stay in housing successfully. Currently we have over 300 individuals on our wait list, and so as I talked through this presentation, I'll talk about some of the things we've done to address some of that wait list. Going back to the housing-focused, person-centered approach, I want to also stress the importance of prioritizing individuals at a higher aqueuety. The -- acuity. We look at individuals suffering from mental health issues and substance use issues but also medical issues and who have extensive -- sometimes extensive criminal histories. We will prioritize those individuals to stabilize and to get into our housing programs. And because of that, we -- I [1:12:22 PM] think that also plays a role in our wait list because we have to take from the top of that wait list and we are getting referrals from hosts, for example, or even from our court operations, but mostly individuals walking in asking for services voluntaily because they've heard of -- about the services that we provide. Speaking about walk-in services, what we refer to as triage case management is the component of our program where we provide on the spot services to individuals to any individual experiencing homelessness that walks in asking for assistance. Because we have our wait list, we can't connect those individuals to a case manager but we can provide them items such as birth certificates and id's. We can connect them to other organizations that might have the capacity to serve them. [1:13:24 PM] We help them through housing navigation if that's possible, but most importantly, we connect them to documents that they're going to need long term, like the birth certificates and id's and social security cards. And so since the pandemic started, we've served at this point over 16,000 people through just the walk-in services. And that number continues to increase. It decreased a little bit when we moved to one Texas center briefly forweeks, but it's starting to built up again as individuals are finding us again. Again, during the pandemic we created a -- what we call an emergency solutions grant covid program with we serve individuals that were staying at the protective lodges and connect them to housing through this program. [1:14:24 PM] This program -- we receive referrals through echo for this program so individuals have a coordinated assessment, then they're sent to us to work -- to connect to that rapid rehousing. This population is really not any different than the individuals that we are serving that we identify as high acuity. These individuals are also scoring in the 11.5 range of the coordinated assessment and because of that they also need high levels of support from the mental health and substance abuse perspectives and they also have criminal histories. So because of that it is taking us longer to house those individuals than was anticipated when we took them on, but we continue to work with them and that grant and that program is funded through the end of the fiscal year. So once that funding goes away, [1:15:26 PM] we hope that the majority of the individuals that we're serving will be housed, but we also know because of their acuity that they're going to need to have access to support services on going. So we hope that through the budget process we're able to continue funding -- the fy-23 budget process we're able to continue funding the individual so we're able to continue working with those individuals that we're housing through that program. Can you change the slide, please? As you know, the downtown Austin community court is responsible for assisting individuals that are being cited for prop B violations or state-wide camping violations, and so what we're doing is, again, because we have our wait [1:16:28 PM] list, when an individual walks in trying to address their cases or when they show up at the municipal court and are transported to community court so they're able to connect to our social services, we connect them to our triage case management which is able to provide an array of services, but unfortunately we can't connect them to a case manager because we don't have the slots available. As of October 29th there were a 138 cases that were recreated and associated with prop B violations or state-wide camping. We haven't had any arrests brought into the community court as of yet. And so we see spurts of increases of citations, but we really haven't seen a lot of movement of individuals walking in, wanting to take care of those cases on their own with the exception of those individuals that have requested [1:17:31 PM] trials or are working with an attorney to address those cases. Regarding our keep safe storage program, the community court took this program over in December of last year. Austin resource recovery was previously providing the oversight, and since the community court took it over, we expanded our hours from 7:00 A.M. To 7:00 P.M., seven days a week. And additionally we were able to provide employment to five individuals with lived experience because of that expansion, and we were also able to increase the amount of bins that we have available to individuals that need storage in the community. This has been very helpful to individuals who have lived in encampments and who have had to leave those encampments because of prop B and the state-wide camping ban. [1:18:31 PM] So we've seen a huge increase in the use of the program over the last few months. Currently we only have 49 bins available, and we're looking at ways to be able to fit more bins into that program, understanding that more people are going to need that service. And then lastly as I mentioned before, regarding ways that we are trying to address our wait list, we have engaged in a partnership with the downtown Austin alliance and integral care. It is called the homeless health and wellness center program. And this program is accepting referrals from the community court and host and we are focused on, again, providing services to the high acuity individual, individuals who are presenting with a mental health and substance use issue but also the medical issues and who have -- and these individuals [1:19:33 PM] also have criminal justice involvement. So these -- through the funding between the community court and the downtown Austin alliance, we are able to serve an additional 100 individuals. Up to date that program is going very well. Their approach mirrors what we do in our intensive case management program so we are very comfortable with the work they're doing, understanding that, again, they're addressing the high acuity needs of those individuals. And I am available for any questions. >> Tovo: Thank you very much. Colleagues, what questions do you have? Council member kitchen? Oh, I apologize. Council member Fuentes, I'll get to you >> Kitchen: I have several questions, just like all of us -- I want to say thank you for the work you all are doing. I mean, this is difficult work, and it -- you know, it takes a [1:20:34 PM] lot of heart and a lot of perseverance and really want to say thank you. So I have three quick questions. The prolodge -- you have one program you're working through to help folks in the prolodges get help to housing, if I understood correctly. That is -- I thought it said a hundred over two years. Is that the number of folks that were in the prolodges that you are working be or you have already connected to housing? Could you explain that? >> So to date -- and I have that statistic. We are working with 69 of the 100. We've engaged with 69 of the 100, and 47 of those 69 have been housed to date. >> Kitchen: Okay. [1:21:35 PM] When you say the 100, what is that number coming, 100? >> That was the agreement with the grant -- >> Kitchen: I see. Okay. And those hundred people are a hundred people that have been -- they're living in the prolodges, right? And so you're working with them going from prolodges to housing. Is that right? >> Yes, ma'am >> Kitchen: Okay. And then my second question is -- and I'm not sure if you are the right person that knows the answer to this. It might be Diana. I can ask her later, but my second question is can you remind me what the policy is for -- related to prop B? What exactly the -- is happening with folks before they are -- before they can be arrested? In other words, I know that there is a step for connecting people to housing and there's a [1:22:35 PM] warning period and various things like that, but can you articulate -- can someone articulate exactly what that process is before they end up -- you know, before at the end of that process they might be arrested? >> Yes. I would defer to Diana on that question >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Council member, would you like me to attempt to answer that now or -- >> Kitchen: Well, the reason I was asking it is because I noticed that the -- they can -- if they are arrested, they're not -- they're working through the dac in terms of the processing for those folks, so that's why I was asking. So if you could briefly answer that, that would be. >> Sure. I think we'll want to allow for APD to chime in here and correct anything if I leave any gaps. I think the primary issue of course is these are class C [1:23:36 PM] misdemeanors >> Kitchen: Okay. >> And our officers have committed to when we're clearing an encampment of multiple people, giving notice of several days ideally, and in most cases have been able to achieve voluntary compliance >> Kitchen: Okay. >> So certainly can cite without a verbal warning but typically would give a verbal warning in addition to that sort of, you know, education outreach that's happening prior to that time. If someone does not -- my understanding is that if someone does not vacate an area after a citation has been issued or an order has been given, they could conceivably be arrested at that time, but typically even after a citation, individuals would be given reasonable amount of time to then subsequently clear their items and vacate an area. And so all of those are part of [1:24:37 PM] the reason that you're only seeing one arrest over the course so far -- >> Kitchen: Okay. >> -- Of full enforcement. Most of what has happened has involved voluntary compliance, a small number of citations, et cetera. I think of course if someone is issued a citation and then they do not pay or do not arrive for a court date, there is conceivably a scenario in which they can be eligible for having a warrant issued, and I think that's where we could have Pete chime back in and make sure that I've described that adequately and what that process might look like, should such an eventuality arise. >> Would you like me to talk about -- >> Kitchen: Yes, Pete. If you want to speak to that. >> So to date judge coffee has decided not to process warrants because -- >> Kitchen: Okay. [1:25:37 PM] >> -- Of covid-19. He's thinking that sometime in January he will resume the confirmation of warrants, which would mean that if somebody did not show up to their court date because they received a citation, that that would go through the process of giving that person time to respond and if they did not respond after a notice was sent out, that they would then have an active warrant in their name. And at that point if officers had a conversation with them and asked for their id and they ran their name, it would show an active warrant and they would be arrested at that time. If the community court was open during the time of the arrest, they would bring them directly to the community court. If the community court was not open because it was an evening or a weekend, then they would be booked into the jail. [1:26:38 PM] And brought to community court on the next business day >> Kitchen: Okay. I understand at this point that has not happened. >> Yes >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Both the community and municipal court are not conferring on the warrants because of covid-19 >> Kitchen: My last question is -- so you all work with intensive case management, essentially. And so can you help me understand or just based on your experience what would you say is helpful? In other words, what is really effective in helping getting people connected to housing? Another way to ask it is what is it that's key to what you all are doing that is -- that works for individuals to connect them to housing? Can you tell me that based on your experience? >> Yeah. I think it's several components [1:27:38 PM] really. The importance of the individualized treatment planning is really something that should be a priority because that takes into consideration that person's specific needs. Therefore, we are not trying to house them into a program that isn't really best suited for them. We're going to put them in a location that is going to be the best fit. On top of that, it's important to commit to continuing to serve that individual for as long as it takes, so that is one of the key factors, I think, in what we do, is that we don't have a time limit with the exception of the grant- funded individual -- individuals being served through grant. Through our general fund dollars, we don't have a time limit for how long we can work with that individual, and because we encounter so many individuals that are presenting with high acuity, we end up [1:28:38 PM] having to support them for longer periods of time. So I think that's also important, and it's also something that is very helpful for the individual, but it's something that helps us help them in that we don't have to cut them off because of our funding source. The challenge of housing I think is the same across the board in this community, and the market for getting people into housing makes it really difficult. It's very competitive. The housing isn't as available as we need it to be for the people we're trying to house. It's taking a little bit longer to house individuals currently, and for us specifically, the criminal history factors are playing a huge role in that as well. So we can find ways to get around that, often times through aadvocacy, utilizing the [1:29:40 PM] case manager with what we need to do, sometimes we have to give larger deposits. Sometimes we have to let the landlords know that we are available 24 hours a day so that they will feel more comfortable in taking those individuals, but it's a number of things that need to happen and they can happen so that those people can get housing. It just takes a longer period of time to get them into the housing. >> Tovo: Thank you very much. Council member Fuentes. Okay. In the cases referred to the dac, are those individuals or are some of those multiple cases attached to the same individuals? >> Yeah. In looking at the data recently, some of those are not distinct individuals. There are a few that have received repeat citations, yes. >> Tovo: If you could maybe at [1:30:42 PM] our next follow-up meeting or in subsequent communications, it would be great to know that difference. >> Yeah. I can provide you with a break down. >> Tovo: That would be great. Thank you. With regard to the health and wellness program -- I want to thank you for getting that up and running so quickly. I know -- council member kitchen you worked with me and we were able to get it funded but in part it was using dac's funding that first year. Thank you for that participation. I know you said there's capacity for 100 individuals. >> Uh-huh >> Tovo: At the time it was brought into being in January '20 -- '21. I think you said the wait list at that point was over 200. Can you give a sense of what the wait list now and how much of that 100 capacity is being [1:31:43 PM] utilized a T this stage? >> Yes. I don't know the entire case load they're working with right now, but they are taking -- they are fully staffed and they're taking on individuals fairly quickly. The wait list at that time when we started this program was probably around the same that it is today. It fluctuates between 200 and 300 people at any given time. And the reason for that is because the case manager supervisor will go in there and remove people if we're not able to make contact with them when we have a case manager available for them. And I've said this before. With a wait list it's really not productive for us to have a wait list because if we're not able to serve those people when they're -- when they appear before us, there are -- it's a big chance that we're not going to be able to reconnect or reengage with them when we do have that resource available. [1:32:43 PM] So it's unfortunate, but I think that the wait list is a good way to show the community the need for those services. >> Tovo: Yeah. Thank you for making that point and just to be really clear about it, so we have anywhere at on -- on any given day we have between 200 and 300 individuals who are experiencing homelessness who have presented or identified as -- identified themselves as in need of mental health resources and have expressed a willingness B and interest in receiving them and we have the capacity to serve just one-third of them through this program. >> Correct >> Tovo: And, you know, I appreciate the downtown Austin's alliance financial participation in this. It was a great idea they came to the city with and I think it helped supplement the great work the dac was doing in this area so I'm glad to see the expansion but the fact is and I [1:33:43 PM] think this is a point the community needs to understand, is that we don't have it funded at a level the services are needed. We're able as a city and public/private partnership to serve about a third of the individuals who are interested and in need of receiving the services. >> Yes. Thank you for that >> Tovo: And who knows how many more would express that same interest if they thought they would have an ability to receive those services more quickly. So thank you for -- thanks for helping talk through that point. Your vehicles. So I am interested -- I assume that hasn't happened yet. I know through the budget we were able to fund some permanent vehicles. Do you have a time line on those? >> We are expecting an additional four new vehicles in this current fiscal year. So that means we can decrease the amount that we are renting, and we'll just continue doing that, again, as a way to meet the needs of the individuals [1:34:44 PM] that we're serving in the community. >> Tovo: Vice chair Fuentes, you really summed up one of the reasons to continue have these updates is to -- we've made significant investments and we're getting questions about how is the city investing its rers sos and what are is -- resources and what is the outcome? That's the essence for my follow-up questions. What is the time line for getting those vehicles? I think sometimes there's a lag and I appreciate you and Ms. Gray and others and acm for making sure the investments are being made as soon as possible. We know the needs are great and immediate and they're just now. So how soon are those vehicles going to be purchased? >> The individuals that we're working with at fleet have told us that they put a rush on those vehicles, but in my experience it typically takes anywhere between 6 and 10 months to get a new vehicle. [1:35:47 PM] >> Tovo: Okay. I'll need to better understand from our purchasing department why that is because that's a long time to continue leasing a vehicle when we've allocated for a permanent vehicle. Lastly, I know the council, during the budget process I brought forward the direction to expedite the manager's decision making. I know there's good work happening on the front and I hope we'll have a report back soon. Have you given thought to satellite offices? I know that's something you and I have spoken about, and judge coffee as well about, you know, even once we have a permanent location for the dac, which is much neededed. I appreciate what you've done with the spaces at one Texas center but I think having a permanent home for the individuals and those you serve is really critical. Is there a long-term [1:36:48 PM] interest -- and I don't want to put you on the spot but it seems to me there still might be a long- term need for having satellite offerses. I love the mobile -- the idea of having those mobile -- the mobility of getting out to where individuals are who need those services from the dac. But can you speak to the possibility of potentially having some satellite temporary -- or satellite offices to deliver these services to, especially as Austin continues to grow? >> Sure. There's definitely the willingness. We're willing to be at the table to talk about how we can make that work. We definitely also want to be aligned with what the bigger picture approaches are -- to address homelessness. So we are working closely with Diana and her team on what that big picture looks like. And -- but, again, we are definitely willing to have that [1:37:50 PM] conversation and make something work. Uh-huh. >> Tovo: Well, thanks very much. Colleagues, you know, I think that would be something worth talking about among your committee at some point, along with Pete and Diana and others who would like and have expertise about that conversation about whether that's something we should be considering as we contemplate facility use and program delivery. Thank you so much. Lastly -- oh, yes, council member? >> Thank you. Quick question spurred by some of the comments you made, chair tovo, regarding the mental health component. We're only able to provide services to a third of the individuals who expressed needing services. I've reconciled that metric what we've needed towards the arpa dollars and tried to figure out what is keeping us from utilizing the wait list. [1:38:50 PM] Is it a matter of it's in the pipeline and will come later down the line later in the year? I imagine even right now we have about 200 who would prefer to have mental health services today, but that number is going to increase as we have more of the heal initiative role out, more encampments connected to housing. Just trying to get a little more detail on that. >> So if I understand your question correctly -- and Diana may need to help me with this one, but I think the funding that you're referring to has really been around crisis management for people with mental health needs. What makes us different is people are presenting not necessarily in crisis but who have a mental health diagnose cysteic that is -- diagnosis is that not addressed. Without help they will have a [1:39:54 PM] crisis. Often times substance use linkages and of course the housing. >> That's helpful, and I think it might be -- you mentioned something for the committee to talk about. I'm wondering as we discussed providing direction for some of the needs -- for example, the satellite offices. That we could provide more direction on all of aspects of addressing homelessness. It seems there is an opportunity to make a recommendation to the full council considering the information shared during these committee meetings >> Tovo: Yeah. And I have to go back and double check but as I recall -- so when we did the direction in, like, December 2020. >> Uh-huh >> Tovo: You had existing funding within the dac budget to bring to match the daa's. When it came forward, when the [1:40:56 PM] management budget came forward it didn't have funding for that continued program. >> That's correct >> Tovo: We were only able to come up with the funding to continue through this year and help match, you know -- it wasn't exactly a one-to-one match but it was putting up those public dollars in response to the daa's continued private contribution. We were only able to do that through a budget amendment I brought and I need to double check but it may be funded through arpa funding. Ms. Gray may remember. We did some dac funding and general fund. I can't remember where we landed. There was a greater need but we were starting from zero. It wasn't included in the manager's budget for continued funding. Is that about right? >> Yes. >> That's correct, and council member Fuentes, I think two and [1:41:56 PM] a half weeks ago council received the update on the spending framework on homelessness for the arpa funds but within the overall budget of arpa funding for homelessness there's a lip item for mental health services in which this -- that funding action resides, but that means there's another 2.6 million or so to be allocated. And one of the things that -- processes we're going through of course with the overall arpa funding is looking at the solicitation process. We are, you know, going to be accessing the input of the homelessness council. There will be a mental health -- we'll do solicitation. Further expansion of a program like this is a viable use but we hear of other needs as well, [1:42:59 PM] medical detox or inpatient treatment, et cetera, which is also very, very scarce in our community for substance use disorders, so we'll be looking at kind of that array of behavioral health need within the population of people experiences homelessness and then look at how we invest those resources under the arpa spending framework. >> Tovo: Thank you, Ms. Gray, and I like that the investment plan you presented to council really captures what the public investment is and what the private investment needs to be to really fully meet the needs of our community. This is a good opportunity for the private sector to continue to invest and to invest more deeply because it is a deeply felt need. Thank you very much. I appreciate all your work. I want to underscore as we close that during covid -- when [1:43:59 PM] all the city operations shifted as you pointed out the dac remained open and served 15,740 individuals or had that many visits and interactions with individuals in our community. >> Yes. Specifically for case management. Yes. >> Tovo: Which is extraordinary. Thank you for your work and convey our thanks to your you Pete for your partnership in all the work that the dac staff does. So, we will then go back to the beginning of the slide deck and we have now had the update from downtown Austin community court which is the third item you see here and what I will be covering briefly is a bit of an overview of the various ways in which we carried out community engagement regarding that arpa [1:45:00 PM] spending framework for the city dollars. And then update on phase two of the heal initiative. Next slide. So, council asked us over the summer when the preliminary designation of $106 million in arpa funding was established to do community engagement as we developed the spending framework and so we did three things that spoke to that. One is that we created a survey for the Austin homeless advisory council which is Su porteded by the downtown community court staff the Austin community council is a council made up of people with lived expertise of homeless either currently or previously homeless. Through August and September, [1:46:01 PM] we completed that survey process. We created a speak up survey on the city website asking folks about their preferences and prior ties around spending we had a couple of in-person I should say virtual in-person community engagement sessions this slide lays out the timing of that over August through the end of October. Next slide. First we will speak to the speak up sir surowiecki va carried out, we had 270 responses fairly robust response representation across all zip codes and council districts we did have some over representation of white as a race and in particular, we also had under representation of [1:47:01 PM] hispanic white when taking ethnicity into account however we did have approximately equal representation of black or African-American respondances corresponding to the city population and another thing I'm proud of in terms of the responses that we got. Almost 18% of respondents were people who were now experiencing or had experienced homelessness in the past. Next slide. We ask folks first what their primary priorities were between shelter and crisis resources and longer term housing. About half of respondance really wanted a balanced approach and the other half is split is slightly more 30% preferring investments in long term housing in supportive services and 20% prefer preferring investments in short term crisis services of course, that is not just an either/or [1:48:04 PM] question. We can do both. And the majority of respondents over all did favor monitor significant increases in rapid housing and supportive housing with 75% of respond absolute answering in the affirmative in these categories and 71% who favored moderate increases to the bricks and mortar creation of housing. Next slide. We did however I think find that we had substantial work to do in the area of communications and on going community engagement this isn't wholly sur prying known we are relatively new division only 25% of respondents felt they knew how to find community information how to end homeless. I think it's incumbent upon us to look at our communications [1:49:06 PM] channelings and collateral both on the part of the city and also guiding people to other important sources of data like echo who holds the information through our homeless management information system on individuals and the outcomes of programs. Only 80% wanted updates through web page email and social media and 70% when asked how often they would like updates said they would like to see month loo updates. Next slide. In addition to the speak up survey that was on the city website, we did a targeted survey to the homelessnd advisory members and identified three categories first is housing. The first priority being permanent support of housing units other deeply affordable housing units within the [1:50:07 PM] community and tiny home communities. Food access was also a priority access to snap benefits so they can access their own food via grocery stores and other vendors water and food distribution to encampments and water prepared meals, and third category that is important is health care the three items that folks identified as their top priorities in this area were medical access program enroll the map program through central health out-patient mental health services, we toufrped on downtown Austin community court's presentation and also identified a need for transportation to and front medical appointments. Next slide. We had two virtual public meetings in October. About five days apart. 14th. And the 19th. If I'm not mistaken what we [1:51:09 PM] heard really in those assessments thematically was an interest certainly in the resource allocation but a real concern about the advent of full enforcement of the new or reinstated camping bands in the absence of crisis resources for people to have some place to go or be connected to services identification of gaps throughout the system and acknowledgment of the challenge we have to build capacity of our providers and really an interest in balancing that longer term timeline of the summit plan with immediate response to what is perceived as a crisis situation finally, support for additional investments in mental health and substance abuse or substance use disorder treatment. Next slide. So we did make some adjustments [1:52:12 PM] to the spending framework we had drafted prior to our community engagement. And this slideshows some increases in that overall budget. And what I will say without going too deeply line by line into the items in this slide is we substantially increased crisis resources and then some increases in the sort of seasonal capacity build--system capacity building if you go to the next slide, we reduced a bit of the spending in rapid rehousing and in capital for new development now the numbers you see here are the changes not the total amount rapid rehousing reduced by 2.5 million I believe we still ended up with a spending framework of somewhere around 50 million for rapid rehousing these were changes in the margins but in particular, did [1:53:12 PM] end up significantly increasing the crisis resources that we contemplated as part of the spending framework. Next slide. As we reflect on this process around arpa and around community engagement in general, we are in the process with public community indication community staff at present. As those staff members come on board, wen anticipate sustained engagement through key homeless leadership council that is the continuum of care governance governor erping body as I mentioned we will be seething it's committees in the coming days. I think those decisions have been made and notices will be going out and those committees and work groups are really going to provide critical on the ground feedback from the community about what is needed. [1:54:13 PM] We will continue to engage with the Austin homelessness advisory council and of course, other boards and commissions throughout related to the city and to other entities within the community we would like to hold quarterly community engagement meetings that are open. Much like the ones that we held in October and I think part of that is a recognition that while those community engagement meetings were in terms of topic really narrowly focused on arpa spending I think there was a lot of desire on the part of the attendees to generally express concerns interest, ideas it's around homeless and I think we need to be doing that more regularly. Then finally, based on the input bereaved on the preferences of those who completed the speak up survey is regular email updates for [1:55:17 PM] folks who sign up for those. Next slide. And chair tovo would you like me to go into the heal update or would you like me to take questions on the community engagement before we do that? >> Councilmember tovo: Thank you for asking that question Mrs. Grey if you could do the next segment of the presentation then we will have questions at all once, we need to condense a Q and a a little bit so we can get to our next. Thank you so much. >> I will try to go through the slides with all haste. As you know, heal-- >> Councilmember tovo: You don't need to hurry I'm just saying we will condense our questioning. >> That is good. Heal is accomplished by council resolution in February of 2021 with approximately six month timeline to complete the compassionate closure of four encampments over the course of the summer so we completed that [1:56:20 PM] in August and then with additional funding set aside for phase two, from arpa funds council directed us to begin phase two by November and that also entailed us working on a longer term tool that we help us assess and select encampments for relocation. Next slide. So, we are in phase two now. We shared with you in our last briefing the draft of that assessment tool. So, we refined that staff went out and essentially beta tested the tool in a couple encampments in partnership with multiple city departments including Austin fire Austin police department host parks and recreation watershed protection and the [1:57:21 PM] Travis county constables who do homeless encampment out reach and eventually assessed another 11 encampments use utilizing that tool. We know there are many encampments in the city this is among a battery of a list of encampments identified by departmentmental partners as ones particularly high on their radars in terms of health and safety and serve what we believe will be a body of we will have to expand that over time but that will be a gradual process. Next slide. So, the encampment assessments have scores on a variety of different factors mose of those are objective is their presence of X or Y for example, evidence of uncontrolled fire, have people [1:58:24 PM] observed or known people in the encampment that are mobility impaired and utilize mobility aides those kinds of things then are subjective ratings that allow assessors to give over all conditions of the encampment next slide. This will be familiar to you. This is a slightly updated version of the criteria. Some of the criteria that we showed last time just as a reminder since we are focusing here on health and safety, we have public health categories that really speak to both environmental health conditions and the physical or medical health status and access of occupants along with public safety concerns particular around flood wildfire vehicular transit dangers it's and the [1:59:24 PM] ability of fist responders to access sites. Next slide. The potential scores for encampments range based on the current tool from three to I believe 35. This shows the range of stores that resulted from the assessments that were done in the 11 encampments. Ranging from nine to almost 22. And so you know we really did see a good spread we felt was important in terms of the tool having utility for helping us understand encampments we might want to target first and assessors also indicated that they did feel like generally speaking, the scores were pretty consistent with their sense of conditions in the encampments but of course, we will be continuing to adjust [2:00:24 PM] criteria or waiting as the tool is utilized and we sort of identify any gaps or redundancies in the scoring based on the first phase, we are feeling pretty good about the tool as something that has utility for the teams. Next slide. The next steps are to prepare for the intake and relocation of the next encampment which will happen before Thanksgiving. We will continue to do it assessments based on referrals we're getting from both from departments, and from the public. But one of the things we will need to do particularly as we staff the program up is to develop that process so we have a work flow for identifying how we identify the circle of encampments that have been assessed and how we go through [2:01:25 PM] the process in cross departmentmental meetings identifying which encampments, we will target I want to point out this is of course, fluid the heal initiative is about relocation to shelter and offer housing of course, enforcement is happening outside of the heal initiative community as well. Even our first round of assessments there were encampments that had been on the radar for assessment for heal that had where enforcement had occurred and those encampments no longer existed because we know that in cases of enforcement, people are leaving sites but they of course, does not necessarily mean their homelessness ends so we're getting a lot of feedback from the public and many departments about new encampments or growth in encampments in other locations which we expected based on the reality of having enforcement [2:02:26 PM] that is not always coupled with concrete access to shelter or housing. And then we are looking at continuing to develop the assessment tool to better incorporate gis functionality in this next phase. That will be I think a preliminary step. There's a lot we believe could be done longer term, we do want to make sure some basic functionality is there in terms of gi S. Next slide. In terms of the service side of heal, on November 18th. Council will have an agenda item to expand an existing rehousing recontract with family elder kaefr by 1.5 million that will do two things accommodate some individuals relocated through phase one of heal but for whom there is not immediately adequate capacity or rapid [2:03:27 PM] rehousing capacity I should say and it will allow for some additional capacity for the initial encampments in phase two that is using general fund dollars because the original contract was general fund. It made most sense to do that one time general fund dollars. We will then do a solicitation for additional vendors with arpa funds for additional rapid rehousing attached to the heal initiative but need a little time of course, to go through that solicitation process. We will be looking at bridge shelter capacity. Of course, our ability to relocate encampments is dependent on the capacity within our bridge shelters and so you know we have two up and running right now and you know we do talking with the community whether there are alternatives for creating [2:04:28 PM] temporary shelter options in the community could expand our ability to relocate fakes from encampments that is forthcoming. Related to the heal initiative although tphoz limited to the heal initiative, we are launching a project with office management that looks at work flows standard operating procedures and prioritization around encampment response generally. So, as we mentioned we have a tool now that helps us prioritize encampments for heal but we want to be engaged in a cross departmental and cross disciplinary process even with encampments there may need to be other interventions clean up where indeed, may need to intend to enforce. How do we do that across departments and how do we take in information from the public synthesize that into an orderly process knowing there is quite [2:05:29 PM] a lot of fluidity in the community right now. And so we're excited about their support of the various departments in this work and again, those processes and procedure that we develop will both support the heal initiative the part of it that is about the engagement with the encampments as well as our work in encampments with space management generally. Next slide. At this point I will pause. Of course, the presentation D ACC has provided and happy to take questions on arpa or heal or anything else that you've got on your mind. >> Councilmember tovo: Thank you Mrs. Grey. Vice chair? >> Vice chair... Thank you so much for this presentation it's incred bri helpful to have a better understanding what the community is thinking about our [2:06:30 PM] efforts to address homelessness I appreciate the mettics you provided knowing austinites want to receive updates what we're doing with our significant investment and approaching efforts to address homelessness hand in hand with the community is important. I love they broke it down by you know how by wanting it via email and receiving updates on social immediate yeah. I appreciate your commitment to having quarterly updates I think having that opportunity to have regular check ins with the community will be super helpful many of us have newsletters, we send to our constituents if there is opportunity to include those updates N our own district level communications I would be more than happy to do that as well. Also if one of those quarterly meetings is held in person, that would also be helpful too I know for communities like mine, really appreciate that in-person connectivity and want [2:07:31 PM] to have that type of interaction with their city leaders. My question is on the launch of the encampment probability with the office of performance management. Can you share more? I missed part when you were explaining about what it will be. What can we expect with that partnership? Will that be a dashboard we can share out how many psaq units we have online or how many individuals, we connect to housing will be that type of format or is this a different type of tracking mechanism. >> Yes vice chair. This initiative with opm is much more narrowly focused on public space management. We recognize there is a lot of amazing work being done across the departments the clean ups and out reaches, etcetera we [2:08:32 PM] had somewhat fragmented system and gaps in work flows and standard operating procedures across departments for this work so we want to make sure we create that infrastructure that really supports staff as they go about this work. Among a variety of elements of the scope include really identifying the work flow. How do we make decisions about where our clean up resources where our out reach resources go. Where an even when enforcement occurs particularly if it's in the case of a larger encampment and in addition to what we're talking about in this briefing which is specifically how are we prioritizing heal where we're explicitly connecting people to shelter and housing resources which of course, is our holy Gail what we would like to be doing in all cases, and moving increasingly toward that. [2:09:32 PM] Really prioritization standard operating procedures how the decision making occurs and I think importantly, you know, all of our departments get contacts from 311 sometimes functional through council member offices from the community directly and really acknowledging all of that input and making sure that we have a way to synthesize it then make decisions really that are based on good public policy on equity equitable service across the city and our best service to - [inaudible] Unhoused. >> Councilmember Fuentes: Thank U that is upper helpful I appreciate you sharing out the feedback received from the community and then also sharing adjustments you made to the proposed spending framework as a result of that feedback often time we provide these space and opportunities for folks to provide input and to have their [2:10:33 PM] say in how we operate as a city of Austin so it's always great for us to have these tidbits to share. Your voice matters because you participated in this form there were actual changes made to how we're doing our crisis response and how we're reducing homelessness. I appreciate you drawing attention to that change. >> Thank you vice chair. >> Councilmember tovo: Thank you. Councilmemer kitchen do you have any questions? >> Councilmemer kitchen: Yes. I will ask quickly I have two questions if there is time the first question relates to heal. Thank you again very much for the successful work you have been doing on heal it's very much appreciated can you tell me it sounds to me from what you presented it's on track with the timeline that was anticipated. That's a yes right? >> Yes. Councilmember like to our next relocation of encampment before thanks giving . [2:11:33 PM] >> Councilmemer kitchen: Okay. The second thing is I want to keep an eye on the number of shelter beds that should slow things down it sounded to me you all are anticipating and looking to additional beds S that correct. >> We have enough capacity certainly for the next encampment and believe we will be good for the following one as we have some work happening in some rooms but I think the question will be the $6 million that council gave us direction to set aside for heal from within the arpa funds I think we have sufficient capacity within our current bridge shelters to do that. I will tell you that one of the things we're contemplating is a potentially more aggressive approach as well, we could increase the 6 million and asking what it would take in terms of additional shelter resources be that not necessarily a new facility but [2:12:33 PM] potentially hotel vouchers under the right circumstances, to be able to be more aggressive and that's just analysis that is on going at present. >> Councilmemer kitchen: Okay I will say one thing and share I know we're out of time. I think I'm very glad to hear you say that particularly in light of the conversation we just had because of prop B, some people that were living in encampments that would have been appropriate for heal have been dispersed and that means those folks have not been connected to housing for the most likely and I think to the extent possible. Accelerating beyond what we anticipated for the second phase of heal will be important to I'm happy to hear you are all in the process of analyzing what is appropriate there. So, thank you. [2:13:34 PM] >> Yes councilmember. >> Councilmemer kitchen: Chair I can ask a million questions, we don't have time. Thank you very much. Diana. >> Councilmember tovo: Thank you councilmemer kitchen. I know we have lots of talk about within this area, thank you Mrs. Grey being here every month. I have a couple of questions I will leave it at 1, 2. Can you update us on where in terms of shelter capacity where we are with regard to our conjugate shelters? Are they continuing to use the pandemic numbers in terms of capacity? Are they altered their capacity at any point? I know we have asked you that question a few times they were pandemic capacity. >> We are still at those levels chair. I do think particularly as we stay stable in stage three and certainly if we dip into stage two risk level that is a con [2:14:34 PM] congress conversation with our health authority and shelters we don't own all of the salt shelters but a couple of them that is certainly on our radar as well. Fingers crossed that we continue to improve and could make that ask of our providers . >> Councilmember tovo: Thank you. I know we want to see that in Kha capacity increase however I want to say I appreciate the care that you and our health authority and shelter providers have taken throughout this pandemic. I was looking at some numbers from another city recently of the numbers of covid cases they had within their conjugate shelters they were really quite high. So, I just you know we don't often pause and really talk about the great successes, we have had here in Austin but [2:15:34 PM] all of these measures have helped save lives so thank you. >> I appreciate that. I definitely want too acknowledge the communitywide wide work of Austin public health and the pandemic response, we have a small part. >> Councilmember tovo: Yes. Thank you next we're going to have update on resilience hubs. I believe we have two presenters one from our city of Austin sustainability office Zack Balmer and we also have matia sagura on the line. Thank you welcome. I'm not sure one of you is beginning thank you for both being present and colleagues, you likely remember this is a resolution that came through council. A resolution that I brought that I believe vice chair fuenes you are cosponsor on [2:16:36 PM] they are also commented to our joint committee meeting to the Travis county school district and city of Austin since those are all named stakeholders in this process as we look at the after action report that the presenter presented last week and the audit presented tomorrow to the audit and finance committee. Again and again this idea this concept of resilience hubs has resided I appreciate you being here to establish these not so they can build our communities in time of disaster but personal--[inaudible] As a community we are well situated to face the next disaster. >> Great thank you so much for that councilmember I'm Zack bar. Climate program manager with the office of sustainability and also today with me I have [2:17:38 PM] matia sagarur. >> Hello. Thank you for the opportunity my name matia saguro for operations of tsd. >> Great. Today we will step through some slides shouldn't take super long this is similar to what we presented in the join sub committee about six weeks ago, we are working on this daily. So, this is kind of the evolution and update to that presentation on what has happened since then and we will we are also planning on presenting at the next sub committee meeting of November 29th. My office has been excited about resilience for many years and excited to keep moving this forward this momentum and energy is good for this initiative right now. Next slide. Okay. So we're going to go over [2:18:42 PM] the council resolution that was from earlier this year then go over kind of where we are right now with the finding resilience hubs and thinking of the con accept of resilience hubs matisa is going to take over and talk about aid and how they fit in this work and wrap up the next steps where we're going from here. Next slide. So, this is the council resolution from this past April it asks staff to conduct an assessment of potential sites for resilience hubs pass facilities engagement with communities think about a citywide network of resilience hubs and come back to council with budget and recommended for funding strategies and timelines and looking at pilot hubs so we reported back on [2:19:45 PM] this resolution in I believe August since August we have been you know talking more with the aid talking with Travis county talking with lots of outside stakeholders and our sort of thinking and concepts on this just continue to evolve more and more that we talk to folks so it's exciting to share where we are today thinking about where we were just a few months ago only thinking about this small number of pilot hubs. Next slide. So, why resilience hubs? Just as councilmember tovo was speaking about a couple of minutes ago because of climate change because of other factors disaster frequency is intensifying and increasing extreme weather events paired with power and water out ages cascading effects of disasters occurring in our community created health and safety [2:20:49 PM] emergencies across our city community and extreme weather events are highlighting the need for accessible community spaces area to distribute food and water medicine the need for back up water and power when our utilities do fail the potential for sheltering. Then as was also mentioned most importantly engage in community on a day-to-day basis as we're going through sort of 98% of the time with our city owned facilities and operations to make sure the city is connected and this is not just and only kind of emergency response activity. The other thing that is really become clear especially with the concept of resilience hubs is we must have a focus on equity here empowering communities of color to be part of this planning process part of creating the idea of resilience hubs building equity [2:21:49 PM] lens for staff like me and staff within the organization who are going to be standing up these hundreds and really moving as much as we can towards the community owning this and community leadership as we actually create these hubs because if we just sort of stand up city facilities don't talk engage the community they are not going to be as functional and support true community resilience in the long run. Next slide. So, to the point of equity, when we are thinking about resilience hubs the initial sort of question was could we have resilience hubs within 15 minute watershed of every person when we did the initial mapping we came up with 400 facilities across the city which is a lot of facilities. We take a lot of time and money [2:22:50 PM] to stand all that up. We're thinking about what are we prioritize our work and where do we prioritize who needs resilience hub the most functional in the near term to focus these efforts what we're thinking is social vulnerability index put together by the CDC I believe the measure of population sensitivity to natural hazards as well as community's ability to respond and recover to those. You can see on this map the dark red is higher social mobility it looks like many maps we see of Austin highlighting the eastern crescent, we are using this mapping and incorporating to this our thinking front and center of our planning where do we start first with resilience hubs? Next slide. So, what are resilience hubs they are a network of physical facilities [2:23:50 PM] that are community focused where community members can go in a time of need and not in a time of need to connect with resources and help folks in their day-to-day lives. What they are not is prelacement for traditional disaster planning and emergency response, we are with Travis county emergency if this process, we are integrating this in our work. It is not replacement for the sheltering plan we will talk about in a minute. If we thought about every resilience hub being full off grade shelter, we would never get to the full network of resilience hubs. We're diversifying our thinking with that. The key here is 98% of the time these are just city facilities you and I and community members know and connect to in the community spend time at and 2% [2:24:50 PM] of the time they get activated with resilience systems potentially food and water potentially all sorts of different things to help the community in a time of need if we don't have folks connected to these 98% of the time, people won't know to go to them. People won't go to them because they don't trust them. The key here is having that support in times of need and just on a day-to-day basis. Next slide. As we have been thinking about this more and more, we started our city conversation with just a city just thinking about city owned assets and resources so this framework is kind of how we have been kind of building out the set of stakeholders, we are going to be involving this whole conversation to get to successful resilience hubs thinking to the city to the county community organizations faith based schools aisd and [2:25:53 PM] higher education including utility providers housing businesses including a large number of stakeholders in this position focusing on community apairedness emergency preparedness in time of need and what needs to happen with the facility on-site. This is more complex than just thinking about building and having back up power and water, we need to make sure we have all three parts of this system interconnecting to end up with a successful resilience hub that ends up helping the community. Next slide. So, when we started our conversations on this, we were thinking about these pilot hubs, and thinking about [inaudible] And focused on grid independent buildings [2:26:53 PM] that can survive extremes no water no power the further it went down that road it became clear we were thinking of multimillion dollar renovations to every single facility that take a long time to build out, and you know probably wasn't likely even necessary for all the types of different disasters and shocks and stressors we see in our community so where we have evolved with this thinking this is part of the new work we have done in the last month or two, now we have come up with these three different levels of resilience hubs. So, these are kind of the tkraf names the draft names the first one is gathering hub the second one is relief hub and the third is a full on shelter hub. So, next slide. So, the idea with this is we end up with three different levels of hubs in the community. And it's not only would help us [2:27:53 PM] communicate to community members that might go to one of these hubs exactly what is at a facility but this is also going to help us in terms of looking at what our existing facilities are and determining where we need to make investments in those facilities to improve functionality and make them supportive in times of need what we're thinking now is we would have basic prerequisites for a given facility, we are not talking about brand new facilities but existing facilities the first question is what is the physical ability of building to be resilience hub can people go there? Is there space is it publicly accessible? Is it not exsupposed to natural hazards that is the baseline. It's got to be a facility people can show up to is not going to be in harm's way and has some amount of place for [2:28:54 PM] people to go to. We came up with three different groups attributes and staffing supplies the key is it's not just what is at the facility it's going to be who is there and what other supplies do you have there in order to help those in time of need. So, generally level one. This has come about through conversations with aid with Travis county with homeland security management, we have come up with general definitions what is included in the different levels as you go up the levels up to level three you have everything on the page included in the level three hub. So, you can see level one starts out really simple stuff gathering space retrograde rooms electricity for people to charge things. Then you would have trained staff information and care kits snacks and water. This would be probably most useful during a stressor during a heat wave the power goes on [2:29:55 PM] but people need a place to go. Level two is more. Level two is definitely has a larger parking lot for food and water distribution has wifi larger dry storage space showers and then portable generators and/or solar kiosks to have back up power if the power goes out. At this facility larger supplies of food and water. This is a much more functional building in terms of disaster response. Then the third level we're thinking is all of the things. So, it's all the stuff from level 1 and 2 plus potential space to shelter people grid independent power kitchen refrigerator storage back up system and you will be able to hopefully operate most of this facility off grid during a time of water power outage beyond existing staffing resources all of the other needs that go [2:30:57 PM] along there. So, the idea again here is that if we look at the list of city facilities community facilities aid facilities Travis county facilities, we can start to put them into these different levels based on the kind of things they have at those facilities right now. Next slide. So, where we are now is like I said starting with existing facilities, we are looking at all city owned facilities, we are talking with school district and we are looking at how the school district that silties fit into this list. We had a couple different meetings with the county now, we are now talking with the county about their facilities. Then we're starting conversation very soon with Houston Tillson Austin community college and central health. We realize there is a range of functionality in our existing [2:31:57 PM] facilities so the first step we're going into right now which we started in the last week is to do this baseline facility data collection we're using Google maps, we are taking all these different types of facilities that are existing out there and basically entering them into this Google map with our draft of level 1, 2 and 3 sorting facilities into those levels being able to overlay the vulnerability index map to figure out where facilities are located with their existing kind of functionality and that is going to enable us to do is determine gaps. Where do we have gaps in locations where do we have gaps in functionality facilities as well as staffing and supplies and then start to think about priortizing what do we do? What facilities do we investment in staffing, and supplies and where do we go in terms of investment to build up this network beyond just sort [2:33:00 PM] of baseline. So, next slide. Now, Matis ais going to tell you about the work at aid in partnership and parallel to this initiative. >> Thank you Zack. Appreciate the opportunity to speak on beof aid. What a great opportunity. I think often we find that these initiatives don't always come together because each entity is at a different part in the planning or development process what I think is elegant about this solution is we are planning together. We are identifying funds together and ultimately the goal once fully implemented will be a network of facilities that support our community in a way we haven't been able to do before so Ver excited about this. Next slide, please. One of the things I think is important is the modal. This is something adopted wholly by aid it is something woven into the collaborative planning process with the city [2:34:03 PM] of Austin and Travis county. What we're intending to do with this model is understand how under sed community is being impacted their lived experience, we have to be diligent in identifying where they are. We have to be diligent in opportunities ways to connect with them fbgs from there we can build out, we recognize a lot of folks can get to us to provide input how do we go to the community to understand what their needs are? You will see this model woven not only into the collaborative city of Austin Travis county it's really the foundation for long range planning effort, we are imcomplexitying at aid which we are currently doing right now. Next slide, please. So what was incredibly I think eye opening and disheartening really is understanding what happened in this last winter storm with [2:35:05 PM] winter storm ury. We acknowledge and recognize the role that facilities have in supporting our community. We understand the network and the way we can engage with our community and how might that play a role as we think about developing these hubs and supporting communities through different types of extreme events we know we have flexibility in how we operate. There are certain things we can do that might complement the city's efforts and Travis county's efforts and our flexibility I think will be beneficial as we explore that we're really excited about understanding what is in our rate of procedures to implement when this does occur the lag in time isn't necessarily there. We also know that when we look at aid there's a support of of community in a variety of ways this last winter event with [2:36:06 PM] warming shelters prior to that when we supported folks that were coming to central Texas due to hurricanes along the coast. So, there has been a history there. We're trying to understand what we learned from each of those events how that can help inform our planning process moving forward and also acknowledge that aid functions in op our core competencies aren't necessarily what we think of for logistics planning moving material through the city of Austin quickly and epiefficiently, we do every day, we have 140 campuseses we have to support. We do so in a very thoughtful manner how can we leverage that logistic and infrastructure to really support this long term plan how that incorporates and supporting this process next slide, please. So as I said before, we're in the process of [2:37:08 PM] taking a long range planning effort aligning with academic, facilities trying to figure out how we provide the things our students need that support student achievement. We have a variety of things we are looking at academics athletics performing arts transportation technology, we were careful adding safety security. Our hope is through the planning process when we think about making investments in our facilities how might that investment be slightly different to support what a hub may be for instance, if we have a facility that is deficient and needs to be improved upon by way of a bond we're going to invest 8 to $10 million how might we design that facility differently to support our community in a better way would we add more storage different types of tie ins to allow for a [2:38:09 PM] quick set up during an extreme event might we design the kitchen differently to support the community as well as our public both have to operate at the same time. So, our hope is that through this process when we have these projects we have these recommendations they're totally in alignment not only the work we're doing with Travis county and city of Austin by way of this support but also with academic needs you can see on the right we have a timeline working through it now our goals have the long range planning recommendations in late spring excited about the work it's a lift but very much needed we will excited with the opportunity to work with city of Austin on this effort. Back to you Zack. >> Thank you. Matisa okay. Next slide a couple slides left here. Where are we going from here? Next slide. So, $3 million has [2:39:12 PM] been allocated to resilience hub work through the council approved American rescue plan framework which is exciting in our initial memo and communication back to council, we had the strategy focused on standing up these grid independent hubs, standing up a small number of them highlighting them as pilots, we are now thinking as we talk more to the school district and Travis county and now to outside stakeholders it's now looking like we're going to try to spread that money as far as we can to stand up the largest sort of network of hubs that we can. So, I would say that the plan for exactly how the money is going to be spent is still fluid right now and coming more into focus in the next few months as we talk more and more to stakeholders usually we have a couple more years to spend that money. Next slide. So, these are the [2:40:15 PM] exact next steps a working document where we are right now, we have been meeting with aid every other week the city has we will continue with that. We have meant with numerous staff Travis county two different times Travis county is now going to be rolled into our meetings with aisd every other week we're meeting all three of us together. Then hopefully rolling in the community college and central health also into those conversations in the months as I talked about with the mapping we are working on identifying existing assets facilities across different entity creating this Google map and identifying gaps in this hub network and thinking about facility levels and what would be needed at those different facilities in order to increase their resilience. After we have the map we're looking at location looking at [2:41:15 PM] the facilities, we will be able to identify and prioritize sitings and buildings, we would spend some of that resilience hub money and aisd will spend money. We focus on the facilities, we own focus on social vulnerability index equity transparency in the community and consider a range of those three type of hubs moving from level one to level two and level two to level three. Trying to have the most hubs with the most functionality across this network. Then after we have done that initial work most of that is behind-the-scenes looking at our facilities then jump to stakeholder engagement to inform our process and think of on the ground needs at these facilities, we will be centering equity in that process, we are thinking about doing workshops internally to make sure we are all on the same page there. We are the next really [2:42:16 PM] important thing is we have started to have conversations and hear from organizations like gava and other community based organizations we think it's essential for us to create an advisory panel in the next couple of months that will be made up of community members and help advise this process. Leaders from community based organizations that can help really guide the way and guide the direction of kind of this entire thing. Then at that point, we have advisory panel, we have much more detailed look at what we have and where we might have needs then we will start to hopefully do neighborhood level engagement around actual buildings and actual facilities and have that conversation with the community about what kind of investments do we want to make what kind of things do they want to see and then really move towards thinking about a spending plan actually upgrading facilities and [2:43:17 PM] activating resilience hubs at that point, then it will become a sort of multilevel imputation staffing at those facilities communicating the network of facilities equipment of food and water and materials at facilities lots of different things would then follow in the following months and years after that next slide. A very quick timeline where does this go over the course of the next few months as I said right now focusing on data collection analysis what do we have? Then as we move to early 22. Standing up this advisory board and starting to think about actual facilities an engaging with the community then as we move through 2022, engaging at the neighborhood level selecting actual sites, planning simple strategies to [2:44:18 PM] actually activate more what we can call a resilience hub hopefully by later in 2022, actually staff making this whole thing go life really be able to communicate we have a network of resilience hubs we're investing in them. People will be there. They will show up communicating this is an actual like live initiative. So, that is kind of the thinking right now. As I said, as we engage with Travis county and as we engage with more and more community members our thinking is kind of evolving on a daily basis about this we're trying to make sure we take in all the best ideas really center and focus on equity really trying to center what the community needs and don't sort of rush things but make sure we focus on doing the right thing as we go along next [2:45:24 PM] slide says thank you . >> Councilmember tovo: Thank you so much for that presentation. Colleagues what questions do you have? Council member Fuentes. >> Councilmember Fuentes: Thank you. We discussed the winter storm after action report and discuss the community resilience hub it's good to see you are engaging with gave I like to highlight if you could add del valle ISD to your community partners they were a critical resource for us during the winter storm. We stood up a warming shelter out at the del valle high school. So, partnering with that school district is going to be key especially during out reach with residents that live in the etj areas of the county as well as serving the city of Austin del valle that live in that area. [2:46:25 PM] Want to flag dvisd as another partner to engage. I know one of the actions that came from after action report suggested we develop a system to maintain current contacts companies to utility I hraoeuz assess and communicate emergency responses. Can you speak to what extent did you all consider our utilities N the access to the contact information through Austin water and Austin energy as part of our community resilience response. I know this briefing was focused on the physical location and setting that part up. Have you all made any consideration to the human infrastructure and human response to it. As far as to what extent is communications part of it? >> Yeah. I think I would say right now this is all kind of in the planning stage. So, we will definitely plan to have [2:47:25 PM] utilities in that conversation and communication around these hubs will be the most important thing in terms of activating them, we are involving homeland security management having the facility function 90% of the time is key. But making sure there is communication is the power on, is the water on? Is it not? Then communicating to community members about which facilities have power or water and don't will be key in communications in battle. Resilience into the future so. >> Councilmember Fuentes: Okay. Last question that I have for now. The initiating pilot phase you have it here on the draft timeline during that quarter of 2022 of next year doing it during quarter 2 of 2022. Do you have a sense yet of how many pilot hubs will have? I think the resolution may have [2:48:26 PM] called for three pilot at least three I don't know if I'm basing that off how much it would kous to put up one hub giving the amount allocated do you have a sense how much we can expect to be pilot hubs. >> Yeah. The initiate thinking I think was three. I don't think we want to make an exact promise about that. As we engage more with advisory council and as we think about how far do we want to spread our funding, we might have 2 or 3 or might have more than that depending on community needs and lots of other sort of considerations I think that is sort of still going to be part of our decision making in the next coming months. >> Councilmember Fuentes: Got you. Thank you. [2:49:30 PM] >> Councilmember tovo: Councilmemer kitchen did you have any questions. >> >> Councilmemer kitchen: All the ongoing work I appreciate when we got the first memo back the price tag was really high I was one of the stakeholders that provided feedback how to leverage that funding to do more and have more resilience hubs with slightly different profile so they are not necessarily sites with redundant power and water storage on-site and other kinds of things really equipping our facile tease some of the infrastructure for this. I appreciate this approach. Really tackling project and being willing and able to feedback a multitude of stakeholders I appreciate it. This is the direction that [2:50:31 PM] makes sense and just I'm very excited to see us moving in that direction. I like the three levels of hubs. I look forward to hearing a little bit more offline what some of the sites are you are thinking about. I know that we have had conversations and I have heard from community members an interest I don't exactly know how to express it or articulate it but kind of a resilience hub in a box framework so the support for communities who would like to do some of this work on their own who are equipped to do some of it on their own my colleague mentioned gave has been leading the way in this community preparedness and community resilience work and great models for other neighborhoods and other communities on how to organize yourselves in advance of a disaster so you are well equipmented to meet that next [2:51:32 PM] one. So, I just throw that out. I don't have any more concrete definition to put around it than just that to the extent we can provide community and neighborhood associations congregations with guidance how they could get some of that in place so that they know who their community members are who have 4 wheel drives or who are on medical support and are going to need extra assistance if they lose power they know they have a relationship with a church that is willing to serve in just the work that my office was doing in trying to find those places, we reached out to a couple of churches that had power they had not contemplated serving as a warming center they didn't necessarily have approval from their board getting conversations going in a time of non-disaster could be critical. I throw that out there. To see to ask you if you have [2:52:34 PM] done any thinking how among the three tiers which I think are great have you thought about what other kinds of resources we can provide to help get us a little further down that 400 that goal to 400? >> Yeah. So I think that is in our longer term view. I think where we're going now with a definition of hubs and definitions of levels definition of need and you know a Google map platform that any facility could sort of be added to a map and like documents that here's what this facility has what we're doing is creating a resilience hub a scalable platform almost and just like you are saying, in some future, we could have an application process where [2:53:34 PM] churches or whatever community facility could sort of apply then sort of say look here's our facility, we have these attributes. We promise to open and activate and communicate with our community when we're open and not open and then potentially. The city can partner with them on resources we could actually get to a place we use this platform of Google maps and clear definition of what resilience hubs are. Then move to this community is standing up their own hubs and this is this combination networks and schools and city facilities and private facilities and they are all working together I think we want to first do the community engagement around what do these facilities need and stand those up first and show this can work [2:54:40 PM] and learn things before we go to open applications I think that is where this could go in longer term. >> Councilmember tovo: Thank for that thought. I think too there is the piece of the resilience hubs that is the facilities there is also the piece about the resilience hubs that is about the critically important as you identified community engagement work that happens in each of these I think what I'm still pondering is how we support that community work of the identified resilience hubs how can we respond to the recommendations to the after action report and the audit we will hear tomorrow about personal prepared Ness to me personal preparedness happenings not just house household by household but community areas and neighborhoods to what extent to we need to think about our [2:55:41 PM] programs and how can the resilience hub community engagement piece help on that front too. I appreciate the collaboration this is super exciting councilmemer kitchen? >> Councilmemer kitchen: I wanted to suggest if you haven't already. To work with the commission on seniors or at least. They have a project they are working to developing an approach for identifying seniors in need of assistance during emergencies I'm not sure how far Tabitha and [inaudible] Are in the process there is interconnectedness there differences of course, they're not the same projects it's [2:56:41 PM] interesting to make sure you are talking to each other and understand what each of those projects are about. >> Councilmember tovo: Colleagues? Staff? Thank you very much. I think we should probably conclude there, we are back to back with our housing committee, we need to vacate the room quickly thank you so much to the presenters and staff supporting us. We will see you back here again next month. We stand adjourned at 2 57