Public Health Committee Transcript (PHC) – 3/20/2024 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 3/20/2024 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 3/20/2024 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. [10:01:02 AM] perfect >> All right. Good morning. Colleagues hope everyone's doing well. My name is Vanessa Fuentes, chair of our public health committee. I called to order the meeting of the Austin city council public health committee meeting. The time is 10 A.M. On Wednesday, February. Nope. It is not February. On Wednesday, March 20th, 2024. We are here in the city hall chambers. Welcome everyone. Today's agenda is relatively short. First, we're going to start with public communications . Then we will move on to approving meeting minutes from our last committee meeting. From there, we will head into executive session where we will interview candidates for the central health board of directors, appointments, as well as the sobering center will take up matters related to the sobering center board of directors we will then receive. We'll come back out and receive an update on the planning, research and services for the development of rapid rehousing service programs as part of the American rescue plan act [10:02:04 AM] American rescue plan act dollars, and then, and then we'll conclude our agenda from there. So any questions or comments on the public health agenda for today? Very good. We will now welcome speakers from the community. May the clerk's office please start us off with the first speaker. >> Good morning, madam chair. The first speaker up is Ashley Collins. If you are present, you come to the mic. Second speaker is Gus Pena, who is also not present. So we will move forward. >> Mr. Pena is not. I just saw him upstairs. >> Okay, sure. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. We will now move on to the approval of the previous meeting . Minutes for item number one. Can I get a motion? Council member Ryan alter, seconded by council member zo qadri. Any discussion or correction to the meeting? Minutes any objection to approving? All right, without objection, those stand approved. [10:03:06 AM] objection, those stand approved. Moving on to item number two, discussion and possible action on appointments to the central health board of directors. I'd like to take a pause on this item and take this conversation into executive session for item five and six. And so with that, the committee will now go into closed session to take up two items pursuant to section 551 .074 of the government code. The committee will discuss personnel matters related to the selection of members to the central health board of directors. The selection of a member to the sobering center local government corporation board of directors. Is there any objection to going to executive session on this item? Hearing none. The committee will now go into executive session . [10:50:55 AM] . >> Okay. >> Thank you. Colleagues, we are now out of closed session. In closed session, we discussed personnel matters related to item number five and number six. So we, did interviews for the appointment to the central health board of managers, as well as considered the sobering center appointment, both candidates were exceptional, and we would like to and would both make great additions to the board, the committee has made a recommendation on which candidate to move forward with regarding the central health board of managers, can I get a motion on the central health board appointment? >> Yeah, I'd like to motion that we appoint Eliza may to the central health board of directors, seconded by council member Ryan alter. >> Is there any discussion? All right, all those in favor, say I raise your hand. Okay. Any opposed? Nope. Motion is approved. And thank you so much. That sounds approved. Next we'll [10:51:57 AM] That sounds approved. Next we'll move on to item number three discussion and possible action regarding the appointment of a member to the sobering center. Local government corporation, board of directors, colleagues, can I get a motion? Council member zo. Qadri I motion to reappoint, Sophie. Anwar. Anwar. Anwar. Sophie. Sorry wonderful. >> Thank you. Seconded by councilmember Ryan alter. For your colleague has stepped off the dais. That's okay. We still have a quorum here. So, any any objection to the reappointment of Anwar Sophie seeing none. That also stands approved. All right, we're moving on to item number four. This is a an update from our homelessness strategy office on the planning, research and services for the development of rapid rehousing homeless service programs, as funded [10:52:57 AM] service programs, as funded through the American rescue plan act. Dollars and general fund dollars. Thank you. Welcome, David gray. >> Thank you. Council member. We're excited to be here today to give you a quick update on our performance based contracting work that we've done in the area of rapid rehousing, you're going to hear a little bit less from me today and more from my colleague Andrew Willard, as well as with the social finance team. But the tee up, the conversation, I thought I'd do so just with a really quick kind of parable of sorts that I think encapsulates the essence of what we're trying to do with these types of tools. I was told that there was once a teacher who worked for 25 years at an elementary school, and she gave her best, got stunning performance reviews, and one year a promotional opportunity came up and she was excited for it. She applied for it and the job was given to a teacher who was hired at the school two years ago. And so this this tenured teacher was very upset, and she went to the principal and asked, why did I not get the promotion? I have 25 years of experience, and with the principal said was, no, ma'am, [10:53:57 AM] principal said was, no, ma'am, you don't. What you have is one year of experience. 25 times you've been doing the exact same thing over and over and over again. Having decent results but having no growth. I think tools like the rapid rehousing scorecard is our office's attempt to encourage growth amongst our service providers, so we don't find ourselves 25 years looking back and seeing that we've been doing the exact same thing over and over again. So these scorecards are ways for our community to hold us accountable as an office for us, as a city, to hold our providers accountable, and ultimately for all of us to be able to demonstrate the impact that we're having in the lives of the clients that we're serving. So with that, I'm going to go and take a seat, I'm going to have Andrew Willard kind of cue up the presentation today, and then the social finance team will dive more into the details of the scorecard, and then our whole team will be available for any questions from the committee afterwards. Thank you. >> Thank you. David, as he said, good morning, council members. My name is Andrew Willard. I [10:54:58 AM] My name is Andrew Willard. I work in the policy and planning unit of the homeless strategy office. I'm excited to be here today to talk about our progress with our rapid rehousing programs. Over the last year. You may recall that rapid rehousing is a short terme intervention meant to assist individuals experiencing homelessness, where participants receive wraparound case management services, usually for 12 to 18 months. But can receive rental assistance up to 24 months to assist them in exiting homelessness, today's presentation, as you can see on the agenda here, will be going over kind of some of the background. I'm going to be teeing that up, and then I'll pass it over to social finance for the rest of the presentation today, back in September of 2021, city council directed staff to develop a outcomes based performance contracting model for homelessness services in response to the 2019 city auditor's internal investigation , as well as the investing for results report that Bartz and associates did for us. As a result of that directive, and by [10:56:00 AM] result of that directive, and by using utilizing arpa funds, the homeless strategy office, along with Austin public health, jointly developed the rapid rehousing scorecard with assistance from social finance. The scorecard has guided our implementation of rapid rehousing with Cindy funded city directed funds, and has ultimately resulted in the larger community adopting a lot of the key metrics that were developed out of the city's rapid rehousing scorecard process, and those have been carried over to the larger homelessness response systems rapid rehousing scorecard share more about the development, implementation and the future planning of the rapid rehousing scorecard. I'd like to introduce our partners from social finance Zoe birkhoff and Matt Mellen, who have been great partners to work with and really integral to this work. >> Thank you so much, Andrew. Hi everyone. My name is Matt Mellen, director at social finance, a little bit about our organization and how we got involved as Andrew mentioned, [10:57:00 AM] involved as Andrew mentioned, that 2020 Barbara poppy report, which recommended that city move toward an outcomes focused, approach for, for the homelessness response system. That's really what we do as an organization. So we work with our government partners to transform social service programs to make them more results focused and equitable. We do this in a couple of phases. We initially partner with governments to assess and identify promising evidence based strategies to scale. Rapid rehousing is an evidence based strategy that works. So it was a great candidate then we design and implement outcomes based solutions that are designed to put a spotlight on improved performance. In this case, it was an outcomes based contract. Then we also where wanted and warranted and where funding exists, we stay on to monitor service delivery and measure progress and do performance management support, which we've been involved with with zo and aph for the past two and a half years, a little bit about performance based contracts. It is a simple concept to pay for outcomes and pay for results, as opposed to paying for outcomes [10:58:00 AM] opposed to paying for outcomes or reimbursing for costs, but it does represent a pretty radical transformation in terms of how government works. And we think there's four main components to making a performance based contract successful. One is clearly defined outcomes. So data is an asset. But really how you measure it and how you define what those outcomes are is really where the power and the learning comes from. And then making data driven decisions, having performance data is great, but you also need to know how to make decisions with that data to further improve service delivery. Cross-sector partnerships. This is something where our zo has really excelled, just a couple of months ago, we brought all the providers together. So you have this public sector and nonprofit sector collaboration where we're all collaborating on ways to make the contracting process and the performance management process and the measurement process better and easy for everyone. That's the third pillar right there is that cross-sector partnership that we really see as crucial, the fourth, principle is strong governance and accountability. And that includes strong data checks and internal controls to [10:59:01 AM] checks and internal controls to make sure the data is valid and accurate and timely, and also to make sure any funding that goes to pay for performance is spent accountably. And in a way that furthers the goal of the program, it's been great to partner with zo, who's been really committed to these four principles, for the sake of time, I think we probably want to get out of the theory more into the results. So I'll skip this slide. But I think you all have access to this. This is just some of the key benefits we've seen as social finance of our scorecard over the past seven years of, of, of operating these kind of performance based contracts, lastly, just to kind of frame the rest of the discussion and how let you know how we made decisions, both social finance. So echo, this was kind of a set of guiding principles, our north stars that really drove the direction of the project and served as a framework for us to make decisions. A lot of them do stem from that. Barbara poppy report, investing for results. And the first one of those is paying for performance. So want to make sure that good results get [11:00:02 AM] sure that good results get rewarded with financial incentives. So second, do no harm and operate under best practices. So operate the program with high fidelity. And also make sure we're not incentivizing any kind of unintended negative consequences. Third, manage toward results. So we want to use that data we're collecting to actually make decisions to make people's move ins quicker, to serve our clients better, for strive for simplicity, we want to stay away from complicated jargon and we want to make our outcomes simple and easy to understand. Hopefully you all will be able to be the arbiter of whether or not that actually happened when we present our data, the fifth is strength in data alignment, and Eckhardt was a partner in us in taking learnings from this project to improve data quality throughout the continuum of care for both permanent supportive housing as well as rapid rehousing. Last and sixth, and importantly, very importantly, advancing racial equity was a large part of this project. So making sure bipoc folks and households were served just as good, if not better than non bipoc households to correct historical service gaps. So this [11:01:02 AM] historical service gaps. So this is the framework with which we went into designing and implementing this program. And without further ado, I will pass it over to my colleague Zoe to chat about the scorecard itself. Oh thank you. Close enough. >> Great. >> I think so, great, so this slide shows the metrics that we ultimately, landed on with Austin public health and so you'll see five different metrics along the left hand side, as well as some point allocations that we aligned on as well. These this point allocation in the second to the last column, reflects how important these metrics were to the long terme impact on an individual experiencing homelessness, as well as the impact, the prioritization that aff and so indicated, for these metrics for their provider [11:02:04 AM] metrics for their provider partners, in selecting these metrics, we looked at historical provider data performance data to make sure that these metrics would be feasible to measure. And also that we were setting a bar that was both achievable, but something to strive for in in terms of performance as as David mentioned, we were we were seeking growth in continuous improvement in service delivery, so the total available points for this scorecard was 100. We also did consider compliance with contracts as a qualification to be eligible for, performance based payments, bonus payments, which I'll get into a little later, the measures on the left hand side, what we looked at was, wanting to follow an individual through the client journey of their enrollment in rapid rehousing. So starting from a referral to the point at which they're enrolled into the program, looking at both the time and the conversion rate for that experience was metric one. The move in time and rate was next. So once they are enrolled in the [11:03:05 AM] So once they are enrolled in the program, how long it takes them to move into housing time and conversion rate was considered in that metric as well. And then once they have left the program, are they leaving to a permanent housing destination? Is metric three, we also looked at income growth during the program. So from entry to exit, did they see an increase in their income through either employment, income or benefits? And finally we looked at a racial equity index, which essentially looked at a comparison of the performance of the first four measures for a bipoc subgroup compared to a white subgroup. And we'll go into a little more detail on each of these in the next slide. So there's a lot, in this slide, what I wanted to make sure and highlight is the performance scorecard, the metrics that we aligned on was just one piece of the performance based pilot, that we implemented. So the left hand side has the metrics and the [11:04:07 AM] side has the metrics and the additional detail on each of those metrics, how we use those was to populate a performance scorecard tool. So essentially just an excel document, where we reported quarterly performance and provided that performance both to the providers doing the work to have some accountability and transparency on the performance. We were seeing, as well as to zo and aff in terms of contract management, we then discussed that performance in a series of meetings on a quarterly and biannual basis. So in the data meetings, we wanted to make sure everyone was aligned on what data was being used to populate that scorecard, make sure providers had a chance to audit that, in performance meetings, we reviewed both the quantitative nature of the performance as well as qualitative nature, where there, what was happening in terms of service delivery that was driving this performance. And then we talked about trends across providers in the working group meetings. We also asked [11:05:07 AM] group meetings. We also asked for feedback on a regular basis from providers on this process. The final component to the performance based pilot was, of course, the incorporation of performance based payments. So, once we collected performance in the scorecard tool, at the end of the year, we distributed performance based payments based on the performance on the scorecard that could provide that provider could then use for as more flexible funding than their contract funding. And incremental to their contract funding to pay for services related to administrative, administration of the program. And this is, as Matt talked about, kind of closing the loop on, the principles of performance based payments. We're asking providers to engage more in conversations about performance and the work that is needed to populate these scorecards, things like that, [11:06:07 AM] scorecards, things like that, wanting to give them an incentive for, once we've collected good performance, rewarding them for that. This slide shows, the results that we saw in the pilot year. So October 1st, 2022 through September 30th, 2023 is the data that we've, included in this pilot so far and rewarded performance based payments on you'll see that this includes households both enrolled as of that October 1st date as well as we looked at outcomes for households that enrolled prior to ten one as well, who were still involved in the rapid rehousing programs. 419 households during this year were placed into housing. 90 households exited to permanent housing, and I should note that that is about 67% of the total exits that we saw for the year were to permanent housing, and then a significant number of households are still being served by the program. So there was, a new round of enrollments [11:07:08 AM] was, a new round of enrollments at the beginning of this pilot year, there's still getting services and more time to achieve those outcomes that have not yet been, have not yet occurred for them, the average of 90 days from enrollment to move in. I do want to highlight, as that was in line with what aph and zo guidance they have targeted for their providers, we also, in comparison to the historical data that we looked at, this is historical data had an average of above 100. So it was good to see that we were now below 100. In terms of the timeline from enrollment to movement for these households. Finally, this, shows the result in terms of scoring and performance based payment distribution. So on the left hand side, I do want to just note that these are points awarded across all providers that we measured as a percentage of possible points that they [11:08:08 AM] of possible points that they could have received for these metrics, so two things about this. We set a high bar, which I think is good. We didn't expect anyone to get a perfect score and that didn't happen, and secondly, some of these shorter duration metrics, such as time from referral to enrollment, more people had the chance to receive points on this because of the duration of when those individuals were enrolled in the program. So exits having a lower percentage does not mean that exit outcomes were poor. It means that not as many were measured during this pilot period, and we expect that to improve over time on the right hand side, despite setting a high bar in terms of what we wanted to see from performance, we also did want to make sure this was a new program, make sure that the bonus rewards, performance based payment rewards were significant for providers. So we were given a pool or a pool was set aside, in terms of funding for this initiative. And we were able to [11:09:09 AM] initiative. And we were able to distribute 74% of that. We also had a conversation with providers, in one of our feedback sessions and we heard that those payments were, for the most part, used for staff rewards, which was great to hear . Finally, we had a lot of learnings, during this first pilot year and, some of which are just summarized here. And we've had a lot of conversations both with, echo and zo about how we can use these learnings to drive continued improvement of this program over time. Just a few to highlight. I would say we learned a lot about how zo, from a data measurement perspective, how to align those measures best with the client experience, and I can talk more about that if, if helpful. But in terms of how to set those metrics so that they are reflective of more of what the client is experiencing as opposed to just compliance reporting, for example, and then we also had a lot of, learnings [11:10:11 AM] we also had a lot of, learnings in terms of setting, providers up for success. And so just improving communications in terms of expectations and I think the meetings that we held did facilitate that as well. During the pilot year. So do you have anything else to add you want to highlight in terms of lessons learned here? >> I think the only other piece that's it's, important to bring in is because this process occurred kind of, as zo was transitioning from kind of a-p-h to its own office. This and contracts moving over. This also allowed us an opportunity to just see how have we been doing things contractually, historically, and take these lessons learned and maybe incorporate them into our contracts. Moving forward so we can kind of take a lot of this, information that was gained to more streamline and better look at data in our projects, across kind of the portfolio. [11:11:12 AM] kind of the portfolio. >> Great. And this is our final slide, I just wanted to wrap up to say where we're where we're going next, so social finance is currently working with zo as well as echo to transition from the left hand side. The scorecard that we developed and have used during the pilot year to the scorecard on the right hand side, which is currently or about to start being used by the coc and this is, I think, an initiative that zo can talk more about. But to have more consistent measurement across the entire system, especially within rapid rehousing, I think what's what's good about this, and we feel good about this, we have been in close contact about these metrics and they're very closely aligned. So the transition we expect to be smooth, and I think it will go a long way to just consistent conversations about performance, snipes and measurements of that. >> Thank you. Thank you all so [11:12:17 AM] >> Thank you. Thank you all so much for the presentation. Colleagues who would like to kick us off with questions. Vice chair Velasquez yeah, I had some questions around slide 11, are there numbers available on the total number of people that have been referred to the program? >> There are I don't have that readily available, but yes, we have those numbers and we can get. Okay. >> Would you be able to get those for us? Yes. Thank you so much, on average, how many months do these, do the moved in households receive financial assistance. >> So that varies. They can receive up to 24 months of rental assistance. >> You said up to 24 months, correct. >> Up to 24 months. And that's why you you saw such a low number of exit points is because a lot of those clients are still receiving case management. Working on life skills, gaining employment. And so we probably won't see those exits until probably the next 12 months, rapid rehousing. Best practice incorporates, a philosophy [11:13:17 AM] incorporates, a philosophy called Progressive engagement. And so kind of unlike transitional housing or psh, where kind of clients get a set amount of assistance over time with rapid, we kind of slowly move up, the financial burden as well as kind of life skills from kind of supported by the, the program over to the participant throughout the duration, those 24 months in average, we see clients kind of receiving assistance between 12 to 18 months. >> Okay, thank you. Two clarifying questions, on when it when it references the referral and enrollment. What exactly do those mean? >> Yes. So a client is referred to services, and then the provider does an assessment in terms of whether or not to enroll them and if they can locate them to enroll them. And so once they're enrolled, that's when case management services [11:14:18 AM] when case management services begin. But welcome, Andrew, to add more to that, one thing I'd also say is in that enrollment, it's mostly an eligibility enrollment. >> Are you experiencing literal homelessness when we when we meet with you, as Zoe said, can we find you or you're in a shelter? Are you working with street outreach program? Can we go and look out in the community and find you, the referral entity is echo's coordinate system. So all of our rapid rehousing programs pull from coordinate entry, except for one program, casa marianella, which is a little bit different, but otherwise that's the referral entity. And then all of our providers locate the individual, determine eligibility, and enroll. >> Okay, on the on 689, 689 are still being served by the program, can you provide some clarity on what that means? And if that includes receiving financial assistance? >> Yeah, definitely, as I spoke to earlier. Right. Cause a lot of those clients receive 12 to 18 months of assistance, can receive up to 24 months, and as the slide pointed out, what was [11:15:19 AM] the slide pointed out, what was it, 500 people, households were enrolled during the program. Terme. Yeah. So those 500, were enrolled and are kind of making their way through the process. Right. Because it's a two year program, this data set is only the first year. And so the second year we expect to see a lot more of those exits, and so that's why, yeah, clients are receiving rental assistance. That amount varies based on their individual situation and where they are towards gaining income, you know, I can say that none of our programs, if a client doesn't have any income, the program will pay for the full rent while working with the participant, yeah. Does that answer your question? Yes, sir. >> Okay, great, well, and, that that's all my questions. Thank you all. And for being here. And thank you all for your service to the city. >> Thank you. Other questions, councilmember qadri, thank you, chair, I appreciate the presentation. Ann. Sorry, just have a few questions, I just want clarity, on exits to permanent housing, maybe maybe I just got lost, but I thought it [11:16:23 AM] just got lost, but I thought it was a bit confusing. It said 90, 90 households went to permanent housing, but then it also said 60. That was 60% of the total exits. So I just want to know how many people got housing after rapid rehousing. >> Yes. I so 90 people did get permanent housing after exiting the program. And that does reflect about 67% of the total people that are no longer in the program, exited the program, got it, and then one other question on, why are people limited to 24 months if they can go beyond like if beyond that, there's still a need. >> So we capped rental assistance at 24 months because that's kind of the standard for the intervention, we see rapid the rapid housing component reflected both in the continuum of care, federal regulations as well as the emergency solutions grant regulations, esg, which the city receives because these programs were largely funded [11:17:25 AM] programs were largely funded with arpa and general fund, we wanted to use the kind of standard program model. I think after we're done with the pilot, we can reflect, if, you know, do we want to change the program intervention model or type for our general funds, but that's generally why we picked or have kind of carried forward the 24 months is to kind of fall in line with both the current coc regulations as well as the esg regulations. >> That's great. Thank you. >> And one thing I might also add is it's it it's not uncommon for clients to providers to maybe identify a client might need a longer term support and be transferred to another program, such as permanent supportive housing. If they really don't think a two year window is sufficient to serve their needs. >> Thank you. Councilmember Ryan alder. >> Just want to step back for a minute just to kind of make sure I have the landscape because we talk about vouchers, we talk [11:18:27 AM] talk about vouchers, we talk about rapid, we talk about, you know, you start getting all the parlance here. So when, when someone's talking about like a hakka voucher or something that is separate from rapid, rapid is a its own program funded by the city, correct. >> Yeah. >> And is anybody else locally funding rapid or is it just us, no. So I think there are three rapid rehousing projects in Austin that are funded with hud funding through the continuum of care competition, then the city of Austin funds the majority of the rapid rehousing locally. We do have some esg funds, both through the state, as well as that, the city receives, and those city esg funds are used by dac as well as the community disease unit currently, but otherwise those are the major [11:19:27 AM] otherwise those are the major rapid rehousing funding program. Sources >> And how much are we spending on these programs in rapid rehousing? >> I'd have to get back with you. You know, I think you'll probably recall that the major investment point, was with arpa was rapid rehousing is the component type. So it's substantial right now, and then our general fund investments for rapid, are pretty high. I can't tell you with, off the top of my head, but we can get you those numbers. >> And so when we look at this program for the and it was it was set up as a bonus structure. Right. So we had all our contracts and we just said we'll give you more if you hit our metrics. Did that apply to we said all our contractors who I think you mentioned they had to be complying with their contract, but anybody who was complying with their contract was eligible. Or did we divide [11:20:29 AM] was eligible. Or did we divide into two groups and say, here's kind of the control group where we they didn't get any any incentive, and here's the other group to see how this impacted any kind of outcomes. >> We did not do a control group comparison. We just did, for all of the providers, which there were seven, one was, not compliant. And so we had a bonus payment for all the rest of the six. >> And of those, how many of the contractors got some form of, of a bonus? Six. Yeah. Okay. They had it. And well, well, one thing I'll just kind of as an aside, I think as we look forward it, I do think we need to know whether or not paying somebody more actually incentivized additional behavior. And so some form of a control would be really helpful and valuable, but I also think [11:21:29 AM] and valuable, but I also think it's worth us exploring kind of that next step of not just a bonus structure, but actually tying operational dollars to results. Right. Because our, our goal here is not to spend money, it's to get results. And if we are able to say you get certain number of dollars for the number of successful exits to housing, recognizing that we could then set you know, whether that's 80, 90, whatever that number is, and calibrating it that way. So that, we are you know, I could see as a provider saying it'd be really great to get a little extra money, but I know I'm, I'm at least going to be made whole and not feeling that same motivation of, you know, my funding is on the line here. If I don't perform like I said, I was going to perform. And so [11:22:30 AM] was going to perform. And so that's more of a risk for a contractor, and you might get less people willing to participate. And I think that we have to balance that, but in a, in a way that you can really make it of great value and of great harm to, to not meet your goals. Because I've seen rfps where someone comes and says, we're going to get 80% of people into housing, and two years later it's 20, right? And we have no accountability mechanism there. And so, I think it's worth our while to explore that more aggressive step, as we have these future conversations, I'm also curious about, you so just to follow up, you said that 67, that 90 represents 67% of our exits. So, so two thirds of our exits are positive. A third of our exits are not. I think about this in terms of the [11:23:30 AM] this in terms of the presentation, you gave us, Mr. Gray, about, the marshaling yard and kind of being able to really look at what's happening with the individuals we're serving. And so I think it would be very valuable for us to, be able to look at where we are achieving our successful exits system wide. Right. If someone goes into permanent supportive housing, you mentioned that 98% number, if they're going into shelter, that that kind of number, just so we can understand where our investments produce the results that we want to see, and so if that's something you all could help us visualize and understand, I think, yeah, I think, one thing, it's hard because we're kind of looking at a snapshot, sort of a two year program within the first year, right. >> And so and similarly with the heel data, as you probably recall, the negative exits, happened a lot sooner than the positive exits. Right? The positive exits took longer from the heel. It's the same thing with the rapid rehousing [11:24:30 AM] with the rapid rehousing program, right, it is. We expect that, as we start hitting that 24 month mark, we'll be seeing more positive exits because the client have received the full allotted, both case management, rental assistance, been able to kind of take over their full rental costs. In a more timely manner, I think to your, to your earlier point around kind of balancing both. Yes we want to, recognize and incentivize prize an award, positive performance. We also want to make sure that we're using this tool to actively consider, you know, when we look at new solicitations or we look at it, we reallocation of funding, using this tool to drive a lot of those decisions. Across these multiple metrics as opposed to just, hey, did you hit your contractual outcomes? Did you hit spending? And so that's definitely something we're having a lot of active internal conversations about. David, I [11:25:30 AM] conversations about. David, I don't know if you want to add anything to that. >> All right. David gray homeless strategy officer so, councilmember, first, to answer your question around the funding, we currently have about $37 million, a little bit more than $37 million in arpa funds. That's funding several rapid rehousing investments. Some of those are tied directly to our bridge housing. Others are not. We have some money in this program here, and so we're making a significant investment in this space. I also just want to agree with everything that you said around how we do our contract monitoring. And that was really, you know, the beauty of having a standalone office that now has a finance team that's managing all these contracts. You know, I'll piggyback off of your example and some of our contracts. We might have a vendor that says, if I hit an 80, positive exit rate, then I'm successful, right. Well then they positively successfully exit eight out of ten people. Well you hit your 80, but numbers wise, that's still a relatively low number [11:26:31 AM] still a relatively low number given our system. And so what our team is doing right now and we're actually doing this work currently is we're meeting with every single one of our vendors, not just for rapid but for all of our contracts. We're taking the deep dive into all those contracts to retool those outcomes. We're also reallocating funds. So we are having those difficult conversations with vendors who are not hitting performance metrics or who are not spending down their dollars. We don't want money to go back to the federal government because it's not encumbered and it's not getting spent. And so we're also making reallocation decisions to ensure that the vendors who are hitting strong performance outcomes and real outcomes, and who are spending down their capital, have access to additional capital to continue to achieve high results. And the vendors who are struggling that we're providing them with the technical assistance necessary to bring their performance up to par. But we're not waiting to reallocate funds so that we can continue to have positive impacts in the lives of clients who need programs and need [11:27:31 AM] who need programs and need assistance today. >> And are we you mentioned the $37 million number. Are we facing a cliff sometime here in the near future? The cliff is coming for all of our arpa programs. >> So internally, administratively, one thing that we were able to do is look at the federal guidelines around arpa. Initially a lot of these rapid rehousing contracts were set to expire at the end of this calendar year. And there are some reasons why those decisions were made. We've been able to work with the city manager's office, with FSD and other departments to ensure that my office has the staffing to continue to manage those contracts for an additional year. So we've been able to do no cost extensions of all those contracts to allow them to run through the end of December 2025, which is great, one for our providers. It gives them a little bit more time to spend capital, but second, I think to Andrew's point is these clients are receiving services for 12 months, at a minimum, 24 months at a maximum. And so by [11:28:31 AM] at a maximum. And so by extending the contract deadline through December of next year, it allows us to continue serving clients who are currently being served and continue enrolling new clients into the program for assistance. Now, once we get to December 2025, we're going to have to have some hard conversations around to what extent the city will continue to support rapid rehousing, or if there's other folks in the city or other funders in the city that would be willing to pick up the cost of some of these programs and when let's just say you have whatever vendor it is, when we give them the money, are they tying that or for that individual? >> Are they just finding them an apartment and connecting them with services, or are there or is there some? >> So it depends. So some of the vendors that we have contracts with, those contracts are directly connected to our bridge housing. So the clients who they're serving are clients that are coming into the system through our housing focus [11:29:32 AM] through our housing focus encampment assistance link program. And frankly, that's part of the reason why the outcomes for that shelter intervention are significantly higher than what we're seeing, not just at other shelters in Austin, but other shelters nationally. Others are using the coordinated assessments, and that's the system that's managed through echo, where they're pulling names off of that, that list. And those are individuals who are ranked to have the highest level of acuity and the highest level of need in our system. Even within that, there is a little bit of nuance. For example, some of our vendors specifically serve, youth and young adults. Some might specifically serve seniors, individuals who are age 55 plus. So they'll they'll target their specific demographic. But leveraging that coordinated assessment tool. >> Okay. >> Well, I really appreciate it. I think, this is really fascinating work, and I'm really interested to see where it all goes. Yes, sir. >> Thank you. Thank you. Council member. >> Thank you, so some of the questions I have, and thank you [11:30:32 AM] questions I have, and thank you for this information regarding the scorecard process and the performance based contracting measures that we have as part of this pilot program, you mentioned something that stood out to me, which is, you know, taking into account the experience of the individual as they go through rapid rehousing. And can you talk a little bit more what that looks like? You know, are we or have we done any quality checks on the type of rapid rehousing that they are in and receiving? >> Sure. What I'll do is I'll defer to the experts at the table behind me to respond to that. Council member. Thank you. >> Yes. >> What I was referring to in that is the way the getting into the weeds a little bit. Sorry, the way that the data is collected on, households and clients in the program is often linked to funding and so the reporting is based on the funding. Once, funding changes, they within the hmmis homeless management information systems, once a new funding stream funds that person services, they have to be transferred. And so linking the data across those [11:31:33 AM] linking the data across those two programs is a little bit challenging, and something we didn't expect when we were going into this process, however, we think it is important to reflect that performance, especially because a lot of our metrics are time based. The true time from move in, from enrollment to move in, for example, not, disconnected based on when your funding started. So that was part of what we did. I will say, in the coc scorecard, I think they are adding in some measures based on client feedback. And so doing, including that in the performance that we're transitioning to from a scorecard perspective. So we're excited for that. >> Yeah, I definitely would be interested in having a level or a section dedicated to client feedback. I think that information would be super helpful in informing our efforts moving forward, and as far as quality assurance checks, I'm thinking about the cleanliness of the apartment that that they have operating appliances, ac, heat, things. Yes, living standards. >> And one thing to speak to [11:32:34 AM] >> And one thing to speak to that we do require, before any rental assistance can be provided that a housing quality inspection is done by the provider, and they do have to keep documentation of the unit passing that, prior to being able to enter into providing rental assistance to the unit. So we are and that's you also see that again mirrored in the federal federal regulations for both coc and esg projects. So we kind of took, kind of some of their lessons learned guidance and applied it to our own rapids, and also definitely kind of firmed up the program model across our different providers as well. >> And I noticed that the income , metric was excluded from the report today. Can you share a little more about that? >> Yes, back back in the weeds. Answer again. But, we wanted to make sure that that, we were seeing the income was reflecting a true change in income. And I think, unfortunately, the way the data, on the back end within the homeless management [11:33:35 AM] the homeless management information system is collected, it's difficult to indicate if that income was reflects income at entry, at exit or some combination of the two. And we realize that in the middle of the program. So we're still working to refine that going forward so that it can reflect a true change. And we have a path to that as well. >> We should have said next to each other the next time, yeah, I will say, I think one piece of this being a pilot year of this project was a lot of providers, you know, didn't have the kind of ingrained workflow of entering that data, within the hmmis system, previous assessments are usually pre-populated. And so if you are , you know, moving quickly or if you are, kind of, not familiar with the intricacies of the hmmis that change or just don't have a workflow like, hey, we really should be keying into this and putting it in has. So it is reported, then it's it won't reflect accurately. So that was really why we excluded. It was because we were seeing [11:34:35 AM] It was because we were seeing that, a lot of the reports that we were seeing were from project entry to project exit. The income was mirrored the same, even though we saw clients exiting deposit destinations, and other indicators that would kind of point us to a fact that income has changed. And so there was just a discrepancy from what we were seeing on the ground versus what we were seeing in the data. >> Okay. Thank you, thank you, and thank you for today's presentation, director gray, I know this is an important part of our efforts in reducing homelessness in our city, and making it brief and non- recurring. And for me, knowing that we've made a $37 million investment with our federal funding, that we have a financial cliff that is looming, you know, I'm interested in understanding, you know, how effective are our strategies, what other strategies should we be employing? You know, council member Ryan Anthony, we're having a conversation this morning about, you know, right. Right now we have this rapid rehousing. We have vouchers, we have other ways. But let's [11:35:36 AM] have other ways. But let's explore what would be the most impactful way. You know, perhaps it's direct financial assistance. Perhaps it's navigators that understand, what housing options are available, there are many ways that we can approach this level of service and support. And knowing that it's an important part of our, our system of care, I want to make sure that we are investing what limited dollars we will have moving forward, correctly. And today's information was super helpful, certainly want to get a better assessment of how our other providers are doing and the other contracts we have, but but also just want to continue our investments in rapid rehousing overall. Colleagues, any other questions on this item as it relates to future? >> But that relates to this? I don't know if we want to do that now or at the end. >> That's our next item. Future items. >> Okay, well, just to piggyback exactly on what you just talked about, I think it would be really helpful for us now that [11:36:38 AM] really helpful for us now that you've you've shown us a bunch of data. You're you're just, the yearn for more up here. And so how if you could present to us our various, programs and how, you know, the cost per client, the success rate for those various programs. And when I say success, you know, when you do say a positive outcome, help us break that down. Does that mean they they just went to housing. They're they're receiving certain supports, but you know, if we spend $1 million to serve 100 people and have two successful outcomes or $1 million to serve ten people and have five successful outcomes, I'd much rather unfortunately, serve less people but get more positive outcomes because that's what we're after is getting those outcomes. And so if you could help us look at that whole continuum and what what each type of, of program costs for an individual and what types of results we're seeing, that would be very helpful because we are [11:37:39 AM] be very helpful because we are going to have to make some really tough financial decisions here, in the next year or two. >> Very good. Thank you. Colleagues, any other suggestions or or, guidance on future topics for our committee to consider moving forward? Okay. Wonderful. Thank you for the presentation today. We appreciate all the information, and it is now now 1138 and if there unless there are no further business or any objections, I adjourn this meeting. Thank you .