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Meeting concluded — minutes pending. The agenda below is what the City posted; minutes haven't been published yet. Issaquah approves Council minutes at the next meeting and ships them embedded in that next meeting's packet, so they typically land here 1–3 weeks after the meeting. Transcript and recording will appear once the City posts the YouTube video and our pipeline catches it.
Human Services Commission Auto captions

Wednesday, May 18, 2022

6:30 PM · 1h 33m
Topics tracked across meetings:
Joint Human Services Commission Equity Training Workshop Follow Up 2/9
Homeless Outreach Program Updates and Shelter Options 1/2
Section
Topic
COMMISSIONERS
a
Commission Membership
packet pp.3
Staff report:
HUMAN SERVICES COMMISSION Staff Liaison Monica Negrila, Human About Services Manager Created in 2007, this commission advises the Email Monica Mayor and City Council on matters concerning human services planning and funding. The commission plays a vital role in studying Regular Members emerging issues and concerns in the human services area to ensure that the basic survival 2023 - Jaime Fajardo needs of Issaquah residents are met and that 2023 - Patricia Sadate- support systems are in place to help people Ngatchou through economic and personal crisis. Each 2024 - Sarah Soriano year, the commission focuses on its workplan. 2025 - Trish Bloor 2026 – Kiran Singh 2026 – Manny Brown Membership The Human Services Commission is comprised of seven regular members, with four-year Alternate Members terms; and two alternates, with two-year terms. All members are appointed by the Mayor 2023 – Maury…
3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
3a
Minutes of March 16, 2022
packet pp.5–6
Staff report:
APPROVAL OF MINUTES a) 03-16-22 Human Services Commission Minutes Page [0001] CITY OF ISSAQUAH Human Services Commission 6:30 PM Virtual Meeting March 16, 2022 MINUTES
3b
Minutes of special meeting April, 7 2022
packet pp.7–8
Staff report:
a) This is a joint commission meeting with the human services commissions of Bellevue, Issaquah, Kirkland, Redmond and Sammamish for training on equity in funding.
3c
Minutes of special meeting May 11, 2022
packet pp.9–10
Staff report:
a) This is a joint commission meeting with the human services commissions of Bellevue, Issaquah, Kirkland, Redmond and Sammamish for training on equity in funding.
4. STAFF REPORT
4b
Other Community & Human Services Updates, (I)
Hannah Roberts, Human Services Coordinator
Topics: Equity
5. AGENDA ITEMS
5a
Joint Eastside Human Services Commission Equity Training Debrief (D)
15 min · Monica Negrila, Human Services Manager Hannah Roberts, Human Services Coordinator · packet pp.51–53
Topics: Equity
Staff report:
Behavioral Health and Homeless Outreach Program
5c
Homeless Outreach Program Updates and Shelter Options (I)
10 min · Monica Negrila, Human Services Manager
Topics: Housing
5d
Election of Chair and Vice Chair
5 min · Monica Negrila, Human Services Manager
Topics: Elections
0:01 good
0:02 welcome
0:03 everyone uh due to the virtual format of
0:06 today's meeting uh i'd like to start by
0:09 reminding or providing some guidelines
0:11 so as a reminder this meeting is being
0:13 recorded and
0:16 will be posted on the human services
0:18 commission web page and available for
0:20 viewing
0:21 and moving forward all human services
0:23 commission meetings will be recorded
0:26 as you've noted we have participants
0:29 attending by computers and others may be
0:31 attending by phone
0:33 for all meeting
0:35 attendees please speak clearly and post
0:38 frequently
0:39 state your name each time before you uh
0:43 before speaking
0:46 just a second please
0:50 and i got interrupted by my house maybe
0:52 to tell me they're having a blackout
0:54 just a second
0:57 thank you please
1:05 well i'll step in here
1:06 say hi to everyone welcome
1:08 the majority here
1:10 our new commissioner so very excited to
1:13 have you all here
1:14 uh it looks like you're good to go
1:17 yes thank you thank you i was just my
1:19 family was just telling me they're
1:21 having problems over there and i knew
1:23 that already so anyway so i was saying
1:25 please speak clearly and pause
1:27 frequently state your name each time
1:29 before speaking and mute your
1:31 mic when not speaking and if you having
1:34 uh technical issues try by joining
1:37 meeting using a different device either
1:39 a phone or a tablet
1:41 and use the calling information
1:44 in a meeting invite to call into the
1:45 meeting
1:46 so uh today uh we're gonna take
1:49 attendance and actually it's already
1:52 been nothing and noted who is here or
1:54 who is not and since uh we have new
1:57 members maybe we'll do introductions and
1:59 take it as a roll call
2:02 okay
2:03 um i'm on the mic so i'll start by
2:06 myself
2:08 i am pat sarangatu and normally i'm the
2:10 vice chair for the human services
2:13 commission and today i'm going to be
2:14 chairing because we have not elected a
2:17 new chair
2:19 have been on the human services
2:20 commission for
2:22 a year it's going to be two years in
2:24 coming few months here and i uh
2:28 it's my passion to do human services i
2:31 do that for my line of work i do that
2:33 out of work
2:34 so we provide a better environment for
2:37 where we live
2:38 and thank you for joining up
2:40 next
2:42 on my screen i see
2:44 anna
2:47 hi everyone hannah roberts here with the
2:49 city of issaquah i'm the human services
2:51 coordinator in your staff liaison
2:53 welcome tonight
2:55 and i will go ahead and pass it to mari
3:00 okay thanks hannah
3:02 maury edwards uh my uh pronouns are he
3:05 him
3:07 and uh i'm an older white guy with white
3:09 hair i wear glasses and tonight i have a
3:12 black shirt on
3:15 i am joining this uh with you um in
3:19 anticipation of a great session i really
3:23 want to be involved with my city i have
3:25 lived in issaquah since 1985
3:29 and i'd like to contribute i'd like to
3:30 give back and this is my opportunity
3:34 i've heard great things about this
3:35 commission from manny and so i'm looking
3:38 forward to uh some a pretty cool time
3:40 with you
3:42 and so i guess i'll pass it on to
3:46 uh jamie
3:50 hey everybody my name is jamie longoria
3:52 i live here in issaquah and um i was
3:55 interested in joining the human services
3:57 commission um because i've lived in
3:59 izakawa for about 17 years i'm a single
4:02 mom with um three boys and i've been
4:04 raising them here in issaquah
4:06 and i have a lot of lived experiences
4:08 using some of the human services that um
4:10 the city of issaquah provides to some of
4:12 our residents and now that i'm in a
4:15 better place in my life and um
4:18 i've grown professionally and personally
4:20 i'm in a place where i can give back and
4:23 i just feel like my lived experiences
4:24 can help other people and help improve
4:27 maybe some of the
4:28 things that we already have going in the
4:30 city so i look forward to working with
4:32 you guys
4:38 i can't see who's next so somebody's
4:41 gonna have to call on the next person
4:48 hello this is kieran i use she her
4:50 pronouns and i am new to the commission
4:53 and very excited
4:55 um i
4:56 have lived in nissan all my life which
4:58 is probably not a very long life span in
5:01 comparison but i
5:03 love this city and i'm very excited to
5:06 kind of see it from the other
5:08 perspective because most of my
5:09 experiences are with
5:11 the types of organizations that the city
5:14 supports and so it's interesting to get
5:16 more of a back end view and also i am
5:19 sick and our community really values
5:21 service
5:22 public good and the civic duty and that
5:25 is a perspective that i'm excited to
5:27 bring to this team
5:29 and i will pass it to manny if he hasn't
5:32 already went
5:34 hello my name's manuel brown i go by him
5:38 and
5:39 honey at times
5:41 but uh
5:42 i've been in this club since i'm 96 i
5:46 believe and
5:48 been
5:49 worked in the area as a
5:53 professional coach at the high school
5:55 and been involved with many of the
5:58 citizens that are now
5:59 of age
6:01 coming into
6:03 out of the high schools and
6:05 i just
6:06 enjoy working with each and every one of
6:08 them
6:09 and want to continue
6:12 bringing
6:13 issaquah to a point where
6:16 everybody is welcome
6:21 and i believe we got here
6:25 to use monica something
6:28 what thank you very much minnie and
6:30 welcome commissioners it is so nice to
6:32 have you new commissioners and
6:35 existing commissioners
6:37 uh my name is monica negru i'm the human
6:39 services manager here at the city i work
6:41 with hannah
6:42 on an ongoing basis and with the rest of
6:45 the human services team
6:47 uh one of which we are going to
6:49 introduce a little bit later tonight is
6:51 also here with us kailyn
6:54 west she's our newest member
6:56 of the team and we are gonna introduce
7:00 her here during the meeting um but we
7:03 are honored to work with you i've been
7:04 with the city of issaquah here for
7:07 about two and a half years now my
7:09 background is in behavioral health uh
7:12 prior to being with the city i worked
7:14 for about 15 years in non-profit
7:16 mental health substance use and
7:17 vocational services in particular so
7:20 very very nice to have you
7:30 with that back to you pat
7:32 uh i think we all call them
7:34 okay so
7:36 i see someone logged in
7:40 caitlyn
7:44 karen's our newest staff definitely she
7:46 can introduce now as well
7:50 kevin can you hear us
7:53 yes hello i'm kalyn it's nice to meet
7:55 you all on the bee here very excited to
7:58 see this realm of the work and
8:01 interested in hearing all of your
8:02 beautiful thoughts and experiences so
8:04 thanks for having me
8:10 thanks caitlyn um hannah are there any
8:13 uh public in attendance
8:15 and any comments
8:18 no there's no attendees um in um
8:21 attendance tonight and there are have
8:23 been no public comments made okay thanks
8:26 that's it and since we have new
8:28 commissioner maybe i should uh remind
8:30 everyone
8:32 to indicate
8:33 a desire to speak uh by sending a chat
8:36 to all panelists and typing either
8:38 question or comment and then wait to be
8:41 acknowledged by the chair
8:43 uh and also please do not put any
8:45 substantive comments in the chat just in
8:48 case uh someone unattended someone is
8:51 an attendant some public we have public
8:53 attendance
8:55 and and for everyone on the on phone uh
8:58 we will check with you from time to time
9:00 to determine if you have comments
9:03 and you can also press start three to
9:05 raise your hand i think
9:08 okay
9:10 so now uh hannah please if you can
9:12 proceed for the rest of the agenda
9:15 yeah and one more thing pat i would like
9:17 to note here that we have a few
9:19 commissioners in uh with an excuse
9:21 absent
9:23 that includes madeleine fish she's a new
9:24 commissioner so you will all get to meet
9:26 her in her next commission meeting
9:29 we also have trish floor who is a
9:32 regular commissioner
9:34 she will also be joining us and then
9:36 sarah seriano um i will be sending out a
9:39 message after our meeting but she has
9:41 had to step down from her regular
9:43 position uh due to her family moving out
9:46 of state uh so she's also with
9:49 an excused absent
9:52 and then we have jaime who is in route
9:55 and should be joining us late night
9:57 thank you pat um the next item on our
10:00 agenda is the approval of minutes would
10:02 you like to um walk us through that part
10:05 or would you like assistance
10:07 uh please uh do that i know we have
10:09 three uh
10:11 sets of minutes today so please do uh
10:14 assist with that
10:21 okay great uh i might tap actually
10:23 monica in for a little bit of help for
10:25 the minute because i don't know if i've
10:26 done them either but i will give a go at
10:30 um so tonight's a little bit different
10:32 um we usually always look at our minutes
10:35 from our last commission meeting the
10:37 month prior um and uh provide um
10:42 ask if there are any recommendations for
10:45 any changes or edits
10:47 to be included
10:49 for tonight as you can see we have three
10:52 minutes um two of them are which from
10:54 our special meeting that we had for our
10:56 equity training uh the first one was in
10:59 april and then the next one when we had
11:01 quorum was in may
11:03 um so we have meetings for that and then
11:05 we did not have a regular april meeting
11:06 so you will also see minutes
11:08 um from march 16th that also need to be
11:11 approved
11:15 so i'll give you a minute to briefly
11:17 quickly look through those
11:20 and give a minute to see if there are
11:22 any
11:23 uh recommendations for
11:25 changes if not i will take a motion
11:28 um to
11:30 approve them as
11:35 as is monica what's the verb
11:39 sorry i move that we
11:41 approve uh all three of these as written
11:45 thank you maury so definitely if you
11:47 have a motion you can do motion that's a
11:49 great motion then somebody else can
11:51 second that motion
11:54 uh manny i will second it
11:56 thank you manny for seconding it and
11:59 then now i think you can just express
12:02 your vote if you agree with that then um
12:04 you can also ask if there's any
12:06 discussion if anyone would like to
12:08 discuss or make any
12:10 recommendations or edits
12:15 if there's no discussion then you can
12:17 just move to
12:18 approved a minute
12:21 and we can go about this in two ways you
12:23 can all
12:24 we can do a roll call and ask for your
12:26 name and tell us how you vote or if we
12:30 want to speed up the process we can just
12:32 say please let us know if you
12:35 do not approve the minutes
12:38 and
12:39 then we can
12:41 do that and if nobody
12:45 decides not to approve then we would
12:47 assume that there are no changes and the
12:49 minutes are being approved unanimously
12:53 if there are no edits or comments or
12:55 objections
12:58 so i see no objections
13:01 in the chat or nobody on the screen so i
13:04 think we can safely say that
13:08 with no objections the minutes are
13:10 approved unanimously
13:14 great
13:15 thank you
13:20 okay so that takes us to the next item
13:22 on the agenda
13:24 and that will be on the staff report
13:33 thank you pat and so definitely we can i
13:36 this is monica again we can start with
13:38 the staff report i'll start with the
13:41 very first
13:42 part again new commissioners you're
13:44 gonna see that in staff reports
13:45 typically we are gonna have two sections
13:48 one uh it's gonna be if there are any
13:50 updates from the mayor or city council
13:53 uh this is when we
13:54 either bring any notes from the mayor or
13:57 council or we update you on a past
14:01 council meetings when we had human
14:03 services actions or upcoming council
14:05 meetings where you can also certainly
14:08 participate and attend
14:10 um so so with that um in terms of
14:13 updates from oh i apologize and then the
14:16 second piece to the staff report
14:18 typically hannah covers that is if there
14:20 are any community other human services
14:23 uh related updates for that
14:26 so with that i'm gonna
14:29 proceed to some updates from city
14:31 council
14:32 um on april 26th uh we had
14:35 we participated in a council study
14:37 session uh where we um
14:40 presented and we talked with city
14:42 council about the human services grants
14:44 program and we ask their feedback and
14:47 input on
14:49 direction on goals and funding and any
14:51 policy recommendations
14:53 this item will actually go back to city
14:56 council to a committee meeting in june
14:58 and we will update you on that
15:01 as we move forward
15:04 speaking of june 22nd uh
15:07 there's gonna be a committee meeting
15:09 um where we are gonna have several human
15:11 services um items in addition to the
15:15 human services grants program um
15:18 we are also gonna talk as part of the
15:20 human services strategic plan item uh we
15:23 are gonna bring some updates on
15:25 homelessness
15:26 uh and services related
15:28 which actually we are gonna talk with
15:30 you a little bit later tonight so i'm
15:31 gonna go in more detail a little bit
15:33 later on that
15:34 um and then we are also gonna discuss
15:36 with city council
15:39 um some
15:40 [Music]
15:42 responses and recommendations regarding
15:44 tenant and landlord protection options
15:47 based on a survey that we are currently
15:49 conducting
15:52 and then
15:53 with that i think these are the major
15:55 updates regarding city council and mayor
15:59 onenote for those of you who've been
16:03 participating in council meetings um
16:06 just wanted to let you know that
16:08 recently our city council transitioned
16:10 from
16:11 um study session models to committee
16:14 meetings uh whereas in addition to the
16:17 regular
16:18 council meetings um now we have three
16:22 committees
16:23 where
16:24 three council members uh participate in
16:27 each of the committees uh they are
16:29 smaller groups where we go um
16:33 with items
16:34 before taking them in front of the
16:36 entire city council
16:40 so just a
16:42 process change for how council conducts
16:44 the the work and we would be happy to
16:46 provide you with additional details and
16:49 if there are times when you make
16:50 recommendations to city council then we
16:52 can help you and inform you on how to go
16:54 about that
16:56 thank you i think that concludes my
16:58 portion of the staff report
17:01 you know
17:02 thank you monica i will uh discuss our
17:05 human services and commission updates um
17:08 so you'll see here there is a bullet
17:10 point in regards to transition in person
17:13 um so that is something that we are
17:15 anticipating however since it's been
17:17 posted there has been a change in that
17:21 deadline in that time frame um so as a
17:24 human services commission we are hoping
17:26 to go back into person here it says july
17:28 but we actually are now pushed back to
17:30 september um so we will continue to meet
17:33 virtually however expectations will
17:36 change where now commissioners will be
17:38 meeting in person again starting in
17:40 september and we will provide details on
17:42 where that location is um it'll still be
17:45 on the same day
17:46 third wednesday of the month at 6 30 pm
17:49 uh but the expectation will be
17:51 commissioners will be in person however
17:53 we will um be a hybrid model for public
17:56 attendance um so um attendees could join
18:00 virtually and join our meetings as well
18:03 so more information to come on that but
18:05 just want to put that on everybody's
18:06 radar we will still be continuing on
18:09 recording our meetings as well
18:12 and then the other thing i just want to
18:14 invite folks to uh just know about and
18:16 maybe share with their communities um is
18:19 that there is a board and commission
18:21 extension for a few more boards and
18:24 commission um until may 31st so if you
18:27 have anybody interested in serving in
18:29 that capacity um please share that link
18:32 as well as for the city employment we
18:35 are hiring many positions especially in
18:37 parks and community services so also
18:40 wanted to
18:41 share that we're looking from some great
18:44 people to join our team
18:46 so with that that concludes the staff
18:49 report and i'll give it back to pat
18:54 thank you thanks um are there any
18:57 questions from or any comments
19:00 i don't see any in the chat
19:02 so uh we go straight then into the
19:05 agenda items and first one
19:08 will be uh back to you hannah about the
19:11 joint east side human services
19:13 commission equity
19:15 training debrief
19:19 i think sorry just second i see manny
19:21 has a question here
19:23 all right
19:25 uh yes you want to check in with monica
19:27 uh about the change for the council's um
19:30 study sessions how
19:33 is it
19:34 it has worked out who's in each study
19:37 session is it
19:40 do they have particular groups so they
19:41 mix them up every now and then or or
19:45 does that work yeah and that's a great
19:47 question manny i think
19:49 so we have a total of
19:51 uh so each each of the committees has
19:53 three council members and um i believe
19:57 uh that
19:59 perhaps they serve for at least a year
20:01 and i have to admit that i don't know
20:03 that in all the details but yes they
20:05 have been council members have been
20:07 assigned and they decided internally and
20:09 who uh serves on each committee i'm just
20:13 not sure on how for how long are they on
20:16 each of the committees if they change
20:17 each year
20:19 or for how long but i would be very
20:21 happy to check with our
20:23 city clerk and get back with you on that
20:26 okay thank you and for um hannah um
20:31 is there a hybrid
20:33 for in september is that for just
20:37 attendees or is that for panelists also
20:40 great question manny yeah to clarify um
20:42 the hybrid in september that we'll be
20:44 transitioning to that um virtual option
20:47 is just for attendees so for
20:49 commissioners um right now the
20:51 expectation is to join in person um if
20:55 there's uh i also uh we also have our
20:57 stipend program so again i can pass on
21:00 more information just want to encourage
21:01 folks to look into that help supplement
21:04 now coming into person so
21:06 um so commissioners in september as of
21:09 now unless something changes um we will
21:11 be meeting in person
21:14 yeah i asked a question because uh let's
21:16 say you're
21:17 traveling but you're free
21:21 is there a way that
21:24 ruling is so that you can call in or
21:31 yeah that's what we're working on right
21:32 now um is kind of those kind of
21:35 fielding those details out um great
21:38 question we also have that as well
21:40 monica and that's what i know so far is
21:43 that we're working on it to see if we
21:45 can get more information if that's going
21:47 to be an option
21:49 okay and one more thing um monica i
21:52 know that maury was
21:54 a alternate is he still alternate
21:58 all right
22:00 all right all right i know there's a
22:02 space open so i don't i'm just trying to
22:04 figure out how that works
22:06 yeah thank you so yes for now uh he's on
22:09 alternate because if you remember um all
22:12 the positions are recommended by the
22:15 mayor and then uh council
22:18 um approves those positions so based on
22:20 the official approval from city council
22:24 maury was
22:25 an alternate but you are absolutely
22:27 right we do have currently an open
22:30 position as a regular member as sarah
22:32 had to step down and so we are in the
22:34 process of working with our city clerk
22:36 so then in anticipated i believe it's
22:39 going to be in june or july when
22:42 commission
22:43 recommendations will go back to city
22:45 council so at that time
22:49 we will make a recommendation for one of
22:51 the alternate positions to move into a
22:53 regular position
22:54 meanwhile though
22:56 every time we have an opening on the
22:58 regular position then one of the
23:00 alternate members uh serve as a as a
23:04 regular position right and
23:07 so i believe based on the roster that
23:09 would be mori because he's the first
23:10 alternate position so automatically mori
23:13 serves as a regular member
23:16 all that being said
23:19 we hope in our human services commission
23:21 that we we don't vote quite often and
23:23 whether you're an alternate or your
23:25 member uh your voice and the weight of
23:28 your feedback is an input is is just as
23:31 valuable regardless of
23:34 right um position so did that help to
23:37 answer your question manny
23:39 yeah thank you and welcome maury uh
23:43 i do know you so
23:47 thank you thanks
23:49 okay i think we're gonna take one uh
23:51 statement from mari so we can move to
23:53 the next agenda item i see your hands up
23:55 i guess this way question maureen
23:57 thank you mori edwards uh just for the
24:00 record if you want to make me a
24:03 regular commissioner instead of an
24:05 alternate i'm up for that
24:11 that's it
24:13 i think we should vote on it
24:18 thank you
24:20 thank you
24:21 okay uh to you know hannah
24:25 excellent well thank you everyone um i
24:27 just wanted to spend uh briefly some
24:30 time to debrief some of the training uh
24:32 that went down so first off thank you
24:34 everyone who was able to participate in
24:37 the equity training um again april 7th
24:40 is when we had the part one equity
24:41 training which was more of a listen
24:44 session if you didn't get a chance to
24:45 attend in person thank you if you had an
24:47 opportunity to watch that online um and
24:50 then there were um there were an
24:52 opportunity for part two equity training
24:55 with the east side joint commissioners
24:57 um and that was more of an intimate
24:59 setting more discussion and opportunity
25:02 and really again the purpose of it was
25:04 um kind of help prepare commissioners as
25:07 they're about to review these grant
25:09 applications to really have an equity
25:11 lens and to understand um the approach
25:14 you know in an equitable way so i i
25:17 wanted to be brief on that training this
25:19 evening um you know again keeping
25:21 comments uh you know uh three to five
25:24 minutes maximum um we're going to take
25:26 about 15 minutes if if not less
25:28 to talk about it but i love to hear
25:30 commissioners
25:31 um just feedback of you know takeaways
25:34 that they had that they're hoping to
25:37 use some of what they learned in that
25:38 training
25:40 for the grant um application review
25:43 process so just an open discussion is
25:45 what i'm hoping for for the next 10-15
25:47 minutes
25:53 anybody would like to start you can um
25:57 comment in the chat or you can raise
25:59 your hand
26:01 sorry
26:02 i'll break the ice
26:04 um i uh
26:06 i'm really impressed that that's what we
26:09 did that's what we led this year with
26:11 was that equity training uh i i
26:15 come at this
26:16 through an equity lens and that is
26:18 that's the reason that i'm here and i
26:21 was
26:23 very impressed that that's what we did
26:25 first
26:26 and uh and looking forward to taking
26:29 that
26:30 that into the work
26:32 that's about all i have to say about it
26:39 thank you mari pat i see your hand
26:41 yes um just as maury i was really
26:45 impressed
26:46 and it was uh
26:48 rich exchanges and reach um
26:51 you know having those different scenario
26:55 given to us and
26:57 and just having us reflect about our own
27:00 implicit biases
27:02 and this is you know
27:05 i don't know how we will review these
27:07 grants without
27:09 relieving the training
27:10 uh it was very um effective i would say
27:14 and i really liked the even the second
27:16 part
27:17 on um
27:19 the the hands-on exercise that we did it
27:22 was it was really good
27:24 and and and the other experience
27:28 was to uh having other commissioners
27:30 from other cities
27:33 and just by random i met one of them
27:36 and i was like i know this face oh that
27:38 was the training so is you know um
27:41 and and that was after the first
27:43 training on the second training you just
27:44 ping me on the side hey nice to see you
27:46 so that's that's really rich you know
27:48 having that togetherness for all the
27:51 some of the cities around
27:57 thank you pat really appreciate sharing
27:59 that very neat to make connections that
28:00 way and people nearby
28:07 may i see your hand
28:10 yeah i like to also express the fact
28:12 that uh i mean our host was
28:14 amazing and
28:17 they did an excellent job with
28:20 making us
28:21 dig down inside to figure out where our
28:23 biases were
28:25 i'm not sure
28:26 i agree with the tests i took but
28:31 that's i guess that's what it's all
28:33 about right trying to figure out where
28:34 you are
28:37 i agree with uh both maury and pat that
28:41 i thought it was a very effective
28:44 way to start start off with our new
28:47 joinees
28:52 thanks
28:53 thank you so much manny
29:00 and then i
29:02 don't have any comments karen or jamie
29:03 would you would you like to say anything
29:05 just don't mean to put you on the spot i
29:07 just want to give you some room and
29:08 space to speak if you had anything to
29:10 add
29:11 yeah i can go sorry i'm still learning
29:12 how to use the webex thing
29:16 yeah um i've been i've been through that
29:18 training a couple other times um i've
29:20 just worked at other organizations that
29:21 have provided that training and and i do
29:23 it's a very good reminder and it's just
29:25 a very good um lens to go in with uh
29:27 when we're going to look at these um
29:30 different grant applications and review
29:32 them and kind of keep that training in
29:33 mind and keep keep keep everything equal
29:36 and equitable um so i thought it was a
29:38 great training and i love that you guys
29:40 provided it prior to us reviewing these
29:42 so thank you
29:47 thank you jamie and karen yeah go for it
29:51 i already went through my power outage
29:53 last week which is why i wasn't able to
29:54 attend but luckily i have been through
29:56 that training i think and so um
29:59 it was a good reminder to prepare to
30:01 have that perspective in mind and
30:05 i think that there's always just so much
30:07 more work that we can do and it's so
30:09 easy to lose that perspective so
30:12 at this point i think i should just like
30:14 tape it on the monitor or something
30:19 excellent
30:20 thank you karen well thank you all again
30:23 for um
30:24 doing the extra meetings in april and in
30:27 may um again very important work um
30:29 important lens to have as we have a big
30:32 project ahead of us so
30:34 um i'll give it back to pat to keep us
30:36 moving forward
30:38 thanks hannah
30:40 the next item on the agenda is
30:43 the grand review process is going to be
30:47 a long one it's an important one on our
30:50 agenda today and monica please can you
30:52 lead us
30:55 thank you pat and actually i'm gonna
30:57 invite hannah to start us off this
30:59 evening and i'm gonna jump in just in a
31:01 few
31:02 minutes all right thank you everyone all
31:07 righty
31:08 i'm gonna share my screen here yes like
31:10 monica said we're kind of gonna be tag
31:12 teaming this presentation um so welcome
31:16 everybody uh this is our 2023 2024 human
31:20 services grant application review
31:22 process this is our big kickoff um we
31:26 have the big project and the big
31:28 responsibility task ahead of us to
31:31 review
31:32 the grant applications uh for this next
31:35 cycle and make some pretty big decisions
31:38 how are we going to fund who are we
31:39 going to fund
31:41 to really serve our isoqua community and
31:43 meet the needs of our community um so
31:45 tonight we're really hoping to just lay
31:47 down the foundation of what the process
31:49 is going to look like
31:51 um and kind of talk about what our next
31:53 steps are so let me
31:56 move us forward so again like i said
31:58 we're just going to go over some of the
32:00 background just the basics of our human
32:02 services commission and this process
32:06 we're going to review the applications
32:09 for this next cycle we're going to talk
32:12 about then our process what our approach
32:14 will be and have a discussion um and a
32:17 presentation around that i'm gonna also
32:19 be showing you folks um an example of a
32:22 application um so uh to help kind of get
32:25 people started
32:27 then really what is our timeline and our
32:29 next steps going to look like
32:35 all right so for our background here so
32:37 human services if if you're not familiar
32:39 with uh the human services commission at
32:42 issaquah was created in
32:43 2007 and really the role that we have um
32:47 here in our commission is to make
32:49 recommendations to our mayor and our
32:51 city council regarding our human
32:53 services funding to our community so a
32:56 little bit on the left you can see how
32:58 the funding has increased over the years
33:02 um and so that
33:04 that is a part of our commissioners
33:06 advocating for the needs
33:08 and um and allocating uh making
33:10 recommendations on where funding goes
33:13 goes there
33:17 and as far as our human services grants
33:19 um so again this is a bi-annual cycle
33:23 which means every
33:24 the application is good for two years
33:28 it really is a collaborative process
33:31 with our community partners for
33:32 non-profit organizations
33:36 apply to human services to serve
33:39 issaquah residents and have service unit
33:41 goals
33:42 um the human services reviews these
33:45 applications and again makes these
33:47 recommendations and just fair warning
33:50 it's a tough task ahead of us to make
33:52 those and um again monica and i have
33:55 hopefully set everyone up um to be
33:57 successful to uh review these
34:00 applications and help you make these
34:02 decisions and so you're you're not alone
34:05 in this recommendation process
34:07 um and then really what we will be doing
34:10 is presenting to our council
34:12 um and they'll be making ultimately the
34:14 decision and the approval of the the
34:17 grant funding
34:22 so for a human services grant so when um
34:25 nonprofits apply they go through this
34:27 share one app so you'll probably hear us
34:29 talk about that a little bit um really
34:31 what that is it's a portal or a website
34:35 that allows uh nonprofit organizations
34:38 to apply once to multiple cities there's
34:41 16 cities um who are a part of this
34:45 collaboration so we have the east side
34:47 south um and um north
34:52 and
34:53 the needs are typically grouped in five
34:56 goals we'll talk about that a little bit
34:58 for issaquah we've really
35:00 focused our goal areas on our human
35:02 services strategic plan so we'll go in
35:04 more detail about that
35:07 it the basically um
35:11 share one app again you'll be seeing a
35:13 little bit of what that looks like i'll
35:15 provide an example
35:17 and some changes to note here is that
35:19 equity lens has been included in our
35:22 process
35:24 once applications and grants have been
35:28 approved and
35:30 there are
35:32 there are contract requirements um for
35:35 these nonprofit organizations
35:42 so just kind of an overview of the cycle
35:44 and the process um so for us we really
35:47 started off in our community needs um
35:49 which again was really established when
35:51 we created our human services strategic
35:54 plan um that um first half really
35:58 focused on what did we hear in our
36:00 community in our outreach approach and
36:02 what are the community needs
36:04 uh we've identified uh four main focus
36:07 areas and again we'll go in more details
36:09 about that
36:10 that now leads into the funding
36:12 priorities uh which again um we will
36:16 talk about that in more details
36:18 we are received the grant application
36:20 that closed end of april and now this is
36:23 where we're at here is our grant review
36:27 and that's what we will be doing here
36:29 for the next couple of months and then
36:32 by august end of august we are hoping to
36:34 have our funding recommendations
36:37 sent to our city council and then our
36:39 city council will approve in september
36:41 along with our budget
36:44 and i'm going to pass it to monica
36:48 thank you hannah
36:50 hello commissioners again this is monica
36:54 i'm gonna talk a little bit about
36:59 just what you see on your screen it's a
37:00 brief snapshot of
37:03 the grants that we received last funding
37:06 cycle and the applications that we
37:08 received last funding cycle
37:10 um i'm not going to go in much much
37:13 detail because i would like to focus
37:14 more on
37:16 what's going to be similar and what's
37:18 going to be different this time around
37:21 so to give you though an overview
37:24 uh last funding cycle this was in 2020
37:27 we received 91 applications uh and the
37:31 request totaled a little bit
37:34 over 1.38
37:36 million dollars in requests
37:39 um the human services commission at that
37:41 time made recommendations to fund 57
37:45 programs and we had a total of 500 000
37:49 to allocate
37:50 um as hannah mentioned earlier we had
37:53 divided all the applications in five
37:56 goal areas you see them on the screen it
37:58 was food and roof overhead supportive
38:01 relationships safe haven from all forms
38:04 violence and abuse healthcare
38:08 mental health and behavioral health and
38:10 physical health and education and job
38:12 skills
38:14 you will see the goal areas are going to
38:16 be a little bit different this time just
38:18 because now we have a strategic plan
38:21 that helps us focus the needs for
38:23 specifically for issaquah
38:26 so with that we can again this is just a
38:29 snapshot for you um to to have that
38:31 background information to see what we
38:34 did during last cycle i want to
38:36 highlight one other thing before we move
38:38 to the next slide and that is since as
38:41 you saw we had five hundred thousand
38:43 dollars to allocate and we supported 57
38:47 organizations what that means
38:50 is that we were able to support a larger
38:53 number of organizations but the downside
38:56 of that as you can guess is that the
38:59 total amount that we um allocated was
39:02 pretty small right so we we supported
39:04 more organizations but with less funding
39:06 for each of the organizations so i i
39:09 want you i just want to call that out
39:10 because i would like to talk with you
39:12 all about that in just a bit
39:14 can we go to the next slide please
39:16 hannah
39:19 so with that i just wanted again to
39:22 provide a snapshot and an overview of
39:25 what to expect and how this process goes
39:31 we started as hannah mentioned earlier
39:33 with the community needs assessment that
39:35 we conducted last summer which then
39:37 informed our strategic plan that was
39:40 adopted at the beginning of this year by
39:42 city council
39:44 next we started talking with
39:47 some of you uh some of you were not here
39:50 but we started talking in the first
39:51 quarter of this year already about
39:54 funding process and getting ready um to
39:58 release the grants fund the grant
40:00 funding applications
40:02 um and then this is where we are now we
40:04 are in the second quarter where now that
40:07 we received the grant applications and
40:09 we are ready to start reviewing them so
40:12 we will work in the next couple of
40:14 months
40:15 again on reviewing those and
40:18 next we hope to make our recommendations
40:20 by the end of august to the mayor
40:22 who the mayor then will include them in
40:25 the city budget process for city council
40:27 in september
40:30 for um
40:31 city council recommendations so the city
40:34 budget process will begin sometime in
40:36 september and it's gonna take us to
40:38 almost the end of the year typically
40:40 it's uh towards the end of november when
40:43 city council approves the budget um
40:46 and so once those uh city council
40:50 approves the recommendations at that
40:52 point we will start the contracting
40:54 process with the organizations that
40:57 received the awards and all of the
41:00 contracts and funding then will start in
41:03 uh january 1st of 2023
41:07 um and then typically you're gonna see
41:08 2023 it's going to be a monitoring a
41:12 year when we as staff we will work with
41:14 organizations not only to
41:17 enter into those contracts but
41:18 supporting them in making sure that they
41:20 meet the requirements that that we
41:22 establish in those contracts we conduct
41:25 monitoring and technical assistance and
41:26 whatnot
41:28 so i'm gonna pause in case there are any
41:30 questions before moving forward
41:34 feel free to put uh questions in
41:37 uh if you have question or comment in
41:39 the chat i don't see any so i'm gonna
41:42 move forward but please don't feel oh i
41:44 think i see mari your your hand is up um
41:47 it's hard to see when we present so feel
41:49 free to don't to just put question or
41:52 comment in the chat so we can see that
41:54 you have a question or comment so mori
41:56 go ahead
41:57 okay maury edwards i read that hope link
42:00 was getting 350
42:02 and there was another organization of
42:04 150k
42:06 now that that that adds up to 500k is
42:09 that the same 500k that we're talking
42:11 about here
42:13 such a good question maurice such a good
42:15 question thank you for bringing that up
42:17 so what we are talking right now about
42:20 it's just our traditional human services
42:22 grants
42:23 during the pandemic the city provided
42:26 additional funds for human services
42:28 related needs so the ones that you're
42:30 talking about that was rental assistance
42:32 and that was in addition to the regular
42:34 funding process so yes absolutely just
42:36 the most recent one was rental
42:38 assistance
42:39 such a great question yeah i have
42:41 another question if i may yes okay um
42:44 what is the pilot outreach and what is
42:47 the pilot grass what are the pilot
42:49 grassroots grants
42:51 another such great question so those
42:53 were two those were two pilot projects
42:56 that we tried last funding cycle so we
42:59 started the pilot outreach homeless
43:01 outreach uh program last funding cycle
43:04 and that um since then that turned into
43:07 a regular program and it's one of our
43:10 programs in human services i'm going to
43:12 update you on the next agenda item on
43:14 that great great question and then
43:16 another pilot was the grassroots where
43:18 we tried to pilot
43:20 a different application for small
43:22 grassroots cultural based organizations
43:25 who may not have the capacity to to
43:28 really know the entire shareone app
43:30 process and go through those steps and
43:32 through that funding cycle we supported
43:35 two organizations who now moved up to
43:38 being able to apply to the regular
43:40 decision uh process so great great
43:44 questions
43:47 oh and manny i see you have a question
43:51 yes um i also have two questions um
43:54 first off so the grant advocates
43:56 are they budgeting themselves for every
43:59 two years basically i mean if
44:03 if they're expecting to get it from
44:04 israel is that what i'm understanding
44:07 yes so they're budgeting for two years
44:09 when they request the grants and yes
44:10 every two years they would need to
44:12 reapply for those funds
44:14 okay and secondly um
44:17 so the funding increased in the last few
44:19 years as you showed in that chart
44:22 but how's that increase um relates or to
44:26 the number of
44:28 uh applicants that applied let's say
44:30 five years ago there was 10 but
44:33 then there were 91 so um cost per
44:36 applicant did that increase or
44:39 or what
44:41 um no not necessarily and so these are
44:44 actually good questions to have and to
44:47 kind of like decide and those are some
44:49 of the questions that city council now
44:51 is deciding on how to go about creating
44:53 a policy for human services and how do
44:55 we establish the amount of dollars that
44:57 we have for human services grants right
45:00 uh and then actually in just a few
45:01 minutes i would love to talk with you
45:03 about our approach and how do we go
45:05 about
45:06 uh funding these many organizations with
45:08 the funds that we have because i think
45:11 no matter how much the funds were
45:12 increased over the years the needs that
45:15 we see in the community and the requests
45:17 are always so much higher than what we
45:19 have available and typically it's it's
45:21 double or very close to triple the
45:24 amount that we have available so um yeah
45:29 thank you
45:30 thank you
45:32 those are the the real challenges we are
45:34 going to face for sure
45:36 um any other questions before we
45:38 continue
45:41 i seen them so okay thank you hannah we
45:44 can if you don't mind putting back on
45:46 the slide
45:50 okay
45:52 thank you
45:53 so with that next i would like to
45:55 provide you with a brief snapshot of
45:58 what we have currently so what you see
46:00 on your screen these are the actual
46:02 number of applications that we received
46:04 this funding cycle so currently we have
46:07 81 applications that we received from a
46:10 total of 49 different organizations i'm
46:13 going to pause here to tell you because
46:16 you may ask okay so how do we have 49
46:18 organization and 81 applications
46:21 um the the applications that we receive
46:24 are program based there are
46:26 organizations who have more than one
46:28 program let's say somebody more you
46:31 mentioned hope link right hopelink is a
46:33 large organization they provide let's
46:35 say rental assistance but they also
46:37 provide food assistance and let's say
46:39 they also provide housing so that means
46:42 that they might
46:43 they might have three applications for
46:45 three different programs and so that's
46:47 why you see the number of organization
46:50 is smaller and the number of actual
46:52 applications is larger because one
46:54 organization may submit more than one
46:56 application
46:58 and
46:59 with that then the total amount of
47:01 dollars requested is
47:04 1.376 million dollars
47:06 and for this funding cycle as well so
47:09 far we have five hundred thousand
47:10 dollars still um again city council uh
47:14 this is due to go back to city council
47:16 in june and we will learn if the amount
47:19 will change or if we'll stay at five
47:22 hundred thousand dollars
47:25 next slide please hannah
47:28 so a little bit about your role as
47:31 commissioners right um
47:34 first we will invite you to review the
47:36 applications
47:38 because we received the 81 applications
47:40 something that we did last time and it
47:43 worked
47:44 instead of asking you all to review all
47:47 of the applications
47:49 um we um
47:51 will form
47:52 subgroups
47:54 and typically we are going to have three
47:56 subgroups so you're going to be assigned
47:58 to one group
47:59 and you will be asked to review um the
48:02 applications from your group
48:04 if you have capacity and interest
48:07 absolutely you will have access to all
48:09 of the 81 applications and you are more
48:12 than welcome to review them
48:14 however because of the large number
48:17 we also try to encourage you to have a
48:19 divide and conquer approach uh to where
48:22 you will be asked uh to to review 20 to
48:26 30 applications that are gonna be
48:27 assigned to your group um so we hope
48:30 that that's a little bit more manageable
48:32 with everybody's um
48:34 capacity and time limitations right
48:37 so we would work with you and we would
48:39 hope that you will review the
48:40 applications um we would also hope that
48:43 we are going to work together to score
48:45 those applications we are going to share
48:48 in just a little bit the review card
48:50 uh for you um and we are going to work
48:52 together as a group to
48:55 have deliberations and make
48:56 recommendations on which programs um
49:00 should the city of issaquah fund to
49:03 better serve our community
49:06 next slide please
49:10 so this is the discussion that i was
49:12 hoping to get to for us to to decide and
49:15 we don't have to have a final decision
49:17 tonight but we would love to to spend a
49:20 few minutes
49:21 as i mentioned to you earlier in
49:23 previous cycles and this was a very
49:25 difficult decision for the human
49:27 services commission in the previous
49:28 years the approach that the commission
49:31 took was
49:33 we only have five hundred thousand
49:35 dollars and we have many many wonderful
49:37 organizations
49:38 um we would like to
49:41 choose to fund as many as possible even
49:44 if that means they're gonna have a
49:46 smaller grant so the approach was let's
49:49 try to find as many but it's kind of
49:51 like we call it the peanut butter spread
49:54 right uh smaller amounts more programs
49:58 one suggestion that we received from our
50:01 mayor
50:03 during this time and city council
50:05 expressed concerns about not being able
50:08 to move the needle at the community
50:10 level with really what the needs are
50:12 and so one of the things that they
50:13 encouraged us to think about was should
50:16 we could we consider finding fewer
50:18 programs perhaps for larger amounts that
50:21 would help us
50:22 move the needle
50:24 again we don't need to take a decision
50:27 or perhaps you have even a third option
50:29 or third idea um but i would love to
50:32 spend a little bit of time in um based
50:35 on the equity training that you all
50:37 participated in based on what you see in
50:40 the community and your knowledge and and
50:43 expertise what are your initial thoughts
50:45 on this
50:47 and we can take off the slide for a
50:49 little bit for a brief discussion and
50:51 pat i see your hand up
50:54 yes thanks thanks monica i don't know if
50:57 this is part uh sorry got you i don't
50:59 know if the last uh we've talked about
51:01 this before but at least that idea has
51:04 been my mind where
51:06 maybe adopt
51:08 a hybrid model where
51:10 we have a certain percentage for smaller
51:13 grants
51:14 and the rest for bigger grants and this
51:16 is why
51:18 as we see a lot of our
51:20 you know when we go through the gi
51:22 lenses
51:24 some uh organization
51:26 uh uh the grassroots level might be
51:28 starting just getting into you know not
51:30 very confident yet and giving them a
51:33 small amount of grant allows them to
51:35 grow
51:36 and however we want to see impact and we
51:38 can go for bigger grants for those that
51:40 can show us impact
51:43 that would be my suggestion
51:46 thank you so much
51:47 pat such a great great suggestion um
51:51 jamie i see you have a comment as well
51:54 yeah um i'm actually really glad that
51:56 this question has come
51:59 to the table because as i was looking
52:01 through the grant application summaries
52:03 and looking at all of the different
52:04 things that that where people have
52:06 applied and stuff and
52:10 you know
52:11 while i would love to support each and
52:14 every one of these things
52:16 really i think
52:18 our community is in need of some very
52:20 specific things due to the pandemic due
52:23 to rental prices due to housing issues
52:27 and so
52:28 you know in my opinion and and i'm
52:29 definitely open to hear other people's
52:31 opinions and it may change my opinion
52:33 but just from my initial opinion from
52:35 looking at this document and and and the
52:38 asks
52:40 i see that there's some real like
52:44 you know there's some places that that
52:46 is a claws probably been supporting for
52:48 many years that are really um you know
52:50 deep rooted in our community that
52:52 probably need continued support like
52:54 friends of youth and those type of
52:56 programs um but you know there's some
52:58 other things in here that i'm just like
52:59 huh
53:00 why would why would this
53:02 why would we you know and i'm reading
53:04 everything and and maybe i'll have to
53:06 ask more questions but i'm like why
53:07 would we
53:08 why are we giving to some place in
53:10 tucuela
53:11 you know like i you know so i i
53:14 definitely just from my initial review
53:17 of everything and without talking to
53:19 anybody you know um i do think that it's
53:22 a really good question and that we all
53:24 should really consider
53:26 whether smaller amounts and more
53:27 programs is the better option or even
53:29 like pat just suggested allocating a
53:32 percentage of of money to different
53:35 programs you know is a great idea too so
53:38 i definitely think that there's more
53:39 discussion to be had surrounding these
53:41 questions and ideas that people might
53:43 present but i definitely think it's an
53:46 important question for us to make a
53:47 decision on so that's my input
53:50 thank you very much jamie and absolutely
53:53 i think and all of you as we are gonna
53:55 start diving into the application review
53:57 i think uh definitely this is gonna be
53:59 an item for us to discuss also next
54:01 month and we will also bring back some
54:03 recommendations based on your
54:05 suggestions tonight
54:06 kieran i see you have a comment
54:10 i think pat and i were on the same brain
54:13 wave because my first thought was why do
54:15 we have to pick between one or the other
54:18 but i love that jaime brought up the
54:20 fact that we are kind of coming out of
54:22 the pandemic which knock on wood i don't
54:24 want to jinx it because every time i say
54:26 it i feel like
54:27 things just go bad again but
54:30 i feel like this is the point where
54:31 people are really trying to look for
54:33 programs that will facilitate that
54:35 transition and based on my experiences
54:37 working with vulnerable populations
54:40 i think it's important to
54:43 uplift new organizations that are trying
54:46 to meet the gaps in the community but i
54:48 think
54:50 just because of the nature of like what
54:52 people's lives look like right now and
54:53 what their needs are and because of how
54:55 much overlap there is in the categories
54:57 that these applications are for
55:00 i lean towards
55:02 protecting the organizations that do
55:04 have those deep roots in the community
55:06 because i think
55:08 in the mindset of someone who is looking
55:10 for rental assistance or child care
55:12 assistance or needs healthcare
55:13 assistance or is trying to find like
55:15 shelters and stuff
55:16 they are not going to be able to get the
55:18 same level of service from new
55:20 organizations as they are from these
55:22 giant pillars of the community so that
55:25 where i lean right now and i think that
55:27 there's definitely a lot of room to move
55:29 towards
55:30 you know like allocating that percentage
55:32 for smaller newer applications but
55:35 i just i have a lot of love for the
55:37 people that have been doing that work
55:38 throughout the pandemic and are
55:40 currently in the process of getting
55:41 people out of those tough positions
55:45 thank you so much kieran great great
55:47 suggestion and input thank you it sounds
55:50 like mori you may have a comment as well
55:54 thank you monica maury edwards here
55:56 um i met a fellow a few weeks ago
56:00 who
56:00 goes out to look for the homeless
56:03 uh with a table and a laptop and a hot
56:06 spot
56:07 and he has a nurse with him and
56:10 he was telling me that there's a tension
56:13 between
56:15 coming up with the metrics the results
56:17 that that you need to turn lots of
56:19 people and the actual good that you can
56:24 uh long term by having relationships he
56:27 says it's all about the relationships
56:29 and and i just it yeah i thought about
56:33 you know if we spread the money really
56:35 thin
56:37 maybe we'll be helping people like that
56:39 guy
56:41 but
56:41 um more than likely um
56:46 we need to have those relationships and
56:48 we need to build those relationships and
56:50 not just with the people that are the
56:52 old tried and true that have been here
56:54 forever but also with people that are
56:57 that are actually
56:58 in those communities that can actually
57:00 do something for us like this guy that
57:02 goes out on the trails with his table
57:04 and his laptop just something to keep in
57:06 mind
57:09 another another great great suggestion
57:11 right it's um
57:13 um so many organizations small
57:16 organizations often especially the
57:18 cultural based one we
57:20 once we as we learned
57:22 they do so so much work and perhaps they
57:25 might have more challenges in providing
57:28 the data that we often look uh for right
57:31 but it's it's good to
57:33 not lose sight of the important work
57:35 that they are doing
57:37 thank you
57:38 any other comments i don't want to put
57:41 you on the spot but those of you who did
57:43 not have a chance to comment on this if
57:45 you have a comment we would welcome it
57:47 manny jaime
57:49 but also don't feel like you have to
57:51 have a comment
57:54 no absolutely sorry for being late i got
57:55 stuck in traffic i drive from snohomish
57:57 county to issaquah so
58:00 welcome everybody uh good evening
58:03 i uh just in my experience i i do tend
58:06 to like the the small amounts
58:09 versus large amounts
58:11 when it comes to you know it just means
58:12 more work but i think i think what
58:14 maury's talking about too is
58:16 you're working with more grassroot
58:18 organizations um
58:21 to spread out work that way
58:23 i'll give you a good example um
58:26 i work for the courthouse for sonoma
58:27 county so we get money from the state
58:29 and that just dedicates like the big
58:30 players
58:32 and i've been trying to fight can we
58:33 fight for grassroots do we get some
58:35 money
58:36 where some of those grassroot
58:37 organizations are probably doing a lot
58:39 of more of the work they're just not
58:41 research based or evidence-based
58:43 and then it becomes an equitable concern
58:46 and so that's just from what i've seen
58:48 on my side and i would love to
58:51 you know
58:52 focus on those grassroots folks are
58:54 really putting their time and attention
58:55 to this aqua community
58:57 um so i would lean on the uh
59:00 less large but more on the small amounts
59:03 for different
59:04 grassroot organizations
59:06 because
59:07 what ends up happening is for grassroots
59:09 once they get if they obtain funding it
59:12 is it opens a door to other funding
59:16 in terms of hey if it's getting endorsed
59:17 by the city of issaquah human services
59:19 getting mine this way
59:21 that's like a credibility in a way and
59:23 they can kind of vocalize and get other
59:25 grant monies
59:26 uh for their budget lines
59:29 and so i i don't want to lose satellite
59:31 as well
59:32 because there is um a lot of these
59:34 non-profits especially the not the
59:35 mainstream ones
59:37 as they they they obtain a lot of
59:39 momentum and leverage
59:40 when they get hey you're getting funded
59:42 by city of issaquah for you know human
59:44 services for this amount of money and it
59:46 opens up their budget lens so i would
59:48 hate to
59:50 and there's pros and cons to both sides
59:51 i get that i get that but i think having
59:54 it to the large amounts
59:56 then it would kind of i don't know kind
59:58 of put a lot of the smaller
59:59 organizations kind of out of that arena
1:00:02 um so it's a
1:00:03 i wish we can give money to all of them
1:00:04 but we can't
1:00:06 that's just
1:00:07 the circumstances that we have um but i
1:00:09 would kind of lean on in that regard
1:00:13 thank you
1:00:14 thank you very much so so much
1:00:16 appreciating your feedback hi man
1:00:22 manny do you have a comment tonight on
1:00:24 this or
1:00:26 yes thank you uh
1:00:29 yeah just listening everybody
1:00:31 there's definitely
1:00:33 something to say about each go
1:00:35 insurrection i do like what pat was
1:00:37 saying i also like the idea that we take
1:00:41 put in
1:00:43 each group whether it's for um
1:00:46 homes or health or whatnot each half the
1:00:48 group and then figure out since we do
1:00:50 have a strategy for israel what's
1:00:52 important to isaac
1:00:54 figure out okay this group is going to
1:00:55 get x percent this group is going to get
1:00:57 x percent this was going to get
1:00:59 and um
1:01:01 figure out from there
1:01:03 how how many
1:01:04 we can help in each group
1:01:06 uh from there so
1:01:10 that's an idea as far as i can see
1:01:13 write down many thank you so much i love
1:01:15 the idea idea of like having percentages
1:01:18 as well for the different groups uh so
1:01:20 appreciating everyone's feedback tonight
1:01:22 i think definitely we'll we'll take your
1:01:24 input and we'll come back with some
1:01:26 recommendations uh but also let's let's
1:01:29 continue thinking about this we don't
1:01:30 need to have all the numbers figured out
1:01:32 for a couple of months uh for sure but
1:01:35 uh you know just some some tough uh
1:01:37 conversations and and questions for us
1:01:39 for sure
1:01:41 um so with that let's move forward
1:01:43 because i realized we are running a
1:01:44 little bit late on time and we have
1:01:46 quite a bit to cover
1:01:48 uh next slide hannah please thank you so
1:01:50 much for sharing
1:01:52 um so
1:01:54 for the review process for all of you
1:01:56 commissioners
1:01:57 um we are hoping to use the equity tool
1:02:00 we incorporated as you're gonna see in a
1:02:02 few minutes the equity tool that you
1:02:04 learned about in the equity training we
1:02:06 are going to incorporate we incorporated
1:02:08 that in in the review cards we are going
1:02:11 to talk a little bit about those tonight
1:02:13 and we are going to definitely dive
1:02:14 deeper into that starting next month
1:02:17 um and as mentioned we are gonna um
1:02:20 review the applications in groups um
1:02:24 and with that i'm gonna pause and invite
1:02:26 back hannah uh to share with you a
1:02:29 little bit on how you are gonna be able
1:02:31 to access the applications we have three
1:02:33 ways and hannah's going to walk us
1:02:35 through those very briefly but please
1:02:37 know that we are also here too
1:02:39 um to provide assistance don't feel like
1:02:41 you're gonna have to remember all of
1:02:43 this tonight this is just an overview
1:02:46 great thank you so much monica um yes
1:02:48 again i'm gonna be following up with an
1:02:50 email with some detailed uh instructions
1:02:53 links to access all of this and um best
1:02:56 options and of course available to talk
1:02:58 one-on-one if you're having any
1:03:00 technical issues so here um our option
1:03:03 one we have a portal um view which i
1:03:05 will show you here briefly um and then
1:03:07 we also have a sharepoint method where
1:03:09 we have all the pdf applications um that
1:03:14 you can access through there and then we
1:03:16 can also of course provide uh paper
1:03:18 copies um if anybody's in need of that
1:03:21 we don't recommend it you will see these
1:03:23 applications are quite large and if
1:03:25 you're reviewing 81 of them that's a lot
1:03:27 of paper um so if we do need to
1:03:30 accommodate though we are happy to do
1:03:31 that but just if you're able to use the
1:03:33 access of the portal and um
1:03:37 the sharepoint those are great options
1:03:40 um so i'm gonna
1:03:42 out of this and i'm going to show you
1:03:45 online
1:03:48 so here we have this is kind of the the
1:03:51 easy one to quickly go over
1:03:53 here is our sharepoint again city of
1:03:55 issaquah this is where all of our 2023
1:03:58 human services grant applications are
1:04:00 saved in alphabetical order and you can
1:04:03 just click and review the pdf through
1:04:06 and it's saved by
1:04:08 organization and then title of their
1:04:11 program um so that is one way you can
1:04:14 access it then next
1:04:16 is our portal so you will be receiving
1:04:19 um this is share one you've seen this
1:04:21 logo before um this is an online review
1:04:24 tool where you can either include
1:04:26 comments or just review
1:04:28 you will have to
1:04:30 i will send instructions on how to
1:04:32 access this but basically you'll just
1:04:34 need a password
1:04:36 and you'll have your own individual
1:04:38 login
1:04:39 you can see here you have the
1:04:42 applications um i've reviewed one and
1:04:45 once you have reviewed one and submit
1:04:47 you get this screen
1:04:49 saying done so it helps you track which
1:04:51 ones you have viewed and which ones you
1:04:53 still need to review
1:04:55 so i'll go ahead and open one just so
1:04:57 you have a visual of what it looks like
1:05:00 so here you can look at the application
1:05:03 and there's a lot of information that's
1:05:05 important to review
1:05:08 so you have the application here you can
1:05:10 see how much they requested
1:05:12 last cycle and then this cycle and uh
1:05:16 which cities they've applied to
1:05:19 you'll also talk about i think this is
1:05:22 important to know if they're increased
1:05:23 funding they should provide an
1:05:25 explanation of why they've increased
1:05:27 their funding
1:05:30 then they really jump into the program
1:05:32 so this is a great way to help
1:05:34 understand their program in more details
1:05:36 you'll see in the word uh or in the
1:05:39 document
1:05:40 there's a brief description but this
1:05:42 will provide more details
1:05:45 you can see here ask questions and they
1:05:47 provide the answer
1:05:49 so you'll want to take some time to
1:05:51 really review
1:05:53 the information
1:05:54 in regards to understanding the program
1:05:57 understanding who they serve
1:06:00 and all their helpful information
1:06:03 and who will be served by this program
1:06:06 how is your program promoted um
1:06:10 what will be the um
1:06:12 the impact so we're looking at again
1:06:14 outcomes measurements
1:06:17 which again is an important piece of
1:06:19 understanding
1:06:22 how how will we look at success how will
1:06:24 they be moving the needle
1:06:28 a few more questions and again just for
1:06:30 time i'm just scrolling through fairly
1:06:32 quickly but happy to
1:06:34 dive in this deeper one-on-one
1:06:37 um if we need more time
1:06:41 um and then again additional information
1:06:43 and then the last thing you'll want to
1:06:44 note here is you have a budget
1:06:48 um and this is kind of more so just
1:06:51 listing their numbers and information
1:06:54 here so that's also part of that
1:06:56 and here is their service unit so this
1:07:00 is kind of what measures their outcomes
1:07:03 and again though this will be as an
1:07:04 attachment
1:07:09 if you want to add a comment you can add
1:07:11 it here and once you click this button
1:07:13 submit then you're going to get that
1:07:17 you're going to get that done saying
1:07:19 it's been reviewed
1:07:20 otherwise you can just save it as a
1:07:21 draft
1:07:25 again i will
1:07:27 for time's sake i'll go ahead and move
1:07:29 us forward but if you have questions we
1:07:31 can have um more conversations on that
1:07:34 so i'll get us back here
1:07:40 for your patients
1:07:45 you can see here this just lists out
1:07:47 what the grant application here's kind
1:07:49 of the main information oops sorry
1:07:52 the main information you will be seeing
1:07:55 as far as the program information impact
1:07:58 and then the required documents
1:08:01 information so that just lists that
1:08:03 so next um i want to spend some time
1:08:06 here um to really look at our review
1:08:09 tool and so if that's going to be in
1:08:11 your agenda packet and i can also share
1:08:13 it on my screen
1:08:15 monica would you want to talk more
1:08:17 detail about that do we want to use us
1:08:19 time to talk about
1:08:22 how we are using this tool
1:08:26 um i think for now i would love to um
1:08:28 provide just um a brief overview and
1:08:32 encourage commissioners to review the
1:08:34 actual um
1:08:36 review card that you have in your packet
1:08:39 and reserve time for our first meeting
1:08:42 in small groups to go through those uh
1:08:45 cards a little bit in more detail
1:08:47 um again just for the sake of time on
1:08:50 one end
1:08:53 just also we do have time next month if
1:08:55 we want to make any changes to that but
1:08:57 absolutely i think uh based on
1:08:59 recommendations from last funding cycle
1:09:01 and two funding cycles ago when
1:09:04 commissioners used actual numbers and
1:09:07 they decided that really it wasn't
1:09:08 helpful we transitioned to kind of like
1:09:10 a hybrid model where we have this green
1:09:13 yellow um red
1:09:15 uh review cards where we have a set of
1:09:17 criteria for each of the colors
1:09:20 but instead of actually
1:09:23 having scores um
1:09:25 just just putting applications in at
1:09:28 least in the initial section in in piles
1:09:30 of like we absolutely don't recommend
1:09:32 funding and these are the reasons
1:09:34 uh these are the applications that we
1:09:36 absolutely recommend funding and then
1:09:37 yellow is like it's like perhaps these
1:09:40 are organizations that we need to
1:09:42 further discuss or perhaps if we have
1:09:44 additional funds we would like to
1:09:45 recommend these
1:09:46 so again the these these are the types
1:09:49 of reviews and tools that we are going
1:09:50 to have in place
1:09:53 and we can certainly pause for any
1:09:55 questions now uh or we can uh just move
1:09:58 forward and discuss in more detail in
1:10:01 the small groups
1:10:03 and i'd like to just add to that monica
1:10:05 um i do want to say that we did take a
1:10:07 lot of your recommendations from our
1:10:08 last meeting
1:10:11 regards to this review tool so you'll
1:10:12 see a few addition quite it's the list
1:10:15 is much longer this cycle compared to
1:10:17 this this is just the
1:10:19 previous uh picture of it but if you
1:10:21 take some time to look at it
1:10:23 you'll see
1:10:24 um our human services strategic plan has
1:10:26 been included as well as um tools from
1:10:29 the equity tool from the equity training
1:10:31 that we recently had um so that has been
1:10:34 included in uh
1:10:36 green yellow red format so please take
1:10:38 some time to look at that um and yeah if
1:10:41 there's any feedback or recommendations
1:10:43 to add or anything but
1:10:45 um just wanted to note that there
1:10:50 yeah and pause for any questions or
1:10:51 comments
1:10:56 now we are throwing a lot of information
1:10:58 at you tonight commissioner so uh again
1:11:02 just please know we are gonna be here to
1:11:03 support you every step of the way um
1:11:08 okay i don't see questions for now so
1:11:11 let's move forward hannah
1:11:13 so with that some of you uh were part of
1:11:16 our strategic planning process so you're
1:11:19 quite familiar with the strategic plan
1:11:20 some others are brand new to to our
1:11:23 group
1:11:24 and if you didn't have a chance yet to
1:11:26 review our strategic plan hannah will
1:11:28 share that with you uh but what i want
1:11:30 to highlight is that we have four
1:11:33 priority areas in our strategic plan one
1:11:35 is housing continuum which includes
1:11:38 housing affordability and homelessness
1:11:41 the second one is behavior physical and
1:11:43 behavioral health and um
1:11:46 services
1:11:47 the third one is language access and
1:11:49 cultural services and the fourth one is
1:11:52 community resources so what we try to do
1:11:55 in our attempt because we have seven
1:11:58 commissioners um and and two alternates
1:12:02 now we have a total of eight
1:12:03 commissioners we try to create no more
1:12:06 than three groups and therefore we
1:12:08 combined two of our strategic priorities
1:12:11 into one for just the review
1:12:13 applications what that means is that we
1:12:16 have we would have 19 program
1:12:18 applications for the housing continuum a
1:12:20 total of 34 applications that would
1:12:23 cover physical and behavioral health and
1:12:25 uh cultural and language access and then
1:12:28 community resources with 28.
1:12:30 um and so this is what we would love
1:12:34 for you to start thinking which group
1:12:37 you feel that you would like to be part
1:12:39 of more uh we are also going to share a
1:12:42 couple of guidelines because we do have
1:12:44 a few commissioners who have a conflict
1:12:47 of interest they either worked in the
1:12:49 past or they serve currently on one of
1:12:52 the non-profit boards so they are not
1:12:54 going to be able to to review certain uh
1:12:56 certain uh applications um however if
1:13:00 you have a preference to be in one of
1:13:01 these groups
1:13:03 please let us know we would love to hear
1:13:05 from you i believe by by next week at
1:13:08 some point henna can provide you that
1:13:10 detail in in the email
1:13:12 in which group you would like to to
1:13:14 serve on
1:13:15 um don't um
1:13:18 don't think that 19 applications would
1:13:21 make it easier on a housing continuum
1:13:23 that can uh includes homelessness and
1:13:26 that's never an easy
1:13:30 group to to review
1:13:32 definitely 34 program applications it's
1:13:34 more than 19 but um
1:13:37 it's um
1:13:38 so it really depends on your preference
1:13:40 it depends on your expertise uh your
1:13:43 passion so just let them know let us
1:13:46 know and we will try to
1:13:48 to um have you in in the group that he
1:13:51 you prefer to
1:13:54 next inside hannah sorry monica i'll
1:13:56 just um just add one more thing to that
1:13:58 our thoughts again with our numbers in
1:14:00 three groups we are planning to have um
1:14:02 two individuals uh for housing continuum
1:14:06 and then three for these two other
1:14:08 groups um review those applications so i
1:14:10 just wanted to give out those numbers
1:14:12 and again all email folks but would love
1:14:14 an email response as soon as possible
1:14:16 with your top choice and maybe a second
1:14:18 choice just in case we need to
1:14:21 move things around so thank you all move
1:14:24 us forward
1:14:25 thank you
1:14:26 and so again uh we you heard this before
1:14:29 but just uh just a brief more detailed
1:14:31 timeline of what's next
1:14:33 uh we hope to have our next meeting on
1:14:35 june 15 our next human services
1:14:37 commission meeting is a large group and
1:14:39 then in august we hope to meet perhaps a
1:14:42 couple of times in sub groups
1:14:46 and um in july as well sorry i jumped
1:14:49 from june to august but july and august
1:14:51 and meeting in small groups uh we are
1:14:53 not gonna have we were planning not to
1:14:55 have a regular human services commission
1:14:57 in july so we just meet in the smaller
1:14:59 groups and then we come back uh as a
1:15:01 larger group in august uh at that point
1:15:04 it's where we may or may not depending
1:15:06 on where we are we may or may not have
1:15:08 two meetings in august
1:15:10 but we do hope to have everything
1:15:12 completed by the end of august
1:15:14 and uh submit our recommendations to
1:15:16 mayor paulie
1:15:20 and again
1:15:21 they're gonna be a lot we are gonna be
1:15:22 flexible with depending on how the
1:15:24 reviews go right um so next slide hannah
1:15:30 thank you
1:15:31 and so then uh then in next steps again
1:15:34 hannah mentioned you're gonna hear quite
1:15:36 a bit from her with a lot of information
1:15:38 we are available to meet 101 as well but
1:15:41 uh let's let's focus on the group
1:15:43 assignments next start reviewing the
1:15:45 applications and accessing them let us
1:15:48 know let's work to make sure that you're
1:15:50 able to access those applications
1:15:52 and and our ask is if by june 15 if
1:15:56 we can have a goal of perhaps reviewing
1:15:58 at least five applications on your own
1:16:00 to get familiar with how things are
1:16:02 going and then we can come back in june
1:16:05 as a commission to to
1:16:07 uh start using the scorecard and look at
1:16:10 what uh edits we may need to make like
1:16:13 kind of like piloting five applications
1:16:15 and see how it's work how things are
1:16:17 working um
1:16:20 anything else that you would like to add
1:16:21 hannah or are we
1:16:24 this is our last slide here yeah and
1:16:26 again the the concept or idea of having
1:16:30 everyone review we just want to make
1:16:31 sure that the process is smooth for
1:16:33 anyone and identify early on if there's
1:16:35 any um adjustments that we need to make
1:16:38 um so
1:16:39 that concludes our presentation
1:16:43 thank you are there any questions
1:16:46 comments
1:16:52 thank you and looking forward to it
1:16:54 [Laughter]
1:16:56 i love your attitude jaime thank you
1:16:58 we're so excited as well
1:17:02 it's very very exciting
1:17:04 okay thank you commissioners i am
1:17:05 looking at the clock we do have about um
1:17:08 it is eight minutes before eight o'clock
1:17:11 we do have two uh other agenda items and
1:17:14 i would really really love to um
1:17:17 provide you an update on our homeless
1:17:19 outreach services
1:17:21 and um i would love to propose that
1:17:23 since we don't have all the
1:17:25 commissioners present
1:17:27 um if you are open we could postpone
1:17:30 selecting the chair and vice chair until
1:17:33 uh the beginning of next meeting
1:17:38 is that something that you would be open
1:17:39 to entertaining this would also provide
1:17:42 you an option to meet the rest of the
1:17:43 commission get more familiar
1:17:46 and also for the sake of time tonight
1:17:50 any objections i should say if there are
1:17:52 objections to this
1:17:54 let us know if not perhaps we can
1:17:57 pursue with that
1:18:02 okay i see no objection so i'm gonna
1:18:04 take silence let's just move on monica
1:18:07 that's
1:18:08 let's keep going
1:18:13 so in that case the next agenda item for
1:18:16 us is to provide an update and a brief
1:18:20 conversation with you commissioners
1:18:23 on our homeless outreach program we
1:18:26 don't have a presentation for you on
1:18:27 this we did include in your agenda
1:18:30 packet
1:18:33 staff report and update and i would like
1:18:35 to review that a little bit with you and
1:18:38 provide opportunities for questions and
1:18:40 comments
1:18:41 so as mari very well noted at the
1:18:44 beginning of the meeting and asked
1:18:45 what's the homeless pilot homeless
1:18:48 outreach pilot program so this started
1:18:51 last funding cycle in 2020 when
1:18:55 we saw an opportunity to bring to
1:18:59 issaquah specifically to issaquah
1:19:01 homeless outreach services
1:19:03 and the need at that time came from the
1:19:07 fact that uh through our human services
1:19:09 grants we were funding partially small
1:19:12 grains now you're familiar with that we
1:19:15 are partially funding three homeless
1:19:17 outreach programs on the east side but
1:19:20 we learned that all of those programs
1:19:23 were overwhelmed by
1:19:25 the amount of work by the large region
1:19:28 that they had to cover in the entire
1:19:30 east side and they really did not have
1:19:32 capacity to come and conduct homeless
1:19:34 outreach to issaquah we talked with one
1:19:37 of the organizations and they were
1:19:38 saying that they were able to come to
1:19:40 issaquah only ever every six weeks and
1:19:43 so that was not meeting the needs in the
1:19:45 community so that's how the idea of
1:19:48 piloting a homeless outreach program
1:19:50 specifically for issaquah came about
1:19:53 and so we set aside money a larger
1:19:55 amount right for a more meaningful grant
1:19:59 and we piloted the project with our
1:20:01 partners at the isoqua food and clothing
1:20:04 and the project started off really well
1:20:07 and then since then in the meantime
1:20:10 also here at the city we launched the
1:20:12 behavioral health program in
1:20:14 collaboration with our police department
1:20:16 uh the behavioral health program was was
1:20:19 assisting um
1:20:22 community members who
1:20:24 were calling 9-1-1 for behavioral health
1:20:27 crisis so our human services behavioral
1:20:29 health specialist was
1:20:32 assisting those folks and then we
1:20:35 noticed an opportunity to
1:20:37 combine the behavioral health program
1:20:39 with the homeless outreach program
1:20:41 because what we learned was that many of
1:20:43 the calls that our police department was
1:20:46 receiving through 9-1-1 was because of
1:20:48 folks who are homeless so that's how
1:20:51 last year we combined those two programs
1:20:54 and some of you have been here and you
1:20:56 met our very first behavioral health and
1:20:59 homeless outreach coordinator amir
1:21:01 sabana who's been now with us for a year
1:21:04 unfortunately she wasn't he wasn't able
1:21:06 to join us tonight um but um for those
1:21:10 of you who have not met him we'll make
1:21:11 sure that he's gonna join in one of the
1:21:13 upcoming meetings for you to meet him
1:21:16 um but through through his work um
1:21:19 we started really learning what
1:21:21 homelessness looks like in issaquah we
1:21:23 were able to
1:21:24 do more meaningful outreach get to know
1:21:26 people get to build some meaningful
1:21:28 relationships um we know not without
1:21:32 challenges to say as you may know um
1:21:35 housing it's a real issue everywhere in
1:21:38 the region but more so in issaquah
1:21:40 affordability and the cost of living are
1:21:43 very very high and so resources are
1:21:45 pretty scarce
1:21:47 one of the positives and highlights of
1:21:49 the program this past year however
1:21:55 collaboration with
1:21:57 during the emergency weather events in
1:22:00 the last year and a half we had a couple
1:22:02 of times um
1:22:06 this past winter but also two years ago
1:22:09 really cold and low temperatures
1:22:12 when with our homeless outreach program
1:22:14 we were able to
1:22:16 place for a week even two weeks
1:22:19 or so during that that severe weather we
1:22:21 were able to place homeless folks
1:22:24 on a temporary basis
1:22:28 in housing through our partnership with
1:22:30 motel 6.
1:22:31 and so to that partnership
1:22:35 we learned that of course the needs um
1:22:38 in the community are so much bigger than
1:22:41 all we have resources for
1:22:44 uh we learned through our engagement
1:22:45 with homeless folks that um sometimes we
1:22:49 go we engage with them we offer services
1:22:52 and unfortunately there are no shelters
1:22:54 available on the east side with the
1:22:56 coveted numbers increasing most often
1:22:59 our shelters were at capacity or they
1:23:01 had coveted outbreaks
1:23:03 and even if we are lucky to find shelter
1:23:06 space uh most often those who have been
1:23:09 homeless in our community for a long
1:23:10 long time um they just don't want to go
1:23:13 in another city because this is the
1:23:15 place where they are familiar with
1:23:18 they know this place they call this
1:23:20 place their home so they don't want to
1:23:22 go and so from that idea to the other
1:23:26 we um
1:23:29 continued our collaboration with motel
1:23:32 sex and currently we started exploring
1:23:36 a longer term partnership another pilot
1:23:39 so we are thinking about piloting
1:23:42 um a longer term partnership with
1:23:44 motosix
1:23:46 let's say trying to rent let's say a
1:23:48 dozen rooms at mod hall 6 in issaquah
1:23:52 and try to provide a mini transitional
1:23:55 center for our folks who are homeless uh
1:23:58 providing them an opportunity to be off
1:24:00 the street for more than just a night or
1:24:02 so perhaps a month or a couple of months
1:24:05 for as long as they need until we are
1:24:07 able to work with them into a more
1:24:10 viable housing situation
1:24:12 so that is one of the things that we
1:24:14 wanted to
1:24:15 touch base with you tonight to kind of
1:24:17 like hear your initial reactions uh we
1:24:20 also plan on having we started having
1:24:22 great conversations not only with motel
1:24:24 6 who's very very open to the uh this
1:24:27 idea um but also with some of the
1:24:30 non-profit partners and shelter
1:24:32 providers in the area to seek their
1:24:34 guidance as we frame up this program and
1:24:37 as we hope to also go to city council in
1:24:40 june um for an initial conversation
1:24:44 and i said a lot i would like to pause
1:24:46 but before i pause i also want to
1:24:48 mention something else and invite
1:24:50 caitlyn to again turn on her camera i i
1:24:53 mentioned amir was our first behavioral
1:24:55 health coordinator um we are very very
1:24:57 fortunate that as we piloted the project
1:25:00 with our isoqua food and clothing bank
1:25:03 and now we transitioned this position
1:25:06 into the city as a city position we were
1:25:08 able then to hire a second staff and
1:25:11 that is kaelyn who's um joining us
1:25:14 tonight and who just started this week
1:25:16 with us and actually she's transitioning
1:25:18 from the isoquant food and clothing bank
1:25:21 so i would love to pause and give her an
1:25:23 opportunity to introduce herself and
1:25:25 then after that i would love to hear any
1:25:27 reactions
1:25:28 from you all from what i just said
1:25:31 thank you welcome caitlyn
1:25:34 hi thank you all thank you for welcoming
1:25:36 me and thank you monica for the warm
1:25:38 introduction i'm really excited to be
1:25:41 and um it's been really great to hear
1:25:42 all of your thoughtful responses to
1:25:44 everything you guys have been it's great
1:25:46 to see this side of um city work so
1:25:48 thank you for everything that you guys
1:25:50 um i started at the issaquah food and
1:25:52 clothing bank in 2020 as the americorps
1:25:55 member
1:25:56 and pretty much saw the need in the
1:25:58 community for this kind of engaged
1:26:02 outreach work right away and was able to
1:26:06 the pilot program at the
1:26:08 issaquah food and clothing bank really
1:26:10 grow and show what the
1:26:13 outreach can do what supportive
1:26:15 relationships can do what allowing
1:26:17 someone to take their time to decide
1:26:19 what they need to do for their life and
1:26:20 supporting them on that journey can do
1:26:22 and i'm really fortunate to join an
1:26:25 amazing team at the human services and
1:26:27 it's been a really great week to jump in
1:26:31 i'm super excited about this work and it
1:26:34 really touches a personal note for me so
1:26:36 thank you guys so much for having me and
1:26:38 i'm excited to see where it goes
1:26:41 thank you very much kayla and welcome
1:26:43 again and jamie i see that you have a
1:26:46 comment
1:26:48 yes um i think that's a wonderful
1:26:50 program and
1:26:51 um you know i know that there's a lot of
1:26:53 people who feel very differently about
1:26:55 homelessness and and housing
1:26:56 homelessness people i do want to say
1:26:59 that i think the city of issaquah in and
1:27:00 of itself and the homeless people that
1:27:02 we have in our city
1:27:04 is a little bit different in my opinion
1:27:06 just from my personal experiences with
1:27:08 the home the the residential homeless
1:27:10 people around here
1:27:11 um you know i i see more of people who
1:27:14 really have settled down here who have
1:27:16 been here for quite some time
1:27:19 you know it's not your typical
1:27:21 homeless people in my opinion just from
1:27:24 what i've seen and so i think
1:27:26 you know
1:27:28 just looking at our city and the
1:27:30 homeless that we have in our city and
1:27:32 how we can help them i really like your
1:27:34 motel 6 like
1:27:37 proposition and idea and how you've been
1:27:39 doing that and i think that's going to
1:27:40 go really far i know a lot of other
1:27:42 cities are doing similar things with
1:27:44 older motels um and i've seen you know
1:27:47 that happen as well like in kent i know
1:27:49 for sure they turned that um covet
1:27:52 building into a homelessness apartment
1:27:55 type thing
1:27:56 so i like the idea i love it actually
1:27:59 and i think it will you know move
1:28:01 forward and i i think that the homeless
1:28:03 people in our in our city if they want
1:28:06 it because i know there's some that have
1:28:07 been you know downtown for a very long
1:28:09 time who don't don't want shelter
1:28:12 um but i think that if they want it and
1:28:14 we're able to help them i think it's
1:28:15 going to be a good a good program
1:28:19 thank you very much jamie for um for
1:28:22 that support so much appreciate it and
1:28:25 more yeah i see you have a question
1:28:29 thank you monika maury edwards here um
1:28:31 so you mentioned that i love this idea
1:28:35 of motel 6 i think that's a great use of
1:28:37 a of a resource that we have in the area
1:28:39 you mentioned that
1:28:41 transitioning people after possibly even
1:28:44 a couple of months into more viable
1:28:46 housing do we have more viable housing
1:28:49 is that something that's available
1:28:52 that is such a great great question so
1:28:55 one of the small resources that we had
1:28:57 as viable options recently it through
1:29:00 our partnership with the new king county
1:29:02 regional homelessness authority we were
1:29:04 able to successfully receive about 12
1:29:07 housing vouchers
1:29:09 i'm not sure if you're familiar with
1:29:11 that they are very similar um they
1:29:13 issued the regional homelessness
1:29:14 authority re issued a few months ago uh
1:29:17 housing vouchers which are very very
1:29:18 similar with the section 8 vouchers
1:29:21 which provide
1:29:23 permanent housing for folks who are
1:29:25 homeless so it was kind of like a rapid
1:29:27 housing model so that was one of the
1:29:29 options that we had so far we are
1:29:31 certainly hoping for more um
1:29:34 and we are hoping again we cannot do
1:29:36 this alone right uh while we need uh
1:29:40 services and the resources for issaquah
1:29:42 we also know that we are part of the
1:29:44 larger regional system and we hope to
1:29:46 have some some support from from them as
1:29:49 well uh you're right um
1:29:52 resources are very limited and
1:29:54 especially in issaquah um because of the
1:29:56 high rent um and and high cost of living
1:30:02 so that that's where we are now
1:30:04 thank you monica thank you very very
1:30:07 good question
1:30:11 any other comments and
1:30:13 question on questions on this
1:30:17 sorry quick quick follow-up question on
1:30:19 on maury's question uh though the 12
1:30:21 vouchers that you mentioned
1:30:23 would would those
1:30:24 vouchers be um
1:30:26 able to be used in issaquah
1:30:28 or are they based or
1:30:31 we are already using them and so we use
1:30:33 them uh wherever the person is
1:30:36 interested and they can uh they have
1:30:39 they are finding rental some of them we
1:30:41 were able to use them in a squat some of
1:30:44 them not
1:30:45 so each of the voucher
1:30:47 comes with
1:30:49 a maximum amount that it's allocated to
1:30:51 the person and sometimes
1:30:54 we were just not able to find rental in
1:30:56 issachar and um
1:30:59 although they are from issaquah we had
1:31:00 to um go and find something in a
1:31:03 neighboring city but a couple of times
1:31:06 we were able so far to find some
1:31:07 issaquah options as well so just depends
1:31:12 great great question and with that um
1:31:14 you also have it in your packet and i'm
1:31:16 happy to also put the link in the chat
1:31:19 as well
1:31:20 from the work that we are able to do so
1:31:22 far in trying to gather data based on
1:31:25 feedback that we received from the
1:31:26 community and and city council
1:31:29 wanted to share a brief dashboard that
1:31:32 we launched recently that shows the
1:31:34 number of people in issaquah that are
1:31:37 homeless that we connected with since we
1:31:39 launched this program um also shows the
1:31:43 number of
1:31:44 permanent housing that we are able and
1:31:47 temporary housing that we are able to
1:31:48 connect them with the types of services
1:31:51 that typically people need but also it
1:31:53 shows them
1:31:56 the gaps in services and the the
1:31:58 services that we often try to connect
1:32:00 people to and we just don't have those
1:32:02 services available um so you have that
1:32:04 in in your packet but i'm also gonna put
1:32:06 it here in the chat and hannah can
1:32:08 follow up also with an email as well
1:32:12 so we are just at the very beginning of
1:32:14 this work we learned a lot during this
1:32:17 first year and um we are certainly
1:32:20 excited to continue i'm very much
1:32:21 humbled in continuing this work
1:32:24 um and with that if there are no other
1:32:28 questions on comments i wanted to tell
1:32:30 next steps we are going to continue uh
1:32:33 conversations with different providers
1:32:35 with different partners we are going to
1:32:37 go on june 22nd to have an initial
1:32:39 conversation with city council we are
1:32:41 going to certainly bring back this item
1:32:43 to you as well over the summer as we
1:32:46 continue to develop it
1:32:52 think again i don't see other questions
1:32:54 coming so i think that concludes this
1:32:56 item thank you so so much commissioners
1:33:00 thank you great
1:33:04 so thank you everyone we are really
1:33:07 eight minutes past the time here
1:33:10 and i'm thinking i don't know if there's
1:33:13 any other business and
1:33:15 maybe just a quick minute and make it
1:33:17 really quick and
1:33:18 let everyone go back to their families
1:33:23 and and if not um
1:33:25 maybe you should call to adjourn
1:33:28 the meeting at this point
1:33:33 monica
1:33:34 sure we can certainly adjourn the
1:33:36 meeting if there are no other questions
1:33:37 or other items
1:33:39 uh yes we can adjourn at 809.
1:33:42 okay meeting is june at eight or nine
1:33:45 thanks everyone
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