# Social Services and Public Safety Committee - October 14, 2025 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Committee · October 14, 2025 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6590 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6590?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2025-10-14 - **Body**: Committee - **Last revised**: February 15, 2026 - **Length**: 17,357 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1, with speaker labels folded in from Granicus closed-captioning. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Social Services and Public Safety Committee convened on October 14, 2025, at 1:00 P.M., with J. Reynolds presiding. The meeting included three agenda items spanning topics related to community support models, homelessness prevention, and recovery housing. Two of the agenda items — a presentation on A Caring Place (Villages Model for Lexington) and an update from the Office of Homelessness Prevention & Intervention — were informational in nature, while a third item concerning Recovery Residences (Sober Living Homes) was brought to a vote and approved. Across the meeting, four motions and votes were recorded, and no public comments were heard. ## Attendance The following 11 members were present at the Committee meeting on 2025-10-14: - J. Reynolds - W. Baxter - D. Wu - C. Ellinger - T. Morton - S. Lynch - L. Higgins-Hord - J. Hale - A. Beasley - H. Boone - Emma Curtis No members were recorded as absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions The committee took four votes during the October 14, 2025 meeting, all of which passed by voice vote. - **Approval of the August 26, 2025 Regular Committee Summary** — The committee approved the summary of its August 26, 2025 regular meeting by voice vote. No roll call was recorded. [timestamp: 0:03:32] - **Approval of the August 26, 2025 Special Committee Summary** — The committee approved the summary of its August 26, 2025 special meeting by voice vote. No roll call was recorded. [timestamp: 0:04:05] - **Forward the recovery residences ordinance (council draft version) to the full council** — Motioned by T. Morton, the committee voted by voice to send the council draft version of the recovery residences ordinance to the full council. No roll call was recorded. [timestamp: 1:53:57] - **Report the recovery residences ordinance out to the October 21, 2025 work session** — Also motioned by T. Morton, the committee voted by voice to report the recovery residences ordinance out to the work session scheduled for October 21, 2025. No roll call was recorded. [timestamp: 1:54:27] All four motions passed without recorded opposition. The two votes regarding the recovery residences ordinance were the substantive actions of the meeting, advancing the ordinance both to the full council and to the upcoming October 21 work session. ## Contested Items - **Recovery Residences Ordinance**: The committee addressed community opposition surrounding a proposed ordinance governing recovery residences. The central disagreement centered on two related concerns: the density of recovery residences in particular areas and the enforceability of the regulations the ordinance would establish. Community members raised anxieties about the concentration of such facilities, while the discussion also reflected an underlying tension between those concerns and the recognized need to support recovery housing models. The committee's discussion aimed to find a balance between addressing neighborhood-level apprehensions and ensuring that individuals in recovery have access to appropriate housing options. No specific outcome or vote result is recorded in the available data for this item. ## A Caring Place (Villages Model for Lexington) [timestamp: 05:08] Roxanne Cheney presented to the Committee on the Villages Model for Lexington, an initiative focused on supporting older adults and individuals with disabilities in maintaining their independence and staying socially connected within their communities. Cheney's presentation covered several core elements of the model: - **Mission:** The Villages Model aims to help older adults and people with disabilities remain in their homes and communities rather than transitioning to institutional care settings. - **Health impacts of loneliness:** The presentation addressed the documented health consequences of social isolation among older adults, framing community connection as a key component of the model's value. - **Economic benefits:** Cheney highlighted the economic case for the Villages Model, suggesting that keeping individuals independent and socially engaged can produce broader cost savings compared to more intensive care alternatives. The presentation was informational in nature, with no votes or formal actions taken by the Committee as a result. The item served to introduce or advance awareness of the Villages Model concept as it relates to Lexington's older adult population. ## Office of Homelessness Prevention & Intervention Update [timestamp: 33:27] Jeff Herron presented an update on the Office of Homelessness Prevention & Intervention, covering the office's core responsibilities, current funding allocations, and strategic priorities. The presentation addressed: - **Office responsibilities:** An overview of the functions and scope of the Office of Homelessness Prevention & Intervention. - **Funding allocations:** A review of how current funding is distributed across the office's programs and initiatives. - **Strategic updates:** Discussion of the office's ongoing strategic direction and priorities. Herron highlighted the need for additional shelter resources as a key challenge, and noted the broader difficulties the office faces in working to reduce homelessness. The presentation was informational in nature, and no votes or formal actions were taken as a result. *Note: The available data for this agenda item is limited to a high-level summary. For full details on specific figures, program names, and committee discussion, viewers are encouraged to consult the meeting video beginning at timestamp 33:27.* ## Recovery Residences (Sober Living Homes) [timestamp: 1:13:23] Michael Cravens presented a revised draft ordinance governing recovery residences, commonly known as sober living homes. The presentation covered three primary components of the proposed ordinance: certification requirements for recovery residences operating within the jurisdiction, enforcement mechanisms to ensure compliance, and a six-month grace period to allow existing facilities time to come into compliance with the new regulations. The discussion also addressed the legal framework underpinning the ordinance, reflecting the need to balance community concerns with applicable fair housing and disability rights laws that govern how localities may regulate recovery residences. T. Morton was among the key speakers participating in the discussion. Community concerns were raised and addressed as part of the deliberation. The six-month grace period was noted as a provision intended to ease the transition for currently operating residences while still establishing clear standards going forward. The committee approved the item. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the August 26, 2025 Regular Committee Summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of the August 26, 2025 Special Committee Summary - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Send the council draft version of the recovery residences ordinance to the full council - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Report the recovery residences ordinance out to the work session for October 21, 2025 --- ## Full transcript ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Everybody, welcome. I will now call to order the October 14th, 2025 Meeting of Social Services and Public Safety Committee. And I want to thank everyone for being here today. The first item on our agenda is the approval of the August 26, 2025 Regular Committee Summary. Are there any additions or corrections? Motion approved. Second. There's a motion and a second. Any more discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes. Thank you. We have another committee summary. It's the approval of the August 26, 2025 Special Committee Summary. Move to approve. Second. There's a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you. Next we have three really robust presentations that I'm looking forward to. So I'm just going to remind our speakers to be as concise as possible, and my colleagues as well, to be concise in your comments and try not to repeat each other's questions since we want to make sure that we finish in time for a work session. First, we have a caring place, which is a villages model for Lexington. And we are so excited. Council Member Lynch is a sponsor of this item. So I will turn it over to you, Council Member, to make any opening remarks and to introduce our presenter. Thank you, Chair. Due to our packed agenda today, I'm going to keep my introductions very brief and just say thank you to everyone. Thank you to Council Member Liz Sheehan, her former aide, Layton Garlington, and her current aide, Leah Cassie, for taking this journey along with me. My CAO, LaShawn Barber, Commissioner Casey Allen Bryant, Christy Stamball, the Senior Services Commission, Reimagine Home, a caring place board of directors, BUILD, the Villages Steering Committee, our research partners from the University of Kentucky, my council colleagues, and last but certainly not least, the incomparable Roxanne Chaney, who we're going to hear from today. A big thank you to everyone that came on board with this initiative and this item that I placed in committee. It's been a great time working with you all. We've accomplished some really, really great things in this year that we've been working together. So I'm going to turn the microphone over to Roxanne Chaney with the caring place. OK. Well, good afternoon, and it's really nice to see so many of you again. As most of you know, my name is Roxanne Chaney, and I am a retired nurse. I got my master's degree at the University of Pittsburgh, and I'm certified in gerontology. I am also the chair of a caring place village. So a caring place became a nonprofit incorporated in August of 2019. And at that same time, we met the village-to-village national network's criteria for being designated a village. And there's four points that you need, or four criteria that you need to meet in order to be a village. And the one is that you're a 5013C, that you are a nonprofit, that you are member-driven, that you're volunteer-based, and that you are grassroots organized. And so we meet all four of those, so we are a village. So what is there interesting to know about a caring place village? And there's four things that I would like you to know today. And the first is our mission. We support older adults and disabled individuals so they can remain independent, socially connected, and engaged in their communities for as long as possible. There's a health impact to not being socially connected, and that is loneliness. This is a major health issue in the United States and here in Lexington, and it causes premature aging, comorbidities, and early death. There's an economic impact to untreated loneliness as it drives up the cost of health care and social services. The solution, and this is the good news, loneliness is treatable with public health interventions such as villages are doing, rebuilding community trust and belonging. So implementing our mission, how do we do it? And we have six different ways, and you can read this yourself, so I will just highlight and emphasize the topics. And the first is through our relationship programs. Again, we're dealing with loneliness, so of course relationship programs would be our end all and be all. Education, health and lifestyle for members, resource allocation, an intergenerational approach, and advocacy. So the Village to Village Network, we belong to the Village to Village Network, and we've been a member of that since last year, so for about two years now or so. It is a national nonprofit membership organization that helps communities establish and manage villages so older adults can age in place with dignity, connection, and independently. Currently there's about 425 villages throughout the United States. The closest one to us is in Berea. There are two more villages in Kentucky, one in Bowling Green and one in Louisville, that are in the development phase. And if you can look over to the right-hand side of this slide, you can see the hub and spoke model. What that is, the Village to Village Network offers about four or five different business models that you can choose in order to organize yourself. And we chose the hub and spoke model, and it's going to be easy to see why when you look at this model. The hub, that's us, it has to be a nonprofit, and then the spokes around it are the socialization hubs, or the circles. And that's the easiest one and the cheapest one and the most effective one for us to choose. So that is our business infrastructure. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that later on, too, so you can see how it fits into the whole scope of what we're doing. So, why Lexington? Why should you all have a village? Well, first of all, there's a growing senior population per census, and you probably are very well aware of this yourself. So that by 2030, which is almost here, the number will approach one in five to four residents. That's almost 25%. That's a lot of older folks. So I don't know what your intentions are and your programs are and what you would like to do with them, but ours is a village. This is what they're using nationally to help that growing group of elderly people. Living alone per neighborhood data, and I took this off of the ACS data that you all did back in 2019, around there, and just one neighborhood alone, the Gainesway neighborhood, 30% of that neighborhood had Lexington seniors that were living alone. That's amazing. If you look throughout the city of Lexington, I think it's about maybe 10% to 11% older adults living alone. Again, that's a lot. And it's putting them all at high risk. Healthcare cost and strain, this is really an important factor in why some people join villages. So if not for the quality of life, for the money. Older adults account for a disproportionate share of healthcare use, and if you're lonely or in the throes of loneliness, that costs go up exponentially. Aging in place models like villages can reduce those costs, especially can reduce ER visits. And per an AARP study, more than 90% of seniors want to stay in their homes and or in their neighborhoods. That's where they feel comfortable. So the summer campaign, and maybe I should have started this way. I guess the first thing I need to do is to thank you all for giving us the $150,000 last October to conduct our feasibility study, which we have been doing. So I may not have thanked you first, but let me thank you now, profusely. We were able, with that money, to actually hire people from the University of Kentucky, from the School of Medicine, the School of Social Work, the School of Education, to come and help us do this study. We conducted it citywide. I think that all of you, most of you, put ads in your newsletters that went out, and so you know we were every place. At each event, we tried to have food, not only because it provides a nice, warm, friendly environment, which we wanted to promote, but it also may have attracted some people to come just for the food. You know how it goes. Events were all noted as town halls, as our council members were present at almost all of these to encourage everybody that we needed this feedback so that we could design this program around their needs and not ours. I think some of the council members even came to three different events, so that was really awesome. Again, y'all rock. Thank you. I mentioned the Community Needs Assessment, and I'd like to talk just a little bit more about that because I think it was really frustrating for the university researchers that were doing this. We had established an original goal of getting 2,000 of these back last May or April. By almost July, we knew we were not going to get 2,000. We went down to 500, hoping we would get 500 of these assessments, and it's really been tough. As you can see here, by looking at the Community Needs Assessment, there were 557 who actually opened their link. We're talking about the electronic version that was done. In the end, we got 357, so kind of a big difference between how many actually went to take it and how many finished it. There's a wide variety of reasons, and you can read that yourself as to why. The campaign statistics itself, just from June to August, we're still in the middle of all this, so we don't have the total amount just yet, but from just those three months, we conducted 30 events. It did take off, I think, a week for vacation, but otherwise, three or four times a week, we were out there at some venue site giving our event speech, inviting other experts from the community who are actually our partners in care to come in and give a little blurb, et cetera, about what they do for the community. We had 460 attendees throughout the whole thing, which is wonderful. Almost 1,000 hours, volunteer hours, were given in just these three months, and any of you who have anything to do with volunteers, know that's a big number, so a lot of people were coming out to support this effort from the community, and I think I already mentioned that many council members participated, some indeed coming to three events. You know who you are who did that, and thank you. So all together, with our community experts, y'all, us, we are one movement. Together, we are changing the shape of aging in Lexington. Last October, or thereabouts, I signed a contract with you, with the mayor, that delineated you wanted us to look at six different scopes of work in our feasibility study, and it's outlined here as to those six scopes and who performed it, and again, I'm not going to read through all of that. You can read yourself, but I will note the highlighting topics. The first was the community needs assessment. There was a technology needs assessment. Third, looking at different revenue streams. Fourth was our HOAs. Fifth was our subsidized senior homes, and sixth was looking at other villages and assessing them to get benchmarks and metrics. Unfortunately, we don't have the results of this for you today. Wish we did. Wish I did even for myself. So it's hard waiting, but right now, like I said, we're still going through and collecting data, so we're not really near the stage. Well, we're almost near the stage where we can sit down and kind of analyze this data and look at it. So how were your funds allocated? There was a total of $150,000, which we've already said, and we gave $90,000 to UK. Those are the people that were actually doing the assessments and the research, and then we gave $60,000 to a caring place, and most of that went for food, which I've already mentioned to you. It was amazing. Food prices are going up. Did you know that? We had no idea that it was going to cost quite that much, but it did. Marketing, a lot was spent on marketing, and then there was some rental here and there that we had to pay for, although most of the places and most of the host churches or organizations gave their place for free. Again, they believed in our cause, and they wanted to support. So how was the community response? This is one thing we do know. We were there. We saw it. Many of you may have also seen it. We saw a lot of excitement. We saw that a lot of people think that this is just the best thing that's come along in a long time. It fits in. Our older adults were extremely happy to see that there would be some support for them staying where they were, and also they all were very well aware of the losses that occur as you do grow older and of that loss of connectivity. So they were very warm and inviting about this whole concept. Indeed, we had about seven different organizations come later and say that they would like to be a part of our village. Again, as we have these people join us, these social hubs, that doesn't mean now we've got many, many villages. We'll always be just one village, a caring place. The hubs surround us. We're still getting phone calls again. We're getting phone calls from people asking us to please come and talk to them about it. They've heard about it now. So maybe we may have met critical mass. So we're continuing to go out there and speak to different groups. Again, that shows that this was the only thing we were looking at for feasibility of doing it. We've made it. The people here in Lexington want it. So now what? We're building the future. And what's our first step? Well, we've got to analyze that data. We're all waiting for that time. We're hoping that by January we actually sit down and start to look at this. And then craft our story. Looking again at our mission, at our own values, what we want to accomplish, communicating that to all the stakeholders that are involved with us. Ms. Cheney, do you need a few more minutes? Would three more minutes be good? Is that okay? Yes. Okay. So hurry. That's okay. Distribute the results. Step four is hospital collaboration. Loneliness is a major health factor. We need somebody from the hospital to represent the push and the initiative. Step five is connecting to the state plan. We don't want to go too much far off the tangent. We all need to be together on doing this thing. Step six is to expand our partnerships, to identify partners at local, which we've done, but state and the national levels too. Step seven is the organizational development. And, again, you see that hub and spoke. We would like to take that one of those hubs, one of those spokes, and we have a volunteer group out there from the Beaumont Gardenside District who would just love to be one of those spokes and be the pilot program for this. So as on the village task force we're coming up with these ideas and plans, et cetera, we can give it to them to actually enact and see was that reality oriented or were we thinking pie in the sky kind of things. So it's just they've done a lot of work already in the garden side with their neighborhood and Wendy Keene, marvelous, marvelous organizer. And so that was another reason for choosing them. So we're going to be starting off sometime in January with our very first social hub. And the last thing is sustainability and growth, of course, for a fair society, a vibrant society, and a livable society. And the last page is our acknowledgements. Am I over on time? Oh. Uh-oh. So. You're fine. I gave you three extra minutes, so you have one minute left. One minute. Okay. Well, I won't read all the acknowledgements and everything. You can see that again. But the people who came in, our experts, our speakers, were amazing. They're sticking with us. They're going to be a part of all of this. The city of Lexington I have already mentioned. Bill has been just wonderful in pushing this all forward and always being there behind us to make sure that we meet our mission. The UK College of Medicine, Education and Social Work. It's been delightful working with them all summer long. I can't imagine a more helpful group. Age Friendly Lexington and Reimagining Home have always been there, are still here, very appreciated. And all our host sites, which I already mentioned, and you can see there, there was a bunch of them. Consolidated Baptist, First African Baptist, the Presbyterians showed up in force, the Catholics. I mean, we have about four or five different Catholic churches at this point. The Unitarian Universalist Church of Lexington was a biggie. And the volunteer leadership of a caring place. They've been our heartbeat of this whole push. Can't see Sharon. I was going to wave to her. There was about maybe 16 of us all summer long. Some of us went to every single event all summer long. Thank you. Thank you to all of them. Thank you so much. And now we're going to take questions from my colleagues. Colleagues, please sign in if you have a question. Vice Chair Baxter. Thank you, Chair. Roxanne, thank you for being here today and for your presentation and for all of your hard work. I mean, you guys really did it. I think that it's really inspiring to see a group in our community care so deeply about something and work so hard to make a difference. So I didn't have any questions. I just wanted to say thank you. And thank you so much for caring about a portion of our community that sometimes gets forgotten. So I appreciate you and all your hard work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. And I take this personal because I have a 92-year-old mother who would benefit well from this. So I'm really looking forward to seeing this and moving forward. When do we hope to get back the feasibility study data from what we've? Well, we hope that all of these things are done, actually, by the end of this month. By the end of the month? Okay, good. And so then we've got to look at all of that data. And we hope that we'll have it on our plates, on our task force and the board, probably around first, second week of January, so we can kind of look at the group data and start to make decisions on what would be the best step and what should be the first steps based on that data. Thank you. I'm really excited for this. Good job. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me because I'm not on this committee. Thank you to everyone who worked on this, particularly you, Roxanne. You are such a rock star. Like, you've just done so much. And the energy that you bring to this and the passion that you bring to this keeps all of us working very hard alongside you, so I really appreciate that. Colleagues, they are still collecting data, and at this point the researchers have asked that if you have events that they can attend where they can come and do data collection to continue reaching different segments of the population, please let us know that so we can get you connected and continue to grow that data set. So that's it. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you for that information. I, too, want to say thank you for all your hard work for the village that's behind you that's done so much work. I was very impressed with the outreach events, and I think what I love the most is that you all saw a need and then you started taking action steps to try to accomplish and fill that need. And not everybody does that. Sometimes we just talk about things, but we never do them. So I'm really appreciative to all of you for this initiative and to BUILD as well for bringing it forward, and I think that it's going to go places, and I look forward to hearing more about the study. So thank you once again. Thank you. And Council Member Lynch. Just some final thoughts. Thank you again, Roxanne. You did fabulous. You did fabulous. And just one question. How else can council help at this stage of the game? How long what? How else can our council help at this stage of the game with your work? How do we engage with council, or what else could council do? What else can we do to help? How they could help in the future, I think, is, as I've told both you and Liz all along, to be there, to be supportive. We did not want, oh, well, this is almost done, so now we'll never see anybody here again. As it's been shown, even by the number of people and where the surveys were done, mostly the more supportive the council person was of that, and the more they were getting the ads in the paper and the more that they were showing up for their own town hall, the more people showed up. So, again, can't do this, can't do this at all unless it's kind of a three-way thing, a caring place, the city, our researchers, and certainly the community that we serve. I don't think that this is the time for me to ask for money, right? Maybe, right? Oh, okay. Well, yes, we do have an ask. I'm so glad that you mentioned this. We went through and looked at what we would need just in terms of getting our first project off the ground with Gardenside and Beaumont, and we came up with the figure of, and what we looked at was personnel cost. Now, I could do it. I could probably go out there and do it, but then who's going to do my job? Because I actually have a job myself, so I could hardly split myself in two places. So there is an identified need for somebody else to come and really help and be the mentor of those people, be the trainer, be the coordinator between them and us, doing all these things possible, because we do not want our first pilot program to go down the tubes just because there wasn't enough support. That would probably be the end of everything. I mean, who would want to start another one, right? When we get into, oh, would somebody else like to do this? They'd look at the first one and figure they didn't get any support. Uh-uh, I'm not going to do this either. So, yes, that was one of the biggest costs of that. Plus, we would need it for fundraising and marketing, for activities for them, including that that would be food for them, we found out, too. Food is a big calling card. A lot of you are smiling, so you know that. Software cost, because, again, as you spread out, a lot more information has to be gathered, looked at, acted upon, and I don't think that we could do that just with the present software that we're looking at. And there are other softwares out there, and we've costed them out, and that costs around $5,000. And last is transportation costs, because we think, we don't know yet, we don't have the data, but we think that transportation needs are a big issue in Lexington, and that Village does actually help, especially with those hard-to appointments, like where you have to go with the person to a procedure, like cataract surgery, and stay there with them, and then bring them home, especially those we would like to be available for. So our total amount that we are asking for is $102,000. So if you would consider that, I'd so appreciate it. Thank you, Roxanne, and I'll just finish up by saying thank you, colleagues, for this presentation. As you can see, Council Member Sheen and I have wrapped our arms and our hearts around this initiative, and we want to definitely do what we can to support this initiative and continue our support. I just want to leave you with a statistic that I can't forget, is that one in five people here in Lexington in 2030, a few short years away, will be 65-plus. That's a lot of people. So we need to put in the infrastructure and the supports now to help our seniors age in place, if they so choose, with dignity and pride. So thank you, Roxanne, and thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Our next presentation will be from the Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention, and it is a needed annual update, and we have our Homelessness Prevention Manager, Jeff Heron, here to do the presentation today. So we're glad to have you. Thank you for having me. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. As requested, I'm going to try to keep this brief, but definitely let me know. I'm glad to elaborate or answer questions. Very briefly, starting with some background and overview, as many of you know, the Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention was established in 2014 to provide funding and coordination for the local response system. We are not a direct service office. We do not provide direct case management. We do not directly operate shelter or housing. Instead, we work as roles such as the continuum of care lead agency and collaborative applicant, bringing vital funding into our community for permanent housing and supportive services. We would also serve as our local homeless management information system lead, which allows us to conduct data analysis to identify system gaps and trends within our population, as well as to understand what programs are successful in producing positive outcomes for participants. Just take a moment to kind of brag on some of the successes of my office. Since taking my position in 2022, we have added two additional staffing positions, making the Office of Homelessness a staff of four. That would include myself, a continuum of care coordinator, who would author our annual COC program application, as well as make sure that we are in compliance with HUD regulations and requirements. In fiscal year 24, we added an HMIS data analyst. That expands our ability to conduct data analysis and takes a great deal of strain off of our continuum of care coordinator, who was serving as our HMIS administrator prior to us adding this position. So we're able to do a much greater job of providing technical assistance to our provider partners. Your data is only as useful as the value with which you collect it. So we're able to do a lot more with having that staff. And then finally, this fiscal year, we had a encampment coordinator position added to the budget. And this was to help us to address our encampment response. We'll talk more about that in just a little bit. Again, we would serve largely in a funding and coordination capacity. Some of the funds that we work with to administer locally are the Innovative and Sustainable Solutions Fund. That is an annual set-aside to pilot programming that was increased almost double in fiscal year 25. And then we would also administer the emergency shelter component of our extended social resource program. This is a very text-heavy slide that is somewhat intentional to give you a sense of all the varied duties that my office would work to complete. We do not do direct service. We would work to coordinate, facilitate, educate, and advocate. So we would do things like staff the HPI or COC board, holding board meetings, committee meetings, work groups. We would operate our coordinated entry system, which is our mechanism for assessment of individuals in need of housing and placement when housing resources. We also work to establish and monitor performance targets. We would work to do things like implement our annual point-in-time count, operate our homeless management information system, complete a variety of community data submissions. We also provide technical assistance to our provider partners. That might be end-user training for our homeless management information system. It might be guiding our providers through the processes of becoming a recipient of federal funds that can be used to implement programs within our community. We also work to engage the public and the community in our work through things like our COC website, social media, and mailing list, attending events, publicizing data so that individuals understand what the needs are within our community and can help advocate for those. Then we work to do things like identify the system gaps and issues facing this population and campaign for policies that would help us to better meet the needs of individuals experiencing homelessness. We also would work to engage our partners and membership in developing strategies to do things like reduce the length of time that individuals experience homelessness, prevent returns to homelessness, and increase income. A little bit more about the funding that we allocate. I'd like to kind of touch on this area. I think it's very eye-opening for some people to learn the kind of money that we are working with and the sources. We are working primarily with local dollars and some federal dollars. Unfortunately, we presently receive no state investments to address homelessness. Locally, LFUCG has invested over $50 million to address homelessness between fiscal year 20 and fiscal year 25, again showing a very high level of commitment in this area. That would be the Innovative and Sustainable Solutions Fund, as we mentioned, helps us to pilot evidence-based best practices to see what's effective in our local community. We're currently working with over $1.4 million annually from that source. We also provide just under $2 million in annual operating costs to our emergency shelters via the Extended Social Resource, or ESR, program. In June, we brought a shelter feasibility study to you that informed you that we currently lack the year-round shelter capacity to adequately meet our community's needs. This has resulted in an annual need to increase seasonal resources to ensure that people have safe places to stay over the winter. We're currently spending about $2 million each year on that seasonal response. As you know, we would advocate for the addition of additional permanent shelter resources so that investment can largely be repurposed to meeting need year-round instead of seasonal programs, which put a great deal of strain on this office and our system in trying to develop these mechanisms each year. Finally, we also work to bring over $2.5 million into the community annually through the HUD Continuum of Care program that funds permanent housing and supportive service programs. We would run a local competition to identify the organizations and projects we recommend to HUD for funding and frame that within a community application which speaks to our local strategies. Next, we're going to touch on some data. This is going to be a chart showing longitudinal data from our LEX count, our community's annual point-in-time count. This count would take place in the last 10 days of January of each year, intended to give us a more accurate number by looking at a time in the year when more persons would be likely to access shelter. In 2025, our count showed an increase of 100 persons, or about 12% over 2024. So despite significant efforts and investment, like many communities, we are struggling with inflow that outpaces our outflow from our system. Some other things of note, we saw a slight reduction in the number of unsheltered persons, dropping to 67 this year. From 82 the previous year. We also saw increases amongst families and youth, letting us know that additional resources are needed for those populations. We saw a decrease in single adults experiencing homelessness. Chronically homeless persons, the number was higher, but the rate was consistent with the increase that we saw overall within our population. But I think maybe one of the most important highlights of this year is that we had 810 persons that were in emergency shelter on the evening of our 2025 LECS count. That is more persons in emergency shelter than we've had in any previous count. Again, underscoring the need for additional shelter and permanent housing resources. In our annual presentation, we also give you an update on our homeless encampment response. In fiscal year 25, we conducted 22 cleanups. That was 19 unique locations. Eight of those locations were tied to emphasis areas, or areas that have a high probability of encampments returning. We post those locations with signage. That allows us to more quickly respond to those locations. However, we do still make efforts, even though we could clear those without notice, just trying to be compassionate, we do make efforts. But we are seeing that there are certain locations which make up nearly 50% of our encampment cleanups each year. Additionally, it's important for us to understand that the cost to remove or address encampments is increasing. We saw a smaller number of cleanups conducted in fiscal year 25, but the average cost was almost double what it was in fiscal year 24. Costs this year ranged from $100 to $21,544 for our most expensive cleanup. Oftentimes, these are elaborate camps, and they might involve a mixture of public, private property, and even property belonging to entities like the state or railroads. So I also like to give a median, because it can be skewed by those outliers. So the median cost would be closer to about $1,100 per cleanup. So what are we doing to address the trend that we are seeing with homeless encampments? One action step was that we requested an encampment coordinator position be included in the fiscal year 26 budget. My office worked very, very hard to fill that position quickly. We had a staff start in that role on September 22nd. I was fortunate enough that Steve Gehafer from our code enforcement department that had worked with us on homeless encampments in the past was interested in the position. Steve is here with us today just to kind of introduce you to him. He can be another point of contact that you can reach out to. I know we hear from a lot of your offices around these issues. Definitely want you to know that he is available to assist. He also has a background in law enforcement, and so he has a really strong ability to coordinate all the different parties that are involved in addressing encampments. We're currently working to further onboard him into our office and look at how we can improve different strategies and processes with the different stakeholders that we engage. We're also working to update our homeless encampment SOP to reflect the inclusion of this new position. The other strategy that we're currently pursuing to address this is that we are going to be bringing a request to work session this afternoon for additional funding for street outreach. Since August, we have been operating with an increased focus on our downtown core. Often those teams are going out alongside individuals from police and paramedicine. We are meeting a variety of needs. That might be everything from helping someone to obtain critical documentation to pursuing a petition if somebody needs to get to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. Amendment to the Hope Center's outreach agreement that we will see at the work session docket would allow us to do a few different things. First of all, it would expand the level of clinical supports that are available to our outreach team. One of the challenges that we have is that a lot of individuals that are more chronically homeless are going to have significant mental health and or substance use needs. And so we struggle with getting them to follow up appointments in office settings. So being able to expand the ability for our outreach team to directly engage individuals in the field, assess their needs, potentially diagnose or connect to care, really allows us to do better work with individuals where they are. We would also be able to add downtown dedicated staff that can help us to do things like address recent public safety concerns without pulling the focus from other areas of our community or from other matters like working homeless encampments. We would also be able to provide two part-time weekend staff. We presently operate outreach Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. with some ability to do flexible scheduling. So this would be a significant expansion, allowing us to have some weekend support for the community and helping individuals to navigate resources that they might need, which cannot be confined to business hours. Next, a little bit about our strategic update. We are presently nearing the end of our five-year strategic plan. We've completed about 36 of the 55 recommendations or actions that were included in that plan. What we found is that some of the remaining items within that plan are difficult for us to achieve. They might take a higher level of investment than we have available, but we also have to consider the fact that this plan was developed prior to the pandemic and released at the onset of the pandemic. So we're seeing some new and emerging challenges in reducing homelessness, so we would like to make sure that our updated plan, which we have budgeted for this fiscal year, would reflect those challenges. Some of those include federal and state policies which criminalize homelessness. Last year, we saw the implementation of House Bill 5 or the Safer Kentucky Act, including provisions which make sleeping or camping in a public space illegal. This makes it more difficult for us to identify persons who are unsheltered, more difficult to maintain contact with them towards permanent housing, and oftentimes we find that we have gaps within our shelter system that cannot immediately resolve someone's homelessness, therefore creating strain on us in identifying readily available permanent housing resources. We are also seeing a number of anticipated changes at the federal level in terms of the Continuum of Care program, which we mentioned as the largest source of housing assistance that we have in our community. We are hearing a lot of different things that could happen with this program. Initially, we were hearing that there would be a two-year cap placed on all rental assistance, effectively eliminating permanent supportive housing under this program. Do you need three more minutes? Three would be great. Okay, go ahead. And then now we are hearing that we might be looking at having 30% of our COC funds allowed to go to permanent housing as a maximum, which would reduce our permanent housing resources significantly. We're also seeing widespread criticism of evidence-based practices, such as housing first and harm reduction, with communities following those practices potentially being impacted with the levels of funding that they received. Our goal is to provide Lexington with an updated strategic plan, which focuses on reducing unsheltered homelessness and addressing chronic homelessness, increasing and diversifying the stock of housing resources so that we don't rely solely on federal grant programs, and navigating the shifting federal landscape. Finally, a couple more thoughts. In June 2025, we brought you our emergency shelter feasibility study. That recommended that we would need approximately 500 additional beds added to our system over the next five years. It emphasized the need for a low-barrier model. But it's important to note that this is not about shelter alone. This is about the need for us to improve system navigation and to work towards interim resources and permanent housing, to create an overall campus approach that would be more inclusive and better help people to navigate our system regardless of their individual need. So we plan to work to update the strategic plan built upon the recommendations of the Mayor's Task Force, which we will be announcing very soon, the initial meeting of. We've been working to provide structure and develop a process for that platform. We are going to task that group with making recommendations towards low-barrier shelter, service models, funding options, and ways that we can engage the community in this work. Their final recommendations should be specific, actionable, and address both our short-term and long-term solutions. Hopefully I kept to three. Thank you so much for your presentation. Colleagues, please log in if you have questions. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. While we were sitting here, we got our third annual street survey report that was sent out. Could you explain how those differ in the numbers? Yeah. So we follow HUD's methodology for an official point in time count. That is going to be limited to individuals that on the evening of the count are residing in emergency shelter, in a transitional housing program that's dedicated for persons experiencing homelessness, or unsheltered settings. The count conducted by the Catholic Action Center is probably best described as looking at housing insecurity more broadly than just looking at literal homelessness, which the point in time count would do. So they might look at individuals who are in institutional settings, like in a jail, in a hospital, that might have threats to long-term housing stability. They also would include individuals that might meet other federal definitions of homelessness, like that of the Department of Education, which would include persons that are doubled up, couch hopping, staying place to place. So it's a much more expansive count, looking at more than just who is literally homeless on a given night, but those who might not be homeless today by a literal definition, but could be in the very near future. So there is utility to both, but it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Right. Thank you. I appreciate you explaining that. I know the mayor had said she's going to put a task force together to look at a new shelter. Do we know where we stand on that, and when that's going to be put together? Yeah. So last week, the mayor met with the two co-chairs and Commissioner Lanter. We are right now working to finalize the date of our initial meeting, but that's expected to take place in November. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Aaron, for all your work on this and your presentation. To go back to one of the early slides on the chart, kind of the year-over-year numbers, caught my eye a little bit that the single individuals experiencing homelessness has been relatively flat for the last two or three years, but we've seen a little bit of an increase in individuals in families. Yes. Can you speak on that a little bit, both in terms of either cause and also maybe how that impacts your approach? Yeah. As I mentioned, what we're kind of seeing is that our inflow to the system is outpacing our outflow. As we see affordable housing challenges continue to compile, it's easier and easier for more persons to enter homelessness each day. At present, we have an average rent for every unit size that would fall above HUD's fair market rent values for those unit sizes. We would also have vacancy rates that are higher than both the state and national averages, and so essentially what we have is that we have situations where people are easily displaced from housing, but it's more difficult for them to get subsequent housing. There's a lot of competition for more affordable units. Sometimes we are seeing then households, especially those that might have children, entering into rental agreements for units that they really probably can't sustainably afford, but they're trying to understandably keep a roof over their family's head. As things like evictions accrue on someone's record, it makes it more and more challenging for us to rehouse them. It takes a greater level of resources, and it's just becoming more and more difficult. Even when we do have resources to house people. We have done an analysis of data between the length of time when someone enrolls in an assistance program to when they are physically in housing. And over the past five to six years, that length of time has grown by about 200%. And that's when we do have rental assistance or vouchers available. We have fewer landlords that are willing to participate in programs. We have units that often exceed the rates that we can pay on assistance programs. And it's just becoming very, very difficult to navigate. Thank you for that. And I want to just kind of drive home the idea, you know, in some of your later slides about solutions, talking about we have to tackle both short-term and long-term solutions. And ultimately, you know, there are varying different sort of causes and correlations to homelessness. But the chief cause of homelessness is lack of housing and lack of access to housing. Period. Correct. Stop. So I want to make sure that we on council here who care about housing, care about affordable housing, care about homelessness, need to think obviously in the short term in those areas where we're talking about shelters. But we really, really, really need to make some moves on increasing our housing stock, and especially our affordable housing stock here in Lexington. We have just always spent a lot of resources and time and energy on patching holes. And we really need to look at the structural causes of this issue and do some longer-term fixes, which is providing more housing, more affordable housing, more accessible housing for our residents. So I really do appreciate your work on this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Morton. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the presentation. Can we just talk a little bit about the encampment cleanup process and how we balance compassion with accountability for chronic encampment sites? Sure. So our SOP, our standard operating procedure for addressing homeless encampments, was created for exactly that reason. It looked at the responses that had been implemented in a number of communities across the country. Originally, it provided a minimum of five business days for outreach staff to engage individuals toward a service plan. And then based upon that service plan, we would set a final date for removal. We tried to make sure that if there were a plan that was feasible to be achieved, that we could give a little bit more flexibility because if we can get someone into permanent housing, we more permanently resolve that situation for both the residents of the camp, but also the neighborhoods that those encampments are in. We revised our SOP at the onset of House Bill 5 to remove those specific time frames so as we, as a local government, were not seen as impeding the enforcement, which we are not allowed to do. However, in practice, we still try to get as close to those benchmarks as possible in terms of Making sure that someone, at the very least, has notice. That if they do not want to engage us, they don't have to risk losing their personal belongings or unnecessary law enforcement contact. If they are going to engage us, then we try to make a process that's flexible and dynamic that looks at the individual and what their needs are and what can be facilitated. And then, usually in the past, we had a minimum of 72 hours notice that we would give at that final posting. And we still, largely, are able to follow that, provided that there's no immediate public health or safety concerns. We do find that there are fortunately going to be some folks that have a high level of distrust in the government and systems. And it may take several times of us working a camp where they are located before they're ready to engage us. So, we try to make sure that we offer resources, that we offer notice, that we also consider the concerns of the community more broadly, understanding that there can be real issues tied to the presence of an encampment in a general area. Thank you. And then, just quickly, so I know that the numerical number, when it's tied to our unhoused folks, yes, that's what we tend to look at. Like, you know, we're doing good or doing, like we're working towards a solution or working against it. But are there any other measurable goals or metrics that will determine success in reducing unsheltered homelessness over this next five years, other than just the number? I think what would be important to also look at is the rate at which persons that we exit from unsheltered homelessness to permanent housing would return. That's gonna say a good amount about how effective those strategies are, because it's not just simply about getting them into permanent housing, it's about keeping them there long-term. Alongside of that would be things like working to increase the level of income that people have. If we're able to increase income, we're able to give people more tools in their kit for long-term sustainability. But also, that's been a major focus of our continuum, because with changes that may come in federal assistance programs, if we're not able to give someone permanent housing, if we're able to give them only short-term assistance, we know that we need to be equipped to be able to help them increase their own tools and reach self-sufficiency. So there's a number of things that we would definitely want to look at and assess. Right now, I would say the most important would be that we look at not just the exits to permanent housing from unsheltered homelessness, the rate of returns, and the ability for people to sustain long-term through things like income, connection with mainstream benefits, healthcare, other things that would help them with long-term stability. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Sheehan. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me. Thank you for your work, and I want to say thank you to the rest of your team as well. I know from our conversations at the Homelessness Prevention Intervention Board and our subcommittees that the lack of available units has been a problem for a while. And what I'm hearing about cuts to support for permanent supportive housing at the federal level is really concerning to me, because I think that will further increase the barriers that we're seeing in getting people into homes and providing stable homes for them. If the public wants more information about how they can help or get involved, or if they want to read the emergency shelter study that was released, where would you tell them to go find out more information? I think probably the easiest to access resource and the most robust would be the Lex and Homelessness website, that's the website that would encompass the approaches of our continuum of care. So they would be able to find the shelter study there, they would be able to find a schedule of our continuum of care meetings. Those are open to the public. We greatly invite people to come in and join us. We definitely need diversification of representation, of ideas. You know, a lot of us have been doing this for a long time. Sometimes we need somebody with an outside perspective that might be able to share something new, bring a model or a concept from another community that maybe they're aware of. But also, you know, do we just need more people who are going to have a hand in this work? Unfortunately, as I think we keep reiterating, the challenges are not getting less, they're getting greater. So we're gonna have to have creative ideals that tap into the interests and the skills of our community members who are willing to step up and be a part of our movement. Thank you, and I look forward to the process of updating the strategic plan and the work of the upcoming task force. So thank you again, thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Thank you, Chair, thank you, Jeff, for your presentation and the work that you do. I know you're always, always on call, you're always out there in the streets, and I know this is work that you don't get patted on the back for doing, but it's work that we desperately need done in our community, so thank you for that. One of the things that you said is that it seems like our intake or the folks on the front part of this process is outpacing the folks with positive outcomes on the back end. The study that we commissioned for emergency shelters, it just looked at the emergency shelter portion of the process, and it didn't look at the rest of the process, is that right? It touched on our system as a whole, but it focused primarily on more interim options like emergency shelter and transitional housing. Okay, and the only reason I bring that up is because I think this is where the task force that the mayor's gonna name can come into play and do more research and look at the entire process of how we get folks from entry level to more sustainable housing, and there may be some strategies to help us with that because I tend to think that if we focus, that we need to put more focus on the middle of the process or towards the end of the process to get folks in more sustainable housing and more supportive housing, as opposed to, or in addition to the entry point as well. You said something about we need to be looking for options locally to better address our local challenges as opposed to relying on federal funding. Is, how cost prohibitive is that? If we wanted to focus more on the housing first model locally and put more of our local dollars towards that, what are we talking about and what are we looking at as far as trying to lift that ourselves? So I think the primary challenge that we would have would be in terms of the current funding that this office has to pilot programs. We typically are not able to do ongoing or sustainable funding for any particular program, shelter, organization. So using those funds presently to do permanent housing, we would be looking at something that would be finite. It would be a pilot, it would come to an end. And so I wouldn't want to build a permanent housing program with those dollars just to then turn around and when a pilot comes to a close, return people to a homeless situation. So we've mostly been using those dollars for programming. However, we're at a point within our system that we can't program our way out of an affordable housing crisis. So it could be that we look to revise the ordinance governing those funds. It could be that we look to make some other kind of local investment from outside of that particular fund that would go towards increasing our housing stock. But I think that's really the key challenge that we're facing here. I also just think that we have some significant capacity concerns as well. We have issued a number of RFPs that have gotten very little response or no responses received. We have a lot of organizations that since the pandemic haven't really had the capacity to take on new programming. So we would also need to look at how would we actually implement that. I know the city generally doesn't like to be in a position of operating housing directly. We usually prefer to do that through a partner. We would have to really work to identify a partner who would have the capability of being able to take on such an endeavor. So a potential strategy would be if we were allocating city money to a project that was for affordable housing. On the other side, we probably need to look to allocate funding, programming funding for a service provider to add. The funding with my office through Innovative and Sustainable Solutions Fund which would be much more better suited to providing services to be paired with affordable housing, to give long-term stability for residents than it would be to be used for the development of that housing. Okay, but that's where the real cost comes with developing and building the housing as opposed to providing services. I would rather your funding be focused more on providing the services as opposed to the stuff. And ultimately, providing those services would have a great impact to the community and really reduce what the city is spending in other areas such as emergency shelter, contacts with law enforcement, our jail system, emergency rooms. We would definitely see a high return on investment of those dollars. Okay, and Council Chair, I have two more questions. Do I just need to sign in again? Yeah, so can you speak a little bit, I know we talked maybe previously about looking at the ordinance that governs the OP funding, the Innovative Sustainable Solutions. Do you see a need or is there constraints that you currently have with the terminology innovative funding that, do we need to, I guess do we need to look at that ordinance to give you more flexibility in how you spend your money, are your hands tied in regards to where you can put some of your money in regards to services? So we've begun looking at that. I think one of the concerns would be making sure that we do still reserve money that can be used to truly implement new programming to continue to move us further, to try new and emerging practices, and not essentially get us into a spot where that money becomes used solely for sustaining one or two projects year over year over year. And I think that's one of the things that we want to be concerned about and making sure that we would just draft the right language to potentially actually modify that ordinance. Okay, okay. And then my last question is, so I guess if we're going to update the strategic plan and the task force is going to look at this, I think we also are going to have to assess our partnerships and other community agencies that provide services to our in-house population. Just to make sure they're helping our community meet the gaps and the needs of our community. Because I know there's several agencies out there to do the work, but are they really providing or maximizing opportunity to get people to sustainable permanent housing? So we do presently have a committee of the HPICOC board, chaired by Council Member Sheehan, our Program Performance and Evaluation Committee. Any organization that receives local funding for addressing homelessness specifically goes through that presentation process. They would have to report annually on their outcomes. That allows us to really identify which organizations are most effective, which types of programs are most effective, but also potentially look at system gaps or issues that might be larger than any one particular provider that we need to address at a system level. Okay. All right, well, once again, I'll thank you for the service you do. I think we can't say that enough. But I think what's obvious from your presentation is no matter how much money or investment we make, the problem continues to grow. So I think this task force is timely in regards to looking at the strategies that we implement to address the need. So thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. I want to thank you and your team again. I know that your job is very thankless, and it's always trying to put out fires, and it's one thing after another. And so I do appreciate you very much, and I know that your job is very difficult. I'm excited, and I wanted to express my support of the expansion of the outreach workers. That was something that I had in committee, and I know you all did a presentation and suggested outreach workers and the encampment coordinator. So I'm really glad that that is expanding. I think that has potential to grow in different ways and work with paramedicine more, but I'm grateful that that is growing now. So I'm glad about that, and I wanted to express that to my colleagues, my support that will be on the docket this afternoon. And to that end, I think as we look at just how this issue has been growing, like you mentioned, looking at new, innovative ways of maybe dealing with the situation. Maybe instead of building a huge temporary shelter with a lot of beds, we look at maybe a smaller one and having enough staff to be able to really build relationships and work with the people one-on-one so that there's more lasting effect and there's not a revolving door and that we begin to address some of the trauma and deeper issues that folks are facing. So I hope that the task force will look at that and kind of, like you said, think outside the box and think of other ways that we might be able to address this issue than just the traditional way, as Council Member Brown said, just keeps growing, kind of no matter how much we put at it. So maybe quality over quantity or looking at other angles, so. Thank you. I appreciate the support of the outreach item, but also just want to say that we're grateful for the support that we received from the Council, the administration, and really all the divisions and departments here at the city. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Okay, next we have the recovery residents presentation, and I know some people know that as sober living homes. And so today we have a review of the revised draft ordinance of recovery residences, and Council Member Morton is the sponsor of this item, and I will turn it over to him to give background, explain how this issue has been looked at, and give introductions. Indeed, thank you, thank you, Chair. So I'll start off with a quick summary of how we got here and then where we're headed. So in 2023, the state passed a law allowing local governments to regulate recovery residents. Around that same time, the administration began exploring what such an ordinance might look like and started to work on initial draft. During this period, the Oakwood Neighborhood Association and NATO convened weekly to better understand the issue, share concerns, but also to be a part of that solution. While I was not on Council at this time, I made a promise if elected that I would work on this issue. So upon taking office, I placed the item in committee. The administration presented the initial draft of the ordinance in April at the Social Service Public Safety meeting. Following that presentation, I helped establish a working group of Council members, three other Council members, special thanks to Council Member Lynch, Council Member Sheehan, and Council Member Reynolds, to take a deeper dive into the policy. Over the course of four months and roughly a dozen meetings, we met to strengthen this ordinance, gather insight, and ensure that it reflected both community feedback and legal clarity. Alongside our working group meetings with internal stakeholders, we also held a public hearing to receive direct community input from the public. Today, we're at a point where we feel confident bringing this forward as an initial Council draft version of this ordinance. It maintains a similar framework of the administration's draft, but includes four key thematic changes. The first one, strengthen enforcement. So we cross-referenced multiple existing ordinances and policies that must be followed, including zoning, building code, and public nuisance or criminal activity ordinances. We also added rehousing requirements that is outlined under immediate action plans and identifies clear internal point of contact. The second is we define the complaint process. While this language is not a part of the ordinance, we now clearly know and have a process tied to how complaints will be handled, both internally and for the public. Third, know your rights section. This addition ensures residents understand their rights and responsibilities while living in a recovery residence. The fourth, transparency and purpose. We included new language to reinforce that goal of this ordinance, to protect both the community and those in recovery, while also emphasizing transparency during the process. One important point I want to highlight that is not included within this ordinance is the limit on the number of recovery residents within a given community, and here's why. Through our research, we discovered that LFUCD does not currently have a group housing ordinance on the books. In theory, this group housing ordinance could serve as an umbrella policy to limit the amount of group housing in an area. In this case, to do so without the policy, we are closely touching the question of fair housing. That broader item will remain under review for consideration and potential creation as we move forward, and I want to thank everyone who took the time to help us throughout this process, both our internal folks, internal divisions, our state partners, and especially the Oakwood neighbors and community advocates and stakeholders who provided valuable input along the way. Lastly, a special thank you to Attorney Cravens for his continued guidance and support throughout this process, and with that, I will turn it over to Attorney Cravens. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member, thank you members of the committee. I will try to be efficient with my remarks, so I may rocket through this a bit. Council Member Morton has laid a good groundwork for this, so I'll just try to touch upon sort of the big changes that you all need to be aware of from the initial draft, but both the original draft and the revised draft are in your packet, and I took pains on these slides to kind of tell you what I would tell you anyway, so I can be a little brief and rocket through this. So as Council Member Morton said, earlier this year I presented the initial ordinance, and basically the initial ordinance would be mindful of the restrictions of federal law, but would adopt the state law certification requirement locally, it would require operators to provide proof of certification to LPSG through the vehicle of a licensing scheme, and it would create an enforcement scheme and penalties for noncompliance. So in terms of the summary of the proposed changes, I'm just gonna touch on these real quick. We've added the NAR levels, NAR being the National Alliance of Recovery Residents, which is the national standard bearer for recovery residence model, and has been adopted by the Kentucky Alliance of Recovery Residences. We added their kind of concept of levels of recovery residences, primarily just to make it clear that we're all speaking the same language, we're all working from the same playbook, we're all kind of operating from the same understanding. We also added a definition of recovery support services, and that comes straight from state law. Basically, again, the rationale for this change is we're trying to make sure that what we're doing locally is using the standards and the definitions set in state law, so we want them to mirror one another, and reinforce one another. This one is one that I wanna take a moment to touch on, the forbearance language. When I presented the initial draft to you all back in April, it had kind of what I would call a six-month amnesty period, where we would defer enforcement to allow existing operators to come into compliance before any sort of enforcement action were taken against them. This clarifies that this change is actually a major improvement, so credit to the members of the council that worked on this. What we're doing, I think, in this change is making it clearer, and this also tracks, I think, the model ordinance that CAIAR uses, that if you're a recovery residence that's operating without certification, on the date that this ordinance becomes effective, you have six months to continue to operate if you provide proof that you've initiated a certification process prior to the effective date of the ordinance. If you're a new operator who starts operating after the effective date of the ordinance, you will have six months to come into compliance with the certification process via the state, or with a certified organization. And basically, what we're trying to do with this is, it's my understanding, and I'm by no means the expert on the state certification process, but it's my understanding that that certification process examines operators in practice. It's hard to examine operators in practice if you're requiring them to be compliant on day one. So by giving them six months to begin to operate, the certification process, it's my understanding, can better observe the dynamics of the operators and the recovery residences that they operate for that certification process. So I think this tracks that intent. And this kind of reinforces that in terms of, you know, we're saying, as an addition to the provision that says no person or entity shall operate as a recovery residence at any locations, blah, blah, blah, subject to section 1394C, which is the forbearance language. So we're saying, subject to the fact that they have six months to operate, provided they show us that they've begun a certification process, they shall not operate. So again, we're just trying to build in time for entities to get certified via the state. And we don't control that certification process. The state and their designee do. So we just think we want to build in a little time. I think the key word, editorial comment coming, the key word with a lot of this stuff is grace. We want to exercise grace toward people who are in recovery. We want to exercise grace toward the process that we're following. So we want to build in enough grace that people can be compliant, consistent with state law. So that's kind of where this is coming from. We do cross-reference in the ordinance as part of what we asked for in the license application. We were just referencing the occupancy limit straight from the zoning ordinance. And we're using the definition of family or housekeeping unit in the zoning ordinance for that, because that's the basis on which we say up to the limit of eight persons. We deleted the requirement for them as part of the application for the license to provide the house rules. Part of that, I'll just say, kind of common sense. I don't know if sensically is a word, but we'll just move on. What I'll say, kind of, is we don't want to create this expectation, this unfair and unreasonable expectation, that if they provide the house rules to us, we're policing their house rules. We won't be policing their house rules. We're policing the operator who is supposed to be licensed to operate the residence. So basically, there's no reason for us to get into the question of house rules, because the review of the housing standards is more a function of certification, not what we're adopting locally. As Council Member Morton mentioned, there's a rehousing component to this, where as part of their license, we want them to kind of show us, what's their transition contingency plan? Should they ever have to close, or should they have to cease operations, or even a final enforcement action? Again, it just gives us an assurance when they're applying for the license and showing us their certification, that they've thought about what it would look like if they ever had to rehouse. And so we hope that by requiring them to have put that thought in, it will minimize the adverse effects on recovery housing residents. This was a minor change to align with the needs of the Division of Revenue. Basically, we're changing that licenses will now expire on June 30th, a.k.a. the end of the fiscal year, rather than December 31st. That's just better for revenue operationally. We deleted this provision about violating two or more times as a basis for revocation, because the more you think about it, it doesn't really align with the concept of certification, because you're either certified or you're not. You're licensed or you're not. So why would we need multiple violations to revoke a license if you're not compliant? So it just seemed cleaner to just basically not have that in there. Here's a kind of a list of clarifications that we've added to the dues of a licensee section. I'm not going to read this entire slide, but essentially these changes are about strengthening the notice and posting requirements, reducing concerns about privacy and stigmatization, and that, as you'll note, we're deleting the posting of the location on our website because of a concern that we don't want to stigmatize people or subject them to harassment by publicly publishing that on our website. And we're reiterating that an operator is still required to comply with the Uniform Residential Landlord Tenant Act, which we adopted by local ordinance. In the enforcement section, we've added an other relief, or the other relief sections in there, but what we've added is a specific statement that says, essentially, we have a lot of tools in our toolbox to address different types of violations, whether it be code violations, whether it be structural housing violations, whether it be public nuisances. And so basically what we're saying here is, hey, by adopting this enforcement scheme for recovery residences, we're not saying that we're foreclosing ourselves from pursuing any other violations that may exist under the processes and the procedures that already exist for enforcing those. So we're basically just noting and acknowledging that we are still able to, to the maximum extent authorized by our code, pursue those violations. In terms of the immediate action by government section, I think the members of the committee, when I last presented this, wanted a little more clarity about what that looks like and what that means. So what we've done is we've clarified that the program coordinator for LFUSG Substance Use Disorder Intervention Program is the central coordination point where there's immediate actions necessary. And I'll remind the committee that immediate action is really for those situations where there's some imminent danger, imminent harm, some serious threat to public health or public safety, some irreparable harm. And so basically, we've added detail to the ordinance about, OK, what does that look like? And essentially, what we've added and what that looks like is LFUSG, in those hopefully rare situations, will have to triage the problem to figure out what's the immediate need, what are the things that we need to do right now to address the need. And so by designating at least a central point of contact to coordinate with everybody else, we can all kind of work together to figure it out. I can't tell you today, as I stand here, what those outcomes look like. I can just tell you that we've got a plan for how we're going to think it through, should we need to, and take action to resolve the immediate need. Finally, we've added a rehousing section that basically, as I mentioned earlier, we've made them with their license application tell us what their contingency plan is. We've added an actual ordinance section that says they have to give not less than 60 days advance notice and execute the transition plan that they previously provided us in draft form. And if they fail to do so, they're subject to additional enforcement action. And in terms of the actual immediate need of rehousing, our substance use disorder intervention program will work with the cabinet or its designee, who currently CHI are, to kind of help those residents identify and secure alternative housing. Again, that kind of just answers the question of, should things really go sideways and something really bad happen, how will the needs of the residents in these recovery residences continue to be met? Finally, I just wanted to, and this is maybe personal license on my part, I wanted to have a slide and I wanted to just briefly talk about setting expectations because I'll step back from the presentation a bit and say this, and maybe I shouldn't say this, but you get what you get if you invite me to the party. I was at the listening session or public forum where people came and shared their concerns. And what I heard, to distill it down to its most basic form, was I heard two things. On one side, I heard from people who said, this model helped me, this model saved my life, this model is something that I want to support. On the other end of the spectrum, what I heard was what I could probably, the best word I could use would be anxiety. A certain amount of anxiety about we don't feel comfortable that we understand that there are guardrails in place, or that there are remedies, and we don't really know what this means for our neighborhood. So what I think the revised draft ordinance tries to do on some level is address the anxieties while preserving the model. And the revised ordinance is not a one size fits all solution. We're not doing this ordinance to address any and all conceivable problem that may emerge with a recovered residence. If there's a code problem, there's a code process. If there's a public nuisance issue, there's a public nuisance process. What we're trying to do with this ordinance, to be clear, is basically adopt the local requirement of certification locally here, and put in place a framework that we can ensure that certification is followed through. That's really what this is. It's intended to kind of let us have a structure so that the assurance we can give to address those anxieties is to say certification is a standard, that the state requires all recovery residence operators to meet. So not only do they have to meet the state law requirement, but we locally have acted to give ourselves a framework, a structure, and procedures and processes to ensure that that recovery residence certification and the standards accompanying that are met. So again, I can't stand here and tell you this will solve every horror story that might ever tangentially connect with recovered residence. I think this is a good start at trying to get our hands around this. And the other comment I will make with my one minute left is, recovered residences are residential use of property. I know that there's a sentiment out there that this is commercial use of property, and it should only be in commercial zones and that sort of thing. But I'm telling you, in my legal opinion, recovered residences are a residential use of property. It's not a commercial use. And so what we undertake to do as a government should not treat recovered residences differently than other residential uses from a land use perspective. So with all that being said, that's a summary of the changes, that's the bottom line from my perspective, and I'm happy to take questions. Thank you very much. Council Member Morton. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. And you spoke about it a little bit earlier. So during our work group research, we learned that LFUCD does not have a group housing regulations. In your opinion, does the absence of a group housing or umbrella policy make it legally complicated to regulate the density of recovery residence in a specific area? In my legal opinion, it does. Because here's where you get in trouble. If you ask me, if you tell me that you want to draw a line that says the use of property as a recovery residence is subject to, for example, a spacing requirement that other residential uses aren't subject to, I'm going to say, my question to you is going to be, why are we drawing that line? And if the only answer that it appears is because of the recovery residence use of the property, that's not going to pass Fair Housing Act or ADA scrutiny. You would have to try to regulate this from a land use perspective. And I've tried to not go down this road because it's a heavy lift and doesn't meet the immediate concern. But you almost have to reimagine your entire zoning ordinance to basically regulate all types of group housing in a way that was neutral and fair and even-handed, so that you weren't relying on, we're going to treat this use differently because it's a recovery residence than we treat other residential uses. It would almost be like you'd have to draw lines about all the types of group housing that might exist and use that as your basis. And that's going to be a pretty significant lift. So I think what I was trying to respond to was the immediate need of, we know that there's now a state law that requires certification. We know that state resources are somewhat limited to follow through on enforcement with that in a robust way. So let's put something on the books locally that gives us the ability to do that. OK, thank you. So for short, that could lead us to a lawsuit, basically, is what you're saying? I guess what I would say is I would need to be able to point to a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason why we drew the line where we drew it. And if the only thing that we have, or the only thing that we're drawing that line based on, is the use of a property as for a recovery residence, that's a harder argument for me to make. And I think you emphasized this, but while recovery residents are protected under federal fair housing law, they are still required to comply with all existing LFUCG policies, including zoning, building code, public nuisance, or criminal activity ordinances. Can you confirm that these existing regulations do apply to recovery residences, and that the city will enforce and will be currently available to address community concerns in these areas if they take place? Yes. I think recovery residences, like any residence, would be subject to all the laws on the books. And so if there's a law on the books that limits code violations, and recovery residences is a violation of the code, we would pursue that. Thank you, thank you. In our council draft ordinance, we cross-reference existing policy highlighting the number of unrelated individuals allowed in residential households for ADA cases. When this ordinance is adopted, it is likely that some bad actors will look for loopholes. For example, those who previously identified as recovery residents may now claim to be just housing. In this case, would our existing local policy limiting no more than four unrelated individuals in a single household still apply and be enforceable? The occupancy limits in the zoning ordinance would still apply. Yes. So in terms of the enforceability, it's going to be a case-by-case determination based on the evidence and facts presented as to how strong an enforcement action will be. Thank you. And just also to confirm, those who decide that they are not recovery residents are still required to comply with all existing LFUCG policies, including zoning, building codes, public nuisance, or criminal activities under the ordinance. Correct. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Baxter. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Morton, for all your work on this. I know it's been a lot for you, so I appreciate it. Michael, I just have a few clarifications. So the forbearance language that we talked about, so they have six months from the date that we passed the ordinance, correct? And so what if they prove that they're in the state certification process, but that process, just because we're adding this, it's adding workload to them. What if that process takes longer than the six months? Then what does a person do? Well, if revenue, who's going to be kind of enforcing arm on this, comes to me and says, hey, it's been six months, but they've produced documentation as of yesterday that says their certification process is still ongoing, I'm going to tell revenue we probably should hold off a little longer before we try to do something like enforceable on that. OK, thank you. I just wanted to make sure, because I know that that could be, with the caseload increase, it could take a little longer. The, I'm trying to figure out how I want to state this. So we added the language that said defining recovery support services. So it says directed primarily towards recovery from substance use disorders. Why did we not say only? Or why did we say primarily? Does that leave it open for interpretation? And the reason that I ask is because I have a situation in my district that a home is operating under the guise of a sober recovery residential program, and that is not what they're doing. I think what I would say is, I think the reason we use the word primarily is because that's how the state statute defines it, with that word. So it's kind of a statutory interpretation issue as far as what does the state law treat as recovery support services. And I think what I'm always trying to do is, on something like this, make sure that the state law and the local law align and reinforce one another, rather than one seeming like it's inconsistent with the other and setting up the question of which applies and how. OK, so to be abundantly clear, for a home to operate as a recovery residence, they have to be providing some type of recovery towards a substance use disorder, period. Bottom line, nothing else. Yes. OK. And then I am assuming that, with most other regulations and code enforcement and zoning, all the things, this is complaint-driven only, correct? It will, I suspect, as far as the enforcement piece, it will be complaint-driven. OK. And then I write notes, and then I don't know what I wrote them for. OK. I think that's all that I have for right now. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Cravens, for your hard work on this. Thank you, Council Member Morton and my other colleagues on this working group. Whenever we tackle things that have never been regulated before, we're always trying to kind of get to the best place possible and kind of weigh all the competing and legitimate concerns from usually two sides of an issue, but sometimes more than that. I think of things like accessory dwelling units, things like short-term rentals. The product that we're going to come up with ultimately here is never going to be perfect. Not everybody is always going to be happy with it. But the beauty of our process is we do take a lot of time. We do take a lot of public input and bring in all these concerns to kind of create this product. And ultimately, once it's passed, we let it run and we see what happens and we see what parts of this legislation or this regulation is working and is not working, and we can always go back and tweak it and make it better as we experience it. So I just want folks to realize that whenever we pass this sort of legislation or policy, it is not the last step. It's usually the first step in some of this. So there will be other opportunities to weigh in. There will be other opportunities to make all of these processes better. But we're on our way, and I really do appreciate the work of all my colleagues on this. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Savigny. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me, even though I'm not a member of this committee, and I appreciate your presentation. I just, I do have kind of a further question because I just want to understand what comes up mostly in my district is this, that the occupancy limit of a person's consistence with a family or housekeeping unit that you've talked about, and then the other place in the residential code where it says four unrelated people. Could you just explain that a little bit better for me, the difference between those two? And like, can, is it either or, or is it, so if somebody, if I had a neighbor that wanted to complain, would they be complaining because there's not four related people, there's more than four people? The, what I can say is this. The eight number in the zoning ordinance, as it, as family or housekeeping unit is defined, ties back directly to disabled status. And so we have advised using the eight number for this use of property because recovery residents, with a T, are protected by both the American Disability Act and the Fair Housing Act as individuals in substance abuse recovery. So because the eight limit is tied to disabled status, for lack of a better word, that's where that comes in for this use as opposed to other types of residential uses. Okay, thank you, I understand now. Thank you so much, thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. When we were dealing with the short-term rentals, we put a limit on where they could be in 600 feet between another, do we, I think one of the big issues that neighbors are having is if it's getting oversaturated in an area, do we have any control over that, or is that because of the federal law that dictates that? Your only option to try to treat this from a land-use perspective would be to try to treat all group housing from a land-use perspective and do it in a fair and even-handed way. I think that what I'm trying to, in a bottom-line way to say to you, is if you're telling me we want to put a spacing limit because it's a recovery residence, my answer is going to be, well, people who live in recovery residences are protected by the Fair Housing Act and the American Disabilities Act, and so I don't know that that basis for drawing the line is defensible under the Fair Housing Act and the American, you'd have to draw the lines in a much more generally applicable way and figure out what each type of group home is appropriate. And so in terms of what we're doing here, which is trying to undertake to regulate specifically recovery residences, I'm going to counsel you against drawing a line that says spacing requirements only for recovery residences and not for other types of group housing. Because I think you're treading into a Fair Housing Act ADA issue if the only, because what somebody who brought a lawsuit would say is the only reason you drew that line is because of who lives there. And who lives there? Persons protected by the American Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Act. So therefore, you discriminated in drawing that line there. So you would have to figure out, you'd almost have to rework your entire zoning ordinance to figure out how to regulate group housing uses generally and then figure out how to fit this into that somehow. Thank you. And if it's a sober living, do we have any qualifications that require, that show that it is a sober house on that there's no alcohol or anything like that? Well, they're gonna have to be certified by the state and they're gonna have to have a license from us. The way I envision this playing out would be revenue gets a complaint from somebody that says, hey, the property next door is a recovery residence and they are not compliant. And then revenue would have to investigate to determine in collaboration with the state and CHI-R and whatever resources we could, whether or not that was a recovery residence or not, that's either been certified by the state or not or licensed by us or not. And if not, then we would pursue enforcement. Could you go through that complaint process, how that works? Because that will go through the state, correct? Not the city. Well, a complaint more likely than not would come to us that, hey, there's a recovery residence next door and it's doing X. And so a lot's gonna depend on what the X is. If the X is a code violation of tall grass or accumulation of trash or whatever, that may be a code issue. If it's a public nuisance, that may be a police issue. If it's a, like, if it's truly a, hey, there's something like a party going on, then I think revenue would look at that and they would have to determine is this a recovery residence or not? And if we have a reason to believe it is and it's not compliant, we have a process. Thank you. And in the ordinance, is it the second one? Is that when they would lose their license? So they have basically one strike and the second strike, then you would? Well, they would lose their license if they're not compliant and fail to come into compliance. So like under an enforcement practice, generally we would notify them that they're in violation and give them an opportunity to come into compliance. If they fail to come into compliance, then enforcement would escalate. Well, say there was a party there or something and that was the complaint and then they had another one. That would lose their license in that one, in that situation? Well, it depends on, we'd have to determine that the party was a violation of something. Okay. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Schan. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for recognizing me because I'm not on this committee. I just wanted to comment on the complaint process because this was something that I looked into and I met with Kaia to talk a little bit more about this as well, who's one of the certifying agencies. Not everything on compliance with a certification is complaint driven because any certified or any certified residence actually also has an annual inspection. So then Kaia will actually be doing that inspection and then determining whether their certification continues. So there is a piece there that isn't complaint driven, that's a regular review of that recovery residence. And then in your packet, you have a one pager that we created that outlines the different channels for filing concerns or complaints. There is a grievance policy that is very structured that is associated with the certification process that governs a lot of the things that we're talking about in addition to our own local ordinances. So anyone can file a grievance to have that be reviewed by Kaia, and with Kaia's certified recovery residences, they then actually work with that particular recovery residence to make an action plan for addressing the concern that was raised or the violation that they saw in the certification. And then that recovery residence has to implement that action plan and then report back to Kaia. So there are not only site visits but a regular review. And then that is in addition to when people have an immediate safety concern and they can call 911 or they have a non-emergency safety concern and they can call our non-emergency LPD number or 311 for code enforcement or if there's a waste management issue. All of the regular channels that we have for our regular ordinances that apply to all residences. So there are different channels that people can use to get their concerns addressed. Thank you. Thank you. Just briefly, I wanted to mention that for the public that this issue and this ordinance was very complicated and is not as straightforward as we might have thought when we first took this on. But I want to really commend my colleagues for their really hard work on this. And I want to assure the public that we did everything that we could to put regulations in place for complaints and for different facets, different areas of the ordinance to try to be able to hold people accountable for what types of services that they're offering. And that we are bound by a lot of laws that prohibit us from making stricter, I guess, regulations. And I just wanted to express that because I know we heard a lot of concerns from people and I just wanted them to know that we tried to address them as much as we're able within the law. So thank you. Thank you. And I just had one more quick question. Well, I guess one clarification and a quick question, and I'll do it quickly. So when we're talking about those complaints, even with our internal complaints, when we designated that point of contact, those complaints internal are going to Cuyahoga, correct? I would say it depends on the complaint, but I think we're gonna lean on Cuyahoga as much as we can. I would experience that. And that's definitely something we talked about in the working group, is making sure that not only do the public complaint go through that grievance process, understanding that the grievance process comes from Cuyahoga, they're tasked with inspecting and coming up with an action plan to fix it. But if internal complaints come to the city, so whether it be code, public nuisance, et cetera, that that is also shared with Cuyahoga for their records and for action plan if needed. But going to this question, the ordinance includes a six month grace period to allow operators time to become certified and to obtain their license before enforcement actions begin. To confirm, this six month timeline would not start until after the ordinance is officially adopted, correct? It would start on the effective date of the ordinance as to anybody currently operating. Now, the six month clarification we made for new operators would be six months from when they begin operating. So if somebody starts operating in July of 2026, they would have six months to operate while getting certified, provided they provide us evidence that they are in the process of getting certified. Right, but as of right now, if the, I guess the ordinance that's presented as of today is not adopted, we're still in the same limbo that we've been in, correct? Yeah. And to me, it's important that we move this policy forward so the six month grace period begin. The sooner the ordinance is adopted, the sooner operators can start the licensing process and the sooner we can begin holding those who choose not to comply accountable. Moving this forward today allows us to start the clock and take meaningful steps for stronger oversight and community protection. So in closing, I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who played a role in shaping this policy, the council members that worked tirelessly with me on this initiative, and the community folks for stepping up and being engaged weekly, CAIAR, everyone that helped, Mr. Cravens, everyone that helped us get to where we are. This process is a true example of how policy creation should take place. Intentionally, methodically, and with community input at the center, all done in good faith. While this ordinance may not address every single concern or complaint, I believe it represents a strong and thoughtful start. Most importantly, it establishes a clear framework and timeline that would allow us to begin requiring licensing, taking action where necessary. We recognize that this policy will likely need to be revisited after the initial implementation period once operators are required to be licensed and we have a real world feedback of what we're dealing with. We also plan to conduct annual review, giving us the opportunity to make adjustments as needed. Likewise, if other related policies or enforcement mechanisms prove ineffective, we will have the chance to strengthen them moving forward as well. So lastly, I want to acknowledge that this issue, the issue of density tied to group housing remains an important topic of discussion. This matter will stay under review for further consideration and potential policy development as we continue this work. So with that, I believe it's important that we move this ordinance forward. And I'll make a motion to send the council draft version to the full council, so moved. Second. There was a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Okay, seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. That motion passes. Do you have another motion, council member? I do, and then lastly, I would like to make a motion to report this out to the work session for October 21st, 2025 so that it can be adopted before the end of the calendar year. So moved. There's a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you, colleagues. Does anybody have anything quickly that they would like to remove from committee or comment on? You may have heard from Kendra or my office. We are trying to put the agenda together for next year on these items. Does anybody have anything? Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. I move to remove item number eight. That's court-appointed special advocates CASA update. So moved. Second. A motion and a second. All those in favor? Anyone opposed? That motion carries. Thank you for a very full meeting. We are adjourned. Thank you very much. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪