# Social Services & Public Safety (SSPS) Committee - January 13, 2026 > Auto-transcribed civic record · January 13, 2026 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6655 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6655?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2026-01-13 - **Last revised**: January 13, 2026 - **Length**: 10,934 words - **Speakers**: Chair > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. 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 (SSPS) Committee met on January 13, 2026, at 1:00 P.M. at the Urban County Planning Commission, Planning Services Division, located at 200 East Main St., Lexington, KY, with Jennifer Reynolds presiding. The committee addressed four agenda items spanning both action items and informational presentations. Two votes were taken during the meeting, resulting in the approval of the Committee Summary and new Carbon Monoxide Detection Requirements. The committee also received two informational briefings — one on Street Outreach Services and Homeless Encampment Response, and one providing an update on the Audrey Grevious Center — with no public comments heard during the session. ## Attendance **Meeting Date:** January 13, 2026 **Present (10):** - Jennifer Reynolds - Dan Wu - Chuck Ellinger II - Tyler Morton - Shayla Lynch - Lisa Higgins-Hord - Joseph Hale - Amy Beasley - Whitney Elliott Baxter - Hilary Boone **Absent:** None **Late:** None All 10 members were present for the meeting. No absences or late arrivals were recorded. ## Votes and Decisions Two votes were taken during the meeting, both passing unanimously with 10 ayes and 0 nays. - **Approval of the October 14, 2025 Committee Summary** [timestamp: 0:02]: Motioned by Chuck Ellinger II and seconded by Whitney Elliott Baxter, the committee voted to approve the summary from its previous meeting. The motion passed unanimously, 10–0. All members voted in favor: Jennifer Reynolds, Dan Wu, Chuck Ellinger II, Tyler Morton, Shayla Lynch, Lisa Higgins-Hord, Joseph Hale, Amy Beasley, Whitney Elliott Baxter, and Hilary Boone. - **Move Carbon Monoxide Detection Ordinances to Full Council** [timestamp: 34:00]: The committee voted to advance the Carbon Monoxide Detection Ordinances to the full council for consideration. The motion passed unanimously, 10–0. All members voted in favor: Jennifer Reynolds, Dan Wu, Chuck Ellinger II, Tyler Morton, Shayla Lynch, Lisa Higgins-Hord, Joseph Hale, Amy Beasley, Whitney Elliott Baxter, and Hilary Boone. No motion maker or seconder was recorded for this vote. ## Approval of Social Services & Public Safety Committee Summary **Resolution 0349-25** [timestamp: 02:02] The body took up Resolution 0349-25, concerning the approval of the Social Services & Public Safety Committee summary from its October 14, 2025 meeting. - **Speaker:** Jennifer Reynolds presented or addressed this agenda item. - **Outcome:** The summary was **approved**. No additional concerns, debate, or discussion details are reflected in the available record for this item. ## Carbon Monoxide Detection Requirements **Ordinance 0034-26** | [timestamp: 02:33] The meeting took out time to address Ordinance 0034-26, concerning carbon monoxide detection requirements for older buildings. The discussion centered on the need to mandate carbon monoxide detectors in buildings constructed before 2011, a category of structures not previously subject to such requirements. Key speakers on this item included **Jennifer Reynolds** and **Jeff Johnson**. The ordinance was brought forward in the wake of a tragic incident in the district, which highlighted the safety risks posed by the absence of carbon monoxide detection in older building stock. The measure aims to close the gap between newer construction — which already carries detector requirements — and pre-2011 buildings that may lack this critical safety equipment. The ordinance was ultimately **approved**. ## Street Outreach Services and Homeless Encampment Response **Agenda Item 0203-25** | [timestamp: 34:32] Jeff Herron delivered a presentation providing an update on street outreach services and the city's response to homeless encampments. The presentation covered the current state of outreach programs, highlighting both the successes achieved by existing efforts and the need for expanded services to meet ongoing demand. Herron's update noted that current programs have demonstrated measurable success, while also underscoring that additional resources and capacity would be necessary to more fully address street homelessness and encampment response across the area. The item was informational in nature, and no formal vote or action was taken as a result of the presentation. *Note: Additional details regarding specific program metrics, funding figures, concerns raised by members, or further discussion points were not available in the source materials for this agenda item.* ## Audrey Grevious Center Update [timestamp: 53:03] **Agenda Item 0035-26** Felicia Lindsay delivered a presentation providing an update on the Audrey Grevious Center, focusing on the educational and therapeutic services the center offers to court-involved youth and highlighting the program's overall success. Lindsay's presentation covered the range of services available through the center, which serves young people who are involved in the court system. The update addressed both the educational programming and therapeutic support components that form the core of the center's work with this population. The outcome of this agenda item was informational, with no action taken or vote recorded. No additional speakers or concerns are noted from the available record of this discussion. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Approval of October 14, 2025 Committee Summary - **Motion** — passed (10-0): Move Carbon Monoxide Detection Ordinances to full council --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. Good morning everybody. Welcome back. Happy New Year. It's good to see everybody today. It is 1 o'clock, and I would like to officially call the January 13, 2026 meeting of the Social Services and Public Safety Committee to order. Thank you, everyone, for being here. Our first item on the agenda is the approval of the October 14, 2025 committee summary. Are there any additions or corrections? Motion to approve. Second. There is a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? I heard some extra ayes. All those opposed? Okay. That motion passes. Next is a presentation on carbon monoxide detection requirements. I placed this item in committee after a terrible incident in my district that took place the first week of July of this past year. I woke up to a message that there had been multiple casualties in my district and found out there was one fatality and 11 others were sent to the hospital for carbon monoxide poisoning. This event was devastating to me and to my community. A carbon monoxide detector could have saved a life and prevented the illness of many and the displacement of a lot of tenants. There was a problem with a pipe that had not been fixed, and the leak caused the poisoning. The gas was going into each apartment. This apartment complex was built before 2011, and there had been no requirement for carbon monoxide detectors. When I thought what in the world I could do to respond to this tragedy, I thought it was a good time to review our regulations and determine whether any changes could be made to the carbon monoxide detection requirements. So I formed a group and met with fire, public safety, code enforcement, housing, and law to see what else could be done. This presentation is a culmination of that work. And I will ask Chief Johnson, who is Lexington's fire marshal, to come and give the presentation at this time. Thank you, Chief. Thank you and good afternoon. I'm Battalion Chief Jeff Johnson, as Councilmember said. And it's an honor to be before you today. And our goal in this proposal is to recommend the passage of an ordinance that will enhance carbon monoxide protection in Fayette County. So I want to thank you for your time today. On the next slide, we list members that were on the work group. And members of the work group came from multiple areas of city government. Am I responsible for moving this? Okay. There you go. We were represented by city council, code enforcement, commissioners, the fire department, and law as well. And so I want to thank all of these members, many of them that are here that worked over the holidays to help put this together for us. today. So let me begin with just giving just a little bit of background, a little bit of history regarding carbon monoxide poisons and some statistics. Carbon monoxide has been recognized as a life safety hazard for many, many years. This isn't something that's brand new. You see on the slide there, these are from 2025 statistics, over 400 deaths. Last year, over 100,000 ER visits. And many of these incidents are underreported because they present as other issues, like cardiac arrest, these kinds of things. That's our own experience even in Lexington. Last year, we had 30 reported cases and only one fatality. But we have, across the country, many other things that go massed. Even it was interesting that last week on January 7th of this year, Ray Perry, who's Secretary of the Public Protection Cabinet, announced a new statewide initiative focusing on carbon monoxide safety, including proactive inspections of aging buildings. And so I appreciate kind of a whole statewide effort in looking more closely at carbon monoxide and its dangers. When you think about the things that produce carbon monoxide, I'll give you a little science class here for a second. It's anything that doesn't burn fuel completely. You see some of the things there, furnaces, stoves, it would be fuel burning like gas type hot water heaters, attached garages that have cars in them, generators, those kinds of things. And carbon monoxide is produced by incomplete combustion. And incomplete combustion occurs when there's not enough oxygen to allow the fuel to react completely. Just like our cars, they don't burn their fuel completely. And so if you start your car in a garage with the garage door down, it's going to fill up with CO very quickly and be a very dangerous situation. So these are the things that create those kinds of dangers. I wanted to put one other slide that went into a little bit more detail about some statistics without reading every single line and let you kind of read through these. But I did want to point out a couple of things regarding these statistics. Current statistics not only reveal deaths and emergency room visits, but they also reveal some of the most vulnerable populations to carbon monoxide. children, pregnant women, the elderly, particularly those in low-income areas, tend to live in older buildings that were built prior to carbon monoxide detection being required by code. And some of these buildings aren't kept up as well as they could be, and so it's kind of the perfect mix for all of this danger. But the good news, by the last point there, is that simple preventative measures, such as the presence of a working carbon monoxide alarm, have proven to be very effective in reducing carbon monoxide exposure. As a matter of fact, it's current code right now for these kinds of things. So let me, I don't want to bore you with code talk, but understanding code a little bit is probably pretty important here. And it'll maybe go to answer some of the questions that you might have later on. When I first became the fire marshal, one of the very first things I was taught was the answer to every question somebody's going to ask you about anything regarding fire safety is, it depends. And it really does. There's just so many pieces to the puzzle. How big is this thing? What kind of things are present there? What's the occupant level? Those kinds of things. And so to be crystal clear, since 2011, the building codes, and you have a copy of a couple of things that I'll refer to in front of you. One is, the very first of it is Section 915, Carbon Monoxide Detection, which comes from the International Building Code. And then there's one other sheet that talks about R315 that comes from the Residential Code. And I'll bring those up in just a little bit. But for a little bit of a history class, since 2011, building codes have required carbon monoxide detection in all new construction and remodels. So buildings that are required to have it in the code that have been built since 2011, if they still have them working in there, have carbon monoxide protection. But today, there's a gap which we're hoping to fill with these ordinance changes, and that is existing structures built before 2011. The state itself puts together a code that is adopted, and then the city adopts those codes as well by KRS. and the current code that we are actually operating under right now, the current building code is from 2015. It's 10 years old. The state has been in the process for about a year, a year and a half of reviewing the 2024 International Building Code. Our fingers are crossed that this year they will pass that. What happens is, as you can imagine in legislation, a lot of people get involved, people in the building community, people in the housing community, and there's wrestling back and forth. Do we want this in it? Do we want that in it? So it takes time. Sometimes they pull things out of it. Sometimes they add things to it. But the current code that we have does not have a mandate for carbon monoxide protection in the structures that would need it prior to 2011. And so what we're trying to accomplish in these ordinances is filling that gap. There is one code, though, that we use quite often as a side code to the International Building Code, a sister code, if you will. It's called the International Fire Code. The state has kind of cherry-picked certain pieces out of it that they wanted to use, and they didn't adopt it as a whole. But on the back of one of the sheets that I gave you highlighted 2024 International Fire Code. The International Fire Code in Section 11039 does include carbon monoxide detection for existing structures. And so our goal is to adopt that section for the city of Lexington. And so this is what we're really after. I wanted to kind of break down. There's two ordinances in the packet before you. One kind of goes along with the fire prevention section in the ordinance, section nine. And one goes along with the city code enforcement section of the ordinances. And so for clarity, in my role as fire marshal, although we have jurisdiction over everything in the city, generally speaking, the fire marshal's authority is for commercial structures. We certainly respond to single and two-family dwellings, but it's generally if they're on fire or there's some kind of emergency. You see, we do enforce certain things around single and two-family dwellings, like your fire pit in your backyard and things like that. But for the most part, we don't inspect single and two-family dwellings. We inspect, we have on a regular basis, inspect commercial structures. So one will address what we do in Section 9, and then the second one will address single and two-family dwellings for code enforcement. And I've got our code enforcement experts that can be here to help me with some of those questions. They're going to be much more versed in that. So I put the slide together to try to answer for you the what, the where, the why. What are we asking? We're asking for a requirement for carbon monoxide detection to be in existing structures according to IFC section 1103.9. That's right in front of you. And I put this little sentence in there. CO alarms in existing structures built before 2011 are permitted to have solely battery operated. That's important because they're relatively cheap. I went and bought one today for $23 at Home Depot. They can be battery operated. When you have to cut drywall, there's a whole lot more to that. And so the IFC allows them to be placed in a much cheaper way and a much easier way. So where? Where do we want it? We want it where the International Fire Code requires it. I think this is an important note in what the committee did. We did not try to reinvent the wheel and write a brand new code and to try to tell you where it should be and what should be. We thought that code already exists. Let's not rewrite the wheel, you know, reinvent the wheel. Let's just adopt the code that's already there. And the current code requires in commercial structures, carbon monoxide detection in these places, Industrial 1, Industrial 2, Industrial 4, in R's, which are residential occupancies, and in classrooms in Group E. So I've given you a couple of examples of what those are in our world, assisted living facilities with medical aid, hospitals, daycare facilities, which, by the way, the state generally inspects the eyes. All ours for us, so for the fire department, ours are going to be commercial structures. So they're going to be apartments, hotels, boarding houses, sober living places. These are the places that we're going to inspect. And then schools as well. those are the occupancies that the International Fire Code is going to require carbon monoxide protection. So why would the above occupancies need it? They're only going to need it if the following is present. Fuel burning appliances is right out of the code. Fuel burning fireplaces, forced air furnaces or attached private garages, just like I mentioned the reason before. If none of the above are present, if it's an all-electric facility, if they don't have anything that's fuel-inducing or burning, then there is no requirement for CO protection. And then enforcement would be spelled out in Section 9, just like we currently do. So for those of you that might not understand the whole, and I know there's been some questions about enforcement. How is this going to work and who's going to enforce it? But generally speaking, in Section 9 gives us, we generally, when we do our inspections and we find some kind of failure of some sort, an exit light isn't lit, exit ways are blocked, overcrowding, things like that. We give them what we call a remedy of order, ordered a remedy. And we basically say, hey, we've inspected your property. We found this issue. and depending on how hard it is to fix if it's just a battery and exercise we'll give them a week to do it if it's something that man they're going to have to get a builder in here and fix something we might give them a little bit more time but generally speaking that's all that's required if they don't respond to that then we give them basically a strike two which is a fire marshal's order and we say okay we're serious this needs to be fixed you know by this time. If they do not do that, then Section 9 of the Code of Ordinance, particularly in public places, gives us the authority to basically lock the building down and not allow the public in there until it's fixed. The very rare thing that actually happened last fall here in Lexington, there was a business in town that had a legal assembly space in the back that came on the police's radar and we went and inspected it. People were living in the business. They were doing, you know, so we went and gave them all that they never fixed anything. And so we actually locked it down until they fixed everything. That's how enforcement would go with the fire department. And I will say in the six years that I've been the fire marshal, I think that's maybe the second building that I've ever put a clothes boiler or the fire chief sign on until they fixed it. For the code enforcement side, and if I say anything that's not right, please correct me. You're not going to embarrass me, Director. We want to make sure we give this committee correct information. What we're asking, we're requiring the carbon monoxide detection in existing residential structures, according to the same code that I have for you there, and then dwellings covered by the International Residential Code shall be installed according to section R315, which is in front of you, of that code. Where do we want it? We want it in the exact same places that the fire code and the residential code requires it. Carbon monoxide detection should be in the, if there's presence of fuel burning appliances, fuel burning fireplaces, the exact same things I mentioned above. And again, if this single two family dwelling does not have anything there present, then it's not going to be required. And then lastly, enforcement on this end. I think the code enforcement has a different... We put all of our stuff on a regular calendar rotation. So we're going to rotate and inspect hotels and apartment complexes, things like that, commercial properties on a regular basis. Code enforcement acts more on a invited... You know, they're invited in by a homeowner or somebody's leasing a property from somebody and they've got some complaints about it. They might invite them in. Those kinds of things. They're complaint driven and are called into those things. They do help us with commercial structures as well. We've had some commercial structures that they have helped us with. But for the most part, that's how I understand they operate. and they have a fine structure that's in any other thing that they would find, like smoke alarms, the same structure that they have for smoke alarms, they would use for CO alarms as well. Excuse me, Chief. We are at 15 minutes. Do you need another minute or two, or are you good? I'm ready for questions. You're good for questions. Okay. Colleagues, once again, I want to thank everybody that worked on the committee. A few of the public safety members couldn't be here because they had another meeting, but I want to thank everyone. I know it was a team effort. I also wanted to mention that this ordinance was run by Commissioner Fuller at the state level for housing, building, and construction, and he gave us feedback. We made those changes so we could be in agreement. I wanted everyone to know that as well. I will entertain questions from colleagues at this time. Council Member Beasley. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for this presentation. I just have a few questions just because I don't know what I don't know. My first question is when we're talking about the commercial buildings that we're putting these in, it's just like the hotels. Are we putting these in grocery stores and department stores as well, or just in where folks are living? Just where the code requires it. So the code that we place in front of you, the International Fire Code, in conjunction with the IBC only requires it in I1s, I2s, I4s, R's and E's. So if it's a business, if it's a dentist office, it's not going to be required. It's only required where the code requires it. And do they know like do the people who own the daycares or whatever, do they know where they're supposed to place them? Well, I can't answer for every single business owner, but if they approached us, then we would certainly help them. The code does describe certain places that it can be placed around sleeping areas or if you're on if you have a multiple you know floor it does give direction of where they want it to be placed but we're here to help them determine the best place to put those okay and then i just have one more and it's really about um so what so so let's say that that i'm a homeowner okay and i don't put a carbon monoxide detector in my house and I'm not calling code enforcement to tell on myself and then someone living in my home dies because of carbon monoxide poisoning. What happens to me then? How am I held accountable for that death because I didn't do what I was supposed to do? Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know the legality or can anywhere speak to the legality of it. I know we had discussed insurance, that it could be a liability that your insurance might not pay for something because you were not following the law. That's the only thing that I know we have discussed. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you. And I will add, since you brought this up, one probably important thing to note. I know many people know that the fire department does have a smoke alarm program that is funded a little bit by budget. We ask for a budget for it, but it's also funded heavily by grants as well. And we carry those on our trucks, on most of the trucks that we have out there. So if we come to your house, made a run there, and notice that there wasn't a smoke alarm or such, that we would place one in there. We don't have a ton of them, but we do have CO alarms as well. And so in that situation, if, say, we made a run to your house before somebody dies and we noticed that there wasn't something there, we could certainly place those in there. But we only have those as much as funding allows. But we do have that program in place. Council Member Hale. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chief. You're welcome. You kind of answered my question. I was going to ask you about the smoke alarm program that we have. And if this ordinance does pass, how could we incorporate the carbon monoxide detectors along with that? And if not or if so, will we get the funding to be able to, or will you all be coming back to get funding to help that program as well? I'm sure we would. I mean, we obviously want to help everybody. I know currently, and just let me make sure, because I want to make sure I give you accurate information, because I'm speaking for multiple divisions, you know, in our department. We currently provide one CO alarm when requested for a single-family home up to a fourplex. So currently, if there's an apartment complex that doesn't have them, we tell the owners, look, you're responsible. I mean, really, if they own the property, they're responsible for doing that. I think our heart towards our community is we want our community protected whether the people that rented them are protecting them or not. And so I think that's why we do everything we possibly can. And for sure, I think so far, I know this for a fact, we have supplied smoke alarms and seal alarms as our budget and grant has allowed. and to date we've been able to fulfill every request that's been asked. Now, we probably haven't had a ton of requests for CO alarms, and if we got a ton of requests for CO alarms, it would make sense that we would want to boost our income for that and any kind of fundraisers or whatever that we could do. But I think we're committed to do what we can with what we have. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for presenting this to us. We added, actually, I own a short-term rental in the process of registering. You have to have one in your short-term rental. What we're going to require now is before 2011. That's what we're looking at right now. Correct. Everything built since then should already have it. And that's the code right now. So anything prior to that, we're trying to fill that gap. Is that in, you're referring to Section 9, that it's going to be in all those areas? Is that the ones you're talking about? Or is it also in single and two-family dwellings have it also? Yes. So the two ordinances you have, the Section 9 is going to be in the fire prevention side. And the code enforcement PM705 will be in the code enforcement side, which will speak to single and two-family. Do you have any kind of numbers on what percentage of homeowners presently have carbon monoxide that most everybody have them? Or is this something that we need to call Home Depot and others and say we better order some because we're going to have to make sure we have plenty of these because we're going to have a lot of people that are going to go need and get this done? So I don't have any raw data, obviously. I don't know if code enforcement has any raw data from that. I would, just being prudent, if it's been required since 2011, and so that's how many years ago, you know, long enough for a battery not to work anymore. So I would assume anything built since then should have them working. If you X out, have whatever percentage that you have. I'm just talking about the ones prior, because after 2011 it is, but before, we're kind of adding that in, so everybody now. Right. So from my experience of I'm not on a truck anymore, but when I was on a truck, from my personal experience, there was less people that had it than have it. And that's kind of where I'm getting at. And I think with what happened here in Councilmember Reynolds' district, it brought attention to a lot of people. And I'm sure more people have done it, but I still think that there's others out there that don't have it at this point. Now, you keep mentioning the battery. I know there's the battery and also plug-in. Is the battery, can you use either one or those both acceptable? You can. I'm just using battery to speak to the expense and or challenge of putting one in or whatever. I think to code, a lot of times they leave buildings that were built a long time ago and alone because of the cost and the labor it takes to bring something, like adding a sprinkler system, right? Right, to do a whole system. So I think we're using the battery as a kind of a marketing thing to, hey, this is easy. You know what I mean? We're not asking for something expensive or something hard. Right. We're not asking for a whole new system. We just want to have something that they... Correct. But you're right. It doesn't have to be battery. It can be plug-in. I mean, they can put a wired system in if they want, right? Sure, sure. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Morton. Thank you. Honestly, I just want to say thank you. protecting the safety and well-being of our community should always remain a top priority. And I just wanted to give thanks to you, the fire department, the working group, and all those that took part in this work. And I know, as mentioned by the chief, that if there is a family in need, there are programs that we currently have to help with smoke detectors, help with carbon monoxide detection. And I'm sure if there's gaps in those resources that this council will be more than willing to help fill that void. So I just want to say thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, council member. Vice Chair Baxter. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for bringing this forward. It's very important. Chief, as the community is hearing about this initiative and looking to how they can improve their own properties, do you have a best suggestion on where carbon monoxide detectors should be installed? Like in a home, should it be close to a garage, should it be close to the furnace? You know, where in a home is the best location? Well, the code itself, some of the things that I put in front of you do list a lot of the places. It gives certain things. Yes, obviously if you have a source of CO, placing it close to the source will detect before it can reach the rest of the location. Also in sleeping areas, you want to be able to hear the alarm. So if, you know, I happen to have, my home was built in 1999, but the builder had the foresight to put a smoke alarm in the garage. I didn't like it when construction was going on and it kept going off. But I like the idea that if a fire started in my garage and I'm upstairs on the opposite side of the house, that they're all interconnected. And if something goes off there, it'll wake me up in the middle of the night. So all of those are things to be considered and where you want to put an alarm. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I don't see any other comments. Just wanted to reiterate the way the code is right now. Everyone after 2011 has to have a carbon monoxide detector in their dwelling unit, whether it's multifamily or single family. All we're saying now is also before 2011, everyone also has to have one as long as they have gas utilities or a garage. So just want to make we're not we're not doing anything different than adding one detector to the smoke alarms that they already have to have. and then I would think and law could correct me if I'm wrong that if something happened someone would be held accountable in the same way as if they didn't have a smoke detector and someone else was in their house so this is no different this is just being consistent with smoke detector laws as well so thank you very much and thank you again I've really enjoyed working with you Chief and everyone else, and at this time, I would entertain a motion to move both of these ordinances to full council. Second. Okay. Can we do that together, Alicia? Is that okay? Okay. All those in favor of moving both of these ordinances to full council? Is there any discussion before we do that? I do. I'm sorry. Yes, council member. Yes, Chair. Have we set a date when that it will become, because we're going to have to give the public an opportunity to go in if they don't have it to make sure that they acquire the proper. Yes, it would be six months upon passage by council. Six months upon passage, thank you. Any other discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that motion passes and these will go out at the normal time at the next SSPS meeting that will be reported out. Thank you. Not today, sorry. Next month. Thank you. The next item is a presentation about street outreach and homeless encampment response. We will discuss the response to the, when we discuss the response to the homelessness issue, we want to talk about it in a well-rounded way and look at solving its issues from many different angles. We have discussed the role of outreach workers to help those experiencing homelessness on the streets. Other cities have seen success with increased street outreach and growing their outreach teams. Building relationships and connecting folks with the help that they need is just one part of outreach. Director Huron of Homelessness Prevention, our Homelessness Prevention Manager, is here. And he will give an update for our information and how we have done that thus far. So thank you, Director. Good afternoon. Thank you for having me. So we've talked about this issue some recently. So I'll just kind of give a brief background and overview here. As Council Member Reynolds mentioned, street outreach services are a critical part of most homeless response systems and can be generative of some amazing successes. What street outreach is, in short, is mobile community-based supports that help connect individuals that are experiencing unsheltered homelessness with essential resources. That can be access to shelter and housing, but also things like health care, treatment, basic needs, and supports for things like employment, education, or pursuing mainstream benefits. Street outreach would be a service which serves to target those that are least likely to seek assistance out for themselves. These are individuals who are probably unlikely to come into an office setting. They are going to focus on building trust and rapport through consistent engagement. One thing that we always kind of talk with citizens about is that when we deploy outreach, it might be a process to build rapport and develop a relationship and get individuals to be engaged in service. It meets people where they are, again, not forcing them to come into an office environment or place a call during business hours, but usually operates with expanded hours and the ability to go directly into the park, an encampment, or to the streets where people might be residing unsheltered. It works to both meet their immediate needs and help guide the individual towards longer-term solutions for their situation, ultimately with the aim of connecting them to permanent and sustainable housing. Street Outreach, again, is a vital frontline service, And here in our community, it is now one of the primary initial points of contact that people have with our system. Giving a brief overview of the implementation of Street Outreach in Fayette County, we piloted this program in 2016. At that time, Hope Center was the operator of the program in our first iteration. that was funded at $75,000 a year and really focused on just making kind of a first-touch contact with individuals if they needed higher-level services, intensive case management, that would have been a handoff to another entity to carry that work forward. In that iteration of the program, the target was for 40 unduplicated contacts per year. This pilot was something funded with the Innovative and Sustainable Solutions Fund. A couple of things that we should keep in mind. One, presently we have a restriction on that ordinance that we cannot use it as the ongoing source of funding for any shelter, program, or initiative. And so when we want to fund from that source again, we'd have to do something to modify that model to move it forward to where it's substantially unique, that it adds something to the system. The other thing is that we have to balance funding outreach from that source with other needs that we would have within the community. And we should be mindful that presently we've struggled to find things like federal sources that we can roll street outreach onto at sustainable levels. So we looked to modify this and include more intensive case management supports. That contract ultimately went to Community Action Council in 2019. That program was a significant expansion funded at $280,000 a year. And as you can see, the target number of contacts increased significantly up to 110 persons per year. At that time, we entered the pandemic. As we all know, there were increased challenges with housing during and after the pandemic. But we also had at that time some additional resources through the federal government. So we used that and leveraged coronavirus funding to expand outreach, introducing a new program with the Hope Center, as well as a program with the Lexington Rescue Mission. Following that, we looked to reimagine our own street outreach program, seeing that we were seeing increased need with the cost of living increasing and more persons being at risk of entering homelessness. So this model focused on expanding hours of operation and increasing the level of clinical supports with the clinician being on the team to help do a little bit more to assess the needs of individuals and connect them with care in the field. That iteration is currently costing around $316,000 and significantly shifts to 60 unduplicated contacts monthly. Those previous target numbers that we gave were annual targets, so you can see how this program is serving a great deal more persons than those previous iterations. Recently, in October, the council voted to approve an expansion of outreach, and we awarded additional funds to develop a downtown-specific outreach team. We've been doing that on an interim basis with the existing staff as we work through the hiring process. And as of this month, we should have all the full-time positions filled as of today and are just working on some of the part-time staffing and expect to be able to launch that as early as this week. Since August 1st of 2023, so this would be the duration of the time that Hope Center has had the contract for Street Outreach. They've had over 800 unique contacts, and nearly 30% of persons have exited the program to positive housing destinations. 32% of individuals also enrolled in the intensive case management component of their program, and 63% of those persons that participated in intensive case management exited to permanent housing. So why is it that we continue to expand street outreach? One would be that we simply are seeing an increase in the levels of unsheltered homelessness in Fayette County. In our 2025 point-in-time count, we saw slightly fewer persons identified as unsheltered on the evening of a count as compared with the previous year. However, longitudinally, we are still seeing that these rates remain above the average from the previous 10-year period. So year to year with this data, we have to be mindful that it might not represent an overall pattern. If we look at the overall trend, it definitely is an increase. As outlined in the recently completed and released emergency shelter study, our local response system has a need to add additional beds as well as to introduce new service models that would reduce barriers and accessing shelter to several key populations. With more persons experiencing barriers to shelter and us being at an overall deficit for year-round beds, we're simply seeing more persons that experience unsheltered homelessness. Another reason that we've chosen to expand our street outreach is because of the levels of costs that we are seeing with our homeless encampments. LFUCG would have a role in removing homeless encampments that fall on public or publicly controlled property. And looking at the cost year over year, we are seeing an increasing number, but also an increasing average cost per removal. We've seen that go from just over $1,500 in fiscal year 23 to nearly $3,000 in fiscal year 25. Another thing that can make this more challenging is the implementation of House Bill 5. Oftentimes that leads individuals to try to make attempts to be more discreet about their location because of fear of being found and potentially being criminalized. So we're oftentimes discovering camps that are pretty well hidden, and by the time we are notified or discover them, oftentimes pretty elaborate structures have been erected on that property. In order to try to mitigate this, my office requested a new position for fiscal year 26, and that would be the encampment coordinator position. This was intended to help facilitate improved outcomes in this area. We were very fortunate to quickly get that position posted, and we were able to fill that position in late September. This has allowed for us to have greater oversight of our street outreach services. We have a staff member who is presently in the field a significant portion of the time, whereas a role like mine that's more administrative makes it really difficult for me to spend extensive amounts of time in the field with those contracted services. This allows us to really fine-tune the service that we're providing, as well as have more creative solutions that we can develop for cases that we encounter. It's also helped us to facilitate responses to more complex encampments, for example, those that might include multiple properties. So we've given an example here just to kind of illustrate. We had a business contact us about an encampment that involved their property, but also several other properties back in October. that included public property, multiple private properties, as well as railroad property. So we developed a response that included the OHPI, environmental services, code enforcement, police, and solid waste. Our encampment coordinator was able to reduce the removal cost by facilitating removal of debris from our solid waste team as opposed to a contractor. Was able to recommend and facilitate landscaping that would mitigate future activity. develop a long-term plan for ongoing oversight to ensure that this level of encampment does not return to the area. But it also really reduced the barriers of private owners by coordinating a single, synchronized response. For an issue like this that spans multiple properties, if only one owner takes action, the activity simply shifts to another property, and thereby the area, the neighborhood, is still impacted by the issue. tube. Here are some photos to kind of show what we were dealing with. Obviously, this is not all areas of the encampment, but it kind of shows you the level of trash and debris that we were dealing with. And here is all of that debris. We have the contractors stage that so that our solid waste team could haul it off, and it made a transformative difference in that area. Looking ahead, as we launch the downtown specific outreach team, we are looking to make sure that we make services more readily available and reduce barriers. So we're going to include some part-time weekend coverage as well as expand the clinical supports that are available. We are going to be at the end of Hope Center's agreement in July of 2026. So around the springtime, we expect to release an RFP that will rebid our street outreach service package. We are hopeful by that time we'll have roughly about six months of data and outcomes to review from the downtown expansion that will really help us to craft that RFP to meet our needs. This is definitely going to be a learning period for us and allow us to really arrive at the model that best serves our community. Additionally, we have the mayor's task force on homelessness presently working to identify tangible recommendations for continued efforts to reduce homelessness locally. We know that street outreach services alone are not the answer. You have to be able to engage an individual and move them to permanent housing. So definitely we look forward to how the recommendations of the task force can be integrated into this work and effort. Definitely open to any questions. Thank you so much, Director. And I really appreciate what you've done and all the help that you have provided to the city in this area. And we're so fortunate to have your office grow and potentially grow more. We know that those recommendations are coming, but we also want to be in front of them and make sure that everyone knows what options are. If you could dream about what you would do in the future to continue to expand this program, what would that look like? So the downtown initiative that we're working on right now is kind of unique in that this is still a contracted service, but these employees are going to spend a significant amount of time here at the Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention. We're working to set them up a space presently that will allow them to be very quick in responding to issues and have a high level of presence downtown. I think that is something that we probably are going to save some money on our staffing structure. And if it proves to be viable, I would recommend that we continue to look at contracted outreach services in a perfect world. I would love to see these kinds of services be available 24-7. One of the areas in which we have an unmet need is we have a lot of services that are essential services that are maybe not available 24-7, outreach being an example of those. It's things like calls that I might get from law enforcement in the middle of the night needing help in navigating the situation. Unfortunately, we have a social services system, and the homeless system is no different, that's very difficult to navigate. And it often takes somebody that has expertise in this area to correctly route an issue, and that is definitely a gap that we would presently have. Okay, so 24-7. And then how many outreach workers do you have right now? How many would you like to have if you were to grow? We went from four full-time staff and a part-time clinician on the base program, as well as some part-time staff like peer mentors. And then with the downtown expansion, we are going to be at, I believe, seven full-time staff and some part-time coverage. I would say to get us to 24-7, we would probably need to add approximately four full-time positions with maybe some additional part-time support. So that would be a significant expansion for us. It would probably shift us from our current investment, which is around $500,000 a year, closer to about $800,000 a year. 24-7 services are very costly in that you have to build extra coverage in order to account for things like absences, vacations, et cetera. Okay, that makes a lot of sense, colleagues. when we look at different divisions, and I always like to ask them what they need, what they would like in a perfect world, and then that gives us an idea moving forward. Okay, I'll entertain. Any questions? Councilmember Morton. Thank you. I just had one question. Can you share the geographic boundaries of that downtown expansion outreach and where that's going to reach to? So we're roughly going to get started with the area that the downtown entertainment district would cover, and there's going to be a couple blocks around the core downtown area, fully knowing that that team is going to get pulled outside of that boundary. After we have some additional time, we are likely to more definitively carve that out, but we're trying to purposely start with a little bit of a flexible boundary so that we can really understand where the need is and meet it. So just pretty much short, main, and vine, or how far north does it go? Like, does it go towards third? Like, I guess that's what I'm trying to understand. So we're probably going to go up to about 3rd Street, down to about the north end of UK campus, and then a little bit in each direction. So probably closer out to, I would say, trying to think of a good marker for you, maybe closer out towards the convention center. And we're going to really just see where we need to expand from there. Again, trying to start with a very flexible boundary. But that's up for discussion eventually. Yeah. Cool. Thank you. And then also just want to take a moment to acknowledge the significant coordination and collaboration that went into the Russell Cave Road cleanup. After some stakeholders from that surrounding area reached out to my office and then a site visit, multiple departments and partners came together quickly and thoughtfully addressed the complex situation across public, private, and railroad property. This effort reflects the kind of responsive problem-solving approach community deserves, one that considers environmental impact, public safety, cost efficiency, and long-term well-being of surrounding neighbors. Also, I wanted to say thank you for that. I know that those folks were very, very pleased. So, thank you. Thank you. We appreciate the support. Any other questions or comments? I do not see any. Well, thank you very much. This might come up again in front of us, and I really appreciate the update. Thank you. Our next item on the agenda is an update on the Audrey Grevious Center. And as you all know, there have been some significant changes in how it is run, and Fayette County Public School has now been running it. Social Services wanted to give everyone an update on how things are going, and we are so happy to have Principal Felicia Lindsay here of the Audrey Grievous Center, and we're thankful that you're here to give the update. So welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon. As she said, I'm Felicia Lindsay. I am the principal at Audrey Grievous Center and the Family Care Center, so thank you for having me today. So I'm going to give you a little information about our phenomenal, fabulous program. We are the Audrey Grievous Center. Our program overview is that we service students between the ages of 12 and 18, or up to 21 if they qualify for an IEP, which is an Individual Educational Plan. We also are a mental health facility, which is in conjunction with the education program. So the students that come to our school not only receive an education, they also receive individualized and group counseling. And we'll talk about that a little bit more as we go through the presentation. Just a little bit about me. I bring 26 years of experience, 27 now, from Fayette County. I was previously the assistant principal at Martin Luther King Academy. Our vision statement, Audra Grievous Center envisions a community where court-involved youth in Fayette County are empowered through therapeutic support and education to achieve academic success, develop positive behaviors, and gain essential life skills, enabling them to thrive independently and remain positively engaged in society without further court involvement. Our mission statement is the mission of AGC is to provide therapeutic interventions to court-ordered youth in Fayette County while providing an educational setting that encourages improving academic achievement, positive behavior change, and life skills needed to remain in the community without additional court involvement. The population that we serve. We serve youth that are committed to the Department of Juvenile Justice, which is DJJ, youth involved with various levels of juvenile court systems, youth transitioning from intensive therapeutic facilities, youth involved in DCBS and foster care agencies, as well as FCPS, Fayette County Public Schools A1 district school referrals. AGC, we are known as the champions. We have a very unique structure because we are part of the Kentucky Education Collaborative for State Agency Children, where a lot of our funding, well, some of our funding comes from. A comprehensive array of community-based partnership services, which I'll talk about in a little bit here. We also have a clinical staff. We have two licensed clinical social workers and one social worker. And we also have a dropout prevention specialist who's also a licensed clinical social worker and a guidance counselor. We provide in-house therapeutic services, such as clinical assessments, individual and group services, treatment planning, collaborative treatment team meetings to address the individual student's progress and concerns. And those meetings do include the parents. So that's really important for us, that our parents are involved. as well as an academic service as outlined by the FCPS Board of Education guidelines. So I'm going to go back one. So this is our creed for every student. I'm going to stop there. Every student in our school is expected to do the creed, and every adult and any visitor that comes in, we welcome them to participate in the creed. The creed is who we are. It's what we stand for. It's what we build AGC around and it is definitely the AGC way. So I'm excited to share this. We say that every morning before school starts. Hi, my name is Alzon, and I transferred from Bowling Green to here. And something I like about the school is that we have mentors, we have small classes, We have people that come here to game, robotics club, stuff like that that you would enjoy. And also we have girls group and food chain. And mostly girls group makes you feel included. You can just be yourself around them. And those are things I like about Autra Grievous. And this would be a school that's very recommended. So this is one of our students that's with us this year. She came to us from Bowling Green, had a very intensive truancy record, and now she's been with us every single day except if she's sick. So that's heartwarming to me because it lets us know we're doing something right for our students. This is another student. I'm sorry. She's going off to Kentucky State University. HCC has helped me become successful by letting me leave school and actually continue to complete my work outside of school. I got an internship at a daycare. I started college in about two, three months. They helped me get there. They helped me get accepted. They helped me get my classes done, my courses done. They also helped me with therapy, controlling my anxiety, and definitely getting me ready for the future world. Thank you. So we're so excited this young lady was accepted into Kentucky State University and actually started this semester. And we also got her an internship, so she's a very phenomenal young lady. So some of our partners that come into AGC, we have an extensive base of community partners that love to come and help us. So just a few of theirs, Jubilee Jobs, they help our students to get jobs, interview for jobs, write resumes. They provide a stipend for them if they need clothing. Maybe if they need to have Uber passes, they will provide those for them so they can get back and forth to their jobs. We also have the Lexington Public Library that comes in and helps us monthly. We are excited because we actually wrote a grant for $10,000 and received that grant to revamp the library because the books in the library were over 25 years old. And we wanted our children to have an extensive library that they could go in and enjoy and check out books. One Lex, it takes a village and the girls group, as you can hear that, has been a positive influence at AGC. New Vista, we also have the UK athletes that come in that mentor our students. Food Chain, Art on the Move, FCPS, Kentucky Center for Grieving Children and Families, and the UK Extension Office. We also have our parents as our partners. We have the BCS, which is where our interns and co-op opportunities are available, as well as employability workshops. And then Chase Bank, who comes in weekly for literacy classes. Hi, Ronald. Can you tell me a little bit about your partnership with Audrey Davis Center? I'm going to skip through our partner experience just for the sake of time and talk a little bit about our treatment philosophy. So like I said, we have three social workers, too, which are licensed clinical social workers, and they meet with our students to provide cognitive and behavioral and trauma-informed therapy for all of our students. So our students actually receive five days a week, 50 minutes a day of group therapy on top of the therapy they receive individually from each social worker. So that's pretty phenomenal if you look at what San Fayette County Public Schools versus what AGC does. And it talks a little bit about here. So the total minutes of individual services provided weekly is 1,100 minutes. And then an average of 18.3 hours weekly. Then we also have our group services, which is 50 minutes every day. And then we also have a de-escalation service. So we also wrote another grant, and we were able to do a new calming room or provide a calming room. So if you ever come to visit AGC, we have a calming room that has a SUD scale. that children can go in there and tell us, like, I'm at a sub one, I need a break. And we have fidgets and videos and things that will help them get back into the classroom because we do not want them out of the classroom very long. This is kind of how we're different from AGC and the traditional district mental health specialists and then what we provide together. So AGC provides, again, that psychosocial clinical intake, court program liaisons, group counseling topics. We also have clinical documentation as outlined by the DJJ contract, which is weekly progress notes, treatment plans, and biweekly treatment team meetings. All right. Will you tell us a little bit about your experience with AGC? My experience here has been wonderful. They've helped my son grow so much. Before he came here, he was in a dark place in his life. Now that he's been here and been around everybody, he's so happy. He's bubbly. He's his normal self. I recommend this for anybody. If you have any problems, they help you. They work with your kids. It's a very family-oriented school. I 1,000% recommend this school. Thank you. You're welcome. So that's a prayer and testimony. As you can tell, her child has gone on back to their A1 school. And part of what we do is we send them with a transition specialist. So our transition specialist actually follows them for the entire school year. That following year, they go back. They go and meet with them. They provide any type of therapeutic services that they may need. Some students big to come back. So that's a great thing for us. So this is a breakdown of our enrollment. We have nine students with IEPs, one student with a 504 plan, two English learners, one gifted and talented. And since the start of August, we've actually had 55 classes recovered. So students are actually gaining credits toward graduation. And two grade level enhancements. And I think that number has changed since we sent you all this PowerPoint that we've had at least two others to make a grade level change. They came in as ninth graders and they've gone to tenth graders. So that's great. This is our student discipline data. As you can see, on paper, we look really good, and in the building, we look even better. I say to all of our students, this is for mature audiences only. We don't want to suspend you. We want you at school, so we find other ways of alternative to suspension instead of sending our students home. But because we have the therapeutic services, it really helps our students out a lot, which cuts down our behavior dismalary referrals. This is our average daily attendance. As you can see from 2024 to 2025, we had some dips this year. Some things we're having to work on, but not as bad, not like it could be. These are our statistics, how many programs we had in 2023 versus what we had in 2024. And that still holds true to this year, to 2025. So teacher-imposed de-escalations. All of our students are encouraged to take a self-imposed de-escalation where they can step out of the classroom and get themselves back together. And they usually can do that in about five or ten minutes and we get them back into class. We also have peer support and awareness programs that promote understanding among our students and creating an environment where they contribute to each other's behavior and emotional growth. We also have the MAP data. We take MAP three times a year in MAP and Reading. This year, 60% of our students grew in Reading and 53% of our students grew in MAP. All of our teachers are required to do lesson plans on a regular and follow the same expectations as the Fayette County Public School teachers. That concludes my presentation. Thank you so much. Thank you. Vice Chair Baxter. Thank you, Chair, and thank you so much for the presentation and for your work. It's so very important. Thank you. And I know you're making a difference in those kids' lives, so thank you for that. My question is budgetary and more along the lines of our relationship with Fayette County Public Schools. I know on their website this is listed as one of their programs, but I know we have budget line items as well. So can you just kind of go over what the money looks like here and how our budget is impacted by the relationship? Sure. So Lexington, Fayette, Irman County Government, first of all, I want to say thank you all for your contribution and what you do because it is truly a partnership between us and LFUCG. So LFUCG contributes $300,000 in money to us. But they not only provide that, they provide program aides, which we have four full-time program aides, one part-time program aide, a transportation specialist, and a custodian. So when you look at that, I think I looked at that budget today, And it was over $229,000 that you are providing in salaries to the employees at AGC. You also provide transportation for our students. So it is such a wonderful opportunity that our students don't have to wait for a bus. They're actually picked up at their homes in a van and taken home in a van. And the cost of that is $88,993. I appreciate that. I think sometimes it's confusing for us to see what that partnership actually looks like. Commissioner, what is the history of this program? Has this been around for a really long time? How did the partnership begin? Just out of curiosity, really. Well, I don't want to get the dates wrong necessarily, But we began with us being kind of the leaders in it in terms of we had the building being true to Ms. Arjagrevis, who was a celebrated educator, dedicating that building to her. And before that, it was called a day treatment program. And it's still the same premise in that it's education mixed in with mental health. And we were the leads on there in terms of it was our social workers. It's always been our transportation. And, you know, it's our building, our custodians. And basically Fayette County came in with the educators. And we've kind of flipped that model in terms of now they take the lead on not only the education, but also the therapeutic services, bringing in the partnership. But we're there to support. So as she said, we provide the transportation, the program aids, and the building, of course. And whatever maintenance or anything like that that they need, we're there to support them on that. And just whatever, Ms. Lindsay and I are in constant communication. Whatever they need, we try to accommodate and see what we can do and how we can work together. Just whatever comes up. No, that's great. That's great information. I do appreciate the partnership. So once again, thank you so much for all your hard work and for what you're doing in the lives of these kids. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Morton. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. You gave me cold chills, yes. Yes, thank you. Yes, it's beautiful. Thank you so much. I'm glad that this partnership has continued and evolved, and I'm thankful that it seems to be working out really well in its current form. So thank you for your leadership and for coming and sharing with us today. And I would like, again, to take the opportunity to thank Commissioner Bryant, and as well as to the council. Thank you so much, because without you all supporting us, the work would be much harder. But because we have partners like you that stand behind us, it makes the work so much easier. And our children, please, any day you want to come in and visit our facility, please do. It's so unique. It's beautiful. It's just a warm, welcoming place to be. And I'm just so thankful to be the leader. And I appreciate you all taking the time to allow me today to talk a little bit about AGC. Thank you. We have one more person that would like to chime in. Council Member Higgins. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Well, Happy New Year to me. Happy New Year to you. Thank you so much for coming today. This has been quite impressive to hear how your organization has really shaped the lives of young people in our community. One of the questions that I have are, are you open to additional partnerships? And if you are, how might someone in the community be available to support you or be a part of this solution? We are always open to more partnerships. If you are interested in partnering with our degree of center, Sherry Coles is actually our community liaison. She does many dual roles. She is the one that spearheads all of our community partners. So any partner that wants to come into AGC, they work with her. If there's anything we need to do on the end of Fayette County Public School, she takes care of that. Just reach out to us. Thank you. Thank you. And we're always looking for mentors to come in. So if you'd like to come in, please do. So we love for you to come in the building and work with the students. Thank you so much. Once again, I think that's everybody. Okay, thank you. Thank you. The last item was just to review the committee agenda items. I will say we have a pretty good draft for the rest of the meetings, for the rest of the calendar year. and there's only one or two spots. So if your item is not scheduled for one of those meetings, please let me know so that we can work to see if we can work you in for this year. Are there any comments on the agenda items at this time? Okay, seeing none, that concludes our business for today's meeting. The next meeting is going to be on February 17th at 1 p.m. And the meeting stands adjourned. Thank you.