Thank you. have a few folks still kind of straggling in but i think this is everyone that we were expecting so we're going to go ahead and start and i would like to call this mayor's task force on homeless to order and if you all can take it does anybody need a packet we have some extras if anybody needs them um but i would like everybody to look at the minutes and let me know if there needs to be any corrections. And do I have a motion to approve? Thank you. Second? Wonderful. Any opposed? All those in favor? Minutes are accepted. Wonderful. Thank you. So this meeting is going to look a little bit different. Thank you all so much for being here. As you know, we do have an August 11th town hall meeting and I'm hoping at the end of today that we can actually have some all of our recommendations and put things together really in a in a solid format that everybody in the group feels comfortable with and confident about so that we can have a really robust conversation with the community at large that is August 11th at six o'clock I hope everybody's able to attend Before we get into the meat of the initial recommendations, I do want to give folks a little bit of time. We did have the Community Engagement Committee had submitted. There was a little bit before we were able to put together the rest of the recommendations. And I want this committee to have done some really amazing work. I want to give everybody some due diligence. I did look through the past few days. Some things you will see actually are in the recommendations. So that's a wonderful thing. And I think that gives you kind of a good sign that we're on a little bit of the same page if you're seeing similar themes throughout. But there are some uniqueness. And so if you all can look at pages 16 through 18 in your packet, take a quick second. Some of you all might have already made notes. But if not, I'd love for you all to kind of lift up the this is great and I saw this in the recommendations or this seems really interesting. But it wasn't in the recommendations. but I think we should bring that forth to the committee, or I don't know that this makes sense right now for what the task force is working with. So you have three objectives. Yes, it's great. I think it's already there, or we need to lift this forward, and then we'll get into the bulk of the recommendations. So take a minute. Hello, Mayor. Do you want to sit up front? We have a spot for you and everything. Come on. All right, so I will go ahead and open the floor to conversations. And I don't know, Council Member Ellinger or Jenny, if there's pieces that you want to talk about a little bit. I'm going to kind of hope that we can stick to about 20 minutes of conversation around your all submission, so we have lots of time to get to the rest of it. But if you have things that you really want to add, or again, if there's anything from the board, that would like to discuss, then we will do that. First of all, I'd like to say thank you for this. But we did submit this on June 16th. So I wanted to remember, you know, we misunderstood. Our committee kept doing all this work thinking we were supposed to have recommendations for June 16th. We didn't realize that they were going to be taken and put in one document for that day. So I apologize if we came in with that, but that was our misunderstanding. And I want to point out that, like, Todd, some of the things that are in here were, I mean, all of them, are what we heard from the people because we spent a lot of time. And Todd particularly pulled our committee back when we almost didn't include one of the most important pieces from the business sector when we listened. So I think that, you know, number one, we heard accountability, that there has to be more done to have space for people so they're not on the streets. and you know that that was big but the other another large listening that we did had to do with uh any kind of criminality and businesses feeling like they weren't didn't know what to do about it you know that they didn't want to have to be calling the police all the time but they were pointing out that it was impacting their businesses greatly and that they felt that nothing was being resolved with that. Our different listening sessions all had some very much the same themes that had to do with we've got to have a solution. You know, there aren't enough places. What are we going to do? We do want to be compassionate, but we want to be protective of our community and that concerns about the folks who are mentally ill, concerns about the folks who are elderly, concerns that many of the folks may be taking advantage of the community. So when we all listened to that, we came up with the thought that, number one, and actually Lee said this a lot, and he pointed to stable recovery. Accountability has to be part of whatever solution. I think when I spoke with the mayor, Laura Babbage, and I did, she almost fell over when I said, you know what, we've got to take care of the people who are going to participate and help take care of themselves. The others who choose not to, we have House Bill 5. and you know that is a little different even in my way of thinking but in listening and feeling what you know if we as a community provide the resource provide enough resources when we don't have enough beds and don't have places for them to go then house bill five sending them to the courts is cruel. But when we do, so that is where we kind of came that that's our goal. How could we create something, number one, taking Vercel's road for our most vulnerable? As you'll see the response, we responded to the five drafts from the chairs also after that meeting. But we wanted to be sure that our core components weren't being overlooked because we had submitted it incorrectly. But we're in very much, and you'll see the five points that we followed through with what the chairs had said and the chair meeting had. And we were totally in agreement except for one very, very big piece that I want to point out. The Versailles Road, and listening to a lot of the folks from Versailles Road, The Versailles Road is a perfect location for the elderly, disabled, and families. And they're our most vulnerable of our homeless. It's not – you can't mix the population, though. When we start talking ages, the 18 through 59-year-olds or whatever the ones that are that don't fall in that other category, we all know they're the major source of problems. Us baby boomers are old enough that we're being put in the elderly and disabled part. But truthfully, you cannot mix those populations. And I think that if we all think about it a bit, we agree. Families with children and with those who aren't troublemakers but those who are that are younger, we've got to be protective. And one of the things from Louisville that the folks – I didn't go. Kelly and Carrie did. A lot of folks here did. They have – I mean, there's pretty much a separation. physically the way they have it. Our suggestion for Sales Road changes a little bit. We go and say, why don't we have housing, permanent housing and transitional housing also built on that for that same population. Our whole thing goes down the line of keeping separation, which means that you don't have your 24-hour center on Versailles Road. Again, it'd be the same problem. The 24-hour drop-in are going to be the challenged people. So let's find another place. So when we say this to the rest of the committee, we've got to say, well, you know, we've all been working on this with this group for nine months, but there are many of us that have been working on it for years trying to find other places. Charlie will tell you. We've canvassed the world. in Fayette County. We even found some things out of Fayette County until we found out we couldn't use them. Oh, we did take you to court. And did we win? Oh, we won in court. No, they, no, that was, it's not as contentious as that sounded. It could have gotten there, but it didn't, right? It didn't sound good. Yeah, yeah. No, we did. I mean, the city wants to help. It was a different mayor. you know but the bottom line of the story is we can do it but we cannot do it without the community it can be done and i was just sitting here speaking with my friends from the hope center that's how the hope center started you all a community group that said okay this is a lot Our thing is Charlie and Jeff and their offices do amazing work. Absolutely do amazing work. But they can't do all of it. And it's not our mayor's responsibility to find all the money. Come on, you all. We're a community. If we don't get community involved, just like Hope Center did, God bless Don Ball. God bless Deborah Hensley. That was not a government, here are the five suggestions, go make Charlie and Jeff and Tiffany and everybody go do them. They have stretched themselves and done amazing work on finding places and trying to do things. But it's us. It's community. I mean, let's think about it. Todd and Zach and all the folks that bring things to this table, there's even a greater amount. So to finish, that is our other big, big suggestion, is that we have a, call it what we want, community continuation committee to bring even other people that aren't sitting around the table. Or if, you know, if you're done, you've got other stuff, you are willing to get an email ever so often. I mean, this can be exhausting. For those of us who've been in it for a long time, it's exciting because we see this as our last chance of truly making a difference. Not just partial, but look at the whole thing. So with that said, and I hope some of you gentlemen will add to what I've said, we're talking about a three-year plan. You can't do it in a year. You can't do it in six months. You've got to give the community time. You've got to give the government time. But we have to be working together. So basically a continuation committee to us is extremely important in order to have a really strong and bold solution, which we can do. We're an amazing community. And I think that one of the things that we as a task force can, you know, show that again by having that charge to our community. So that's me. That's all. And, Jenny, when I was looking through it, and does somebody else want to jump in first? Because, really, I should be polite. Does anybody? That was the area that I had kind of the most questions, even though I know what you're – I mean, I get the philosophy of kind of where that's coming from. The only piece, though, is I sometimes was thinking, I was thinking, when we do an RIP and we have this new group identified to take over the shelter, and I know they will create a board. And I thought, okay, so you're going to have a board that's going to be running this shelter that's going to be identified for families and seniors and people most vulnerable. And then you have the HPI board. And I appreciate what you're saying about not being government, but that is made up of other people that are not government. And I'm wondering if there's ways of being acknowledging to get away, get out of the way a little bit of the new board that would come in to surround that nonprofit, but also maybe entice other people to come to HPI. Because the HPI is really active, but it does miss the business community. Occasionally, there's business community folks, but it misses the business community. It doesn't have a lot of the faith community, but it could. but all of the providers are there all of the non-profits are there the council folks are like it's kind of sitting there ready for that i know under the umbrella of the city i see you but i i just hate having complicated boards kind of up working across each other when you're going to have these two it's like another third group of people that might then be contradicting one another and i wonder if there's a more seamless way to do it than to create a whole nother continuation committee well one thing i'd say with that is it would be over this would be this is a times thing it is specifically taking this information and looking at it in a different way than when you get necessarily even providers we're talking you know or it it isn't it is more not to be anti-government, because you know I'm not, right, Sally? You've got to keep that separation if we're talking about raising money. I'm going to keep going back to that. We already pay taxes. This is a group that the community could look to and feel that, wait a minute, it isn't part of the government. This is representing us. And it would be very focused. The other gets into lots of stuff. Would the RFP, would the person or the group that takes on this new shelter be charged to do fundraising? And wouldn't that be competing against each other? Not really. Because you would have like Hope Center board, right? They have a board that does fundraising, you know, for development. So I guess I'm getting blurred, I guess. I don't know if other people have ideas. Well, I think one of the things that's blurry is of all of our recommendations, and I kind of responded to this, I'm not sure what is a part of the agency or a nonprofit that will be contracted to do the RFP and run the emergency shelter versus the broader, because there's broader recommendations for our community, and then there's that. And I think that's part of the conceptual problem right now. Because as I read your response, it's good. I see everything that's in your response in the recommendations except the committee. You've not seen the full recommendations. The real recommendations are the next page. And one more thing. The 18 to 54, the assumption was based on talking about they would be served by the existing shelters, that they wouldn't be going there. You might disagree with that, but that was the assumption. I know. Okay. But they weren't meant to be at the Versailles area. I think we did agree that the Versailles area would just be families and seniors and not a mix, other than that intake center. The intake center, 24-7. Yeah. I think in some regards that was a little bit because it's a space and the space is available, and it was the most convenient piece, and it wasn't a place for people to stay. I think it was like you had to be out within 24 hours, so it wouldn't be a congregant kind of place. but even worse. Please. And I'm going to talk about no vision, which she absolutely knows, but I'm going to talk about the practicality of this. If this gets so big, it'll never get done. We do this in the government all the time. If we don't break things down, it just doesn't happen. what my purpose is being on here and being on the committee with Zach is I've got to know how much money these guys have got to get and we've got to do to get that first shelter done you know we're on a spot I think we've decided on I've got to find out what that exactly costs I've got to move people out of the buildings that are right there now in order to do these are mammoth projects, but if you keep, we've got some money reserved now. Money doesn't stay reserved. I mean, it just won't hold because we have so many things pulling at us. We have a fire training center that costs a lot of money. We have a police training center that costs a lot of money. We've got all kinds of things that we've got to do. And this was on top on our priority of a homeless to look at. So if we get it too big and too spread out, that money that we are thinking we've got is going to be gone. And that's where the community comes in. Well, I have to have the money committed first. Yeah. You can't start a project and say, okay, community, help fund it. Absolutely. I think that's the thing that we liked about the project in Louisville, right? they had a lot of government funding up front, but then they were going to take on the fundraising on an ongoing basis, which I think is important here because as Sally said, they have to know how much money this is going to cost, but if that expectation is going to be that this is going to be funded entirely by the government forever, that's not practical. So that's one of the things that we liked about that project. Also, they did separate between that population and other populations. But fundraising is not an easy task. No, absolutely not. And you all had big donors that were right with you the whole time. But you can't do this $1,000 at a time with a donor. It just won't work. Somebody's got to be a lead sponsor. And a lot of times this is not an attractive thing to be a lead sponsor on. They'd rather do a performing arts center. I mean, I'm just. Right. But that's one reason to come up with a unique idea, with a unique thought. I mean, just to say that our workforce development is proud that they're building that training center at or have built it at Blackburn. And they're saying it's a national model. And we're saying let's do the same thing, a national model for the homeless like that, which is different. I agree. Which I'm saying you can waste enough time you don't get a model. You don't get anything. No. How soon do you think when we should? How soon do you think we should start? When do you think? What, two, three months, six months from now? Well, I think we need to start trying to assemble the money right now. Well, and that would be for Bersales Road. Absolutely. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about any other shelter. I'm talking for Bersales Road. And I don't argue the fact that another population needs to go someplace else. But if you talk about having enough money to build a for sales road and finding a site and doing another one, at the same time, that ain't going to work. No, but you all wouldn't be. That's the point. That's where a community group could come in, understand, you know, and if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Council Member Beesley. Yeah, I just have lots of questions. Sorry. So, first of all, David, when the Hope Center was built, because I wasn't here then, right? So how did that partnership work with the city? Did the city give you the land? We already own the building, and you just rent it? No. I'll give you that one. No, it was built. Okay. It was built, and the city built it, and they owned the building, and they owned the property. And the only thing that was provided by the city is for, they said they would maintain the property, and they did for a long time, and then that drives them away. But. No. Ha, ha, ha. I mean, we... It wasn't a dig. It's just reality, you know. It's not a dig. I mean, we've had the building a long time, and there's lots of maintenance issues that happen. But you did just put a bunch of money into building a second floor, so that was a good thing. But I think there was an assumption the city was supposed to help with programming for a long time, but if you read the contract, it didn't say that it would. But it did help. They got a grant writer. They got various varying funding sources, and they did have some good fundraising going on. But it was very poor, and they had to take out loans to meet the bills for a long time. I heard that story a million times. And we also give them $850,000 a year, right? Yes. Out of the ESR. Which doesn't pay for the shelter operations, but it pays a lot, and it's the only place you'd get money for the shelter operations, you know. So do we tell you how to run it? No. So, and this is just me thinking out loud, right? We don't tell you how to run it. So this is just me thinking out loud. So if we put out an RFP, right, and somebody says we're going to build this, and this is what, like, all we're saying we have is whatever money we already have, and we're going to give you the land, and they're going to build it, should we tell them what they have to do out there too, other than we want 55 and older and families out there, or do you think it will make it less attractive? I will say, like, no, you all don't tell us what to do, but there are guidelines. There are, like, shelter guidelines through Jeff's office that we have to adhere to. You have to do HMIS. Yeah, and so that's a relatively new thing, but I just think it's been a – it has been a – more of a collaborative partnership with the city. And I think the, like, can you imagine if you had to go to the city every time you had a maintenance issue? I think that became a practicality problem as much as anything. So I think that, like, after all those years, like, that just, that wouldn't be a practical way to operate. So I think that rightfully fell by the wayside. It has been amazingly collaborative considering it's a difficult population and there's never enough money. I mean, that's the truth. So to answer your question, I think we set the parameters or council sets the parameters, and that's in the RFP, and then it's up to them to operate under that capacity and under whatever rules, like if OHPI develops standard operating procedures or the COC adopts operating procedures. I think that's how you make sure that they're doing what we want them to do. So the first thing is we still have to put up the RFP, right, to see who's willing to come and build this, and then that would answer how much money you need me to go out there and raise. Right, Aunt Sally? All right, just checking. Thanks. Any other discussions on the community engagement before we move into the next section? Keeping all this in mind, though, as we're going through the recommendations. Yeah? I'll just have one kind of observation as this gets down, because I keep thinking about eventually we're going to have this document that we're going to hand to the mayor, right? This is what we think. I think that we need to be cognizant that community ideas are fine. Maybe that's a separate document that's like an issued thing, like open letter to the community. What we lock in to provide to the government as the whole of the people's center I think should be just that. Oh, and the community needs to raise $100 million. Like that's not relevant for them. in that deployment kind of thing to go to sit down with council, does that feel fair to, like, if you sit down with council, say these are the things the government were asking not to add, oh, and the community's going to have to do that. And it's like the, Sally, what's the project or scope creep? It's like that scale and scope creep is really important to not get too bad because I don't want it to, like, linger. or that it's like, oh, well, the government would start if the community showed the $100 million fundraising or $50 million, like that chicken before the egg. I don't want it to peter out because, like Jenny said, there's so much passion and capability in here. I don't want to overwhelm the start. Does that sound right? Okay. Thank you. And I want to thank Jenny for all the hard work in our committee and everybody here. I think we have a lot of good recommendations here. I think what we came up with was just some other things because I'm not sure this is going to go far enough. Our biggest issue is I think we're trying to say that if we do the families, we do the Vercels Road, that's going to take care of the rest of the problem, and I'm not sure if that's going to be the solution. So I'm not sure if it goes far enough, and I think the continuation that we talk about, would be similar to when the mayor did the task force on racial justice and equality, and then we had the commission afterwards that kind of implemented the 100 or so different recommendations. That's how I would kind of see our continuation committee that would be the ones that would be looking at what we have recommended to the mayor and help with the mayor and Charlie in their office because they're going to be doing the big legwork, but I think this gives the whole community an opportunity to participate too and to implement this. But I think we've done a really good job on the recommendations. I'm just not sure if we have gone far enough yet because that 18 to 59, I'm not sure we're going to be able to house that with what we're doing with the others. And that's kind of my biggest concern right there. Thank you. Council Member Allinger, do you think – did you have a question, Mr. Johnson? Oh. Do you think, though, with some intention with Charlie's office, with HPI, of bringing in different community members might make more sense, as you just said, that they're going to be doing a big chunk of the legwork? Or do you think it's really critical that there is a community collaboration separate from? Or do you think both ideas are possible? Do you come down one side or the other? You know, I'd like to, since it has been a community involvement here, and I just saw how the Racial Justice Commission has been able to help and keep us on track. I think that that would help with the continuation committee to kind of keep these recommendations working through. So I've seen how successful it has been. It's different, and I think at some point when we do get the shelters built and that kind of stuff, that probably we won't need that continuation committee going forward. But I'm thinking between now and the next three years, that would be a great opportunity to work with them. And so we just keep on the recommendations. I know we've talked about HPI board, but we also have the general continuum of care. And that is a broader group that involves the community. So I don't know if that is like I hear what you're saying, Councilman Ellinger, of like we had the racial justice and equity commission that then is tasked with, like the action or the recommendations that came out of the temporary commission that turned into permanent and they were kind of tasked with seeing some of that things those things along but those items were also assigned to government entities and we were tracking them as a government and so I for me I think it's important for us to have a prioritized list which we are which we have in our recommendations. But I wonder if then this moves to continuum of care conversations, because that's an already established group. I do have concerns, like Diane said, about we see this in lots of different domains, where you have five different groups then working on things that are competing. Sally mentioned the Performing Arts Center. Will we have now, like, what, four or five proposals and like all competing and trying to get funding. And so we don't want that to happen here. So I'm, I have concerns about establishing a whole nother group to do this work when I think we have groups already established that could continue these conversations and see this work along. Um, but I do think we have to set like, what are the priority things? Because to get, to get any kind of capital project done, you have to get it started. So I do think we need to prioritize that conversation now but please yes mayor uh just a couple of comments when the racial justice and i appreciate you bringing that up it's been a very successful effort their recommendations were specific things mobile food truck expungement clinics. They were not nebulous. They were not go to the community and raise money to do things. They were specific recommendations. And then Tiffany Brown in my office was in charge of implementing them. It's got to be, I think for government, there's got to be a list of things we want to accomplish, and they have to be tangible, very specific without being filled out all the detail. But I think it will be very difficult for government to work with any recommendation that says somebody's got to go raise $100 million to do this. It's got to be very, you know, that's how government operates. It's with specifics and what is our goal. like with the senior center or, you know, those kinds of things. And then someone in government has to shepherd it along. Otherwise, it sort of doesn't work, you know. And government folks are the ones who work with the money that's allocated for the specific projects. We love having community partners. Don't get me wrong because we can't do anything without our community partners. But I think in terms of recommendations, they've got to be, I may be the only one that thinks that, but they've got to be more specific. Like Sally mentioned some, build a fire training center, build a police training center, build a new senior center. You know, very specific. And that way we can focus in on what we're actually trying to accomplish. if that helps me. It does. Thank you. Thank you. Just a quick question maybe for Jeff and Charlie, because I hear, Jenny, I understand your concern about the continuation committee being wrapped into some other board that has other objectives and priorities. Is there an opportunity within either Continuum Care or the OHPI board to form subcommittees specifically tasked with tracking the progress of these recommendations? Yeah, so one thing would be membership in the continuum of care is open to anyone. The HPI board is dual designated as the local continuum of care board. We do and can, by our bylaws and governance, establish subcommittees. Additionally, I would just point out that under the For the Greater Good report that came out of Mayor Gray's initiative to try to address homelessness, that became the strategic plan adopted, and one of the recommendations and action steps was the formation of the HPI board specifically. So I do think that there are pathways to incorporate this, but I also agree with some of the points being expressed about the difficulty of mirroring some of the recommendations if they are too far in the avenue of what the community is going to do versus what we're going to do, but I think that would be an excellent way to try to bring those together. Yeah, I mean, I table the comment about recommendations being too broad, just to finish the – because I think we should come back to that. But just to finish the conversation, Jenny and Council Member Ellinger, is the COC or the OHPI, if they formed a subcommittee, is that an acceptable place for this continuation committee to live from your perspective, and this is your recommendation? Why? We go back to the fact that it's selected to do short-term, medium-term, long-term actions. Sure. That's it. If it's a subcommittee of one of those groups, it could be dissolved after those actions were taken. It could be. But again. we can and have formed subcommittees specifically for something that was temporary. But, I mean... I would add to you, the OB board was created as the continuation committee of the previous task force on homelessness. So if you create an additional one and don't abolish that one, then you essentially have two continuation committees, one from your previous task force on homelessness and one from your current task force on homelessness. Council member I'm just trying to get to the heart of the concern I'm trying to understand what about that wouldn't is that doesn't I I would be okay with it I know Jenny's not but that would be I I just will make sure we have a central kind of location that's going to be overseeing these recommendations as they go forward and in is working with and Charlie and in the community so that we have that kind of representation to make sure and as the mayor said recommendations if they're the more specific it makes it a lot easier for them than than general ones of just just raising money and one thing i didn't talk about i did but i didn't is if we when we talked about this initially we talked about being a low barrier um and i'm not sure if we have hit that yet because they once again the 18 to 59 and we wanted to have a low barrier i think that was kind of the first thing we said when we came was trying to have a shelter that did that. And if we take out the group with the families and with other, I'm not sure with the 18 to 59 if we're addressing all that either. So that kind of concerns me some too. But I know I would rather go ahead and start with the Versailles Road and work from there as our short term and then kind of work to our long term. Since David's here now, I'm going to put him on the spot, I thought that what I recalled was that looking at the numbers, we're serving the same population that if the seniors, persons with disabilities, and families were housed, it would open up enough spots that you thought the Hope Center could likely serve them. Yeah, I think that's 25% of the population we work with. So if you're talking 1,200 people a year, it's a little more than that, but I can't do the math on more than that. So you're looking at 300 people. So if you free up 300 people from the existing shelter across a year, you have the capacity to serve more people. But I also think that takes away a group that is higher acuity. So we're spending more time with that group than we are with some of the other population. So it does open up the space. What it doesn't do is deal with the population that Jenny was talking about earlier, the people that just don't want to participate. And I think we feel as a community obligated to do something about that group, but in truth I don't know what we can do and still have the community buy-in because I think there's a lot of resistance about letting a place like that, a low barrier shelter exist in any particular area. And so I think to answer the question, yeah, it would free up a lot of space and free up staff. Probably the more important part would free up staff to work with the people that were coming in. And I think it was a piece, too, that we kept dropping the age. When we were looking at seniors, we kept dropping that age a little bit because at first it was 65, you know, 62, and then we went down to, I think it was 50, so really that it would take a big lift off Hope Center, and then I think it really became very clear in the community collaboration pieces that community around Versailles Road, it's, we seem to have a lot more buy-in if we went to families and we went to seniors, and so I think, but I agree with you, it's another area, but Hope Center does do a delightful job. We're hoping that they can do that and meet the requirement that we're hoping that the case management ratio is much lower, which if you all are okay with it, I would like to sort of shift to the bulk of the recommendations so we have time to look through these as well because we only have about 45-ish minutes. So I don't know if people, again, took notes, if people have things that they want to toss out. If there's something you think we're really missing, I do think there's a lot of specificity in here, which I believe the city is needing. of this is we're wanting this intake center we know we're going to have to continue winter weather and we're wanting shelter program for families and people and our seniors so i think that is a specific ask that is much more tangible for government to be able to go forward with the other pieces will probably be built into rfps and conversation and then some things too that HPI board can task other programs to be able to figure out ways to help people with low barrier access and diversion programs and different things. So take a second, and if anybody has anything, just shout it out with your microphone on. and can i just follow up to say there's a reason they're in the order that they're in because that right correct that's that's that's the reason and what we're focusing on now really is the first two and the rfp it's just that the financing in five goes along with it Speaking of financing, are we married on the $25 million? Because I don't think that, is it going to be that much? I don't. Are there dangerous comments I'm going to make? I don't think so. Because when Ed did his first analysis of this, it was to buy property also. And we own that property. And the second thing we do is we own that building in front, which you would use for offices that provide these services. So, you know, Zach, we've talked about this before. we have built a senior center out of therapeutic that's got tons of open space and you know those you know better than I if you can stay in that open space context you can build a lot and I don't think it's going to cost $25 million Would you like to go on record to say how much you think it will cost? I would deny I was here To go along with that point, we built that two-story building in front of the emergency shelter for $6 million because we already had the space. We already had the land. I do think there's a significant value in having that location. And that's a pretty large building. And I think something of that capacity would go a long way towards this population. So if you use that in context, I think you're right. I think $25 million. Can he go on record? We can always put David on record. Did that $6 million include beds and chairs and everything you need? I'll just say I think the point maybe is less whether it costs $25 million or we've identified $15 million of capital sources, right? I think it's going to cost more than $15 million is the point. And 2.2 of that is opioid settlement funding, which we think there's some disagreement on whether that can be used at this site or not based on the population service. So maybe it's $12.8 million, and I think it will cost more than that. So I think the recommendation that I would make, I can't necessarily speak for the rest of our committee, is that the RFP go out saying we've got $12 million to $15 million, whatever that number lands to be, that we can provide to support the capital costs of a structure like this. Respondents to that RFP tell us how much it is actually going to cost and how you're going to come up with the gap. So maybe it is $18 million. Maybe it's $10 million. And someone says they can get it. But I doubt that. I think the point is less about whether it costs $25 million or not. But here's what we think we can commit to a capital raise. If it's going to cost more than that, a respondent is going to have to come up with private dollars to fill that gap. That's my. I just have a quick question. Can we leave out how much we have to put in there and just ask them how much they can come up with? because we're giving them the land and we know we have two point something already that council member sheehan got so what if what if in what if in the rfp we said we have this land and we have this money we can help with what can you come to the table with to that point i will just say that sometimes i do strategically issue rfps without a specified budget so i can see what's proposed and then negotiate from that's fine but anybody's sophisticated enough to do this project is going to read these minutes. So, I mean, you know. Well, then, Zach, stop telling him how much money we got in the bank. But I guess it's also fair to say that, you know, we do have, I guess, allocated committed dollars. But further than that, there is nothing, nothing else other than the land that we're discussing here. I know just, like, just speaking of the model that's in Lule with the VOA, you know, they went out and raised a lot of that money. and they carried that load. Maybe that's what we look for here in Lexington. In here we see we talk about annual, possibly given dollars for annual funding for operations. We know we have $2.8 million already dedicated. We know that we have open opiate dollars with the caveat that that has to be used for specific reasons. But I would suggest that hopefully we can look at a model like the VOA in Louisville and see if they're willing to carry that load and see how we can help support that rather than committing a bulk of dollars up front, I would say. That would be my philosophy. That goes to Jenny's point about community buy-in, because I think that's going to be very important that whoever takes this on is willing to initiate that investment from the community. So it shouldn't be a 100% government-funded project. It does need that buy-in, or it's just not going to work long term. Also, let me just make sure that I'm clear that none of us want to run this, right? So the government, Jeff, you don't want to run this? You don't want to. And David, you already said no, right? Jenny, you said no. So maybe whoever comes like the Volunteers of America, they can run it for us, and then it won't be a government-ran business, right? And we'll be out, which is what we want to do. Actually, we want Jeff to not have a job. That's our goal is for Jeff to be unemployed. But if we let the Volunteers of America or whoever comes and runs this, maybe we should let them decide what they're doing. And we should give them the money and the land and the recommendations. If we've got a say-so in it, we've still got our opinions to put. I think we would kind of do it like we do with the Hope Center. He said we gave them parameters of what they could or could not do out there. and then they run their own business and we just sometimes give them money. But we give them money. Do we still have our opinion to what to say and what to do? You know what I'm saying? It's like in Louisville. I was seeing in Louisville, they got a good thing going on in Louisville. I mean, man, the women's got families in one building. It's pretty nice. It's a little bit small, but it's pretty nice the way that they're doing it. That's a good idea. the city the city has members of the board at the hope center on it that's how we have input okay yeah and then sir that those folks that are in louisville that built that that's who we're talking about trying to get to come here and build ours is that saying those same folks i did have a question on the on the intake center and maybe and i really probably should know this but charlie and jeff were you if we made this one of the priorities were you thinking that the are the people that are running the shelter would also run that or is that a separate entity technically it could be done either way but if we are talking about the model in louisville that several people have referenced it does if you remember those who took the tour that front building that we initially met and that was their partner space that's essentially the same kind of concept is that they have that space that they can invite partners in to provide those services that are needed and really make their system connected and it would be included. As drafted presently, this version of the recommendations on item three does propose having this be part of that campus. And I think if we're looking for someone to develop that campus, that would be an element of it. Thank you. I thought so too, but it just wasn't completely clear for me, but the space was, which I knew was a concern of Jenny. So thank you. I just want to add this so that nobody thinks that, I mean, I'm not at the Hope Center now, so I'm not speaking for them. You are. But I think they do expect a commitment of funding to operate the shelter because it's a very expensive endeavor, and it is a partnership with the city. So whether this new provider would, I don't know, but it would be hard to do those services and raise the entire amount to provide those. So just wanted to throw that in. And I do think that's Jeannie's point. Now I see what you're talking about. On the intake center, you're saying that should not be at the campus because it brings people into that service area that might cause more problems. So, yeah. I would just say for that that, you know, the feedback that we got from the Volunteers of America team is that largely that population is already in the neighborhood where their campus exists. And from my perspective, at least my office, and I think police would agree, that we already have a lot of these issues in the Versailles corridor that we are responding to on a regular basis. And I think that this would add, again, just my perspective, it would add a resource that could help address the need that's already there. I don't think that we are necessarily bringing something to the neighborhood that isn't already present, and I think that we, with the right staffing and services, bring a better solution to the table. You probably need to hash that out a little bit, you know, So we're going to get to the point of having a proposal of this. I think it's a conversation we probably need to keep digging into because the intake center is sort of a core component of the recommendation. So more conversation, please. I kept pressing that button. I thought you were going to do it. No? So if it's not here, where? I get Jenny's concerns. I mean, that's just kind of common sense to me that you don't bring an expected problem into an area where you're going to be focusing on families and elderly people. So what are the options? And it kind of goes along with the question I had on this population of the 18 to 54, whatever it is, on, you know, is there capacity within the shelter system or services system now to help those? I'm assuming that most of the issues you have with the, whether you need the intake system would be in that population age more than what would be showing up there regularly. I mean, I think the convenience, a little bit of it, is that the land is owned, and it's a perfect place for it in regards to that. So it makes sense. And I think if you've got community folks, I think you can mitigate, to a degree, some of the unsafe pieces. If you had it elsewhere, then you have to really think that you've got seniors and children going to maybe another, you know, like if you're going to do one, then it kind of can flip the other way. So I can argue both, actually. It seems financially, simplistically, it makes more sense to put it on the Versailles road, but I get the argument on both sides. Probably the details have to be worked out because currently those 18 to 15-year-olds are walking right into the Hope Center. So they're not going to other campuses. So are the women who are going to the Salvation Army. So logistics would have to be worked out about how that improved that referral system for them to go to an intake center. You know, we probably have to also look at models that are doing that and how they get from, like, if you come to the Hope Center's door and we send them to an intake center and then they have to go back. So I think some of those, the concept is there. I'm not sure the details are there yet for those answers. And I don't know that this is true, but you know who I think is going to use it the most? I'm sorry, David, is I think law enforcement will use it actually quite a bit because I don't know that it's going to be so much the walk-up. I think it's going to be law enforcement might be out in the community and they need to figure out where to take someone, and they don't have the capacity at that moment to get somebody to a safe place. They need to go answer another call. So here I'm going to take to the intake center with folks. It's like that's who I, so again, it's going to be a little more structured than just sort of this, that's my imagination of it, whether that happens. In reality, that's a large part of the inspiration is from things like extreme weather response. We've definitely noted the need for that kind of a resource. And I think also, you know, we have language installed in here that would convey that that is not supposed to be an overnight shelter for those individuals. The concept behind that is that we would help them get to the Hope Center, Arbor Youth, Salvation Army, whatever the appropriate service for them would be. Right now, we just have such a difficult system to navigate. If the average person were to ask me, where does someone experiencing homelessness go, I don't have a simple answer. I have to tell them, well, are they a male or a female? Is there anyone else in the household? Do they have pets? I have to ask a whole laundry list of questions just to figure out how to route their need. And then we have some folks that, you know, also are not going to go to some shelters. And we also still need to be able to connect with those who are unsheltered. And so I think with this, we are really primarily operating something that would be similar to the way that the Empath Center helps law enforcement to address mental health needs. It's addressing the immediate need and crisis. it is not intended to be the permanent home of those individuals. And I think that kind of addresses some of the concern with the neighborhood. Like we were saying, they're in your community anyway. They're already here, which we know from Operating Street Irish, that is where they are. We're saying we're going to give an option, and we're going to have staff there to help get them out of this location. So, yes, they're not. So I do see, and I think you could do some things with, like, the facility design, the property design to create some separation. It's large enough that you could do that. I mean, it's equivalent of what we saw in Louisville. So I think you could do a lot with the design. That may be where that $25 million comes in. But I do think there are things that you could do to take away some of that, the concern over mixing the population, because that is a valid point. But I think having that central location where you can have people that go in, yeah, law enforcement. We've talked a lot about law enforcement buy-in, and maybe part of what we need to discuss in this continuation thing Is there a way to fund an additional law enforcement person to work from that? And that's exclusively a government thing, so you all can deal with that. But I think there are a lot of things that you could do with that space to mitigate some of that concern. And I think in terms of the neighborhood's contention, a lot of their concern was that this group is going to be here. on my property for five months. What we're saying is 24 hours, they're going to be gone from here. Regardless of where they go, we're going to make sure that they're not here. So I wonder if that helps that argument at all. No, because the reality is there's no place for a lot of those folks. As it stands right now, if we're not doing the 18, you know, If they've left, if it's one of our friends that gets kicked out of you, gets kicked out of us, what do we do with them? They go out to the drop-in center, and they'll be out there for 23 hours, just like Empath. We're working with rural health on some issues, and Empath is having that same challenge in that the people leave. They walk away. The neighborhood out there is stuck with them. We have outside, and I know that the courts deal with this a lot. We have outside-the-county people that are losing the people because, you know, if there's not a court order, they can't make them stay. So, yes, having central intake is only necessary for those who they're in the clear path. I mean, every police officer will say, I mean, we talk all the time, is there room at Salvation Army for this woman? Is there room at the Catholic Action Center? Can we get them to Winchester then? You know, where can we put them? So the central, they may skip that step, but it's not just in Versailles Road area. Let's be real. Talk to the businesses downtown. Todd could share with you a lot that they had to say with the business. He talks to businesses downtown. Talk about I-75 out at Winchester Road, opposite side of town. So, you know, folks are everywhere. There's no question of that. But they'd be the ones that there's no place directly to go. I would say that's going to be true wherever it is. Yeah. That's going to be true regardless of location. Right. But that, yeah. So my concern is that when you have this central intake and we're concentrating on children and elderly and the disabled, and you bring in the other population even for 24 hours. 24 hours starts over in 24 hours. So we don't have some place for them to go. They are going to come right back to that location. So it's going to be every day, and we don't eliminate the problem. I think it's good conversations. You know, I mean, I think that, I mean, I definitely understand the concerns. I think basically one concern is just going to lead to another. We're coming to the concern that we're going to be looking for a location. We know that there's other concerns tied to, you know, with pets, trying to address the challenge with pets, trying to address the challenge with the age of 18 to 55, trying to address this challenge. So what we're getting at is we have a huge elephant in front of us, And we're trying to take – and what we need to do is take the biggest bite that we can take and just make that elephant smaller and continue to work on those items and continue to move forward. What I don't want is us to get to a space where we, you know, bring up valid concerns that then push items lower on the priority list and or make them, to CAO Hamilton Point, not happen at all. You know, if we have the land, we have the space, I think it's up to figuring out how we can do it in the most sensitive way, the most safe way. But then also understanding, like I said, in Louisville, the VOA has so many different populations in one space. The space that we're talking about is almost triple the size or double the size of the VOA's campus. So, I mean, there's definitely some minutiae points to address tied to, you know, the 24 hours, tied to the fact that if there's not any place to take individuals, then ultimately, you know, they're going to be there either way. I mean, there's just so many points, but then, like I said, we're just going to get to another concern. And we're going to keep – we're going to be sitting here for hours just concern, concern. So it's ultimately what is the best – how can we get the most impact right now in the biggest bite of the elephant is how the philosophy all comes from. And what I was hoping we would come out with is solid direction on how to issue an RFP. And what would be in, because Charlie doesn't need to just sit in his office and do the RFP. That needs to be a guidance document to come back to a group and maybe getting back to the community that what we issue is what is feasible and what makes sense. It can't be pie in the sky, but it needs to be what services are you going to offer in that whole complex. And that's where I was hoping we would get to because I still see that as the first step. I want to go back to 18 through 55-year-olds because it's not at VOA. They don't run a general shelter. They're very specific. I don't know if you were aware of that. That's a huge difference, too. 100%. Yes, ma'am. No, I was more so speaking that there's many different populations that have needs right now. And I believe there's a responsibility to provide towards those needs. But we know that we all can't do it all with one bite is what I'm getting at, that we're going to have to take that as a phased approach. And right now I think the recommendations in front of us is a pretty good bite is what I would say. Well, I want to say I like that analogy. I like all those points. And I think one of the things that I'm hearing that we all agree on is we need to issue an RFP for this emergency shelter for these populations. The rest of it, we don't know if we got the money. We don't know if we can do it there safely. But if we're doing it step by step, that's the first step, and that is the priority. Why not give a person more than 24 hours? Why does it have to be 24 hours? Why can't it be 36 hours? Giving a person a chance to really get their wits together instead of just putting them back out there. Yeah, but that gets into sheltering mode. Barra Marshall will talk to you about that. You know, I think my thoughts would be, you know, the goal is to have spaces where it can be done in less than 12 hours. But ultimately, the only way that it works is if you have open beds and open spaces to take our brothers and sisters. If there's no open beds, then it's TBD to be determined. No hours, I would say. I do like the conversation, though, in this document of diversion, though, because I think so many times we immediately just automatically rely on getting somebody to the next shelter bed. I had a call today from the police department. They were looking for shelter for a woman. And she needed to get home to her dad in Tennessee. We got her a bus ticket to get to Tennessee. And so that's bigger than what this is. But I do think that that intake center can also begin to explore. It doesn't always have to be every person that comes here. We have to locate a bed. It might be ways of finding how to keep them safe in their home, get a protective order, do lock changes, help with a utility deposit because their water got turned off and they can't stay in their home. So anyways, I like the diversion piece that can couple a little bit with our bed shortage. i i have a question and this is sort of my own ignorance so when it goes to to present to the council and we have the recommendations we have the recommendations of temporary um winter shelter needing to continue while we're constructing the emergency shelter for these populations and an intake center do you also get a copy of the rfp because i do think there's been a lot of work on what would go into the rfp which is a lot of this extra additional recommendation pieces i think we can build that out does that rfp also come along with the recommendations or does this council really need just to know what we're coming to you for is continuation of winter weather and the construction of emergency shelter that's just my i don't know those questions i my sense is you all don't usually get an rfp with what they get is a draft ordinance which has a lot of the meat of it in it. Thank you. In my opinion, I think anything that can be prepared should be prepared. So if we're going to send this to council and have council discussion, I would like the RFP to be prepared at that point, whether it comes to the council members in the packet or not, because the moment council is like, okay, I want to issue that RFP. So I feel everything should be ready. It should be ready to go so we can move quickly. It doesn't necessarily be part of the official packet. I agree with you on that. I don't think it necessarily has to come to us as long as it's out the recommendations there outlined. So I'll ask Charlie and Chris Ford, since you manage our buildings, Do you feel like you've gotten enough information from this task force to work with law and write a draft RFP, or what else do we need? I mean, I don't know if we're even there yet, but I think it's important that the two of you can work with law to bring it eventually. I personally feel like we have plenty of information to be able to get that started. And I would just say this has been an enormously helpful conversation today for the staff from our perspective because you're answering the last kind of few questions we still had out there on how to proceed with this. I think you've given us enough information on that that once we get through our final steps here, we'll be there. I think you're doing a good job of narrowing this down. I would caution everybody, just don't make the perfect the enemy of the good on this. It's so easy to do, as all of us who work in this field know, because you will never achieve the perfect. so you can't let the perfect meet the enemy of the good. And then, Mayor and Commission members, I echo what Charlie said. But just for clarity, the RFP would be to seek service providers who are willing to redevelop a seven-acre site that we would provide to make available. What's the RFP? This might be a purchasing or a law question, but I wonder if it's more of an RFI, actually, until you have the money outlined. But, you know, that's a legal question. But I think we have enough information to get that done. Don't you, Chris, as far as location and what we want to do there? Yeah, but I'm clarifying is that what we're asking response for and what we're offering is that we have the site, and we are seeking partners to redevelop that site if the city would make it available. Correct. Correct, and then the parameters would include what's been put forth here as far as the minimum standards for that. And then I think one of the major scoring criteria will be what money do they want to bring to the table for this project, or do they think they can bring to the table. Great, great, great. And then that's very, very helpful. The only thing I would add to that is that coupled with that RFP, the flip side of that, Charlie and team will need to give some attention to recommendation 2G, which is basically the mitigation aspect, which is relocation and the mitigation and relocation of the municipal services that are there on the site. So those probably should happen in tandem, the planning, therefore. Yeah, in all fairness to Commissioner Ford, that actually probably ought to be A instead of G because you can't really move people in there until you know what you're doing. Yeah, that's already in progress to an extent. So how long does that take, you think, Sally? Well, it's never money. And space. It's space. If I might, I don't think we have our law department here, but we do. He's not our. Oh, there you are. I'm looking at Keith. I would just wonder if you have any thoughts given this type of discussion. Thank you. I think that we would just have to look at how exactly the RFP would be put together and how exactly we would issue that. But that's just something that I think we'll need to work with Commissioner Ford and Commissioner Lanter and figure that out. Okay. I want to go back to something that Councilmember Morton said. But it seems to me, and I had to miss a couple meetings along the way, so I don't know about this, but it seems to me everybody likes one and two. There's some unsettled business about number three, number four, and number five. Is that sort of true or not true? Because if that is true, we could go ahead, Sally, and work on one and two through the RFP process or RFI, if that's what it is. I mean, we would have to identify some money. But I think that, I don't know, has everybody agreed on every single recommendation? I didn't really hear that. Yeah, what would be the pleasure of the task force? Would you like to go through each one and say whether we agree with recommendation one and put that on record? Okay. Okay. So for recommendation one, temporary. I'm sorry. With the caveat that we have a public hearing coming up. So we're not adopting these recommendations today to be given to the mayor's office. We're adopting them to go. We're not going to do that until we've heard from the public, right? Okay. That was one of the things I had written down on the front page. What is the exact goal of the public meeting? Is it to change the recommendations through public input? Or is it to simply get feedback? Because I wasn't sure if you're looking for changes. Chuck, you want to explain that? because that came from, I mean, it's part of what the community engagement. What's your thought, Council Member Hollinger? I mean, I like it. I just want to know the goal. Well, I think it gives an opportunity to present to the public what we have, recommendations we have done so far and get their input from that because that's kind of what the community engagement committee was is we wanted to hear, and we've had that opportunity to hear from, we've looked at coming up with these recommendations. Now we're going to present what this task force has come up with, and then they can comment on that. Yeah, thank you. I have a clarification on the five, or at least on the recommendations. I support them all, but I prioritize one and two. So when you go through them, I think they're weighted for me. I wouldn't want three and four to slow the process on one and two. so I don't know how you'd handle that in the vote and I guess Zach I'm glad you brought that up I think this is really more of are we feeling confident to go forward to the town hall meeting with the recommendations that are here knowing we're still getting feedback and this is information we're pulling together for both the town hall meeting and for the final recommendations to the city Todd did you have a question did you have a question okay alright please Yeah, I'm so sorry. So has everybody settled on number five? That's very specific. And I'm not exactly sure that we do that as a – what if we get in and we find out one of these doesn't work and we have to change for financing? I think when we talked before, that – on the committee, I was on the committee with Zach. These were possibilities of how to finance this. My understanding is that RFP would not go out with, here's how much money we've got, da-da-da. It would go out for, what do you think you can do? These are recommendations, though, to the public. They'll come to me. They'll go to the council. This is how we're doing it. That's what I want to know. Are these specific recommendations on number five that have to be followed, or are they flexible? I think you can call them up to, you know, supporting up to. I think what I would envision is that the RFP respondent would come with a financial plan that would include an ask from the city. If one respondent asked for $15 million from the city and one asked for five, all other things being equal, you would give more weight to the respondent that asked for less money. So you would keep in all these details, $10 million from Section 108. we've already requested from the state and didn't get it, private capital. All of those we would have to do or they would be suggested ways of funding. Suggested ways of funding, yeah. You don't have to do any of those. Yeah. Well, I just want to be sure that we're not putting ourselves in a box with the financing that we can't get out of. And, of course, Zach made a comment that I never thought about was very true, though. Anybody that's going to bid on this is going to look at these minutes, and you're going to see this right here. And, you know, we were trying to keep this out of the RFP, but it's going to be right there. I think that may raise a good point, though. I mean, in a sense, five is not even a recommendation. It's a source of funds you can tap. So you could have one through four as recommendations, and the fifth would be a range of funding sources that could be tapped to help execute on. Particularly for the town hall. Yeah, love it. Thank you. All right. So for temporary seasonal shelter, can I have just all those in favor? Is everyone in agreement with the temporary seasonal shelter continuing until the permanent shelter is completed? Yes. Any opposed? All right. Transition to permanent shelter with the priorities of the populations we were talking about which were seniors and 55 and older and families and disabilities. Thank you. All those in favor? Please, please. Where are you seeing that, Judge? We should clarify that. I think we didn't necessarily have anyone in mind that's not listed there. It was just an attempt to make it abundantly clear that it was intended to be low-impact populations at that site. I just don't want it to become a judgment on it. Nobody knows where it is, so. Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't. It could, if they're able to accommodate it. Okay. That's it for me. All right. I think that largely that that phrasing is included to try to appease the concerns of some of the members of that neighborhood that have expressed concerns. So I think if that is a sticking point, I think we remove that language and focus on the seniors, disabled, and families. Thank you, Judge. I think it was just extra spotlighting on that language for the neighborhood. Wonderful. All right. So with that correction, thank you so much. transition to permanent shelter with again with a focus on families with children seniors and persons with disabilities is everyone in agreement that that is what the permanent shelter population should be all those in favor aye any opposed all right wonderful so will that come designated it doesn't say 55 and older will it say 55 and older when you bring it yeah yeah i think we should end that because some of the data that we have referenced about the 25 percent of persons serve annually at the hope center or within our larger system it's ran through our system with that parameter of being 55 plus but it doesn't say that in here yes i'm saying we can add that yeah okay so we have Continuity throughout. Correct. Establishing a central intake. So there's two pieces to this, right? Do we think a central intake center is critical to the proposal? And then there's a little bit of the debate as to where that would be located. So do we all agree that a central intake center is critical to this project? All those in favor? Aye. Is that critical? I'm coming next with that. Yeah, I'm coming next. Hold on. Anybody opposed to the idea that we need to develop or create a central intake? Well, because I'm going to do it in two parts. Can I do it that way? So we're going to do a central intake, but then the location of the central intake. Yeah, yeah. Stay with me. Okay. So, all right, wonderful. So we're going to say central intake. All those in favor that we should develop a central intake center, all those in favor? Aye. Stay with me. Follow with me. All those, anybody opposed to the development of a central intake center? Okay. So now, the central intake center being on the Versailles Road campus with great due diligence around that. All those in favor of being on the Versailles Road? Please, please. What if someone bids on this and they say that's not where we think it should be? Should this group designate exactly where it should be, or should we leave that to some experts who may have a better idea? Maybe I'm... I really think we, I mean, I agree that we should leave it to respondents. I think you can prioritize. I'm sure that and Charlie will have to there may be some sort of scoring criteria or there will be a selection criteria within this RFP and I think if you come with a solution for a central intake center you are going to be scored for lack of a better term higher than someone who doesn't if you use less city funding you're going to be scored higher than someone who uses more city funding so I think with all recommendations we have to leave bandwidth for an NGO or a broader term the private market to come and develop what they see to be feasible and fundable. So, yes, I think we should leave that to a respondent. If we want to make a recommendation that we would like a priority to be developing a central intake center, I think they may choose to do that to try to win the project. But that's fine. But we might not get any candidates that do it. But I feel it seems to be critical to the task force to have that out there. Council Member Morton. I agree 100% with you, Zach. And I think maybe it's just, you know, possibly adding some type of language that highlights the concern and asks how they plan to mitigate it. Maybe that's what it is. And if they say it's not feasible, you know, it's just not feasible in that proposal, and that just will have to be judged. I get that, but the only dilemma is it might not be their population, right? So if they're doing an RFP and they're focused on this community, they're actually going to be mitigating a population that they're sort of not geared to, you know. So you are asking an X for something. Well, I guess when I say mitigation, I mean just the concern with mixing populations is what I mean by mitigation, not anything further than that, just the concern of mixing is what I would say. I'm asking a question, not making a suggestion. Why would the city not run the intake center? why would you put that on the plate of somebody you're asking to come in and develop a specific facility which is we're already talking about what we'd like that to look at someone and i'm not trying to throw you guys over here and the staff you know under the bus on this that's not the point i'm just asking for discussion someone who's familiar with lexington's resources at all levels, including law enforcement when needed, would appear to me to make a lot more sense to run the intake and then send people to places they needed to go, rather than to ask someone to come into the community to develop a specific center and then ask them to decide where folks are going to go in the community. someone with community understanding I would think would maybe be better suited for that now I think I'm going to ask it just as a part B to that where when someone I think I heard this earlier but when someone in the community or out of the community because I think Jenny alluded to this early on we've got our fair share of interlopers here who are coming into the community. Ma'am, you don't like that? Visitors. We have our fair share of visitors to the community. Wouldn't it be helpful to maybe be able to identify through that process early on, and where are most of those people? I think I heard this earlier. I think Jeff may have alluded to this. where are they currently coming to when they roll into town and i know it's not everybody's saying but the majority or they show up come into town or show up where where are they going now is it the hope center i mean we have several high impacted neighborhoods we have people that are accessing when they do come from outside various different resources it could be eastern state it It could be shelters. It's not one specific location. So there's not really one predominant place. So that really comes down, in my view, that comes down to a conversation around the experts at this table or on staff as to where the best location for those entrance facility or facilities should be. You know, do you need to have one at the Hope Center? or do you need to have one out on exit 110 at Winchester Road? I'm thinking they need to be more maybe mobile or they need to be more strategically located in order to get a hold of these folks as quick as we can and get them in the right spot and take it off the table of somebody we're asking to come in and develop something that's not at all dealing with admission. We're sending somebody there that we know automatically qualifies. for that care. I just throw that out as a discussion point. I think ultimately that's a city responsibility. I wouldn't want that responsibility as a private funding agency coming in and being told that you get to gate cut all these people, to use my farmer language, you're going to decide which alley they go down. No, you're asking me to come in and take care of a specific population. I'm not going to decide where folks need to go. So, just for discussion purposes, I've heard that throughout the day, and I don't think there's any agreement that it should go to Versailles Road because of the impact on the folks we're talking about putting there. And the community. We're all of a sudden going to be good neighbors, and now we're putting this whole population of locals and visitors, if you like that better, and we're just going to run them right into that area again and then potentially move them along or keep them or whatever. I don't know if that's a good answer. I think we also need to think about what is the intake center because we also have to keep in mind that the street population isn't necessarily who we're targeting. We're targeting people that are new into the system. They're already in the system. They know the resources. Now, you may have a police officer that picks them up and takes them there, but I don't know that that is your target. I think your target are people that are coming in that you can do the diversion on, that you can try to figure out are there other options, or they're not as familiar with the resources that are already available. If they know what they are, they're going to go to those and not go to the center. Like, is it a drop-in center just for people who are homeless? I don't know that that's the intention of what we're thinking here. more it's just uh this is your first point of contact into the homeless system yeah it was reason though um mr hall that i did that question because i wasn't sure if that was going to be run by the the people that were running that shelter if it was a separate piece my only pushback i think on whether it should be government run and i don't know that that's a bad idea at all i just in the social service world i kind of like social service providers to run social service agencies and it feels more social service-y than it does to be networking so in that regard i like the city to do city things and government things and i like the non-profits and the social service agencies to do the caretaking and the social service that's why i tend to think of it not being city but i but i hear what you're saying i mean it could be either or um but i also is why i wondered if it should be who we're doing the rfp for that 55 and older and family shelter program because you are putting on them something that is not in their population that you're requesting them to do. So, Mayor, if I might follow up. So if people are coming, so the intake centers for new people, you said, someone said. I think predominantly that's who they show up. Everyone else will be in the system. and if they're coming to all different places, I'm just going to throw out an idea. What if we had a small one at Versailles Road and a small one near the Hope Center area? Rather than taking everybody to an intake center, we know we don't think it's a good idea at Versailles Road because of the population, but there might be women and children and disabled and elderly who come there rather than taking them all to one place and then transporting them to another place? What if we did two smaller ones? Is it mainly going to be electronically entering them to a system, or will it be giving services? Can I add to that? I don't know. What if we, instead of a brick-and-mortar facility, had mobile intake facilities? So as the population moves based upon what's happening in the community, a few years ago did we have an issue out on Winchester Road? I mean, that's new to me, you know, that people are out there. It moves. It changes. So you've got some sort of a mobile office that could be used to move to wherever the population is moving to. Maybe one of those stays at the Hope Center, maybe at the Versailles Road facility, and you have a third unit that staff could man to go to wherever the need be. If it's Winchester Road now, fine. If it comes to be, you know, Georgetown Street or somewhere else, that can go there in order to kind of help get to a point when a population seems to increase. And if it's, again, electronic stuff and maybe there's, again, cost involved, but there's transportation that goes through those locations and moves people to where they need to get to go to. If I tell you, you come to the Hope Center, but you've got to get over to Versailles Road, well, it's cold, it's raining, I can't get there comfortably with two children and my stuff, so there is some way that I'm transported. I just like the idea of going to where the people are. I don't think it's ever been thought that they'd have to check in there before getting into a shelter. That would not be the intent. It would just be for those that don't have the knowledge of where to directly access the service that they need. And we do have mobile services. I think if we were not going to have a brick-and-mortar central intake center, then we would have to take the resources that would be invested in that and invest in a significant increase in our street outreach services. The other thing that I think we sometimes find is that we have a lot of inconsistent contact with people when we're trying to deliver mobile service, and sometimes, despite the barriers that people have, sometimes we have a better chance of engagement if they also have somewhere that they can come and meet us versus always us going out and meeting them. Council Member. If I could make a suggestion, just because I know you're going to have a bit of a time issue, it sounds like you've got significant agreement on a concept, but a lot to work out still on what we all, I think we all maybe have a little bit different vision for what Central Intake Center is and how it operates. We have this community input session coming up, and I think this is an excellent opportunity to say to the community in that session, hey, the task force thinks this X is a great idea, but we're a little divided on things like where to put it and how it will operate and just ask for their input. And then when we come back, tell you what they said, and then you can kind of finalize that option. That's just a suggestion. Council Member Sheehan. I don't mind that, getting some input on it outside of this committee, but I also want to say that I kind of see this, I don't mind the mobileness because I think of like paramedicine and our paramedicine team, and they go to where people are. So I like that. But I also see this as potentially the starting place for the case management that comes in a later recommendation and that all of this might end up in the same place. And so I don't want to lose sight of that, of the potential of that work, because I think that work is so important to getting people into these more permanent placements. And so I know that isn't in this top three recommendations, but it kind of feeds into the fourth of diversion and then the sustainability of this work and the kind of goals that we're trying to hit overall. I would agree with Council Member Sheehan 100% and the inclusion of that element is what helps a lot of communities really bolster their continuum of care and really build up that service piece. Thanks. Council Member Morton. I was going to say that I think that some great innovative solutions regarding the mobile, being mobile, I would say, and I don't disagree with multiple sites. I think that may be a good idea as well, But I would hope that it's equally accessible on all sides of Lexington, so maybe one on the south side of town, maybe one on the north side of town. But also, and lastly, I agree with Commissioner Lanter that maybe it's obviously been highlighted as a priority. There's more work that needs to be done to fine-tune the language, but maybe we wait for some community input, and maybe this is just something we come back to and finalize regarding the language of it. Ask the people. That's a novel idea. Nice, good. Council Member Ellinger. And just to follow up on that, when we had our May 21st general public meeting for the community engagement, I was amazed. I would say two-thirds of it was spent by business owners that were off of 75 and Winchester Road and Richmond Road that were really, this was a big issue for them, which I didn't realize how big it was, but I'd say a big part of that meeting was on that area of town. So I think it would be nice to hear from the general public in this and see what their input is. One question I have of the committee before it's – and I'm not sure, Mayor, when the work's going to be wrapped up. It seems like there seems to be getting more things put on the plate. But I hope before we completely disband or whatever's happened that we do have some conversation. I'm going to go back to Jenny's original comments. We've been here for an hour and a half today and talked about some important things, but nobody has breached the subject of accountability. And I think if we're going to make these suggestions to the community, it would be nice for us to have had a conversation about what accountability looks like. And maybe in a future session we can do that. But I know that it's important for many of us in the community that we have began to require maybe a higher level of accountability than what we have done. And so I would like to ask that we have those discussions at some point. So, Madam Chairman, maybe you can get that on the agenda in the future. If that's the direction the group wants to go, and if not, then we won't waste any time. I think it's a critical piece. And I know in the Community Engagement Committee, accountability was brought up a great deal. And I think in the recommendations, but you're right, the specificity of what that means. I know we did look a little bit at some of the language. I was thinking of Judge Gunther, actually, in the last one of how you do a warm handoff. So I didn't want to get to a place where you're not meeting the recommendations of this program. So here's the door. How do you soft handoff people to get people to the correct program that might be a better fit for them? But I do think there was a lot of conversation around the need for it, but we can certainly bring into the specificity of what that looks like, most definitely. Yes, I wanted to also just kind of piggyback off of the mobile units. That was something that our, at Fayette County Public Schools, that we actually pallidated over the last few years, last year, was what we call community pop-ups, was going to our families to where they were. And it was starting to be very extremely successful. So I could see us both doing both, having a location as well as inclusive to having mobile units to go out to service our families. That's good to know. That would be a good model for us, T.C. Thank you. I do want to be really thoughtful of everyone's time. So I feel like we're really good about the recommendation one and two to go forward with some fleshing out. We really love the intake center. We just have a lot of ideas of what that means, where it's located. But I think that gives a little bit of the city an idea that we definitely want one and two. Along with the intake, I think we talked about the financial recommendations, how we would present that. So we're not boxing ourselves into any specificity. But these are ideas and suggestions that can help us fund. And then we didn't get to diversion. But I think, as you said, that kind of goes with the other pieces. So if you all are okay, we'll kind of take everything you've had. We'll wrap that up into a bow. We'll get information out to you all. We will do the town hall meeting. We hope that you all can come. That is August 11th at the Senior Citizen Center. I believe it's at 6 o'clock. Any last minutes? Do we have a facilitator for that? Our preference would be that staff not be the ones that solely facilitate. I was going to ask you what that looked like to you. We don't mind doing all the logistics, but you all probably ought to leave. When we were talking about it, because the committee was talking about it, we had said that we wanted Diane. Say if you, yeah, there's a thought, but I think, Charlie, you need to be at that DS too. Yeah, I'll be there. I just didn't want to be the one doing it. No, we could have Chuck and me as co-chairs and then Diane as overall and you. Yeah, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure so we knew who to make sure was there, so I'm good. But I've got some questions for you on it, but we can get it. But I do think there's another question. Now, I like planning. Are we really thinking we're going to have the final, and Mayor, you don't need to listen. You can cover your ears. Final recommendations for her on August 26th? I don't either, but I've been being pushed and being told. Well, we're ready with one and two. Yeah, but we'll also bring what came back. And you're not feeling that we've – it's your task force. You don't think we have to – Does it sound to me like we have come to all the final decisions and then to the accountability piece? I mean, there's still a lot. It seems. I haven't been in all the buildings, but it seems to me there's still a little work left. I still would like – I mean, why this is all going on? I think we ought to start this work on this RIP, though. Yes, ma'am. Oh, I agree. And not wait until we'll just pretend that something's final. It's on your way. Yeah. I don't know if you all feel like you're finished or not. I've got three agenda items for your next meeting, which is debrief the town hall, accountability discussion, and I'm missing something. Resolving the central intake question. I think you've got three pretty solid things you've got to talk about at the next meeting. The financial will be simply we suggest you look into these rather than be recommendations. So that's kind of done. They're opportunities. All right. Do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Thank you. I don't believe