# Task Force to End Homelessness - Public Input Meeting - August 11, 2026 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Task Force · August 11, 2026 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6851 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6851?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2026-08-11 - **Body**: Task Force - **Last revised**: August 19, 2026 - **Length**: 12,174 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Community Engagement with the Homeless Task Force meeting was presided over by Chuck Gallagher. The meeting featured one agenda item focused on Homeless Task Force Recommendations, which was presented for informational purposes. No votes were taken during the meeting. The session included 17 public comments from community members. The meeting provided an opportunity for the Task Force to share recommendations and engage with the public on homelessness-related issues. ## Attendance The Task Force meeting on August 11, 2026 was attended by 24 members. **Present:** - Chuck Gallagher - Commissioner Langer - Mayor - Commissioner Charlie Lanter - Council Member Eldridge - Mason Sims - Josh McKinley - Linda Vaughn - Abby Latimer - Corbett Flynn - Stephanie Spires - Richard Maloney - Patrick McFadden - Daryllisa Bryant - Marty Jones - Erica Dominguez - Judy Ashmore - Brittany Berger - Cynthia Buckner - Peggy Henson - Parker Downs - Barbara Haddon - Amber Cronin **Late:** - Jenny Ramsey **Absent:** No members were recorded as absent. ## Public Comment Seventeen members of the public provided comments during the Task Force meeting on August 11, 2026, addressing shelter capacity, service delivery, location concerns, and support for specialized populations. **Support for Recommendations** Multiple speakers expressed support for the task force's core recommendations. Josh McKinley [0:23:21] supported increased shelter capacity for families, seniors, and individuals with disabilities, emphasizing the importance of keeping families together. Linda Vaughn [0:26:12] advocated for continuing temporary seasonal beds while developing a permanent campus, highlighting the need for a single point of entry center. Abby Latimer [0:29:27] supported creating a 24-7 service center and expanding medical respite beds for older adults experiencing homelessness. Corbett Flynn [0:32:44] endorsed the housing-first approach and its potential to reduce gun violence. Stephanie Spires [0:34:59], Daryllisa Bryant [0:44:03], Marty Jones [0:46:33], and Erica Dominguez [0:49:38] also voiced support for the recommendations, with emphasis on job training, comprehensive services, and senior housing. **Location and Safety Concerns** Several speakers raised concerns about the proposed shelter location on Versailles Road. Richard Maloney [0:36:40] emphasized the need for community-driven programs and neighborhood support. Patrick McFadden [0:40:53] and Peggy Henson [1:00:37] cited safety and infrastructure issues with the proposed site. Cynthia Buckner [0:58:00] expressed concerns about neighborhood impact, and Barbara Haddon [1:06:01] supported the need for shelters but agreed that a better location should be considered. **Additional Topics** Brittany Berger [0:55:25] discussed plans for a nonprofit to provide wraparound services and case management. Parker Downs [1:03:54] advocated for including veterans as a specialized population requiring dedicated housing solutions. Judy Ashmore [0:52:19] emphasized community involvement and sought guidance on how individuals could contribute. Amber Cronin [1:08:50] stressed the urgent need for shelter solutions, particularly for women and medically vulnerable individuals. ## Contested Items **Proposed Shelter Location on Versailles Road** Community members raised concerns about the proposed shelter location on Versailles Road during the Task Force meeting. The opposition centered on safety and suitability issues related to the site's characteristics. Specific concerns included: - Traffic-related safety issues at the proposed location - Infrastructure limitations or inadequacies for the shelter facility The community members who voiced these objections expressed that the Versailles Road location presented obstacles to the shelter's effective operation and the safety of both residents and the surrounding area. The extracted data does not specify the final outcome or resolution of this contested item, nor does it detail the Task Force's response to the community concerns raised. ## Homeless Task Force Recommendations The task force presented a series of recommendations aimed at addressing homelessness in the community. Key speakers included Chuck Gallagher, Commissioner Charlie Lanter, and Jenny Ramsey. The presentation outlined three primary recommendations: * Increasing shelter capacity to accommodate more individuals experiencing homelessness * Creating a 24-7 intake center to provide continuous access to services * Providing wraparound services to support individuals' broader needs beyond emergency shelter This agenda item was presented as informational, allowing the task force to share their findings and proposed solutions with the broader group. The outcome was informational in nature, indicating the recommendations were presented for consideration rather than voted upon or formally adopted at this meeting. --- ## Full transcript My name is Chuck Gallagher. I'm one of your at-large council members, and also I'm the co-chair of the Community Engagement. So we, with the Homeless Task Force, and I'm going to bring the mayor up here in a second and talk about how this was organized and why we are here. The Community Engagement, I'm co-chair along with Jenny Ramsey, she's on her way over here. We have tried to meet with the community from different organizations, and this is kind of our wrap-up after we have our recommendations from the task force to get you all's input. So you'll have three minutes, if you'd like to get your name, your council district, and your comments, you'll have three minutes. I think Commissioner Langer is going to be the one that's going to be emceeing that part of it. But with that, I'd like to invite the mayor up. We have been meeting since February, and here we are in August, and we're trying to get recommendations back to the mayor, so your input would be very helpful to us. So mayor, if you would come up and talk about how we ended up being here. Thank you very much, Chuck. Welcome, everyone. It's great to see such a big crowd with the storms coming and everything. So, first of all, I want to thank all of you for attending tonight. This is really important for us to hear from you, to give us your ideas, your thoughts, your input. And I also want to thank Commissioner Charlie Lanter, who is here. He's the commissioner of all the housing things we've got going on. For the members of the task force who are here, I appreciate it. We have been sprinkled throughout the crowd. So we, as Councilmember Hellinger said, the task force I appointed about close to a year ago, and you all have been meeting about eight months. And the thing is, we know that we need to have some creative ideas. When we did our point in time count in 2024, we always do it in January when it's the coldest and we can find more people that way, more of them aren't sheltered. And we had jumped by 100 people then. And so this was a really, for me and a lot of people in government, this was a message. We need to do some things differently. And our goal is to get people out of a homeless situation, an unsheltered situation, and move them toward mental health care, addiction recovery, and into jobs, if they're able. And so many cities across the country have experienced this exact same thing. The homeless numbers are rising. And we know that through the task force, we cannot solve all the issues, but the task force was a way to look at what the issues are and what we might do differently. Now, I frequently say, you know, we need to quit pulling people out of the river and we need to walk upstream and find out why they're falling in, right? And that means we are attempting to get to the root causes of a lot of this. It's a complex problem. And so this task force has worked for about eight months. Many, many hours have been spent not only by the full task force, but by the individual subcommittees that each one of the members has served on. And it's been a really good effort. But now we need your input. So they're going to present what has come so far as a draft, some of the ideas. And it's not a back and forth discussion. It's you tell us what you think and what you think might be good for us to consider before we wrap up. So thank you very much for coming. Really appreciate you. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you, Mary. I think they're going to come up at this point and just go through the PowerPoint here briefly. And then the rest of it is for you all to give your input. So if you haven't, please sign up in the back and we'll be calling your name in order. But, Charlie, you want to go ahead? Thanks. Council Member Eldridge and welcome, everyone. Thanks for coming out on this beautiful evening. Nice dry weather. Appreciate you all coming out because this was not a great night for this. Like the mayor said, this has been a culmination of about eight months' worth of work. For some of us in the industry, it's been a culmination of decades' worth of work. And so we are really anxious to hear what folks think because we can't do this work without community support. It's just too difficult. And so I'm going to walk you through as quickly as possible the process of how we got here. And we're going to turn it over to you to talk. So the mayor talked a little bit about how we set up this task force. Basically starting in the COVID-19 pandemic, that's when the homelessness situation, not just in Lexington, but across the United States, really began to change. Issues that we saw like mental health, substance use. It's not that they grew a number in terms of that being a new issue. It's that the severity increased. I know you recall at the time the opioid epidemic was also hot. So those have fed and driven a lot of this. We did a study last year in 2025 with EHI consultants that basically said, Lexington, you need more capacity. If your system doesn't start growing the number of beds you have, particularly 500 by the next four or five years, then you're going to be out of space. And we actually already are out of space for certain populations. We don't have anywhere to go if you are a homeless person who wants to stay there. We don't have a pet that you're not willing to part with. So there are different populations that we actually do not have a solution for in Lexington. And that's some of what you'll hear tonight is how we're hoping to resolve that. So we set up this task force to tackle those issues. Here's the members. If you are a member of the task force on homelessness and you're in this room right now, raise your hand so that folks know who you are. So these folks have been in the meetings. They've been in these conversations. This is their report. Please, if you have individual questions that you don't get answered tonight or you want to really just give somebody an earful, those are the folks. Those are the folks that are recognized. Those are the folks that are going to take your feedback back and make adjustments. So make sure you talk to them. The staff obviously can collect that information as well. The advisory members that you see listed are more staff that supported this work as well as some community members who were very valuable. There were four committees to this task force, supportive service and prevention, peer cities and shelter models that looked at basically what are other communities doing. Funding and partnerships told us how we were going to pay for it. And community engagement actually is one of the plans of this event tonight as well as some others that we've had with more specific groups and specific populations. So we first began, like I said, in November of 25. We're coming up. We'd like to get this wrapped up before the full year because there's a lot of work that needs to be done when we get started. So today's meeting is an extension of our outreach work. We've already talked to the street police council, which is our group of folks who are actually currently experiencing homelessness and or have recently experienced homelessness. We've talked to neighborhood associations, business community. We've had a session with the faith community. But this is our overall big general community input forum. On these recommendations. Now, I'm going to run through the recommendations very quickly. And I'm not going to linger on because I want to turn it over to you all for comment. These are the primary priority recommendations of the task force. The first is with regards to our temporary seasonal shelter. And that is to maintain our temporary seasonal shelter operation in our current campus. 1306 for sales road. That is the former Farrell's building. For anyone who's familiar with that, or has lived in Lexington long enough to recall, that is Farrell's. It's been owned by the city for a number of years now. There are three elements to that recommendation. The first is to provide a shared space with public safety presence on that site, meaning an actual physical presence of public safety. We're talking about both police, fire, and MS as appropriate based on the needs of the population. And to make sure that they are there to provide security and health response as needed. To continue to work with public safety, the shelter operator, and the surrounding businesses and residents to identify areas that need increased law enforcement. And draft a communication plan or neighborhood agreement between all parties. That is just to, and this is only during the temporary phase. I'm going to talk about the permanent phase in a moment. That's how we plan to get through the next one to two years. Phasing out the temporary shelter, once we have the funding and the construction and the plans ready to go, we will build on that site. If you're familiar with that site at all, we're currently operating in the back. There's a lot of room on that site. You can build in the front while still operating in the back and then shift your operations and then build the rest in the back. That's the plan. We will then transition that once that is built to a permanent facility. But, in the interest of minimizing the impact on the area, we're going to change who's there. Currently that is a general service population shelter. It is adult men and adult women, unaccompanied, no children, no one under the age of 18, no special populations. Just straight up adult male and female. That will change to a different population. We are going to target seniors and families, families with children, to change it to a low impact population that is not going to have this substantial impact on that area. There's a couple reasons for that. One of them is beyond just the obvious security and maintenance of the site challenge. It has to do with the fact that's the gap. Remember I talked earlier about we had some populations we have no solution for. That's what we're putting there. Those are the populations that we currently either don't have a solution for or we have an inadequate solution for them. We don't have enough beds for them. What we're going to do is issue a request for proposals to see who can build on that site and what money they can bring to the table. One of the things that the task force spent a lot of time talking about is how do you pay for this? We want to make sure that we invite someone to come in and we're going to say, look, we'll give you access to this site, but what are you going to do with it? And we'll lay out the parameters of what we expect, but then we want to hear from you. What do you bring to the table? Because we know that other organizations have done this in other cities. We did the research, and they kept saying, okay, if you give us 60% of the funds, we'll raise the other 40%. So that's going to be kind of what we're looking for is how do we bring additional funding into this that's not city taxpayer dollars. That's one way we can do that is making this space available and attractive to someone that operates there. We actually have already had some preliminary conversations, and we know there are some organizations with interest. Next, we will have a check-in and comprehensive entry process for this facility, and we're hoping to have like a triage center there where you can come in and get assessed, and then we determine where you need to go and get help. A question that the task force spent a lot of time on is if I become homeless in Lexington and I ask you where should I go, how hard or easy is it for you to answer that question? And it's actually kind of difficult to answer that question because the answer is it depends. It depends. Are you male? Are you female? Are you a couple? Do you have a bed? Do you have children? All of these things can factor in where to go, where to get help, how to get help. If we had a centralized triage center, you come in, we assess you, and then maybe this site is not where you go, but at least we know where to send people to this one centralized location. We will then be making sure that all the services are there. So housing navigation, needs assessment, case management, mental and physical health care, legal aid, employment, job training. One of the beautiful things about the Brazil Grove site is the facility that's already there. There's a large building in the front, and it gives us space for those services. It gives us space for, there's already actually a health clinic there. We have plenty of room to bring in the folks who will do these assessments, the folks, and we can start this, to come in here to a temporary shelter and already start implementing this. One of the goals, and we'd love to hear from you all on this tonight. One of the goals that came out of this was there was a lot of concern in the community and on the task force about people who come to Lexington for service and or people who are just dropped here for service by communities or places that don't have their own solutions. There is no right or wrong answer to that dilemma. Everybody could probably have just a different opinion if we polled. What mostly we're going to do is we're going to take you, we're going to figure out what brought you here and what are your options. And if it is appropriate for you to return to the community that you came from, we'll help you get there, but we're not going to make it. We're not just going to do greyhound therapy and put you on a bus and send you there. We're going to do what's best for the person, but a lot of times we think that will be giving them somewhere else. Either some other community or somewhere else into a county that's more appropriate for them. So once we transition this to a permanent shelter, it's going to have an accountability element. Holding the folks there accountable for engaging in the services. We're going to talk about catching people who are falling in forever. That is, let's figure out what got you here and start working on that before you leave. So we will have alternate programming for those who are not able to do that. One of our concerns is there are folks in our population who are not going to thrive in that setting. They're going to have challenges that just aren't going to work. Their mental health is not going to be appropriate for that. That's fine. We'll find you an appropriate place. There are other services in Lexington that might be appropriate. But the focus on that campus is going to be making sure that we have the right folks there at the right time. So to the extent feasible, we're going to make sure that people are asked to leave the campus. If they're not eligible for services or if they are not participating in the solutions. If they are just causing trouble, if they're wandering the neighborhood, you're not going to be able to stay there. You're going to have to move along. That's a little different than how it's done at some of the shelters, but the nature of the location of this makes that necessary. And then this last one is kind of logistical for the city, but it basically just says we've got to find another place for all the city operations that are on that site. I've already mentioned having a centralized intake center. What we would like to eventually have is a 24-7 intake center. This is a request that the city gets all the time from churches, police, fire, folks who encounter people who are experiencing homelessness. Having somewhere they can go, having somewhere to take them at 3 in the morning, 2 in the morning, so that they're not out in the cold or out in the storm like we just had. We don't have that in Lexington right now, so that's something that we're going to try to establish. And then part of that intake at that center will be the assessment. Where did you come from? What are your needs? What care do you need to get stable? Do you need employment? Do you need health care? Do you need mental health care? Do you need substance use treatment? All that's going to be addressed at that site. And then we're going to provide those services to the person at the right location. If you are mentally ill and addicted and you are in a really severe situation and your acuity level is very high, this is not the right location for you. So their role will be to identify who those people are and get them to the right location. We will require as a condition of city funds that all shelters, including the existing shelters, and this is new, take reasonable steps to prevent their beds and services from being filled with people from outside of Fayette County. Again, we don't think this is happening by a significant, significant number, but it's happening. And so we need to make sure that, to the extent feasible, that beds are available to people who experience homelessness while in Fayette County. Again, gray area, difficult, because it's a fair question to ask, at what point does someone become a resident for a citizen of Fayette County? Is it as soon as they step across the line, after a week, a month, a year, two years? At the end of the day, as soon as they step across the line, if they're homeless and have a lot of needs, I think you want them, sir. Because if you don't, they're going to be in your community for those challenges, unaddressed. And then finally, facilitating on-site operations services by the partners. This just means we're going to fill that place up with every partner in town, make sure that every service she could possibly need is in this facility. And if they're not physically there, they won't have access. Diversion. We wanted to talk about diversion because not everybody who encounters homelessness or experiences homelessness or is close to homelessness needs to go to a homeless shelter. And the cheapest way to address someone's homelessness is to keep them out of the homeless shelter. Keep them out of the shelter, keep them out of the system. So we need to require our providers with some new adjustments in the contracts, with some new funding and various training and communication with our partners, both the new ones and the existing ones, that they will need to present a diversion plan as part of receiving funding for shelter. What does that mean? It means the first question you ask everybody who walks through your shelter is, what's your plan? What's your housing plan? How do we welcome, we want to take care of you, what's the next step? Where are we going to go from here? The shelter is not a residence. We're not here to live. We're here to get things back on track and get moving on. So, again, we're going to prioritize some of those resources at LBCG to emphasize the diversion practices because every bed diverted is essentially a homeless shelter bed built to cost you money. So that's the most valuable way to build shelter beds is to not use them in the first place. We're the right size of budget for emergency financial assistance, so it just means we need to be cognizant of rental assistance to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place. That's a never-ending challenge as affordability meets various other elements of life like job loss, economic challenges. And so we're always cognizant of being there on the front end and keeping people from falling into homelessness in the first place. I can tell you as the person who ran the COVID pandemic rental assistance program that came out of the ARPA COVID-19 response funding, we spent $52 million over 18 months on rental assistance and licensing, and we barely made a dent in the number of evictions that took place. So rental assistance is not a panacea. It's best used in targeted situations to prevent things like people becoming homeless. And finally, there's a reference to the LBCP Health Flex Fund. That's an internal fund that we already have. Just saying that that would be part of our conversion. All right, we are going to move to the public comment portion of the evening. Just a quick recap of the rules and requirements. We've got a microphone right here up front. We have a timekeeper. Everyone gets three minutes. We adopted our policy from the Urban County Council's procedures. Everyone will get three minutes. You can speak on whatever you want. You can tell us we're great. You can tell us we're awful. You can ask questions. Our intent is not to engage. We are here to listen. We won't relate with you. We won't argue with you. If you have questions, we're happy to try our best to address those. But we don't want to get into a big Q&A back and forth. We're here to listen. And then I did want to mention these are what we call our priority recommendations. I didn't want to be up here for an hour until you're talking about the recommendations. If you want to see some of the more detailed stuff, there's a QR code all over the room. It's on the back of the walls, the front of the walls, the chairs, it's everywhere. If you scan that QR code, you'll see some of the less consequential recommendations like having a place for people to put their pets and some other things like that. I would encourage you to take a look at that while you're here in case you have any questions that you want to comment on. Finally, we are ready to go. And we will turn it over to you guys. Before we do that, I want to bring up my other co-chair, Jenny Ramsey, and let Jenny say a couple of words. And Charlie and Jenny, you can kind of moderate to call the people up. And Tiffany, you have the names there? Okay. Here, Jenny. Welcome, Jenny. Well, I can't say enough about thanking you for being here in this weather. I didn't think I was going to make it, and I only live a mile and a half away. But anyway, this is important, and your voice is most important. We're here to listen. You know, everything you bring up, we're going to take back to the full task force. Remember, these are draft recommendations. Your voice matters today, as we told all groups as we listened throughout the process. So don't hold back. You've got all of three minutes, but we'll be around. And, you know, we all know how to get in touch with each other. That QR code is going to tell you a lot, I'm sure. I'm sure it will have some contact info. So thank you. Thank you for caring. Thank you for being here. This situation of homelessness is not just the government situation. It is us. It is the community. So let's figure it out, folks. Tiffany's going to do it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, I'm just going to go through the list. If you can, come up to the mic for the public comment. We have Mason Sims from Councilmember Beasley's office, who is going to kind of keep track of your three minutes. And he might give you a slight nudge when your time is almost up or has ceased. I'll go ahead and call the first couple of people so you can get ready. The first one is Josh McKinley. And the next person is Lyndon Bond. My name is Josh McKinley. I'm the Executive Director of Our Relief Services. First, I want to thank Mayor Gordon, the members of the Task Force, the Office of Homelessness and Prevention, and everyone who has invested their time in developing these recommendations. Arbor strongly supports the recommendations to increase shelter capacity for families with children, seniors, and individuals with disabilities. I want to speak to that need directly because we experience the consequences of this gap every night. Arbor operates a 10-bed emergency shelter for unaccompanied minors and an 11-bed shelter for young adults ages 18 to 24. A number will increase to 20 once we complete a sprinkler system installation. Because those are two separate programs and facilities, when a family comes to us that crosses those age groups, we may be able to shelter them, but we cannot always keep that family together under one roof. Think about what that means for a family already living through one of the hardest moments of their lives. They've lost their housing, they're trying to figure out where they'll sleep tonight, and the system may separate them simply because we don't have a facility built to keep the whole family together. That's why the family component of these recommendations matters so much to us. I also want to speak to a population that can get lost in a conversation centered on families, seniors, and disabled adults, youth. Arbor sees the continuing from unaccompanied minors into young adulthood, and homelessness doesn't begin at 25. Many of the youth we serve have experienced foster care, juvenile justice involvement, family instability, trauma, or simply have no safe adult to call. Intervening effectively at 16, 18, or 21 can prevent someone from becoming chronically homeless at 30, 40, or 50. I was glad to see the recommendations to invest in existing shelter where there's an opportunity to expand capacity or improve services. We don't have to choose between building something new and strengthening what already works. We need both, and with 21 beds growing to 30, Arbor is already doing that work. I also support the emphasis on diversion, case management, and pathways to permanent housing. A bed keeps someone safe tonight. Our job as a community is to help them reach a place where they no longer need that bed. Finally, this is not a city government issue alone. It's a community issue. Government, service providers, businesses, healthcare, philanthropy, faith communities, and people with lived experience all have a role. Lexington has a chance to build an even stronger homeless response system, one that keeps families together, gives you the path out of homelessness before it becomes chronic, and gives every population an appropriate place to turn. Our radio services is ready to keep being part of that work. Thank you for your time. Hello. My name is Linda Vaughn, and I am a resident of District 11, and I'm also an assistant professor in the College of Social Work at the University of Kentucky. As a researcher, my work primarily focuses on understanding and examining our current responses to homelessness. I've been working on a number of projects in the past, and I've been working on a number of projects in the past, and I've been working on a number of projects in the past, focuses on understanding and examining our current responses to homelessness and thinking about how they can be better improved to meet the needs and preferences of those who use them. This work is informed by many years of working within our homelessness response systems, including as an outreach worker and in permanent supportive housing. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to share input on the draft recommendations put forth by the Mayor's Task Force on Homelessness. As a resident of District 11, I would like to voice my support for the continuation of temporary seasonal beds and the development of a permanent campus on Versailles Road, including both permanent shelter for families with children, older adults, and people with disabilities, as well as the creation of a 24-7 intake center for people experiencing homelessness. We know that older adults are a quickly growing subset of people who experience homelessness, and these targeted resources can both better support them while also increasing capacity in the overall system, ensuring that more people are able to access services and supports. In addition, a single point of entry center offers an opportunity to make it easier for people to be connected with available services they are eligible for, and will also strengthen our overall system of care. In my experience, I love systems and programs can make it really difficult to find help in the moment when people most need it. So having a single location that is always open can reduce some of these barriers. Lastly, I really appreciate the Task Force's recognition that pet ownership can create barriers to accessing available services and we're beginning to explore options to support people who are experiencing homelessness with pets. From my own research, I've heard directly from people experiencing unsheltered homelessness that they would prefer to stay with their pets on the streets than give them up. For many, their pets are their family. As the committee continues to explore and enact these recommendations, I would also like to advocate for the creation of emergency, temporary, and permanent housing options that can accommodate pets. As the Task Force continues to refine these recommendations, I hope that they can be implemented in a way that can meet the individual needs and preferences of people who are experiencing homelessness and support their safety, autonomy, and dignity. I want to again thank the Task Force for these recommendations and for their work to support our neighbors, and given that the majority of people who enter or experience homelessness stay in their community's origin and where their supports and families are, these recommendations will have a direct impact on our neighbors here in Lexington. Thank you. Alright, next we have Abby Latimer, and after that will be Corbett Flynn. My name is Abby Latimer. I'm also an assistant professor with the University of Kentucky, and I am in District 8. I don't have anything prepared, but what I wanted to say has to do with the fact that I have been a clinical social worker for 15 years. I've worked in hospice and palliative care my entire career, and only lately has research become my predominant focus. I didn't naturally come into the work on homelessness. It happened by virtue of who I was seeing. In the hospital and at home, I saw patients who had serious illness who were dying, who had nowhere to go. Even if they had shelter, sometimes it wasn't all that great. It was what they were getting by with, and it was what they were able to do for themselves, and so we saw them where they were and met them in person, but there was nowhere else that they could have gone. When I got into the work around homelessness and started to understand all the nuances and different things, I was actually caught off guard and quite surprised that people were against any of these issues. A couple of the things that came up tonight in terms of recommendations from the Mayor's Task Force, like the central service 24-7 and the expansion of medical respite beds, it doesn't seem to me like there would be a good rationale as to why we shouldn't have that. Being a social worker, having also worked at Eastern State Hospital, needing to discharge people to places, as Charlie said earlier, somebody says, where would you refer someone if they were homeless? The answer is hard, because oftentimes it's nowhere. I did a research project recently where I interviewed older adults who were unhoused, and my goal was to get anybody 50 and up. Most of the people I got were 50 and up, but they were like 70 and up, and the reason was because there wasn't anybody that survived 50 to 60. They were either dead or they were surviving until they were old enough. And in those conversations, many of them were homeless for the very first time. They had not been chronically unhoused. They had no idea how to navigate the system. One gentleman that I talked to in the interview had to stop the interview to go get his stuff because he was worried somebody was going to steal it, and he talked about how he paired up with another younger gentleman who would keep him safe because he couldn't protect himself. He didn't have the same physical abilities that he used to have. So these older adult populations are certainly like a particular population that need our protection, need our support, need our help, and so when we say no to certain things, we're also saying no to those populations that truly need it. So in summary, I would just like to say that I support very much the 24-7 and in hopes that it will help all of our clinicians around the state have a place to send people to go as well as expansion of those medical respite beds so that we can provide care to those who need it the most. Thank you. I did want to say one other thing. We are still taking sign-ups for public comment. If you wanted to sign up and didn't get a chance to, Jeff Zelenbery, raise your hand and go over there to him and sign up as well. Good evening. My name is Herbert Lynn. Although I am a candidate for city council, I'm here as a private citizen and resident of the 7th District this evening, and hearing these results tonight of the mayor's task force on homelessness, I am very encouraged with what I'm seeing because not only is this the right way for Lexington, it also honors Lexington's prior commitments to a housing-first solution to homelessness. The cheapest and fastest way to end homelessness is to give someone a place to live, and that is exactly what this proposal and these findings are working towards. And it's also important to remember, for those of you who might encounter detractors of these findings, it is important to remember that there is an incredibly tight correlation between gun violence and uncertainty in housing for young people. So not only will this help our working families find the path to a permanent home, it will also help reduce gun violence in the long term. And I have to remind everyone, this is not going to be easy, it's not going to be cheap, but everyone here in this room knows that it's something worth fighting for, and it's something worth talking to your friends and neighbors about, it is something worth calling your city council people and encouraging them to support and work towards. And we have to remember also, it's not just people suffering with mental health issues and addiction issues that make up our homeless population. As the previous speaker said, it is our homeless elders who are experiencing homelessness for the first time. It is working families who can't bear to be split up because they can't find a shelter that will accommodate our needs. It is domestic violence survivors looking for an escape route. So please remember that when we are talking about this program, we're not just talking about the people that are often described very unkindly. We are talking about the people who are most in need in our community. And I think that the Mayor's Homelessness Task Force has identified an amazing path forward for this. Thank you. Next we have Stephanie Spires, and then after that it's Richard. Good evening. My name is Stephanie Spires. I'm also a council candidate, but I am here as a private citizen in the 5th District where Liz Sheehan has worked so hard on this issue. And I want to just say, first of all, I am in support of keeping the temporary shelter and then moving forward with building a permanent structure, but I am so thankful to see all of you here tonight. We have shelters here. We have the nonprofit community. We have the faith community. Ten years ago, when I started serving on the school board, I went to the district and said, and they tried to tell me they had less than 20 homeless youth in the district. And I said, that can't be because Arbor Youth Services had over 500 youths in the night of shelter last year. Just ten years ago, we didn't have all these people in the room. And we didn't have people who recognized that this was an issue. And here we are now, and we've got Fayette County here, and we have accurate numbers. They've counted the students they have. We have the point in time counts that many of us volunteer on. And we have the data. We know where the needs are. We know about the kids who are 18, but they're still in high school. So where do they go after school? Because they can't be in the unaccompanied minor shelter. And if the teen shelter or the young adult shelter doesn't open to the evening, where does the bus drop them off in the day? And we know about the elderly population. We understand the pets, the mental health issues. We have the data and we have the knowledge. And I just want to thank everybody in this room who has worked so hard to get us here over the last year. whether you were interviewed as part of the study, whether you served on the task force, or whether you were just here as a private citizen. Thank you. Hello, my name's Richard Maloney. I live in the 11th District. What I bring to you all is the spirits that we were talking about, the funding. I had the opportunity to work with Kentucky Housing Corporation. They were in a program called Home Money. I wrote that program, we have both that program, and then the task force, Compliance Monitor. I wrote that program. What I got to do, go all over the state and learn how that program works. And it's amazing what you see. You heard these people up here, how people are affected by the shelters and things. I came back to Lexington and I helped build five shelters here in Lexington. Four of them in the 11th District around this corner where we're talking about. I built, used to be the junior place, now it's the third and shortest. I helped build the Hope Center for Women and the Christmas House. That model is all over the country. It's all over, every city in the lower west was using that model. Then I ended up helping with the Shepherd's House. Then I went back downtown and helped in the 5th and the 1st District and finished up with the Hope Center for Men with that campus. So what I'm bringing you all is experience in how to work with four main rules that I've found from all over the state. First rule, you gotta have community driven. Community driven, remember what I just said. Second, you gotta have neighborhood support. Third, you gotta have the funding. I found the funding with the home money and the tax credits. And fourth, you gotta make sure these people are safe in those apartments, aware of the units they're in, and it helps the neighborhoods. Well, I was able to build those four units under those, or five units under those rules. Now, let's go to this piece of property we're looking at right now. I'm hanging here to sit there last year. We told you this, we felt this was not a safe area for the people. Let's talk about the four rules. First of all, is this a community driven program? No, it's a city driven program. This is the first time I've ever heard this. You gotta have a community driven program to make it work. Secondly, it's a state, it's a neighborhood supported. Neighborhoods do nothing about it. I found out two weeks before when they built the temporary housing that was driven by the city. And it paralyzed that neighborhood. And finally, the money. If we don't get nothing here, it's not gonna work. I think you got a chance to bring in one part of the component, and that's the elderly children. You might have a shot at that. The other one will not work. You can't make those two on the same property because it would be scattered and they'd be all over the neighborhoods, and we don't need that. And I'll go back to Peggy and I'll talk. We had a person get killed, and I told everybody he was gonna get killed. And if we bring this to other shelters, the second one is gonna be the same property we have in the shelter y'all have now. So I ask you all, the 11th district is tight. We love what we have and we need to move this like everybody has a fair share. And we've got great people in this community. Remember, it's gotta be community driven, not city driven. This program is city driven, and that's all. Thank you. Next we have Patrick McFadden. And then after that is Amanda Bryant. I'm Patrick McFadden. I live in the 11th district. I live right off of Sayles Road. I think there's a need for this shelter, but I don't think that location is the right place. I think we need to look deeper into a place to put this. For Sayles Road, it's a dangerous road as it is. Drive around, I've had a car flip over my driveway, and I've had a car land in my front yard. And I live down in the bowl. If some of you know where I live, Chuck knows where I live. There's signs in the yard every year. For cars to end up in that area, it's just dangerous. So now you're gonna put people possibly on foot, families, kids, seniors. You're gonna put them on foot, you're gonna walk them down these sidewalks on dry ground, and the traffic now is bad. We just built a school up there at Mason Hill. That's gonna increase the traffic out there on for Sayles Road. So now you're gonna have more cars to the mix. It's getting more dangerous. I don't wanna see these folks get hurt trying to get to the shelter. This is really not the right place, but it's the right thought. The thought there, let's do this, let's do it. Let's not do it there. The other thing is now we're gonna force fast forward to winter. On for Sayles Road, when it snows, and the snowplows come down the street, they pile all the snow right up against the curb. Well, they go curb to curb. So where does that put the snow? On the sidewalks. So everybody has to walk in the road. All the foot traffic on for Sayles Road is in the road with the cars. Once again, you're gonna put seniors out there, you're gonna put children out there, you're gonna put families out there, you're gonna put pets out there. It's not safe. More people are gonna be killed out there because of this location. So we have to look at this stuff. We have to look at these things. Can't look at the big picture, we gotta draw in tight. Look at the tight stuff. Safety of these people. We have to keep them safe. That's what you're trying to do by building shelter, keeping out of the environment. But that's not the place for it. We have to look at this. The sidewalks are not usable, I'm saying, in the winter. The Hope Center for Women, most young ladies have to walk in the street to get to the bus stops, to get to their programs, to get their help that they need when they leave their home. You can't do it there. Now you're just gonna increase this issue. The money is gonna be very expensive. I think I heard you're gonna move the existing facilities over there so your recycling center for electronics is gonna move. Your Herbie Carp storage is gonna move, your environmental services storage is gonna move, so that's gonna cost money. Now you're gonna buy more property or build more buildings and all that stuff in. So now you're gonna spend a lot of money that you're not even looking at right now. So that's gotta be taken into account. So do me a favor, go back and look at this location, think about what I said, and let's find a better location. And it doesn't have to be in the 11th District. It could be in another district. We've got a lot in the 11th District. Let's go to the 2nd District, let's go to the 8th District, let's go to the 7th District, let's go to the 12th District. Let's go somewhere else and look and see if we can find some good, safe land to put these guys in without a lot of traffic on one of our main corridors coming from the airport to downtown Lexington, that we want everybody to see how beautiful Lexington is. So let's look at some other sites, please. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I believe Amanda has already left. Next is Bethany? I think I'm saying it right, Bethany Ward? Bethany Ward. Okay. Daryllisa Bryant? And after Daryllisa... We have Marty Jones after her. I think I'm good. Hello. It's okay. Hi, my name is Daryllisa. I'm with Julie Jobs at Lexington, and I want to thank the city and Mayor Gordon for all their support they've given us over the years. And I read through these recommendations, and I'm all for it. I really don't have anything negative to say, but what I do want to say is you all did touch a little bit on the job training, and as far as I've been with Jubilee Jobs for 14 years, so I've worked with the homeless on every level. And the problem that we're having as far as the economic development part, I don't know about you guys, but I've always been told if you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime. So I'm thinking as far as Jubilee Jobs is concerned, it's getting these homeless people jobs, and that's something we can do. Okay, that's something we have done. But they can always get the job, but they can't ever keep it because they don't have stable homes. And so therefore, they don't have anywhere to sleep when they leave their job. They have nowhere to eat, take a shower, do their laundry because all these things are offered during the times when they should have to be on their jobs. So having this ability, housing 24-7, I'm all for it, and I think that as far as the homeless is concerned, I think it would be an amazing, amazing opportunity for them to be able to get in a job and stay on the job so they can afford housing and they can afford to get out and not have to be homeless anymore. So if we give them jobs, then they will have to be in the 24-7 shelter, in my opinion. And so I just want to... And another thing I was concerned about is, I hear you all talking about, you know, the job training and stuff like this, but once they're in the shelter and they do have a job, is there going to be a time limit on their stay? Are they going to maybe stay until they are able to afford housing, or is there going to be a time limit? So that's something that may be considered in the future, but I would kind of like to know what that is so that we can know kind of what we're looking at once they do have jobs. Okay? Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay. Hello. My name is Marty Jones, and I'm the Director of Health and Stability in the Action Council. First, I want to thank the task force for the work that's going through these recommendations. We support the recommendations and want to offer a program experience in this context as the city considers what comes next. Community Action Council has worked with the city and other housing and homeless providers for many years. Since 2014, we've operated Emergency Family Housing, which is part of the city's shelter network. They just use the Skagitside Apartments for short-term shelter. During the pandemic, we also operated a non-congregate winter shelter, and over the past three winters, in conjunction with LFUZG, through the Office of Homelessness Intervention and Prevention, we've expanded our family shelter capacities through the use of hotel rooms. What we have seen is that the number of families served through that winter expansion has more than doubled since we first started. This past winter, we've provided hotel rooms for over 50 families experiencing homelessness, including 133 children. As the task force identified through its rankings of the recommendations, the biggest issue is that there simply aren't enough shelter options. On a regular basis, we have contact with other shelter and service providers, like the Salvation Army, Catholic Action, Greenhouse 17, Street Outreach, Office of Homelessness Prevention and Intervention, and Fayette County Public Schools, about identifying a shelter option for a family experiencing homelessness. This often involves multiple streams of calls and texts resulting in piecemeal and short-term solutions from various resources, cobbled together in hopes of buying enough time to keep a family off the street, or from sleeping in their car alone enough, for a more sustainable shelter option to materialize. This puts additional strain on an already overloaded system from the amount of time spent just finding an option to the multiple changes Fayette County Public Schools must make to the bus routes to transport the children to school. But even when beds are available, they may not look for everyone. People with mobility or health needs, multi-generational families, or couples who want to stay together can have very few options. Seasonal shelter helps, especially during the winter, but it's temporary, and because it's temporary, it can also be difficult to provide assistance to staff and the case management. That matters because we all believe that shelter should be more than a place to sleep, it should be a place to assist in permanent housing. We see that in our program. 72% of households who left our Emergency Family Housing Program obtained permanent housing, and 43% of transitional housing policies are the same. Both have dedicated providing staff and case management housing support. By comparison, only 15% of those served through the winter school community action operated during the pandemic obtained housing. So our emergency management shelter capacity is critical, but the capacity alone isn't enough. We also need to support the community with the task force conclusion and other recommendations, centralized intake, case management, conversion resources, accessibility, and adequate funding. Community Action Council supports the task force work, and we ask the city to give them all the consideration that they deserve. As that happens, we hope the focus and the knowledge and recommendations can work together to raise the overall level of support for people experiencing homelessness and homelessness and make a stronger path for permanent housing. Next we have Erica Dominguez and then Judy Ashmore. Hello, my name is Erica Dominguez. I've worked at the Lexington Rescue Mission for the past 10 years. I am in Council District 2. Y'all have compassion on me because I was just alone. When I was thinking about what to share, I realized I have so many memories of the beautiful people I've met in the past 10 years. And I'm going to share a quick story of when I was a student. One time, I was walking to my car after Thanksgiving dinner at the Lexington Rescue Mission, and I was three-quarters of the way through an intersection, and a car hit me as I was crossing. It was one of our guests, a homeless person, who helped me up. He took me to the side. He found my shoe that fell off my foot and gave me a kiss on the forehead as he waited with me until the paramedics came. This is just one story of one person. A real person. And our guests who are homeless are beautiful and complicated people. They are someone's son, daughter, mother, father. And unfortunately, right now, we see more and more someone's grandmother or grandfather. People who have been working their whole life become homeless for the first time at an alarming rate right now. The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness states that 20 percent of homeless are over the age of 55. Many entering homeless for the first time, they are more likely to stay homeless longer, with 46 percent living unsheltered and on the streets. As a city, I hope we will rise up and take care of this beautiful population. These older adults who are entering into homelessness for the first time, their age brings wisdom, and we want to respect and support them in their old age. They are worthy because they are a person of safe and stable shelter. So I hope we move forward on the city's plan for senior housing and family shelter and essential triage. Thank you. So anyway, I am a private citizen. I have no expertise whatsoever. I've lived in Lexington for 18 months. I live on Maple Leaf, near the corner of Man O' War. So if any of you here represent that area, I want to see you. On that corner, I watched this young person. She's in her 30s, I would guess. When I first saw her, she was strong. And you wanted to say, why is she on the corner? But I saw her be on that corner every day from morning until evening. And I saw her there every day through two ice storms. She was there. And I'm going, what is the motivation? How desperate is this person that she would be there? And I've seen her through this hot, hot summer every day. And when this young woman, who was standing strong when I first met her, now she is down on the pavement, and she is under an umbrella. And the deterioration in this person, you can see her health has changed. And as I drive through just the local area, I see lots of other people on corners. And I'm just kind of desperate. And I'm saying, what? How are we supposed to do it? I don't see phone numbers anywhere. I don't see people's names. Who to call? Where to go? What to do? And my husband says, you can't bring them home. So I am hoping that people here are going to do the thing, the things that we can do. And what I heard at church last Sunday, is it's with the community that people can get together and they can sometimes do more working together as a community than can be done working through government. And I know we need both. And I'm hoping that I will hear from a number of people today on what can I do when I'm going driving around? What can I do? And for our communities, what can we do? So thank you for the task force and everyone here. I hope for more. Next, we have Brittany Berger and then Cynthia Butler. Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Berger. I did not plan to speak today, so this is going to be very informal. I watched the recommendations on the screen and I think that they are wonderful. The thing that I want to speak on specifically is the wraparound services, including the case management. I am working to get a non-profit off the ground. It's not going to be in the next couple months. We're still in the early development phases. But that non-profit is going to provide services for the homeless and for the rest of our community. But they're going to do the wraparound services, including the case management. They're going to do the care coordination. We are going to do it in a way that is different from what's previously been done. Somebody's going to come in there and they're going to have their hand held, not just get a phone number or a website to an application, but we're going to walk through with them. We're going to help them build resumes. We're going to help them apply for jobs. We're going to help them apply for assistance and show them how to do that themselves so later on they know how to do that if they need that resource again. But what we're also going to do is, that's not going to be it for us. Say we get somebody services and they get set up three months from now, we're still going to follow up with them. We're going to call them and say, hey, how is everything? Do you need anything right now? How is your job going? And just make sure that they didn't fall through the cracks, that something didn't happen and they just felt embarrassed and didn't want to come back. We're also going to do workshops, financial literacy, coping skills, the how to build resumes, things that people in the community need. And we're going to help them find jobs, help with food. We plan to have a donation center where we can provide services as well if someone is in need for something. So I just wanted to put that on you all's radar because it is something that's coming. It's just in the process of getting there right now. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Cynthia Buckner and I'm the founder of Little Red Blessing Food Box here in Lexington. I'm with the 11th District. The 11th District, we are in a war zone. On Davenport Drive, I call it drive-by Davenport. All you have to do is drive up and you can get whatever you need to be served. Today I spent three hours with my personal blower and blowing and blowing dust and cigarette butts. I said, why is there so many of these pen things that, you know, you write with, but they pull that out, they pull that out and they use it for, like, a crack pipe. There were so many of those today. I was like, wow. I knew I was right when I called it drive-by Davenport. And 11th District, we are tired of getting all of that. I know people want it in our district, but we do not need it. Just like I said at the last meeting, would you want this in your neighborhood? I asked the mayor, would you want it in your neighborhood? We have Ms. Young. I asked other council members, would they want it in their neighborhood? Ms. Young, she screams for 12 hours. She takes over the bus stop. So when it's raining, no one can sit in there. 11th District is tired. I have a learning disability. If I could spell tired, I would spell it. But we are tired. We don't need any other place there. I know people want it there, but we need to get them out of the war zone so they don't want to come back and use. So at Little Red Blessing Food Box, we love everyone. We love the unhoused. We love the housed. We love the drug dealers. We love the drug users. I love all of them. Today, they even came and helped me. They seen I was just struggling with all this dust and stuff, and I'm going to share it with my council person so she can see. We are tired. I just want to say tired again. I'm constantly calling the non-emergency number. We need help. We need help, and we are tired. Next, we have Peggy Henson and then Parker Downs. Good to see everyone here. I'm really afraid. I don't disagree with anyone that spoke. I know the services are needed. We see it. Just coming here, you know, the panhandlers on the corner, and I know they're not all homeless or unhoused or however we want to say it, but the person I saw tonight I believe probably is very unclean, unkept. You know, my heart goes out to everybody, so I don't want anyone to be homeless. I don't want anyone to have a disability, you know, or you know, I want to help those that we can, but I agree with the folks about for sales road corridor. I have lived on that corridor my entire life, and we love our neighbors that we have. Richard mentioned the several shelters that exist, and I remember being very, very excited when they came about because I knew of the need, and I worked with Employment Solutions for many, many years, and I worked to help people, give them a hand up, not a handout, and get them working. So, you know, I just think, you know, we have our share. We don't want any more, and I remember telling the pastor at the church the way I feel, and it was not that I know that the services are needed, but I didn't want to be struck down by God because I was speaking out about the location. That's the only thing is that I just think that the one man, I think it might be you that mentioned about the sidewalks and the snowplows and not being able to walk along for sales road. So I was an 11th District Council member for 11 years, and I know Richard and I, and then Jennifer after me, we have all fought to bring economic development to this corridor and, you know, to improve it. The infrastructure is lacking. There are so many things that it could use, but a homeless shelter, another homeless shelter, I say no. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Parker Downs. I work for VOA Honor. It's Volunteers of America Honor Program, and I'm here to advocate tonight on behalf of our homeless veterans. So I'm a housing navigator, outreach worker, and a couple other things for VOA Honor. I'm in the streets literally with the homeless every day, and if you want to see what homelessness looks like, come do a ride along with me. It's raw, and it's real, and it's here. In fiscal year 19, Lexington ended veterans homelessness. We had every bed in the house, and I think we can do that again. And so I think we're on the right track with this shelter idea. I know if we're going to do specialized populations, I'd love to see veterans added to that list. It doesn't have to be a lot of beds. 25 to 50 is my suggestion on that. And, I mean, we have the Hope Center over there. They do a good job housing vets. But we need more. We need more for vets. And I'll tell you one thing. I'm a Marine veteran, I'm a disabled veteran, and I'm looking through the eyes of a veteran. If you're able to get these veterans into a place where they can congregate and talk to each other, they're going to help each other out, right? You know, a veteran doesn't let their fellow man or woman drop the rifle and just keep on going. You pick it up, and you pick them up, and you bring them along with you. And so I'd like to see the city do that for just any homeless veteran. I think it could be a huge change. And if you need any more suggestions that will take longer than three minutes, but come find me. I got it, and I got my business cards ready. So that's my suggestion on that. I'd love to see something for our veteran population. Let's make it happen, and let's end veterans' homelessness to get into Lexington. We have one more person signed up. That's Barbara Haddon. And I'm not sure if there's anybody else that maybe came in late that would still like to speak. Raise your hand, and Jeff will come to you if not. Barbara, right here. My name is Barbara Haddon. I live in the 6th District. I wasn't planning on speaking tonight. I was just coming to listen. I've attended a Homeowners Association meeting, and I've given my input there on how I feel about this. I'm in favor of it. I agree that it's needed. I'm excited that some of the things that we suggested at the Homeowners meeting and the Neighborhood Association meeting that we attended back several months ago, they have put in with their suggestions, so I appreciate that. But I'm here to agree with the people that spoke from the 11th District. I'm in the 6th District. We are in northeast Lexington, and we are tired. I don't have a warm, fuzzy story to tell you about a homeless person who has helped me, or I have some stories to tell, but I won't do it in this group. It's not pretty. It's not pretty. My property backs up to a small creek in Eastland Parkway neighborhood. They use that creek for a bathroom. They use that creek to take a shower. Not a shower, but a bath. And then I watch little kids come down there and take their shoes off and get in that creek and play. We clean up probably monthly numerous grocery carts filled with not things that they can use, a mop bucket and a mop. I don't understand why they need that. But anyway, all that kind of stuff is on our shoulders to clean up and pick up, plus the empty vodka bottles, those little shot bottles, and the needles. We've had enough on the northeast side. I'm in favor of this, but Lexington's big. Let's look for a better location. Thank you. We did have another person sign up, and that's Amber Cronin. Hello. I work for the Hope Center for Men. I've worked there a long time. And before I worked with homeless men, I worked with homeless teenagers when I was a youth. Before that, I worked with homeless babies, and that was here for about a year. I wasn't planning on speaking at all, but I'm hearing not in my backyard, and I understand that. I live in a place. I don't live in a Polish neighborhood. I live downtown, and I, too, clean up liquor bottles and pipes, but they're from the college kids. And I defy you to say that the homeless do more damage than the college kids. We do need another shelter. We've needed it for a long time. We don't have time to wait. We don't have time to discuss this a lot. We think we have a shelter for women. Maybe I should be speaking at the practices right now, not the Hope Center, but I've got to tell you how many people I counsel, how many women call that are homeless in the Salvation Army School. They don't have overflow like we do for the men. So the Salvation Army School, almost all the time it seems like to me, so add women to the list. We might have the shelter, but they often don't have a place to stay. And I think it's a wonderful thing if we can get the older men and if we can get some medical respite, those people on Purcell Road, the people that aren't going to act out like the mentally ill and the active substance users, I'd be happy to keep just those rowdy people at the Hope Center for men. If we can get those other people to a safe place, you have no idea how badly the medical respites needed. I could tell you stories. I don't have time. Every day there are men that need oxygen. Today there was a man on oxygen. We can't have oxygen tanks in our shelter. We had somebody come pick up his oxygen tank so that he could stay in the shelter. How sad is that? I mean, we don't have enough plugs for all the men that need CPAP machines, that need medical things, that need to be hooked up. Of course, the families that are split up because we don't have the shelters for them, the pets, yes, that is heartbreaking to me. And a man came in. We took a man in yesterday. He came in today and asked me. He has a little dog. It was clearly not a service dog, but I let him play with us. And he's staying at the shelter with his dog right now. He asked me if I knew somebody that could foster it. I would, but I would lose my license. I've done it before. Before I had a license and got in trouble. But when I retire, I'm going to get a shelter for pets and for people that need them. All these argument over our backyard is nuts. Would I live there? Yes, I would. I would have them in my backyard. I pretty much do have that sort of thing in my backyard. I live on an alley downtown, not in a good place. And we need it now sooner than later for all of these, all of these groups. And it's frustrating to me that we're arguing about places. Maybe that's not the place. But, yes, they've been looking for the right place for a really long time. There's not anywhere else. Oh, I'm sorry. Is it my time? All right. Last call for public comment. Anyone else? If not, then Commissioner Lane will come up and take some closing remarks. Thanks, everybody, for coming. You are here because you care. Whether you stay on this side or that side or what your position is, you care. We appreciate that. Those of us that do this work, it's really hard. You can't even imagine how hard it is to have done it for a while. So when people show they care, we really, really appreciate it. There are lots of folks here to talk to. I think I had the task force members raise their hands. Y'all want to do that one more time real quick? If you didn't get a chance to say something, you want to talk to a task force member, those folks are here in the room. There are some city council members and candidates around, I think, that identified themselves. So please have those conversations as well. And we will make sure that we publicize any changes and results from this. Again, thank you so much for coming on such a difficult night. I know the weather wasn't really great, but I really, really appreciate y'all taking this time. Thank you.