Bangor council weighs permanent homelessness committee

[0:05] Susan Hawes: good evening welcome to a special city council workshop it is tuesday january 6th we try not to have too many special meetings right in that one this is around the table we have country and then delir council faculty councilor walker council bloom council leonard councillor I'll be chairing the workshop we have three items and unfortunately folks we have 20 minutes per item because we do need to be out by 6 30 for the planning board to come in this is really their night it is a workshop so we won't be doing public comment, say so with [0:59] Carolyn Fish: that of the interview. Do you want to kick it off? Sure, so I think the first item on the agenda is to talk with former Counselor Sprig about some items that he circulated to council probably a month ago now, based on his experience serving on council and dealing with [1:23] Susan Hawes: with this issue during that time. Okay, you may sit at the table or if you're more comfortable standing at the podium, that's fine too, but I would love to. Okay, you will be welcome to. I appreciate the [2:02] Former Councilor Sprig: opportunity to come and chat with you tonight. Some of you I know well, some of you I don't know so well. really to talk a little bit about the material that i provided to you a month ago and to cover that very briefly i don't propose to present all that material tonight although at any time in the future i'm happy to talk about it in more detail but just to make some general comments and then to respond to questions that you might have on anything that you 've looked at any reaction you'd like to have based on the experience that I've had from the fall of 2020. Homelessness was an issue throughout that term, throughout the campaign before it, and it has been ever since, been a long-term issue for us. So when I was leaving the council, I thought I'd put my thoughts down and please leave that behind in terms of some background on homelessness and some suggested strategies. Now this really wasn't stuff that I had pulled out of the air, you know, I had really summarized comments that I'd heard throughout the time I was on the council from counselors and other organizations at one point, and reportedly moved the staff after that. We had our government operations committee had over 20 organizations Come in and talk to us about what they're doing with respect to housing and home. Those were some really challenging discussions, but we were trying to address the homelessness question, particularly the Camp Hope questions, the Valley Avenue questions, and other issues of the city. First, so I just put my thoughts down on paper on what you have that I send you. It's really a very short draft plan. It's the last three pages or a list of recommendations of things that could be done, and the rest is background. It was never the idea that this would just be adopted as a plan. And the city, if you say, oh, that's the point, it was meant to be a prompt or a tool to promote discussion and to ultimately to end up with a plan, a multi-disciplinary plan for where the city might go with respect to this issue. The idea was, you know, I provided it as I was leaving in the council with the idea that there were new counselors coming on and that the council could then take a hold of the draft with the new counselors, process of discussions, and turn it into something that would be useful. So I think we've had a tremendous number of really good people in this community involved in trying to address this issue with many organizations, their boards, their management, lots of good people who have been involved trying to do the right thing and to help people who are homeless and to realize how many people have been involved in this. It has also taken a huge amount of city time, city manager time with Debbie Lurie, now with our new city manager. This is a consuming topic, and there's many issues in front of the city other than homelessness that need tremendous attention. Attention, so it's important to find the balance, I think, and how much energy can go in any one topic and to kind of sort that out. So that was my hope, is that I knew the council was talking about this. I thought this background paper or briefing paper would be a helpful prompt for your discussions, but I would just touch on a couple of things, explain. One is that I believe there should be a good set of definitions that where people find common ground for what we're talking about, whether we're talking about the homeless who are sheltered but still homeless or the unsheltered homes. There are different categories. What we see down by the river tracks with 20 tents or something or out in the woods somewhere else, that's not homelessness in Vancouver. That's a tip of the iceberg type of condition where there are some people in very dire straits who are in that unsheltered outdoor situation. Situation. But we probably have hundreds of homeless people in Bangor fitting in different categories. And as this group continues its discussion, I hope that we can use that broad understanding of what that means. Because homelessness is rarely caused by any one variable. There are multiple reasons, which can be the economy or job losses or extreme medical care or mental health issues, or a variety of other reasons. It can be racism involved in other forms of discrimination, there can be educational levels, a variety of different things behind why people may be homeless. People don't fit into this same category. Yeah, so it's important for us to think about individuals and families who could be independent if they just had a little bit of help and temporarily homeless individuals and family that would targeted help can turn that around quickly or people who are at the edge of homelessness who just with a little bit of help can be kept from slipping over into a homeless situation, or they're people who are capable of being in independent apartments by themselves if they can find them, and there are people who even if they find an apartment need support services because they can't be there and manage that by themselves. So they're a different type of person than a hardcore camper who wants to be living outside, who has expectations for their lifestyle, for what they want, who doesn't really want and be sheltered wants to be independent and that's a different category of the homes so when the council thinks about this it's good to think about that whole range of people who fall into those into those categories there are there are many people that's compounding complexity because there are a lot of people there are temporary people who are temporarily staying with family and friends you know that are really homeless but they're sheltered they're with people they may be couch surfing and it's important to be considering them they're those stay in shelters like the Bangor homeless shelter at our Hope House sometimes moving around among those shelters back in the covid days we had a lot of subsidized short-term motel hotel rentals I think there's still some of those but not the scope of rural grammatian used to be but there are subsidized departments and there's supportive housing like freshman you know with 22 homes now. I mean that's a very significant type of housing that's keeping people from becoming important there. But there's the tents and encampments and they're clustered around in random locations. And when I wrote the paper I think there were 11 encampments and over 200 individuals who were somewhere out there. And there are more now. I mean not more than that but there are more than just those folks down by the river tracks there's several other small encampments here and there other folks that are out there but unfortunately it's those people who are most visible that the community thinks of as being homeless and it's important we i think that we don't slip into thinking that 's all it is many other issues the we don't have enough good data the characteristics of the people that are there or the number insufficient health services and services that are there for the homeless and disabled that's a little tremendous. We have people from other places who come here because of services, and that is good in the minds of some people and a huge aggravation in the minds of others. We definitely have affordable housing problems, and that's a very broad housing category which overlaps the homelessness category, but it's really a somewhat different issue. Council all of that was exacerbated by covid by an increase in substance use and by different policies that the state had on needle distribution. You know all of those things were coming together at the same time all of which had some negative implications. We had talked about enforcing trespassing. And I think I'm just going to cite one thing I said here. The tents or encampments along the waterfront or in any small tent cities are inhumane, unsightly, unhealthy, and unsafe for the homeless and others in the community. This is simply wrong. It should be ended. But there have been limited good strategies locally and nationally to prevent this from happening. I mean, it's just not a good thing. My own moral standpoint to see people in those conditions, although it's hard when some people want to stay in those conditions. Some people, that's the way they want to be, and it's important to sort out those people who really want to get out of those dire conditions and find ways of helping them from those who are going to be unresponsive. We cited in the papers some real lack of multi-agency collaboration. There was no multi-agency organized plan for addressing homelessness. And I said we invited over 20 organizations in to talk about this. And well people would say yes we collaborate yes we work together there was no organized plan community workers homelessness and that was a too much siloing of effort not enough really concerted multi-organizational effort but what was very clear is there are tens of millions of dollars being spent on housing and homelessness in Bangor without a plan that ties any of that together Courtney did a study I think in 2021 which is cited in this paper that the city of Bangor alone invested 10 million Dollars worth of resources in a year and that doesn't count all the funding that are going into any other organization there was on the city's website there's a document that is a community resource guide put together by the Salvation Army and it wasn't available when I wrote this but it's nice to see it's there but if you look at that you'll see that there are 57 different community organizations listed there who are doing something related to housing or homelessness there are 12 that are Doing community meals, five that are doing emergency heating, 52 faith-based organizations, many of which are doing something with housing and homelessness and nutrition, and 22 food cupboards and pantries. That's a lot of different moving parts and right now there is no organized or concerted leadership in terms of how to pull that together. City Council doesn't really have the authority to compel everybody to do things in a certain way. But I think what the council can provide is leadership. It can be a convener, it can be a facilitator, and it goes to the issue that I know was discussed the last time I was here about possibly forming a work group to put together a better organized plan. What I think you have that I distributed on that I think you have a draft of some ideas that could be the template for a more meaningful planning document. It needs work. As I said, it wasn't meant to be just adopted, it needs discussion, it needs community input, it needs to be given some thoughtful consideration, but if you read it in a different way and you read through the recommendations that are there many of them still stand up and you may say oh that sounds like a good idea I think it still has a lot of good recommendations there that have stood up over the last three years so that's I hope this document is helpful to you and that it raises some questions and some concerns. And I'm happy to respond to any questions that you might have. [16:58] Susan Hawes: Any questions for Mrs. Frank? Council Fish. [17:05] Carolyn Fish: 2020 or shortly thereafter, when there was the invitation of 20 to 22, 25 maybe, of nonprofits or other service coordinators others working with the unhoused there were I think meetings and invitations and is there any data from that because I think you guys were looking at that for potential Harper our funding [17:32] Former Councilor Sprig: is that correct well these were discussions that were in parallel with the ARPA funding discussions they weren't exactly the same but we were trying to get a handle on what the scope some of the programming was that for helping people who were in housing or homelessness and in some of those services they were preventive services they were the things to keep somebody from slipping over the edge into a homelessness situation and we invited those organizations to talk to us I think Courtney I'm going to put you on the spot there but I think you put together a summary of the findings from those and they were posted to the website at that time so we did have we did have some of that but what was clear as we talked to those organizations that although yes they did help each other and they collaborated there was a lack of coordination nation. So, as I said, good people, good organizations trying to do what they felt their mission was. But when it really came down to saying, how do we really put these pieces together in a more effective way to make better use of the resources? There really wasn't a lot of that discussion i was thinking and i think we're now we're kind of facing some of the same situation now and so now is a good time for the council to provide the leadership to say you know how we're going to bring these you know something together that's more concrete where there's more of an alignment of thinking and we can bring some of these organizations better to the table [19:28] Michael Beck: Well, first, I appreciate what the document talks about, how there's inadequate data. I think that a lot of times when we talk about these issues, it's a guess as to how many people we're really talking about here. It's hard to make firm decisions when we don't have the hard data to really look at. But on the piece of collaboration with nonprofits, several years ago, Gordon Smith had come to speak to council. I think you were here at the time. And he talked about exactly what you're talking about. The city has to build the infrastructure for that collaboration, and that's something that I hope that this council can do. But also, is it's a chance to really work with the Hub Seven. Because they should be doing that coordination work. That was what Built for Zero was supposed to all be about, and it just didn't quite happen the way it should have been. And we've witnessed that firsthand because of the different closures of encampments. We have to scramble to bring the band together every time, as opposed to an already existing collaborative network that we can just tap into. So I think that we would be well served to take that advice and build that collaborative atmosphere, or at least encourage Hub 7 to step it up and do more. Because really, I'd like us to be out of the weeds on that, if we can offer support where we can. But that collaboration has to exist. That is a lot of organizations, a lot of overlap, and I get it that nonprofits each of their own mission, and we can't compel them to do it any one way. But at least that they're aware of each other in an organized way that we're all moving towards the same goal, not just, you know, 117 different missions at all sort of line. But no, I appreciate, you know, you sharing these points. One of the points [21:21] Former Councilor Sprig: I made toward the end of this, and I just mentioned it because I, it's a dilemma that I don't know how to address. I knew how to address a smart guy, but the better we do with this, the more attractive we become, you know. It's a real double-edged sword, and I don't think the taxpayers in Bangor or really want to see the city become a Mecca for the homeless. No, I think the city's economic capacity, our taxpaying capacity, what I would refer to as our carrying capacity for human services, is not unlimited. I mean, we only can do so much. But when we have so many organizations that have resources, that's where the resources, we really we need to tap into those to get those organizations so we can leverage those resources in the most effective way. But that dilemma is just something to keep in mind, is how do we do a really great job dealing with homelessness without becoming a center for the homeless? You know there's that's requires thought and discussion and I think we need to talk about that transparently and not be and just say it another [22:50] Susan Hawes: Question that's just a comment [22:52] Daniel Carson: To your question and what he just said I think that's the obvious places if we're bringing together all of these non-profits and this is also the place to bring together other municipalities and the other places that should be collaborating on because in part we receive a lot of people because it is their response plan is to send people here and there are municipalities that receive general assistance that doesn't need to be there [23:25] Former Councilor Sprig: You'll find in one of the recommendations one of them is to hold other communities more accountable for what Bangor is doing for their residents so that you know we're not just holding and I think that becomes a county issue that may not be the best time to ask county for more money out of their budget to funds of this but it is a county issue and it's an issue for other communities where Bangor needs to hold them accountable for picking up their share of what we're doing and there's no magic Way to do that but I think that needs to be part of the discussion you know part of any planning to share with you some of it to be supportive as you're moving forward [24:31] Susan Hawes: Thank you the next item is city of Bangor ordinance yes so several weeks ago counselor [24:47] Carolyn Fish: Walker I believe had asked for more complete information about what the city's ordinances are applicable to camping on city owned property and I'm very proud to report that I managed to fit it all in a one-page memo to you which is in the packet it's quite a feat and so just sort of at a high level the code provision that governs varies depending on the type of property that it is whether it's a city-owned city park city-owned residential property or city-owned non-residential property but sort Of the end result of the ordinance analysis is that camping is generally not going to be permissible on city-owned property absent some really specific and not really applicable exceptions that are in those ordinances. And then on top of that, and sort of not addressed here because it certainly would have caused in excess of a page, is a discussion of the code sections that would apply, so you know building code sections. So certainly in addition to sort of the general ordinance sections that govern camping there is, you know, a building code that's probably in excess of this thick, and that would also govern some of the sanitation and other requirements applicable to camping on city-owned property without, you know, bathrooms and other sorts of sanitary resources available. But at a high level, regardless of really the type of property, the ordinance would generally prohibit camping. And so I think this specific question came up, although you can correct me if I'm misremembering, came up really in the context of council's discussions regarding potentially sanctioning an encampment. And I think it's important to know that there would be some tension with our existing code that council would have to consider either modifying the code or, you know, working within in the code to officially sanction an encampment on city-owned property, but that's certainly not before us at this moment. All right. From the research that I did that we have to figure out somehow a place where our house can go in a process from when they come and I have other ideas we'll talk about later down the road from research, some very good processes that I came across. But the city-owned, since we're not the experts, and we want to assume presenting ourselves as such and assuming the liability and the responsibility, could we at least identify the company, the mental health, of the outreach people that would be the experts. And just for an example, say, Preble Street. I'm just throwing that out there. Someone like them said, here's our model, here's our financial capability, here's our health care intake process. Maybe that's something we could consider in other locations. I know I keep bringing up,, but I had a new idea. If the state won't do anything, maybe they would give us a portion of it for this particular idea to lease to other expert people for caretakers or sell us for a dollar or something reasonable, a portion of it, location's great. Yeah, and I think if you were to look at the models that exist in other places for sanctioned encampments, I'm not gonna make a blanket statement and say that they all involve sort of a third party running them, but many of them involve a third-party nonprofit with expertise in the space running them. So that's certainly a known model in this space. I think the video that you sent, Counselor Beck, was that model where it was a university. [29:23] Michael Beck: Yeah, it was a Colorado Village Collaborative, I think is what it's called. [29:31] Carolyn Fish: One of the common, I think five different communities that had some experience with that you know one of the warnings they gave was that for city this side typically our outreach partners themselves there are a few we might identify we don't have the expertise and that the challenge might be finding even that one partner that would have the ability and the expertise so that might be a challenge so it shouldn't prevent us from pursuing the idea year. That's really all I had on that topic if there aren't other questions. [30:11] Daniel Carson: Well, that question, so much as a comment, but I think that we should get code in on the discussion because as I take a look at those things, I can say confidently generally that enforcement of any of that is not happening. I live very close to a house that has people camping. They don't let people use their facilities they have more than one person and i think i see that all across the city so i think one i don't think it should slow us down in thinking about what we're going to do because there's not a lot of enforcement happening to begin with but i certainly think that code should be in on the game if we're going to talk about i [30:57] Joseph Leonard: was going to say off of that maybe that's something that we can have a future bd meeting to talk about more so help you see code enforcement in the future i just because we have a new officer and a lot of things are sort of being updated anyway that it's actually probably a really good time to have that discussion anyway a little bit off topic my apologies but i think that's a good idea to pursue [31:25] Susan Hawes: I just had a follow-up to a question to Councilor Fish, you mentioned something about a city of this size not having access to a third party that could do this for us, meaning that we don't have an entity that's large enough as well in the city? [31:41] Carolyn Fish: I think there were so many conversations and so many, each community was so different, that one person said they were a small community and had a real challenge and they made a couple of mistakes. They partnered with a nonprofit that came and kind of convinced the city that they could do it, only to find out quite quickly they were overwhelmed and were in over their head and it failed and it ended up with being more disastrous. It was well intended, but it was more disastrous for everybody, including the vulnerable. So, and then another one said the same thing, they couldn't find it within their own community because even though we think we're a big city into our local towns, we are, but for a complex problem like this, the resources we have are still minimal compared to cities with 500,000. They just have a bigger pool of professional and more nonprofits in a better. So they just kind of gave the, just don't think just in Bangor, if you're lucky, you'll have a relationship and maybe already identify some potential partners if not things you know where else outside that we might be able to bring in thank you other [32:58] Susan Hawes: Questions comments for the same answer I have one more thing into counselor Carson's point some of the [33:10] Carolyn Fish: Feedback I got too was you know when I was talking to other cities many of them did not have our size and even bigger didn't have the problem we do but we have some unique situations and they asked well if you have ordinances against camping how in the heck did encampments take place why weren't they enforced and if they're enforced and I said well you know we're kind of compassionate we try to kind of been gentle maybe we've been too gentle and then and one of them said we were like that too but then they coordinated with our like our police department we have a community outreach and there was an intake process at that level because with the police out in the street they usually identify the new people first and then right there 's sort of an intake process and then there was a phone number like a clearinghouse that i'll get into more later i put up this all together but there was like a clearinghouse phone number like an intake like maybe jen's job or no you know a homeless Coordinator NATO would do, they would then speak with the officer, identify where that person should first get some resources, and then it kind of lifted in the butt right away, so to say. And not to say that we still wouldn't have campers, but that seemed to be, I heard that several times, that really helped. And I think just to sort of jump ahead to our next meeting, next Tuesday. Jen is going to give a bit of an overview on the existing service network and sort of what the experience is currently within Bangor when someone becomes homelessness, the service providers that they might encounter and sort of the process that is worked to find them housing. And so I think that will be a good information point for folks to be aware of going forward to know what we're doing currently absolutely [35:11] Angela Walker: I just want to say thank you for looking into that for me. I think like from sufficient stated that it was said in the community like I thought Bangor was a no camping zone and obviously there's more zones and stuff and you broke it down really nicely for us and I do agree with me more information from the code enforcement about that because I don't know but it was a concern. Like if it is a no camping in Bangor, in the city of Bangor, how did this happen? How did it begin in moving forward and trying to address the situation? So I appreciate you. Sure. Yeah. [35:52] Susan Hawes: Okay. That's a proposal to the advisory committee. Yes. [35:59] Carolyn Fish: I think her name is on the top of the memo. So I think she has to. I did actually, Councillor Carson, you were talking about your late night thoughts. In the middle of the night last night I thought it would be helpful to have copies of this and Councillor Beck's proposals so that no one had to flip back into work. So I actually filled a few trees and printed copies in case that's helpful. Call and so this memo has actually been on the agenda a couple times and because we have had long meetings where we haven't got to everything that we wanted to talk about we talked about either counselor Beck's proposal for a standing committee or city staff's proposal for more of a short-term targeted advisory committee to establish a strategic plan you'll note at the top that this is listed as a revised memo the revision that has taken place is in the interim we had been asked to come up With recommendations as to the committee members, and those are those not filled in circles on the first page, but otherwise the memo itself is the same. It was just the addition of those recommended advisory committee memo members. I won't go through the proposed members because I think they're pretty self-explanatory, you know, why we would select those members, although I think additions or changes that folks may have Jen. Anything that you would want to highlight from the memo itself as particularly important for this task? I think a couple things is, you know, [38:19] Carollynn Lear: we brainstormed those bullets of possible categories, and this will be helpful to get your feedback as well. I think what we're trying to do is balance the number so that it's a manageable group that has good representation, yet a group where the feedback can be synthesized in a way that's not overwhelming. I think the hope is also that people who are in these categories will be possibly representing the voices of others that fill that category, and I would say, you know, again that initial task is for the committee for to create that strategic plan. There are many models out there that, you know, I'll touch base with on next week, but this is when I think about public health practices, this is typically how we would launch a type of endeavor. [39:20] Carolyn Fish: And then I think the other, I was thinking about this a little bit recently. And the thing that strikes me is any of these solutions that we might incorporate into a strategic plan are going to have pretty broad community impact, some of which is going to be wonderful and positive, and some which might not be wonderful and positive. And so I think it's probably been critical at the planning stage to make sure that we're hearing from a really diverse perspective of members of our community and getting buy-in and input early so that we don't start marching down paths that we think are ideal only to later learn that there are huge barriers to those paths. And so I think you see a bit of that in here as well as it relates to businesses and property owners and landlords and other sectors of the community that have a role play in the conversation. [40:28] Susan Hawes: My question is regarding we've sort of switched from task force to guys on that page. [40:38] Carolyn Fish: I think it's a tomato. [40:41] Susan Hawes: It's to be a definitive amount of time and I have time to get them as accomplished but not such a long time that people are feeling that, [40:49] Carolyn Fish: you know, what have I got myself into? Yeah. [40:51] Susan Hawes: And we need to figure out how long this type of committee [Daniel Carson: should be together.] And then going forward, do they just reappoint or do we reappoint people? So we sort of need to know the future of this committee as well as the current committee. [41:09] Carollynn Lear: Absolutely. Those are really great points. It will be important to designate what the time is so that people know what they're committing to and there's an end goal that people are working towards. I think in developing that strategic plan, determining what the next phase of that committee looks like is part of the strategic plan as well. So they'd be able to have that conversation to say, what would be the next group? Is it the same people? Is it different people? What's the purpose of the next phase? And does there need to be different representation based upon what's recommended in that strategic plan. I think what I saw for, you know, amount of time, it very varied from like a really ambitious three months to maybe a little bit more realistic, like six to nine months. So I think definitely no more than a year, you know, maybe more close to that six to nine month time period. Three months seems a little bit too fast and furious. [42:20] Carolyn Fish: of strategically planning how to partners and create a commission of working partners is important but i think we're going to need an ongoing permanent commission or committee or hub or whatever because we have we've got our outreach communities that we somehow have to strategically diplomatically bring to the table and we have to talk about what that strategy negotiating would be whether the hub seven helps them or we start going directly to the managers or whatever and providing opportunities or consequences of them participating the hospital has great staff I think that there's a lot of our faith community they've been very and then I know in your in your recommendations they were there but I think that there's a lot of stakeholders that are in the field that are not the table and they're not even in the conversation that I think we really have to look at the community as a whole and you know the hospitals have emergency rooms full of unhoused people and they're under staff and how would it benefit the intake system? I think that this is a big and complex problem that I don't see three to six or nine months or a year. We've got it solved. And I think we really have to take a permanent commission. But like you said, step one, phase one. [43:46] Carollynn Lear: Yes. And I want to clarify that this would not be, this advisory committee is not a hub. This advisory committee would be a group of representatives to put together a strategic plan, which would include what would the, you know, if the evidence and everyone thinks, you know, that hub model is where we want to go, that would be part of the strategic plan and be setting expectations of who's responsible, who's going to be at the table, what's the accountability. So I just want to clarify that this, what this proposal is not bringing the hub together in that way, but it, that would be part of that strategic planning process, if that makes sense. I totally agree that's not a, at six months. Are [44:29] Susan Hawes: you waiting? Yes, I'm waiting. You have the [44:34] Wayne Mallar: floor. Thank you. I'm a little concerned about what did we ask out of me to do for us. [44:50] Carolyn Fish: So, Councilman, we've had ongoing conversations outside of the room about this topic. The heart of Maine with ARPA funds committed to create a non-profit hub, and my understanding of that hub is that it is a resource for non-profits to come together and receive guidance and coaching and professional resources to start up or grow or improve the operations of their non-profit organizations. But my understanding is that the hub is not sort of a substantive participant in providing [45:30] Wayne Mallar: services. So I guess my question is, why did we give them the money if we don't reap any benefit from it? You know, $400,000 isn't a drop in the bucket. I mean, it is, but it isn't to me. But I'm concerned that a group, a relatively reputable group, I would hope, takes money from a city and provides them with nothing. They got a building, we got nothing, and I believe I have not heard yet from our legal department, but I believe they're in violation of the contract. I [46:09] Carolyn Fish: think that is a conversation that should probably be had in executive session, if there's a concern that they're in breach of a contract. But you don't know that relates very directly to the conversation about an advisory committee. [46:27] Wayne Mallar: No, I don't have a problem with an advisory committee, but I just don't know how, I don't remember, I was new. There were things that happened before as far as opera funds were concerned. I don't know what was presented to the board for the reasoning to give them and $400,000. I was under the impression it was to coordinate so we didn't have an overlapping, but that's not what it is. So who has the original information? [46:55] Joseph Leonard: So the information at the time, and please Sue, please add anything that I'm missing here. Originally, we had to, we were intending to give them ARPA funding,, but they lacked the amount of data that we needed from them in order to actually facilitate ARPA fundraising, but we had interest money from ARPA, which that did not fall under the same category of how we could use that money. And so this council, by a simple majority, voted to award that interest money to that organization and another one that were going to get ARPA funds but didn't get the information to us in time that we needed. There was a conversation that I do remember that I wanted to have another conversation about other organizations and other entities to give that money to, that conversation was decided to not be needed. And we moved on with the track record for the Council of the Green Light, giving that money to them. To the specificities that you brought up earlier, I can't speak to those, but 100% support to have that conversation in an executive session as well. because like you earlier when we did talk to those were I think some valid conversations to have did I miss anything councillor Hawes no that was in essence what went down as far as the hub [48:39] Susan Hawes: I think that was just you're talking about nine people working with ARPA fund that was very new learning the guidelines trying to understand what we could do best for more people and that might have been really where that hub concept came from and at the same time we were hearing hub with that organization they were also talking about hub with other organizations around so i think there was some confusion there as to what it was actually going to produce but no the how we got there that was accurate [49:20] Carolyn Fish: not your handle i agree with the [49:22] Michael Beck: pounds or fish it's got to be for a minute you know it's like we have a finance committee because we're always going to have to manage and spend money housing stability is always going to exist doesn't stop so we're always going to have to manage that and housing committee is the way we do that and as far as task force go you know we had one in 2019 so the local example and you look at some of the things in that came out of it the number one recommendation nation stalled for five years because there was no body to do the political heavy lifting to make sure it got through there. And municipalities, entropy equals policy failure. It's just the way it goes. You need someone to constantly be pushing that boulder up the hill. And that's why I am in favor of a permanent committee that looks at the whole continuum. Cause that's the other thing. I don't want to create a bottleneck of just looking at the homeless response. You know, there's so much to this that we have to look at, including, you know, the regional fair share. That's something that was in the proposal that I put forward is, you know, we're never going to get our neighbors to give us money towards this problem out of the goodness. There are, they're just not going to come to the table, but we can show them through data the cost of an action, you know, and what we're dealing with the cost of the jail right now, and much of the cost of the jail and why we're having to house so many people is directly related to this problem. And we show our partners through data and reports by them not acting, by them having deficits and services deficits in housing, this is what it costs to house them in jail, whereas if they partner with us and they are able to shoulder some of that burden by doing right by their own community, this isn't charity, this is actually physically responsible and that's what was a key part of my proposal with this. And I'm not saying that this is the end-all be-all, it needs some tweaking itself, but it was, it was a starting point to talk about how we have to have a body that is constantly putting actionable items in front of us, you know, I mean, for better or worse, look at the thing that Acre put in front of his last name. He said no, but at least we had something to say yes to, you know, there was talk about the merits of it and we decided it wasn't the decision to go with, but it was something in front of us. It wasn't a whole study or a plan to make a plan, it was something that we could look at and say, okay, yes on this, no on that, yes on this, and that body continues to work, goes back to the drawing board, brings us more items, but in the meantime it's helping us get quality data that we need to make these decisions. You know, the other piece of it that was important to me is that it doesn't replace the work that Hub Seven's doing, you know, they're supposed to be doing the coordination. It's part of Built for Zero and we integrate with them. We invite them to the table as well as part of this committee that I proposed for a chance to make sure we're getting data to find out what the roadblocks are, you know, and help craft the policies. This a task force doesn't have any teeth. It just says here's a plan, here's a report, here's what we think, whereas the body is going to be able to put items in front of us and say okay, if you change this ordinance, if you come up with the funding for here, or if you do this grant, you know, yes or no, do you want to do this, is what it can move forward and we can keep taking steps. And for me the biggest piece personally as a counselor that gets us out of the weeds, you know, and lets the experts decide, you know, and what we get in front of us is this is what well vetted through all the ex officio experts that are part of this committee, this is what we think will work, and we can say yes or no or give the feedback, send it back, and then we have something more coming forward. And this is going to be a multi-year before we see huge dents. It's going to take some time and I don't think a short-term task force will get us those results. And if we do a permanent standing committee, not only will it give us things we can work on, but also I think it sends a tremendous message to our community that we are serious, we are getting the experts here permanently to do this, and the fact that we're opening to applications for people to apply to be a part of this also gives us an opportunity to not struggle trying to figure out who's it going to be, you know, they people, there's people in this community who want to step forward and help us, and it gives them that avenue to show us what their expertise is and we find the right people. So yeah, I'm really imploring the council to go the permanent route. We can always end it later if we five years from now we solve homelessness, I would love to be in that position. We can always, you know, end it, you know, but meantime I don't think setting the end date is good. It needs to be a standing committee and we have people in those rolling terms and people will know what they're signing up for because they know what the terms are, you know, they apply for those positions and they just keep moving that boulder up the hill until we can make a difference. So I'm in favor of a permanent [54:31] Angela Walker: it I [54:34] Joseph Leonard: just want to concur that those thoughts from counselors Fish and [54:40] Susan Faloon: I agree, but that's not what I was going to say. I think that we should also consider, which I didn't see on either of these lists, somebody from, I don't know if we in our in the tracking, if we kind of know what some of the neighboring communities are that most frequently send people here, but maybe a member or two from a neighboring community to be part of the conversation, because they're part of the problem. And also like perhaps someone from the county. I don't know if we necessarily get state level in those meetings that may be more about like we invite you in, you know, at some point, but I think on the committee we should have some participants from neighboring communities who are contributing to this issue, if we can get them, and maybe [55:43] Carolyn Fish: the county also, fish. And I agree, one of the communities that I spoke with, they are our size, but they were in fact the community with, they weren't the service center, but they had the benefit of the service center, and there was a collaboration was more with mental health and the medical aspect of the unhoused and substance use addiction, and the service center had the hospitals and they had a collaborative agreement, and with this mayor that I spoke with, they were very happy to become part of this we're calling it hub, because of the benefits. And if they didn't have the resource, some of the communities that were smaller, they would be kind of built, I don't know if it would work out, a ga, this would have to be where other public officials would get involved, but they would be built so that at least the town would call and say, instead of just dropping them off, we have someone that we can't handle or we can't serve, and or the other bigger communities like the mayor I spoke to, they were part of this hub, and somehow they contributed resources, and then there was some kind of balance with beyond that they were billed, and I think this is where ga and maybe county or something, but the community that I spoke to, she said once we realized the benefit of calculating rather than isolating and just kind of, you know, trying to the other service center, they got on board. So I do think, yes, both council alone and council beck said, I do think we can bring them to the table once we point out the benefits, or maybe we build them or we come up with some type of penalty, but we first try to approach them in a negotiating way, showing them the benefits, and we bring them to the table [57:40] Daniel Carson: Not to be difficult, because I sort of fall between these two ideas, an advisory committee, I agree with the idea of a permanent committee, because this is a question that's going to be ongoing under our economic system, that's just the reality, but that's a call to everybody. And it's such a big question, right, I mentioned, I think, in the meeting last night, how many people in this country don't have $400 in a savings account, right? That's part of the homelessness pipeline, 66% of children in the city of Bangor are on main care, that's part of the homeless pipeline. And so I think a permanent committee has a lot of really big questions to answer, especially on the preventative side. But I see, you know, right now we're starting from scratch, we basically have nothing. And our circumstances, I think, lend us to doing both. I can see an advisory committee, a task force being put together to answer the initial question with a sanctioned encampment taking a look at code like a very specific having a very specific goal in front of them to accomplish that first phase while another committee gets itself set up to really take that momentum from an advisory committee and continue to move forward on the big questions because I wonder I don't of course I don't know I have any experience but I would wonder if tasking a permanent committee with this very big initial question would set that permanent committee off in the wrong direction when it really has tons of bigger questions to answer. [59:19] Michael Beck: I think that would fall more under like a subcommittee or a sub-task kind of thing. Cause this committee may look at the overall picture. Cause we have the answers. I mean, how many studies have we done? You know, and then we just had a housing study that we accepted in February of last year that came with its own implementation plan,, which that'd be good to get an update as well as where we are with the implementation plan. But they might look at all of this and tell us, don't bother with the safe outdoor space that you're just asking for trouble or, you know, because, you know, I've never stepped foot in one of these, you know, something that sounded good on Google and the data's there and people with letters that come after their names say it's good. So that was good enough for me. But they may look at it and say, that's not going to work for us, you know. And I think that's a valid concern is, you know, I don't want that to be, homelessness will be the bottleneck if that's all it is, you know. They're not taking that 30,000 foot view, you know, and looking at the whole continuum as part of it, and also making sure we're not duplicating efforts up seven. It will, it'll collapse on itself. But they certainly will be able to task out, I would think, you know, to say hey, we need, we're gonna need to be able to get a task force put together and test this idea or look at that idea, and who knows what expertise they'll bring to already. They'll say no. So I mean, I'm not opposed to task force for specific things, you know. And I think that's what the 2019 homeless work or the housing work group did. They were tasked with hey, look at the problem, what do you recommend. They came with it, and I just, if it was a committee that also was tasked with keeping that boulder moving up, I think that we would have came a lot farther because even with Cobin, right, like that tripped ripped up everybody, you know. But you know, as council turned over, if you've got, you know, folks on that committee, we're still, this is our focus, they're going to keep pushing that boulder up the hill, and new council comes in and hey, by the way, you still got these ideas you're going to move forward on. So I mean, it can be a bull damn, but I guess I don't want to do a short-term task force to come up with the marching orders for the long term, because the long-term task force are going to be the ones that have to see it through, and then if they get in there and say well, why did they do x, y, and z, that's what's going to consume them, whereas we came up with this plan together, we're going to see this through because we agreed, and then as trends expire, they're bringing new people into that system, so that's [1:01:43] Daniel Carson: that was my thinking on it. I like your answer, thank you. That's [1:01:53] Carolyn Fish: a fish, and I think too it's important, you know, Jen said, I think her task force was to kind of help get us off the ground, like these are sort of where we're at and what we have, and this could be a most immediate action achievable with some hopefully immediate results, even if they're minimal at this point. This is where we're at, and I think one of the key things that we have to know before we can do an outreach and think about, you know, how we want to bring this together is, you know, within the Graph I have here, which I'll share with you guys next week, but it kind of shows the city in all of our departments, and there's a circle in the middle that kind of all calling, you know, they are that every department has some work or time or investment in the homeless, and we really don't know, we don't know, you know, does Parks and Rig Wreck, are they overburdened in the summer when they're trying to do the parks? What about police? Where are they, you know, where do they fit into all of this, and where could they step up more? Where are they overburdened so that we know the limits of the resources we have? So we know what to go to our partners with and say, hey, this seems to be your strength and this is our limit. This is what we can offer. But we also have to have some boundaries. They're always coming in and they're not wrong that we fail, but it's not our failure at all. When you see eight to $10 million of grants that we're applying for and allocating and going out, there's been balls dropped out there on the streets as well. Everyone's well-intended, but it's so segmented and fragmented. That we alone are not, but as leaders I do think it is our responsibility to collaborate and lead and strategically trying to figure out what it means more cohesively and to work better [1:03:40] Michael Beck: I'll say that to that point too is it also gives us data to tell our story to the state you know I think that's what we've heard from our legislators is that give us a plan give us data what would tell help us tell your story help us go to bat for you know because the governor put out a dashboard for affordable housing spending less than five percent came to bangor less than five percent and you think that would be enough data to say hey help us out some but you know there's there's something missing that's not getting told to Augusta as to our woes that I think that you know having these kind of regular reports that a committee like this would also put out as part of their work is going to help us go to bat for that funding and give us enough for you to put it to work in an efficient manner, so that's another reason why I'm in favor [1:04:31] Former Councilor Sprig: of this so [1:04:37] Susan Faloon: We have like 11 minutes left, and I feel like every time we get in a room, we just keep tossing out more new ideas, but we don't really like kind of make any decisions and make any progress. I feel like maybe we need like, I know in, I've read a lot of material, we all have. And one of these is suggested like a leadership group of just a small group of two or three people to kind of like get this thing going and put together the group. And I think that might be something that we should do instead of continuously pulling this large group together, and we all have different ideas, and we're always constantly tossing them out, but we can't really seem to get on one page. And I think someone said yesterday, like, any action is better than no action, really, you know, like, we've got to do something to move this forward, and we can always, like, you know, sort of adjust as we go, but Jen has done a lot of great work, and I know there are a few other experts, so maybe we start with a small group that works to put together this bigger group, and then kind of gets us moving forward rather than continuously bringing this large group together, because it's really hard to come to a consensus when you have a lot of people. [1:05:51] Angela Walker: My two cents. [1:05:53] Susan Hawes: The one thing that Jen has done with this, if you notice, she has brought a lot of experts in the fields, the various fields to this group. Now this group will likely be a feeder, but I think the council has to,, whether we're right or wrong, we are not the experts here. We have our other outside jobs, we have other responsibilities, and none of which actually fit into being an expert at homelessness, drug addiction, or anything else. We have to rely on the experts, and that's what she's done with this memo, is to put this in a space that we should be able to understand. understand. There is no reason why we can't have a motion on this tonight that's giving Jen approval to move forward with forming this group and let them get started. Now I would expect... [1:07:00] Carollynn Lear: Sorry, I have a question. I think what I've heard around the room were different ideas for the purpose of the task force, so I've heard strategic planning, I've heard develop, you know, being a hub, I've heard other housing, you know, and data. I think what would be most helpful is like a determination of what you want this a rig this starting body to do, because that will feed the rest of this. Because if it is a group that aligns more with Counselor Beck's proposal, it should actually be a different group of people. And then there's going to be a subcommittee that does strategic planning. So I think what would be most helpful is just to have a really clear one direction to head in at the moment and then build around it. So that's just the one comment that I can make now. Now. So what when I built this, the purpose was development of a strategic plan for the city. So I just want to kind of provide a little bit of that context. [1:08:15] Susan Hawes: We still can move it that we have something written up designed that would answer your question like the main push for B. We could probably get that ready for next council if it's approved to go forward and then you'll have the charge you'll have what everything's going to be required you've got this to work from and if the council wishes it to go it can go to our next council meeting and then you're off and running at least that piece is starting [1:08:51] Carollynn Lear: Clarity would be perfect exactly [1:08:55] Susan Hawes: Got that she wants clarity and charge with clarity [1:09:01] Angela Walker: You know I keep looking at the clock I apologize I just had two things I wanted to know how close we are to hiring the or putting out the job description for the home of the font coordinator we have definitely hired on today yeah that is good news I appreciate that Jen [1:09:19] Carolyn Fish: Makes things happen. Wow. [1:09:21] Carollynn Lear: I can probably say who it is. Many of you probably know this person. We're very fortunate that we've offered the position to Bruce Hughes, who's been a leader in this area. He has built incredible relationships. He has been serving as our housing stabilization. He has kept dozens of people housed just in the past year that he's been in that position. [1:09:45] Angela Walker: Very lucky. My other quick thing that I have is that will you keep choosing these people in this on your checklist because this is a great checklist I am waiting I support this 110 and I'm just wondering if we go ahead with it are you would [1:10:01] Carollynn Lear: You be the one I think that's a great question I think it could be open for people to submit their interest in what category that they're in so we could send out a form that people can voice their interest with a couple of questions and then we can provide working with the new homeless coordinator it's come up with who would be potentially the best candidates for each one of these and present it to you we'd be open to any way that would make sure that you have input and that it was a fair Process so [1:10:39] Susan Hawes: What is the pleasure of the council? Do you want to [1:10:43] Angela Walker: to start with this piece, [1:10:45] Susan Hawes: and then things that drop out that belong to this? Do you want to form both and work them simultaneously? [1:10:58] Michael Beck: That's all good. I would, well, the first thing I would like to see decided is that if we're going to go the permanent route, or if we are going to do two, I'm in the favor of, it's a permanent committee, regardless of the makeup of said committee. You know, the first question I would have for this is this going to be permanent or are we doing the short term you know the plan to make a plan idea or we're going to go with you know the boulder moving up the hill idea to the motion I'll make I will make a motion that the committee that we are going to establish when we see our draft is to be a permanent committee not a temporary set deadline committee I would second that motion or expiration date I should have said expiration date no expiration date okay [1:11:56] Carolyn Fish: I like this plan but you know in all the stuff we've gotten and picking different places yours kind of nailed a lot there were a couple of things in there I had a couple of concerns but knowing that it was sort of to get a strategic plan to get us off the ground makes sense but to make a commitment, I just would like to kind of look at my notes. I think I'm 100% on board, but I agree. If this was called phase one, with something that just said, it's the stepping stone, I'd feel more comfortable than to just say, yeah, let's do it. Because I still don't even know where we internally, where our boundaries are. So I really feel awkward making any kind of commitment when I don't know internally where our boundaries and limits are to go out to the outside world, even through Jen I trust her but I don't know that she knows exactly what the police department and public works and you know you know there's just a lot of other questions I have same energy so I'm wondering if it would be helpful or compelling to include in a potential theoretical Council order that the strategic plan will include considering what an ongoing going advisory standing committee looks like but then you'd be waiting for that strategic plan to sort of send off that standing committee which may or may not be what you're looking for but we could specifically call that out in the council order I [1:13:36] Michael Beck: guess we have to resolve the motion second, first. [1:13:40] Susan Faloon: And maybe the Council order can just describe the process for getting these folks, you know, whether it's an application or I don't know, you know, kind of how we're going to [1:13:54] Carollynn Lear: go about it. I'm going to risk it here with what I'm saying. I think just personally, I don't know if this will play a factor is that I know with my role as department head is that I feel like I have the skills, as we've listed here, to chair a short term. I would not be the appropriate person to chair a long-term committee. So maybe a subcommittee that was just tasked with strategic planning, that's where the public health skills would lie. So I just want to be really transparent that a long-term standing committee, you would be best served by someone with a different skill set than me. We would definitely participate, but I just wanted to be clear where I can be supportive. [1:14:44] Carolyn Fish: And that may be true of other members, as this was contemplated as well, which goes to your point of this was really geared towards a short-term targeted. We [1:14:58] Susan Hawes: still have a motion and a second on the board. [1:15:02] Michael Beck: I would just go ahead that I would see it is that board would elect the wrong chair that could be what like their own chair we [1:15:13] Susan Hawes: got a minute and the [1:15:17] Carolyn Fish: other thing again with all the departments involved I know this is coming from Jen and he's the expert with our own house but it but it does boil over into our other apartments and departments and again so I don't know how much thought from other perspective department perspectives this affects and in a broader-minded way so I'm comfortable from her experience with the unhoused and the issue on the street but I'm also concerned we're making a decision for the city that incorporates other departments and I don't know if the police department has looked at this and what their thoughts and pros and cons are in public work so I'm uncomfortable I can represent to you that all of the members of our team have seen this draft and waited yeah they're on board with it okay i mean i won't say on board i think chief hathaway might kick me under the table if i represented that he was excited to be put on another advisory committee but okay i just wanted you know we council didn't know that so i'm just saying you know and i trust jen's in her role but if we have other department heads that i just didn't know how this yeah no we have a very collaborative team of all the departments that are involved in homeless response and what do we do with the questions [1:16:33] Susan Faloon: I was going to say it could be a designee, so it doesn't always have to be the chief, because I mean, they only have so much time in a day, right? So, all right, the [1:16:47] Daniel Carson: most [1:16:50] Michael Beck: I had was whether or not it's [1:16:51] Angela Walker: to be a no expiration date. So yeah, that was just no inspiration. Those are moving. Second. [1:16:58] Susan Hawes: The item would go to council with description as to what each part of the committee would be, the length of it, makeup of it, and you had a couple of things on there, and that would go next one time. So [1:17:20] Carolyn Fish: is the motion? I just want to make sure I understand what I'm producing. I think the motion was for something different. Well, the motion was [1:17:29] Michael Beck: simply for whether this be permanent or not. So I didn't actually talk about which plan. Okay, it would just or the makeup. It would simply are we putting an expiration date on [1:17:37] Susan Hawes: this or not for the committee still tasking that first portion of this plan? Yeah, well [1:17:44] Michael Beck: Well, I mean, that's not part of it. Just yeah. So just talk about the change. Doesn't change. Yeah, this changes the duration. Okay, everybody. [1:17:54] Susan Hawes: Okay. Any objections to this going forward? Okay, so, you know, you can expect to see it at the next time. So, maybe with that we are at this 32. So not that they are adjourned.