2.11.2025 City Council - Human Services, Housing, Youth, Elder & Veterans Affairs

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here here pursuant to the open meeting any person may make an audio or video recording on this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings are being transmitted and are being ma made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledgeable and permissible this is the city council meeting on Human Services housing youth

Elder and Veterans Affairs the meeting is now convened uh do we have anyone that signed up for Citizens input in the audience with citizens input no okay uh item number two minutes for September 10th 2024 motion to approve the minutes second all in favor I and item number three do you have a motion to lift from the table um yes motion to lift from the table sorry and I will second that motion and the

motion all in favor I okay thank you sorry um is from a resolution filed by Brad Kilby that's been tabled several times motion was filed on November 8th 2022 the motion is whereas the winter months are approaching whereas the city council should be concerned about the homeless in the city and now therefore it be resolved that the Administration provide an update on the estimated number of homelessness in the city and

be it further resolved that the administration provide amount of funding received from HUD to address the matter and what steps are being taken to address the issue um I will say that they've come down on multiple occasions and we've had discussions it's been taed and um but at this time I'd like to have the individuals come down from the city um and from the agencies that are providing services to the

homeless yep well that was very kind of

hello hi holy

all right if we can just go around the table we'll start with Nikki and everybody could just State their name and their address for the record Nikki Fontaine director of ay services for the city of Far River the city's one government Senter um Deputy Beth uh Beth F Deputy Chief of EMS and one government center Bank tan director of Community Development one government center Seth aen City administrator one

government center hi I'm Rosa Medeiros the director of homeless services at stepping stone hi I'm Alissa kapis I'm The Clinical Director of Behavioral Health Services at stepping stone I'm Laura Bradley uh executive director at Thrive for Humanity 40 quy Street uh Pastor Doug Goodson uh director of chaplain Street corps1 fav Drive 7 perfect just in time to state your name there uh all out of breath I know

it's a new last name I think or maybe not but Stephanie Perry Community wellness program South Hospital perfect uh Maria Al Hills Behavioral Health hi Maria and SAR Point South Coast Heth well this

program all she's going that way

all right so I think I uh will start off with some order here with um Nikki Fontaine the city Mike Dion who is here to uh they provided us with an update of what's going on what they're doing and I will let you guys get started um just want to bring you up to speed of what's happening in the city of Fall River um um right now the first

step in has the 30 year round beds 20 winter beds they also have 20 beds at the motel the Tomato Center is doing 30 winter beds overflow beds we have a uh weather dependent um we don't like to uh advertise it but First Baptist Church has been opening up their doors uh during cold weather uh times and storms um that's another third 30 to 40 beds we're also been having a warming shelter

um when we need it at Christ the Rock Church and we've had 30 to 40 uh residents there um in crisis Services uh we opened January 20th through the 23rd from 4 a.m. to uh 400 P p.m. to 8:00 a.m. uh with an overnight prayer service at First Baptist Church we averaged about 40 people um and then we did an 8 to4 warming Center at Christ the Rock Church during those days um we

also opened up during the last snow storm this past weekend which was the February 8th um from 4: p.m. till 12: the next day at uh First Baptist Church and we had about 34 residents um right now we're working uh to put the numbers together for the point and time count you might have seen some numbers that were put out there um today they're not right um those numbers have not been finished we have not

finished with that um so we're working on that right now the programs the fast team is still going to the encampments uh we had the program enhancements with encampments uh Nikki can talk about that more it's been very successful we've had 38 people went into sober living two people left the program that were in the the you know we spent the money on so 36 people have stayed in the program 17 people have

graduated and right now I believe Nikki we have 11 people in treatment which includes the detox uh they in either detox or they in the step down program um right now we're going out to get current uh obtaining currently bids for the cleanup of encampments at Plymouth a Middle Street and quick Shan River River Trail so we're working on that as we speak and I gave you a little bit of

funding uh knowledge down below um so far we've we've got about $4 million between homeless and Mental Health Grants um we the first one you'll see is the for Continuum of Care which is a large Grant it's a one-year term it's a competitive grant that we apply for every year and uh you'll see as you go down emergency Solutions Grant we're in the middle of that samire is a 4-year

Grant uh we're in our fourth year which is a one oneyear term Grant um we have some rollover from the previous year and uh We've also applied for Opia abuse funds which we received around 90 $90,000 for the first year that's a that 320 is a three-year term and we also uh got approved for the protect and connect Grant which is $550,000 over three years so that's where the city stands right now um in terms of

what we've been doing um I think we should be very happy because we been very successful um and like I said we take one at a time one homeless person out a time so Nikki if you have anything more that you want to say in terms of no I mean if it wasn't for the fast Team FAST team's done an awesome job everybody at this table's done a great

job you know we we can't uh we do a lot for our homeless in the city so well I I will add one thing actually um as far as the enhancement without encampment Grant we just went over the numbers today and I actually I knew that the program was successful but I was actually shocked at how successful that only two people and what he means by that is some people go

into sober living and we spend a month or two on them and they decide to leave only two people never returned so we've put in about 80 people now directly from the encampments and only two people are not still trying which is pretty amazing to me um 17 graduates the others are still they still are at within their six month protocol um and 11 others waiting to get back in and um you know to me

that's just crazy like we're talking about the people directly you know in need on the street in the tents and um the other thing is the peak that we had when we opened First Baptist Church uh one night there was 49 during that January 20th uh stay you know and that's people that obviously the hundred beds are full this is 49 people that had absolutely nowhere to go and the numbers

as we know like we we all see it right like it doesn't feel like we're making a dent but when you actually break it down the amount of people that we help and don't advertise it like we're making a difference in a lot of people's lives but we're competing with the rents rising and we're seeing a lot more people in the vehicles of SSI doesn't cover an apartment anymore you know so

as many as we're we're we're seeing out there we're quietly placing all these other people you know and it's a day at a time a person at a time an example is is today we we found a landlord that has nine units available that are about anywhere from 750 to 500 00 500 being a room on uh so I'm working with Nikki working with her um we've talked to that person uh they uh have some uh

contingencies no evictions they're going to do a credit check and they're also going to uh the rent uh they have to have two uh double the income of the rent so if you're making 500 you got to be at $1,000 so we're working on that um and we're also uh working with the mayor to identify some other funding sources so that we can keep ENC enhancement with encampments going because it is it is uh

um we're using up all the money um and we're also looking for additional money for um our homeless Prevention Services in the city we have money for Rapid rehousing services but we're looking for that so hopefully by the end of the week we'll have the answer for that and we can move on fantastic do have any you have any questions so the 17 people who have graduated from the program have they been placed um a

lot of them uh got jobs and are choosing to stay even longer um some of them have moved on further um but I would say the majority are still in over living um by choice you know um we are trying to work to set it up so that this is considered a homeless program and work with psh um permanent support of housing with Sheila chassis we we met today about that again

um so that's the end goal is if they can work and get apartments on their own we also provided job training with mass hire they were all given recovery coaches or rsns and they did a three-week training the first round of people um did a 3-week like budgets resume building that type of stuff so we're trying to make it all encompassing and not no one is just left after the

six months of funding is up we still provide a lot of wraparound support in terms of um you're talking about contingencies and pretty much it's always been that way I believe that if you've had an eviction you're like one the last person anybody talks to or anybody deals with um but I think we've seen in the last year or two that there are people who have been evicted who weren't evicted because they chose not

to pay their rent or because it there were U extenuating circumstances they couldn't afford it anymore no fault of their own um so we haven't developed anything or we haven't been able to convince anybody that you have a certain group of people who really don't deserve that black mark on their record uh to make it easier for them to to get housing yeah we I talked to the uh the

person that had Property Management that had the management um with with those units and we talk to them about people who have um evictions that don't help their own um they're going to work with us very closely um also the bright lights through this whole thing is is we finally finally agreed to um the boarding house that we were looking into and we hopefully will'll have a closing

done by the end of February so that'll open up even more units for us um also my office is is uh working on that property to bring another nine units on board um in that property so um we're working on it how many units are on that property now right now there's 16 un it's a commercial building commercial and residential there's 16 units on the uh second floor and commercial on the

first floor we're not doing any commercial whatsoever it's not allowed we're just going to do housing so that's where the extra nine would go on the first floor yeah I wanted to do Apartments but um it would require us to do a variants um there's a parking issue um so it's best to do um what's there now so we're probably going to just um you know make it a little bigger just

build on that okay I'll yield for now I you had mentioned the fast team do you want to just talk is fast team here is that no that's they're not here they went home for today it's been a busy week um what do you want me to talk about what we do just briefly what you do it's a I the city does a lot for the homeless and so I just want to we talk

about these acronyms but people don't understand what they are so just qu briefly yeah so the fast response team is far Riv addiction support and treatment it consists of right now currently one clinici two recovery coaches data Outreach coordinator police leaon and myself however we did just get the connect and protect Grant which will add another clinician and a uh certified PS specialist for mental Health we do

answer 247 our hotline that we have um and that is for any mental health substance use or homeless call um and our services really vary from someone needs treatment we'll bring them find them a bed bring them or you know uh right now yet this week I was at an elderly hoarding house to prevent her from being uh removed the city inspector went and it wasn't safe for her to to

stay due to a hoarding issue so yesterday my team was bleaching the rooms you know to like prevent this from happening um the daughter was severely disabled mentally um you know so honestly it's anything where we feel we can prevent homelessness um assist them to get out of homelessness or get them into any kind of treatment I I wanted the record to reflect that there is a 24-hour hotline

that I know is answered on a regular basis to get out there and help these people um so I appreciate the work that you do um First Baptist Church do you from the First Baptist or First Baptist Church is not here okay I seen God on your shirt I thought you were there you are a preacher though did I did you say that correctly work for the same boss so the same okay that's right respect that

um I guess I'll turn it down to Steph you came um boots on the ground in the camps um you are the boots on the soldier are in there in those camps so I'd like to I think there's a lot of soldiers around this table for sure at one point speak into the mic at one point or another we're always collaborating whether Doug's out there in the camp calling and saying hey I

found this can you follow up or myself doing the same for him Laura has a BRI brick and Mora building now which is amazing where we can go we go every Thursday and we kind of sit down in there and just kind of case manage like how can we make the lives of people who are living outside a little bit more uh bearable and sustainable and with the goal of getting them out whether that's getting

them in ID connecting them to health insurance Maria is from Seven Hills she has a dropin center that's more of like a wet dropin center right so different than a Recovery Center where you you can you have to be sober to be inside there are uh Supportive Services in that building from A to Z so we also go there and kind of Hit the same people so I think it's hard and and Dr Myers is from

the M Mo from Stars mobile Outreach so we we can refer someone to Medical we can refer someone to SSP Services we can refer somebody to transportation we can refer somebody to essential items so like we are on the ground every day important to note that the community wellness program doesn't just serve as Fall River I think a lot of people think that's oh it's just we're just Fall

River eccentric um I service new Beford and weham right so anywhere where our hospital system is is where we are I obviously this is my community so I spend a lot more time in this Community we have a lot of great providers that are easy to work with but we're kind of Here There and Everywhere um and we are in those camps what we're trying to do more of Now is really come out so like

good sheeper has a dropin center so we're now there every Tuesday from Wednesday well we switched it to Tuesday no Wednesday Wednesday sorry we're there every Wednesday from 11: to 1 it was 11: to 2 so again this is places where people are coming out to get food they're coming out to get services and we're there with our computers and our laptops and our resources trying to connect them and plug them in wherever

they are um we're at Thrive every Thursday and every other Saturday um and recently we've been going to the Tomato Center since it's been open through this winter uh you know the Overflow shelter just trying to get people where they need to be and I think just the stats like Sarah is new to my team so until Sarah came I was kind of just plugging away and not keeping track we have a very beautiful Excel Street

sheet now right which is amazing so I think just in the last not even a month it'll be a month on the 13th we have touched 150 people and I don't mean just hey how are you which maybe sometime that's all they need right is a hug and a hello and hey we're here you ready for treatment because it's my favorite question they always say that to me but you know 13 people in detox 14 referrals

to ewe 10 IDs five people and the other person I didn't mention is Mary canine who works out of the health department here in the City so she's an certified Insurance connector through Mass health she can actually get in their system so if we have people who are without insurance she can fix that if there's questions or mail that they missed or something where they lapsed she's now at

Thrive she goes to Seven Hills she's at CTC um so just Insurance 10 PE five people were connected just through our program PCP six referrals just in the last month to Dr Myers wound care we had to Narcan someone call a medical emergency the other day like you we have two youth people from 20 to 24 require Youth Services which sometimes is easier so we're dealing with that um vets five

vets that we're not working with but we're we're finding on the streets and referring them to where they need to be so it's kind of amazing when you look at it that way how many people we're touching that we weren't even thinking about before and I think people also think that it's a simple process to like oh let's just get them off the street but like Steph just mentioned there's a

gamut of things that they first you know the IDS the social securities the birth certificates now someone's from Dominican Republic and they need a birth certificate or you know a passport or whatever and and it's so many steps to actually house them and that's really where this collaboration comes in amazing because we all pretty much have everyone on speed dial yeah pretty much

amazing um the 30 to 40 beds the so the First Baptist church was birthed out of a need right because we needed more beds and so what and are they filled to capacity I think they're only for weather related issues okay so if it's snowing going to have a snowstorm if it's going to be really cold those open up that's shocking to me so these are just more people that are coming out

that they're not at the 50 beds at stepping stone they're not at the 50 beds over at the Tomato Center they're just another the mot rooms too like we added the motel rooms that we would have Clos yeah you slide it okay thank you there you go right so we started off with the winter beds that um added to the to the first St pin which made us have 50 shelter beds and then we um also

do all the intake and screening for the Tomato Center so we fill those beds um us the Tomato Center um takes care of that we so all the all the homeless people seeking shelter come from them to us or they come from calls and we we sort of put together our own little winter system to be sure we utilize all the resources that we're able to manage um like proficiently so

basically um we had the 50 beds at the first step in we also always have two male and two female emergency costs for emergency situations that sometimes we need to utilize when everything else is already filled um and until until um until we are able based on funding that's really all we uh try and we never end our services with the winter beds so the winter beds stay at 50 we don't have

an end date for those we try to keep people in because those permanent beds are where we house them and clarifying information I know everybody's puzzled about some things so so let me just going to stop you right there so you're 50 beds year round we have 50 we have 50 beds that we expand at winter so in November we're usually down to our 30 but we will expand to 50 in November and keep them

until we've housed most most of the people or they leave we don't just say it ends here and we go to we go to 30 okay so I think there's that's where the confusion lies because we were fighting for 50 beds or I wouldn't say we I think the city were looking for for to increase from 30 beds to to 20 add another 20 beds so what you're saying and we'll put on the record is that

we're going to stay at the 50 beds we don't have to worry about that decreasing because it looks like we're 100 beds short so we're our goal is to go to 50 beds year round what we've been doing for the last five years is we don't have an end date to the 50 beds when we open them up in the winter what we do is we don't admit new people until

we've housed them and and we tend to get to 30 right before like octo usually June you see our reports monthly right Mike yeah so usually around June or that's when we start decreasing in beds because it's summer and people go out so you go from like 30 to then you house some when you go to 49 beds and you go to 48 beds and maybe so but you're not

going to keep it at 50 beds that's all that's been our goal for years when we moved down to uh uh dery Street our goal was to have a 50 bed shelter we just didn't have the funding to do it so we've um managed to get different kinds of fundings and we've gone from 20 to 30 and our goal now is to go to 50 but we keep the 50 as as long as possible okay

I I know that that's something that probably had needed a little clarification um and then from uh December to March we have the 30 tomato beds um so the Tomato Center and the first St bin work very collaborative Le and in the P this is the way the system sort of works we fill our beds first we fill the Tomato because they get screamed through us and we and we send

them there once we get to the 30 as soon as we someone vacate shelter we take them from too so that we keep the resource available for the next person this year we knew we were going to be in a tough situation and we went for the um State's um shelter capacity expansion Grant which allowed us to um get uh the motel rooms in Dartmouth those motel rooms we actually requested

a lot more than just the 10 rooms but so many people um in throughout Massachusetts requested funding that they asked us to look and re work our budget and ask ask for Less so that's how we got the 10 motel rooms and and we can go we can uh get two people in a motel room the motel rooms have already um put 34 people in there and the way we're utilizing that so to keep it like

sort of efficient and try to always keep the resources and it's a tricky situation to evaluate so every person calling in is is like almost like a mini assessment because we a low threshold shelter to Mayo is not um we'll I think you can just Define what that means for the public that's listening so basically low threshold is that somebody could apparent be under the influence it's not a wet

shelter but we assess whether an individual is safe for shelter so low threshold means that they're safe and self can self- preses like they can if there's a fire we you know they can get out they're not in danger of Overdose basically that's what we look for if we're able to um you know have them come in and sometimes they come in and they shortly after they appear like they're overdosing and we call

uh 911 and let them come back I um you had a question Council clarification go ahead so is the First Baptist Church a low thres threshold shelter are they able to go in there if there're is it a wet shelter do we know what they're what they're doing there it's a prayer service first pray service fantastic I'm on board with that shelter it's not a shelter a lot of so it's a Praying

that's right so they're praying all night and they get to fall asleep if they pray a lot right with the paramedic there I love the creative way to care for people okay it's it's what it is it's a it's a and many of the people so like staff from Seven Hills volunteer their time stepping stone peer-to-peer people volunteer the time we volunteer at time like we're Doug volunteers time

so we're as a community making this work because of the need and a lot of agencies that donate the food and all these things like it's amazing how many step up for that um we don't test we don't do breath wizes or you know as long as we we do regular checks in the bathrooms EMS is on site so even if they're highly intoxicated as long as they're not a threat to themselves or

someone else you let them and that's the tomatoes that's first bapti that's the first bapti well my father was a preacher so I know it is sometimes you fall asleep in praying so it's a perfect needed thing especially during the winter councelor Dion yeah just just for some more clarification because I'll be honest I'm still a little confused here so this is the way I'm understanding it

and and so at the present time you have 50 beds are the 50 beds full yes they are and on and on most nights we have emergency clots okay and tomato has 30 beds at a full right and you transition them out of tomato if a bed empties where you are you take one from to Mayo then you replace that bed in to Mayo if necessary y so we're trying to like sort of evaluate

who needs what so because we have the motel rooms as well and I understand it comes down to funding so that you need the funding to have 50 beds that's your goal to have 50 beds year round so what changes I don't I don't even know how to refer to it in the off season that there isn't funding for 50 beds in the warmer weather I don't know how you want to

well like we have an annual budget and the annual budget accounts for a winter Staffing pattern and it accounts for more food and it accounts for more things for those months okay so you divert more funding in the winter ENT your when we're allocating we already sort of project what the winter expense is going to be for the annual budget and then when you reach that transitional month when somebody leaves you don't

fill the bed because it brings it back down to the 30 right okay thank you that I Y yeah and and the motel rooms um so the the motel room so when somebody calls in the motel rooms are our expansion of shelter but we've actually run to uh across some barriers there as well because um Dartmouth requested that um people do not stay long uh there and establish residency so we needed to um work on an

agreement where they're um you know staying in the motel room for a certain amount of time they'll come to shelter a couple of days in return just to be able to keep dmouth happy so we can utilize um the uh the you know the motel we haven't had any issues um even though the other day somebody poked a hole in the wall but um we've we've utilized all those rooms

we feed them the case managers go out and we're already working on housing them actually I think we're uh working on WE transport a lot of people back to their community ities where they originated from as well so we've done about six people um in the last couple of months to to transport back to communities where they're fully connected um we've a lot of the research we've done um when we're screening

individuals is also that um they that we have a lot of individuals here in the community that um have sort of come here because it's affordable more affordable than other communities so a lot of them were doing a lot of Engagement with about where is home um where's family and that kind of stuff so we're trying to do some of that um but everyone is an assessment so if someone

calls and they can and our shelter is full and Tomo has an opening because there's a lot of there's a lot of moving on actually happening from tomato to the motel to the uh to the thing but we we have to sort of evaluate if they don't have an ID we'll take them and work on an ID but too cannot because you know they're based on volunteers and that's where we're going yeah

council do y do you have another question go ahead in terms of the veterans the five veterans have they been referred to our vso or he's behind you that's why I'm asking sorry I can speak to that so the veterans that we've encountered we refer to vth just because we've had a previous relationship so they're out of New Bedford but they service our area as well so we have actually we counted as actually nine in

the last couple of months that that individual is helping and have they all um acquired housing no I can't speak on that fully but I know that two are in process as of last week that we referred to Dolly mellow at vth and In fairness um there are some of there there's a couple that for whatever reason don't want to go into the vth program right whether they've been there or they yeah that

happens uh Tor feris director of veteran services one government center so I work very closely with Dolly greay um we've actually been able to house several individuals and families I'm not loud enough oh okay uh we've been able to house several individuals and families um well over 10 actually um some of those are residing here inside the city limits of Fall River some of those were

able to get housed inside of the uh New Bedford area uh but for the most part we're able to get as much as we can done utilizing Mike Dion's Department uh the CFC and majority of the people sitting around these TBL probably don't even realize uh some of the people that you see come through me or through Dolly um but we've been able to partner with the vet center over at Pine Street as well

utilizing veterans Inc their ssvf program uh and several other things that just try to get people off the street Street uh we've got two individuals right now that have criminal backgrounds from their many years on the street and substance abuse alcohol abuse that makes it extremely difficult to get them in anywhere uh one of the biggest problems with that particular group is that not

only will they have an eviction which is that black mark um a lot of these guys are actually older now and not really a threat but because of their history it makes it difficult to get them in anywhere um and then you have that small contingent that no matter what you tell them they're not coming because they don't want to deal with the rules over at vth getting sober is a major issue

for some of these guys not everyone okay we want to dispel that myth it's not everyone it's a select few um but with the cooperation of everyone here in this room and some of the folks also not represented we've done large amounts of uh of good work here so I'm grateful for each and every one of you by the way thank you so with with with the number of homeless that we've had what percentage of those

homeless would you think um are the veterans the sliver yeah it's a small percentage very small I I wish there were more because we can actually connect them to Services much easier but you know what I mean I don't wish no no no I get no no no I understand what you're saying um so how many how many um in these winter months right now today are still in the encampments have any

idea oh God there's a lot still yeah we well with this point in time count I know that we're at least like Mike said it's not finalized Mary's still going through the numbers um and we're updating stuff but I know it's going to be over50 as far as encampments at least a hundred of those yeah I mean Laura has active numbers because they're coming out of the camps to get the services she has and she

counts them so what do you have just for the since January or whatever so since January for 5 weeks we have now encountered 101 unduplicated wow um homeless so the end of 2024 we have service 323 unduplicated um homeless and I think the trend we saw right with the that shelter day that was really busy is we're seeing people that we've never seen they're from our community absolutely but this is their

first time being homeless and there's I'm this third night when I walked in to bring stuff I was like I don't even know where these people are where's the 40 something that were here last night because yeah there won't even be room for them with all the new people so it just keeps compounding and compounding so just speaking um because I um I I do um primary care and addiction medicine

on the van but also at stars brick and mortar Clinic just yesterday afternoon I had two separate patients in tears they've been housed their entire life in in this area and both are very older and very close to homelessness so that was out of like eight patients that I saw two of them are on the brink of of homelessness as senior citizens Y and if they don't refuse to leave and they

leave they now have an eviction against them and an eviction or a foreclosure on an EV forclosure one thing that I set up with an O'Neal suer uh Friday was to meet with Mike suer I believe at housing this week because because we are hoping that at least if we can get our trifolds and information to the people that they are they they always give like a second chance before you get evicted with

housing to try to make the payment plan or something so we're trying to get that information to them because a lot of people don't know there's all these Services you know they don't know where to start so uh this week we are actually doing that and I'm supposed to sit and meet with Mike because we are seeing it a lot I just had somebody that you know they gave them two or three chances and was behind

$110,000 and just had no way to come up with it so now he's evicted with nowhere to go you know but they don't come to us till after they're evicted and the demographics of the older population is like almost doubled in the shelter setting and and they don't always um follow through with what like due process allows them they will say I can't do this I'm evicted I leave I've

had people I've uh you know we've found tons of um all the older population that's coming through that's what's happening they're just leaving because they fail they have they feel they failed it's so it's so sad because you know they're older they've worked they think that um you know they just didn't do it do you so my here's my concern the shelter has 30 year round beds 50 20 extra as needed beds but we close

and you say that you don't get rid of the beds until a person is placed how long can someone stay in the shelter until they're placed they can stay there until they're placed so you have people there for how long like what's the longest resident that you have and the problem the reason why that is is because our shelter's in the business of um housing individuals we don't want to cycle people in and out

of shelter we want to resolve their homeless Cycles um and um basically that's our reason for deciding on that operational system um but on an average every year there's an average of about 200 people that are served through that shelter and if you look at the months that we really operate this the 50 beds it's about seven months so it's not three months I know you know that that's what it feels

like because in the winter there's this urgency to be able to you know um get everybody sheltered and we're the shelter provider but um that's the the truth of it we and and the goal is to get to 50 but 50 is going to be added for uh a few months when when we can do it I do think that's one problem that we discussed though in the past is you know

like the need to not cycle them out but they're also staying for two years plus you know and then obviously that minus people that stay two years and the reason for that each each individual has a story so we had one gentleman um that needed a a birth certificate that was burnt down in Puerto Rico it took us forever to just get him the birth certificate so that he could get housed

that's one gentleman and then we have an older gentleman who I can't do anything about his income and he was evicted from housing he's not going to get subsidized housing and he get $700 a month so those individuals are difficult to to try try to figure out so those we're trying to get into subsidized housing yeah and that I think is part of the problem is there's not a

place to move them either but it does we all know that it it the residents stay stuck there for a while because there's no place to move them on so really I can't get anyone in if they're not moving on and then there's nowh to move them on you know what I mean so how do we focus on that piece of the next step for these people of course we don't want

them back on the street but we all also do need to figure out a Next Step solution you know so we can get this process functional and the only way to do that is to be able to look at what the housing gaps in the community are and decide who is who is being left in the cold and who are we not housing um you know it's one of the reasons for

years I've been talking about sober living and what you guys have done is amazing because that is contributed to that that population as we're continuing to battle each day to try to house individuals to try to do all the things that you're all doing together well the one thing that's not changing is that there's more people becoming homeless and the numbers that are becoming homeless is going to grow I've

been doing this for 28 years in 1996 we solved the homeless problem here we opened up several housing and we did we did you know analysis we did analysis of the individuals that were homeless what are their service needs what are their what are the housing needs we opened up tons of um housing we filled them up and then suddenly we needed shelter because they were it was growing and it kept growing and it kept

growing this problem is not going to be solved by having a shelter that is a rotating door and having them either be safe one night unsafe another night safe one night and unsafe another night it's going to be the only way to solve this is to house them oh I definitely agree with that but on Stephen our side of it like you get to see the people where they're safe

there you know what I mean but once you guys and tomato close the winter part of it and then we start to you start to wean down to 30 that means that for the rest of those months we really can't get anyone in cuz you're going down you know what I mean it's not that's your yeah that's your you have to follow your process right I'm not put putting it on

you guys I'm just saying it's a huge barrier for us in the rest of the months that it's not winter overflow and we only have 30 beds that are full you know what I mean the rest of the months we struggle to get anyone in yeah so what I'm hearing is that we have the city of Fall River has only 30 permanent sober beds shelter beds and there is 30 but

there really is not 30 because those 30 people have to get placement and so do we don't have enough beds and we call it the we call it the summer months but they're there these are people that are homeless and intense and the boot the people that are the boots on the ground are in these camps so how many shelter beds would we say we need in well I well

right now I can tell you that we need 150 shelter beds I mean it's we need there you go 200 and so there is a hugee problem with that and we need to um if uh stepping stone cannot raise their beds and they do not have the funding I think we need to go and look at that creative way that you guys are doing things to look at to have yearr round shelter beds there's just no

we can talk in circles people are doing amazing work but the city is hurting there are people that are praying you know 10 hours a night to be able to sleep inside during a snowstorm and it's it's not okay and we need to look at expanding beds and uh if other agencies want to take that task on and look at that but we have to grow our shelter beds no if ands or butts about it um

Talos and so I I want to make sure that I also help paint the picture um a little bit better so a large portion of the population here from the veteran side of things are the elderly okay um some of these folks have VA disability monies that they get um but that only lasts up until a certain point in time when they start receiving Social Security and then that that benefit

takes a hit um and so if anyone here is well versed in Social Security that's a very fixed income and it no longer covers the cost of rents in this city okay a majority of the phone calls near the end of the summer going into the winter months that I receive were from that demographic of people people that have lived in affordable apartments and housing for many many many years and

then all of a sudden they incrementally watch their rents go up 100 200 300 $500 and now they can't afford their rent food lights and gas they just can't do it and like she spoke of earlier they're older they're not used to having to go through a bunch of changes and when they see all the paperwork coming in that they're being forced out of their home for whatever reason they pick

the paperwor they look at it and they say you know what I can't do this and they make their way to those shelters and they don't realize there's other resources out there um and some of these people have cars so they choose to stay in the car because they can afford that payment and they try to make it by living in their car they go into the shelters they go into CFC the vet center

to get get food pantry and things like that just to try and make it through the rest of the year until they can figure out a way to solve that problem that is something that will not change that fet population is going to continue to get older here and it's going to continue to be an issue as long as rents do not come down so um and do you have anything you want to add

councilor I feel like I'm going out on a limb a little bit but I'm I'm as I'm listening I'm thinking and so we do have some homeless people that do have some form of income okay part of our problem is you can't get enough funding what does it C round rough and tough one person one month to house and feed in in these um shelters well so the the real problem is

staff is Staffing uh a shelter safely so the ratio that the shelter sort of guidance says is that you have a ratio of for 10 individuals one person I don't so well I guess what I'm getting at and this is where I say maybe I'm going out in a limb and people are going to think I'm nuts or something but so if we had a population of people who are homeless who do have some form of

income and were and we established a shelter where they contributed to in addition to the funding they contribute money which makes it more viable to have your staff and have more B heads so we're not putting the full responsibility on them but we would be adding to the amount of funding and it would relieve some of the problems that exist I mean would that make any sense brand idea is this like a mix of like

section eight and like an SRO or something or a boarding house and like a Section 8 model or something I guess we could call we could name it whatever we want because it's a brand new con but to me I'm sitting there thinking it's a no-brainer you know if you're short if you if if you can h house 30 people and they can each contribute $300 a month that's considerable yeah so it's a

it's actually not a Brand New Concept there are a couple of places that um from the veteran side of things there's a place of improvidence I can't think of the name of it right now I think bth uses a portion of this as well where they have folks in their program or in their temporary housing that are contributing a portion of their income to stay where they are so it's not a

brand new concept and I absolutely think that is something that we should Explorer yeah would be brand new to Fall River so is that something we can do Mike are you looking at me you're the Creator you're the Creator but no but but legitim all that's what we're that's what we're doing um with with the with the purchase of a rooming house you're you're making a person responsible for their rent um um at a

very low cost okay um those tenants when you start charging people rent they have rights okay so to to turn a shelter into a permanent support of housing program I don't think that's something we need to do okay um we have permanent Supportive Housing now I have about 200 units in the city that's scattered um that's why we decided to look at the boarding house and to have 25 units available so that

we could take people out of the shelter and put them in a in in a lowc cost environment that's what they need they need a lowcost environment you need need the rents to be cheaper or you need a subsidy those combination of or or they need to go back to work or you you you need to have a better job one of those I mean it's it's either an income or a

cost item you increase the the person's income decre go ahead so so um it's something I'm not going to tell you we're not trying we're we're going to try it it's going to happen I mean um those PE you know you feel bad the days of the days of a $750 apartment are over oh that's not going to happen anymore um uh those those apartments now for a one-bedroom apartment we're talking you know $

131,00 so we have to find low low cost or or or a subsidy one of the things too right so we only we don't have a lot of rooming houses right so if there was an incentive to have more rooming houses by the city whether that's a tax break or whatever that might encourage more people to you know or I don't even know how many rooming house licenses we have

issued in the city I don't think there's many in new Beford they have a ton in far we don't have many so that's we're already behind the eightball on that one but also the permanent support of housing M talking about we have all those units but these are people who own these buildings who decide I want to be part of this right so giving may be thinking it from the back end give them

incentives to say I own a three tenement I you're essentially leasing the building out to the people who are overseeing that whether that's Catholic Social Services or not but it would give if we as a community we hear it on social media everybody's up in arms we're not doing enough this isn't happening and I think a lot of them don't know what's happening which is why this is great but if they knew hey maybe

I can be part of the solution and I'm going to get a tax break I don't know like I'm not political I don't know how this all works but it just seems to me as a simplified process if I owned a building and you told me I'm going to get some sort of incentive to be part of the solution maybe I'm going to be and it's not just we're throwing people in

your building who are going to make a mess we're putting people in your building who are going to have more services than any of your other tenants whatever Happ it's just a thought you know like counil a lot of the L no they won't refuse they won't refuse housing they won't want to stay in a tent right what I see what I see right now with my office is there's a lot of investors

there's a lot of people who are coming in who can do so much better a in terms of market rate housing than affordable housing yeah so you know when when you can get like I said6,700 for for a two-bedroom they're taking that they're not going with my programs um I've seen that happen i' our first time home buyers have gone down to nil I mean I haven't been able to help a person um

to figure out Solutions at that ground level every Thursday every Thursday this is being worked on talked about you have this last Thursday last Thursday of the month and we hosted at good sheards church Parish 3 P.M last Thursday of the month and you have your city that's involved in that your City Electric you have all everybody that you need so it's being worked on it's being talked about

I do think that um we need to look at um opening those shelter beds but I I do appreciate the work that you do you people are in the camps doing a lot of work and I greatly appreciate that you hopped in um you got work can I just add one thing you you got like 30 seconds that that's good I'm I'm thinking when you spoke up about like an out of the box idea um another

out of the box idea is to really get a working group together and figure out what the data tells us does the data tells us we need 100 beds for shelter 200 beds for shelter does it tell us the people that are housed priced out of housing does it tell us all of that because then you can actually make a good point my recommendation is you have a working group that's meeting and the

data iscome so I would join that working group get the data from Mike and um do that it just makes more sense than just talking about it yeah well I think there the the action is there and they have the numbers so um perfect thank you guys for coming I'm so sorry I just I wanted to say something earlier and I didn't have a chance just really quickly um I I very much believe

in long-term Solutions um but this winter has just been so tough um I think Steph has seen this as well in terms of toes with frostbite with Gang Green um there are people who can't wait who need shelter um I think most of them have kept most of their toes so far through the help of um South Coast hospital and and St an's but um it it's really been just so brutal on on people's bodies

this winter Dr Myers and I want to thank you personally for the work that you're doing out in those camps you are doing amazing work with the people in there I I greatly appreciate the work that you do um with that motion to adjourn second adjourned thank you all in favor other is's probably don't