7.25.2023 City Council - Committee on Human Services, Housing, Youth & Elder Affairs

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city council committee on Human Services housing Youth and Elder Affairs will be called to order Madam clerk call the roll please here before we start just to make an announcement that Council of Liberty will not be here due to a family emergency pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees

are therefore advised to such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and deemed acknowledged and participated first item on the agenda is Citizens input we have no citizens but number two is the minutes from the January 17th 2023 meeting motion to approve motion to approve has been made I will second all in favor aye and none opposed that is good

number three is a resolution for the administration to provide information regarding homelessness in the city of Fall River tabled January 17 2023 emotional lift from the table motion lift from the table is made by Council kadim second by myself all in favor aye so ordered I'm going to have Administration come down

and when everybody's seated if we can identify ourselves in our roles please Mike Dion director of Community Development for the city Mickey Fontaine director of Outreach Services

excellent thank you all for being here we still want to hear your name okay yeah anyway Mr Dion if you could uh give us an update on the current homelessness situation in the city it's wonderful um we I can tell you what we've been working on we've been uh currently have a um a team together Street Outreach team that has been going out into the uh encampments looking at the encampments

trying to assess you know how many people we have in the encampments um we have a strong Street outreach program going right now um some of the encampments that we have are and interrupt me two on Brighton Avenue there's uh one on Bay Street I believe there's some on the river trail that we recently uh maybe two weeks ago the police department did a raid I want to say one two o'clock in the morning I

think and uh arrested nine individuals there um we had a small encampment down on Pocasset street across from the former Herald News building that's been cleaned up and closed we had one on Plymouth Avenue Taco Bell which was pretty big offered them services and that one's been closed and cleaned out from what I understand and we also cleaned and reduced significantly the people that

were at uh off of Star street so there's also some encampments smaller encampments that have popped up here and there what we've been doing is is some of those encampments like one on the Brighton Avenue extension is privately owned National Grid owns the land so we're working with National Grid um and and you know we don't go in and start ripping down tents and stop displacing and we're trying to work with

these individuals we're trying to um uh see if they want Services see if they want to go into detox beds um get mental health assistance I've had a couple just recently where I sent them back to Virginia bottom uh bus ticket send them back to Virginia that's where they wanted to go we do have some people that yes are living in cars throughout the city I was able to get one this week into ships

Cove so you know we've had some successes we've also it's it's a very difficult um you know group of people to to deal with some of them do not want Services some of them want to live out there especially when it's warm a lot of people want to come in when it's zero but when it's warm it's I think sometimes they think it's like camping um we had just recently like two weeks

ago three weeks ago a homeless day on a Saturday trying to bring people out trying to get them services uh our last point in time count had 96 people that were unsheltered I think that number is a little high um in terms of the count I don't know if it was to that extent but you know we take people at their word um out of that we had uh two veterans two individual veterans who run

sheltered and three that were in emergency shelter at the time some of the other issues that we've been working with I might have said this in January I might have not we opened a full-time Outreach Center called the Tomato Center which is on Bay Street they're partnering with the city and Bristol County training Consortium we also instituted a pilot work program and we're trying to um

extend and expand that program It's a Small Program I'm not going to uh Lady it's five homeless individuals females and males you might have seen them they're out in the city they're they're working uh they have a supervisor they're working cleaning the city streets they've been on Plymouth Ave they've been on Rodman Street they cleaned Maplewood Park so they're out there every day they're out there nine

to nine to twelve um they have lunch at the drop-in center on Fridays they're required to take classes at the drop-in center on on different aspects um is that um because I've seen a group I don't know if it's the group you're talking about but they seem very young are they is that the young group or is that no they're they're probably 30 to okay that's not the yeah um it

would be a doc van dock yeah blue van passenger van um I've seen a couple on on Rock Street doing some cleanups but I don't know if that's the same crew I don't think it is um they you I think you would you could tell um they have vests on I don't know because they almost reminded me of like the old sir jobs where we used to have those right right so um yeah so I

thought that's we had started that program because it looked like it was you know high school middle school high school it could be something through BCTC that's out there yeah then that's I don't know I guess I was going to be a little concerned if where we got that number of population that is homeless staying in those encampments not to suggest that we wouldn't have that but

okay so we're looking to expand the work program to another five individuals and we're working on that now um it's worked out pretty well so far um uh you know there are some negotiations that I'm working on with housing that would relieve some of the pressures I think on the homeless population right now we're having difficulty and we all know how the rental situation is um the problem also is we don't have a lot

of recovery beds and there's you know you can't just I hug the Hud's view of homelessness as housing first get them into an apartment they're not they're not homeless anymore great but it just doesn't work um you need sustainability there's other issues that that they have so there's not really enough housing so we're looking at it we're looking at a property in the city nothing huge

probably has about 11 beds 12 beds not to make it into a shelter to make it into some type of permanent Supportive Housing I think the last time I was here it's working out really well is um my office with the Housing Authority created the moving on program I think I mentioned that the last time um that that added an additional 20 Section 8 certificates um you know fill me in if I'm missing anything so I

guess I just got a couple of questions just uh because you've said a lot so I think there's a lot of good things but um one of the first things I guess I want to talk about is is Jessica you had mentions giving a uh like a bus ticket to to Virginia so one of our colleagues had just actually brought it up prior to this meeting coming in that they had gone to

um was it one of the shelters or any one of the encampments chemists was that what it was yeah and and so the conversation was about where they were from and so it was it's like Brockton it's Boston so it's now coming back to and then I had mentioned it about the you know back in the 80s when we had you know housing the Housing Authority putting up these advertisements come

down to Fall River and all this other things for um you know for the uh projects and housing complexes what is I guess what's driving how are they getting here what's driving them to to the city um do we know what what that is because it seems like based on the conversation I don't know how true it is because I haven't I haven't been there I haven't had conversations but there was only one

person according to what we were told that there's only one person from Fall River that was actually there so when we start looking at where they're truly from it's not really the city they're just coming to the city and I'm just wondering what it is I believe you're you're you're very correct in saying that um what the mayor and I have heard through our visits to encampments because we do go out there

um there are a lot of people that are not originally from Fall River but they've also made their home in Fall River so when you hear we're not originally from far away from Tom that might have been a year to two years ago which means that you know they've been here yeah um and what's driving them here is is there's a multitude of reasons I mean um the people that I sent back on the

bus they had come up here to help their nephew because his mother had just passed away his he was into drugs and um substance abuse they were also drug addicts and substance abuse users but they were clean so they felt terrified that they were going to get back into this so they were able to to accept you know the assistance you want to get out of here you want to move back yeah there's

there's the reasons you know I met somebody on the internet um you know I came up to see her and and she threw me out a week later now I'm homeless um there there's um moderate of reasons um a lot of it I see is families that don't want to take their their the person back in they want nothing to do with them so they become homeless yeah so I just

there's also a lot of people Fall River has a lot of great treatment options and resources well that's why I was going to go a lot of drugs as well and as a hub between Boston get everything they need if there's citizens usually here so a lot of times if they get kicked out of stars definitely swim they just wander out so that's where I was I guess that's where

I was going to go with the conversation because number one I guess I want to go on the record saying that I'm not suggesting we turn our backs on anybody even if they're not from Florida because number one they're homeless they're in our community we need to address everybody that's in our community that comes from my standpoint but I I guess where I was going to go with this in terms of treatment facilities right so

we we often hear and I recognize that when you when you're going to get treatment you go away from your community because you try to get out of that environment and so if it's a matter of folks coming to the treatment facilities leaving the treatment facilities and then just leaving and having nowhere to go I'd like to see if we can identify how we address that issue right a lot of other places

save us a lot of money in the long run where we're not treating them for the next year right right some facilities you put people on a plane you know but at least the bus ticket we also have a barrier to people who are being released from prison because they don't have to validate a residence all they have to do is give a city address and they get released to the street and

those are the people that we have the highest incidence of fatal overdose because now they're coming back onto the street and they're going to the homeless encampments and they're just going back right back to where they were in the past we used to have a pre-release program where we could get them options and maybe transitional housing but that kind of fell by the wayside we've made numerous

attempts to try to re-establish that relationship but we haven't been able to bring it back can I

actually have Bristol County shows and so I guess I don't want to I'm going to go down a different Road just because you you brought it up it's um are we seeing more because I'm hearing the sheriff is cutting off services that the prior administration had supported in terms of treating and mental health and Outreach programs is it because because because what I had heard originally that the the focus was just on

um holding and detaining and obviously just correction itself and okay a bunch of clients that are currently incarcerated and they're not they're going in there they're getting the mats or Suboxone methadone yeah which is you know unheard of um and but they're also getting case management so they've started just last week to reach out to us and send us emails of everyone that's being released

in our area so that we can try to attack that prior to them coming out and relapse okay that's that's perfect so I had I had heard the opposite which was kind of concerning so you had mentioned that and I was just wondering if that was potentially going to impact even our the numbers moving forward that was the only we're required on every one of our grants from HUD to have a discharge

planning policy and all of the um programs that are working in the city sign on to that discharge planning policy but it usually it doesn't work all the time in the past we've had a lot of discharging homelessness out of the correctional facilities most of the people I deal with I just get out of jail I just got out of jail I just got out of jail so um a lot of people are discharged

from the the hospitals who have nowhere to go we have a serious issue with that um so these are these are concerns that as an Administration we're going to have to sit down with those organizations really soon and to start saying hey you know we got to abide by these discharge planning policies because um like she said I think people give an address say I'm going to move in with my

sister and he's okay see you later on National Grid property this week because that's going to be one of our areas of concern coming up and they didn't have so um we offered them Mental Health Services we saw who wanted substance abuse Services we if anybody was a veteran because those are usually easier to transition into housing we have two people there that are disabled we're going to try to hook them up with the

American Disabilities people but we were able to bring them food and water and then we told them we're going to be back in a week just so you know this is short term so we always try to give them the courtesy to say this is can't be a permanent place um and a lot of the police people now are more willing to clean up I think that's a bonus the purple bags again the purple bags if

we put the purple bags on the street then the DBW will go by and pick them up right so we're doing our best from and we're trying to work on it too from the community medicine side like what do you what can we do to help you kind of in a preventative way it's not really our job and she does a great job and he does a great job I'm only the I'm only a helper

yeah well from what I've seen I think this is the first time in the whole time I've worked for the city that so many organizations are partnering together it was always separate silos and under this Administration they did get everyone to kind of coexist and they created a database for substance use and homelessness that we've never had before to track each individual so say Johnny homeless that we we've already been

working with walks into Charlton will get an alert that hey he's there this is what the fast team has done with them that's going to be groundbreaking for the city to try to keep track of it because they're constantly moving they don't have ideas they don't feel comfortable with everyone so the city has to work together yeah you're also seeing a different type of homelessness Sue that we haven't seen in the past is

a lot of people are just getting pricked out of their units so that I had two more questions I guess we'll we'll go down because yeah you know you're transitioning very well so I'll throw my two questions out and then I'll I'll yield but um that was one that I had was what are we anticipating for future numbers going down and I guess what can we do to try to kind of mitigate the cost of the

apartments because they were only going to go up I maintain I don't know how folks are affording you know 1500 to 2 000 2500 for apartments I mean I know you can't potentially get a mortgage now but that that legitimately was a mortgage you know just call it five years ago three years ago um the cost of living is through the roof so I I just don't know how it's sustainable and that's all we're seeing

in the city of Fall River which is concerning for the population that we have right so that's that's the first question and I guess the major point of this resolution um since we are a legislative body is how can we help so we talk about obviously homelessness has a lot to do with mental health issues substance abuse I know you're working with you've got funding is there any additional

funding that you think you folks need or services that you need that we as a legislative body can try to Advocate or find additional resources in terms of funding to help support the programs that you think moving forward we're going to need for for SEO economic things in there because we're concerned about the elderly and whether they have to decide between paying their electric bill and deciding

whether they're going to eat dinner so we've developed a really good relationship with some of the food pantries and what we'll do with our community medicine program is we'll go in and we'll grab them whatever that we feel that they can prepare safely so if they reach out to us if they need have food needs we're willing to address those needs as well as their medical needs because food needs are as

concerning as medical needs and the other thing too is we're trying ucms to get in and try to familiarize ourselves with these people so that if they have medical concerns we can bring them forward because we've had some pretty significant health issues and they wait till the 11th hour so and so that's where we're at right now it's I think as far as your first question about what can we do as far as the

rising cost people need to know that Catholic Social Services and rafter out there prior to them getting the eviction we get so many calls after someone's been evicted and now that's on their record and now they're homeless and now it's too late but while they're behind on their rent they should know Catholic Social Services and ref they will pay up to I believe ten thousand dollars to

stop that eviction so getting that word out is super important the other thing to your second question as far as funding is this car grant that we received we stretched it out as far as it could possibly go we put two recovery coaches a clinician a data Outreach coordinator police liaison and myself and um thousands of dollars in knocking and education material and all that stuff

but like I said it stretches to the to the brink and we have we're a team of six for the whole city so if I had to think of something that needed funding mental health calls arising astronomically more than overdoses right now we the overdoses are going down for the first time since like 2016 significantly but mental health has at least doubled the tripled in the call volume so having

a clinician that's paid for by the city or you know something to support that to do co-response like they do in all other major cities because one clinician can't cover 24 hours so I would say that's a good start because we have to attack this multifaceted you know approach I think I think that's a good point Mr chair I I think we might want to consider potentially filing a resolution from the

committee to talk about clinicians and even if it's not a full-time clinician that's actual an actual employee for the town finding an organization that would be a vendor because that to me might might be a little bit more compatible right right might be a little bit more palatable for from a budgetary standpoint we bring somebody in 1099 them and then they're they're working with the police department and the

organization's that's needed because there is a movement to embed them in the in the police department not all communities are buying into that right now eventually I think that's where we're all going to get there but even policing has just been more of Social Services right and that's that's the direction we're going in so I think that might be a good resolution I agreed absolutely

and then one of the things that I I know we could use is a heck of a lot more money um most of what you see that's been done over the last two years was done with cares act funding right we all know that the cares act funding is going to leave us in September um and it's very difficult to provide the services at the level of the amount of

money that we get on a yearly basis we we only get 250 000 a year in what we call emergency Solutions grant money and 125 000 of that is capped and that needs to be used for shelters so you look at it and say how do you run anything with 250 000 um our federal government how in our state government has to make this problem a priority um and you know there's been there's since

I've been working here there's always been you know 10-year plan to end homelessness and and there's been all kinds of plans and and uh it's not backed up with any kind of funding and until we received this um money through the counter Grant also through the cares act you can see what you can really make a difference when you have the resources and I know it's not all about money

um I think we need to build additional units right now my office has currently about 520 units in the city that are affordable we still have the majority of those units the rents are about 800 900 those units don't turn over that much because of the rents um you know we're adding new new units daily I mean I'm right now I'm working on 73 Thomas Street three units I'm working on Pleasant Street another 13 units

um 16 units at another location so you know we're trying to add units affordable units but what we're adding is not enough for the demands um the other thing is we have to get other communities to stop building affordable housing also um it can't be all like she said you know they a lot of our homeless come here because we have the services you know we need to have Westport we need to have Somerset Swansea outside

our area zone and Freetown um to start looking at economic start looking at housing and get close to that 10 I mean we've been over the 10 um and I think if you take all of our programs together we're more like 27 to 35 percent of our units yeah oh hopefully some kind of something I I know it's not going to solve the problem but with the the commuter rail coming down now we're MBTA communities

around us going to be required to to at least have some type of plan in place to to deal with that now whether or not there's a follow-through on that that's a different story but you know you don't have to have the rail so Somerset Westport Swansea will all be considered uh MBTA communities that they've got to meet that so hopefully there's some changes there but I guess the the other

thing is we may want to consider seeing if we can set up a meeting and I know you have these conversations all the time but you know sometimes it's beneficial to see if with the local legislation if we just set up a meeting up at the State House to really kind of sit down uh talk to whatever committees um would be the appropriate committee to speak with and have these Frank one-on-one conversations to let them

know what we're dealing with how we can kind of um strategize on the funding right you can't keep on telling us that we're gonna end homeless by a certain period and not fund it like there's got to be a way that we we structure the funding and get some type of earmark for additional revenues coming down and I think I think it's not just our communities it's all the communities um and hopefully you

know Governor Healey seems like she's she's on board with the housing plan and things like that so hopefully that kind of streamlines some of it but I don't think it would hurt if you know even if it's just you and and the members that are at the table to to take a ride to to Boston to have those conversations I'd reach out to our delegation Homeless Coalition that meets one once a

month so if anybody from the legislative body wants to attend the webinar well yeah and I I think the reason the reason I'm suggesting that we go up to a lot of the legislation legislative stuff yeah so I I just think that um going to the State House is a little bit more beneficial because it's not just because listen our our local delegation will hear us right but I think it's it's

other members of the you know the house and the Senate that they really need to listen to what we're saying um because again then they they start to hear our stories they'll go back to their community and they're like wait a minute it's not just forever it's other Gateway communities that are that are impacted by this and and you know it comes back down to the advocacy and um as as you have just uh pointed out

and proven that you know when you put people together when you stop working together you can achieve a lot more right one of the things I think we've we've failed to do at least in the south coast is to come together as a South Coast Community and start advocating New Bedford Fall River time even even just Gateway cities you know when we start talking about making changes uh with

education and and Chapter 70 funding and things like that I remember a conversation that we had up there where they weren't very supportive of it because you start talking to Representatives that are coming from affluent communities okay and then like what was never going to pass but the mindset changes very really quick if you say okay that's fine but we're a Gateway City and if we pull

together the Gateway cities we outnumber the affluent communities right so we either work together or we come with some aggression as as a group and we and we create this Revolt if you will to to say Hey listen you got we need to be heard we need some some funding and money is put up put behind it but part of it is just really having those conversations and getting in front of

folks and the more you get in front of folks and and become that pain and that then they start to listen to you a little bit more and recognize and I think you folks do a phenomenal job of showing what you can accomplish with short money now imagine if we had a little bit more money right that you know to really kind of show that the statistics and the data that backs up

with it so I agree with you that going to Boston because we need to start discussing the Section 8 program in the city we need to stop discussing the Mr VP program in the city I mean you've got waiting list set up five to eight years long it's not a city waiting list it's it's a Statewide waiting list so you know you have I I forgot 15 000 people on a list and you apply now you're

waiting eight years to get something and what I'm seeing with the homeless that we have and the people that are struggling is you have people that have fixed incomes of you know ten a thousand twelve hundred thirteen hundred a month and they need a subsidy if the rent's going to be 1300 to 1200 a month yeah you know so um it's not just them it's and you look at veterans too right so veterans are

so I think out of you know this is a good conversation I think there are two main things that I would I would drive home one a resolution to to get the administration to come down and talk about how we can fund clinicians whether it's a vendor or a full-time employee that's going to be which I think one full-time employee is not going to be enough for the city but a position to to

help assist with that and then figuring out how we can Lobby the local delegation to set up a meeting with Folks up at the State House to just hear our concerns and potential recommendations on how things can be worked agreed yields so the only question I had and this is something that comes up to me often so you mentioned person who gets evicted they're already past that point now what

so what so I think what I often hear from people is that I've been evicted now I'm in this situation how do I get out of it we received that phone call Daily and of course every case is different if they have a family the main thing they usually do is contact the hcd if there's small children because everyone in the state is supposed to go through them for the shelter there's people whoever

single individuals obviously we know during the summer our Shelf is usually full we can't get anyone in because they wind down from the winter beds or they just don't feel comfortable in the shelter so we actually get really creative with what we can offer them as Mike said if they have family we've been doing bus tickets sober houses halfway houses rooming houses will contact Catholic Social Services um

other organizations and surrounding towns the most difficult is the person that says I don't want to go to a shelter and I don't want to leave Fall River oh and I don't have income you know their options are really limited but I've never told someone well I'm sorry we can't help you you know we dig and we find what we can as far as programs but Sheila chassis has been amazing with Catholic School Services

um new bedford's actually been really helpful they have a couple more transitional settings than we do so they uh even like sober houses will come up with like two weeks men rent we have advocacy you fund money that was created so that two weeks will buy us something to keep them safe and very rare um where nothing else pans out the administration is definitely placed them for a few nights while we can figure

something out so we try not to leave anybody homeless um I I will never leave a family homeless you know so usually our biggest homeless problems happen on a Friday yes so you know we're last Friday I think we were dealing at nine o'clock at night with people so um how was the bus that was the bus ticket but we've also sent people back to Florida and then showed back five days later so we've had

some some issues with one of the things I wanted to bring up that you brought that you just asked that might help big time is you know there's a dhcd office in New Bedford there used to be one in Fall River it's not there anymore and it's very very difficult I I've seen it firsthand in dealing with dhcd over the phone having to send somebody that has no Transportation no car no nothing to say

okay you're a family you get a child you gotta get to New Bedford you know so what do we do we get the fast team involved the fast team will take one of the cars and they'll drive the family to New Bedford um so there's a real need for that the other thing is is and I'm not going to use the right words here I forgot it um I think every Court

every housing court in in Massachusetts has like a housing assistance program where you can go there if you get an eviction notice you can work with people at the court my understanding is that Fall River had one but they got rid of it several years ago so what I've seen with evictions is people don't know people who are getting evicted don't know after your house anymore they can't afford a lawyer okay

we send them to South Coast Counties Legal but I think they're overrun with people I don't know how um so there's no when I've seen a lot of people get an eviction notice they don't know what to do they don't know where to go they don't know they come to us what do we do you know we're not lawyers we don't want to give them the wrong information so

um I forgot the name of it and I can get it for you um I can get it it's an email to you but there's there's a housing assistance program embedded in the court you know courthouse and housing court and I believe it's not there anymore that's what I was told and why did why did the dhcd office in Florida disappear I can't answer that question we had we had um uh

for several years we had an office here it was opened on different days there was different different people case workers that were there different hours and stuff like that but it's just not there anymore and I know Statewide but these um and they stopped completely and now they only have it in New Bedford at the DTA office to get someone into the UTV I just heard a couple weeks ago that they

are trying to put that back into place because calling the 1-800 number for dhcd you will be on hold for five hours

homeless families that's the hardest part and we're not really technically allowed to place homeless families because they have to go to dhcd only in very emergent situations otherwise I deal with the individuals but um and O'Neill is and the mayor have been every homeless family that they've encountered like she's on with the directors of Boston dhcd trying to place them it's pretty awesome it'd be great

if we could see if dhcd would open up a satellite office maybe Eric Goldman something in one of the offices if the if the rent was a problem or something like that you know yeah I gotta believe it's got to be Staffing in in budgetary right probably I think Colvin had a lot to do right A lot of people working from home just reducing me right but it would be really nice if we had

something like that okay fair enough I think that covers everything we needed to discuss um I would I would like to possibly table this because again I'd like to revisit this in a few months again to see where we're standing um and continues to get these updates out for people who again may be struggling um you know Kudos all of you for the work you're doing I think it's important

that the public at large knows what's going on because again you know social media says one story but you know what is actually being done as another so it's good that you know you can all come down here and present that so yeah and I guess I would just also I know Mike you recognize this but um if there's anything you folks need from us um yes you know feel free to just email

me or contact me whatever it is and just because because I know as things go through right to suggest what services do you need sometimes it's hard to kind of articulate at the moment what you need but um when you're out in the field and you say you know what potentially we might want to think of this even if it's just to kind of brainstorm how can we handle it so you guys have been tremendously supportive

no matter what like CDA plan comes down and stuff you guys have only supported it um just by having this meeting and letting the public be aware of you know is is phenomenal we never had this in the past yeah and I appreciate that but I think I know I can speak for the chairman I think we want we want to put our money where our mouths are right so that

that's that's the thing so it's it's one thing too at least for me you know I don't mind having these conversations but if we're just gonna you know table this and have a conversation in three months and we're not doing anything right we're just sitting here looking looking good for the for the camera saying we're talking about homeless um but until we get to the point where you know we can find funding if you need

Services let's identify the services let's figure out as a group how we can get this the funding if we can get the funding right like if it's available if we can be creative if you need us to advocate in in a particular area you folks are the the experts right the subject matter experts um I'm willing to to assist any way that I that I can I just want to get results

you know so if you're looking for something I want to be able to to kind of deliver and I think my colleague agrees so and that's the intent of the tabling but yeah you know if we can really identify specific tangible things that we need to get done then it just it makes our jobs a little bit easier to say okay we need X Y and Z how do we get

X Y and Z if we can't get X Y and Z what's the next best thing right so with your votes in the past we've created an overflow shelter that we never had I mean it's unbelievable huh and how the Tomato scent is open I mean we've made some huge strides in in helping the homeless and if any of any counselor or any of you want to come out to an encampment or

something like that to see or you want to go to the Tomato center to see what's going on be more than happy to make those arrangements and go out with you I mean I think we've got a meeting tomorrow actually in the office to stop you know seeing what we're doing with those other encampments so too and we have to say the law enforcement side of things has changed too they've they've

been more proactive rather than reactive they bring families forward if they find them and they give referrals to people that they need help so we have to also say that that has been a huge transition for Fall River because it's not just lock them up and right and throw away the key they've actually done some really good referrals and they recognize that these people a child have challenges and

and if they do lock them up they send us to the booking room off the services so I think that the whole perception behind it has has been good so yeah no I think I think it's a great thing right so policing you know the profession has changed right so we're seeing a change my only concern is it's like a tangled web right so um we're trying to get you the services

but then also the police department needs some Services because of the burnout rate right because the volume of calls that are going there and then you know we never think about you know the officer well-being with the the impact and the implications of seeing these folks and trying to help the folks uh get housing and not sometimes not being able to to help them you know kind of

wears on them so it's uh you know we're not just dealing with funding fee for you folks in providing you with the resources that you need but then also now the shift in policing um has changed so we've got to kind of figure that one out too but that's I guess well I guess we'll leave that for Public Safety to the Committee on Public Safety to deal with who's supporting the contract was a huge thing yeah

yeah you know I think I think for me it hits home a little bit just knowing that um I think there's more that we can do on this end to support the work you're doing on your ends um and I think you know we talk about you said more money I'm wondering if we could as a council look at anything we can do with some personal money to support them further

um especially knowing that that time is coming before it's all said and done you know if we can have an immediate impact that's going to help the people and I'm sure a lot of the homelessness as you said is affected by covid-19 and that the whole pandemic so I'm wondering if we can as a council look to see yeah and and I think what frame we can we can work that with and to your point if

we're talking about clinician right we could potentially use apple money to fund at least one or two years but it's not it's not going to be the sustainability is not going to be there but then we can build it into the budget have those conversations but I think in order to be able to use some of that Apple money it's we need to know what you folks yeah what you folks actually

need right so we need to have that tangible list to say okay yeah I get it this is what they need how do we get it you know with the grant writer too we're going to try to do a collaborative and the police department and and try to find some doj money to potentially get like a drone program for missing children missing elderly trying to include the homeless so that we can

start doing some so maybe we could look and see if the doj has some sort of EMS police homeless Outreach collaboration Grant maybe we could just do you know something as a collaboration because the doj always has more funding than yeah to your point right um because it's not just Fall River um and we we just tend to carry the burden for other communities but it may make more sense for us to

start reaching out and if we need to do it on our side uh to other communities and say okay how do we let's talk about this from a regional standpoint like how do we how do we kind of work on this whether it's applying for Grants whether it's getting services or even if it's a clinician for the local area where it's you know some money is coming from you know maybe a Westport a Swansea a

Somerset whatever the case may be but having those discussions that help to to deal with that so yeah and not care include included right so we've opened that door yeah but it's just not enough so with whatever you guys can do to help it's amazing perfect yeah if I would like if you could give me some of that information of what are some of the needs that we could possibly support and

we can work on a resolution to get that get that ball rolling together excellent for the future that'd be great thank you all very very much thank you thank you so I like the table this if we can entertain um yeah motion the table motion the table is made I will second all in favor aye aye guys have it em number four in today's agenda is a resolution the city council create a

program dedicating five hundred thousand dollars of Bristol County American Rescue plan act funding to veteran group assistance with a cap of 50 000 per organization it was referred to the committee on 411 2023. the resolution reads whereas according to the most recent census Fall River is home to over 4 000 veterans and whereas many of our veterans and their families struggle due to the cost of

living an unprecedented increase in rent property taxes and the cost of food and whereas the need and demand for assistance from multiple forward-based veterans groups have also increased now therefore be it resolved that the city council set up a program dedicating five hundred thousand dollars of Bristol County arpa funding with a cap of 50 000 to which all veterans groups May apply

for assistance and be a further resolve the city council send a letter to the administration requesting support in this endeavor filed on 4 6 2023 by counselor Michelle Dion so Mr chairman I know that this is uh meant for discussion but I don't think there's a whole lot of discussion needed for this I think the resolution is self-explanatory um so I I'd make a motion that we send a letter

um to the administration requesting the support of the Endeavor that's been outlined in the resolutions submitted by uh Council Dion agreed emotions been made I will second the motion all in favor aye any opposed the eyes have it motion to adjourn is it for the agenda motion to adjourn it's made I will second it all in favor aye yes Abbott the meeting on the city council committee on Human Services

housing youth Elder Fizz is now adjourned oh man thank you