HHAND Commission Monthly Meeting December 2025

Pick up city. Um, 4:05, recording has started. And recording has started. Excellent. Um, the December 3rd, 2025 Hand Commission meeting.

Again, thank you all for being here. We will start with roll call. Um, hi everyone, my name is David Merck and I am a commissioner. To my right Hi friends, my name is Laura Raines and I am a commissioner. Harvey Johnson, commissioner.

Shanay Williams, commissioner. Michelle Baker, commissioner. Oh, Baxter, uh, Basilian.

Uh, Jen Droulet, staff. Uh, Lila Skinner, health department. Chief Spurgree, health department. Kyle Melke, staff. Frankie Dahl, I'm the, um, commission staffer.

We have one more person join us. And then online we have Maria. I'm going to sit over here so I won't bother anyone. Okay, Marie, you want to introduce yourself?

Maria Owens with Public Transportation. I see Jessica. Uh, Jessica Parks, Commissioner. And I see Abe.

Abe with Nine Star, glad to be here. I see Thea. Hi everybody, Thea with the Mayor's Office. And I see Abigail. Hi, I'm Abigail, I'm with the Disability Law Center of Alaska.

And I see Bella.

Bella, you want to introduce yourself? I think it's an ADN. Okay, um, I see Julie. Uh, yes, Julie Commissioner. And I see Kimberly.

Hi, thanks David. Kimberly with Anchorage Health Department. And we have one more going to the right.

Jamie. So with that, we'll move on to the approval of the order of business. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda? I move to approve. We have Rochelle and a second.

Okay, so Dr. Johnson, any discussion? Additions, subtractions, move stuff around.

Thank you for putting it together again, Frankie. Any opposition to approving the agenda, um, as it sits?

Going once, going twice. Okay, seeing and hearing none, the agenda is approved. Moving on to the approval of minutes from last month. Um, can I get a motion to approve, please?

I have a motion. We have a motion to approve from Laura and a second? Second. Okay, take a moment to look through them.

Once again, thank you, Frankie, for putting them together. My pleasure.

Any edits or adjustments to the minutes as written?

Go at once. Cool. Do you have any minutes to minutes? I don't know what was proper, but I guess that It's papered over in such a way that it's, it's— let's see. Uh, Jim Lopez provided public comment about the structure of the Public Comment and Commission meetings and emergency response and fire control on evacuations.

I guess the main thing that I was saying was that the level of aid and comfort is— there's a disparity. And so while I was talking about fire control and evacuations more, concerning how people are not receiving the same quality of care here. So it's just—. It's a lot. So this detail of your public comment is included in the recording?

Sure. And then this is meant to be just a simple reference, so if people want to get into the whole detail of that, they're welcome to. I'd like to mention that moving forward for public comment, I've been directed by other people who run commissions and have much more experience than I do, that best practice is just to say, um, this person provided comment, and then the recording is the actual detail. So that's what I'll be doing moving forward, but didn't get that in time for these ones. Um, any commissioners' comments on minutes?

Once. Go twice. Uh, minutes are approved. Okay, thank you very much. Next we have the disclosure.

Yes, that's a new thing, that's an addition. Um, so there's a new AO that passed, um, in regards to expectations for commissions, in particular like the agenda. Um, and so it is best practice to just have a standing agenda item where if any commissioners have any, um, financial or personal gain from, uh, an agenda item that they disclose before talking about that. So this is the reserved time for which, um, commissioners— or in which commissioners can state that they have an investment in an agenda item. So if there are none, then we can just move past it from an active agenda item.

Yeah, anything that needs to, um, be voted on essentially, because like the, the purpose of that is if you have, um, if you're going to gain something from it, you need to recuse yourself from voting on that particular issue. And so this is just the space to do that, and we haven't encountered that here before, but it is standard practice. So just trying to get in line with best practices set out by the municipality.

Yeah, I see you have your hand up.

Um, thanks, David. I want to first apologize and then make a request. Um, I asked for— excuse me— item F2B to be added to the agenda today, and now I'm realizing that due to just some unforeseen family circumstances, I'm actually not going to be able to stay on the call. After 5, which is probably when we would get to that item. So I wonder whether we could either postpone that item to our next meeting or, um, yeah, although I know that E1 is— we started that last meeting, so maybe you want to carry forward with that.

I—. Anyway, I'm really sorry to not have foreseen this, but, um, yeah. That's my request.

Fisher, um, and to give a little bit of background on item F2B, um, the mayor's office is asking for some guidance, and, and, and Thea, please feel free to correct me here, is asking for some guidance around, um the level of basic needs services for our unhoused neighbors. Thea, do you want to take maybe 15 seconds to speak to that? Sure, yeah, yeah. I think really this has been kind of, you know, building for a while, but to summarize, I have a number of different faith communities, a number of different individuals in the community who are really interested and excited to just try to address people's basic needs. So like clothing, food, those types of things.

And I am looking for some guidance from this Commission in kind of the best way to channel that, because in some ways we want to kind of— I think when we did have big camps, it was a little bit more obvious, like where to send people. But now that that's not the case and people are kind of moving around and some people are more into shelter and people have gone other places, it's just not easy to figure out what the connection points are. And so, you know, what I've been doing is really kind of directing people more towards the coalition office, towards 3rd Avenue Beans. That's where like the HOPE and their multidisciplinary outreach team is setting up. Um, but really I'm just looking for some open discussion and kind of expertise from this group to kind of help me, you know, figure out what the best approach is on that.

So it's not an urgent thing, like it's not something that's like, um, really acute, but it's something that I would like to get advice from the group on. And so our options here would be pump it to next month or move it up on the agenda.

I—. Well, Thea mentioned that, you know, it's not an urgent thing. I do, I do feel that it is something that is very topical and something that does warrants robust discussion. And I, I for one prefer to have that sooner rather than later because that could affect, uh, direction coming out of, um, you know, the municipality about how we want these groups to engage. So, um, you know, just while we're discussing, I would say I am open to moving it up in the agenda.

Um, while we have had the rules approved, changes to the procedures on the agenda for a while, it's also like, wow, I do want to update those. It's also like, hey bro, we don't really need—. You know, I don't see that as like a very urgent business for the Hand Commission. Um, that's where I'm coming from. I'm, I'm curious to hear what others think.

And I think that was one of my items to take the first stab at it, so I did, but I didn't mail it out. So I would not be opposed to pushing that, and then I can mail— email— because I think that's the approach we said that I would take the first stab at it and email it to everybody. So it is ready to email if we want to table that until next month. Others have other questions or thoughts? Yeah, my thought was, uh, I was in support of moving it to next month because I— a lot of those folks are my members, so I would like to actually go talk to them and bring that back to the commission.

So that would be my wish. Okay, okay. Um, Is this more about, um, talking about the conduit to bring those things to those people just as much as what those things actually are? I think it's, um, space for—. I think I'd like to know a little bit more about the conversation piece, and then be able to like bring back more dialogue that next month because I think I'm intrigued by the initial summary and I want to know more, but I also don't know that I would have a good answer without talking to some of my colleagues and co-workers.

So maybe I would recommend this is we can punt it to next month, but Thea, I would ask in your update from the mayor's office, if you could set up the conversation for us so we can think about it, maybe talk to some of our constituents, um, and then be prepared to bring that back next month for, um, further conversation. Um, how's that sound, folks? Yeah. And sorry, David, you mean in my mayor's office report at this meeting? Set it up?

Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you. Great. Thanks, and sorry again for screwing that up.

Yeah, okay. Um, really quickly, so we're postponing it to next month. I postpone to next month. Subsidiary motion to do so. So we would need a motion, um, from the body to postpone.

Do we need to reopen up B? Um, no, what we'll do is we'll do a subsidiary motion to postpone. We'll vote on that, and then we'll just vote again to approve the agenda once that's settled. Okay, so I am requesting a motion to postpone item F2B to next month. I move to postpone item F2B to next month.

And can I get a second? I'll second. All right, discussion? Already had a lot of discussion. Anyone opposed?

All right, seeing and hearing no opposition, that is approved. And now we'll have to reopen B. Just vote on the—. Just ask for the vote for, um, approval of the agenda because there wasn't—. Okay.

And then can I get a motion to approve the new agenda as amended?

Thank you, Laura. Second? Second. Thank you, Nate. Uh, any discussion or opposition?

Terrific. Seeing and hearing none, that is approved. Agenda is approved as amended, so I don't have to read. We will— okay, um, so that brings us E. Do we want to discuss that? Janae, do you want to talk about some of the changes that—.

I can. Yeah. The only— the main thing, I think one of the things you mentioned is there is nothing here about a form for establishing form, and, um, that would be the one piece. And how many establishes a quorum and how long you want to wait if there's no quorum. That was the main thing.

Other than that, it was just, um, writing style. Not much. Is quorum ruled by another It's a municipal standard. Our quorum is 5. Yeah.

Okay. And is that in the municipal code 340.405.1? Like, what—. I don't know the number off of my head, but I could get that to you guys. That code is cited somewhere?

It's coded. Yeah. Could it be brought in and listed? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So everybody would know what that is.

And I think, what about the time? How long do you need? I mean, how long do you wait? That's not in code. You guys can make a decision about that.

Um, a couple other things I noticed under resolutions, it mentions the secretary a couple of times. We don't have a secretary, um, so we might want to remove that and have that say something like, um, a commissioner shall prepare the resolution and it will be signed by the chair.

The agenda for each January meeting of the commission shall be prepared by the secretary. Maybe we should put like prepared by Frankie, or, you know, something more appropriate there.

We talked about this before, we don't do tape recordings anymore, so you can just strike the word tape under record of proceedings, just the recordings that we made. I don't know all that stuff, but we could catch them in a form.

Okay, so, Shnei, you will make those changes, and then we can vote on it.

Excellent. Okay, moving on to F informational item, ongoing business, F1A update from the mayor's office. Um, David, before we go to that, I just actually had one question about the item that you were just working on.

So one thing that, um, okay, one thing that I have found to be useful in, like, group process, you know, there's kind of your written policies and procedures, like you're, like, you're just reviewing, but then there's kind of also the agreements that a group comes to. Around that are a little bit more squishy, but they're ways of kind of deciding amongst yourselves, like, what is the kind of set of agreements that will shape, like, how we communicate with each other? So sometimes it's things like, you know, be a good listener, remember to, you know, speak endless. You know, there's a whole, you know, we could come up with some samples for you and other folks in the room probably have them. So I wondered whether that would be something that the group might want to develop and You know, usually it's helpful to kind of write them up and have them up on the wall in a meeting, and that way you can kind of each help remind each other when you're, you know, going off track.

So that's just something that I wanted to put forward as a suggestion, not some— not a requirement, but just something that I found to be helpful in other groups where you're really trying to, you know, create a space for good dialogue and conversation and kind of learning together. Which, you know, of course Robert's Rules of Order is great for making decisions, but I think another— I think we talked about this last time— another value of the commissions is that it's really a place that's citizen-run and that, you know, we can generate and work on ideas and learn together. So just a suggestion.

Yeah, thank you, Thea. I appreciate that, and I think that there is absolutely space to do that in meetings. I think whenever we put something into the Hand Commission rules and procedures, that obligates us to do it every time. And I, you know, my approach to this type of thing is to, is to try to keep it less restrictive and less prescriptive to allow commissioners to be flexible to meet the needs of that, you know, particular body as things— people change over, you know, new officers come in and out. So I think that that is something that if commissioners were interested in doing that, We can do that on our own, but it doesn't necessarily need to be in the rules and procedures.

If we put it in the rules and procedures, then we're obligated to do it. So, um, I, I think that is absolutely useful and something that, that we should consider. I don't know if I want to enshrine it in, um, what we're obligated to do every time. I'd be open to other commissioners' comments. We do have—.

We have a sign-in as well. Yeah, there's a sign-in. I, I think what the, uh, is referencing is generally kind of referred to as core values. Is that the same?

Um, I don't see it as being to— if we just listing core values of the, um, it's not necessarily a rules or procedure, but I think that's what she's speaking to, is just core values of the commission. I don't have more I don't think it's a directive, but what it is is a value.

Core values.

Yeah, I think, you know, you guys could, when you're reviewing the rules of procedures and like voting on adopting them, you could also discuss core values and kind of what your more informal processes are going to be. Without having to incorporate them into this document. Basically, it could be part of the discussion but not necessarily enshrined. It could also be something entirely separate that you review more regularly. Like, if you wanted to do a goal setting session once a year and review core values at that point to make sure everything is still aligned with what you want to achieve, it doesn't necessarily have to be linked to rules and procedures.

But yeah, yeah. Yeah, especially because your, you know, membership of the commission will turn over over time, so you might want to have new members review those, whereas the rules and procedures are kind of more set in stone, harder to amend as people come on. They shouldn't be as dependent on the specific people involved as the, you know, more informal processes might be.

Yeah, I'm in favor of creating core values or at a later date.

Um, we can talk about adding to it. Yeah, I mean, we can find maybe some time in January or February or something to schedule a session for that. Um, Great. Okay, um, Lathia, you're back up.

Great, thanks. Um, my update can be fairly brief. Um, couple exciting things coming up that I hope you've all received information and invitations to. If not, I will send them out again. Next week on December 10th at 10 AM, we're having a ribbon cutting of the micro units for recovery residences project, and I just went over there today.

It's pretty exciting. All the micro units are constructed and on the site. They're connecting them up to electricity, connecting up the toilet/shower block to the plumbing, getting the community building put together. So next week, December 10th, 10:00 AM, everyone's invited, so please come. The location is just— it's right near, if you know where Tozier Track used to be a long time ago, like basically right across from ACH offices.

Like if you just look out their window, you're basically looking at the site. It has a red fence around it. And it's right there on the south side of Tudor, just before you get to Elmore. So 10:00 AM next week, December 10th. And then also just wanted to kind of report back on the Good Neighbor Fund.

We had a really great launch. Thanks to everybody who came. It was really fun and it was a little chilly, but other than that, it was great. And since then, or since, since we started, Just gonna open my notes so I tell you the right number. We've got 163 donors now.

We've raised over $65,000. And what we'll be doing kind of between now and the end of the month is really— or sorry, end of the year— is really trying to increase our number of recurring donors. What we'd like to have is a number of people who are just like donating every month. So far we have 19 of those. So excited about that.

Also, as of the day after Thanksgiving, we have our surge beds activated in both congregate sites, so we now have 150 beds operating at East 56, 150 at Linda's Place, and still 100 at the Alex, and that of course is in addition to our community shelter beds.

And I guess the last thing I wanted to share with you is that the HOPE team has been organizing what they call a multidisciplinary outreach team. So they've really been trying to get all the organizations that do outreach to dedicate staff and to commit to coming to a daily morning meeting where they really coordinate their outreach for the day. And they have now kind of set up shop at both Beans. And I think, are they already in Third Ave? Um, they have been bringing people by.

I haven't talked to Charity yet this week. I know they're regularly bringing people by and the space is available to them. I don't know if they've set up shop just yet. Okay, so they will have their own kind of office space there. That might not have actually happened yet, but Basically between Beans and Third Ave, the HOPE team's really trying to bring all those outreach teams together as well as be able to bring people back so that they can immediately coordinate with the resources that they're looking for.

So that launched about a week and a half ago and seems to be going well so far. Um, I think those are my main updates unless I'm forgetting something that somebody wants to remind me of.

Or I'm also happy to answer questions or talk about stuff that you're interested in. Yeah, I, I would ask you if there aren't questions on those updates from commissioners, if you wouldn't mind just going into a little bit more detail to sort of tee up the conversation that we want to have next month. Yeah. And maybe there's some questions more specifically about that. Um, but I think that would be great.

Great. You're also reminding me that, um, there was a question that one of the commissioners brought up, Daniel, I think last time, about whether the administration was considering using pocket parks for housing. That was— Daniel, that was your question, right? Yeah. Okay.

So, We had some email back and forth and I followed up with Parks and Rec, and so far that is not something that they've considered. And, you know, I think their perspective is that would be any kind of conversion of parkland for them would be kind of like a last resort. I think they would want us to look at all other types of land first. But again, I think if there was a particular location and a particular community council that wanted to you know, kind of look into that. I think that would probably be the best way to go about it from what I heard back from them.

Are there a lot of other lots that are being looked at now? Well, we have— I mean, there's a whole effort here to really look at all of our muni lots, and even the state has said, you know, they're interested in making more space available for housing. Like, you might have seen that AHFC actually purchased some university land We have the archive site, which is near Cuddy Park, which was put out for RFP, but we didn't really get any bids. So there's discussion happening about putting that back out with less, with fewer parameters around it, making it a little bit more of an open-ended RFP. And then we also have, there's a lot out at the bend in Muldoon near the Totem Theater.

And there's some interest in that as well. And I think the Totem Theater is also for sale. So I've certainly heard from folks that are interested in kind of both of those for housing. Um, and I feel like there's a couple others that I'm just— oh, well, another one actually is what I just mentioned. The Tozier Track is right next to where the micro units are going, right next to Tudor Elmore.

Um, that is Heritage Land Bank land, and for a long time that has been slated for housing as well. So I think all of those are kind of bigger tracts of land that could potentially do a more, you know, robust development that we're definitely interested in, in, you know, getting, getting underway. And then I guess on a smaller scale, another exciting thing that's happening next week is we've been working with landowners, and I'm particularly interested in Mountain View because we've You know, as you all know, when you have buildings that are vacant and dangerous, a lot of bad stuff happens in them. And so I— we've been really trying to work with landowners that have those properties that are looking for either help demolishing them or redeveloping them. And so we have had some success with 2 locations.

One's on Flower Street where we were able to kind of help the seller It's called a stipulated agreement where you sign an agreement with the muni that gives you some, um, either like in that, in one case it was a reduction in fines, um, in exchange for committing to demolish and redevelop the site within a certain period of time. And in the second case, which is happening next week, also on December 10th, um, a property that some of you might know, Pastor Adrian, who has a property in Mountain View. It's actually 3. 3 Lots. Um, it has a really old dangerous building on it that she's been trying to demolish for a while.

So we've been able to work with her and help her sign an agreement so that, um, that will be demolished next week. And then the muni is basically paying for the demolition, and then within a certain period of time, she has to make good on her project. Um, so that's another thing that we're just trying to do in terms of both removing dangerous buildings, but also then creating some support so that people can actually redevelop, because it's one thing to get rid of the building, but another thing to, like, have the capital and everything to make your project happen.

And then we also have a housing rehab fund that we're— I've actually been working with Jed on that pretty steadily for the last few months. Um, and I think we now have kind of a game plan to get that going within— it'll— anyway, Jed could give you the details, but around the process that we need to go through, but it should be within a couple months, I think, that we would have that going to the Assembly.

Thank you, Thea. And then if you could just sort of tee up the conversation for next month. Okay, great. Yes, so part of this I think was brought up by information that Jamie shared at the last meeting, where Jamie, you've voiced in a number of different forums, you know, some frustration with, I think, with our approach, which isn't Yeah, I think what I've heard from you is not meeting immediate needs enough or in a way that you think is right. I also have been talking with Duke Russell, who, as you probably all know, did a lot of food service at Centennial when people were kind of sent there from the Sullivan, and then he's continued to do that in areas around downtown.

And then, as I mentioned earlier, we've been bringing faith communities together And some of the faith communities really want to do food ministry. They want to hand out gloves and clothes and that type of thing. Also, I've been working with Kenny Peterson and Jessica because Kenny, who's, you know, does all sorts of amazing things, kind of got a line on a lot of surplus winter gear. And so we were working together to try and figure out, okay, what's the best way to you know, kind of get this to the people who really need it, whether that's through shelter or through Third Ave or through other mechanisms. So I think it's the question I would love to hear, you know, thoughts from you all on is just what's the best way to kind of organize that and help the people who want to do good and who have some resources to share, you know, get that most efficiently to the people that need it.

And I think one, one thing to be mindful of is, like, for example, we've had a situation over the last few weeks at Lions Park in Mountain View where the Lions Club changed their policy for a couple of weeks and produced a flyer and shared that out saying you can camp here until November 15th. Which was a big surprise to the community council and others in the area. So we had like, you know, we were meeting with the Lions Clubs every couple days really to try and address what was happening there and did a lot of outreach to try and help people, you know, move into shelter from there. And eventually, you know, the Lions Club had to sort of shut down and, you know, the time came and people needed to move on. But I think part of what was happening there, again, totally a good intention and a good service, was Downtown Hope bringing meals there.

So it kind of creates a gathering spot for that. But unfortunately, it also sometimes creates a place where we see drug dealing happening and other kinds of violence occurring. So I think the question really is, how do we channel the really good work that people want to do and the connections they want to make and make sure the people who really need that can receive it, but without also creating kind of negative unintended consequences.

Do folks have questions on the premise? So we're not in a space where we're going to be getting suggestions right now, but do folks have clarifying Any questions on the premise or what the ask is? Is part of the question— I recognize it's a broad question—. Is part of the question the mechanism for making sure that the communication between the connection of resources Is that part of the question as well? Yeah, because I think that's a really good point, and I think Jamie, you mentioned this at the last meeting too.

It's like, you know, we might have, for example, one of the faith communities who has the ability to kind of rustle up a lot of food or care bags or, you know, all the things, socks, the things that people do, but they don't necessarily know or you know, have the experience to be able to go out and really distribute it. And so I think what often happens is people end up putting those things in their car and like, like for example, I know a woman who does food boxes or actually no, they're called move-in boxes and she's been asking me like, where should I take these move-in boxes? You know, what's the best way to get it to somebody who's going to, you know, freshly move into housing? You know, so I think there's just a lot of that type of, um, interests that people come to me for all the time, and I don't usually have a very good way of connecting them with the right person or the right entity or the right location. And especially, I mean, I know we can always direct people to BEANS or Catholic Social Services or the Coalition, but I think what I've heard people say too is that there are folks who don't frequent those locations or don't, you know, so what's the best way to kind of And, you know, just to try to keep it efficient too, because when someone's trying to do a good deed, you don't want to make them, you know, run around town.

And yeah, you have to go after people. If you don't, then how are you going to get them? Because not everybody, you know, some of them are scared of you guys, and every—. Or they don't have the resources they need, or they're just injured, or they're, you know, it's really hard out there. I'm one of the homeless people.

I'm from Fort Quinter out here, and like, the Orange Backpack people, they're awesome. I love them. But then, um, in order to keep it like— I keep the drug dealers away, the violence— that's impossible. Um, they're everywhere. I mean, even your houses, you guys got them.

I mean, we just can't see them. Um, just gotta deal with it and like hopefully figure out a situation how to make us— come to us inside and gets back into the system of the work environment. Thank you. So we're going to have a discussion about this next week. Oh, no, you're good.

Next month. Next month. Next month. I mean, if you want, we can have a special work session. And I want to ensure that we have some space for public comment on this specific item.

As well. And so, um, I'm looking forward to discussion. I would ask commissioners to, you know, talk to your constituents. If you have volunteers or people that are trying to do this work, you know, talk to them about what barriers they might be facing, um, what has been successful, um, you know, those types of things, and kind of be prepared prepared to have good conversation about it next week—. Next month!

Yeah, next month. A quick comment: just obviously I'm being talked about but let me respond. So that's a lot to unpack. Could go on for a while. The situation at Lions Park essentially—.

In an honorific we're not giving suggestions. At this point, if you have a clarification on what requested is— Well, it's, um, there's discussion about Lance Park, there's discussion about hiring more people. Um, what am I allowed to talk about? I guess if I am to give a quick response. So right now the thing that we are, we're trying to gather is clarification on what the asking of the question is.

Well, suggestions are all you can give. Well, there's the asking the question. Obviously I disagree with some of what's been said, uh, just because I go out there every night, um, and I've seen, uh, what's truly going on. And, uh, but, but except this gentleman right here, um, so, so all I'm trying to basically say is situationalized reporting command, um, But the reason it happened to begin with is because those people were Davis and it snowed them and they had no place to go. And very few actually got housed.

And with the outreach that happened over the past 2 weeks, you know, very few of those people actually got housed at all. They're still out there. So, uh, with, with, uh, the discussion about, uh, how to help people, uh, the policy as it is right now is a centralization strategy. It's actually causing I feel like we're moving into giving suggestions, which we're going to save that for next month. Okay, um, thank, thank you.

I just wanted, wanted—. Oh wait, no, discuss it. Thank you. Um, any further questions about what is being— Thea, um, I want to thank you for coming to the commission and posing this in front of the members here. I think this is really, you know, when we— the Commission has been through some changes in the last 2 years or so, and I really think that this type of question is really what the Commission has been designed for and has yearned for, to kind of see deep into some of these big questions.

So, uh, on behalf of the commission, I want to thank, uh, you and the mayor's office for using us and giving us some work to do, um, and, um, bringing us this question. So thank you. My pleasure. Thanks for considering it. Absolutely.

Okay, moving on to F1B, housing and update from housing and homelessness. Um, the biggest one that I had— we had touched on is that we've activated all of the surge beds at both Linda's Place and at East 56. So between those two locations, we've got 300 beds, and then the other 100 beds are at the non-congregate at the Alex. And as of the meeting we had this afternoon, all of those beds were full last night. So It was interesting.

I don't— I did not realize how much went into building those bunk bed cots until Jesse filled me in. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Oh, okay, that can't be that hard. Yeah, no, there's a lot to it. I'm glad they didn't need me to do it or we'd still be trying to put one together because not my strong point.

And McKenna had one on designated parking. Yes, designated parking. I know we are still in winter months But the application is live on our website. The process is on there. It opens in April for people to actually start utilizing safe parking, weather permitted.

April to October is when we're looking for those nicer, warmer months, quote unquote warmer months. So if anybody is interested, there's 3 zones that are allowed to host those sites: PLI, ROI, and B2. So if you know of anybody who with interested organizations, faith-based communities, they can start that process online. Any questions? I would add that earlier this— or this past summer, this body passed a resolution in support of designated parking, but urged that it be 24 hours.

And so I would ask that as you are developing the operations and all of that, that you consider that resolution? Yeah, as of right now, code does not dictate the time that it is supposed to be open. So it's up to the site operator. Okay, great. Well, that is why there's a way we want a record about it.

Um, over—. What was that—. Over the summer, at some point, that would Awesome. Thank you. Um, yeah, okay.

Um, so, um, got a lot going on in Community Safety and Development. Um, we are wrapping up Emergency Rental Assistance reporting. The use of the funds had to be through September 30th, so we, um, don't have any additional funds that we can spend on that. I may be giving a presentation at the Assembly Housing and Homelessness Commission, their committee meeting, next—. Tuesday.

Two weeks. Yeah, two weeks from today, um, about sort of the details of what we ended up spending and how many people we helped and so forth. Currently, the cumulative total clients served is 786. That's households that were either housed or were prevented from losing their housing through the various projects that the grantees we selected did. We were originally projecting about 600, so this is a significant overperformance in terms of the number of households we were able to house through that very short period.

It really only ended up being about 3 months to do the development. The delays in getting the money in place. So, um, I know some of our grantees are here, so thank you for, um, your, your work in that. And, um, we may be following up with you about some reporting stuff, so, um, be aware. Um, we had a government shutdown which ended, so HUD staff are back in the office and we've been in touch with them.

Um, we have submitted our grant agreements for our 2025 funding to HUD for their signature. It's been signed on the municipal side, waiting for HUD signature. However, they are on a nationwide freeze of new grant agreements while litigation between states and HUD, uh, is playing out, and we don't know how long that's going to last. So we have done our part in getting our agreements in place, but we don't know when we'll actually have 2025 funding available. We are still spending down previous year's funding, so we're not in any, like, immediate crisis about not having those funds available.

But obviously we would like to get that money out and into the community, uh, as soon as we can. Um, so that's kind of our latest HUD, um, update. Um, Thea mentioned the Housing Rehabilitation Fund, and that is also on the agenda here under me, so I should probably talk a little bit about what's going on with that. Um, the, the current plan is to set that fund up within our office, the Community Safety and Development team, um, using past year's CDBG and HOME funding that we're reallocating from projects that either came in under budget or didn't move forward, or, you know, for whatever reason that money hasn't been spent and we need to spend it. We're going to use that as an sort of initial seed for the fund.

It'll be about $500,000, probably. It's not a whole lot, but it'll help start getting going, and we're going to kind of try to structure it such that if other funding becomes available, we can bring in other funding to the fund as well. Currently, the concept we're thinking of is there'll be two sort of tiers of funding. There'll be a program of grants for homeowners to do rehab to their owner-occupied homes that will be structured probably pretty similarly to our existing mobile home repair program that we do with Growcap. And that would be where we would probably select a nonprofit operator of the program that would process applications and actually do the work either themselves or through contractors that they would hire, um, to do relatively small rehab projects that would help people to stay in their homes.

Um, and then there'd be another, um, tier of this that would be loans that would not necessarily be restricted to owner-occupied, um, housing. It would actually, um, potentially be small landlords, small multiplexes, things like that, particularly in cases where they would want to activate vacant and abandoned properties or bring additional units online that for a property that's not currently being used to its maximum potential. That with the, with the current funding under the CDBG and HOME, there would still be some, you know, income and affordability requirements on those loans— these would be loans, and we're still working out exactly how the structure of that would work, um, that would go into that loan program. There are other communities that do programs like this, and so we are going to be talking to them. Particularly the city of Everett, Washington has a longstanding loan program that they've been doing for the past 50 years, and so we've been in touch with them and we're going to kind of learn some best practices about how to do this type of rehab fund.

Um, so it would be in some sense a revolving loan fund but depending on the structure of the loans, it might not revolve very quickly. Although, you know, that's a discussion we'll have to have. There has been some discussion about reallocating some additional municipal general funds to that fund, but that is so far is not happening at this point. So we're kind of involved in those discussions. But for now, we're going to be starting on reallocating those funds process for of that is we're going to do substantial amendments to our past action plans to reallocate that funding for the new program.

Those will go out for a 30-day public comment period, public hearing, and then assembly approval. So probably that will happen in like January, February, and we get the program stood up probably like February, March, and start doing projects. At that point, we'd also need to select an operator, and we're going down that route, so it might be a little bit later for some aspects of it. So anyway, spring basically is what we'd be looking at to get the program actually up and running. Very excited about this because this is a need that's been brought up a lot, particularly in certain areas where there are property owners that need to upgrade their facilities and don't have the capital unable to do it, but could have— could really increase the housing supply if they were able to do that with some assistance.

So we have been working on that. And then our just our regular programs, public services, and various other things that we do day to day are moving along. One thing, and I think I may just roll into this next item, the new business, Home Arc request for proposals, because that is actually another aspect of this, and, and there is an ask to the commission here as well. Um, that— so we— you may be aware that we did a substantial amendment to our Home Arc allocation plan, um, to move $550,000 from various other activities into supportive services. Particularly focused on a program that would move people from homelessness and shelter into housing and provide the wraparound services that would enable them to do that, to open up space in the shelter system, basically.

As Lila mentioned, we're pretty maxed out on the shelter system. So we're trying to open up some space in there, put an agreement in place that would provide the services that would enable us— it's like trying to get pretty specific about the number of people that we do per month in that agreement. We had originally proposed that as a sole source contract with Alaska Affordable Housing and Land Trust. In the public comment period, we got some feedback on that and decided to take a different approach. And so we are going to do a competitive RFP for that program.

That will go out, um, soon and be a fairly short period. Minimum we can do under municipal code is 14 days, and we verified with HUD that they will allow that. Um, so we're going to do that. Um, we need people to serve on the review committee for that, uh, RFP. Um, this is something that PAN Commission members have often done in the past with our RFPs.

Um, Daniel served on one of our previous ones. So if you are interested in this opportunity on the committee, you wouldn't be able to bid, obviously, so that was one consideration. But if you're interested in serving on the committee for this, it would basically be, you know, reviewing the application, scoring them according to the scoring criteria provided in the RFP, and then there'd be one meeting where the committee would meet, discuss, and come up with recommendations for who to award the project to, let me know. And all I'll need from you is just a one-paragraph bio to include in a memo that we would send to, um, uh, purchasing department for approval as we— that's part of the RFP process. Michelle has also served on one of those committees, uh, in the past.

Um, so, you know, any commissioners are interested in doing that, um, please let me know. And I think that's all I've got for now, so anything, any questions?

Okay, yeah, I'll Any other questions? My question was, whatever—. Yeah, it is pretty different, so we'll have to take those differences into consideration. How, yeah, kind of the structure of the program and how they—. Yeah, yeah.

Any other questions?

Okay, now we are on— who, who do we have for public comment? Uh, quick, quick note about public comment before we start. I'm putting the timer up, and just as a warning, I got a little chime because the noise on this is like crazy loud, um, and rather pleasant. So when your time is up, I'm just gonna—. Before you put the timer up, can we— I just want to see if there's any public comment from folks online.

Oh yeah, for sure. Well, so we have one in the room. Do you have a public comment as well, sir? No? You want 3 minutes to speak?

About anything.

Sure. Okay, well, we'll have, we'll have you line up as you— be part of the queue. Um, anyone online here to provide public comment?

You?

Um, yeah, no public comment from— You have 3 minutes.

And please make sure you identify yourself clearly for the recording at the start. Okay. Yep. What do you want? But name is all, all that we're looking for.

Okay, so I'm Andrew Tilden. I'm 49. That's my day. Uh, Just, uh, whatever, like, like, no offense, whatever, all stuff I'm saying. Any medicals, like, have you ever, like, been in your stuff or cough, or have you ever, like, held the numbers?

Have you ever been in houses that they ever made or built or went through, or that bullshit? But anyway, that's just a question. But, um, that was me anyways. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I would love to hear you guys out and help you and maybe direct you the right way, hopefully, because I literally did this. I know how to do this.

I know what's going on. You guys don't have a clue. But then you guys aren't doing the money part, but that's the contract that you give to the, like, the security and everything that kicks us out and makes us do the whole federal thing where we have to go through our environment of our lives and how you guys open doors. It's a totally different— —is a boundary of how or who respects or fears one another. And it's scary and loving too, so it's kind of how you make it.

So, uh, anyway, um, we had to take hard work. I mean, my dad was the mayor, my mom was the Woman of the Year of 2019. I got real stutter. I get nervous at this thing. Let's see if I— Hey guys, and I hope you guys have a great day.

Reason why the house are full, because nobody wants to make Gong ready. Okay, uh, Jamie Mofisi, St. Bridge, formerly homeless. Now, our few minutes is not long enough to discuss these issues at length. There are layers to it, uh, and to get into the meat and potatoes, we really need to have an open dialogue.

And so this sort of forum is not— it's supposed to be, I guess, apparently sort of semi-open dialogue, but we get 3 minutes at the end. It's a semi-doc approach. And I've talked about this, you know, it's everything to the community council meeting, to everything else. So, uh, with that said, it is 10, 15 minutes, um, but yeah, it's tough to— it's a stressful thing. So anyways, uh, you get into the outreach and the policies promoted, and it essentially, uh, it's a failure, uh, when you attach law enforcement or excuse me, when you attach outreach to law enforcement, any number of people have been traumatized by law enforcement.

They will not interact with law enforcement, and so they will not get access to services. And there's— I'm not going to get into all of it, but the simple fact is it's a bad policy to begin with, and they are tacking on services to law enforcement instead of just getting rid of the law enforcement aspect. And going with that route because, uh, yeah, when you have a uniform on, uh, people are not going to approach you. You're not going to get into a car with somebody in law enforcement, and it doesn't matter if it's the RLS— RLS lady is going out or anything else. It was really tough to get something which is natural.

They're pickpocketing things. And so I tried to convince them I needed to go with uniform group, but I don't think we're going to see them here. William Street and the MDOT, you know, Cambridge Multidisciplinary Outreach Team. Yes, I did it. It's a term for multidisciplines.

It's similar, it's almost like a military term. So, uh, yeah, the situation again, Lions Park, we're gonna put out there, uh, was it really— was just people that were at Diggs Park and Stonewall, uh, and it was not really planned to help the people people that were there, and so they displaced into new neighborhoods. And they were roaming nomadic bands, gypsy caravans, or nomads. And the ones that did get in for a little bit, either they could not be curfew or meet certain rules. When you put rules of civilization on people that have been outside for so long, they're naturally not going to apply or hold, and then they get kicked out.

And they Clients have bad experience with staff too that are not following rules, or they set up rules for the people that are there and then they tell them to violate the rules and then they kick them out. Or if they don't like people, they find ways to kick people out, and then they've had such a bad experience they check out and they don't come back. And so, um, yeah, any number of stories I could tell you, but obviously I only got 12 seconds left. And so what I would say is if you want to work the problem, solve the problem, uh, basically it starts the mayor's office and change their policies regarding outreach, hiring people instead of paying for, you know, law enforcement to do outreach, to do proactive engagement, and I hope we can strip the outreach from the department, or excuse me, strip law enforcement from the department. So thank you very much for your time.

So, so if I, if I can, your suggestion is to have the outreach exist outside of the police department because there is sometimes inherited, uh, his trust. Well, yeah, straight from the beginning, you know. And so, you know, part of my shtick, so to speak, uh, I've had experiences, any number of where I've been trusted for people. I'm not going to think I'm law enforcement. And if you got time for a story, I can tell you.

So, uh, do you have time? Uh, well, just if you don't be afraid, but yeah, I think we all like to know what it is that your actual opinion of this. Okay, so, so, so one, one, uh, you have to stop with the endless displacements. You need sanction camps. Try to bring that up 3 times here.

Nobody wants to discuss it. Yeah, and the reason why is because, uh, instead of decentralizing people and spreading them through the land where now you need a million resources just to find people, because you can't find people now. You create conduits and paths for people to get access to services and places to go, and then you're not automatically a criminal because you can't pay rent or a mortgage. You have the ability to stay warm, not freeze to death, lose fingers, toes, or, you know, have amputations. You get food, you get electricity, you get a warming center, you get toilets, you get showers, And then, you know, there are ways to work certain problems.

I'm not getting into this right now, but you— yes, the trash issue too. And kids have been pushing with, uh, you know, uh, to get around Grant's Patch versus Johnson, you stop picking up the trash in certain areas that they used to, to allow the trash to accumulate. Not saying something, but yeah, they stopped picking up trash and cutting along the back wall. So Anyways, the main thing is you provide sanctioned cabins, you provide pathways, you hire good people that are not a threat, that know how to interact with people, that care and they're willing not to fail people and put in the extra effort, and then you change trajectories, you change outcomes. Because people, you know, if they see someone that cares, they're like, "That person cares." But if they think you're the person which is a number, they think that, you know, They fail and then they don't admit these mistakes and then they leave them hanging any number of times.

They just check out of the process and then it's like you're stuck in purgatory. And I am trying to work on things at the state level, uh, and I'm not going to discuss it here yet because it's not fully baked in. But yes, there are ways to work problems. But you start with the policy, then you hire good people. Instead of doing instance outreach, you hire people, whether it's hired partner or partner.

And, you know, maybe you don't wear uniforms, or you do wear uniforms, but the main thing is you need capable people that are willing to go out at all times, all hours. And then you show up and then people are like, what, this person's here? And you bring people things, you're not afraid, you're having a good day. People that go out and pass the ball to new people. Yeah, but they do need to know.

No, no, but it should be— [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] And commissioners have questions?

Follow-up questions. Say this word, you understand. Um, —putting people off. Uh, you're talking about with, uh, with shelter? Well, yeah, I mean, you can't have—.

Okay, so you can't— so they're out of the service. Well, they know, I understand, but what I'm getting at is, okay, so you had to type them along evacuees, they could clean up themselves. Are they getting the same set of rules that the people are in Congress shelter? Probably not. Uh, some of those people are actually having to interact now with I have to move on.

But what I'm getting at right here is that you have people that have not had rules placed on them for so long, and then it's like, "You have to be curfew at 11 PM." Some people go out. That limits your job prospects or your ability to interact. And there are communities outside that people still interact with, and it's sort of like, you have sheer trauma and PTSD. And so then some people don't want to go into shelter unless the entire group goes in. I think you probably understand.

But there's layers to this. I can't get into all of them now. I just wanted to talk about one thing and my experience. So again, homeless, bringing food to people at Connie— all of us also doing it, Davis Park, but I didn't know the people there. So there was a Friday back in March of last year where somebody went up to one of the pantries I volunteer at.

They sort of name dropped me, and they were kind of I said, no, I'll handle this. And so I went out, uh, and somebody was out there. Go over to Snowdon, there's a shack, walk into it looking for a woman to talk to. And more or less, uh, there was somebody to my left, and not to— and somebody in front of me. And more or less, I asked somebody who was probably there, said no.

And she said, what exactly is going on here? Um, you're sort of, you know, you're, you're interacting with me a little weird. And she's like, well, uh, she implied I was police system. Uh, well, she's like, well, smoke meth? And I'm like, I don't do that.

But more or less, uh, it was sort of going a little bit weird. And so a guy in my life said, like, could you please go? Sure, okay, I'll come back tomorrow. So there were 4 fires here over a span of like days. It is.

And so, uh, the next day, you know, I come back and I gone to two pantries I picked up food outside, uh, collaborate because people leave stuff there next to the pantry. Then I, uh, short-stage product, I didn't cook food, carload of cold food. I was intending to go to Davis and then go to, um, over to, uh, Cuddy to pass out. So it's been a long day. So I get over to Davis, cross the street, see a guy whose place just burned down the night before, say, "Hey, how you doing?

Are you okay?" Okay, uh, Let me get you some boots. Let's go over and talk to this lady first. So we go over to the shack. Um, you walk in first. Uh, I walk in behind.

Guy from previous night has come out. Woman is still not aware. Take out a phone. Got a phone that's got memories from all her past year doing things, taking media stuff. And so I'm cycling through it.

She's like, "What are you doing?" I said, "Well, just trying to make your day a little bit better, bring people things. And, uh, yeah, that's kind of what I've been doing." And it's like, okay. And then like a minute or two later, the person I left cordially asked me, "Could you please go?" I said, "Sure, no problem. I'm just gonna wait outside for the guy here." So I walk out. Lady walks out a couple minutes later, same one that I showed, with a dog.

But what she didn't know, I was taking the pet food. I was feeding that dog, and she walks out for a walk down the path. And then a couple minutes later, it's about 9, 10 PM at the start, so the guy walks out. He's like, "Hey, uh," I told you to leave. And I was like, look, I'm just trying to basically wait for somebody and, uh, so I could take them over here.

I pulled the blocks and it didn't even, you know, I missed it. I'm usually good with this stuff, but, uh, it took a hit, took a second hit, and I'm reevaluating at that time to escalate, do a de-escalate, and, uh, you know, he was Polynesian. And so the simple fact of the matter is, uh, if you escalate, uh, with Polynesian group of pollinations, or any number of them will come at you at a different point in time. And so that is a lose-lose scenario. And so I just took the next— I walked out of the car, I crossed the street, guy asked me, uh, you know, about food.

I said, not now, I'm going, there's a point here. So I, I go to the car, I go to the emergency room. I had a worse experience at the emergency room than I just did before. And then I go over to Cutter and I talk to somebody I know, and I said, look, if this organization that just handed me 130 to 150 meals a day. I can't send anyone to this.

They will shut this down, uh, because liability. And I said, we need to fix this. And he says, no problem, we will fix it the next day. Next day we go over, basically, uh, go to one area, not there. Go to the second area and talk to somebody.

And then, uh, a woman walks up with a guy who basically hit me. And, uh, so these two guys are telling this guy more or less, you're not gonna mess with this man again. And then, uh, see the woman, she's like, I'm sorry, we're ever gonna come back. I said, no. I said, uh, you know, it's okay.

And so then, uh, I said, you didn't look too, too sorry about this. And, uh, so she calls him over, and then he's like, I'm sorry, I'm not a cop, not a narc, just trying to make your day a little bit better. Bring the food. All right, we're done. I was All right, I'll see you.

And so he, he walks out and I tell the person, okay, uh, he's like, I'm sorry, but I don't think he's going to do it yet. But that is how you build trust and respect with people on the side, not by calling the police, but dealing with problems and getting out. And, and people's bad. And, and, well, I'm not saying get punched, um, but what I'm saying is there are ways to deal with problems, and sometimes one comes at you that you can't see, uh, but no people touching me in any number of ways, whether it's at, you know, Mount View or even over in Midtown. And it's because, you know, you build trust relationships.

And occasionally this guy did not know me, but there were ways he could have brought us. And now, you know, it's like if you do have trust and respect, you can steer outcomes where you can convince people to go with Russian Jakubey and in July, you know, I asked people to please leave an area and they did. And the reason why is because they had 20, 25, 30 forward. They, you know, Walter, you said that there were places that fresh and jackdrew were in places, and I had fire extinguishers ready, but there was a small fire that petered out. But that's sort of where I'm going with is if you have good outreach and you are known and you're trusted in your voucher You can do things that the police cannot do.

You can build trust and relationships, break cycles, and be there at the point in time somebody's willing to change, and that's how you work it. But yes, this is Narko's field, and, you know, it's— the police are never going to be able to do those things. So building trust and relationships, you need to completely separate it algorithm is an important key to each of these. Yes, thank you. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Do we have other questions for the Webform Commission?

Um, do we have any commissioners conference online?

Um, we have a report.

Uh, this is my second. Any opposition? Thank you, everyone.