September 28, 2023 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[11:02] well apologies to all as we continue to try to fix the issue on our end Teresa are we allowed to do more dad jokes would the attorney advice be for content in this moment um it it occurs to me that if well we haven't adjourned um or taken a recess you certainly could take a recess if you wanted to um there's nothing that prohibits humor mirth and mart at any time during the council meeting thank you because I abhor marryt I understand that it works and we can move forward oh okay I'd like I'd like to make a motion that we forbid marryt from all Council meetings what about M can we do that nobody's seconding eron's motion all

[12:03] right from people that were not there's no sound I understand that the sound is back is that right Nara it was not an attempt to it was not I understand from folks that are listening that they were hearing us okay so let's get the recording back on and turn it back over to the recording in progress nice job all right back over to you and judge do you want us to go ahead and have Emily share your screen I mean share your slow I think I've got it I'm going to try to share this screen we'll see if we've got it okay good luck and thanks to everyone watching for your patience we really appreciate it care

[13:11] try one more time here see if we can get it to the get it right it's not responding again I think we're going to have to go with me winging it because my PowerPoint doesn't respond once I get up on the screen with you all let me let me try for one more 30 more seconds if you all let me try just try one more thing here we can see the screen share I'm not I'm going to the slideshow trying to get myself to presenter mode so I can see it's I got my spinner going when I do that yeah and we can see it's not responding on the very top yeah I I would suggest judge let Emily do the

[14:01] slideshow and if maybe that that be fine except I'm without notes so I'm GNA have to try to Wing that part which is a little bit frustrating but that's just the way it goes okay Emily why don't you take back the screen I'll stop sharing we go to the next slide and as I mentioned earlier we were talking a little bit about uh some of the ches in the court personal we one slide back if you can stick with that other slide thank you talk want to talk a little bit more about our philosophy I was talking a little bit before we took a break about the Court's approach with people who come to our court and I do want to point out for Council that we have literally thousands of people who come through our court every year who interact with either myself or with our staff and so we are a point or a facing operation for the rest of the government and our view is is that we want people to leave with a good impression of the city of Boulder govern government and that extends not only to just the

[15:01] participants who come through the system but also to the stakeholders like police officers defense counsil the city attorney's office we want them to have a good impression of the court process and that starts with the people that they interact with up front and it continues when they come to see me and and the goals here are multiple but we do want them to feel like they've been heard that they've had a a fair and efficient process and that when they leave the court they feel like the process worked efficiently for all concerns so that's our our perspective on this the other thing that we try to approach as a a court is to be a problemsolving court unlike the federal government or the state court system a municipal court has the opportunity to interact in a way where we tailor our responses to community problems in a way that helps solve those problems and that's not always available in the state or federal system so that's part and partial of what we do next slide please there have been a number of administrative changes in the court in the last year or so uh in December or November of 2022 James Cho our court

[16:02] administrator retired and as a result of his retirement we took the opportunity to make some changes in the way that we go about our business uh Pam Davis assistant city manager came in and was our court administrator for some period of time and she helped us make some changes to our court process and the way that we uh set up our court structure so that we'd be more efficient and to give a little more bread in coverage for supervisors so that was a great change for our court we took that opportunity to move forward with that the next slide we'll discuss that new court structure I'll get to that in a moment but in addition to the changes that we had at the administrative level we also lost a number of Staffing individuals a lot of people had great experience at the court we lost three or four people in the last 18 months and we've been trying to replace them ever since with good quality people that's probably our most crucial administrative challenge going forward is to good have good solid staff that can support us and then finally I want to talk a little bit about this live stream streaming statute that came out in um September of 2023 that became

[17:04] effective under state law and it simply requires that we live stream or virtual present our proceedings we do now live stream and we have a a YouTube channel for everybody who wants to watch Court who aren't participants in the court system and that's been effective since September 1st we have a link to that on our web page next slide please Emily thank you this is an example of our court structure and as you can see in that middle area you've got the court specialist and supervisor positions the that are in the middle the P probation officer supervisor position and then the data specialist those are the three new positions that we added and that gave us a little more bread from a supervisory perspective and again Pam Davis helped with that we have now hired three people to fill those positions and they were all internal hires we were able to promote internal hires and we have recently promoted from Deputy Court Administrator Devon Kiss k as our court administrator and she's in the position

[18:01] right now as Court Administrator the associate judge position is remains empty until the ccil decides on presiding judge and we also have a couple of empty positions at the court Navigator position and one Court specialist position that will be filling in the next several months next slide please as I mentioned earlier we do approach all of the problems that the community faces with a problem of solving approach method and that's something that we take very serious ly the next slide if you wouldn't mind in the fall uh this is an area where we do have a problem solving approach with our quality of life violations as you might know that we have a large number of students that come into the university and some who come onto the into the community as residents for the first time most of these young people College age people haven't had any experience living on their own and so they might commit quality of life violations like nuisance party noise disturbances MIP alcohol MIP marijuana charges and so we take the the approach of trying to solve the problems

[19:01] that are created by those uh and try to teach these students and so the the Cornerstone for this is to number one make sure that we get these students in to see us in a short period of time we have a what we call a FastTrack process and within seven to 10 days of the defendant getting a citation in the fall they actually are seen in court if a defendant received a petty or misdemeanor offense from the state court they would probably wait six to eight weeks perhaps even longer before you going to court and they may not even see a judge for some of those types of violations they might be deferred to a diversion program without having interaction with the judge that's one of the reasons that we took these cases on both for MIP alcohol type cases and our quality of life violations we wanted them to be able to see a judge and to interact with us in a short period of time and I believe because of that short turnaround I think the evidence would support this that reduces recidivism because we get accountability much closer to the date of the violation next slide

[20:01] please the typical outcomes for these quality of life violations that I've mentioned include basically a deferred adjudication for the defendants if they're first-time offenders uh then we try to avoid having them leave the court with the criminal record but they are required to do quite a bit in order to earn that dism ultimate dismissal they're on a program for between six and 12 months depending on the outcome from the prose's perspective that's necessary but the typical conditions that are included include the SE restorative justice program Community Living class and community service and the C sort of Justice program is really the the link to all of this we've worked with CU for a number of years to develop a program that they actually facilitate to have students learn about living with their neighbors and getting some accountability in connection with that our view and the evidence does support this that an individual who who learns about the behavior that they're causing harm with uh and has the responsibility to repair that harm is less likely to commit future violence viations and so that's why we do this program and every

[21:01] year in the fall uh right before the fall season starts I go to a CU program where it's designed to have all of the stakeholders involved meet and discuss the UPC coming season uh I believe councelor friend was at the last one there and it was a really well attended group and it was impressive to me to see all these different groups people with different perspective sharing those perspectives at this meeting I was also really impressed with cu the Folks at CU have taken a great deal of effort to institutionalize some of the programs that have been developed over a long period of time and the court has worked with them as part of that process a lot of different folks work together in collaborative form to create these processes to develop a greater sense of community and accountability and responsibility for these young people and we've experienced a great deal of success in connection with that we're really early on in our our season of uh fall cases right now uh but the early ear returns suggest that we've seen a lot less cases this year than we saw

[22:01] last year and that's been a trend over the last several years I don't have complete data yet but I'm more than happy to come back on a later date and share that data with you but my understanding from what I've looked at so far is that we're just not seeing as many cases there could be a lot of explanations for that it could be simply because officers aren't issuing tickets but I would like to believe that it's more likely because of these efforts to avoid police contact in the first place have been very successful and I think it's a good process for us to continue to engage in so that we can minimize the impact for those folks especially the folks on the hill minimize the impact that the students have when they're first coming into town next slide please the minor possession charges both alcohol and marijuana are also charges that are part of our FastTrack program they do require a mandatory appearance in our court again with if they were in the county court they might just get a diversion program without even seeing a judge that's one of the reasons that we took this program on on is so that there would be interaction with the judge and

[23:01] we as a municipal court have the ability to tailor our sentences to the offender needs some individuals and probably a majority of the individuals that we see with these types of first offenses um will come to court and really need just a brief intervention with a judge and perhaps one class a short class where they get educated about the rules regarding alcohol or marijuana um but others might need a more in-depth intervention and might actually need treatment and we're looking to to find out a little bit about both so we do a surve at the beginning find out a little bit about them and then we go forward from there with the treatment programs and we collaborate with our CU Health promotions folks in order to secure the right treatment for these people and we believe that it's important for CU to be a part of this and they are uh constantly revising their Pro approach to these uh firsttime offenders and and to those who might need more assistance and so we work with them to develop the classes and tailor those classes for the defendants next slide please

[24:01] want to turn now to community safety and quality of life in public spaces there's been a great deal of discussion over the last few months in our community and among uh stakeholders about what we should be doing about Community safety and the quality of life of for individuals and my perspective is that we want Community safety and access to public spaces for everyone in our community and that includes not only the people who might uh be unhoused and staying there but also the people who want to access that the families who have children who want to be able to go to Central Park and engage in either watching movies that they used to be able to watch there and those types of things all of that is really important so we design our process to try to facilitate that and so if you could go to the next slide I'll talk a little bit about that uh for the more serious types of offenses we'll you'll see a more traditional court process and our goals as they've always been to increase accountability rehabilitate defendants if possible to improve safety and to do it in a humane way and so for the more serious offenses for

[25:00] example threatening bodily injury causing physical harm to another person to disturbances things of that nature our prosecutors utilize this more traditional court process for those offenses that are considered lower level offenses might be camping or littering smoking in public something of that nature uh the prosecutors will often utilize the community court process for those types of offenses the goal with either process is the same and that is to reduce harm to the community and to do it in a humane way next slide please so there are traditional sentencing options that are available to the court and they've always been available to the court so what we do is if there are charges involving violence and threats of violence when someone does plead guilty then we have the ability to impose sentencing but it doesn't come with that ability until someone is found guilty or pleads guilty to a charge but for resisting arrest obstructing a police officer involving violence threats of violence any of those types of charges uh we will impose first of uh treatment programs we're

[26:01] going to look for counseling we're going to look for mental health Addiction Counseling uh or Addiction Counseling things of that nature and maybe utilize Community Service uh but often that won't work there are certainly times when we have individuals who aren't able or willing to participate in those programs and so we've got only jail as an option and so sometimes although I do not like to impose jail sentence sometimes the only thing that we can do is impose jail as a consequence and that's not only as a consequence but also to improve Community safety uh the problem that we face and there are there are multiple problems but one problem that we face is what do we do with offenders when they return to the community uh there are very limited jail programs for individuals who are in custody for a short period of time and when I'm talking about a short period I'm talking about less than 45 days and even when you get to 90 days they're just limited resources at the jail to address mental health and addiction issues and as you know the cap on our Active Jail is 90 days uh so there is there isn't a great deal of opportunity for someone who's in custody on one of

[27:02] our charges to get a great deal of assistance while they're in custody we working working on that and we certainly refer people to the mental health counselors that are in the jail and try to get them into programs if possible but it's one of those issues that we have to to be aware of thinking about the fact that when they do go to jail even if it's for a period of time they are going to be released from custody and most of the people especially our unhoused people who come out of custody they they come out of custody and they're without a home at the time and there just are not great resources available to them they end up back on the streets and in a situation where they're committing the same types of offenses that got them into custody in the first place so it's a challenge for us one that we Embrace but it is it is definitely a challenge for us to re reduce this recidivism that causes such great impact on our entire Community next slide please there are also some very practical and legal limitations to what we can and cannot do uh you've probably heard this before but I think it's

[28:00] important to reiterate this this important information uh Bond reform that occurred beginning in 2014 but all the way through 2022 under Section 164 113 of the state statute creates the 48 hour rule which means that on lower level offenses that come in the Municipal Court the offenses that are most of the offenses that we see people who failed to appear on not all of the offenses that we see but most of the ones who fail to appear in our court are lower level offenses and subject to this 48 hour rule for example smoking littering camping like I said earlier that means that when they come into custody they're advised that they have a right to a personal recognizance bond mean they don't have to post a cash Bond and they're told of that when they come in and they're also advised of that by their defense counsel and by the judge when they appear for their arraignment within that 48 hour period if they aren't seen within 48 hours they have to be released on a PR Bond but even when they are seen the judges require to give them a PR Bond if they request that and I can't stress that

[29:01] point enough because it really does change the way prosecutors do business in the way the court does its business uh that's one point I wanted to make and the other point I want to point make available to you is this challenge that we're facing at the Boulder County Jail uh the jail booking standards are very severe right now and and they have been for the past couple of years the the sheriff has had to indicate to us at least three different times that they weren't able to accept our defendants on Municipal Court warrants and it's not just Boulder it's all Municipal Court warrants and over time they will lift those restrictions but those B jail booking standards really place a limit on what we can do if someone fails to appear in court we can issue a warrant but if the jail won't accept them that doesn't give us much room to to really get them accountable and in in connection with that I want to point out that we do not blame the jail for this they are overcrowded uh I've been speaking with deputies and people over to jail multiple times in the last

[30:00] couple of weeks and they just don't have room nor do they have the Staffing necessary to really take care of these individuals who are brought into custody so we don't blame the sheriff for making these tough decisions but they do place a significant limitation on what we're able to do so if you go to the next slide please so as a result of this we do have a charge driven prosecution approach and on the left side of this uh diagram here you've got traditional Court process available for both of those bars the left and the middle from third degree assault all the way down to weapons offenses any charge like that is is not part of the community Court program that's only part of the traditional court process the prosecutors don't offer dismissals in connection with those types of charges they go through the traditional process we're still limited um but those offenses do have a state counterpart so it does allow us if someone fails to appear on those types of charges to hold them into custody longer than the 48 hours if they've had a failure to appear previously or something of that nature

[31:00] then we can hold them if they are arrested and brought into custody but again that requires that the jail actually accept our warrant but that's the process that's available and for that type of process our prosecutors will make plea agreements with people that will involve community service they will involve Counseling of some sort sometimes it'll involve a jail sentence if they've got someone who's a repeat offender or if the violation is so egregious that it NE necessitates a jail sentence right away they can make that request and our court is not hesitant to impose jail when we believe it's necessary to protect the community or to effectuate a consequence that's appropriate in a particular case but for those cases that are not subject to that traditional court process the prosecutor and the court have partnered together to develop this community Court model and that's the model that a lot of people have heard quite a bit about over the last couple of years and on the right column there those are the types of charges that come under the Community Court model alcohol in public trespass at the bottom and not all trespass charges those are ones that sometimes

[32:00] are eligible for the community Court model and sometimes not depending on the prosecutor's view of the type of trespass that it is but that Community Court model involves the the prosecutors seeking to engage uh individuals so a defendant who uh is eligible for Community Court if they come to our community court or even if they come to the traditional court at 6ton Canyon they may be deemed eligible for a disposition that does not involve even a guilty ple they might be able to earn a dismissal of their case by participating and engaging in the process and that process primarily is designed to secure housing down the road but housing is a long-term process for people and it can take many months to to get someone housed but along the way they also gain stability uh someone might get an identification a social security card they might even secure uh Social Security disability benefits from the state or the federal government all of that is what our Navigators work with them on and so if they're in process with us and they have an alcohol in public charge or a camping charge and they come to community Court they might be able to earn a dismissal of the

[33:00] charge if they engage in the process with The Navigators so that's what our prosecutors do and I think it's a a valuable process it does not solve all of the problems and I want to stress that for everyone the problems associated with some of our highest utilizers are not easily satisfied even by housing and I'll discuss that just in just a few moments next slide please this is a slide that judge cook presented to you all some time back but I want to point out out to you uh why I brought it back again because I think it's really important to to get into the evidence there's been a lot of discussion in the hotline about what evidence is there to support all of the programs that we we have here in our court and along with the homelessness folks who will be speaking later and I think that's an appropriate approach but if you look on the farle column where the 978 is there in the blue that column represents just seven defendants over a course of several years but seven defendants and the total number of cases that they secured prior to being housed 978 cases at the top sliver there is a

[34:03] little red bar that shows six cases that they've had since being housed some of these people have been housed since 2020 some as recently as 2022 but I looked again at our records just about a week ago and found that there weren't many new cases for these individuals it's probably maybe two or three new cases that have been issued to these individuals this seven Group which were obviously people who were really impacting our community prior to being housed and the same is true AC cross if you look at that second bar that's for people who've had between 51 and 99 cases as an individual and there were 14 in that category 976 cases collectively is that for that group of 14 people prior to being housed and just six cases after being housed and there was a question that was asked by off um councilor wallik in the hotline which was addressing what with the 23 people that have been housed this year and it was 22 before but we now have 23 that

[35:00] have been housed this year they're not part of this statistic but I did reach out to neat and neat told me that 22 of those 23 people are still housed one has a Housing Voucher and neat is optimistic that that individual will actually be housed again soon so there is a good retention this is for people who have shown a willingness and some who haven't shown a willingness to be housed but we've worked with them and so we've had some success on both ends of this but I think slide demonstrates that that housing can really reduce recidivism and decrease the impact on our community it requires a great deal of effort on a lot of people's Parts but it does have the ability to reduce recidivism for our our community next slide please the most difficult challenge that we face is those individuals who are a little reluctant to even engage with us and we try our best to get them to engage but there are folks who won't engage and even some who when they engage it's only a minimal amount of G

[36:03] engagement and they make this concept off of this high utilizer that you may have heard about and this is the most difficult group it is the group that our court works with the most we are aware of who those people are the district court U folks are aware of who they are the da is aware of who they are and we work very hard to try to reduce the recidivism and their impact on the community but they are much a much greater challenge because their Acuity is so much more severe mostly mental health problems and addiction problems but some of them have anger control issues it just depends on the circumstances uh and so the way that we go about this is to really engage with as a collaborative effort with everyone the city attorney's office is in depthly involved with his City manager's office I want to point out that our homeless Outreach team Sergeant Kessler officer Maynard officer Paddock previously U officer Steinman a great number of police officers ERS and many other who aren't even on the hot team really work

[37:00] hard along with our the folks at Health and Human Services and all of our community stakeholders to try to work with this group and it is a tireless effort I am really inspired when I meet these folks to find out what they're willing to do and how far they're willing to do go to get somebody housed and so we have to continue with that uh effort to collaborate and so that's why I've listed all these folks everybody is involved and and in the high utilizer meetings that I attend we've got Executives from the District Attorney's office from the county commissioner's office will be joining us people from from within the city HHS is involved and then of course our prosecutors and myself it's a group of about 15 or 20 people and then there's an operations group that has HHS people in the on the ground people who are working through this and they share information with the executive team it's really a great start it is not the the ultimate solution none of these things are going to be the ultimate Solution on their own but I'm really pleased to to say that there's been great progress and I've been in the Justice arena for 20 years I've never

[38:01] seen the type of collaboration and communication that goes on people are utilizing technology in the team's channel to really engage with each other keep track of these individuals find out where they might be and really try to promote these steps towards housing for individuals and of course if housing doesn't work if we do have an option for someone to be someone to be placed somewhere that's not just a regular apartment but actually to a place like Fort lion or to tribe that we're going to be looking to do that and then the last course for us is to utilize the jail bed space which we don't have right now um but it is another place where we can have individuals go who aren't willing to do anything for us and it's a last course for us and we have to be really conscientious about using those beds because it does impact the jail a great deal but it is a way that we can get somebody who isn't willing to comply and hold that uh circumstance where we say look if you're not willing to comply you're not willing to participate then we've got a mechanism that we can utilize so that we can make sure you aren't causing harm to our community and

[39:01] I've had to do that a few times in the last couple of months impose longer sentences I don't enjoy doing it um but I am finding that when I have that con consequence shared with an individual it does make them a little more responsive to our requests and we're going to continue with that is try to use a little bit of the carrot and the stick model and get people to do some of the things we need to do but but also knowing that the stick doesn't usually work someone has to be wanting a change in their life to be successful and then if you could go to the next slide for me all right there are may be some questions I I believe u councelor wallik I may have addressed his I did see a question that was raised in the hotline from councelor Benjamin and it was a question about safe outdoor spaces and as how those might U be utilized in connection with our process at the court can we refer someone to a safe outdoor space if there was a safe camping space for someone to go as part of a sentence we absolutely have the ability to do that and that's something that we could achieve uh once that uh space is

[40:02] available we're we're in a position as a municipal court because we're local we do have the flexibility to do things that that perhaps the state courts aren't able to do thank you so much for that presentation we're going to turn it um over for questions now I've got juny then Bob Nicole and then Tara juny you're up thank you Rachel and sometimes when you're taking not you paying too much attention to the notes and I may not have heard um but something that got me to perk up was when you talked about the longer sentences and I wanted to hear a little bit more about that because my understanding from the prior I'd like to hear more because part of it again as a community we want to divert people to programs so instead of the more sentence longer sentences so I'm wondering have you to get them into

[41:02] programming I just don't know how your sentence fit into the work that we're trying to do so I think I wanted you to elaborate a little bit more on that I appreciate that so I want to make make it clear it's really really rare that we impose a long sentence uh and in fact most of our defendants that we see are getting a PR Bond automatically or they're getting one from me if they see me in custody I never impose a jail sentence for someone who comes to court I haven't done that in the longest period of time I can't even remember the last time I did that um the times that it comes up is where somebody has been a repeat offender maybe six or eight or 10 offenses in a in a short period of time uh or and has for for example one of our defendants had 115 cases over a course of a several year period and that individual actually was given the opportunity to go to a program uh at Fort lion but chose not to go to that program and so the prosecutor said well

[42:00] here's the option you can do a long jail sentence or you can do the program and we worked with the defendant our hot team moved him twice to get his dental records uh fixed up so that he could go to that program we gave him PR bonds when we came back to see him the third time he just didn't want to fulfill going out to Fort lion and so the prosecutor said judge if he pleads guilty I want to Simply give him a jail sentence and that defendant asked me he said look I just want to plead guilty and serve some jail and be done with this case so that's when we use it I I don't want people to get the impression that that's a regular tool it is the last line of defense and it's really only uh most of the time it's just part of a plea offer where the prosecutor says offer one is this a jail sentence offer two is do these other things engage with mental health partners engage with neuropa come to our community court with a PR Bond if you're willing to do do those things then you can earn dismissal of these cases but there are people out there who will not do that and those are the people people who uh I still feel it's appropriate and when I say long jail sentence it varies

[43:00] sometimes a long jail sentence in my mind could be 10 or 15 days that can be a long time for a defendant uh 90 days is the most that we can ever impose the challenge that we face is that when someone gets a less than 45 day jail sentence they aren't eligible for certain programs at the jail so we're always trying to figure out how do we make them eligible for some mental health counseling programs that might be there if there's an addiction program that they could start at least while they're in custody then we might impose a 45-day jail sentence I also tell our public defenders that if if I do impose a jail sentence if the defendant changes their mind at any time you can file a motion with me to amend their sentence I would much rather release them from custody once they're ready to commit to a program and so this is really a last course option um but it's an intricate process and there's a lot that we have to think about as we go through it so and if they you have a followup and then I'm happy to hear I don't have a followup I just want to

[44:00] say thank you for that explanation it's it's really helpful and I understand some of the challenges in dealing with the criminal justice system that getting a longer sentence somehow get people Services that's that's hard to hear right but that's that's the reality of a criminal justice system it's it's not fair it's not right we have to find ways to change that at the state level but that's what you that's the tools that you have which is not a fair tool but thank you for your explanation thank you no I appreciate that comment counselor and um we are working in that executive group to think about some of those changes that could be made out there particularly within the jail if they had more resource themselves then they could have more programs for people because my goal is to if while they're in custody let's get them ready when they come out so that they can be uh really self-sustaining and if not self- sustaining they can go to a program like tribe or somewhere like that where they can achieve a better outcome so that's my goal I want to make sure Council knows that My Philosophy is much in line

[45:00] with that goal thanks juny I think that's the end of your questions yeah Bob you're up thanks Rachel thanks judge Khan that was really real helpful I want to make sure I understand the um distinction or differences between the the two types of you did a good job of kind of describing two types of um situations one kind of seemed to be focused on students in in crimes that they might commit and then the other was the community cord is what is there what I missed the name of the of the one that's kind of student Focus do you have a name for that it's we don't really have a name for it we call it our FastTrack program for the fall um and that's only because we're trying to get them in quicker but it's it's always linked to se restorative justice so those quality of life violations that we see that are committed by that and it's not just College age but as a general rule the noise disturbances the nuisance parties that occur in the fall is is that group of of college age students and so we see them in court um there isn't a name for

[46:01] it it's just an approach and it's a restorative justice approach we're trying to have them face the consequence of the Behavior Uh in a communal respect to to develop a greater sense of responsibility in community as community members and so that's why we designed the prosecutors play a role in obviously offering the sentences but we played a role in deciding what sentences we might impose and worked with CU over years to develop that okay that was helpful so let's just refer to this restorative justice is there uh it sounds like there was less restorative justice approach in the community court is is that a assumption sounds like there's a lot of like getting ID cards and social security cards but how much restorative justice happens uh for crimes that appear before you in Community Court that's a really good question and I would say in all caner there's probably not a great restorative justice component to that when when I started as a judge um we had community service as an option for people we would generally with if people came to court we would order community service and that's still

[47:01] the case if we have a defendant with a lower level offense who comes to to the court at Sixth and Canyon then we will definitely look at more more traditional response which would include the idea of of community service it doesn't have that sense of restorative justice because a lot of those offenses don't but there is a Comm a component of that we will also the prosecutors look at this and they say well this looks like a good case for mediation and we have Community mediation services where an offender can get with a person who has been harmed by the behavior and and actually meet that person and they can work out a restorative justice approach to that but that is not built in like it is with the student population it's more of a case-by casee basis who who who qualifies for Community Court is is is it the the the nature of the crime or is it the type of person it's the nature of the offense now I would say probably 95% of those people are unhoused but it is the nature of the offense so somebody who perhaps has just gotten into housing or H has housing but has committed an offense like a a an open container of

[48:01] alcohol offense they might still be eligible for a community Court response and then the prosecutor has to decide what they would want for them to do in order to get their case dismissed occasionally they don't even get their case dismissed occasionally they're put on a deferred prosecution or a deferred judgment where they have to plead guilty to a charge uh but generally the prosecutors will be looking that at that on a case-by Case basis but I would say at least 90 or 95% of the people who are eligible because the type of offense that they're committing comes into that lower level are probably unhoused okay so I'm going to unbundle that a little bit because I'm I'm struggling with that a bit so you listed a bunch of of crimes or or at least charges that would qualify for Community Court you said public urination camping open container that kind of list right yes so so if a student had an open container would they qualify for a community court or not they might although what's what typically happens is for anybody who's under 21 uh as a student they're going to be

[49:01] they're going to get an opportunity to have a deferred judgment but and they will from or actually a deferred prosecution when they come to court and they'll be expected to complete an alcohol class in order to earn that dismissal so it's slightly different and we found that we want to tailor that to that student age population where it's not necessarily A dismissal for them right off the bat although within a month that case is dismissed we want them to take a class we want them to interact with the judge so we take a different approach uh with that student age population but if a student got an open container of alcohol charge and they were over 21 for example they have the option of coming to court they also have the option because it's a lower lower level offense if there's the of the officer can say this is I'm going to make this uh not a mandatory appearance and it's a pay and close eligible charge so somebody might be able to pay $100 fine and be done with the case some will come to court because they want to discuss that and they're concerned about a record from completing guilty to anything and so that they may come to court and then they'll work with the prosecutors but it doesn't necessarily

[50:01] have to fall in line with the community Court model and I don't really see the prosecutors directing them to okay I want you to get an ID because that really isn't what the student needs so they're not working on stability factors with those individuals they're working on other factors with those students so it's not it doesn't fit very well for the student population okay let's let's take it out of the let's take the under 21 off the table because I understand why you treat them differently but I'm still trying to understand the difference uh in in in treatments because there seems to be some disparity here for so let's have Apples to Apples crimes over 21 so we're not going to make any distinctions there so we have three three different people who commit the exact same crime one person's a 22y old student one's a 42y old hous person and one's a 42y old unhoused person will they all end up in the in the same court and and be subject to the same uh consequences community service restorative judge uh uh justice and all those things or are you going to make distinctions based upon whether they're a student whether they're house or

[51:01] whether they're UNH house same crime so I don't make the distinction but the prosecutors would could make that distinction I think it's fair to to ask that question because it I think it it it's possible that that 42y old person with the uh open container of alcohol charge who comes and sees a prosecutor they if they appear in court they're not likely to appear at Community Court because that is where the we that's where the unhoused people go they're going to deacons closet a Trinity Lutheran but somebody who is housed is likely to come to court physically at 6on Canyon and if they want to talk to a prosecutor they will any case is eligible for the community Court model so it's up to the prosecutors to decide um but I haven't broached that question with our prosecutor as to whether in fact he would say okay this person's 42 if they if they would like to do X or Y then I will dismiss the case now that having said that that doesn't mean that they won't dismiss the charge if it's a first offense for somebody and maybe they were walking out of the stadium with a beer or something like that and they have no prior record I've seen a

[52:00] prosecutor say judge I'm I'm going to dismiss this because the person came to court and I'm going to ask you to suspend a fine or to not even impose a fine but they do have the authority to put them into the model I don't believe there's any requirement that they be unhoused I can't answer that because I don't know what Chris Reynolds and the prosecutor's office would say to that um and I have I will be honest I haven't seen that it's usually where they are offering something different but a deferred prosecution for that individual with no conditions and asking me to wave the fee would have the same outcome for that defendant so if you're concerned about having the same outcome they can still make the same outcome for people uh with a deferred prosecution where the case just stays open and they could even ask me to close the case at that at that point or if a person attends a class I've seen them a lot of times reset the case and say if you'll come back after you've attended a level one alcohol class for example I'll dismiss the charge outright so there can still be the similar outcome they just wouldn't be funneled to this process where they're meeting with Navigators and going through a process that might not

[53:00] really be fulfilling of what their needs are this sounds like it's a prosecutor's decision so maybe I should ask my question of Teresa it is and I don't want to yeah no that's F question but they i' still like to get to the bottom of this since we're supposed to be talking about this tonight so let's see if we can get this these questions answered Teresa council member Yates could you could you re sure sure it's kind of sounds like from what judge Khan is describing is is is community courts kind of for House people and and regular Courts for House people is that a fair assessment or or or can anybody same crime can anybody go to either Community Court or regular Court um based on what the prosecutor determines sure um thank you for the question I would not I would not distinguish them that way um instead what I would say is there are eight um kinds of offenses that qualify for Community Court and if someone has one of those types of off offenses they are they can participate in community court that may or may not be a helpful

[54:02] approach but for example someone could be housed and still need help getting an identification or or applying for medical benefits and so part of what the prosecution team is is trying to do is assess um what Avenue might be most helpful to a defendant so so how's the prosecut does the prosecutor down with the person before uh they go to court and make a determination you're going to go to regular court and you're going to go to Community Court how do they how do they make that determination not necessarily go ahead judge Conan I can answer that one when when a defendant gets a summons uh they come to court and then they're advised of their rights and then during my advisal I let them know that they have the option of speaking with one of the prosecutors so it's it's during the court process they've initially been advised but then they before they make a decision on their case if they want to talk to a prosecutor they can and then the prosecutor and it does happen fairly regularly as Teresa mentioned that that a prosecutor will say this person is

[55:01] eligible for a community Court response and they may in fact be housed and so it doesn't necessar happened yeah that's happened fairly regularly actually where they might be housed but still need some other assistance and we have people who we got housed and then who pick up another ticket of camping or littering or something like that and as it turns out they they lost their ID so we no longer have an ID so the prosecutors might make that a ailable to him to them the person who has doesn't have that instability I think is what you were designing the question for is what if they don't have some instability um related to their identification or benefits and things of that nature are they still eligible for a community Court response is that right well yeah I'm I'm just trying to understand what criteria the pro it sounds like this is not the judge's decision the prosecutor's decision so C is it written down someplace the prosecutor says you know we're going to score you and if if you meet these certain criteria you're going to go to Community Court and and other criteria you're going to go to regular Court how how's that made Community Court is always an elective

[56:01] process right so no defendent is required to participate in community Court it is my understanding that the prosecutors um instead look to see if the offense qualifies for Community Court and what are those qualifications I you know I'm sorry I don't have that list in front of me tonight to us that would be really great if you could get the qualifications to us it sounds like commun Court's an easier thing like if I get charge the crime I'd rather be in community court because all I have to do is got get a Social Security card I'm not sure what I do with the social security card but but I guess I could get one and get off the hook as opposed to regular Court where I might have to do restorative justice and I face other penalties so it seems like Community Court is kind of a softer thing so I'm trying to understand how the prosecutor makes the decision who to who to um divert to Community Court where it sounds like it's a pretty pushy thing as opposed to regular Court which is probably a little bit more serious circumstances because we got kids going regular Court fast tracking and doing community service and then we we got people going to community Court who getting social security cards for whatever reason and I just would like to understand how the prosecutor makes that

[57:01] determination if you could get that to us that'd be really great sure I'd be happy to and I don't know judge Conan I'll look to you also to see if you happen to have a a list handy of those eight categories that qualify for Community Court actually it's in the PowerPoint so if Emily will put it back up I can I can show that's not the criteria you're talking about that's not the criteria we're talking about the crimes are easy I'm trying to understand one one of those eight crimes is committed how does the prosecutor decide I'm going to send these people to Community Court and these people to regular Court I we are not sending anyone anywhere I want to be very clear about that you're allow can can anyone go to Community Court that wants as long as they Comm one of those eight crimes yes that's right okay so why would anyone not go to Community Court then can can I recommend Bob that maybe this go a little bit offline for future well sure but only due to time not trying to I appreciate that Rachel but there's a lot of Community frustration about Community Court and a lot of lack of understanding incling by me and so I I really would appreciate it if if

[58:01] Teresa this is probably a question for judge Khan but Teresa could explain to the community what Community Court is who gets to go there how the prosecutors make decisions and how the how are the consequences different in Community Court from regular court because this is a this is a very very big point of contention I'm glad we're having this discussion and uh but tra this is really pretty on more on you than judge Khan if you if you'd share that with Community maybe through hot that'd be great um you know so that is uh that's an answer that should be readily available I don't believe it requires a nod no sorry just thinking out loud right because we've got one council member requesting something so I want to make sure that's make sense and it does here because it's information we have we're not having to do additional work or research um so we're happy to provide that um we could do that as a hotline we could do that as an IP I think a hotline would be great so the rest of the community can see that thanks Teresa I appreciate it thanks Raa y thanks Bob can I just quickly say say something

[59:01] because councelor Yates I think it's really important and I mentioned this to our prosecutor that we come back he and I come back on another date so that some of these more in-depth questions can be asked because I think they are fair questions and I want to be able to supply answers for everybody that would be great judge I appreciate that very much and I was remiss I'm sorry council member friend as I um as I jump in but I was remiss of saying that in the beginning that we have thought and we've heard from you that you'd like to hear a little bit more about how um Municipal Court works and getting a little bit deeper so we will be planning that uh in the future uh particularly as we're doing some continuing onboarding um post elction so know that we've got that in in our thoughts thank you n pice I see your hand up again yeah in in which case I would like to ask for a clarification because the fact of the matter is a conversation is typically more Illuminating and helpful than a hotline post and so um could we could we instead plan a time where we can come

[60:02] back to council and have that conversation well let me make a suggestion Teresa because it sounds like and I understand entirely what Nya said that that the conversation may not be able to happen until early next year uh and that's fine I understand that the the council's calendar is pretty full between now and the end of the year um but I think there is a lot of community confusion questions concerns misunderstandings are commun court and if this is something that the prosecutor does every day of the week he literally just pulls it off his computer you put it on hotline post I just suggest let's do a hotline post soon since it's it's information that's readily available to you all and then let's have the conversation that n suggested sounds good thank you and I would just add for that conversation that I won't be here for maybe it would be helpful to have the county sheriff and the prosecutor here to answer questions about overcrowding and uh what gets you know what's in whose Lane and and other questions that council members have so that everything can everybody will be there for one conversation and we won't have to get back on stuff judge Khan did

[61:00] you have something else to add as well no I'm just happy to answer the questions so as they come appreciate them thanks uh we have a couple more questions uh Nicole you're up and then Tara thank you um and thank you judge cotton for this really informative presentation um as well as for helping to keep the Court's vot steady through all these stopping transitions I know that's not not an easy thing to do and thank you for your leadership there um I just also want to know I really appreciate the Court's partnership with some of the other groups that are providing Supportive Services um not just at CU with restorative justice but also some of the local transitional housing and sober Supportive Housing Programs too I heard recently that we were able to recommend and get somebody admitted to the other side Academy in Denver which is really great um and you know I think to Bob's questions it seems like we don't always have the resources to do restorative justice and these more intensive involved you know transitional housing sober Supportive Housing things but we can certainly do more when we're partnering with others so thank you for

[62:01] for all of that um to excuse me to this question that Bob had about who uses Community um or sorry of uh getting some more information on community Court um when people are using it versus not what I would be interested in seeing in that is if we look at the people who are um coming in with those eight offenses that might open up the possibility of Community Court um of those people who is using Community Court who is not using Community Court for for the offenses I don't mean individual names just like uh you know this many people there were 10 people who came in with these offenses um five of them used Community Court five of them didn't just so we have a sense of you know what's the volume um in each bucket and then I would also be really interested just based on the recidivism numbers that um you show and how effective Community Court seems to be in reducing um

[63:00] recidivism especially as it is getting people into housing what are the the outcomes for the people in each of those buckets as well does that make sense so you know are we seeing if of the people who come in with one of these eight offenses of the ones who use Community core do they have a much lower recidivism rate than the ones that don't use um Community Court does that I think it does and obviously I'm going to be speaking anecdotally I can follow up with a hotline post for that as well uh but anecdotally if someone is not engaged with Community Court the the B the big issue here is that if someone gets a summons for any of those eight offenses uh it's typically someone as I mentioned earlier who's unhoused and that person is really unlikely to show up to our building for court and so there's a certain percentage of people who do appear at Deacon's closet and just happen to be there and then they

[64:01] realize oh there's a navigator there's a prosecutor and the prosecutors will say hey look if you'd like to talk about your case that you've got pending we can talk to you about that case and so for those people who engage with us there's anecdotally again a higher percentage of those folks will get less offenses going forward because they have that engagement they are showing a little bit of commitment to try to resolve the issues that they have that other group that I talked about earlier which are the folks who don't want to engage with us they get a ticket for camping and they don't appear in court and then they get another ticket for camping and they don't appear in court and they could rack up several tickets in a in a row for that and be unwilling or unable sometimes people are simply psychologically unwilling or unable to come through the building they they may have a backpack that they can't leave outside because it might get stolen or they've got a mental health disorder that doesn't want them to walk through that door because they feel trauma when they come through and so but there's also people who just simply don't want to come to court they are afraid of the consequence they don't want to deal with

[65:00] their behavior and those people are completely disengaged from us and so those obviously there's a higher recidivism rate for those individuals we don't have the ability to engage them if they don't come to court and because of the the challenges with the jail booking standards if we issue a warrant and the warrant isn't honored and we don't have them at the jail we can't hold them accountable so that's one way you can reduce recidivism is to have an accountability for that type of behavior but without that that backend accountability for those people who won't engage you're going to have a higher recidivism right but I can I will follow up and try to get some data so to to give you that and see what we'll probably be looking at cases where everybody who's been issued any one of these eight violations how many of them were entered into the community court process and how much case how many cases did they have following that versus those people who didn't and I might be able to break that down it'll take a little effort but I think our staff can probably do that in present pres in the hotline post okay um and ter I saw Teresa starting to come off mute there too uh

[66:01] possibly to chime in on something that I was is there anything I was doing or saying that was heading us in a wrong direction Teresa no not at all I I was simply gonna say that I don't know that that's information that we have as the prosecution um but it sounds like judge Khan's got that in hand I I think we could probably run some reports to secure that information okay thank you um yeah think it it would be helpful and I think you know this this point you're making as well judge Conan about how um when we go to people and meet them where they are and try to engage them in things that are going to help get them to housing that actually makes our lives easier in the long run because we're not just issuing tickets without any real impact um and I just had one other question which is just around I think I'm still a little bit confused on what types of things we deal with in the Municipal Court versus what types of things would be happening at the county or the state level um so

[67:00] does processing kind of all tickets and offenses start at the municipal court so if there's an assault charge for example does that start with us can we change it um do we have a choice and and what we do with that um if if there's any way of summarizing that in a couple sentences that would be helpful thank you I'll do the best I can it's a very good question it was part of something I thought I might address in this presentation so I'm glad you raised it the uh we handle misdemeanors only we do not have jurisdiction over uh felonies and there's a lot of misdemeanors that we also don't have jurisdiction over but felonies for example a second degree assault first degree assault murder uh robbery burglary all of those things we do not have jurisdiction so those can't even be filed in our court and that includes all higher level drug offenses marijuana is the only drug offense that our court actually handles aside from alcohol so fentanyl meth methamphetamines whether it's possession or distribution those are all state level charges which can't come to our court so we don't have the ability to

[68:00] say well you're going to come to our court first and we're going to have a community Court model where we deal with your mental health issues or your drug addiction issues for those higher level charges we don't have that ability that's all in the state Corp thank you very much Nicole Tara you're up so judge Khan I want to say that anything that you think is too long of a story of my probably six questions you could just say let's do it in the next meeting okay because I have six questions it's your time and I'm happy to it to do whatever you want to I don't want to get Rachel mad at me so there's that sah you you take the time that you need we are due to stop this at 730 and that included all of maris's presentations and our questions and okay all right so um my first question is is I think you just answered it but let's say that I'm riding my bike through the underpass and somebody is smoking meth

[69:01] or shooting up or whatever is that allowed now because let's just say that I'm walking into the municipal building and people are just smoking meth outside and right outside the municipal building so I'm just wondering did the state change the law and now anything goes or what's happening out there so I'm sure Maris can can respond to that question but obviously it's not legal um you know open possession of a controlled substance of that nature is illegal and so it's just a matter of how those folks get prosecuted from a police department perspective initially and then where where they end up right but that's not you right because it's not alcohol none of it's none of it comes our court okay so let's move on yeah thanks Nicole for talking about the other side Academy which I was just looking at the brochure today um I just want to thank you for working with them I think it's great that's not a question question but a comment okay next question um you talked about the 48 hour rule yes so the most

[70:03] people can be in is 48 Hours um would you say that most of the time people are let out same day even though this has nothing to do with you the community so many people in the community were pretty upset including the unhoused in the community when somebody who stabbed another person was let out the same day remember that case absolutely so when can you can you just be are those the ru new rules now anything goes and you're just let out same day or what's that about so again keep in mind that that defendant was given as a a charge in the state court right they have different parameters um I thought I read it maybe I have a confus with a different case but I thought it was 48 hours but it's sort of irrelevant that's a pretty short time for somebody who's committed a very significant charge right right um and I don't think that's the automatic it's a pretty engaged process that a county or District Court Judge has to go through

[71:00] looking at the statute um I can't speak for what they would do because it is a different approach and they have different rules that govern as far as whether they're eligible for a PR Bond but you know with with the way the the bond reform has gone is and because of the jail booking standards they're still put up against it as well the district court has some of the same challenges that we have is who do I want to be in custody right now do I want the person I've sentenced to 180 day jail sentence on assault charg or do I want the person who has been alleged to a commit offense and so obviously in the perfect world there would be if someone has committed an offense they can be in custody and if they if there's probable cause to believe they they have committed a crime and they have a failure to appear history that person could be held but just from as an outsider looking in I was surprised to see that person was released so quickly and yet part of me was not entirely surprised because I I don't know what that district court judge or that County court judge was looking at or considering in connection

[72:01] with that person's history so it's I'm not saying it's a blanket rule that they're out the next day I think the people feel like that's what happens because they hear those stories and it can be very challenging for the members of the community to hear that and to see someone commit another violation right away I just don't have the for the unhoused community I would be very nervous myself if I was in the a lot of these crimes are committed against the unhoused community members so it'sing very nervous how unsafe it's feeling right now yes but um I I just my next question is about unint is about um consequences for behavior um and it's about the municipal court so if you are and I'm not saying it's bad or good I don't have a value judgment saying okay you get a driver's license I'm you're not going to have you know we're going to take away your ticket is what is to say for like consequences of actual behavior I'm pretty sure that getting your driver's license doesn't make somebody stop doing a certain Behavior so the whole concept to me

[73:00] of any court is to try to stop try to give consequences so the person doesn't keep committing illegal Behavior so what do you think about what's your thought on that I think it's a very fair question um and again we perhaps we can dive into a little more with some more statistics down the road but one of the things that you should keep in mind is that for some of these people what we do as a consequence doesn't actually change what they do next I I sentenced one woman for 20 years with open container charges and I gave her ranges of sentences from two days to more and it never changed her behavior she was out doing it again once we got her housed she stopped the behavior she didn't stop drinking she stopped the behavior in public and so we're yes it's true we're probably not imposing a consequence to that person for drinking in public on those we're looking at it from a how do we balance the the goals of the community how do we get this Behavior to stop if the goal of

[74:01] the consequences to stop the behavior it doesn't work very well with the these folks who are on a kind of the lowest level of the hierarchy of needs they're really not thinking when they're uh mentally health challenged out in the community whether that that beer is going to uh change their their outcome of going to jail it's not what they think at that moment right right right and so that's what we've learned over a long stretch of time to way to the behavior so sometimes there isn't a consequence and I I totally appreciate that because I was a prosecutor for a number of years and part of my built-in mechanism is how come there's not a consequence for accountability but I've learned over time that that's really a hard one to get at with people who aren't operating in that same way I mean that makes sense which is gonna have discussion later on when we talk about what to do with that extra money a whole another story but so I have another question now about trespassing you said some types of trespassing I'm not concerned about the alcohol container as much as I am is

[75:01] trespassing is something that affects other people right so if somebody is trespassing in somebody's house or facility or lying down in front of a store it affects there's victims involved and so that's where I'm thinking about uh consequences to be honest right and so that that's a fair question as well and then one of the unique things about trespass is um there are two multiple types of trespass there's one trespass ordin one part of the ordinance where if if someone has been received a written notice not to go somewhere um if they've been advising writing then that charge has a state counterpart and that's a big deal for us because if it's got a misdemeanor State counterpart then they can be held in custody on a on a bond longer than 48 hours and so that's part of the calculus that goes in for a prosecutor uh in my view is okay I've got this person who I can I don't have to dismiss their charge because they were told at this location

[76:01] for example a store on the Pearl Street Mall you can't be here and we and the officer in writing gives them an Affidavit of trespass you can't come back and then they come back that that written VI that violation of that written notice has a state counterpart which allows when they are issued that summons to be held in custody on if they failed to appear and all of this is based on the fact that these po people probably won't come to court and there'll be a warrant out and so we're looking how do we actually consequence them at some point and the consequence can be imposed if they're held at the jail all right this person I can't if they plead guilty because now they're more likely to plead guilty right if they if they face the possibility of being held until their trial they're more likely to say yes I'm going to plead guilty and then the judge can if they they plead guilty then can impose a sentence like you can't go back here or you're going to serve a long jail sentence or you're going to get some jail time because you did this and you've done it multiple times and when counselor Joseph was asking that question that was the example of a person who's like yes that person needs

[77:00] to have a jail sentence because they are disrupting the community and they've done it over and over again despite the fact that we've tried to get them to do something different so I agree with you philosophically as to how you approach that you just have to work through the the Practical limitations that we have I mean if we're not putting people in jail for stabbing how why do I doubt we're going to put them in jail for trespass but that's just me but anyway moving on to my next question Rachel I'm trying to keep it moving I might I might be actually um okay I know Matt in Matt's um in Matt's hotline he did ask you some questions my question to you would be um would it help you to have some sort of sober living or housing after leaving jail because we're all worried about recidivism right here in this Council and to me that would be one of our big needs but I want to know if it's your big need bo am I glad you asked that I was hoping someone would ask me what I need it is a big need we absolutely need

[78:04] uh places where we can I have the ability to tailor my sentence so if someone if I give someone let's say 45 days of jail but I uh tell them hey if you're you're willing to go to the tribe recovery house and you're willing to fulfill that program as soon as you agree to do that I can suspend the rest of your sentence on the condition that you complete that program so we need the places we need the wraparound Services we need the ability for them to succeed when they do come out of custody or if they're at Community Court for example and some of the people that we trying to house they aren't a great fit for just an apartment because they don't succeed in that apartment so we're we're really working hard and and the HHS folks are the experts here but I think there's agreement across the board that we we need more of that and um so making sure we don't have enough of that would you say that's okay online and we're getting better with it but we need a lot of it absolutely we need a lot of it yeah okay good and I think my last question

[79:00] everybody's going to be so happy um once the alternative sentencing facility is open do you think that's going to be help help the overcrowding or is this outside of your purview well it's outside of what I've thought about um I I I've I gave it some thought in the last week or so but I just don't know enough about how we're going to that's going to be utilized you know everybody wants to use the $5 do for that you guys get in 16 different ways and so when we're thinking about allocating resources that are going to be at the jail I'm sure there's all kinds of individuals and entities who have an idea of what they're going to use that for so it is a good question for me to to raise with our prosecution team as well as the jail to see what options are going to be available out there when it does get completed but I don't have a good answer I would I would love for there to be more bed space for our defendants I know our prosecutors have at least talked about the possibility of having a certain number of beds allocated at for us at the jail or at the alternative facility I think when you think broad longterm on this the having housing that where keeps people

[80:01] out of jail in the first place where they don't have to be monitored by armed folks is going to be a better long-term solution for a lot of this but wouldn't you say and this is the promise I promise Rachel this is my last thing The Other Side Academy the only way somebody would want to probably go there is let's say because just because of human nature itself is if that you tell you give them the option you either go there or you go to jail so in some sense we have to and to jun's point I guess right to some sense we have to say well you're going to go to jail we have to have jail as an option to be able to push people to get treatment in many cases that's that's just my thought I agree with that I don't I I I think it's it's the that's why I point out that practical limitation because we need to have a lot of our really hard folks the toughest ones the ones who aren't looking for housing but are just happy what they're doing yeah won't even engage with us unless they feel like there's going to

[81:01] be a consequence and so that consequence usually is jail nobody really likes to be in jail despite what people think most people don't want to be there even when it's cold they'd rather be outside yeah okay well thanks Rachel for your um thanks judge KH for your help thanks Rachel for your um flexibility SLP patience yeah it's it's our community time here Tara I'm just saying I'm not going to take total responsibility that this is going to be a long evening um okay thank you so much judge Khan for answering all of our questions I there were no questions to us so I think that brings us to the end of this unless Aon you want to say some words you're I think the only person who didn't ask any questions is that right you're welcome to no one's no one's ever called somebody out for not asking a question before I don't that was very informative I'm happy to move on to the next item wanted to give you the opportunity before because usually we do discussion I'm saying let's not do discussion let's move on to part two if if you're okay with that Erin and have nothing to ask and I will remain I'll be here so if

[82:00] questions come up tonight during one of the other presentations I'll be here perfect okay back over to city manager to introduce the second half of this presentation thanks so much and I will go quickly and call on our uh Chief to kick us off good evening mayor Brockett good evening mayor Pro wallik and good evening m Council my name is Maris heral I'm the police chief uh presenting with me tonight is going to be deputy chief Redfern and we have Dr Ryan heart on backup if we have data questions as well next slide you can go to the next one so tonight we'll quickly go through I'll try to get back on on schedule here we'll quickly go through Citywide uh crime Trends and how we are focusing our resources into the geographic locations in the city with a high density of crime and calls for service um but we will spend tonight some considerable time

[83:02] talking about significant incidents that have occurred uh in Boulder in the last couple months that have garnered a lot of community attention and media attention as well we'll finish up by um showing you some of the partnering with the community on problem solving projects and uh work with the community that we find is beneficial for for everyone next slide uh just as a reminder uh we are operating with a stratified policing model and accountability model um BPD monitors Citywide problem locations and which are located within these identified problem areas um we also are looking constantly for uh crime patterns uh such as C catalytic converter thefts motor vehicle thefts bike thefts and develop crime prevention strategies to address these types of crimes next slide um what you're looking at here is five years worth the DAT data starting

[84:01] from January through August a lot of the increases we're seeing as seasonal but they are significant and they are concerning um so if we look at uh the leth hand side of the the graph we're looking at violent crimes from 2019 to 2023 we are seeing significant increases in um violent crime and this is being pushed mostly because of simple assaults and aggravated assaults we are also seeing significant increases in menacing charges and this is where people argue and make threats uh against each other um the positive news on the violent crime is that we're seeing significant reductions in robberies uh in 2023 compared to 2022 if we look over to the other side of the uh graph uh property crime we're seeing uh significant increases and this is being pushed mostly by thefts uh personal thefts from people but also

[85:00] business thefts as well uh the good news is from 2020 to current um we are still seeing 48% reduction uh in motor vehicle thefts U mostly because of our tremendous focusing on this uh specific problem we also see um Society crimes or what I like to call Quality of Life concerns we're also seeing moderate increases in quality of life concerns mostly driven by drug offenses uh in Boulder next slide when I think there's another slide as well if you can push so when we look at Boulder and I've presented this many times uh but uh it's always good to review when we're looking at the geography of Boulder we really see that crime is heavily uh con con at uh both in the downtown Corridor and the University Hill area with slight concentration at the 28th Street Mall

[86:00] mostly driven by uh property crime and thefts from stores next slide next slide Emily sorry I wanted just to spend a second because it is such Community CERN and I know it's a concern of council um we are really in an epidemic with overdoses and older and we continue to see a tremendous amount of drug trafficking in fact our drug and narcotics violations are up 79% from last year which is really alarming and so if you just look at these two neighborhoods downtown in the hill you will see that 40% of all overdoses that have occurred in 2023 are from those two small neighborhoods and 60% of all fatal overdoses in 2023 are contained in these small neighborhoods um unfortunately Fentanyl played a factor in the overdoses and fatal overdoses so from January 1st of 2023 to August 28th of

[87:01] 2023 uh these two small areas experienced 93 total overdoses um 13 were fatal um 80 were nonfatal uh the vast majority of these are fentel um sometimes mixed with other drugs as well um I would just I would hate to see if our police officers weren't responding so quickly to these overdoses we would probably have a lot more deaths because of all our our officers are equipped with Narcan but unfortunately what we're seeing as our officers are deploying Naran um really uh on a daily basis if not more than uh once than sometimes three to five times a day uh the overd does that we're seeing at one point uh last month we had to stage in ambulance in Central Park uh because we are experiencing so many fitmill overdoses um and so at this point I am going to turn it over to deputy chief R who is going to go through um some presentations on current projects and then talk about some of

[88:01] these significant incidents that we have uh seen in the last couple months deputy chief Redfern you're out Council mayor Brockett I'm going to talk really quickly about a couple of our problem locations as we've shared with you in the past through our stratified policing program we've been able to actually remove some locations from uh our Focus area we currently have two that we're still working on one is the library which is as we knew when we started the problem um was going to be something that's not an easy fix overnight I'm happy to say though we've had great uh partnership with Library staff uh we've done a couple really cool events with our police officers uh a community we've done two Community reading events with kids in the library that were very well received uh coffee with the cop and we tend to do more of these things our staff has gone out to train the the new security staff that's been working in the library for a little while and we continue to work with them and then really we're doing continuing our assessments to figure out any areas around the library that we can uh impact

[89:02] to make it less conducive to Crime so that's an ongoing project we'll continue to provide you updates next slide please uh the next location we've talked about for quite some time on our updates to you uh is the Circle K at 14th and Canyon and continues to be a problem location they've actually been super cooperative for the most part in fixed a lot of the issues that we've pointed out to them that are causing issues there what we've seen uh especially since we've had a increaseed uh focus on encampments downtown as Circle K kind of just tends to be a a meat location where people just come and go it's one of the only convenience stores there open 24 hours most of the time we're continuing to work with employees there's a little bit of turnover there uh and management um and we're just trying to figure out what nearby we can also address instead of just focusing on the store we've noticed and we've been keeping data that when we do directed patrols with our officers going by on VAR VAR times of day crime goes down when we remove those it goes right up so we're going to

[90:00] continue to have an increased presence there as we're able to and then the chief and I have committed that if we don't have successes further if there's issues we're going to uh reach out to their corporate folks to see what other ATT traction we can get there those are our two problem locations um I'm going to move in to talk about a number of significant incidents next slide please next slide please so I just want to uh highlight some of the things that have been going on with our police department since we've last provided an update to council many of these things as the chief mentioned have garnered media attention I just want to give you a glimpse of some of the things that we've been working um there's a lot of sign significant events we tried to pair this down to things that um had impact and we just wanted to provide some updates that you may have uh not heard yet the first one uh I'll talk about happened in May uh on May 25th our officers were trying to locate a man who had a felony domestic violence warrant for his arrest he had actually fractured um facial bones in the victim and he had actually got got a hold of the victim and said

[91:00] I'm on my way over she knew he always carried a gun our officers waited in the area in case he did show and indeed he did when they made contact with him he threw an object at our officers and instead of running away he kind of walked away quickly while reaching into a little Satchel that he had our officers deployed the taser to subdue him when he wouldn't show his hands and that caused the subject to go to the ground while on the ground the subject was able to work through that taser and produce a handgun we were determined during our investigation the subject fired around from that handgun that narrowly missed striking one of our officers our officers did as you know return fire um and sadly the suspect was pronounced deceased at the scene the Boulder County critical incident team reviewed this case as well as the District Attorney's office and the district attorney determined uh that there was no criminal culpability on on behalf of the officers we do believe the officer's presence there likely saved that domestic violence victim for being harmed that evening next slide this is a tragic case that got a

[92:02] significant amount of media attention uh just updating you a little bit with the charges I'm not going to get into the details of this I don't think it's appropriate just because of how horrible this case was but um we did investigate the first murder of a small child that was a two-month-old um we learned that the mother had left with the child was possibly suicidal we had worked with our law enforcement Partners to put out a bulletin our officers located the vehicle and by the time they located the vehicle at the emergency room parking lot our officers took custody of that child ran him inside the hospital but it was too late and he was uh pronounced deceased uh the mother was charged with multiple felony counts as you'll see there um just a really horrible case I just want to provide you the update next slide please so this was an interesting case that also got a significant amount of of media attention uh on this date um back on July 25th our officers located a stolen car near 30th in Iris and they tried to stop the car

[93:00] uh the female passenger stayed and she was arrested the male ran on foot somehow was able to scale on top of that fir stone that you see there as soon as our officers tried to make contact with him um he said that he had a gun and intended to harm the officers so a SWAT situation was was uh conducted it was a very hot day we negotiated with him for several hours got him things like Gatorade and other things that he requested and eventually he willingly came down as you'll see on the screen he was on Parole he was charged with the parole violation he was charged with Distributing drugs resisting arrests and all kinds of other charges there he is still in custody next slide please unfortunately in August we had two fatal auto motorcycle crashes in the city um they were a very short uh proximity to one another both motorcycle riders were uh later pronounced deceased our traffic section investigated both and determined that speed was a factor the speed of the motorcyclist was a factor in those crashes uh we are

[94:00] working with City engineering as well as our Traffic Unit and our public information officer to figure out better ways to uh deal with speed to deal with public campaigns to try to address uh traffic safety and we're we're we're focusing our enforcement efforts in locations where we're seeing a high number of vehicle crashes next slide um this uh uh on this incident um we'll talk about this for a couple different times um so we had a subject that uh was sitting outside of the municipal building there was an argument that ensued between two subjects and the victim was stabbed several times uh it's about noon during the day on a Friday our officers immediately responded they placed a tourniquet on the victim's wounds and he was taken to the hospital uh nearby our officers located the suspect he was is taken into custody quickly um and then within 48 Hours he was charged with first degree assault which is the highest level of assault that you can be charged with in 48 hours

[95:01] he was given a PR Bond and released next slide please um but this is going to tie into what I just talked about but in response to uh repeated overdoses as the chief mentioned in Central Park and complaints from the community uh we got with our Boulder County drug task force and we conducted an operation in Central Park uh in one day we arrested seven people that were engaged in drug crimes in in the open including distribution of fentanyl um as part of that incident we came into contact with the subject that I just mentioned that stabbed the person in front of the municipal building he ran from our officers on two occasions stole two different bicycles and was located eventually in possession of large amounts of fentanyl um that's when we learned that he'd been given a PR Bond and was out on those charges we he was arrested for these operations um and and still is in jail at this point on more serious charges including the distribution of f next slide please um another very tragic case and

[96:00] to be frank one of the worst gruesome homicides I've seen in my time on August 29th uh it was a roommate on roommate disturbance our officer did an extensive investigation along with our detectives when we arrived we located a victim with multiple wounds we were able to determine that the roommate uh inflicted those wounds he was arrested in charge with multiple counts of murder different levels of murder for the same individual next slide please um so this is an interesting case this actually got International attention because it happened during the first CU home game um while we were having our football operations uh we got called to a home on the hill where two young women were home and realized somebody was trying to get into their home they Pro provided a description our officers actually located the suspect uh trying to place stolen items into his car he ran from our officers and got away um that happened two different times where he was spotted and almost instantly disappeared and what we determined is he was going into unsecure residences that had been left open where

[97:01] the majority of the people on the hill that day were either attending the CU game or watching it somewhere else and so um he was arrested he was charged with 10 different crimes including multiple burglaries he had actually one point broke gone into unsecure residence stolen somebody's clothes changed his clothes shaved changed his appearance but our officer doing surveillance in the area we're actually able to locate him and arrest him um of note on that following this incident uh We've re upped our focus on the hill um especially with new students that may not be familiar with uh ways that they can better protect their property we hang door hangers on unsecure homes reminding people to take precautions and those sorts of things next slide please so this case uh occurred very recently and was also a very uh scary situation down in Central Park Park as many as you're aware um I'll just mention briefly that uh we responded um early 6 a.m. hour of a man in the park driving a vehicle trying to run people

[98:01] over our officers arrived and located the car or the truck um unoccupied we eventually through some uh uh area searches located the suspect we actually located him at the Circle K about an hour later um he was based on our investigation uh he attempted to run over multiple unhoused individuals in fact he had even run over uh sleeping bags that thank God were not didn't have people sleeping in them some very very I don't know how to be honest with you we avoided having any injuries that day but he was charged with multiple counts of criminal attempt murder as well as vehicular homicide attempted and he is in jail on a million dollar Bond at this time slide pleas so as we do every time we provide you an update unfortunately we talk about bad things and and crimes that our officers have had to investigate but we also want to highlight a few things that we've done in the community uh the first one uh this summer Chief Harold myself you see pictured there and multiple officers uh engaged with Boulder Pride

[99:00] it was a great day lots of great feedback from the community as you see great pictures and it was really a nice time there uh the next uh thing we did over the summer was a Youth Academy if you see that picture the majority of the the younger teens that were there were girls and they wanted to come and learn about the police department they went through a couple weeks of different classes and trainings see what it's like it's a really early recruiting tool but uh we had a great time with these these youth that had uh really positive interactions Department as I mentioned in the next picture you'll see Library story time uh that was a great event we're going to continue to do those next uh in August we hosted the international problem oriented policing conference you'll see there uh some of us pictured with police officers from all over the place we had seven different countries that came to Boulder mayor Brockett actually did the opening for us welcoming everybody to Boulder was just a really great conference um as part of that conference we had a contingent of Ukrainian police officers that were here in Boulder we brought

[100:01] them into the police department for a couple of days uh through interpreters were able to sit down and really hear their compelling stories and it was so impactful for so many of our officers we sent them home with a lot of Boulder PD swag and we hear from them on occasion um it just was really insightful to hear their stories um next uh you'll see a picture there we had National Night out I know some of you came council members we really appreciate that despite the rain uh we had a great turnout did some uh boo with our partners at fire department osmp and other City entities um we've mentioned before K9 Astro that some of you were actually at her promotion ceremony or swearing in ceremony I believe I'm happy to share with you that over the last several weeks Astro and her Handler have uh gone through extensive training to be able to protect explosives firearms and spent shell cases ings about two weeks ago Astro graduated and is now a fully certified explosives dog in the state of Colorado um she has actually been out on

[101:00] the street already she's been out at the Stampede and other events sniffing the area where we have a high public amount just ensuring that no uh devices are there to harm people she's a great PR tool I'm also very excited to share that we chose officer Caitlyn Donahue to be Astros Handler Caitlyn happens to be our uh one and only first female SWAT operator she was also du through a competitive process chosen to be Astros Handler so it's a really great combination there then last I'll talk about Spanish first dinner we held here at BPD um we as part of reimagining policing uh to to engage better with our Hispanic Community we had a dinner here where we invited many Hispanic members of the community in the cool thing was uh including my my pretty bad Spanish the entire dinner was done in Spanish and we interpreted it that into English uh we had great feedback in fact you heard from some of the folks that attended that dinner uh at our reimagining policing meeting that we presented to Council next slide

[102:02] please and just wanted to mention this last slide because uh last week was women in policing day National women in policing day and we we recently put together this great graphic that just highlights all of the the great women including the chief Fronton Center that we have here and a list of where they are assigned um as you know we have uh engaged in a 30x30 initiative and we are well above the national average and we uh just took some time to celebrate um our partners here as well believe that's the last slide thanks oh I will highlight this as well um this uh I forgot this been here I apologize this uh recent article last week published in the Washington Post um so a great uh article for highlighting Boulder Police and as you can see the title was one simple fix for our broken policing system hire more women this article highlighted several of our officers they came out from Washington Post and rote along they're getting to continue the story so just a really neat

[103:00] story I would encourage you to take a look next slide please um as a reminder our crime dashboard link is there it's publicly available you can look at crime in your neighborhood you can do all kinds of new things it's interactive that allow you to kind of get a better glimpse of what's going on in your area with that note I'm going to turn it back over ch back over to me I think it's back over to you council member friend thank you Chief Harold and deputy chief Redfern for all those uh Illuminating data points and information um I have a question we'll start with questions and no one else has their hand up yet so feel free to Pile in behind me everyone mine is on um it also came up under the the mun Court um a session but with the jail overcrowding um I guess maybe a multi-a question is that are they using the same um volumes as they did preco so like whatever their capacity was in 2019 is

[104:02] that the same capacity as now are they overcrowded because there are more people in jail or because they're accepting less people at a time does anybody know yeah I'll I'll try and then Steve jump in if I got the numbers wrong um what pre precipitated them going back to the the near uh pandemic jail standards that they had was they reached 490 um 490 persons in the jail most of the backup is because of the state hospital not accepting people for competency trials and then people I believe there's between 60 and 80 people that are in the jail waiting for trials and so you can imagine that's a backlog uh of people in the jail but when it reaches 490 uh it just becomes unsafe for the jail staff um so yes to answer your question directly we are back at the same jail standards that we were at during the

[105:00] pandemic I mean before pandemic I'm I'm just trying to understand was that was was whatever number is their Max now was that always the number or did they Implement some new numbers during pandemic and decided to keep it lower no my understanding is um when they get to in the in the high four like 460 to 490 has always been considered high for them um and yeah so they've never been at these kind of numbers my understanding is that correct Steve that's what has been shared and one point that's consistently shared with us is that because of some of the mental health issues and addiction issues or or withdrawal they're seeing they cannot the jail was designed to house more than one person in a cell and they've shared with us that because of some of the issues they're seeing they cannot do that due to in amongst the inmates so they have a lot of people they put uh in single occupancy and they've even got people sleeping on the floor and so um that's part of why we they amount of people

[106:01] that thanks for clarifying that um I think it it probably is a concern for all of us when as as Tara mentioned you know you've got people who commit a stabbing and are out of jail shortly after that I we've also heard about things like people with um several uh fentanyl pills getting Ro the next day or maybe not ever getting in but um is is there a plan for some of the uh more serious crimes people accused of serious crimes having spots in jail or is that just something that is going to be the way it is going forward that we will not have a way to um have people who are you know stabbing others in jail pending trial and in our County and I also as I said earlier I do think it would be helpful to have the sheriff and prosecutor come to the next meeting so this may be better for them but I won't be here

[107:00] then I'm asking you guys they're great they're great questions and we're all I think we're all so frustrated right now um we just had a meeting with the the sheriff yesterday over these issues um Michael dhy is frustrated his team asked for high bonds obviously for uh people that have shown repeat behavior and especially people that are violent um you see that some of the judges are are are releasing people on P bonds or low cash bonds so it's a frustrating time for everyone um and there's multiple reasons why this is occurring but I do think it would be very helpful to really understand the complexity of what we're all experiencing right now because I know the community is frustrated I'm frustrated um and it is just a an interesting time and the drug explosion uh that we're seeing it it's it's really scary it is really

[108:02] scary um thanks so I will just add for that future conversation you know I keep saying like we're the only ones who can fill potholes on City roads like nobody else is allowed to do that it's the same thing with the jail we that's a county purview and only the county can do it so when you'll have that conversation it should be an interesting one but only they can do it okay next up is Aaron and then Nicole and then Mark yeah so thanks uh for those presentations and all that great information and all the work that you're doing Chief frell and deputy chief Redfern um and well and just following up on what you said Maris like I've talked to our district attorney and our sheriff and heard that frustration from them as well right and I I do understand that we'll get some um assistance when the alternative sentencing facility opens hopefully in 2024 or something like that but that's that's still ways off but anyway for a question um Maris you mentioned that one type of crime that has gone down is the motor vehicle theft and you mentioned attention had been paid in that area I wonder if you

[109:01] just might address briefly like what attention has been paid that's helped with that particular problem yeah and deputy chief can chime in here because he's responsible for all the resources we put put toward motor vehicle theft obviously motor vehicle theft is is a very dangerous crime um and what happens after people steal cars are sometimes scary and itself violence uh usually is is attached to the motor vehicle theft so we did put a lot of Education um we put a lot of State resources as well we had uh State investigators come down do education as well as um help us with some Sting operations uh as well we also had a education campaign at our high location locations within the city where we would actually put notices on vehicles uh to say what kind of cars are being stolen at a you know at a high rate um and then we have um you know cameras that are assisting us with identifying vehicle

[110:00] theft Vehicles when we see them so that we can uh respond and try to intervene and when cars are are stolen so it's a combination of all of those things um and Steve I don't know if you want to add anything but those are the main factors that we believe is driving down motor vehicle yes and maybe Dr Reinhardt has some other facts as well I would generally Echo the things that Chief Harold has said um with with the addition of just the importance um and the stress that were putting on Partnerships with local law enforcement agencies um and that that's been a really big part I think of our response and understanding of the problem when you see Vehicles stolen in other jurisdictions the wind up in Boulder and vice versa it's really important just the open communication um and and Partnerships that we have to Foster that's great to hear to the collaboration that's going on uh because

[111:01] we we can't solve all of our problems alone right the more help we get the better off we do and just my follow or other question on that um you have been really uh impressed by your problem oriented policing approach and how you're tackling problems like this it was uh I really appreciate the chance to say a few words at the conference that was in spiring group of of law enforcement professionals from across the world all working on these problems together so what what US is so we've continue to see increases in some other forms of crimes you outlined like some kinds of types of violent crimes and property crimes and what are you thinking are the next steps for applying these principles to start bending the curve down on those types of crime that are still on the rise to get that movement in the other direction that's a great question mayor and we really we do appreciate you come in and and speak and you were very popular with the Ukrainian officers uh because of your uh Speech and in their language um you know this is what I'd

[112:00] say um we would we are looking uh at locations uh that we know have a tremendous amount of high calls for service and reported crime it really comes down to the way I think about this is where the police focus and have the sources to problem solve we see reductions in crime and so whenever I hear people say that police don't count or they don't matter really don't understand uh crime principles because I can tell you that when we co concentrate and we go through a problem solving process we have reductions in crime right now I would say that we don't have the resources to um effectively address some of these other crimes that we're seeing and I don't have the other tools working with me right now so imagine uh a criminal justice system right now that is just not working um holistically and so when you look at some of the crimes um and I think the Judge alluded to this in his

[113:00] presentation when you look at some of the crimes that are driving uh what we're seeing and theft and simple assaults and menacing these are crimes that are people are receiving PR bonds and there's no uh strategic deterrence on some of these crimes and so I would argue with the other mechanisms in the criminal justice system um working we are really in a game of high visibility we are really trying to control crime with high visibility and crime prevention and asking the community to um protect themselves um and uh work with us on crime prevention uh techniques which I think we're doing a really good job but if you look at these crimes that we're seeing that is pushing these General categories you are seeing a system that is broken and you are seeing a system that has um High drug addiction High mental health issues and there is no help for us right now so we

[114:03] really need to focus in on we really need some transitional housing we really need drug and alcohol addiction services and we need um deterrence on some of these lower level crimes and that's what's really pushing uh these crime rates right now and you know to have a municipal court system that really is not working to its full potential I mean when you think that a jail just says the municipal warrant system um we're not accepting that that is so uh that is so troubling and we need all of these systems to work in Tandem and to say that you have a jail that won't accept people and I've said this time and time again you have to break the opportunity structure of repeat offenders or they will continue to offend and so right now the police department really is in a high visibility uh preventative stance with

[115:01] not a lot of help from the other mechanisms that are supposed to help does does that make sense mayor it does yeah thanks for addressing that um Chief I appreciate it thanks Erin Nicole then Mark and terara thank you um one of the things it looked like judge Khan just kind of popped back up there and um I was just wondering judge do you have any any comments about um the just sort of Municipal Court in relation to what um the chief just said I I I agree with the chief you know I met with the deputy chief and the chief and we've had this conversation and it is really challenging we've got a difficult system and we need to have the ability to enforce our laws and have consequences for behavior when people don't come to court and that repeat Behavior so it's super challenging I don't want to you can't blame the sheriff I don't think the chief is I I

[116:01] think we're just in a position where we just don't have what we need and so I agree with her 100% on that issue thank you very very much hearing the need for um more especially mental health and behavioral health treatment kinds of um services tonight U but thank you for the presentation um I um just kind of wanted to shift maybe shift directions a little bit uh one of the things that I'm hearing a lot from um community members are concerned concerns about increases um perceived increases in uh hate crimes and wage theft and domestic violence and I was just wondering if we have any data on those crimes and how they're changing over time uh I don't know if we have I know we have data we could uh send this to you council member Spirit um Dr Reinhardt are you prepared to talk about domestic violence I know our identity theft is is also seeing significant

[117:00] increases um but Dr Reinhardt do you have any hard data right now or do we have to send that directly to council um I think it would be best to wait and to send you more concrete information what I what I would say right now is that we work really closely with the safe house Progressive Alliance for nonviolence we were close to wispan um and we're in the process of of looking further into how domestic violence situations not just the the count of them but the severity of them how they change over time and so looking at The lethality assessment protocols and and and getting a better sense of that but as far as hate crimes I will get you a fiveyear trend on hate crimes it's something that we track and and we obviously put a lot of resources investigative resources into hate crimes as well as deputy chief Redfern has a identified uh detectives to work with the da on uh specialized training and leaon on hate crime information we' glad to give you all that information council member Spears thank you yeah I would

[118:02] appreciate that oh I'm so sorry fine I'm sorry I just add one more thing is that we're as of three months ago I sit on hate tree Colorado's board so we meet once a month to discuss hate crime Trends throughout the state of Colorado um part of that is my role as lgbtq eaon um we're training through the daon office we are training as the chief set detectives that will specialize in those complex hate crime investigations and help us actually better track those so specific to hate crimes we could definitely provide you more but we're doing our best to better respond when those happen thank you yeah I've been hearing about some concerning um graffiti that community members are finding and things like that so I would love love to have some information to give back to people that I hear um talking about it um my excuse me my other question um is that it's my understanding that um when we're looking at folks who are um unhoused um typically the people who are also unhoused are the ones who are most often

[119:00] the victims of crimes committed by people who are experiencing homelessness and I in some of the severe incidents we saw um the stabbing the truck driving through Central Park um they both seem like they're kind of in that direction and I was just wondering if you could speak to that is it the case that most people who are victims of Crimes by people who are unhoused are themselves unhoused I and I know Dr Reinhard is doing a big analysis uh I think that we want to present next time to to you on the victim offender overlap with the UNH house but I would say that a significant amount of the crime against the inous is also committed by the inous um and what I really want to understand more and I think through our research grant that we're working on is I want to understand you know women are often the UN House women are often uh victimized um in these crimes so I want to understand

[120:01] this much more in detail I want to understand the connectivity between the unhoused uh in our community but most certainly when we do see crimes with the unhoused there is a strong victim offender overlap great thank you yeah that'll I will be very interested in those data as well about gender um I I hear that a lot as well just a really horrific uh crimes being committed against some of the women who are living on our streets um and I think that that to me is the sort of information that can be really helpful from a council policy perspective for us to think about given we have limited resources to um to to work on getting people housed and sheltered Are there specific populations or groups that we can really try to Target with the resource that we have as we're thinking about how to move forward with um asking for additional Resources with setting up additional resources so thank you that'll be very informative if I could just say one

[121:00] thing that's also um alarming right now and deputy chief Redfern and I are starting to see some signs of human trafficking um and this is often seen uh when you see uh drug trafficking in cities um and unfortunately uh Steve and I are starting to see some early warning signs that we are starting to have uh women that are trafficked by uh men and this is very troubling to me and it is usually seen because we have a huge influx of drugs and drug trafficking um and it's something that uh cannot be tolerated at all and so when I speak of alignment we really need to be aligned this Criminal Justice System needs to be aligned on these issues um because I have seen human trafficking and the devastation of this in other cities and I do not want to see it here in Boulder if that's helpful as well Council memb yeah no it really is and it it just makes me wondering I don't know

[122:01] this I'm happy to put in a formal CAC request but it seems like this may be something to have a a conversation returned to sooner rather than later um so maybe not you know waiting four months or so but um if some of this data does become available um sooner maybe we could try just to fit it in uh and see if there is some additional um policy measures or something we could try to put in place to um assist with this I agree with you I don't think any any of us want to um see any increases in that so thank you for mentioning it council member wck you're up uh I will be brief um first thank you police chief Harold and deputy chief Rend for a sobering uh but in insightful presentation I just have a couple of quick questions um one of our community members uh Jennifer liovic wrote To Us warning of the dangers of a new drug combo called Crank which involves

[123:02] fentanyl with other drugs um are your statistics on fentanyl um use and increases um inclusive of those cases or is that a separate category as you compute that I'll let Dr Reinhard take that one Dr Reinhard um so so so basically to answer your question um when there are overdose circumstances that involve poly drug use or they involve um something like that like some kind of concoction that is fentanyl and other drugs or something like that um we we generally do our best to document that um and so we we have seen situations where someone will overdose with a a combination of other like prescription medication and Fentanyl or or other kinds of things have you seen that which has been collo referred to as

[124:00] crank I can please uh council member wall there's um a couple things here and I please understand I'm not trying to correct you but what we are seeing is a problem with a newer drug called Tran I'm sorry you're quite quite correct Tran from my narcotics work back in the day crank was a slang term for methampetamine but what we're seeing is I'm sorry deputy chief it you're faint if you can get a little closer or speak yeah um okay can you how about now all right um little soft in like a little bit lower volume um okay I'm not sure how to fix that I'll just try to talk louder um Tran is is xylazine if if you if you want to look it up but it's basically basically a compound that goes a compound substance that's mixed in with Heroin fentanyl or cocaine and that's why it's so dangerous it's it's a mixture and it is uh responsible for making people um kind of like the

[125:02] effects we used to see with PCP back in the day and so it's really troubling we have seen it in Boulder thankfully not a lot but it has showed up here okay [Music] um Are there specific policy changes you'd want to see at the jail that would free up more beds I mean is is there any solution down the road for [Music] this well I think I think the first thing that we really have to consider is and I've had these conversations with district attorney dhy I think that they need to get the people awaiting trial on a fast track and whether that's looking at bringing in visiting judges using judges that could listen to these cases um I'd like to see some of these people awaiting trial to be expedited um you know I I think that we need to take a hard look at some of the

[126:00] reforms that came after uh George Floyd I think that you know I'd love to work with uh council member Joseph on some um ways to at least have people uh give an opportunity for our municipal court system to actually hold people and so they can uh figure out what would be in the best interest of that person um and I think right now what I'd love to see is mandated treatment beds that uh judge Khan was talking about that you know judges would have an option of jail or treatment and I think that we're going to be forced eventually to take a look at that um it it we have a severe problem with people and we don't know what comes first behavioral health issues or drug addiction or both at the same time but we have really little resources to deal with that um and I think that we need to we need to work with the state uh so we have you know 60

[127:02] people that are waiting competency hearings that they need treatment at the State Mental Health hospitals they need to be transferred there um I think all of these issues need to be looked at and we need to resol resolve them but it's not going to just be Boulder it's going to have to be the county and the state looking at these issues at the same time we all have to be in alignment um because we have some serious uh structural issues right now in our systems are there any other things that you would that you need as a department um other than this sort of more Global structural uh resolution that would help you do your job well I think as uh we presented at the reimagine plan I think that it it's some point we need to take a hard look at how many police officers we have for the work that they have to do um that workload analysis uh was a historical look back um so it it was asking what do

[128:02] we need in 2020 um because of the complexity of work that changed uh they recommended between eight and 15 more police officers need to be assigned um I think that with uh what we are experiencing now at some point uh the city man man um and the police chief will have to make a recommendation for additional uh police officers um and that's just that's factual I mean at some point we're going to have to look at the additional workload um if you just look at what our Police Department is doing for uh Cu uh with the football that's a tremendous amount of work to keep uh people safe in our city so we're going to have to take a hard look at that mayor PM I appreciate you asking question thank you that's what I have today so Wier sorry didn't mean to cut you off there Mark I I guess all right ter first one

[129:00] is quick um uh what is the difference between simple assault and aggravated assault again yeah simple assault means that there were uh minor injuries um without a weapon and aggravated assault usually mean serious injuries um and there was a weapon used as well so whether it was a knife or a gun or a car and both are up right both are up so my next and last question will be my actually only really big question is I just want to ask you about bike theft right now is that um up or down or the same or Dr Reinhardt I know I ask you to look at that can you shed some light on that for me yeah yeah absolutely so bicycle theft is down right now this year um I think it's also worth pointing out that um we the Boulder Police Department engages with communication um and engagement to engage the community

[130:00] basically on a monthly basis about bicycle theft specifically um and so as recently as August um we did some interviews like with Daily Camera to to let folks know about some of the hotspot locations um encouraging the community to continue to use ucks when they can and then um let letting folks know that if you have a bicycle it could be really helpful to to document the serial number so that if your bike is lost or stolen it's it's easier to recover so there is things that we're doing also in addition to bike the being down so is this there anything this uh similar to Mark's question is there anything the city can do for instance um in the way we have people locking up their bikes downtown or um anything else you can think think of that would be something the city could accomplish for that to that end I guess I'll take that one Daniel

[131:00] unless you are gonna speak to it the the the one thing I was I was going to add is uh you know I'm not sure the availability right now of like lockers or other kinds of storage for bicycles when people are in businesses downtown um but like that's an example of something that um we're in the process of looking into is that it Tara all right mayor Brocket well just following up Dr Reinhard can you quantify the reduction in in bike theft say year year over year do do you have that available I don't um I don't have that available as a percentage um tonight for you um but I'm I'm comfortable providing that information this upcoming week along with uh some of the other information about domestic violence and otherwise that' be very welcome thanks so much that was it all right going once twice for other questions and I don't think we have any questions to answer for you is that

[132:01] right Chief Harold this wasn't one where we have things we need to answer Nur is saying no okay thank you so much all of you for your presentations Dr yeah Dr reinoud art Chief Deputy Chief really appreciate it um and with that I'm going to turn it back over to nura for our to introduce our next topic thank you so much I take that not that they're wanting to get off screen but rather than to give up the stage to this topic right so uh without further Preamble I'll ask uh Kurt to introduce himself and kick us off thank you um council member uh good evening Council um excited we got to the the start time here um so I'm Kurt fhab director housing Human Services and um this is our um annual update to to Council on uh homeless uh programs um and services and we're going

[133:01] be covering a number of topics tonight but before I start um uh I wanted just wanted to tell a very short story um so often we focus on exits out of homelessness in this homeless update we talked a lot about housing housing our exits into housing tonight our focus is really going to be more on a number of services that have been started um over the last year and some that are in process of of uh commencing um over the next few months as well um housing first is a strategy that we um we adopted as a community about five years ago and it's often confused use that um it's only housing um housing first really needs the um supportive and wraparound services to be successful and as we talk about getting

[134:01] individuals housed I'll just mention that it takes a multitude of organizations to make that happen um coordination between um uh case work case workers and mental health providers and the hot team um it's almost always a team process and getting people out of Housing and um two individuals that I'll mention um that were uh were highlighted in our our memos that um a couple that was living along Goose Creek um under Foothills and they were um uh using heroin and opioids and um through a lot of effort uh we were able to get them housed um through the partners that we work with uh they were able to get on methodone treatment um and um and are now employed and um also re been able to uh get back

[135:04] POS you know the sort of the the possession of their of their two children which they now care for um it's a tremendous story about how services and housing can really work in in collaboration um so um I'd like to introduce um Megan newon um who will be doing the presentation tonight I've got a couple other staff members here uh Vicky Ebner and Karen Armstrong uh Karen is here if we have questions later on in the in the evening um related to the supports we uh give to uh to keep people in housing and to keep them uh from homelessness and with that I will hand it over to to Megan okay thank you good evening Council my name is Megan Newton I the policy adviser on homelessness for housing and Human Services and so next

[136:01] slide please there's these are the two questions we posed in the memo and are po posing as part of this presentation and we'll come back to them at the end but it's basically looking for support in the new programming that I'll discuss in just a moment as well as Direction around alternative Sheltering safe outdoor spaces palet Sheltering um it's got many names at this point but we'll get to that at the end of the presentation as well and so follow up on that question as well next slide please I wanted to start by kind of setting the stage like as we've talked about before homelessness is a nationwide problem um a Statewide problem a metrowide problem um and so in all of those Concepts on the national state the state stage the Denver metro stage and the boulder stage um homelessness is on the rise particularly unsheltered homelessness Is On The Rise um Denver in its Point time count saw a

[137:00] 30% Denver Metro so which includes Boulder saw 30% increase in folks experiencing homelessness in January's point in time count and as you can see on this slide um Colorado ranks 14 um as a state for the number of people experiencing homelessness per thousand um um and I think I just want to start with the context of there's much work to be done and it needs to be done um across the community across uh the state and and and Across the Nation it's difficult to do as as one Community next slide please so the summer point in time count when I was here last year it was recommended that we do a count in the summer um traditionally the count is conducted in January and that's required Ed by Hud and so the entire metro area participates in account um but there was it's thought that there would be some information gained if we also did a count in the summer anecdotally we know that we typically see mo more folks um

[138:02] in the summer and so there was the desire to figure out if that is actually true um to see Trends um year over year um oftentimes in the summer we find ourselves saying man it feels like there are a lot more people but it's hard to determine there're just a lot more people from a couple months ago or if it was truly a lot more people so we did our first count this past July sixth or July 26 um we did used a the same tool that we used in January so we could do some cross comparison over time um we focused on unsheltered homelessness um we do have a number of the folks experiencing homelessness inside the shelters but we only surveyed the folks experiencing unsheltered homelessness um it was a countywide collaborative so Longmont as well as the other municipalities in the county participated um we're looking to do this year year after year and so we can look at different Trends um and what is also nice about this count is the count

[139:00] that's done in January is typically facilitated um at the Metro level so we don't have a lot of control over the data um but this um count was done locally and so we're able to control a lot of the data and be able to process it and really and do some data um digging so some of the things I'll point out on this slide is you'll see the the chart on the left shows a comparison between the winter the January count and the July count um and what was kind of super interesting and I I will caveat in that it was just single adults in the city of Boulder um both the unsheltered number as well as folks staying at Boulder shelter the lodge um and together but the number was near identical it just that we had more folks in the shelter in the winter and unsheltered in the summer which um is is somewhat predictable but it was very interesting that the number really remain stable um you'll also notice on the top right hand of your screen that

[140:01] again most of the folks we all of the folks we surveyed were experiencing unsheltered homelessness um and so you'll see that most of them are chronically homeless which means that they have some sort of disabling condition and they've been homeless for a year or more um and then the final chart there on the bottom kind of just tells where when we ask the question where people first experienc homelessness you'll see the orange um is Colorado the yellow is Boulder and then the blue is outside Boulder so kind of that even split across the board um next slide please I'd like to take some time tonight to kind of talk about some of the programs that either recently started um that we're currently trying to implement or we're going to implement in the near future there's a lot going on on and so as Kurt mentioned we'd like to highlight all a lot of the services um that are getting brought online to try to meet gaps and needs that we've identified in the community next slide

[141:01] please the first one or the first and second one that I'd like to discuss kind of go hand inand um we have a local Voucher Program which means we locally support folks um by subsidizing their rent and providing Supportive Services and what's called permanent Supportive Housing um most of this is done nationally by Hud and then even the state has some resources um but we are kind of unique in that we provide local vouchers to kind of fill a a gap and so oftentimes the vouchers that are provided by the federal government or the state come with with certain restrictions and so the intention behind the local vouchers is to be able to really problem solve and fill the gaps where those vouchers um may have some and so I wanted to highlight some of the out comes of that program um it's been in existence since 2018 and we've kind of been ramping it up ever since to now that we have a total of 48 vouchers um being used in the community and you can see some of the exits um but what is

[142:02] truly impressive is the 5% return to homelessness um or unknown that that is and to tie it in that'll oftentimes the folks that we use those vouchers for have significant histories in the community um and so that a very impressive outcome but I I paired it with our the number two here which is the shelter unit Acquisitions which are um units that the boulder shelter for the homeless is acquiring to help meet the needs of folks who are struggling to find a landlord who will rent to them in the community so kind of a a landlord of blast Resorts um and oftentimes these two programs are are are paired together to really try to meet the needs and to to cut down red tape for folks f um that we can provide both the voucher as well as the unit for folks um and and we've been able to end homelessness for some of the folks that have been experiencing it for quite some time in the community with these two programs um next slide

[143:03] please this one is building home which I've talked about before we talked about the startings of it last year um it is now fully implemented it's arpa funed um City arpa dollars that we're using to um to implement this program and it's a two-part program um both parts are Geared for folks who are either about to be housed or were recently housed and have been um that folks might think need a little bit extra support on top of the case management they're already getting in the housing so the goal of this program was that 5% um that weren't able to remain housed in the programs that I just spoke about that we would create programming that might help them maintain their housing and so we partnered with two um agencies in the area to provide the services the what first one is peer support and that's operated by Focus re-entry and these are folks who have lived experience these are folks that um have gone through the system um and

[144:01] we're pairing them with folks who are new newly housed in an effort for them to help them walk through the system to help create Community to help um give them a trusted ear to ask the questions that they may not be comfortable asking a case manager about um they they're doing group work and it's really exciting um I was telling Kurt that um Molly was telling me the focus re-entry executive director that they were really interested in the Voodoo Donuts and so they had a group and they brought them all Voodoo Donuts and so it's it's little things in the community that everyone in the community is excited about that um they're able to connect them with and then the second piece of the program is the housing retention team um that is operated by Boulder shelter for the homeless and it's more Clinical Services so it's clinicians and a and a nurse who are able to bring services to the individual um in their home and so we often hear that folks struggle to connect to outpatient services they struggle to maintain

[145:00] appointments and so um this part of the project is really meant to bring these Services directly to them to help them stabilize in their home um with the treatment or whatever they may need it's very indivi individualized person by person next slide please the rest fit Center so we've been hearing for the last couple years of a gap in their services of folks who um May no longer need Hospital services but also need someplace to recuperate they're not able to um they need 24-hour supervision or even we've heard folks who are scheduled for surgery but they're not able um to to get the surgery because they don't have a stable place to sleep the night before or the day before to get um the appropriate rest and so um the rest fit Center was a application that we put into the state in a transformational homelessness Grant and we are awarded $2 million um so we're working on implementing that hopefully

[146:00] by early next year but the goal is to provide 24-hour Sheltering as well as some Medical Care um for folks um typically leaving the hospital but also like I said before maybe it's before they go into surgery and then after when they come out um so we're really EXC excited about that program we've we've heard from both Clinica and and bch um that this is a need in the community and so we're really excited to try to meet that need next slide please project recovery and tribe um that got mentioned earlier by judge Conan um but this is a program that they've been providing outpatient services at the county site um by since late last year um but they are on the cusp of opening opening their first uh recovery home with a second Recovery Home in the county soon to follow um I've heard that hopeful they be able to open the second home by the end of the year um but this is one of those things where they've been providing outpatient

[147:00] services but as we know folks who maybe experiencing homelessness are unable to access those Services effectively because they aren't stabilized and so by pairing it with a sober living home um folks are were able to meet the needs of both getting them stable and connecting them with treatment um the program is typically between six and nine months um and they're provided wraparound Services treatment services and then even when they exit their um provided follow-up services and so while they're in the program they're working with them to to probably from the time they moveed in um to create a plan on what they're going to do when they've completed the program next slide please this is the partnership between Boulder shelter for the homeless and and Boulder Community Health um that I've highlighted before but it's it's getting great outcomes so I thought it important to highlight again um this program began in 2021 as a partnership between those

[148:00] two agencies in a effort to address folks who were high utilizers of the emergency department so individuals who are experiencing homelessness who weren't connected to outpatient care and weren't stable um and so we're effectively using the um emergency department on a very regular basis um they started identifying those folks and referring them to Boulder shelter for the homeless who has a dedicated case manager um to help these individuals through the process um through getting them housed um and so he they were able to engage with 39 clients um over the last year and as you can see on the slide have an 84% reduction in emergency department visits once the individual is housed and able to get connected to more appropriate um outpatient services and so this is one of those programs that two partners in the community were able to identify a gap and come together um to try to fill that cap and and has been

[149:01] able to do it quite successfully next slide please the high utilizer program um this one judge Khan referenced a little bit earlier um but this has been going on for about the last year um and it and it's similar to what we talked about what I just talked about with the hyzer the emergency department but this one is more focused currently on the justice system um maybe in the future we'll be able to expand it into high utilizers of Detox Services or high utilizers of the emergency department and though MHP and bch um are already Partners in the work um but because of data sharing issues we started with the Justice uh the Justice folks and so the leadership team is made up of leaders from the county the city the justice system and the health system um and they are working to remove barriers um systemic barriers that that we encounter or those individuals encounter um regularly

[150:03] there's also an operations team um which is made up of Frontline staff from agencies with and in similar both the city the county um un court is there as well as some of the county um Behavioral Health folks um Boulder shelter focus free-entry and so it's a really collaborative effort where we go Name by name on the people on the for the folks who are on this list and create care plans for each one of them but at the same time we've been identifying systemic barriers to raise up to the leadership group um to help see if they can help us um break down some of those barriers we created a proposal um working to address some of the common barriers that we saw across many people on the list um the group is still in the planning phase and we haven't identified any funding for the project yet but we did um create a proposal and you guys

[151:00] were uh Council was given an information packet earlier this month to kind of update on that on this work next slide please the day Services Center and so we've had some some setbacks as well as some exciting news um in just the last you know few weeks um the site that we had identified as on fulsome the owner and developer has decided to go in a different direction with that property and so we are now on the hunt for another property um and so that has been a bit of a set setback um but some good news in the project is that we did apply to the state um for some f for some funding to expand the services that we'd be able to um provide at the center and so initially we were looking at providing basic need Services as well as service navigation services so a place where Community Partners could come in and meet with folks and and provide those those navigation services but with the additional money

[152:00] from the state um we are now now be able to provide some Treatment Services as well as some housing both supportive the Supportive Services as well as the subsidies so the voucher that goes along with the housing so we just found that out last week and so we're really excited to be able to to provide a very comprehensive program um when we can get it up and running next slide please so those were all the kind of new Innovative system filling um programs that we have been working on but I also wanted to highlight some of the existing program in the collaboration that's happening within within the system um that's also important to highight next slide please so this slide is very busy but intentionally so um it lists providers agencies programs in the community that coordinate services on

[153:02] quite literally a daily basis um the Outreach Staffing group meets weekly to coordinate care for those folks who are living unsheltered um to make sure there there's not overlap in people providing services to um coordinate who's going to take who to who what appointment so they meet formally weekly but I'm sure talking daily um we have case conferencing every other week where we review a buy name list to match people with housing um I also would highlight on this Slide the number of system cross systems collaboration that is happening you see Clinica you see uh hot you see the 20th judicial you see you know it goes across the system um I was reading some stats from hot just the other day and they noted that they coordinated with 33 unique entities to coordinate care for folks that they're working with and so I think this is a unique um piece

[154:00] of Boulder that um we have such a high level of cooperation and coordination to serve the folks um who are experiencing homelessness in the community next slide please this is um where we'd like to highlight our C continuing censuring racial Equity um so I'll walk through this table a little bit because there are some caveats um we're continuously looking at the data um we find it very important and so both National Data state level data local data all show an over representation of minorities who are experiencing homelessness um but we wanted to pull some local data to be able to share with you guys so you'll see on the left side of the table the Boulder County General population and you'll see the over over representation that we see of folks who are entering the system through coordinated entry um I will caveat the exits in that they are strictly bould or shelter for the

[155:00] homeless housing exits um there are folks who exit um the system through Mental Health Partners or together that aren't captured here because of privacy issues um we aren't able to get that identifying data but it just kind of it's just something that we run regularly um and keep our eyes on um and at a at a Metro level we're also working at um adjusting the sessment tool that we use to to match people and prioritize folks with housing um this the tool that was being used that pretty much Nationwide um has given some um some unequal outcomes and so we're working on that tool as a as a Metro level um to try to get some more more equal outcomes in some of the matching to housing and the exits for homelessness next slide please this I wanted to highlight all the braiding like I did on the slide before where it was all the coordination of the providers but I wanted to also

[156:00] highlight the coordination of the funding and so all of these needs or services that are listed on the left of the table and then we put a check mark from all the if they receive if the state or federal government um provides funding if the city of Boulder provide some funding or Boulder County provides funding and you can see that almost all all three of those provide funding across the board and so oftentimes that makes for a complicated system each one of those funding streams comes with priorities and so the community does an excellent job in trying to braid and blend that funding to best meet the needs of the folks um and to provide the services that that we've identified as being gaps in the community as well next slide please this is our um housing and Human Services planned expenditures um for 2024 and as you can see kind of what I just talked through on the last Slide

[157:01] the city is investing pretty much across the board with the day Services Center Outreach coordinated entry housing supports and then the retention is um the building home program that I talked about earlier um with a total invest of 11 million 11.6 million and then we also included some of the key Investments that we have this year um with tribe and the in the unit acquisition as well as the hotels that we're supporting in the family work um but it's a significant investment and so this slide does a real um good job kind of spelling out where where we're spending our money and how we're trying to spread it across the system um to focus on on multiple interventions um for folks next slide please this is another program that we often highlight um the city funds and Outreach team through Boulder shelter Boulder shelter for the homeless um It's relatively new it's just started since

[158:00] coid um and I think this was well this was our intention to bring services to folks so we know that some folks um are unable or unwilling to access the shelter and so this is the Outreach team goes out into the community goes out into the encampments to build relationships and then connect them with Services um as you can see in the last year they've had close to 2,000 interactions with 600 Unique Individuals um 20 mental health referrals they assist people with transportation and they also they also um participate in that weekly meeting with other Outreach providers to coordinate the services so some folks might have case managers through the municipal report or through um hot hot might be helping them and so that group all gets together to try to to determine who's going to do what and really it's a a very Village uh collaborative and it's it's very impressive to

[159:00] witness next slide please these are some other things that going on in the Sheltering system that are pretty exciting um Kurt and I just this morning went in toured Haven Ridge which is Mother house in the lodge has has moved to a larger shared location and they're rebranding so U mother mother house at Haven Ridge and The Lodge at Haven Ridge but with the intention to go to Haven Ridge um have moved to have been able to collocate for some efficiencies um they're getting settled in um and so they were telling us this morning that they they're attention for the rest of the year is kind of get settled in and then hopefully in the New Year be able to expand services both the number of folks they're able to serve as well as the services they're able to provide folks um and so that is really exciting news for the Sheltering system um and also to pair along with that um together had received a grant to both renovate and

[160:01] expand the source which which is the Youth Shelter and so they'll be doing that in the near future with the same intention of expanding both both the number of um youth they're able to serve as well as um the services they're able to to provide in that space and so um oftentimes we we around homelessness talk about all the challenges and so I always like it in these presentations where I get to highlight some of the the great things that our partners in the community are doing um that we're really excited about next slide please this also um super exciting Mental Health Partners um has received funding to acquire and renovate a new building um that they're calling their acute care campus um it's a very large space and they're they're going to be able to provide they're consolidating a lot of the care that they're already um

[161:00] providing in the community and then they're adding a new psychiatric urgent case Clinic um which includes as you can see on here uh case management therapy nursing medical providers um and so all the talk from in the last two presentations about the need for treatment in the community um we're hopeful and excited that this will be a great addition to that work Megan before you go off that slide can I just uh insert um so um I think if you remember one or two things from this present presentation tonight I hope you'll remember some of the um expanded programs of our partners you just heard about um uh together and um Haven Ridge this and many of the some of the council members and some community members over the last couple months have uh taken trips up to Fort Collins um to see a facility that has

[162:01] recently been uh completed um with Comprehensive Behavioral Health Services inpatient Services um and um uh they've all come back very impressed with this um the uh and everyone's saying why don't we do that in Boulder County well Mental Health Partners went out and got a grant uh recently uh and so they they're actually implementing uh exactly what you saw in Fort Collins um the facility in Fort Collins is 55,000 square feet this facility is 45,000 Square ft so very uh significant CL in size and and the integration services so um uh I know one of the questions will be um as it was in the previous presentation what can we do to help um I think we as a county um

[163:03] city and state are really going to have to continue to put in resources to make sure that that facility is well staffed and uh and well supported but I I think it's a game changer for our uh Community I know they're going to be opening I believe in the next uh four or five months and um we'll look over this next year to see um how this could uh positively impact our community so thanks for letting me interrupt uh Megan I just I couldn't help myself but I'll let you go from here thank you next slide please wanted to take some time um to discuss the winter weather plan um and so I'll kind of walk walk through this this table a little bit because I can I it can get a little confusing um but as you can see at the top boulder shelter has a capacity dayto day for 160 individuals to stay um for the past couple years we've been utilizing arpa

[164:01] funds um and hotels to expand Sheltering services in the winter um at coid made that a great opportunity um because hotels were looking for partners um as we further away um from coid um we have been struggling to find uh hotels willing to work with the program um and so we are currently working now with Boulder shelter for the homeless to identify a hotel and hopefully be able to expand the rooms um or the number of beds um this winter as well by 20 um but even if that in in addition to that um they have agreed to go up to 180 on critical weather nights so you can kind of see the top part of it is the boulder shelter piece with both the shelter and the hotels on a normal winter night that doesn't meet critical weather standards we would either be at 160 or 180 with the hotels

[165:00] um or on a critical weather night we could be at 180 um or 200 and then we add the other shelters in um to the equation where the source operates every night with up to 14 beds um and the Lodge operates on normal nights with 20 beds and then typically we'll add five in um severe weather overflow um and so you can kind of see the total number there at the bottom on the range of on contingent upon whether we get the hotels um or whether and whether it's a critical weather night um but we are looking for ways to supplement the program going on because the both the arpa funding won't be available longterm um as well as the hotel rooms have been a has have been an ongoing struggle um the first year during coid worked out really well last year ended up working out well and this this year it's got a little bit harder but we continue to work with the shelter to implement that

[166:00] program um next slide please housing um we also uh always talk about our housing exits we're very proud of the housing exits and so this is the total number of exit since we started keeping data late in 2017 um with an average of 25 exits into into housing per month um we have Bluebird up there on the screen because we are currently trying to connect people um with a new permanent support of housing program that is um intended to come online at the end of the at the end of the year which which will put a significant bump in the number of folks that were able to house um Bluebird is opening in Boulder at the end of this year and then they have another project up in Longmont um called Zenia that will be that's scheduled open in the middle of next year um and so when I'm sharing this number with you guys next year um I'm excited that it will be significantly higher and I'm hopeful

[167:00] that it makes a a significant impact um on the system as a whole next slide please this one prevention um I wanted to highlight prevention because as we talk about almost every year at the same time that we were able to exit 339 folks out of the system we screened 1,113 new people through coordinated entry into the system um so we continue to implement Services we we continue to add um housing as well as Supportive Services to help people exit homelessness um but we also need to significantly concentrate on how to to prevent folks from entering homelessness um one of the programs that the city has to do this work is called Eis um and so you can see here that they have served 928 Unique Individuals um since February

[168:00] 2022 but the thing I I would like to highlight on this slide is the um chart on the left the leth hand side that shows that a lot of the that most of the folks that they are serving um have been stable that they've been housed for between two or five or more years um and so these are folks that are who are reaching out for Prevention Services and those the need of for those Services um is growing and so I think it it's important that we highlight in this presentation on all the good work we do to exit people out um it feels a little but sometimes like we're spinning our Wheels when we can't prevent people from entering the system next slide please and so this the council asked that we explore safe outdoor spaces in our exploration um there's kind of there's been a lot attached to that and so I've termed it alternative Sheltering so that will include safe outdoor spaces which in

[169:01] Denver have um historically been the ice fishing tents um but now they're adding pallet shelters or also micro communities or tiny homes um and so we've done some um exploration on those programs and some of the things that successful programs have all had in common are the things listed here on the screen um there are some programs that are self-run and have a little bit less structure but typically those programs are operated in communities who have a very high level of unsheltered homelessness um and those and those communities are pretty restrictive about who's able to access them and so folks that created those communities that didn't have the stricter access um have typically closed by now and so the ones that have been primarily successful have had a little bit more structure so they include Staffing they include wraparound Services they include um fencing and so

[170:01] folks uh there's a controlled access they include restroom showers laundry um storage spaces for folks belonging and so there's a lot of the programming that in order for the for the spaces to be successful um we found that are important we did we did some we spoke to some folks um in Santa Cruz we've met with the folks in Denver um and so we've done a lot of exploring different projects and different places to see what would work um or what could work in Boulder um and so these are the some of the common things that we um came across next slide please we tried to break break down costs um I will say that there's a lot of assumptions um because it would vary significantly based on the site that we are able to use um and what kind of um development that site would require um

[171:00] some of the annual ongoing cost we did it based on 30 tents but if you were able to fit 50 tents or pallet shelters or tiny homes it kind of again depends on the property um you might be able to get some more efficiencies um for the cost um and so the the ongoing operation costs are are similar across whatever type of Sheltering um you would decide with it would be more the setup the year One cost that vary depending on if you went with tents or pallet shelters um or the tiny homes um some communities on the west coast um who have more temperate um temperatures use regular tents or let people set up their own tents in certain locations um because of the weather in Colorado we felt like the best use would be if we were going to provide um a space that we also provide a shelter that would that would help folks um Shelter From the weather um and so this I'll give it just a minute to kind of go through it

[172:01] because I know this is a lot of information on one slide um but this is these are costs that were given to us primarily from Denver because we felt like those were the most comparable costs um the port costs were significantly higher um some of their sites had significantly more supportive services um we have seen some sites who've done it a little bit cheaper but again typically those sites don't include the Supportive Services um and may have um not 24-hour staff or have Outreach um programs that are already existing provide some of the navigation Services um so these are all estimates again um it really would depend on what Sheltering we use the site that we that that we may be able to identify um but we felt that it was important to include all these things to have a a successful location next slide

[173:01] please back to the beginning on the questions that we asked or I asked at the beginning um and so I went through all of those programs and so I think our question to you guys would be whether um do you have any input on any of those programs or anything you would like um to see differently or and as well as the alternative Sheltering safe outdoor spaces pallet Sheltering um all very similar um just different Sheltering types um if you would like us to continue to explore that or move forward with that project thank you so Megan can I just make uh one clarification as as we complete um so there's been a lot of conversation today about Santa Cruz um so we actually didn't get pass or interact from with Santa Cruz in Portland and Denver um and Megan didn't mentioned Santa Cruz but it's actually Portland is the other city that we that we worked

[174:01] with um as as well as up in Wisconsin so um thank you for that and uh and council member friend we're we're ready for any discussion or questions you may have thanks Curt Megan um a a helpful and informative presentation okay so let's start with questions Bob Yates yeah just one question um Megan on one of the slides um well a couple of slides one one you indicated that the point in time survey um was pretty flat between um July and um January about 350 people um between sheltered and unsheltered which is great to have that information and on another a subsequent slide you you also talked about exits from homelessness on on you broke it down to a monthly basis which was also very helpful and it came out to 25 exits per month was that is that countywide or is that just city folks that's city folks so we try to

[175:01] right it gets really into the weeds a little bit but yes that's basically for the city of Bon yeah no that's great that's great and so if one were to do the math and say well geez we got you know at any point in time we have about 350 homeless people in Boulder so you but we're helping 25 of them exit homelessness per month when we do the math on that and say gosh in 14 months there'll be no more homeless people here uh so uh tell tell me what uh what's what's influencing that on the other end the it would be back down to my Prevention um obviously we see a significant number of folks enter the system way more than we're able to help exit the system um and so that both is folks typically would we see folks come through coordinated entry they're either new to homelessness or new to Boulder um and so I it's hard for us at any given time the point time survey is limiting because again it depends on people willing to engage who we find and so there is some limit to what that number tells us um but we know that we have a

[176:04] significant folks number of folks entering the system it's harder to track where they all go some of them will exit right back out um some of them may stay right so even if even if the number wasn't 350 was 500 still if you divide it by by 25 you'd say all right well in 20 months we'd have problem solved it sounds like there are people who are coming to the system and staying and that we're helping exit and there's other people who come into the system I say cons system I mean come into the City come into the City and stay for a few weeks for a month or two or whatever and then that self exit is that right so fair assumption corre correct yes right so it's it's a bit of a revolving door in other words if that number is staying pretty steady at 350 we're exiting 25 people out we must be getting a net of 25 people in that that are not self- exiting is that rough directionally kind of correct yes okay

[177:00] thanks sorry Ain you're up thanks Bob thanks for all that information and for all the work you all are doing in this space it's it's truly extraordinary so very appreciative of it um one specific question question is I've heard a couple times about the the mental health partners facility and that's really exciting C I appreciate you highlighting how that's potentially transformative um do we know where that facility is located uh yeah they've uh they're in the in the process of closing on a property in Lewisville in Lewisville okay um and did you I thought I heard you say they'd be operating in a few months is is that that's possibly even what they they're just now closing but they'll be be able to get open pretty quick yeah they they believe they'll be able to get open relatively quickly because the the um the previous use of that building was very similar and so there's only limited uh changes that they're going to

[178:02] have to make um to the building to actually open and um I assume they'll May making other changes um along the way but you know actually getting open um they think they can do that relatively quickly well and last question are they still going to operate the facility I believe it's at 1,000 Alpine or will that be Consolidated uh I know um oh yes that that that facility will continue yes great that's all I have thank you thanks aarin Tara and then Nicole quick question maybe not that quick but first of all Megan and Kurt I'm so happy right now and excited I apologize for driving you guys crazy for the past year or two but look it worked no I'm just kidding thank you for all that you've done so I have one question

[179:01] it's like so many dreams have come true here and so that smile that you have Megan is just delightful and it's really how I feel right now so let's make believe that we're at affordable housing um and the kind that doesn't have wraparound services and let's say a person is having a mental health uh issue and a big one which of the which of the uh organization SL which part uh is it peer support or which part of all the things we've heard about is going to be helping them and how much how many times a week do you think that'll happen for that type of a person I might start off and I'll hand it over to Megan but um in the situation that you described um uh the first interaction is likely going to be with our our C or care team um which is

[180:01] behavioral health um uh staff who work in our department and work um C you know Works in collaboration with our police department and Care Works in dependently um uh with with fire and so um it's likely to be to them and then there will have to be um within those two programs we have a referral mechanism um and we've uh put staff in place for referrals um but then I'll hand it over to Megan I think one of the other pieces that we're super excited about with the additional State money for the day Services Center um is that we built in additional housing Supportive Services for affordable housing so not necessarily permanent Supportive Housing um projects but quite literally exactly what you're talking about folks that who are in affordable housing and may not have case management um that was definitely identified as a need so we wrote that into that Grant um

[181:00] and so we really excited that that got funded that's it yep that's all your questions I I mean that's it I mean that's all my questions this is just to be clear so M spear you um and Rachel are you wanting us to um answer the questions that we were posed yet or we're just asking questions asking questions now thank you excuse me um okay um just wanted to thank you this was truly an incredible presentation um was incred just very thorough um and really wonderful to see the full picture like this we have so many new things that are about to be starting up and um likely to be having big effects so thank you I don't know how any of you get sleep um with all that you're doing but I'm really eager to see where this goes um you mentioned that we were spending about 11.6 million um on unsheltered homelessness Services I just wanted to confirm that I saw that

[182:01] correctly that that's sort of the um for for new programs where where we are about to be headed is that just and sheltered that would be both filtered and unsheltered in our investments in both both of those uh sets of programs okay and specifically to the housing and Human Services Department y okay got it thank you and so that that does does that include homelessness prevention programs like the emergency assistance rental assistance or is that separate yeah that that would be separate um and the other thing that would be separate which HEBs and flows from year to year is is our um investments in um actually creating and building affordable housing that is uh specifically dedicated um to the unhoused individuals so for example the the picture that you saw um of uh a bluebird which will be

[183:02] completed um later this year it's um that that project we invested in that project um last year and the year before so in the previous two years um that that was a significant investment we don't have um specific Investments um in projects this year but we will likely next year um and then there was you know 30 is another project that we invested some of our um affordable housing dollars um into creating these units so that that uh number um you know 11 million may go up next year um B based on those affordable housing investments thank you and does that include families as well families who are experiencing homelessness or is this largely just for um unsheltered single adults uh this would be single adults um both sheltered and

[184:00] unsheltered um so the programs like um that we fund through EA and even some of our um arpa dollars that we're investing um in rental supports um it it doesn't include that um I I would point out though that there's a number of our programs that um that touch individuals who are on um the edge of homelessness you know including our um um our our um our dollars um for healthy foods um and our Human Services um dollars um many of them are going to associated sort of programs that help people um stabilize um in housing including including families awesome thank you um I will just put in this question now rather than whenever we get the next update but at the next update next year um if we

[185:00] could just see like that same similar kind of slide but for people who are um experiencing sheltered homelessness like family homelessness just to kind of capture some of those as well because I think that that's likely a really big amount too um and I think it just it's helpful to have that context as well so um thank you but just really really cool to see um all of that um another question that I had was around um the options that exist for respit care but for for folks who are kind of coming out of like detox or having been in the emergency room for um you know overdose or something like like that like addiction or mental illness related do is there anything that exists kind of like like um a resit center but not for physical but for mental health or addiction um yes um Mental Health Partners has such a resit center currently um I I think it's around eight

[186:01] beds if I'm correct um but um they they would be able to assist those types of individuals and this new facility you know that will be coming on board um uh will also um help with those types of situations than so the new facility will be a place where folks can um stay for a little bit as they're recovering um yeah what I don't know is if they're if the respit care is moving to that location or not okay um but um that you know they'll be able to answer that um from Mental Health Partners okay thank you um and then one other question this was just around some of the evidence on the benefits of sanction encampments um is there evidence that they reduce homelessness um do they result in more permanent housing um do they reduce crime um do they have you know fewer weather related emergencies

[187:01] like frost fite and hypothermia for people who are staying there I guess I'm just my my understanding of the sanction encampments is that they don't necessarily lead to exits from homelessness um and I'm just wondering is that uh misinformation on my part or um do we have evidence about what specific outcomes they help with so Megan you want to take that one okay sure sure um I think it depends on the project they're relatively new and so it's hard to find any real data um I think the exit data is is that I've seen specifically from Denver Denver is pretty comparable to shelter exits um and I think it'd be important to point out um that if you also invest in the housing that folks or whatever resource they're exiting into that would be very important right like we wouldn't want to just invest in Sheltering options without also investing in options that help folks exit the system altogether thank

[188:01] you is that it Nicole yes thanks okay Bob and then I'll call it myself yeah thanks sorry Rachel I had a second question I forgot um there was some hotline posts today that kind of went back and forth and I appreciate uh Curt Megan getting on those one of the suggestions that was made in one of the posts was that we divert some are all the money that we would use for the day shelter this year for other things um and I know that you you folks are still working very hard on on locating a a facility for that um but I wanted to ask you a little bit about your thought on on that is are are you you kind of given up for this year and we should we do should we redirect that money or and and I know you you can't get yourself too committed here but or should we retain that money for the day shelter because you think you're probably not far off from getting that pinned down and getting open opened um thanks for that question Bob um so I I would say that it's it's too

[189:01] early in the process to be making decisions about money saved um in looking at we've been looking at lots of buildings um over the last I don't know six months or so and um uh we were fortunate um to come across the opportunity of psome we were unfortunate that um it didn't come through but from a a financial standpoint it was a it was a a good deal for the money um and um as we've looked at other buildings um it's pretty rare to find a building that won't need significant um uh infrastructure changes um to it if we end up purchasing a building but we may be able to find something that's more cost effective as well um my advice would be um to wait until um the

[190:02] 2024 um year um to look at you know where we're at um I am confident um that we will uh find a location in the next few months um and I don't know if it will be operational in in four months or or nine months um but I I I do believe we'll find Clarity um on a direction for the day services and the last thing I'll say is that most of the resources that were allocated for this year for the day Services were to Simply get it up and running um and to invest in a building um uh if we do that next year um we'll still have that same um Pro potentially have that same investment we're just moving it from one year to the other but arguably there will be some savings depending on the approach that we end

[191:00] up great thanks Kurt thanks Bob okay I do have a couple um okay so on um page five there's a couple references to people supported by the housing retention team and individualized peer support services um and then talks about bsh purchasing 12 individual units outside of the landlord system and with Case Management Services so first question is how many hours a week for either peer support or Case Management Services this dovet Tales was something Tara asked a bit ago to are people getting with either of those I think it depends on the individual um some folks get more than others there are some folks that um the peer support or case management will'll see several times a week um and so it's really individualized as what as far as as much as they the need um of individuals and so some folks might get seen once a week um with those build with that building home um that is intended to be an intensive program and

[192:00] so they would be seeing at least once a week and once a week I I guess because you know we've talked about like my my um inclination is that some people need like 247 supports and so when we're talking once a week are we talking eight hours that day a 24hour superv or help supports and sometimes supervision or is it like yeah it would be more an hour or two again it depends on what the activity is um but I would also say that oftentimes when folks first move into housing um folks get seen almost daily um I think it's one of those things that as they get situated and more comfortable they titrate it down to a little bit less and some people keep keep that high level for ongoing amount of time because the the transition is much harder um but others are able to get a little bit situated and then be a but not 24 hours yeah when they see somebody typically a visit is probably an hour or so okay so even the early early going people would be like an hour

[193:01] a day for every day Vicky Ebner HS operating in homelessness strategy senior manager um I just wanted to add on that um um once I get over that very long title um that this is placed above and extended from the case manager so there is their case management services that are provided through their permanent Supportive Housing program and then in addition they have a peer support and they have this retention team um when we were first designing it we were calling the retention team kind of a quasi act team if you're familiar with assertive Community tra treatment um it's not quite as intensive as that um but it is a team that can work rather intensively with individuals depending on their needs and their situations thanks for that um but in the best case scenario if they've got all the teams how many hours a day would

[194:01] somebody at best get is it like an hour I'm I'm just trying to understand the facts it it's just really hard to to get to that number because if somebody's in crisis you have a whole team of people that are working with them to get them through that crisis um and so that could be all day with a combination of the SE team the retention team the peer supporter the case manager um if it's somebody who is just struggling with that isolation from newly moving into a unit um it might be an hour with the case manager it may be an hour or two with the pier support it might be another um you know checking on them daily for the first few weeks with the with the with the peer or the retention team um it's also not linear right so people can get in get stable um not need services for a while but then

[195:02] have something that triggers them back up to needing that um and so at minimum they need that uh basically 1 to 15 case man management ratio um of clients versus case manager so that they can respond to people in their needs when they are needed so I know I'm not really directly answering your question but the short answer is it's really hard to answer that question well and I'm obviously just uh thinking about somebody who is in crisis and is Crisis you know for more than eight hours in a day and often if you're in crisis it's a 247 situation and you need a lot of help okay can I cqu for one second just to follow up what Rachel said Vicki so the let's say this person who might or might not have burnt their apartment down somewhere it's always good right to go back and say well how did we let that happen so I am wondering if with all

[196:00] these new programs if there's a better chance that this because every time that happens it affects everybody surrounding them in in that particular location so do you think could be a better chance uh now that we're doing this for that not to happen and do you still think there's um something missing still from these programs where we could do more well but the first half for your question I can answer and then look I know Kurt was gonna top in but I would say that um I think the chances are better Megan spoke to the high degree of collaboration and coordination one of the key aspects when we wrote the building home proposal was that these two teams would interact interact um more often so that they could have those conversations looking at incidents doing a post incident review what can service changes can be made um what are program

[197:03] augmentations that could happen um so we feel like that should help with some of those situations and just having more eyes available would generally load lower those problems so I'll mention two things um the first is that um Mental Health Partners also has um um a um a place for individuals to go who are in you know severe crisis that wouldn't be handled in someone's apartment they would be referred um you know through that service um the second thing that I'll mention is that we will often or well Megan talk about the integration of service providers so we will also be working with the case manager that help them get into housing so if they're struggling and it was an individual Municipal system was the lead

[198:01] on in getting that person house they'll they'll the uh the team will work with that individual who they've had them and so really working with the partner that they have sort of the closest relationship with and when the team meets weekly to work on individuals um that's that's one of the things that they talk about is you know which or which agency or organization or entity is sort of the lead on particular individuals okay moving on to my next question um it mentions that bsh bur purchased 12 individual properties are those within like dense apartment complexes um versus nonent apartment complexes I guess within apartment complexes yeah okay um actually they're uh they're Condominiums um so they're individual

[199:03] Condominiums and so that's that's what allows them to be um both the landlord and the service provider got it um and given that the as it was described these are often High utilizers who are who need extra you know kind of options because of uh eviction issues with landlords um and you also are going to have neighbors who you know it is fair to have quiet enjoyment of the home and not fires and stuff what are the like how are how are we ensuring that um or how are they ensuring that and are there triggers for you know because in a situation where someone is you know using terra's example of starting fires whatever there would be at some point that person wouldn't be there anymore what what are the what are the plans for people who are are really hard to house in terms of having that be an okay situation for the Neighbors as well well Megan may have more to add here about those particular individuals

[200:01] but but many of the like I I do anybody's personal information I'm doing hypotheticals sure but many of the individuals that were housed through the city Boulder voucher program and as well as into these units and others um are individuals with lengthy um criminal records um so they're they've probably been on a high utilizer list um at some point in the past um there's some of our more challenging individuals um so I think if you look at the outcomes that Megan presented um I think there was 78 or 79 individuals that have been assisted through this program uh you know three of them have not been successful um I think that's that's a representation of the effectiveness of the programs that supported those particular

[201:00] individuals anything to add Megan no I would say they I mean even as Boulder shelter as a landlord they still sign a lease and so we they would I mean there's there's still Property Management that they're using um and so I I do think those things are I know those things are addressed um and so it's not okay um and they wouldn't leave them in the space if they were a danger to their their neighbors or the property thanks um on page six it talks about a staff or a task force that makes recommendations to HSBC and that just flagged for me that it has been an ongoing uh concern of mine or request that it would be helpful to have a council representative to HS SBC and I know that there's at least some interest by County Commissioners so my question is how how could that happen I know it's not set up right now to have Council or commissioner Representatives but if we wanted to do that how could we do it so those are open meetings um uh to the public you could you could attend if you

[202:01] wanted to now um and I I I suppose it would be council's um prerogative to um identify um a council member to attend those meetings but um uh that would certainly be possible well let me state that differently like in that it says they're making recommendations to HSBC I assume that HSBC is then voting on that and so having a a seat at the table where you're an equal voter say How would how could that happen for because I doubt we could just send somebody and then we'd have a a an extra vote right so we would need to change the structure of HSBC or I would say say the Commissioners would have to um so the Commissioners actually Iden they um approve um the individuals that sit on the executive of HSBC so um I I am one of those individuals that have been identified or approved by the

[203:00] by the County Commissioners um if city council members were um put onto that executive committee I assume it would be similar to like a a board member City on the older housing Partners um board um so that would require um a different um governance structure um to be put in place and um that would be something that you'd want to bring up with County Commissioners okay I would think of it as something like you know there's a lot of regional organizations that we have a a council member representative at okay um I will skip those two just wondering when we talk about the increase in turnaways for capacity um in in winter season 2021 versus 2022 23 I know that Megan in your presentation you talked about um you know all the different providers of shelter that we have like um former

[204:00] mother house and and some others um and I'm also remembering though that we closed the severe weather shelter beds I want to say 2020 for overflow I'm just wondering total capacity in the city what is it 2019 versus 2023 and it's okay if that's a question that you have to get back to me on but it seems like we lost some capacity right before coid and I'm not sure we ever got back up so I'm wondering if the increase in turnaways is partly due to us not having the same capacity we had 210 total it was you might need to check my math here but it was 50 beds at path to home 72 bed severe weather shelter and then the 160 at the shelter so that seems like it would be 300 110 um but I will say that it's only if you look at the 2022 year period um where we well into that shelter consolidation we were not having turnaways it is basically been

[205:00] ratcheting up since late 2022 okay um I think it I would still be interested in knowing what it was 2019 versus 2023 with all the different providers and some are different than they were at the time so maybe that's something we could get back to me on um and then on the hotel sort of similar to my questions on um you know individual apartments and Condominiums when I did my police ride along the I think the hotel that had a lot of placements of of unhoused individuals um I don't know if it was by us or by other people buying hotel rooms but they were on that like hourly driveby list of you know like we were doing it was on like the police hot spot and and there you know they were hourly because there was so much um there were fights and shots fired and stuff around there um and we went into the lobby and there was like it was is sort of not common in Boulder there was bulletproof glass separating

[206:02] the person the the person checking people in and um and us and there were just some some Shell Shocked like like see parents there so I'm just wondering when we place people in if they're kind of congregate living in hotels what services or supports do they get when they're there like you know if you were and I understand we we kind of pick the highest as I understand it from previous years functioning um people to put in hotels but still are there um are there resources that go there as well do you want me are you why don't you go first and I'll go okay yep with the program um that we operate with Boulder shelter um both last year that was highly successful um and so we were going to continue it this year it was folks who were on the housing track so with the goal of that they never return to the shelter um we but we also provide funding for a case management

[207:00] specific case management specifically for those individuals so they had a case manager checking on them every day um and there were no issues with the with the boulder folks that we were with the boulder shelter placed um it was a highly successful program last year great the other thing that I'll add um uh Rachel is that um the I believe you speaking of the Millennium Hotel um the Millennium Hotel um reached out to us um a few months ago to you know tell us of their of their changing plans um and they were actually highly complimentary of this particular program and um they actually um rent hotel rooms do a whole variety of individuals in our community and I'd be careful about associating the the gunshots to that group um who we were housing from the shelter because I do know that that individual was not

[208:01] connected to this program um and um we've I think we've been doing this hotel program I think since Co started I think three years if I'm correct um and while there are some challenges with individuals from time to time um by and large it's worked out really well and um uh the I think the individuals have beened and they've um generally been in line with the the rules and obligations of well again I don't know if it was um folks placed in this you know through this program or not but my understanding is that um there are a number of hotels who did not want to continue um receiving uh placements I guess and and it's harder to find hotels because of issues that they've had in the past so um yeah not trying to generalize just trying to understand what supports we are providing so that they can be

[209:00] everybody can be successful there well well also during coid um the hotels weren't being used and the one hotel we were using in Boulder we were filling probably three4 of their beds every night um during the winter and um so that's um also quite a bit different than the the 20 or 25 that we were posting in the last year okay my next question is um on page 23 when we talk about the different possible structures um for safe outdoor spaces do we know what homeless folks say that they would prefer of the different types offered have we done any Outreach no I we haven't specifically done any Outreach in my experience you know with with Denver um they only had at the time the option of a of an ice fishing tent and they're just now expanding into the pallet Sheltering um so it will be interesting I guess with that development in Denver to see if there is

[210:00] a a preference I obviously Denver's also doing the hoteling that's always the preference um of folks um but between like a pallet shelter and ice fishing tent is that what your versus a tiny home right of the of the options that we the three options that we have like do we know what folks who would be living them might prefer right no I'm not I'm not positive um because yeah but we could as they develop it in Denver or we could I just ask I guess the folks in Boulder what they would prefer um but no I don't know to mind um in your response to Nicole Megan you indicated that Denver they weren't seeing see anything more favorable than Denver homeless shelter exits for people who were living in the safe outdoor spaces I thought I remembered at the tour that you and I were on that they did have some pretty favorable exits is that am I misremembering or do you know what I'm talking about I think overall like they've G they've given out different numbers depending on um when but overall

[211:02] like I it's typically similar to a shelter and again I don't think that's necessarily a knock on on it's more about exit resources right like it's so um if they're being prioritized for housing then obviously they'd have a a heavier exit option but they're similar I mean the way Denver is using them now is to expand shelter resources this notur okay and then one last question for Kurt in your answer to Bob on possibly reallocating the um day Services money that was held over this year and unused I thought that the pot of money that Matt was talking about was for operations like there was some 800,000 or something that was specifically for um operations not not capital or planning for the year is that is that not accurate or yeah I think that's generally correct um I think the the challenge is is that there's a a pretty wide

[212:00] variety um of um Financial commitments depending on where the um St service center is cited the type of building you know that sort of there's a lot of unknown costs but that number could go up and it could go down um certainly more than 800,000 okay but for the money that Matt was looking at that was for like Staffing of of a space that we didn't staff this year yeah okay correct thank you that's all my questions um over to Aaron and then I think we will be on to answer the questions oh and then Mark Aaron then Mark really quickly Kurt I wanted to just drill into um an answer you had L laid on hotline today and by the way that was heroic work responding to all of those questions in a a very short period of time I was amazed uh and I'm sure you got help from from maybe some people too and thanks to all of you for doing that um but the there was the final question about or the followup about the number average number of Shelter beds that go unused and just

[213:01] wanted to just confirm um is the final answer that this year so far there have been an average of 10 shelter beds unused per night that's correct okay and is and that is that raw data of I mean I know we have a dashboard that shows all this but do we have like a like a raw data that that we can look at or I don't know like in a spreadsheet or something now you're muted I didn't want you um yes we'd uh we'd be we'd be able to get that information to you okay if that's doable that'd be handy to have that's it thank you thanks Aon Mark just one question um in the past uh your analyses were uh fairly negative about the uh the outcomes and utility of the uh various

[214:01] safe uh outdoor space uh possibilities has your further research and looking at other programs changed that point of view you um I I think what has changed are some of the um outcomes that I would say are more successful um with some uh communities that have gone down this road um and if I could just refer quickly back to Megan's presentation um what we try to do is is provide the ingredients to um imp implementing this type of program and all of these ingredients sort of need to be in place for it to be successful looking at programs that have been successful um so um you know Megan talked about having a secure identified site um having proper services like you

[215:01] know showers bathrooms uh uh cooking facilities and food um having wraparound Services um and also having um uh places where or services that they can be referred to um you know out of that that the a safe outdoor space shouldn't be um the last place they end up it should be a place that brings them you know to another location in and hopefully into housing or at least out of homelessness and so um um individuals I I I think one of the things you need to look at in safe outdoor spaces or any type of approach is also in addition to that investing more in the exit so investing more in housing more in Behavioral Health Services um and in in a ways that they

[216:01] won't be you know disdained in that um in that in that safe space um for a long time and um so um many of the communities that started these types of uh approaches over the last few years didn't have all of those ingredients in place and many at a couple years ago when we looked at this um there was a lot of um people would be attracted there' be a lot of camping around that unsanctioned camping or um in or the safe camping areas just gr um beyond their capacity so those are the challenges we saw in the beginning I think the the programs that began in Denver during coid um identified those challenges and tried to address them and um so um I I think we're seeing better outcomes um but you know the the costs are also um pretty substantial as well um so just looking at how do we

[217:03] uh um how do we look at the effect cost Effectiveness and getting people out of homelessness is sort of a policy issue that I think Council would want to consider you did a obviously a very interesting financial analysis of the of the cost of these options um given the need for further investment at the end um to ensure successful exits um do you have any sense of what the magnitude of that expense would would look like yeah so I think we would want to kind of work backwards and say so if 30 individuals enter this this um this service um um how many do we want to exit into homelessness or I'm sorry exit out of homelessness in which types of ways um over the next year we can look at the cost of those different initiatives um and that's you know likely what I would we would want to add

[218:01] you know to that service um with that being said you know we're using all the resources we can right now to provide all the services that we've explained tonight so anything that we do we'll we'll need to find additional resources for okay thank you Kurt and uh um I also want to thank you for what must be a new speed record in responding to hotlines including my own um that your response was uh instantaneous and I thank you it was a busy afternoon I bet it was thanks again all right I'm seeing no more questions thanks Mark thanks Kurt I agree those hotline responses were impressive today um and Megan and Vicky probably your whole team chipped in with that um so let's move on to questions I think the first one that we need to answer is do any council members have input on building home tribe recovery rest bit

[219:01] Services Unit acquisition and High utilizers Mark is your hands still up intentionally all right uh anybody want to give input or Direction on any of those subcategories Nicole would and Aaron would I just want to say that I um to me I think all of these are on the right track um really appreciate all these new programs that you all are getting ready to start up and it's just an amazing amount of new programming to be starting so truly I don't understand how you all sleep but um really I am very optimistic about a lot of these programs so thank you thanks Nicole Erin yeah agree with that and I don't know where you find a time to sleep but hopefully you sleep very well knowing the amazing work that you're doing in the community um because these are really an Innovative set of programs and they're dealing with very very real problems like I I quick story

[220:00] I remember I was um in the emergency room a while back waiting for for my wife to come out and there was a man there who appeared to be homeless who had a bag that he was Dripping blood into and clearly was done with the emergency room and um was just waiting there um before going back out on the street seemed very clear and he clearly didn't have a place to go to recover from whatever bodily issue he was experiencing and so I'm so glad that we will be creating a place where folks can go in that situation it's a it's a real need in the community so we know how deep and and wide the homelessness issues are in town and these programs together along with our partners are going to make a real difference and so looking forward to seeing them come online and just real grateful for the work everybody at the city and our partners are are doing appreciate it thanks aarin juny then Tara I want to be quick tonight and just want to say dto to Ain and Nicole and my only feedback is continued Community engagement as you

[221:01] know that's extremely important as you continue to do this work so thank you for this great presentation and thanks Rachel thanks jie I will give you one more question though uh Tara well I already said how great I thought it was as my last comment is going to be every time you put up a new slide and I did a screenshot of it said that's my favorite slide nope that's my favorite slide no so I can honestly say that they were all my favorite slide and it's such tremendous work in the short time I've been on Council of two years so I appreciate all that you've done thanks darara um I I don't see any other hands up not sure there's any other hands too go up um so I'll just add yeah I think it's all steps in the right direction too I um I guess I as to high utilizers I I do worry a little bit that I think we did this work and remember Kurt when you and I first met in like 2019 we talked about the high utilizers

[222:02] and and the dramatic difference it makes to get people hous so ideally I'm hoping that there's something that's in place that's more ongoing that the you know the council in 2027 isn't relooking at this issue and and we've kind of kept the ground and and not seated it in some way that we have you know another new group of people that are that we haven't kind of figured out how to how to support so that's my only feedback on that one and then I will turn us over to question number two which I think is does council wish to direct staff to implement or further explore alternative shelters or Services shelter Services JY just giving it a thumbs up up she I'm going to raise your hand dig it Nicole thank you I think what I would be interested in is maybe not just alternative Sheltering services but also additional Sheltering services so I'd be really interested in knowing you know would we potentially see um better or the same outcomes if we were to try to um invest in more um Sheltering like if

[223:02] the the boulder shelter were to have a few more beds or um Haven Ridge or just one of these other places if we could help them expand would that have similar outcomes um for a similar amount of money um or possibly you know better would that be cheaper so anyway I yes interested and would also like to have a comparison with what what would it be to just um add more to what we currently have thank you thanks Nicole I've got Tara then Mark then Bob Nicole I didn't get a chance to say great comments but uh great comments all night and also this one as well as far as just maybe adding beds versus like a whole new thing I'm just going to say that we have so much in the fire right now not literally so many big things that I feel like we should focus on those if we had extra money I would want it to go to sober living uh finding you know a

[224:01] transitional housing for those that are leaving jail and and continuing to have more robust um more robust Health um mental health and drug addiction Services than we do now as obviously that's that's a bigger and bigger problem so I'm going to say for right now I don't think we should I think we should just focus on this day center now that we have these new grants and focus on what we're doing now and make that all succeed and we'll see about the future in the future that's my opinion thanks Tara Mark then Bob then Aaron and maybe Nicole again and is it's always good to know more rather than less if staff has uh excess capacity uh I have no problem with their um exploring and researching uh other Solutions um and costing it out not just in terms of the physical elements of of that solution but also providing the services at the other end

[225:02] um that you've indicated are necessary to get good results um so I like to you know I'd like to understand what the full cost of that is um but I would have to agree with Tara um I don't I don't think we're ready for implementation of anything at this point I think uh there's some further work to be done as as your views have evolved um I'm prepared to have my views evolve but I I would like to see uh a little more work done uh to determine if this is the the courses we want to take I otherwise I I you know prove of all of the other um programs and steps that you're taking I think you're doing Yan's work um but if you happen to have uh extra time on your hands uh I have no problem uh you know doing an analysis on alternative uh of uh Sheltering

[226:01] possibilities thanks Mark Bob then Aaron yeah just two things to say one um I agree with actually Nicole's comment of just a few minutes ago I I'd like to see um what um incremental beds in existing facilities could do I I understand now the confusion that staff had earlier today when they originally said there's an average of 39 empty beds at the shelter and then they corrected that and said 10 so Aon thanks for asking that question um and if you go to the dashboard um you get both answers right you get the 10 and the 39 and the reason for that is is 39 number of course includes uh severe weather Sheltering and Hotel Beds so it it's kind of kind of 39 sometimes a year and kind of 10 some other parts of the year and maybe we can kind of tight tighten up that that data presentation but I do agree with Nicole that I think um we've got existing facilities I know the shelter is only one of them but it's the biggest one we've got existing facilities um I wonder if if if adding and I know

[227:00] there's a whole lot of complications as far as in the we don't know in the shelter they're a private organization and and the other shelters are private organizations and we give them a little bit of money and they have neighbors and there's a whole lot of factors that go into it but but it makes logical sense to me uh to do what Nicole suggested which is how do we how do we expand the the housing the Sheltering not housing but Sheltering capacity at the existing shelters before we launch into something new that's that's maybe um that's that's different um particularly since it's pretty expensive the second thing so that's one thing the second thing I'll say is um it sounds like we're kind of close I know that Kur you were talking about maybe few months maybe a few more months but it sounds like we're we've done a lot at least the ground workor we've got an operator on stand I'm talking about the data shelter got an operator on standby um sounds like you've identified Services it sounds like the only thing we're kind of missing is the actual facility but it sounds like you you kind of at least hinted that you got some some uh some good ideas there and that we're we're

[228:01] very very close in that so I wouldn't want us to abandon that work it sounds like like we're going to make up a number 80 or 90% of the way there and so please keep doing that I think this is something that that Council was was unanimous on um when we put together our work plan a year and a half ago and I'd hate to um to to to drop that or stop that effort since we're so so close so please do keep going full speed ahead and and um try to land that uh um either later this year or or very early next year thanks thanks Bob Aaron yeah I I'm definitely interested in uh looking into this this further and working on creating one of these alternative kind of Sheltering things I think it would meet a real um need and Gap in kind of our our Sheltering options as we're working on getting people towards housing um and you know was intrigued by judge Khan saying like well this could be another option for folks like if um they're coming to Community Court and we could say well if

[229:01] you if you head for the save outdoor space um you know then then we'll we'll move resolve that issue and and get you off the streets and into a safer place so I I I would like to move forward on this and and then as part of the further analysis is if there it seems like Denver when they first stood up these safe safe outdoor spaces did it in a relatively brisk um amount of time um so I'm just wondering if there's like a a version one um of it that could be implemented more quickly while we continue to add maybe some additional features over time but to still saying we need those core aspects and elements of it to be successful like you mentioned so you know we don't we don't want to leave off the 247 you know Staffing and and some of the other aspects of it but but if there are ways to get it something up and running more quickly rather than less so um that I think that would be to the best so definitely interested in pursuing this thanks thanks Ain um I'm gonna call it

[230:01] myself and then I I think Nicole and terara both want a double dip so I'll get back to you and then I'll tell you what I think maybe the indications were and then uh make a pitch for us to maybe do a formal not of five uh at the meeting when Matt and lawner back so um let's see I I think that we have been studying this option of safe outdoor spaces since at least 2020 for my tenure on Council thank you juny like the whole time I've been on Council we've been studying looking at it I think during aon's tenure that you all went like you got a trip even to go to Portland or something to look at at options so it has to be 2015 2017 some some something where we're closing in on a decade of looking at this so I do believe that there is urgency to this issue um I think the whole Community is is unsatisfied with where we are right now with um adult um

[231:00] unsanctioned and unsheltered camping so um I would I would move us forward um I I don't think you know I understand Nicole's question I think that it's very clear in chatting with community members who are unhoused some people don't want to go to shelters like one you know one time a gal like showed me her back and and she had bed bugs on it she's like I'm never going back to a shelter again I will be in a tent that you know uh until I get an apartment so we know that not everybody wants to go to shelter situation we know that the creek is not the the ideal spot for people and there other uh places around town are not ideal so I would have have us pretty quickly follow Denver's lead I agree with Aaron like it doesn't have to be the the Platinum level I think we could do like the bronze level to start with and and get people quickly sheltered who need it um you know there are good tents I was pretty impressed with the the one that Megan and I toured in Denver poor Megan she got such an earful from me

[232:00] that night but um on the ride home so you know I thought that looked good enough as compared to where people are right now and so I would not take a lot of time to again get to the the gold or platinum level I would I would help the people who are right now sleeping on top of you know rocks that are very uncomfortable like we're talking about leveling and and trenching and stuff like I think that there is a a a faster a brisker to use aon's word Pace that we could use to get there that that doesn't have to be as as fall in on that um and and short term right now people really need help um we we talked about earlier there was an incident where people who were sleeping outside at the Bandshell they somebody tried to run them over just within the last few weeks like that people people could instead be in a spot that is fenced in and safe and and has support so and the other key for me and and one of the reasons that the costs for this are so high is that I think

[233:02] services are so important to the housing first model working so that's why I'm always asking questions about apartments and town homes hotels like what are we doing to support the people who are there and I think that this model from what I'm reading in the volume of expense with case workers and supervisors and and people on site is it's going to be expensive because they're going to have 247 supports and that is is it sounds better than that what people are getting in a lot of other situations in the city so I don't know that I would call it inferior or a step down I understand that the shelter itself is not as nice or expensive but to have at a at a time of life that is so difficult and transitional for people to have access to those 247 supports I think would be beautiful and magical and helpful and will help people get into the next phase of Housing and to succeed once they're there so I am so excited that we're considering this um I again we'll at the end call for us to maybe do an out of five of because I don't think we can answer this question I'll get to

[234:01] my math but I think we probably have to formalize it at a council meeting I would turn to terer for that but um if we are to go forward with this and give direction to staff as the question is asked I think we probably have some soft Direction but we should look at it again next week with that I'll turn it to Nicole and then Tara and then Mark thanks sorry I forgot there was one thing I had wanted to ask earlier um as we're considering this one thing that I think will be really important to us to have information on is where is the money GNA come from um so we saw in our budget study session a couple weeks ago that if 2A passes we're going to have about 5 $100,000 a year in wiggle room in our budget for the next five to six years so if we're thinking about starting something new what where does the money come from what are what are we cutting in order to fund that I think it's just a it's going to be a really important question for me to have answered um in order to make a decision on this and and I think along those

[235:00] lines as well are there any any more cheaper ways that we can incentivize people using the shelter so uh rather than sort of treating it as you know a luxury for people can we like people to stay at the shelter like you know 10 bucks um go and stay at the shelter tonight or something like that and you know I I chuckle a little bit but contingency management works and um in dealing with addiction and I'm wondering if we can you know just just think outside the box a little bit and think about whether we can incentivize people to use resources that are already existed and if that's more cheap than or cheaper than setting up something new um anyway I think those those are my last two things that came up but thank you for letting me double dip Rachel oh and Rachel sorry I had one more question it was just I just want to get clarity on what it is um we are wanting to take a KN of five on tonight thank you thanks Tera the Merk where's the money going to come from where's the staff going to come

[236:00] from what are we going to do about the drug addiction what about people that don't um this why would they go there versus you know not at all and how do we keep people safe because I think what was so disturbing to me it like you uh what happened with that car that tried to run the people over it was a terrible thing so safety safe outdoor spaces have to how are they going to how are they going to be safe um you need staff for that right so whatever we do with this it's not a small thing it's a big thing and it's an expensive thing I'm not saying you know I've always said yeah pallet homes for me not tents but pallet homes are a possibility but right now I don't know do do does uh Kurt and Megan have it in them do we have any extra staff to even consider this are we going to take um staff away from what we're doing right now to do this I mean there's so many and of course Nicole's

[237:00] biggest point is where are we going to get the money from I think are super important before we just say yeah let's just let's do this as well because do we have an AS right now do we have room for an as well I think that's an important question that's it thanks Sarah Mark oh this is going to be really short uh did O to what Nicole said did O to what Tara said I think they both made excellent points and um you know to I I seem to always be the Grinch who wants to know where the money's coming from I'm delighted to have somebody else bring that subject up um because I think it's the key subject so but I I support what both of them said entirely thank you Grinch wallik okay um now now thank you for laughing at that too and it was nice cross cross aisle collaboration there um okay so my again the question that we were supposed to answer is does council wish to direct staff to implement F or

[238:00] further explore alternative Sheltering Services um my question to Teresa is would this require a not aive or an item to be held sorry you're chewing I'll I'll extend my question to give you a moment to finish finish what you're doing there would we need to do this at a at next week's council meeting more um effectively anyhow than a study session I'm singing yes that's right okay thank you naria you're on mute you are muted damn um I don't remember oops uh I don't ever want to be uh Grinchy as well I do think uh and we have uh talked a little bit want to make sure that we're understanding the ask what um I think there has been uh support here and the answer is in the affirmative from the majority of um Council currently about moving forward to continue to explore this uh and I would presume this is a work plan item to add uh that we would need to

[239:01] acknowledging the urgency that we're hearing from you um think of and come back with a financial plan and see how we can um move it forward with the both with seeing what resource capacity we have from staff and also seeing um answering some of the questions about how quickly we could move forward if we were able to do that um given some of the urgency that I'm hearing from Council about um trying to set something up and so that would if there is in fact an out of five as Teresa has suggested um then likely we will need to come back with you with a with some of the answers to those questions um and due haste I'm I'm not much of a Grinch so I'm just going to go ahead and and toss this out as a response to that juny and I our last day will be December 7th and I think it would be a great day to have a ribbon cutting so that that's the date that I'm looking for or not June December 7th December 7th is the the date that I think this could be stood up

[240:00] by so just go ahead and take that just put it in the back of your mind as the timing I'm looking for that's eight weeks or something um okay so what I have tallied we're not doing anything formal tonight is is those who expressed interest in and you know a yes and answering step second question would be juny Aaron Matt Lauren Rachel ish I think is Nicole if you're a yes let me know there I don't want to misquote you there but like maybe more of a more shelter beds not quite sure on this and then Mark terab Bob kind of is to know am I misquoting anyone on that Nicole would like more information um so yeah and I think and and maybe there's parsing out of like I think there are some who want more information and some that are in the category of go ahead and Implement and I think that there there may be five who want to implement so I think we should um maybe I'm asking CAC to schedule that for a formal not aive at next at October

[241:02] 5th's meeting knowing that Nur is going to say in her grinchiest voice it's not going to be December 7th but I'm still going to push for that Bob and then Nicole yeah no I I'm in favor of safe indoor spaces sis but I'm not in favor of safe outdoor spaces so just so I guess I if your question is are you in favor of exploring safe outdoor spaces I'm a hard no but I do join Nicole and others in in wanting to explore safe indoor space incremental safe indoor spaces so if the question is SOS the answer is no I think it's SOS is is specifically how how I was interpreting what we wereing at here and I'm GNA call that indoor outdoor space Bob you know if your question is do we want to have more spaces for people to to sleep on an emergency basis whether the indoor or outdoor I think you have everybody saying yes but I think the question you're asking is outdoor creating indoor space is outdoor

[242:02] I'm just going to keep giving that back Nicole is that is that good Bob I agree you're no on SOS and a yes on like shelter beds potentially yeah yeah Nicole and the mark sounds like I've misquoted everyone so please correct the record oh I you know you're right I what I'm looking for is is really just more information I don't feel like I have enough information to make it make a decision um but what seems like it might be the right time for us to have this discussion is next week when we're talking about budget because this has big budget implications especially heading into a year where we have very very little wiggle room and so um if we could have it as part of that discussion where we're talking about you know this is something that we want to add to the budget for 2024 um and then what's going to come out of the budget um if if we do that so I I think that that may be the right just logistical place to have this conversation and make a decision perfect Mark then Tara then I will close this

[243:01] out nocole I think you come over to the dark side um but um there are two questions that that were expressed one was implementation one was exploration um because I don't think it's ready for implementation I'm a hard no on that um exploration uh I'm I'm always eager for more analysis thanks Mark Tara Aon y I think uh Mark said it well you know I've always liked pallet homes because I like inside spaces um they're safe for they're warmer they have locks on them that type thing I would be interested in exploring pallet homes but especially Sober Living homes more sober living homes and more homes transitional homes for people coming out of jail indor spaces is that on the docket or is that included or what what's on the docket

[244:00] tonight as I read it was really a discussion of of safe outdoor spaces it doesn't mean that what you're saying can't be brought up at any given time in the history of the universe but I want to say that I feel like next year would be better just because it seems like we're pretty full this year but that's just me plus budget okay Erin yeah hopefully we can wrap this up but just on the process question I think to Nicole's point it could be helpful to touch on this in the budget discussions but we would need to schedule a separate uh request for not of five to look for that direction I think from a process perspective CAC can take that up can does anything formal need to happen to go to CAC or is this good enough everybody who goes the CAC is here right will that get transferred in maybe I'll let you correct me if I'm wrong I mean I I take this as a as an ask and we're happy to put this on the CAC as a request and um let CAC do that is that sufficient sounds great thank

[245:02] you J AE nodding so I'm good I want to be you know I want to be uh copae with our City attorney oh she doesn't get the Grinch um this was my last steud session leading so thank you all for bearing with me um and then ner I had one more followup that that I um semi flagged earlier which is uh Maris in her presentation um mentioned that we were having some worrying signs of sex trafficking and then I had um a a person reach out to me already and say you know as a as a 19-year-old woman what should I be looking for what are the warning signs if I'm like what can we get some information out to the community um of of what you know what maybe maybe people who would be potentially targeted might be looking out for in terms of sex trafficking in Boulder I appreciate the question I'll have to get back with the chief and uh sort of um take a little

[246:01] deeper dive and see what that is but certainly um if there is something we can share we will um let Council know we move on that yeah PSA there would be great okay um well thank you so much anything else staff did you get what you needed on all fronts today judge Khan I'll Loop you back in for that too Kurt Megan anybody from the police team that's still here yeah I wanted to make one uh comment and one one reflection if that's okay um so some of the communication that we've received both tonight and in in hot mail is around the urgency of this solution and you know why can't we do it faster or in a more abbreviated way um I'll just mention as a bit of background to that is um so we have two city-owned sites um that we could um begin to look at for this solution um none of the costs that we

[247:02] put forward uh tonight include purchase purchasing land um and so that's why we've looked at City own sites both of these sites as well as others that we've explored they all require um Excel to put in a a Transformer um to provide electricity you know for for this whatever the housing or the Sheltering solution is um uh you know water sewer um we have flood planes in this area very important and those things be done without getting a civil engineer to do a design for that infrastructure um when we opened the sever weather shelter on 30th Street which was a building we spent $450,000 getting a water line to that building um before we could open it um so some of some council members and

[248:00] others have question the costs that we've put forward um these are costs you know really um based on um real life experiences um and I I also know that when Denver started off with this they went to base communities which were parking lots there was electricity there there was water there it made that transition to that service very quick now that they've gone to um sites um that are open Fields um um these are the kind of um challenges that they have we can't have um electricity going to a site with extension cords you know going to uh to tense um so there's real infrastructure that needs to be put in place so I just wanted to CL um the idea of expediency um obviously we are expedient in everything we try to do um so we're

[249:01] we could likely open it on a on a seventh um as you said Rachel um I'm not sure about the month though it may be some month but seventh we could probably guarantee you um and then the the last thing I'll the last thing I'll say is that um uh those of us in HHS and I know um the other departments that work on this um I think we're honored um to work for the community um to tackle these very difficult and challenging issues that relate to people that are really struggling and um uh while it's it's tough work and we get a lot of input from the community um you know it's it's a it's a real honor to be in a position where we can try to make a a positive impact on these individuals and lastly I'll say we just have such great Partners um in our community that you

[250:01] saw tonight that um they actually do the work um and um um I think every council meeting I ask for community members to open their checkbooks and write checks to those uh Community organizations that do this work I'll do that again tonight um and um you know we we really need the whole Community to to help in this work so thank you for the opportunity to to listen and uh reflect on our presentation tonight thanks for that Kurt judge Khan I just wanted to Echo what Kurt just said it is really an honor to to be able to participate in this process and I think I told councelor Wier this a while back it's to be able to just work on these problems and try to see if you can find solutions to them as as hard as they can be I think it's just great that we have the opportunity and everybody being here and working as hard as they do and the folks at HHS are just

[251:00] unbelievable how hard they work so I really appreciate them thank you thank you all for the work you're doing for our community um all right with that we're done good night all everybody thank you Rachel