Good morning. It is just after 10 o'clock on April 22nd. We are here as the joint committee of the Planning Housing and Parks Committee and the Health and Human Services Committee here with Co-Chair Councilmember Alburnaaz and we are here with colleagues in the Health Human Services and Seth as well as DHCA and and HOC and the executive branch and we are going to talk about rental assistance programs that we have across county departments and agencies. I will open it up if Council member Albernolz has any initial comments that we can turn it over to staff to walk us through. We get straight. Great. We're wanting to turn it over to Council staff to walk us through the packet and we can turn it over to our colleagues in the Executive Branch and HOC as needed. Okay. Good morning. So the purpose of today's work session is to review the HIF Funded Retail Sisters Programs. The HIF is managed by DHCA, the funding goes towards HUC programs, HHS programs, as well as DH system programs. The HIF is managed by DHCA. The funding goes towards HAC programs, HHS programs, as well as DHCA programs. As a matter of housekeeping, the broader HIF discussion will take place on Friday at the PHP committee along with the DHC operating budget, as well as the broader HHS conversation. Budget conversation will take place on Monday, the 28th as part of the HHS committee. So for today for today, we're limited to what the head funded programs are, the changes are in the budget. And I'll stop there and we can proceed after any opening remarks. Great. All right. Guess I'll start. Chelsea Andrews, president of HLC. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. Of course, this funding is much needed and greatly appreciated. I see that there is a recommendation for a slight increase to account for inflation. That's definitely appreciated. And again, these programs, our programs include the rentENT Supplement Program, the Move Up Initiative, the Community Choice Homes Initiative, and Youth Bridge Initiative. They're all very discrete programs that help specific populations that need additional support. So in addition to our voucher program, which you all are very familiar with that has funding from the federal government programs like these and the investment that the county has made and ensuring that we're able to provide support to these specific populations, scuritely appreciated and I'm open for any questions that you may have. Great. Thank you. Good morning, Council members. Thank you for the opportunity to be here for this conversation about the emergency rent or different types of rental assistance. My name's Scott Bruton. I am the director of the Department of Housing and Community Affairs. DHCA's chief finance administration is going to provide a little overview of the DHCA aspects of what's being considered today. Good morning, Councilmember. This is Wolfens Salem, Bob DSCA. For the rental assistance program has been consistently that we use the recommendation tax premium to provide funding support for three department, HLC, HHS and DSEA to support any services of program related with rental assistance, rental subsidy, especially to support low income, household that they can retain their housing. And so for based on whatever finance is a projection on the revenue for FI-26, we see a slightly increased, so we are able to support each agency with 3% inflation adjustment. So pretty much not big changes. The only difference is because the agreement between HHS and the SCA that we are taking over one of their programs. So, we want to put in more formal agreement with HUI through our rental agreements. So, we can continue to provide the support for any kind of rental assistance units that anticipate to create going forward. Otherwise pretty much consistent with the commitment that we provided for three agencies. Good morning Council Vice President Juwondo and Council Joint Committee members joining us this morning. I just want to personally thank as the director of Health and Human Services James Bridgers, our partners who are at the table today. There's an immediate threat to housing and supportive housing, not only in the county, but at a national and state level. And so what you see before you is a packet that supports what we intend to do to help those who are in need for either. shortterm housing, rental assistance, or rapid rehousing. And I'll turn it over to Ms. Hong, who can really delineate some of those programs that we need support and not only the HIF and Department of Housing and Community Affairs but within the Department of Health and Human Services. Thank you, Dr. Bridgers. Thank Thank you joint committee. I'm so glad to be here and so thankful for your ongoing support of the county's commitment to provide the rental assistance especially to our most vulnerable households and for Seth this means that the funding pays for our permanent supportive housing programs which are for disabled households as well as a rapid rehousing for those who can increase their earned income. And then our shallow subsidy rental assistance program, I know it has a similar name to the rap funding, but that's also so important for those who are disabled, those who are older adults to keep them housed. and then lastly our eviction prevention. So I just wanna underscore the importance of this funding and the continuation of it and also to say that as Dr. Bridgers mentioned, we know from the point in time count this January that our numbers continue to rise amongst the not just individual households but also families which we've seen over the last two years. So we expect to see and these numbers will be published in May, but nearly a doubling of families experiencing homelessness. So our commitment to provide these housing interventions remains critical and we are here to answer questions. But I want to thank you for all of your support of this funding. Great. Well, we've heard from everybody. We have a couple of options before us from the Council staff that we can talk through and discuss. Then we can also just open up in general if any colleagues have comments. but essentially, and staff can speak to these, and I think we can hear from the partners who are here to let us know what the impact would be on some of these decisions, I think would be helpful. But essentially two recommendations related to funding, one, the contingency question and the other of whether to allocate funding to replace federal dollars that have are no longer available that have been utilized up to this point with general fund dollars or whether we take money out of the housing initiative fund in order to fund that. Right. So if you want to speak to that. Sure. Absolutely. So yeah, as as Northern the packet, the executive has certain recommended increases. Detailed nothing controversial there. Mentioned we mentioned a shift of the HEUI contract from DHS to DHCA, which is why the DHS portion is going down and the DHCA portion is increasing. Regarding the executive's recommending a contingency level of 2.6 million, typically a contingency is increasing. Regarding contingency, the executive is recommending a contingency level of 2.6 million. Typically, the contingency is there at the 10% level roughly to account for any volatile revenue shortfalls from recognition taxes. So that's typically how DHC would program in the recommended budget. There is a discussion there to be had, whether to reduce the contingency to say 5%, which would free up roughly 1.2 million, which can then be used to increase funding for the HHS portion, for example, rapid rehousing. Some of those programs also receive general fund dollars, so one option would be to directly offset those general fund dollars, and thus freeing up resources for the competition list. Another option would be to simply reduce contingency and increase add to the HHS programs to see if it to increase services and service levels. This is strategy we did two years ago when the recommendation tax bill was approved. We had project additional resources and we were able to use those additional recommendation taxes in the HIF to offset general fund dollars. So what I'm suggesting is we could discuss a similar strategy for this year. I'll stop there. What's the actual recommendation tax experience over the last decade? I mean, if the contingency has been programmed at 10%, the recommendation here is 5%, do we have a use case over the last 10 years or 15 years that lets us know what it has been each year and what we should expect? I think historically we have been assume about 10% from the contingency as a cushion for instance because during the fiscal year it could have a lot of housing opportunities pop up and the ACA want to have the some sort of resources that we can react to enter negotiation especially for some kind of rental agreement. The new rental agreement then we need this part of the money to fulfill some of the housing goal that we intended to achieve, especially if we want to provide more units, affordable units for low income residents. If we look at the projection for recognition tax premium, I think the budget is pretty much on my whatever what finance is provided. However, if you recall, a couple years ago, a special FY22, the recognition tax premium, the actual revenue can combat much lower. And that really, you know, whatever the assumed contingency is not there. And so we really have to struggle to make sure all the committed services for that particularly year, for particular year that have the resources there. So the policy or the approach is we try to maintain the committed services throughout the year because the market is so volatile, and the contingency if the actual revenue did not come in as what we projected or approved in the budget, we want to make sure we have the resources there to support the committed services. I'll just add that if we find that the revenues do come in as expected or come in higher than expected, then we can work together with theft to determine how to spend that money. This is not money that would just stay in, sorry, I almost said lockbox, but did you know, like to stay segregated out from being used, this is money that could be used in the third and fourth quarters of the year if we're seeing that revenues do come in. And as Miss Salem noted, we could use it for things such as say, HUI, which they normally do by one or two houses, convert into group houses. What we do, she mentioned rental agreements, part of the reason that HUI's contract is moving over to us is that CF doesn't really, except for the HUI long-term contract, doesn't really do rental agreements, whereas DHCA does long-term rental agreements. So it made sure to fit there. And HUI, as it grows, are always seeing an expansion. Or if we see examples where we could preserve affordability and a property by doing a rental agreement, we would have those funds to be able to do so. That said, we would always talk with Seth about this. And if Seth needed, if we knew that the funds were going to be there in the contingency funds, going to be available for us, then we would also talk with Seth and see what their spend down rate for their existing programs were and determine if that money should be transferred on. Over there, so the programs that are covered in, like in this part of the hymn, the money will get spent. It's just a matter of when the commitment is made. Do we make the commitment up front now without the contingency? Or do we have the flexibility, half way, or three quarters of the way through the year to determine what is the best use at the time? Appreciate that. I think it would be helpful for us to get the last 10 years or 15 years pick a point in time that seems reasonable and appropriate and let us know what the numbers have come in based on the projection because what we've projected every year is really less relevant to what has actually happened every year. So not the budgeted amount but the actual amount. I think I would be helpful. I'll just speak for myself before turning to colleagues. I would be uncomfortable at this point reallocating this funding. And obviously there are huge needs. We have major asks. We've heard from folks here. the money will be spent, so it's not an issue of whether or not this money will be spent that we just heard. I do think that D H C A and C F should be working with the council on that, so I would recommend if we don't move forward that at the fiscal update, which is a good point in time in December, that's when we are already looking at how revenues are coming in, including recordation tax, et cetera, that you come to us, not just as part of the macro level, but the micro level of exactly what the departments are discussing and expecting, and that the council be part of those discussions and perhaps in the early part of the new year. We can have a joint committee session to discuss how those funds would be allocated. So if we don't move forward in that, we'll see where other folks are. I do think that the council needs to play a role. The funds should be spent, but they should be spent with our budget authority and not as just an extra account to priorities that the council is not privy to or involved in. So let me turn it over to colleagues, council, vice president, Jouand. Let me turn it to the co-chair first and then I'll turn it to council vice president, Jouana. All right. Good morning morning everyone. So just for a little bit of context and background, just to go over the data and sort of where things are now. We've heard within HHS Committee sessions the growing need we're all familiar with it, we're all feeling it. We've heard numerous times from constituents who are in crisis. But if we could just pause for a moment and describe the picture currently as it stands today. So we're hovering it around 4.5, coming close to 5% unemployment, things have settled had settled somewhat since COVID, although we were still not at pre-COVID levels in terms of eviction rates. We know things we're about to get infinitely worse. How worse is the only question based on the federal reductions, more and more people losing their jobs? And we obviously have, as strong an infrastructure as I think most reasonable people could ask for here in Montgomery County through the partnership of SAF, HHS, our incredible nonprofit organizations, and of course, our public sector. But could somebody just describe for me where we are in terms of eviction rates, what we are seeing, we heard the statistic earlier, which, you know, we more than doubled the amount of people who were counted as recently as last year in homelessness. We know the rates of families are increasing. But if we could just pause for a moment and hear a little bit more about that context and where we are programmatically to reach those people. My apologies. I don't have the eviction numbers ready today, but I can present them on Monday if that would be allowable or I could provide them after this meeting. I have numbers of homeless, so I prepared just broadly without giving the exact numbers are pit count from January, which is a reflection of those who are entering the system as a result of eviction. One of the things I would comment related to eviction is there's a limit to the number of evictions that the sheriff's office can do. So it's not necessarily, which in many ways I'm thankful for, because they can only conduct a certain number and therefore even though there are tens of thousands that where there are eviction filings every year, 40,000 on average, not all of those get to the point of executing the eviction and also there's the limiting factor of how many they can actually execute. So I just want to state that first but I can provide the exact numbers year to date next week if that's okay. That would be helpful, you know, just again, see where we are. We know what's coming, as I said, but seeing where we are currently is relevant to the discussion we're having right now. And we want as many options as possible moving forward because while things are challenging, they're about to get worse. And so we want to make sure that we're as we spread out as much as few resources as we have as strategically as possible. If you'd like, I could do a broad overview of our homeless numbers. If that would be a helpful picture. So last year when we did the point in time count, we had 1144 people that we counted January 24th, 2024. This year we counted approximately 1500. And while so overall there is a 32% increase in homelessness from last year to this year. What is really concerning, it's all concerning, however, the number of families experiencing homelessness has doubled from last year to this year. Last year we had about 100 family households. This year we had about 200 family households. Now that is concerning because it's homelessness is so very disruptive to a family system. And more than half of the people in those families are children. So we're talking about our most vulnerable individuals. Also amongst individuals experiencing homelessness, they tend to be older adults, people with disabilities, people with severe behavioral health. And so just overall that 1500 is very, very troubling, which is why we have to continue to double down on our interventions. Like Sharp, which I am prepared, we'll be prepared on Monday to share our very exciting results. I can say we've housed with the support of the supplemental appropriation provided 80 families as of last Friday using that sharp funding. So we've already decreased the number of families in our system from 200 to about 150. So and there continues to be inflow of families each month, many of whom are first time homeless, which I'll talk about more next week as well. But the factors we're talking about, the increasing amount of job instability, the increasing rents, the inflation, the loss of the federal, COVID dollars, it's all working against our families and it's showing up in our numbers, which I'll talk about in detail next week. Dr. Bridges, do you see it? We're going to say something. Again, good morning, Council Member Alano. It's just looking at my notes. I wanted to go back to Council Member Freetz, and this question, and I asked the Council and Council staff to help us as partner as we work through budget scenarios with ONB. Could we get some budgetary framework, so thresholds around the ceilings that Council Member Freetz and talked about with the actuals over time historical crosswalk of the recordation tax just to give us when we have a work session later on in the year to come prepared with some scenarios to present to Council working with OMB. Just asking that question sorry breaking protocol because I know the Q8 is on y'all from us but I wanted to put that bag while I was fresh so thank you. I appreciate that and I appreciate that over mute chief on it's it's it gives a picture. to it is on y'all from us, but I wanted to put that bag while I was fresh. So thank you. I appreciate that. And I appreciate that over mute, chief. It gives a picture, the bleak picture of what's before us right now. And again, what's coming, just to connect a couple of dots. So by the way, shout out to a group of passionate and well informed advocates that I had the opportunity to meet with earlier this week that shared some very troubling stories that are consistent with other stories we've heard out in the community. And of course we all want to do everything that we can to address this issue as complex it is and as it's growing. But moving forward and post budget, because we're talking about this in terms of housing, fundamental issue, critical, but we haven't, I think, done enough to talk about workforce development and actually serendipitously, Mr. Hall from Interfaith Works met with me regarding a concept for an initiative that he's interested in expanding, which is going to be difficult as part of the budget process and where we are with that process. But we have to take the long view here. And I know my colleagues in the Economic Development Committee, led by our incredible chair, Councillor Mellor, Funnywinsalez, have talked about this and we've had really robust discussions in the area of youth development and workforce development among our youth. This is a population that obviously we also need to be very sensitive to the unique sets of challenges that folks in these situations are in. And so that's a subsequent conversation that we have to have, but I don't think we can have this one without that one going forward. So with that, I yield to you, Mr. Chair, and look forward to the questions from colleagues. Thank you, Councillor Freshpresident Chwanda. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I'm glad that I went after Chair Albernos because he teed up things really nicely. I think many of us this week or soon will have met with this coalition of folks that are particularly advocating around rental assistance. I was just at a bill signing with council members, Mank and Luky, that will allow consumer protection laws to be used when homes aren't habitable for that small amount of landlords that aren't doing what they're supposed to do. But I reminded folks there that, you know, we're approaching 40% of our community or renters. And that is a nearly 400,000 people, if you take our population. And so even if you have a small subset of that, not doing what they're supposed to do, you're talking about tens of thousands of people. And I guarantee you, if you crosswalk that list to the list of new families that are homeless experiencing homelessness, there's going to be some overlap. And so it just underscores that all these things are connected and we are in a difficult spot. But I do feel very confident and thankful that we have a strong infrastructure, a strong commitment, whether it was in COVID, how much money we committed through the federal dollars, the work that Seth and all of you all are doing. And not I think, I know we're doing better than others. But again, we have be our our own standard setters. That's the Montgomery County Challenge of you know we can't accept a doubling in family homelessness and not respond and I know we are responding that's great news about Sharp. That's why that money was needed and I think that type of result in that period time period is you kind of glossed over it Christine because you're just like grizzled in the work here, but that's that's a significant accomplishment. So I want to just 80 you said reduced from 150 families to 80 reduced is that correct? Or you reduce the number 280? Yeah, we reduced that so we had the earlier part of the year had 200 families in armotels and shelters and we've housed through the sharp program 80 families since the supplemental appropriation was approved. So our current number is around 150, but that's because there's continual and slow into the system. Yeah, we have to account for that, but it is incredible work. I'm so proud of the team. It's across three divisions of staff. It's housing, it's prevention, because we're trying to identify the families as soon as they're presenting so that they're not having to be in shelter-along term, as well as our family services. They've been working so collaboratively, and just putting on housing fares for the families with property managers coming so they could apply right there and so they've been working very diligently since the council approved the appropriation. So it really has been a team effort. We couldn't have done it with all your support with that unanimous vote. I am so thankful for that. Well, thank you for providing a little more context and thank you to you and your team for all that work. One of the things that I would also like to see, I agree with Chair Freedson that at this moment, I don't think we should reallocate. We should get a little more on the trends. You all are sitting next to each other because you work well together. So I think in the short term and like in the next year, I trust that you will make those allocations. If you get a big deal, you'll talk about it, you'll communicate with us. I also agree that it should be communicated back to us about what you intend to do for budgetary standpoint. But I feel comfortable that knowing that money will go to good use. But in addition to that, I would be interested to see and have a little more analysis maybe on Monday. Is that a morning meeting or is that an afternoon meeting? I don't know, as I know it's an HHS. Afternoon. Is it afternoon? 13th from 30th? 13th. Okay. Well, we have a P.E. at the same time. That's why I was saying. I won't be able to be there but I'll make sure my staff is monitoring and maybe submit a few questions but I would love to see that information and included in that not only where the evictions are but what the current county executive's budget proposal which you'll be going over that day for the SEF programs, would, what dent would that make in your mind, right? Best you can. And then what the Delta is between, you know, and again, knowing we don't know exactly how bad it's gonna get or how quickly, but we do know that it's getting worse. Just what, what it, resources would mean, how many more folks we'd be able to cover or prevent. We also heard very compelling testimony from folks in support of Interfaith Works, where you know a little bit about that from your previous time. And some of their programs that are able to intervene a little sooner in the process. And so what we're trying to figure out is as we head into this coming storm, we're already in it. But as it gets worse, what are the things that we should be thinking about about where we can allocate resources, either in our nonprofit sector, partners, to, to, to, to staff and others, and what that means as far as the return on investment. And then investment in this case is keeping people housed and so like the numbers you gave us was sharp to the extent that you can providing that context. Is that a reasonable ask? Is that something that you could? Yes, absolutely. And I really appreciate you naming that the investment in prevention and housing is really where we want to be. We spend so much of our funding on our emergency response. That's our shelters and our motels. And we have to. But that is not where we want to invest most of our funds. We want to invest in keeping families in their homes before it becomes a crisis for them. So I really appreciate you tuning into that and for all of you for your support and understanding that that's where we want to focus our funding. Right. I appreciate that. And who knows, you know, we this budget situation we're in is pretty pretty fluid right now to say understatement as far as revenues and where things are going to go. And so I think having that as a part of our larger discussions, as we head into the storm, that Councilor Morano has talked about, will be helpful and we can see what we got to do this year, but also going forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me turn it over to Co-Chair once chime in again and then turn it to Councilor Morphado. Yes, I should have mentioned in my comments, I agree with the chair as well and councilmember Germondo for the moment on not supporting reallocation and giving us more flexibility moving forward. Appreciate that, Councillor our findings outs Thank you. Good morning also. Let me just put it out there before forget I also agreed with the chairman the two chairs and Cancel vice president in your wonder Couple of things one. I want to thank the H committee last. I'm beginning all these different calls about people who are about to be homeless or they use their homeless right now. And last week was really heartbreaking. It was a person, his stepfather called me. This person has a disability and basically you guys hold me deal with the adult forest foster care system and now he's housed. Thank you for for doing all that. I received a really hardwarming letter from the father and I'm gonna share that with you guys because it's important to remember the good things that we're doing and I'llki, to me, hope. So I'm going to put that out there. Second, obviously, these numbers are going to increase drastically, especially people from other jurisdictions that are coming to Montgomery County. I'm just not going to name them, but you know what's going to happen. It's happening already. And we got to walk the talk and embrace our values and make sure that especially with children, as you're saying, the most vulnerable, we got to protect them because that's how we do things in Montgomery County. So I once you come back with data, I really want to understand more when we housed somebody. How long does the family stay in that situation? What are we doing to really make sure that they have a permanent home and I just stay in a motel for a few months because that's just a little band aid which reminds me of the need of increasing and greater and more housing. And I look forward to more data really to connect the dots and understand the situation right now and share that data with COG, you know, the, the regional organization of local governments and see what else they're doing that we're not doing because this is an issue that we should be working in conjunction and in coordination. I think we're leading among them, but also know that, you know, the probably doing things that we're not doing. So having that coordination is more important now than ever before, based on what's happening at the federal level. And I want to understand how often you're talking to your counterparts in, not just within Maryland, but in DC, DC, Washington, DC, in Virginia. So that will be very helpful for me. And I look forward to also the funding conversation in December that we'll have. Thank you, Councilmember. Fannie Gonzalez, just for your information, your situation, all the weariness, Ms. Hogan and I are members of the COG's human services. We have the report. We're always talking about the homeless challenges that we have, not only Montgomery County, but in the region. Of course, as Council Vice President Juwanda say, they want to replicate what we do. So, you know, we provide them with the best practice or better practices for what we are doing, but that's just not enough. And so we can continue to share reports with the committee members just for your situation or where it is just to enhance and increase your knowledge of what we're doing in partnership with our regional partners. Thank you. And I did want to add that one of the areas in which Montgomery County has been a leader is by joining the built for zero movement, which is trying to end homelessness by reaching so-called functional zero. And Montgomery County has been part of that movement for more than 10 years and One of our early successes was reaching functional zero for veterans at the end of 2020 2015 so there is a precedent for setting milestones in Ending homelessness or reaching functional zero and that is something that the council of governments has recently signed on to for all of the other jurisdictions who have not been part of that movement. So it's really exciting because what it means is we'll be setting regional goals in reducing homelessness. Yeah it's something that we very much have needed because we know that homelessness doesn't have boundaries. I'm sorry if it is. Yeah so it's something that's really important that we're looking forward to. And in addition to that, Montgomery County is part of a triad with the district as well as Prince George's County to share data so that we can do more case conferencing for folks who have connections to other jurisdictions and all of us see it. So that's a collaboration that is developing and we are currently working on a data warehouse between the three jurisdictions to share that data. So those are two things that we're doing collaboratively across the region and with our neighboring jurisdictions. Great, Councilor Murlucky. Thank you. So thank you for all that you do. And I greatly appreciate it. And as Councilmember Fanny Gonzalez noted, we do need to prioritize, especially our families with children. So back to the data piece, because we all, each one of our offices gets lots of calls for people who need assistance. And I want to thank all of you for always being good partners in that work. And then there are some where we're not going to be able to help, right? Or there are other conditions or circumstances that mean it's sort of beyond our county or our offices to assist with. And that's unfortunate. But I wanted to know how you utilize the State Department of Housing and Community Development's eviction dashboard because that was a critical project for the Access to Justice Commission that I served on in my prior role and I served on the data and legal technology team. So that was a really big deal for us to get that passed in 2022 and an atop priority for my prior boss former Attorney General Frush. And so since the judiciary has been collecting that information and populating that dashboard since January 1st 2023. I wanted to know what you've been able to glean from utilizing the data. And also to your point about there's no boundaries around this. How in examining surrounding jurisdictions data, what you're seeing. What is the story that's being told by the data and analysis that you're able to do working with that? Thank you for that question. So the data that the state provides is valuable in seeing whether our trends with evictions are consistent with those statewide. So to look at them is helpful and to see that, in fact, evictions and increase in evictions and increase in housing instability isn't just a curing Montgomery County, it's occurring across the state and the same with the data that they collect. They similar to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments also are collecting point in time count data for state jurisdictions. So when you look at the data across the state, all of the counties homeless numbers are trending upwards and have been. Now that is as of the 2024 point in time count, everyone's still cleaning their data and preparing it for May for the 2025 point in time count. But as of last year, the jurisdictions across the state were all seeing an increase in homelessness. And that was also the case with the Metropolitan Washington regions, which include Northern Virginia, except for there's one outlier, which was our Fairfax County had a modest decrease last year. But I expect to see similar numbers this year because it is a national crisis with housing and a regional issue certainly as far as homelessness really. It's just nationwide homelessness numbers are increasing. So it's very helpful to see the data to have that context across the state. And then in addition to that, I'm sorry, I'm pivoting to you at the second part of your question, which was related to, do you mind? The first part was about how you specifically use DHCDs, data dashboard, because we've we've got two full calendar years worth of Data statewide on there broken out by jurisdiction and because it it talks about the circum like there is supposed to be Information in there that's relevant to evictions that are actually carried out like as we've talked about it There's a high number of evictions filed so it's kind of like a funnel, right? You're up here with the number but but the actual execution is down here. In the middle is a lot of anxiety and instability, but not the same type of instability that happens once you get to the bottom of the funnel and the eviction is executed. And so, and I know, you know, everyone up here is working on different aspects of how to prevent and intervene across that different point in the funnel. And what I'm trying to find out, and evictions is one piece of it, but foreclosure is another. And even back in 2021, when we were starting to like pick through these things, both aspects were things that with respect to the access to justice commission were focuses. What's going on in the foreclosure world, what is or isn't happening, what notices are happening, what type of outreach is being given in that context in order to help intervene so that foreclosure doesn't actually become final, right? Yes. And then the eviction piece is the other part. So it is both a renter and an owner problem that leads to the increased homelessness numbers. Agreed. Agreed. And what also is not clear from what has happened because at the same time that we've seen financial instability that's impacting the number of foreclosures, the number of evictions and those types of things. We've also seen an increase in behavioral health issues and substance use disorder. And so what's not clear are what are the causes or coexisting causes that lead to that. And if we're not doing that type of analysis, we're not gonna get to fixing the problem or diminishing the impact. And that's what I'm wanting you all to speak to. Yeah, so we certainly do track and assess the causes of homelessness. And I can present that as well on Monday to see what the overwhelming cause of the homeless is. And it's, I would say it's different amongst families and individuals. Sure. Amongst individuals, we see more long-term chronic homelessness and more disability. So, yes, I can provide that it certainly is really important to understanding how we prevent more people from entering into homelessness, which is our goal. And I know that though we do have some households that come to us in foreclosure, the vast majority who seek our housing stabilization housing stabilization services are renters. Amazing eviction, yes. Okay. Thank you. Now I really appreciate that. And in the interim between now and Monday, I'll go back through myself and dig through the dashboard. Even this morning when I was trying to pull it up, it's not on the access to justice commissions. Website anymore. It's on DHCD. if anybody out there as council vice president, do you want to say for the millions watching at home? It's on the DHCD website and it's called the landlord and tenant eviction dashboard. Thank you, council member sales. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to you all for trying to tackle this ongoing problem that continues to grow I Too met with some of the advocates from the housing justice coalition and just wanted to better understand how we're prioritizing ADA enhancements in some of these affordable housing communities and Just wanted to better understand, because if we're looking at a 3% inflationary adjustment, I mean, the numbers that they proposed to us were, I think, was less than 200,000 to retrofit some of these affordable housing units. So before we decide on this inflationary adjustment and other items, I just wanted to better understand. Have we calculated how much these improvements would cost? And do we have a list of ADA accessible affordable housing apartments that are available for Recommendation when we're Identifying where are I guess rapid rehousing or you know low income residents can go Yeah, so The it is the proper property manager's responsibility to retrofit units to be to respond to a reasonable accommodation. It's not generally something we have to do. Sometimes we have to work with DHCA, you know, when if a tenant needs a reasonable accommodation and the landlord is not following through on that, having said that, if we're talking about, because of the properties that were grandfathered. So I guess they were too old and they don't have to comply with the ADA regulations. Are you aware of any properties that don't have to comply with ADA regulations? I can check with our Office of Landlord and tenant affairs. and we can get back to you with any data that we might have. Good. Okay. I would appreciate it. And as we're looking at the information about, you know, why people are facing homelessness, that'll be interesting to see. I'm not hearing a lot about how we're working with finding that will be interesting to see. I'm not hearing a lot about how we're working with financial management and teaching whether it's fiscal management, mental health. I'm not sure what that program looks like. The people that we are rapidly rehousing are putting in affordable housing. How long are they staying there? And then, do we see a drop off, or do we see patterns of inability to pay again? Like, I'm not understanding what's working, what's not working with people facing chronic homelessness, or those who are getting thousands of dollars behind in their rent, and why we're coming in so late late or why they're notifying us so late. So there were just so many different stories that we heard during the public testimony last two weeks ago. So yeah, and each situation has its own complexities and is nuanced and every case is unique. But I can say that for those who are chronically homeless, those are people who are typically who have a disability and have had a long-term experience of homelessness, which usually exacerbates their disabilities, whether it's a chronic health condition, a physical disability, or severe behavioral health. So what is needed for them to be successful in housing is the supportive services. And that's why the permanent supportive housing intervention that I often talk about is so important to continue to fund. And as rents go up to provide the additional funding to cover those rents because these are individuals who will struggle to remain housed without the supportive services. So yeah, I urge the council to, I know we will talk about this next week, but to continue to support that housing intervention, it is 98% successful as far as retention rates. It's a very, very important housing program for folks who are chronically homeless. And then I think you also asked about rapid rehousing. So rapid rehousing is specifically for households that are able to increase their earned income. And the way Montgomery County has set up its rapid rehousing program is to not only provide intensive case management so that the household can be connected to services quickly but also an employment specialist who works intensively with the household to increase their earned income. And this is an intervention that works well with families who are often less vulnerable. And that intensive employment work is important because many of the households that come to us have come with no income. And so they need that support. And the employment specialist also works with them on developing their financial skills. skills, many of the families we see see are new parents, are younger and need that support in developing those skills. So it's definitely something that's needed and that our workers provide to those who are experiencing homelessness. What we would like to do if we're able to expand our partnerships with our housing stabilization is to offer it to all the households that come for housing stabilization. Currently, our case managers can do that. They are trained to provide that, but we would like to work with a partner that provides it similar to the City of Gatharsburg program, which is really, really effective. So we're looking to expand our partnerships there if we're able. OK, and I know you had to make some cuts to some of the program managers. Where, what's the caseload now for the case managers now? How many families, individuals are? What's the average caseload? So, and this is this for our housing programs or for housing stabilization? Housing stabilization. Yes, so it's open-ended. We have to serve the need. So there is no set caseload. And I have to say I do the exit interviews for everyone at Seth, including those who have been with us for 30 plus years. And the demand on them is high because of that. And so last year we had a net loss of 20 staff because our COVID funding went away. But that definitely, what happened was that the existing staff had to carry the same burden. So we are challenged there, but we have excellent and super dedicated staff. How about the staff now? What they're all about. Right now, I want to say we have about, I couldn't give you the exact number, but in Silver Spring, Rockville, in Germantown. But we have a team of 15, 15 at each location. At each, those are our workers that includes triage. We have, and then case management. Case management. Yeah. Okay. Yes. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Reming. Thank you. Appreciate the sentiments of all my colleagues and I'll just add. And thank you all for the work that you all do in this space, that the investments that we make, as we have discussed before in regards to the appropriation back in December, that the investments, the dollars in this space are some of the most cost, not only most needed, but most cost effective investments that we can make, because it's when we fail to make the adequate investments in this space, that's when we start to have much more expensive effects obviously on the human side but also even purely from a fiscal perspective with you know with our very much overburdened shelter system with hotels but also in ways that are more indirect costs, both to the families as well as to the county and the services that we provide. So dollars that we are able to put into this space to keep people in stable housing, to keep people in their homes are very much dollars well spent and at this time more than any other in recent history,'s going to be very, very true. So I really appreciate my colleagues for the emphasis that they're putting on the spending. Thanks. Appreciate that. Alright, we've heard from colleagues. It seems like there is a consensus that we appreciate the staff recommendation on the contingency, but that's not something that we're interested at this point. I would ask that we take note on the December fiscal update and come back with a report on where things are and perhaps look to schedule a joint committee meeting in early part of the new year, middle of January, ideally, if we can. when we get back into session to discuss the use of funds or if there aren't as many funds as we anticipate how we're going to fund these these needs that are greater than the resources that are available. There's also an additional recommendation that we didn't speak directly to on money out of the hip. I'll just note my view on that. I'm not enthusiastic about taking money away from affordable housing programs in order to fund that. It seemed like that's a similar sentiment from what I heard from colleagues and so I'm seeing nodding heads and without objection the consensus of the Joint Committee is to accept the County Executive's recommended budget here. So without objection we will accept the County Executive's recommended budget on these HIF funded programs and we will forward that along to the full council. With that, with appreciation to all of the team who is here, this shows the coordinated effort that County government is taking to try to address these serious issues. I also like colleagues met with many of the advocates and those who are impacted by these issues and heard their compelling stories, appreciate the courage that it takes to share those personal stories, which is not an easy thing to do and is shared on behalf of many others, facing and experiencing some of these challenges and really appreciate not only those who are here today but all of the teams that you are here representing who are on the front lines doing this work each and every day which is really grueling and challenging and emotionally difficult work that we know that many of our county employees and other volunteers and our partner organizations take home with them. I keep them up at night. It honks them in the morning and we just very much appreciate all of that work and that effort. So with that, we have a joint committee recommendation unanimously without objection and we are adjourned.