REALTIME FILE

Meeting ‑ CCSWW Tacoma‑Pierce County 
Coalition to End Homelessness

Friday, April 24, 2020

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>> I noticed something the other day that Starbucks is giving free coffee to first responders.  And I am thinking about trying to find whoever the regional district or whatever manager is around here and see if they would be willing to extend that to people who are doing outreach to the homeless.  And the question I think is, do those folks wear some kind of ID tag or something that would identify them as part of that group?  Do you know? 
>> Not officially.  All of us have ID tags that are part of our organizations, so.   You know, like an ID badge from the Rescue Mission.  I am going to get us rolling, Al.   
	Everybody, welcome so much to another Friday Coalition to End Homelessness meeting.  Thanks everybody for coming.  I have a pretty cool set of folks that wanted to come and present, so I am excited about all of that.  We've got Derek Young, hopefully.
There he is.  He is going to go do a little opening and fill us in a little bit on the county council perspective on funding on resources.  We are going to hear a little bit about City of Tacoma's rent assistance program, and then the Health Department has kindly agreed to talk a little bit about compassion fatigue, something I certainly am feeling, although I am certainly low on the compassion department already.  It's hard to wear that hat. But I am excited here.  I have been playing around with Zoom again because apparently I don't have enough to do with my day, so I was putting in my nice background here.  It's aspirational. Friday is the only day I actually get to leave the house.  Most of the time I am feeling a little bit less like this and a little bit [away from mic], somebody sort of caught up in their little basement room instead of out in the beautiful open.  
	So without much ado, I think I am going to go ahead and hand us off in a second here.  Although I was going to say I was feeling a bit more less out in the open and a bit more on my transmission from Smeagol to Gollum.  I don't have a basement, but it feels like that. 
	My grand opening, whoo‑hoo, and welcome you all to the meeting.  Thanks so much, and I am going to go ahead and hand it off to Derek Young, councilmember, all things county and certainly around homelessness.  It's all yours. 
>> Thank you, Gerrit, and I am realizing that I really need to up my game on my Zoom skills now.  I hadn't seen an introduction like that before.  That's great. 
	So thank you all for having me.  I plan to kind of run through a couple things.  In part because most of you are already aware of the things I was going to mention, but just trying to give the council's perspective a little bit on everything going on.  But I am also here, one, to listen to you and things you need, and also to try to answer any questions you might have.  Even though I am on the health board for any kind of public health ‑‑ I heard you say you had someone from the department.  I will defer most of that to you all, or to them.  Let me get started.  As you are all aware, we did approve the passthrough dollars from the Department of Commerce and emergency funding as well as expanded our own appropriation for housing services.  So those are going to two things.  I think you are probably aware of the shelter expansion that's occurring to accommodate social distances.  Something that I have been trying to communicate to the public as clearly as possible is that this is not really buying us any additional capacity.  It's basically trying to space the folks that were already in the system.  So we are not actually technically making improvements, though I'm sure it's in some way beneficial other than just from a public health standpoint, but I think it's important that we are clear in our communication about that because it still means that we have a long way to go, as you are all aware. 
	The rental assistance program I think it's interesting because, you know, I know that there is a debate in the housing service community about prevention‑type services.  This seems like a really good time to try to get a little outside the box and perhaps help some folks in a way that maybe we haven't done in the past, just given the unique nature of this crisis.  And so I normally would have dug in a little bit there and tried to figure out if that would be an appropriate response, but our department staff seemed much more confident in our ability to get it out the door and to help people that were in a pinch and would only add to our situation from ‑‑ in terms of homelessness numbers. 
	One thing I will tell you unrelated that you may not be aware of that I have been working on in a different capacity, I represent counties on the Sentencing Guidelines Commission and the Sentencing Reform Task Force.  Those two bodies are basically ‑‑ the main job is looking at the criminal justice system and how that ‑‑ you know, basically a reform effort to see is there a way to reduce incarceration, but as a result of that we got a presentation basically asking for our response on the release plan that the governor has submitted to reduce the prison population, and allow for more social distancing. 
	One of the things I was pushing on and asked the secretary of the Corrections about was, you know, do you have a housing plan for these folks, or are we releasing them, you know, basically and exacerbating our homelessness problem.  Particularly because the ruling also suspends the fair share law that's been in effect, so I was concerned we were going to see a dumping effect in Pierce County. 
	The assurance I got at the time they were going to have housing plans for everyone, so I was glad to hear that.  We are getting some indication that that may not exactly be the way it's happening, and so our council and staff are basically asking for, you know, more clarity and also assurance that that's not going to be the case.  It's not that I disagree with the policy of reducing the incarceration.  I actually think it's important from a public health standpoint because, you know, even though the inmates aren't leaving the facility coming and going, staff do, and it's a protection for staff and also the people they come into contact with.  We have done the same thing why our jail where we reduced our jail population significantly, mostly pretrial incarceration.  That may be impacting your services to be honest with you because we know unfortunately a certain number of folks that you are in contact with also in contact with our jail.  They may be cycling in and out and that would reduce capacity.  Again, even though it's the right thing to do I am not exactly sure how that's playing out on the streets so to speak.  So those are big concerns. 
	I would say that at least for me, and I can't speak for the council on this because we made no decisions, or really had that discussion, but we just did get of the CARES Act, that 157 million and change to the county.  A lot of that's going to be sucked up by our public health and emergency response efforts, but I consider at least eligible for that housing services as a big part of, you know, our disaster relief there.  The rule is that it has to be directly connected to COVID, and what happened there, but at least to me I think we can draw that connection, so I would like to see some of those funds extended perhaps to purchase some facilities that might be able to get up and running right away.  I am not talking new construction.  You know, like potentially, for example, motels and such space that already kind of serve some of that population, but maybe we can do it for basically an emergency, no cost kind of situation, and get people housing.  I have been thinking about this for a long time, for a ‑‑ almost an entry into getting some permanent supportive housing done on a quick basis, so now that we have an emergency in place it's something I was hoping to bounce off you all to see if that made sense. 
	So we are just kind of digging into that CARES Act planning right now.  We know it's not going to be enough, however.  We can't use those funds for any kind of revenue loss and quite frankly our revenue for state to local is all about to fall off a cliff.  So if we don't get some additional support soon, and so far the senate has not been supportive, we do have an agreed‑to ‑‑ well, we have an agreement with basically the house and senate democrats over terms.  So 150 million to state, tribal, local and territorial governments and we have agreed to the breakout, so we are hoping we can get that done here soon.  I was on our national call this weekend and was in contact with our delegation.  I can tell you they are all 100% on board.  That would help backfill our revenue losses which would roll downstream to you all. 
	I guess the couple things in terms of what's next, I will tell you that, you know ‑‑ so the state right now has in their own authority issued these orders.  We can also do that at the local level.  Dr.  Chen as the public health director in Pierce County has those same authorities here, so I at this point would defer to them on terms of timing of reopening.  We know it's going to happen, but unfortunately we don't have really good testing capacity, which is one condition at least in my eyes that is important before we go completely crazy.  There may be some relaxing of the standards that's appropriate, and I will leave that to the governor since he is getting information and I am not, but in terms of like what's necessary, we know ‑‑ I mean these are not magic ideas.  In fact I think every politician in the world has their big idea right now, and most of them are bad.  There is old tried and true public health techniques, testing and tracing, contact tracing.  We do it all the time.  Many of you are probably familiar with contact tracing because it's ‑‑ it often involves a population that is unhoused for things like tuberculosis, you know, any kind of outbreak that we have, and those types of diseases. 
	You always look at who you are in contact with, and then we can quarantine and isolate those folks as necessary.  So that's how you respond to this without a vaccine or cure, and so we will keep proceeding down that way. 
	This is causing a lot of pain.  Gerrit mentioned the compassion fatigue.  It's real, and all of this is personally exhausting for everyone.  I live alone, so I am certainly feeling it at this point.  I have begun talking to myself I think.  I haven't started responding yet, so that's good.  But I think that we are getting closer at least to some semblance of, you know, where we need to be in terms of the public health response so that we can begin returning to some normalcy.  But there is a lot of things that are going to be different for a long time, and I want to make that clear, is, you know, we are not going to be, you know, going back to concerts and sporting events here any time soon.  There is a lot of things that are going to be changed about our lives, but hopefully we can adapt. 
	And here is just my last assurance before I get to any questions or comments you might have.  At least from my perspective as a councilmember, I welcome your feedback on any kind of adjustments we need to be making.  I don't know what they would necessarily be, but I am open to it.  Oh, last thing I wanted to mention to you all that's really important, we do finally have the five‑year plan for homelessness.  It was delayed and then of course we hit the COVID response.  That just came to the council.  I haven't had time to review it yet, but we are planning it take that up I believe at our May 5th meeting, so I would love if get feedback.  Yeah, it is the May 5th meeting.  I would love to get feedback from you all on if it's good, if you have concerns, whatever.  So this is the first daylighting to me that I have gotten, so nothing has jump out yet, but I am very interested in your input.  Thank you. 
>> Great.  Thanks, Councilmember Young.  Do you have time for a few questions?
>> Absolutely. 
>> All right.  I don't see any hands up yet or comments.  There we are, Theresa. 
>> Derek, where do we find the link to that plan? 
>> Let's see.  Why don't I just go ahead and send it directly to Gerrit when I get done and he can forward it all to you. 
>> Right.  Theresa has a question. 
>> Okay.  Can you hear me? 
>> Yes. 
>> So I have two questions.  The first is there is a group of us folks that have been working with reentry for quite awhile who are talking exactly about what you are talking about, so I would love a time you can Zoom with us, a group of five people from different organizations, and I will get in touch with you after the meeting. 
	The other thing is that I heard a group of people were transferred from the county jail to Purdy.  Do you know anything about that? 
>> Not off the top of my head.  It may have ‑‑ we do have a DOC contract with the jail.  That may have been what it was in regards to.  Because quite frankly, jails are actually even worse places for people right now, so it may have been a ‑‑ you know, we can't release, but need to put them somewhere safe. 
	Jails are much more communal, and much ‑‑ yeah, there is really no personal space, whereas at least in a cell you have a little bit of protection.  And they are much more confined in terms of space.  There is really ‑‑ I mean we don't have a yard.  People can't go outside.  So anyway, that may have been it.  Just a guess. 
>> I totally get that, and you also get the downside of that because the prisons are much more contained and controlled and you have a whole new group of people coming from a different kind of space.  I don't think it's a logical solution.  I think the other about dropping the money bail thing and getting people out of jail is much better.  Even though you said the release plans from the jail are nonexistent and the ones from DOC they are so overstressed.  They are trying their best, I see that, but more people flowing through the pipeline and they don't have the housing when they get out.  So thank you for your work. 
>> Yeah, absolutely. 
>> I really appreciate that. 
>> Just so you know we have representation from the reentry council, so they are getting some of that feedback, as well as families of inmates and victims' right groups on the other hand.  There is a pretty wide diversity of input there, formerly incarcerated people as well, so.  Thank you. 
>> Can you go back ‑‑
>> Go ahead, Maureen. 
>> Derek, can you go back to the release fund, the 157 million, and talk about the process from the council's perspective?  I have been told something was going to council on Monday, and the council is always pretty clear about how it receives information and timelines for public input, all that sort of thing.  Can you just walk us through that, please? 
>> Yeah, absolutely.  So under normal circumstances, in a regular world, and in fact any non‑COVID‑related expense must still go through this process, it takes about a month to amend our budget.  Actually expending the funds is actually a separate process and that can actually add a little bit of time there as well.  But first they would go to rules committee for scheduling.  If there is a committee of jurisdiction, that would need to hear it, the committee would hear it, and then it would be recommended for final action to the full council.  Like I said, at minimum that takes about four weeks under normal circumstances. 
	Emergency action is a different animal entirely, and the theory there is basically, you know, these are emergent needs, you need to act quickly as a result of the crisis, so in that declared crisis, things can literally be dropped that same day.  For example, we have adopted three different budget amendments for business loans, the initial housing rental assistance, and actually was anticipated to do something slightly different, but staff decided to go a different direction, as well as funding for EFN, for Emergency Food Network.  We have now done a couple of those.  
	So I haven't heard and I haven't had a chance to look yet this morning at our council schedule for Tuesday.  It is possible they are dropping some additional requests.  I have kind of been waiting for it to be honest because they have been racking up some bills in Emergency Management that I have been wondering where they are, so they were probably waiting on this.  So, again, if there is anything significant in there I am happy to get that out to Gerrit related to this.  The bulk of it will spent sort of this way.  Right off the top the Health Department and Emergency Management are going to get a huge chunk of that.  You know, that contact tracing that I was talking about that's really labor intensive.  We will have to hire a bunch of people.  The budget I saw for that, let's say big.  I don't know it's finalized so I don't want to give out the number, but many tens of millions.  That said the rest of it, I expect recommendation from our disaster recovery task force which was just formed.  They may be meeting right now.  That's made up of, you know, a group of folks that it's described in our emergency response plan.  The executive and council chair are the chairs of these task forces.  It's also got department heads that are relevant there, as well as folks from business community and I actually think there is someone from housing there.  I could be wrong on that.  Off the top of my head I can't remember.  As well as a number of staff. 
	So they will probably be making recommendation on expenditure on a lot of those other funds, and as I mentioned I am asking to look at housing as one of those needs, and in fact sent a list of questions and comments to Chair Richardson this morning to say bring this up.  Even if they don't, when there is recommendations that come back, I might try to sneak stuff in there as we do budget amendments.  So I am sorry that's not super clear because in an emergency we sort of take the normal rules and throw them out the within doe. [Laughs]. 
>> No, that helps. 
>> Plus we are meeting by Zoom.  No problem.  The whole not inviting the public to come is a very strange experience.  You are welcome to make comment.  We do it by phone.  We do a Zoom meeting and have people call in for their public comment.  So you can see that at the top of the agenda they post the number to call.  The coalition distribution list I sent out, the treasury guidance on the relief fund and some other notes this morning, and I sent you a copy, also, so it will be in your inbox. 
>> I did see it.  I haven't had a chance to look at it, but thank you for that. 
>> Thanks for your work. 
>> I am not seeing any other questions or any other hands raised here. 
>> Al is raising his physical hand. 
>> Yes, Al.  Jump in. 
>> What's a different topic entirely, Gerrit, any news on the behavioral health sales tax? 
>> No, I got nothing new on that.  And one of the reasons I was really hoping to get that done in March, March 10th, was ‑‑ it was already clear this was coming.  I started working on this.  You know, I was back in DC the end of February, beginning of March, and it was clear that this was going to be happening, and that would provide us not only with some dollars to deal with, what we know will be a behavioral health crisis on our hands, you know, I am sort of cringing at all the problems that are probably popping up, but also frankly it can help us balance our budget.  
	There are some stipulations in there.  Actually the Tacoma provision was passed in [indiscernible], specifically wrote in basically a permission to do supplanting in order to entice them because it was during the great recession and Tacoma faced a huge budget problem.  That was another reason I was kind of hoping to do it.  But all that said it's looking hike we are still be waiting until later this year whenever a quote, unquote, plan can be brought back to us. 
	I got to tell you, it's probably still going to be tough because even though it's small, and even though it's necessary, and nobody would be proposing to cut it if it was already in existence, but actually passing a tax increase during what's likely to be a depression‑level event is going to be difficult.  That said, another thing I am working on that would actually benefit, and I am wondering if we need to speed things up, I represent counties on the tax structure reform task force that the legislature's got.  The plan was originally introducing take our time, take things on the road, build up political support, and come back with a bill in 2023 to get rid of our regressive tax code.  You know, that's just punishing for folks that are at the bottom 50% of income brackets.  
	And the other thing that it does is we have a highly localized tax structure.  That causes problems for Pierce County.  Even if we passed that ‑‑ we are not as wealthy.  So that would redistribute things a little bit and generate more money for services for people based on need rather than ‑‑ so I have been in discussion with Representative Frame, who is leading that, about maybe this is the time to move things up because the last time we took on our tax code was during the great depression for tax relief for farmers.  The state turned over the income we passed, so that's the way we ended up with the sales tax.  That's my longwinded way of saying maybe. 
>> Okay.  One other thought in terms of hiring contact tracers, if it's possible could they include the possibility of hiring people who are either homeless or formerly homeless to be able to help trace among the homeless? 
>> That's a really interesting point, and I actually think, you know, that may be something they are already considering.  I will bring it up with the Dr.  Chen.  Because one thing we do at least for folks that we are trying to assist in recovery is people with lived experience as their care advocate, that seems to be a really smart thing to do because they speak that language, and it's hard for someone that hasn't lived that experience to ‑‑ you know, to connect at the same level.  So that makes a lot of sense to me. 
>> Back to the behavioral health tax, can't you use ‑‑ you could pass it with a simple majority? 
>> No.  I am not aware ‑‑ oh, 1590 is the housing thing. 
>> Right. 
>> No.  That only applies to that particular housing bill.  It doesn't broaden it out for anything else.  Frankly if they had put into this particular statute, the last time they amended it, so essentially it can be passed with a simple majority of the legislative body, that would have been helpful.  There is some ‑‑ there is a fundamental legal question that we have never dealt with in this state and I have looked into it, and it's whether or not the charter can put ‑‑ a charter county can put restrictions that are greater than what the state puts.  There is a couple ways that plays out is, for example, term limits comes up periodically, frankly, and state law determines eligibility for office for all offices, not just for the legislature.  The legislature term limit law was overturned because it didn't change the constitution.  I have a suspicion that there is a legit legal claim to saying the same thing about our charter.  The same thing would go into effect for the behavioral health tax.  It puts a restriction that isn't in state law.  Can you do that?  I am not sure requiring a super majority requirement in our charter is technically constitutional.  There is a possibility there at least. 
>> All right.  We have a question from Larry.  Larry. 
>> Thanks, Gerrit.  Derek, back to Al's question about ways to hire the homeless, I am wondering whether the county could organize, between the county and the Health Department, a look at the kinds of dramatic changes in people's behavior and how people move around where there are opportunities to actually hire the homeless.  Al mentioned contact tracing.  Contact tracing and then the camps among people on the streets.  I just wonder whether you might inventory options where the homeless might be constructively engaged in this response to the crisis. 
>> It's a great question, and, you know, I guess ‑‑ I mean just like the services that are provided, there is sort of a wide spectrum of needs and abilities, so you are going to have folks from our chronically homeless population to have significant, you know, disabilities or barriers that would make it difficult.  Just depending on, you know, their situation.  Then you have folks that, you know, just like lost work or had some other economic crisis or were victims of some sort of domestic violence.  There is all sorts of reasons, and those folks bring all their normal skills.  It's sort of a wide spectrum of abilities.  So I think the thing you have to be careful with is just making sure you are really ‑‑ I mean we ran into this when we tried to create the health program, which is basically a day labor kind of deal that the executive got from ‑‑ I think it was Santa Fe.  They made a bunch of adjustments in Santa Fe as a result of their experience with it, realizing you have to be careful in terms of abilities.  The same barrier that put them out of housing may be something that's not going to work for them in terms of getting back to work.  We are going to have a tremendous population of people out of work that are in dire circumstances, so there is no shortage of people who could do this work. 
>> Yeah.  And I was thinking we have been sharing Jensen and Kelly Blucher.  We have experts in finding constructive ways in hiring the homeless. 
>> Absolutely. 
>> I wonder if there is an opportunity for a project here. 
>> As long as people keep that in mind, yeah.  I don't see why not.  To me I don't ‑‑ I actually don't know what it takes to start up these programs, so I am going to leave it to our staff, but as a suggestion for folks they should hire ‑‑ if we have folks that are unemployed that are capable of performing a task, we should probably give it a shot trying to get them employed again.  I mean it's sort of the same with like every ten years the census comes around, and last time during the great recession, you know, there was a concerted effort to try to make sure we weren't like doubling up people's ‑‑ having someone working two jobs.  Hey, maybe somebody that's unemployed right now could use that gig and get some income going to get back on their feet. 
	So there is potentially a match there. 
>> All right.  I am going to take one last question from Theresa, and I think we will give Councilmember Young a break.  Theresa. 
>> So first I want to say that good work about the changing the income tax.  If you ever get that off the ground, there are many of us out here who would put our shoulder to that wheel.  The other wheel I think you could count on, most people who thought this through is the super majority.  I hope that that gets changed.  I have been talking it for awhile but I haven't done anything constructive.  Let us know if there is something constructive we could do as citizens.  About the behavioral health by living in a community that's highly impacted by encampments, the tension is getting palpable.  It's higher than it has ever been.  There is a lot more screaming and yelling and just concerning behavior, so I think whatever you are doing with your funding to make sure that there are people who ‑‑ the people who are dealing with that get some extra funding because they are going to need it.  And then my last is from Theresa, pet peeve, does the county even have safe parking on their radar?  That's something that would highly impact neighborhoods like mine, if there was a place where people could go and they could have a place to hand wash, a place to use the toilet instead of our yards. 
>> Gotcha. 
>> A place to put their garbage.  Is the county looking at doing safe lots? 
>> I don't know.  I don't know that they are looking at safe lots per se.  We would have to be ‑‑ because that gets into ‑‑ that's starting to sound a little bit like it might be a local authority, like Tacoma may have their own authority on that and we would have it in the unincorporated areas.  But in terms of the sanitation issues, that was something I brought up early on, and they were trying to think through.  Their preference, staff preference, was to try to site them near places where they could be monitored.  There was a lot of concern over, you know ‑‑ well, various different problems that could be associated with it if they were in locations that didn't have people around.  And so I know they were working on that. 
	There was an additional problem that popped up that was at least mentioned to me, is whether or not those were even available because there was so much demand for those kinds of facilities.  There may have been a struggle to find them, so I haven't heard back in awhile on whether or not we have got anything set up, but they had kind of ruled out ‑‑ I was looking for rural areas for folks that were living in like ‑‑ key areas in my district, for example, where they might not have other facilities closer by, and they pretty much ruled that out just because it was a security problem.  They thought there would be damage to them or that they would be used to sort of as a commodity, someone would take control of it and victimize people who needed them, and there was various different problems they were trying to think through. 
	So to me, like the best places to ‑‑ would be ‑‑ especially in the cities where you do have more eyeballs on it and there can be some monitoring, and we know that the businesses that were often frequented by people who needed them to wash their hands or use the restroom, or whatever, they are closed, and so people are not having a safe place to go. 
	So I can circle back with that, find out what the answer, ultimate, answer was. 
>> I do know there is at least three people on this call pretty actively working on some safe parking so it's this weird spot we often get in where a need is identified and finally some resources are available, and agencies are being talked to, and it happens in the not secret world necessarily, but a little bit outside of what we are as a community able to sort of watch what's happening.  Hopefully something will come from that work. 
>> If you do have a proposal that you want me to take to them, I am happy to do so.  If there is anything you want to send to me, please do so.  Quite frankly I am certain Heather Moss would welcome your input as well.  I know she values your input. 
>> Human Services is involved. 
>> Okay, good. 
>> They are in that set of processes. 
>> I will follow up with her and see if they need anything from us. 
>> Great.  I don't know the scope or necessarily how that will roll out, but hopefully it will because, like you say, the places that did hygiene disappeared, so a lot of folks living in cars have challenges even greater than they had months ago.  Thank you, Councilmember Young.  I think it's going to be a bumpy few months.  I don't envy your task of trying to figure out how our budget is going to work with dramatically reduced revenue and increasing need in the community, but you're the man. 
>> Thank you all.  I appreciate everything you are doing, and please feel free to reach out to me directly if there is anything you need.  We are in difficult times for everyone, so I just wanted to say thank you because especially right now it's a tough task.  It's never easy, the work that you are doing, so thank you very much. 
>> Awesome. 
>> I got to get running. 
>> Thank you.  I appreciate you making the time.  We are going to shift over to the City of Tacoma's rental assistance.  We had an update, and now that fund is up and operational.  I don't know who is going to jump in, but somebody hopefully will talk about how they rolled that out and how we can connect our clients to that resource. 
>> Good morning.  Can you hear me? 
>> Yes. 
>> Okay.  All right.  So I put into the chat box the website for City of Tacoma, our website, as well as the link so that people can verify addresses because we are getting quite a few addresses in that are outside the city limits.  And also I attached the FAQ, so you don't have to download that.  Basically we went live with the application Wednesday morning.  The application link is available on the Tacoma website as well as our website.  We have received 365 applications as of 8:00 A.M. this morning, and about 73% of those are to Tacoma residents.  So we are getting a good number of people in.  The majority of them are stating that they did ‑‑ their income or their employment was impacted by COVID‑19.  So we are getting the people in that we were hoping to help here. 
	So we are really ‑‑ I mean we are kind of just in the beginning of this.  This is all kind of new for us, but for an online application, but we are checking them daily for address verification because since we do have the application open for two weeks, we would hate for people out of the area to wait for two weeks to only be told that they weren't in our service area.  So we have referred already 93 households to Share and Care for their rent assistance program, too. 
	We do have phone lines up for a couple of hours each day, so that if people do have, you know, they need help with language or they just need some technical assistance, we do have people here available.  And the city helped us get set up, so we do have translation services available.  So if someone needs help are translation they can call us here, and then we can conference call in and get a translator on the phone. 
	The biggest things we have had to help people with over the phone mostly are just how to upload their documents.  We found that some iPhone users, their photo size is too big, so we have asked them to use the smallest file size possible.  There have been a few people needing help with their lease, and so what we are asking for right now is at the very least, you know, if you've got one of those 50‑page leases, don't worry about getting all 50 pages uploaded.  At least get the front page that shows your name, your address, and how much you pay for rent. 
	I have noticed on applications one of the questions is has your income or employment been impacted and do you have documentation.  I have noticed that there are people marking no to that question, so we are not screening them out for that because it could just be that they don't have documentation or they don't understand what alternate forms they can use.  So we had a lady yesterday who she's opinion and independent house cleaner for 25 years, and she's having trouble getting ahold of her other employers that have contracted her for cleaning, so I told her, you know, as long as she can show some kind of impact.  So I told her she didn't have to worry about right now ‑‑ like looking for every single job to give her letter.  I told her at least find one for now just to get the application going, and then if her name is selected in the lottery and we need more backup documentation, I told her to expect that that is what we would be asking for. 
	I don't ‑‑ I mean I don't really know, do people have questions?  I mean we are still kind of early in this, so I think ‑‑
>> That lottery thing was totally new to me, so can you maybe describe how you are planning to roll this out and when people would be expecting to receive that kind of stuff? 
>> We will keep the application open until May 6th, so it will stay open up until 11:59 p.m. , so they have that full day.  The next day after that we will be doing the lottery, and it will be done electronically.  In the past we have actually done our ‑‑ our rent assistance typically is done through a lottery system, and so what we do is we take all the applications and we usually like manually do the lottery, but because there are so many applications we did find an electronic way to do a lottery system. 
	So I can't tell you how many will be selected because honestly we don't know how many applications are going to come in.  Typically what we have done is we have done like a 50/50 lottery, but that's usually because we knew exactly like how many we could bring in.  So from what we are seeing, though, we are not seeing everybody needing the full $1,000.  We have actually gotten calls from landlords who have said they have actually referred their tenants to this program, and there are landlords out there who have been reducing rent for people.  So one landlord called and he gave all of his tenants half off of all of their rent.  So it's good to know there are landlords working with people out there. 
>> So it's up to $1,000 of assistance? 
>> Yes.  Up to $1,000 for one month. 
>> As people need assistance in the next months, you don't anticipate having more funding available?
>> Well, we have applied for some other small funding, but not on the scale of this, and it's still not a guarantee.  But right now with the contract that we have it is only for one month. 
	The one thing, though, to also share it is on the website, Tacoma did put it on there, but there are a few type of properties that are not eligible for this service, and it is if the landlord's loan is through ‑‑ or the mortgage is through the Federal Housing Administration, Fanny Mae or Freddy Mac, they have said that those are ineligible for the services, and so what I am doing, though, is I will be tracking the people that come in with those types of residences because if we get closer to the July date where that eviction suspension ends, then maybe we need to go back and ask the city if there is something else we can consider for that. 
>> Looks like we have a question from Joy.  Do you want to jump in? 
>> Yuni, is it because those folks with the Freddy Mac and other federally‑backed loans, is it because they are eligible for other revenues or avenues of resources and that's why they took those out as eligible? 
>> Well, I actually ‑‑ I did not actually ask that specific.  I just made that assumption myself because of that, and because they are covered for 120 days, so really they have until almost the end of July.  So I mean it's not that that's the answer, but at least it buys us a little more time to try to find some more solutions. 
>> And I heard Derek Kilmer say on a call he said if you are able to pay your mortgage or pay your rent, even if it's half, are you encouraging folks to at least do that as well? 
>> Oh, absolutely, absolutely. 
>> Okay.  And then I hope someone on the call can find out if we have a way we can direct those folks with those kind of loans to seek help somewhere else instead of just saying, no, you don't qualify for this program.  But, hey, call this number. 
>> Yeah.  And so hopefully, you know ‑‑ I printed out some information to just that way even if they wanted the information for themselves to understand what that looks like, then at least we could send that info to them and explain it to them, and then hopefully, you know, there will be something as we get closer and we can ‑‑ at the very least we do let them know always check in with two and one and see what kind of resources are there. 
>> There is a question, I don't know if this is for you or maybe Valeri or someone from Share and Care House.  Does the county have funding available for their rent assistance? 
>> We do. 
>> Do we know what percentage has been ‑‑
>> I can find out.  I can get an update from Share and Care at the 10:00 call.  From my understanding earlier this week.  They have a $250,000 budget and they hadn't spent 50,000 yet, so it's not gone, so we have additional provision dollars out of those funds that [indiscernible]. 
>> It seems like they have 90 additional applicants routed through love so. 
>> They have been tracking between City of Tacoma, so they can send ‑‑ they are trying to connect them. 
>> When you think about the amount of rent that wasn't paid in April, it's rather surprising that we have had less interest.  I don't know if it's a ‑‑ yeah.  I mean like nationwide, like 30% of people didn't pay rent in April, like up from like 18%, which is typical, which is again a crazy number.  Still, that's like $50 million of unpaid rent in Pierce County, and we are spending 50,000.  It seems ‑‑ it's peculiar.  That's what it is.  Do we have any questions for Yuni or LASAWA?  Renee. 
>> Hi.  Hello, everyone.  This is Renee White.  I wanted to jump in.  Hey, Yuni, congratulations.
>> Thank you. 
>> I wanted to let you guys know we offer rental assistance through our energy assistance program, and where you leave off we can pick up certainly.  We have about 342,000 that we can spend to our City of Tacoma residents.  And a lot of things have been lifted.  Commerce has been a little lenient due to this COVID, whereas in the prior seasons we have to receive eviction notices before we can provide assistance.  But this is just rental assistance for anyone can qualify.  The only caveat is if they have received energy assistance, so I have staff on hand to be able to assist people with that.  And it is a lottery system, so basically first come, first serve.  We encourage people to get their papers in as soon as they can to get them assisted.  I wanted to give you guys a little bit of information as well, and I am excited because this is a huge need in our community, than we have seen in prior seasons. 
>> Thank you, Renee.  In two weeks we will be doing the lottery, so would it be okay to refer all the people that were not selected over to MDC so they can at least get something started, or at least inquire on something and not be waiting? 
>> Absolutely.  I would actually like that because it seems like if they are just short then I would definitely like to continue speaking with you to go ahead and do that. 
>> Okay. 
>> We are going to identify 211 when we start our period, but we are wanting to make sure people get those through you as well. 
>> Thank you.  I will send you an e‑mail after this meeting. 
>> Absolutely.  Sound greats. 
>> Renee, a couple of questions of how to connect in with that assistance, if you don't mind sending out to the e‑mail list information how to connect with MDC's utility assistance? 
>> I will definitely do that, Gerrit.  Thanks again. 
>> Awesome.  Just not to be mentioning anything, but Valeri did already send out that information request we had from Derek Young, so some thinkers and movers fast here.  You got to keep up with the performance here.  That would be awesome.  I am sure you have shared it before and I am sure it's on the MDC website, but oversharing is not such a bad thing. 
>> I agree. 
>> Marie. 
>> If Valeri could also get the same information for the folks who do the program with the county because it's the same for both MDC and the county, the programs have that rent assistance eligibility now. 
>> I sent an e‑mail out to them asking for information.  I will share it as soon as I get it. 
>> Great.  A question for Yuni.  Are you getting the applications from communities of color? 
>> I am focusing on the addresses because I am making sure the people who are not automatically eligible based on addresses, I want to make sure they are getting connected to services immediately and there is funding set aside for the ‑‑ for like communities that are serving communities of color, so organizations.  I have done some outreach.  I have started that so they can work with groups in their community to help get them connected to the service.  So the nice thing is that by tracking percentages that way, I am not constantly needing to check daily what's the race and what's ethnicity count at.  So they are being completely tracked, two separate ways, though.  I have not focused on tracking that part yet. 
>> When the lottery happens, in order to meet that quota, that 45% for people of color, what are the mechanics to make sure that happens?  Assuming you have more than 1200 applications going. 
>> Yeah.  One of the things I am trying to really make sure that we stay away from is using the word, quota, because I feel like quota is like let's just get this many number of people in.  What we are ‑‑ the language that we are using is that the goal was to set ‑‑ to have 45% of the funds spent on households that identify as a person of color.  So that's why we've got some direct referral process for organizations that are working ‑‑ doing the actual work with addressing the inequities.  So I have started that process already, and so what I am trying to really do is make sure I am getting out there to community groups, even churches, so that they can help their own community members out, get through this process. 
>> Thanks so much.  I am going to jump in here.  We are a little late on our schedule.  You have all got Yuni's contact information, she is super responsive.  We appreciate your expertise being thrown into this work. 
>> Yeah. 
>> Carrie, Health Department updates? 
>> Yes.  So I am using Ivan's computer.  We are all here at the EOC, so that's why I am hopping up at Ivan Tudela.  So the Health Department, we are in the process of putting together a team to work with the outreach teams for mobile testing, so more to come on that.  We are also supporting the City of Tacoma's temporary emergency shelter.  We are going to be providing a nurse to support the guests that are in tents, at the hotels and also in cars.  So that's my update for today.  Thank you, Gerrit. 
>> Thanks, Carrie.  I will let folks take questions offline.  Valeri, did you want to make some updates for the county? 
>> Sure.  Just wanted to address the safe parking question that was brought up.  It is very much in the list of our conversations every single day when we meet with the Health Department.  We are working with different entities as well as churches throughout the county and in the City of Tacoma to potentially open safe parking, which would include security, hygiene stations and shower stations.  Know it is being talked about, it is on the high priority list and we are well aware it is a desperate need throughout the county.  If you have suggestions or someone knows of a location, I would be interested.  We are working with [indiscernible].  So just know that that's there.  We are also working with the City of Lakewood because we want to insure we are following jurisdictional needs as well as the county needs.  Other than that we are just working through.  You all heard the update on the plan.  That's actually the first I heard it was going before the council May 5th.  You have the copy.  The copy has not been changed.  The executive's office did not make any edits.  We all have something for our calendars on May 5th.  Other than that I am happy to take questions offline.  I have to jump off to a Health Department meeting, but you know where to reach me.  If you call my house one of my kids might answer.  It's very awkward, but we are doing the best we can. 
>> Al why I son, do you have anything for the City of Tacoma. 
>> Valeri did a nice job of updating kind of where we are looking at various health options.  I remind everybody the council meets today at 2:00 P.M. to discuss the response to COVID 19.  Those are ongoing updates through this period of time.  I will put in the chat box how you can get access to that.  There is also access on TV.  I am also available to take questions.  Offline I can do that because I know you are trying to get through your time here, Gerrit. 
>> Great.  Thanks, Allyson.  Both Valeri and Allyson have been incredibly responsive to questions, so don't ‑‑ I would say don't hesitate to ask.  I don't know if they would say that, but they have been a great support. 
	I think Maureen I am going to try to stick with the 10:00 time that I slotted the Health Department in, so I am going to kind of have you slide around that.  One thing that was clear in a bunch of conversations last week, including at the coalition meeting, was that a lot of our direct contact workers are feeling the strain of the changes in their home lives and work lives that a lot of ways folks are struggling with.  The Health Department is going to talk a little bit about compassion fatigue and hopefully present some tools that we can look at using within our own families and within our teams and for ourselves.  And so they are going to do a presentation, and then we are going to spend a little bit of breakout time talking about ‑‑ kind of in small groups, really ways that we can take some of their ideas and see if they would be practical, and how we would be able to put them into practice. 
	So I am going to hand it off to Ivan and his team from the Health Department, and I just really appreciate them putting energy into taking this task on.  I figured they would be so slammed they would have to find someone else to do the work, but they made this a priority.  Ivan. 
>> Thank you so much, Gerrit.  I want to first see is Elizabeth on?  We wanted to do a brief overview of COVID‑19 health and wellness tips. 
>> I am here.  Good morning, everyone.  Thanks for having us. 
>> Welcome. 
>> So I am going to jump in this morning.  Everybody can hear me, right?  Sorry you can't see my face.  I am still working on the camera. 
	So I am going to start this morning, my name is Elizabeth Allen, I am with the Tacoma‑Pierce County Health Department, and my role is behavioral health policy coordinator.  I am the one and the only, so anything that has to do with behavioral health policies or systems for our county, I am the one that takes a look at things.  So I love my role dearly, and really, really happy to be here.  And I want to thank all of you this morning not only for having us, but for the awesome work that you do for our Pierce County residents, and making this world a little bit better. 
	So with that, I am going to attempt to share my screen.  And see if I can pull up our awesome PowerPoint here.  Can anybody see the slides, thumbs up? 
>> Yes. 
>> Okay.  Awesome.  Good.  Thank you.  I am going to give a brief overview of kind of the fathers of COVID‑19.  Now just so everybody knows, you know, I am sure you know this, the facts change every day.  Right?  But here is kind of solid what we know, and I like to start off with this because there is so much facts versus fiction.  I don't know if anybody watches that "MythBusters," but I am kind of that myth buster this morning.  
	What is COVID‑19?  So what we do know is it is a new respiratory virus.  We don't have a vaccine for it.  Not a lot of good treatment for it yet.  Some people, and as we know, we hear in the news, some people, especially with underlying conditions, can develop a pneumonia‑type challenge with it, symptoms, that require medical care and hospitalization.  Not everybody with COVID‑19 has to go to the hospital and stay in the hospital.  Most people can be at home in isolation, and get better in a couple of weeks.  So that's what we do know. 
	We also know that it is widespread right now.  Not only through Pierce County, but through the rest of the nation and the world.  So some of the symptoms that we know for COVID‑19, they include a severe fever, one that is generally over 102.  Like I said, generally.  A severe cough.  With that cough, a shortness of breath.  The symptoms, what we know right now, appear two to 14 days after exposure.  I have heard some say they didn't get symptoms until 20 days after exposure, but this is what we know in general right now. 
	So can a person spread the infection if they don't feel sick?  What we do know is, yes, they can spread, a lot like other viruses, you can spread this virus before you know you are sick.  But we do know that most people are the most contagious when they are the sickest.  We keep on looking to evaluate this, but that's why there are so many rules and regulations for the public to stay at home.  If you start feeling any sort of fever or cough, or just not feeling well because of this spread. 
	So next how does it spread?  We know that COVID‑19 spreads through the air, when somebody coughs or sneezes, or talks to others through close personal contact.  We also know you can get it when you touch a hard surface or a soft surface, and then touch part of your face, your mouth, your nose, your eyes before washing your hands.  Again, we do know that the virus can spread before people show symptoms. 
	So what does the "Stay Home, Stay Healthy" order that the governor has put in place mean?  It means that we need to stay at home unless we are going for essential items such as food, grocery‑type, household supplies, if we have to go to get medicine, and if we need to travel to work.  People that need to be out working right now as we know, our first responders, healthcare workers, public works, and folks like you, emergency responders, folks that are going to go out and help support vulnerable populations. 
	So what we are encouraging folks if they don't need to go out, get items delivered if they can.  There is a lot of places waiving the delivery fee right now.  And we want to encourage everybody to keep at least six feet away themselves and other non‑family, non‑people that you see every day.  And we want to make sure that everybody stays safe and healthy as much as possible. 
	I know recently I had to run an errand to Home Depot, and the line of course was outside and I am standing in line, and nobody's really thinking about six feet.  For some reason people easily forget some of the social distancing recommendations that we have put in place.  And another thing just to let this group know, too, I was reading an article about social norms.  We all have social norms, and it's hard to remember social distancing recommendations because of our social norms.  Our society likes to hug people.  We like to do handshakes.  We like to talk to people.  We are social ‑‑ we are a social group of people, and remembering social distancing is very, very tricky.  And it's very hard I think as a society, as a social norm, to tell people, I am sorry, you are getting too close.  I think that's still very awkward for folks, and I want to encourage you to try to be those superheroes with remembering those recommendations when you are out in the public. 
	So my last slide here before I give it over to Ivan is some really good reliable information.  Again, we at the Health Department are trying to be those myth busters, if you will, and the list here is some very good reliable information that you can use to look up more information, or if somebody else has a question, to be able to go to these sites. 
	So at this point I will stop sharing my screen and see if anybody has any questions.  Again, those are kind of the basic overview.  You have probably seen that information in the news or on websites, but just wanted to drive home the fact versus fiction information out there. 
>> Great.  I see a hand out from Theresa.  Theresa, go ahead. 
>> This was just a conversation I was having yesterday with the people, volunteers and staff at New Connections.  We have a new woman coming in from prison to our shelter, and we came up with plan for how to make that safe for the women who are already in the house and the women coming in, and I would love a chance to ‑‑ I don't know if other people in this group are dealing with the same thing, if you already have a plan for how you receive new people.  I would love to hear it if the Health Department has some recommendations around how you welcome new people into a small shelter.  I would be delighted to hear about that.  So please send anything like that my way or if you are willing to have a conversation with me, I will give you a call. 
>> That's a great, great question.  I am so glad you brought that up.  Absolutely, I am track down some really good information about that.  Send it your way or maybe possibly send it out to the whole group so everybody can see that.  But that's a fantastic question. 
	I also saw that Cynthia had a question to everybody.  She says I read in "The New York Times" that 42% of young people with COVID do not have a fever, though they may have a cough.  You know, I haven't read that.  I think the Health Department's standing firm on these are the symptoms that you might see.  Everybody is different.  If you think about when we have the flu or other viruses, some people are hit really hard, other people have not so many problems with the virus.  Right.  They can still go to work and they are still running around, which we don't want people to do.  But other people are hit much harder.  So I wouldn't necessarily back down on that symptoms list.  What we do know is COVID 19 generally folks have a fever, a lingering high fever, and a very difficult hard to breathe cough.  If there aren't any questions, I am going to kick it over to Ivan. 
>> Thank you so much for that, Elizabeth.  Can folks hear me good and see my screen well? 
>> Yes.  Both. 
>> Excellent.  And thank you so much, Gerrit, for the opportunity for having Elizabeth and myself and some folks from the Health Department on this call, and I am happy to talk to you folks today about compassion fatigue, and some tips for the workplace, and some self‑care tips as well. 
	So the sources for this presentation come from the Centers for Disease Control, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and Pacific Southwest Prevention Technology Transfer Center.  So during and after a disaster it is natural to experience different and strong emotions.  Currently that's what we are doing right now these days, coping with these feelings and getting help when you need it will help you, your family and your community recover from a disaster.  It is important to connect with family, friends and others in your community.  Take care of yourself and each other and know when and how to seek help.  In this presentation we will discuss how to manage your workforce stress, how to prevent compassion fatigue and create self‑care plans. 
	So first we have to talk about the differences between burnout, compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress.  At work you might feel or folks might hear others feel the following symptoms, just feeling like a failure or there is nothing you can do to help, or you are not doing your job well.  Burnout in particular is really like feeling worn out, and the real key difference between burnout and compassion fatigue that you want folks on the call to take note is that it can affect any profession, burnout can.  Whereas compassion fatigue is a studied and researched symptom that you find in the helping professions, such as frontline staff. 
	So compassion fatigue is the emotional stress from working with people exposed to a traumatic event, and again is different from burnout.  It is a nervous system arousal, can cause sleep disturbances, loss of morale and even symptoms of depression.  Currently we do get reports and calls at the call center here in the Emergency Operations Center about folks on the front line or essential workers, nurses and hospital staff, and volunteers especially, who are supporting the COVID‑19 response efforts, and are experiencing some symptoms of compassion fatigue. 
	The important thing to remember is compassion fatigue leads to the secondary traumatic stress, and the key here is to ‑‑ is early identifying these symptoms, so you can take the steps to mitigate those symptoms at home and personally. 
	Again, compassion fatigue creates this secondary traumatic stress.  The stress from helping or wanting to help a traumatized or suffering person, some symptoms, avoidance of reminders and cues of the scenario or disaster, distressing emotions, even functional impairment.  According to Bride et al, in his research study from 2007, with the exception the traumatic exposure is indirect, secondary is nearly identical to posttraumatic stress and includes symptoms associated with PTSD, such as excessive fears about something is about to happen, on guard all the time, physical signs, racing heart, cold sweats, thoughts that you could have done more.  Which is why, again, just to reiterate, early detection is important.  Being proactive and planning ahead and partnering with folks in your work is also important.  We will talk further about that in the next slides. 
	But the most important step is to first and foremost take care of you.  If possible, limit working to no longer than 12 hours.  Talk to family, friends, supervisors and teammates about your feelings and experiences.  We stay connected via Zoom, GoToMeeting, teams, all these remote opportunities and folks are switching on their camera because it does help to stay connected even in that way, even if it's just visual and audio. 
	And practicing breathing and relaxing techniques.  I am spreading the word, there are lots of apps out there if you have access to that, apps on meditation, mindfulness.  If you have Spotify or any free music apps, there are meditation soundscapes.  
	What we do here at the Emergency Operations Center is we try to encourage regular walks on breaks, checking in on yourself.  Am I getting enough sleep?  Am I going to bed and get at least seven hours.  When we get busy we forget to hydrate, and hydration is a good well‑being tactic. 
	At work we are using the buddy system.  A team member shares the responsibility for their partner's safety and well‑being.  We are implementing this here at the Emergency Operations Center.  What you want to do is be a listener to your buddy, check on your buddy's work load and encourage breaks when needed.  You have times to check in with each other, listen carefully, share feelings, acknowledge the tough situations that we are all dealing with right now.  And most importantly recognize accomplishments.  Give kudos when it's appropriate and make sure they are genuine, too.  Offer to help with basic needs such as sharing supplies or offering transportation to your colleague.  Monitor each other's work loads, offer to help each other.  Go for walks with your buddy.  I have a walking buddy at the EOC.  After lunch hour we go for a 10‑minute walk outside.  It really does help.  Another example, we have a gratitude box and every once in awhile, because we have so many different partners in the EOC working on the COVID‑19 response, we often write little thank yous or kudos for a job well done or somebody working on a project and put in a lot of hard work and was successful, so we like to acknowledge that and we post those kudos up on the small for others to see and just to walk by every day as you come into the EOC. 
	What you do not want to do with the buddy system is be each other's therapist or clinically diagnose one another.  We don't want to do that.  In the next couple of slides I will share with you some professional resources. 
	The one thing I want everyone to just remember with my presentation today is just studies ‑‑ just remember that studies and research show that it is not selfish to take breaks.  Working all the time does not mean you will make your best contribution, and there are other people who can help in the response. 
	The next couple of slides I would like to highlight some resources here.  We have the crisis, Pierce County crisis line, and the crisis text line, which was new to me.  I didn't know that that was there.  That's interest.  So I am sharing this far and wide.  That's a really good resource there.  And very important resource here, if you or someone you know has suicidal thoughts, here is the national suicide prevention line, lifeline, it's 24/7.  You can easily search these resources or jot down these lynx, or get with me offline and I can relay these links, but these are easily searchable resources for your work. 
	Here are some more.  The final thing I want to touch on is just remember to take care of yourself first.  So you can be ready and available to take care of your loved ones and others in need.  We have the trauma resilient team with the Health Department listening in on this call.  Our hope is to roll out this kind of presentation and support to frontline staff and anyone who is experiencing compassion fatigue, you can get with me off line if you are interested in this information.  And with that, thank you.  Stay safe and be well.  I hand it back to you, Gerrit. 
>> Cool.  Thank you so much, Ivan.  So what we are going to do is we are going to break out into small groups like last week if you were here, and my goal is to have groups of around four or five people, and so Zoom does that automatically for us.  What happened last week was a lot of people decided that they didn't really want to stay for it, and so I had some really big groups and some really tiny groups.  If you are planning to bail on this call right now, I would love it if you did so.  Those of you that want to stay, I will get us reorganized into those groups.  The goal of the group, like last week, to do a little bit of introductions and just say hello, who is in the group.  Maybe talk about things that are going stressful or well, and then talk a little bit how we can take some of the ideas that Ivan just presented, particularly the buddy system idea, and think of ways and share them with the group and you can take that and put them into action in your agency or in your life.  And then maybe you guys can come up with one or two of those things to share when we come in and do the report out, so, again, the goal of this is to just kind of not figuring out how to do it right, but figuring out how these ideas can be put together to really make a difference for you.  Right.  So no judgment.  Although I will be judging you. [Laughs].  I am going to go ahead and bring up groups.  It looks like I've got 40 people, so I will break us into eight groups of five, and we will see how that goes.  I am sending it off now, so you should get a request to go into a group.  So, boom. 
[Breakout sessions without captions] 
>> All right, everybody.  Looks like we are all coming back into the room here.  All right.  I would love to hear some report‑outs.  It looks like you had a few people drop off again, but I figure ‑‑
>> If you are satisfied with the message, press one.  To listen to your message, press two. 
>> Wow, that's really annoying.  So I am going to have report‑outs, so group one, that was the group with Rich and Theresa.  Would you guys be willing to do a little report‑out? 
>> Go for it, Rich.  I have been talking too much. 
>> Am I here? 
>> Yes. 
>> Oh, okay.  I guess I could say simply that it seems like the three of us do have to a degree some sense of, you know, buddy support if you will in our respective locations and agencies. 
>> I kind of lost you for a sec there, Rich.  Could you repeat that? 
>> I was saying simply put I believe that the three of us, and you tell me, Theresa, but it seems the three of us in our group appear to have some buddy support currently in our respective agency settings. 
>> Cool.  All right.  Group two, that's Janet, Joy and Sherri, and others. 
>> Yeah.  We talked about what we are doing for our own self‑care.  For single moms, there isn't a whole lot because you don't have a break, which I am like, wow, we need to like unpack that and think about that, but it looks like folks who are going through that are trying to set up other avenues that could help them, which I think is cool.  And then when you are by yourself it is just the person you live with and maybe it's walks to break up the monotony and do your own self‑care.  When you are working, like me, we need to remember our co‑workers so I am going to put some thought into that, how I can love on my co‑workers from afar, social distancing, but just to thank them and make them feel like they are contributing and we are still here and we are all in this together.  That's what we talked about.  I am very, very concerned, though, with the single parents who are on wait lists and trying to run a business from home.  That's very concern. 
>> Thanks, Joy.  Group three, that's Roxanne, Yuni, Ivan.  Roxanne, you want to report out.  You know it.  Yuni? 
>> I don't mind reporting out.  Sorry, Gerrit. 
>> All right. 
>> I wanted to give the other members an opportunity.  But we shared some great things.  Folks are checking in at work via phone, text, and conference platforms like this.  Roxanne talked about her experiences with a virtual birthday.  That was a positive and unprecedented but she thought it was great.  I thought it was awesome.  The one thing we took away from all of this, and it's a great point, I am going to start mentioning it, is this response it creating new partnerships that would have otherwise not been possible, and I think after the response our resiliency in Pierce County will be that much more improved and these partnerships will continue. 
>> Great.  Thanks, Ivan.  Groups five and six, I figured out how to mush you all together in one.  You just got stuck with other people each.  So Troy or Patty.  Not looking like here still. 
>> How about group four? 
>> All right.  Group four, yeah.  I skipped over group four. 
>> In our group we talked about socialization taking a hit, and we talked about like creating Zoom pods, what we called it, but basically if you look online there is a lot of online Zoom for like ‑‑ it could just be ways to join groups to talk about interests, or if you have the same field, you can connect with people.  It could be kite flying, but you could have all these Zoom pods where you go online and you can reach out and interact with people.  
	Even if you do go to work, then you come home, sometimes you are isolated where you can't even talk to your family about what you do because it's so different.  So trying to get the brain going and communicating more with people will hopefully decrease the burnout or what they talked about in the presentation. 
>> Well, thanks.  And group seven, that was you, Al, and Carrie and Maureen, maybe others. 
>> Well, our group was a little strange because there are two independent members who are actively involved everywhere and have a buddy system that extends beyond this entire group.  Maureen brought up an important thing that hadn't occurred to me.  A lot of the very small agencies and very small providers are experiencing humongous stress because they are trying to run an agency, keep their family going, home school their kids, or whatever, and we encourage the Health Department to reach out to some of those folks to give them opportunities to talk confidentially. 
	Maureen and others, what do you think?  What would you have? 
>> I think the other thing is that there is money from FEMA that went to the state's behavior health agency, and I don't know how it's going from that entity farther down, but that's something that we ‑‑ hopefully the Health Department will find out.  That's a separate pod of FEMA money distinct from the money the Health Department has, so that might ‑‑ we might be able to access that to address some of the needs that people are identifying. 
>> All right.  I appreciate everybody doing the breakouts.  Just like if our regular meeting, small group time is not for everybody, so I often think like what if I put it at the beginning, would more people benefit from this?  One of the great coalition is should we be doing smaller breakout groups or not, but I think they have value.  I think tucking them in the end makes it easy for folks to do the bits they like and skip out on the bits that they don't. 
	I unfortunately ended up bumping Maureen down to the end here, so fewer people get the benefit of her wisdom, but let's hand it over to Maureen for an advocacy update. 
>> Actually I put the message in the chat, and I will just e‑mail it out to folks so we can wrap up. 
>> Cool.  All right.  I don't really see any shelter folks right now on the line.  Troy is there, but otherwise ‑‑
>> I have a question. 
>> Yeah, Al. 
>> I have a question for our fearless leader.  Gerrit, how are you doing?  You are handling a whole bunch of stuff, both in terms of your job and keeping this gaggle of folks going.  How is it going for you? 
>> Personally?  Fine.  My supervisor is pretty good about wrenching things out of my hand if he thinks I have too much to do.  I sort of stand things up and I don't particularly run them.  No, I have no complaints.  I've got a house full of people to hang out with, so. 
>> Good. 
>> But I do feel ‑‑ again, it's like I don't have anything to complain about, and yet, you know, we were just talking with my crew this morning, an hour sleep was fever sleep last night, a few of us had, not really restful and not feeling so enthusiastic about doing our work, and I think all of the different stuff that's happening is stressful.  And the decisions we make, like even listening into the Health Department describe the COVID‑19, I am like, well, should I be jumping in and saying, hey, actually, like I appreciate your advice on how COVID‑19 works, but I don't know that you got it.  I think we treat everybody like they are infected.  
	You look at that shelter in Boston, they tested everybody in the shelter, 300‑something people, and 100‑something came back positive all completely asymptomatic.  So basically we have to treat everybody as infected and ourselves as infected all of the time and make all of our decisions based on that information.  And the span of symptoms, what puts you in the hospital, is pretty clear, but everybody else it's a huge spectrum.  
	My wife is physician, so I guess I am going to rant for a little bit.  We pay attention to all of the research that is flowing in, and there is organs that are being damaged by COVID‑19 that aren't our lungs.  It will be interesting to see how that plays out over time, and just some of the like symptomatic things, like the spots on your feet that people get because of the way COVID‑19 is affecting capillaries and blood vessels and things like that.  
	Okay.  This is my last bit.  There was this really cool ‑‑ I put it on Facebook.  There is a really cool like case study in China that was talking about air flow and a restaurant, and infected individuals.  So basically they knew that people ‑‑ two families that had been infected by a third family at a restaurant, and so they have a map of the restaurant and they have a map of the air flow patterns.  I think this is "New York Times," and it showed where all the tables were, and basically the people that got sick ‑‑ and these are all asymptomatic, no coughing, nothing.  The people that got sick were the people that were down wind from via the air conditioning system of the people that were at the table that were infected.  Right.  So the people in the air flow patterns from that.  And so those are all things that I ‑‑ if the Health Department is still on here, those are really interesting things and may well mean the difference between us reintroducing density in our congregate shelters safely and reintroducing density unsafely.  Six feet is fine unless you've got an air conditioning system that's blowing across all of those people.  I think back to Janet and the pipes and curtain‑type thing, things that can prevent that air flow from happening, and learning about that so we can build our systems out.  Those are the stressful things for me is, you know, a sense sometimes that we are not necessarily looking at the right research as we go to make our decisions about how we have spaces construct for people experiencing homelessness. 
	Who knows if the air flow matters more than the shared items?  An obviously all of that is very important, but we definitely stress physical separation, not thinking about air flow necessarily, and we stress wiping surfaces and it's just ‑‑ it's interesting, all of the possibilities that ‑‑ but the research is finally coming in is the exciting part, so I hope we can continue to incorporate that.  The sheer number of asymptomatic carriers, right, is really ‑‑ makes it so that, again, I think we all have to constantly pretend that we have COVID‑19 and everybody around us has COVID‑19, because chances are they do.  
>> I think one of the hard things we can no longer think about ‑‑ until there is a vaccine, until there are real treatments, until there is real testing, including antibody testing so we have some idea of the spread, I don't think we can think in terms anymore of, well, we are just going to expand shelters, we are just going to have more space sort of stuff.  No.  The congregate shelter days may be done, and I think we have to face that.  What other ‑‑ you know, how do we create other options?  And so ‑‑ and this business of the county with, well, we will do a handwashing station, but we won't actually do it where the encampments are, we won't actually have the porta‑potties here, I had the county tell me, because they had a bad experience with People's Park, they are reluctant to put the sanitation structures out that are needed.  I mean some of this just has to end. 
>> Right.  They are shutting down public bathrooms.  Like I kind of get that, but I don't get that at all. 
>> No. 
>> You look at the waterfront, why would you shut down public bathrooms?  People are going to pee somewhere. 
>> That's right. 
>> And we've got parks staff that are ‑‑ they've got tight budget stuff, but you can also have people ‑‑ like we've got a huge number of people that aren't working that are getting paid unemployment by the federal government.  Right.  And by the state government.  It's like are there ways that we could have people constantly cleaning things everywhere so that shared bathrooms become a safer option. 
>> But first we would have to agree that in fact people who are homeless deserve a place to go to the bathroom.  As a society we have an obligation to make that happen.  And we are not there.  We are still blaming them for their situation.  Until we change that.  The other thing we didn't talk about at all was what about people who are not part of the formal economy?  I mean, you know.  Are they getting the word?  Now I think that they are eligible, like for the city's rent assistance program if they meet all the other criteria.  I don't know if Yuni is still on or not.  But the application is really clear about honoring Tacoma's position as a welcoming city, not referring any information to I.C.E. or anything like that, but is the word getting out in that particular part of our city that it's safe to apply, and you are eligible as long as you meet these other criteria?  I mean I just think, you know, the only good thing that could come out of this madness is that we are better than we were going in. 
>> Some of it is just trying to develop some of our kind of overlapping systems.  Right.  Like as somebody that is not a native English speaker, am I going to really go to a city‑funded program with an organization I am not comfortable with, or would I go to Centro Latino?  What can we do to bring these resources to Centro Latino, to the Urban League, organizations that have the trust of the community that they are in, or the Asia Pacific Cultural Center?  Like that whole operation has opportunities.  Those are the things that stress me out, is like what could we as advocates in our community be doing to flow resources there in a way that it is what they need to support their communities, you know.  I don't know. 
>> There is Zoom pod. 
>> I don't know what Zoom pod means. 
>> I think it's just a meeting, Zoom meeting. 
>> Oh, anyway.  We are wrapping up at 11:00 and I have rambled, but I appreciate everybody's, you know, continued interest in serving our most vulnerable.  It's going to be tough times.  I think we all see that, and that's the challenge, is how do we do this with fewer resources in our state and in our city.  Only the federal government can spend money like it prints it.  Oh, it does print it.  Cool.  Well, we have lots of opportunity, and a lot of just continuing these discussions.  It's a failure I think of many of us not ‑‑ you know, not succeeding in bringing a lot of these other groups in fast enough to helping support a lot of the homeless efforts that we are sort of a part of, but opportunity is tomorrow. 
>> Well, you are doing good.  Keep on.  Your comment about the air conditioning reminded me of legionnaire's disease.
>> Oh, yeah. 
>> Yep. 
>> Finally discovered the cause of it was the hospital ventilation system had some kind of bug in it. 
>> A bug in it, exactly.  [Laughs]. 
>> I am telling you buy a hotel in each council district. 
>> I am off to try to do some other stuff.  I will see you guys next week.  Thank you for all of you, bye. 
>> All right.  Have a great afternoon. 
>> Thanks, everybody. 
>> Bye.  Thank you. 
[End of meeting]