Housing and Human Services Advisory Special Meeting – February 10, 2022

Video Description:

Housing and Human Services Advisory Special Meeting – February 10, 2022

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

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Unknown Speaker 0:00
case. We will call the meeting to order. The first item is public invited to be heard. And I don’t see anyone here but want to check if we have anyone, Erica?

Unknown Speaker 0:16
No, we don’t have anybody. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 0:19
Um, the next item is approving the minutes from our January 13. Meeting. You have a motion to approve those. Robert, you’re on mute. And I need a motion

Unknown Speaker 0:45
to approve. Motion to approve.

Unknown Speaker 0:47
Okay. Do we have a second? I second. Okay. Thanks, Karen. All those in favor of approving the minutes from the January 13 2022. Meetings?

Unknown Speaker 1:03
Raise your hand?

Unknown Speaker 1:08
Okay. All opposed? And abstentions? Yeah. Okay. That passes. Fantastic. Next item is finalizing the 2022 work plan?

Unknown Speaker 1:28
Well, first of all, I want to apologize for not adding it to the packet. Karen comes to my office. See, we send it like, I think we forgot. So but I do have it and I will share it. Let me share my screen. Hey, can everyone see the work plan? Yes, yeah, I think we should add a party for Karen somewhere here.

Unknown Speaker 2:03
That should be in our work plan and should celebrating Karen, but here are the current work plan items. You know, I do want to say, you know, we, the board has made it as we move up our our funding process or sending it out. I think the only caveat, I think I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, because we’re doing any collaboration. You know, we, of course, we will try but there may be some outs, you know, with our partners as as we transition from our current grant management system to the next. So just want to well let the board know that we will, we will try our hardest to move it up. And there may be some issues as we transition. So just want to give the board a heads up about that. But yes, we are still hoping to get it out sooner than it is here. Especially

Unknown Speaker 3:07
when you say we’re transitioning, Does that just mean transitioning to the new year in the system? Or we’re changing systems altogether?

Unknown Speaker 3:13
Can you software? Okay, I took it, I was gonna review it, but a lot to talk about. So but we are getting a new software called founded. And that that is going to be a different that we are in the works to finish all of that. So we’re hoping that that’ll happen soon to give us ample time to transition the application process. Yeah, that’s that’s what we’re doing. Cool.

Unknown Speaker 3:50
Thanks for the update on that.

Unknown Speaker 3:54
So this is our the rest of the the word plan. If anyone has any questions, things you want to add. I think we added the training. Did not I will make sure we do. Know we talked about it.

Unknown Speaker 4:27
Are there any questions about the work plan or things that we need to include the folks don’t?

Unknown Speaker 4:34
To me? So so sorry. So Alberto. Was the training though in July? Was it for the scoring how to score and evaluate the applications? Right? Yeah. Yeah, it is there in July? Yes,

Unknown Speaker 4:53
it’s the first item on in July.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
I just realized Karen, do we introduce volley?

Unknown Speaker 5:04
Well, I was gonna wait for questions and then do it.

Unknown Speaker 5:08
I think after this after we did the work plan we were going to and then I need to introduce myself to the two new members since I was absent last month. Also, I figured we get through the work plan discussion and then introduce Molly and and then Molly can end and I will stay on and I can also introduce myself.

Unknown Speaker 5:32
Alright. Okay. So with that any any other items that need to be added or considered for the work plan for 2022?

Unknown Speaker 5:49
Okay, it doesn’t look like it right now. Hit it out of the park. On the first go. I Liberto. Oh, do we need to have a motion to approve the work plan for the year?

Unknown Speaker 6:04
It probably would be good. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 6:07
Do we have Deanna? Okay, and we need a second. Okay, Stacy is seconding. All right. All those in favor of adopting the work plan as proposed, please raise your hand. Okay. Not everybody. Alright. Yes, Karen.

Unknown Speaker 6:39
So, I would, I would like to introduce Molly O’Donnell. Molly is our new housing and community investment division director, she has taken over that role for Cathy fetlar, who retired on January 28. Of this year, and so. So Molly, so I would just do it. Have Molly introduce yourself, tell us anything that she wants to? About about herself. So Molly, take it away. Sure.

Unknown Speaker 7:20
So the first and most obvious thing about myself as you might hear toddlers in the background, because no matter how much soundproofing it’s never enough. But I am Molly O’Donnell, I’ve been working with Kathy, hand in hand on our CDBG disaster recovery program for the flood work since 2016. And before that, I was really in, you know, all things, different types of federal funding for about 16 years now total. So federal funding is really my you know, my specialty. And I’m excited to take over leadership of the division includes working with our housing and community investment team, which we are really really working hard to staff up right now we need we have a lot of resources coming and need a lot of capacity, and also with our Longmont Housing Authority arm. So I’m excited to meet you all. And you’ll be hearing from me here on the workplan. Come next month march to talk about our first 2022 funding round. On that subject, I will let you know we did open up a fourth quarter funding round right before Molly McElroy left the city. And we only got one application that was quite small for a business related activity. So we’re just going to combine that and have that application considered with anything else we get in this spring funding round. So if you were wondering what happened with that, that was the that was the status there. So I will see you in March.

Unknown Speaker 9:03
Awesome. Welcome, Molly. To your family.

Unknown Speaker 9:08
All right, I’m gonna leave you to the rest of the agenda and go parent. Thank you. Can i

Unknown Speaker 9:14
Thanks, Molly. You know, and then just to let you know is that you you might see Kathy peddler back again, she is she’s having a well deserved vacation right now. And when she gets back toward the end of this month, we are she’s going to come back on as a temporary staff, part time staff member for the city. As as Molly indicated, we did have we’ve had a couple of staff resignations, in Housing, Community Investment, we’ve done some reorganizing. There is you know one position we do need to fill which is someone to operate the inclusionary housing program. We It’s hard to hire people these days. So we, we’ve offered the position twice to successful candidates and twice it, it we were rejected. So for, you know, for different reasons, but so we’re still are in the process of interviewing for that. And that’s really a role that Cathy’s going to come back and, and play because she really is the one that well, we don’t have an inclusionary housing program. If she’s if she’s really not here to, to run that, given everything that’s on Molly’s plate, so, So anyhow, you you may be seeing Kathy back again, at at some point, we hope that that’s a short term, maybe three, four months at the at the most, so that we do get someone on board and that there’ll be the opportunity for Cathy to train the the new person that’s going to be running inclusionary housing. So so just FYI, and I do want to introduce myself, to Stacey and to Robert. So I’m Karen rowdy, I’m the Community Services Director for for the city until I retire, which is the end of March. And so anyhow, so I apologize, I had, I had a Death of the Family and headed back to Illinois and had to miss our first meeting. So so there you go. And I’ve been with the city for I’m in my 32nd year. And, and so, so yes, so I am I’m also going to be retiring yet, at the end of March. So

Unknown Speaker 11:49
do they have a replacement yet? For you, Karen? Or somehow? Or?

Unknown Speaker 11:54
Not? Now? Yeah, you know, we’re, we’re working on here, sometimes when, when you work somewhere for like, a long time, like I have, you know, you just kind of acquire duties and responsibilities, and, you know, you just step up and do what needs to be done. And then, you know, when you go to look at Alright, who, who, who would run a department that has golf, and affordable housing and libraries, and, you know, all the recreation. So, so, so we’re taking a look at the, you know, what would be what would be the kind of the right mix of responsibilities for for someone coming into this role. And so we’re taking some time with that, I would imagine that we will probably have some kind of an interim, you know, roll for the for the next few months. While you know, while we figure that out. And it really is the city manager’s opportunity to, you know, when you have a department head that leaves to really take a peek at what, what might be a different way of organizing things. It’s a little easier to do when you have when someone has left the

Unknown Speaker 13:11
left the position. So got it. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 13:17
I think that that was your your long way of saying that you’re irreplaceable. And so now, now they have to figure out how, how maybe multiple people fill the shoes of Kara? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 13:30
It just, it’s just not the Yeah, it’s in. Like I said, you just do things as you as you’re with the organization and you develop skills, and you know, you’re willing to step up. So yeah, but that’s not the the long term, the long term solution. So understood. I am totally replaceable, so

Unknown Speaker 13:53
never, never but

Unknown Speaker 13:56
but it’s nice to meet you, Stacey and Robert, and I am sorry that I missed the opportunity to meet you last month.

Unknown Speaker 14:02
Same here, Karen. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 14:06
All right. Um, anything else before we go on to the next item on the agenda? Okay, so we’ve got the proposal for allocating the remaining 2022 Human Services funds.

Unknown Speaker 14:19
Not sure going back down.

Unknown Speaker 14:32
You know, last year, toward the end of the year, I think it was in our December 9 meeting, we talked about how we had $100,575 that were unallocated from the human services funding grant application process. And we we, we talked about different priorities. And at the end, we said you know, we talked about the other program and then that would be our Top priority and we’re waiting to see. I mean, the big question was how much the county had applied for another state grant to help cover it. And we’re waiting to see how much that grant would be to see how much we needed to allocate to that. Well, we found out the numbers. And the state grant came in at $81,000, which is 40%, of what we asked, which I’m hearing is pretty typical. And so when we, when we redid budgets with the L there team, we realized that we need basically all of the funding to cover the cost to ensure that it can go through the end of this year. Because we didn’t get as much as we expected or or desired to get from the state grants. So at this point, that’s, that’s where we are. So we’re looking at $181,000, between us and the counties through the state button.

Unknown Speaker 16:15
So I think so I think what we just wanted to do is to affirm, you know, that was the number one priority of the Advisory Board as we as in December when we had a good discussion about this. So So in in essence, you know, what we’d be saying is that, we can, you know, pretty much take that total amount that we had unallocated to fully fund them, the Longmont outreach team, through the end of 2022. I just want to confirm that you are good with your direction that you gave us.

Unknown Speaker 16:57
A Liberto or Karen, for the sake of the new folks. Here, could you give a quick rundown of what else there is and what they do? Sure, a sense of you know why, and then we can talk about sort of why we had made that direction. But I think if you get review that that may help.

Unknown Speaker 17:18
Yeah. And of course, I always we presented to city council on Tuesday about the neighborhood impact team and l there’s a big partner, but let me talk a little bit about L there. So it’s the long month targeted engagement and referral effort. So as the L L there stands for its person team. And I’ll get to what they do in a second. Let me just talk about the team. I think it makes them unique. And I think it makes them in my mind, a very innovative program is made up of three people, three positions. One of the positions is a person with lived experience over they had been homeless in the past. One of the positions is a mental health person, mental health subject matter expert. And then the last one is a basically someone who hasn’t had experience working on homelessness services or case management etc. Made up of these three people. And what they do is they really are on the street five days a week. In the past, Longmont hadn’t had full time outreach. You know, the hope does outreach, but they do it in little they don’t don’t don’t do it every day, or every every five days a week. So the talks are out there five days a week, four hours a day. And they connect with unhoused folks to try and encourage them, motivate them work with them build relationships so that they can access services are coordinated and resort services to homelessness in Boulder County. They’ve had over 400 contacts in the year I get their there with called the keeper. It’s a it’s a it’s a state mandated report. They sent it to me. I was using the county counties has been they’ve had over 400 contacts since we started. We are working on that next week we’re going to work on even more data and system to because the counselor had some questions. But fundamentally they are a really great program that is connecting not only with people experiencing horses but with other other outreach providers bid and really coordinating along with full a lot of the efforts that are being made in Longmont to help folks move for housing So that’s what they do. And I think they’re that it’s been a great first year, and looking forward to see how it continues to develop throughout this year. Karen,

Unknown Speaker 20:13
you want to add anything else?

Unknown Speaker 20:17
No, I think that is new that that’s good. I mean, I think what, you know, what we had been advocating for for several years at Liberto, NY, is, is really to have a more robust outreach. Focus in our homeless solutions for Boulder County, you know, not everyone just, you know, walks up to, you know, to the entrance of the coordinated entry doors says, you know, I’m ready to, I’m ready for services, I’m ready to, you know, I’m ready to do something differently than live my life on the street. And so it really was an important component that we felt we needed to try to fill, you know, really, in order to determine you know, how effective outreach is and really working with people on the street, and continuing to build that relationship, as Alberto talked about, to hopefully, be there when, when maybe someone is, is really ready to take a different step and to go down a different path. And so, so it gives us an opportunity to really evaluate, you know, after this, the end of this two year period, about, you know, how effective is this outreach function in our effort, effort to address homelessness, and to help people who are unhoused to get housing. And, you know, and as Ellie Berto mentioned, we, we presented, it’s a broader concept, and I think maybe it’d be good to send the email to, or the PowerPoint to the members of the advisory board. I mean, it was a broader initiative, it was called the the neighborhood impact team. And it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s an approach that we are piloting here in the city that better coordinate some of our collaboration efforts across the organization, have to deal with kind of challenging and gnarly issues in the community. And so the first issue was, was the landing Park area, which I’m sure you have read about, if you’ve been following with the paper and, and the head had become a place where people who are unhoused, or maybe aren’t stably housed, started to congregate, you know, the end of last year, and, and really created some challenges for folks who use the park for people living in the surrounding neighborhood. And so, so that particular team, you know, organized to really try to address that issue and the park and an L, there has been a very strong partner in that effort. So. So we’ll send you that PowerPoint. And I think that will be helpful in terms of what we are, you know, what we’re trying to accomplish, and what is elders responsibility? So anyhow, the, so one of the council members mentioned during that meeting, was that meeting on Tuesday is that, you know, if indeed, we do determine that the that this outreach effort is an important cog in the, in the system of working with people experiencing homelessness, that, you know, maybe that is something that we, the royal we buy that this board, or when it comes time for the next round of funding for human services that you know, maybe that’s a service, we want to think about, you know, funding on a on an ongoing basis. So. So we just want to make sure because we’re about to spend all the rest of the money so, so it would be great to get a motion to confirm that that is indeed what you would support us doing with those unallocated dollars. And I think for Stacey and Robert, we had an allocated dollars and maybe Caitlin, you were going to talk about this but

Unknown Speaker 24:38
we ended up the council ended up increasing the amount of funds set aside for human service agency grants by a larger amount than what we thought we did ask for and we were shooting for 3% of the general fund dollars to be set aside for Human Services and the good grants that you all helped manage last year or into 2021, that set aside amount was 2.52%. We did, you know, we did request to go up to 2.75%, in 2022. And heck, counsel said, let’s just go for the gold, you said you want to 3%, we have, we’re gonna go ahead and just bump it up to 3%. And, and you just, you just go. So yeah. So, but it ended up the way we had. And we’re going to talk a little bit about this later on in the agenda. But the the way we had our process set up and how we scored applications, we ended up not allocating all the dollars. And, and so we talked about, you know, options for allocating the remaining dollars and in this that we just talked about, was providing gap funding for the elder project, because we really only had that for one time, that that that made sense to invest it in that effort.

Unknown Speaker 26:08
And, and I would add, you know, one of one of the things we talked about, and this as a reminder, this is a reminder for myself, and for the rest of us that, you know, our top priority. And the thing that we saw in the needs assessment, and that we heard from so many of our partners was that addressing, you know, housing affordability, and the availability of housing and sort of everything that revolves around that. What is the highest is the highest priority in our community. And we don’t necessarily have nonprofits and agencies that are we have some, but we don’t have as many dedicated to that as we would like. And so, you know, the LDR program is sort of an innovative new program that is not sort of built into the processes yet. And so we felt like taking that additional funding and putting it towards something that was really addressing that underlying need, you know, getting creative a little bit with it, and not necessarily saying, Oh, it has to go to an agency, you know, a nonprofit in the community, but actually saying, like, let’s address what that top priority need was, was one of the things that we were prioritizing. Does that if anyone else remembers differently about that conversation, and sort of what we were thinking there? That’s my recollection is that, you know, we saw that we had not fully funded what we wanted to for housing stability and affordability. And so this was an opportunity to, to put that money toward that.

Unknown Speaker 27:42
Looks looks like Karen Phillips is reading the article.

Unknown Speaker 27:49
Oh, you’re on mute. Yeah, mute. Sorry.

Unknown Speaker 27:53
Yeah, I read it this morning. I was I was just trying to see how old L L there was them out there. Oh, hopefully they kind of work hand in hand,

Unknown Speaker 28:04
I can talk to that calf care, and I can talk to that. So. So a couple of layers. I want to talk about that. So first and foremost. in Longmont, it’s proper. Andy who is hope’s outreach director, and l their meet on a weekly basis. They the case conference difficult situations are very regularly and then on a on a on the next broader level. We are you know the city of Longmont hope l their recovery Cafe is part of a HSPC or homelessness Boulder County working group where we we meet with all the different agencies doing outreach throughout the county and in particular in Boulder. And I will say we had a meeting today and I felt really proud at that meeting. Because a lot of the other agencies were talking about how well coordinated and collaborative we work here in Longmont. So hold an L there are a big part of that. And of course, as always, so is our public safety. Officer Kennedy and Officer Arne. We Yeah, we there was a lot of talk about how well coordinated last month Did you know that that were part of that? So that’s how they work together.

Unknown Speaker 29:36
Thanks. That’s great, Alberto. Um, are there other questions or comments about allocating those additional funds from our last funding round to L there?

Unknown Speaker 29:56
And if there are not Do we have a motion to confirm that that’s the direction we want to go with those on currently unallocated funds,

Unknown Speaker 30:04
a motion to allocate the allocated funds to the other program for 2022.

Unknown Speaker 30:13
Do we have a second? Okay, looks like Robert is going to second that. All those in favor? Please raise your hand. All right, that is unanimous. Thank you all.

Unknown Speaker 30:25
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 30:30
All right, the next item is 2023 Starting the discussion for 2023 Human Services funding. And I am guessing Liberto that is you again.

Unknown Speaker 30:48
I’m pulling up the PowerPoint.

Unknown Speaker 30:53
All right. Ellie, bear just got like five PowerPoints ready for us tonight?

Unknown Speaker 30:59
I usually do so Okay, fine. So it’s not really initiating is actually I, it’s part two, we actually I was thinking about this, we actually started this on December 9. And so there’s gonna be a little bit of recap for our, our new board members, and then we’re gonna get into the meat of the conversation. And like I told Karen, I don’t think we’re expecting resolution tonight, what we’re expecting is to is the start of a conversation and idea flowing. And we will be glad to get your resolution, but I’m not expecting it tonight. I’m just expecting that we start this conversation. Before we get. I’m gonna

Unknown Speaker 31:42
you know, what I would add to that, Albert is that it started the conversation. And you know, if there is, because the ideas we’ll talk about are really initial concepts. And so there’s some direction from the advisory board around, you know, hey, we don’t we don’t think either these concepts are what we want to pursue, or Yes, let’s go in dig a little more into one of these. And you all might come up with some other ones. So So we I think we do want some kind of direction in terms of, we would like to know more about how this process could work. So so let’s start the discussion, but have some initial direction would be helpful.

Unknown Speaker 32:26
Thank you. Alright, so um, just to get this to work. Just to review, I think we talked a little bit about it. Or Karen talked a little bit about it, you know, we have been really advocating for the council to bump us up to 3%. It’s taken some time. But you know, we receipt, we reached that goal, which is great. And really what that means is that at this point, unless there’s an economic downturn, are set aside will continue to grow. I mean, it was growing when it was a 2.7. In 2.5, it’s going to continue to grow even more. So unless, like I said, there’s an economic downturn, we are we are on a positive, positive bent at this point. So we think it’s time to review the process. And let me just for those that have not gone through the process, let me just review the process. And those and the rest of us know that. So basically, we have an application that we that the that we put out in with our partners, the City of Boulder and Boulder County every year, it’s been going through ECM pack that this year it’ll be to found it. And the way that we assign points to the application, or you can break it down into making sure that the programs are addressing one of our priority areas. I haven’t listed them here but I will in the next slide. That that there that they are actually delivering a program that meets a need and is demonstrating that they have an impact on the community through the evaluation process or how they track and demonstrating sound financial management and operational practices. And that also includes that, you know, the the board in their evaluation gets to evaluate how they’re addressing equity through their work. The staff gets to evaluate how they’re addressing equity and diversity through their through their staff and board members. So once everyone reviews and scores, we take averages of the staff score and the ward score and we we total the scores to determine the percentage of requests To be funded, and this is arbitrary in the point that the board, I present the board with options of ranges of percentages and scores this year, this past year, it was 74. And below would not recommend the funding. But that can change, you know, the board can change that we’ve had higher we’ve had it lower, it just really depends on what what model the board wants to move forward with. So currently, that’s how we decide funding, there is no upfront conversation with agencies about how much they can apply for. You know, it’s basically it’s applied for what you want. And then depending on what score you receive, what priority you’re in that will determine how much funding how much percentage of the of your request is funded. Alright. Isn’t it any questions you can stop me whenever, if you mean workstation, but part of the current so what part of the process is, in the past, Longmont used to actually take historical funding in, in account, right. And we the board decided a few years ago that we were going to reset every year to zero, we’re not going to take historical funding into account. We’re going to create pipe ceilings for priorities. And what that means is we’re trying we’re going to try not to spend more than a certain percentage of the entire set aside on each priority. I will say that in in practice, that has not happened, we tend to usually spend more on things like education and skill building primarily because there’s many more nonprofits asking for funding there. Then there are in others. And of course, we usually, what’s interesting, we usually spend very little will have very little, but we never ever hit our target in housing stability.

Unknown Speaker 37:02
of 25%, we rarely get there any way to get to 17% of funding goes there. So sufficiency, 20% is pretty pretty on par, we do get that. And then, so we have priority ceilings for the priorities. And then we decided, okay, so we want to have an individual agency ceiling, and we said no agency receive more than 50% of the total priority seating. So depending on which priority you are, you may get your 50% is higher. So if you’re in housing, you have a higher individual sitting than if you’re in Safety and Justice. So that is part of the of the the thing, part of the process. Any questions before I go on? That’s the that’s the recap. I’m going to talk a little bit about what happens. I can’t see everybody’s Oh.

Unknown Speaker 38:04
All right. I don’t see any hands raised or anything right now. Liberto.

Unknown Speaker 38:08
So

Unknown Speaker 38:10
here are the unintended realities of our current process and formula. So we have a hard time finding the highest priority area. And again, as I talked about, number of ACEs applying to their priority area is low. Like Caitlin mentioned earlier, agencies not knowing how much they can receive, we don’t really announce that we reset to zero. And but so agencies and development directors, I know I’ve done this work before, it’s just so easy to copy and paste what you’ve done in the past. And so we get a lot of that happening, including the amounts that they’re asking for. So we rarely meet our priority goals when it comes to our priority areas. And even though we do have priority ceilings, we tend to get some great disparities in the amount of funding for which agencies apply. So some agencies apply for a whole lot. And some agencies apply for very little. So that is a challenge too. I mean, you know, if, for example, if a new and unproven he comes aboard said we’re gonna ask for 50,000 You know, if they score high enough, they might get that done, even though they’re pretty new, compared to somebody who’s been established and been around for a while and have has developed, you know, really a successful model. But they’re sticking to their traditional historical funding. Right. And also, you know, if you go big, you get big, right? That’s, that’s basically how it works. With our current model is, the bigger you go, the bigger you get. And so that is also an unintended reality of how we currently fund. Because even if you even if you even if you only score for enough for 50%, if you ask for a lot, you’re going to get 50% A lot. So that’s part of the challenge, too. All right. Any questions about that? Because now we’re gonna jump into concepts, and kind of that’s the best the that’s the base.

Unknown Speaker 40:41
I don’t see any hands out. There’s Brian’s hand,

Unknown Speaker 40:44
man. Yes, Brian. Just one thought on this, the disparity of what people are asking for, particularly along the lines of, you know, say an organization’s trying to game the model by asking for more than they really need. Presumably, in their application, there need would have to be demonstrated. And I think this is one of the things in the interviews that we can do better, is really push on how these needs are determined, you know, the demand and understanding whether in fact, organizations are just artificially inflating their numbers or whether they are, you know, speaking to the need that their experience.

Unknown Speaker 41:44
Brian, one thing I think that that comes to mind for me is that it ends up being less that organizations are asking for more of the thing than they need, then we see like some organizations that are doing incredible, like, we also see this upside of that of like, we see some organizations that are doing really great work, and are actually asking for relatively small amounts compared to like their overall budget. And they score well, they do well, every time. And, you know, I don’t know whether it’s, they don’t have the capacity to take more and do more, which very well might be true. But also, like, you know, we’re sort of like, we’re not helping anybody, by not sharing some of the information because it’s really like people throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what, what sticks. And some people, some organizations are much more risk averse, you know, they don’t want to count on getting a bunch of money if they’re not going to get it. And so they just asked for the same thing over and over, even though like, we would probably fund them for more, because they’re doing such a good job at what they’re doing. And, you know, it meets our priority areas, but they don’t know enough of that information, either from like our prior interviews or the application process to actually, you know, make an educated request. Alright, Liberto, I might have also just stolen a little bit of your thunder there.

Unknown Speaker 43:19
But yeah, I think I think that’s exactly right. That’s what these concepts are going to show. Alright, so I have two concepts right now. And I, that I want to go over again, like to Karen’s point, the Board may say, No, we don’t like these. Or we want to learn more about them. Alright, so here we go. So concept one is do we create, we always had a ceiling, but maybe we need to think about creating a floor. And here is I created a table, it’s completely arbitrary. I just wanted to throw some numbers on there.

Unknown Speaker 44:00
You know, we can we can, we can change this around. But what I thought about was, what if we, in our grant instructions, we talked about, you know, saying, here are the the floors and ceilings and what I mean by floor is it doesn’t mean that’s what they’re going to get. But it’s the lowest amount they can apply for in that priority area. So those are those are the numbers that I again, arbitrarily put in, we can totally change them. But I want to at least show you a model of creating a floor and ceiling approach.

Unknown Speaker 44:46
And Alberto, I think you probably want to you know because we keep talking about ceiling so we had a ceiling per area, but really not per application other than an agency couldn’t Get any more than 50% of the total amount that we were setting aside if you will, for that priority area. So, so this would change to the ceiling would be, you can’t ask for any more than x, this is the maximum you can ask for. And this is the minimum that you can ask for. Right?

Unknown Speaker 45:25
I mean, that’s because our priority our ceiling, and so on that Collins at 22 ceiling, that was all back and stuff that stuff that I did, when I when I did so so. So agency, I had no idea that there was this ceiling in this model, we would we would put this up front, we will say this is the ceiling and this is the floor. So they would know that going in and they will they will reflect that in their application.

Unknown Speaker 45:58
And Liberto would this particular thing be for so we have distinguished in the past, right and agency can actually apply for more than one program that they’re doing. I assume that it’s open for discussion of whether this would be a PR program or a PR agency? limitation?

Unknown Speaker 46:22
Great question. I didn’t even I didn’t even think about that. I I think you’d be programming in my mind. Every carrier has a different thought, but in my mind that the proper program, because really each program is an individual application.

Unknown Speaker 46:35
Right. Brian, I see your electronic hand raised

Unknown Speaker 46:43
eight one. So the the feeling is based on? It’s always been based on allocation, not application request. But in this case, the floor is you have to ask for at least this much. And you can’t ask for more than this. Is that right? Or you can be awarded more than this or less than that.

Unknown Speaker 47:08
But it’s not about awards. It’s about asked. Okay. You can you can ask. So for example, your analysis ability. You can You can’t ask her why 500,000? And you can’t ask for less than 60,000. Again, arbitrary numbers, Brian? Okay. Got it. Now, you may get depending on your sport, what we’re not doing tonight, is we’re not talking about allocation formula, and allocation, you know, ranges. So potentially, depending on how we formulate that allocation process, you may get less than the floor, but you can ask for less than have it. No wonder

Unknown Speaker 47:56
you broke up a little bit there. Brian, I want to make sure we heard what you just said.

Unknown Speaker 48:01
Oh, I’m sorry. I was just thinking oh, Liberto. Okay. Stacy, I have

Unknown Speaker 48:11
a question about so I think this is a good idea. And I think that, um, that it’s a it’s a better way of metering, the amount that that we have to give out. I guess my question is, is there any organization say specifically in the housing stability, where I’m just Emily, just guessing that the requests are larger there? Are there any organizations that have for you know, more than one or two or three years been getting a larger amount than 100,000? That we would have to reach out to them that that by limiting them to 100,000? It might? And again, you know, no promises that they were going to get this at all. But if they’re kind of budgeting for that every year in their operations, is this something that could potentially negatively impact them?

Unknown Speaker 49:01
No, I don’t, it wouldn’t affect anybody in the housing.

Unknown Speaker 49:04
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, say shelter. But, but but I would say to Stacy’s point, depending on what that ceiling is, right? You know, that could be one agency, you know, because they get, they get about 100,000. But if we, if we set that ceiling lower, you know, so there would be some entities not not a lot, but there would be some agencies that could, you know, would know up front, they’re going to get less money.

Unknown Speaker 49:40
I mean, the flip side of that, that I would add is that, you know, there’s some incentive then, for some of these larger requests to break it into different programs. Sometimes they do like just a very generic thing. I will say that there are others that do have multi programs they apply for and they apply for them separately. You know, but encouraging. I mean, when you’ve got that big of $1 amount, encouraging to break it down into some of the specific programs can help us get a little more detailed in terms of what they’re what the issue is that they’re addressing.

Unknown Speaker 50:22
Yeah, I mean, I think if if, you know, just say hypothetically say shelter is one of the largest recipients and they’ve been receiving around 100,000, then that wouldn’t be a big deal. I didn’t know if there were agencies repeatedly receiving 200,000 If all of a sudden they came in at 100, that would be, you know, could be detrimental to their

Unknown Speaker 50:40
budget, and this year, because there’s four, they only received 90,000. I need to go I’m pretty sure.

Unknown Speaker 50:46
So then it should be fine.

Unknown Speaker 50:48
Yeah, I would say it really starts hitting at this level, probably more your self sufficiency, folks. So for example, the Art Center got 100,000 this year. That being said, this is the most they’ve ever gotten for any single program. And education would be hit. If these if these were the numbers as they are, these may not stay that way. But if it if it was as they are, the really the only two places that would get hit would be self sufficiency and education and skill building, I think the rest would be okay.

Unknown Speaker 51:30
And there are other ways to you know, manage around that to to meet with them in advance and say, here’s what’s happened, you know, just so they’re not surprised.

Unknown Speaker 51:38
I think so what I would, what I would say that as I think about this model, I think the only thing we’re not dealing with many things to consider. But an important thing to consider is we may run out of money fast. Right, we will not have the same issue that we had this year, if we start putting in a floor. So for example, EFA. I used them before, they have a great housing program here in Longmont, and yet they only ask for 16,000 every year. Yeah. So

Unknown Speaker 52:15
Oh, I was oh, Deana.

Unknown Speaker 52:19
So on the flip side of that, I guess I’m wondering if these floors are maybe going to discourage some organizations who might be asking for less money from applying. Because if I were doing something new in the area of say, housing stability, and I was trying to get some funding for some novel program, I’m not sure I could justify a $60,000 request, I might not even bother applying. So I don’t know if they’re, I can’t remember what the asks have been historically and all of these categories, but I know we give out considerably less than some of these floors. So I’m just wondering if we’re going to discourage some people from applying.

Unknown Speaker 52:56
That’s a potential Yeah, I think so.

Unknown Speaker 53:01
Then it’s really how low do you want to go on the floor? So I mean, again, these are just illustrated, you know, for illustrative purposes, but Yeah, certainly something to consider if if we want to move forward with this kind of a strategy.

Unknown Speaker 53:19
Okay, other Alberto’s just confirmed we’re this is just ideas for us to start thinking about. We’re not We’re not making any decisions tonight. I suspect that you know, when I think he said you had another concept that there will be more things that we want to talk about or consider.

Unknown Speaker 53:37
Right. Okay, we’re ready to move on. I can put up the next concept.

Unknown Speaker 53:42
Any other questions or comments on this concept? Karen?

Unknown Speaker 53:49
I just like that, the transparency of it that that’s kind of what I like about it. So anyway, good job.

Unknown Speaker 54:03
All right. I think we are ready to go on to the next one Elberta.

Unknown Speaker 54:07
So the next one is something we’ve seen before. And I talked about on the night I just, I did it. I adopted it a little bit more to be they’re a little more restrictive. They just have like to cut offs. But so what United Way does is they create ceilings based and floors. On the budget size of the organization. It’s not about the program. It’s not about the ads. It’s about your budget. So I I again, like to Karen’s point, this is just illustrative. These numbers are completely arbitrary, but I put them together so you can see. So we could just say, Okay, we’re gonna go based on budget size, and this two to the Anna’s point. You know, if you got a smaller new agency, well, you still have an opportunity, right? So basically, starting from the top, if you’re an agency that has over a million dollar budget, then you’re selling Ceiling is 100,000 and your floor is 775. And it goes down from there. And then this would avoid. It does affect me it does. It does put into question how we value our priorities, because now the allocations are no longer based on priorities, but based on budgets. But it does make it a little clearer for folks. Okay, so if my overall budget is 500,000, I’m gonna apply for various anywhere between 25 and 50. Anywhere between that right program.

Unknown Speaker 55:42
It strikes me concept two is very inflexible and concept one allow some leeway in some way of adjusting things. And this one is so formulaic that it’s almost noon. And you know, rather than dealing that’s my view is that I thought concept two was easy to conceive. And I think this one is a little bit too mechanical.

Unknown Speaker 56:12
Other Other folks have, Brian, thanks for raising the hand.

Unknown Speaker 56:23
So I am wondering, do we have a clearer kind of idea of what I’m going to do it I’m going to say what outcomes we’re trying to achieve with these changes? Are we looking for greater transparency? Are we looking for what we feel it’s more efficient utilization of the money? That might be helpful for me as I look through these options, and understand how they serve that purpose.

Unknown Speaker 56:55
So I, if Karen has an answer,

Unknown Speaker 57:00
go ahead.

Unknown Speaker 57:02
It’s a couple of things. I and I think I’ve mentioned them already. One is, you know, especially especially with with concept, one is how do we strengthen or encourage, or, you know, how do we motivate folks to really think about our number one priority is priorities in general. And then two, is how do we we I would love to start closing the disparate gaps we had between some of our large, you know, some folks, we might there’s I think I said this year, but I know there’s one, one grant that we’re doing for $2,500. That’s a lot of work in in, in scoping the project and doing the contracting for $2,500. So try, in my mind closing that gap. Ryan would be very, I think, an efficient and effective use of our colors. So yeah, Karen, I’m not sure what your thoughts are.

Unknown Speaker 58:05
Yeah, so we tried to define that at the beginning of the slide deck, Brian. So it is in my mind, it’s twofold. So it is Caitlin’s metaphor of spaghetti on the wall. So So to move away from I have no idea how much to ask for I’m just going to throw spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks. So I. So I think we want to move away from that, because of what, you know, what we outlined in terms of some disparities. And I think it also helps us to be more proactive or more, assuring more that where we say that, that if indeed, housing stability is our most important need to address on a needs assessment, then how do we make sure that you know, the applications that are coming in? Are the those dollars that we’re going to we’re going to get an adequate ask for that high stability area. So excuse me, that high priority area, so it deals with the spaghetti on the wall? I think it it addresses the transparency that Karen talked about, and I think the different advisory board members have talked about that, you know, anyhow, so it’s, it’s it’s Mr. wizard behind the curtain in terms of, you know, how we, how we come up with our I mean, we know what we’re doing, I mean, we know we have the formula and whatever else but but we can make it a little more transparent. So I think those are two things that we tried to outline those in that in the beginning that that’s the problem, if you will, that we’re trying to solve.

Unknown Speaker 59:55
I think one thing too, like one thing I actually really like about Khan Step two, is that it also helps organizations to see like, where are they, what’s reasonable for their organization, you know, an organization that has a budget of under 250,000. If they know off the bat that like, the likelihood that we’re going to fund something that’s more than 10% of their budget, like that, having sort of that upper limit of like, you know, don’t come in and ask us to support 50% of your budget, that’s a pretty big risk for us. Whereas, you know, sort of having a like 10% limit based on your budget is, is a good way to be thinking about how they diversify their grant funds, like some of this is stuff that we ask questions about, and we’re trying to get information about it. But instead of us asking people to tell us that we’re telling people like, this is kind of what we expect from, from your request. And being transparent about that being something, you know, we don’t want to fund 50% of your organization. Because that’s not that’s not an efficient use of resources. But we also want you to be sustainable we want it to be we want to know that you can deliver it, and that sort of thing. And so sort of this second one that bases it on their budget, strikes me as a way to be transparent about that, instead of us trying to have to comb through and see like, is their ask actually reasonable compared to their overall budget? Are they actually, you know, being fiscally responsible, we we sort of put a little bit of parameters on on that in some way. The one thing on this, like, for the second one, I feel like the under 250k, you know, 15,000 seems a little high for to me in the sense of like, there are some smaller organizations that we’ve talked about that have had like, innovative programs. And if they apply in that under 250k, a budget thing, you know, maybe we’re not as stringent, because we know that there’s a much lower limit that they can ask for, you know, the organization that comes in and asks for $2,000, you know, is much different than the organization that comes in and asks for $150,000 Like, are the risk of like, the city’s money is much different for those two things. You know, we sort of talked about like, some of them being more innovative. And if you are like, Hey, let’s try a new program. We don’t know how it’s gonna go, let’s do something smaller than maybe that gives some of these smaller organizations, some opportunities to try new things and, and use and find some of those new programs. I see Karen, and then Graham.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:51
And when she go ahead

Unknown Speaker 1:02:56
Graham, oh, you’re muted. Still?

Unknown Speaker 1:02:59
Say I’m going to miss you, Karen retiring? How hard would it be Liberto to model these two with actual data from like the last funding round? Is that like, they’re going to ruin your, your weekend? Or is that reasonable thing to apply these two schemes to our last year’s funding, and then just see what the practical sort of impact might be of the models? And what the outliers will look like?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:27
I think, yeah, I can do it. And I’ll just stick to ceilings, I won’t mess too much the floors. If I stick with ceilings, it makes it a little easier. And we’ll see how much we would have actually

Unknown Speaker 1:03:39
fallen short. With the money that we had, but yeah, I can do that. Yeah, cuz then I can

Unknown Speaker 1:03:49
just, you know, if we can, if we get on somebody 90% Then I’ll just go with 90% of the ceiling. Yeah, it shouldn’t be too hard.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:57
Okay, I personally like concept too, but it might help just understand the impact better. If it’s not too hard.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:05
I can do that. Welcome Council. Yarbrough. Good to see you. Your hair looks fantastic. So Karen Roni.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:19
So I was I was, this is not well thought out, but I just recalled when we’re talking about budget size. You know, we also have had conversations about that. If you are an agency with a huge budget, then, you know, the conversation has been how much money from the city doesn’t really matter. You know, so if someone’s asked if you’re talking about a, an agency that has a $50 million budgets, and they’re asking for 25,000, which is, you know, a fraction of a percent of their overall agency budget. You know, we’ve also struggled with with that, you know, is that? Does that really matter in the scheme of things, you know, for serving, serving our community with, with where if we’re such a small amount of their total budget? I know what to do with that. But I remember we talked about that every year. Stacy.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:26
So, yeah, just just a comment, I can also very easily in my mind, imagine these two models being combined. Where if you’re under $25,000, and you you know, and you fall into the housing category, or the resilience category, you know, then you have you have all of you have the social services underneath each of these programs. It’s a little it’s more work and administration. But I can imagine that happening too, if it comes to that.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:54
I would agree. And I think, you know, when you said that I was thinking about, like, even even if we didn’t do like the same floor and ceiling for the the categories, even saying, like, we anticipate give it you know, even if we just did a ceiling of like, anticipate roughly x total dollars in housing stability, which means that, you know, sort of our limit, if you’re asking for housing stability is going to be this or something, you know, some some way of using that to give transparency, again, for like, I think Alberto, you said, like, really communicating what our priorities are, and trying to encourage more, more applications in some of those areas that we aren’t getting it but we know are huge priorities within the community. So, Brian,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:43
thank you, Caitlin. So I was in listening about to the goals, I wrote down three things. One is to increase efficiency. So Alberto, you mentioned this, you know, administration costs relative to the award benefit, you know, there’s some ratio that needs to be met. And it makes sense to me that there are minimums that would help do that, whether they’re set by budget size, or just by program. I do like program better than budgets, simply because if you’ve got a $250,000 organization, but they’re delivering, like, amazing benefits that we want, they’re fulfilling needs that we need fulfilled, then to to, you know, under to fund them lower, because their budgets smaller. And, you know, I’m not quite clear on that. But the other thing is to set expectations. So we talked about, how do we set expectations, and it seems to me, that’s a matter of transparency, any of these, if they go in front of the applicant should help set expectations for how much they can get, how much they should apply for. So I’m agnostic on that. And then the ensure that the needs are met that idea of like, we just can’t seem to get enough money out to these housing agencies. And maybe part of that is a function of expectations. You know, that’s possible. The, that’s the one piece that I’m not quite seeing, like, you know, ideally, in a in a private industry, we’d go to whoever whoever’s kickin button and say, Hey, we want to increase your production, you know, we’re willing to fund you to really ramp it up, because you’re doing the stuff that we need done. We can’t do that in a public format. So it seems to me maybe it’s back to that kind of setting expectations component. So I just wanted to throw those three out. Because I think there’s different parts of these that serve different elements of that kind of back to a combined scenario.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:06
Karen

Unknown Speaker 1:09:14
we can’t hear you.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:17
So I think and some of this could, sorry, copier. So I think some of this could kind of segue maybe into the item number seven when we talk about the needs assessment. You know, I think for housing, one of the issues, one of the issues has to do with we, for housing that really is around constructing, you know, and investing in new housing units and construction and rehab and blah, blah, blah. You know, we have our other sources of funding need that goes to support that. So that’s our affordable housing fund, that’s our CDBG or home don’t have our federal grant dollars. And, you know, that really goes for rehab and actual units. You know, and so it could be that we want to rethink, and maybe maybe it’s when we talk about an update, if you will, to our needs assessment, you know, maybe we drill down a little more specifically, in terms of, you know, how we can fund housing, that really is linked to programs versus capital investments. And so maybe if we did a little more work around that, we might get more of what we are able to fund with, with the Human Service Agency, dollars to support housing.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:03
Thanks for pointing that out to Karen of like, how much of the funding is actually coming from different places than here,

Unknown Speaker 1:11:10
and we invest a lot in housing, but not in our pot, say not in this particular interview. And

Unknown Speaker 1:11:16
I think last year, we we started digging a little bit into that, because we asked for a little bit more of like, more of the budget that was being allocated to some of those various like, community services and so forth. But I kind of like where you’re thinking of like, contextualizing that, like, you know, this is not, this is something that, you know, we get a lot of federal grant dollars, and, you know, sort of these things for, but it’s not necessarily something where, you know, individual agencies can actually really do as much around it in the same ways.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:53
So, when Alberta goes to the next slide, it is really, what ideas do you have, you know, so these, we wanted to get the conversation going. And we are not the keepers of all the ideas, so, so we would love to hear other ideas that you might have, you know, that we should we should explore?

Unknown Speaker 1:12:29
Anyone Hang on.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:33
This isn’t our last time we have a conversation. But again, we just wanted to get it going, you know, maybe modeling some of these approaches with, you know, our 2022 applications would, you know, help generate some other ideas and looks like, we have another hand, Deana.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:56
So I don’t really have any other ideas. I just wanted to chime in that I think that increased transparency is great. And I really liked that we’re going in that direction. And I think from doing this last few years, definitely I’ve seen some of the organizations have figured out to ask big and I like that we’re sort of moving towards a I think a little bit more equitable approach to hang out some of the cash just based on access to information by the organizations who some of them are definitely not asking for enough. And some are asking for too much. So I like the way that we’re going with this. And I do think that modeling, it would be really helpful to sort of see the practical application of these scenarios. So I appreciate that that may be at work, but I think it’s it would be really helpful to

Unknown Speaker 1:13:39
us. So.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:41
So what I have Dougs that I want to try that I’ll bring to our next board meeting or in probably email it before, once they get it done is to model it with first individually. So using concept one, and then using concept two, and then I’m going to try and figure out how I can combine them and see what it would look like. And again, I’m probably going to stick either two ceilings not mess around too much in floors. And I’ll use our same, our same ranges that we use to not to try and make it harder on myself. I use same scores, same ranges, and just but input these new ceilings and floor piece to it. Only bear

Unknown Speaker 1:14:27
to one thing with that when you do it. So like we could look at if even if you don’t want to do the floors. One thing I think would be helpful to see is just like for housing stability, we got X number of requests here was the minimum and the maximum that was requested for each of those like buckets. So we did just to just so folks can see like, Okay, if we set a floor of $20,000 we, you know, this one, the lowest requests we had anyway was $17,000. So like that’s not That’s, that’s not a whole lot different. So like, we don’t necessarily need to see every individual one compared to the four. But I’d like to, I’d love to just see like, what was sort of the minimum and the maximum that were asked in each of those categories? Okay. Brian

Unknown Speaker 1:15:23
one thing I think that we should not overlook, because the so many of these were really kind of characterizing as communication mechanisms. Some of them are mathematical base, many of them are mathematically based, but we’re trying to communicate to organizations that do good work that they should be open about how much they ask for because the money’s there. And we’re trying to communicate to other organizations that you know, that they’re going to be limited in the amount they can ask for, because there’s some what for whatever reason, it is, right. So we should just consider maybe narrative, like an actual messaging, kind of strategy, you know, get somebody from the city of Longmont marketing, whatever department you all have there. But it’s not unusual on new programs. And I think these, you know, this isn’t new, but to think about what are the key messages, we really want people to understand when they apply for these, and have it maybe included as part of the application process or part of the solicitation process, rather than a just kind of like a contracting mechanism?

Unknown Speaker 1:16:44
I, I totally agree. And I will say, you know, I don’t know whether that’s something the city can do. That’s also that’s something I do my job of like, hey, you know, this is, you know, you’ve got to tell the story. So like, doing better, you know, we have the needs assessment, and we have provided some, some categories, but even doing like, you know, sort of, from our, from the board’s perspective, and from like this funding, from the perspective of this funding, what’s the executive summary of like, we know that housing is the most important thing, and the city funds in all of these ways, like, so here’s kind of what we’re looking for, to help applicants like, see, like, not just like, hi, the city is giving money for nonprofits and agencies, but like, what are the things that we’re trying to help solve? I think can go a long way toward that transparency and giving them a sense of like, why do we do this in the first place? I mean, I think a lot of them know, but like, what is it that, you know, we want them to take away from it. Councilwoman Yarborough? Thank you. Okay. sounds so weird. Um, I know, I’m like Chiquita. But yeah, just to keep you have been duly elected by by the community. So you know, you have earned that title. Yes, that is true. Um, you know, back to, uh, you know, I think about Karen.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:22
I think about you to Karen, Ronnie all the time. But right now I’m talking about Karen Phillips. I think when Karen always say, how are we communicating? How are they receiving the messages? And I think Brian, you hit it, you know, you You’re right on it. And I think that what I’m trying to what I’m I know Karen and Alberto don’t know this yet. But I’m really working, I’m really going to work hard in our communication and marketing department to see how we can start making sure that we are communicating in a more effective way. And I think if we have something where we have these applications out, if we just have a little bitty blurb of video, because think about the inequities of those organizations, and we’ve seen them in those applications where they didn’t fill it out properly. And they’re small organizations, right? They may not have been really good and accountant or they may not have the numbers or whatever, they may not know how to fill it out properly. So I think if we can have a little directional video on our website, on the city website, when they apply for that or something when they can look and see what we exactly what we want, you know, I don’t know I just feel like no matter what and all areas we really need to tighten up our communication is very important for people to know exactly not assume what we want, but know what we want and what we expect from them because it’s not fair for those people who may not have the resources at some of the other organizations and they’re not able to, you know properly fill out those applications in everything imperfect. The information that we’re looking for. So I do think that we need to work on our communication. And I would love like a three minute video, Kaitlyn, you can do that you and Brian can do that video and just saying. But no, Karen, you always talk about that, how are they? How do they get this information? How are the communities, you know, receiving it? And and that’s it’s key from what I’m learning, too is that a lot of people really don’t know that it’s out there. It’s the same people that know the same answers in our community. But how does everyone else know? And then when they find out about it, it’s already done and over with, right? And so how can we get this information about the proper way of doing it? And the expectations that this board has? I often think

Unknown Speaker 1:20:50
about like, when you were dying, I was like, Oh, I think about how like, I want my kids to behave a certain way. And in order to get them to do what I want, I actually have to be really clear about like, why, why I’m asking them to do it. And then also what I expect, and I’m not like, I’m not trying to say that, like agents, these are kids, but like, when we are not transparent, or we like kind of hide the ball of like what we’re doing. We’re not setting them up for success. And I think that like, without fail, like every single person on this board, like, you know, I think about Karen Phillips talking about, like, what are we doing to empower them to be successful? How, you know, giving them money is one piece of it. But we know that like Karen and Alberto and other folks in the city are doing more than that, like, so let’s, let’s highlight those ways that we do it. You know, so if there’s a new agency that doesn’t know, they can call up Alberto and ask for more details, like, let’s make sure they know, like, some of that nitty gritty of like, not just like, hey, if you have questions called Liberto, but like, hey, you know, if you need help with, you know, understanding XYZ, these are, that’s the type of questions we can answer. Yeah, we’re not gonna fill out the grant application for you, but we can give you direction type of thing, you guys, Alberto, you and everyone else, like you all do great things. And I think there are probably people who could use that expertise, that don’t utilize it.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:27
Other ideas that folks might have, we’ve gone a little bit sideways, but I think it’s good, good stuff. Other ideas folks have around the communication? And sort of setting, you know, limits or trying to get more out of the application process? That would help us. Okay, I think we have some next steps that Alberto is going to work on. And, you know, this is this was an opening conversation, not the the decision making conversations. So I encourage folks to think about it. And, you know, think if there are other, you know, creative ways that we could think about this, or that would make life easier as we review applications. So we can continue the discussion. Oh, okay. Anything else you need for that? Liberto? Okay, um, the next item is the 2020 human services needs assessment, reviewing that, and the possibility of an update. Karen, is this one you? Or is it Liberto? Again?

Unknown Speaker 1:23:54
It’s gonna be on his own here, you know, so,

Unknown Speaker 1:23:58
you’re like, Here, wait, why there’s a mountain go fly off of it?

Unknown Speaker 1:24:04
No, I think I’ll introduce it, what what the heck. So, um, so you have in your, your packet, the big, the big honkin document, right. So that was the so that was the assessment that we conducted back in 2019 and 2020. We completed it right at the height of the hand well, when we close things down, so and so just some some grounding is that when we completed this, the timing for completing this human services needs assessment, which indeed informs our priority for funding. We lined that up so that we would be conducting the human service assessment along with the housing community development needs assessment as part of the Consolidated Plan process, which is a requirement of the city for us to continue to receive federal dollars as an entitlement primarily for our community development block grant dollars. So, so in 2020, we lined up and we have we, we use the same vendor, as we use for conducting our consolidated plan or a housing assessment. And so now we’re on the five year cycle. So I think our our, our AR question to the, you know, to the board, is it questions is twofold? And is that one is that? Do you think that there is value in conducting some kind of a mid mid term assessment, if you will, sometime during that five, that five year period? And so which, which is, you know, we’re thinking if we’re going to do that, that, as we go into the 2023 budget process for the city, it might be funding that we asked for, to, if we need that, to do some, you know, to do a kind of a midterm assessment. And, you know, we also were thinking and we, and we would like to get input from the board is, what would be the scope of that midterm assessment, if you will. So, you know, one of the things that I mentioned that, when we were talking about the the Housing Stability area, is, you know, do do we take that opportunity to really dig down more deeply into in some of these needs, that are identified in the needs assessment, and really understand a little bit more about the nature of those needs, and how our funding could really go to support some, some specific needs in the community in some of those areas. So, you know, we we started to do that, or we try to do that in, you know, early 2020, with doing some focus groups. And again, that was right, when things were starting to shut down with with COVID. So, you know, I don’t know how we didn’t get get the greatest participation. But But yeah, we’re just thinking is that there might be some, it’s not a full on needs assessment. But that we would do some kind of process that would really help us dive more deeply into the nature of some of the needs to better flesh out what we might want to do with them and what those gaps are. Alberto, what would you like to add to that?

Unknown Speaker 1:28:03
They do anything I would add, is actually ran this by our community, our partners of Boulder, county and city of Boulder. And that would be their preference to what Karen just said, is partly in their reasoning behind it is, throughout the throughout the pandemic, we’ve done and they’ve done in particular, I know Boulder County has done, you know, multiple assessments. And they’re getting ready for their ARPA and their their COVID funding, they’ve done a lot of this work. And so there is a little bit of concern of just oversaturation of of serving people, you know, it’s survey fatigue type of situation. And to Karen’s point, they think it would be good to dive a little deeper into some of our needs are met, you know, not to everything, but choose a few that we think are our need some more, some more research and, and thoughts. So that that would be that I did run it by our partners at the county and the city of Boulder. And that was their, their suggestions as well.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:16
Karen Phillips Yeah, I can’t help I just this can’t help but say, you know, that’s that whole thing was huge. Reading through it. You know, the knees. It was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just didn’t see any solution. I mean, it just went on and on about what we need and blah, blah, blah. And it’s just like, well, so at the end and the list of agencies that might help but I just as I was reading it gone, well, where’s the solution? Where’s the solution? I mean, it’s great to know that we all kind of know what the needs are, but it doesn’t seem like we’re addressing any solutions. I don’t know how that can be incorporated into it. But that’s when I was reading it. I’m like, okay, so what do we do about that? Then? You know, what do we do? That’s how I felt when I read that whole thing. Brian,

Unknown Speaker 1:30:19
you’re awesome. Sit down with fatigue in your voice, Caitlin?

Unknown Speaker 1:30:22
No, not at all.

Unknown Speaker 1:30:25
So I think along what Karen Phillips was saying, one of the things that I was just thinking about, as you were talking about this, is it rather than like doing a survey of the community, what do you need? I wonder if it would be helpful to have a better idea of best practices around, you know, all of this as an ecosystem, right? We know that if you pay less for housing, you have more to pay for medical bills. But if you get sunk in medical bills, it’s really hard to you know, all of these things kind of interrelated. And whether there are any best practices, like if housing is the target, are there? Is it just about getting houses? Is that the right way to approach it? Or is there a body of knowledge that says, Well, if you can, if you can really push on the medical end of it, you’ll find that you have a dramatic impact on people staying in their house, you know, something like that? I’m making it up, right, but almost like a survey research out there for solutions.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:30
There’s two schools of thought on that, Brian? No, I’m kidding. There are certainly cities in places that do like housing first policies were like, getting people into stable housing is first and foremost, the thing that like, helps the, you know, sort of cascades. And then there are other. I mean, there are certainly experts on this. But my sense from that one is that like, there’s sort of a strong divide of like, folks that are very much like housing first, and then folks that are like, you need to do all of the things to make sure someone can stay in housing, and not just get into it in the first place. But I don’t disagree, like I think understand what I hear Karen and Brian and other folks can chime in, what I hear is that, you know, we know there’s this need, but like, how does that manifest specifically in our community? So like, do we need, you know, specific types of services? So like, I think we talked about, like, the needs assessment, talking about specifically about car repair. And that was like, a very weird, like, thing to be specific about when a lot more of it was like very broad and vague. And not clear on like, okay, housing, but like, you know, we want people to come up with innovative things. But we also would like to know, like, does that mean, we need more rentals? Do we need more things that are more affordable? Like what how do we actually break that down into something that like, is more than just like, housing is unaffordable? Like it that feels a little bit like? Sure, we all know that in Boulder County? You know, we hear people talking about that a lot. But what is like how do we actually address that? Other comments or questions or thoughts on like a mid,

Unknown Speaker 1:33:34
mid cycle,

Unknown Speaker 1:33:36
Needs Assessment gram.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:39
I’d rather just spend the money on supporting the nonprofits in other concrete ways rather than surveying them. So I at this point would vote against a med survey. Deanna?

Unknown Speaker 1:33:55
Well, I know we you just talked about other organizations or county programs have done surveys, can’t we just sort of crib their work? I mean, I don’t know why we need to reinvent the wheel. Right. So if they’ve already done some of these updated surveys, through the pandemic, and one of the things we’re worried about his fatigue on surfing, can’t we just use their survey? I don’t know why we need to do it twice. Right.

Unknown Speaker 1:34:18
Right. Right. And again, with it with the county doesn’t want to do more surveys with they would they’re suggesting is can we dig a little deeper into certain areas of need that we know to, to learn? You know, what exactly are the needs or what things are Caitlin’s point more specifics? Or maybe to Karen’s point is, is digging deeper Can we can we can we find research? Solutions? I mean, I don’t know what that deep, deeper life looks like to be honest. I’m not sure what it is. That’s just when I brought up the subject. That’s what the That’s what they talked about. They had no appetite to do more surveys.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:09
Brian, who Graham’s question or point, is it all? Is it coming out of the same bucket of money, the survey costs? Would it come out of these funds?

Unknown Speaker 1:35:20
Do we have any money? Aaron?

Unknown Speaker 1:35:26
I wasn’t, I wasn’t envisioning that it would come out of our human service agency bucket, that it would be a proposal that we would submit in terms of the, like the Community Services budget, that we might make a one time request for x. So that’s what we did when we funded the the needs assessment that we that we conducted in 2020. So it was I don’t know, I don’t remember the number 25,000. So I would like that, we would ask, it wouldn’t come out of the human service agency, bucket.

Unknown Speaker 1:36:08
Karen Phillips, and then kita,

Unknown Speaker 1:36:10
I just think that we were really well aware of the needs. It’s just, yeah, that we already know that. It’s just, it’s all the other stuff. And I don’t know how we can look for solutions. But it’s just, you know, after that lengthy thing going over and over the needs, it’s like, yeah, we get it, we get it, you know, so I don’t know. That’s what I got to say about it.

Unknown Speaker 1:36:39
Kedah? So, I have a question. Do we have to we have, like, I know, organizations, probably have they own surveys, according to whatever programs because I know, YWCA if there’s a program, we have surveys, particular programs. So can we get data from those? I know, there may be some some privacy laws are informed? I don’t know. But is there any way we can get, like some data within the organization, if they take surveys within the organization, rather than than the city pan for this huge, big, you know, survey? Because we can use the information that they’re already collecting? You know, I don’t know, maybe I’m like talking over my head? And I don’t know.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:36
You know, I think you know, I think in in, in the past, mostly, we have utilized data from other sources. So I think, I think to report by my understanding is that it just was the last couple of times that we actually did primary data collection through our own assessment, but prior to that, we absolutely use the data that was already out there. And, and use that for our for our assessments. So. So I think we certainly could do that. And I’m not envisioning just, I am not envisioning that we would, we would ask for a lot of money, you know, to do more primary data collection, I think to Karen’s point, got it, we know, the needs, what the heck should we be doing about it? And so, you know, so, so if we wanted to do some best practice research, if we wanted to, you know, run some, I don’t know, some focus groups or whatever, to just drill down a little bit more, is really what I would think we would do, we wouldn’t want to be asking for a lot of, you know, a lot of money, I don’t know. And, and we would just have to look at the capacity of being able to for Le Berto to do that. I guess is everything else. So you know, but it wouldn’t be it wouldn’t be a big budget ask I don’t think in terms of because we wouldn’t be doing primary data collection.

Unknown Speaker 1:39:12
I do like focus groups.

Unknown Speaker 1:39:14
I do like that.

Unknown Speaker 1:39:18
Yeah. So So I guess what I’m hearing is that, don’t spend a lot of money don’t take it out the direct funding bucket, if you will, really don’t spend a whole lot of money look at how we can learn more about what do we do about the needs? You know, what is it that we are that we should be doing that we haven’t even considered and if we can throw some best practice research in there and so that, that we just have a better idea of what kind of investments make the most sense, from our dollars to Help really address some of these needs that we’re seeing.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:09
Yep, plus one. Okay. All right. The last item on our agenda is other business, new door announcements.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:27
Do we have any? Brian, and then caravan

Unknown Speaker 1:40:34
going up tonight. In. So this is a, perhaps a policy question. The chat function on these meetings can be really valuable for somebody like me, who doesn’t necessarily want to always talk, but would love to just write something in the chat. And they can be saved. So do we not have a chat function as a matter of like policy policy? Or? I mean, am I the only one who’s like, God, I wish I could just write a sentence in the chat. And, you know, or give a thumbs up or the party hat to what you just said, because that was so awesome.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:23
I assumed it was policy and accessibility for when these meetings are posted. To make sure that there’s all the information is there, but I actually have no idea. I’m very used to having like, chat and other things. Funny, you should say the like, emoji responses because I got these. Before zoom actually had all the various responses, I got these posters that were sent out for a remote conference that I went to that have like, various like responses on them. And, and people like, I have like eight of them, and people would hold them up before you can actually do it digitally.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:05
So I mean, that’s a good question. It that’s a good question. So

Unknown Speaker 1:42:13
that’s the otter Yay.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:18
I think it’s because we caught recording and I think but I don’t know maybe

Unknown Speaker 1:42:23
ology council member. You’re URL use the otter EA during the city.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:31
make us sad Chiquita and send them over to your to us during council meetings.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:35
Hey, Erica, do you want to hop on? Yes. So do you? Do you know? Do you know the answer to this? I mean, I know in terms of why we don’t have a chat function on Zoom is because if you buy a different level of zoom account, because I mean, we just were using the Zoom account. It’s our SAM account, I think. And we we just went with the basic pricing of zoom. And you know, if you so I believe that we do have the function to have the chat. We just have it, or Susan had a disabled so that it doesn’t interfere with the recordings. And I know that once you download the recording, it doesn’t download whatever was submitted on the chat, which is why she disabled it. However, I do know, other meetings. I don’t know if board meetings, use the chat function, but then print out the chat. I don’t know how it gets posted. However. I can definitely I can definitely make a research. Yeah, so maybe we can just learn more about Yeah, so I didn’t know whether because we were cheaper. We just bought the basic level of the zoom. subscription or, or Yeah, or was it a control issue?

Unknown Speaker 1:44:00
I’m gonna get one of those elementary school chalkboard tablets. Yep.

Unknown Speaker 1:44:07
Yeah, that’s right.

Unknown Speaker 1:44:08
Because we, you know, we use the chat function on teams. We use it on WebEx. But yeah. And it is helpful. So Erica will do some research and to see you know, Well, anyhow, yes, we will. Thank you. We will check it out. Awesome. Karen. So this is really just an FYI. So

Unknown Speaker 1:44:41
I believe

Unknown Speaker 1:44:42
next Tuesday. She Keita and her colleagues on city council will be talking about a possible pre interview process for boarding commission. Apple Can selection. So just wanted to give you a heads up. Obviously, we will take direction from councilmember Yarborough and her colleagues in terms of which which path we’re going to go down, but I think they’re the council did provide some direction to our city clerk staff to, to look at more involvement from existing advisory board members to kind of do an initial vetting, if you will, and initial interviewing of applicants for so that would apply in the future for housing and Human Services, board slots. And to make some recommendations to city council about who you think they should appoint to the, to the board based on you know, your, your your interview, so, so I just wanted to give you a heads up. The city clerk staff met with some of the board liaisons, and there is information going in the council packet for the 15th of February, if you want to check that out. I don’t think the counts the packet is posted yet but it should be by tomorrow, if you want to look at what is what is in there. And we will be coming back for

Unknown Speaker 1:46:31
well done right.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:34
So we’ll bring an update back at your March meeting about the direction that we received from city council. So just just just a heads up about that. Thanks. That’s the only knows when I had.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:52
Alright, any other announcements from folks or other business? In which case I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Sharon Phillips

Unknown Speaker 1:47:05
make a motion to adjourn. Meeting.

Unknown Speaker 1:47:07
adjourned piano seconded. See you all next month. Thank you, everybody. Good to see you. Bye. Have a good one.