Before we began the work, the part of the day before that, it seemed to me that we needed a lot of animal habitat, not real, not animal-related.
So I applied for that next week. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really small family noise. [Laughter]
The first item for consideration is a photo of me doing a hand motion to a photo of me at the site where I drew a photo of me.
Mr. Chair, give me a vote.
Mr. Chair, give me a vote to a photo of me at the site where I drew a photo of me at the site where I drew a photo of me at the site where I drew a photo of me at the site where I drew a photo of me at the site.
For almost a year, I'm really, really big. I'm really important for all of those causes, and I stand ready to go in, but they won't.
There is a little bit of everything related to being a real shelter operator for all of these reasons. And I think we have a speaker.
Ready for us? Oh, yes. You want us to come up there, right? Yeah, come here.
Well, thank you all so much for having us here today. I'm Wendy McGee. I'm the executive director at Our Daily Bread, and Alva Santos is with me.
She is our assistant director, and I brought her along with me because she really does a lot of our operations. Well, not a lot. Most all of our operations at Our Daily Bread.
She connects with a lot of our partners who come on site and are serving our guests, and it really does take a community-wide effort for us to be able to do what we do.
So, you know, all the people that we work with, anyone we serve, anyone we care for, anyone that we help put on the path out of homelessness into independent living is all done because of the generosity of others.
It really is everything we do depends on our donors and volunteers. The city of Denton has been an important part of us being able to do more than we've ever done before, but it takes a caring community and then groups of citizens, community-minded citizens like yourself that really enable us to help our neighbors.
At Our Daily Bread, we nourish, we shelter, and we connect our neighbors, primarily those experiencing homelessness to life-changing and life-saving resources.
And again, when I talk about it taking a community to help us do what we do, last year, the folks that we serve in our organization benefited from 4,000 volunteers giving more than 30,000 hours of their time.
Our mission is to feed, shelter, and care for the homeless and at-risk in our community while maintaining the dignity of our guests. That's such a big part of what we do and then offering opportunities for a new start.
Wow, I've been at Our Daily Bread for five years and things have changed dramatically in that time. We used to be right across the street in St. Andrew Presbyterian Church. We were only open three and a half hours a day and wow, what a difference a few years makes.
But what began as a mission to just serve a new-time meal 20-plus years ago or a place for people to seek safe shelter has really evolved into so much more.
But we've worked across our community with our partners to respond to the increasing need around hunger and homelessness because on any given day in Denton County,
1 in 7, actually it's about 1 in 5 to 1 in 6 residents in Denton County experience hunger or food insecurity, meaning they don't know where their next meal will come from is much lower than the state average and the national average.
Nearly 1,200 people experience homelessness. I'm going to tell you that number is probably under-reported.
So that is based on information from the Homeless Coalition data dashboard, a pit count, but last year we served 1,960 people at Our Daily Bread when we were just across the street and at the shelter overnight.
And let's see, go back. Full disclosure, this is the third time I've done a PowerPoint presentation in three years, so bear with me if I don't know when to give you the nod or which way to look.
And then 64% of the population in Denton County experience some type of disability. And many of our guests experience some form of disability, whether it be a physical disability, a mental disability, it could be substance use disorder, and just trauma.
Being homeless or experiencing homelessness is traumatic. And so many times when folks come to us, they are homeless, but that is not who they are. That doesn't define them. That's just a place that they are stuck in, right?
And so we are there to try to help them move forward as we can. And so a lot of wraparound supportive services, but everything kind of begins with us being able to develop rapport and trust and extend kindness and grace and compassion to folks.
So what we're built on is that foundation of kindness and compassion. And then we go from there. And some remarkable things have happened, but I think it's really important to know that there is no one face to homelessness and that it affects so many different folks and there are so many different reasons for people to experience homelessness.
There's not a one-way street there, and it can be a loss of a job, it can be a divorce, it can be untreated mental illness, it can be a loss of a support system, or childhood trauma, or even people with physical disabilities that do not have a support system around them that don't have anywhere else to go.
And everybody that comes to us, they're all unique and they're all individuals. Just like you and I are, we have different interests, we have different talents, we enjoy different things, we have different life experiences that have shaped us and made us who we are.
And I think it's really important that we recognize that with our guests as they come to us seeking services, that we treat them as individuals. And as we work with them, we try to find out what's important to them, what are their barriers, what are their goals, what are their talents.
We have had some of the most amazingly talented folks that have come through our doors and just being able to help them to realize you have value and you can move forward. It's just really important, but you know, I think it's important to fight the stigma that people have about people experiencing homelessness.
I mean, no one is immune to crisis. It could happen to any one of us. It could be your neighbor or your child or your brother or your sister or your mother or your father or your friend. Anyone could be in that situation.
And hunger and homelessness are problems that virtually every society suffers from. And you may want to know what we're doing about it. Just to give you a little bit of history, in September of 2020, our Daily Bread and Monsignor King Outreach Center merged.
So for years, we had been sharing volunteers. We were serving the same clients. We had the same philosophy. And that was that foundational way of treating folks, just extending that kindness, that compassion and grace.
We had already worked together on helping people to exit homelessness, either working with each other, reaching out to other agencies or funding. Maybe it was a bus ride back to family or an airplane ticket to go back to stability.
And so it just kind of it makes sense. And as we were looking at trying to expand our programming, because we were only open three and a half hours a day at the church, but by having a part time case manager way back when in 2019, we were able to help 45 people exit homelessness into stability.
The year before, when we had no case manager at all, we helped six people, and they primarily self resolved. And so we knew if we could expand services, if we could be open as a day shelter to fill the gaps when the emergency shelters were closed, that we could have a greater impact.
At the same time on senior King was making changes. They had gone from an all volunteer organization, three days a week, or just implement weather to going seven days per week, being open every night, hiring staff members, and then having a housing focus case manager to help people move forward.
And so, when the city approached us about being able to join together, and to be able to make a greater impact, it just seemed natural that we would merge.
And so when the two organizations merged, it was a true merger, it was not a takeover, or we made sure that board members from each organization were able to stay on the board and be a part of what was happening ahead of us.
And so, but we retained our in and our daily bread was the disappearing entity, and we went through a whole name change and then we came back to our daily bread and that was actually the recommendation of the monsoon board members.
Today, we are our daily bread, together with monsoon King outreach center. We have over 30 years of combined experience serving people experiencing hunger and homelessness and in our 23 years as a suit the community kitchen across the street we've served over 1.7 million meals.
And we, in 2022, we decided that we were seeing a lot of our guests with mental health issues, and they were having a hard time connecting to services, and there were just barriers in their way.
And so we knew that we had great resources with our, but a lot of times our guests couldn't get there or they got there and they didn't have a place to store their documents and so we tried to build a bridge to help provide some mental health supportive services so helping with an after peer plan.
Getting them to sign a release of information so that so we could talk to him HMR may hill or UV age. They really just needed someone to kind of walk with them along that path to connect them to mental health supportive services and so we established our mental health initiatives in 2022.
And we last year we, and we did it with an LC SW supervisor and interns social work mentors counseling interns from our universities. And, and in 2022 we provided 1200 mental health supportive services so that's group counseling individual counseling crisis intervention.
And then we were, we were able to case manage folks as well to help connect them to the resources that they needed.
And then this year alone I think we're already at about 600 just being in our new location.
And our new location so we are out on loop 288 have any of you been to the facility. Okay. Yeah, it is incredible. And, you know, we have to really thank our community because we were responsible for raising a million dollars of furniture fixtures and equipment, as well as continued operating support but the
county has been a fantastic partner in purchasing the land purchasing the building, and then providing the renovations that are allowing us to be didn't countings only 24 seven emergency loader your shelter community kitchen and resource center.
So we never close, which is good, we're all a little tired, but it really has removed barriers to accessibility to services for our guests and having everything under one roof.
So, just helps us to make a greater impact and to coordinate services and to be able to really kind of have everything in one place to walk with folks from the moment they come in to get a meal or the moment they come into emergency shelter just looking for a bed or a shower,
and we're able to talk to them about what are your goals for the future. A lot of our folks, they're just coming in and they've been experiencing homelessness, they just need a minute to rest and to know that they're in safe place.
And once they're able to do that and they can start thinking about a future, they can start planning and hoping, and we can do all of that in one place because they can come into emergency shelter, they can get supportive services.
And then they can go to transitional shelter, if you get help with job training, and then and or income support, and then from there exit out into independent living. So a little more information about that since we've been at our new location I think we're at 70,000 meals,
and so that was beginning mid December when we opened up and I have to just kind of tip my hat to our staff we never closed for one day at the emergency shelter so we went 24/7 the day of Thanksgiving at the Monsignor King shelter.
And the morning that we moved in to our new location at 8am that morning DCTA worked with us to transport all the guests coming out of shelter to bring them over into our new location.
We even had our box truck move everyone's bags and get them all checked in. We did not want to have to suspend services at all during the transition.
Looking back, it's made it a little more challenging for us to kind of figure things out but, but it did not, you know, we just wanted to put our guests first and that was our goal and we were able to do that.
But we were averaging about 600 meals a day so we serve a breakfast a lunch and a dinner. Anyone is welcome to come in and eat with us. And in our emergency shelter we have 148 beds.
We also have a transitional shelter there. These are our guests that are working on a housing stability plan. They are working on goals they have intensive case management, and they will exit the shelter and move into a place of their own.
And then our support supportive services which they're, I'll go into a little more detail in a little bit.
We're averaging about 15,000 monthly in our new location.
And this building is just, it's really, I don't. I mean I'm kind of without words, I mean this has been a dream of ours this really allows us to do so much for people in our community at risk of experiencing homelessness or experiencing homelessness.
This is everything that we have here.
We have our work training program that we have started about a year ago and that will be up and running again in June, and really just centralizing services as it increases accessibility and allows us to increase our impact.
How many actual employed staff serve the center? So it's 40 now. 40 employees. Yes. Okay, I just was asking during the ice storm my neighbor John Povec, he volunteered and he drove out there during the ice storm, and you know he got out there every day.
That's him. We only had about 10 employees during the ice storm.
I think she spent the night. I drove in every day, well skated in every day.
I was very curious about that, who would have been in place on, you know, so he said, yeah, we have several staff members that spent the night just in case we couldn't get there and then I drove in every day and we had a handful of other folks.
We did stop our deliveries, we didn't want our volunteers out.
He's one of those dedicated people, he's really hard to tell.
You're welcome. Actually, Scoop Jefferson from Channel A came in and I had on gloves and I was cleaning toilets.
I would need to take you around and give you a tour. So yeah, it was, we all pitched in and made it work.
Again, more information on what we offer there, basic services, wellness and supportive services.
Some of our basic services are, we distribute clothing, hygiene products, we have showers on site, we do laundry for our guests, or people who are coming in and they need to have their clothes washed, we will do that during the day.
Haircuts storage, because we are a low barrier shelter, we want to make sure that pets and their belongings can come in. We try to remove all barriers for people coming into shelter.
We know if they come into shelter, then we have an opportunity to connect and to help them receive resources and services that will help them move forward.
And then wellness services, we're really excited about this. We have partnered with clinics, a clinic in the past, we've had some nurse practitioners when we were at the church.
But when this facility was built, we actually have a wellness area that is dedicated to being able to have a physician on site or to be able to really have a place where we can do exams or have a partner that will come in and do exams.
Since being there, we've had vaccine clinics with health services in Lord, Texas, Student County Public Health.
Prescription assistance has been a part of our program for a while. Flow Health Care Foundation provides funding for us to be able to help people who are unable to afford their prescriptions, receive those.
Eye exams, we have a partnership with Prevent Blindness and the Lions Club, and they come in and do vision screenings. They give reading glasses, and then we can also make a referral for folks to get a full exam and glasses.
And then health, we're really excited about our most recent partnership, and that is with Texas Health Resources. Their Community Impact Grant was awarded to us in health services in Lord, Texas this past year.
And so we will have an LVN on site three days per week. And actually, they were out today at the clinic, and they will start on Monday. And then we have a care coordinator, which is like a health care navigator or a health care case manager that works for us full time.
What we are trying to do is to make sure that people have good access to medical care. They have a relationship with a provider.
We are reducing the strain on emergency services and the hospital's emergency rooms. And so we're really excited about this opportunity to improve access to health care for people experiencing homelessness or people who are in poverty, but also improve health outcomes and just really benefit our entire community.
Some of our supportive services is case management. So we've come a long way from 2019 when we had a part-time case manager. We now have four case managers, and they are instrumental in helping people to move forward and realize the goals that they have set for themselves.
Program coordinators do a lot of our basic services, ID assistants, so it's really hard to do anything without an ID or birth certificate. And so that is one of the services that we provide. We help people secure their identification so they can get a job, they can move into apartments, they can get benefits.
And then mail service. So we provide a mail service so people can use our physical address to receive mail. Again, that is really important to being able to move forward.
And so we have a mail room at the new site, and folks, we sort the mail that comes in, and folks come in and we pick up their mail daily. We also will send mail out, talk a little bit about our job training program, and then housing assistance. And then once we help people move into housing, we also case manage them for up to a year afterwards.
We're in about 50% as far as people continuing to maintain housing after 12 months. We would like for that number to be higher. We've learned a lot over the years, or we've only been doing this for a couple years.
But yeah, our goal is to get that as close to 100% as possible with more resources, with more partners, which this facility that we are in now, that gives us the opportunity to do that.
And then what you all are probably most interested in is how we accommodate folks with physical and mental disabilities. We are doing a lot in our facility around that, and I'm going to let Alice share that with you.
I've definitely advanced. The last shelter didn't have a lot of accommodations for those who are in wheelchairs or walkers. You had to kind of maneuver yourself around, so we are ADA compliant.
All of our doors are wider. You can get into any room, navigate yourself through our facility really easy. Our beds actually will accommodate you as well. We have some lower beds.
A lot of our beds are bunk beds, and those beds are lower so that you don't have to strain yourself to get out of your chair to get up into the bed. They're pretty level. Some of them are lower, depending on how high their chairs are.
She talked about a little bit about our health services merge with Health Services of North Texas and having our care coordinator there. They're doing a little bit more than just coming in and doing those clinics.
They're helping us make those appointments. It's very difficult to have no phone or to have a phone that doesn't work all the time, only works in Wi-Fi, and making an appointment to go actually in to see somebody.
It's great to have someone who can sit there with you, have the patients be able to explain what you're looking for, make that connection with your provider, and then remind you of your appointments. Those appointments are happening.
Renee is our care coordinator. She also helps connect them with the Social Security benefits. We have somebody on site so that they're needing to apply for those disability applications. We can do that.
And/or any other connections. Maybe they're already set up. They didn't have the address. We've got the mailing address now. We can start making that connection so they can start getting their disability checks at our facility.
And then looking at also indigent care. Maybe they've been out of it. Maybe they've had it before. How can we get them connected with some mental health care insurance so that someone can actually treat them and help them, whether it's physical or mental disabilities there.
We also provide walkers and crutches, and we have someone who donated a mobile chair as well, so we have some connections with some people where we can do those services. Yeah, I jumped and can keep them there.
We do have a motel. We did mention that earlier, but we have a motel. So some of our guests who require a little bit more assistance are at the motel, and so they can get some home health agencies to come out. So those aides are looking at them and helping them, whether it's cleaning a colostomy bag or working on them one-on-one, just therapy, so that they're easier to get to. I think we have someone who's on a tube feeder there getting them showered and cleaned and whatnot.
As far as mental disabilities, we have Aisha. She's our mental health director. She is helping our guests daily, hourly I should say, with whatever the call is or the need is at that moment. They can range from small little things to very dramatic things, but she's helping make the connections with some of the other supports that we have, whether it's our crisis team or reaching out to Mayhill to assist them with that.
Kathy, our social worker, our LCSW, she is also navigating and assisting with that, as well as our interns, looking at trauma-informed care and making sure that they're feeling safe and trusting to actually open up to share some of their concerns for their mental health.
I think that's one of the biggest things that we try to focus on at our facility is we can't expect anything or anyone to just open up. They have to develop a trust with you, and so we want them to get to know Aisha, we want them to get to know each other and us, and be able to open up about what is happening, what is the trauma, what is causing all of the concerns of why you're here.
We do domestic violence assistance as well, whether we're connecting them with friends of the family, another agency, or looking outside of friends of the family to make sure that they're getting the assistance they need.
We do allow them to come in and be housed as long as they're comfortable staying with us and just filling out what we need to do and how we can support them.
Emotional support animals is really big. We have some that are not registered as emotional support. It's okay. We don't need anything. We have bunnies, and we've had birds, and a goldfish.
So not just cats and dogs. They can bring any animal as long as they've already had it, and we allow them to keep them with them. It's actually pretty joyful to see somebody with an animal, and it just changes the whole environment.
It really is precious to see. As well as one of the outside agencies that comes in is the TWA Music Therapy. That's just different too. I never, I thought music therapy. Okay, what's going to happen here?
But it really does make a huge difference. Music does change the atmosphere. So they come out once a week, actually twice a week, but once a week they come out into our dining room area.
They take requests. So it's like you're at a restaurant. You can go and put your request in. They'll play whatever song you want. You can sing. You can dance. You can just enjoy the music.
But then they have a day where they also come out, and they bring extra instruments with them, and they teach you how to play a guitar, how to play on the keyboard, or how to play the drums if you're interested.
If you're not interested, you just want to come to the class you can. But they also teach you the poetry of music. So if you have something built up that you want to get out, you can put it in words.
And that way you're expressing yourself. They actually will develop the music to your words. And you can either read it, you can sing it, or you can just keep it.
We have a talent show at the end of every semester, and it's pretty amazing to see because our guests, one, are super talented. She talks about how much talent they have. Who knew?
We have musicians out there who actually were like, "I want to write my own music. I know how to play a guitar." And you're like, "You know how to play a guitar?"
"Yeah, I do." And they get on that guitar, and it's like, "Wow. We would have never known these things if we didn't have this program." So we had a pretty competitive talent show. It was actually quite amazing.
We have something called Able Disable. It's actually through TWU's OT program. Claudette Petty is running that program. She comes out once a week, and she'll sit with our guests and do activities. They'll make beaded bracelets.
They'll make art projects. She'll get really deep with some of them and say, "How are you feeling today? What's happening? Why are you feeling this way? Now put it on a piece of paper."
And then, if nothing else, she just comes out and plays games. They don't consider it OT, occupational therapy, but it is. To them, it's game night. So when is game night? They all want to know when that's happening.
And it's about an hour and a half to two hours, depending on how big the group and how productive they are. So that's really fun to have.
One really cool thing I think about the Able Disable group is they are self-advocates. So Claudette is the facilitator. They run their group, and there's a lot of peer support that happens.
It's just really nice to see a group of folks getting together, advocating for themselves, spending time together, and doing things that are helping more.
We actually try to get some of our volunteers to do something like that. Not as much as saying that it's Able Disable coming out, but it's like, "I want to come out there. We have a group of three teenagers. What can we do? Game night?"
Because it's such an enjoyment to actually get a game of checkers, take it to a table, and have a competition of checkers and playing. It's just like family night at home.
Something that people just credit, maybe. When you're missing it, you don't have that place, and this is your home. This is what you want. Definitely.
We have some really good chess players.
Definitely. They have it set up. They're just waiting for you to come and challenge them. They're like, "I want to play."
We also have a partnership with MHMR. So MHMR does come out. There's actually four different branches that come out and assist us on site.
They do take turns and rotating when they're there. So the substance abuse, employment assistance, crisis, and counseling, and so they are always there to assist us in what we need.
Resource recovery does kind of the same thing as well. So they'll come out with substance abuse assistance, one-on-one counseling to assist them.
The crisis team, the hot team, the street outreach team, they come out on a call if we're concerned and we actually need more support from them. But they actually have been coming out to do bingo.
So they come out once a week and they play bingo. They probably bring the best prizes so they can bring gift cards. Our guests love them.
And it's really wonderful to see an officer in uniform actually calling out numbers for bingo. It's just something you don't expect to happen.
And then that is the person who's actually helping you out in the street on encampments. So you develop a different relationship with them.
It really does. And then we have some 12-step programs. So we have AA, alcohol anonymous, narcotics anonymous, crystal meth anonymous, and co-dependence.
So we do have quite a few groups that come out that do get a lot of response from our guests. Something that we might overlook and just think, oh, you only need AA?
Well, there's so many other experiences that are happening out there for our individuals. And having those sort of counseling assistance on site is so much better than having them to go off somewhere to get that assistance.
We have a lot of interns that come through. This last semester we had 13 to be exact. They ranged from doctoral occupational students to hospitality and fundraising.
So we had such a wide range. They assisted dramatically in that having our guests have projects and things that they can actually do during the time frame while they're there. Really important to have them.
And just a note, one of our OT doctoral students, she did a training for our staff on accessible equipment or adaptive equipment.
And in doing that, we also set up a wish list on Amazon of things that we can use. So walkers, cuffs, trays that can go on a walker to help people carry their tray to where they want to sit. A whole list of adaptive equipment. And she's also, and they brought in donations and would keep them in the wellness area so we could loan them out to our guests.
And this particular intern is starting a closet of adaptive equipment that she will keep in her house and we can reach out to her. And she can loan that to our guests as well.
On that same note, we also work with REACH for adaptive equipment as well. We allow our guests to volunteer on our property, on our site. Why not give it back? A lot of them want to do something. How can we help? It gives them a different fulfillment and allows them to also respect the things that our staff is doing.
We, we like it. It's that responsibility. We recently started our garden. It's probably been less than a month and it's already flourishing. We've got two volunteers, two of our guest volunteers that are out there picking out the radishes and bringing them in.
It's so relaxing and so different to see them working out there and have that sense of calming versus having to feel like so much anxiety and so many things are going on. So I don't know if I should just say that. I encourage all of y'all to come out to our facility. It is a beautiful facility.
You don't have to come and work. You don't have to come and volunteer. You don't have to play the games, but I do encourage you to do all of those things. If anything, just come have lunch, sit down and learn from our guests. I think it's amazing to be there.
And anything that you can add to help us to make our, to enrich our programs, to make them fuller to the services that we are offering. If you have any advice on how you think we can do better, we want to hear it, but come out for a tour as well.
I have a question. When people are, how do they store their stuff? Do you have lockers or?
We do. We have, but we do not have enough storage. I can remember when we were walking around the building and it was just 35, 36,000 square feet. It was like, we're going to have all the space in the world and we're full.
But we know we have lockers. So we have two sets of lockers. We also have foot lockers and we do allow people that can go under the beds on the transitional side. Folks have their own. They have a closet. They have their own wardrobe that they can use.
We do allow people to bring their suitcases in, but we have to limit some of the storage, which is a difficult thing because you know that that's all they may have in the world.
So we try to store overflow in our, we have two sheds out back, but they are, they are full. We're using our hygiene closet to store belongings for our people who are on cots. So we only have 118 emergency beds. The rest are cots, and that is all because of.
I mean, we have been full since the day we opened and we started with 20. We've added five more, and then we have five more that we will pull out if the PD or another law enforcement agency brings someone in in the middle of not leaving a place to stay.
So, we are, I never thought that storage would be one of our biggest things to try to figure out. But it is, but we try really hard to work with folks and help provide storage for them, but we are limited then somewhat in capacity to store.
I'm blown away by all that y'all offer. I really am. I mean, and the program is just how they really are designed to reach in and make people feel safe and make connections.
They're just so crucial to building those blocks to get back. You know, you just start and I'm just really blown away. Really great job.
We are, we are actually trying to even we're trying to bring in more partners and increase programming to you. But, you know, it's we know how critical it is to be able to meet people where they are and we'll wrap services around and help them move forward.
But thank you. Awesome, awesome presentation and the work is phenomenal.
Again, it is our community that allows us to do it. So when your guests arrive and don't have luggage, or their belongings. Are you all willing to accept luggage to share with the guests.
Yes. A suitcase donation doesn't last very long. They see them coming off of the car. Did you have a question.
I was just curious like how do we close the gap, then, because you say, there's 200 people. That's a good question. And we are, we are the only, like I said, I mean, this is it for Denton County.
Like what do you need? We need support, financial support, volunteers, the number of volunteers that we need daily to run the new facility is twice as much as what we needed before.
And we are still maintaining the same number that we had last year when you compare the number of volunteer opportunities to the number of volunteer spots that are built. So we really, we need folks to come in and help us.
We need increased access to mental health services. We need increased access to people, you know, places and resources for folks with disabilities.
We have a lot of, a fair amount of seniors who are disabled and they do not have a support system around them and we are it for them. We don't want them to have to stay in the shelter indefinitely.
We want to be able to help them get into a place of their own assisted living, a group home, their own apartment, whatever that is with, you know, peer coordination wrapped around them. But there's, there's not a lot of options or what is there is another goal or you have to have the ability to pay lots of money.
We are, you know, the resources here are pretty strapped.
Are you finding that other communities within Denton County are utilizing their services?
There's, like I said, there's no other low barrier shelter 24/7 in Denton County. This is, yeah. And we work closely with Salvation Army, but they are, you know, they're not low barrier, as low barrier as we are, and they're not 24/7 and they have limited capacity.
They're doing a lot of good work, but they're, they're loving to know what they can provide here in Denton County.
So what about children? Are you able to assist individuals with children?
Thank you. I'm glad you asked because I did not tell you that. Again, kudos to the city of Denton because the transitional shelter at the motel that we have been occupying since March of 2020 when COVID hit and the emergency shelter closed because they could not safely distance folks.
And everyone, 90 people moved over from the emergency shelter into a motel that has evolved as well over the years.
And most recently, we partnered with Giving Grace. And so the motel rooms, which we have 40, 20 are for individuals, and then 20 are for families.
And so again, the city of Denton funds this project. And so we are on site managing operations as we have been for the last three years.
And we are case managing our 20 individuals, primarily. There are some families that we do work with that were there before everything transitioned over in January.
There are also 20 rooms for families. So right now at the motel, we have 74 individuals.
19 of those are individuals and the rest are families.
So it's great because there was not a place for children and families with children. We were utilizing the motel before for that.
But now there's a program and Giving Grace has a program that works with families and so we're able to get them there and work together with them.
So Denton was using Wheel of Health at one time, is that correct?
That closed. It closed, I want to say, at least two years ago.
And so at that time, Giving Hope, I think, and Giving Grace Like Rain were sharing space there.
But Giving Hope and Grace Like Rain merged and so they're giving grace.
And so yeah, and that, Wheel of Health has a very limited capacity.
Yeah.
Do you have a question?
Sure. So what is our current need? Like how many individuals or families are we surveying and what is that gap between?
Well, that's a good question. I mean, I can tell you what we're serving.
You know, right now we're at, as far as providing shelter and a bed, you know, we're looking at about 275 people between the two locations.
We have extra cots. We can put more cots out, but we have to have more staff to manage that or volunteers to manage that.
But again, you know, we served almost 2,000 people last year. We are seeing more and more new faces every day.
So we are helping people to transition out into stable housing, but we are seeing more people for that.
So it's really hard to gauge the gap because the numbers, you know, we don't have a really good reporting system for numbers other than HMIS,
but you still have to try to capture people when they come in and the pit count is a snapshot in time and you're just going out and trying to find people.
But I can tell you that we are seeing more and more people who are newly homeless, who live in Denton, in the city of Denton, just rising costs of everything and lack of affordable housing.
We are seeing people come from surrounding areas. So within Denton County, but outside of Denton County as well.
And there's not really anything north of us either. So, you know, they're coming south.
There are any, you know, when Dallas County or Tarrant County have a rise in homelessness, we feel the overflow.
And then we have people that are coming to Texas for opportunities because they don't have it where they're currently living.
Several families have relocated and they're staying in shelter.
So I don't, the gap is growing, even though we're doing more than we have ever done before.
This is amazing. Like, what you all are putting together is, I think, a model for what you should be doing.
I just wondered, like, you know, we want you to pitch to us, like, here's what we need.
We need resources. I mean, that consists of income donations, that consists of money.
You know, the more funding that we have, the more case managers and specialists that we can hire,
the more support around housing dollars. You know, we need more affordable housing.
I mean, it really runs the game. And so, you know, there's so much that goes into helping people be independent, too.
So the wellness services, this is great that we're able to, you know, start to close that gap with HSNT and Texas Health Resources, the mental health.
You know, we've got a bridge, we've got some people coming on site, but we need more resources in our community to help with that.
I know you do hygiene and things like that. Do you partner with anybody to help people fill their apartment?
We do. Thank you for asking. I forgot to tell you that, too. Roads and Ranch Women's Club.
Oh, yay!
They have been a wonderful partner, supporter over the years. So we had a little welcome home basket that we started.
It was like a laundry basket. I had some paper towels in it. And so they were like, "Oh, we can do better than that."
They made a pallet, so it's a welcome home pallet. Yeah, it has dishes, lamps, art, you know, linens, towel, everything that people need outside of their furniture to move into their home.
Is there anyone you partner with furniture with?
Yes. So we partner with Dallas Furniture Bank. We pay to be a member of Dallas Furniture Bank.
But the wonderful thing about that is that we can fully furnish an apartment, depending on how many bedrooms, for no more than $550, $600.
And we utilize the Barriers Fund to get funding for that. Roads and Ranch Women's Club has also donated dollars for the furniture, but they also were actually getting furniture for us.
We were going to pick it up. We were storing it. We were delivering it. Dallas Furniture Bank, you can just make a call, send a check, and they'll deliver, which is awesome.
That's great. But again, there's so many. It's just, we live in a wonderful community. There are a lot of people who really care.
Volunteers. What are some things that volunteers can do, and do you provide a training for them?
I was started as our volunteer coordinator before she was doing that.
We do provide a training, so you can do it one-on-one if you'd like, or you can do it online. So you can go to our website and just say, "How can I get involved, volunteer?"
And you fill out a little questionnaire, your name, email address mostly, so we can start sending you some information.
There's two waivers on there that we ask you to sign as a volunteer, conflict of interest, and civil rights.
You can also pick the position and the day that you'd like to come. If you want to do it out for three months, you can do it for three months, and that way you can know where you want to be.
It gives you a description of where you're going to be, what you're going to do, what time you need to be there, what you should wear to come in, and we'll show you the facility and put you in the place.
And then we've got the other part of that question. Tell me again, what else did you have?
Just what are some of the things that volunteers can do?
Oh my goodness. There's so much you can do. They range from so many things. You can do food prep in the kitchen if you'd like. You can serve in the kitchen.
Recently, you can help in our garden. I talk about the garden as one of my favorite places. You can help us with laundry. Laundry is tremendous.
All of those beds and cots, they have linens on them. They always have to be continuously washing. We have three washing machines and three dryers.
We currently have our guest volunteers in the laundry, but they can't stay there all the time.
And then we do our guest laundry as well. They're allowed to do two loads a week, so that is a high demand position.
But you can do something as nice and easy as sitting at the information desk and helping our guests to navigate through the facility.
Where do you go? Is this your first time here? Let me show you where the restroom is. Let me show you where you can get your meals.
So the opportunities are great. I say if you have some time and you don't want to sign up for any of those positions, you want to be a floater, you can definitely be a floater.
And then you're like, well, what do I do as a floater? Oh, my goodness. Just be careful. You never know.
Sometimes, even on a Saturday, maybe we're really full. And those are the days where you can just come in and play a game with some of our guests.
I talk about that because it's one of the things that's most appreciated by our guests, to know that they're seen as a human being.
And you can actually sit there and play a game of Uno, and you're not going to be like, oh, my gosh, why am I doing this or why is somebody doing that?
There's so many different things that you can do there. Come and visit and I'll show you all around.
Our therapy is something we want to get started. We have a little bit of it with our occupational therapy interns.
But if you know anyone who might be interested in doing our therapy classes with our guests.
Really, if you have a talent, if you are secretly a musician and you want to come in and do karaoke night, come on in and do that.
If you know how to dance and you want to do a cha-cha line one day, come in and teach us how to do that.
If you know how to sew, we had a mending day where we took out the sewing machine.
We have two sewing machines and some of our guests needed to cut up some of their pants to make them shorts because it's hotter.
And they wanted to fix them up nice. And so there was a day where we actually just sat there and sewed.
Whatever your talent is and you want to teach somebody that, come visit us. Teach us all how to do that.
So what is the minimum age? I'm so sorry.
There is really not a minimum age. I think coming to our daily bread is an opportunity for everybody.
You can't be in the kitchen unless you're over 16, but we have some parents that bring their nine-year-olds that will come and sit with them.
The rule is that you just keep those kids with you. You keep them close by. You shouldn't be letting your kids run all over the place anyways.
But it is an opportunity for them to learn something and actually see what our community is actually doing. So I recommend it.
Receiving is another area. So we get a million dollars of in-kind donations that come in our door.
Almost all of our food is donated. Target and Kroger and Sprouts and Winko, and I'm missing one, Walmart.
All of that has to be weighed. It has to be recorded. It has to be sorted.
And then it has to be stopped in the refrigerator or the dry pantry.
Clothing donations, hygiene donations, we bring all of that in. We weigh it, we record it, and we sort it.
If any of you like organization, you like to sort things, that's another opportunity.
But we are still very new at this new model. We don't have it all figured out yet.
But we are trying our darndest to get it to where it needs to be.
I'm really excited about what the future holds for the people that we are serving and our community because of what we're doing there and with our partners in the sport.
I'm sorry I didn't have a question to go follow.
First of all, thank you for this presentation and sharing. It's an excellent service I agree with having. This is a great model.
My question is, what does the transition to permanent housing look like for newer disabled guests, especially thinking about long-term housing or is that an area that you're still trying to figure out?
Well, it depends on the individual and the disability.
So, you know, we try for our guests to have some physical disabilities.
We have connected, like I said, we've connected them with home health and wraparound care while they're in transition with us and then it follows them once they're housed.
For our guests with mental health concerns, we try to make sure that they are supported and they are in a program, our guests who are in recovery, it would be the same thing.
And then it's really important that we follow up, that we're making those monthly visits, that we're going out and seeing folks, trying to get ahead of anything that might be an issue.
But that's proved more difficult than we ever thought it would be because folks don't always want to be forthcoming if there's something that comes up, right?
And so, again, it's continuing to build that trust so that they know it's okay. We all slip, right? We all make mistakes. It's just, you know, let us know so we can help you kind of get back up.
But we have helped to house guests with disabilities, physical and mental disabilities. And it's just a matter of making sure that they have those connections to that support.
And so, you know, we have outlined a support map and we have that in place once, so once they transition, we still have that.
I love that you all have partnerships with both universities. They just make so much sense. You've got a whole pool of people there.
I think we can even do more. We hope to be able to do something with the nutrition program at TWU.
Some of you were visiting us before COVID, but COVID had stopped a lot of stuff for us. And if you know of any resources that we can utilize, please don't hesitate to talk to us about it because there's something maybe we just haven't thought of.
Thank you for asking questions. But is there, like, for the 50%, these are not successful? What is the biggest barrier for them? I think it, I think we have some ownership of that.
I think it's moving it too fast and not taking that time. Like I said, we've learned a little bit. Not taking that time to make sure that we have fully wrapped all those supports around our folks and that they're ready for that transition.
You know, because it's a big step. And so it can be that, you know, we may have someone that is struggling with addiction and we didn't do a good enough job or we couldn't find the resources to, you know, connect them before they moved.
And so that comes out when they're in their own home. And, you know, the transition into your own place can be scary, can be isolating. And so, you know, I think we have an opportunity for support groups around newly housed, newly transitioned guests.
And now that we are continuing to build our counseling department out and our partnerships with some other resources, I think that is an area that we can do better for our guests.
That's great. I just wondered if there was like a thing that might help them be more successful or you think it's really just like, I think it's really just doing all that foundation work on the front end and making sure that they feel supported as they're making that transition.
And then after and making sure that there's no shame in saying, hey, I slipped or I messed up or I need help this month, you know, I lost my job or, you know, I had a lapse or relapse and, you know, so I think that's that's on us to continue to try to strengthen those relationships with our guests.
And it's going to vary for everybody. It's going to be different for every single person. But you, you are basically leaving a huge family. I mean, we are a family. We fight with each other. We love each other. We want to be, you know, if you've got a cat, I want to be the owner for this cat for a little bit.
I want your cupcake and I have it. I mean, we brush your hair. There's so many different things that we do for each other that when you actually get in your own place, you're isolated. There's no way to get to you. You don't have a phone or you did have a phone and I don't have a phone.
There's no there's not really a contact. We have someone who would go out and visit with you, but it's not enough. You're not there every day. And so considered like maybe bringing them back into to volunteer. Yeah, actually. Yeah, we definitely do that.
We encourage that, you know, peer support, what's better. We try to make it a really big thing when you're moving from, you know, the shelter to transition and from transition to your own home, you get to ride in our box truck and you're leaving and waving to everybody goodbye.
I mean, it's a it's a huge thing and people are so proud of you. But yes, we want you to come back and show this is what's what I'm doing now and volunteer so we can see you and talk to you. Some of our one particular guess I've had to rein in a little bit and say you can't say those things.
Push them that hard, you know, everybody is different but I can't go to you and say you need to do this. No, and so that person I've had to bring up a little bit. So what you're going to say yeah yeah we have opportunities for us to volunteer.
Oh, okay. I guess two questions. What is there are the resources that you use to do prevention into this age of homelessness and then I guess my second question is transportation for disabilities shelter.
Yeah, so we do work with DCT a. So there is a bus stop in front of the shelter, it is on loop on the loop.
And to the shelter, we provide bus passes that they can use goes on as well.
We partner with span so we have some folks that need to go to Dallas to the VA and then we'll send folks down there. We recently got a van.
We have used that primarily to transport folks to do we use dental clinic, and then we will be using it as our work program coming online with the city in July and so we'll be taking our work group which is our get our guests that are involved in that out with the man,
but we do provide transportation passes. There was something else you said that I was going to answer and it just blew out of my brain.
My previous question was homeless prevention. Yes. So, last year we were, we got a $15,000 grant for diversion.
And, and so that is homelessness prevention.
We thought that we would be able to serve 30 people with that we used it in about two months and we were able to serve about half of that.
And then in our new location we have assisted with rental assistance for 10 families. We are doing that with funding through Barriers Fund.
And so, you've prevented eviction for 10 families and that's just been the last couple of months. We do not have dedicated resources for that we have to go outside to other agencies to get it funded.
We do write the check, we talk to the landlord, we talk to the folks who are going through that and we make all the connections and then we have to submit for reimbursement.
It would be ideal for us at some point to have funding for homelessness prevention just because we're reaching so many people.
At one time we were tracking our calls for rental assistance it was about 100 per month. That was last year when we were across the street at the church.
There was some COVID funding for rental assistance but let's do those folks did not qualify but we needed to track how many people were calling so we get a lot of requests for assistance and then just our, our program so the day shelter, anyone can come in, they can eat with us, they can receive services.
When we were at the church we had a farmer's market and so we had a lot of seniors that were in their own homes, they were on a fixed income, they come and meet with us, they grab items off of the market that they could take home, they could cook and it was no cost to them.
Getting items out of the hygiene cloths, assisting with transportation, some of those things that are, that cost a lot of money but if you're on a fixed income you can get assistance that helps keep you in your home.
Thank you all very much.
I appreciate it.
Come see us.
[inaudible]
Afternoon, I'm Nikki Sassanis, Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation.
Obviously not Ariana, we were supposed to come here and present before, she is our Special Event Supervisor, she's tied up getting some special events ready, it's a really busy season right now, she has one on Saturday so filling in right now.
We were here last year around the same time. Just a quick recap of what we presented. We do have internal events that we host, obviously Great American Cleanup is one of them, Easter Charvaganza which we just had, Redbud Festival, and then our July Jubilee
celebration which is coming up here during summer.
We are also in charge of the special event permit process, which is working with third parties, third party event planners to produce events, we help them through the permit process.
That was a new ordinance that was established in 2019 and requires them to get all their permits and all of their documents through us to be able to issue a permit to them.
For example, Arts and Jazz, Day of the Dead, Blues Fest, those different events.
So the question was, well how do we make events accessible for the community, and what do we do to provide those services. So our short term goals, we laid out our short term goals was to provide more inclusive components to the events that we we produce internally.
And our long term goal was to help with third parties being able to provide some different accommodations and become more accessible.
So what we did.
We have included some sensory friendly activities into our two largest events, our Jubilee Festival and our Easter Charvaganza. We set up a quiet room and then we had a sensory friendly egg hunt.
We did a 30 during that time and then that morning we also did a sensory friendly time between nine and 10 where families could come and have dimmer lights and lower music when we when they were taking pictures with the bunny or doing some of the other activities
and then also that Easter egg hunt time. That event grew exponentially this year we had over 6000 attendees. So we did get a lot of positive feedback on having the, we also had an additional quiet room that ran the entire time.
During the event. So people were able to take a break and move into that room if they're feeling overstimulated or need somewhere to escape all of the, I don't want to say chaos but fun.
So, we've successfully started incorporating those into our, into our internal events.
We do have our adaptive recreation coordinator who came and spoke to you guys believe last year so she's helping with implementing those components into our current events.
We're also doing a drone show at our Jubilee Festival so that festival is changing in scope this year. Previously it was a Kiwanis Fourth of July festival over at UNT last year it shifted over to North Lakes because they needed a new location.
There were concerns, noise concerns, smell concerns, sensory concerns with fireworks. So we've switched to a drone show, the new show location will be over in downtown. So we're excited to see how that that plays out will take place on July 3 so that actually the day before the fourth.
It's a new trend. It's environmentally friendly. There's less of an impact, you don't have the noise, you don't have the smells, you don't have the large lights so we're excited to see how that works out and what what the reception is from the community.
One of the things that we're doing is we're soliciting best practices from other cities, how do they implement accessibility into their current process. You know, right now we can't mandate anything except for what's legally allowed, or the legal requires from ADA.
We've also found that other cities who are able to help implement some of those accessibilities have ADA special event policies, ordinance, or divisions within the city to be able to help event organizers through that whole process.
So that's a challenge for us in staffing. We have two people in our city to help not only produce our internal special events but help third parties through the event permitting process.
And that has grown exponentially the permitting process since when it was implemented in 2019. Last year during this last year through the whole cycle, we went through 15 permits for outside events.
We did 15 in just February to March. So that office is seeing a lot of paperwork come through, and it's taking a lot of time to walk each, each event organizer through the entire process, not to mention still producing our own internal events so that's a
challenge for us if we were able to if we were having to go that route it's not having enough staff bandwidth to be able to implement that.
We did have our special event guide include a accessibility document so it's making temporary events accessible to people with disabilities, and that's provided through the ADA network we have a link on there.
We have links on our application. So we provide that to them. This is the most updated version that is on that website. So that's that's something that we're trying to do and we talked to event organizers about how to how do we do this and we look at event layouts
again we can't enforce anything we don't have a checklist to be able to go out and then actually evaluate the event, but we are trying to do what we can within the scope of the bandwidth that we have right now to help event organizers, at least have
an understanding of what it takes to make events more accessible.
So that's right right now. Any questions or anything else I can provide.
During the last time we were talking about having the special event permits that people put through your office.
I think there was a way to have more than one accessible porta pot, because people said you know someone has an accident in there and then what are you going to do.
And I understand you're saying you have limitations and I'm wondering if that's one of them that they're only required to have one party so they're not going to spend money for more than one.
Well, there's a requirement, forgive me I don't know it and there is a ratio that they have to maintain for every certain number of people that they expect in their attendance, they have to have a certain ratio of accessible port lets to the standard port let.
And that is a requirement we do go over that with them that's part of the application.
Now we now we don't go out we're not able to actually drop some event and audit. So we don't have the staff bandwidth to be able to do that but we do let them know ahead of time and for the permit process this is what is required.
And do you know, are there typically more than one or just have any information on the special events that you can't, I know you can't check.
So it's kind of a good question. It would be more if someone were to file a complaint, or if we were to get anecdotal feedback, or staff happened to be out there and see the arts and jazz we have, we, we provide support as far as parks maintenance
staff going out and helping people trash and we're out there with outreach booths so that's something we can check and see pretty easily. But, like a block party crawfish boil over at Eastside, not necessarily you have someone over there to be able to check, they may not need port lets anyway so that might be a bad example but yeah.
So we do let them know the requirement. We don't really have a way to audit though unfortunately.
This is more of a question for our group. What is the process of getting the staff and boosting that personnel looks like because it seems like almost a moot point to have these policies with no one, or not having the bandwidth to enforce them and we know ADA regulations are notoriously gotten out of.
Yeah.
One thing that we can do is put it on the agenda and vote to make that recommendation to city council, there are a few things that I'd like to add to that.
Can we add that to next month's next week's agenda.
I would like to note that when you go through the general updates, I believe there's a section in there that talks about the next committee meeting and you can see what you want to add.
Thank you for your patience. Thank you so much. Yeah, that's great. The things that you're doing are within the city.
That's great. We have great staff and they're very diligent about trying to do new things and.
And yeah, as a comment to, I have been because I mean I've been on this case for a long time and I've seen like the progression of parks and rec and it's been tremendous.
Okay.
Thank you.
All right, so for those of you who haven't met I'm Stuart birds I am deputy director of marketing and communications I'm filling in for Ryan.
This month. And so we do have a few updates from previous meetings to kind of fill you in on the first one is the hallway crossings there on the square.
If you have driven through the square, you'll notice that the north west was the first corner and then southwest, and then they moved to the southeast, and they've done about half of that.
They're working on kind of the north side of that now. So they're about two and a half done out of four, and then they'll, they'll move from there to the one corner that they haven't completed yet.
After that, the contractor will come in and stripe all of that crossing and everything and so we updated you, because it's been going on I think since like 2020 ish.
When we had a pilot and then they actually did the construction.
So, you've been able to cross diagonally there if you're not familiar, even without the markings, all of the traffic stops on all corners so that you can safely pass through.
So, we're excited over the next little bit to get both of those corners done so that it's a little bit more obvious. And then just for accessibility standpoint, it's a lot easier if you are going diagonal to just kind of go through the middle there and cut right across if you need to cut diagonally.
So, we're excited about the progress on that we're expecting the end of June is when that whole project should be complete.
And then, in January, there was a DCT a presentation in the committee asked about where to place the wheelchair in the wheelchair accessible vehicle should be put in the back or kind of where you should put that and so I'm going to read this just because I don't want to get it wrong
here that walkers fall under the category of mobility equipment, and via driver partners operating the WV vehicle, which via recommends those using that are required to support the passenger with that equipment.
And so, if you have that equipment with you, then the driver should be helping you into the vehicle, and then placing it into the back for you.
You also asked the additional question about the number of WV vehicles in the fleet, and there's currently nine of those with three more expected over the coming months and so that should hopefully be a little bit more clear for you.
We also wanted to update you about the Special Olympics of our Parks and Recreation Special Olympics team that yields. They complete, they competed down in Burleson in the track and field competition in April, and they brought home the bronze and silver medals for men's
and women's softball throw and so this was our first competition, since the team started and we're extremely excited about their success they had down there. It's a more fun kind of inspirational thing if you think about it.
And then on January 19, we presented about sidewalks, and you requested the additional information about the sidewalk segment on university that's adjacent to Albertsons.
I didn't get this one wrong either so I'm going to read it. Currently the sidewalk gaps are generally addressed in one of two ways. The first route is when property, if it's vacant it's developed so if there's a gap in the development there, then there's going to be a gap in the sidewalks
but whenever they fill that in, there's going to be a sidewalk that's added there.
And the business owner would be the one to put that in.
And then the second way is that if it's on our City of Denton sidewalk work plan so if it's not necessarily a private development area. If it's more our right of way, then we have a work plan for sidewalks, and it's on there.
And they'll be able to do that there's a variety of funding that they go through, whether it's, you know, our general streets fund or sidewalk fund we have so much allocated each month, or each year towards sidewalks.
And other things that can kind of help us with that and so if there are gaps likely our staff knows about them and it's on the sidewalk work plan. If not, I encourage you, if you see a gap in the sidewalk to get on to our engaged in an app, and you can, you know,
tag it there where that sidewalk is, and it goes straight to our capital improvements staff, so that they know that location, and then you have a specific question about a gap in it.
Then they'll be able to respond back to you through email and say thanks this is on the sidewalk work plan or this is a new one and we'll add it, they'll kind of be able to communicate with you with that status.
I've been contacting city staff about that section for 10 years. Mm hmm. And I asked 10 years ago I was told it was put on the sidewalk plan so how long does it take to get a sidewalk.
So, it can take a long time. But this one whenever we asked specifically about this segment they said it is on the work plan and it's a priority on the work. And so, you know, hopefully it'll come sooner than later.
Yeah, I noticed like just when we recently got the information mailers at home, all of the budgets that they had for roads and bike infrastructure and sidewalks like this, they barely spent any of the money for sidewalks and I wondered why it was, because we have so many we have so much need for sidewalks.
So, why are they spending that money. Yeah, um, you know that's a good question I don't know a particular answer for it I know that our bike and pedestrian coordinator that position has been vacant for almost a year, I think you left last summer,
and so it may be just some of the coordination there.
But we can all add that to the list and just see if there's a reason. Yeah, just like we've got money to spend.
Yeah, and some of that just goes with coordination of other projects. And so it may be that instead of going in and doing a sidewalk and then they'd have to tear it up whenever they redo the road.
They might just be waiting for the road to get redone and do the sidewalk at the same time, but we can find that.
And then, you, you also are I guess we just kind of report on the grievances and request for accommodation, and so we do have our ad web page with the grievance process there.
So from September 2022 to March 31 23. We have had zero request for accommodation and zero grievances file so just wanted to update you on that.
And then the final item is our next committee meeting I realized I haven't been scrolling down sorry about that.
Our next committee meeting is currently scheduled for July 20 at 3pm here in this room.
Following is kind of what we have on the agenda. It's all dependent on staff availability and scheduling, but this is kind of what we have planned the ADA policy and plan follow up the adaptive and inclusive recreation update pedestrians
sidewalks, and then election accessibility and so I'll add that question. Whenever they're forming their pedestrian and sidewalks information to be able to add that component to it.
And so, I guess, is there, we wanted to add staffing, I have park staffing is that something that you would. We can't necessarily promise the next meeting but we can add it to kind of the matrix for future meetings.
Yeah.
And then, something that I would like to add something I'd like to add is city providing grants for small businesses that make the building successful.
Working on an accessibility plan for small businesses.
Is there a particular location that you're looking for that. No, it was brought up at the first iteration of our first meeting of this iteration of the group and I feel like it got lost in translation, it was a former member of material.
Okay, and it was just something that it got kind of just got lost and I thought maybe we should bring it back up. Okay.
So I think that that's all the updates that I have I'll turn it back over to you chair.
Yes, ma'am.
Oh, that's right. I'm sorry.
She emailed me and then I completely forgot. Just want to touch base on one of the first items we didn't have any comment or in public.
We were wanting to comment on this week.
I'm wondering, so I see we have Isaiah here is showing this. How many, how many new positions do we have.
Five.
So the new city council people hopefully will be getting.
I'm not completely sure on how this works.
I have a couple of questions I guess I have for adding some of these or addressing some of these issues.
One of them was the sidewalks with policy, where you only create the sidewalk.
If it's updated or developed right.
As you said, and then there was a second version that I wasn't really sure of that.
If it's on our sidewalk plan that the city would install so private development is required to put in a sidewalk on their kind of property right.
And then if it's not necessarily a private developers property that city right away.
There may be other, I don't I don't want to, you know, box it in and to say it's only if it's city. It's a great question for the next meeting wherever they present on that.
Yeah, those, they're experts in it. And so, I have a working knowledge but they're more, they would know the answer to that.
I guess the second thing I want to talk about was, it's parks and rec, which was talking about issues with enforcement.
I know when I did my wedding, you know, x number of guests I had to hire out x number of police officers, because we had all there, and we pay the fee through the event like we held that responsibility.
Would there be a way we could have a big event that would cover the cost of compliance. Yeah, that's a great idea. I would say that that would be great for that discussion where they can bring that back.
That's kind of what these discussions are hopefully for us to have those conversations and gain ideas.
I think that issue on monitoring when outside people, not when the city office is someone else's, you can do that. So what occurred to me is that the outside vendor needs to provide evidence that they paid for whatever the requirements.
And that'd be a good way to track it back. That's the ability of Tom Holland.
Any other questions, comments, comments? I think it is now time for us to move on, I think we're in the right room.
Thank you.