Ending Community Homelessness Organization

0:00 This webinar is being recorded and summarized. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today's October 13th meeting of ECHO, Indy Community Homelessness Organization. I'm Glenn Young. I serve as chair. I'm a Collard County councillor. And we will go ahead and get started with welcome and introductions headed this way. Councillor Will Fuentes, Collard County. Jamie Spinelli, City of Vancouver. Kevin McClure. City of Vancouver.

0:55 Sunny Wender, Council for the Homeless. Cessna Feeney-Jones, Council for the Homeless. Good morning. Michael Torres, Clark County Community Services. Jordan Bogey, Clark County. Andy Silver. Good morning. Andy Silver, Vancouver Housing Authority. Councillor Member Perez. Good morning, everyone. Diana Perez. Here, City of Vancouver. Matt Morton. Good morning. Matt Morton, Community Foundation for Southwest Washington. Thank you. Vanessa Gaston. Good morning. Vanessa Gaston, Director for Clark County Community Services. And Marilyn Burke. Good morning. Marilyn Burke from, whoops, sorry, my video. Good morning. Marilyn Burke, City of Vancouver.

1:54 Good morning. Marilyn Burke, City of Canada.

1:10:35 Good morning, everybody. Thanks for, you know, the time to be able to go over this really quickly. Something to keep in mind that this is the second iteration of the ECHO new member onboarding process. It's a practical guide for your first 90 days as a member, whether you are a brand new member to ECHO or you are an existing member and would like to go through this onboarding process because you didn't have an opportunity to do so in the past. I won't go through every specific detail. We don't have a heck of a lot of time, but there's a couple of changes that I made based on recommendations from this, from the members in ECHO. One of them was linking resources. Now, if you have a hard copy, the chances of you trying to click on a link would probably be impossible, but if you have a soft copy or an online copy, you're able to click on the ECHO web page and meeting materials, for example, the memorandum of agreement on page one and the home system overview graphic. Another thing that I incorporated was the status of ECHO. If you are a member of the ECHO team, you can click on the status of the ECHO team. If you are a member of the ECHO team, you can click on the status of the ECHO team. If you are a member of the ECHO team, you can click on the status of the ECHO team.

1:11:35 We have a statement on participate with choice and respect. We know that we have folks that potentially might have experienced trauma at some point when dealing with homelessness or any other issues, and so we wanted to make sure, or I wanted to make sure that there was a statement that nobody is required to disclose personal information, nobody is required to provide anything that they believe is private, and if they feel uncomfortable, for example, with the ride-along with VPD or CCSO, or if they feel uncomfortable going to jail, or going to jail, going on a tour of the jail, then they absolutely are not required to do so. Keep in mind that these are just recommendations of agencies that individuals, new members could participate in, but are absolutely not required to engage if they feel uncomfortable. Then we flip to the next page, couple of pages, still the same agencies that I had highlighted last time. I don't believe in looking at the video a few days ago. I don't believe anybody suggested any new ones. I don't believe anybody suggested any new ones. I don't believe anybody

1:12:35 suggested any new ones. I don't believe anybody suggested any new ones. But there is an opportunity on page four to add additional visits with any other agency that have been identified with their mentor. So please keep that in mind. And again, you know, the five agencies highlighted are not required to attend if somebody doesn't feel comfortable. And if there is an agency that somebody would like to get to know a little bit more and participate in, there is an option of doing so. And then on page five, there is journey mapping during the 90 days. I've never done any journey mapping before, so this was kind of a learning experience for me. And I hope that this is sufficient for this onboarding document. Take a look at it. If you have any questions or comments or feedback, please feel free to share with the group. If we go down a little further under journey mapping, there are questions you can ask any agency. Choose one or two questions that fit the visit. The same questions can be asked of every agency if somebody feels comfortable. And then below that is the completion checklist. One of the

1:13:35 other recommendations that was made was adding graphics and images. For the life of me, I couldn't think of any other graphics or images to add to a checklist, to an onboarding. So if somebody feels strongly that we need to add graphics or images, please feel free to email me and let me know what they should be, because I could not think of anything that I felt or I believe belonged on this checklist. And then finally, another recommendation was that it was too long. It was nine pages at that point. So this was reduced from nine pages to five pages to make it a little bit more digestible. And with that, any questions or comments? All right. Sounds like we're ready to adopt. Diana, go ahead. Well, just real quickly, that last end brief to debrief, brief, mentor, debrief. Maybe it was just

1:14:35 feels kind of weird. What is that really? Brief, mentor, debrief. This is an opportunity for the mentor and the participant to have a discussion and debrief of any of the agency visits or just the experience of going through the onboarding process. Again, it's a 20 minute, 30 conversation. If it's sufficient, it's not required. It is just an option. I was thinking perhaps maybe after their first several echo meetings, having a little debrief afterwards with the mentor on that as well. That is absolutely an option. Nothing here in this document is set in stone. It is absolutely flexible and changes can be made as needed to fit the needs of the individual, the participant and the mentor. Okay. Thank you.

1:15:35 Thank you for looking into that and making some changes based on feedback. I think that this is something that can evolve over time and since this will be the first time that we do this, we can get some feedback from the individuals that go through the process and revise as needed. Does everybody feel comfortable at this time? Adopting this? Go ahead, Victoria. Sorry. I just have a follow-up question. Can you remind me, is this for everybody who owns these sites? Is this for everyone who owns boards like new council members that are coming on to the board or is this specific to like the positions that we're at? Aren't we paying for these positions? Sorry, my mind is not working this morning. No, it's okay. Council Member Ferrer, yes, absolutely. This is for new participants, including the two that have been selected with lived experiences and will be joining ECHO, I believe, next month.

1:16:34 This is also an onboarding process for existing members who would benefit from going through this process and visiting some of these agencies if they've not already done so. Okay. That's what I was thinking. Okay. So, Ben, so then can you remind me, are those two that were onboarding with lived experience, are those going to be paid positions? Did we ever? There is a stipend and I believe that has been, yeah, no, it has been approved by the council. The county, we approved it. The county council has approved the stipend for those two individuals. And can you remind me what that amount? I think it was $1,000 a year, $2,000 per person. Oh, up to $1,000. Thank you. It's based on per attendance, yeah, per meeting. Okay. Because I was just going to say if they're getting paid, well, then we should probably make these more of a mandatory requirement than just, I mean, not every single one. Obviously, I totally understand for those who might have, you know, traumas that don't want to do a tour of the jail, you know, and stuff like that.

1:17:34 But, you know, having, but going to at least go through some onboarding requirements. But, I mean, I guess, like you said, that's only $1,000 a year. So, never mind. Absolutely. I think there is an expectation for new members to go through the onboarding process. And the new member can work with their manager to determine what makes sense for the individual. Okay. Thanks. And thank you, Will, for doing all that. I appreciate that. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

1:18:04 Council Member Fuentes. Will is fine. Are we comfortable go ahead and adopting this for our first round and then looking at it again after the first couple uses? Council Member Ferrer from Battleground, I will move to adopt. Okay. We have a motion. Council Member Stover, second. Second. Council Member Stover, thank you. Okay. All those in favor, stand by. Aye. And any opposed? Great. Motion passes. Thank you, Council Member Fuentes. I did it in seven minutes. Not bad. Not bad. I've seen you do better. Okay. All right. So, moving on, I'm going to kind of switch these things up a little bit. I wanted to start with the legislative agenda item. So, I think we had asked last month to send email. Did we do that? Am I remembering correctly if there were ideas?

1:19:04 So, it has been a little while since I have been in an ECHO meeting. So, I'm not totally sure what you all discussed at the last meeting, but yes, I would say that if folks have items they would like to include on a legislative agenda or items to consider or discuss, please send those in ASAP and we can discuss those here before the end of the year and the new session starts. Okay. And that has to do with state. Correct. If there's any interest in doing something that... The County Council, that needs to be right now. Like right now in this meeting? Yeah, I think so. If we're going to take any direction with recommendations to the County Council, I think we should really make that decision now and give Jordan the opportunity to draft something for it so that we could approve it in November. Yeah. But that would be the latest that it would work. Sure. As we were having a conversation earlier about the community court, I think it would be worth exploring.

1:20:04 I think it would be worth exploring a potential pilot at the county level to participate in the program. Is that... Say that again? As we were talking earlier about the community court, I think it would be a good opportunity for the county to explore piloting a program participation in the community court program. Like, you mean like CCSO? Correct. They already do. No, I'm talking about actually participating in the court. So, having our... Folks that will go through our court system participating in community court. They can. They can. It just has not been widely used by CCSO. Which is why I was saying I think the, like, heart expanding into the county is going to be helpful with that. Because CCSO, you all actually did approve another FTE for... For a heart person, yeah. For a heart deputy, which they've already posted that position, and we'll be doing interviews for that person, for those folks soon. So...

1:21:04 So, that work will expand into the county, and then the program will get more use, more county use in particular. So, cutting the program would be a bad idea. Okay. So, at this point, I think it would be worth then waiting to see how that expands once the person that we allocated funding for gets hired. And then I think we can make a decision later based on that data. Yeah. And I will just say it's been a bit of a mystery right up to this point. Why? Because the CCSO hasn't been more involved in the process. So, I think that the expansion of heart into the county, I think, maybe will be the catalyst into larger development into their policies and procedures. Got it. Is there perhaps a motion to give Jordan direction to draft a letter to the county council? So moved.

1:22:04 Second, Burke. It's been moved and seconded. And what exactly would the content of that letter be? The person who made the motion. Wait. I made the motion to move forward. Well, that's a good question. I think I'd like to maybe hear suggestions from ECHO members. Well, I... Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what the content of the letter should be. Chair. Can I... Hi. This is Destiny with Council for the Home. There has been a push to remove junk fees from... For folks that are renting. So, it could be... Because there's a forum tonight for a junk fee town hall. So, there's a lot of fees associated with folks that are renting properties throughout Clark County. Pet rentals, pet fees, late fees that are astronomical. So, there's been...

1:23:04 There's been a push throughout the state. I think King County has some legislation around, you know, capping fees. So, that can be a place where ECHO can actually, you know, write something up that... To basically end junk fees. Okay. That is something that we can add. I want to circle back to our motion, though, that is on just the county for not... What does that language look like? And we need to get... We need to give Jordan instruction on this. My initial thought is the question that I asked earlier, that you're actually saving money through the program. And that it is going to be detrimental to our system if there are cuts made to, quite frankly, any of the alternative court systems that we have. But, in particular, community court. This is Sunny. Council for the Homeless. Do we have...

1:24:03 Do we have data on the amount of money saved? I think that that is one of the challenges that we're talking about. Positive outcomes. But we don't necessarily have... Like, do we have comparisons? Because I think data, court data from pre-pandemic is completely different data from what we're talking about today. So, just noting that. Because if we're talking about saving money, then we would probably need to have data in there about what that looks like. I don't have... This is Jamie from the city. I don't have numbers on that. I'm sure somebody could look that up that actually works for the courts. What I can tell you is that I was looking at this jail data from pre-pandemic. Because I know that they previously were giving us kind of pandemic to now numbers. But we are actually way under on arrests related to...

1:25:03 To homelessness or of people experiencing homelessness. It's about half the number of arrests from, like, pre-pandemic days. If you look at 2018, 2019. This is Sessany again. Council for the Homeless. At one point, Mr. McClure, you talked about, like, a lot of the savings around what's happening with, you know, particular things that, you know, funds that are being saved by people not going through the regular court. Can we be that vague in the letter if we were talking about things in general? We can do whatever we want. I think we can. But I can see the council coming back and asking for concrete data. That's going to happen. Well, you have jail data right here. In 2018, over 2,700 people who are experiencing homelessness were booked. By all agencies? By all agencies.

1:26:03 Now, in 2026, it's... Well, just look at 2025. We have a full year, 1,530. That's a big difference. This is Sunny. Can that be attributed directly to... I think the question that we'll ask... Partially. Like, can we... It can be partially attributed, but are there other factors that the letter would need to be very transparent on? Here are some additional factors that need to be acknowledged. Because I think the number of people, ultimately, that have gone through the court... Is very small within the context of the number of people who have gone through the court system. So I do think that it is important on, hey, here are the benefits. These are the wraparound supports. Here are the successes. And we're seeing the investment and commitment having an impact. Here are other factors that could be playing a part. Like the entirety of the homeless response system. Versus just saying this is positive, this is the number of people.

1:27:02 This is the number of people who have gone through. Because, inevitably, we'll go and look at, wait, these numbers don't necessarily match. No, I mean, every shelter capacity across the system. I have a suggestion. Let's let Jordan work on this based on our conversation. He could come to the executive committee. We could review that and then bring something to the board next month. Does that work? Okay. Great. Do we need to do it today? We proved to have Jordan draft something for us. Yes. So, okay. A couple things left. So proposed legislative agenda items. Cessna, you brought something up. I would suggest at this point, when do we need to have this ironed down by? Like December, January? So December would be ideal. And I know that there's a question here also on the agenda about whether this group wants to meet in December or not.

1:28:02 But, yes, if folks are able to send items between now and the November meeting, I could collect those and we could look at them as a group to see if these are things that ECHO would like to take on or propose as a potential legislative agenda. You know, ECHO, it's sort of similar to the letter. Like, there's a world in which you all can endorse as, like, individuals. But if you wanted to have, like, the weight. If you wanted to have the weight of all of the jurisdictions, anything would need to go back to all the other jurisdictions to sign on to any agenda if we were going to lobby and say that this is the position of any of the county or any of the cities. Right. We wouldn't be taking a position for our cities or the county, but we would be taking, like, a position of ECHO, the group, explicitly. Yeah. You think that we still need to go back to our jurisdictions? I think as long as you're very clear.

1:29:02 That it was the position of ECHO and that it wasn't formally endorsed by any of the jurisdictions in the county, you'd be okay. But you just need to be. We just want to be very clear on that. Okay. So what I would suggest, then, is everybody send e-mails to Jordan if they have ideas. And then in our next November meeting, we will have probably about a half an hour or so of Sunny will be presenting on continuum of care and filling those seats. Okay. And then in our next November meeting, we will have probably about a half an hour or so of Sunny will be presenting on continuum of care and filling those seats. Okay. And then in our next November meeting, we will have probably about a half an hour or so of Sunny will be presenting on continuum of care and filling those seats. Okay. And then in our next November meeting, we will have probably about a half an hour or so of Sunny will be presenting on continuum of care and filling those seats. So we'll have that discussion. I would suggest that we have another larger discussion on agenda item or legislative agenda items in our next meeting. Last piece of business, and then we'll let us go. Are we, is everybody okay with meeting in December? Well, I won't be here. Do we have enough attendance? Should we cancel our December meeting? I'll be here in order to make sure this gets done.

1:30:02 Could I get the date of that December meeting? That's closing my computer. Yeah, second Tuesday of December. Okay, I'll be here. I'll be here. That's all I needed to know. I believe it's December 8th. Yeah, it's December 8th. Okay, so Council Apprentice would not be able to make it. Is there anyone else that would not? Okay. All right, let's go ahead and plan to hold our December meeting. Council Young, I want to point out. That agenda had got changed prior to, or after I had printed the agenda. So there was one other item under takeaways, recommendations, and next steps. And that was mentors for the lived experience members. We have two that will be joining us for the November meeting. So we need two mentors to step up and complete the new process. Anybody have an interest in doing that? And our two new members were launched.

1:31:01 Lon Klugman and Debra Brown. I'll volunteer for a spot. Okay. We have Councilor Fuentes. I would recommend Councilor Fuentes to Lon Klugman because I believe he is an employee of the City of Vancouver. Is that correct? Yes, that is correct. So just to avoid any. Yeah, just to avoid. Just to avoid conflict of interest. And Diane, are you interested in. Well, you would be the City of Vancouver as well. But I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you interested in doing so or for the other? Not at this time. Okay. We need one more volunteer. For Debra. Yeah.

1:32:01 This is Marilyn from Camas. I just have no business being a mentor right now. Sure. I'm very interested in the mentorship program. And so perhaps next year I would be, you know, known enough to be a viable mentor. I just didn't want to sit in silence because I'm a very supportive of the program. Okay. I will go ahead and volunteer to work with the second person. That was Debra, you said? Debra. Okay. Thank you. All right. Anything critical? We're a little bit past our meeting. Sorry for keeping you a few minutes late. I just want to ensure that we have enough time for the legislative since Councilmember Fuentes isn't going to be able to be there in December. I think it would be nice for us to be able to thoroughly go through it so we can get collectively everybody's view on these. And then just in case we have to go into the December for the actual finalization of it. Sounds like we might have a lot on our plate in November. Yes? We do.

1:33:01 But I think we can make it work. Just between the two things, the continuum of care and then the other priority will be the legislative agenda. Okay, okay. Thank you. I will just add that it depends on what part of the world I find myself in, I may be able to log in remotely, so. Okay. All right. With that, we are adjourned. Thank you, everybody. We'll see you in November.

Ending Community Homelessness Organization

Documents

Agenda

Slides / on-screen documents