Thank you. And then you just mentioned that the spread of HIV did not change or did not go up as a result of the changes that this Administration has made. Can you tell me what we are going to continue to do to ensure that the population that desperately needs those services continue to receive them while still responding to the quality of life in the neighborhood of Kensington Harrowgate?
So we are going to continue to do all of the outreach and the work that we do, whether it's with our partners at DBHIDS, our SUPHR Division, which is the Substance Abuse Division, whether it's our disease control folks that go out to do vaccinations on foot. So we're going to continue to do all of that work. Our division of HIV Health is working collaboratively with our SUPHR Division to monitor the rates of HIV, and they're putting together a process plan for, as I mentioned, upstream solutions so that we can continue to keep an eye on that rate so that that level of disease does not go up. We're also working with -- when and where when we're asked work with philanthropy, as the Mayor had charged us to work, to raise funds for other sources of harm reduction.
I'm sure that you've heard that there are some different feelings about coordinated mobile provider services in districts like mine. Do you see us experiencing challenges or putting individuals at risk that need mobile services by us coordinating the efforts to ensure that the most vulnerable population gets the services that they need while responding to the quality of life that we have heard has gotten worse since we've allowed services just to happen anywhere?
So I know that we've been working for several months now with your office and other departments as well as the Managing Director's Office and the Mayor's office to come up with legislation that would be effective in the implementation and I believe that we're getting there, we're approaching that. We have carved out the things that I believe we need to carve out of to provide services but also to regulate what needs to be regulated. And I don't have a crystal ball so I can't tell you what it'll be like but --
Thank you. Thank you. We've heard challenges over the course of the last few weeks around food trucks. That seems to be another hot topic right now. And one of the challenges that individuals have said to us is that when inspectors come to inspect their food trucks, they have challenges with language, with understanding what some of our inspectors are saying. How many inspectors does the Health Department have to be able to speak languages like Spanish?
Sure. So we have I want to say at least 10 bilingual sanitarians and sanitarian supervisors. And they're not just bilingual in Spanish. We can get you the exact numbers, because we do track language access. But we would much rather, Councilmember, use the language access service and the appropriate translators because that way there's nothing lost in tone or affect or anything like that. So our team does use the language access line. And if and when needed, we also use the live interpreter services.
What is the time that mobile food trucks are supposed to close currently? Their permit states what? What does their permit say?
The mobile vending trucks for food are given a license for a food license. There's not a timestamp on it. We don't necessarily look at the hours of operation. However, we have to be mindful and we would work with others to make sure that they don't become a nuisance if they're going past the hours of operation in specific neighborhoods.
My last question: What is the process of an inspection? I know that food trucks, some food trucks have an electrical (inaudible). They don't move to commissary every day. Do they know when they're applying for these permits does the Health Department give them something that gives some very specific instructions of the process for them to operate?
Sure. So the Health Department has extensive food safety regulations. And when we carve out mobile vendors, and I believe the last number we have about 1,169 legal, mobile -- legal, not illegal -- legal food vendors, mobile vendors in the city that are approved to operate and they are licenses. All of the food safety regulations and all the requirements and operating requirements are available on our website. We also have made videos and other items. Our inspection process is to educate, then regulate. So during the course of the inspection process we also explain to them how they should be operating, what to look for. Our inspectional focus is really about food safety. So what is the hot water temperature, are folks washing hands, do they know the most common transmissible, foodborne illness, diseases and all of that. We also look for vermin and making sure that equipment is properly being utilized and it properly works. So all of that information is available in writing and easily accessible on the website.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Gilmore Richardson, followed by Councilmember Gauthier then Councilmember Phillips.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And thank you all so much for your work and all that we do together throughout the year. I wanted to just quickly get through all of our thank-yous starting with DBHIDS. Of course, Commissioner Williams, we appreciate you so very, very much. Levan White for always responding to the call. Donna Bailey from CBH, who we've had several calls with and she has been exceedingly helpful. Malik Gray and Andrea October, they are out of sight. For five years we have worked together to put on a Grief Program during the holiday season and the program is always very well received and we're able to connect a number of constituents to additional services that are available as a result of that program. And so, we are just so grateful for their continued partnership. And then for Health, of course, Dr. Palak Raval-Nelson, kudos and congratulations to you. Also to Dawn, I'm going to mess up her last name, Keisewetter, who has helped us and was even with us with some of the drug paraphernalia tours previously. Dr. Mehta, who I just happened to see at Penn for Black Maternal Health Week Conference where we both spoke at an event, and Dr. Frank Franklin, who worked with us to present to our nonprofit task force. So I just wanted to say thank you to those team members, and that was from my team and I. I wanted to quickly start with Health relative to the subject of Black maternal health. Last year I had secured an additional $1 million for maternal health in the budget to help with the maternal health mini grant program. And I just wanted to get on the record because we'll have to do this again for this year. We actually just approved the additional funding in the midyear transfer that was approved by the Council this last Thursday. But I wanted to talk about the open grant process for the Black maternal health organizations. How will that process work? Do we have sort of a timeline on when to anticipate the information to apply for the opportunity will be released? And if you could list for us the organizations that received grants last year? And if there's any carryover leftover money and how much it is?
Absolutely. So there was $1 million provided for maternal health programming. Of that, $500,000 was awarded to or transferred to our Ambulatory Health Services Division who does the actual work so that we could efficiently start utilizing the money to take care of our moms. And then the other remaining $500,000 was provided in a series of mini grants to 11 organizations. That process was RFP'd. It was vetted out. Each of the organizations were given -- the availability of the funds were posted in February and the opportunities closed in March so there was ample time, and the organizations, we received 38 applications and the awards were given to AFHO, Chosen Kin, Family Medicine, Education Consortium, Growing Resilient Communities, ITAV Foundation, Mindful Well CDC, New Voices for Reproduction Freedom, PAN PAN(ph), Puentas de Salud, Reclaim Black Motherhood, Women in Transition.
Thank you very much for that. My request for the record is that we receive the information for the dollars that we just appropriated under the midyear so that we can also alert the organizations to apply and that we know when that opportunity opens up. And I heard the bell. I want to honor the clock. But very quickly I just wanted to get on the record that if we could talk through how the Department of Public Health is working with Licenses and Inspections and also the Nuisance Business Task Force as it relates to the stores that we are all dealing with, these nuisance businesses, that sell drug paraphernalia across our communities? And then my last question so I can get this one in, because I won't come back for the next round, is relative to minority participation numbers both for DBHIDS and for CBH. And I just received an email, all of the colleagues received this within the hour, regarding the closure of Wedge Recovery Centers. We didn't know anything about this until just now. So if we could get an update about Wedge Recovery Centers and how we're going to help individuals who are seeking to get into recovery? We literally just got this email since we've been sitting here.
Absolutely. Regarding the impact participation, would you like me to answer that first?
Okay. Thank you. It looks like -- and you mentioned Community Behavioral Health. We have 112 nonprofit provider agencies and 88% of our CBH nonprofit agencies are minority or women-operated. We have 21 independent practitioners, and 52% 22 of those practitioners are minority 23 or women-operated.
Yeah. And then we have some numbers around our group practices and additional types of for-profit programming. Would you also like those numbers?
So in terms of our for-profit providers, 73% of those providers are minority or women-owned. And then in terms of our group practices in our CBH network, 86% of those providers are minority or women-owned.
Thank you. And then in terms of the email that you got about the Wedge, I'm going to ask Donna Bailey to come up and talk a little bit more about that. Thank you.
If you could be very brief in your responses, we can move on to the next members. Thank you.
Thank you and good afternoon, City Councilmembers. I'm Donna Bailey. I'm the CEO of Community Behavioral Health. So, yes, last week, the CEO of which notified myself that they had made the difficult decision to close the agency. It was our understanding that they were just going to be telling their staff today so we had not shared with our organization either. So a little alarmed that there wasn't better coordination with our team --
-- because, one, I just want to get this on the record, I would never do anything like that. But it literally just came to our email so I was taken aback. I'm like, yeah, we knew nothing about it so I want to apologize. I'm sure it's not there now. But we just received an email that was not from within government to say that it's confidential. So I apologize.
No. No 19 worries, Councilmember. I'm sure once they told their staff, you know, these things tend to get away from folks. Yeah, so they did make the unfortunate decision to close the entire agency. So I think they've been struggling post- pandemic with workforce issues and that nature. So we're going to be working hand and fist with them to make sure that all of the members across all their services have choice in terms of where they're going to go. Our call last week was very brief. So now that it's more public we can drill down into exactly how many members on which levels of care and where we have capacity in the network, but we do believe there is existing capacity. Sorry, you all had to hear about it that way.
I apologize. I just -- and again, you all know that this is nothing that I would ever do if I knew that. We literally have been sitting here and we just received this information. It didn't indicate that it was confidential so I'm thinking that everyone knows about this. There's a plan in place so that there's no alarm. Meaning, within the sort of provider network that we have everything under control. But I appreciate that you all have already been on top of this and that you all are coming up with a game plan to address this issue. And again, I want to apologize to you and your team, because like I said we had no idea. And I wish it would have been better coordination just even with us getting the information in that way.
Absolutely. And we'll make sure that we follow up with the CEO as well because I'm sure that's not how he intended it to go as well. But we know these things sometimes happen. Thank you.
Thank you, colleague. Chair recognizes Councilmember Gauthier, followed by Councilmember Phillips and then Councilmember Landau.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon to all of you. Thank you for being here and for all of your work every day on behalf of the city. I wanted to second the Council President's comments earlier about getting an update on the dashboard that we had worked on with Dr. Abaya and also our other partnerships to track our ability to address gun violence as a public health crisis and grow those proven strategies. I remember we also were working to grow hospital-based intervention throughout the city, and I think we had pushed some resources to Public Health in order to do that work better. And so, I don't want us to lose track of that now that we're seeing better numbers with gun violence. It still has to be a top issue, particularly on the youth side. My questions are about mobile crisis units. At the March 17th Joint Committee on mobile crisis units I asked about pay rates for mobile crisis staff, which appear to be considerably lower and less competitive than similar private sector positions. Have we been able to gather any information on this? And is there a plan in place for addressing the issues of low-paid staff and staff turnover? And then secondly, it's my understanding that part of Penn's study of mobile crisis resources is a workforce study for the staff who provide services like our Crisis Line and the CMCRT team members. When do we expect to have the data from this survey and how do we plan to use this data to improve workplace conditions? Obviously, the mobile crisis units are very important to our ability to compassionately address mental health. And so, I just want to make sure that we're doing our best to compensate and create a good work environment for those teens.
Thank you, Councilwoman, for that question. Thank you for all of your support that you've given us around mobile crisis. So yes, we, too have been concerned about the workforce landscape. And in terms of mobile crisis, the monies that we have been given, a part of it from City Council, we've used to create Bridge teams. We used to try to create some sense of equity across our mobile crisis teams, making sure that the teams were able to -- the providers were able to give some incentives where they could. They were able to increase the pay rate if they could. The issue has been even once we have increased the pay rate, we haven't always been able to fill every slot. And so, we have made sure that we've done a workforce analysis to make sure where we could make it competitive.
Will we be able to see that analysis and get specific information on those incentives and the level of the pay raises that you provided?
On time. Thank you, colleague. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Phillips, followed by Councilmember Landau and then Councilmember Young.
Thank you so much. Honestly, I think that these two departments, even though they're similar in nature, should be probably separated because there's so many questions. But first question I just want to have is about staffing with the Department of Public Health. I want to have a better understanding of how many of the staff that you have currently with the department are inhouse staff versus staff that are not inhouse in terms of do you utilize consultants and so forth in the department?
I apologize, Councilmember. Are you asking in general or talking about specifically for (inaudible)?
Yeah. So the specific question is are private employees almost a majority of your staff with the Public Health Department? And does this, you know, what is the configuration of that and why is there more private employees that are part of the staff as opposed to staff that are generally hired by the City, City workers?
So we definitely have majority of our staff are civil service staff . We do have contracted staff that work. They're embedded contractors that work within the Health Department to do work. We pivot and hire embedded contract staff to do specialized work specifically as it pertains to grant funding. So for instance, during the pandemic we were able to hire using grant funding, hire contract- embedded staff through the various contracting agencies to go do work for civil service positions that did not exist.
Okay. Thank you. Is there a way to begin to look into examining whether or not the civil service positions can actually qualify for the contracted staff that you have as opposed -- and that would probably save the City some money as well?
Absolutely. Sir, one of the areas that we're trying to attempt and we've been working on this for the past about year and a half is looking at our epidemiology titles. Currently, the civil service system has one epidemiologist title that is available for the entire Health Department. So we've been working with the Office of Human Resources as well as our own HR department within Health and our different divisions to create civil service job specifications for epidemiologists so that we could have positions that are civil service whether it's General Fund or contract dollars. So part of the challenge with the Health Department is that since our titles are so specific, creating a job spec is required before we can fill them. But we are working on that and we're hoping to have the epidemiologist series completed by the end of this calendar year.
And I just also want to follow up on Councilman O'Rourke's line of questioning, but I'll follow up with you more about the civil service and so forth. But just real quickly, Councilmember O'Rourke was talking about lifesaving treatment when it comes to HIV prevention and so forth. As we know, PrEP is something that's been out here for a long time. Is that something that your department can do more of to help raise awareness around the city about the usage of that? I see you at different community events highlighting that, showing that. But how do you wage a campaign in the city so people can become more familiar with PrEP when it comes to HIV prevention?
Sure. So our Division of HIV Health does work with I believe it's Mask Our Media groups to go ahead and our -- one of our campaigns has been Philly Keep on Loving and a few other such activities to go ahead and raise awareness. And I can absolutely get you additional details through the Council President's office about the whole host of activities that our Division of HIV Health does as they pertain to raising awareness, giving education, getting folks connected, the services that they so desperately need so that we can prevent HIV.
And just real quick follow-up and I have a quick question on this -- and I'm going to do the rest of the questions in the second round -the staff budget to keep 988 open 24/7, how many cases are suicidal- related for 988 that's 24/7 and is it necessary to have -- can some callers be diverted to another source as well as doing suicidal- related work when it comes to 988? This is what I'm hearing from different people as well.
So the first question you asked was how many of those calls are about suicidality?
I don't believe that I have that information with me today, but I can get it back to you.
Okay. Thank you. And just one last comment. I just want to say I think both the social media I was examining for both of your departments could be a lot stronger. It can really help you all with some videos, some demonstrations that can potentially go more viral to help people understand about the different public health issues that are happening in the city as well as even a demo on what a mental health counseling session could look like to make people feel comfortable from DBHIDS. I'm just looking at your social media. One of your DBHIDS posts is sporadically, not even frequently. And same thing with Department of Public Health. This could be really useful as you're trying to get more young people excited about the things you're talking about, and I really think you're working with the Communications team in City Philadelphia would be very helpful for you all. I just don't see that in this budget so it makes me a little concerned.
We agree with you completely. That's one of the major focuses that we have now going in place, Councilmember, is looking at public health and rebranding and looking at public health in action to figure out how we can get folks excited about public health and their well-being and get absolutely social media and all the different Tiktok videos or whatever is the way to get public health messages communicated.
And I just want to speak to that as well. We agree 100% as well around the use of social media. In fact, next week, May 13th, we have a meeting to look at our marketing and our communication strategy specifically around social media to make sure that we are engaging our various audiences so that they really understand about behavioral health and what it is and common diagnoses. We also have a Healthy Minds Philly website that we're revamping as well that provides a lot of education and resources on a community level, really easy to understand and sort of one-click resources. So we're right there with you. Thank you. You'll see the evidence of that in the upcoming months.
Thank you. What's your timeline? I hear upcoming months. But what is the timeline, like a hard timeline on some of the things that you just said would be changed based on what Councilmember Phillips just asked?
So the Healthy Minds Philly overall is happening right now. So by the end of summer we should have that completely up.
So by the summertime Councilmember Phillips will see a difference in your presence in social media?
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Landau, followed by Councilmember Young. And then I believe, Councilmember Bass, you had first round?
Yes. So Councilmember Young, Councilmember -- no, it's Councilmember Landau, Councilmember Young -- Councilmember Landau, Councilmember Young and Councilmember Ahmad, and then you'll be the last person for the first round, Councilmember Bass -- no, you went on the first round. I apologize. So, Councilmember Bass, you'll be last. Tough read. Chair recognizes Councilmember Landau.
Thank you. Thank you all so much for being here, for everything you do for Philly. I have I think two questions for the Health Department and potentially two for DBHIDS. First for the Health Department, thank you for the work you do with Philadelphia Legal Assistance with your medical legal partnership. I think it's an incredible model that is helping. It's like a holistic work and solutions for a lot of families. In today's funding environment, are you experiencing any financial challenges to maintaining this very successful project with Philadelphia Legal Assistance?
So we're continuing to work and continuing to write our grants and continue to get funding. Right now I think overall as a country we're worried about the funding atmosphere, but we just are continuing to do our work one step at a time and seeking additional funding as well as maintaining the funding that we have.
Okay. And I have a funding question. I'll stick with funding for a second. The -- I'm going to switch over again. The Mayor made it clear that she does not want to send spend city dollars on syringe exchange and then also said that she was going to try to see if philanthropy would fill the gap. How far along are we with that?
Thank you for that question. That was one of the items that actually the Mayor discussed while I was being interviewed by her and the team. So we're in the process of scheduling. I believe my Chief of Staff and I have a meeting scheduled with several of the foundations coming up in two weeks. I was trying to finish our budget meetings and then get those scheduled. And again, we're using all of the tools that we have in our toolbox. So we are working our Division of HIV Health and our SUPHR Division are working on what are the upstream solutions because if this was not available to us what would we do. And then as we were charged by the Mayor's office, we're meeting with philanthropy to figure out how we can raise the dollars for the other forms of harm reduction.
Let me dab a little bit more into the funding issue because I'm very interested. Also, if the Medicaid funding dries up, what are we going to do. What payment models like pay for performance, pay for treatment, value-based purchasing would between DBHIDS or the Health Department work lean on if Medicaid funding is dried up?
I'm going to let Dr. Williams and Donna, Ms. Bailey, answer.
I'm going to call up my team member Donna Bailey, CEO of CBH.
Good afternoon again, members of Council. I'm Donna Bailey, the CEO of Community Behavioral Health. So we are the City's behavioral health Medicaid-managed care organization, and we're fully funded by Medicaid. In fact, our federal match is 54% so we are extremely distressed about the potential $880 billion cuts as well as any policy reforms that will go along with that, that would potentially restrict eligibility or our ability to have the robust network that we have. So what we've been doing, as Dr. Williams alluded to earlier, is contingency planning. And you heard about one agency making the decision that it's no 8 longer going to be able to deliver services. We are concerned that other agencies will make that hard choice as well. We do think that given potential cuts the state is not going to be able to make up that that match. And so, we are looking at restricting or constricting our network. We are hoping to do that in a strategic way because we don't want to lose geographic access, we don't want to limit members choice, but this is what we're planning for.
That's very unfortunate. Thank for that. If there's anything we can do to help you push back on this or to advocate at the state, we would be so happy to do it.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Young followed by Councilmember Bass.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And good afternoon. My questions are for DBHIDS. So we all know that there is the rising demographic and overdose deaths in our city is among Black men. And just to give some context, we all go through it. I lost my one of my best friends, he was in his 30s, to overdose. Lost a cousin. He was in his 30s to overdose. Lost my dad, right, through complications because of overdose, right. So these are all Black men. And so, with that context -- and I know that the DBHIDS has tried to increase its capacity for treatment -- but could you talk to us about what is your licensing process to provide medically-assisted treatment, and particularly talk about in the context of areas where those Black men live?
Can you archive that question from Councilmember Young real quick. I want to recognize Councilmember O'Rourke for the point of information on a statement that Councilmember Landau made in your response to that statement followed by Councilmember O'Rourke's point of information we'll revert back to Councilmember's Young line of questioning. And I'm not going to count this against your time.
Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chair. And my apologies, Member Young, on this one. Quick point information on Member Landau's questioning. Does the Public Health have a response to that question as it relates to those cuts and plans?
Medicaid. So about 40% of our Ambulatory Health Services patients or so are on Medicaid, and we are looking -- we serve everybody, whether they're insured or uninsured. And we're working internally, same at CBH, to figure out how we would absorb and still continue to provide the services that we do.
Thank you. Councilmember Young's line of questioning now if that's okay. Would you like him to repeat it?
I'm going to ask my Deputy Commissioner Amanda David to talk about the licensing process.
So you don't need him to repeat the question? We're good to go?
Hi. So licensing process actually goes through the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs who licenses programs to provide drug and alcohol treatment. So what we can do is we can facilitate that connection between providers and the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, but they provide the license ultimately.
So what role does CBH play in that process of determining if a provider is able to provide that medically-assisted treatment as a part of their program that they already have?
Thank you for that question. So for any provider to participate in the CBH network they have to be licensed by the state of Pennsylvania, enrolled in the Medical Assistance Program first, and then they would be credentialed by CBH. And so, the credentialing process would be a review of the facility, the staff files, the policies and procedures and we would take that recommendation to our Credentialing committee. So that's the process for entering the network, whether it's through DDAP licensing or OMHSAS licensing.
Thank you. And I ask that, I premised that question based on some facilities that are in my area, my Council District, we have a organization that is licensed to provide this work in Atlanta, Georgia, but can't get the license here in Philadelphia to serve a population of Black men and women that are the highest rates of overdoses now in the city of Philadelphia. So just trying to figure out how and what -- now, we just heard about another facility closing today, right, so that serves that population. So I just want to get some more information on how we can get these providers up to a certain standard for you all to allow them to serve our community and serve that population.
Yes. Just to restate, it all does start with the state in terms of licensing. But I will say that DBHIDS and CBH have been working together to do some degree of training and education for agencies that might be interested, because we do know Medicaid in particular is complex. And so, there are community-based organizations that might have an interest but might not understand how to go about it. So we've done one of those trainings this year and anticipate doing another next year.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Bass. And then after Councilmember Bass, we will start the second round.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon. How's everybody doing? So I had a couple of questions and I just actually want to follow up on Councilman Young's line of questioning because something that came to my mind, and I apologize if this was already mentioned because I was a little bit late coming in, but one of the problems that we have because we have, you know, Philadelphia has a substance abuse problem, it's a real problem, it's a big problem. But I think one of the biggest problems that we have with providers coming into neighborhoods is when they sort of go off the rails, when they're not really providing effective treatment, when they're not really servicing, when it's a money grab, when it's sort of almost like a hustle, to say you're going to treat people for substance abuse disorder and you don't. And so, what happens is a provider may move into a neighborhood, it goes off the rails. There's no follow-up, enforcement, supports that the community gets and, therefore, it's unlikely that we're able to get more services in a neighborhood because people don't want to have to try to fight what's supposed to be a community-based organization providing services to a needy population and there's sort of no 5 enforcement, level of enforcement from the City once that happens.
Right. So what can we do to provide enforcement? If you get a call from someone saying this drug provider or drug treatment provider isn't acting right, people are loitering out front, they're buying drugs from the local drug boys, they're doing all kinds of things that they really shouldn't be doing because they're supposed to be in treatment and this is happening and it's adding to sort of an influx in a climate in the community that the community finds unacceptable, so what are we doing to make sure that we address what's happening with that particular provider? Because we need drug treatment in our communities, you know, we all have family members, relatives, whatever, who have gone through treatment, are in treatment, need it, but we can't get providers because we don't enforce the rules of sort of engagement in the community.
I understand. And, Councilwoman, you know we've worked together on this very issue so thank you for bringing it up to us again here. We have a robust compliance and quality program. When we have received calls from your office, we've worked together. We came out to make sure that the community was aware --
Let me pause you because I hear what you're saying. But I think almost in most of my District, there's a few exceptions, there are a few outliers, but I think in most of my District if you ask folks is this treatment facility doing right by the community, they're going to say no. 10 And when they come before an RCO or we try to get zoning or we try to get more of what we need in the community, we can't because people have had this experience and they don't want more of it.
So let me bring up Donna Bailey so we can talk about what that process looks like when we do get those calls in about a provider.
You know what, I know I'm short on time so I just want to jump to it. But what I would really like to hear is what are we going to do going forward? Because what we're doing, I'm going to be honest, I don't think it really works. If you have a good provider -- and I do have some really good providers -- I had one provider that was so good that people didn't even know it was in a neighborhood. They didn't even know, oh, that's a treatment facility, I had no idea. They had been there for years. 15 But for the most part, 16 people know, are aggravated, don't 17 want to support it, even though 18 they may have people from their 19 families who need treatment, just 20 like all of us, but they don't want 21 more of the same in that 22 neighborhood because we can't get 23 enforcement from the powers to be 24 when something goes awry.
Thank you for that, Councilmember. So I would say just as Dr. Williams said, we do have a very robust quality oversight process. We do get complaints from members but also community members. And as a part of our procurement process, we really do encourage prospective agencies to be good neighbors, not only in terms of gaining community input at the onset but certainly in an ongoing way. And so, if you have names of agencies --
And it's nice to say we expect them to be good neighbors. That's nice. I expect my neighbors to be good neighbors. You know, everybody expects their neighbors to be good neighbors. The reality of it though is something really different. I can point you to a few sites right now where I know that there's like people standing 7 around outside of a treatment 8 facility that is causing other 9 businesses -- it's a disruption to 10 other businesses and it's making 11 them leave the neighborhood. And 12 I'm very sad about that. And I 13 really want people to be able to 14 get treatment, but I also don't 15 want to lose other elements of the 16 neighborhood that have been 17 successful, minority businesses 18 that are moving out. But I'll be 19 happy to talk to you off the record 20 because I don't want to call anybody out.
Absolutely. If they're a CBH provider, I would like to know about them.
Absolutely, they are. All right. Thank you. I'll come back around on the next round.
Thank you. We will be starting the next round now. I believe everybody who wanted to go for the first round went. So we'll start with the Chair Councilmember Ahmad. And anybody else who wants to have questions in the second round, please queue yourself up now. We're going to try to stick to the time limit on this round just because we want to be as efficient as possible with the normal hard stop time that we have. So we'll really try to stick to the time limit so folks can ask their questions, that'll be great. Chair recognizes Councilmember Ahmad, followed by Councilmember Lozada and Councilmember Gauthier.
Thank you, Chair. This question is for Dr. Marquita Williams and her team. It was really phenomenal that you have been able to engage over 9200 unique individuals living on the street across the city and made 38,594 contacts that resulted in 23.5% accepting housing or behavioral health treatment placement. My question is twofold. One, are these folks tracked once they are in treatment or housing to see are they able to stay and retain those spaces or keep their treatment and come out successful? What is that process? And the second thing is for those who you were not able to move to either treatment or housing which is the remaining people, what happens to them? Are they being tracked and is there a continuous approach, repeated approach with them to ensure that they are able to be successful as well? And last question is do you divide up this whole, you know, this is the chronically homeless or this is newly homeless or these are people who are in between couch surfing? How do you divide up this population that you're serving in terms of who they are and what their needs are because they all need different levels of care and engagement based on the root reason for them being homeless?
Thank you, Councilwoman, for that question. Going backwards, yes, individuals who we have attempted to engage who do not take the services at that time are continuously engaged over the time, because the goal is that whenever individuals are ready, there's barrier-free access for them to come into our service system. So we continue to engage those individuals. In terms of how the groups are broken down, I'm going to let Deputy Commissioner David talk a little bit about that.
And if you could be very brief in your response because time is up. We want to move on to the next members.
Hi. Thank you for your question. And so, yes, we do track individuals when they come into our system through each part of our system and we have continuous engagement with those folks. So if a person is on the street and moves into housing, we have continuous conversation with that individual and try to move them on to the next levels of care as they're accepting of their recovery process. The other thing that we do is if a person disengages in treatment, we do follow up and we go look for folks and we continue to have those engagements with individuals as they're accepting of services.
Very quickly, attrition rate for those who accepted help?
So recovery is a non-linear process. I don't have the exact attrition rates at this point, but we can take a look at it and get it over to you guys and share that information.
Not everybody who you take in are people with substance disorders. Some could have chronic mental health disorders. So they're --
-- different populations within who you place. That's what was my question. How do you separate out the different types of people because they'll have different responses and different requirements. Just wanted to see how disaggregated we are in our approach to have successful outcomes for placements and future placements.
Yes. So we have placements for individuals who have substance use disorder, we have placements for individuals who are primary mental health, and then we have some co-occurring placements also called dual diagnosis. And so with that, the approach is very similar with engaging individuals on the street. It's engagement, engagement, engagement. And then really the outreach workers begin to formulate a plan around each individual and then they start to target conversations around which programs might be best for that person, begin to have conversations related to potential opportunities for those folks.
So 23% is a very low rate. So I just wondered what do we need to do differently. We've been doing this approach for a long time. And many of these folks if you leave it up to their decision-making, which is particularly those with substance disorder, is already not operating in full potential. How are we working with them to let them decide how we move on this? My question is how do we increase that whatever number it is because that's not good enough. That is just not good enough. And we need to figure out how we do better in that space and where are all these accountability measures for those impacted and those who are giving the services both, and I think there's a level of that, that we must expect from everybody in Philadelphia regardless of what their status is. Because you can't on the same hand say they are too compromised to make a decision, we can't force them. But then they are not compromised enough and they're making a decision in their full right, so we have to honor that. So there's a rub there between either being impacted so greatly by substance disorder that you're not able to make rational choices that are good for you. So I want to know how this industry is dealing with that. I have not seen that anywhere because this is such a touchy subject, we don't want to go there. And then we'll keep having 23% as our success rate. We can't be satisfied with that. We have to think outside the box and we have to think how we move the needle on this, and you are the folks who have to be tasked with that.
After this we're going to have to move on so let's make sure we get a good answer.
Thank you. I appreciate that question and I would love to partner with your office to begin talking through what kind of opportunities there are to increase the numbers in that way and to begin -- I hear where you're going with that. And so, I would like to have more discussion so that we can partner.
Thank you, Chairwoman. Thank you for your leadership on this particular issue with the Committee in general. Chair recognizes Councilmember Lozada, followed by Councilmember Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. I just wanted to follow up on Councilmember Bass's questioning around oversight for providers. We had a Special Committee hearing on Kensington where we talked about the very same issue, and we agreed that we were going to look at our process and we were going to figure out what and how we could do better. What did we need to change that was in our current process that would allow us to better understand the work that folks that were receiving contracts from us were receiving and how they were actually delivering. And so, I'm curious to hear -- I heard you say that we do have a process for oversight. I'm curious to hear what did you find in the oversight, what were some of the challenges and what were the corrective action plans that some of these providers put in place in order to respond to being a nuisance in their communities? In addition to that, I also want to know could we as District Councilpeople receive a list of who are these providers in our community, right. As the Councilmember mentioned, there are some providers that are great providers and we don't even know they exist because they conduct business in a very effective, responsible, respectful way to the community. And then there are others that are outright crazy and disrespectful and they will start a fight with the community members. And so, could we get that? Is that a possibility?
Yes, absolutely. You can get that information. And in terms of looking at the providers who -- if we got a report, like I know Councilwoman Bass said that there are some providers that she wants us to look into, we can look up those providers and have a conversation with you generally about what the process is, when we get information that providers are not providing the services that they're contracted for and what that looks like, what the corrective action plan would be and what the timeline on that would be --
But did you guys do that already? That's what I'm asking, because we talked about this about a year ago, right. So I want to know did you all do what we committed or what you committed you would do, which was do an assessment of who the providers are and whether they were good, responsible providers or not. And if you did that, what were some of the challenges? Because we also talked about the fact that there's billions going into districts like mine, right, in contracts. And my community told you in that Special Committee on Kensington that there were many providers who were not good providers. We talked about redirecting dollars, right, because what good is it to give a contract to a provider who's continuing to deny the services that our community needs so desperately, right. So have we done that? What happened? You guys have had a year so I'm just curious about what your findings were?
And so, we haven't done the comprehensive exercise that you're talking about. But in terms of looking at our providers and key performance indicators and benchmarks clinically that we're looking at, we do that routinely. If there is a provider where we get some information that's outside of that, so to what you're talking about, meaning they're not providing a certain service or there's some bad actor behavior happening, that takes on a different course. And so, where we do get those types of referrals or that type of information, it would be a separate inquiry and it would be a separate action. So in terms of looking at our entire network and trying to pull out who the bad actors are, that would be a more complicated process because we would need information from individuals who have had those experiences that we would need to investigate. But there's a routine process for making sure that providers hit certain benchmarks.
I know we're kind of tight on time, but go ahead take another minute, Councilmember Lozada, because I don't know if that answer was adequate to what you're trying to accomplish right now.
I mean, I think I got it. I got the answer, right. No, what we committed to doing we didn't do. But I think that we should do it, right. I don't think that -- I think that you as a department you need to look at who are your providers and what did they say they were going to deliver to a community, did they actually do that or not, right. And not just because they're checking off boxes, but because somebody went out into the neighborhood to say, how do you assess this provider, they're in your community, they're providing services to the people around you, right. How do you bring them as a provider and then how do we compare to contract deliverables, right. That's what we committed to doing because we know that in districts like mine, people are making money off of the need that there is currently there, right. I've said this before. There are friends of friends who have contracts who are doing nothing, you know. And so, we need to -- if we are going to change what is happening in the neighborhood, we have to recognize that. We have to recognize that Kensington has become a money mill and that's the truth. And at some point we have to stop that.
If you want to give a brief response, you can give a brief response and then we have to move on to Councilmember Gauthier.
Thank you and thank you, Councilwoman, again. And so, in addition to what I was describing earlier around sort of the standard types of protocols and looking at providers, we do have customer satisfaction teams that go out and interview members and interview community members and interview staff to get at some of those very types of challenges that you're talking about. Then we have a network accountability group that goes out and looks at another set of benchmarks and performance indicators, so there are varying levels of compliance and oversight that happens in the department and I think it would be helpful for us hereafter to talk to you about what that looks like and what the various levels are so that if there are places where there's some things that you say you've been seeing or you've been hearing that we haven't been aware of, we can create the kind of mechanism to then address that as well.
Thank you. Point of information, Councilmember Bass, and then we have to move on.
Please don't take me off the queue. Thank you. So can we get a list of -- you said that there's a team that goes out and does these surveys. Can we get a list by district of what providers were touched or this survey, contact was made and when? Can we just get a list because I've never heard of it? I'm surprised to know that it exists and I'm just curious if they've ever been in 8th Council District and what was the conversation and what was the result.
Thank you. And you are in queue. We got you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Gauthier followed by Dr. Phillips.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question about our City's contract with Reworld. For the past several years our city has incinerated our trash at the largest trash incinerator in the country located in the city of Chester. And it's not a secret that many Chester residents want this practice to end. They want the incinerator gone, both because of the perceived negative impacts of the incinerator but also because of the cumulative impact of the incinerator when considered with all of the other dirty uses that they're forced to contend with. So since the incinerator also neighbors Southwest Philadelphia, I was wondering whether our air management services team has measured the impact of the incinerator on air quality and on the health of Philly residents living within the vicinity. If not, can you talk about how you typically evaluate the air quality impact of plants that might be polluting the air and whether we're able to use that same methodology to evaluate the impact of the Chester incinerator? And if yes and you do see a negative impact, are you able to incorporate those findings into the procurement process for our trash management services and are you working with the Procurement Department and Streets to evaluate other alternatives?
So absolutely, I can take you through kind of the permit process, and be mindful, you know, the air quality is something that it doesn't matter where eventually if Philadelphia is downwind of it, Southwest Philadelphia will get it. Our air management services we have hard-wired 10 meters located around the city and then we have about 51 PEQUOS meter, which we can then move around and we measure the air quality. The hard-wired meters keep tabs of poor air quality days. That's how when the wildfires were happening, we were very quickly, able to pivot and tell people and give them guidance about wearing masks or staying indoors or keeping their windows closed or turning off their ventilation. So it's a similar process. The incinerator because it is located outside of the city of Philadelphia, we're not necessarily the permitting entity, but that does not stop us from collaboratively working with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the Streets Department. It is potentially our trash that's going there as well. So we are working collaboratively and I believe it was your office, Councilmember, that brought this up and we were at meeting that was convened, and so we're absolutely working on that. In the meantime we continue to monitor the air quality. Our AMR 6 regulation, or Air Management Services Regulation No. 6, which provides permitting for the Title 5 emitters, which are the larger facilities so the PES refinery that used to be there and all, there's about 27 of those in the city of Philadelphia and they have to go through a rigorous process now because of that regulation to assess background, air quality level and also take measurements of chronically environmental justice communities, Southwest Philadelphia included. So that is all in the process. One of the first things that we did initiate doing was our preventative education and outreach for the scrap yards or junkyards in the city to keep them when they do go, you know, on fire, it causes all sorts of air quality issues. So we've been doing a lot of preventative education and we will be working in whatever capacity we're asked to on the incinerator aspect.
As we continue to collect this data, I represent Southwest along with Council President Johnson and I feel a great responsibility to remedy a lot of the dirty uses in that area, but I also feel a responsibility to make sure that we're not negatively impacting Chester. And so, I would appreciate any data that we could put into this procurement process to make sure that we're making the best decisions for our residents but also for the region.
Agreed. And I just wanted for your Injury Prevention dashboard question, one of our amazing team members, the Chronic Disease Injury Prevention Director, the dashboard is up, Councilmember, and it's been up. And it does capture -- it tracks shooting, nonfatal and fatal shootings. And there's also maps associated that are available on the dashboard so we can gladly get you the link for that.
That's great. Thank you so much. And if there could be also a follow-up on the hospital-based intervention work that we were doing together, I would appreciate it.
Thank you, Councilwoman. Chair recognizes Dr. Phillips, followed by Councilmember Young.
Thank you so much, Chairman. Given the concentration -- this is for Commissioner Nelson. Given the concentration of tobacco retailers in certain neighborhoods, how is the Department of Public Health assessing particularly youth, assessing the impact on youth and vulnerable populations when it comes to taking in loosies as well as any other legal drugs at business locations. Is there a zero tolerance for that behavior? What is the protocols in your department? This was also brought up by Councilmember Cindy Bass at a recent hearing too.
Sure. So it's illegal to sell loosies. So loosies for those folks that don't know, cigarettes are supposed to be sold in their packaging. Proprietors however will sell individual cigarettes, one, to make money and the tobacco industry promotes that kind of behavior because teenagers or younger folks that may not be able to buy a pack of cigarettes can buy individual cigarettes. So they are illegal. When our teams that go to do the inspections of these establishments, when we receive a complaint and we go do an assessment, we will issue them code violation notices as well as engaging in cease operation of those establishments if they have a tobacco permit. Our Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention Division also has worked through the Health Promotion Council where we hire youth with an adult that go and try to purchase not only tobacco products as minors but also other such products. And then once those surveys are completed, we go ahead and do enforcement follow-up.
We just heard from a couple of businesses in the city of Philadelphia where some people in your department just issued a violation as opposed to a cease operation. Is it clear that in the cases of selling drugs -- well, selling things without a tobacco license illegally you're supposed to get a cease operation as opposed to a violation; is that correct?
Sure. So I want to clarify we wouldn't be involved with any sort of drugs or drug paraphernalia, but if it is a tobacco product that we see is being sold while we're there onsite we would -- and they don't have a tobacco permit or a state tobacco license, then we would go ahead and both issue a ticket as well as potentially cease operating the tobacco aspect of it. So for instance, Councilmember, if it is a gas station, we would not cease the selling and buying of gasoline, but we would cease operate the sections of the store that are involved specifically with the tobacco business and the establishment would need to move those products out.
And that's my concern. And I'll stop here. I just want to -- that's my concern. I think the whole operation should be shut down as a result, not just one part because as was examined, they can come back and quickly try to hide it once they're still operating. And I think that's the policy that we are asking for the change. And I'll let Councilwoman Bass talk about that more later potentially, but I just wrote --
Before you, Dr. Phillips, let me just let Councilmember Bass get a point of information real quick.
Thank you, Dr. Phillips. But I just wanted to say I heard your comments that if you had to be onsite and see, they're not going to sell it to you. Like, come on. They're not going to sell --
They won't sell it to me, Councilmember, because now --
Right, they're not going to sell it to me either, you know.
But what the Health Promotion Council does is they have actual youth that they hire. So an adult would be around the outside of the establishment and the youth would go in that they're not aware of to buy the tobacco products. And based on that is how we engage in the cease operations and/or code violation notices. So that's how it's set up.
So how was it that 5950 Ogontz Avenue is still open when they opened with no license to operate, no use in occupancy -- no license to operate no certificate of occupancy, construction without permits, illegal signage, sale of tobacco without a license, sale of loose cigarettes, tobacco sales on the same block as a school, on and on and on, you know, like 12 violations that we have listed and they're still open. And I just can't, you know. And I know not all of that is you. Some of that is L&I. But if we know that -- and they're selling like fake cigarettes. So these are cigarettes that look like Newports in a pack but are fake, made in China, so you don't know what you're ingesting. So if we know that they're selling what could be very dangerous products, I just haven't seen us do anything yet.
No 18 worries. So one of the things that I want to keep in mind is that -- and thank you for acknowledging that some of the items our partners within L&I, and we work with them, they handle that. But as far as the fake cigarettes, which you sent us pictures of and we followed up with, we go and we do refer to the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue, who has a whole entire tobacco enforcement arm, that they go out and they'll confiscate the fake cigarettes and everything. As far as our process is concerned, we would cease operate the establishment. They have upwards of 48 hours to fix the violations. When they fix the violations, then we have to allow them to open back up because they've taken the corrective --
I apologize. I am speaking about an establishment that is with a license open and operating. But if they don't have a license to operate, then we go ahead and work with L&I, Licenses and Inspections, to figure out the next steps for either a 30-day administrative -- I believe administrative opportunity to correct it or L&I will conduct a cease operation.
Member Phillips, we have a hard stop at 4:00 p.m.
real quickly. I just, I want to go to record, just to say I don't think they should get opportunity again, but knowingly doing this, you know, they can. We can fight it in court and so forth, but from our city's policy, we should not, you know, have the opportunity and that's all. They shouldn't get it again. Thank you.
Sure, Member Bass. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young, then Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke, then Councilmember Quetcy Lozada and Councilmember Bass will be wrapping up.
Thank you, Mr. President. Again, questions for DBHIDS. Philly Home at Girard, just like most of my colleagues mentioned today, some of them mentioned that no one knew in that neighborhood that that place was a shelter until there were this influx of folks with substance abuse issues at that site. Could you tell us how many beds DBHIDS is contracting out at that site and what is your capacity there?
Hi. Yes, so we have 180 beds on two floors, 90 and 90. And they're full today, if that was your question.
Yes, thank you. And what's the intake process for someone -- I mean, that's full, right. But if someone leaves, what's the intake process to allow a new individual to receive services there?
Yep. So individuals are engaged by Homeless Outreach. And then if the individual is appropriate for and willing to go to the Philly Home at Girard, the outreach teams will call our offices to ensure that there's a bed. If there's a bed available, the outreach team takes the individual to Philly Home at Girard and makes a warm handoff to the staff that are there. Once the individual arrives to the location, the outreach worker will stay there as the individual receives an intake assessment. At that time they're given food because a lot of times folks are hungry. They are offered light physical health care, like first aid. They do a minor assessment to see what the individual's needs are, and then they're transitioned up to the residential floor where they learn about the rules and the regulations of the program and then are continuously offered services related to physical health, behavioral health, including substance use disorder --
Thank you. One more question. My time is up. So can you tell us about the -- you say they have to go through a certain -- make sure they fit the standards in order to qualify to reside there. Can you tell us do you have to be -- do you have to be addicted to substances -- do you have to have substance abuse addiction in order to receive a bed at Philly Home at Girard?
The two floors that we have, yes, it is targeted to people who are using substances and focused toward recovery.
Thank you. And just for the record, Mr. President, I want to put on the record that we had OHS here last week. They have 132 beds there. And then now we learned that DBHIDS has 180 beds there, but their beds are only for folks that have history of substance abuse. So I just wanted to get that on the record. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Member Young. Councilmember Nic O'Rourke.
Thank you, Mr. President. I believe Member Gauthier kicked off some of the concerns, at least that I had, around the mobile crisis response teams. As the data you discussed shows the crisis mobile response team saves lives, I'd like to start by getting a few questions on the record. How does the data for outcomes of dispatches compare now to this time last year? How many calls have ended up in a voluntary hospitalization so far in 2025 compared to last year and how many calls ended in a 302 in 2024? I'll say them again. How does the data for outcomes of dispatches compare now to this time last year? How many calls have ended in a voluntary hospitalization so far in 2025 compared to last year? And how many calls ended up in a 302 in 2024?
Thank you, Councilman. In 2024 -- and so, we have some data from '23 and '24. We can get you data for '25, but I can tell you in 2023 the number of 302 petitions was 8,924.
8934. Comparably in '24, the number was 8808. Now, those are petitions that were made, but in terms of how many -- we have the data here on how many were approved and how many were reviewed. And so, I can get you the comprehensive data about '23, '24 and '25 to you probably in a couple of days.
Appreciate it. At the Committee hearing in March, Local 2186 informed us that's that their response team has only one Health Program Manager for a 24/7 team. I don't think that's enough. And I can imagine it contributes to the burnout and turnover that I know that y'all are focused on combating. Can we discuss why -- and I know we don't have much time, but can you discuss why this hasn't been addressed as part of the proposed budget?
So at this time I believe that they have another one so they have two.