In opposition? Thank you. Yes, the original letter was in support. I believe the more recent one is in opposition.
No, hold on one second.
Ms. Saleta, do you have this letter?
I literally just got this yesterday.
I apologize.
I'm now having trouble opening the attachment.
it's it's going to take me a few minutes i thought that the original that there were
originally letters in support from both the coordinating rco and from the i believe the
24th ward and that they subsequently changed their position if i have the timing of that wrong i will
um i will take that back i just need to be able to go through
the documents it will take me a few minutes i apologize
us. I'm under the understanding that the coordinating RCO is PBC. But Richard, I mean,
I don't want to stop the proceeding here now to email this to you. Are you able to read it on the
screen? I appreciate that. This looks to be a letter dated the date of the RCO meeting.
It does not reflect the vote that was taken.
This looks like an old letter to me.
I'll let you make your presentation, but note my objection, Mr. Chairman.
This does not appear to be a letter reflecting the meeting that was held on June 14th.
And I know that it's dated for June 14th.
So how could they have done the letter the day of the meeting, which was held in the evening?
And the vote was tied.
So I'm baffled by this letter and what's represented on it, and this really does.
This letter and what's represented on it, and this really does dovetail with my objections to the process that I included in my letter, which was sent last week, the RCO is a homeless advocacy group, and they're chairing and holding as a coordinating RCO a meeting based on an application for a homeless shelter.
So you see why I raise these issues. Listen, I'll wait till my turn to go. I'll let Mr. President make his presentation. But this kind of confirms my objections to the RCO in this matter.
And this is Sharon again. I don't know whether I'm going to make this more or less complicated. I'm looking at a letter from West Palton Saunders Park RCO. It's dated June 28th, and it is in opposition. I will send that to you.
I believe we have those. Mr. DeMarco forwarded those last week or Monday.
Mr. Brown, I believe, is on this hearing, and he can speak to the letter that he authored.
So I note Mr. DeMarco's objection, and hopefully he'll have the opportunity to hear Mr. Brown speak.
Thank you. Please proceed.
Mr. Jenkins, can you please state your full name for the record and address?
Sure. Brian Jenkins, Executive Director of Chosen 300, 3959 Lancaster Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19904.
Thank you. And you had the opportunity to hear what I presented on behalf of the applicant prior to your testimony today.
And do you believe that was true and correct and you adopt that as your own testimony?
Can you state to the board what your current profession is?
I am the executive director and pastor of Chosen 300 Ministries.
And can you tell us what Chosen 300 Ministries' mission is?
Chosen 300 is a mission church where you started back in 1996.
We distribute meals and services to those that are homeless and dealing with food insufficiency.
The organization distributes about 150,000 meals a year throughout the Philadelphia region, including West Philadelphia, Center City, and Pottstown as well.
We also do job training, computer labs.
We have expungement services.
We have barbershops.
We have job training.
We've recently done clinics for COVID-19 for vaccinations to ensure that the population
that we serve are vaccinated.
So we provide a spectrum of services to be able to move people towards self-sufficiency
out of homelessness.
And can you explain to me, to the board briefly, what the proposed use is for the request for
this variance?
So the proposed use is for what we identify as a personal care facility. I know there was some confusion for the first refusal that came from L&I that they indicated personal care home, but we never requested for personal care home.
We requested for personal care facility for group living, and it is an overnight care facility in which we will have 20 bunk beds with 40 adult men to be able to provide a place of transition for them to move towards self-sufficiency.
They will be provided with wraparound services, including case management, job placement, job training, and expungement services, and just a consortium of services to move them towards self-sufficiency.
The goal is to be able to provide a six-month program for them to be able to get up, which would include a savings plan, so that way they'll be able to get their own apartment and afford their own first-month rent security deposit.
Now, do you believe this is a natural extension of the services that Chosen 300 currently provides?
Absolutely. It's been always the long-term vision to be able to provide the transitional piece that is necessary to get people ahead.
We've been very successful in the services that we provide.
However, there is a barrier to a lot of folks who are experiencing homelessness that once they get a job, they don't have a place at night to lay their head, and they don't have that next step to be able to move forward and to be able to get their own place because they're trying to figure out where I'm going to lay my head down at night.
and they're also don't have the case management that walks alongside of them and so although
we're able to provide it you know touch and base when they come in when they're in a six-month
program they're able to be more dedicated to the process and be able to make sure that they're
moving towards self-sufficiency and reaching their goals. Is there a need for this in West
Is there a need for this in West Philadelphia?
Philadelphia? Oh, absolutely.
Oh, absolutely.
On the
The homeless population is actually growing in West Philadelphia, but also we're dealing with other factors that are about to come on the horizon with the elimination of the additional unemployment.
In addition, the moratoriums on evictions are about to end.
And so we anticipate there's going to be a large amount of folks that are going to be moving into the homeless population or losing their homes and just needing a hand up to be able to get back on their feet.
Now, the target population, a lot of these individuals currently receiving services from Chosen 300?
Absolutely. So we serve upwards of about 120 persons per evening when we serve our meal and also the various services we have during the course of the week.
And so we've developed relationships with these folks so that way that we can kind of target, okay, who is ready for this next step.
This is not an open wide program where anybody can just drop in.
This is not a drop in service.
This is a program to design to transition people and they have to follow a program in order to maintain the program.
We're not accepting people that are chronic drug addicts.
We do not have the services for that.
There's programs for that where they can go to a drug treatment center, and then hopefully maybe after they become sober or things like that, and they've shown a track record that they're interested in moving ahead, then maybe they can become eligible, but not dealing with a chronic drug addict or dealing with people that are chronically mentally ill.
We do not have the capacity for that.
This is not for that program.
This program is for people who are at that point of readiness, that I'm ready to accept
employment, I'm ready to move ahead, and I'm ready to move to the next step.
And within that six months, while we're getting them gainful employment, we can transition
to them where they can have the savings plan and get ready to get their own apartment.
Very recently, we had several job fairs, one of them with UPS, which is one of our major
contributors, and we were able to get 20 people hired and move towards a job at $19 an hour. So
those are the type of things that we're going to be working on to making sure these folks move
towards self-sufficiency. And do you have a plan that you put together to address the screening
that's necessary to make sure you have the right applicants? Absolutely. There's two parts of the
screening. One, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of the folks that will be entering this program are
people that we already deal with. And so we would have a chance to assess over a long-term period of
time, you know, or at least a reasonable amount of time, their behavior, you know, their interest
in moving ahead and things like that. But also we are going to outsource the intake process as far
as from a mechanical standpoint or a technical standpoint, rather. For instance, programs such
as Bethesda or Project Home, we have not determined which route we're going to take. We do, we cannot
really apply until we actually get a zoning and a place for them to be able to stay. However,
the intake process is important because it allows us to be able to track, did a person do something
violent at another facility? Did, you know, did they get pushed out of facility for a certain
reason that caused harm to other people? So we don't want to accept that kind of person
into this facility. We want to try to accept people that are ready to move ahead.
let's say that person can't have a past from 20 years ago something happened in their lives
they've shown the track record where they haven't had a problem then we're able to address that
and do you have staff with chosen 300 to launch this program that have experience in the services
that you're going to be providing to these individuals absolutely you have several folks
that are actually engaged on first of all alicia thomas who is one of our special events coordinator
She actually has previously worked for Old First Church, which is actually a fourth in race.
Well, I think it's fourth in race. It's actually an old city.
And so that's just a perfect example of how this type of facility can intermingle with the community and be very successful and also help the community relieve the plight of homelessness within the community and also give people a leg up.
But she's worked for several years with that organization, but then she came over to Chosen 300.
She has worked with us and has worked with the population as well.
We also have Sharika Douglas, who is a nationally certified food and safety specialist and OSHA specialist and also has a background in toxicology and infectious diseases.
She has really put a lot of our safety plans in place to make sure people are being screened properly, especially during the COVID and post-COVID environment as we transition out.
I mean, we're still dealing with COVID and even with the rise of the Delta virus, a version of the virus is coming out.
We have to be ever so careful to make sure that we're not being a hub for the COVID virus.
So we have screening procedures where they have to be checked for temperature when they come in,
they're questioned when they come in every night.
And this is something that we do with our volunteers currently now to make sure people remain safe.
currently now uh to make sure people remain safe um so uh those are those folks you have also have
So those are.
several ministers on staff um to provide counseling um to provide aid and to make sure that they're
going the right direction we also partner with an organization called set together west philadelphia
that provides case management services we partner with christian legal centers of philadelphia which
provides attorneys that provides expungement services so if a person comes in and they do
have a background like there's a misdemeanor that's you know pretty frivolous um there was
one lady that came to us that was 72 years old, had a larceny charge for stealing an egg in 1972
because she didn't pay for an egg that was undercooked and she couldn't get a job. And so
that's the kind of things that folks go through that prevents them from getting employment and
can wind them up in a state of homelessness. You mentioned COVID-19. Has that impacted your
mission and the services you're able to provide? Absolutely tremendously. You know, as is shown in
the media that actually one-fifth of all churches actually now have closed down completely. Some
are struggling to get back, and we're no different. We're a missing church, but we
depend upon the volunteer base tremendously to be able to use our building effectively,
and right now at the West Philadelphia location alone, we're used to having about 100 volunteers
pass through in the week. We're now getting like 10 to 20 pass through in the week, and so we
haven't been able to have indoor dining since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. We're hoping at
some point that we can start that back up again. But the ability to be able to function as an
organization has been truly affected by the COVID-19 virus and has prevented us from being able
to use our facility in full because of the fact that there's not a lot that we can do inside the
facility. Most of the things that we are doing outside, even our Sunday morning worship right
now, since March of last year, we have not had one Sunday morning service in that building.
All of our Sunday services have been occurring in Love Park at Center City, Philadelphia.
Speaking of the personal care facility specifically, that's going to be the lower level?
That is correct. That is the lower level.
And has lower level been effectively been able to be used by the admission since you bought it
in 2010? Actually we have had no use for the lower level since 2010. Once we had a COVID vaccine
center down there but very rarely do we and you know once in a while there's an event but it's
very hard to you know to do things at that lower level. Mostly everything occurs on the main floor
particularly our worship service and our dining services that happen on a regular basis. Are you
aware of whether or not this board is given zoning relief in the form of the use variants
due to hardship related to COVID?
Absolutely.
There's a property in the corner,
which is at 3965 Lancaster
that is zoned by, I believe,
a Sam Realty or something of that nature.
They actually requested a variance
because of the fact that-
Well, I'm going to object to relevance.
Why are we talking about my client's property?
We're actually talking about the zoning board
and a previous approval that occurred
because of the fact that they applied for a variance.
To oppose.
Now, I don't know.
Mr. Chairman, I don't know why this is relevant.
I mean, they opposed to by crime.
With an offer of proof, Chairman, I'd be happy to explain why it's relevant.
There was a use.
That's a multifamily property.
It's a completely different case.
It was, but they had a requirement of retail or commercial on the first floor,
and they asked for a relief for use of the first floor to be converted to residences,
which was granted by this board, I believe, in February of 2021.
And the argument presented at that hearing was due to...
Right, but your client opposed it, and it's completely different.
Look, note my objections, Mr. Chair.
I don't know why we need to...
Exception, nobody?
Please proceed.
Thank you so much.
Excuse me, counsel.
Excuse me.
Just excuse me.
While you're having this discussion, can you put up on the desk the floor plans?
We were going to get to that, but I'll do that right now.
Thank you, Tom.
This is the wrong file.
Can you enlarge it?
Can you enlarge it?
I just did.
I just did.
Does that help, Mr. Homer?
Yes. Let me ask, who prepared the plans?
The plans were prepared by Livingston Group Architects.
Thank you.
So can you please describe to the board what the lower level is showing here with regards to the