COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE, April 20, 2026

Yes.

Thank you for being with us this morning. I'd like to recognize and share appreciation for the work that I've been able to do over the last year with Crystal Yates-Gale and her team as well as the folks over at DBHIDS and CBH. Thank you so much for your partnership and the work that we've been able to do together. My questions are related to a meeting that I was able to attend on Friday with the HUD Secretary. HUD is positioned to make some drastic changes that would directly impact Philadelphia and our homeless agenda. According to OHS, more than 6000 people are currently housed through a COC program in over 3000 units. I understand that HUD is proposing to put a 30% cap on permanent housing renewals by moving COC dollars to supportive services projects. It could potentially leave thousands of people homeless, in part because permanent housing individuals aren't eligible for transitional housing because they are not homeless technically, right. My questions are the following: Can OHS provide more details about this, including OHS' contingency plan? Does OHS have data on how many people this will impact? What are some of the recommendations that OHS can provide to those who will be impacted? And where are the people who exit CRC supposed to go if we currently don't have enough beds at PSH and are we prepared for all of this?

Thank you for your question. So for part of that, I would have to defer to Law because there are several lawsuits and injunctions going on. And so, I would like our colleagues from Law to talk about that. However, I will say part of even coming up with a plan means that we have to work with our COC board. So I can't speak just as OHS by ourselves, because as part of the continuum of care we actually have a board --

Excuse me. A point of information from Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson.

Point of information. Is the City of Philadelphia a party to any of the litigation notated?

I would have to defer to Law on that.

Can we receive a response from the Law Department regarding that because if we're not party to this litigation, I don't see the reason why we're unable to discuss it in this hearing. Thank you.

Thank you. But to clarify, the continuum of care -- we are the lead agency for the continuum of care, but we do not make all the decisions by ourselves. We actually have a HUD alignment committee as part of the continuum, which they have to vote on the decisions that we make on how we're going to submit our application and then that has to be approved by a board.

Just a point of information. I do want to go back to Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson's line of questioning. And so, we're officially requesting Managing Director Adam Thiel that the Law Department provides the Chair and members of Council official response as to if we are or aren't a party to the current litigation, just for the record.

Council President, understood. And we'll work with Law to get that.

Thank you very much, sir. Member Lozada.

Thank you.

Chair recognizes -excuse me one second -- Member Katherine Gilmore Richardson.

I apologize. I'd just like to make an inquiry during the hearing, if we are able to receive that response from the Law Department during this hearing, that would be helpful to the questions that Councilmember Lozada is asking because I'm curious as well. Thank you.

Managing Director Thiel, if we can get that response prior before today's hearing is over, that would be great just for the record.

Council President, I feel confident that request has already gone to the Law Department.

Cool. Thank you very much. Member Lozada.

Thank you. The Prevention Diversion and Intake Unit, which has proposed a budget of 4.1, is tasked with stopping individuals from entering the shelter system. The data from 2025 shows that 64% of people entering into shelters were experiencing homelessness for the first time. And we talked a little bit about that on Friday at the HUD meeting as well. OHS aims to provide prevention assistance to 1650 household in Fiscal Year '27. Why is the PDI budget only a small percentage of the overall budget compared to the emergency housing spending, given that 64% of people entering the system are experiencing homelessness for the first time?

So part of it is we are looking at the data on who we need to serve. There are also over 5000 people who are currently experiencing homelessness. So we're trying to balance preventing individuals from entering into homelessness with also addressing those who are currently homeless. But one of the things we are looking at is how we use our prevention services and modifying the program to make sure that we are really addressing those who are entering into homelessness and get to them beforehand, rather than just providing additional services. Not to say that people don't need security deposit assistance, but if the goal is to really prevent homelessness, we want to make sure that we are partnering with our other city colleagues and getting data on who is entering homelessness for the first time so we can target that population specifically.

I know from talking to different partners that the way HUD describes or considers homelessness and the way we consider who is homeless and who's couch-surfing, they're all different. In the course of us looking at our programs, have we been able to better streamline that definition so that we're able to provide the services that need it most?

So currently, we use the HUD definition of homeless, which means that either you're in a place that's not meant for human habitation or at risk of homelessness, depending on the category. But as far as we're looking at a different definition, we're trying not to come up with multiple definitions. But as you heard on Friday, HUD is looking at revisiting that definition as well. So we are still trying to make sure that we are targeting individuals who are literally homeless, rather than trying to come up with a varied definition of homelessness. But we also, in some cases, have to defer to HUD since that is where we get a significant part of our funding from to make sure that we are addressing that. However, there are programs like the Wellness voucher, you know, which is a program that we work with, with the Office of Community Wellness, where we are defining a little bit more of a local definition because that is funding that we do have less requirements than we do with the HUD funding on who we can serve.

I had the opportunity to work with many young people when I was working for some of our local Latino nonprofits. And many of them were experiencing homelessness, but it wasn't the HUD definition of homelessness. And so, in order for us to be able to respond to some of those who are experiencing homelessness, just not that definition, we need to be able to prepare to respond in a way that is local, right. And I think we've not been able to do that, but it's something that we absolutely need to look at, because that number of folks who are entering our systems for the first time may have been homeless for a really long time. We've just not been able to respond.

Absolutely. And if I can add to that, we actually do have a youth demonstration grant through HUD, which is targeted for individuals to and we have access points 4 that are really targeted for that 5 demographic, because we know not 6 all of them will come into the OHS 7 Intake Center. So we do partner 8 with agencies that work with 9 younger individuals and young 10 adults so that we can look at how 11 to serve them differently. 12

13 Thank you. My last question? 14

(Nodded affirmatively). 16

My 17 last question, we know that there 18 are individuals who actually are 19 homeless but choose to live on the 20 street because of the conditions of 21 some of our shelters. In this 22 budget, I know that you are looking 23 to identify funds to be able to 24 make those necessary repairs. Can you tell me how you are going to select those facilities that will go first? Is the priority going to be women's shelters, men's shelters, family shelters? What is going to be the priority? How are you going to break down and respond to the needs?

I believe you're speaking about the capital funds that are in the budget, and those are primarily -- or not primarily, those are for the city- owned shelters and those are family shelters and a single shelter as well. Last year in our FY25 budget, we allocated $2 million to the noncity-owned shelters so that they could also provide or do some renovations as well. And they gave to us the list of things that they wanted to be able to improve in their shelters and then they were able to do some of that with that funding.

Thank you. Thank you, Council President.

Thank you very much. Member Phillips.

Thank you, Council President. For Managing Director Thiel, I just wanted you to know that I've been focused this budget season on ensuring that the City of Philadelphia is one of the best cities with delivering services consistently and efficiently and what I'm calling responsive government. So I want to line my questions up with that and I feel like this is the time to get it right in this particular Administration. So I want to see if I can get a commitment from you and your office that across departments residents consistently do not know the timing and timelines often for requests, and our office is often an intermediary to help residents speed up or figure out when a service is going to come and how long is it going to take. Can we get a commitment where you can make sure that all of your offices that provide city services, particularly that is a lot more interfacing with the public, that they can provide a service letter agreement explaining what services they request, how long the request should take from start to finish in terms of completion and then also making sure people are aware of who's responsible for a particular request? If we can get one-pagers from Licenses and Inspections, Streets Department, Water Department. Parks & Rec has a couple of things. If we can start beginning to have that so that we can give out to residents, something your team can work on?

Councilmember, really appreciate that focus. It's one we share, absolutely, and we've been doing a lot of work on it. There's a lot more work to do. Certainly with 311 and our investments in that and trying to get everything joined up through city agencies and beyond, that's one of the real challenges with this. And we heard it with the response to a prior question, the fact that we don't -- a lot of these issues that come in, our infrastructure issues are things we don't directly control and we often have the same questions that our residents have of other partners with whom we have great relationships. A lot of these, our infrastructure is not just complicated. It's complex, because it's aging, because it's essentially all connected or at least adjacent. So the short answer is, yes, we are working on the same things, and trying to get that it's going to be a lot more work because we don't control all those work streams. We don't control a lot of the people that we need, a lot of the entities that we need to do this work. We certainly can commit to getting you those one-pagers. We're doing work in all of those areas, all of those agencies to make sure that they are joined up with 311 and your offices and our neighborhood offices so we're not just getting calls in, that we're getting outputs and outcomes out.

Yeah. I'm even talking about a simple request for a stop sign or traffic light. Often times there's no clear understanding to residents what's the time frame to even do a study and how that even works. And it would be nice if we can just be able to say to a resident, if you requested it on this date, the process is going to be two weeks from now, you'd be a study, after the study, there's going to be a process where they're going to go out and, you know, look, you know, begin to line up, when it needs to be lined up, but it just needs to be very clear to them. And then my last question, Council President, just for this round, I also just want to really emphasize I guess the importance of ACCT. We have a lot of residents in the City of Philadelphia who are reporting cats, sometimes dogs, but mostly cats that are stray cats. And I'm getting reports frequently that sometimes ACCT is not able to, for whatever reason, collect these cats and put them into shelter. Is that a policy that could be potentially looked at? But I'm just trying to figure out why can stray cats not be picked up immediately, especially if they're pervasive around a neighborhood and they're causing a nuisance.

Councilman, I'll ask Sarah Barnett to come up again to talk about the cats. And we certainly can do a better job of explaining the process and all of the different things that are involved in getting some of these issues addressed. And that is a great idea and something we'll have everybody get put together. We have some of that behind the scenes. It's a great idea to get that out front so people can see, okay, exactly why is this a complicated process, what happens. So we thank you for that.

Absolutely. Because I would rather not have to call you all about why is this not done. I would rather refer back to a document in saying, hey, if they haven't met the association by that time, I'll call you, because now you're just getting these frantic calls from different Reps, State Reps, Senators, City Councilmembers when you can at least have an orderly process. And right now it's so unorderly and that way -- so thank you for recognizing that. Go ahead, ACCT. I'm sorry.

Thank you, Member Phillips --

Council President, do you want to talk about the cats?

The cats.

Go ahead. The cats.

I'm Sarah --

I didn't even know the Northwest has cats, but that's a different conversation. It's a middle neighborhood.

We got cats.

So I'm the Executive Director of ACCT Philly. My name's Sarah Barnett --

Could you just state your name for the record and please speak into the microphone please?

Sorry. My name is Sarah Barnett. I'm the Executive Director of ACCT Philly. And we do take in about 11,000 cats a year, so there are a lot of cats in Philly. To answer your question, Councilmember Phillips, I know we've talked about this. I understand people would love for there to be a magic solution where we can just go and every stray cat we pick up and take away to the shelter and adopt out. Over the years, what animal welfare organizations discovered was, especially in areas that are underresourced, these are often individuals' owned pets. So not everyone has an indoor cat. Some of them are indoor, outdoor cats and they may be loved, even though they maybe not indoor cats like some people want them to be. So we don't want to take away somebody's pet and just have them disappear. So we will come out and we will address sick cats, injured cats, but we do not pick up healthy cats. And if we get healthy cats in that are brought in as strays, we do spay and neuter them so they don't continue to contribute to overpopulation so that the number of cats eventually does go down, but then we do put them back in the area they were found. Because if you have areas -- for example, I know one of the situations you spoke with us about there were like cats 20 outside that somebody was feeding. So in those scenarios, we want to go and talk to the person who's feeding them about ensuring they're all spayed or neutered. Because if you were to go and just simply pick up all cats and take them away, you'd actually be surprised how quickly, like 40 more cats will fill in because it's like a gap. So by putting back a cat that is spayed or neutered, it's almost like a placeholder that isn't going to contribute longer term to more cats, until that cat eventually passes. But we are, as I mentioned, you know, we offer TNR, Trap New to Return, which is a free service to the community for if there are cats in their area that they want to trap, bring in and get fixed and pick up and take home. So those caretakers have avenues to be able to responsibly feed these cats, because most scenarios where we're getting complaints about cleanliness, issues of smell or things like that, the issue isn't the cats just being there. The issue is the cats are not spayed or neutered, and that's what's causing all those other problems. So that is why we have that as our approach.

Thank you, Council President. I just wanted to quickly say that that's what a lot of residents are noting. If you can clearly write out a service letter agreement that will help people understand even that process would be better. And, number two, wouldn't it be -- I'll say it for the second round, but I just want to suggest even if it's a healthy cat, even if you collected that cat and then residents now know if you have a missing cat that's been around for weeks now at this point, we now have them, come get them. It's better than to be terrorizing a neighborhood. And I'm not sure why that's not the policy because people -- it's just something for us to think about. I do appreciate you working with us. I meant to tell you that. But it's also important for us to really look into this policy in a much better way. Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Member Dr. Anthony Phillips. We're going to go briefly into the second round until we break for lunch. I have a question for the Office of Homeless Services. I want to start off with an issue that's very near and dear to me. That's with minority participation, M/W/DSBE participation. Contracts were 53% in FY26. But for me, what's mindboggling is that it's down from 70% in FY25 and 77% in FY23. So give me an idea why we're going in the wrong direction when it comes to Black and Brown and women businesses having an opportunity to participate in the million dollars of contracts that's provided through the Office of Homeless Services?

I would have to get back to you on that. I don't have that information in front of me. I would have to be able to look at the contracts that we've had, the RFPs that we've had and then what has been the participation and response from that.

Y'all definitely coming back. We would like to get a full understanding. Because when you talk about -- now we're the second largest, poorest, biggest city in America, right, making some progress, but I'm a firm believer that we will never eliminate the issue of poverty if we aren't building generational wealth. And the only way we build generational wealth is by us being intentional. I know that's the mission of the Mayor. I know it's definitely a mission of mine as it relates to the work that we provide here in the City of Philadelphia. So if you could provide that information to the Chair prior to either the closing of this hearing today or when we actually do the callback. But before we actually decide to vote on the budget, we should all be clear what we're doing in terms of addressing the issue of participation as it relates to the Office of Homeless Services, if that's okay with you.

Yes, sir.

The other question I have is another issue near and dear to me, what is the current number of medical respite beds available across all OHS-contracted facilities? How our medical respite clients currently triaged referred to in the system? And the winter funding initiative such as 180,000 for the Bethesda Project Trinity Winter Respite or 135,000-plus for (inaudible) Code Blue appears temporary. How do we make that year-round?

Thank you. So for the first question, the medical respite actually isn't funded through OHS. That is primarily funded through hospitals or other medical services. We do have a small portion of the budget in one of the medical respites, but that is not an OHS-funded project right now. However, a lot of our shelters, and I can get you that number this afternoon during our hearing, actually does have medical services there, which is slightly different than a medical respite that has more round-the-clock services. When we added the shelter beds to shelter bed expansion, the winter beds were also included. So to answer your second question, the beds that open during the winter are now going to be long-term beds as well. And during this process, we are also adding medical services onsite at some of those locations. So, for example, Hope 220, which opened during the winter, has onsite medical services provided by Jefferson. We also partner with -- Project HOME is expanding services at Sacred Heart, which we currently have a contract with, and they partner with three major hospital systems to provide medical services there as well. So we are looking at a variety of opportunities like that at the different shelter services. But all of the new shelters that we're bringing onsite also will have onsite behavioral health services that are provided as well. So we're looking to do it a little bit different, but all of them are -- not all of our shelters, but a lot of our shelters have various levels of medical services and we're just looking to see how we can expand that.

What's our role -- I think it's PHMC that provides the respite beds now, right?

Mm-hmm.

What is the role of your office with their office to make sure we're coordinating the level of support for homeless individuals for respite beds?

We have a --

Respite beds.

We have a portion of the contract. We have about a $50,000 contract with PHMC for that program. But again, majority of that funding comes through the hospitals or some other health care services with them.

So if we do fund PHMC to expand respite beds across the City of Philadelphia, what would your role play in that? Nothing at all.

As far as the medical services or the shelter services --

Shelter services.

We partner with PHMC on shelter services and other services throughout our shelter system. So it would either potentially be an expansion of the current contract that we have with them or if it was a new program, we would RFP it out to allow for any providers that wanted to be able to provide those services.

Okay. I'll come back to my last question. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity, then Councilmembers Rue Landau, O'Rourke and Lozada.

Thank you, Council President. Good morning or good afternoon again. The way 311 operates makes it difficult for our City Council constituent service to follow cases brought to us through to some resolution. Have any updates been made in the FY26 to address this? How will the changes in FY27 impact the current process here? I asked this when we had OIT testifying. The city is launching a new 311 app, but residents who are most likely to need 311 services are often the same residents that are least likely to have smartphone access. What is OIT doing to ensure the new app doesn't widen that gap? And are there investments in FY27 to maintain, improve nondigital 311 access for those residents?

Thank you for that question, Councilmember. And as you stated, 311 -- my name is Aubrey Powers, Deputy Managing Director for Community Services. And as you stated, in collaboration with the Office of Innovation and Technology, we are very excited in reference to the mobile app, which we will be standing up this summer. That app is going to provide some really tremendous functionality for the residents, businesses and visitors here in Philadelphia in terms of being able to make your request, in terms of being able to follow that terminology, just as you just suggested, in terms of where the case is. It's also going to have some other tremendous features in terms of really AI-generated features. When you make a service request, you're going to be able to upload that photo, circle exactly where the issue is so that we're all seeing the same thing. If you ever ask the question are you seeing what I'm seeing, the answer will be yes. We'll be able to see that same request. Something else that 311 is doing, and again this is also in collaboration with the Office of Innovation and Technology, what you're going to see beginning in May of 2026 through January of 2027 is really going to be a sort of system-wide enterprise evaluation, bringing all of our departments together looking at all of those workflows, so we can really get an idea of what the necessary requirements are as we look to really how can we better stand up a customer relations management system or improve basically 311 database. It's a very exciting time, because right now we will have the opportunity for the technology to meet the operational need. Currently, as you know, 311 in calendar year 2025 took over 277 service requests, took over another 260,000 information requests, which is a tremendous amount of work on behalf of that team. So what we're also doing is recently we have done with our staffing around-the-clock 8 activations of the 311 center. For 9 example, we are currently 10 supporting the Grays Ferry 11 collapse, ensuring that our team is 12 necessary for any resident that may 13 have a need, that they can move 14 forward and make that call. 15 So it's not going to be 16 one thing. It's going to be a 17 number of things that we're going 18 to be doing, not only 311, but of 19 course in collaboration with our 20 systems partners and with the city 21 to ensure that our residents are 22 getting the absolute best service 23 possible. 24

Okay. Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, sir. And just to members, if you want to take advantage of asking questions of everyone other than OHS, I would advise you to take advantage of that now because you will have all afternoon as well after lunch to ask questions of OHS. And so, you can kind of space out your time, if need be. I have to go to Councilmember Jamie Gauthier first because her button wasn't working and she didn't get a chance to participate in the first round. And then have Councilmembers Rue Landau, O'Rourke and Phillips.

Good afternoon, everybody. My first set of questions are for OTIS. I'd like to take a moment to ask about our investments in Vision Zero. Your budget testimony focuses on how this is the first year implementing the Vision Zero 2030 action plan. But I only see 5 million in capital funding allocated in FY27. And I know that a lot of this work is funded through grants as well, but I don't think we'll ever be able to apply proven interventions at scale if this is the type of investment that we're going to make on an annual basis. One way that we can get our communities traffic safety interventions at scale is fast- tracking the implementation of neighborhood slow zones. But when I've asked about this in the past, OTIS has said that you only have staffing capacity to implement one neighborhood slow zone per year. Our communities don't always want us to redesign their streets, but the Neighborhood Slow Zone Program is one that neighborhoods demand by the dozens, and I think that we're choosing to let that energy and interest sit on the shelf if we're only going to carry out one per year. This is the sort of problem that we can solve. And so, why are we letting slow zone demand languish when this is probably the most affordable way to do bulk traffic safety improvements across entire neighborhoods?

Thank you, Councilmember. Mike Carroll, Deputy Managing Director for OTIS. So just to get to the larger question, I think I subscribed to the perspective that you've always got an opportunity to incorporate safety improvements in everything you do. And the approach I would take to scaling up the work of Vision Zero is to really lean into that. So whether it's paving improvements or corridor improvements or streetlighting improvements, there's always a chance to add more to the safety outcomes to get the benefit you're looking for. With respect to the slow zone program, very happy with that program, very proud of the results. It's key though for that program to work the way it's intended to work, to make sure that there's a lot of touchpoints with communities and that's part of the beauty, is that we're not just kind of rushing forward and telling people here's what you're going to do like we're the experts, we know best. We want to have conversations and dialogue with the people who live there and then take some time to process the feedback that we get to really figure out specifically what measures are going to work best there. So, I mean, it's a little bit of a difference between kind of going to the drugstore and seeing the doctor. If we were just kind of just pushing stuff out the door, it would be easier to scale it up. But because we really want to be intentional in the way that we work with communities, we do want to take the care to add that extra level of attention, which makes it a little bit more hard to scale that up.

I agree with you. This is a program where we dig deep, we do a lot of engagement, but that's the type of work we should be doing, right. And so, why are we limiting ourselves to doing one a year when there's clearly a thirst for this? We get so many applications and have to tell people that we can't move forward on their applications on any given year. I'll also say, and this is me editorializing, I think a lot of the reason why we sometimes get protest on bike lanes, especially parking protected bike lanes, is that Black and Brown communities in particular feel like they've been asking for traffic safety interventions for a long time that haven't been granted by the city. And so, when we come and we want to do the parking protected bike lane, they don't think that's for them. This is a way that we can build trust. This is a way that we can engage folks about what safety looks like in their neighborhoods, and we should be willing to hire the staff to do that more.

I certainly appreciate all your insights, and that's something we'll continue to work with your team and others around the city to figure out how we can do more.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Council President.

Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau, then Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke, then Councilmember Phillips.

Thank you. So as you know, I have been advocating for the expansion of student fares, student SEPTA fares. I had a press conference this morning. The SEPTA cards that the students get are only for students who live 1.5 miles from their schools. They're limited on hours and they don't work on weekends or on any days that there is a holiday. Students have to get to work for their jobs after school, they have to get to their internships, they do their community service. All of their extracurricular activities often don't fit within these parameters. Is the Administration open to considering this expansion of hours and times and days, of course in partnership with the School District of Philadelphia and SEPTA?

So I think the Administration is always looking for ways to support families and youth engaged in their activities. And certainly, the Administration has made historic investments in SEPTA. I mean, we're looking at about $1 billion, just shy of $1 billion. We want to make sure that the money that we and the other counties in the state provide for SEPTA is delivered flexibly enough that SEPTA can address a lot of immediate needs, including needs around safety and security that we know that many in Council are concerned about, state of good repair, the general operations. I think what you're asking for is very interesting and it's certainly worth a closer look. A lot of those types of investments already flow from the state through SEPTA and -- I'm sorry, through the district and are provided to SEPTA. So we definitely want to be involved in those conversations to see how we can maximize the benefit for the students like you're saying.

Thank you. I'm going to take that as support. I'm going to take that as a positive, supportive answer. We cannot have our young people prepared for the future if we don't allow them to really just experience all of it. We've got institutions opening their doors to our young people and we got to get them there, get them safely, get them on time and get them home. Thank you. While you're here, I also wanted to ask you about bike racks. Based on a right-to-know request by bicycle advocates revealed that from 2014 to 2024, only 30% of bicycle rack applications were built, with no 21 racks being built in 2024. So here's my questions: How many bike racks and corrals have been built in the last 10 years? How do those numbers compare to the Streets Department's goals for the program? When was the last time that the permitting requirements for racks and corrals were updated for RAC applications that require a 90-day review and site inspection period? What percentage of applications received the site inspection within 90 days? And is there enough funding allocated next year to ensure that there's enough resources to complete the bicycle rack and corral process for the volume of applications you receive?

Councilmember, I feel like I've got a very healthy research agenda for the next little bit, but we'll get back to you with all that information.

Thank you for your commitment. Appreciate that.

Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke, and wrapping us up will be Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to ask Deputy Director Palantino, if you can come. I had a question about the African American Museum. Good afternoon to you. I wanted to check in on the status of this project. As I understand it, the city has committed $50 million to relocate and renovate the museum. Can you provide a status update on the project? What are the primary challenges to making the progress on the museum?

Excuse me. Just a point of information. Could you say the name of the museum again please?

The African American Museum.

African American Museum. Okay. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Aparna Palantino, Deputy Managing Director for Capital Program Office. Councilmember O'Rourke, I'll have to get back to you on that. I'm not directly involved in that project, but I can get you that information.

Okay. Yes, I would definitely love that. Thank you very, very much. And this other question was for Director Carroll. I'm sorry. It's probably been asked or in different angles, but I'll still put mine on the record. In the latest Vision Zero Action Plan, the Mayor's office has a goal to place safety improvements on every mile of the Highway Injury Network by 2030. I know that we talked about other components as well, but I don't know if we talked about the holistic piece. I assume that includes bike lanes, but not only just the bike lanes. Are you on track to meet that particular goal of having the improvements on every mile by 2030? And then if not or if you feel like you are but could use some help, what help do you need from this particular body to actually meet those targets?

I think we're off to a good start. I mean, this is a pretty new goal we've got. There's been good conversations between the Streets Department and folks in OTIS and other affected departments. And as you mentioned, these measures can take all different kinds of forms. Sometimes it will be bike lanes. Sometimes it'll be improvements at intersections. Sometimes it will be other traffic-calming measures. And you know, we've got a good toolbox to work with, so matching those tools to individual segments of these corridors is some of the work that we're involved in now. We have to get into design and then we'll be sprinting towards the finish line as we're implementing these things in later years.

Okay. Thank you so much, Mr. President.

Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips.

Thank you, Council President. Managing Director Thiel, I want to thank you for acknowledging the importance of service letter agreements. I hope that we can come up with a timeline for the execution of those because our residents would like to know when a request comes in, from start to finish when things are going to be completed. Also, Managing Director, part of your role is to plan, coordinate and implement strategic initiatives that involve multiple departments. We noticed recently that the Streets Department and the Water Department are not coordinating their communication as well when it comes to removing of street repaving. There's been no 24 numerous occasions where the Water Department would often come in and do a repair that was a construction. But then the Streets came in and they were also supposed to repave at the same time. There's a mess of communication once you repave the street and then you have to dig it back up. How are you working to ensure that communication is better between Streets and Water? The second question involves, we have a 25,000 to 30,000 backlog of trees in the City of Philadelphia. Are you working with our Commissioner to coordinate, right, Managing Director, a strategy of what we need to get down this number of trees that are hazardous, that need to be pruned or cut? And then also 311, as mentioned it needs coordination between the Office of Innovation and Technology and also 311, and all the other departments need to strategize on how 311 works together. What are you doing to come up with a strategic plan to address those things and make sure these departments are working together, Managing Director? Thank you.

Councilmember, appreciate the questions. And again, we're on the same page with this. You've seen with a lot of the initiatives we've talked about our ability to get all of our departments and MDO and other city departments as well as state and federal partners together and coordinated to execute big projects like Riverview, like ending street homelessness and on and on and on. That said, we know there's more work to be done. Let me add to what Deputy Managing Director Powers said about 311, which continues to be a focus area from a technology standpoint. And I am still -- and I appreciated the mention of the earlier question too. I'm still old school enough that I think face-to-face interactions are important and being able to provide that for residents. So 311 is becoming more and more tightly integrated with our neighborhood community action centers, what Anton Moore is doing, so we make sure that people can have multiple ways to get in. 311 is really a call center. And as we've been working with all city departments, and Mike talked about the way that we get Streets and Water coordinated with the databases and trying to make that interaction work, we're going to have to continue to do that. And it's literally a daily 24/7, 365 activity to coordinate those departments. We have 35 alone just in MDO, departments, programs, offices and activities, plus all the other city and state partners. So we're going to continue to work on, not just from a technology standpoint, but making sure that we have that human front door to everything, and then again implementing your great idea about being able to, if nothing else, hand somebody a piece of paper that says, these are the steps in the process so this is why it's going to take a minute to get back to you and this is when you can't anticipate having resolution. I'm going to let Mike hit the Streets and Water part, and then we have Commissioner Slawson to talk about the trees.

Thank you, Councilmember. So as the Managing Director reiterated, and I had mentioned before, I think at the planning level there are good tools where we're looking at some things that we can do to refine those tools. You know, just reflecting over the last few months there have been some strains between the capacity of the Streets Department and the Water Department to work, especially around emergency situations. So cave-ins always kinds of throw a monkey wrench into things. If there's a water main break, a significant break that needs emergency responses to -- especially as we saw over the latter part of the winter, whether that coincides with when the Streets Department is fully deployed in the snow-fighting operation. We do have good systems in place I think, and I think we have to make the distinction between the coordination that takes place pretty much on a day-by-day basis between the Streets Department and the Water Department on an internal basis. I think one of the points you made earlier, which I think we all agree with, is getting that information in front of people so they know what to expect between the time something is broken and when it's fixed and when it's going to be fixed and when that handoff takes place between the Streets Department and the Water Department. I want to point out one other thing, and this is not always transparent to constituents and I know it's not always transparent to folks in Council, and frankly sometimes it's not always transparent to folks in the Administration, but a good deal of time people will see something like a PWD or Streets Department cone in the street, and naturally you assume that the city is at work there. Unfortunately, a lot of times that's not the city. It's a private contractor. It could be a plumber. The work could be water infrastructure. But we do have to step our inspection regime and our follow-up to make sure that we're holding these private contractors in the street accountable to the schedules and the quality of the work that they do and the good housekeeping that they do, and to make sure that they follow up, to make sure when they are done, the street is restored. So some of the work that we talked about with Councilmember Bass, including these moratoriums and these controls, this is something we probably have to step up our game around and we're working to do that right now.

Thank you. I don't -- the Commissioner is fine. I just want to see if you can provide a set of eyes and support, because I think she recognizes how important it is. But I just think the strategic plan for the trees is just as important. Thank you, Deputy Director Carroll. I do want to mention real quickly, and I just have to mention how important this is, we do have to do a better job at figuring out how to make sure residents understand when they're going to get information, get to get things done completely. And I feel like if you could with your team, really reflect on how do you work with us to make sure residents know when things are going to be completed and also the steps that go into that. So the service letter agreements are a step forward. I'm glad you agree that that's important. I just hope that by the time, some time soon, we can do that across every single department in the City of Philadelphia. And we'll talk more about 311, because that's incredibly important that it begins to look like a dashboard similar to Amazon and DoorDash, and I think that should be an incredible priority for the rest of the year, amongst some other things. So thank you so much, Council President.

Thank you. Anybody else responding to your question, sir?

(Shaking head).

Okay. Because we are not giving the Commissioner of Parks & Rec a hard time today. We're protecting her at all costs. Any other questions or comments from members of the committee? (No response.)

Hearing none, I want to thank all of you for your time this afternoon. We have Office of Homeless Services. And if members don't have any additional questions to the Office of the Managing Director -- you're required to give us back some additional information. So I'm just going to ask could you just come back to provide that information so we can wrap up, though we're primarily responsible for dealing with the Office of Human Services?

Yes, Council President. I'm not sure we'll be able to have answers to all of those things. Certainly, the brief from Law hopefully --

Let's do it this way: We officially have you on callback at a later date. And so, the information that you were able to provide for today, let's get that information today and then we'll see you in the future before we actually go into budget deliberations officially regarding the information.

Yes, that works.

Thank you very much. We will be back at 1:45. Council of the Whole will be at ease. (Lunch recess.)

We will resume the Committee of the Whole at this time. I'm going to ask Helen Loughead to please call up the next panel.

The next panel to testify is Cheryl Hill, Executive Director for the Office of Homeless Services, also joined by David Holloman, Chief of Staff for OHS and Crystal Yates-Gale, Deputy Managing Director.

Before I get started, I want to thank you, Cheryl and also David Holloman, for being supportive and working with my team, with our working group on homelessness here in the City of Philadelphia. I want to also acknowledge Candice Player from Project HOME. Thank you for leading the efforts as we work toward ending homelessness here in the city of Philadelphia, making sure all of our agencies aren't working in silos and really making sure whatever we can do to be effective in addressing this issue, we're doing so as we move the City of Philadelphia forward. And so, with that being said just state your name for the record and please begin your testimony.

Thank you. My name is Cheryl Hill, Executive Director of the Office of Homeless Services. Good afternoon, Council President Johnson and members of City Council. I proudly serve as the Executive Director of the Office of Homeless Services. Joining me today are David Holloman, OHS Chief of Staff, Crystal Yates-Gale, Deputy Managing Director, along with the dedicated staff of OHS, both here today and those across the city working every day to serve our most vulnerable residents as we reflect on the past year and look forward to FY27. I want to begin with both gratitude and urgency, gratitude for the progress we have made together and urgency for the work that remains ahead. This year's Point-in-Time Count reminded us of a simple but powerful truth we all count. That theme reflects not only the individuals and the families we serve, but our collective responsibility as a city. And while the work is far from finished, our data shows meaningful progress. According to the 2026 Point-In-Time Count, which we completed in February, our unsheltered population has decreased to 711 individuals. We believe that we can directly attribute this decrease to the expanded access to shelter, such as those made possible through the intergovernmental collaboration proposed in Mayor Cherelle Parker's Executive Order 725, One Philly response to end street homelessness. In FY26, OHS continues to strengthen a system grounded in the belief that homelessness is not just a housing issue, it's a public health issue. We expanded partnerships, enhanced coordination across city and health systems and increase transparency and accountability in how we operate. We improve monitoring across our programs, made targeted investment in both emergency response and long-term housing solutions and deepen our focus on outcomes. That is why our Fiscal Year '27 plan is intentionally aligned with Mayor's One Philly vision and Executive Order 725, which commits the city to ending street homelessness by reaching functional zero, meaning every person sleeping outdoors has a clear, immediate pathway to shelter. To support this goal in FY27, OHS is advancing a comprehensive strategy. First, we plan to maintain success of our expanded shelter capacity. The city committed to adding 1000 shelter beds to our existing 2859 beds. To date, 785 beds have been brought online, with another 175 family shelter beds opening within the coming weeks. In addition to adding shelter beds, we are intensifying our commitment to a service-driven approach. Each new shelter will include onsite behavior health support and some sites will include onsite medical services through partnerships with Temple Health, Jefferson Health or Penn Medicine. We are also able to expand the hours at the Hub of Hope to 8 hours a day. 9 Located in Suburban 10 Station, the Hub of Hope provides 11 meals, showers, laundry and medical 12 services for people experiencing homelessness. This expansion of services also includes an encampment resolution team and the establishment of the One Philly Ambassadors of Hope in Old City, which complements and extends the great work of the Center City District's Ambassadors of Hope. Second, we are continuing to improve quality. We are strengthening physical conditions across our shelter system, enhancing service delivery standards and providing targeted technical assistance to our service providers. Our goal is to ensure that every site operates with dignity, safety and trauma- informed, client-centered approach. And finally, we are strengthening partnerships. This work cannot be done in isolation. We are leveraging collaboration with city departments, service providers, health systems and the Philadelphia Housing Authority to expand access to care, treatment and housing. The progress we have made is real, but so is the work ahead. As you consider this budget, I ask you to not only see the needs of our system, but the momentum we are building.

We are creating a more coordinated, more accountable and more responsive system, one that's aligned with the One Philly vision and grounded in the belief that we all count. Thank you for this opportunity to present testimony on the behalf of Office of Homeless Services Fiscal Year 2027 operating budget. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Council President. Thank you all so much. I'm going to start with our thank- yous to Cheryl Hill, to David Holloman. Bruce Johnson, thank you. I want to say a special thank-you to Bruce because he's very responsive and always follows up on our cases. Fred Gigliotti, Loretta Epps, who is often working very, very hard with us on our constituent cases, of which we receive so many now. And Yolanda Fitzgerald, social worker with Office of Homeless Services. And these thank-yous come from my staff, who work with your team throughout the year to help our constituents. So I wanted to start there. I wanted to get all my questions on the record, if that was okay, Council President, and then await a response at today's hearing. And so, in 2018 the Office of Homeless Services released your Roadmap to Homes, which is a strategic plan to make homelessness rare, brief and non-reoccurring and implement a Housing First model. Since that report was released, City Council has increased OHS' General Fund allocation for emergency shelter by $24 million and your overall General Fund budget by $38 million. In 2018, federal, state and local dollars for homelessness totaled $85 million. In this year's proposed budget for Fiscal Year '27, the total is now $156.4 million, which is an increase of $71 million. In Fiscal Year 2022 OHS data snapshot, the housing inventory count states that there were 3725 emergency shelter beds available year-round. The 2025 PIT Count Report that was submitted from your Office to HUD stated that there were 3863 emergency shelter beds available, which that would be an increase of 138 beds. The number of safe haven beds has stayed flat at around 250. And so, for the record after City Council increased the investment in emergency shelter by $24 million, how many new beds have been created? My second question is -- and I'm very happy about this. I want to thank Crystal Yates-Gale for this work as well. But I'm glad to see that 97 contracts starting on July 1st of 2025 have been conformed. For the record, how many of these contracts were conformed before August 1st of 2025? How many were conformed in Quarter 1? How many were conformed in Quarter 2? And how many were conformed in Quarter 3? My third question is, in the FY26 Main State ACES Match spreadsheet that you all -- thank you very much for providing the spreadsheet to my office. It states that there was $62.9 million in FY26 General Funds according to the budget document. But there is $70.8 million in General Fund obligations in ACES and according to the FY27 detail, there was $60.4 million budgeted for emergency shelter. And that would be in Class 200 in FY26 and an estimated obligation of $59 million, if you could explain there. And I heard the bell and I will honor the clock, but I wanted to also get these two questions on. Around the 1000-bed expansion, the stated decision behind the 1000-bed expansion is that there were 1178 unsheltered individuals during the January 2025 PIT Count. At that time of the PIT Count, how many beds were offline and how many were available and unfilled? And during the PIT Count, do you ask individuals why they are unsheltered?

Thank you for your questions. And sorry, I didn't get all of them. But for some of the fiscal questions, I think it might be better to give them to you in writing, unless you want to repeat some of them. I got some of them, but not all of them.

Sure. I'll just start with this one. I'll repeat it, if that's okay with you, Council President?

(Inaudible).

Thank you. In 2018, OHS released your Roadmap to Homes, a strategic plan to make homelessness rare, brief and non-reoccurring and implement a Housing First model. Since that report was released, City Council has increased the Office of Homeless Services General Fund allocation for emergency shelter by $24 million and your overall General Fund budget by $38 million. In 2018, the federal, state and local dollars for homelessness totaled $85 million. Fiscal Year '27 proposed total is $156.4 million, which is an increase of $71 million. In Fiscal Year '22 OHS data snapshot, the housing inventory count states that there were 3725 emergency shelter beds available year-round. The 2025 PIT Count that you all submitted to HUD stated that there were 3863 emergency shelter beds available, which would be an increase of 138 beds. The number of safe haven beds has stayed flat at around 250. So for the record, after City Council increased the investment in emergency shelter by $24 million, how many new beds have been created?

Thank you. And so, from '22 to '27 I would have to get you in writing what the exact increase was. But to explain our data that we report to HUD, not all of that is OHS or city-funded shelters. It includes privately- funded shelters as well. In addition, the safe havens are not funded by OHS. They are currently under DBHIDS as a program. But if you're asking specifically about the OHS-funded shelters, we'll be able to get you that in writing.

Sure. And I think what will be important to that is what I'm seeking to showcase, based on the data that we have received from your office, and since 2018 if you include the federal, state and local dollars for homelessness, there's been an increase of $71 million. However, the numbers have not changed greatly. So I guess the question is, with the increase of the 71 million what did that get us relative to our overall picture around homelessness?

Thank you. So part of the increase also was just increase in cost of services. So for example, all of our shelter providers have to abide by the city's minimum wage as well. So every time that increased, we would give an increase when we could give an increase to the providers. In addition to that, there are just other additional services that are in there that aren't necessarily shelter beds. So for example, in our emergency housing division, the Hub of Hope, as an example, is funded through that. Grace Cafe, I believe, is also one of the programs that is funded through that program as well. It also includes transitional housing in there as well. So there are a variety of different services that are in our budget. In addition, our prevention, diversion and intake, which is a program that we have designed so that people do not enter homelessness, is part of the OHS budget. And then we have permanent housing that is also included that wouldn't be part of that shelter count.

Thank you. If you could just address the second question, and I'll come back on the next round, around the 97 contracts that have been conformed, starting on July 1st of 2025. For the record, how many of those contracts were conformed before August 1st of 2025? And if you could break that down by quarter. So for Quarter 1, Quarter 2 and Quarter 3?

If I don't have that information in here, and we have a lot of information, I will give that to you in writing. So I believe I would have to get it to you in writing. What I do have is the average by quarter on the days that it took for us to do a contract, but we've been running a cumulative total, so I'll be able to get that to you in writing.

Thank you. I'll come back on the second round. Thank you, Council President.

You're welcome. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad, then Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke.

Thank you so much, Council President. Good afternoon. Thank you all and thank you so much for the work you do in this difficult space. We appreciate it. But we're trying to get maximum efficiency to serve those most in need. And this is where these questions come from. This is a very global question about addressing homelessness as a whole, right. I see those numbers unsheltered households, meaning this is actual families. What does unsheltered households mean?

It's actually unsheltered individuals. It says households, but that count is the unsheltered individuals.

Individuals, which means we have gone down to 711 people?

Yes.

That was a Point-In-Time Count?

Yes, on that day.

Okay. What is our total population approximately if it's not -- on average in the city of Philadelphia right now?

Including the sheltered?

Everybody who's unhoused, what is our number now? I heard 3000-something, right, from Kathy, from my colleague. But what is the total number of unhoused people in the City of Philadelphia today? And I know it has to be approximate.

If you include our sheltered plus unsheltered individuals -

Unsheltered means those who haven't taken shelter or received anything but are unhoused totally, yes.

We have not completed the Point-In-Time Count data for 2026, but our unsheltered number, and apologies, I am -- it's approximately 4000, but I can get you the exact number.

Yeah. So this is 4000 people who don't have permanent housing. They might be in shelters, they might be on the street, but that's how many approximately --

Yes.

And so, my question is, I heard a lot of numbers about how much is being invested in this space and it still seems to not be enough. And my question is, with all these different agencies in sort of intersecting DBHIDS, DHS, you and other housing solutions, how have we not come up with one plan that starts with somebody who's unhoused to getting them into permanent housing as a wraparound service model that follows a person from the time they are unhoused. So you can group people -- either they have some kind of immediate situation that puts them into being unhoused like a medical emergency, but they have no other issues, per se, then you have people who have mental health disorders and then you have mental health and substance abuse. You can probably do categories of who are our unhoused folks. If you stream them and say, what do we need for each of these kinds of type of people to get them into permanent housing, what are the resources, can we not in the City of Philadelphia, the amount of money we're spending, personally have navigators for these people to navigate them out to personal permanent housing? I just want to know globally why are we so head-up on saying more 1000 beds here, more 1000 beds there instead of saying, how do we end this, how do we take someone who's unhoused. Nobody wants to be unhoused. How do we work through this to get them into permanent housing and permanently off our rolls so we can address what else is coming down the pike. I just want a global sort of principle behind the work you do.

Thank you. And I think part of the issue is there's not a one-size-fit-all answer. It really does depend on the needs of the person, which is why we are looking at a variety of strategies based on what models would work for an individual person, because what works for you may not work for me. But one of the things we are currently undertaking is we're looking at updating our strategic plan. We are working with a consultant right now when we brought in service providers who brought in people with lived experience to try to get a better understanding of what the needs are. We are also trying to track the data a lot better. So actually we just transitioned to a new homeless management information system so that we can track what is happening with people, what's working, what's not working so that we can get people housed. There's a variety of different housing models or philosophies on what is the best way to do it, but what we've found is just looking at and being able to really try to keep people, whether it's in shelter or in housing for those first 6 months is really critical. So 7 that's why a lot of our programs 8 are about trying to have intensive 9 services that follow the person or 10 at least it has a warm handoff to 11 the next step so that they can stay 12 stable and get housed. 13

So 14 the issue is tracking all the way 15 to make sure they're permanently 16 off your rolls, right, of having to 17 give these services. And that 18 brings me to the Riverview that we heard, having all these beds, having 18 months to live there. That's what we need then, it sounds like, for some people, right. You said a mixed model, mixed set of models. So I would love to see our Department of Homeless Services come up with, say, Philadelphia population is five categories and we have a streamlined effort for five categories with intersection with all these services we have in the City of Philadelphia, which is spending a lot of dollars. We should have a target date by which we can say we can end this. We really should. We should say, if it's jobs, let's figure that out. If it's mental health, we have resources. If it's mental health and substance use disorder, we can figure that out. We have all the separate tools. We have all these departments. We have been spending millions of dollars every year. It seems to prop up a system. I don't know who benefits from it, but not the people who are being served. They're not benefiting from it. So somewhere we have to have much more efficiency about stating the problem and finding solutions and then tracking it after you've initiated. For example, we had somebody who was a human trafficking survivor. We got our call in the evening and there was no one path I could find to say, where should I send her. We call this one and that one and this one and that one. It was unbelievable, that after spending all this money for one night for somebody who was in the hospital getting released, we could not find her a solution, after spending all this money. So we have practical knowledge of how this doesn't work. I have personally taken a pregnant homeless teenager to Cherry Street and I've seen how that has worked. It did not work. We're not able to keep her.

We actually agree with you. And that's why, if you notice, the executive order is about ending street homelessness, not about addressing it. Our current strategic plan and the partners, when they asked us what we want to do, we said we want a strategic plan that ends homelessness. So we do agree with you and that's what we're currently working on.

What is the timeline for that?

So we're hoping to have the strategic plan completed by the end of this fiscal year with the plan to start implementing next fiscal year.

And so, all this money that we're going to be allocating now is going to be refashioned in terms of meeting that goal, because then we have a reallocation because that strategic plan is not in place now as you're asking for the money?

It's too early for me to say what the next phase would be. I would have to see what the final outcome is of the strategic plan. Currently, the consultants are meeting with service providers. And like I said, they're meeting with people with lived experience to really talk about what are the needs of Philadelphia because there are certain needs. But it's not a monolith. There's not a one-size- fit-all. And so, we do need the input of what has been working and what's not working. We're currently changing our housing assessment system because that did not work. We just switched software systems because we recognized the way that that compartmentalized the data so that providers couldn't share data about individuals that we were serving. That didn't work. So we are looking at changing systems and changing processes. We are offering technical assistance to providers to also be able to support them in going into this new model, but some of that will be based off of what we find at that time.

I hear you. I know you're trying your best. Believe me, I know you do. But this has been going on far too long. We need to stop it and say, all of what we've been doing has not worked. We need to try something different. And will you make mistakes? Yes. We have to give you room to make some mistakes to do that, but we cannot keep doing that. I appreciate everything you do, but we have to really take the bull by the horns and say, in a first-world country like this, in the sixth largest city in the country we have 4000 people. That is unacceptable by anybody's measures. And I'm not faulting you, per se. But I'm saying you, meaning all of you in this space, DBHIDS, DHS. Everybody needs to come together to come with one solution that you can all participate in and understand the nuances and change, you know, they're not all one-size-fits-all. We get that. We can create a system that accommodates for that. We are in the 21st century. We're sending people to look at the other side of the moon. We can do that. So I need a commitment from all of you to say, our dollars are going to be spent in a way that have results. If they don't, pivot, fix it. But we can't have the same ol', same ol' going on. So this is just my frustration, Council President. And not with you. I just want to be very clear, you do the hard work, but we need to help you make sure that we have a system that is a functional zero for homelessness, for all kinds of homelessness. Thank you, Council President.

And we do agree, Dr. Ahmad.

Thank you.

I know there's not an answer to this. I understand.

Chair recognizes Councilmembers Quetcy Lozada, Nicolas O'Rourke, Jamie Gauthier and then Councilmember Jim Harrity.

Thank you, Council President. Thank you for being with us this morning. I have some, I guess, basic questions about things that are happening in the 7th specifically. I know that just Friday I was doing all things unsheltered, right, attended a few meetings, but took advantage and kind of hung out in the district to see how folks were moving along. I just looked at your poster board here and your unsheltered numbers say 1178. But when you talk to others, PPD, for instance, their numbers show that we are under 400 for the unsheltered population, and we've had this conversation about how different people count and the problems that it causes. Can you tell me if you all have had conversations about how do you better streamline your count and what you're doing about it?

Yes. And I'm going to pass it to Dave Holloman.

Good afternoon. David Holloman, Chief of Staff for the Office of Homeless Services, and good afternoon to everyone in City Council. Yes, we continue to have meetings with the Law Department about how they do counts. One thing that we do know is that police do a weekly count, and that's almost like a census count. And so, what we have been trying to do is align those counts with our service day teams, our encampment resolution team and homeless outreach teams. The City of Philadelphia, by the federal government, is required to do a count once a year. However, the City of Philadelphia does quarterly counts, which is partnered with the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disabilities. We meet weekly with different service dividers, of course with Deputy Police Commissioner Pete Rosario. And as of this year here, one of the things that's going to improve that count and that relationship is that we're opening up having intake staff at the Wellness Resource Center in Kensington. That would allow us, along with mobile intake workers, to do a better consensus count together so we have a better accurate number. For things that we have been doing over the number of years, we know that the counts are seasonal, especially in Kensington. When the month of April through June, we start to see more people start to pop up, doesn't mean that they're Philadelphia homeless. It's just that more people tend to come out. I think having mobile intake workers, having intake staff at the Wellness Resource Center will help us better collaborate how we get a better, more reasonable count in those particular districts, especially the 7th District.

And if I can add to that, the other part of our count that is different is when we do the Point-In-Time Count, it's several 100 volunteers going out all at the same time. So it is a count that happens all at the exact same time. And I know that PPD and some of the other parties that do counts may be slightly more observational with a lot less resources. So to your point, it's a different methodology.

We need to do a better job at counting. You guys count seasonal. They count weekly or quarterly, however it is. You count if someone is stationed somewhere. They count if people are moving. We have to stop the smoke and mirrors, right, especially when we're having conversations with community residents. We need to be honest about what's the number and where are they going and where are we counting, right, so that we can better respond to the situation. I think the reason why we're kind of going around in circles is because none of us are having -- we're not speaking the same language, right. And if we're going to be serious about responding to the opioid crisis where the epicenter is in the 7th Council District, right, if we're going to be honest about responding and resolving that, we have to get on the same page. I'm now in year 3 of this conversation. This conversation has been going on for years. At what point do we give 11 those community residents a break? 12 We are in a better place. I have 13 to be honest about that, right. We 14 are in a better place, but we 15 should be further along because we 16 said that we are all rowing in the 17 same direction, but we have to be 18 honest with the count. It starts 19 with the count. If we don't know 20 who's out there, then we're never going to be able to fully respond to what their needs are. In addition to that, one of the other things that I found very frustrating on Friday was that I traveled through multiple SEPTA stations. Every single SEPTA station was blocked. The entryway was blocked. The elevator was blocked. The staircases were blocked, with just people everywhere. Not one outreach worker, not one manager, not one police officer, not one SEPTA police officer, no one was out there. It was almost like it's okay for everybody to be there. In the meantime, there are mothers trying to go up and down them steps, getting off, trying to get on trains. There are business people that are trying to operate, right. We talk about a commercial corridor that had a 40% vacancy rate for years and they blame the public safety and the health issue that we have out there, right. We can't continue to talk about economic opportunities for all if we are not doing our due diligence to create an economic opportunity for those people that live and work and play in that Kensington community. What are we doing different?

We appreciate that question, but I would have to defer questions about outreach to DBHIDS --

My first part of that question is where are the outreach workers? Where are they? I was there between 4:00 and 5:45. I was in the same area. I did not see not one person. The only reason I saw a police officer come as I was pulling off is because I called the Deputy Commissioner and said, I expect for this train station to be cleared immediately. I shouldn't have to do that, right. Where are the outreach workers that we talk about, where are the peer specialists that we talk about that are out here talking to these people about moving into shelters, receiving services? Where are they?

Understood. Now, outreach is actually under the Department of Behavior Health and Intellectual Disabilities, so I would have to defer to them to the question about where outreach workers were at that time.

And then my second question, what are we doing differently to be able to connect people to services? What are we doing other than the Thursday or the Wednesday sweeps that we're getting folks into the Wellness Center and into Wellness Court?

So one of the things that we are doing that Dave alluded to is we're going to open an intake office at the Kensington Wellness Support Center, not just once a week but every day. So it'll be Monday through Friday. Similar to our other programs, our goal is to have staff stationed there so that if anyone wants to come in for services, that they can. Also, when we do have our site connection or service cleanup days and connection, that staff is actually out talking to individuals, trying to get them connected to services too. And we publish where we're doing those every week. We put it on our website as well as our social media on where the staff will be going.

I'll wait for DBH to come up to talk about the average workers, but I also have asked us to look at having outreach workers and providers be available between that 11:00 and 6:00 a.m., right, because we have heard from those who are suffering that that is when they would most likely accept services. Have we considered that?

I'll defer to the Commissioner of DBHIDS. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Good afternoon, Council President, members of the Council. I'm so glad I came back to support Cheryl. Councilmember, so our homeless outreach teams are now stationed at the SEPTA stations, but that's something we can think about. SEPTA had a team that used to -- we collaborated with, and since they did away with that team, we now rely on them to call us if we need to have someone there. But based on what you've said, that's definitely something we have to look into. With regards to overnight, we did get some funding, thank you very much, last year so we're looking to have a team overnight as well. I'm not sure if that answered -- I think I answered the first part of your question. But the second part, if you could repeat that.

I think what we talked about last year was making sure that there were outreach workers consistently, right, responding to the needs that are out there. We talked about having them available during that most vulnerable time. We've talked about partnering with SEPTA and other stakeholders that get funding to do some of this outreach. We talked about changing how we were conducting business in that particular footprint. I'm trying to figure out how have we changed that. Because what I'm hearing you say is, yes, I hear you but, no, we haven't done it. I heard you last year but, no, we haven't done it. And that's frustrating to me, right. Because when you look at my neighborhood, we've had some improvement. People are, of course, at Riverview, right. So we know that there are some folks who have left the footprint. We're looking at 1178. Police said 520 the last time they counted last week. We're just moving people around. And so, when my community says you're not responding to the problem, you're scattering them out more and you're pushing them further into other parts of the neighborhood, I can't fight them and say that's not accurate, right. Because right now you're confirming that what they're saying is actually true. And what you're also telling me is that people who are suffering from addiction are telling us we will respond and accept services -- we are more likely to respond and accept services during my most vulnerable time period. And we as a city are saying we don't want to provide you services at that time. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: That is absolutely not what we're doing. We are responding to the needs of the city. We are in the places where we see the greatest need. And so, if the greatest need is in Kensington, that's where you see a lot of our homeless outreach teams. But they go everywhere, they're all over the city. And you're right, we had less contacts in Kensington, but higher placement into services, because we also gatekeep and entry into Riverview Wellness as well as the Philly Home at Girard. But what I'm saying is, if people are moving in other places, then that's where we're going to be. We don't have people stationed just waiting at the SEPTA stations, was what I said, because SEPTA had a team that we worked with. Without that, then we have to think about whether we need to have people stationed there because that is where the need is now.

I can tell you SEPTA doesn't have anything. That's another conversation that we need to have. SEPTA doesn't do absolutely anything. When you have people who are shooting up on trains, defecating on trains, having sex on trains, running around naked on trains, SEPTA ain't doing nothing. That's another conversation for another day. I still didn't get what we're doing different. I think we have a lot of work to do in order for us to respond to the homeless situation that we have going on in the Kensington community. COMMISSIONER SOLANKE: Agree.

Thank you. Nicolas O'Rourke, Jamie Gauthier, then Jim Harrity.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Just a quick word. I think Dr. Stephen Ray used to be the President of the Chicago Theological said some years ago, Every moral system is first predicated on a vision of what the world should look like. That is to say, have a vision of where you're trying to go and work toward until you realize that vision. And so, I want to affirm that the underlying principle that I think Dr. Ahmad mentioned around your desire to end street homelessness. I just want to commend you on having that clear in your mind and in your efforts. I think that is where you find good moral grounding in our policymaking. And so, I just want to affirm then thank you for making that the goal, not just skirting around the edges and trying to fix here or there, but to try to end this thing, because I believe that we can do it. I want to thank you all for the work that you do every day towards that vision and some of the ways that you support some of our most vulnerable neighbors. My team has been working closely with OHS, especially to prevent houselessness for constituents who've been contacting my office for help, that partnership has diverted several folks away from the shelter system and into longer-term solutions. And I'm really grateful for our ability to work together to meet those needs. Now, I know so many of our neighbors are not as lucky. They may currently be in the shelter system or may be living on the streets or in encampments, being told that their only or best option is the shelter system. So I'd also like to ask a few questions regarding the shelter conditions, as others have asked. I've heard from many constituents, including some of the residents of Camp Chloe, who I visited a couple weeks ago, all the reasons that they don't want to go into OHS shelters to include dangerous conditions, harassment and other safety concerns. I've heard shelter conditions include mold, lack of heat or air-conditioning, not enough bathrooms, undercooked food, bed bugs, and that sort of scratches the surface of what is mentioned. The FY27 budget includes 1 million for capital improvements in shelters, with over 8 million promised over five years. What is the plan for facility updates? Do you have an assessment on how many shelters need repairs and how extensive those repairs actually are?

Thank you. So for the question about the shelter quality. It's the difference between the city-owned, the city-leased and then the provider-owned or the provider- leased. So the capital budget that you speak to is about the city- owned shelters, and that capital needs assessment happens with the capital department. So I would have to defer to them on questions on the needs assessment they did to determine what was needed for this year. But from what I understand for the budget, they're actually going to do $5 million worth of capital improvements. Part of that is money from prior years that they're going to be able to spend on renovations this year. As far as what is needed in the shelter, some of that came from the providers, like last year when we were able to provide that one-time funding, we asked the providers to tell us what they needed as far as renovations in the program. So that's one part. The other part is that our team actually goes out and does inspections on a regular basis as well. We have the site inspection, which is actually a physical review of the site, where they'll go through, they'll take pictures and they'll cite the things that they're identifying are needed in the building as well as some quality as far as the operational standards. And then, based on that the shelter providers will give us their corrective action plan. If there are physical things that need to be done, they'll give us the plan for that. In some cases, some of those providers have told us that they have a plan within the next to 18 months because they have a bigger renovation plan. So we'll take that into consideration when we get some of that information.

Chair recognizes Majority 8 Leader Katherine Gilmore 9 Richardson. 10

Thank you. Thank you 12 very much. Point of information. And thank you very much, Councilmember O'Rourke, for that line of questioning. My question is, how did you choose the facilities for the upgrades? And did specific providers sort of notate this? Do they have an overall needs assessment? Meaning, how did you all choose --

Are you speaking of the funding from last year?

Inspection, site visits.

So all of the sites are scheduled for site visits, but some of them, it may just depend on where we are in the schedule because they all are scheduled to be inspected throughout the fiscal year. Some of them we may delay. For example, if we switch providers, we give that provider the opportunity to bring it up to speed. For example, there's one provider that we switched late last fall so we're giving them an opportunity to bring the program up to the standard that they believe they can bring it up to before we then go cite them for the needs and inspect them and have them pass or fail based off of the conditions of the building.

Okay. I'll come back on the second round to continue that, but I just wanted to notate that based on Councilmember O'Rourke's question.

Thank you, Madam Leader. Mr. Chair, can I continue on?

The floor is yours, sir.

Thank you, sir. Kind of more specifically to the question around the assessments and the details that you're getting from that, even in the inspections, how much funding is required based off of what you know? Do you know how much funding is required to make all the needed repairs that you know about? How will you decide which shelters actually get repaired first? And will the facilities plan be made public or shared with members of the body, assuming that you will put something together that's comprehensive based off of those assessments?

For clarity, are you talking about the city- owned shelters?

Whatever you have control over.

So the city- owned shelter assessments are completed by the capital team or our facilities team. And what we can do is get you in writing when that assessment happened and what was the findings from that assessment.

Fabulous. Let me press on. In addition to the physical conditions that I listed, at the surface level I've heard from constituents that they face harassment from staff, lack of sanitation supplies to include soap, inadequate food in both quantity and quality -- there was a sign, somebody had a sign. There was a sign back here earlier. They had a whole list of other stuff that probably could have listed -- yeah, that's the one, where it says shelter conditions. Take a screenshot of that. The question I have is, what type of oversight does OHS provide for shelter conditions and workers in particular? Let me get these other ones on and maybe there'll be another round I can come back. The other question I was going to ask was, despite these conditions, the Administration is proposing an investment of $22 million annually to expand emergency shelter capacity and achieve the city's goal of ending street homelessness. And the question there is kind of even affirming what Dr. Ahmad lifted up earlier. Why prioritize investments in new emergency shelter beds over investments in permanent housing? And this is something that has been raised in the conversations that we had, which I do think, if the goal is to end street homelessness, and that is the goal and I affirm that that's a righteous goal, it should affect how we think the trajectory should be getting there, and I think even shifting our thinking from kind of patching to moving towards how can we make it permanent and --

I just want to ask a point of information real quick though, and I'm just trying to understand the response and I'm also looking at the line of questioning. Because I look at two tracks as well, right. So you got an executive order for 1000 new beds, right. And there's a proposal to fund that, correct. And some folks say that an additional 1000 beds of shelter, that's temporary. And we just did $1 billion in housing, right. How much out of that billion dollars of housing is going toward permanent housing under the H.O.M.E. plan? Because on one end, we're saying the expansion of shelters, right, and some folks are just saying it's temporary, but also there's still a need, because everybody's just not jumping up tomorrow and can do permanent housing, to be quite frank with you, at least in my mind, in my experience actually working on the issue. But on the long-term side, how much is the dedication of the billion dollar H.O.M.E. Initiative is going to work permanent housing for those who may want to transition from a shelter to wraparound services to becoming a first-time homebuyer? If you don't have a job, to be quite frank with you, and you're coming out of the shelter, you're not going straight into permanent housing, because permanent housing requires either rent to be paid or mortgage, correct?

Correct. And I would say for questions about the H.O.M.E. plan, how much of that is earmarked I would have to defer to Angela Brooks about that. The amount that's in the H.O.M.E. plan for OHS, that's --

Let's back up. I would think that there would be a coordinated approach with the H.O.M.E. plan and your office, because if we're investing a billion dollars in housing, some aspect has to be tied into addressing homelessness, which will allow us to create the permanent housing based upon the billion that we borrow in partnership with your office. Wouldn't that be the best approach? I'm just asking.

And I would still have to defer to Angela about --

Okay. I just had to ask for the record.

No, I appreciate that. But to the point that you made earlier, and I want to make sure that I'm also getting Councilmember O'Rourke's questions, the shelter versus housing, to your point, right now to bring on 1000 shelter beds, we were able to do that in roughly six months, between the time that we first started talking about it to identifying -- in a few weeks we planned to have all of them open. I cannot find 1000 permanent housing units in six months. And so, the goal was to get individuals off of the street, and that is the first goal, but then also to make sure that individuals are ready -- what happens in our shelter system, what we're trying to make sure that all of our shelters are able to do is to be able to provide case management and support, to be able to get documentation that individuals need. If they are unable to get Social Security or whatever the subsidy may be, that they can get that service and support there as well.

I'm going to defer and go back to Member O'Rourke. But I think there's a disconnect, right. And I work in partnership with the Administration. But in terms of doing the work that we need to do around this particular issue, and I have a homelessness working group. I think if you're talking about us borrowing a billion dollars for 30,000 units of housing and you can't speak to a level of how many of that housing is dedicated to address the issue of homelessness, because you said I have a defer back to the Angela/Jesse's team, I think that's a disconnect. I think y'all would be at the table -

And we are, and there's a portion of -- there's about $8 million currently in the H.O.M.E. bond that is earmarked --

She just came up and said, support-wise there's 8 million to support homelessness in the current budget. Okay.

Yes, but part of that was also about homeless prevention. There was a conversation about how do we slow down individuals coming in. So the original plan for some of that was also homeless prevention. With things going on, you know, as the Councilmember earlier talked about, as we come up with a strategic plan, do we refocus, some of that is what we have considered with that. We also work with the Philadelphia Housing Authority to look at different housing opportunities, because it's not just enough to come up with a unit for someone to rent if they can't afford it. So working with the Housing Authority, we've been able to identify units that they will then help subsidize for the individuals we serve.

So I'm going to relinquish the time back to Member Nicolas O'Rourke. I just think -- and I'm understanding what my members are saying. They're saying, we're talking about permanent housing forever, right, at least the thought process would be, here's the billion that we borrow, right, to address the issue of housing, 30,000 units of rehabbing housing or housing here in the City of Philadelphia, and then also we're strategizing with PHA, right. And we know because you said getting 1000 units will be, as you said, I don't want to use the word difficult, but 1000 units immediately, you said, well, we probably can't do that, right. And I believe if there's a will, there's a way, because there's also an agenda that we once must accomplish for our Mayor to get 30,000 units in less than four years now. I think it's five years. So that 1000 units, I think for instance, we have the schools, and some of those properties are going to come online to possibly use for permanent housing for our seniors, right, or those who might be in need. That might be 300, 400 units right there, just thinking outside the box, going to what Member Dr. Ahmad and what Member Nicolas O'Rourke are saying in terms of a permanent housing strategy. But I want to take a moment of personal privilege. We have Councilmember Allison Stroud and Ryan Mecham from Sandy City, Utah, and they're also joined by Monica M. Zoltanski, Mayor of Sandy City, Utah. Welcome to City Council. (Applause.)

They are being guided by our Member, Councilmember Curtis Jones, Chair of Public Safety. We thank you for touring them throughout our illustrious body, Member Jones. Thank you very much. The Chair relinquishes his time back to Member Nicolas O'Rourke.

Thank you, Mr. President. Welcome to our colleagues from Utah. I also was struck by the point you made around not being able to find 1000 in six months. It's just impractical. My mind merely suggests that maybe that's a capacity issue. I mean, do you have enough staffing to do such a thing? But that's the sort of thing that I think we may need to remedy --

I mean, as a point of information. Two of the schools that we're probably going to possibly turn over --

And for clarity --

Let me finish. Could possibly give you 1000 within the first year. We're going to help you out. We're going to be supportive to the Administration and put our own proposals on the table and see if we can accomplish getting those 1000 actual permanent units. Member O'Rourke as well as Member Dr. Ahmad, as a sign of good faith and partnerships with the Administration, I think that would be a worthy goal I think we can accomplish if we're all working together. Member O'Rourke.

I'm grateful for this collaboration and all of our thinking around how we can alleviate this issue because this really is a moral question. Let me get into the little bit I have left. On alternative solutions -- thank you for addressing all of my questions that were related to shelter conditions. We'll continue to work on that. Shelters are not the only aspect of your work, right. One of my roles as an At-Large member is to bear witness and to lift up the voices of our constituency. As previously mentioned, I met with some of the residents of Camp Chloe a few weeks ago and was moved by the community that they've created. Despite harsh conditions, they really have cultivated a community in this space, and they're at risk of losing that community, and have the following demands. And I want to lift those up because it's my job to do so: Establish safe sleep sites where people can legally camp, implement a property receipt system, prioritize permanent supportive housing over shelter- first approach, as we just got done talking about, and establish an oversight board for OHS, including people with lived experience. I'm going to say these two and get off the record. The question I have on this one is, would you be willing to work with the residents and organizers towards these goals and commit to them before the approval of this budget? And they have been very clear about what they wanted. There has been some rationale that has been explained to me about why a shelter-first system approach does not work. In fact, there was a gentleman in the camp who explained in detail to me that the reason why he's back out was because the shelter system has put him in a situation by stuff being stolen, pushing him out, whatever the case may be, that he can't get back in anyway, so going back into the shelter system will be retraumatizing for him. So I want to ask that question. The other thing I want to get on is studies have shown time and again that permanent supportive housing is more effective than emergency shelters in keeping folks off the streets, as we've talked about. Philadelphia already faces a shortage of permanent housing units and now, we are confronting the possibility of significant federal funding cuts in light of this conversation. And I just want us to say it. How does an investment in emergency shelter align with the city's long-term goal to end, not merely manage, homelessness? So those are my two questions. Would you be willing to work with those residents and organizers towards those goals, commit to them before the budget? And also just speak to how this particular investment emergency shelter actually aligns with the goal of ending homelessness. And that'll be it for me for now.

Thank you. I want to make sure that I get all of your questions. So first, for the committee of lived experience, we have had a committee in the past and we plan to bring that back in the future. We're starting with our young adult lived experience committee and then we'll plan to expand in the future. As far as the shelter expansion project, it is not a shelter-only process. So even as we're talking and collaborating with the different providers and different agencies in the city, it is not a shelter only. We are also talking about the off-ramp to be able to provide housing services, recognizing some of the complications that everybody is aware of with the housing and some of the funding that we have for that. But I just want to make it clear that we are still looking at housing. We have other units that are permanently supported, that are either federally funded or general funds as well and we will continue to support those. But we are looking at different models, including whether or not we should bring SROs, which are smaller units that maybe are more affordable into the mix. We are looking at different strategies with, like I mentioned, PHA to see if they can help subsidize some of them, but some of the units that they already have subsidized with us are also at risk right now.

I just want to clarify. I was raising the point around shelter first as an example, that one of the residents within this community that has been so they're feeling pushed out, and there hasn't been a remedy with being pushed out for what's going to happen with them and some of them have been kind of cycled in and out. And I was saying that they didn't necessarily want to go into -- at least one gentleman didn't want to go into the shelter system. It would be a return back to a situation that was traumatizing and why he was kind of out on the street in the first place. So given that, they had these particular demands that were leaning towards a more permanent solution and the request was to get on record whether or not you would be willing to help meet those particular asks, which were again to establish safe sleep sites where people can legally camp, to implement a property receipt system because of the loss of property when these sweeps happen. Prioritize a permanent supportive housing over shelter-first approach and establish an oversight board, what you said you already have done. So those three --

Thank --

Yes, I'm done.

Understand. And I can't speak to all of the demands that were mentioned. But I will say both our teams and the DBHIDS teams are going out trying to engage individuals who are willing to have that conversation, whether it's about shelter or other services. Our mobile assessors can go out and do housing assessments out at sites, and we will continue to offer that service.

I do want to add also to the encampments, right, as you address the issue of mental health and behavioral health, because I've dealt with it in my district and I do understand, you know, people are homeless. But even when they offer support and they decline their support and they keep coming back to certain areas, particularly where there's children, right, like we got to figure out a way how we address that issue. And I dealt with it at a couple different rec centers in my district, right, where it becomes, just to be quite frank with you, an issue because you do have children, and people are just setting up shop. And I get it. I want to be supportive. So there is a mental health component, right. But it's also a matter of public safety because you're dealing with children. And I don't want to be in here at a hearing in the future where anything may happen and we weren't proactive just to make sure, even though we're addressing the issue of encampments, right, to also with public safety, at least what I'm dealing with in my district in terms of certain recreation centers in certain parks and playgrounds where people just set up, and you got little kids who are subject to whatever these individuals decide to do. And so, just figuring out how we can be proactive when we see an encampment come up and then engaging the individuals to try to get them some help and some support, just for the sake of keeping the children, and even the city workers, because some folks may get a little aggressive when you say you have to move on. And so, it's something I'm speaking from experience, not just theory, but actually seeing and getting the calls. However, we can take a look at that in the context of supporting individuals, but also public safety as well for the individuals who are living or utilizing the space, particularly in this case I'm talking about public space around playgrounds, recreation centers and parks where individuals are setting up. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, then Councilmember Jim Harrity. And then we can also go back to in the second round Councilmember Rue Landau and Dr. Ahmad.

Thank you, Council President. Good afternoon, Director Hill, Dave, Deputy Managing Director Yates-Gale. Thank you for everything that you do on a daily basis. And I want to agree with my colleague that I think it's really important that you all are setting out this broad vision of ending homelessness. I think it's that kind of commitment that will move us in the right direction. My questions are also about permanent supportive housing. What is the actual quantifiable need and demand for permanent supportive housing units in our city currently? Because if permanent supportive housing is the way to keep someone off the street for the long-term, then I feel like really analyzing and understanding this deeply should be our ultimate goal. I imagine that this is a really high number for a variety of reasons. We know that there are many people who do not even go to the shelter even when they need it, as we discussed a little while before. We know there are hundreds of people who are prequalified for a permanent supportive housing slot, but who are stuck at various steps in the intake system, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Philadelphians who are living cost-burdened. So how does OHS calculate how many units of permanently supportive housing our city genuinely needs? And how much money do we need to achieve that goal?