COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Friday, May 2, 2025 11:05 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILWOMAN NINA AHMAD COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS COUNCILWOMAN KENDRA BROOKS COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILWOMAN KATHERINE GILMORE RICHARDSON COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR. COUNCILWOMAN RUE LANDAU COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA COUNCILMAN NICOLAS O'ROURKE COUNCILMAN ANTHONY PHILLIPS COUNCILMAN JEFFREY YOUNG, JR. BILLS: 250195, 250196, 250197, 250198, 250199, 250200, 250201, 250202, 250210, 250211, 250212 RESOLUTION: 250214 - - -
This is the public hearing and public meeting of the Committee of the Whole regarding Bill Nos. 250195, 250196, 250197, 250198, 250199, 250200, 250201, 250202, 250210, 250212 and Resolution No. 250214. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the roll to take attendance.
Present. Thank you. A quorum of the Committee is present and this hearing is now called to order. Ms. Loughead, will you please read the titles of the resolutions.
Bill No. 17 250195, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-1500 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Wage and Net Profits Tax," by revising certain tax rates, under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250196, an ordinance adopting the Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2026. Bill No. 250197, an ordinance to adopt a Fiscal 2026 Capital Budget. Bill No. 250198, an ordinance to adopt a Capital Program for the six Fiscal Years 2026-2031 inclusive. Bill No. 250199, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-2600 of The Philadelphia Tax Code, entitled "Business Income and Receipts Taxes," to revise certain tax rates and end certain exclusions from the tax on receipts, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250200, an ordinance amending Chapter 12-100 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Traffic Code" to revise the fee for the use of parking meters, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250201, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "School Tax Authorization," to provide for an increase in the tax of the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia is authorized to impose on real estate; and amending Chapter 9 19-1300, entitled "Real Estate Taxes," to establish an equivalent reduction the tax rate for the City real estate tax, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250202, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-1806 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Authorization of Realty Use and Occupancy Tax," to eliminate certain exemptions, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250210, an ordinance amending Chapter -- amending Section 10-1001 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Fees of the Commissioner of Records," to increase the portion of fees for the recording of deeds and mortgages in related documents to be used for Housing Trust Fund purposes, under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250211, an ordinance amending Chapter 19-1400 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Realty Transfer Tax" revising the rate of the tax, all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 250212, an ordinance to amend Chapter 19-4400 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Development Impact Tax" to end imposition of the tax, under certain terms and conditions. Resolution No. 250214, resolution providing for the approval by the Council of the City of Philadelphia of a Revised Five Year Financial Plan for the City of Philadelphia covering Fiscal Years 2026-2030, and incorporating revisions with respect to Fiscal Year 2025, which is to be submitted by the Mayor to the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority pursuant to an Intergovernmental Cooperation Agreement by and between the City and the Authority.
Thank you very much. Today, we continue the public hearing of the Committee of the Whole to consider the bills read by the Clerk that constitute proposed operating and capital spending measures for Fiscal Year 2026, a Capital Program and a Forward- looking Capital Plan for Fiscal Year 2026 through Fiscal Year 2031. This morning we will hear testimony from the Office of Homeless Services and in the afternoon we will hear testimony from the Fire Department and Licenses and Inspections. As we are starting at 11:00 as opposed to 10:00 , we will provide two minutes so members can ask directly their questions and we can have a response so we can get as much work that we can do get done between now and 4:00 p.m. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the first witness to testify.
The first person to testify is Cheryl Hill, Executive Director office of Homeless Services. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Good morning. If you could just state your name and title and then you can begin your testimony.
My name is Cheryl Hill, Executive Director of the Office of Homeless Services. Good morning, Council President Johnson and members of City Council. Joining me today, our Chief of Staff David Holloman and Deputy Managing Director Crystal Yates-Gale. Our work is made possible by the support of our dedicated Office of Homeless Services colleagues, some of whom are with us in Council chambers today, while others are currently hard at work serving our most vulnerable populations in Philadelphia. I am pleased to provide this testimony for the Office of Homeless Services' proposed Fiscal Year 2026 operating budget. The Office of Homeless Services provides leadership, coordination and planning and mobilization of resources to make homelessness rare, brief and nonrecurring in the city's pursuit of the Mayor's vision for a safer, cleaner and greener city with access to economic opportunity for all. Philadelphia's Homeless Services system consists of more than 75 homeless housing and social service providers, mostly nonprofit, working together with local, state and federal government entities. Since I stepped into the role of Executive Director in September, our team has been focused on strengthening OHS's foundation while setting bold goals for the future. For instance, we launched an agency improvement plan rooted in transparency, equity and performance. We listened to staff at every level of our organization, identified inefficiencies and began laying the groundwork for a culture of continuous improvement, one that supports our employees and better serves our city's most vulnerable residents. One of our first steps towards addressing this is to add more administrative staff to bolster our efficiency efforts agency-wide. Those positions are included in this proposed budget. E. Initiative and Wellness ecosystem. Both programs are critical pathways to ending street homelessness, offering options that meet people where they are, whether through recovery housing, supportive housing or a hybrid model anchored in dignity and tailored to individuals' needs. This will require a shift in how we approach housing referrals, assessments and shelter stays, moving towards a system that reduces time in shelter and increases access to permanent housing with greater speed and equity. Prevention, diversion and intake or PD&I remains the cornerstone of our approach, and we intend to modernize these services by streamlining application processing and leveraging technology to connect people to assistance faster and more efficiently. By collaborating with a wide range of governmental and community partners, OHS aims to reduce the number of individuals and families entering homelessness, ensuring that prevention services are accessible and effective in stabilizing households before crisis situations escalate. The Emergency and Temporary Housing Unit provides immediate shelter and short-term housing for people experiencing homelessness. OHS will work to reduce the length of stay in shelters by piloting initiatives that facilitate faster transitions from shelter to permanent housing, focusing on efficiency and client- centered care. In FY26, we plan to formalize the enhanced Code Blue protocol, piloted this winter, to ensure that individuals experiencing homelessness have access to warming centers and safe- shelter options during the extremely frigid temperatures. We've also implemented a new shelter monitoring process to make sure that every facility we fund offers safe, decent and sanitary environments. Additionally, in FY26 we will complete the assessment of the City Fund Emergency Shelters in compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act. Providing permanent, safe and affordable and accessible housing with wraparound services is the best way to resolve homelessness.
We are also requesting the necessary resources to ensure that our nonprofit partners, many of which are on the front lines every day, can meet the City's living wage requirements without compromising the quality of their services. Fair pay for their workforce is not only a matter of equity but essential to building a sustainable homelessness response system. The Fiscal Contracts and Asset Management system or FCAM Division will prioritize equity and accountability in its policies, practices and provider network to ensure fair and inclusive service access. We will continue our review to ensure equitable processes, adherence to our policies or contracts in ?? err of transparency, which I refer to with the team as the Show Your Work model. In addition to the internal process review, we are working with a consulting firm to look at our fiscal practices to see how we can improve establishing key controls in our fiscal operations. Once the risk assessments and recommendations are finalized, the results will be shared with Council. Earlier this year, in collaboration with our colleagues in the Managing Director's Office and Finance, OHS took a proactive look at our fiscal oversight and payment processes to ensure we maintain operations as funded in FY25. 7 million reserve was established to support unanticipated costs in FY25. Funding from the reserve was subsequently earmarked for enhanced Code Blue, wage increases for our service providers and an infusion of homeless prevention assistance dollars and funding for facility maintenance. The proposed Fiscal Year 2026 General Fund budget totals $84,188,038, a decrease of 5,055,830 from the Fiscal Year 2025 estimated obligation levels. This decrease is primarily due to the allocation of one-time funding in FY25 for unanticipated needs and the transition of budget authority to other departments for contracts previously managed by OHS, such as facilities management and security at Philly Home at Girard. However, it does not signify a decrease in the Administration's prioritization and dedication to addressing the homelessness crisis. Instead we are continuing to break down silos and create a holistic strategy. The Wellness budget under the Managing Director's Office includes new funding for wellness vouchers that will be administered by OHS to provide a seamless transition from recovery housing such as Riverview Village to permanent housing using a model similar to Rapid Rehousing. E. Initiative includes strategies to prevent homelessness as well as preserve or build housing units for people at or below 30% AMI. OHS will also continue to partner with PHA, DHCD and PHDC to leverage funding programs such as the Federal Home Investment Partnership Program, HTF, LIHTC set-asides to strengthen our efforts to end homelessness. Our proposed budget allows OHS to continue funding our existing programs with increases to accommodate the city's minimum wage, increase winter and Code Blue services and add fiscal administrative staff to ensure contracts are accurate and completed in a timely manner. This budget strategy was developed by taking into consideration all of our resources, including other funding sources such as grants and strategic public and private partnerships. E. Initiative. OHS will also continue the collaborative review of our continuum care initiatives and application process as we work to safeguard and increase our permanent supportive housing units. Thank you for the opportunity to share how OHS with the ceaseless support of our dedicated team members strive to meet its mission every day and will continue to do more in an effective manner. And before I turn it over and look forward to answering your questions, I do want to just say publicly thank you to Dave Holloman who has been a partner with me even before I joined the City and continues to help with the strategies today. Thank you.
Thank you. We're glad to see Dave is still here taking care of business since the last time we saw you, Dave. Continue to keep up the good work. Okay?
The Chair recognizes Majority Leader Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Council President. And thank you all very, very much for your testimony and for the work of the entire OHS team. We all have been working really closely over the last year. So I wanted to thank Cheryl Hill and welcome you to your first budget season, also to Dave Holloman for all of your work. And then I want to give a shout-out to Bruce Johnson, who's been helping us place a number of individuals who are unhoused and getting them connected to service, even helped us on a Saturday evening with an elderly woman who was in a car outside of a park. So I just wanted to make sure that I put that on the record because I recognize that this work is not easy work. It's difficult work. It's selfless work. And you're meeting many Philadelphians at their lowest and at that their point of need. And so, I just wanted to thank you all very much for that work. I also wanted to ensure that I put on the record that since 2018 City Council has increased OHS's budget by $41 million. So I think you know the commitment is there from City Council, that we want to fund this work. We want to fund good quality service from our OHS. And then you all know that we've worked together closely over the past several months to ensure we had additional dollars for the Family Intake Shelter, which you all did get up and running in the Northwest in Councilmember Cindy Bass' District. So I'm very, very appreciative of that. You know that I have to ask the tough questions only because we have to get this on the record, but I know that we all collectively care deeply about the quality of service that we're providing to our most vulnerable residents at their point of need. So it's just a few things that I wanted to also mention because we had just received this Pew report last week around the amount of Philadelphians who are experiencing homelessness in recent years. And while we know that we've had a reduction in our city's poverty rate, which is the lowest it's been since 2000, we also know that household incomes, while they may be increasing slightly here, that too many families are cost-burdened, and particularly by the strains that we have relative to housing and also utilities. And so, we recognize that we received a report that homelessness is on the rise in the city of Philadelphia. And that's the reason why I want to continue to have a laser-beam focus on this issue. So I'm going to start off with a few questions. And everything that I ask are things that I really need to just get on the record so that we have a starting point for moving forward. I know that you all have a financial consultant. We were able to see that in the detail as well, and they have completed their review and their analysis of OHS and they've issued recommendations. Have those recommendations been made public? And if you all could share those recommendations with the Council President for dissemination to all members of Council, including our Chair of Housing Councilmember Gauthier before we have the callback; is that possible?
Yes, it's possible. We just met with the consultants this week so we just received the information. They gave us an updated draft this week as well, so we'll be able to share those recommendations with Council.
Okay. And we'll be able to receive that before the callback?
Okay. It's still a draft. Okay. But will you all be able to share anything with us prior to --
I'll call up Crystal Yates-Gale. (Witness approached Witness table.)
Good morning, Majority Leader. Crystal Yates-Gale, Deputy Managing Director, Health and Human Services. The engagement with the fiscal consultant just started so it's going in three phases. The first phase was a risk assessment. The second phase is going to be making recommendations to operationalize their recommendations to us. The third phase will be to implement training for the team. And so, there is a report that is shared with us after each phase, and we have your team specifically but Council as a whole on the books to be invited to that meeting.
Okay. That'll be great. I heard the bell so I'll honor the clock. I just need to get this last question on for this round and I'll come back hopefully for several rounds. On April of last year 19 the Inspector General released a 20 report of preliminary findings 21 around the overspending for OHS. 22 I'm not sure and just please let us know if a final report has been issued, if you all have received a final report from the OIG? And if not, if there's an update regarding that report?
So we've received the draft version and we've met with OIG as well as the consultant that they've been working with, but we haven't received the final report.
Okay. So I'll then ask again once you receive the final report, if we could receive a copy via our Council President for dissemination to all members of Council. And I'll come back on the second round. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Council President. Last year you all provided my office with a list of all the FY23 and '24 contracts. I still have a copy of it here because we had to print it out the long way to go through it and it's been a part of our Bible that we've been using for the last year. But you all were able to give me a list of all the FY23 and '24 contracts, and it had the following information: The date the contract was conformed, the amount encumbered on the date of the contract confirmation, date of all the invoices for the work provided, date of all the payments with the invoice numbers, any funds that were rolled over from a previous contract and the contract number associated so that we can match it up, and any unpaid invoices from the previous contract that were paid under FY25 contract, which is some of the stuff that we could find. And I'll be honest, we've been up all night because we just got this at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. So it's very difficult to be able to go through all of this and receive it at 4:00. And I know that's not to any fault of your own, but we have to also have an opportunity to go through it and we had a Budget town hall last night until 8 o'clock. So if you all could provide us with that same information this year, that would be helpful.
Thank you. And on behalf of the team because it was a collaborative effort, we do want to apologize for getting that information to you so late, but we'll be able to give you that updated information.
Okay. And that would be for all the FY25 contracts. And I'm only asking because of all the movement that's happening in the detail. When we did get it, we were still here. I was able to go through from my desk here the contracts that immediately stood out to me relative to the numbers that did not match up. And then I had my team do the research to ensure that what I thought I was reading was an accurate assessment. I'll get this last question on for this round and then I can come back. But I wanted to go under Emergency and Temporary Housing in Class 200, but specifically that portion of the detail on . It shows a decrease in emergency and temporary housing of $4,531,571. That's in Class 250. $641,343 in Class 290. $1,632,710 decrease in 299. So the total decrease will be $6,805,623 in Class 200. Now, when you go back and go down in the further pages at 29, 30 and 31 and you review all the specific spending breakdowns on those pages, the numbers just don't add up. So it could be that it is a typo or that -- that's why we need to see the invoices so we'll be able to match it up. But the difference on those pages in the Class 250 is $4,906,070 and the Class 290 difference is $1,942,290. So essentially the Class 299 difference is correct, but it is also a set-aside around the inflationary needs that you all are stating that you'll need to address, but there are no specifics on what the $2.7 million was spent on last year and then what the $1.1 million appropriation may be spent on for next year. And so for the record, and you all might not be able to do this today but I wanted to get this on the record, if you could explain the movement and around the discrepancy in the totals versus the line item spending in Class 200, and that would be strictly for emergency and temporary housing. And then provide the detail for the inflationary spending for FY25 under that same category. And then specifically for the one-time costs on , if you could provide the detailed information on the $1.9 million, I think that's for the facility needs. And then which vendors that we're going to work with and sort of the timeline and the scope. So I'll start there, emergency and temporary housing.
Thank you. And we'll be able to get you the detail. But I'll add for clarity as we went through this budget in detail we realized that some of the projects were actually in the wrong department, so some of the moves were actually just putting them in the correct area. But we'll be able to get you more detail behind that.
Right, and that was the difference between I thought the original detail we received and then we got an updated detail at 3:58 to try to match it up. But basically, typically what is in the earlier section of the detail and once you get the breakdown on the following pages, typically you're able to add up the numbers and it matches, but in this instance it does not. So I wasn't sure -- do you understand where I'm going with that?
Okay. For the additional increase in prevention support, you shared with our office in one of our many meetings that these funds were to provide additional dollars to those at risk of losing their rental units, and that's after a permanent supportive housing option did not pan out due to the rent costs. So could you please notate where in the detail we can see the original project and how it was budgeted?
Sure. So the original prevention dollars are primarily funded by grants and we can give you the detail behind that. We realize, and we've mentioned it before in other Council meetings, that we had the increase of individuals that experienced prevention. But just to provide clarity, not all of them need the permanent supportive housing dollars. They just need additional help with security deposit or just a few months' rent. So that's why it's a little bit different in that program. But what we found was that we ran through that money pretty quickly because we had about 4000 people ask for assistance. And so, now --
I saw the post. I saw the post. Everybody was sharing it online. I know what you're referring to.
Yes. And so, what we did do in the budget for FY25 was add additional funds to help cover some of those costs because we realized that we were out of the money probably around March. So we've added additional funds to be able to help so that we can provide support for more individuals.
Sure. And I only ask because there was only I think it was $336,000 that was listed under the permanent supportive units for this fiscal year but it's only one time. So if it's something that we need to continue to address, we would want to see it more than once, which is why I had asked about the original detail so that we can understand if it moves somewhere where it is.
Absolutely. And I will add that earlier this year we added an additional 700,000 that you don't see separated out specifically for prevention dollars. But because we awarded that a while ago, it's the only reason that it's not separated out in that funding because that was specifically about using some of the additional reserve dollars, where the 700,000 we were able to allocate all of our original budget.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Council President. I'll come back for another round.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Curtis Jones, Jr. Then Chair of Housing Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you so much, Mr. President. And thank you, colleague, for raising this issue several cycles ago to talk about it from a macro point of view and fiscal stability, but I want to approach this from a micro standpoint. The way I look at government sometimes, if I see one pothole, I fix it. If I see several potholes, there's something wrong with the system. And thank you for meeting with me aside to kind of explain that system, and it gave us some insight as to some of the challenges that you have to face. So thank you for that in advance. I did give you some homework, and that homework was to provide a linear view of how people coming through different doors wound up in shelters. Whether you come from a domestic abuse point of view, whether you come from an ex-offender point of view, whether you come from a child who is couch surfing, how do you do intake? And then what are the times associated before someone gets temporary to permanent placement? Did you get a chance to do that?
Good morning, Council, and thank you for that question and thank you again for having the time to meet with us. So just to give a quick synopsis of when someone comes through the door, whether it's from incarceration or coming from the streets and from a hospital, everyone comes to central intake and they get an assessment. And so, you have the option to either have an overnight bed or what we consider to be case management bed, which we have 30 shelters that has case managements in those beds. That path leads to a long-term housing placement or a treatment placement. And so, once you come to the first door, you get a housing assessment. And if you're in there for seven days in that initial placement, you're meeting with case management to determine what type of housing --
I'm going to stop you because I hear that -- did you do the chart?
Yes, we do have a chart and we can turn it over to your offices through Council President.
Will you give that to the President to distribute to members? Because that gives us here's how long it takes and as important, how much does it cost. So for example, and I think you gave me a number before, how many people go through your system a year?
Yeah. On average we have seen anywhere between 15,000 to 19,000 people that come to our intake services. Doesn't mean that all of them get placed for housing, but they come in seeking some type of services.
And if you were to do a pie chart of who they are, tell me the demographic, tell me the circumstance of who your shelter participant is.
Yeah. As we have seen over the last few years in homelessness being up nationwide, we are starting to see more of an older population. That means when we say older, 55 and up -- excuse me, 55 and up. And also, we're starting to see youth, what we consider to be youth is 18 to years of age. But the 23 biggest population of people is in 24 that age between to 45 where we see the majority of people that come to our system. But we can provide in that infograph a breakdown of a pie chart showing who's hitting our system for first times and also repeated people who are coming in.
So as we -- I know I heard the bell. How much does it cost a night?
On average we spend about $55 per night. Depending on the shelter, some of that can range between 55 upwards to 85, depending on the type of services and the type of shelter based on square footage, its location, if it's a recent lease.
So for the next round the question that I want answered is -- and again, the best examples are examples that come through my office. And one of them is someone that is dual diagnosed, that they have several challenges that they have to face. How are you equipped to be able to assess that and then give them the proper placement and care that they need? That'll be ready for round --
I can just address part of that. We do have some mental health specialists in our intake centers, but we are not behavioral health specialists which is why we do partner with the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disabilities to get additional assessments when necessary. But we do keep some available in our intake centers as well.
So since you answered that, I got one more. And, that is, President Johnson and my staffer Lena there went out on Code Blue, and they were out talking to people about coming in. One of the most disturbing things out of the 30 or so people that they contacted was that some of them were reluctant to go into our shelter system out of fear of public safety and they felt safer in jail than they would in a shelter. How are we attacking that?
Thank you. If I can answer that quickly. Our team actually does monitoring of all of our shelters. They monitor for case management, they monitor for the physical qualities and they monitor for making sure that they meet the standards. If the shelter does not pass the assessment, then there is a corrective action plan that they have to implement. We do think to continue to monitor those and those who are not, we would have up to and subject to termination of that contract. But we've done all of them this year. We've also had our inspectors go out and do some physical inspections as well to make sure that people are in shelters that we would want to be able to have to our standard, and the team has heard me talk several much -- several times about the fact that I did have family in our shelters and they told me about the fact that they would rather be on the street and then to be in the shelters. So it is important to me to make sure that the shelters are meeting a certain standard.
I'll save the rest of my questions for Round 2. Thank you, Mr. President.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Chair of Housing Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. Thanks to you both for being here and thanks to you and your whole team for the critical work that you do every day. We really appreciate working with you. As the Majority Leader alluded to, the most recent point-in-time count released in September 2024 reflected a near 40% increase in unhoused individuals. At the same time, the proposed OHS budget is 6% less than the previous year. I've been in conversation with you all about this seeming decrease and have some follow-up questions that I wanted to get on the record: The Administration provided my office with a memo explaining that the reduction was not programmatic but a line item called "funding for unanticipated needs." Can you expound on the intended purpose of this reserve, and doesn't a drastic increase in homelessness count as an unanticipated need? Next, although you said there are no programmatic reductions, I do see an overall $1.3 million reduction in the area of prevention, diversion and intake. Why does it seem like we're cutting programs while homelessness is going up in the city by really large amounts? Finally, the memo stated that an additional $3.65 million was added to MDO for wellness vouchers and that would offset any decrease to the OHS budget. Even if we were to consider that money and offset, it's still $1.4 million less than what was available in FY25. And so, I want to close this series of questions in the same way that I started. Why are we reducing the OHS budget while homelessness is going up in very concerning ways?
Thank you for that question. So to address the first part of it, as I mentioned in my opening testimony while the OHS budget did decrease, the services for people experiencing homelessness has increased. As I mentioned the vouchers and you mentioned the same vouchers are through the Managing Director's Office, but those will be administered by the Office of Homeless Services. In addition, there were funds that were originally part of the Philly Home at Girard budget that we transitioned and will now be managed by the Managing Director's Office. So we have not cut any services in the Office of Homeless Services. Everything that we set out to do has been funded this year.
Respectfully, we've gone over this a lot, in meetings, over email. I still do not understand from a pure math and numbers perspective how this is not a cut. Nothing that we've been shown shows that this is not a cut. And at the same time, we have real evidence of homelessness going up. I need to understand this and I think that all of us need to understand how we're meeting the needs of unhoused individuals while at the same time having less money in the actual budget.
Thank you. So our needs have gone up and actually our new count is even higher. So I do agree with you that there is a bigger need. However, I will say that I'm seeing a level of collaboration that I did not see when I was a service provider nor did I see when I first came in. And I will say the Community Wellness Office as well as the H.O.M.E. Initiative I think are two initiatives that will benefit those experiencing homelessness. The Riverview Wellness Center, to enter that one right now are people experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness, as well as some of the initiatives under the DBHIDS portfolio as well. They've added additional beds too.
If we could pause for just a moment. These are wonderful new programs. They're also very specific. They're for a very specific population. And we all know that to get into Riverview, one has to go to a 30-, 60-, 90-day program to even be referred to that site. So I don't understand how adding these programs that are very specific to a particular population helps us overall to deal with a 40% increase of people on the street. And I would ask that you follow up with the detail that shows in whatever department you all want to point to and whatever project you want to point to, how are we going to serve 40% more people on the street with kind of these adjustments that we've made in our budget and in our services?
We can follow up in writing. But I will add lastly that the Philly Home at Girard, while that is not an OHS project, that was 180 new beds that are for people directly off the street. There are no preconditions for entering. That is a safe haven. It's funded through DBHIDS, but it's solely for people who are coming directly off the street.
I would love to see this comprehensively and to understand not only the numbers but the full picture of services that are going to get us to where we need to be and allow us to support our people. Thank you so much. Thank you, Council President.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity, Councilmember Rue Landau.
Thank you, Council President. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming down.
Can you tell me or tell us what specific populations are being prioritized in the budget? Are there targeted initiatives for veterans, women with children, individuals with disabilities? And then secondly, many individuals, especially women with children, flee abusive situations and they find themselves homeless without affordable housing options. Do we have specific programs for these individuals? And if so, can you explain how these individuals connect to these housing opportunities?
Thank you for that question. So we do have some targeted initiatives. For example, we are trying to ramp up a specific Violence Against Women Act transfer process, so those who may be experiencing some domestic violence issues who need to move quickly and are already experiencing services through us, they'll be able to transfer and relocate to someplace safe. We also fund some programs through Women Against Abuse currently that are specifically for individuals who are experiencing domestic violence. We have shelters that are family- specific as well. As well as when we look at some of our prevention and permanent housing support, there are units of all sizes, including those for families.
Okay. How about -- just on a follow-up how about some of the homeless people who have animals? What's the policy when it comes to that because something like that could keep them actually out there? I've actually been out there when they were talking to somebody who had a dog and he wasn't able to take his dog. And he said, well, if I can't take the dog, I'm not going nowhere, you know what I mean. So are there any housing opportunities like that?
Yes. So our recent -- I will speak specifically to our shelter. Our recent RFP that we put out indicated that we are prioritizing shelter, you know, in responses that take in pets because we do recognize that that is a barrier. All of our sites are required to bring in anyone who has been animal deemed, an assist animal or service animal, but we are trying to expand the level of shelters that will allow individuals who bring in pets. So that was our new initiative under the RFP that we just put out.
Yeah, that's interesting. How do they go about getting the animal listed as a worker animal, for lack of better word?
To have the animal qualified, it just takes a qualified professional. It doesn't have to necessarily be a medical professional. It's just someone who's deemed qualified to say whatever the service animal is providing that, that animal is able to do that or that there's a need for it. So they make the nexus between whatever the disability or emotional support is to the individual. That isn't something that we do. It is a qualified professional that does that for the animal. However, anyone who comes in can request a reasonable accommodation either to the shelter or the intake center that they come into. If they are denied for any reason, we actually have an appeals process that comes directly to our office, so we're not leaving that at the service provider level. The appeals comes to our office for review. And we put up flyers at all of our sites to make sure that individuals know that they can request that appeal.
Well, since I'm not -- can you tell me how many shelter beds are available now and what is our goal for the number of beds for 2026?
So I would have to look up right now our shelter beds, but we have roughly about 90% utilization in our shelters and we have approximately 3000 shelter beds. And so, on any given day it averages 90% to 95% occupied on our shelters. But we take a census every day so that changes every day, because people either may not return or discharge or they're placed in permanent housing. But we can provide today's census in writing.
Yeah, that brings up another question. How many people are sitting on waiting lists?
If you're only at 90%, so that would be 10% of the people are, right?
So it's not that there's a waiting list. We have beds available. It's just that we have more beds available than people who have come in to ask for the beds.
Thank you. Councilmember Rue Landau, then Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad and Councilmember Quetcy Lozada.
Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you both so much for being here. We appreciate you so much and really appreciate the collaboration that you're doing and feel like we're on the right trajectory. It feels awesome. I wanted to follow up a little bit on the budget cut, what we're seeing as a budget cut first and the demand. And my first question is -- well, let me say that I did a panel the other night with former State Rep. Donna Johnson Bullock who's now running Project HOME, and she said to this entire room of small landlords that in Philadelphia we are basically lucky for having only about 1000 unhoused people on the street, that similarly situated cities have thousands and thousands more. And it was that moment that gave me a little bit of hope we could tackle this problem. And I also have concern that our numbers are starting to rise. So I wanted to know what strategies you're utilizing to ensure that we keep our numbers down. And also want to underscore when we talk about the budget that it would be very helpful for us to see a comprehensive chart that not only explains an individual and family going through the shelter process, but also where we're funding other initiatives in the city that are also helping homeless people. For us, we just see this budget being cut. What we want to see is if they put more money in another area to help folks with vouchers or something like that, that it's all inclusive and that we want to also know who is overseeing all of that. Are you guys basically the project manager regardless of where that money is or is it spread out in a bunch of ways? So I want to hear a bit about that. I also wanted to ask as somebody who worked at the City of Philadelphia before for many, many years, whether if I had a magic wand and gave you million more 6 dollars right now, would you accept 7 it or would you put it in a 8 different department? 9
Oh, that's a 10 dangerous question that I think I 11 will pause on for a minute. 12 However, I will say that I do agree 13 homelessness is on the rise and it 14 is on the rise everywhere. And 15 what we do is we track comparable 16 cities but also some of the larger 17 cities like New York has 140,000 18 people experiencing homelessness 19 right now. So our numbers pale in 20 comparison. However, we are looking to find strategies which is why we partner with other city departments. Not all of the vouchers are administered by us, but some directly earmark them for the people experiencing homelessness. We also partner with PHA who has units that are identified just for individuals who are experiencing homelessness. So it does look different when you're looking specifically just at our budget to your point, which is why similar to the Majority Leader, we can give you details on how that money is spent and where we see that other departments are supporting it. But I think ultimately to end homelessness we need more housing, if I'm just going to be straight with it. There are between our shelters and our --
Point of information right along the lines of your exact statement. So in terms of the Mayor's housing initiative, what's the targeted number of units dedicated to OHS to address the issue of homelessness? We know there's 30,000 units, the goal is, the focus -- well, that's a combination of preservation and built units. But is there a target for specifically those who are in need of housing, who are homeless a part of that plan? Now, I rest the time back to Councilmember Landau.
So thank you for that question. So we have been working with Director Lawrence and Angela Brooks as well to come up with what is the strategy for addressing homelessness. As many of you know, Angela Brooks comes from a supportive housing background so we've already started having some of those conversations, but the exact number hasn't been identified yet. But what I will say is any housing that's earmarked for people who are 0% to 30% of AMI would ultimately benefit individuals in our population because that is the typical Area Median Income that our population falls in. But I will add to that, if you don't mind, that as we work with PHA one of the things that we have realized is that they have some units, again as I mentioned, that they want to target for individuals experiencing homelessness. What they've said is they need some wraparound support and dollars for that. So we've looked at our budget and said, well, while we can't financially sustain a rental subsidy into perpetuity like PHA can, we can look at some of our dollars and be able to provide the support services for those units. So that is some of the models that we're currently looking at where they're providing the subsidy and then we are adding some service dollars to that.
I just think it kind of boggles my mind that if we're in the process of borrowing $1 billion, $1 billion, and we see there's a housing crisis but yet we don't have a targeted number in partnership with the Office of Housing Services specifically to produce more units for housing is something we have to take a look at prior to this budget being passed. Councilmember Landau.
Just to follow up on this line of questioning, it's really who or what entity is overseeing all of this for the City of Philadelphia? It seems that we don't have a housing plan. We don't have a plan that starts with how do we start --
We do have a plan. We have a plan in front of us. Could you clarify that, Councilmember Landau?
We have a funding plan, but we need to have an actual plan that goes in every city single avenue. It starts with how to eradicate homelessness, how to give supportive housing, how to give transitional housing, how to get people into independent home ownership with services if they need it, how to give them all of the services they need and then leave them in a place where between job readiness and whatnot, they can actually be on their own. But there's the funding system and there is no plan. I'm very concerned about the thought that we have put pockets of money and pockets of vouchers and things in different departments and units and there is no driving plan of who is overseeing it and making sure it all goes together.
Thank you. If I could add that again in partnership with Angela Brooks, we are working with them and discussing how to prevent and end homelessness. It is early on my part to say what the numbers are because I know that she's still working on the plan. I don't know what day it is that she's been here now, but I am excited that she's here and I do think she'll be able to come up with a plan that will support ultimately our goal to end street homelessness.
Excellent. We are equally excited that she is here and want to work with her and you and everyone, but this is something that the money has to come with the blueprint and we will be happy to see that when it's done.
Thank you very much. Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad, Councilmember Lozada and Councilmember O'Rourke.
Thank you, Council President. And thank you all for being here and doing this really critical work for our most vulnerable community members. The National Foster Youth Institute reports that child welfare system is sometimes described as a highway to homelessness with an estimated 20% of young adults who are in care becoming homeless the minute they age out of the system. I wanted to know how you have specifically targeted that population. Do you know what that number is? Do we have a plan in the budget to address that? Because if we can arrest it at that point, we can really go a long way in making sure they never experience homelessness and they are set up for life to prosper.
Thank you for the question. So, yes, we do have some programs that are specifically for young adults experiencing homelessness. We have a Youth Homeless Demonstration program that was funded from HUD where we provided funding to providers that are specifically engaged with young individuals. But in addition, we have staff within our school system that's working with individuals, not just those who are aging out of foster care but those who may be in families that are experiencing homelessness as well. Our point-in-time count in 2024 showed approximately 355 people who between the ages of youth and young adults that were experiencing homelessness. So we want to come up with strategies, which is why the Demonstration program was so important. And we are also looking at that funding and seeing how we can be able to expand some of the services that we are providing specifically to youth and young adults experiencing homelessness.
So to Council President's point, we are allocating $2 billion. So you still don't have numbers for this small group of people how they're going -- where do they fit in the plan, what are the numbers around it, what is the money being allocated. In our CCP Community College testimony we heard that PHA has -- they have a relationship with PHA for units only, right. 12 That makes no sense. So I want to 13 know that who is in charge, just 14 like my colleague Rue Landau was 15 saying, who is the central 16 clearinghouse to say, for this specific population what is the number, what is the money, when do we need to see it, how are we following them, what are the wraparound services because this could save us so much money if we invested now? I just want a plan. And I want a plan with actionable data that tells us this is how we can follow it. So one year out you should be able to come back and say all of these things, this is where we are, this is what we did, this is how much money we invested, and this is the outcome. In all of this stuff you give us there's none of that. Very frustrating I have to tell you.
So if I can clarify, our young adult program is separate from our general fund. We do have some grant funding that we received specifically for young adults. In FY23 just the third quarter alone, we were able to place six young adults in permanent supportive housing, in Rapid 21 Rehousing. We had approximately 110 exit shelter. We have some that are receiving services. So we are tracking specifically young adults, again separate from the rest of our programs. And with the access points, we also have access points in centers that are just for people who are age to 24. They can 7 still go to our other centers, but 8 we do have a plan that we are 9 working with and we work with the 10 service providers that are working 11 with young adults to make sure that 12 there is a plan targeted just for 13 young adults. 14
So 15 we really should be able to handle 16 this completely. There should be 17 no young adult who's in the foster 18 care system, particularly those aging out, who should have this issue at all. The number is small. It's not massive. In fact, the homeless number is only 1000 point- in-count. That's a very manageable number. We are spending so much overhead to solve this problem. I want to really understand why is it such an intractable issue when we really should be -- when we look at the money spent and the actual target problem, why are we having this issue, why are we not able to crack this nut?
And I think homelessness is a complex issue, period. And when you add the complication of aging out of foster care I certainly understand, which is why we do partner with DHS. We have both the family unification vouchers and then the fostering youth independence vouchers that we are able to issue to make sure that those that we issue those vouchers who do not enter into homelessness. But could there be more? Absolutely. But we are partnering with the providers like DHS or the departments like DHS to make sure that we have some comprehensive plans to address this issue.
I would love to get a report sent to you to say what is that comprehensive plan, what does it look like, what is the timing, what is the money and how are we going to follow outcomes. I would really appreciate that. Thank you.
Yeah. And we can also provide some of the things that we are funding today to you in writing just so you can have that. Thank you.
Thank you. Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you for being with us this morning. My questions are similar or along the same lines as some of my colleagues. I recognize that one of your FY26 strategic goals is to strengthen your collaborative partnerships with providers and others. How many providers or do you know how many providers you have in the Kensington community or the 7th Council District? And of those providers, how has the progress been or how has the P3 division tracked their progress?
So thank you for the question. We'd have to respond in writing to the question about how many specific providers are in Kensington. And then are you asking about tracking progress of the providers --
So I can give you some of the monitoring that I spoke of about the shelters and some of those providers that applies to all of our providers. However, I do want to clarify that our providers are primarily shelter providers. And so, we will be able to give you that and I can give you the monitoring in writing of what we have for those specific shelters that are in Kensington.
Thank you, Mr. President. Good morning to the entire OHS team. I'd like to start by thanking you for the crucial life-sustaining work that you all do. I want to ask about the federal Continuum of Care funding for permanent supportive housing, which provides long-term subsidized housing for people with disabilities for the listening public. A few weeks ago our office heard that a number of long- term providers in this space were not receiving renewals for their contracts under this funding stream. We also heard that this was due to an administrative error on the City's part. So my staff took the question to y'all itself and we're told to the contrary that certain Tier 2 contracts were not renewed at HUD's discretion. So I'm seeking clarity within that realm. In these exchanges, my team learned that around $3 million of funding impacting 250 housing units was lost due to this particular shift. This means that hundreds of Philadelphians with disabilities will no longer have permanent supportive housing beginning the 1st of July, more than there are already currently without shelter on the streets now. So here's what I'd like to know and I imagine we'll probably need to get some of this in writing to submit to the President, but I'd like to get them on the record now. Can you please explain how it's possible to all of a sudden lose permanent supportive housing funding like this? It doesn't make sense to me that the money can just evaporate because of a ranking system.
Thank you for that question. So OHS is the collaborative applicant for the entire City of Philadelphia's Continuum of Care application. During the local application we are required, as all cities are, to rank the applications 1 to whatever the last application is. There is a certain dollar amount that HUD says is, I hate to say guaranteed in this Administration, but in essence there's a cut or there's a dollar amount that they fund and then everything else is part of a national application. So anything that falls below that Tier 2 is subject to the national application or the national competition. So we send in our application, and then we were awarded up to, right, I think about our Tier 2 level. So there was those that fell below the Tier 2 were cut as well as there were some new applications that we tried to get in that were not funded. However, I will add that I recognize and the team recognizes that there are some ways that we can strengthen our application, because that is part of it, because we are being ranked with other cities and we want to make sure that we strengthen our application in the future. So that's what we're working on for FY27 because that's when the next application will come in. But in the meantime, what we did for our FY26 funding is we submitted an RFP for those who did lose funding to make sure that no one was put out on the streets July 1st, as long as the provider itself was deemed that there was no 22 other deficiencies in their program. So that application or that RFP just went out. And again, that is to bridge that program. But I'll also add we have a permanent supportive housing RFP out too that providers can apply to with the intention of being able to expand our permanent supportive housing. So between the two of those, our goals are not to make sure that no one's held harmless in a unit where the program itself is meeting the standards, but also we're still trying to expand our permanent supportive housing. This is a little bit complicated in the fact that these were not City-managed contracts. So even through this application, they are HUD direct, which means they get their funding directly from HUD after the application and the award is announced from HUD. Those are not managed by OHS at all. That's all direct with HUD.
On the RFP point, I did hear about the RFP that you had out to mitigate the impact of loss of funding. Will that RFP be enough to provide housing to all Philadelphians who are losing housing?
Yes. Within that realm, yes. Will that RFP be enough to provide housing to all Philadelphians who are losing housing?
It is enough to cover the permanent housing dollars for the programs that again were meeting the acceptable standards, so they weren't at the bottom for any issues with the actual housing. And if they applied and they meet all the criteria in the RFP, then the team will make the assessment at the time. But because it just closed, it's a little challenging to address what's happening in the scoring system currently. But I will say we put enough funding in there so that if everyone applied and they meet the criteria, it would cover the housing, short answer I guess.
There may be (inaudible). I heard the bell so I'll pass it on, but I'd like to request a list of all providers that would be impacted by all of this shortfall, those that aren't fully funded and those seeing their contract terminated, if that's the case, including the number of Philadelphians served by each provider in the District that each provider operates in. I think that would be super helpful for us to know. If there's another round, I'll come back. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you. Councilmember Brooks, Councilmember Phillips and Councilmember Young and we'll officially be in our second round.
Thank you, Council President. I have one clarifying question. You mentioned the Philly Home at Girard and it's straight from the street. Is that because of the sweeps or is it just when someone goes through -- because I'm so -- how it was set up and how it's running I'm very confused as to what exactly the Philadelphia Home of Girard is. So if we can get -- you don't have to explain it now, but if I can have a written explanation that kind of go to Council President because I'm kind of confused exactly what's happening at Philly Home at Girard. And then my other question was about we've seen a number of encampments over the past year. How many of the people experiencing homelessness that were impacted by the suites and how many of them are currently in permanent supportive housing?
Thank you for that question again, Councilmember Brooks. In terms of encampments and service coordination, from July 1st of 2024 to April 1st of 2025 we had 1176 service connections with two encampments which consist of 30-day posting. And in that, that was at 30th Street Station where individuals along with pets were placed into shelters, and the other one that was in the Councilmember's 7th District where it was at PennDOT at the end of Aramingo where people were placed. 8 We don't consider them 9 sweeps. We look at this as a 10 deeper engagement because there's multiple service providers that are out there that are providing a wide range of services. And to go back to that question when you mentioned about 2100 Girard, this was an opportunity for outreach teams, housing issues people who do service connection to have a direct referral right into those sites and they were designed for individuals who are living on the street without any prerecords. As long as they said yes, they were able to go right in.
So how many of those folks that you talked about ended up in permanent supportive housing?
How many people ended up in permanent supportive housing?
We can get that number directly to you. I don't want to put out a number that's not accurate.
Okay. And my next question is about we understand that folks who relapse while at Riverview are being discharged. Has OHS encountered any of these individuals on the streets of Philadelphia who were part of the Wellness ecosystem, but they were discharged? And if you have, how have you handled those cases?
We can get back to you on numbers of people that's coming out of treatment. But just for the record, we work with all service providers and anybody who goes into any type of housing, whether that's shelter, whether that's treatment, we make sure that our outreach teams or case management team have that relationship so that they can directly go back to them if there's any issues there.
Well, I think the question is trying to get to while people are in the ecosystem, when they come back in the ecosystem are we tracking them because the likelihood is they can be back in the system again? We're trying to make sure if people have a transition plan if they're coming back in our system again, once they're discharged from relapsing after the 90-day treatment, then once you're on the street, you're considered homeless again. They get picked back up, what do we do. I just was trying to understand what the process is.
Thank you, Councilmember Brooks, for the question. Crystal Yates-Gale, Deputy Managing Director Health and Human Services. I will make the answer as clear and succinct as I can. Because multiple departments touch the Wellness ecosystem, our Executive Director of the Community Wellness and Recovery position does have all of that data. So it is monitored. I don't want to use the word tracked these days. But people are monitored from beginning of the system to end and connections after they leave the system for whatever reason that is. And we can get you some of that data returned in writing from the Managing Director's Office through Council President.
Okay. And one other question. How many outreaches do you have and do you intend on having more as we continue to track these systems and as the homeless numbers are, outreach workers?
So outreach is actually managed through the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disabilities. However, we do have our housing team that is on the streets and there are two different teams as well as we have the encampment resolution team that we contract with that works with them. But the actual outreach teams are part of DBHIDS.
Ma'am, if I can add that in DBHIDS's budget, which they'll be here on Monday, they have requested additional dollars to add outreach workers to their teams also.
Okay. I'm just trying to figure out this housing plan around ecosystem. Everyone's using these different words. And, Dave, you know I've been doing this housing thing for a long time so I'm just trying to understand what's the system because I don't understand it anymore. I'm kind of out of the reach on what exactly is happening, who's going where, who's tracking the data, how does people end up in the system. Because I've worked with you before in finding a missing person and it took you like three days to find somebody, he was sleeping at the airport. So I'm just trying to get to understand what is our current system and model to deal with homelessness and how are we tracking or whatever the word we want to use? How are we keeping in touch with our houseless individuals, whether they're going through treatment or going into supportive housing or just living on the street? If you can give it to me in writing, that would be helpful.
An additional point of information, because I do have a working group on homelessness, right. I think even some of your team or some representative may be at the table -- but, no, actually not at this moment, this is mainly stakeholders, right. But my direct line of questioning is piggybacking off on what Member Brooks just mentioned. In terms of the system, from my understanding we don't have a system to share information amongst the various different service providers but other states do, and I think we established it's the HIPAA law that prevents us. But I'm trying to understand because other states, one agency can talk to another agency in terms of tracking and making sure services are provided in a comprehensive way. So could you elaborate on the actual system off of what was just asked as well?
Sure. So the system that we use to track the services that are provided is called HMIS is what is referred to, the Homeless Management Information System. All of the providers that contract with us utilize that system. I do agree one of the challenges with our current model of HMIS is that it is kind of sheltered provider-by-provider so it's not shared across, so we are looking at how we can expand that system so that multiple providers can see what's happening with one person. Because similar to you, I've seen other models where the data is shared. We currently have an RFP out for that as well to change our system so that it can be more comprehensive and bring it into a new way of tracking everyone who comes in. We are not a HIPAA- covered entity. That's the distinction. So our services is not bound by that same restriction. However, we still want to make sure the information is protected which is why we're trying to bring in a new software system so that we can monitor and see what actual services someone's providing from the moment they enter the shelter system to the moment that they're placed in permanent housing.
I just need it in writing because like I said, I'm not clear and I don't want to have you just talk to me in circles. I'd rather look at it and then I can ask my questions more directly. Because I've been involved -- you helped us find people before so I'm not understanding what's the new system, is it a new system or why we can't figure out this information. So I look forward to having a deeper conversation so we can kind of be on the same page. Because I'm --
Yeah, we can provide that to you in writing. And we can also share the information that's in our current RFP so you can see what type of technical specs we're asking for from the service provider.
Perfect. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Phillips and Councilmember Young.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you all for attending today. OHS plans to reduce the length of stay and shelters by piloting new initiatives. What specific barriers currently prevent faster transitions to permanent housing and how will these new pilots address them differently than past approaches?
Thank you for that. So one of the things that we realize is that we're using an old assessment system. You may have heard it referred to as the VI-SPDAT, and that is an old system that tracks and assesses and prioritizes individuals who need housing. So we are looking to change that model to make sure we are addressing everyone who's in the shelter system because under that model, individuals are given a score. And so, someone who just came in may actually get prioritized over someone who's been there for a long time. So we want to look at that and come up with a system that is specific to Philadelphia and addressing the needs that are in Philadelphia. The other thing that we want to do is just make sure that we're monitoring all of the available options for housing that we have that. You know, we have the set-asides that we get from the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. We have other providers that are providing permanent supportive housing. So we want to make sure that our list is comprehensive, not just from those that we fund but also those who may have other funding sources so that when they need someone to go into the unit, that we are also looking at being able to provide those units quickly. Also, we are looking at the fact that there are units that get turned down. And so, we want to make sure that we're understanding why those units get turned down, so they actually sit vacant for quite an amount of time. And so, is there a way that we can make sure that we know what the participants want so that we're not referring them to units that they are eventually going to turn down that, then stay vacant for a long time.
Okay. Thank you. And then I want to ask you this: Philadelphia has one of the highest rates of student homelessness in the state. How is OHS working with the School District to identify and support students experiencing homelessness? And what portion of the FY26 budget is allocated towards youth and students-focused homeless -- housing intervention, excuse me, housing intervention.?
Thank you for that question. So we have a staff member that works very closely with the School District along with us working with DHS to work collaboratively for tracking those students. It is very unique with students that are unaccompanied because as you know, most young people under the age of really don't identify as being 8 homeless because of the things that 9 are stereotyped that are with that. 10 And so, we're working 11 collaboratively with that. 12 We have someone who's at 13 our intake site that works closely 14 with families that have children 15 under the age -- I mean, yeah, 16 children under the age of 18 that 17 helps track with the School 18 District, but we work closely with Kimberly Ali at DHS to try and understand that population even more. But again, we can be better in that. What we do with our youth homelessness, which is called Young Adult Leadership Academy, they go out work with Valley Youth House, Covenant House and all of them to do outreach to potential kids that are under the age of 18. But we have to get better in that system of tracking and identifying them.
And if I can just add, as I mentioned earlier we have access points and intake that's specifically for individuals who are under the age of so that 14 we can make sure that they are 15 getting services that they need, 16 that are targeted for them as well. 17
18 Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm just 19 looking forward to seeing more of 20 that. And also, just in general I 21 know that a lot of people are 22 curious about what you're going to 23 be doing with people who are on the 24 streets not only in Center City, but also throughout the city of Philadelphia and how you engage them to get housed. We're curious about what that looks like, especially with some of our Center City businesses. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. President. And good afternoon. Just a couple questions just for some clarity or some definitions. Do you guys differentiate between what is someone experiencing homelessness versus someone who is unhoused? Is that a distinction that is made between OHS? Or if not, can you define for us what is your definition essentially of homelessness and who creates that definition?
So we use the HUD definition of homelessness, which has several different categories of individuals that are experiencing homelessness. But I think the distinction that you sometimes hear, especially for unhoused, is because someone in the shelter is still someone who is experiencing homelessness but they are not in a place that they can lay their head at night. So a lot of times you hear individuals say unhoused. I use them interchangeably. Sheltered, unsheltered, housed, unhoused. But unhoused usually includes a lot of individuals. But ultimately, when we are making our definitions, because we want to make sure we're always using the correct ones, we use HUD's definition of homelessness as well as the qualified populations that are there. And usually it's people who do not have a permanent location to lay their head at night as well as individuals who may be at risk of homelessness is a category and then formally homeless as a category, which are people who do not have a permanent location to sleep at night.
I ask that because to access your shelter services, right, you don't allow folks who are couch surfing to have access to those systems -- to have access to the housing resources to get transitional housing and things like that. You have to go through the shelter system is what I'm being told. And so, if you have a definition that includes those people who are couch surfing who don't have a permanent place to live, how come they don't have access to the same level of services that someone who is living on the street does?
So there are different types of services. We have prevention services that are there for people to prevent them from being homeless and that could qualify for someone --
Well, no, they're couch surfing, right. They are homeless. They don't have a permanent place to live, right. So that's the population that I'm talking about. What is --
So we don't turn around anyone from our services. Let me say that clearly first. However, there are certain populations that qualify for different housing depending on what their current homeless status is or their current status is. Couch surfing by HUD's definition is not considered homeless. Especially when we are providing housing that is funded by HUD, we have to use HUD's definitions of homeless. However, there are some housing models. And unfortunately, I don't have them in front of me. And perhaps we can find the ones -- I don't know if I can find the ones that are not funded by the City. However, I want to say that some funding is for people who are at risk of homelessness. And couch surfing is one of those categories that are considered at risk of homeless. However, someone having a place to go while it may not be the house that they own, in HUD's eyes they consider that a different category than someone who is but for the shelter would be on the street that night.
If you don't mind if you can share with us those definitions specifically from HUD. Because in one instance you said someone that lacks permanent housing is homeless. And if I'm couch surfing, I lack permanent housing. But then you say, well, I don't qualify. They don't meet the definition under HUD's standards. So I'm just trying to get clarity on what is considered to be someone who is homeless. So as constituents call us, I know how to direct them to the appropriate resources that they may be eligible for or not eligible for.
And thank you. I just had a question in terms of the leadership team. How often do you go out yourselves and inspect our shelter facilities, not sending out an inspector? And I'm asking this question to follow up with Member Jones' line of questioning and statements that when we did a point-in-time, it was super freezing cold. And so, I don't even know why I voted to manage the (inaudible) ski masks because it was very cold that night and I could have used it appropriately for what it was supposed to be used for because it was that cold, right. And in talking to different individuals and we did -- like myself I met a couple of different individuals who talked about they prefer to stay outside, right, than to be inside some of the shelters. And some talked about staff as well as individuals who are being housed here, right. And so, I just want to get an idea how often do you as a team go out and inspect the facilities. And then also, when it comes to health do we provide health-related support staff, nurses, nurses assistants on the sites for those who may be in need?
Thank you. So for the first question, I think I'm in Month 8. I'm not sure what month I am. But however, I've been out to several of the shelters as well as Dave goes out to the shelters. Sometimes our staff goes out announced. Sometimes it goes out unannounced. Because as we know, an announced visit everybody shines the silver, right. So our goal is to make sure that we are visiting the shelters. I've been out to several of them so far and I plan to go out to all of them. They all know that that I plan to visit as well as Dave and the housing team goes out on a regular basis to visit as well. When we get complaints, we do unannounced visits because we want to see again what the participants see at the moment that they are concerned about something. So part of our monitoring is to make sure that not only the direct monitoring staff goes out but eventually all of us go out as well.
Chair recognizes Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson.
Please don't take me out of the queue because I've been patiently waiting. I'll --
I think I was No. 1 for Round 2 so I'll just put that on the record. No, you just mentioned the complaints. When you receive complaints, you do unannounced visits?
Okay. I just wanted to make that clarification. And I only said that because of the boots on the ground, which I love that name because it's all the rave line dance, with the corrective action plans. So as a part of that you all were supposed to be improving the monitoring and evaluation of the emergency shelter providers. So if you could to Council President's question, I just wanted to put it on the record that you all are doing proactive inspections, but you're also doing complaint-driven, what we would call reactive inspections. And I would say to Council President's question, if you could just give a layout of the corrective action plan like the boots on the ground program?
Sure. And they go out without their fans unfortunately, so they can't do that part of boots on the ground. But this year our team has gone out to 28 sites. They go out twice a year is their goal. That's separate from the unannounced visits. They're looking at case management. They're just doing a general site visit and then they're looking at the standards, especially if it has different funding sources. We went out to all of them. We have the data on which ones passed, which ones failed, which ones are pending. If they fail, they have to come up with a corrective action plan. Now, depending on the severity of why they failed, some of those corrections need to happen a lot faster than others. We then will send out an additional team or the team will go back and follow up. In some cases, we sent out our inspectors that normally do our housing quality inspections to go look at the physical building to see what is missing or what needs to be repaired in those buildings and then they will do a follow-up as well. But in the cases of the complaints, that is when the team will go out and do an unannounced visit and they'll see whatever staff is currently there and be able to ask questions and address things, including sometimes the fact that the staff that was supposed to be there may not be there. And so, then they're addressing that directly with the provider.
Okay. And I'll probably do -- well, two small brief questions. One, you talked about piloting new initiatives to accelerate transition from shelter to permanent housing. So I just want you to give an idea the details of the pilot programs, which I think is great helping individuals become homeowners or have permanent housing. I think that's excellent. And then also, what are we doing around addressing housing for those who have disabilities?
Thank you. So currently we have -- and I'll address the second question. First, we have a consultant that's going out to all of our shelters to do an assessment of the accessibility standards for those shelters. And with that, they are identifying both physical modifications as well as program modifications that may be able to happen in those shelters, and some of them are simply things that just need to be repaired, like cracks in the sidewalk or making sure the ramp is up to standards. Others are changes that need to happen as in changing a paint color for wayfinding for someone who may not be able to distinguish what's happening there or lowering some of the soap dispensers so that someone in a wheelchair can have access to it. But in addition, as I mentioned before our reasonable accommodation process has been updated so that if someone does not get the accommodation that they requested, that they can request an appeal directly to OHS and that we will monitor that and then ultimately give a decision. We are trying to get that word out because so far even though we've had that operational for the past few months, we have not received any appeals. And just because I've been doing accommodation work for a long time, I expected to see some appeals. So we put out flyers. We're trying to make sure that everybody knows that in the event that they need to get an accommodation and they're not getting the accommodation that they need, they can request an appeal with OHS directly. And then the --
So we are looking at different models to be able to try to get individuals in quickly. As I mentioned before, one of them is looking at our assessment so that we can make sure that we are placing individuals quickly to the housing that's sitting there. Because as I mentioned, especially some of the smaller units tend to stay vacant a lot longer because people are holding out for the one bedroom or some bigger unit. So one of the pilots that we were looking at is do we change the strategy and just make sure that everyone is getting referred to those smaller units first so that we can get them filled. If people know that they can hold out for a bigger unit, then we have those units stay vacant. But the other part of that model that we are looking at is do we find out the criteria that the individual wants, you know, do they need something with no stairs, do they need something on a particular side of town because maybe that's where their doctors are so that we can then make sure that they're getting referred to those units. But as part of that strategic plan that we talked about earlier in bringing the service provider community in, we really want to have that conversation about what are we missing. Because one thing that I used to see when I was on the provider side, it would take several referrals to find somebody who wanted the unit. And a lot of times we were waving our hand like we know somebody who wants the unit, just let them move in, they meet all the criteria. We just want them to move in. So rather than just refer people to places they're going to turn down, let's turn it on its head and do an assessment so that people are getting referred to the units that we know that they will accept.
Now, when a person comes and they're looking for housing, in a certain instance we will get them a voucher, correct, the kind of system to help them with the rent, right. Do we do an assessment of the people who the renters are renting off? That would be the landlords, correct, right?
Do we assess them in terms of are they -- because they're accepting the voucher that we're providing the renter. The person nine times out of -- well, in my case I'm speaking of a case where an individual was disabled, right, they got the assistance for the down payment so they can move in, right. But the landlords weren't up to par, right. They basically were slumlords, I mean to be quite frank with you. Do we evaluate the folks who benefit from the voucher money that we give the renters to hold them accountable to make sure that who we're supporting are still being treated with a level of dignity in terms of the housing that they're going into? Because some of it is private too, right --
Well, I know a private situation specifically. But I'm talking about on the grand scheme of things to hold those folks accountable. It's kind of like PHA with Section 8, right. But in this case, I'm speaking of an individual who had this disability, right. But there's other cases where they get support from OHS to move in a home or rent a home?
Thank you for that. So part of our Landlord Gateway program is designed to not only recruit landlords who will work with our population but also help monitor. And, in fact, we met with some of the providers yesterday and they talked about some of those landlords. And that's exactly what the team said, we need to know who they are so that we can address that. And that's part of the complication. We want to make sure that individuals are telling us about those individuals who are not meeting the standard. In addition though depending on the program, we have our inspectors go out before we provide the subsidy to make sure that the unit is up to par. But ultimately, we also rely on the providers that we are giving the funding to, to manage the Rapid Rehousing program or whichever voucher it may be to make sure that they're keeping up with those landlords and keeping up the standard. But that is our goal, to make sure that we're tracking what's happening with those landlords. We can pull them off of our website that where those landlords are identified for people with our subsidies so that they can provide housing. But we are trying to make sure that we are getting the information, which is why we were expressing yesterday in a meeting with the providers or on Wednesday with the providers that we need to know who they are if they're not holding up to their end of it. But we are also having a Landlord Week conference in May, May 19th to 23rd if anybody's interested, where we are trying to educate landlords but also educate the community and the providers as well on what it means to be a landlord in our program, what are some of the needs. And so, there's a variety of different topics that we are trying to address, including making sure that our quality is up.
It is in a variety of different places in the city, but we'll be able to get you that in writing as well.
And my last question as I turn it over to my colleagues for Round 2, what's your rubric to make sure that equal distribution of the housing funds in terms of how it's distributed equitably across the board? You have some groups that are smaller, right. Then you have the bigger organizations. How do you make sure that it's equitable across the board?
I have Outley House in my District, right. I have Outley House in my District, so that's like one of the semi-bigger ones and then you have smaller ones in between. So give me an idea how do you handle that?
So one of the things that we have really been intentional about this year is our RFP process. So during the RFP process, we have a variety of different sizes of providers that apply. And the team looks at that, including the smaller providers, and making sure that we can provide support to those that we award the funding to. But that is something that is ongoing and continuing to make sure that we are equitable. You guys probably heard me say that several times in my opening testimony to make sure that we have an equitable process so it's not just all of the larger ones that are getting the funding but that there are other smaller nonprofits that have the funding source. But part of that is also the technical assistance to make sure that the smaller providers understand the funding source that they're asking for. Some of them, especially the HUD funding, requires a lot of prework in order to get the funding, and that does become cost- prohibitive to some of the providers or they may apply for a certain type of funding not realizing that their housing unit is not eligible for it. So we're trying to look at processes to do training on the front end so that anybody who's interested in getting into this space they will understand the service, the grants or the funding source, what is required, if there's an environmental review that's required or if it can take a tenant-based voucher versus a project-based voucher. All of that requires education for those who may not be in this or don't have a huge administrative team to figure it out for them. And so, we are looking at ways through our RFP process to be able to educate more.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Majority Gilmore Richardson. Then Councilmember Curtis Jones, Jr. Then Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, Chair of Housing.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Council President. I wanted to go back to the question quickly that Council President asked regarding sort of the inspections and the corrective action plans that we know were put in place after last year. If you all could just detail for the record how many of the emergency shelter providers have been through that initiative or that program, how many of them remain? And then how did you sort of decide the order of evaluation or order of inspection, so to speak? And how many providers were placed on corrective action plans? How many providers have been recommended for non-renewal based on lack of cooperation with the corrective action plan? And how many providers are at risk for potential non-renewal based on lack of cooperation or other issues relative to the corrective action plans?
Thank you. So we have monitored 28 shelters to date. And of those, initially 7 failed and we have 13 that are 8 still -- or 12 failed on the case 9 management, let me clarify. 11 10 failed onsite visits, meaning the 11 team went out and looked at some 12 things. And then 4 failed on meeting the shelter standards, you know, our policies. Of those, we still have 3 that are pending. Meaning, they're still under their corrective action plan as far as their failure during the site visit. And 13 are still under a corrective action plan as a result of their meeting the standards.
So let me ask you this question because I want to put this on the record because I do think it's important because there's a couple sort of trends that I've been seeing here overall in the detail that I have additional questions regarding even down to the U.S. Facilities contract as well as Scotland Yards contract because there are noticeable decreases, right. And if we need to increase services, I want to -- I'll delve into that on the next round. But I wanted to know if you all have a mandatory line item for the providers around maintenance budget, ensuring that folks could address the concerns really on the front end. If you could talk about if that's included and if you all are addressing that? And I bring that up because of specifically what I've been seeing even with the U.S. Facilities contract.
Yes, thank you. And Dave will address the U.S. Facilities, but if I can just speak to the maintenance. One of the things that we've been doing is looking at what people are budgeting for and why. And there is a variety of budget amounts that have been submitted on maintenance. Part of what you saw in our current budget about one-time maintenance cost was to address or is to address that. So we are --
I apologize for the interruption, but will you all have a line item for that so that it's clear? Meaning, that it's not so many additional one-time allocations because those are very hard to track and you know that there is a need. That came up earlier. Even when I notated where you all have under emergency and temporary housing, you have the provider wage increases notated as a one-time expense as well. But will we need to maintain those higher levels over Fiscal Year '26 and beyond? So are you building those into the increased payments that of the 33 listed vendors 10 are receiving or is that the reason 11 why it's only listed as a one-time 12 and then you're going to build it 13 in moving forward? 14 And I ask that because 15 remember, last year we had 16.1. 16 We went back and forth on that 17 16.1. And remember, we had 18 submitted the additional letter to 19 you all sort of detailing the 20 discrepancies within a variety of 21 the contract documents from last 22 year. And I bring that up because 23 I don't want to be in a circumstance where we're setting ourselves up to do it again because we're just not budgeting and allocating correctly where we can follow the numbers on the budget details. So I just want to give you this example which may help sort of underscore this more. So we compared last year's materials to this year's materials and it's a number discrepancy, right. And so, as an example if you look at the increases and decreases detail portion of the detail, like Bethesda Project, they were listed as $1,354,894 increase. But under the contracts page for 29 on the FY26 detail, it shows a decrease of $530,955 from FY24 to '25. Same thing, even with New Journey CDC, total $1,499,002 across two contracts for FY24, but they were listed as having a $706,967 increase in the FY25 increases and decreases page. But they actually really only saw a decrease of $46,329, and that was after they ended the migrant shelter funds. And there was a decrease in their general shelter contract. So I ask all of that, the one-timers versus if you're putting it inside of the actual contracts because we need to be able to follow those dollars because again, we know homelessness is on the rise. But we need to be able to keep track of what we have so that we know how much more we can do, need to do. Everything is not -- meaning, the numbers aren't matching up.
Understood. So if I could address the first part about the wage increase. That one-time wage increase is in there because it was not in their original FY25 budget. However, our FY26 budget does include that for the providers. And so, that's part --
I told y'all that was going to happen for the FY25, yeah.
And that's part of the reason that we want to make sure that it was addressed and put in the budget. So it's called out in there specifically because we want to make it clear that we are increasing the budgets for FY25. It's embedded in our FY26 budgets. And so, that's why you don't see it called out as a separate line. But that was intentional to make sure that we are covering that this year and then we also have a plan to cover it next year.
No, I understand that. But again, with what we see now we have to be able to track it. That's the challenge, that we're not able to track it effectively to ensure that everything that we have received matches up. I mean, we told you guys that was going to happen. So we need to figure out how we prevent that from happening in the future so that we're not in a circumstance where just because the information is not correct, now we're back at a circumstance where at the end of the day we would have to allocate additional money to no 21 fault of our own, right. You understand what I'm saying?
Mm-hmm. And what we did was looked at all of the providers, what their current funding amount was for their budgets and then be able to come up with the numbers, so we can be able to provide additional detail on that. Now, as far as some of the contracts that are decreasing that you identified, some is a combination of things. Some of them, the contract actually ended this fiscal year so those are now being RFP'd. So we removed it on our FY26 budget from whatever the contract is that is ending and then put it -- you will see a line that says TBD, and that is for the ones that are currently out for RFP. We want to make it clear which ones were ending and then which ones were RFP'g. Now, if they're awarded or whoever is awarded, then our budget then will reflect those awards. But currently they're listed in one lump sum for all of the providers that receive decreases in those lines because of their contracts ending this fiscal year.
Sure. With the embedding that's happening and with the additional discrepancy that like I said we knew would happen because of the detail and then the contracts from last year, how are you all, one, avoiding that from happening again in the future but, two, I don't know how you're able to move -- is it that other contracts are decreasing enough for you in the same class and under the same unit, you're able to move money around? Meaning, where's the extra money coming from?
Are you referring to the wage increases? I just want to make sure I'm clear.
The one-time allotments, the wage increases, the differences in the emergency and temporary housing shelter contracts, where is that money coming from? I'm only asking because we weren't asked -- and I'm Vice-Chair of Approps. We weren't asked to move anything around for OHS this year.
So I will just jump in here. I remember sitting here with you last year and promising you that we would not ask for more money. So OHS, Finance, Budget and MDO literally meet every Wednesday to go through OHS's budget needs every week. And at the close, we're here. We're close to the end of the year. There are funds that we can help providers to do the wage increase. We can help providers that are at risk. We do have providers that are at risk for termination of their contract because of the quality issues, so we have an opportunity to help the providers with that one-time maintenance cost. And then for the budget line item, Cheryl said that we are going to look at what the providers submit in their budgets that they submit to us. They are not consistent across the board in how much they request in their budget for maintenance, so we're trying to do some education with them as well. But the '25 costs are that, just us making sure we're not coming back to you for more money and knowing that homelessness is a real problem. So Councilmember Gauthier has said to us, if you have extra money, why aren't you using it. So we went right to the table and talked to Budget to say we think that that's true, like we need to use this money that currently exists to provide those assistance to the providers that are there.
Okay. So the maintenance line items will be embedded moving forward?
The maintenance line item will be embedded into the providers' budgets they submit to us. So you'll see contract changes to the provider lines, but there won't be a single maintenance line from OHS.
Understood. Okay. Thank you. I'll come back on the next round. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you, Madam Leader. Councilmember Curtis Jones and Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Mr. President. On your impromptu inspections, I'd like to volunteer me and Member Harrity to go undercover. And if you can get us through the paperwork, I trust him to go in with -- maybe O'Rourke too, but definitely Harrity. And I'm serious, we will impromptu volunteer to do that. If you would have done that chart that I mentioned early as homework, a third of your questions would have been self- explanatory, not Majority Leader's questions because they were very financial. But the process of this would have been a little more understandable. So I'm going to urge you to when you on the callback please do that. I want to focus on particular populations. I'd like to talk about returning citizens, people coming home from incarceration, how they are infused into the system and older males. We had a situation in my office, young -- well, a man who grew up in Wynnefield. And he went the course of I live with my mom, my mom's no 14 longer with us, I no longer can afford this house, it's a big house, they sold it. He wound up in your care. I mentioned him because that is becoming more and more prevalent, that folk that did not take the precautions at a certain point in their life be self- sufficient are a growing population of folk there. So I want to know how are we treating ex-offenders, that process, and older males that are kind of finding themselves at the last resort coming to you. And at the end of the day, this individual from Wynnefield, the President knows about Wynnefield has traveled up there a lot. You helped him, and you've always been helpful. But when the help came, it was in an area, another part of my District, and when he's used to Wynnefield, that reality, he started barking out crying, like literally, like, how did my life wind up here. So how are we addressing that?
Thank you. So to answer the first question about ex-offenders, our housing or at least the majority of our housing does not have a criminal history restriction with the exception of sex offenders. So with that, anyone who comes in with criminal history should be able to come, especially in the Continuum of Care housing that we have. So they can come in, come to our intake centers, get the assessment and then upon placement, we work very closely with the providers to make sure that there aren't any or very minimal barriers to entry into the housing depending on the needs. And again, with the exception of a few cases of certain criminal charges that is the case. Now, as far as individuals who may be experiencing homelessness for the first time, that's part of the reason that we are looking to make our prevention program a little bit more streamlined because the goal of prevention is to prevent someone from entering homelessness. So we have the program that we partner with the various City providers in order to be able to provide some additional dollars. We work with the Eviction Diversion program. We provide some rental arrears assistance. We also provide some security deposit or maybe a couple months' of rent assistance so that someone can get the jumpstart they need to be able to get housing without experiencing homelessness. So those are just a couple of the ways that we're trying to enhance our programs off the top of your head.
What's the population of senior males coming into that system, percentage?
How we define senior males -- well, seniors in general 55 and older. I know. We're seeing at least between about 18% to 22% of people who are in that age category that's coming in. Again --
So just to give you clarity, our shelter on Wednesday had 76 people in it that were 65 and older. And that was just on Wednesday.
Council President, I do want to go back to Majority Leader to answer a question that we did not and you mentioned about U.S. Facility and Scotland Yards. First of all, let me just say thank you for your advocacy and just holding us accountable for everybody's tax dollars. That's the right thing to do. So as we relate to U.S. Facility, what we did in trying to be fiscally prudent we know U.S. Facility was causing significant -- they do great work. Let me just say that. But it's a very expensive contract. And so, what we did was reduce that contract to hire more City staff, labor staff to do maintenance in our shelters. And so, when you see that number reduced at 2100 Girard, that was a direct result of us being able to hire about 12 custodial workers, at that time $240,000 that saved tremendous amount of money from where the U.S. Facility contract was. Same thing with Scotland Yard. We were paying -- and previous to Cheryl coming on, we had Scotland Yard Security doing security on Kensington Avenue. As a result of Mayor Parker and other initiatives, there were other resources that could have been allocated there which was Philadelphia Police. And so, we decided to reduce that contract and spend that money other places because there were adequate police resources on Kensington Avenue that we did not need to spend out of our Homeless Services budget.
Point of information, Majority Leader Richardson.
Yes. Thank you very much, Council President. If possible, I will still submit the questions that I have -- that makes sense. I will still submit the questions I have specifically for those two contracts because of the changes in the numbers, but that clarifies partially what we were seeing. And even in the changes in the Class 100 allocations, there was a bunch of different changes there where it was noticeable decreases in the lower-level positions. Thank you, Council President.
You're welcome. Councilmember Jamie Gauthier. Then Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke and Councilmember Rue Landau.
Thank you, Council President. Before I get into my questions, I just wanted to respond to something that I heard. When you're on this floor, you'll hear different things come up, especially from different Councilmembers. Majority Leader is always going to be the fiscal hawk. Councilmember Ahmad is always going to ask about data. I'm always pushing for services. And Councilmember Jones always talks about balance, so I'm going to reach for Councilmember Jones in this moment. I'm hopeful that we can find balance with what we're doing here. I greatly appreciate the focus on fiscal responsibility. We absolutely have to be responsible with tax dollars and that's the right thing to do, but it really startled me to hear you say that you promised not to come to us to ask for any more money. I believe that while we're being fiscally responsible one thing that we should not be shy about is spending on unhoused people. We spend so, so much on so many things in this city. Every single year I go to the Homeless Memorial Day and we read off a really long list of people who died in homelessness, and it's one of the most heartbreaking events that I attend on an annual basis. And I go every year and I'll continue to go every year, but I'm hopeful that we don't have that event at some point. And so, I want us to achieve the balance of fiscal control, but also to spend whatever we need to spend to house people in the city of Philadelphia --
Can I just have, Council President, a point of clarification. I want to have a point of clarification. Because what we were directly referring to was the 16.1 million. It was not the overall OHS budget. We were referring to the 16.1 that was in question from last year to say don't come back after we give you this 16.1 because we had settled on an amount that they needed that we agreed upon for last year. So I don't know that that is indicative of what we have been in discussion regarding -- because you know that in Council we've done an extra $41 million since FY18 for homeless services. So when they ask, we do. So that was specific to the issue around the fiscal concerns around the contracts where we allocated the additional money and appropriation for the last year. I just want to be clear about that because --
Thank you. I almost jumped out of my chair when I heard that.
Thank you for that, Majority Leader. But that's true, we always need more money. We know that homelessness is increasing and we hope and pray that it doesn't continue, but we think it will in this time of uncertainty. So more than likely we will ask for more every year, but that was in relation to the $16.1 million.
Thank you for the clarification. On to my questions, the City typically maintains about 3600 year-round shelter beds and adds roughly 250 to 300 extra beds during the winter Code Blue, cold weather emergencies. What operational or budgetary changes would it take to keep those additional Code Blue beds available year-round, for example, additional staffing, extended provider contracts or facility costs? And has OHS considered this expansion? And next, has the Office of Homeless Services estimated the cost of providing these winter overflow beds on a year-round basis? And does the FY26 proposed budget allocate any funding toward expanding year-round emergency shelter capacity or piloting a year-round model for cold weather beds? And I really started to focus on this issue due to what I was seeing in my District. As an example, we have an emergency shelter for women and I was getting quite a lot of complaints from residents that they would see women lining up outside the shelter, which doesn't open until I believe 5:00 p.m., women lining up as early as noon, all of their things standing on the sidewalk because that's how they can assure they're going to get a bed for the night, that they have to leave at I think 6:00 a.m. And when I started to talk to the shelter staff about this, they said, well, we don't see this in the winter as much because we have the beds that we need. But once that supply gets cut, then we're back to the same situation of people trying to ensure a bed by standing outside for hours. And my residents were complaining about this, not because they find it unsightly or inconvenient, they find it inhumane. And so, I wanted to ask have we thought seriously about this as a solution?
Yes, thank you. So to keep the winter beds online, we have calculated the numbers, it's approximately $6.1 million extra a year to keep those beds that we have during the winter year-round. We also are looking at ways to stretch those dollars a little bit more between the enhanced Code Blue and our winter dollars. We're looking to see if there's a model that does add dignity to that so that -- because I agree, lining up to hope for a bed is not dignified. So we are looking to see how we can do something different with that. But the reality is that's about the budget to make sure that the beds that we have during the winter can expand, but we have been looking for different ways to see how we can stretch that. What we did this year with our RFPs, rather than have everyone come up with an operating budget, we came up with a per bed per diem and that enabled us to add additional beds and still cover the cost that the providers had for the shelters and during the winter. So we're looking at different models to be able to add additional beds during the winter in particular, but even outside of the winter.
Does the FY26 budget account for this at all, having these beds online year-round in a way that keeps supply open?
Thank you. If you could get your -- I'm not sure. I know we asked for this. If you haven't provided that to my office, if you can get that, both the full cost and the sort of per bed cost, we would be appreciative.
Yes, we provided the winter cost, but we can get you the per bed cost.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you. Councilmember O'Rourke. Then Councilmember Young and Councilmember Harrity.
Thank you, Mr. President. While homelessness is a complex problem and the reasons for each specific instance of homelessness may vary, your clarity stood out to me on what was necessary to solve homelessness, and that being more housing. If there are only currently about 75-ish, I think is what you said, senior men -- I would venture to guess they're probably Black -- who are not housed. It just emphasizes to me in my mind why, and I appreciate Council President and other members of this body, emphasizing what the Catholic social tradition calls the preferential option for the poor, that as opposed to us finding all of the reasons to incentivize housing, commodify housing, what have you, that we need to hyperfocus on the least of these. And I just want to put that on the record. It's just heartbreaking to me that we have this problem and we just cannot figure out to solve it. I know that the idea is to limit it or what have you, but I think that's the thing that can be resolved. That's not my question. I just needed to get that off my chest. You mentioned FY27 in your responses to my questions in the first round, which makes me feel a little better that though we aren't finished with hearings for FY26, I'm good to look ahead. Each budget season is hard. But if trends in D.C. continue, then I imagine next year's process will be frankly, incredibly painful. And on this inauspicious morning, the President is sharing his budget and brief with Congress. In that document, the details aren't out yet, but the reporting notes that the document calls for federal block grants to be eliminated or consolidated and envisions significant cuts to HUD and we already know the Feds want to have HUD's workforce. Meanwhile your testimony at the back ends by stating that any reductions in federal funding would have a significant impact across the office, not small reductions, not medium reductions, any reductions would deeply impact your work. So I have some broader questions meant to do some municipal forecasting, meant to kind of forecast in light of FY27. I heard the bell so I'll try to get them out real quick. I know this is broad funding across a range of grant programs, but let's say the office received 10% less federal dollars next year. What would be some of the services that would be first on the chopping block for OHS? Two, I want to ask about the Community Development Block Grants, which this federal administration seems ready to slash. How might any cuts to CDBG impact OHS services and specifically some of the H.O.M.E. Initiative programs that have CDBG dollars baked in? Specifically, is there a clear prioritization of where CDBG dollars will go in the case of cuts?
Thank you. And if I can clarify about the FY27 statement, HUD now has an every other year application process. So when I mentioned FY27 is because that's the next time we can apply for that housing or for that funding. So to answer your question about the federal funding, obviously a lot of our services dollars, not just directly through OHS but also as we apply for that impacts other service providers will have a huge impact on those experiencing homelessness. Our CoC funding is roughly $50 million, $60 million that's just about providing housing. So that would have an impact. And you add on to it all the other federal funding that the City has. So it's something we think about and we thought about it when, you know, they shut down their system and we couldn't get the funding out for a couple of days, you know, what we were going to do during that time. We work closely with the Law Department and the Finance Department to look at the grant agreements that they're sending to us and whether or not we even should sign them just given some of the language that they changed in there. So we defer to Law a lot on some of that. But it is a risk. And that's why every time we get information from the federal government we are reaching out to Finance, we are reaching out to Law just to see what our risk exposure is and also what can happen in the event that some of that funding goes away. But it's compounded more than even some of the grants that you mentioned, again between the service provider community and OHS itself. It would be devastating, just to be honest.
Can you say which services that would actually be first on the chopping block?
It would depend on the funding source because some of them are very specific on how we use that funding. So, for example, our CoC funding is about the permanent supportive housing and Rapid Rehousing. So if they cut that, then we would lose some of the units that we currently have. Other funding that they give us is specifically about the planning for the city and how we are going to implement the services. So if they cut that funding, then that limits that. Some of our staff is actually paid for out of some of those grants. So if they cut that, we will lose some of our staff or we'd have to re-evaluate how we staff those positions. So it's a little bit complex because each of them fund a different thing. But I just wanted to give you a few examples.
Thank you for those examples. Mr. President, I'd like to request a CDBG funding priority list jointly crafted between OHS and the leaders of the H.O.M.E. Initiative naming the programs that our Administration sees as most in need of these dollars. I think Council needs to know how the Admin is thinking about weathering the storm that is clearly on the horizon. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Harrity -- oh, it was you?
I just -- real quick if I could just get a list of all shelter providers --
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Council President. Real quick and you can get it to me, I don't need it now. Just a list of all the sites contracted or city-run.
Thank you. Councilmember Rue Landau. Then Councilmember Lozada and Councilmember Young.
Thank you. At our last Housing Committee hearing we had a witness, a community navigator, testify that he often didn't know where to send people who needed rental assistance. As of yesterday Phillytenant.org indicates that OHS has no funding available for rental assistance and has not had such funding since January 8, 2025; is that correct?
That is not correct. Now, during January it is true that we paused accepting new applications because at the time we had the 4000 applications that we had to sift through. But once they were able to go through those and determine which ones were eligible, which ones may have resolved in another way, we then reopened our application process. So it's now open. We're accepting applications. But again, as we talked about or as I was alluding to earlier we tried to streamline the process. So before people came in, they told us what they needed, we told them what we needed and then they went back and got it. Now, we actually give the information upfront and says if you need assistance, here are all the documents we want you to bring in when you come so that we can do some of that analysis at the moment that the person enters our office.
How can outsiders get the information that they need to know when you have the funds and when you don't have the funds, if this is on a kind of cyclical seasonal basis?
We are hoping that it's not seasonal. However, what we are trying to do is use technology to monitor and be able to process applications in a different way. We've looked at changing our phone system because people call and they leave voicemails right now, so we're looking to use, you know, different technology within our phone system to be able to let people know. When we did have the temporarily paused, we posted it everywhere. We send it to our mailing list and they absolutely can join our mailing list to get information on any services that we provide so that we can keep individuals informed. Any time you email OHS@phila.gov, it actually gives the information, including our prevention information. At the time that we had to pause, it also said on that auto-response that there was a temporary pause. So we're trying to make sure we're getting the information out as quickly as possible when there are changes.
I'm just as concerned if you're going to send information out about a pause, then you're going to have to send information out about it's restarting again.
Let's just try to make sure there's funding year-round so we won't have to do any of that. I wanted to get back to the technology question though because I know I've talked to you guys about this before. I am the Chair of the Technology Committee and it seems that you are one of the departments that so desperately needs more technology in order to be able to run your very complicated business you're running, between your phones and a database that will help us not just track humans but track open beds, maintenance requests, other concerns that are happening and making sure that we have a holistic view of beds that are available, families who need them and you guys can be the Craigslist, Match.com of making sure that we are giving people the unit available for what they need. How far along are you in this request process or in this production process of technology and is it funded?
So currently we have the RFP out for our HMIS system. And in those specs we are asking for a lot more innovation than what we currently have in our HMIS system, so we are looking to enhance that. There are systems that will track individuals. It'll attract the services, so on and so forth, including bed reservation, which is one of the things that we've looked into. Near term what we've talked about is putting our daily census on our website so that anyone who wants to know at least what the current census is, granted it changes every day, but that is one thing that we've talked about as well as our permanent housing. That one would be a little bit more less frequent because it's not a daily change. But our goal is to put as much information on our website as we can so that individuals can go out. We actually do that now with our service days. Every week we post where we are going, what the locations are so that the community and the providers know, especially if they have participants or clients that they're working with, that we're coming there to do a service day or an encampment resolution depending on the needs.
So you've already put out the RFP. There is funding for this available? Is it being funded?
Yes, but as the Councilmember mentioned it's federal funds. So it's one of the projects that we have -- or part of it is federal and part of it is general funds, but it's part of our Continuum of Care.
How about the enhanced phone system? Is that out -- what kind of change would that have to be? Is that an internal City of Philadelphia change or is that something that you would --
We would have to work with OIT to look at exactly what is changing. The team has started drafting what it would look like even from an IVR system, which is simply you can either say or push the button on what the services you need so that you can get directed to the right location. I would also add one of the changes we did do in technology in our intake is we're using a keyless system. In the past, people came in, they signed their name and they just waited to be called. Now, we're using technology so that there's a unique ID that posts so that they can see when it's their turn rather than coming in and writing on paper what they need and then hoping that someone can read their handwriting.
Excellent. Last comment is that I am very excited for FreshStartPHL, which I know will enhance the support that you're giving people whether it's to triage them to ensure they're not going into the shelters or to help them have a quicker and safer way out. So looking forward to having more of those conversations. Thank you.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, then Young and then Majority Richardson will wrap us up.
Thank you, Council President. I actually walked out because I was trying to respond to an issue that was related to Homeless Services in the office, and I'm trying to figure out your process, right. We have an individual who is living in an alleyway who has been throwing urine on people and consistently fighting with the residents, breaking into their homes. And we're being told that, oh, we just can't do anything about it. I'm trying to figure out your process and as we work towards improving the quality of life in Kensington, when situations like this occur how are we going to respond to them, right. What's different from what you've been doing in the past now?
Thank you. So to address any criminal activity, the one thing that we communicate to everyone is the answer is still to call 911. And then the other part with Behavioral Health, we definitely advocate for 988. We have been working again with DBHIDS to make sure that when people call homeless outreach, that that information is also shared. But ultimately, if there's a crime being committed, that has been our answer is to still call 911. I do agree that we are limited in that scope, that if it's a crime, 911. And then if there's a mental health crisis, 988. However, outreach and all of those teams that are out there, they are aware of those same services and hopefully be able to share that information. But again, because outreach is a separate entity I think DBH might be able to explain a little bit more. And I would have to defer to them on what outreach is doing there. But if they call us, that is usually our response, to call one of those numbers for crimes that are being committed.
I'm concerned because community residents are going to become emboldened, right. And I have a bunch of residents now on a block who are extremely frustrated. They've called Homeless Services. They've called 911. They've called 311 and can't get a response to do something with this individual or help them respond to this individual who is also exposing himself to people on the block. And so, they are now committed to taking matters into their own hands. I have seniors who are living with unsheltered people on their porches who have also been threatened and can't get these people off of their private property. And so, we're going to continue to push to improve quality of life in the Kensington community and we understand that community residents have to be partners. But at some point, folks are going to get sick of responding through the process if the process is not supportive of them.
Can I -- Councilmember, if we could connect during the break to get the information about that particular person, I'll have DBHIDS and someone from crisis out now today.
Thank you. How many Homeless teams that we have going on specifically dealing with also mental and behavioral health that's a part of our strategy to get people off the streets?
OHS has four teams that go out. But again, because it's a collaborative effort, DBHIDS has quite a few more teams that they contract with, and we can certainly partner with them to get that information to you but they would have that more accurate number.
Yeah, please do. But I just want to know separate from DBHIDS, right, I'm thinking because OHS deals with those who are homeless, right, and we want to get people off the streets, right, we're not even only looking at incarcerating because individuals are homeless, but the goal is to actually get them off. And obviously a lot of it deals with mental health, right, and mental stability. And so, I want to get an idea from your department, right, you said four teams, but DBHIDS has additional teams. Were you looking to expand your own teams because of the level of homelessness that we're dealing with? Because DBHIDS to me is a different conversation compared to your role as specifically getting homeless people off the street, right. And so, I would think we would have an aggressive strategy with the mental health piece to try to get people off the streets that sometimes may not want to get off the streets because of the mental health issues that they're dealing with.
Yeah, and thanks for that. And you're right, we do need additional resources. But the individuals that we're seeing on the street these days have co-occurring diagnosis, meaning their mental health and substance abuse underlying their --
So we do need additional staff that can help focus on that. But again, we work with our partners at DBHIDS who has some level of staff that can do that, but we will welcome that.
Okay. Cool. Thank you. Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young and then Majority Leader will take us home.
Thank you. I'll just get both my questions on the record. First question is over the summer I met some young women who are staying the shelter in my District, and they basically told us that from 9:00 to 3:00 they kick them out the shelter with no services, nothing like that is provided. And also, as a meal all they feed them is tuna and lettuce, right. So can you tell us what I guess is there a standard for meals to be provided in shelters and if there are other social services that are required by the shelter to provide to some of their participants? That's the first question. And the second question is about Philly Home at Girard. I know Councilmember Brooks asked for -- her question is my question. She asked for it to be in writing. I'm asking if you can put it on record, like what is the process to get -- what's intake process for Philly Home at Girard? Who are the participants? Is it only for folks who are experiencing substance abuse or does the mobile outreach workers, are they able to get folks from anywhere in the city to provide them with shelter at Philly Home at Girard?
Thanks for that question. I'll answer the first part as it relates to food quality and shelter. So we provide three meals and a snack in all of our shelters and we follow the City Health Department Healthy Meal Snacks. And if there's a children and food program, we follow what we call CA -- children and food programs, there's a child nutritionist program that we have to do with protein, grain, fruits and so forth. So if anyone is reporting that they have not gotten a meal, this is part of our standards. We have a food service unit that goes out and monitor food quality in all of our shelters. So we definitely want to know that, Councilman Young --
So do they know when you're coming to monitor that? That's the thing, right. Because at that same day I went to the shelter and knocked on the door and they looked like they saw a ghost. They're like, oh, no, right, because they know what's going on. And so, I'm just asking that along similar lines of what Councilman Jones and Harrity said. I mean, we cannot let them know when you are coming out because then things are totally different. And when I spoke to these young women who are parents, they're just sitting in a park all day long because there's nowhere else for them to go. The food is horrible, right. And so, they're sitting in a park eating like crab platters, right, because they're not allowed to go back in. So what are I guess the protocols again for your shelters for the food and again the level of service that the participants are getting or are getting throughout the day to lift them out of that situation?
Yeah, absolutely right. There are some monitor visits that the provider is fully aware, but we can increase and we are going to increase more unannounced visits during those meal times to make sure that we have additional eyes on that and those type of issues there.
And if you don't mind, I would love to get information on which one you're specifically talking about because I want to be able to address that as well, because we do have a standard that we want people to -- everyone should be able to have a decent meal, and crackers and tuna or whatever was that it sounds like you were describing does not sound acceptable. Philly Home Girard I will say is divided into two programs and I can speak specifically to the OHS floors at Philly Home at Girard. That comes through our intake process. The individuals that come there is shelter-based system. The fifth and sixth floors are DBHIDS-run floors so they would be able to describe a little bit more about that process. I do know it's low barrier. And what we are looking at, at that building is not separating necessarily the services offered by who runs the floor, but being able to provide services to anyone who comes in there. So there's behavior health staff that's in the building that comes in and provides services. There's medical opportunities. There's Narcotics Anonymous that they're trying to stand up. So all of these are for the benefit of anyone who comes in. However, the OHS-run floors come through our intake process.
So how do you get to your intake process is my question? Is it -- is it through your outreach workers? If I'm experiencing homelessness, can I go to that facility and say, hey, I'm experiencing homelessness? Can I do intake on site? Like, what is the intake process?
So our intake process for our floors are similar to any of our shelters. They can go to any of our intake sites. They can indicate from an outreach provider that they are willing to come in. They will either bring them the intake or make the phone call directly to us. We are piloting a process with outreach that they don't have to bring someone to intake. If it's somebody that's known, they can call our team. We'll then work with them to get them placement without having to come to an intake site. So our goal is the moment that someone's ready to come in, that we are placing them somewhere. So for our floors, yes, there is a process. But that process is multi-faceted. You can go to outreach. You can go to an intake site. They can meet with like mobile assessors. Just depending on where they are, we want to be able to try to get them in. It may not be specific to that site. It might be based on availability of what we have at any of our sites. But I don't want the impression that they have to go to one specific place to get to our floors at Philly Home at Girard.
And what's the total number of beds for your floors at Philly Home at Girard?
Thank you. Majority Leader Gilmore. Richardson.
Yes, thank you. Thank you very much, Council President, and thank you colleagues. And thank you again to the team. I want to submit the balance of my specific detailed questions for the record, only so that we get clarity to understand like if there's any underspend and how to plan for next year within our budget process. I want to end on case management and sort of how people traverse the system because I think that's sort of the most important part that we need to continue to understand. You all had stated that case managers have the following caseload. So per 24 families or per 35 participants. You had also mentioned that 80% of the case management costs are covered by state and federal grant funds, a total of $2.9 million from the state and $1.2 million from the federal government. And then the additional 20% of those costs are covered by the General Fund, so a large majority are grants revenue. Do we anticipate any reductions in case management funds either from the state or the federal government at this point? And I think keywords are going to be at this point. And how are we preparing in case we see any unanticipated reductions in those funds from a General Fund perspective in particular? And how much does the City spend on case management out of our General Fund in total? And then, is there a national standard or best practice for case management ratios for us to understand the information that you all shared relative to the families and the participants? If there is a standard or best practice, what is it and what would it cost us to reach that particular level? And then finally, what are the qualifications -- this is on my workforce development hat -- to be a case manager? What level of training do they receive? How often do these trainings take place? And one of the things I think we hear is around the process delays from the case managers are regularly cited as issues for participants who are looking to get into permanent housing. So how often are you all evaluating those policies and processes and evaluating the case managers?
Thank you. So the best practice depends on the vulnerability of the population, but it can range anywhere from 1 to 15 to 1 to 25 as you mentioned, just based on what the population may need. And with that, I will say to qualify it just depends also on the services. So there are certified peer specialists that may work at some sites, certified recovery specialists. Some sites use what are called support specialists that come in and help with some of the case management needs for the individuals.
So meaning, with the numbers that you all provided, the for and the for 35 and the is for families, 35 for 23 participants, do you break that 24 down based on the particular population? Do you understand what I'm saying, based on your response? How do you break that down?
Yes. So I asked about any best practices around case management ratios, and you said it depends on the vulnerability of the population. So what I'm saying is are you all breaking down the numbers that you provided even further in groups, meaning mental health, substance abuse? Do you break it down even further and then change the ratios or is this just the overall number?
Right now I believe that's the overall number, but we can look at what we're provided from the different entities to see if we have the actual breakdown ratio based on the actual site and the services that are provided at that site.
And then the qualifications to be a case manager, what level of training do they receive and how often do the trainings take place? And then relative to process delays that we hear about within the case management system, how often are you evaluating those policies and the processes and also the case managers?
Thank you. So it depends on -- I hate to keep saying it depends, but it does depend on the level of service. So for example, if they are just providing linkage -- and saying just feels like it's minimizing what they do because that is still a lot of important work that they're doing, but if they're providing linkages between the person's other services, that is a different level of skill set then someone who is actually providing some of those services on site. So with that -- so if they are providing some of the linkage services, then it may just be some experience of anywhere from no experience with supervision on site, you know, entry level being able to provide some of those services all the way up to social workers being able to provide the services. And again, it just depends on whether or not the site is actually doing all the case management themselves, including some of the behavior health services or if they're doing more linkages of services.
Okay. And I'll put the rest of the questions on the record even around the qualifications for the case managers, because we want to understand their process. And then finally, I am committed to -- and I told David Holloman this I think last year -- visiting with the new family shelter that we worked on together, which is the reason why I started on this journey, when the family called my office with the children and we had to put them up in a hotel and it just went from there. So I'm committed to visiting the new shelter in the Northwest. But I wanted to ask if we wanted to go to any of the shelters at any time unannounced, are we able to do that?
With some of them, yes. Others it just may -- for example, we fund domestic violence shelters and some of the other ones. So it would just depend on the nature of the shelter, but we certainly can provide you the list that you should be able to come to unannounced. And I welcome it and I definitely want to know if you see things that are concerning.
Okay. That would be great if we could get the list. Okay. Have a great day. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you for your hard work in addressing this issue. We know it's not an easy issue to work on. And with that being said, Council will be at ease until 2:30 and we will wrap up the afternoon with the Fire Department and Licenses and Inspections. (Council at ease.)
We will continue the Committee of the Whole. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the next panel.
We'll have Jeffrey Thompson, Fire Commissioner for Philadelphia Fire Department. And then we'll also bring up Bridget Greenwald, Commissioner for Quality of Life, Department of L&I, and Basil Merenda, Commissioner of Inspection, Safety and Compliance. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
And so, the way this is going to work you all will give your testimony, and then members of Council will have a chance for the rest of the afternoon to ask questions of both departments. Commissioner, please state your name for the record and please begin your testimony. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Good afternoon, Council President Johnson and members of Council. I'm Jeffrey Thompson, Fire Commissioner. Joining me today are several members of my executive team. The Philadelphia Fire Department continues to provide comprehensive all-hazard risk reduction and emergency response while working to ensure the health and safety of PFD members and supporting the Mayor's goal of building mutual trust and safety in city neighborhoods. The Fire Department's goals for Fiscal Year 2026 include graduating up to 32 firefighters and paramedics from our technical rescue school, which certifies participants as hazmat technicians and qualifies them to perform specialized rescue operations. And this is going to help us in our current operations as well as to prepare us for 2026. Additionally, we are planning on hiring and training and onboarding 200 emergency medical service providers. We're also going to work with our partners to make critical building repairs at the fire academy that will help us to get more cadets through the academy. We're going to continue to conduct intensive recruitment campaigns to attract a diverse candidate pool for the upcoming fire civil service exam. We're going to institute an upskilling program for PFD EMTs to become paramedics. And finally, we will strive to fill non-uniform vacancies in the PFD's administrative, fiscal and compliance units. And it is my honor and privilege to be here today to answer any questions that you may have.
Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: For the record, my name is Basil Merenda. I am responsible for the construction side of Mayor Parker's historic reorganized and reinvigorated L&I better known as L&I's Inspection, Safety and Compliance Division. Joining me is my senior staff. I'd like to thank Council President Johnson and all the Councilmembers for affording me the opportunity to submit testimony on behalf of L&I's ISC Division, which formally went into effect on March 5, 2024. I'm pleased to report that the ISC's first year of operation has been very productive and transformative. First, we made great strides in getting a City department that wholly is dedicated to the oversight of citywide construction projects properly organized and up and running. I can report once and for all that the City has a department focused exclusively on construction development that can be more accessible, responsive and accountable to the City Council, contractors, community groups, labor organizations, neighbors and on construction projects throughout the city. As the Mayor says, we have a city department that you could see, touch and feel. At the same time from day one, we ensured that L&I's reorganization on the construction side did not interrupt the essential day-to-day operations of the department, from plans review and inspections to enforcement and customer services, making sure that the trains ran on time as the old saying goes. Moreover, I'm proud to note that during this time period ISC addressed two major citywide challenges in a professional, effective, dignified manner, earning the trust and respect of the Administration, our fellow city agencies and the entire city. I just want to point out two priorities, Council President. And I think this is good for the Council to know about our goals and objectives for this first year. Number one, recruitment and retention. In October, we welcomed a new class of inspectors with 9 16 candidates on track to enter the 10 field this summer. 11 Just this past week, we 12 also filled five newly-designated 13 Audits and Investigation Unit 14 investigators, positions that were 15 funded in last year's budget. And 16 early in March, we were able to 17 bring back a highly experienced 18 inspector who had previously left 19 city service thanks to the recent 20 city service regulation change that allowed the reinstatement of employees in good standing within five years. We also improved significantly our enforcement initiatives. We have achieved measurable improvements in addressing problematic contractors, these fly-by-nights, through the Audits and Investigation Unit, the Clean Sites Initiative, Saturday patrols and the Complaints Units. These efforts have a tangible impact on neighborhoods across the city, and underpinning it all is making the department more accessible, responsive and accountable to City Council, contractors, all of our stakeholders. A shining example of this effort is the system that we have established working with members and your respective Council staff, on issues like construction code violations, on safe structures, substandard workmanship and unpermitted activity. And also, I want to note for the record to highlight two particularly notable accomplishments by our LSA staff that rose to the occasion. First, our Licenses and Inspections plans examiners and district inspectors distinguished themselves with the record time it took to review plans and inspect building construction of the Mayor's Riverview Wellness Center, a key component of the Kensington initiative. That center is now up and running servicing folks. Then on January 31st, on display for the entire city to see, our CSU inspectors did what they do best, inspect unsafe and ID properties.
They stepped up, met the horrifying task posed by the Northeast plane crash, working all weekend side-by-side with the City's other first responders, police, fire and the Office of Emergency Management along with the federal authorities. So in conclusion, I respectfully ask for the continued support of the Council with your partnership, our tireless work of our ISC staff will ensure that we can bring up a department that is wholly focused on construction projects large and small throughout the city. Thank you, President.
Thank you. Thank you very much. I just have a couple brief questions. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Do you want me to go?
Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot y'all two -- COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Remember, two of us.
Y'all split the department. Go ahead, Bridget. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: All right. I'll be quick. Good afternoon, Council President Johnson and members of City Council. I'm Bridget Collins, Greenwald, the Commissioner of the Department of Licenses and Inspections Quality of Life Department. It is a pleasure to appear before City Council today in support of L&I's Fiscal Year '26 budget request. As you have our written testimony, which highlights the many accomplishments and plans of the department in front of you, I will not belabor them. QOL has taken on a proactive and collaborative approach to education and enforcement with many newly- implemented programs. We coordinate with the PPA and PPD on our very successful PPL program, in which we are out in the neighborhoods every week stopping illegal auto repairs. We coordinate with Commerce, community groups at every District Council office on commercial corridor business, education and enforcement with our B program. We work with CLIP, Clean and Green, Sanitation and Streets on the Clean and Green Initiative. These are just a few of the initiatives introduced since the beginning of the change in administration to improve the quality of life in the city. I would like to add one thing that is not in the written testimony, and that is about the QOL team. QOL has many outstanding employees that are super dedicated and care about improving the quality of life for the citizens of Philadelphia. I would like to acknowledge them publicly for their commitment to public service. They are out in every single neighborhood every single day providing education and enforcement. They want to see this city thrive. I say it all the time. I'm very proud to work in a place where the employees show a genuine sense of care and commitment to their profession by following our core mission of responsibly and respectfully serving the community of Philadelphia by providing quality code, education and enforcement services. The QOL team is transparent. We're approachable and we embrace positivity to make the city the safest, cleanest and greenest large city in the country with economic opportunity for all. We're on the energy bus journey and it is paying off immensely. Thank you for indulging me. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you very much. And first, I want to thank Commissioner Thompson and his team for partnering with City Council as we embark upon fire prevention initiatives where we will be distributing fire alarms throughout the 10 Councilmanic Districts in partnership with At-large members, so we just want to thank you and your team for being proactive and collaborative as we focus on saving lives here in the city of Philadelphia. Also, I want to thank Bridget and Basil for your work as you embark upon a new department that has been restructured and reorganized, put it that way, to address quality-of-life issues as well as making sure we're providing a level of oversight of the construction projects that are taking place across the city of Philadelphia. And thank you for taking my calls at all times of the day and/or evening and the timeless response. And also, Bridget, your team worked with me and my staff and the Philadelphia Police Department and Philadelphia Parking Authority to address illegal auto mechanics in Southwest Philadelphia. They were taking over a particular shopping plaza that held the tenants there hostage to the reckless quality of life -- the reckless work that was being done in terms of bringing down the quality of life of the individuals who were tenants inside that particular shopping center in Southwest Philadelphia, so I just want to thank you very much. And I want to thank you also on behalf of the Southwest Senior Center seniors who were also held hostage in their senior center based upon that work that was being done. So I just want to acknowledge that for the public. And to our Philadelphia firefighters, we thank all of you for your hard work and your dedication. It's not guaranteed when you leave the house in the morning that you will return. So I want to ask that we give them a round of applause -- (Applause.)
Because the work that you and your team do, the work that the EMTs do definitely should be supported. And also, a lot of people, we only think about fires when we think about our firemen and EMT teams, but also around the issue of gun violence, right. When a person is shot down or murdered in the streets or severely injured, most people may or may not know, separate from the EMT showing up you see a fire truck as well. Normally, that's when a person's life is deceased so we do thank you for being on the front line when it comes to the issue of gun violence as well. Just had a couple questions. Commissioner Thompson, give me an overview on your strategy for recruitment of Philadelphia firefighters and EMTs. And then also, we know that the civil service exam is administered every two years. Is there any way that we can have it done more frequently, maybe once a year so we can address the need of recruitment of more firefighters and EMTs? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Well, thank you for that question, Council President. In terms of how we recruit, first and foremost we like to think of our employees, our firefighters and EMTs, as our best advocates for getting the word out about the important work we do. But more formally, what we do is we have a dedicated recruitment unit that canvases the entire city. We try to target in particular underrepresented populations so that we can ensure that our Fire Department represents the City of Philadelphia as a whole. In addition to that, we have a program at the Randolph School, the Randolph Skill Center. We have a program there. We also have our Fire Explorers program, all designed to introduce younger folks to the profession of professional firefighting and EMTs. So in terms of the testing cadence, it's traditionally been two years. We have been fortunate in the Fire Department. We get thousands of applicants every year. And with the length of time that it takes to train a firefighter, which is approximately nine months, we can usually put 75 cadets through the academy per time. So typically we can get approximately 150 people off those lists out of thousands of people. And then we also have to consider our internal HR staff. Processing new cadets is a very timely effort. So we have to ensure that in addition to processing potential new recruits, they can still manage the day-to-day work that we have to do, but we will take it under advisement to see if it makes sense to perhaps have the cadence of the test more frequently.
And last question before I turn it over to my members, just give an update regarding the Fire Academy, the need for repairs regarding the building and also specifically what's necessary for instructors to conduct live burns required for cadet certification and also the timeline and support needed for the repairs? I think one of my colleagues was actually advocating, I think the Chairman of Labor and he'll probably do a deeper dive which is Councilmember Jim Harrity, but we're all in support of a new academy being built, in support of in the Northeast. But give us an idea of the conditions and the things that's needed because we want to be advocates and partners in making sure that you have what you need to make sure we have the best and brightest fire cadets graduating and going out to do the great work on behalf of the City of Philadelphia. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Absolutely. So these careers all began in 5200 Pennypack in the great Northeast. And that academy was built -- the construction started 1978 with the first class graduating in 1981 I believe. And so, if you can imagine from 1981 until today the amount of times that burn tower has been set on fire. And so, it's been quite a bit. And with that, the heat, the water that's thrown around it has deteriorated that masonry structure over time. And what we've done over the years is basically we've done a lot of patchwork. There's spalling of concrete. Some of the rebar is bent and it becomes unsafe. So every five years, the NFPA requires that these burn towers are inspected. We just had an inspection in 2023. It's pretty comprehensive and it talked about all of the damage to the tower and what needs to be done to repair it. I have a very detailed list that I can share with you if you need it. And so, it has become so bad that our current cadet cohort is being trained in Bucks County because we cannot use our burn tower. So --
You said you cannot use your burn tower? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: We cannot use our burn tower currently because it is unsafe.
Now, explain to the wider public and members of Council how the burn tower is used in your operations, the training that takes place with the burn tower just for the record? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Yep. So for the record, we do structural firefighting. That building is designed to simulate a structure. It's a five-story building. We can simulate opening roofs and windows, all of the tactics that we use to fight fires. And without being able to utilize that, we cannot adequately train our firefighters. So it is a fundamental part of the training of a professional firefighter.
How long have you not been using it? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: I believe this is --
How long has it been out of operation? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: So over the last several years there have been more than one occasion when we could not use it to train our cadets. And what has happened over the years is we would make temporary repairs. And right now it's in a state that even the temporary repairs don't make sense, so we literally had to farm out that training.
And who do you farm out that training to, the cost? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: I can get you the cost but we are --
Can you get that to me? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Pardon me?
Can you get that to me, the cost? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Absolutely.
And who does the training as well? Who does the training? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: So we are basically using the facilities of the Bucks County Fire Training Academy, but it's Philadelphia Fire Department employees that are conducting the training. We are just using their facilities. We are still doing the training.
And they're charging us? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: They do charge us.
Quite sure. And so, when I say the cost, if you could provide to the Chair for members the cost that we are paying Bucks County to utilize their facility as opposed to us investing in our own facility. And I think that's just a capital investment. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity for a point of information.
I'm sorry, Council President. I just want them to add in the tower, the cost of fixing that because we're paying Delco apparent -- are we paying Delco to train on the tower? That's all. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Council President Johnson, we are paying Bucks County $30,000 for the use of their facility.
And how about Delco, are we paying them anything for use of the tower? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Yes, if we train in Delco, we will pay them as well.
So we're paying other counties basically as opposed to investing in our own.
Chair recognizes Councilmember Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson. And is that annually that we are paying? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: That is per class.
How many classes per year? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Because it's nine months per cadet class, we're typically doing one class per year.
So it's pretty much once a year you're paying the amount? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: That is correct.
Thank you, Council President, for the recognition. The question was really the clarification. Are we paying Bucks County and Delaware County, and then how much and then the frequency? I just couldn't get that straight. Thank you. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you for that question. It depends on what facility we are using. Currently we are using the Bucks County facility and it's a one-time cost of $30,000 per class.
Thank you. Just two other questions I'm going to ask for L&I regarding how are we going about monitoring and growing to address -- we are focusing on a proposal to build 30,000 units of affordable housing. So half will be the preservation of infrastructure. And there's a particular number that's going to focus on building. And so, when you begin wrapping up building, you want to make sure that developers are building in compliance, right. And often times, you know, every now and then I get a call about somebody building in the middle of the night because they didn't properly get their permit. So just give us an idea of L&I's role with the Mayor's proposed H.O.M.E. Initiative? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Yeah, Council President. It's a two-part approach. First, of course we have to do plans review and then we have to inspect the actual building. And we made with the Riverview Wellness Center we implemented some very good protocol changes to plans review and that we may be able to see if we can adapt that to the new 30,000 projects that the Mayor wants to build. And then at the same time we made our inspection staff because we're kind of short staffed, we made our inspection staff available almost on a 24-hour basis. Now, I don't think we have to do that for the H.O.M.E. program, but we are willing to use -- I describe it as overtime strategically to get that all accomplished. So we can accomplish that.
Is there a proposal to increase your staff that also aligns with this proposal to build 30,000 units, because I would think you would need more manpower if you're going to be doing all this significant building in the 9 Councilmanic Districts in the city 10 of Philadelphia. So as part of your request, a specific amount to deal with that because you just said I'm short-staffed and we got folks working hours, and if 15 we're going to do NPI on steroids, 16 if we're going to do Turn the Key 17 on steroids, I would think we would 18 need more manpower from L&I but 19 explain to me so we can all get 20 clarity and an understanding of 21 what that will look like. 22 COMMISSIONER MERENDA: 23 Our gameplan going forward is to 24 first make prudent use of the vacancies that we have. I believe we may have about 20 or so vacancies. So our plan is once this class gets through, we want to start a new class in October for maybe 10, 12, and then another class after that. And then of course we could pull back, reassess and see where we are and see if we need additional inspectors.
Okay. So you are going to be hiring additional inspectors though soon? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Yes.
That's part of your budget request? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: I believe -- we want to work through our vacancies first, Council President.
All right. So you don't have any requests for additional inspectors right now? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: No. 6
All right. So I'm just trying to understand. That's all. I would just think if we're about to embark upon borrowing $1 billion to build 30,000 units of housing/the preservation of units, which means you're going to have developers who are going to be participating aggressively developing these homes because the Mayor stated that she wants to get these 30,000 units done by the end of her first term. And her first term is 2027, which means soon as we -- if we pass this bill and we support this proposal, that means starting this summer and going into the fall to meet that 2027 end of her first term deadline. To realistically build or preserve 30,000 units, then we got to hit the ground running. And that means a lot of work is going to come out of your purview and a lot of heavy lifting is going to be under your team just to make sure people are building in compliance, so we don't have another 2030 Market Street incident happening because everyone's aggressively trying to build so fast to reach this goal. And so, I would just hope that you and your team would think about -- and I don't know how it works on the Administration side, but revisit the request because I would just think that because we're going to undertake such a huge historical undertaking, that an agency such as L&I that deals with compliance of making sure developers are doing what they're supposed to do so no one gets hurt, structures are safe parties, 30,000 units are falling apart as a result of us rushing to reach that deadline, that you will be coming to Council requesting additional staff. But if the reasoning is because you have vacancies now, what's your strategy to ramp up hiring folks so you can have a team and be able to tackle this 30,000 units of affordable housing? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Like we did with our first class that's currently in training, I call it a full court press. We reached out to contractor associations to see if any of their members, maybe older members that want to kind of move on to put the tools down as they say. We also reached out to labor unions, the trade unions. And also, we're reaching out to the vo-tech programs throughout the city to try to introduce young people to construction trades and introduce them to what L&I is all about and what we do. And we have this investigator position that is a real good entry-level position for young folks that are interested in construction trades. And once they get into L&I, they can develop some skills and then eventually take the test for an inspector position. And then of course the overall outreach is also to include an effort to try to attract back to L&I, some L&I inspectors who left who went to the private sector, who left because of a variety of reasons. And there's a new L&I out there. There's a new culture. So we want to try to bring these folks back like we did with that one really experienced inspector Mark, so that's our what I call full-court strategy to try to bring back folks to L&I and fill those vacant positions. And I want to thank you for raising the issue about the need for more inspectors, that hopefully if the program gets goes off and is really effective, then we may have to come back and ask for additional inspectors. But for now we're good where we stand.
Understood. Thank you, Commissioner. Give me an idea, we're talking about demolitions of vacant properties. It takes about an average of 123 days to demolish an imminently dangerous property. How can that timeline be shortened or is that a legal requirement that the time frame from 123 days is the actual time that it takes to demolish the imminently dangerous property? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Yeah, that is a problem, Council President. And in my opinion as an attorney, my opinion is that due process considerations, which we have to recognize and we have to respect, puts additional time delays on all that, in addition to the fact that we don't have limited resources. But what our folks at CSU would like to do, and CSU as you know is focused on inspectors that inspect unsafe and ID properties and they administer the City's demolition program. And we want to try to focus maybe two inspectors on dealing with straightforward demolition type of projects and inspections, and then that would free up the rest of our staff to focus on re-inspections and try to get cases into court to get us the order to demolish these properties much quicker and on a much expedited basis. But we are up against due process, legal proceedings that in my opinion delay the process.
Thank you. Let's talk about, Bridget, the Quality of Life Unit. They originally set a goal of resolving vacant open structure and violations within 10 days and it got extended to 30 days. Tell me why we couldn't stick with the 10 days as opposed to 30. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: It's actually the same thing that Basil just talked about, the due process point. So we could get to a vacant open property and have it sealed in 10 days. But to get the notice out and all that, we realize that it's going to take us 30. We can actually get to it in 10, but to give all those notices it's 30. So we figured we just shot high with and we put it 6 more realistically at 30. 7
Okay. And last, before I 9 turn it over to my colleagues, give 10 me an idea about the Business Education and Enforcement program, but also we have a law on the books, I introduced legislation some time ago to ban the selling of toy guns, right unless they're like a super bright orange, green, yellow, but nothing that looks similar to an actual real gun. I'm just having an interest in working with L&I, Philadelphia Police Department to begin looking at those stores that aren't really following the law in terms of selling these prototype toy guns. And for me, it's a way to -- some of these stores are basically predators in the neighborhood, to be quite frank with you, preying on impoverished neighborhoods, selling to the young people in the neighborhood guns, toy guns that look like real guns. We had an incident that did took place in Point Breeze where a person had a toy gun and wound up being shot, right. And so, we'll have a sidebar conversation in the future about how we can collaborate and at least just show up and show folks that if you are selling them, it's against the law that you can't be selling them. But tell me about the Business Education and Enforcement program. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Sure. We call it The BEE for short, Business Education and Enforcement. But what we did is when we came in, we went to each District Councilmember's office, yourself included, and we said, what are your pain points, where are your pain points in your District. And all District 8 Councilmembers gave us their first 9 biggest corridor issue. 10 So we were on Frankford Avenue. We are on Wyoming Avenue. We're going to Rising Sun Avenue in a couple weeks. Ogontz Avenue, we've been everywhere, 52nd Street, all throughout the city. And what we've done is we've partnered with the District Council office, we've partnered with Commerce's MBAT team and we've partnered with community development corporations and just regular community activists that wanted to come out with us. We do an education piece. First, we walk out, we give everyone a flyer. It's actually a pamphlet. It's in every language imaginable. We work with the business owners. We talk to them. We have Commerce there to actually say, hey, here's some good things that you can do, you could get the facade grant, you can get all these different things, we'll work with you. Hey, you didn't know you were supposed to be licensed here? Well, you were, but you know what, now you know and we're going to let you get in the process. We go back three to four weeks later and that's when we start the enforcement piece. If someone's trying to do what they're supposed to be doing, we work with them. We work with them to come -- our thing is come into compliance, right. We don't want to chase businesses out of the city that are doing good that just don't know, right. So that's what we do. So it's been super successful. We're on our 18th one coming up, which I believe is next week I think. Then what we're doing is after we do the first piece, we do the enforcement, then we go back out, you know what I mean. We'll do a re-inspection. And then some of those businesses that just are not going to come into compliance, then we take the next step, whether that's a cease or that's going to court or whatever it is. But it's been very successful to date.
Great. Thank you very much. Just want to acknowledge the presence of the Chair of Licenses and Inspections Chairman Mike Driscoll. Thank you for joining us. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity.
Thank you, Council President. Just want to say thank you all for coming out. The Fire Department, I'm a grandson of a firefighter. As a matter of fact, a disabled firefighter. He was tossed from a truck en route to a job and he had to retire from the fire department, but ended up having a pretty good life at Boeing for their fire department as an injury office guy. So I have a lot of respect for you guys. Also curious, I put $10 million on my first thing for bonuses for first responders and hard-to-fill positions with the example of building inspectors. I know the police have gotten theirs worked out. Do you guys see any of that bonus money first off for recruitment? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Was that for building inspectors or Fire did you say?
I put it in and the actual language said first responders with police, paramedics especially and L&I inspectors and the other was hard- to-fill positions. But there was 10 million put into that, right, when I first got here, maybe my first budget cycle I believe or second budget cycle. It was right before when Mayor Parker was going to take charge, yeah, take office. So just curious if you guys ended up with it. I know the police did work out theirs because I didn't think of the retention, so they had to work out a retention thing. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Councilmember, we did not follow up on that.
Maybe that's something that we might have to look into again trying to get some of these people, especially the paramedics and hard- to-fill positions. The bonus may help. I know a lot of different cities are doing that. They were taking our police. That's why I put it in in the first place. And then my stuff's just mostly for Fire. I'm going to skip some of my numbers things. I'll submit them. But are your staff paramedics -- oh, no, I'm sorry. Are there any areas of the city that has no ALS or Advanced Life Support medic units, and why? How many days have you run out of available ALS medic units in the past year? How many units were downgraded from ALS to BLS in the past year? And that'll do it for right now. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Councilmember Harrity, great questions. I'm going to have my Deputy Commissioner for EMS respond to those questions.
Thank you, Commissioner. MR. McCALL: Good afternoon. My name is Martin McCall, Deputy Commissioner for Emergency Medical Services, and thank you for those questions. We have no area in the city of Philadelphia that's not without an ALS medic unit located within it. All of our ALS medic units, we have a staffing structure from which our medic units, we want to keep them at the highest level possible ALS. And if that level cannot be achieved, we have additional levels in which we can go to such as an intermediate level as well as finally the basic level. We do everything we can within the available members in which we have to keep our units that are ALS, ALS. The number of units that we have that downgraded varies depending on the time of the year and what happens and what staffing we have available. But again, we don't really track how many we keep, how many are ALS and how many are BLS. But we do everything we can to keep all of our units at the highest level we can keep them.
But you're telling me that there are no 17 areas of the city of Philadelphia that don't have an Advanced Life Support medic unit? MR. McCALL: Every zone -- and we divide the city into six zones, right -- have ALS medic units located within those zones.
So that would be six ALS medic units is what we have? MR. McCALL: No, sir. We have 53 ALS medic units in the city and they're divided up into six zones.
Okay. 53 in six zones. MR. McCALL: And there's hours, and we have 10 Basic Life 11 Support units in the city and they 12 are divided up amongst the zones. 13 So there's not a zone that does not 14 have an ALS medic unit located 15 within it. 16
17 Well, that's good to hear. 18 Okay. Council 19 President, I know I heard the clock 20 and I want to be respectful of my 21 colleagues so I'll submit any other 22 questions I have in writing. 23 Thank you, Chief. 24 COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: You're welcome.
Thank you, Mr. President. Commissioner Collins Greenwald, blessings to you. Good to see you. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Thank you.
At our March 18th Housing Committee hearing, you said that in order to get a proactive inspection program up and running that could inspect all of our rental units, the department would need to hire 110 people with the budget increase of around $6.2 million plus vehicle and space costs. The President's already named this on the development of the new unit side, but the Administration is committing $800 million, $1 billion to the H.O.M.E. Initiative, and we have a roughly $61 million Housing Trust Fund. As a point of information, I actually believe that L&I is the second highest revenue earning department in the Administration. It's clear that we need these inspectors all around, especially on the proactive side. It's also clear that we actually have the money. So why are we not making this modest $6.2 million investment in protecting our housing stock, which by the way could also create 110 good union jobs for Philadelphians? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Thank you. At the hearing that we had in March, if you recall I said that we were actually working with Pew and we were working with some best practices on what we should do. That number I threw out was a quick and dirty number if you just divide really simple math. Do I think we need 110 inspectors? I don't know for sure. I actually don't think we do. I'm going to be honest, but that's just my best guess. So what I would like to do is finish with that research which should be done in the next few months, and then actually come with a really solid plan on how we could do proactive rental licenses. I don't think it's just a matter of adding inspectors. I think there's incentive programs for landlords that are actually following all the rules that we can offer. I think there's something we should be doing for new rental inspections -- new rental licenses. I think the virtual inspection program that we talked about is going to kick off in June. So I think all those factors coming in are going to lead us to a very comprehensive plan. But I'm just not ready to put on paper exactly what it is right this second.
It sounds like those I think would be great things in terms of creating a comprehensive well-rounded plan, but on the matter of inspectors it would help if you could explain this to me a little better for my colleagues. As far as I understand, the H.O.M.E. Plan is a massive investment intent on building -- because if you said you don't even think we need 110, so that would mean we might need less so perhaps it could be cheaper. But the H.O.M.E. Plan is a massive investment intent on building and preserving our housing stock. Meanwhile we only inspect roughly at this current stage 7% of that particular housing stock that we're trying to preserve. Why are we not investing the same level of resources and attention into a proactive inspection system to prevent homes from falling into disrepair in light of the tight timeline that Madam Mayor has bravely set for herself, only making more relevant the necessity of a swift ramp-up? This seems to be a moment where an ounce of prevention actually is worth a pound of cure. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Okay. To answer that question again, I think it'd be very premature for me to go on the record and say I needed 110 inspectors. I can't give a different answer than that. I mean, I can work with your group to see what we need. I can work with Pew and do the research and I can work on see what best practices would be, but actually that's where we're at right now.
Thank you. Bless you. Okay. Thank you for joining us, Commissioner Thompson. We all appreciate the work that you and your firefighters do each and every day. First, how many paramedics do you have currently and how many are you budgeted for? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Again, I'm going to bring the Deputy Commissioner for EMS to answer that question.
Thank you, sir. MR. McCALL: So again, my name is Martin McCall, Deputy Commissioner for Emergency Medical Services.
Bless you, sir. MR. McCALL: We currently have roughly 212 paramedics enrolled in the Fire Department, on staff at the Fire Department.
As you mentioned, the goal of hiring 200 EMS providers this year is aggressive. How realistic is this goal and what barriers will have to be overcome to meet it? MR. McCALL: Well, we have a very robust program in place now to bring on as many people as we possibly can. We currently have a list of EMTs that we are hiring off of. We are scheduled to have an EMT class start on the 12th with people. We look to start another class shortly after that of EMTs and help get to that goal of 200. In June we look to hire a class of paramedics. We're looking at about paramedics 8 coming on board right now for that 9 class. We've opened the paramedic 10 list again. We've asked our partners at OHR to open that list for us again, which they did, they helped us out and did that, to help us capture any individuals that may need some work due to the Crozer closing and to bring those folks on board. So that is currently open to create another list for paramedics. And we want to bring those folks on board as soon as we can. And then we look to do another class in the fall and then another class hopefully by the beginning of the next year. So we're aggressively looking to bring people on board to reach that number and to get to at least 200. If we can bring on more, we will.
Thank you. Also, Commissioner, I just want to acknowledge and got a chance to work with some of your members, but I've worked probably more with Daniel McCarty more than others. And so, I just want to acknowledge you for your hard work and dedication along with your team, but thank you specifically in terms of the outreach and support you have been giving us and also the Local and most importantly the 22 Valiants. I learned about the Valiants as a young man fresh out of college working with a gentleman named Harold James and Sheriff John Green and also Commissioner Ayers at that time early on. And so, the Valiants have played a very critical role in producing African American firefighters in the City of Philadelphia but also do a lot of work with Local as well. So 9 just want to thank y'all for your 10 hard work and dedication and 11 acknowledge that. 12 The Chair recognizes 13 Councilmember bass. 14
15 Thank you, Mr. President. I wasn't 16 expecting to be up so soon. 17 Good afternoon. How's 18 everybody doing? I want to start 19 by just saying thank you to the 20 Philadelphia Fire Department for 21 all of your hard work. And I want 22 to especially shout out my two neighbors who live across the street who are firefighters, and that's Bruce Canada and Larry Carroll who are just great neighbors, great citizens here in the city of Philadelphia, great civically-engaged, civically-minded and fantastic firefighters. So I did want to just shout them out as well as for all of those who are working throughout the 8th Council District and the various station locations through Chestnut Hill, Mt. Airy, Germantown, Nicetown Tioga, parts of Olney, parts of Logan, parts of West Oak Lane, parts of Feltonville and parts of North Philly. You all have a very difficult job and I just want to just really say a big thank you to all of you for your public service. L&I, so we have frequent conversations, Basil, of course, Bridget, you know it's always a pleasure to see you guys. But I want to start with a frequent conversation that we have around due process. Because I feel like sometimes we give due process and we give these really bad players an opportunity to get it right when they didn't start out right in the first place. And I want to say, Commissioner Merenda, you recall we went out to a location in the West Oak Lane part of my District on Ogontz Avenue. And this particular business, which was a smoke shop, had no license to operate, no 16 certificate of occupancy. They had done construction without permits. They had illegal signage. They did the sale of tobacco without a license. They had the sale of loosies, loose cigarettes. They had tobacco sales on the same block as a school and church. They had a lack of heat and air circulation. There were exposed radiator pipes, loose and exposed wires, drug paraphernalia, on and on. And you remember that one, I'm sure. But there's so many of these locations and it's so frustrating because people really want something to be done. These are a nuisance in our community. And I know you get it. So I guess I'm just wondering how do we figure out a way so that one person's due process doesn't impede on the rights of the community in which they're operating and disturbing, to be quite honest? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Well, Councilmember, if the activity involves actual construction we can go out there and put a stop work order if they're not complying with the code. If they're going beyond the scope of their permits, we could do that immediately. We don't have to go to court to do something along those lines. However, if it's already built, if it's operating, then that's where Bridget's folks take over.
Right. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: I can jump in on this one too. Yeah, so to Basil's point, new construction he can put a stop work order up. We can go out inspect if it's violations. We issue usually an intent to cease and then we'll issue a cease, right. Usually, when we issue a cease I'm going to say a majority of the time people will appeal and they'll try to get -- this is where your due process question is coming in, right. So if someone's appealing, there's certain things you can't appeal. But there are a lot of things you can and they appeal these violations. And while they're appealing, there's a stay of the enforcement. And that's where the frustration comes in for all of us.
Yes, yes. So what can -- I'm just thinking that we need to think about it differently. We need to have some sort of out-of-the-box way of approaching some of these matters. Because people look at us, people are angry at us, that a business like this one as an example is still open and operating. They came in with no 20 license with -- they did everything wrong. They flagged their nose at the City of Philadelphia and they're still operating. They probably don't even have a tax account so that we're collecting tax revenue or that they're paying taxes like they're supposed to. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: So to these instances to your point, we're starting to change language. We're working with the Law Department on how -- I said there's a stay of enforcement now. We have this language called, like certified language. It's legal language. But anyway we're going to start putting them on our violations and it's going to stop some of those stays of enforcement under certain appeals. So I think that's going to help a lot. So we're working through the -- we have the language now. We're just working on how do we get it onto our NOVs and how do we get that through the system where we don't put it for every single thing. But these more egregious types of violations, they'll go out in that way. So I think that's going to be helpful.
Okay. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Councilmember, internally what we've done is also establish what we call a Court District Unit that is to address the backlog in cases, because we saw a lot of our inspectors get frustrated along with the constituents. They write a case and then it kind of languishes. So we put together a court district that would focus on re-inspecting these units, getting together the evidence, getting together testimony, getting together prepping witnesses so that they're ready to go to court so that there is no delay as far as getting the cases ready. So it'll help on the margin. It's not going to it's not a panacea. It'll help on the margin and it'll get those cases ready to go into court when they're ready.
Well, listen, I know you all have a really tough job and so I really want to thank you as well for all the work you do. I know that you're trying. I think we're all just really frustrated. I remember there was a previous commissioner a couple of administrations ago who said, oh, L&I did a survey and 70% of the city is happy with us. And I said to her on the record, I said, well, I must have the entire other 30% living in the 8th Council District because nobody's happy with L&I. But I know that you all are working really hard and I know it's a tough job. But it's just we need more tools. We need more tools. And I don't think necessarily for whatever money we put into the budget, I don't think that that's going to get us the tools. It'll get us bodies. But if the bodies are going out and we're getting the same result, then we just need the tools I think. So thank you, Mr. President. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Councilmember, we do have our hands full, Bridget and I. When I was appointed Commissioner, folks would come up to me and congratulate me. And I would say to them, well, if you're religious, say a prayer for us because we'll need it.
Well, listen, like I said I know how hard you all work and I appreciate that we kind of beat y'all up a little bit. But y'all are still here and smiling and we appreciate the work you do. Thank you.
You say you got your hands full, but one of the members is trying to give you some money to try to help you out. But y'all saying we cool. So with that being said, the Chair recognizes Chairman Mike Driscoll, L&I Committee.
Well, thank you, Mr. President. Let me begin by complimenting the Commissioner, Fire Commissioner and both our Commissioners of L&I. On January 31st when the plane went down in the Roosevelt Mall your agencies stepped right in. Commissioner, you know your men and women instead of running away from things, you're running into the danger. And I can't tell you on a national level it was recognized. And if I can ask my colleagues to once again acknowledge both these agencies for stepping up during the -- (Applause.)
So I know both Commissioners of L&I. I was very involved with the Task Force report as you know, and it was a pleasure working on that with you folks. Basil, let me start with you. Do you think it's working? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Absolutely, Councilmember. Bridget and I have kind of collaborated on dividing up what should come under my purview, what should come under her purview. We're doing it like seamlessly. And my opinion we're operating as separate departments. So operationally, we're ready to operate a separate department. In my case, focus exclusively on construction, small and large construction projects citywide. And Bridget's, of course her group is focused on enforcement of business operations and things of that nature. So we're rearing to go.
That's good to hear. And I know, Commissioner Greenwald, you and I walked Frankford Avenue. And I guess our Majority Leader will be asking you questions with regard to specific businesses in collaboration with your department to make sure we're not only just going in and symbolically closing them for an hour and then as soon as the sun goes down, they're back open. So I really want to make sure that Katherine Gilmore Richardson's legislation we pay a lot of attention to that because I think it's going to work. I'm just very frustrated with the Airbnb process on how they're getting their licenses. And, Commissioner, I'm working with Tom McDade. We intend to introduce legislation soon to close those loopholes, because specifically one property in my District got an over-the-counter license. Now, this is a building in the middle of a block into Taconey and they're now legal to have an Airbnb for people 15 regularly throughout the week. It's 16 insane. There's not enough 17 parking. The people were -- it's 18 becoming one big party zone. And I 19 know that that's not what the 20 program was intended for. So 21 Mr. McDade is working with Maura in 22 my office and we'll have that 23 legislation introduced hopefully 24 soon and close that loophole because it's a problem, I'm sure not just in the 6th Councilmanic District but throughout the city of Philadelphia. And I am nervous that we're not going to be able to fix the entire problem going into 2026 where I think we have a lot of tourism that will benefit from this program. But I think we have to be mindful with the police department and with your agency that there's bad actors out there and we have to address that. So I don't know if you want to comment, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Yeah, we look forward to that. I've been working with Tom McDade. He's been filling me in on what you were doing. So we look forward to that legislation. Because as you know, we can only enforce what's legislated, right. So once we close that loophole, I think we'll have a little bit more enforcement power.
Good. And then, Basil, with regard to your department I know Councilmember O'Rourke alluded to it. Your agency is one of the unique ones that can actually be revenue-generating. And so, the sooner we get more inspectors on the street the sooner we're going to be able to kind of self-generate so that you have the resources you need. Is there anything while you have us here today that we can be doing? I know you're working with the Administration. But is there any emergency relief that you need from this legislative body or do you think you have it under control? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: We have things under control, Councilmember. One thing that we could use is just identify for us areas where you have trouble construction going on so that we can get our Saturday patrols out there to your particular neighborhoods or areas in your District we could address and situations that -- especially now in the summer months where projects, construction sites are really messy and not maintained. And we can get our clean sites initiative of folks out there to issue violations and things of that nature. Just keep the lines of communication open. That's the best thing we can do.
Okay. And I'll leave this round with I just want to compliment Steve Gallagher and his team because he provides a crucial role when an emergency happens, and those men and women in your department are amazing. And Steve in particular, I've called him late at night, weekends and he's always answers all the time. And I just can't say enough nice things about your team. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: I refer to our CSU as L&I's version of the Marine Corps. They do an outstanding job. They go into really hairy situations, really drastic situations. And in fact, Steve is here with us today. Steve, want to stand up? (Applause.)
Thank you so much, Chairman Driscoll. Please continue if you have additional questions, Mr. Chair.
You're good. Okay. Excellent. Thank you very much. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Brooks.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have the least amount for the Fire Department so I'm going to start with them. Thank you guys for coming out. And I have to say that my son is a firefighter, Officer McCoy. My question is about the Fire Department was able to open three companies thanks to a three-year federal grant and paid the wages for 72 firefighters for three years. And will the department be able to retain those firefighters and keep Ladders 1, 6 and 11 open when that grant funding runs out? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you for that question. Yes, we were able to reopen the last of three fire companies that were closed on the other recession of 2009. Engine 6, Ladder 1 and Ladder 11 due primarily to a SAFER grant that we received. And as you stated, that SAFER grant the performance period is for three years, after which we would rely on the General Fund to operate those companies.
So is the money -- do we know that that's coming? Is it in the cycle that those stations would be able to stay open when the money phases completely out? Is it a plan for that? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Yes, we most certainly hope so. That grant goes until 2027, so we are most certainly hoping that that will be supported.
Thank you so much for that. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Absolutely.
And for L&I -- sorry, I'm fumbling papers here. I'm going to start with questions around someone mentioned this earlier. In 2023 the Joint Task Force on L&I recommended letting the department keep more of the revenue it generates, so L&I can use that money to fund its own operation. What has happened since then? Has that happened? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: No. 19 COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: No. 21
Okay. My next question is last year the Controller's audit of L&I found that your department collects about 3% of the cost of demolition of unsafe buildings from building owners that left the taxpayers on the hook for at least $58 million in unrecovered demolition costs over five years. The Controller said L&I should devote more resources to collecting those costs from people responsible for unsafe buildings. Have you had the opportunity to do that? And is L&I recovering a higher share of demolition costs from property owners? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: So I know that our fiscal unit has looked into working with third-party contractors to generate some of that revenue and get that money back. And also, if someone does not pay, there's a lien put on their property. So when they go to sell, that lien comes to fruition when they go to sell. So there's the third party and then the lien that gets put on your property if you don't pay.
So just the property, just the property that's vacant? I mean, we live in the city. We're doing a lot better with a lot of vacant blighted property in certain neighborhoods, and they're still not selling and also sometimes not paying their taxes. So I'm trying to figure out how we can pull that full circle. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: It could only go to an owner of a property, right. So you'd have to lien the owner of the property. So that's what it is, whether it be vacant, if there's an owner or if it's just an owner that their property was demolished and they live somewhere else or whatever it is. But that's where the lien goes against that property.
So the Philadelphia fire code requires dampers to be inspected every four to six years depending on the type of building. Dampers are important passive safety features that prevent smoke and fire from spreading throughout buildings via ducts. Do you know what percentage of building dampers are being inspected in compliance with this timeline? And are you taking steps to improve the frequency of the dampers inspections? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Could you ask that again? Dampers?
Dampers. It's an L&I question. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Okay. Could you ask it again? I'm sorry.
Okay. So the question is do you know which percentage of building dampers are inspected in compliance with the timeline, which is the four- to six-year period; is that actually happening? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: I believe it is, but I do not know the exact information but I can get that to you.
Okay. Can you provide that information? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Sure. Absolutely.
And if it's being done, what's the frequency? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Mm-hmm.
Thank you, Councilmember Brooks. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Young and then Councilmember Lozada.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And good afternoon. My questions are for L&I, let me pull them up here, and they are in regards to the inspectors. I do know that for a quality-of-life inspector and a code and building inspector, I mean there -- could you tell us what, if any, are the differences in the salary range for those inspectors? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: The difference in the what? I didn't hear --
So an inspector that will go out to inspect a business versus a code enforcement or a building inspector essentially? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: So a building inspector would come from the trades, right, have a history, background in one of the trades and would inspect for building permits, construction permits, so electrical, plumbing, whatever that may be. A code enforcement inspector, which all work on the quality-of-life side, they would inspect for business compliance. So ?? Title 9 stuff, licensing, zoning, the fire code and the property maintenance code.
Yeah. Is there a difference in the salary -- COMMISSIONER MERENDA: The construction inspectors have to have five certifications under state law.
And then the code inspectors have to have nine or something like that, right. So the building -- COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: The code inspectors have to have some, yeah. Did you ask what's the difference in their salary?
Yeah, what's the difference? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: There was a difference in their salary until very recently. Now, their salaries are the same.
Thank you for that. So now, the salaries are the same. How are you incentivizing folks to become those construction official inspectors when you have to do more work essentially by doing all these different certifications, more certifications than you would being the other type of inspector? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: I don't think they do more work. I think they do different work. I would differ on that. Both sides need certifications, the construction side and the code enforcement side. They both need different types of certifications. One needs construction code, one needs fire code, one needs property maintenance, one needs zoning. So they don't do more work. They do different types of work.
I say that to say they do different types of work, yes. But one has to do get nine certifications and the others have to get five or six. And so, when you have to get more certifications, I'm just assuming that more certifications means a higher difficulty of work rather -- COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: That isn't necessarily true in the way -- I mean, you could talk to OHR about how they figure out the pay structure, but that is not necessarily true that the more certifications you need the harder your work is or any type of thing like that. So I think that's really an OHR question, but there's all kinds of difficult -- there's all kinds of things you base a pay evaluation on there. The safety position you're in, the degree of knowledge you need, what kind of hazardous material you're going to come in touch with. There are multitude of things that determine who gets paid and how they get paid and it's not just based on certifications. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Our challenge on the construction side is to compete with the private sector. We have our construction inspectors that are code compliant, all kinds of code certifications, and they're being plucked, so to speak, by third-party inspection agencies and that's who we're competing against and we have to try to meet them on salary. And that's a big challenge, Councilmember. We have to try to meet them on -- but what we're trying to do is, at least for the time being before we can address that, is make the culture at L&I on the construction side a lot better for our inspectors so that they can stay, put in a few years and have that really good benefit package that is not being offered on the outside. So that's the challenge that our construction side is up against. I agree we do need to increase the salary range. But in the meantime we have to make our operations, our culture here at L&I a lot more conducive.
I think that goes to my point, what I'm trying to make is that the construction side folks have the opportunities to go make a whole lot more money in the counties doing a similar job. And so, when we see that happening and we know that I guess the code officials and the construction side folks here, what are we doing to incentivize our building officials to stay here in Philadelphia when on the code side it's the same salary. And they say you know what, I'm getting the same salary as this person, but the county recognizes that it's more technical position and they're going to pay me as such? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Yeah, make the job much better for inspectors that they want to come to work, that they want to build some a career here at L&I and get that year or so in, a couple of years in so that they can have those benefits. And our challenge is again to make the culture better at L&I. And what I've tried to do is implement what I call quarterly meetings. And we went through three rounds, and we could actually go out with my senior staff to all the Districts and meet with the inspectors and hear their issues and their concerns. And they're very blunt with us and we in turn try to go back and address some of their issues so that we can keep them in the fold, so to speak. And be that as it may, we have experienced some inspectors that went out and the grass is greener on the other side but until they get there. And now, they're trying to reach back out and want to come back to L&I as we did this past March with bringing a really experienced inspector back into the fold. So hope springs eternal. We're out there trying to make sure that we can do our part. In the meantime, again we have to address the salary issue.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councilmember Young. The Chair now recognizes Councilmember Lozada.
Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question is just for clarification. I wanted -- Deputy Commissioner mentioned that there are 212 enrolled paramedics. How many of them are actually working in the field and working on emergency response? I think it was Deputy Commissioner McCall. MR. McCALL: Thank you for the question. Right now it's hard to say how many are working. We have members get injured. They go off sick. They utilize their paid time off, that nature. So it varies from shift-to-shift day-to- day how many are actually working. But we have that many on the rolls that we solicit that are either on shift that day or we solicit to work overtime that are off shift to cover those spots that are out.
You don't have a number of those who are actually active and working? MR. McCALL: The number of people that we have like --
Who are actually working. So of the 212 that are enrolled, how many are actually available to work? MR. McCALL: 30% are -- we calculate a replacement factor of 30%. So we expect roughly about 30% of those to not be available to us, right. So that's roughly 62 people, 64, somewhere around there that we anticipate will not be available across all four platoons, 64 people.
Thank you for that information. In my conversations in preparing for 2026, I heard something that was a little concerning and I just want some clarification. Pa State Act 121 refers to workers' compensation for first responders dealing with PTSD and goes into effect in October of 2025. PFD and PPD members who established this diagnosis with a licensed psychiatric can take up to two years paid off. What will the department do in preparation for the upcoming large events the city is hosting, many members will take this as a benefit to heal from work trauma. Is your department prepared for the staffing requirements? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you for that question. We most certainly are thinking quite a bit about 2026. And in fact, one of the things that we are doing is we're working in our contract negotiations with Local 22. We want to change some language to ensure that all of our members are available to us. Right now sometimes we have limited ability to -- we have the ability to recall workers when we need them for large scale fires, for instance right now. We want to incorporate language that we can make sure that we can recall our members to support our operations to support the city during those times. So that's one of the big things that we are doing.
You talked about upscaling your EMTs to paramedics. Why does it take so long for folks to become paramedics if we need them so badly? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: There are a couple things with that. There continues to be a nationwide shortage of hiring paramedics. The pay for paramedic across the region has equalized. There was a time when the City of Philadelphia was a higher-paying place to work. So hiring paramedics still is a challenge for us. It takes four months, I believe, once we recruit paramedics. Paramedics come to the Fire Department with that certification already trained, so it takes four months to -- their academy is much shorter than that of a firefighter. And so, once we bring them on board trying to -- I'm sorry. Can you rephrase your question?
If we need paramedics so badly, why is it taking us so long to recruit them from, what is it, an EMT and then they become paramedics? So why is it taking so long? What is the challenge that you're experiencing? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Okay. Again, it's the demand for paramedics nationwide continues to be a challenge. Philadelphia, typically the workload is pretty excessive so people choose to work other places. As Deputy Commissioner McCall spoke about earlier, we have reopened our application period to try to capture more people. Whereas when we give a test for firefighter, for instance, we will get thousands of applicants. For paramedic, we may get a far few number of paramedics to solicit to come on board. They know the challenges of working in the system. So when the upskilling program that we are going to do is going to allow us to take our EMTs and train them to a higher level, to paramedic. That does a few things. We can internally promote which gives EMTs more opportunities, opportunities at better pay and it helps us to retain the medics that we have. So it's really a challenge just throughout the entire country to attract and maintain paramedics.
Thank you. Can you tell us when that program will get up and running, the program that trains the EMTs to become paramedics? Because I know, like you said, there's a shortage of paramedics. But is there the same shortage of folks applying to become EMTs for the city as well? Because if you can hire internally, you can always keep that pipeline going. So can you tell us when that program will be up and running? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: So we are asking for FY26 funding to get that program up and running. We are prepared to do it. It's easier for us to hire EMTs than it is for paramedics. So we are continuing -- as Deputy Commissioner McCall mentioned, our goal is to hire 200 EMS providers, and a big part of that will be EMTs. And we just think this program, this upskilling program is really going to help us because it will again provide a pathway for advancement. It will provide a higher level of service for the citizens of Philadelphia. So we believe it's a win-win.
Have you identified the pipeline of EMTs ready to become or looking to become paramedics? So if we fund it, right, I want to make sure that we fund it if it's in the FY26 budget, that it's good to go. So next year, because I believe we heard this last budget cycle, we need the money so we can fund it, so we can fund it this year. So I don't want to come to FY27 and say, oh, we need the money so we can start the program again next year. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: So we do have an RFP out that is going to help us identify and recruit so we are working on opening and maintaining a pipeline.
No 20 worries. In one of the past budget cycles, I asked questions around Directive 58 having talked to several firefighters and some of their experiences and then having questioned some of the past leadership around Directive 58, can you tell me if Directive 58 has actually been updated? Has it been disseminated appropriately? Has there been training? Have you responded to the backlog of incidents that were there in the past and have there been new incidents since? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: So we continue to adapt to a changing Fire Department and we still have our challenges. But more specifically, yes, we did update Directive 58 in 2024 and we were able to ensure that there was information that had to be updated. So we did that in 2024. It was disseminated. So whenever we come up with a new directive, we issue it throughout the entire department via a general memorandum with an electronic copy, and it goes to every member of the department's email address. And it's also published on our website on our documentation unit.
So the telephone number that was on Directive 58 used to go to a number that wasn't responded to. Have we updated that number to someone being able to actually speak to someone? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Yes, that was one of the big things. We knew that some of that information was outdated so it is updated.
Do you have a backlog and have there been no incidents? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Pardon me?
Did you guys respond to the backlog of complaints and have there been new incidents since you updated that policy? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: So we take every single complaint in the Fire Department very seriously. And our internal HR department, our EEO folks, they do a pretty good job of thoroughly investigating and dealing appropriately with those things. So if those issues become disciplinary, we refer those to our Special Investigations Officer who will take appropriate action. In terms of how many new complaints we may or may not have, I don't have an answer for you but I can get that for you.
Okay. This is my last question. My last question. I know that you guys have the Explorers --
Okay. I know you guys have the Explorers program. Is there a pathway to be able to continue to encourage young people that complete the Explorers program, become young adults to actually be a part of the pipeline to become firefighters? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: So we are very proud of that program because it gives us the opportunity to let young folks know about a career in public service. And I have to get this information for you definitively, but I believe fire explorers get additional points when they take the civil service exam to be a firefighter. So I think that is one of the ways that we help them to go from being an explorer to a firefighter.
Thank you. And will we also be partnering with WDAS, Power 99, using social influences like Wallo267 to get the word out and maybe also focusing on another generation of young people that may be interested in becoming a firefighter; is that part of the strategy recruitment-wise as well? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: To be honest, we haven't used those avenues. But, Council President, those are great ideas --
Or recommendation, let me say that. I recommend maybe that's a different way to try to help get the word out. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: That's something that we most certainly can use. Thank you for that suggestion.
And the pay as well also is a good draw for individuals who might want to be involved. So that's good. Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips. Then Councilmember Rue Landau. Then Councilmember Jamie Gauthier -- you were up here on my behalf. I stand corrected. Councilmember Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson. Then Councilmember Dr. Phillips because you were standing in on my behalf. Thank you.
Thank you, Prez. Thank you very much, Council President. And thank you all so very, very much for this opportunity. And I wanted to echo the sentiments of our Chair of Licenses and Inspections and we offer our gratitude and appreciation for the members of the Philadelphia Fire Department regarding all of your work with the airplane incident in the 6th Council District. I thought you all did a stellar job under the most extraordinary of circumstance and really wanted to thank you for that work. And I also wanted to continue to express my deepest gratitude to Engine over in the 4th Council District and also the Fire Detector Installation Unit officers. We had a fire next door to my home two years ago. But I'll never forget it and I'll bring it up every budget season going forward. And I appreciate the rapid response of Engine and of 10 the entire Philadelphia Fire 11 Department. 12 I wanted to also get on 13 the record thanks to each of you on 14 the executive team. I had an 15 opportunity to see former 16 Commissioner Ayers this weekend, so 17 that was a wonderful, wonderful 18 surprise and opportunity. And 19 lastly, I'm just going through all the thank yous that my team sent today. I wanted to also thank Chief Bomer for all of his help and support with our office and helping us with all the protocol matters throughout city government. Finally, for Licenses and Inspections we have Lisa Adams, Diane Lucidi, Danita Smith in Intergovernmental Affairs. My team says they are always a great resource to get information on L&I services, cases and any extra attention to emergency and complex cases. Of course, Commissioner Greenwald, we appreciate you and Renee, who has just been stellar with responding to a number of drug paraphernalia store complaints. Commissioner Merenda, we appreciate you for responding always to the constituent cases we even receive in the evening, particularly around compliance. And of course, Jennifer, Jennifer Jantra, former City Council family member, so I wanted to get all that on the record. Really quickly for Fire, I heard this earlier from another colleague, how many medic units do you all have for each tour? I didn't catch that. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: We have 63 medic units.
Okay. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Throughout the city.
Okay. 63 throughout the city? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Yes.
And that's for each tour? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Yes.
Okay. And then is there ever a circumstance where you all run out of medic units? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Unfortunately, there is the occasion when we reach zero medic units. There are a lot of factors that contribute to that.
Okay. And then what would they be in, like which tours do they typically happen? I think I heard somebody asking about this. It may have been Councilman Harrity earlier. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Yeah, typically during some of our day hours. And what happens increasingly is the demand for EMS services continue to rise, and we have a finite amount of resources at this point that we are continuing to try to adjust to deal with, but there are some things that are happening outside of our control. For instance, hospitals, emergency rooms are increasingly being inundated with patients and we find there are times when we can't transfer care to the ER because the emergency room does not have beds. And what that creates is what we call wall time because our medics have to stay with the patient, and they literally will stay in a waiting area. And so, that medic unit is no longer available and that is happening more increasingly, and that's a contributing factor to having zero medic units.
So I think for this -- and I would ask you to get this information to Council President for dissemination to all members of Council. I'm very concerned about this because we need to have a plan to address this issue, particularly with what's going on in Delaware County with the closure of the Crozer Health System. We are going to be inundated in Philadelphia with additional transfers to our medical facilities and it's really going to be a situation of, you know, it's outside of our control. And I'll tell you that my husband was born and raised in the city of Chester and he comes from one of the biggest families in Chester, grandparents together had children, and they each had a 15 bunch of children so it's a huge 16 family. And everyone in Chester is 17 talking about this issue. 18 Someone was shot a week 19 or two ago and was unable to 20 receive urgent medical care and 21 passed away, whereas if they were 22 able to get to a trauma facility very quickly the outcome could have been different. And so, we're going to see an influx of cases because of what's going on with the collar counties and at Crozer Health. And so, I think we have to have a plan because we already know that it's a challenge for us here, and it will only increase because of what's happening. And I heard the bell and I'm going to honor the clock, but I ask that we get a written response to that and a plan for how we are going to address that issue so we know how to respond within our budget negotiations. And I just need to put this on the record, Council President. Two cases in Councilmember Jones' District. Then one in Councilmember Squilla's District. Basil, it would be the 600 block of Jackson Street. You know the particular property that I'm referring to. We got to have an update on that because the house looks like it's falling down. I do want to thank your staff for going out to the house in the 1500 block of North 61st Street, the senior that I met at Sharon Baptist Church on Monday morning regarding the house that's falling down next door to her. Your team did get back to us today, but they are saying that the house looks like it's going to fall down at any moment, the inspector from L&I said that. I know it's in the hands of the courts. I'm concerned for the senior, she's elderly. So I have to put that on the record. We will follow up again. And then finally, I have a question on flea markets. We have two flea markets, pop-up shops in Wynnefield that three neighbors stopped me about. One in the 2400 block of North 52nd Street. They have the pop-up shop information out. Three neighbors stopped me about this one particular property. And then we have one property in the 5300 block of Wynnefield Avenue that one committee person asks about every single meeting that they have a continuous flea market on that block. What are the rules around the flea market situation? Please let us know so we can get back to those constituents in Wynnefield. Okay? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Mm-hmm.
All right. Thank you very much. And thank you, Council President. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Councilmember, just have your staff person contact me, you have my contact, and we could follow up on those problematic properties. No 3 problem.
Yes. And I just want to -- for the record your team did follow up on the North 61st Street property today because we just got that on Monday. But when the inspector went out, he said the house looks like it's going to fall down at any moment, but it's in the hands of the courts. And it's a situation where we know it's going to fall down, it's already in the courts, how do we respond. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: We'll monitor it. We'll follow. Thank you.
Thank you. Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips. Then Councilmember Rue Landau. Then wrapping us up will be Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. I just want to quickly thank you, Commissioner, for all your work. Commissioner, you and your work at the Fire Department has been remarkable so continue to keep up the good work. And also, to the entire L&I team, thank you for responding to our staff and on many issues. Really quickly I just want to get my questions in. Commissioner, can you provide data on the number of severity of residential fires in Philadelphia over the past 6 to 12 months? Have you identified certain trends that are causing fire incidents? Also, how is the Fire Department team working with Licenses and Inspections to ensure properties, especially rentals, meet fire safety codes? And then lastly for L&I, Bentley Manor, an only Odin property site in the 9th District received multiple safety violations prior to its rental license renewal in November 2024. Can L&I explain why the license was renewed despite these unresolved safety concerns? And also provide an update on the current status of these violations and any actions taken to address them. And then also lastly, the question I have for you is can you elaborate, L&I, on the interagency coordination between L&I, the Police Department and Health Department when nuisance businesses are flagged? And when nuisance businesses pose a threat to the community safety such as illegal sales, persistent sanitation or loitering, what is the chain of action and who takes the lead? Commissioner of Fire first. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Absolutely. Thank you for that question. So as my predecessor would say that Philadelphia has a fire problem and that continues to be the case for the most part. We still have -- the severity of fires still persist in the city and we have a very robust Fire Marshal's office that investigates every single fire that we have. And what that does is it helps to inform our fire prevention strategy and how we can better reduce the incidence of fire in the city. So that is one of the things that we're doing. I'm very proud to say that in this city as a whole we have very good working relationships with all other city agencies and we work very well with L&I to ensure that the fire code reflects the best practices so that we can reduce the incidence of fire. So I hope those two things answered your questions.
Yes, relatively. And then L&I, what's the most common violations L&I is seeing on the nuisance business law? Those are my questions. Most common violations you see? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: The most common violations seen where? I'm sorry. I missed that.
Under the nuisance business law, what is the most common violations that you see? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: We get a number of complaints on nuisance businesses. Some of them are exterior -- a lot of them are exterior work so the windows that are covered up. We get the flaggy things that are out front. We get unkempt properties. That's a lot of our things. We get things that are against zoning, things that are pop-up, like you alluded to the smoke shops and things like that. That's another biggie that is on our radar as far as businesses. As far as your question with coordination with the Health Department, so we coordinate with the Police Department, the Health Department and the L&I QOL. We go out every single month with them on proactive inspections on a list of properties that are like illegal smoke shops, things of that nature, drug paraphernalia shops. We also coordinate nightly on the weekends. So starting usually like Wednesday night through Sunday night and on the weekends our Nuisance Property Unit is out there investigating all kinds of different nuisance properties, whether they're businesses or actual properties, and that's in conjunction with the Police Department and a lot of times other state partners.
The Odin property. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Oh, and the Odin property thing I'm going to have to get back to you on that because there's several different Odin property things we did. We did a joint inspection of a bunch of them, and a lot of things came into compliance. So I want to just make sure which one you're talking about, and I'll work with Basil's group to see exactly what happened with those. If you could get me that info on exactly which ones you're talking about, that would be great and I'll do work with Basil's group.
Just for the record, there's one in West Oak Lane Bentley Manor. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: What was it?
Bentley Manor. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Bentley Manor.
Yep, in West Oak Lane. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Okay.
Thank you, Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips. Councilmember Rue Landau.
Thank you. Thank you all for being here. I'm going to try to be quick because we're coming to the end of the day, but I also do want to thank you all so much for your service and everything you've done for Philadelphia. I have a question. I want to start with rental licenses. What percentage of rental licenses that are issued by L&I are for properties owned by LLCs? Same question, what percentage of rental licenses that are issued by L&I have the property owner listed as the managing agent? And what percentage of rental licenses that are issued by L&I have a managing agent whose listed address is a business with a commercial activity license? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Councilmember, all great questions. We have the statistics. We have the data. But I don't have it one me.
Can you get that to me? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Sure. Absolutely.
Thank you so much. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: If you could just send me an email with your questions listing them.
Absolutely. And then I wanted to ask about the roll-out of WebUI taking over for eCLIPSE, called WebUI. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Yes.
Before the full roll-out of the new WebUI, does L&I plan on doing any type of user training or stakeholder engagement to ensure that the new features are meeting community needs effectively? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Yes, we plan to continue -- we already have a lot of outreach and a lot of webinars and things of that nature. And I see absolutely no problem with us doing the same thing for the WebUI roll-out. And I think we're planning in November some time to have that operational. So in the meantime I'll make sure that we're going to have a set schedule set up for public outreach to explain that whole process and we'll keep you in the loop also.
Great. To be clear though even with the public outreach I want to make sure that the users who are going to use it get to give you some input before it's finalized to make sure it's -- COMMISSIONER MERENDA: That's a very good point, yep. Let me follow up on that. Yep, sure.
We want to make sure we're creating the tool that people need. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: That need and that know how to use. And maybe they have some suggestions also.
Yes. I have more L&I questions, but with the risk that I'm not getting called again I want to go and switch over to the Fire Department real quick. Last year I asked about renovations and accommodations for women and people who identify as women firefighters, such as separate bathrooms and bunk rooms for overnight shifts, dispensers for feminine hygiene products and hoods to accommodate hair that have been put up and protect the back of the neck. There's also an increase in Class 200 budget item which will be used to upgrade EMS medic units and other technologies. What's the update on all of that? Is any of the funding being used for these upgrades? And are there any occurring renovations to accommodate female firefighters in terms of receptacles and protective hoods? COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you for that question. As you know, our infrastructure is pretty old and we are in a continuous state of upgrade and repair and we are working with our partners at DPP. And whenever we are doing significant renovations, we are ensuring that we have facilities that are suitable for both males and females. So that's an ongoing thing. We have 63 stations throughout the city. It is going to take some time. In this budget we are looking to have lactation pods. So we're trying to address that issue. So we recognize those issues and we also know that it's going to take time and money quite frankly to get a lot of those things accomplished. But we are working, we are making progress towards those things.
Thank you. Remember that it's a great conversation because there's a direct connection between these modifications and recruitment. Let's get that done. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Absolutely.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier. Then Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke and then Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, whose time was stolen by Councilmember Jeffrey Jay Young.
Thank you, Council President. I wanted to start by thanking all of you for being here and for the work that you do every day that's so critical to the health and safety of our residents and our neighborhoods. And I know that many times when we're communicating with you we're imparting the frustrations of our constituents, but I also want you to know that we really do appreciate you in your responsiveness and everything that you do for our office. My questions are for L&I. One topic that our office consistently struggles with is when building violations are inside of a property. In these situations, we can present all sorts of examples and paper trails, but L&I still won't write a violation or enforce unless an inspector can get into the interior of the building. This comes up with structural issues and vacant buildings but also with code violations and occupied buildings that are engaged in uses they aren't zoned for. This is a very easy way also for a building owner who knows that they are in the wrong to get around the city. They just don't let them in, right. So why is this the policy? And what can we do as Council to help L&I get around this hurdle? And then my next question, my last question is what operational or legislative changes -- oh, wait a second. Hold on. My last question is about -- I'm sorry. What operational and legislative changes would be needed for L&I to partner with groups like PHDC or other City contractors to perform essential emergency repairs on privately-owned properties while court cases are still pending? So could L&I perform basic repairs, secure doors or remove immediate hazards and then bill the property owner later? And what resources or changes to state law would be necessary to recoup these repair costs more effectively? And I'm asking this because I feel like we have gotten better at moving cases to court, right. We've fought hard to make sure that the Law Department has the resources that they need. But even though we're moving the cases to court, we're waiting for hearings, and in the meantime we're still dealing with dangerous conditions and situations. So I want to know while we are moving forward judicially what can we do in the meantime to make sure that our residents are healthy -- or safe I mean? And I know that was a lot so I can repeat any element of those questions if need be. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: I think I got the one part and Basil is going to do the first question. So as for the repair program, as we've stated before we do partner with PHDC. So PHDC does have the mechanism to actually repair things. The Department of Licenses and Inspections does not. L&I is not -- we're not trades people. We're not project managers. We're not construction project managers where we would do something like that. We do however go in, we clean and seal properties. We do those types of things to make a property safe.
I'm not asking for you to take on the repairs yourself. What I am saying is while we have a situation where we're working with L&I to cite folks who have violations. Many times we are moving these cases forward, but then we're stuck. And so, it's not that I'm asking you to take on PHDC's role. What I'm asking you is what can you do in partnership with PHDC to make sure that these issues are resolved and that residents aren't just sitting there having to deal with these continued -- COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Yeah. So we do partner with PHDC on the rental programs and things like that, those assistance. I thought you were saying could we fix them, so I apologize. I misunderstood that. Yeah, so PHDC has the mechanism to do that. And I think at the last hearing we were talking about how we coordinate with their rental repair program.
Okay. I don't really believe that we're, you know, certainly we have the mechanisms in place. It's not my understanding that we're operating in that way, right. And so, I would love -- and I know we have the law in place through Councilmember Jones' efforts. I would love if we could truly put together a program where we could remedy some of these issues and we're not just waiting for property owners to address violations or waiting for the courts. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Okay. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Councilmember, our focus of course on the construction side is ongoing construction. And access to an interior of a building, you have privacy issues and we may need to get an administrative warrant, things of that nature. But what we decided to do once we have complaints about ongoing construction and access to an interior, we'll monitor that and we'll put it on our be aware bolo list that our district inspectors can take. When they're doing their regular routines, they can take a ride by to see if there's access, if they're actually some sort of construction going on at the time so that they can catch them in the act. So we're aware of that issue and we're trying to, you know, we're struggling with.
That's great. I understand that's how we're functioning now. That is not good enough for the amount of issues that we're seeing and the amount of times that we're hearing we cannot access a property, right. It's not good enough to say we're just going to drive by and try to see them outside. So what creatively can we do to have a solution that is more effective at getting inside properties that we know have violations and are endangering our residents? COMMISSIONER MERENDA: I think it's -- we need to sit down with the Law Department and figure this all out and decide what direction they can give us and what proof they need in order to go into court and get that administrative warrant as quickly as possible in an expedited manner. So that's what I would want to follow up with. And we'll try to do that going forward.
Okay. Great. I would love to work with both of you on both of these issues and on solutions to these issues over the next budget year. Thank you so much. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you. Councilmember Rue -- okay. Councilmember Lozada.
Okay. Nicolas O'Rourke will wrap us up. Go ahead.
One for L&I. We have seen that. L&I has started to go out. Thank you for the education campaign that you all have partnered with us on doing as it relates to some of the businesses in the neighborhood. I think that as a result of those education walks we found that many people were not in compliance, not because they couldn't be but because they thought that they just didn't have to be because they were just allowed to do whatever they wanted to do for a really long period of time. But most recently we started to do enforcement in collaboration with the Police Department and the Health Department. Some of the food trucks are being impacted. One initiative as recently as yesterday, some of these food trucks were confiscated. They are of course angry and upset. I'm receiving information that it was because vehicles were not registered. Licenses were not -- food serve licenses were not updated. Electrical hookups were illegal. Can you share with me what that looks like? What was the initiative that took place yesterday? How many vehicles were confiscated and was there an education campaign prior to you all going out? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: So I have to get you that information. We were working on that yesterday. It came to us and there was some kind of discrepancy on what was happening. The vendors thought they were being closed for violating their curfew law. So there were a whole bunch of different issues that were going on there. So I actually might have it now on my phone, but I don't know because I don't have my phone sitting here with me, but I can get you that information. There were several vending trucks that were involved in that, but there was nothing that was confiscated due to anything like -- that was just out of the ordinary. It was just they didn't have their food serve licenses and there were a couple other things. One wasn't registered. But let me get you all that information because we were working on that yesterday and today.
Okay. If you could share that, that would be great. And then as a follow-up to my medics question to Deputy Commissioner McCall, my staff gave me information that there are currently 64 medics who are not available for work. That would account for -- that would leave you with about 126 medics to respond to services. When you take into consideration that people are out sick, on vacation or in trainings, wouldn't that leave you in the negative? And how are you responding to that? And does that pose a challenge for services, especially in districts like mine where we depend so much on EMT and paramedics? MR. McCALL: Thank you for the question. I want to repeat it back, if you don't mind, so I understand clearly what you're asking me is that we're looking at 64 people across four platoons that we anticipate being out of our quota at any given time and you're asking if that puts us in the negative. And that leaves us with roughly about people per platoon 4 off, which roughly gives us about 5 if there's 53 people on -- excuse 6 me, 53 people on, 15 people off, 7 that would not put us in the 8 negative. We would be in overtime. 9 And then we would request for 10 overtime. We would canvass ?? the 11 other members that were available 12 and off and we make great efforts 13 to reach out to them. We make 14 phone calls. We send text 15 messaging through our Everbridge program to see if anyone's available to work. And then we hire those ahead of time to work. And what we can't hire, what we can't bring on as far as paramedics go, that's when we then look to downgrade that unit to an ILS unit or a BLS unit, and we make efforts to hire those folks for overtime to come into those positions. Overall, we do understand that we need to bring additional people on board. Our men and women out there, firefighters, EMTs, firefighter EMTs, EMTs, advanced EMTs, paramedics work really hard all the time and we want to ensure that we have a good relief factor for them so that when they do take off, we're not so dependent on that overtime to get to relieve our staffing. So we want that relief factor in place and we have that built into the 200 that we are looking to hire to help us out with that space, so we understand that we're kind of right there to say that we're in a negative. Right now I think we're plus one in the numbers. But I think that if someone calls off sick, someone takes a vacation day, then we're in the overtime and then we're asking folks to work extra and that might be a little tough for them, and we recognize that.
Are there medics that are either in leadership or in positions that can be held by just laypeople or other straight firefighters that could cover that space? And if so, does that occur as well? MR. McCALL: In our responding ambulances? In our ambulances?
Mm-hmm. MR. McCALL: We do do that when our medics aren't available. And we canvass them through a phone call and through text messaging through our Everbridge system to work. If they decline to work, then we reach over to our advanced EMTs, our EMTs or FSEs and our firefighter EMTs to then fill those roles.
Thank you very much. And wrapping us up is Councilmember Nic O'Rourke.
Thank you, Mr. President. This may have already been asked, but let me make sure I get it on the record on my end. Are your staff paramedics, those not working on the street in budgeted staff positions? And I'm sorry if this was already asked already. MR. McCALL: No worries. Thank you for that question. Our paramedics that are not in field operational positions that are off of the street are in staffed or in budgeted or mostly budgeted positions. We do have some people detailed to positions that require that level of knowledge to perform that work. So we have them in those positions until we do a justification or a proof of concept for that position, at which time we will then put in that justification for that paramedic to be budgeted in that position that's staffed.
Okay. Thank you. The other question I do have and then I'll get off, the Whole Blood program would allow certain medic units to carry blood to supply the trauma victims on the street before they go to the hospital to help save lives, especially shooting and stabbing patients. Why is this program being delayed? MR. McCALL: Thank you for that question. Great question. We understand that the whole blood is a lifesaving medicine that we can bring to the city of Philadelphia and we have the program together. We've had a work group that's been working on that since 2023 and I understand that we're ready to go with that program as soon as we are able to address our zero medic unit problem and our medic unit on the wall problem. And we've implemented some policy programs and we've looked at our medic unit availability to try to address that problem. So once that is addressed and we have medic units available to bring that whole blood to the citizens of Philadelphia, we will definitely then implement that program.
So you're lacking units to be able to do it, medic units to be able to do it? MR. McCALL: No, I think we have the medic units to do it. It's just they're delayed, right. And working through that delay, trying to reduce that delay so that those units can respond to those calls, yes, they are traumatic calls but they're also, you know, anything that makes a person hemodynamically unstable or is bleeding, right, so it could be a GI situation, it could be a young child who had his or her tonsils removed and have a bleeding concern, so that whole blood does impact that level of care incredibly. So we want to have that available and be able to respond to that. But we also want to ensure that our units are not being delayed for reasons out of our control so that that can get there, and we want to address that issue first.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. President. MR. McCALL: No worries.
Thank you. And the last question, Councilmember Rue Landau.
Just one and my apologies if this was already asked. But I wanted to ask about cease operations orders. How many rental properties has L&I issued cease operations orders for in the past year? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: I do not have that information with me, but I can get you that.
Will you also tell me what percentage of rental properties that were issued these cease operations orders had a previous history of unresolved code violations? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: So same answer.
There's been a couple of instances. The Daily Pennsylvanian just reported on one in University City, and of course we always talk about Brith Sholom as places where landlords are using at least the fear of cease operations or potentially the actuality of cease operations to try to get around the eviction process and get all of their tenants to leave at once. I've seen this many times over the years. L&I often will figure out what's happening, catch up and stop this practice. But I am curious whether or not you are watching this trend, ensuring that it doesn't happen and have safeguards in place to make sure landlords aren't circumventing their responsibilities or the eviction process in order to just let their place fall into disrepair and say, well, that's it, got to cease operations? COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: I think when we get into this more proactive rental inspection thing, we're going to catch a lot of those things. Like I said, we're not there yet. But I think once we do we're going to start to identify more of those bad actors, as you call them -- perhaps we all call them, and then stop that practice from happening.
Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you all. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Thank you.
Thank you very much. I want to thank all of you for your presenta -- COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Council President, can you indulge me for one minute?
Commissioner. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: I'm thrilled to hear that L&I has been so responsive to the Council. I would submit that that's proof positive that the split has worked out.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. But first and foremost even separate from the split, I know my members work very, very hard and are very, very thorough in terms of when they're getting behind a particular initiative. So to the gentleman from this body who chairs Licenses and Inspections, Councilmember Mike Driscoll, I believe in his leadership. I believe in the work that the two of you have done in terms of from a collaboration standpoint and I also acknowledge the work that the Mayor has done as a new leader coming in and saying, wait a minute, I want to separate the two in terms of how we approach things to make sure we're addressing all the issues comprehensively. So continue to keep up the good work. But most importantly, thank you for having the response, both of you. Any time I call I get a response. That's half the battle -- COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Absolutely.
-- right. Half the battle is showing up, right. And so, we'll continue to keep working together. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Quetcy Lozada.
Council President, I'm just looking at this really quickly and I have one question for Deputy Commissioner because now he has me confused. He said they were a plus one, but they're negative in staffing. And he said you guys call folks and offer them overtime. Isn't it cheaper to just hire medics as opposed to paying folks overtime? MR. McCALL: We are hiring medics. We have currently a list of 40. And on that list we've had 10 people that have made it through our process ready to start the academy, and that start will be in June, those paramedics we will be onboarding. We actually just opened up the list again to help capture some of the people that were at Crozer that are now without jobs so we can then bring them on board. So we opened that list and that list closes on -- it was just extended to the 18th. So it was the 13th closure. Now, it's the 18th of this month, in which that opportunity will close so we can capture those folks. So we are hiring paramedics and we're going to continue to hire paramedics. We're going to get as many paramedics as we possibly can. We understand that that's strenuous work and having that relief helps us out a great deal. What happens though is that people, you know, we can't anticipate when people will determine they're not feeling well for the day, that they need to take a holiday or vacation day or time off or something along those lines. And our relief factor suffers because of it. So then we have to go to overtime for that. And that's any position. It could be a firefighter EMT. It could be an EMT -- or FSC, excuse me. It could be an FSE advanced and it could be a paramedic. When it's a last minute something or even something projected, we understand that we get into a relief and that's where we have a little gap and we're looking to fill that. For us a relief factor for our paramedics across all four platoons would be 64 additional individuals.
Thank you very much. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you for your presentations. And if anyone would do additional follow-up as well, we will follow up with you individually. With that being said -- you're dismissed. COMMISSIONER COLLINS GREENWALD: Thank you. COMMISSIONER THOMPSON: Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER MERENDA: Thank you.
With this being said, the Chair recognizes Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson for a motion of the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolution before the Committee today stand in recess until Monday, May 5, 2025 at 10:00 a.m. in Room 400.
So moved, Mr. Chairman. (Duly seconded.)
It has been moved and properly seconded that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolutions before the Committee today stand in recess until Monday, May 5, 2025 at 10:00 a.m. All those in favor will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the motion carries. This Committee will stand in recess until Monday at 10:00 a.m. 2025 in City Hall. Thank you. (Committee of the Whole concluded at 4:35 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. __________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL