ed here for generations and recognize that the spirit of the Dakota Ojiway and Matei and all indigenous communities permeates this land the contribution of the indigenous people shall not be forgotten nor will the success that is achieved by the people of the land we
will continue to educate advocate honor and unite for indigenous people of this land do we have any agenda amendments we have one guest speaker from the Life Care Unites Foundation that is not able
to make it this evening okay and I understand that our other speaker the executive director for the Fargo Morehead Coalition to End Homelessness will be attending but we might need to move them to the end of the agenda correct okay can I get a motion to for approval
of minutes for the M March 19th meeting minutes i'll motion second you and as noted the guest speaker we're going to just kind of move that down the agenda um so we will move on to any
community partners or citizens to be heard so it's first oh take the vote on it yeah thank you okay uh can I All in favor say I i i i oppose same sign thank you for that
Sebastian my apologies no worries um doesn't look like we have any citizens to be heard or community partners so I'm going to look to Latty uh for a law enforcement update thank you Jennifer uh thank you uh the
commission for uh having me here tonight i'm filling in for our normal representative from the Morhead Police Department uh so forgive me my first time actually sitting at one of these tables and talking so um yeah the biggest update is Chief Helmick uh began his new role with the Morhead Police
Department as the chief of police on Monday um he uh would like at some point in time to actually come and address the council uh try to get on the agenda and actually uh you know have something prepared to come and speak with the with the commission um he re wanted me to make sure to reiterate that uh we're
going to continue uh our partnership with the commission uh under his tenure as a chief of police and uh make sure that we continue to work well together uh for the betterment of the community so with that that's all I have for tonight so thank you very much any ideas on when he's looking to get on
the agenda i think that's a great idea uh I wouldn't want to speak for him just yet he's on his third day right now so he's he's finding he's got his he's found his bearings in the law enforcement center to start with so uh May might be a little bit too soon it's only one month out so I know June you
were just saying you might not have a meeting in June maybe a July time frame but okay uh I can touch base with him and then stay in touch to get him get him on the agenda that sounds great thank you thank you very much Latty uh regular business
do we have any regular business to share um I was just going to bring up Junth we normally have a Junth we have for the past two years um have had Junth here at the Yum Center sponsored
by the Human Rights Commission from my understanding the organizers of the Morhead Junth are not going to have a separate one as of now they may uh organize something else at a different location but because of the conflict
between the Scandinavian festival the same week and Junth it was timing of two things so um know in the past we've supported for the past two years we supported and were there and also had a
destiny holiday award I'm not sure if the organizers want to go forward with the destiny holiday award uh for if they do we have to get that going because it is April now so I'll have a discussion with um the organizers next week at a
different event and we'll see what their plan is as of now they still will continue the Fargo Junth and call it the Fargo Morehead Junth um supported by Fred's dissonance so and with updates I will
let our commission know okay i think we'll actually run into that same problem next year too because it's just going to be one day later too as well for Junth sure yeah so yeah with scheduling conflicts I know that this building is used for so many different
things and so many different organizations so I hope that they're able to find a space whether indoor or outdoor or we can help support them if they choose to have a combined Fargo
Morehead one in uh somewhere in Fargo i think it's Broadway Square it was held there that way we can just go and support and know that the organizers have the full support of our commission and collaboration is always a good thing so yeah thank you
so when you're when you will you let um I think it's Trent and I on the awards subcommittee just let us know about the Destiny Holiday Award yeah I will i'll ask them if they want to present it at one of their events and let you know so we we can get some nominations for it in
the next month hopefully um and Tanya had mentioned too that um due to the events and the Scandinavian event in June that we likely will not be having a an HRC meeting that month want to make sure everyone was aware of that
sure um last year we encouraged us as a commission to go out and be at Junth and last year we didn't meet in June either just to be able to use that time to be in community and um
represent the commission so great idea sure thank you Se moving on then to subcommittee reports i don't know the awards committee we have not had a a need to meet so no updates um from the awards committee any
of the others i don't think the education committee has met no we have not however Anna and I were both at the global market so we were kind of busy with that this past April and that was
fun to be at we unfortunately didn't have Evette there otherwise we would have met and kind of talk through it but um we'll we'll meet in the next month hopefully going forward to talk about events and activities in our community
and how we can um use the platform and invite different organizations to come speak so is there like a procedure like to get these things scheduled because I think like schedule-wise it would be kind of good to kind of know because like last
week I was in Hawaii you know I can't uh do stuff like at last minute so it' be good to kind of get things like on a calendar if that would Yeah up till now the subcommittees have really met on their own to kind of scheduled on their
own behind the scenes via email or phone um do you think having like an like a set schedule would be Well not necessarily like a sk set set schedule but just like you know like okay I know we're going to be meeting this week so
that way if I have other pending stuff like because I'm not sure if it's like daytime or evening time or whatever and I can work around those schedules so within the subcommittees I think um we allow you know you are set to meet and
compare schedules and decide on a meeting time for you to discuss so that it's really open to um you can meet monthly we haven't been meeting monthly but to set up a schedule within the subcommittee with the individuals in the
specific subcommittee i think that's what Jen meant so we can get something on a schedule i mean each subcommittee can get something going get like a reoccurring meeting to meet and discuss uh committee and outreach and events and
awards and whatever they need to we will meet um and yeah we our subcommittee will meet soon so education outreach seam Anna and Avette that's the one you're talking about yes okay
okay and then for the um awards I guess it's probably obvious Trent but if we do decide to move forward with the Destiny holiday award I'll be in touch and we'll go from there i think the other thing the awards um and I'm sorry if I'm overstepping is
really to promote that more award that is done every month through uh the city of Morhead so just encouraging your networks your friends school where we have a lot of passionate people working in different sectors education special
education uh special needs um empowerment whatever just encourage people to go on the city of Morehead websites and really just it's a quick form to fill out for someone they feel embodies that spirit so that could be something to do and there's marketing
around it um I know on Facebook for sure yep there are there are some marketing um information and um press releases about the more heart award okay um reports announcements or
upcoming events i do had I do have a couple events that I wanted to share with everyone um the let me see here the welcoming and wellness and unity celebration
um which is put on by New Roots Midwest they are having an event at the Armory Event Center uh at 904 Center Avenue in Morehead on April 27th from 4 to 8:00 PM uh they're going to have cultural food
dance performances um you know community conversations a panel discussion and a lot more um again that's on April 27th from or 4 to 8:00 p.m and then to bring to your attention as well coming up here May 3rd we're
going to have Kidfest of 2025 put on by the Klay County Early Childhood Initiative so that's on May 3rd and it starts at 10:00 a.m and I know you mentioned the uh farmers market so I just wanted to bring that back to attention that the Morehead
Farmers Market um great place to get uh fresh and local food items um and it's running on Tuesdays from June through October with uh they have all kinds of things um vegetables baker baked goods honey jams products and handcrafted
artisan goods did you you were in attendance at there is there anything else that you want to highlight from that event are you talking to me yeah sorry the global market yeah the global market is not necessarily the farmers market but it's on a smaller scale and it was done
throughout the winter and collaboration with the indigenous association the immigrant development center inclusive Morehead and they it was um different you know upand cominging entrepreneurs that want to sell their baked goods their handcrafts their earrings i
actually got these earrings from a couple of Morehead residents that make beaded earrings um and you know sourdough breads baklava and there's performances education pieces and different um uh different organizations
that bring bring information to people and there's been 170 people coming through and it's here at the YCOM Center and on Tuesdays because the exhibits at the historical society are free of charge
and they do the tours of the the SCA the church out there i forget the name but they do the the set tours on Tuesdays too so that is free of charge to the public just something to do there's also children's activities by the library or
an organization um we had a food truck last time it went really well commission Commissioner Rajes was doing Hannah there so as art and that was really fun so to see it's a just a fun uh the next one is May 20th so it's going to be
Tuesday May 20th um we'll try to have more vendors highlight AsianAmerican heritage because that's in May and to really set a spotlight on that so awesome um and one more um event I know
I mentioned this last time but just to bring to your attention again the Morehead National Alliance on Mental Illness is still hosting their mental health days in the park uh the next one is Saturday April 26th 10:00 a.m to 2 pm at the Viking Ship Park
add one more thank you uh April 21st is the cleanup around along the river and MB Johnson Buckthornne cleanup uh April April 20th is Earth Day and so volunteers are meeting to do clean up
there I believe in the evening um yes at 400 p.m so that is happening with the river keepers I believe so that's another one I'll be going to so lots of events
any others well I'll just throw it out there april is sexual assault awareness month and so with that being said um the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault will be hosting a virtual aare event um you can
look at that look up that information on www uh mencasa.org or for individuals that would like to uh virtually participate between the hours of 12 to 1 and then they also have a lot
offormational statistical information that people can kind of gain a little bit more awareness on sexual assault and then also uh April 30th is National Denim Day for Sexual Assault Awareness Survivors
um as a part of the SAPM campaign so if you can remember maybe wear some denim on that day just to show your support um it stems from a uh court case where a judge kind of ruled that because of the
individual was wearing uh tight jeans that they had to they were basically consenting and so that kind of went national and so people as a result um
wear denim in support of you know sexual assault awareness and how these things can cause issues so um support your local um centers i did not know that about the
denim jeans so very good to know um okay so we have just new business left but I believe our guest speaker is here chandler awesome so Chandler will invite you up um Chandler is the executive director of the Fargo
Morehead Coalition to End Homelessness and she has a regional housing and homelessness update for us awesome thank you all for um letting me be here and join you this evening uh I recognize many of you from uh other work that we collaborate on in the community so I
appreciate uh the opportunity to share a little bit about uh what the coalition is currently working on um so that you all are informed and can provide feedback on um the progress that we're making in the community this is a presentation that I typically do in partnership with my colleague at United
Way Taylor Severson but you only get me tonight sorry um and so what we'll be talking about is our collaborative um project initiative that we're working on called United to End Homelessness uh and this is an initiative that really um
leverages both of the expertise of the coalition the over 70 member agencies that make up the coalition in the Fargo Morehead area uh as well as the strong relationships that United Way has uh with a variety of other stakeholders in
the community to really bring together um our shared interests and work towards this mutual goal so at the coalition uh our mission is that we work in partnership to achieve permanent solutions to prevent and end homelessness and so this partnership is
really um an iteration of that mission uh in order to see some systematic and sustained reductions in homelessness in our community over time so to start us off um I just want to ground us in the definition of what homelessness is and what's unique about
homelessness is that kind of depending on what population of people experiencing homelessness you're talking about there can be different definitions and so most to be most inclusive about that definition of homelessness when we're talking about people experiencing homelessness that means that they lack a
fixed regular and adequate nighttime residence um and that could include people who are uh living in an emergency shelter uh it also includes people who are living in a transitional housing program who aren't in a permanent housing situation uh it also means
people who are living in unstable and non-permanent solutions uh some we usually refer to that as being doubled up um staying with a friend or family member and then also people who are living in environments that are not meant for human habitation people who
are sleeping outside people who are living in environments without um heat or running water um so a variety of different uh kind of characteristics that define who's experiencing homelessness in our community so on any given night throughout the Fargo Morehead metro area
there about we estimate there are about 1,050 individuals experiencing homelessness now it's important to contextualize that number um again this is just a snapshot of what we estimate the number of people to be on any given night uh however it is not
representative of the number of people who are entering and exiting homelessness throughout the year um if we were to have that cumulative number uh that would be about three to four times the number we see on any given night so we are um ending homelessness for many people throughout our community
each and every day each and every year but we do have this persistent number of about a thousand individuals who experience homelessness each night um of this uh in our community we also know that we have about 600 students um in the metro area who are experiencing
homelessness um and the definition for students uh to meet the definition of homelessness is a little bit different so if you're trying to map on the 600 students to that 1050 number it's not an exact math um but unfortunately throughout the metro area we do know
there are at least 600 students um without a stable residence nationally we've seen about an 18% increase in homelessness overall um and we're seeing the impacts of that here regionally as well in our area over
the last year we've seen about a 5% increase in homelessness uh and this is significant because prior to this year um our area shelters were already full service providers are serving the max capacity of the people they can uh so
when we see that increase it means we'll see more people living unsheltered in our community and more people going without the resources they need to resolve their housing crisis so one of the things that is really important for all of us to have a little background information on is what
the homelessness response system is and so the homeless response system is a continu a continuum of agencies who support people who are at risk of homelessness people who are currently experiencing the crisis of homelessness and also agencies that support people in
their movement out of homelessness and into stability and this combination of agencies um work in partnership to create a healthy ecosystem of service providers that maintain our homeless response system ensuring as best we can we're managing crisis and addressing and
ending people's homelessness um whenever possible so what's important to note about the five pieces on this wheel is that in order for a homeless response system to be effective and healthy we need each of these different wheels present and they need to be able to meet
the demand in the community and I'll kind of walk you through what each wedge of this wheel does what the services are they provide and which parts of our system are overwhelmed they're trying to serve more people than they have the capacity to and which parts of our
system are underresourced who are unable to meet the demand uh of need in our community so first of all we have the wedge that we call outreach and coordinated entry this is what we consider to be the front door into the
homeless response system you'll see a number of agencies listed on the right hand side this is not a comprehensive list of every single agency that does this work but it is meant to give you an idea of the types of agencies that do this work in our community we are really
fortunate to have incredible outreach and coordinated entry work happening we actually know and can estimate quite well the number of people experiencing homelessness in our community and oftentimes these service providers know these individuals by name they know how many people are in their families they
know they know the barriers they're facing in terms of housing however this is part of our system that is overwhelmed we know that there are much more people experiencing homelessness in our community than we have the capacity to serve so although we might have a really robust list of who we know is in
need of services we unfortunately don't have all of the resources we need in order to serve everyone the best way possible uh so this is a critical part of our system to manage the inflow into homelessness to understand who's at risk and also help them on their pathway to permanent housing but again it's
overwhelmed in our community right now a lot of times when people think about homelessness the first thing that comes to mind is emergency shelter um and that is one wedge in this continuum of services that exist in our community to support people in crisis we are
extremely lucky to have the diversity of service providers that we have providing shelter each type each shelter has its own unique population that they serve with their own unique programming and it is the diversity of shelter types in our community that allows us to serve many
different types of people at varying levels of crisis and with varying uh different needs that being said on any given night we have about 330 shelter beds available in our community and that again is not enough it is not adequate for the number of people who um are
experiencing homelessness on any given night um so what happens is that shelter can sometimes become a bottleneck it is a crucial intervention uh to address someone's housing crisis but it is not the solution to homelessness so simply building more shelters is not the
solution to to addressing the homeless crisis it is about ensuring people are moving out of shelter moving out of homelessness and into permanent housing so that shelter is available for those who need it but that is not a lifetime sentence to people in our community uh we know at this time that homelessness
is unfortunately not rare not brief not one time and people can live weeks months and years in shelter um and potentially unsheltered in our community again because there's not uh enough resources to meet the demand so this is another example of the part of our
system that is overwhelmed by the need in our community what we might consider the next step in the homeless response system is what we call supportive housing and rapid rehousing and this is really the type of services that people
are provided in order to move forward out of shelter and into a more permanent situation so these are the agencies that work to quickly rehouse someone after they've lost their housing or provide long-term stability to ensure their ability to maintain housing once they
get it um and a lot all of this is person- centered it is based on the needs of that individual that individual or that household in order to ensure they're receiving the right care at the right time um but again this is kind of the service wedge of what um moving out
of homelessness looks like so supportive housing and rapid rehousing are really closely integrated with affordable housing and stabilization uh this is the actual housing types that we need and the housing providers in our community who uh work with folks to get vouchers
um to get long-term rental assistance and to have physical um public housing units that are available for people to live in that are affordable to to their income levels which are sometimes very modest um if if they have any income at all so these partners on the right are
the developers the landlords the housing authorities that help develop that housing uh maintain that housing and again help people get the rental assistance they need long term uh to resolve their housing crisis and uh last but not least uh we
have a really important intervention in our community called prevention and diversion and this is what happens hopefully before somebody becomes homeless when somebody is falling behind on rent or they're struggling with some issues uh with their landlord or
whatever it might be we can intervene early prevent them from losing their home their home altogether and ensure that they're not experiencing that trauma and crisis of homelessness in our region we've been able to over the last year prevent and divert over 2700
individuals from homelessness uh so you can imagine without this intervention just how many more people we would see in crisis in our community living in shelter or living unsheltered or in other precarious situations so prevention and diversion is one of the really important ways that
we minimize the number of people entering homelessness reduce the burden on shelter and ultimately also help exit as many people out of homelessness as possible so part of why I wanted to share all of that with you is because many times people don't really quite know all of
the different service providers in our community who do this work and each part of this system is needed in in order to have a healthy homeless response system no one piece of this puzzle or this wheel can do this work alone can end
homelessness alone and it is the network and that continuum of service providers that allow us to do this work um like I mentioned earlier there are different parts of this wedge that are either overwhelmed that are uh overutilized in our community and there
are others that are underresourced that are not resourced well enough to meet the demand and you can see here that outreach and coordinated entry that inflow into homelessness is very overwhelmed right now we have more people in need than we have ability to serve and same with emergency shelter so
in order for us to be able to work as a system to see reductions in homelessness over time we need to see these other parts of the system scaled up and resourced to meet the demand so we're seeing people actually exit homelessness into permanent housing and again
preventing it whenever possible uh I wish it was as simple to just click this button and everything look look uh like it has par and uh and resource everything but this is what we're looking for we're looking for an optimal state where we have the adequate resources to serve everyone in our
community who is experiencing crisis and then we're using those resources efficiently and effectively and when no part of the system is overwhelmed and all parts of the system are well resourced we can see uh that systematic and sustained reduction in homelessness over time
so now that I've provided a little bit of context on how that system works and what parts are overburdened and overwhelmed and what parts need to be resourced I'm going to share a little bit about the work that United to End Homelessness is doing to help make that happen so uh we have convened a steering
committee of 15 different service providers who make up uh parts of that wedge or parts of that wheel that I showed you um in order to support this work um and we have identified a need of about $2 and a half million dollars in order to address uh the incoming crisis
of unsheltered homelessness uh so um over the next two weeks at the end of April we know that winter programming that has been um that has been stood up to prevent winter weather related injury and death
will come to an end and there are about 55 to 65 individuals in our community who are at risk of leaving that environment directly to an unsheltered homeless situation and we are working to prevent that and so what this steering committee has done is identified the
agencies who are most well positioned to add to their teams and support these folks who are at risk of unsheltered homelessness and we're also uh looking in the community to find um housing units that are underused and match those with people who are at risk of
unsheltered homelessness with the wraparound support they need and that housing unit um in order to end their homelessness altogether and so it is this collaboration of these 15 different agencies that are standing up this work and we hope to be able to share some of the progress that we've made um in
concrete terms um in the next couple weeks as some of those partnerships are finalized and the ink dries on some contracts um in addition we know that if we don't want to keep problem solving um at the end of winter programming for a potential increase in unsheltered homelessness or problem solve every
winter for the incoming crisis of winter weather we need to have a long-term plan to address um to prevent and end homelessness in our community and so we are also in the process of standing up the Cass Clay Inter agency Council on Homelessness which you may have heard
about uh we had a joint proclamation with all of our five metro mayors and commissioners from both Cass and Clay counties to stand up one table where all of the different stakeholders in our community those in government those who support some of these agencies and other
sectors that interact with the homeless response system to come together and problem solve how best do we prevent homelessness as much as possible and again how do we continue to scale up the resources we need to ensure we're moving people quickly out of crisis out of
shelter into permanent housing that takes a longer time it's a lot to plan it's a lot of stakeholders to bring together there are many fail points in the system where people discharge from an institution like a hospital or jail directly into homelessness there's lots of ways that we can work together to
ensure that we are having a seamless coordinated response to homelessness and those fail points don't exist and that's really what we hope to achieve with this long-term strategy through the inter agency council to end homelessness so you may be asking yourself why an inter agency council on
homelessness um we modeled this after the United States inter agency council on homelessness and they are the leader of the federal response to homelessness they incubate best practices they vet solutions across the nation and provide guidance to regions and states as to how
best uh to address this crisis um and we have seen other regions in the in the nation that have had a lot of success deploying a similar model they don't all call themselves inter agency councils some certainly do um but what's unique about our community is that we have five
uh metro municipalities two counties and two states that will be working together and this really is the only um area in the country where that level of multi-jurisdictional collaboration is happening under this united this inter agency council structure so it is
something that is both rooted in practices we've seen work in other communities but also novel to our area in the level of collaboration that's required to address this issue so we're really excited to be able to learn from communities who've done this work well uh and also try some new things based on
how um unique our community is and the unique challenges and strengths we have okay I really zipped through that because I wanted to make sure that I have time for your questions um but again as we think about the work of United to End Homelessness the work of the coalition our partnership with
United Way we really want to make sure that our communities are a place where everybody has their basic needs met and everybody has the ability to thrive that really starts by ensuring we're um addressing preventing and ending homelessness in our community ensuring everyone has a safe place to live um and
with that I would love to answer any questions you may have for me and this work um I have a question so like in like for like everyday like people who are like your kids like my age like 13 14 or like
people like just everyday people like how could they like take steps to help with this cause that's a great question thank you thank you for asking that you know the number one thing that is really helpful for us is for people to get
educated about homelessness um about what the root causes of homelessness are and to talk to their friends and neighbors about what those root causes are there are a lot of misconceptions out there about why people are homeless and what the solutions to that are and so when people are empowered with
knowledge about um you know how best to address this and and really again what are those root causes um that is how you build a movement that is how you create the support in the community to really um finally address this issue at its core um that being said uh we are
fundraising right now and no contribution is too small in order to ensure that we're able to scale up these resources to have the housing units available to support people in their movement out of homelessness and provide those wraparound support services um and
then lastly I would say um we have a ton of different organizations in our community who do this work they all have unique missions they all serve unique populations um so if you're worried about youth um or families I would find an organization in our community like Youth Works Churches United the YW.C.A
uh really any agency that mission resonates with you and figure out how you can volunteer or or make donations to them directly um they're always in need of extra support thank you I have a question um so statistically speaking um is there do you have stats
on which age group is has been mostly impacted within this community yeah that's a great question so um what I will say is that we know that the fastest growing population of people experiencing homelessness are youth and seniors um that being said the largest
population of people are middle-aged adults who are experiencing homelessness but those two are the fastest growing uh populations in our community and okay that's my last question that's okay um so is has there been programs created to kind of help offset some of
uh some individuals going into homelessness like maybe uh youth education to kind of talk about like what does it look like stepping out and you know renting or like just kind of
some basic living education or is there just a lot of interconnections with like maybe mental health or that's causing some potential issues with homelessness yeah that's a great question you know
there are a ton of different agencies that do um really incredible prevention work on a variety of issues um so when I think about what it looks like to have educational programming that um helps prevent homelessness it looks really similar to the types of programming we have that uh prevents substance use or
that helps uh young people address their mental health um and then when we think about agencies in our community that are currently serving youth especially like you mentioned um youth works um Frasier all have youth specific programming to help them learn um how to live
independently uh one of the main contributing factors to experiencing homelessness is actually um being in foster care um many people who exper who are living in foster care uh when they turn 18 don't have a place to live and
end up experiencing homelessness um and so young people have to figure out how to live on their own very quickly um and also navigate that crisis so there are agencies that do that work um but I think there's always room to do more of it um but ultimately I would say as well
we need to ensure that we have enough housing in our community so that everybody has a place to live and then we might not have to problem solve for those other issues as much and be able to focus on people being healthy um without having to worry where they're going to sleep at
night i hope that answered your question i don't know that it did no you did thank you okay i I do have a few questions as well and Tanya is it possible to go back on the slide to the numbers real quick the 1050
600 and 5% sorry Chandler you and I know each other for a long time you know I love numbers so um on any given night uh you know we're serving or there's 1,50 people that are in need of services or help of of some
sort right how many of those do you estimate are not in shelters or unable you know are unhoused for the night yeah so um based on what we uh observed at our last point in time count and so for those of
you who don't know what a point in time count is it is a yearly uh literal count that we go out into the community and perform to find out how many people are living unsheltered in our community and we were able to estimate about a hundred individuals in our community living
unsheltered at that time um and so those numbers are um helpful in understanding the overall need but they're imperfect um and so I would say there's likely more folks than that who are living and sheltered in our community on any given night um and they just might be in places where we don't know where to look
for them mhm and and and I was asking that question not because I want to diminish that number but you know I I've heard that number before 100 especially when we're talking about the winter conditions and those things and 100 doesn't seem um impossible to to find right to impossible to find shelter for
a night i I know that's not the only solution right in this in this overall programming but um the idea of just trying to find a hundred more beds doesn't seem impossible uh it's really obviously going to take the entire community to do it but it doesn't seem
um overwhelming in in my opinion um although I sit on this side not that side so I I would say I share that sentiment um you know ending homelessness in our community making it rare brief and one-time is absolutely something that's doable and part of that is because we are not seeing the rates
of crisis that other communities are seeing we can absolutely figure out how to house and support a hundred individuals we can absolutely scale that up to meet the need of the entire community um it's a choice that we make every day a policy choice a resourcing
choice a philanthropic choice uh to live with unsheltered homelessness in our community and I think what we're seeing now and probably part of the reason why I'm here is that enough people are recognizing that this isn't something that we want to live with anymore uh we don't want to see our neighbors suffer we don't want to see people not have a
place to live we don't want to see children go without a safe place to sleep at night and so now is the time to act before we reach a point in time in the future where the crisis has gone grown too big for us to be able to see quick impacts and meaningful change uh
because there will come a time where where that will happen and then homelessness will be a pervasive reality in our community but we haven't reached that point yet so now really is the time to act and to ensure that we're scaling up those resources to meet the need and
then sorry just two other number questions for you so this 5% increase in homelessness locally since 2023 um how is that number figured and I guess what I'm trying to figure out is is that just appear um last year we served 100 this year there's 105 is that the 5% or are
we also uh accounting for the fact that we have people that are transitioning into stable housing yes so um the number that is being compared is that point in time count number but the point in time count doesn't just count the number of people who are living unsheltered in our
community it counts the we just pull that number out usually as an indicator of of how many people are living unsheltered that count actually really does demonstrate the number of people throughout the community who are experiencing homelessness on any given
night so we can use that as a way to understand if that rate is increasing over time um yeah does that make sense yeah it it does and conceivably though this number is understated because if you're uh if you're graduating if you will um 15% of people out of
homelessness into stable right and you're still seeing a 5% increase in homelessness that you know really that that number is much higher absolutely yeah it is not representative again of kind of the overall number of people who are entering or exiting homelessness throughout the year we estimate that to
be three or four times that 1050 number um but so one of the statistics that I like to well I don't like to share it but it's it's a valuable statistic to have um across the nation for every person who is housed two more people
fall into homelessness and so that's not necessarily exact math for our community but it is um something that helps us understand that even when we're seeing success even when more and more people are being housed more people are experiencing a crisis that leads to
homelessness um so it's important for us to both focus on how we exit people from homelessness but also how we prevent that experience altogether so we're not managing as much crisis obviously in the affordable home ownership uh sector of of this pie a
little bit so a little bit out of it but but uh certainly a part of it uh the stat we like is a thou for every thousand uh the purchase price of a home goes up it uh prices out over 150 uh buyers in our market so uh you know a
simple little change of $1,000 knocks a lot of people out of it one last question for you though and it's really about the preventative kind of coming back if um do we have a sense of how many people we are preventing from homelessness as well
yeah so um the statistic that I uh have most readily in my mind is that the programs um that do homelessness prevention um that are United Way funded partners which are the primary uh levers for that work is that in
2024 they prevented or diverted 2700 individuals from homelessness um and the there's another so another interesting statistic that was shared with me um one of our amazing partners on the Morehead side uh Lakes and Prairie's Community
Action uh they were able to house and keep housed a thousand people last year but they were only able to serve one in four people who came to them for housing support so that is an incredible statistic of success in being able to
keep as that many people housed and it also demonstrates just how much more is needed in order to address this crisis in our community so not prevention but again kind of helps us explain the need okay i'm sorry but this don't be sorry what I'm here for so um across a lot of
programs that are like government funded programs that are grant funded programs um I think a lot of people have kind of discussed how a lot of these grants have kind of disappeared um is that something that within uh like the homeless space
of grants has that have have you have you all seen a decrease in uh grants uh coming up for like maybe possible renewal that could cause uh more issues absolutely that is something that we're
paying a lot of attention to um it really is dependent on each agency so it's not kind of clear across the board um how much I shouldn't say it's not clear each agency has a different proportion of their budget that is funded by federal grants that are at
risk some agencies have budgets that are largely federally funded and would be significantly at risk and others don't receive very much at all and could likely maintain a majority of their programming without interruption however we know that anytime there's threats to
federal funding that supports this work there will be an increase in homelessness and so it's really important for us to advocate for those resources to be maintained for those grants to continue for grant agreements to be honored um because it is a crucial
part of funding for many agencies um it just kind of depends on which one we're talking about if that's fair to say thank you i was just specifically trying to focus on like this community like if any community partners have maybe
reached out and say "Hey um well we didn't get this grant." So then like what what are some of these shortfalls that we're currently experiencing so that way we can kind of look at how the community can kind of come together and offer additional support resources and
you know Yeah no that's uh I appreciate that clarity so I think my hesitancy to answer that question is that I don't want to speak on behalf of any specific agency that hasn't come forward and said "Hey we're risking we're at risk of losing 90% of our of our funding." Um I
would support them in that messaging but I don't want to share that information on their behalf without knowing for sure that it's something I can share publicly i will just add to that um as as an organization that has received small uh federal funding um we are certainly
approaching this next year in future years with the idea that we're not going to be getting any federal funding until there's more clarity on what that looks like um things are just all kind of all over the place right now and so it's it's just cleaner uh for us to just say
what can we do if this funding isn't around and um certainly if we get it that's great but but we're not counting on it which certainly makes our mission or delivering our mission that much tougher and and certainly a change in delivery um I have a question so would you say
that these like stereotypes that people have put on like these homeless people are like actively decreasing your ability to like solve the crisis in like the spikes of homeless people and like
trying to get them sheltered would you say like those those stereotypes are harmful absolutely um you know it's uh really interesting when you talk to people who are currently experiencing homelessness or especially folks who have been homeless for a long time and just how
much those stereotypes really do wear down their desire to ask for help if they feel like the community sees them as asking for a handout or being lazy or this they brought this on themselves it really does diminish their agency to be able to say "No I I'm I need a place to
live i need help." uh because they're they're fearful of of being seen as fitting that uh that stereotype i also think that um the more those stereotypes take root in our community the more people believe them the less investment
there is in solutions that actually end homelessness what we see is that um there's more of a focus on managing homelessness and managing the symptoms of homelessness um like people can perceive crime to be a direct correlation to homelessness that's not
that's not entirely true or that folks who are um unsheltered are um using substances we also know that's not entirely true um and so when we have these narratives that stereotype people experiencing homelessness it a lot of times if they're successful in kind of
being the predominant thought in a community can drive resources away from solutions and actually keep people homeless longer instead of being focused on moving people out of homelessness and receiving the services they need to to maintain stability long term so they're absolutely harmful both to the
individual experiencing homelessness in our community and our ability to address this crisis overall thank you well thank you Chandler for um coming here your work has been tremendous over the short time span i just want to say
that you know looking at the weight list for services those weight lists are so long so it needs to be an innovative approach through community right and that's what you all are doing so I thank you for that my one really short question is we have a lot of development
happening around here my question is with the United to end homelessness is are those developers engaged to make sure it truly is affordable housing so people can afford to live when there aren't vouchers when you know rent
increases every year are those stakeholders also in that in those discussions or is it mostly elected local leaders so especially when it comes to the inter agency council work that will help um kind of usher in some
longer term strategic actions under the kind of umbrella of United to End Homelessness if you will that is we've envision United to End Homelessness as both this short-term action that we're taking and this long-term action through this council those individuals those groups those developers are absolutely
key stakeholders in this work uh in fact we'd really love to see this be another space where we revisit the regional housing needs uh study uh that was done by Metrocog um what I would like us to think about as a community through this
work is um development and ending homelessness are not in contradiction with each other we can use development and use these studies to help as a mechanism to end homelessness um again it's not one sector's responsibility to do this on their own it is through this
collaboration that we see success so I absolutely hope that through this process by engaging these stakeholders and helping them see the role that they can play in ending homelessness that we'll be able to meet the demand for some of that affordable housing that we need because it is not an insignificant
amount of affordable housing that is required that any progress will help us prevent and end homelessness in our community thank you um I also echo that thank you um I was I was not aware or I didn't realize all
the moving parts the wedges that you shared um and so I found that I found that really enlightening um and and interesting i I can say from my own experience um my own life experience that I was lucky enough to be um the first wedge i don't remember the name on
it um but I was in a situation where homelessness was a reality for me um and luckily thanks thanks to the programs in that first wedge um homelessness for me was was diverted um so it's it's very interesting and and I like the way that you have all of these programs working
together um to really target homelessness i'm I'm interested I just have one question you had mentioned that you're you know working to p pool pulling resources um for the steering committee and you had said that you might have an update in the next couple weeks my question is where can I go read
more about that and learn more about it yeah absolutely um so the United Way uh hosts a website for United to End Homelessness that really has all of the information I shared with you today um and is where we will have predictable updates on the work that we're doing um
and so there is much work that has happened to build consensus um in that steering committee about what interventions we need to support how we're going to scale up services and support agencies currently doing this work in our community um and we've really just seen incredible collaboration incredible resource
sharing um and so that work is highlighted on that website um United Way of Caslay United to End Homelessness if it'll come up I promise if you Google it um and again we'll be sharing regular updates on that work we're so close to being able to to demonstrate to the community that we've been able to scale
up some of these resources um it just it takes a little bit of time so I appreciate your patience as we bring that all together wonderful any more questions thank you so much yeah thank you so much for um letting me join you
tonight i appreciate um being here and seeing all of you so reach out anytime with any questions i'm happy to talk one-on-one or or come back and provide updates as we move forward so thank you thank you uh going uh moving forward on our agenda we just have one more one more item are
there any new business to discuss or is there new business to discuss this can be old or new business but I just wanted to say that our discussion last month with immigration and everything happening a lot of it is is out of our hands i came back from a town
hall not a lot of conversation was had but making sure people know that there is processes and that not every immigrant is illegal there are many many legal permanent residents here asles in our community that may be targeted i
mean me as a naturalized citizen even it it's kind of a scary time so we can educate ourselves as Commissioner Aronda said we can work within our community to make sure people are protected the other thing is I'm going to what's called the
welcoming interactive in Detroit Michigan next month that I won't be at the meeting it's um May 19th through the 22nd and that is just a lot of resources community city officials
government officials through welcoming America a few years ago three 2023 I also had the opportunity to go to um to go to San Jose for the same discussion and then to welcoming Australia which
have parallel discussions to our communities here in terms of how do you address these conversations so I will be there in May we have explored becoming a welcoming city it has not gone forward
and what that does is just opens up some more resources to different um cities there are a number around the country to to bring some resources to people we know we have a shifting demographic and if you look at uh you know the data is
nuanced but certainly within the school district they'll tell you there's over 50 languages spoken so that's pretty incredible and it just shows that shifting demographic the need to educate the need to support um which leads me we
can have those discussions when I come back in May after a three-w week three-day conference and those have been on the behalf of the first conference was on behalf of HRC in 2023 so I remember when you brought up the
welcoming America I would love to hear when you get back um let's re rec and and have the conversation there's different people at the table and might be a good time to revisit that we certainly can and we just I just want to highlight going into
that i mean regionally we are supported by West Central Initiative to have welcoming events to really highlight and make sure people feel belonging so we have done that over the past three years through integrating many different organizations
that serve all kinds of people everyone to integrate them into things like greater Morehead days or be be in the parade and have a social to just get to know one another and a lot of our elected officials have attended so that conversation can lead into welcome week
which is in September which HRC the event committee is welcome to help um us plan effectively and support people make sure we dismantle any stereotypes or anything that um people feel they need
to talk about in a safe space so those are my two kind of things we can res revisit welcome week when um you know after that meeting after I come back in May and share with you what I've learned um I'm really excited to go and again
this this uh we'll see what resources there are how to have those conversations and there are a lot of organizations that are having conversations with big foundations on bringing resources to our community to help people navigate challenges that might come up
or going to the next process to make sure they are not disappearing or abducted um because of the way they look uh they don't have the right identification on them at this at the time just to make sure that we are
educating people on what they can do i look forward to hearing updates thank you Seham and with that it is six o'clock and we will adjourn