CM Restler on offline supportive housing units and repair costs

Great, thank you so much.

I want to apologize, I was looking at the report from November, and in fact the report, the most recent report is from April 30th, so just to go through it, in November there was a combined 465 units that were offline

or online with no referral in process.

As of April 30th, there's 486 units that are either offline, supportive housing units under DOHMH's control, that are either offline or with no referral in process.

So let's try again on those.

So for the 381 that are currently offline, do you have an average cost of repair to bring that unit back online?

I recognize it's a fluid dynamic.

I recognize that things are changing.

But just so that we could try to ballpark some resources to invest to help bring those units online, because I think we all want to see every one of those units online, right?

Thank you, Jamie.

What would, do you have a ballpark estimate per unit for the renovation costs?

I don't have that information.

Can you provide that to us?

The repair, the majority, I don't know if I can, the majority of repair costs would be borne by the landlord.

Our relationship is with the service provider.

Sometimes those are the same entity, but oftentimes they're not.

So we're not seeing those costs.

Those are low.

Those are for scatter site units or congregate.

The landlord and the provider are the same, right?

Not always.

So you don't have a contractual model through the provider to be able to do repairs or upgrades when a unit's offline?

There's a small amount of money in our contracts with the service providers to address minor repairs.

Could amendments be made if there were resources?

My guess is that these ones that are offline have much more significant repairs, and that's why they're offline.

So routine painting and stuff, that's covered in our service contract.

Could amendments be made to those contracts to put additional resources in to fix up the units, or are we just stuck with a few hundred?

Maybe.

I mean, I think this is a, yeah, how can we get...

All right, maybe ask the question, how do you want to fix up the offline units?

What's your proposal to do it?

I think that's less of a health question.

I think we'd really want to talk to the construction people on that.

But these are units within your control that are empty, right, and offline, and that we desperately need people living in.

You know, from April 30th to November 30th, just a six-month period.

But in that period, the number of offline...

units didn't change from 387 to 381.

We don't want to just be getting the next report in six months that there's 379 offline units and that we haven't done anything either.

So any ideas that you can share with us at this hearing for resources where resources could be brought to bear to bring those units back online?

So I think, Councilmember, we're eager to do some problem solving with you on this.

Clearly, there are tools on the table for us to do this.

And so, you know, we'd be looking forward to bringing those tools to bear to solve this problem.

The Progressive Caucus is actively...

Discussing with City Hall and with OMB resources that we want to invest in the budget to bring these units online.

It is, in my opinion, disgraceful that we're funding 1,000 city supportive housing units between DOHMH and HRA, so they have even more than you guys, that are not...

Filled with people when we have thousands of folks sleeping on the streets with serious mental illness who desperately need help we know this is the evidence-based approach the cost-effective approach to making a difference in people's lives we want to put resources in this budget that activates every one of these units so that

at the next budget hearing a year from now when we're doing this all over again we're talking about how we got that number dramatically down and so

there's two weeks left three weeks three weeks and change left before we're voting on a budget there isn't a lot of time so if you have suggestions you want to share with us let us know but we're pushing for resources and we'll push for our best ideas unless you want to share any with us

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

Okay, great.

Back over to Chair Coburn.

Thank you.