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supports c-span as a public service along with the television providers giving to a front row seat to democracy. >> and now los angeles mayor karen bass leads assion on the need to address homelessness and housing affordability challenges. ence of mayors annual meeting in kansas city,missouri. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> well how about we go in and start? starting exactly on time is 3:30. maybe close the doors if it's a little noisy out there. let me welcome everyone to the homele task force meeting.

i think you can see the agenda on the screen. so the screens? i want to welcome everybody to the task f were just any meeting, the housing meeting be with us in a minute because i would like for him to recap the resolutions that we passed. so if we could locate him maybe he could come in for for ainute and do that. but why don't we a round of introductions? if you could say your name and your city. why don't we begin a. >> bridgort, connecticut,. >> mayor phil brock santa monica california, ohio,. >> santa fe, new mexico,. >> largo florida mayor west mays, texas. >> tom rhodes white plains, new york,. >> boise, idaho,. >> we can't hear you. >> angela birney, r washington des moines.

>> bloomingtonan indiana,. >> mark, moral,. >> san diego california,. >> george carr, houston california. >> quick note lucas kansas city, missouri,. >> hillsbororegon,. >> dublin, california. ennsylvania. >> and past president of the u.s. conference of mayors former mayor of los angeles. >>rmer mayor. [l m the greatest city got ever created. antioch, california. >> of toledo, ohio. i represent missouri's fifth district. >> once again, thank you everyone for attending this workshop. i wanted to ask mayor wade if he

would just briefly. we just came from the workshop on housing and passed some significant resolutions. if he could do a recap of that quickly and then we will jump into our agenda. >> you mayor bass. , as chair of the committee, we -- development on housing our legislative agenda as the conference of mayors sent it to congress and advocate for it. we just passed 14 resolutions, everything from supporting the hual 2025 budget to reaffirming our belief in the housing first strategy very policies that mayor bass adopted on her lobbying trip to washington a couple months ago. txwashington a couple months ago. i see mayor gloria sitting across from me.he sponsored about five or six of them, andpassed simply because he wasn't there. it was well received and now they will add to -- they become

the official u.s. conference policy on these housing issues. mayor bass: thank you very much for that recap and let me just thank everyone, the mayors who have attended our previous meetings. we had a task force meeting in essential is an we looked at what was happening there with regard to of the problem but also some examples of the solutions and then we did a fly in d.c. which we will recap in more detail later, but all of us are dealing with this and we could spend all it is, but i also think it is nice to celebrate some victories. you have in front of you one of our members who is steinberg from significant reduction in homelessness in sacramento. 29% reduction and an increase in sheltered homeless. don't have an opportunity to talk about how

successful we are. ow you might have gotten the resultsyour point in time count. we are s ourselves all year for an incrse in homelessness especially because of the covid resources that have expired. are waiting to see whether that was going to contribute. i know in l.a. in september of last year we had 30,000 angelenos facing eviction. thatsnfacing eviction is going to wind up on the street but so we will brace ourselves. i'm hearing there might be some good news but i wanted to lift up the success of sacramento, even if darreln'it is some good news to wave around. just recapping ourthe fly in that we did in d.c. next steps of how we want to proceed with some suggestions and recommendations that came

out of that fli do hope to do that again next year and i also hope that we can -- i mentioned we had a task force meeting in losor us to have a task force meeting next year after our january city, another city that might step mayors would go along with that, that we have a task force meeting where we can see the problem, but also li solutions as to what is working in your city and then follow it up with another d.c. fly in. we want everyone to be clear about the role that mayors pthere is a good percentage of congress members that were mayors but sometimes they need to remember that they were mayors. for us, having a big presence, i think is the way we canping right into the recap. next slide. not everyone can see these right? just the two sides? anyway -- it is four. ok good.

mayors and we divided up and we representatives of the white house, we went to the wh house, we went to a couple federal agencies and we met with members botusf congress. these were the meetings we you can see there were a whole lot of meetings and what we did was we divided up and people from the variousrepresentatives, so you can see the representatives of the administration, we met with hud with the v.a., they came to us at one point in time. we did go over to health and human services and met with the secretary. with the chief of staff. tom perez before we adjourn. then we met with neera tanden, the head of the domestic policy council and you may or may not cember of 2022 president biden said he wan homelessness 25%. we lifted up -- you can come to our cities and accomplish your goal.

if the biden administration lifted it up to be a major issue, we wanted to make our presence known within the white house and we also met with the director of administration to keep the funding going. i did make a difference. the administration seemed to be quite happy, i think tom perez can give us more details butf anyone who was on the trip would like to jump in and participate, i think it would be especially your experiences. >> i've heard other mayors say this off-the-cuff. personally rewarding tpso washington. somebody sd we walked five miles that day. to have made contact with that many members of congress, members of the administration, i think to collectively get the feedback that we got.

this challenge, homelessness housing it it is national and there seems to be recognition of the need to recommit in partnership with mayors across the country to be more effective at combating it and conquering it. thanks for ys who flew in. experience. thanks so much. mayor bass: wonderful. i would everything that the mayor to the left of me said because it was personally rewarding, but it because not every membertives, not every senator understands the problems that we area. to be able to have and how most of our cities cannot do it by themselves, this issue is a national think we kept reiterating that in every single meeting and for myself

and several other mayors, we so added the need for mental health resources to stop suicides people from being on our streets. mental heachtremendous, it is a national issue and i know that i and many talked about mental health continuously. i look forward to the progress we've made because i think we were very forceful on veterans vouchers, both types of section eight vouchers and all of those things are absolutely necessary usmayor bass: absolutely. thank you so much. >> thank you for your leadership that we were able to have these meetings. the ability for each of our cities to share stories we were trying to achieve, i hope it resonated not through just the administration but also through the meetings with congress to help them understand it is a national issue and it is city and it is important for them to take action to support us in the work that we do.

mayor bass: absolutely. the meeting at your office was the one t stood out in my eye. it resonati think many of us as mayors, i remember g walked to school with lived in homes like that at the piece that stuck out in my mind was as we went on the realized it was not a republican issue or a democrat issue, it was our issue. i genuinely felt when my colleagues got back and we started sharing notes, that everyone collectively in d.c. felt the same way. the question is, how do we move thatd continue to push and pull on this heavy lift of homelessness? your picture of what homeless looks like, it is in my mind. thank you. >> i think it was a fantastic meeting. i would reiterate that for sure.

i was particularly struck on day one will be met with members of the adm that it wasn't just everyone holding hands and singing kumbaya. substantive discussion and disagreement and progress which was incredibly helpful. i want to give credit to the staff, for remainingxible during incredibly fluid meeting times. i was impressed by the way that in together even as the schedules changed and thai one thing i have to point out is washington we heard senators congresspeople members of the administration say over anerd ovagain, we should just do what mayor bass says. her leadership is incredibly important on this issue. it was said over and over again and it resonated that we have an opportunity to really drive forward on policy related to addressing homelessness through increasing housing production under mayor bass's leadership. mayor bass: thank you. i appreciate that.

>> having four easy to articulate clear asks, i think was critical and if we do this again next year, i hope we stay to that, having a very short list clear asks that we are all on the smaking sure everyone of us could spit out one of the asks. we have four things we need, and i know that came from you, mayor bass and i thank you for that. i think that is what made the difference, having been on other lobbying trips before. it was a clear andsked that we were all on the same page about. >> i also agree with the four asks. that made it easy to articulate. as a war veteran who is married to ae-duty veteran, it was not just meaningful to my family. the amount of v.a. staff and

organizations that reached out to me personally after our trip, wanting to thank mayors are taking the mantle, it us veterans and that both parties wouka lot of veterans don't see them meaningful the iraq and afghanistan veterans of america reaching out to me and they were just thrilled that we are taking this up and they had hopes for the next steps and they wa partnership with us. mayor bass: thank you. and by t way, those asks, we homeless because they accept their benefits. their benefits being counted as income and then being told you make too much so you can't qualify, we needed that waived. what we heard fromd a way to do most of it. obviously there is some follow-up we need to do, but also in all of our cities we have people with vouchers that they can't use the vouchers. we need vouchers.

instead of the voucher following a person, having the voucher be with the property and then flexibility with camp and we were also told there are ways that we can do that as wellti needing more vouchers. g with the administratio trying to do was identify policy changes that could happen administrativelythat would not require legislation but if legislation was bill, maybe just doing a few in a must pass bill such as the national defense that must pass every year. the veterans bill may be passes, maybe doesn't but we have to have a national defense bill. we were looking at it from that perspective. skipped a slide. i want to show the slide on the hill stop we also met with the

leadership of both partiephen scully's, the majority leader on the republican side democrat minority leader. meeting with the leadership and understanding that it is very importt to meet with members of congress but at the end of the day, it is the leadership that set agenda in trying to get their support. you can fast-forward now. so in following up, we talked about some next steps. met with that in hhs, we could propose pilot projects. everyone has this card here and we talked the fly in, having some follow-up zooms with hud and with hhs to really drill down. it is fine to say that you can have pilot projects, but what does that mean? do we just submit a proposal? we wanted to get some very specific technical guidance, so

we are going to have a webinar with hhs that will begust 1 and everybody can join in and participate on that. sheetis hopefully circulating around or will be, and you can sign for either webinar if you are interested. if you would include your email address so we can stay in touch with you, and you can participate, and then we wanted to do a webinar with hud because hud -- is there a hud representative here with us y?hud toldr the acting secretary -- because secretary fudge had stepped down a month before we got there. the acting secretary told us that s believes that we should be able to extend benefits to vetera now not on hundred percent, there still might be restricted, that we need to move department for

that remaining percentage that don't qualify, but we want to kno it is easy to say these things but what does it mean? for the webinars, it is for your participation you also have staff that deal with these issues. it can certainly be extended to staff to participate. we want to know specifically how to implement these changes because all of us are dealing with it. i've had particular concerns as we go into election homelessness can be an issue that a lot of us get beat up around, and that housing first can be a policy that is attacked as failing. i believe we are going to -- we are in a tough situation through the election. we will want to countermelessness is a problem but it is not our fault. it is not because of reasons but i think we are going to need to reorient everyone again next year, after the election is settled which is why i think it is going to be

important to go back to washington d.c. after everything has settled and get back with the program, because we are going to need to address the situation. webinars, the other thing i think we learned is that we need support from the business community. we also need support from labor. there are a lot of business reprtives on the business council that just in the short time i've been here have approached me saying we want to build. i think members of congress need to message from the business this is not just a social service issue. is an economic issue and a business issue and i'm sure in your citieal with in l.a. which is encampments in front of businesses. really compromising the overall quality of life so the business community wants to in the next housing boom for obvious reasons. having the business community way -- weigh inis important, and also labor,

saying that this is an ise that is important. we met with the legislative leaders, when we met with steve scalise, it was clear it would be beneficial for him on the republican side to hear from the business community ocratic side, it is important for democrats to hear from this is an issue that all of us need to be involved iany questions orit assistance that you would like for us to organize as a task force that would help you do your work in your cities? please just let us know. anybody? yes? >> i had a quick suggestion for next year in so we are not doing two trips. they have one of the higst homelessness, a whole issue. i think it would save us all a trip or get more peopl there. mayor bass: we will tell mayor bauer week -- mayor bowser we are going to descend upon her.

ethic that is a great idea. we could make it a littl longer where we focus one day locally and then the next day could certainly do that if people are interested. i would be happy to organize it. i'm sure folks who work with me won't mind. yes? >> i don't know if you have done anything like this or not, but it seems to me, some of the issue is there hasn't been much adapt to the current environment that we are dealing with. i don't know 've ever done like a big ideas for him or something like that, where he could share ideas with hud -- where we could ideas with hud. i have tried and just gotten stares.

i'm wondering if that is the way to get their attention, but also simulate some -- stimulate some new ideas and bring some innovation to an where new ideas are clearly lacking. mayor bass: one area th see because i know we are dealing with this because of the volume of homelessness is so massive ideas around interim housing. i think for too long we have focused on housing first meaning permanent housing. what that has resulted in, in l.a.'s people on the street until housing gets built and there needs to be less expensive housing we are experimenting with shipping containers, we have several container villages and thpeople that came to the site visit in l.a. went and visited a container village but ways that we can rapidlys expensive interimng that individuals could stay in for a couple of yea while permanent

housing is being built, i think there is a lot of innovation going on in the housing industry to do this. maybe that would be an idea. for the u.s. conference of mayors staff, that might be a nice workshop in january if these builders could come and present their innovative ideas around interim housing. >> thank you for pointing out innovation. g the priorities, i thought one other priority that was not necessarily said but came up in was direct funding that we got as cities. innovative some of us have used the money to do interim housing or whatever you want to call it and it seems to me that the innovation is already happening. i walked into one of the meetings. the congresswoman said you are all here to tell me your ideas to solve homelessness and i said we are absolutely here to tell

you because we do have the is a matter of investment. particularly in relation to the size of the city you have. i think direct funding to cities needs to be a top priority as a relates to being able to deal with homelessness. mayor bass: absolutely. >> under the heading of cities are innovating in shelter spaces and i those of us that are trying to help certain populations, and i'm thinking of those folks who come in to parking lots, they are not sheltered homeless, they count as unsheltered and i think any of us who cited these things, they would go to considerable effort and political expense, i would like get credit for that being sheltered. encampments many of these folks are being connected to services and going straight into housing. as we innovate and find new ways to shelter folks efficiently and effectively, that should accrue

to the benefit of those of us in the space. mayor bass: with that in mind,ld be nice if there were some adjustments made into how reported on, because what happens, the consequence is we don't get credit for people -- forgetting people off the street because they are still not considered housed until it isnt and there needs to be that adjustment. i don't know if the mayor from clover city is here, but it is one of the 88 cities in l.a. they do safe sleeping. i said that soundsout it because i thought it would be someone bringing their makeshiftactually it would be called glamping, like glamorous camping. the tent was a 2500 other tent. it was big enough to have a bed and a dresser. that might be a loey tent, but compare it to a hotel room. it was lifted up on a wooden

platformall of these tents that were serviced 24 hours with security, hygiene, three meals a day. that is a lot better thaneoin random tents around the city but that is not counted like you said. i think that is an issue to raise, maybe an adjustment to how the point irecorded. >> we would absolutely agree we went down and studied exactly what the mayor is talking about and brought those ideas up to to get people out of tents and whether you call themm housing, bridge housing, sleeping cabins, we need something with a little more structure that will hold up under snow and ice and everything else but there should be credit for that. thank you for bringing that

et's have that conversation with hud so not just for the point in timecount, but for those funds that come down bause we are stuck with a county that will only use funds fo because they see housing first as those restricted funds from hud. mayor bass: i don't know about you all but i think over the years there have been policies that have been put in place thatago made sense and i'm sure housing firstofle to languish in shelters. however, it ou don't do brick-and-mortar, then it doesn't count considering the volume of homelessness we are dealing with now. i think that is good and i'm going to take a minute to turn j of r tomight be able to help usecipher how the white house might view all of this. >> i think some folks might have missed the opening remarks from the american institute of art and i think they are advocating

often for helping out and they to as we try to come up with innovative solutions to help us address the challenges that we face. second i session on saturday if any of you will still be here, take days think about those strategies health and homelessness and coming up with creative apchproa improve outreach and better understand how to serve unsheltered folks living in our communities. i think as the ideas marinate today and over the next few days i think we can continue to weave theseis thought into all of the sessions that we will be attending over the two other areas i think we all have to one is we need to come up with a model to prevent homelessness because all of us have the frustration of housi people and in equal numbers -- d then equal numbers if not more fall into homelessness.

how do we prevent and what is the model of services that are needed? i don'owbut none of the faith things is there are no basic standards or metrics or what services are. 7suppve services i have found means different things to different organizations that support our work and i'm not if they are tailored to the populations that we are dealing with.the fact that one of the fastest-growing segments of the un-housethey are not homeless because that's not to say that they wouldn't after being homeless for a while but how you would address a 75-year-old or a ear-old or a woman fleeing domestic violence, services should be -- i don't think they are de governmentht. i don't think there are definitions that are there. everyone wants us to produce outcomes but our systems, i'm

just speaking for one city, our systems are not set up to measure outcomes. we can't tell you outcomes if the system isn't designed that e barriers are some of the privacy restrictions whether it is hepa or state privacy laws that don't allow you to reallyck in that way. there are structural issues that we deal with that the federal government might need to make some adjustments with. >> if we can't make 4:15 on saturday, is there someo provide some of our ideas to? >> it depends on the mayor. staff. i can connect you. >> ok. mayor bass: so before i move the agenda, several things i'm sure i didn't capture everythi but the idea of having a big idea forum with hud to stimulate new ideas, maybe at the january

conferenceworkshop where builders can come aia can come and talk about innovative ideas. the idea of combining our next d.c. fly in instead of going to another city, and looking at the situation in d.c. those are a few of the things raised. i'm sure if i forgot any, please let us know andd please fill this out. is circulating around. please give us your email address and we will stay in touch with you, we will keep you postedn reminding you about the webinars. if there are any that you want to see us pull together with representatives ofadministration or the house or teorganizations, we are going to have, we are going to schedule a business webinar with business chambers, with the business roundtable, so that we can talk about the issue of

housing and try to get their advocating with congress along with us so it is not just us but the business community as well as labor, so we do have two webinar scheduled , two more that you will hear about. weat you know. at this point, i would like to iwe all know jeff. the executive director of the u.s. interagency council on homelessness. >> thank you mayor bass. for those of you i have not met i run an independent federal agen called the u.s. interagency council on homelessness and we are part of thn't sit underneath hud or hhs or the v.a.,deral agencies. we are here to support you all. we have senior regional advisors stationed all over the country and one of those is here with us who is based in phoenix andx?

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