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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-11-12 Human Relations Commission Summary Minutes Approved 1 HUMAN RELATIONS COMMISSION Thursday, November 12, 2015 Community Meeting Room Palo Alto Civic Center 250 Hamilton Avenue 7:00 PM REGULAR MEETING ROLL CALL: Commissioners Present: Alhassani, Gordon Gray, O’Nan, Stinger, Stone Absent: Chen, Savage Council Liaison: Council Member Berman Staff: Minka van der Zwaag, Mary Constantino ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: None APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Commissioner Gordon Gray made a motion to approve the minutes of the September 10, 2015 Human Relations Commission (HRC) meeting. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Stinger AYES: Unanimous. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS: None V. BUSINESS 1. Presentation on the program Pay for Success - Mila Zelkha, Community Ambassador, Palantir and Alice Yu, Deployment Strategist, Palantir Alice Yu stated that a good place to start the conversation is to explain the background of Palantir. Palantir’s software is an infrastructure to do data analysis combatting the issue that there is a great deal of data out there but the data is siloed in many places and there are no great tools to ask questions and get useful answers. When PayPal started in 2004, the question was asked how does Palantir process all of the transactions of data and quickly make decisions. While other companies were looking at algorithms to combat payment fraud, Paypal was asking how it could augment the human analyst to solve these problems. PayPal then built software that was able to drill down in data to combat fraud. PayPal’s original thesis at the start of Palantir was why not combat counterterrorism because it has a similar kind of workflow and since there is great deal of very protective information and look across different data sets and drive analysis on top of it. Palantir has grown into working with local law enforcement, health care, cyber security, and intelligence defense, commercial projects such as supply chain analysis to trader oversight and most recently on social services as homeless deployment and Santa Clara County’s chronically homelessness project which focuses on targeting the highest need population in the county and providing them permanent supportive housing making sure these folks are achieving better outcomes and better wellbeing. Approved 2 Pay for Success is about how does one transform government that truly values the outcomes that services provide versus inputs. There are a lot of components about Pay for Success that Palantir is excited about. 1) Palantir is mission driven and all of the Pay for Success projects are in social services and reducing human suffering 2) It is all about outcomes and that is something that Palantir truly believes in, and Palantir likes all contracts to be proportional to the impact that are created. 3) This whole movement is about governments making better data driven decisions and resource allocations and how they provide services as fundamental data problems is right in Palantir’s “wheel house.” Palantir is building the overall data infrastructure for Santa Clara County to make decisions on how the entire program is going to run. Palantir is doing the overall data integration and then from there allowing the county to do triage to identify high issues doing the handoffs and referrals to Abode Services then enabling long term tracking, reporting and outcomes management for the entire course of the program and all of which are based on five to seven different data sets from criminal justice system, hospital systems, HMIS from Abode Services. Mila Zelkha added that Pay for Success’ basic premise is that it is less expensive to house chronically homeless individuals than it is paying for different services but it is hard to quantitative these savings for the county in a timely way. What the county has done is ask investors or foundations to put money together and the county will select the nonprofit service provider for the permanent support housing services and then using software will quantitate the savings to government and based on what the metrics are the savings get shared with the original investors. On some of the models if government saves more than they thought they would the investments are shared between all of the different parties. It is a way to have government spending be more efficient while having really innovative programs from a social services prospective and have a chance to try things out and make the theoretical real. Palantir’s role is on the data side; it is a pro-bono contract with the county but the social services component is with Abode and the county oversees the contracts. Chair O’Nan asked how does the government lessens the risk of the contract because they only pay for the outcome if it is successful so if things are not working well they are not paying for an outcome that is unsuccessful.. That has been one of the big barriers because people are not willing to invest not sure if it is going to work out or not. Ms. Yu replied that the fundamental of Pay for Success is the idea that an entire project is constructed and the funders bare the risk of the program. They will be funding the upfront cost of the services and that is where the funders will provide upfront funding to enable the service provision. If the project does not work the funders “hold the bag” and have paid out for the services and the county has not paid any of the funds out yet. Only when success is achieved, the county will be making the payments out of their general fund and would get distributed to the different funders up to the threshold. Chair O’Nan asked if the investors are private funders, corporation or companies? Ms. Yu replied that they have seen Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Community Development Financial Institutions, and national and local foundations. Santa Clara County included the Corporation for Supportive Housing and the Reinvestment Fund and local foundations Sobrato Foundation, California Endowment, Health Trust, Google, and Abode. The majority is one senior investor with about 5% interest and a mix with different foundations with their program related investments or grants. Chair O’Nan asked if the business approach on investing in social services is different than investing in research and technology so how are some of these potential investors approaching this philosophically. “Are they trying to transfer their normal business model to social services or do they understand that human beings are a little bit different from products.” Ms. Yu replied that it ranges by the type of organization for some of the banks it is not a market rate return but for them it is social impact because many organizations are trying to invest more and be more conscious of what outcomes are coming from their investment but also from the investment standpoint a lot are getting interest from their loans so they are getting a return. Approved 3 Commissioner Gordon Gray asked Ms. Yu to walk the HRC through a case study. Ms. Yu stated that she will speak about Massachusetts which is targeting youth aging out of the criminal justice system and have a tendency of aging out of jail and ending up in jail shortly after. Their goal was how to find an intervention that could connect the youth to the right services, contacts, workforce development, and education to prevent them from coming back into the system. It was estimated that it cost the state of Massachusetts $130 a day for an individual to be in jail and any time you can reduce a bed day it fundamentally creates savings. The way the entire project was designed is if one can measure the percentage decrease of youth returning to these jails for every additional day you are reducing compared to a control group versus the youth that are getting the intervention the delta that is captured by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Funders came in, pulled their funds together and provided the upfront funding for the services. The youth were connected with Roca, an organization which provided them with different services such as job readiness and trainings and mentorship. Over the course of four more years Ms. Yu will be tracking how Rocca is performing under the contract. To date there are only eight projects under Pay for Success. The first three projects are starting to report out results: Salt Lake City, New York City and Ryker’s Island. Commissioner Stinger asked if Ms. Yu could describe the Santa Clara County project and if one were to do a second round of projects would one use a baseline of costs to reduce further? Ms. Yu replied that the Santa Clara County project is targeting the top 10% of chronically homeless individuals who are high risk individuals and have been homeless for over 15 years knowing that they spend a disproportional amount of safety net services in the county. The program itself is going to be provided by Abode Services, a local provider and USCF is going to be the evaluator who will be looking both when is the success outcome being triggered but also doing a randomized control trial for how effective the program is in reducing times spent in jail. Regarding the second question there is a second project on mental health that has an overlapping population but will be structured under Pay for Success. The project takes on more of the traditional randomized control trial treatment group and control group and based on the reduced amount of savings and that is what is being paid on. The homeless project is a different hybrid project because it is paying out on stable tendency not reduced utilization of services so the benchmark is how many days are you housing people over time. Commissioner Stinger asked if there are some non-quantitative indicators or qualitative in terms of resident outcomes such as happiness, satisfaction with daily activities and things that might be important measures but not necessarily quantitative reductions in costs to the county. Ms. Yu replied that the majority of the data that UCSF will be analyzing will be administration data of the utilization data across the county of different safety net system; however, there is a possibility that Abode within their case manager will get a sense on how their clients are doing day to day. Council Member Berman asked if the practical impact of the policy makers is to have the opportunity to try two different strategies when they have the funding for one? “If the county only has the funding to jail 1,000 people and they have to allocate the funds necessary to do that but do not have the funds to try these more innovative solutions to achieve better long term gains, this gives them the opportunity to say let us try this out but only have to pay for it if we achieve the savings from the original program and we will know that once the metrics are hit.” Ms. Yu replied that she thinks the ability to test out innovative programs is part of it and the risk shifting it has on initial programs to be with investors is a benefit for counties and that is why a lot of governments are interested in this concept. Governments will have to appropriate funding in advance because they have to pay out funders. Council Berman asked if they pay it off only if it is successful. In a sense it is a net zero impact with the government. Ms. Yu replied that for a lot of the projects it is projected savings and it is not realized within that fiscal year that is why they appropriate the funds and set them aside for the funders. Approved 4 Vice Chair Stone stated that it seems attractive for governments to be a part of this program. “Is Santa Clara County the eighth governmental body? “ Ms. Yu replied that within the United States there is one repeat which is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts so there are seven distinct ones. There are less than 50 projects in development either in feasibility or construction in the country. Over 40 have been launched globally. Commissioner Vice Chair asked if Palantir is reaching out to different governments around the country or finding needs around certain areas and reaching out to the governing body. Ms. Yu replied that there is Pay for Success “community” and a lot of them are involved in different ways. There are transactions coordinators within different organization spread throughout the nation focused on issue areas on growing this field and they are the one sourcing these projects, developing them and pulling the contracts together, getting the funders in and getting off to launch. Palantir’s role is in between by providing a service and building the data infrastructure so some of the work Palantir is doing is looking for folks who are interested in Pay for Success and let them know Palantir is able to help facilitate that and often Palantir looks at governments to do that because they have the data and are the end payer. There are other projects where folks are asking Palantir “we have these data needs to implement these projects how or what can you do to help us get us there.” Ms. Zehlka added that Palantir also has a track record of working on other human service issues around the country. Palantir worked withed Polaris on preventing human sex trafficking and Team Rubicon for disaster relief. Local governments are familiar with Palantir’s software and one of the large challenges that any project of this scale has is dealing with data sets from a variety of sources and how to protect the privacy of the people in the data sets. Dealing with sensitive information on mental health incarnation history and how are you effectively able to put them into a platform and protect the privacy of individuals and that is something that Palantir has a strong track record. Vice Chair Greer asked from an investors’ prospective “I would imagine their rate of return is much lower than what the investor is typically involved in.” Ms. Yu replied that it goes back to who you are. If you are a financial institution this is not the S&P that you will be getting smashing returns on these projects but on the foundation side a lot of them are looking at 2% PRI’s which is what the cap or it is a new opportunity for them to decide do we want to do a grant or do we want to get interest on their loan/grant. It is really on the prospective of who you are. Even for the a lot of high net worth clients who put their funds into these social impact bonds with commercial institutions for them they are also mak ing a similar tradeoff too. Do they want to put our money in which I could otherwise donate or do they want to put it in the fund that will actually achieve a measureable social impact and make a return? There are all of these different perspectives depending on who you are but it does for the most part have just more than one single bottom line with social impact as well. Vice Chair Greer asked about the breakdown of investors. Ms. Yu replied that every project is different and some of the projects have credit enhancements and some have foundations and most of them have a waterfall which is a tiered version of when payments come in and the order of payments. Goldman Sachs has already invested in four of the eights projects so depending on what one thinks about the amount per project and the number of investors is one component but there are return investors across different projects but many of the projects are sourcing local foundations who care about the issue areas. Commissioner Gordon Gray asked if individuals can invest. Ms. Yu replied that Bank of America has had different high net clients pledge funds. “The reasons why these projects require a lot of due diligence and normally individuals do not want to get involved in the nitty gritty details and pure investment side it is often easier to deal with fewer entities with larger amounts.” Chair O’Nan stated that she had a question about the selection criteria because it seems to her that this is what the whole project hinges on. “Who defines the success criteria, how is it agreed to, is it vetted in some way and can it be revised.” Ms. Yu replied that most of these projects had an RFP come out at the Approved 5 very beginning that sets out the intended success metric. Regarding Santa Clara County the RFP set a success metric of 12 months continuous tenancy and once Abode was procured the goal was how do they figure out what is going to work to let us look at the data and different considerations and how do they negotiate what success should look like. At the table were the county, UCSF and Abode who have very different prospective. The county wanted the best social outcome with 100% housing. From the providers side they wanted to make a metric that they can achieve is reasonable, and consistent with what their track record was and what they believe that they can deliver. “With UCSF it is their ability to put on their clinician lens and the researcher at USCF their lens of serving this population and knowing what are the things plaguing them was a critical lens that shaped how the success metric came out to be .” That is one anecdote about how Santa Clara County’s success metric was defined. “Other projects may come out and say this is the success metric that we want you guys to apply for it and see if you can deliver. The field in itself is trying to figure out is there a way to standardize the success metric because across any entity there are thresholds for what to expect for different populations.” Chair O’Nan asked what do you do when a success metric is not correct or it could potentially cause harm? Ms. Yu replied that in each of the contracts there is the ability to make amendments and almost all have governance and operating committees staffed with different stakeholders to make sure they are functioning correctly and make decision like changing the success metric. 2. Review of the Community Services and Facilities Element of the Comprehensive Plan Chair O’Nan explained that Community Services Director Rob de Geus had spoken to the HRC about the potential contribution to the Element because it overlaps the work of the HRC especially in regards to being the voice for the underserved. Chair O’Nan added that a revised version of the Element was provided to the Commission along with a primer on things the Commission could focus on and make the review much more manageable in pulling together the HRC’s input for the next Citizens Advisory Commission (CAC) on Tuesday November 17 at 5:30 p.m. at Rinconada Library, Community Room. The HRC has the option to report out during oral communication or the HRC can draft a letter consolidating all of the Commissioners’ input. Ms. van der Zwaag added that it would be best to convey the HRC’s key ideas during oral communications. The HRC also has the opportunity to craft an information report for when the Element goes back to Council scheduled in January. Chair O’Nan stated that all of the Commissioners had a chance to review the Element and suggested they give one section at a time. Introduction Section 12-15: Chair O’Nan stated that throughout the Element there was a difference between amenities and access because the city has wonderful amenities but what gets forgotten or where the service gaps are is accessing the amenities. The HRC needs to be cognizant of that difference and the feedback should be provided more on the access side. For example “if seniors who cannot drive at night and cannot access the wonderful events such as getting to the park to or the performance that is a distinction that was not clear in the Element as it should have been.” Ms. van der Zwaag added to remind the Commission of their role and the questions that were provided; the things the HRC liked, what is missing or what needs more emphasis in the prevue of programs and issues that the HRC has influence and knowledge about are they represented in the Element. The HRC will have 3-5 minutes or less at the November 17 meeting unless the HRC provides a companion piece to go to Council. Under section Goals C1 Deliver Community Services effectively and efficiently, pages 15-20 Commissioner Stinger stated that the things she particularly liked were infrastructure maintenance, senior programs and senior shuttle. Things that she would like to see added in or emphasized further were services for veterans and victims of abuse, collaboration with social service agencies and preserving the art spaces at Cubberley. These are not mentioned in the introductory section where facilities are mentioned and is the only place that artists are encouraged to have studios. Commissioner Stinger added that she would also like to see an emphasis on supporting the Avenidas’ expansion. There was a section Approved 6 in keeping the parks contemporary and one of the programs that were successful is the personal initiative of the Magical Bridge. “Is there a way to state in the policy to provide incentives for individual initiative because the city could invest in somebody’s dream each year and would see some very creative ideas?” Vice Chair Stone stated that what he liked about the current plan is the emphasis on smart strategic partnerships as with all of the limited funds,” partnerships is the future and the best way to tackle difficult issues.” The Element discusses partnerships with other cities, private partners, faith based groups and nonprofit organizations. The partnership with the Palo Alto School District and using the facilities and services that school district already has. He was happy that there was a major emphasis on youth wellbeing and senior services. Section 1.26 was dedicated to homelessness and was the only area that the issue was addressed and the two programs mention only increasing awareness because the community needs to be educated. Section 1.26.2 mentions working with San Mateo County and Santa Clara County, nonprofits and other organizations to come up with solutions and programs to help with the issue. He stated that even though partnerships are the way to go it is “a worry that is a way to pass the issue down the line. We were unable to get the partnerships so we cannot tackle the issue by ourselves. “ The section even mentions that the unhoused community moves across county and city lines so it makes it difficult to keep track of them. Vice Chair Stone added that there is not enough emphasis that the City of Palo Alto does their fair share. An area that he feels needs more emphasis is the unhoused section and in the youth wellbeing section in 1.21. The programs for youth with developmental disabilities and section 1.20 the development of mental health programs for youth the wording is very ambiguous as to whether the City of Palo Alto is going to give additional funds or leverage existing funds. “Is the city taking the funds out of HSRAP or out of other areas? It does not give enough direction.” Commissioner Gordon Gray stated that the Element looks very general and asked how the City determines when the policies are achieved and what that looks like. “Does the HRC pick the policy that is most critical in terms of the HRC’s purview and then from there this is how we are going to implement the policies?” Ms. van der Zwaag stated that the Comprehensive Plan is an aspirational document that includes the goals and values of the city as the city moves forward so it is not the role of a Commission to state what goals the city should pursue, it is the goal of the Commission to help look over the overall picture and policies in general. What the specific policy or program should be, is left to staff, the Planning Commission and Council. Council Member Berman stated that this is a macro level list of priorities for the community and as the policies and decisions come to Council, staff and the staff report will state that these areas of the Comprehensive Plan are addressed by this program or this idea and this is how it ties back to the Comprehensive Plan. “The difficulty is that things can contradict because it is a big document and a program or idea might support this Element of the Comprehensive Plan but not that one and that is the challenge we have with the document. It is our opportunity to take a step back and look at the big picture. What needs to be added or what priorities need to be shifted?” Commissioner Alhassani stated that partnerships are a great tool to be used in improving and maintaining Palo Alto’s excellence. On the partnership with Stanford, collaborating with data because a lot of times when looking at analysis of Palo Alto Stanford was excluded on the analysis even though it has implications with Palo Alto. With the partnership with Palo Alto Unified School District he thinks the document should show the disparity in test scores between minorities and the greater student populations and that it would be worthwhile to add a policy about assuring equality for all of Palo Alto students. 1.7 Engaging with the Community, he stated that the city has many good resources that people do not know about such as volunteering opportunities that the city could do more to leverage its’ existing organizations like the Opportunity Center and the VA. Chair O’Nan added that right before C1 there is a statement under Health and Wellbeing she feels is disconcerting. “The city collaborates with different organizations to ensure that social services remain Approved 7 affordable for all community members. I found throughout the Element that there are statements that do not exist today and as the HRC we need to be advocates for people not receiving services or cannot afford them.” Chair O’Nan stated that section Encourage Partnerships within the Mid-Peninsula there needs to be more specificity that Palo Alto needs to be a big partner. As a border city Palo Alto needs to reach north to San Mateo County because Palo Alto has a lot of across border issues. The city has people who need transportation across the border, homeless people who have services north of the border and less services south of the border which causes problems for service providers and the homeless themselves. Chair O’Nan added that under the section Need for Collaboration and Cooperation some of the programs are very different in purpose, organization and format; for example, there is a Dreamcatchers which is focused on middle school kids, tutoring and academic catching up and the Adolescent Counseling Service that is focused on counseling services for youth which are two totally different organizations. How would you collaborate and coordinate two such disparate groups. “There is a lack of specificity and the city needs to be aware that youth have a variety of needs. The city cannot just lump youth programs in one bucket.” In section C1 Chair O’Nan asked who would be doing the coordination and collaboration because local agencies and city do not have the staff to take on the role to oversee the collaboration. Also, she feels that after school programs have been overlooked and an important segment is the pre- kindergarten group. Some of the under-privileged children start off on day one already behind. Ms. van der Zwaag stated that this is a continuation and reflection of the ways the city is always involved. The city through the Office of Human Services already oversees a childcare subsidy program and an afterschool program on all of the PAUSD campuses and is not traditionally involved in a Pre- Kindergarten Program and the thinking of the city is that is the realm of the school district. Chair O’Nan continued that under section C11.19 there is a mention of the 41 Developmental Assets which has had a lot of support of the community but the reality is that she feels that it has not caught on over the years and not sure the city should continue and it may be time to look at something new. Under Mental Health C.20 there is no mention of depression. Depression is a chronic illness that is deadly. The Element mentions education of suicide prevention and intervention but does not mention the illness. The Element talks about disabilities but often in the physical sense but as the Magical Bridge program showed that there many important disabilities that the city needs to be aware such as autism, delayed learning and not all children are in wheelchairs. In section C126.1 the City should do an HRC event about this stigma of mental health. Vice Chair Stone stated that in section C5 he liked the emphasis on physical health and nutrition on how the city can implement new policies to encourage healthy eating for city employees and city spaces but not mentioned is the partnering with the school district for healthy eating. Section 5.11 addresses transportation for senior citizens which is a pressing issue. The wording is confusing if services need to be moved closer to transportation or the shuttle routes need to be rearranged. Commissioner Gordon Gray stated that she likes the Healthy Food Initiative and having more space for community gardens and farmers market. She feels that since Palo Alto has had a big influx of immigrants in section C58.there should be some kind of program to integrate the new residents. “How do we engage people who live her to be part of a community?” Commissioner Alhassani stated that in the C5 section that mentions leveraging technology to help achieve the goals, he follows Ranger Kurt on Twitter so he can see some amazing trails in Palo Alto but also provides trail warnings when there is a fire warning or mountain lion warning. In the future he thinks we can use technology to encourage health and safety in our facilities. Approved 8 Chair O’Nan reported that in section C5.2 there is a program to conduct a study on the barriers of accessing healthy living choices and the city already knows that one of the barriers is transportation and to increase the opportunity for all people to have access to healthy food. She feels this should apply to all residents and not to just city owned or leased facilities. “The city needs to think of alternatives to driving because people with limited mobility are struggling with driving and parking and it is a huge barrier to accessing city amenities. Shuttles definitely need to be expanded and improved especially for south Palo Alto residents.” In section C5.12 Facilitate Access there is mention that there is a financial assistance program for residents. Ms. van der Zwaag stated that it is a fee reduction program run by the Community Services Department for low income families, seniors and people with disabilities to receive a reduction of fees for participation in city programs. Chair O’Nan added that it is important to draw the distinction to the nutrition arena between poor food choices and people who are poor or are not eating at all. There are people in our community she stated are going hungry and there are seniors suffering from malnutrition either they are no longer able to prepare food, cannot get to the grocery store, or are very depressed. Ms. van der Zwaag reported on Commissioner Chen’s responses. Under the section “What do you Like “ Commissioner Chen stated that the city is able to look forward in ways that are more relevant today. On page 12 Human Services there is category under demographics what is not included is future thinking, she feels that some of the work that Stephen Levy has done and the increase in the diverse ethnic background of Palo Alto should be better understood for future planning. Under community partnerships Commissioner Chen wants the Element to be clearer that these partnerships represent diverse ethnic groups and this will help integrate and help drive all resources regardless where they come from into the community. There should be a clear distinction between soft services based on direct contact of human effort with citizens and hard services indirectly via the improvement of parks, community services, infrastructure and environmental facilities. Commissioner Chen is trying to say as we do some of these policies and programs the City needs to think of both aspects of the service as diverse as possible but the facilities themselves. Chair O’Nan asked the Commissioners if any of the HRC members are willing to go to the CAC. Ms. van der Zwaag stated that the Commissioners can skip the meeting all together and provide comments when it goes to Council. Council Member Berman stated that if the HRC would provide a letter to the CAC the day before so they can review it before the meeting because something from the HRC carries weight. Chair O’Nan added that the HRC could appear in person and deliver input by oral communication or give the one page document the day before to the CAC and in addition to a one page memo to the CAC could send the same memo to Council in January or skip the CAC and go directly to Council in January. Commissioner Stinger stated that it would be an omission not to make a short comment in a paragraph and sum it up with critical likes and critical things to emphasize and take the opportunity to provide comment. If she were on the CAC and the Commission only came at the end she would feel like it was an end run and not acceptable. Commissioner Stinger added that she would like the HRC to make a comment on Tuesday even though it is a paper submission. Chair O’Nan asked Commissioner Stinger if staff is able to summarize the discussion, would she be comfortable to craft a document on the HRC’s behalf for the CAC. Vice Chair Stone made a motion to authorize Commissioner Stinger the authority to act on behalf of the HRC to write up the brief summary on the thoughts of the HRC. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Alhassani. Approved 9 3. Recap of the Homeless Veterans Summit and discuss next steps Commissioner Alhassani thanked staff for all of the help in putting the Summit together. It was very successful and the most powerful speakers were the veterans themselves who attended because hearing their stories on how they overcame homelessness and drug abuse issues was very powerful. There was a lot of substance in the speakers who spurred a lot of ideas on how to move forward with the issue. In terms of the next steps yesterday, on Veteran’s Day, Santa Clara County, City of San Jose and Housing Authority rolled out a plan called All the Way Home which is the county’s plan to house all of the homeless veterans in Santa Clara County. He feels it makes sense to figure out what role the HRC can play. Obviously the majority of the resources are going to City of San Jose but we know that Palo Alto has a portion of homeless veterans so we do have a role to play. The All the Way Home program does a couple of things but the most important is it commits money and leverages VASH Vouchers to help people get permanent housing as soon as possible by educating landlords, getting access to rental units, leveraging faith-based initiatives and corporations. Palo Alto commissioners and staff have a call with the county and Destination Home to talk about action items where the HRC can play a role. Also at the Summit healthcare and housing was discussed but the number one reason veterans become homeless is because of unemployment issues so the next step the HRC can talk about how to promote employment for veterans as well as a project for next year. 4. Recap on the Domestic Violence Forum Commissioner Gordon Gray stated that there were almost 90 people in attendance and 8 agencies represented. The event raised awareness and people got a sense that it could happen in Palo Alto that it is not just a socioeconomic related situation. The event had an expert witness on the panel that provided a good picture of an abuser with a particular kind of profile where the abuser is all about control. Deputy District Attorney, Clarissa Hamilton wanted to convey that the work their office is doing in family services and that they are not just a criminal arm of the law enforcement that they are a real champion for the cause and not just pressing charges. One of the big challenges is shelters for women who are trying to get out of abusive relationships and do not have a place to go and it is often worse than for the homeless. In homeless community there is government aid but far less for women who need shelters. The event was positioned as a place where people could get together and discuss an issue and it would have been more powerful if people were able to come up to the mic and share their thoughts. Chair O’Nan added that there has been a good follow-on to the Domestic Violence Forum in that County Supervisor Cindy Chavez (who was as the forum) has spoken with Mayor Karen Holman about the service gaps that exist in Santa Clara County. In San Mateo County there is a rule that no child goes unsheltered and families that are in emergency situations have access to hotel vouchers but here in Santa Clara County that program does not exist. Thanks to Supervisor Chavez, Mayor Holman and other leaders, Santa Clara County is looking into whether the same hotel voucher program can be instituted in Santa Clara County. InnVision Shelter Network administers the hotel voucher program in San Mateo County and hopefully connecting Dr. Brian Greenberg from InnVision Shelter Network with our leaders we will start seeing the program in Santa Clara County. Commissioner Gordon Gray stated that one of the panelists, Melissa Luke from the Asian American Community Involvement, informed Mayor Holman that there is actually a voucher program and the Mayor is up to date on what we can do with the program. 5. Discussion on the topics of future HRC community forums Chair O’Nan stated that the HRC may want to do two or three forums a year because there have been some great successes that engage our community and leaders and has raised the profile of the HRC and the profile of really important issues. Commissioner Stinger stated that she would like to have an event at the end of March and under the guise of the voices of Palo Alto look at implicit bias. The HRC has talked Approved 10 about showing a film that the county would like to use and has been exploring contacts at Stanford and would like a copartner to make it happen. Chair O’Nan added that leadership will be working with city staff to create a toolkit and take the learnings, steps, tasks and activities that we learned from these events and try to summarize everything and give a template to leads on events. Commission Gordon Gray added that the toolkit should include how Commissions can support each other in planning these events. Chair O’Nan stated that Commissioner Chen wants to do an event about diversity and immigration issues. Ms. van der Zwaag added that Commissioner Chen is interested in getting the speakers and that was her first step. Commissioner Stinger stated that she spoke to Commissioner Chen about putting the item on the agenda for the next meeting so we can talk about the immigration topic. Ms. van der Zwaag added that the HRC would start in January or February and Commissioner Chen is looking for a speaker to speak on the immigration of the Chinese community and maybe move on with other communities. Chair O’Nan added that the HRC may be looking at having an event in the summer and fall and there is a list of topics and each Commissioner can lead or as a co-chair an event seamlessly. Commissioner Savage was interested in doing an event on the relationship of Palo Alto Police Department. By the end of the year the HRC can plot out how many events will be scheduled, the topics and a rough timeline. Vice Chair Stone stated that during the retreat when Mary Jane Markus, from Evvia Restaurant spoke she had a great point discussing that most of the service workers in Palo Alto are not residents of the city, are underrepresented and she feels that they feel uncomfortable when they come to Palo Alto. Maybe some type of forum where service providers could talk about these issues and be educated on the services the city has or what the city does to make sure the service workers are safe . Vice Chair Stone added that something like that is missing in the city and could be useful because so many people who come to work and are not residents and may feel unwelcomed. Commissioner Stinger stated that the county film is on biases in the community and wanted to build on the film. The panel could include leaders of the AME Zion Church, and the arts and diversity panel at Stanford. Also, there is an Office of Diversity and First Generation Students and a Dr. Eberhardt who has done a lot with statistics on the correlation between race and crime. 6. Discussion on the planning of the HRC holiday gathering Chair O’Nan stated that the December HRC meeting normally starts a little early and then the HRC proceeds down to Il Fornaio. Vice Chair Stone expressed that many of the Commissioners remember meeting Ray Bacchetti there for coffee to share his wisdom and it would be nice to be there this year. VI. Reports from Officials 1. Commissioner Reports Chair O’Nan stated as many of the Commissions may recall the late Ray Bacchetti. He was a theatre buff and sat on the board of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for many years and was a big support of local theater one of which was the Pear Theatre in Mountain View. The Pear Theatre has received a patronage from Google who build the Pear Theatre a brand new theatre which just opened. Chair O’Nan added that when she was touring the new facility she saw that the theatre has a studio called the Ray Bacchetti Studio. Ray is living on in so many ways in our community. The Pear Theatre is across from the movie theatres in shoreline and around the corner from Microsoft. Approved 11 Vice Chair Stone stated that he and Commissioner Savage met with Police Chief Dennis Burns on the update of staffing reports and various new policies and technology that the police department will be implementing. As of January the department will have 14 vacancies and dispatchers will be down 25%. They reported that the big issue seems to be that our police officers have not received a raise in about 63 months and are now in the “middle of the pack” around police departments in the Bay Area on how our police officers are paid. A lot of police officers who live outside of the peninsula are being employed in cities where they live. The police vehicles now have five cameras. They are initially buying 10 at a cost $750.00 each and by summer all officers will have body cameras. Chief Burns is hoping to meet with the HRC in January or February to discuss policies for how the cameras will be used. Chief Burns discussed the sensitive nature of the cameras and the concern that the officers will need to turn them off their camera if they go into a home invasion or burglary and when do they need to be turned on. The department is going to come up with their own policy ideas and reach out to the HRC. There is a concern that only four police officers are living in Palo Alto and three of them are renting and the average commute for the officers is 28.7 miles. Lieutenant Zachary Perron was elected as Vice Chair as PIO of police chiefs. Chief Burns is hoping that the Citizens’ Academy will be scheduled in January. Commissioner Alhassani stated that at the Commission barbeque he spoke to some Palo Alto firefighters, and they said that they have the same issues as the police department that many need to commute into Palo Alto. The firefighters asked about possibly having secondary rental units in Palo Alto. Commissioner Alhassani stated that he and Vice Chair Stone attended Veterans’ Day event that Mayor Holman hosted last Monday and it was an amazing event and the room was mostly filled with veterans. The event was the first time the city has acknowledged that they had done a Veterans’ Day event. The HRC got several shout outs from the Mayor. CALL FOR AGENDA ITEMS (December 10, 2015) 1. a . Commissioner Stinger discuss her community event b. Welcoming immigrants speaker series c. Update on Homeless Veterans Summit next steps ADJOURNMENT 1. The meeting adjourned at 9:33 p.m.