Notice of Quorum of the Governing Body - Homelessness Summit
Mon, Jun 29, 2026 · Governing Body
https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/1528

== Executive Summary ==
The Governing Body of Santa Fe convened a Homelessness Summit to foster collaboration and identify solutions for the city's growing homelessness crisis. The summit emphasized a shift from moral judgment to a medical and neurological understanding of homelessness, highlighting how chronic stress and trauma impact brain function, affecting individuals' ability to plan, remember, and make decisions. Key discussions included the city's strategic plan to address homelessness, the importance of incorporating the lived experiences of homeless individuals, and the need for systemic changes based on trauma-informed care and the 'Housing First' model.

The city outlined its current and future initiatives, including a $1 million investment in eviction prevention, the development of an encampment management policy, and plans for micro-community shelters in each district. The summit also addressed the critical role of supportive services, behavioral health, and the strategic allocation of opioid settlement funds. Attendees were encouraged to engage with curiosity, respect, and a solution-oriented mindset, with a commitment from the Mayor to utilize all feedback for future planning and the development of a three-year homelessness strategic plan.

== Key Decisions ==
- The city has invested $1 million in direct eviction prevention assistance.
- The city is developing Santa Fe's first coordinated citywide encampment management policy.
- The city is establishing an interdepartmental team to support planning and expedite micro-community projects, aligning with the 2025 City Council resolution for a micro-community in every district.
- A firm date of March 2028 has been set for the closure of the 2801 Crios Road shelter.

== Public Comment ==
Public comments highlighted concerns about the coordination between the city and organizations like the Interfaith Community Shelter and the ROC, particularly regarding state funding. There was a strong call for increasing the number of pallet shelters, citing past successes and available units. Residents expressed ongoing fear about micro-communities being placed in their neighborhoods. Questions were raised about the city's plan to close the gap between the number of homeless individuals and available shelter units, the prioritization of housing over other services, and the accountability of homeless shelters. Some attendees questioned why the south side of Santa Fe seemed to bear a disproportionate burden of homeless services and trash, asking for more equitable distribution across the city. There was also a concern about the location of the ROC next to a liquor store.

== Topics ==
- Homelessness Causes & Solutions
- Community Engagement
- Brain Science of Homelessness
- Strategic Planning for Homelessness
- Micro-Communities/Pallet Shelters
- Interfaith Community Shelter Group
- Role of City Government
- Support for Unsheltered Neighbors
- Summit Outcomes & Follow-up
- Lived Experience

== Full Transcript ==
Yes, sir. Okay. Awesome. Okay, great. All right, everybody, we're going to go ahead and get started. Welcome, welcome everyone. It's a great turnout. We also have people online joining us, so I see you if you see us. So they are joining us via Zoom, and they're going to give us some feedback tonight as well. So welcome to the City of Santa Fe Mayor's Homelessness Summit.

I'm very excited to be your MC tonight. My name is Brian Cerna. I am a native Santa Fean, a proud graduate of Capitol High School and Alama Junior High School. If you're old school Santa Fe, you know what that was. But we're going to go ahead and get started. So, I do have a few announcements. If anybody would like Spanish language translation, we do have headsets available in the front. Just go up there to the registration table, and they can get you fitted with a headset for Spanish language translation if that's easier for you, and we're happy to do that.

My name is Brian Cerna. It truly is an honor to be with you tonight as a Master of Ceremonies and one of the facilitators for tonight's summit. But before we begin, I want to thank Mayor Garcia, his staff at the City of Santa Fe, the members of City Council, all of our community partners, and each one of you for choosing to spend some time here this evening. Thank you for taking the time to be here and for expressing some commitment and investment in addressing one of the community's most complicated and important challenges. Your presence tonight reflects the value of bringing so many different perspectives together in pursuit of practical solutions.

I'd also like to just take a moment to acknowledge anyone tonight who is joining us who has lived experience, either being unhoused or precariously housed. Thank you so much for being here. Your voice is crucial as we figure out what are some of the best strategies that all of us can work together to address this issue. One thing that we've learned over the years is that homelessness is rarely about a single event or a single system failure. It's about housing, definitely, but it's also about mental health, substance use, trauma, economics, physical health, relationships, public safety, and belonging. It's complicated because people are complicated. That complexity can sometimes leave us feeling overwhelmed, but it can also remind us of something important: that no single agency, organization, individual, business, collection of businesses, or level of government is going to solve this alone. We all need to come together and stay working together.

This evening's summit is not about finding one perfect answer. It's about strengthening relationships. It's about listening, and it's about learning from one another. It's also about identifying practical opportunities where we can work together better tomorrow than we have in the past. So, as your facilitator and the whole team of facilitators, our commitment is simple: we will do our best to keep us on time, keep us on track, keep conversations productive, and create space for as many different voices to be heard as possible. I encourage each of you to approach this evening's discussion with curiosity, respect, and a willingness to be challenged and changed, because if we're willing to learn together, there's a very good chance we leave here stronger together. So, thank you again for sharing your thoughts, for investing your time, and it is now my pleasure to welcome the Mayor of the City of Santa Fe, Michael Garcia, for some opening remarks.

[applause]

Well, thank you, Mr. Cerna. And as a Demon, I think, go Demons.

[laughter]

But thank you all, everybody, for joining us tonight. It's been a very, very, very engaging day. As we are wrapping up this evening, this is the last session. Earlier today, we brought together government leaders, service providers, funders, and then other residents that showed up to ultimately begin the process of developing what I hope is a much broader community collaborative approach to addressing homelessness. It's no secret that Santa Fe has seen a dramatic increase in those who need our support. So what's even more important is that we have a dramatic increase in regards to how we're going to address this challenging issue. As Brian mentioned, there's no one organization, no one agency, no one person that is going to ultimately help to address and solve this very, very complex issue. But as a community collective, we absolutely can address homelessness. We absolutely can begin to mitigate the impact. And most importantly, we absolutely can begin to provide much-needed housing and services for those most in need. And so this is where your participation is critical. As I mentioned, we had a lot of conversations with folks this morning and this afternoon. Your voice is equally as important.

As we begin the process tonight, it's going to be part of a bigger, broader process that is ultimately going to help develop how we as a community address homelessness. From the City of Santa Fe's perspective, here very soon, we're going to be initiating a process where we are going to develop a strategic plan that is going to guide how the city is going to respond to homelessness. It's not going to be the same as the counties. It's not going to be the same as private funders. Again, this is going to be a piece of the puzzle because it's critical we don't duplicate services, we don't compete for resources, and most importantly, we have that strategy to help others. And so as we move forward with this process tonight, there will be outcomes, whether it's a report that we are going to be producing that are going to showcase the outcomes of the summit that are going to help lead to further discussion, further conversations, further collaborative opportunities. But most importantly, it's going to create the will, the agency, and most importantly, the vision to help those that are unhoused become housed, get the services that are needed, and most importantly, improve lives. And so, I ask one thing as you all are having your conversations tonight: be authentic. Bring your voice and ensure, and more importantly, bring solutions, because we all can sit around and provide criticism and complaints, but more importantly, we need solutions at this moment in time. And so this is where I want to ensure your solutions are woven into the broader process. So with that, thank you, thank you, thank you. You all could be anywhere tonight. You could be down the street at a Los Lobos concert, and there will be time if you want to go to the Los Lobos concert after. But thank you for investing your time, energy with us this evening. With that, I'm going to say I'm not the expert on this topic. We're going to, you're going to hear from some experts that will ultimately help to provide some framework in regards to the discussions for tonight. So with that, thank you all. I appreciate you all being here. And with that, let's get to work. Thank you.

[applause]

Okay. And bringing up our first expert of the evening is Dr. Michael D. Bernardi. He's the CEO of The LifeLink. The LifeLink has been...

[applause]

They're clapping not just for Dr. D. Bernardi, but also for The LifeLink in general, because The LifeLink has been in Santa Fe since the 70s, 80s. I can tell you that it was my first real job. And so that's when I was in my early 20s. I worked at The LifeLink. And so it's always an honor to do anything connected to The LifeLink. And so I'm going to turn it over to Dr. D. Bernardi to help us understand a little of what's going on inside the minds and the brains and the behaviors of people who have been struggling with housing. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening.

[sighs]

Good to see you. A full room, even more full than it was earlier today. So, that's fantastic. And I'm honored to be here. I'm honored to be invited to speak twice today. And I want to bring, I don't know about a different perspective, but a perspective on the experience of the homeless. And I'm sure each one of you is coming in here with some preconceived notions of who the homeless are, why they ended up the way they did, the way they have. And we're going to address that tonight. But one of the things I really want to talk about is what the data shows, what the science shows, what is going on with an individual who is experiencing homelessness, particularly chronic homelessness. And Mr. Mayor, you need a larger podium up here. I've figured that out.

So let me just ask you a question. Rhetorical question. Just think about it in your head. When you drive past someone experiencing homelessness, what goes through your mind? What are the first things you think when you pull up to a median? Somebody's got a sign. What are you thinking about? I'm not asking to judge the answer for you. I'm asking because the science tells a very different story about what's happening in these folks than we've been led to believe. Tonight, I want to show you that story. So, I want to start with a question that most of us have asked, maybe not out loud, but certainly in our head as we're sitting in our car at that intersection. Why won't they just get help? Why don't they just get a job? Why don't they go to the shelter? We know there's beds down there. Why don't they keep their appointment at The LifeLink? Why don't they stop using drugs? All variations of the question that we've asked. And it's a reasonable question. It's a question that a housed, rested brain naturally generates. But it turns out that it assumes something about that person's brain that the science says is not true. The part of the brain that would just do those things to get a job, go to the shelter, the planning and follow-through center—we'll talk a little bit more detail about the parts of the brain—is offline. It's not working the way it's supposed to be working. It's not that they're being lazy. It's not that they're being unwilling to do something. Literally, that part of the brain is offline. And what I want to say is it's not broken. I want to think about it more as like a circuit breaker where it's got flipped off, but there's an opportunity to turn it back on. And I'm going to show you exactly why that happens.

So, let's go back 25 years. Those of us who are old enough to remember 25 years ago. And I'm sure there's a lot of people in this room who've had experience with your family members with addiction. And how did we talk about addiction 25 years ago? Addicts are weak. They're choosing this. They need to hit rock bottom. There's a moral issue going on with this person. That's how we talked about addiction. But in the last 25 years, neuroscience has showed us a lot more. We've developed brain scans. We can look and see in real time what's going on in the brain. And what we've learned is that addiction physically hijacks the reward system of the brain. It's a medical condition affecting a biological organ. It's not a matter of morals. It's not a matter of willfulness or laziness. It's a disease. And so we started treating it that way. Homelessness right now is sitting at the same place the addiction conversation was 25 years ago. We have the brain scans. We have the science. We have the data. And we're going to talk about some of that tonight. What hasn't happened yet is the shift in how we see it, how we view it, how we talk about it. And I'm grateful to the Mayor for putting this together because I hope it begins a bigger conversation starting with all of you. The old shampoo commercial, "You told two friends and they told two friends and so on." I don't know if some of you may remember that one, but that's what I hope happens tonight.

You all can leave here and talk to a couple people you know and share some wisdom about what's going on. So, homelessness is waiting for that same reckoning that addiction had us at 25 years ago.

So, I'm not going to go too deep into all this, but I do want to give the basics. So, we're going to really talk tonight about three different brain areas: the amygdala. The amygdala is the area of the brain that evaluates threats. What's safe? What's not safe for me? Under chronic stress, under trauma, which is a daily experience for folks living on the streets, cortisol starts to flood the brain. And cortisol, as you probably know, is a hormone that's produced in the brain that helps us manage stress. It helps us actually calm down, relax, deal with situations as they come. But when we are in constant state of threat, cortisol really starts to flood the brain and it doesn't stop. And what happens is that this system, our amygdala, starts to read neutral cues as hostile. So its capacity to judge what's really safe versus what's really not safe goes away, and suddenly everything becomes not safe. And so they're walking through the world fearing everything around them, not sure what's going to happen next. Safety does not feel familiar.

Talk next a little bit about the hippocampus. Hippocampus is an area of the brain for memory. It's where we form memories. It's where we connect emotions to memory. And again, sustained cortisol physically shrinks that part of the brain. So they lose the capacity to form memories, to plan based on what's happened, to follow up on commitments that they've made. They forget about that. So new routines won't stick. Learning context recall all degrade.

And the last area we're going to talk about, and the major area, is the prefrontal cortex. That's the front of the brain right here. And it's the part of the brain that really differentiates us from every other animal on the planet. It's where reasoning comes from, where logic, where good versus bad judgments come from, where planning, all the things that we call executive functioning, and trauma and stress impact that significantly.

So, let me reframe this in a little different way. So, and bear with me on this one. I think it's pretty good. Well, let's see. So, think about this as a house. Think about the brain as a house. A house with three rooms. So, the first room, the amygdala, handles safety. It's always on. It's monitoring what's going on, making sure everything's working the way it needs to work, never sleeps, always listening for danger around us. And for most of us, well, for all of us, we do have that. And for most of us, it's just kind of humming along. If there's something that happens around us that means that we need to wake up to deal with it, it's going to wake us up. For someone who's living outside, homeless, in a situation where their threat detector is no longer working well, it's always on. It's flooded. That room has become flooded by cortisol around the clock. The alarm is going off 24/7. So that's our first room.

Second room, the hippocampus. So the hippocampus is where we learn new things, where we hold agreements, where we connect today's choices to next week. So it goes dark. So the room is flooded. And what do we do when a room floods in our house? Well, we should do. We go to the breaker box, turn off the electricity. We don't want anything to happen. So the room is flooded. We've shut down the memory room. That one's gone dark. And then finally, the prefrontal cortex, the planning room, keeping appointments, making decisions, follow-through, has also lost power. So the main room, the threat detector, is flooded, and there's no power in the other areas. And this is the brain of a person who's under the chronic stress of homelessness. Yet, we walk up to them, somebody whose room has been flooded, and say, "Why don't you just keep your appointments? Why don't you just go down to the shelter at 3:00 and check in like you're supposed to? What's so hard about it?" The power's not on. This is not a character flaw. This is a built-in safety mechanism, and it's really going off 24/7 for these individuals. So, they're not able to just get over it any more than when you have a headache, it's just, oh, get over it. It'll go away. You know something going on physiologically with the body.

So some numbers. Nearly half of all homeless people out there experience depression. And I'm not just talking about sad mood, little bummed out, wish I had a house to live in. We're talking about diagnosable major depression. So about half of them. A third meet the criteria for PTSD, the same diagnosis we give to combat vets, to victims of violent crimes. And actually that number is pretty low. That's kind of the one year within the last 12 months. When you branch that out beyond 12 months, the number raises from about 50 to 55% have PTSD. So very significant. And 64% of them have at least one diagnosable mental health condition or substance use condition. So these numbers are pretty staggering, and in any other medical approach, we would call this a public health emergency. We'd say we need to do something about this. The bottom one there, 42% express that they've had lifetime suicidal ideation, that they've wanted to kill themselves at some point. And 29% reported that they have indeed tried to kill themselves. So these people out there in the medians with their signs are suffering.

Homelessness is a mental health crisis made visible. So the mental health crisis is the primary condition. It's not the homelessness that caused the mental health crisis. It's the mental health crisis that caused the homelessness. And what we see on the streets is what it looks like when this crisis goes unanswered. So when we stigmatize mental illness, when we cut mental health funding, it does not make the crisis disappear. We just move it outside. And that's what we're seeing on the streets. This is a predictable result based on how we deal with mental health in our culture. But it's time for us to take a look at it and start to deal with it differently.

So, this one on the left, homeless people are dangerous. That's what a lot of people assume. I won't ask for a show of hands, but I would bet if I asked and people weren't afraid to raise their hands, "How many of you are afraid of the homeless?" a number of hands would go up. Okay, a couple of hands are going up. Thank you. Yeah, we feel like there's some danger there. Danger of being hurt, danger of our property being damaged, danger of our home being ruined. But on the right is what the research shows, that actually the homeless are far, far more endangered in their day-to-day life than we who are housed are. 87% of women have experienced some psychological violence in the last 6 months. One in three homeless adults, men and women, report physical or sexual assault in the last year alone. But what we see is when people are moved into permanent housing, the assault rates drop dramatically. So here's a question I'd like you to sit with. When you feel afraid of someone experiencing homelessness, who does the research say is actually in danger in that encounter? We built our fears around the wrong direction, and that fear pointed in the wrong direction shapes policy budgets and shapes what we're willing to do. So I want us to reconsider the risk that they're experiencing out there on the street and start to aim our interventions and our strategies in the right direction.

So I want to talk through this cycle a little bit. So, let's make this real. So, let's imagine someone named Maria, a woman who is currently homeless, but she grew up in a home with parents. Dad was in and out of jail. She witnessed violence between her parents from time to time. She herself was a victim of violence. By her mid-20s, she's outside. She's living without a home. Within months of that, her brain has started to adapt to this constant danger. It's dysregulated. It's not working the way it was when she was housed. And so then she says, "Well, I'm going to go over to, I'll say, Lifelink. I'm going to go over to Lifelink and get in for services." Well, she gets over there. "I don't have my ID. I can't sit here and focus on all this paperwork." This actually does not happen at Lifelink, but I'll use us as the example. And she gets turned away. That's a rejection by the system. So, what happens then? That becomes a trauma for her. She's back out on the streets, and the whole cycle starts over and over again. The thing is that each time it happens, it gets worse. The trauma has more impact every time the system fails a person. So every rejection that they experience deepens that trauma, and the cycle goes on and on and on.

So, one in 30 children experiences homelessness each year. That's basically one child in every classroom. And I recently heard someone say at another public meeting, "I don't want a shelter in my neighborhood because I don't want those kids in the class with my kids." Guess what? They're already there based on the numbers. And it's important that we look at the children and try to take care of the children. Children build their brains around their environment. So if they're in an unstable, traumatizing early environment, they grow up with their brain saying, "The world is unsafe. The people who are supposed to protect you aren't really going to be there for you." They become hypervigilant, distrustful, always ready for something bad to happen to them. But the thing is that this recalibration that's happened at the brain does not expire at age 18 when they suddenly become adults. Instead, it becomes the operating system that they take into adulthood. So childhood homelessness is not a childhood problem. It's a 50-year public health problem, something that we could interrupt early on while the brain is still building, and we could have much more success down the line. So when we think about a 50-year public health problem, the decisions that we're making today are going to impact the adults on our streets 40, 50 years from now. So it's important that we start to take a look at this now. And this is the time when the brains are young. The same time that the harm holds deepest in them is the same time that we can get in there and intervene and make a difference.

So this, some of the things that we think about, this is really a translation guide. The left side is what we see, and the right side is what's actually happening. So, as someone who runs an agency, I will tell you the missed appointments is a challenge. When people don't show up for their appointments, that means I have staff who's getting paid, who's sitting around, who's not being able to bill for their time. And in the nonprofit world, that's significant. And so, it's easy to say, "You know what, you missed an appointment. Come back in six months when you're ready to get services." But really what missed appointments are about is what's going on in the prefrontal cortex. The capacity to understand time and to plan ahead lives in the prefrontal cortex. And remember that room is offline. So we can't expect them to be there.

Substance abuse. This is a big one. We see it all the time, and we tend to look at it as a bad choice that they're making. But when we really look into the brain science of substance abuse, those substances are playing a role for these people. They may be the only medications that are available to them. So you may not think that illegal street drugs are medications, but they serve that role. We know that alcohol lowers that threshold, or actually raises that threshold in the amygdala, so that they're able to better sense what's safe and what's not safe. Opiates, fentanyl, those are drugs for pain, and they help with physical pain and they help with emotional pain.

And even stimulants, even methamphetamine, act directly on the prefrontal cortex and actually bring back some of that executive function that I said has been lost. We prescribe stimulants to people with ADHD for exactly these reasons. So these drugs, they're not medications, they're not prescribed, but they're playing a role. And it's more important for us to try to understand what that role is for the person rather than just say, "You know what? If you want help, you need to get clean," because that's not realistic. And beyond that, if they're using these substances to get through day-to-day life and suddenly we say, "If you want services with us, you can't be using it," we've taken away one of the only coping skills that they really have.

So, we're not encouraging drug use, but we're understanding what it is and we're practicing what's called harm reduction, meaning educating them about the dangers to themselves, to their families, to their loved ones, to the community at large, but not saying being sober is a condition of getting services because we're going to lose them otherwise. So, we see aggression, and again, aggression is in the amygdala. The amygdala is seeing everything as a danger. Everything is a threat. So no matter how neutral we may be, a policeman walking up to a person who's lying on the sidewalk to say, "Hey buddy, you doing okay?" They're seeing that as, "This guy's got a gun and he's going to kill me." So they become aggressive. Doesn't mean we're excusing aggression. And none of these things that I'm saying are to be excused. It's simply saying there are reasons that these things are going on. So when we look at how we're going to deal with these problems, we need to understand what those reasons are before we can really start to solve those problems.

And the last one there, non-compliance. That's a big one. Compliance, that means what we think you need to be doing. And if you're not doing it, you're non-compliant. If you're not showing up for your session on time, you're non-compliant. Well, again, this is based on what's going on in the prefrontal cortex in the hippocampus. And they have learned that through that cycle I showed you that most experiences that are supposed to be helping experiences tend to end up with harm and being back out where you were worse than you were before. So, what are we going to do about this? Some ideas. I definitely don't have all the answers, and I even bristled that I was described as an expert because I don't know that any of us are experts. It's a really hard challenge in our society to deal with.

But some things that we know that work. So, housing first. And I'm going to say right away, there is a mandate from the federal level that we cannot use the term housing first, even though it is one of the best-studied, most proven interventions that we've come across related to housing in the last 30 years. Housing first means you put people in a place with a roof over their head. You provide them safety first and foremost. No requirements, no sobriety, no, "You have to go down to Lifelink and check in for services." No, you put a roof over their head. What that does, and what the research shows very clearly and has been replicated through randomized controlled studies, is that it interrupts the stress loop at the source. People who have been housed with no conditions are two and a half times more likely to remain housed after 18 months. They use the ER much less frequently. They're hospitalized much less frequently, and there is no rise in substance abuse. And that's something I hear a lot: "Well, if you put them in the house, they're just going to have parties in there all the time. Everybody's going to be getting high." Research shows absolutely not. Substance abuse does not go up when someone is housed.

The thing about housing first is it actually costs less. So, you may be saying, "You mean we're just giving people housing? What's that all about?" Well, the cost of putting a roof over someone's head is much less than the cost of emergency room services, law enforcement, hospitalizations, crisis services, jail stays, etc.

Next one is relational safety, and that's about how we approach people. So consistency, non-coercive. I've talked about coercion. Human contact helps to recalibrate that threat response. So they've learned over and over and over that, "I go to get help, I get slapped down, I can't go back there again because it's dangerous." So we as service providers, we as community members, if we're going to choose to interact, if we're going to make promises, "Hey, I'll meet you. I'll take you down here. You want to go shopping?" Be there. Consistency. That's how they start to rebuild trust in the society around them. So the relationship becomes the intervention. You don't have to be a trained therapist, a trained case manager. You just have to be there and be consistent.

In terms of agencies, we talk about this with staff. Expectation is that every staff member in the agency, whether it's a janitor, whether it's a security guard, a front desk, they need to understand the way the brains are working in folks like this and greet them with a smile and a friendly, consistent way. And the last thing I'll mention on this one is the sequenced care. Stabilizing the nervous system first, treatment first, rehab first. Those are not as successful approaches because it can go into a 30-day rehab, but it takes way more than 30 days for that amygdala to get where it needs to be to not still feel like everything is dangerous and everything is a threat. This is why housing first works. You get them into some place where they can slowly start to realize, "I have a place and it's safe." And once my safety is in place, then I can start to do the things that maybe are going to help me improve my life. So the order of operations is everything. Housing comes first.

[sighs] How am I on time? I know we started late.

Okay. Let me know in five. So what does it look like? And this was more for the service providers, but in terms of the system, fund housing first. It's a model that is proven to work. It just is. Now, if you don't believe in science, well, you can argue with me, but if you believe in the scientific method, it shows without question that it works. We need to remove sobriety prerequisites. We need to design our policies, our programs for people whose brains are in crisis, not for people whose brains are healthy. So, we can all get together with our theoretically healthy brains and come up with a plan. This is how we're going to deal with homelessness, but if it's not adapted to what's going on in their brains, we're wasting our time and doing them a disservice. Rules, low barrier entry, predictable, posted, consistently applied.

That's not your fault.

Okay, that's not my fault. Okay. We're five minutes over, but I got started 10 minutes late. So, providing them choice. When he came up with that, I saw a threat. I saw a threat that I had to hurry up and get through my last three slides. Housing should never be contingent on compliance. The people, especially in agencies, everyone needs to be trained. Everyone needs to be consistent. And there's a real role for peer support. New Mexico has truly been a leader in this country on peer support, meaning people with lived experiences being the first face that a lot of our clients see, and it works far more than me going out on the street, giving them a business card. "I'm a psychologist, and here's all the letters after my name, and I'd like to help you." No. How about somebody who says, "Hey buddy, I just got off the streets a year ago. Let me tell you what we're going to do here." So peer support plays a huge role. And I'm proud that Lifelink has been a leader in that movement and that New Mexico is being a leader for the nation.

And then the welcome in general. If you take nothing else away from my talk tonight, the last part under the welcome, the question is never, "What's wrong with you?" It's, "What's happened to you?" When they come into the agency, you don't have to tell me your story of trauma, the worst thing that ever happened to you. It's not something wrong with you. You're not a faulty human being, but rather you are a product of the experiences that have happened to you. And if there's something that has happened, we can fix that versus if there's something wrong with that person. So, we've, you know, we've built systems that work fine. They do. If you can show up on time, if you can get that giant stack of paperwork done in 10 minutes, if you can stay calm, if you can remember next week, if you can remember your next appointment we have set up, these are again all things that a rested, housed brain can do very well. But these are things that are hard, if not impossible, for someone whose brains have been, not permanently, whose brains have been significantly changed by chronic stress and trauma. So, we keep blaming these people for failing a test that they were never equipped to take, or at least have not been equipped to take for a long time. This is not their failure. This is our design flaw, the way that we're approaching it.

So, some things, a few things that we can do, five things, three things that belong to you tonight, I think, as you leave here. Number one, support housing first. When you hear about housing first, that the county or the city is going to do this housing first-based project, you know what the evidence says. I've told you what the evidence says around it. Be the person in the room who can defend that and who can say that. Number two, the training role. Every organization that you support, however you support them, ask them how do they train them? How do they train their staff? Not just the clinical staff, everybody. What do they learn about the role of trauma in the brain? Three through six. Audit every form, rule, or requirement, design environments, fund predictability. Those are the roles of our elected officials, your city councilors, your county commissioners, your mayor. Ask them, "Are these programs that you're talking about designed for the brains of the people using them?" Get it on record. And then the last one, that's completely yours. Change the story you tell about the people you see outside. I don't have any illusion that I've completely changed your mind about what's going on with homeless people, but I want you to know that there are reasons for the things that they do. There are reasons that they're in their situations, and these are medical reasons. We don't want to ship diabetics out of our community. We don't want to ship people with heart disease down to Albuquerque to get services, but we seem to want to ship people whose brains have been affected by trauma and stress away from our community. So, these are not problems to remove. These are our neighbors to bring home. Neuroscience has given us a new story about who they are and what they need. And it's a story built on evidence, not on assumption, on biology, not on blame. You have the story now, so please tell it. Thank you.

[applause and cheering]

[applause]

All right. Sorry, we don't have time for questions with Dr. Donardi in particular, but maybe you can catch him. [laughter] But with your facilitator when we get to that piece, maybe they can answer some of your questions at that time. Right now, we're just a few minutes behind schedule, but don't worry, we will catch up. So, next up, I'd like to introduce to you Leah Salivary. She's the director of the Youth and Family Services for the City of Santa Fe. She's going to be talking to you all about the city's priorities and plans, including successful initiatives, future plans, and what tonight's conversations will feed into.

So, hi everyone. Good evening. As mentioned, my name is Leah Azul Salivary, and I'm the Youth and Family Services Director. I help lead a team responsible for homelessness solutions here in the city of Santa Fe. First, I want to express my gratitude for each of you being here tonight. Homelessness is one of the most complex and challenging issues in our city, and from our entire team, we are thankful to be discussing our plans with you tonight.

Beyond tonight's participation, we know that many of you are engaged on these issues every day, whether you live or work in an impacted neighborhood, have a loved one who has experienced homelessness, or through your engagement in our work over the course of many years. Many of you took the time to fill out our survey and tell us in your own words what you're experiencing and what you need from your city. I want to let you know that we heard you, and we designed this event tonight with you all in mind.

Prior to this convening, we shared a survey which over 108 of you completed. Through this process, we learned that our community views the issue of homelessness as dynamic and multifaceted. According to you, homelessness is not an either/or issue. As a compassionate community, Santa Feans care deeply about our neighbors experiencing homelessness, their access to shelter, treatment, and dignity. You also care deeply about the health of our community, including public safety and ensuring clean and welcoming neighborhoods and shared public spaces. It is important to state that these are not competing values. They are the same value seen from two directions, and tonight's conversation will reflect this core truth.

Your top priorities for homeless solutions included mental health care, recovery services, prevention and diversion, and emergency shelter. On community impacts, residents named public safety and neighborhood conditions among their top priorities. Residents also expressed the desire to see improved encampment management among other key issues. In order to address these challenges, the city is developing comprehensive plans that speak to every piece of this puzzle.

Santa Fe is among many communities across the country seeing the impacts of homelessness grow. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, in 2024, no state in the country had enough permanent housing for everyone experiencing homelessness. In fact, response systems only had enough permanent housing to serve 16% of households staying in shelter. As a nationwide phenomenon, it is critical to remember that homelessness at this scale is not the result of personal failure. Rather, it is a downstream result of overlapping systemic pressures: housing costs that have outpaced wages, a behavioral health system that is stretched increasingly thin, as well as decades of underinvestment in housing that families and individuals can afford. Cities across America are confronting the same systemic pressures. Although municipalities are on the front lines of these challenges, historically, cities have not been equipped to resolve these issues by themselves.

Next, let's talk about the scale of the issue locally and what this means for our solutions. As of this spring, 578 people were counted as actively homeless in Santa Fe, between individuals who are sheltered and unsheltered. 44% of those individuals are chronically homeless, meaning they've been without stable housing for a long time, often alongside a disabling health condition. And further, 78% of people experiencing homelessness are single adults, indicating where our greatest gap is for shelter, housing, and supportive services. Unfortunately, even our best counts are only the visible tip of the iceberg. In our public schools alone, 741 children and youth in our K through 12 schools were identified as homeless last school year. Many of these youth are doubled up, living with other families, living in cars, or cycling through motels. Hidden homelessness, which impacts working families, is important to note because it shows us how far and deep this crisis truly goes.

So why did we convene this summit? This summit was convened to usher in a turning point, an opportunity to bring stakeholders across Santa Fe together and to the same table to implement a holistic plan of action. Tonight is about three things. First, setting a shared vision. Through this summit, we have aligned providers, government, funders, and community stakeholders behind one direction, setting priorities for our collective work. Second, strengthening the system. With the city functioning as a primary convener, our role is to coordinate partners, ground with data, and serve as the backbone organization for this work. We know there is a strong desire for city leadership around these issues, and we are here to deliver. And third, stabilizing and scaling what works. This means maintaining our current levels of shelter and housing, then growing proven solutions by continuing to address the heart of the problem.

We're grateful to the many partners involved to make tonight's success. That includes service providers, representatives across the county, state, and federal government, healthcare, philanthropy, the business community, faith-based organizations, and people with lived experience, and you all as community members. This is a complex issue, and it will take all of us working together to be successful.

As the first step, we have created a comprehensive framework to anchor our efforts. On your tables, you will have a resource guide with the data behind tonight's conversation. I want to point you to page three, the Santa Fe Homeless Continuum Framework. Our team built this as the foundational piece of a comprehensive citywide vision. It's holistic by design, and it captures every activity needed to support an effective homelessness response. The core areas shown in red are throughput to independence for each person experiencing homelessness. The supporting services in green are the foundation that allows the whole continuum to function. We know from our work on the ground that a gap or inconsistency in any of these areas erodes the framework and our work at large. Tonight, I will walk you through each piece of the Santa Fe continuum to demonstrate our plans and where we're headed.

Homelessness in many ways is a resource problem. As costs of living rise, we simply do not have enough affordable housing to meet the need. We know this because while mental health conditions and substance abuse have always existed across human history, chronic large-scale homelessness has not. That is why the city is investing in homeless prevention as one of the most effective and proven strategies to combat inflow into homelessness. When we do not effectively manage for inflow through prevention and diversion, it becomes much harder to bring people out of homelessness after the fact. To address this, the city has invested $1 million in direct eviction prevention assistance through our Youth and Family Services Division. Our team is also advocating for tenant protections like our source of income discrimination ordinance, in partnership with Chainbreaker, in effect since August of last year. Moving forward, we're building a policy platform to strengthen prevention and renters' rights, including improved code enforcement mechanisms and quarterly public reporting on complaint data. Prevention only works if it's accountable and actionable.

Next, I want to talk about encampment management. We heard from many of you about the challenges around unsheltered homelessness and encampments. So, I want to share our latest plans about where we're headed. City staff are working to develop Santa Fe's first coordinated citywide encampment management policy. Three things define this approach. First, it's consistent and applied evenly across every neighborhood. Second, it's prioritized by clear health and safety criteria, allowing outreach and response resources to go where the risk is the highest first. And third, every contact is built to move people toward shelter, housing, and services. Our goal is simple: balance public health and safety for all community members with compassionate outreach-driven strategies that connect unsheltered individuals to shelter, housing, and supportive services. When we have clear policies, trained teams, and coordinated procedures, we get two things at once: more responsible use of city funds and a more dignified, humane, and effective response for our unsheltered neighbors.

Importantly, our approach also mirrors best practices and federal guidance from the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness by replacing reactive outreach or displacement with sustainable, resolution-oriented models. That means a cross-agency, multi-sector response, engaging the residents living in encampments to help develop the solutions, comprehensive coordinated outreach, making sure there's somewhere for people to go, building real pathways to permanent housing, and having a plan for what happens to a site after it closes, so the problem doesn't simply reappear down the street. These distinctions are critical, and as such, our policies must be thoughtful and proactive.

Emergency shelter. The city's micro-community model focuses on small, individual, non-congregate shelter units that move someone directly from an encampment into safe, private space as the first real step towards housing. This matters because shelter is not about having a roof over your head alone. What makes shelter interventions truly successful is the ability to stabilize clients, supporting them to get back on their feet by finding work, accessing recovery services, medical care, and so on. So when individuals do obtain housing, they can successfully maintain it. We've already proven this model works here in Santa Fe. Our pilot program at Arroyo Chamiso, which launched in 2024, points the way towards a proven model. Clients at this micro-community are supported with wraparound services, case management. They're provided privacy. They can bring their pets and store their belongings, which helps aid their pathway to permanent housing. We're also proud to share progress on the Richards Avenue micro-community, a multi-generational program serving up to 35 families, youth, and seniors, and the first micro-community on city-owned land. Our goal is to open this fall of 2026.

However, we're not stopping there. Aligning with the 2025 City Council resolution which calls for a micro-community in every district, the city is establishing an interdepartmental team to support planning and help expedite projects as well. I also want to acknowledge that many of the city's existing shelters are located in older city-owned facilities that were never designed for this use case, providing a strain on operations. This includes 2801 Crios Road, a city-owned building that we recently listed for sale or lease by March of 2028. This provides a firm date by which this location needs to close with clients transitioned into a new model or shelter. So, even as we open new sites, we're simultaneously working to find longer-term, more sustainable solutions for our current shelter operations and to make sure no one loses access to shelter in the process. That's exactly the kind of planning this work demands.

I also want to be clear that there is no one-size-fits-all solution or model. People experiencing homelessness are not a monolith, and our shelter system shouldn't be either. We need providers at the table who can serve seniors, youth, families, and our highest need chronically homeless neighbors. All of them. We need all partners at the table leveraging their unique talents and strengths and their passion for supporting neighbors in need.

Shelter can only be as effective as an intermediary step and as a stepping stone for clients to transition into more permanent and supportive housing options. To meet this goal, we are actively looking at creative strategies to better utilize existing housing stock, for instance, through the development of our landlord liaison program. This program is a proven model with a simple idea. It provides a consistent resource for landlords' needs, as well as supports for people exiting homelessness to maintain their housing. The program provides assurances for landlords by answering their questions and dispelling myths about voucher holders and by offering financial guarantees. This program helps access rental supply at a fraction of the cost and years faster than new construction. This ongoing support keeps tenancies stable and landlords engaged.

During our earlier day session for this summit, partners also discussed the need to align with the Housing First model as an evidence-based practice with decades of research supporting its effectiveness. This principle is key because when people have access to stable housing or shelter, they have the foundation to manage or recover from whatever underlying challenges they may be facing. When they don't, and as we've heard from Dr. D. Bernardi, survival will consume everything. Excuse me. Beyond this, we are working to align our definitions and focuses on permanent housing with HUD principles by defining area median income or AMI where the need is the greatest.

Next, I'll talk a little bit about supportive services and behavioral health. Across all of this sits behavioral health and substance use services, which are critical and of significance for our community, as well as a top priority for residents. Our city, county Connect network already coordinates care across clinics, community organizations, and city and county programs. Connect navigators link people to services and resources in our community through a shared technology platform, which allows for secure electronic referrals. This improves outcomes for individuals in need. Last year alone, it convened more than 1,100 people to housing and shelter navigation. You'll find additional data about this program in your resource guide.

Next, as a new initiative, we also have a genuine once-in-a-generation opportunity ahead: Santa Fe's share of opioid settlement funds. The city is receiving in-kind technical assistance from Vital Strategies, an experienced partner in New Mexico, running a rapid landscape analysis, interviewing stakeholders to set the city's spending priorities with an eye towards equity, fiscal responsibility, and compliance, and doing a resource and gap assessment so the funds will go where they matter most. While funding is legally restricted to opioid abatement, we're learning from models across the state of New Mexico, including in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County, where they have coupled shelter and opioid abatement services towards programs like recovery-focused micro-communities and recovery housing vouchers. Santa Fe and our needs assessment are expected this fall. If we compare shelter and housing with real recovery support, we can make meaningful progress on two of our community's most interconnected challenges at once.

Coordination and infrastructure. None of this works without coordination, and that's the piece the city itself is responsible for. In the last six months, we've added capacity to meet growing demand, including adding three new full-time staff. And we've also built new data capabilities and systems that help us drive real accountability. Over the coming months, our team is developing a public data dashboard, an overhauled contracting and evaluation process, and formal outcome tracking across providers. We currently meet monthly with [clears throat] our entire network of provider partners in Santa Fe, and this helps us solve problems together. And earlier today at our summit, the city convened a cross-sector funders' roundtable, bringing together major funders including county, state, federal partners, and philanthropic partners to align on where we can pull resources and move together. These efforts point to the internal workflows that help make our external programs a success. Sustained progress is going to take dedicated capacity across the city and a regional table of partners pulling in the same direction.

Protection, advocacy, and community backing. Solving a humanitarian problem requires human-centered solutions. That means designing this work with people who have experienced homelessness so they can inform us on what is most feasible and needed. I want to share my deep gratitude for recognizing that we have a cohort of 10 individuals here tonight who have experienced homelessness in Santa Fe. They are here tonight to help shape our programs and share their reflections based on what they've lived through. These folks will be at your facilitation tables to share their experiences where they feel comfortable, and we are grateful again to have them here this evening.

As an important note on who in our community is experiencing homelessness: local data indicates that 75% of our unsheltered residents are from New Mexico. Despite misconceptions, homelessness in Santa Fe most prominently affects longtime Santa Feans, not people relocating here for services. And separately, 31% of the people who filled out our community survey in the lead-up to this event have a friend or family member who has experienced homelessness, or they themselves have experienced it. This shows us that people that are impacted are truly our neighbors. Community support is what drives this work forward beyond the summit and drives towards citywide momentum. Your engagement keeps this work moving and accountable.

So, what's next? First, out of today, we're producing a full summit report including the themes, commitments, and next steps that came out of this room, captured and shared with everyone here. Second, our team is excited to announce the development of a City of Santa Fe three-year homelessness strategic plan in the coming months. This is intended to be a clear and actionable plan built on the continuum framework we discussed tonight. And it comes in three parts. First, a comprehensive needs assessment that maps our data gaps and funding across the whole continuum. Second, an implementation plan with project management components including goals, outcomes, owners, and timelines. And last, a final published deliverable that is centered on local strategies and priorities. This plan, scheduled to be published in June of 2027, will provide a clear vision for the city and our partners alike. It is intended to outline the next three years of action.

To close out our conversation today, please see our roadmap for the next 18 months. In the coming weeks, the city will share our summit report. This fall, we are excited to be making progress on two key milestones. First, the opening of Richards Avenue as a multi-generational micro-community, and second, our opioid needs assessment findings to help guide our opioid abatement work. This winter, we strive to develop our encampment management plan, developed with stakeholder input, and by next June 2027, the published three-year strategic plan. These dates are targets, and while they may shift as logistics, policies, and funding is finalized, our commitment has not and will not change. Every one of these milestones will be shared and reported to the community all along the way. This work didn't start today, and it isn't going to stop. Santa Fe has been building towards this moment for months, and we're ready to carry it into a new phase with the right partners, data, and plans now in motion. While I want to name that this work can be challenging, these are issues we can resolve. It will take clear leadership, resources, and the kind of collective will that I see in this room tonight. Thank you all for showing up, for your honesty and perspectives, and for your ongoing engagement as we tackle this important work together. Thank you again and good night.

[applause]

All right, everyone. We're going to transition into the next piece of the evening, and that's facilitated table discussions. So the idea is that at your table, you'll be joined by a facilitator and a note-taker, and we have three questions we're going to have each table give us your thoughts on. And we, those questions, I'll just go ahead and read them now, but you'll have a copy at your table. What impact does an effective homelessness system look like for our community, and how would we know when we're succeeding? Second question is, with federal and local funding declining, what should the city prioritize to protect residents experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness? And the last question is, what specific actions have you observed work best to strengthen Santa Fe's homelessness management system? So those are the questions. Your facilitator will join you. They will take notes. All of those notes will feed into the report that we give the Mayor's office at the conclusion of the summit. All right. So we have about 30 to 35 minutes for this activity. So your facilitators might give you a little nudge to stay on track, but we do want to make sure that we capture as many voices as possible.

Please join them at the table. All right. If you find yourself on the back wall, please join a table. If you don't see a facilitator, we'll send one to you. All right. Hello to the Zoom room. Thank you so much for joining this evening. We will be having some discussion in this room. So thank you all for being here. There is a question in the chat that I'm seeing, which is, what does an effective homeless program look like? And I wanted to invite anybody who has an answer to that question to put it in as a question in the Q&A. So we're going to be asking people to submit questions and answers in the Q&A in the form of a question. So, think of it as more of a statement if that makes sense. So if anybody wants to kind of chime in, they feel free. Otherwise, we have a couple questions we've prepared as well. I'll take a break here, and I don't know if you wanted to chime in with anything.

Um, sure. Hi everyone. My name is N. I'll be assisting Kristen in today's facilitation. And as she mentioned, we have a set of three questions that we're hoping that you can help us answer. Um, we can possibly share the questions on the screen so you can see them and read them, and then hopefully you can respond to them in the Q&A section of the Zoom. Awesome. I can also go ahead and read the first question for all of you, which is asking, what impact does an effective homelessness system look like for our community, and how would we know we are succeeding? Now, just take a few minutes and share any thoughts that you have. Thank you, Hope. We're getting a message from Hope saying, "I think it would be cheaper to put people in studio apartments than it would be to run multiple shelters." That's a great point. Thank you, Hope, for that. We also got another anonymous comment, or question really. "Why is the south side of Santa Fe the sacrificial zone of the city where homeless people and their attendant, um, fill, where homeless people fill the royals and streets and their trash?" Um, "I would like to see the north side of town share the burden. Is there a plan for that?" That's a great point. So, I'm hearing feeling overburdened on the south side and interest in looking at having more homeless services on the north side of town. So, thank you for that comment, anonymous. Would anyone else like to share?

Okay, we're going to move on to our next question. So, I'm just going to scroll down to show it. If the Q&A is not working for you, feel free to raise your hand, and we can invite you to speak as well. That's another option available in this space. Thank you so much. We'll move on to question two.

It looks like we got another comment as well, Kristen, from Morgan.

Do you want to go ahead and read it?

Sure, I can read it. It says, "I think success to me at first looks like supply meets demand. A slide mentioned that 578 people are actively homeless, while other slides mentioned the closure of Pete's Place soon, as well as the Richards Avenue hosting only 35 units. How will we close the gap?"

Yeah, that is a great question. Anybody want to chime in on that question? Any thoughts about that? That's a great question, Morgan. I think that a big part of what's going on in the continuum in Santa Fe is definitely a need for more beds. And I think that we're all aware that that's a solution that is going to require a really collaborative, collective effort to address. So that's a really great question, and I think that's a top-of-the-mind type of question.

And it looks like we got another comment from Hope saying they need to prioritize housing before psychiatric services. They need to realize that not all homeless people are in need of mental health care, which is also, I think, important: meeting basic needs before we address anything else.

It's a great point. Okay. Anything coming up for any of the other participants in regards to question two or anything we've been talking about today? And just a reminder, feel free to raise your hand as well if you would prefer to speak. If you'd prefer to speak verbally, you can raise your hand, and we'll invite you to unmute. Okay. Should I move on to the next question?

Sure. I'm also wondering if among the participants, if they would be willing to answer if there's like a specific population that they think needs the greatest attention, whether it's a specific subgroup in the population, certain age groups. We do have one answer in the chat, or we have one question coming up: "Can the city prioritize funding low-barrier shelters and expanding emergency capacity?" That's a great point, Morgan. Thank you. Would anyone else like to add, or should we move on to the next? Let's see. We got one more comment: "With federal HUD cuts looming, is the city and other cities working with the state legislators to commit funds for housing? I always wonder about the rainy day fund that never seems to be used."

Yeah, thank you, anonymous. Today in the summit, actually, we had a whole panel about funding. So that's a really great question. And there were county, city, state, and foundation partners all at the table talking about solutions to funding and funds declining on a national level, and how we regionally can coordinate and work together. So that is something that was discussed today with some of the people, and is a continued conversation for sure. So the city does every year apply for ICIP funds. We keep aware of different opportunities. But it's definitely something that in the current environment, we all need to keep thinking about and collaborating around. So that's a really great question and something that we can all continue to work towards. Okay, great. Thank you for that. I'm going to move on to question three. I'm just going to scroll down. Perfect. I can also read it. "What specific actions have you observed work best to strengthen Santa Fe's homelessness management system?" And just a reminder, you can either write in the Q&A, or if you would like to speak, you can raise your hand, and we would love to hear from you. Maybe even thinking along the lines of, you've seen any successful programs in your city or elsewhere, and what they look like.

There's a question from an anonymous attendee that says, "Do you mean HMIS?" I understand why HMIS might be top of mind with that question, but we don't mean Homeless Management Information Systems. We just mean in the overall homeless management system in the Santa Fe Continuum of Care or in the Santa Fe homelessness continuum. So when we say the homelessness management system, we're just referring to trying to manage homelessness in a coordinated and impactful way. So that's what homeless management system means in this context. But thank you for that question. That's really helpful to get clarity on that.

And it looks like we also have a response from Hope again, which is stating that they need to audit every homeless shelter in town to make sure that funds are being used properly. Keeping track of the money and holding directors accountable is the key to success. I think that's a great point. That's an interesting point, Hope. And I would just add to the conversation around that, that the City of Santa Fe does not fund every shelter in town. So there are some shelters that are operating independently of city funding, and some that are funded by the city. So that would be an interesting conversation to have. I think similarly, we're talking a lot about our data collection, coordinating around data in the Santa Fe continuum, and what would it also look like to kind of, along with data collection, look at management policies and practices. So those are all some coordination efforts that I think are really, it's a great point. Any other comments? Anything else that you observed might have worked to strengthen the management system?

So, we got another comment from Morgan. "What do you think folks at the city think you need from the community and providers to be more successful? Turning the question around because I think we're ready to help, just not always sure where that would be effective. I guess it's a coordination of resources question." That's a really great question, Morgan. Thank you. Or was it Morgan? Yes, Morgan. So, let's see. Well, how can I answer that question? I think there are a number of ways that we can coordinate. I think for one, we can continue to think about how we can share, we can all share our resources with each other. So for folks who are interested in supporting those experiencing homelessness or living unsheltered, getting involved in some of the volunteer organizations is really great because they can really help with some of those coordination efforts and working together. So especially the Housing for All Collaborative, they do a lot of work around organizing around addressing unsheltered homelessness.

We also really appreciate all of you coming to this event today and giving your feedback. Thank you all so much for being here and engaging and having this conversation with us because it's really important for us to hear all the perspectives and be part of those conversations so that we can understand what the constituents want to do and how we need to move forward, what they're seeing. So thank you for that. And yeah, I appreciate offering like, how can the community help? We did have a panel on that today, and I think in the end it comes down to that everybody needs to do their little part. And even in that conversation, there were some comments about like, even the providers, when it's like, when you could ask anyone, they end up saying like, "Well, this is what I can do, right?" And so I think in the end, we all have to look and say, "What can I do right now in my life?" But that said, I think continuing to understand and learn about homelessness, about the national state of homelessness, about the local state of homelessness, understanding what our neighbors are going through and understanding what that's like. I think that's really important. Again, engaging with us on these in these conversations is really important. And then engaging with your city councilors and the mayor on policy initiatives, what matters to you, what do you want to see? And learning about the solutions that you do support so that when those solutions are possible, you can advocate for them. So if you are really pro, you know, mixed-use housing, or if you're really pro casitas, or whatever housing issue you think is a great solution, really showing up to advocate for those in your community and your neighborhood really makes a difference as well because especially when people are trying to think of solutions, hearing about those solutions that people are really excited about can really make a big difference as well. So in particular, if you were excited about micro-communities, you know, letting people know, talking to your neighbors, talking to your friends, letting them know why they're a great solution, those are also really helpful things that constituents can do.

And I do not have the answer to all of the, you know, different ways that we can support our unsheltered neighbors. I think it's also really important to engage with the sheltered providers and the providers in the community and ask them what they need directly. Sometimes they might need socks in the winter or coats or, you know, women's pants, but sometimes they might need someone to come in and help with different things, or, you know, providers can use all different kinds of things. And then of course, there's always the option of engaging with unsheltered neighbors and building relationships with them, saying good morning, looking them in the eye, and speaking with our neighbors. That also makes a big difference in everyone's life. So there's a lot of different levels of engagement that we can have. But coming today was a great start, and continuing to engage with us is a great start. And staying in touch with us, you know. So I'm Kristen. I work at the city. You can always reach out to me or any of our other, you know, people in our cohort to kind of continue to engage with the issues and speak your mind. So that's kind of a long-winded answer, but thank you for that question. And then I guess one other thing, it's always really helpful if you want to share resources to share with the major providers. So, for example, when there's food scarcity, going to the Food Depot because they do a lot of coordinating of food systems. So that's a great place to go for food donations. If you want to work with unsheltered people, going to any of the shelter providers in the community and asking them what they need or looking for someone who's in need of whatever resource you're trying to share. So that can always be a really great way to coordinate resources is making sure that you're going to some of the coordinating bodies who are really in the conversation around those resources.

Would anyone else like to share any other thoughts? We can give it maybe a couple more minutes. Christian, what do you think?

Yeah, that sounds great. We can just give it a few more minutes. Maybe I'll stop screen sharing just to see how that goes. But we can just hang in for a little bit. Yeah. And see if any other questions, or maybe this is just a good time to remind participants, like if you had something that you really wanted to say at the summit, like now's a great time to say that. We have someone taking notes, so, you know, anything that you came to say, please, you know, please share it with us.

Absolutely. Your feedback is very important because as it was mentioned throughout the summit, we're going to collect all the responses and put it together into a report and share that back with you. So the more you share with us, the more information we can include on the report.

Looks like there aren't any additional responses. Thank you, everyone, for your thoughtful participation. We appreciate the time that you've taken to share your perspective. Your feedback will be contributed to the city's efforts to strengthen its response to homelessness and inform future planning. If there is anything else that you want to add, one last chance. Otherwise, I think, Kristen, we can possibly conclude the discussion for tonight.

Yeah, I agree. Oh, we have a hand raised.

And it looks like a comment as well.

Okay, great. Let's see. So, the comment says, "In terms of the ROC location, is it a good idea to relocate it right next to the liquor store?"

Okay, I can take that answer. So, the Resource and Opportunity Center is an initiative from the Interfaith Community Shelter Group. The city is not taking that initiative necessarily. That's not the city's initiative. That's the Interfaith Community Shelter initiative. We know that more beds are needed in the continuum.

Just doing a quick time check. We have about seven minutes left. So, hopefully, most of you are wrapping up your conversations. We're going to have a closeout from Mayor Garcia, and then we'll wrap up around 8:00 p.m. Thanks, everyone.

Great. Well, there's a little time check for us. So, that's not something that the city has led or is guiding. And I would add to that that that's something that the Interfaith Community Shelter is doing a lot of community engagement around right now, around that project. And that would be a great conversation to have with them. But that's really their initiative, and I can't speak to that.

And then it looks like there's one person who raised their hand. I'm not sure if it's the same person who left the comment. Should we go ahead and give them a chance to speak?

Yeah.

Okay, I'll allow them to talk. And since we're running low on time, it would be great if you could try to keep it to two minutes or less. Go ahead. I think that they're muted.

You can go ahead and unmute now, I believe.

I have unmuted. I don't understand why the city is not coordinating with the ROC and the Interfaith County Shelter. I don't understand why this coordinated and helpful way stuff ignores what has happened for years with the Interfaith Shelter. It seems to me that the city has made a big mistake in not asking, not allowing them to go forward and ask the state for money.

Yeah, thank you. That's a great, thank you for that comment. I hear that. We'll definitely record it in our notes, and I really appreciate you coming out and making the time to share that perspective. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, I am going to lower your hand. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Otherwise, we'll go ahead and mute you just to maintain volume in the room.

Well, the only other thing I can say is that the community shelters, the pallet shelters, need to be increased. Doing it at Richards is good. And what has happened with the Lutheran church has been excellent. And we still have many of those pallets in storage, and they need to be taken out and used.

Yes, thank you. And one of the comments that we just received is along those same lines, "Since Richard's Avenue Micro Community took a lot of time to implement, beginning in 2024, correct? Is it too soon to do some post-game analysis and understand what the top three contributors to the length of time to implementation?"

And so, yeah, thank you for that question. And I would just say that a lot of what has been going on around the micro communities has been the city and state bodies coordinating around the regulation and how we understand and regulate these types of projects. And I think moving forward, the project itself will benefit from that because there will be a regulatory and an implementation framework that will really help them move forward more quickly once those regulatory conversations have been finalized. So, I'd say that that would be the high-level kind of thing that's been going on with the micro communities right now. And that is being resolved, and hopefully, micro communities can find a quicker path to implementation once those decisions have been made and once there is a standard for regulating and understanding micro communities.

We've already seen how micro communities have worked in other states and how they worked at the Lutheran church. It seems to me that people are still very much afraid of having these in their own neighborhoods.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That's a good point. I did see one person raise their hand really quickly and then take it away. I don't know if that was a mistake. Feel free to raise your hand again if you still want to speak. Okay, I've just been told that we're going to wrap up very soon. So, I just wanted to say thank you all so much for coming and sharing your comments. Thank you so much. I don't know if you had anything else you wanted to say, Nor, but I just wanted to express my appreciation to everybody for coming out today and engaging with this conversation.

Thank you, everyone, for participating. All right, folks. We're going to go ahead and conclude that portion of it. I know that it wasn't enough time necessarily to solve the complex issue of homelessness, and I know that a lot of people felt pressured to get your thoughts out. Thank you so much. Our note-takers were very busy taking down notes. This is not going to be your only opportunity to give us your thoughts. So, folks, we're going to do an old trick. If you hear me clap twice, clap three times in response. Going to do that again. Okay, clap three times in response. All right, if someone's still talking, feel free to clap by their ear. Just kidding. Folks, we are about to close things, and I do need your attention just for a few minutes as we close things. And to close things in a good way, I want to welcome one more time Mayor Michael Garcia. So, thank you.

Well, are you all ready for another 45-minute presentation? Well, I definitely want to thank you. Your input, the feedback, the recommendations, the honesty, the authenticity that you've provided tonight will be used. I will make that commitment to you. It will be used. As Ryan mentioned earlier, this is not going to be the last time you're going to be able to, whether it's in person or through the online survey that we have currently out, provide your feedback. What I would ask is that you all reach out to somebody, whether it's your neighbor, your spouse, your siblings, somebody. Reach out to somebody and engage them and involve them in the conversation because a critical social issue like homelessness is not going to be solved by us just in this room. It's going to be solved by us as a community. And so with that being said, we will have follow-up conversations. We will have follow-up reports. We will have follow-up processes, strategic plans, etc. But it will not be successful if you are not at the table helping us. So with that being said, thank you for your engagement. Thank you for your time. If anybody has any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. Mayor@SantaFeNM.gov. I want you involved. I want your questions heard. I want you to be part of the process. I want you to be part of the success that is going to come.

Would you repeat your email address again?

Absolutely. It's mayor, M-A-Y-O-R, at Santa Fe, spelled out, yes, SantaFeNM.gov. Feel free to email me, share it.

Just don't put it up in a bathroom.

I do my best to answer. I do my best to get back to folks. Well, thank you all. Please travel home safe, and I look forward to our next conversation. Talk to you all soon.

Good night, everyone. Thanks for coming.