Quality of Life Committee Wed, May 6, 2026 ยท Quality of Life Committee https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/987 == Executive Summary == The Quality of Life Committee met to discuss various community initiatives, with a significant focus on homelessness and supportive services. LifeLink presented on its comprehensive behavioral health and housing services, highlighting its street outreach programs, the Arroyo Chamiso Micro Community, and the challenges of engaging and housing individuals experiencing homelessness. The committee emphasized the importance of building trust, the long-term nature of recovery, and the critical need for more low-barrier shelters and affordable housing. Key discussions also revolved around funding sustainability for organizations like LifeLink, especially with ARPA funds depleting, and the complexities of Medicaid reimbursement. The committee approved the Community Development Block Grant Draft 2026 Annual Action Plan and discussed city updates, including progress on Midtown redevelopment and upcoming community events. Concerns were raised about the need for significant infrastructure investment in Midtown and the upcoming presentation on the Alternative Response Unit (ARU). == Key Decisions == - Approved the agenda unanimously. - Approved the consent agenda as amended (Item D pulled) unanimously. - Approved the Community Development Block Grant Draft 2026 Annual Action Plan unanimously. == Motions & Votes == - Motion to approve the agenda โ€” Passed unanimously. - Motion to approve the consent agenda as amended (Item D pulled) โ€” Passed unanimously. - Motion to approve the Community Development Block Grant Draft 2026 Annual Action Plan โ€” Passed unanimously (Councilor Fagali, Barrett, Chavez, Cassett, and Chair Castro voted yes). == Public Comment == Councilor Castro acknowledged Ms. Bohannan's extensive work. Councilor Cassid highlighted the importance of relationship-building in outreach and praised LifeLink's staff retention. Councilor Chavez suggested the city host or fund training for community partners. Councilor Barrett expressed concern about LifeLink's funding sustainability. Councilor Faggali noted the discussion was timed for budget season. Councilors acknowledged receiving many emails regarding the ARU. == Topics == - Homelessness Services - Midtown Redevelopment - Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) - Alternative Response Unit (ARU) - Economic Development - Youth and Family Services - City Facilities Maintenance - Small Business Support - Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) - Southside Economic Development Specialist == Full Transcript == Madame Chair, Councilor Castro, we are live. Perfect. Thank you so very much. And I believe, yes, Councilor Chavez has been promoted already. We are getting ourselves together. We're just going to wait for staff to get in the room and I will call this meeting of the Quality of Life to order. If I could have a roll call, please. Councilor Fagali. Here. Councilor Barrett. Here. Councilor Chavez. Here. Councilor Cassett. Here. Madam Chair. Present. Madam Chair, you have a quorum. Thank you so very much. And if folks have had a chance to take a look at the agenda, I would entertain some motions. Move to approve. Second. We can have a roll call, please. Councilor Fagali. Yes. Councilor Barrett. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Cassett. Yes. Madame Chair. Yes. Motion passes. Perfect. Thank you so much. Now, on to the approval of the consent agenda. I think we do have one change. I pulled an item. Item D was pulled, and item D is request for approval of the Community Development Block Grant Draft 2026 Annual Action Plan in compliance with Housing and Urban Development public hearing and public comment. Approve as amended. Second. Can I get a roll call vote, please? Councilor Fagali. Yes. Councilor Barrett. Yes. Councilor Chavez. Yes. Councilor Cassett. Yes. Madame Chair. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you so much. I know that's difficult. I'm so sorry. Well, we'll change our names one day, Councilor Cassett. I promise. It's hard. Okay, we are on, we are on to the presentations. We have a very exciting one, in a long line for Ms. Kristen Woods. I'll let her present today. And thank you so much, LifeLink, for being here. Good evening, Chair Castro, Quality of Life Committee. Thank you so much for having us here this evening. I'm here, I'm a program manager in the Youth and Family Services Division. In the Youth and Family Services Division, we do a lot of human services work and we have an ever-growing homelessness team. And so I was here recently talking about Consuelo's Place, and this evening I'm here to talk about the LifeLink. We partner with the LifeLink for two different programs here at the City of Santa Fe. We have a street outreach program. So their outreach teams are out interfacing with unsheltered people every day and helping out. And then we also work with the LifeLink for our, the operation of our micro community at Arroyo Chamiso. We also have a contract with them for operations of future micro communities. There will be one contract coming up for amendment. Our ARPA contract with the LifeLink, it expires in June, but their funds are good through December. So we're working on that contract amendment. I also wanted to just point out to the Quality of Life Committee that we have a lot of really important and special people here today. So we have some of the people who work in outreach, some of the people who operate the micro community, and then we have our site coordinator for the Christ Lutheran Church here today as well. So we also have Janelle Bohannan here who is going to give you a lot more information about the LifeLink itself and the work they do here in the community. Thank you so very much. And I can confirm Ms. Bohannan does a lot of work, is at all of the events. Thank you. All right. Okay, this is tonight's agenda. I wasn't ready. Okay. I am Janelle Bohannan. I'm the Director of Outreach Services here at the LifeLink. I have a master's degree in counseling and I also am an independently licensed counselor. I've spent eight years working with the LifeLink, and since 2020, I've been, since 2020, so sorry. Lucky folks online, we want to make sure they hear everything you have to say. Since 2020, I've been in charge of the outreach programs. We started as just a simple two programs and we've expanded up to like eight programs now. So today I'm here to share data, but also help you understand what it actually looks like on the streets and the work that we're doing. Okay. So, the LifeLink has been in the community for nearly 40 years. It reflects deep roots, trusted relationships, and a consistent commitment to people others have written off. We are one of Santa Fe's primary safety net providers. We serve people experiencing homelessness, behavioral health challenges, and co-occurring substance use disorders. We are not a single service program. We are a comprehensive behavioral health and housing organization. This distinction matters for everything that we do. So, the LifeLink's mission, you can read it there, but I'm going to paraphrase it. Our mission is to help hungry, homeless, and displaced individuals achieve self-sufficiency. And some things are often misunderstood. Homelessness is not a housing problem for the population we serve. It is deeply intertwined with untreated mental illness, substance use disorders, and trauma. You can't just hand someone a key and expect stability. Research shows, and from our direct experience, that chronically homeless individuals require sustained trauma-informed support to achieve lasting housing. When you see someone camped out on the streets, what you're looking at is someone who has untreated schizophrenia, severe PTSD, or opioid use disorder, not someone making a lifestyle choice. Our role is to meet people where they are, literally on the street, and begin the slow relationship-based work of guiding them towards stability. This is a quick overview of the LifeLink services as a whole. We have individual and group therapies, medication-assisted treatment. We have, I forget the name, like a nurse practitioner to provide Suboxone. We also have community comprehensive community support services which offers one-on-one support and daily living skills and our outreach programs which I oversee. These are our outreach services. Again, there's a lot of words on these slides, so I'm going to try and paraphrase. We have been operating an A PATH program since 1994, I believe. New Mexico is a minimum allocation state. So, this SAMHSA-funded program, we go based off of our population size. So, even though the work is immense, we only can staff one and a half people to do this work. So when we were approached about the ARPA funds, we modeled a street outreach team off of PATH. For PATH, you have to be, you have to meet the criteria of having a severe mental illness and be literally homeless. So our outreach team that ARPA is currently funding goes out, meets people, tries to connect them to services, but they also are working on building relationships with those who are mistrustful. We also have navigation services. We have a city navigator and a county navigator. Our city navigator focuses on people who are facing homelessness or are currently homeless. So, he goes out with our outreach team quite often. And then we have a county navigator whose focus is on those who will be entering homelessness post-incarceration. So, he's there, he's picking them up, he's working with them before they exit back to the street. And then another program that we run is called RISE. It's an acronym for Reintegrating Into Society Equally. It's a transitional housing program funded by the County of Santa Fe. This serves as a step up from incarceration and those who complete the Matrix program while incarcerated, and they are provided 90-day housing, or it's designed to be 90 days. We have some fluctuation with that due to the lack of affordable housing in the community, but we really work with these guys on getting back on their feet, getting them jobs, helping them get a savings account, and then eventually we work really closely with a lot of landlords in the community. We try and get them housed on their own. I'm going to pause on the micro or skip the micro communities because we have a whole new slide on the other side. As of October of 2025, we also run the Partnerships for Success Grant, which is SAMHSA-funded and it focuses on providing education to the community regarding polysubstance use within Santa Fe County. And we will know more as we enter year two of the implementation and not just planning which we've been in. All right. Right now, we currently operate the Arroyo Chamiso Micro Community, formerly known as the Safe Outdoor Space. We've housed 18 individuals, and this program has been going for two years. 53 in total, but 25 did not stay long enough to engage in any sort of services. That site only houses 10 individuals, and that one's very low barrier. So that means we can take people who have dogs, who are couples, who have substance use, dependency or abuse, and we'll work with them. We currently partner with What the Truck Catering and they provide our meals daily. Vital Spaces comes in, Community Santa Fe Community Yoga, and we also offer daily living skills and on-site case management. I like this last sentence. Okay. We aren't just housing people. We're equipping them for the future. Okay. So, every program that I run has their successes. Right here on this slide, we're looking at one individual's success. And we're examining that homelessness is not linear whatsoever. So, this individual's path out of homelessness started in October of 2020. However, she went in and out of incarceration. She connected with our county navigator multiple times. We attempted to get her into the LifeLink services for more support and it wasn't successful the first round. And then she cycled back into incarceration, attended Recovery Santa Fe Recovery Center, and then eventually got into our micro community at Arroyo Chamiso. She was with us there for, well, it looks like about 11 months. But during that time she needed some more support and there was some more, there was another stint at Santa Fe Recovery, and she's now housed, employed, and doing super well. Just spoke to her. But that in itself is a five-year cycle. It's not an overnight, I make the joke, you can't just walk up to someone on the street and be like, "Here's a peanut butter and jelly. Do you want therapy?" So, we have to build these relationships to gain trust and get them into services. When I spoke to this client, she provided us with the quote of, "Thanks for not giving up on me and giving me a chance to get help. Obviously, I couldn't do it on my own. Everything happens at an exact moment. It does for a reason." I think one of the really impressive things too about her situation is that she also got to reconnect with her child. So, she's also with her kid. These are some more testimonials from some of the folks, parents that we're currently serving or another client. This one says, "The LifeLink was an angel arriving and saving my son from frostbite on a cold winter night. Your organization is incredible and deserves all the support possible. Every time I met with them, they made me feel awesome. Anytime I was down and out, they gave me a reason to keep going. They are like my street superheroes." The last one is, "My son was reluctant to receive help and suspicious of others due to schizophrenia and from years on the street. My son is now in the pallet shelter situation, has been receiving medications and is so much more lucid than I have seen him in years. I couldn't get my son to go to a psychiatrist, but the outreach team did. My son now has resources and services afforded to him that I couldn't accomplish. To say that I am grateful is a gross understatement." So, what we have here is a research-based engagement timeline for anybody who is chronically homeless and wants to get out of homelessness. And it shows here that it'll take six to 12 months of engagement from a street outreach team before anyone even decides to get into services. That doesn't even begin to look at some of the barriers that go into accessing services like Medicaid reimbursement, intake packets, all of that. So, what my staff attempts to do is we will try and make it as accessible as possible. So, we'll sit there, we'll complete intake packets with folks on the street. I will do assessments in the community. I think the strangest place I've done it is in a closet just so that we could be HIPAA compliant, but we'll do all that we can to just lower those barriers for our community members who are already struggling. So this is some of our data from outreach. We went fully staffed and operable in January of 2025. So we're only on, what? I can't do math. 15, 15 months of being in operation. And during that time, we've served 1,028 unique clients. There are some discrepancies because some clients will withhold their name, some only provide us first names, and it's hard for us to know which Joe it is, right? But even with that discrepancy, our estimated 300 to 400 unhoused individuals on the street is not what we're seeing. So, our program, thanks to the city of Santa Fe, has seen a 5.5 times growth in our engagements from when we were just operating as PATH to now when we have a full staff of six. We couldn't track how many lunches we give out per week, but we, how many we've done in general, but we have an estimation of 150 lunches that we give out every week. That's between us and our donors. On this, we have our donors listed. We have Bianilos Outreach, What the Truck, The Ranch House, and Christ Church of Santa Fe all provide us with lunches throughout the week just so that we can go out and give out to our unhoused community. We went through and we found referral types that we've also provided while we've been out on the streets working with these folks. And the referrals are seen here. Again, because we have not been in operation as long as other programs, we are still working on building those relationships to get these in. So, our expectation is that if we continue to work in this capacity, we will be able to see a huge increase in the referrals and the service connections that we make. Okay, some of our challenges that we face because of the people we serve is the re-engagement. It's hard to locate our clients. It's also really hard to keep track of our clients when they're constantly having to move due to their camps being found, arrests. I think that that's a pretty prominent thing is our clients are constantly in that revolving door of incarceration. We also have staff changes. We've had a couple turnovers, but every time we get new staff, the engagement timeline that our clients are having resets. So, it's not like I can be working with someone for six months and then quit my job and someone can pick up where I left off. It's building that trust all over again and making up for the six months that they weren't with them. Another key aspect is the lack of shelter options and affordable housing, which I know you all know, but when our clients are ready to get off the streets, we have nowhere to place them. I think that it was a little bit easier for us to coordinate when there wasn't waitlist upon waitlist and we had a very low barrier shelter that people could just walk into. That's not the case anymore. And we're having to ask for them to be placed on a waitlist and they're number 30, 40, 50 on this waitlist, and by the time they get called, their phone number changes, we can't locate them. They may be incarcerated. They lose out on that opportunity. Another issue that we've had, and you could probably see it in some of my data, is that we don't have comprehensive data collection. We are operating on spreadsheets. So our data isn't always 100% consistent. However, we went through every spreadsheet to prepare for this and our numbers are as accurate as we could get them based off of that. Another part is the lack of trust. Chronically unhoused people are slow to trust. That is just the truth behind it. This leads to them not giving us names, giving us street names, lying to us. There's certain clients that we all know them as different names and we're like, "Wait, that's so and so. No, that's so and so." So it just takes a long time to build those relationships. These are our needs. What we're asking for: comprehensive software for data collection would be ideal. Continued funding to support the work of outreach, which includes salaries, flexible funds for our client needs. Majority of our flex funds or funds that we have available to us are going to supplies for them. It's hygiene supplies. It's sandwiches. It's water. The water that we go through is immense. And then we would love to have additional training so we can act more appropriately or quickly in the field like first aid or Narcan. We can access Narcan, but it would be nice to have like the CPR aspect in conjunction with the Narcan training. And that's all I got. Thank you. We're here to stand for questions. Oh, one thing I wanted to add actually really quick is in our homelessness team, we've actually added two new managers. So, we have a new program manager. We also have a data manager. Yeah. So, we're really excited to have her. Her name is Jasmine Carter and she has been a great addition to the team and we're hopeful that it can help to address some of these more data-related needs that we're seeing in the community. So with that, now we'll stand for questions. >> Wonderful. Well, thank you so much to both of you. I will open up for questions from the committee. Councilor Cassid. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you both so much for being here and for the presentation. I have a couple questions, but I also did want to highlight something that I think is really important about this work and has, you know, come up in some of our conversations, which is that aspect of building a relationship. And when you guys talk about engagement, what do you define as an engagement for however many you're interacting with individuals? >> Thank you, Councilor Casset. An engagement can be anything. We have, it could be giving a lunch. It could be having a conversation. A lot of our folks just want to be treated with dignity and respect. And so showing up with that is sometimes what can really pivot a relationship and move in a more positive direction. But a lot of it is us just being consistent. Again, it's planting a seed every time we see them like, "Hey, maybe it's time to get some medical care for that issue that you've had." Maybe it's connecting them to an additional resource, getting them harm reduction supplies, getting them, providing them resources of where the nearest shower is. It's really meeting them where they're at and then just building on what they're giving to us. And so, yeah, that's how I would describe an engagement. >> Thank you. I do appreciate that. And I think that that is important because we've had this conversation around like, "Oh, if you just say hi in the street, is that an engagement?" And yes, I mean, if that's, if that's your initial interaction and start, and I really do appreciate you guys being able to bring this conversation of like, here's how long it actually takes to have somebody willing to, to let you say, "Want to talk about some healthcare for a second?" And, you know, if you open up with that, their answer is probably not going to be as, of course, everybody varies, but I mean, it takes a long time before they'd be willing to, to trust the advice that you're giving them. So, I think that's really important as we consider to, you know, continue to look at some of our programming, including the work that the Lifelink does, including, you know, conversations around the street outreach team. I think that there was this idea that like, "Oh, we're going to have a street outreach team and therefore nobody's going to be on the street anymore because we're going to gather them. We're going to put them somewhere." And I'm like, "No, that's not how this works." And, you know, there is an issue with beds as we know. We need more beds. We desperately, desperately, desperately need more beds. We need beds that we can access quickly and easily. We need low barrier shelters that are available. But there will still be some individuals who are not going to go to those beds right away. And I think that that is incredibly crucial for all of us to recognize as we start to look at these programs. So, I'm preaching to the choir with, with you all and actually with, with you all, too. But I, I do think that it's important to note because we have been having some of these conversations in different contexts at, you know, governing body meetings as well as within community meetings. So, I appreciate the way that you laid that out in terms of how long it really takes to get somebody into the place where you're doing case management. I'm curious about the capacity as an organization right now. Because you have, what was it, four doing street outreach training? Five? Was it? >> For the street outreach team funded by the city, it's four. It's a, it's a program manager and then three. And then for my SAMA, I have one and a half. >> Okay. And, and then how, I mean, as you mentioned, there's a lot of turnover. You are, we, you know, discussing a field where there's a lot of burnout to where, you know, pay is not what it should be for social services, unfortunately. So, I, I'm curious what your capacity as an organization looks like as we, you know, continue to look at how do we grow some of these things. You know, we talk about our pallet shelters and how we really, we need to get, we need to get more of these micro communities up and running when we're talking about beds and you all are running this one and I believe you're on contract for Richards as well. So, what does this start to look like as we're thinking about the, you know, various organizations that we can pull in to help solve and, and what are things looking like on the ground for the Lifelink in particular? >> Thank you, Counselor Casset. I think just full transparency, the Lifelink does a really good job of staff retention. I kind of giggled when I had to discuss our current turnover because I just lost someone Monday. So otherwise I had a stable team for over a year and we were doing really well. Had a really good cohesive program going. Monday was kind of like, you know, this presentation was made before Monday, so I was like, "Oh damn, I can't report that I have zero turnover." >> Still low percentage though. >> Very proud of my staff. I, but Lifelink does a really good job. One of our things is that we make sure our staff are taking care of themselves and so we get, or not reimbursed, but we get four hours of self-care every week where we can go and do what we need to do. But also, I know for my staff, and that's really all I can speak about, is we have a lot of moments where we are supporting each other and it's so we've created that ecosystem of no matter what, like what you're going through, we're going to support you through that. If you need time off, we got to do that. If you are exhausted working with a client, someone else will step in. Some of our clients are very high need and that does take a toll on somebody, but we don't, we don't allow somebody or accept that for any of our staff. We're very much a team approach and so there's a balance there and again, I would have had a really solid number if it wasn't for Monday. Well, that's still a very solid number, especially, I mean, again, in this field. This is a challenging field to be in, and I'm really not surprised but also very grateful that you all are doing what you need to do to take care of yourselves to continue to do the work, and that the organization is supportive there, because that is going to be crucial. Another thing you mentioned, you are one of our lowest barrier shelters right now. You did mention 25 individuals who left before the micro community, before really being able to get services. Understanding that with this population, you will have a large turnover. I'm curious around what the reasoning was for these individuals who did leave. When we're kind of losing people out of the system, what specifically are you seeing for these types of micro communities? Okay. You're not the first person to ask this question, so it is something we've looked very deeply into. A lot of those turnovers were right in the very beginning of the project where structure was still being established. Rules were having to be changed constantly as we were learning with our folks. Some of them, it was just abandonment of the unit, and we didn't have a rule around that. So if they were gone for longer than 72 hours, we were like, "What do we do?" So, the majority of that number of 25 came the first year, the first three months, to be honest. Some of our folks told us that it was because it was too far from their services, from their family, from their street family. Some of them informed us that they just wanted a couple good nights' rest, and then they weren't interested in the services we were offering them. So they did sleep, they ate, showered, and then left. And so that in itself can kind of show more of a direction of what our clients are in need for. But what was difficult at that time was that our intake process, much like a lot of the barriers I kind of discussed earlier, the intake process for the micro community is pretty extensive because we want to make sure that they have emergency contacts in place. We want to make sure that their cars are insured if they have a car there. Crisis plans, treatment plans, or not so much treatment plans, we're calling them, we call them the goal-setting worksheets. That's all that we do before they even really get into their unit. And so some people couldn't even just sit through that. So there's been a lot of things that we've learned thanks to my site coordinator, Nick. He's tried to make it more of an expeditious process moving forward. Wonderful. That's actually really insightful to hear. And I think that that knowledge will be really beneficial both with when we do get Richards up and running, but also as we branch out into some of the other micro communities that there's other organizations that are standing up different models. What I really would like to see, and I know that the field already does a really good job of this, is the best practices sharing of what's working in our city, knowing that what's working in our city is not necessarily going to be what would be beneficial in another city. And so that insight is wonderful, and I actually think really encouraging to hear that it was that initial, especially you guys were the pilot. And other than Consuelos, which had a lot of issues when we first stood it up, I mean, when it was not even called Consuelos, before all these structures came into place, it was really challenging. So, thank you. And I, you know, encourage you to work with a lot of the other organizations, as I know you already do, to share those best practices and how we can coordinate this, as well as the data system. You know, Kristen, I think this is something that we should look at with the city. I know that I think we used to have a coalition that did this, but how we can get really aggregate data. I know we have Unite's platform, but it's one way that we can look to support these organizations, but also how we can really understand, you know, when we're getting replicated services from different organizations so we can make sure that we are serving everyone to the best of our ability. So, with that, I will yield the floor. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Counselor. Counselor Travis, did you want to follow up on any of those questions? And Jane, we got them all answered, but I do have some curiosity, and this would be for a lot of, not necessarily just for Lifelink, but I'm curious how as a city we can fund some of the training paths for our community partners that are working on this task. Like, yes, everything you mentioned in regards to, you know, no use or administering Narcan, first aid, CPR, but also like best practices nationally. Like it would be great for the city of Santa Fe to host a conference of some sort that could bring partners together and bring experts that, you know, can provide networking and expertise around like outreach and different frameworks and different models because those things are very expensive. Community partners tend to not have, you know, nonprofits tend to not have funding for those types of opportunities necessarily. And I think since they're serving our community members, it would be something for the city to explore in investing in is how do we bring resources to them in regards to training paths, or even just networking and introduction to others in other cities that have experience, that have expertise. And I think that would be very fruitful for that work. And no, and I had questions about staffing, but that was answered. So, just an idea in how we can really support, because it sounds like we have great people in place doing the work. So, how do we support them with more resources, tools, and knowledge? And I feel like that's somewhere the city could step in. Agreed. Thank you so much, Counselor Chavez. Thank you. Counselor Barrett. Well, first of all, I just want to thank you guys for everything you do. It's a thankless job. I know it's exhausting. I know it's overwhelming. So, I'm so glad that you guys are able to engage in self-care. That's amazing. I hope that that helps with retention. So, I was going to ask, I know you guys get state, local, and federal funding, right? All of those. Where does the majority of your funding come from? Thank you for your question, Counselor Barrett. We have not met. So, I'm like new. The majority of our funding right now is actually coming out of the city of Santa Fe. So, thank you for that. Oh, okay. Great. Just want to make sure that we are continuing that funding because I was worried. I was like, if the majority of it is ARPA, what are we going to do when that runs out? Was like my first thought. And in response to that, that is the reality of the situation is that our ARPA funds are running out after that. And my poor staff has been watching me spiral out for probably a few months now is that we don't have an avenue after that. Okay. So, we're just thinking about that. We're planning ahead. We're budgeting's coming up. All these things, right? Because I was going to ask, to get reimbursement for your clients, do you guys receive Medicaid funding? And like what do you have to do to receive that Medicaid funding? Like I'm assuming the amount of paperwork that you try to do initially is how you can get receive Medicaid funding. So like what has to happen for you guys to get Medicaid funding? For my specific staff or for the agency in general? Yeah. Like for your agency to get reimbursed by Medicaid? What do you guys have to do? Sorry, is that a weird, I don't know if that's, oh, is that just to like to try to be able to like see where get more funding or? It's just, it's a long, exhaustive process. So, to qualify for Medicaid funding, first you have to have insurance, which the majority of our unhoused clients will not have. With the new federal restrictions, a lot of our clients are not going to qualify for Medicaid moving forward. Then they have to complete an assessment, but first they have to complete a like 19-page intake packet that meets the state guidelines for Medicaid reimbursement. Then they have to complete an assessment. Then they have to be referred into services. Then they have to get the services. Then they have to be located, which is always a problem that my staff tries to step in for is helping locate clients when they are assigned. And then a treatment plan has to be developed. The treatment plan, the treatment plan and each progress note has to, like it's called the golden thread, has to attach to your diagnosis. If what the client is asking for doesn't necessarily attach to their diagnosis, Medicaid can deny that billing. And so it's a really big process. My staff and myself are very blessed in the fact that we get to do this amazing work and we say that we get to give the best quality of care because we're not tied to billing right now. Got it. Cool. Just thinking like forward thinking down the line in case we have to get creative because I'm a social worker too and we mostly bill Medicaid like also. So, just I was just like thinking of like potential future, you know, sources of revenue. And then it just sounds like a lot of it comes down to you guys do all these amazing things and then of course there's these lack of resources which we always encounter as social workers, social service providers. Like is it just like an insane lack of like Section 8 housing too, because like a lack of vouchers or? Yeah. Okay. So, we need to work on that too, right? I mean, because then they get done, then you get the voucher, and then there's just nowhere to go, right? Yeah. In response to your question, I think that the, and I'm kind of turning towards my staff, what is the current wait time on a Section 8 voucher? Years. So thankfully our agency is able to utilize linkages vouchers which are funded by the state of New Mexico and that is a majority of where our clients go. But then once we run out of linkages vouchers and that like system gets bottlenecked, we're not going to have vouchers. We're not going to have any, we're going to run into a problem and I think we're almost there is the last we heard reported from the agency is that we probably have like 10 to 20 vouchers left and once we hit that number we're not going to be able to be possibly housing people at the rate that we have been housing people out of the micro community or from the streets. So you've been getting a lot more state help through these linkages vouchers than like through Section 8. So we have to like put our heads together about rehousing resources, especially, you know, for these, you know, two programs to see what we're going to do. I'm just trying to be more forward thinking since we're already so behind in the services like we're providing to think where all the gaps are. Thanks and again thank you so much for what you guys do. Thank you, Counselor Bear. Counselor Faggali. Right. I will also try to be brief. Also, thank you so much for your presentation and all the information. And I think Counselor Bear is starting to see how I am scheduling these presentations. It is not by accident that we are looking at this during budgeting season. I had some questions about the linkages vouchers and a little bit about how we are working to support providers both through the city and some of our collaborations, but also external collaborations that you're doing. Where should we start? Counselor Castro. Do you want to talk about provider meetings that we are doing internally first? Thank you, Chair Castro, Quality of Life Committee. We are convening regular provider gatherings. We are getting together, I believe, once a month right now. We were meeting more frequently before that. And so we often will use it as an opportunity for information sharing, both maybe other things going on in the homelessness sector, projects happening in the region, or maybe information that might be useful to the providers. So we recently did a, you know, kind of tried to take a survey of the people at this meeting, and we heard that it was really helpful to get more information and also to hear from each other. So usually the first half is information sharing that we're kind of bringing to the table. The city will have an opportunity to share our updates, and then the second hour usually is just providers sharing updates about what's going on so that we can all get on the same page about how many respite beds are available or what are we seeing going on with people in the community. Today we were talking about that there is a new supply of drugs that are causing a lot of overdoses. So it's a really great way for us to get on the ground information and for the provider community to interact and provide mutual aid to each other. There's a couple additional internal meetings that happen. There's one specifically for outreach where we meet with Southwest Care Center harm reduction and prevention. I always forget their long name. La Sala Crisis Center, US youth shelters. Chaplain Joe used to participate. His organization has not been too present in that as of lately, but we try and track amongst ourselves where our people are. We also discuss trends among substances, but that is another mini group that we have. We also have my new fund Partnerships for Success grant has its own little meeting coalition where we're actually working right now on identifying where those service gaps are and how we can support that or start filling those gaps, understanding where our asks are. And again, we're very early in those stages. So once we know more about what our goal is as a coalition, we'll start working towards that. Thank you so much, Miss Bohan. And I just want to underscore that a lot of this collaborative work and a lot of the administrative work takes a ton of time, and so that's on top of all the work that you're doing with your six folks. So thank you so much. Miss Swift: Yeah. And then I just wanted to also piggyback off that, that on the city side, we also have convened our outreach teams along with the park rangers to try to have more coordinated conversations. And that's an initiative that we're very much looking at is how do we coordinate that initiative? How do we make sure that we're building a standard operating procedure in there? So that's something that we've been working towards. And then we're also as a team and as a community working towards having a larger convening at the end of June, June 29th. We're planning a homelessness summit that there will be an evening portion where we're inviting the entire community to come in and have these conversations. So that's something really important to also note. Wonderful. That was my next sort of plug. I think that is all of my questions. I do have lots of questions about vouchers. I will say that one thing that I was lucky enough to be invited to one of these provider meetings. Suggestions on how we can make legislation better so that your work is easier is amazing. I was able to actively work on things from information I got at that meeting. If we can continue to do that and suggestions to us, I think that's what we're here to do. Thank you so very much. We appreciate you and we will try to advocate as much as we can. Councilor: Sorry, I had one more question. Do you guys work with ARU that much? Like after they pinpoint individuals who need more case management support and they release them, do they contact you guys? Or I know you were talking about that flowchart, and I was wondering if there was anything that did that. Oh, like about ARU after they encounter an individual, maybe some kind of, if there's any kind of, maybe some frequent flyers that need more long-term case management support and they have to release them, do they contact you all after for maybe longer term case management follow-up? Or I didn't know. Thank you, Councilor Barrett, for your question. Not necessarily. We do work very closely with ARU. It used to be a lot closer before, I guess, and Miho. We shared a lot of the same clients. A lot of those clients are already, they're working on establishing them as LifeLink clients. And so sometimes they'll call us to sit with them and help them get through the intake packets, or they will ask us to try and again remove some of those barriers for their clients to be able to access the services. I know that when we do share clients, it's a lot of discussions around, "You're taking this piece, and we're going to take the unhoused piece." They take like medical or they take, but it really hasn't been the standard since I think they started experiencing staffing issues. Yes. And then I just want to piggyback off that as well to talk about again this sort of standard operating procedure for outreach and engagement. That's definitely part of that continuum that we're looking at. So, you know, how does a constituent complaint feed into this continuum? How does ARU feed into this continuum? And where do we interact with street outreach? So that's a conversation that we're really, that's something we're really thinking a lot about right now and on our team, and how do we, you know, bolster the work of ARU, support them, support and integrate that with these larger parts of the continuum. And then one other thing really quick, just to piggyback off a previous conversation, if any of the counselors ever want to come to our provider meetings, please reach out. We'd love to arrange that. Yeah, I'd love to come. That's, I was going to say, because I know you guys have a working group. So yeah. Thank you so much. I do have one quick last question. This, I think, is for Miss Woods. We're going to be discussing after this our block funding. Is that something that you normally receive? Thank you, Chair Castro. We have not previously received CDBG block grant funding in our division. It's something that I'm very interested in, particularly for our micro communities. Wonderful. Thank you so much. We appreciate you. Thank you so much for having us this evening. And with that, I think we are moving on to the one thing pulled off the consent agenda. I can read that into the record if you would like, Marcella. Item D has been pulled, and that is the request for approval of the Community Development Block Grant Draft 2026 Annual Action Plan in compliance with Housing and Urban Development public hearing and public comment. Wonderful. And I pulled this actually because I thought this was an amendment to a different RFP, but I'm excited to talk about the fact that we had a wonderful meeting. It was mostly informative. We filmed it. We will be posting that specifically on the RFP that we are putting out for affordable housing and this block funding. But if anyone has any questions, please reach out to me or Fabola Chavez, who is in charge of the affordable housing office. Really quickly, this funding is to increase the availability of supportive services, which is why I asked if they had applied, and I'm hoping that any provider would please look at this funding and apply. Any other questions from the committee about this funding? Right. Do we have a motion? Move to approve. Second. If we could get a roll call, please. Councilor Fagali: Yes. Councilor Barrett: Yes. Councilor Chavez: Yes. Councilor Cassett: Yes. Madam Chair: Yes. Motion passes. Wonderful. So with that, I don't see anyone in the room or in the Zoom room. I don't think we have public comment, and we skipped to the consent agenda. So we do have matters from staff. I think there's a couple things. First and foremost, welcome Sandy Emmery to Quality of Life. Thank you, Chair Castro and the committee. It's fun to be on this side of the hot seat. Any reports back? Anything we need to alert our community about of their quality of life? Graceful to let me take the lead. Thank you. A few things out of community services. One really cool piece of news is that the city-county collaboration with the Connect Network was featured in a press release for a year-long case study. So that just came out. The press release came out on Friday, and I believe there will be a story on the really wonderful success of that work and the impact it's made on the city of Santa Fe and Santa Fe County. So that's really exciting. We have a few other things coming up. Senior prom coming in June. We'll get dates and mark calendars because I know everyone in this room has attire ready to go. We are having the cooling towers for the ice rink installed next week. I know there's been a lot of community stress about that. So we're really excited to have that project over and done with and really be taking care of our city facilities. And I think that's all. We did receive notification of a possible grant award for Youth and Family Services Violence Intervention Fund yesterday. I don't want to share too much about it until we have contracts in place, but it's very exciting the possibility. So that's all, that's all for me. Thank you, Madame Chair, members of the committee. Great to see you. Good evening. I've got a few updates from our newly named Department of Economic Development and Creative Industries, which is a big celebration. Thanks for your support and thanks for the budget team and the mayor's office for our new reorganization. We're really excited to work with Arts and Culture and the film office. So I want to make sure that folks are aware that SWAIA is having their Native Fashion Show and activities this weekend, a full weekend of activity, and again, a perfect way to celebrate the kickoff of the new Economic Development and Creative Industries Department. Really a great example to see how the arts and culture is leading economic impact. As well, we've got the Santa Fe Literary Festival. I think that's on a lot of people's minds. We're really excited to promote our many 20-plus independent bookstores that are in Santa Fe, as well as some really fantastic publishers. I also want to make sure that you and your constituents are aware that the SAFE grant is live and active. So please help us spread the word to your businesses in your districts. We do have technical support. Actually, Kristen, oh, actually Kristen Woods was just here. She and her team have been fantastic providing support if people need help walking through roughly the one-hour application. It is significant, but we have help in Spanish and in English. So please reach out. And we are on track to hopefully get our small business grant out in June. We have an early June launch anticipation. And I love the ARPA conversation that arose earlier. This is utilizing ARPA funds. And I want to make sure that you're aware that we have an open job right now at the Office of Economic Development. This is looking for support on the Southside Economic Development Specialist. It closes May 14th, and we have had challenges getting the word out about this position. We've promoted it several times. We do need a candidate that is bilingual and available to work with community groups. It's a really great job and opportunity. We hope that you can spread the word and help connect us to a good candidate. And go to our newsletter, sign up for Go Local, Go Different, and thanks for all of your support. I've been seeing many of you at community events. So good to see you. Thanks to Councilor Cassett. We had a great meeting today for EDAC at Midtown and thanks to the Midtown staff, we had a really engaging tour today. Thank you so much, Michelle. Anything from you today? Okay. From the committee, Councilor Chavez, anything from you today? All right. No, we did actually have a really wonderful meeting and Councilor Fagali, thank you for joining as well. We were hosted by the innovation hub, which I believe everybody knows we are currently in an ENA with them. But what was really exciting was getting to see some of the progress that's been happening on Midtown, the housing that's going on up as part of Aspect. A lot of the facilities are filled in that part of the campus. I mean, so a lot of businesses are coming in and the innovation hub, they have a number of people that are coming in doing creative, interesting, entrepreneurial, exciting things. So it's really wonderful to see Midtown start to take off. Tenderfire, is that the name of the pizza? Tenderfire Pizza is there. The one thing that really struck me though, and it's when we talk about money, is the amount of work that we have to do in order for everything else to go with Midtown. And so I feel like a bit of a broken record talking about capital budgeting these days, but really thinking about what do we have available to us? What have we started? What is going to be the long-term impact? And I must admit that I do have kind of that moment of like, okay, we are really on the line at this point. We have people that have gone in who have invested. We have people that are going to be moving on to the Midtown campus in July is when those apartments are going to be opening up. So we do have a real responsibility to finish what we started here. So, very exciting and then a little bit daunting on that side of really we need to figure this out. So, as we look at budget season coming up, something for us to think about. Very exciting. Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Chavis. Thank you. Yeah, I'm excited about that too, Councilor Cassett. We, I had a visit a few weeks ago as well and hoping that the city can keep up with the infrastructure so that there's no loss of interest with all that good work that's there because there's amazing things, but we need to kind of match that with roads and sidewalks and accessibility. So I'm hoping that we can have that move along. I wanted to bring up because there's a lot of conversation around ARU, our alternative response unit. We're getting a lot of emails. It was mentioned again today. So there will be a presentation on ARU. It's been requested by the Public Safety Committee on May 19th at 4:00. So I just wanted to encourage the community to one attend the presentation, but also I'm working with fire to kind of gather as many questions as possible since there seems to be a dialogue out there right now about what's occurring so that we can ask for some clarity. So all the emails I am receiving, I am encouraging them to really send questions starting now so that we can make sure that everything is clear and we understand the next steps and everything going on with ARU right now. So, you can email any of your counselors. Counselors, you're welcome to send them to me if you're not going to be present at Public Safety and I will make sure that I pose questions to our staff for community members. So, I just wanted to put that out there. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Chavez. Councilor Barrett, anybody wants to wake up bright and early on Sunday morning, Director Emory and I will be at the Girls on the Run 5K at the Community College. So, I mean, I know that's what moms want to do at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday. Yeah. So, I'm a mother, right? It's Mother's Day, right? That's what, who picked that date? Just kidding. No. So, we'll both be there. You know, it's a great organization to support. Both of our daughters have done it. And also, yeah, the Sway event, I think I'll be there on Saturday night, too. So, maybe see some of you there. All right. Councilor Fagali has nothing. So, I will on behalf of Councilor Fagali and myself say Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms in the room today and all of the moms out there. And it happens to also be Councilor Fagali's birthday on May 10th. So, we're celebrating her as well. I think there's going to be some burros downtown that day. Is that correct? There's going to be some live burros on the plaza. Councilor Fagali, please explain what's happening. I did not arrange it, but there is the Camino de los Burros at 10:00, I believe 10:00 to 11:00, from the cathedral to Burro Alley and back. And then from what I have seen, you can hang out with the burros if you are respectful of their space because, you know, they're animals. But also, if anyone is listening, BPAC needs five new members. So we're still taking people for that. If you are interested, we're taking applications till the end of May, at least until sometime in June. We will have people appointed before July 1st. But we need District 1, District 2, District 3, and the county. So sorry, Councilor Cassett, but everyone else, please apply. Thank you so very much. And with that, the meeting is adjourned and we will see you next on May 20th.