♪♪
-Good afternoon, everybody.
Thank you for being here.
We have some,
I think some exciting news we want to talk about.
And let us sort of, let me give you some logistics first.
I'll speak and then we will hear from, in this order,
Council President Sara Nelson, CARE Chief Amy Barden,
Fire Chief Harold Scoggins, and then Lisa Daugaard.
And they will self-introduce,
so I won't come up between the mics.
And so let's sort of ground us in what we're trying to do.
What we're trying to announce
and describe for the rest of this country,
and indeed this lovely city of ours,
is what new, modern policing looks like,
what reimagining public safety for the 21st century
should be and can be.
So, as many of you know, for generations,
our system has relied on two pillars, police and fire.
And one of my proudest accomplishments
is adding the third pillar with the CARE Department.
We are, in fact,
the largest city in the country with this kind of model,
where we present alternative, diversified responses
in a co-equal community safety department, here to protect you.
This represents our comprehensive approach
to investing in both public safety and public health
as two sides of the same coin and interconnected
and not in conflict.
I want to just take a moment to say many people
that are from the non-profit and the service community,
I want to hold you up and acknowledge you.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge a very good friend,
and since we have the Alpha Cup this week,
that would be LonZell Hill, and I know I'm embarrassing you,
one of our UW superstars who went to the Saints
and had a prolific career.
He was not as good as his father, JD Hill,
who also played in the league,
but he had a pretty good career, my friend.
And you are now, of course, at the Union Gospel Mission,
so you represent sort of what we're trying to do,
work with our community-based organizations,
making sure we're giving the kind of responses
that people need, particularly those that are in crisis.
So, thank you for being here, LonZell.
Our goal is ensuring that every neighbor in every neighborhood
can count on the right response at the right time.
So to get today with the authority granted to the city
by the legislature,
I'm proposing a plan for nearly $40 million
to double our CARE department responders,
investing in proven solutions to help meet people
where they are with care, compassion, and empathy.
And I will solicit a round of applause
when I just announced that. Thank you.
My kids have always told me there's no shame in my game.
Since the program began,
community crisis responders have responded
to thousands and thousands of calls,
helping people in crisis and de-escalating situations.
These requests have involved transport to shelters,
to day centers,
time-intensive work
that frees up police resources
for life-threatening emergencies.
Now, we began in 2023 with six responders.
We expanded to 16 in 2024, and 24 earlier in 2025,
helping serve the entire city.
You will hear from Chief Martin in a moment,
but I want to publicly acknowledge your strong
and effective leadership.
Where are you? I'm looking the wrong way.
I'm looking at you, Lisa.
Your strong and effective leadership.
Thank you.
So we're going to double the size of the team in 2026.
Our plan for CARE is for responders to be directly
and individually dispatched to help people in need
with the appropriate
and safe low-acuity crisis calls throughout Seattle.
Now, we recognize that this requires agreement
from the Seattle Police Officers Guild
and while we do not have a resolution on this matter today,
we are very confident that we will get there,
and I want to thank the Police Department from top
to bottom for recognizing where we must go for modern policing,
and I look forward to closing those discussions here
in the very near future.
So, my proposal also includes a 10% increase in 911 call
taker staffing, which is part of the CARE department, ensuring
that calls are dispatched effectively and efficiently.
This proposal also adds fire recruits
and expands our post-overdose response model.
We know that Seattle Fire Department is a national leader
in innovative addiction treatment and emergency
medical response.
So, we are investing $2 million to add 20 new fire recruits
to respond to these emergencies.
We are also investing $1.5 million
to expand our post-overdose team.
There will be more people
to receive the immediate life-saving intervention
when they need it most,
as well as getting follow-up case management afterwards.
These investments will ensure that our firefighters,
and I'm very proud to stand with our firefighters today
and our paramedics,
to ensure that they can focus on life-threatening
medical emergencies
while providing specialized care for overdoses.
We've talked on other occasions about how, through this work,
we have drastically reduced the amount of overdoses,
and clearly we are investing in this space
because we know people are dying.
We're also responding to the crisis
of addiction and overdoses with proven city programs
and expanding investments in experienced community partners.
And I want to recognize Council President Nelson here,
who will speak here in a minute.
She's been a champion for more treatment funding.
She's put her life experiences
and her testimony sort of on display in this work,
and we thank you for that work.
And we'll hear from you in a minute.
We're investing $5 million in the LEAD programs.
And you'll hear from Lisa in a minute to ensure
that people who need help,
who want help,
can access diversion programs rather than defaulting
to incarceration.
We all know the losses on the federal level
and even on the state level,
so this budget renews our commitment
to this important program,
and maintains critical capacity for this work.
We're also investing $1.2 million in DESC's
ORCA Patient Outreach Division, their POD team.
This is a field team of medical providers
which provides life-saving treatment,
follow-up care and support
for those in support of housing and shelters,
and many of you followed us to that facility,
and it is truly a world-class facility.
So, these types of partnerships will ensure
that people get connected to the right services,
with the right approach, with the right response,
to rebuild their lives.
And at the end of the day,
that is exactly what we're trying to do.
Our approach prioritizes treatment and recovery
over criminalization, creating pathways out of crisis.
So, thank you for being here,
and next you will hear from Council President Sara Nelson
to say a few more words on what we're doing today.
Thank you.
-Hello everyone. Thank you very much.
coming. Thank you very much, Mayor Harrell, for...
Oh, I forgot I was supposed to talk loudly.
Hi, everybody.
It's a good thing it reverberates in here.
Thank you all for being here.
And I just want to provide my own special shout-out
to all of the care providers,
the service providers, the outreach workers.
So if you work for one of the organizations
that is helping the people on our streets,
could you just like raise a hand because I want to...
All right, thank you.
Thank you very much for being here.
We're all here for the same reason.
So, I've been fighting to put treatment at the center
of the city's agenda for a very long time
because for too long we have watched people deteriorate
and die on our streets.
And I just want to hold up a little visual aid
to remind people.
I took office, I'm Sara Nelson, Council President,
but I took office in 2022.
And this is a little graphic
from the King County Overdose Dashboard.
And you see this really steep line here.
This is what I began my term with.
And I even remember one time, there was a story in the Times,
I believe,
that was talking about the medical examiner reporting
that the morgue had run out of room
for all the people that needed space
because they were dying of overdose on our streets.
And you'll see that we have made some progress here.
This declining line shows that things are getting better,
fewer people are dying,
and that's widely attributed to the fact
that we have widely distributed Narcan.
But make no mistake,
every single overdose deprives your brain of oxygen
and can cause brain damage.
So now is not the time for patting ourselves on the back.
Last year, I think it was in July,
a landmark audit was published and presented in my committee
that inextricably links substance use disorder
to public safety and chronic homelessness challenges
that Seattle has been trying to deal with for a very long time.
And that is proof that investing in treatment
advances both issues simultaneously,
solutions in both public safety and chronic homelessness,
by preventing the cycle of homelessness,
overdose, emergency room visits, and jail.
That's why I pushed my pilot program,
enabling friction-free access to on-demand residential treatment.
And for those of you who might not be aware,
that's shorthand, I mean,
that's longhand for just plain old rehab.
And I think that when Mayor Harrell was alluding
to my personal experiences, he was, you know,
he was hinting at the day and the months following,
it was September 2020.
And I just realized that I needed to check myself
into rehab for drinking.
And so, and I hadn't gone to AA meetings or anything like that,
but I just decided I'm going to do the thing
that I know would have the best chance of working,
because my dad did it.
He tried to stop drinking for pretty much his whole life
and he finally, he was pulled over I think on Cherry and 23rd
one time and given deferred prosecution.
He went through treatment.
I made that choice.
Everybody deserves the same chance at recovery that I had.
So anyway, that's what got me, that was my first policy thing.
We got some money in the budget for that.
Also allocating recovery-based services
to permanent supportive housing.
Got money in this year's budget for Evergreen Treatment Services
to deploy another mobile medication van
to help people directly on the streets where they need it most.
For example, perhaps in Little Saigon.
Thank you very much, Steve.
Waiting for that check. We'll talk about that later.
My point is,
this is an absolutely necessary step to take.
And I want to recognize
and express my appreciation to the wisdom
of Representative Entenman
for authorizing jurisdictions to implement this
sales tax increase.
Because, you know, it's never a popular thing
to increase a regressive tax,
but I quoted her many times as saying,
What we really want to do is make sure the programs
we have in our communities around public safety
include a larger definition of public safety.
And that's exactly what we're doing here.
Taking that to heart
and anticipating Mayor Harrell's desire to take advantage
of that authority and the additional revenue,
I convened a press conference to announce a resolution
that would direct up to 25% of new public safety funding
toward addiction treatment and recovery-based
housing and services.
That resolution was adopted unanimously in July.
And I do want to say that joined with me
on that stage was our three largest service providers,
Evergreen Treatment Services, PVA, DESC,
and then providers from really small shops,
like Hope and Chance in Belltown.
Because there are so many resources in our city that need,
there are so many services in our city
that need more resources.
And there's more than one way one can get,
I was going to say sober.
There's more than one path to recovery, let's just say.
Anyway, so that resolution passed,
and by council was unanimously adopted.
And the list has about 10,
or 12 investments that ideally could be funded
through this revenue.
You might be asking, Why just 25%?
And I'll just say that's what I thought I could get away
with without the executive's active opposition,
because I'm sure that there are a lot
of different demands on our budget these days.
Frankly, I think that 100% of this public safety tax
should be allocated to funding
a comprehensive plan for helping people
who are in the grips of addiction,
because we do not have a plan.
And when I say plan,
I'm talking about everything from diversion services,
to outreach, to treatment of whatever kind,
to housing, ongoing counseling, et cetera.
That's what we need.
That's when you hear the term continuum of care,
that's what we're talking about, every step of the way.
Anyway, 25% or 9 million is a deep,
it's a drop in an ocean of need,
but I will take it. I will take it,
and that is why I'm standing here today to endorse this.
Because in the end,
this is about using public safety dollars
for public safety.
When we invest in getting people off the streets
and into treatment,
we prevent crime, reduce emergency responses,
and make every neighborhood safer,
and that is smart public safety spending.
So, thank you all for being here,
and thank you very much for allowing me to speak.
-For those of you
who know me well know this is like Christmas Day for me.
I actually wasn't prepared emotionally for it.
I never speak, from the jump,
I never speak without talking about Health One,
without talking about LEAD, without talking about Co-LEAD,
without talking about the need for an ORCA center
and the need to really have a swift through-line into
rehabilitative services that are comprehensive and coordinated.
And so what a joy to see this really uniform investment
across the system.
I appreciate it.
I am grateful to the Mayor for this opportunity to be here.
I'm very grateful that he continues to endorse the way
I go about this work.
I talk to everyone, I'm accessible to everyone,
and he has been a champion of that,
and I really appreciate it. Because still to this point,
I feel like anywhere you're getting information
about the CARE department, about public safety,
regardless of the source, you're getting the same information.
The press and the media have been so good to us
in that regard, being accurate and being fair,
and I'm just really grateful.
I think it's a great public service.
So, today I want to remind everyone
that we're not just talking about pilots and programs.
The CARE Department is a critical piece
of a much bigger puzzle,
and we are taking steps toward a much grander vision.
The department does house Seattle 911.
Some of my colleagues are here today.
And that division,
those first first responders are no longer looked at
as an obscure customer service center.
You are the first first responders.
You have tremendous impact.
You change lives. You save lives.
And I thank you.
And I thank the Mayor for always acknowledging that.
He's visited often.
He speaks with a lot of knowledge at this point
about that service.
Next month, it will be two years
since we launched that first pilot
of only six responders working downtown.
The Mayor ran down how we grew.
I was grateful that the council
and the executive both recommended
that citywide expansion in June, and then we did it.
We achieved it this spring.
The issue is that people today do call 911 often,
asking for a CARE team.
They want a care response.
They know that this is not a criminal call.
This is a mental health call,
but I can't always provide that response.
Right now, we are limited by hours.
We're out 10 hours a day citywide.
We only have eight responders assigned to each
of the three zones, north, central, and south,
and that is wholly inadequate to predictably deploy
that best first response.
And so today is significant, the investment is significant.
I want to remind you
that the CARE responders are first responders.
This is not mobile outreach teams,
this is not care navigation, they're not CVI workers,
this is different.
They are adjacent to police and fire,
going out prepared, skilled, over police channels.
And crucially, when the fire department goes out,
if they approach a scene and realize they need
law enforcement backup, they call it.
Everybody's on the same radio.
They can call for backup. They are unarmed responders.
The CARE responders behave precisely the same way.
And we have gone to thousands of calls without incident,
which means we're getting it right in 911.
We're sending them to the right calls,
low-acuity calls, I always say,
where we don't think there's a public safety risk.
But even should they be dispatched to a call
where then we see that risk, they can just radio for backup.
The other thing that's really significant
about this integrated first response
is that we can share records.
That is a crucial change, a structural change.
We are all interacting with the same neighbors
all the time, we are.
There's often a medical aspect to a call.
Some of our fires still relate to behavioral health,
the criminal aspect,
and then of course the mental or behavioral health aspect.
And so as we get to know people,
and actually track patterns of behavior,
track do we have a case manager? Have they been in services?
That information's all protected in this CGIS environment,
right?
We're able to really provide for the protection
so that we can consider people's anonymity
and their right to privacy, but we also can coordinate.
And ideally,
if we thought somebody was into services
and they were doing well
and they pop back up in that police data,
we should know how to redirect the person quickly.
Now, nearly every day, actually it is every day,
I get emails from community members who are struggling,
or who are worried about their neighbors
or somebody in their family.
I do respond to all the emails, I do.
Sometimes I can't personally do anything,
but I can at least validate the concern
and know better how to advocate. A few weeks ago,
a few downtown workers sent me a message describing a man
who had been living on their block for at least 10 years.
They described his arrest history,
his behavioral patterns,
and then stressed that we don't feel
like we need law enforcement here,
but this man does deserve help.
He's getting older. He's getting sicker.
Can there not be a more meaningful intervention?
And they closed the email with,
Thank you for your attention to this heartbreaking matter.
It is heartbreaking. By every measure,
we live in one of the most wealthy
and most educated cities in America.
We are home to many of the greatest innovations
in philanthropy and effective altruism.
And yet, we are also home to the Seattle Process,
which I've learned actually has its own Wikipedia page.
The early definition was,
The usual Seattle process of seeking consensus
through exhaustion.
I know, it's funny/sad.
And CARE, we rail against that. I have no time for that.
We believe that every single neighbor is worthy
of our best efforts,
and we are to work with the same urgency
that would motivate us if that was our loved one.
So in response to those neighbors
asking for help in that email that day,
I reached out to the CARE team manager, Kat is here,
I reached out to John Ehrenfeld, the Health One manager,
and I reached out to Z,
the clinical manager and police co-response,
to see if anybody knew anything about this man
or had established a rapport with him.
Well, Z at Seattle Police did,
and one of the officers knew this man and had a rapport.
And within 24 hours, they had reached out with him.
They found him, reconnected with him,
and referred him to really appropriate services
at a nonprofit in South Seattle.
That is how first response should work.
That is how government should work.
We must always, always prioritize people over process.
The King County Prosecuting Attorney's
office recently contacted us to see
if we might be open to being directly called
upon by deputies in the jail
if they feel like somebody is exiting in crisis.
That sounded like a brilliant idea to me.
And I, immediately after a couple of my CARE responders
were in the office,
and I asked them what they thought about that concept.
And one of them said, Amy,
I have personally twice encountered somebody sitting
on the steps outside our office
who had just exited jail and had no idea
where to go or what to do next.
I learned this week that a young unhoused person,
really well known to both Seattle Police
and the CARE team, was recently released from the jail.
He went straight back to 3rd Avenue to buy drugs,
and fortunately a police officer was there
that recognized him and immediately called CARE.
My CARE team went out,
they learned the young man really just wanted to go home.
He had been in and out of jail many times,
and he was scared
that he was going to make the same bad decision
that he had in the past, and he was about to.
But luckily we intervened.
My teammates did drive him home.
He had a supportive, loving family.
And they talked to him on the way,
and they told him all the resources that are available.
They connected him to WorkSource.
They talked about DSHS, what options are available.
And I learned that when the CARE team was about to leave,
this young man said, Can I give you a hug?
And he gave him a hug. This is such a case in point.
I'm saying it's urgent.
So when this young man was hugging the CARE responders,
he looked at them and he said, if you ever see me again,
I promise I'm going to have a job.
And so I do bear witness to crime and crisis every day.
I do listen to those calls for service every day.
But I always remember that it is not the programs
that help the people and break these cycles.
It's always the people that break the cycles.
In ethical terms, I'm what's called a compatibilist.
And what that means is that I believe in agency.
I believe in the power of personal choice.
I believe in accountability.
I believe in consequences.
And then I also know that we all play the hands that we're dealt.
And I know that sometimes those hands are brutal.
And so I believe in compassion.
And I believe in support and accountability.
And I know that marvelous things happen
when we get that balance of compassion and
accountability right.
So, Mayor, I continue to be really grateful
to you for this job.
I continue to think I'm such an odd choice for this job
and sometimes wonder why he thought of me for it.
Except for one thing, I really do care.
I do.
I remember my first week in the department, long hours in 911.
I remember feeling so personally the pain
and the grief that I was witnessing.
And I can tell you it's a few years later
and I've not been at all desensitized to that.
I stay acutely aware of the suffering.
I can tell you overwhelmingly the deaths
that I observe are preventable and they are avoidable.
People who know me well know
that I'm inclined to care about everyone,
and I'm also inclined to sort of exhaust myself
in service of a better tomorrow.
My mom said early on, she said, Amy,
just burn bright and be done.
She doesn't really like me in the space because she knows,
she worries about the stress. But what I want to say today
is that I'm not emotionally exhausted.
I am inspired and I am focused.
And that's primarily because I am not in this alone.
I am not.
I am not unique in that concern for others.
I am shoulder to shoulder with you in the field, in service.
LonZell's nodding.
And shoulder to shoulder with Chief Scoggins
is one of the greatest men and leaders I have ever known.
He is brilliant and he cares deeply.
And he has introduced me to a lot of my other new heroes,
who are here represented behind me.
I think about Riley every day.
I talk about John Ehrenfeld every day and Roger.
And so I want us to remember it is budget season.
You're going to hear me make a really tidy case
for a return on investment
and why this is financially expedient what we're doing.
But really,
what we need to do is treat the human suffering
like the emergency that it is.
We need to think about every single person
as someone with limitless potential.
Overwhelmingly, people can and do change.
They can.
There's very few people statistically who could
not be completely restored.
When you walk down 3rd Avenue or you walk on 12th and Weller,
please think of that.
Think about the potential in each one of these lives
and that a year from now, they could be sitting here with us.
And I have friends in this room today
who were that person on 12th and Weller, 12th and Jackson.
And so let's just dwell in that reality,
and design a system of first response
and then of rehabilitation
that will predictably create that reality.
So, thank you all for your support.
-Well, good afternoon, everyone,
and welcome to Fire Station 10.
And you should probably know this is the busiest fire station
in the Seattle Fire Department.
So the alarms and lights will probably go off again.
Amy, I apologize, but this is a busy place.
Thank you to the captains here
and all the firefighters for hosting us.
Thank you to our Health 99 team, John and Jess and Riley
and all our folks who ride the units on the street
each and every day.
My name is Harold Scoggins,
and I'm honored to be the Fire Chief
of the Seattle Fire Department.
You know, I want to lead off with a thank you
to Mayor Harrell and Council President Nelson,
and all the other elected officials
for continuously supporting the Seattle Fire Department.
We do so many things each and every day
that most people don't see.
We go out the door between 300 and 325 times each
and every day to serve community.
And our goal is to make a difference each and every day.
That's important.
But about this investment right here.
You know, Mayor Harrell's investment will provide a total
of $3.7 million to the Seattle Fire Department,
which will have a direct
and positive impact on the health and safety
of those who live, work, and visit Seattle.
And that's really important to note.
You know, I am pleased to hear that $2.1 million
of the sales tax will be dedicated to hiring 20
additional firefighter recruits in 2026.
So just so you know, we were scheduled to hire 80,
This will get us to 100.
Today, we have about 95 vacancies
in the Seattle Fire Department,
so this is going to go a long way
of really getting our staffing to where it needs to be.
Another 1.6 million will expand operations for our Health 99
post-overdose response team,
and they make a difference each and every day.
Our Health 99 unit is doing important work
as they connect overdose survivors with medications
for opioid use disorder, primary care,
and other needed support services.
We are currently responding to more than 60 patients each week
who have overdosed.
Let me say that again.
About 60 overdoses a week we're responding to for folks
who have an opioid-connected overdose.
Since its launch in July of 2023,
Health 99 has responded to more than 1,300 overdose calls.
This data illustrates that we have a high number of people
in our community who are in active addiction
and have a need for more services.
In 2024,
our team began administering the buprenorphine medication
in the field,
which temporarily stabilizes patients
and provides short-term relief from withdrawal symptoms.
By pausing the withdrawal symptoms,
our team of caseworkers and firefighters,
many are here today,
they can have conversations with patients around treatment,
recovery, and other needed services.
The medication also helps to reduce cravings
in the days after an overdose,
helping reduce or eliminate their overdose use.
And just last week,
we hosted our first ever pop-up clinic in Little Saigon
alongside service providers in our network to bring
a long-acting injectable form of buprenorphine to the field.
This is really important.
Over the course of a four-day clinic,
33 clients received their first injection at the Hobson Clinic,
the ORCA Center, or Pioneer Square Clinic,
and the team made contact with
over 200 individuals providing naloxone, wound care,
and information, food, and connections with other services.
That's a big deal.
We thought we would get about 15 people
over the course of four days. We got 33 people
who made a decision to actually start the process
in changing their lives.
With this $1.6 million investment into this program,
we will be able to purchase an ambulance,
a van to transport patients,
and conduct more follow-up visits with clients.
That's really important, the follow-up,
because not only do we respond to folks in the field
who have overdoses,
each of our 33 fire stations around the city,
we have a referral system.
and any firefighter in the Seattle Fire Department
can make a referral to a high-utilizing patient
who calls 911 over and over and over again.
And our Health One team, our nurse practitioner,
and our folks, we will go knock on the door and we will figure
out what they need to try to get them the care that they need.
So these additional resources are going to be critical.
The funding will also allow for the hiring
of additional staff members,
including an additional advanced registered nurse practitioner.
Jess, we're going to get you a partner about that.
Who can administer medication in the field,
a position to oversee the Health 99 operations,
and make sure we have a human service department's
case managers and SFD firefighter EMTs
to staff the units.
And I'd be remiss if I didn't thank Director Tanya Kim,
the human services department,
they staff all of our case managers.
We have about 10 on board,
and this is going to bring more on board
to provide more services to the community.
Funding additional firefighter EMTs
and expanding the Health 99 program
is critical to effectively respond
to the public safety needs of our city.
Our goal is to put ourselves out of business
with all of these programs. We solve these problems,
these firefighters go back to riding the rigs.
That's what our goal is. Thank you for your time.
And Mayor Harrell, once again, thank you for your support.
-Good afternoon. I'm Lisa Daugaard.
I'm Co-executive Director at Purpose Dignity Action, PDA.
We are the home of the Project Management Team
for the LEAD program,
as well as the co-LEAD Intensive Case Management Shelter Team.
I want to start by really sincerely thanking you,
Mayor Harrell, Council President Nelson,
the Mayor's Public Safety Team, Chief Walton Anderson,
Deputy Sarah Smith, Restoration Coordinator Leandra Kraft,
or the folks I see here, for getting us here.
We are lucky to live in a community that has,
I mean, there's a lot of difference of opinion
about a lot of subjects,
but there's a real unity around policy in this area.
And we need that,
because we face enormous challenges,
and more are on the horizon.
So thank you for your clarity and consistency on this issue.
The $5 million investment in LEAD,
I think it's really important to say
before everybody gets their hopes up over much,
this is not $5 million in added capacity.
Most of it is to backfill what would have been lost
because we have been making do with one-time funding
for several years.
So, there was about to be an enormous hole in 2026
that would have resulted in a step back in services and loss
of staff capacity.
So, we'll be able to maintain LEAD referral capacity citywide,
which was in doubt, so thank you, super important.
And we will be able to take a modest number
of high priority new referrals.
We're not at scale,
echoing Council President Nelson's point.
This is a, you know,
a gallon in an ocean of need, not a teaspoon.
But we are not moving backward,
and that's incredibly important right now.
Why is LEAD so critical?
So, the framework of LEAD is the coordination of many partners
to provide a long-term recovery navigation path
that is individually designed to meet the needs
of the actual person.
For people with complex needs, Amy's story about somebody
who had a relatively quick turnaround solution,
like, wanted to go home and had a loving family,
some solutions are quick like that,
but for most of our people, they're not.
People don't have a loving family.
In fact, they may be fleeing from an abusive environment
and a long-term trauma, have survived long-term trauma,
often originating in the family or the foster care system.
Anyway, they lack the recovery capital
that makes for a quick solution.
The solution is not quick and it's super complex.
If you look at all the stories of people
who have dealt with that level of barrier,
which often includes long-term entanglement
in the criminal legal system,
many studies have found that the legal system is
not just reflective of trauma
and behavioral health challenges,
but it perpetuates them,
causes and makes it more difficult to recover
from those conditions.
So, LEAD is a framework for turning that around
and ensuring that there's a champion or a navigator
who stays with someone, not for a few weeks,
not for a few months,
but typically for several years
until we really accomplish stabilization.
And I just, there are not words for how hard that is
and how exceptional the skill level is of the team
that accomplishes that.
So Steve Woolworth,
who's standing here with Evergreen Treatment Services,
their REACH program is the largest
of the LEAD case management teams.
Absolutely extraordinary, best in class, best in the country.
They're just basically hurling bodies at bureaucratic walls,
and that's on behalf of their clients.
and participants.
And that's under current conditions.
We're about to see a real degradation
in kind of the background systems of care.
And so case managers' ability to be guerrilla fighters
for their clients and to find solutions where
really none exist are going to be even more at a premium.
So, our clients generally do encounter
first responders constantly. And it is incredibly important
that those first responders have somebody
to hand the long-term care coordination off to.
They're not staffed to do that,
but they need to be read into the plan.
So, integration of these teams is efficient,
but it's also the way
to make sure that we don't have the left hand
and the right hand working at cross-purposes.
So LEAD is kind of like that gathering point and
through point
that can coordinate the plan
because we have an information sharing environment
where participants have allowed case managers to talk to police,
to talk to fire, to talk to CARE responders,
and to talk to neighborhood leaders.
Truly a unique environment,
and it allows us to sort of all be pulling
in the same direction. Two more points.
One, long-term case management is aligned
with the SAMHSA Substance Abuse
Mental Health Services Administration
Recovery Framework,
which outlines that recovery is about more
than just a transactional, like,
a medication, a sojourn in a treatment facility.
It's about a safe place to live, connection to health,
ongoing health resources, connection and relationship,
and a sense of meaning and purpose in life, and hope.
So that's complex.
One of the values of long-term navigation though,
is going to show up when we confront the changes
to Medicaid eligibility that are slated for two years from now.
If something doesn't change at the federal level,
people on Medicaid who are otherwise eligible
and cannot work, cannot,
you know, cannot be employed,
are still going to have to certify their unemployability
in order to maintain their eligibility for services,
and that's going to have to happen every six months.
That is intended to turn people off of Medicaid benefits
who are eligible for them and who need them.
At a policy level,
that's bad policy and maybe it will be defeated,
but until it is,
how we survive that is case managers make sure
to succeed in certifying people's eligibility
for those benefits,
maintaining access to funding for healthcare,
that is the key to a lot of other recovery progress.
So, we've got to have long-term case management
to accomplish that, and LEAD is the backbone for that strategy.
Finally, I'm really excited to say that we are,
this wasn't possible until this decision
to stabilize the program and maintain it citywide.
But now that that commitment is being made,
we're able to relaunch with the current leadership
of the Seattle Police Department,
a sort of LEAD 3.0 I think we would say,
where we are training all the officers in the department
on how to make LEAD referrals
and how to do ongoing care coordination
so that we'll be able to work optimally in coordination
with law enforcement.
They do see our people.
They're going to see our people,
and that works well when they can pick up the phone,
call a case manager,
figure out what the plan is, and harmonize those responses.
Rather than, again, working at cross-purposes
or sort of guessing at the right response.
So, thank you to SPD and to our policy leaders
for making sure that we can continue
to offer this coordination role.
Thank you. -Thank you, Lisa.
That was very impactful, very inspirational.
I want to thank both Chiefs
for their inspirational words as well.
And Council President Sara Nelson,
thank you for your testimony and your support
and your leadership.
And with that, I'll be more than happy to take a few questions.
I'm going to ask my colleagues to get in the weeds
to help me out a little bit.
I'm never afraid to ask for help.
So are there any questions? Erica.
-The MOU with the police department --
I notice the police department's not here today.
MOU expires in December.
How does -- In current standing
undercutting bigger throughout the city,
how does that MOU continue to impact your ability
to dole out the calls without police,
and what's happening after that?
-Yeah, so the current,
the main restriction in the current MOU
is this dual dispatch design, which I loved initially.
I thought it was a great way to pilot.
It allowed us to really study the calls.
If I'm sending police in a car, CARE in a car,
are we getting it right?
You know, I always heard in the beginning,
What if a social worker gets shot, right?
There was just that fear.
It was not premised in anything scientific or evidence-based,
but the fear was out there.
I thought it was valid.
And so I was very supportive of that initial design.
Once we had been to 3,000 calls without incident,
and I knew the officers loved it,
I mean, I interact with the officers and sergeants
I'm sure more than anyone else, you know,
who is not actually in that department.
And I got feedback all the time, how useful it was,
they want to do police work.
And so I feel real urgency about it today,
getting that expanded MOU.
I do get along with Scog.
I get along with Mike Solomon personally.
I'm not in those negotiations.
But I feel like his support is genuine.
I saw The Seattle Times just published a statement to him.
And so I'm confident that we'll get the expanded MOU.
But even if we didn't,
if we kept going to priority three welfare check and person
down calls, Erica, they are around the clock.
I mean, they, our,
I could have 85 responders
and still not really be responding enough.
We do on views.
So what that means is we're studying these crisis hotspots,
and I'm telling the team, we don't want the call to come in.
If you can prevent it, right,
if you can proactively connect someone to services,
that's true deflection out of the criminal justice system.
I mentioned that MOU with the jails.
That's a game changer.
We know that folks exit jail every single day
straight back into crime and crisis.
It's nobody's body of work.
There's never been a resource there to call.
And so I feel like we've got tons
that we could do independent of that MOU conversation.
Would you add anything, Mayor?
-Less is more.
-I obviously haven't learned that yet.
-No, no. That was a good explanation.
[ Speaking indistinctly ]
-Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-Yes?
-[ Speaking indistinctly ]
-Yeah, I want to clarify.
The 24 responders,
that is the team that is deflecting police calls.
So think about a call
that historically would have been handled by 911.
There are tens of thousands of calls and needs
for service all around the city
that have never been a police body of work.
Think about the 988 system, right?
988 can also dispatch crisis response.
Currently, they are doing that at the county level.
And so there's, trust me, I have 47 contingency plans.
You know, there's no shortage of crises
and there are a number of ways that we can operationalize this.
And 911, that's just one little part of the system, right?
But again, you could give me hundreds of people
and I would know what to do with them
tomorrow without any impacts to labor or bargaining.
Thank you.
-[ Speaking indistinctly ]
-So, just to level set,
when I said less is more, we are in active negotiations,
which means everything that I could say
as the executive could be used in negotiations.
And when you negotiate,
you're always subjecting yourself
to unfair labor practices.
So to answer your question directly,
this is a budget announcement of a $40 million package.
We have other announcements
that are forthcoming in the next couple of weeks.
And yes, there are other issues
that affect the Police Department
and the Fire Department that we will announce.
And I am confident,
as Chief Barden says,
we're confident that this is aligned with the vision
of the rank-and-file as well as the Chief,
and I feel confident
that we'll be able to say more here in the near future.
Okay, yes.
-Yeah, I was just wondering how much of the funds
are going to be diverted or set aside for clean
and sober support? Because, I mean,
I worked as a service provider here in Seattle
for a number of years, and it sounds like a lot of funding
is going toward the same sort of reduction environment.
But I'm wondering about the people
that are being served that actually want access to clean
and sober, because that seems to be something
that's been revoked.
-Yeah, I don't know who would like to take that one.
Yeah, okay.
Are you with the press or just asking?
-No, I do a lot of policy work
with different states around the country.
-Okay, that's okay.
-And I run a program [inaudible] here in Washington.
-Thank you. Thank you for your question.
Go ahead.
I don't really have a specific answer.
-I just want to show, from what I remember,
I haven't looked at the spend plan for a while,
but my understanding is that the pot of money
that goes to treatment
does not define harm reduction or recovery based,
both of which would say they are the other.
But anyway, my point is that they are not defined.
And I think the number is, I'm going to be misquoted,
but I do believe the number is like 1.8
or 2 point-something million,
which for the bucket called treatment services.
But all you reporters, please take that with a grain of salt
because I did not bring the spend plan.
And it will, so in answer to your question,
that is not defined.
I recognize the value of a variety of different approaches.
-So one of the reasons that I asked that is
because I serve hundreds of people,
I worked with Catholic Community Services
for a long period of time.
I served hundreds of people
that we could get into treatment programs,
and then they would be released right into
the same environments.
And housing-first environments are typically inundated
with people who are under the influence of substances.
So it makes it really hard for a person
who is trying to access real recovery
and gain independence and overcome their underlying causes
when they're released back into the environment.
So I definitely hope that you guys start
to put the details into that
so you can support other people to get up
and out of that kind of circumstance.
Chief Barden actually identified that it is
absolutely possible for the people that are being served.
-Thank you for saying that loudly.
I completely agree.
There is, it is not defined in our housing levy policies
that there be any ascribed amount of dollars
that go to recovery housing, you know, the dry housing.
So I did write a little line in there
saying consider this when thinking about
how we award whatever.
But I would like a defined amount,
or I would like to require
that there is in our range of housing options,
that there is a place for people who want a dry environment.
In fact, I was at the pop up the other day,
last Monday or Tuesday, talking with the reach supervisor.
And they were saying that one of the things
they noticed is that the lack of recovery-based housing
is an impediment to even wanting to go.
Because why would you go, you know,
why would you go through all that work to have nowhere to go?
And so she was,
we were just talking about
how that's an important addition to our housing strategy.
But I agree. -Can I just quickly add,
the long arm of the law is coming for me,
but I do want to say this is one of those areas
of emerging consensus
that I think has really, has been great to see.
Council President Nelson established that pilot program
wherein participants in Seattle's low-barrier programs
could access inpatient treatment services.
There's been a lot of enthusiasm to use that,
and it has also revealed some barriers in those pathways.
More than half of the people
that we nominated from our co-LEAD program
were refused because of their criminal history, for example.
So building an actual pathway that, you know,
people who have changed their drug use patterns
don't have to return to drug-saturated environments,
and people who are in recovery housing who relapse,
which is incredibly common,
don't lose their housing as a result.
That's a policy integration
that we really need to tackle together,
and what I've seen is relaxation of sort of tension
around that and agreement
that that's the current task before us,
and very little disagreement about that.
-And I will add that of the announcements I made today,
I believe $3 million are out for an RFP
to look at best practices with respect to
how we treat people when they are coming out.
And I announced I think last week
$170 million package for housing providers to stabilize them,
affordable housing providers
and permanent supportive housing facilities.
Because they recognize that a lot of their place,
there is rampant drug use
and we're trying to make it safe for everyone,
people that are still struggling with addiction.
So, we recognize the plight that you've described
and thank you for your question.
Are there any other questions? David.
-You're making your budget announcement on Tuesday?
Supposed to mention public safety tax,
whether that's gonna be included in the budget.
-You meant the sales and use tax?
That is this,
that these funds which have restricted
use public safety-wise, this is, I'm sorry, David,
That was my opening line,
so I must have buried the lede. So that is what this is about.
And, yes.
-I don't -- I can see what the breakdown is,
but it sounds like it's not 25% of the overall tax.
So I'm just curious.
-I was taking the lead
and then a number of different --
for example, the Thunderbird tubing center, I believe.
So, there's a tranche of services
that I was referring to in my resolution
that come to about 35%.
-Yeah, I was just curious if this satisfies your request
when you talk about [inaudible]
-You know, I'm not gonna split hairs.
I just want to say, and I don't remember how much else is given.
But we have incredible.
And because of my subject position,
of my universal experience
because I see it as such a great need,
throw all the money at this.
But I recognize that I just have my own perspective,
that's it.,
-Okay, we thank you for being here.
We're excited about these investments.
We think, as it is a best practice,
We think that we are showing this country what
real public safety means from a holistic standpoint.
So, I want to thank all of the community providers here.
Steve, I see you over there.
And I think LonZell might have left, but, no, he's still here.
Thank you, Lisa. Thank you.
You were very inspirational as usual.
Chief Barden, thank you very much.
And everyone, make it a great day.
Thank you for being here. Very much.