This video presents a comprehensive homeless survey conducted by the Eureka Police Department, which uses a four-week sampling period (first week of March to first week of April) with 40 self-reported questions to analyze the homeless population. The survey data reveals that approximately 79% of the homeless population identifies as white, with 60% reporting dissatisfaction with their current life, and 56% indicating that drugs or alcohol have been a problem in their life. The survey methodology includes tracking demographic information, housing history, healthcare access, and substance use patterns, providing valuable insights for community resource allocation and policy development.
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City Council - May 19, 2026Added:
All right. Hello and welcome to this Tuesday, May 19th, Eureka City Council meeting. We're so glad you're here. It's lovely, as I was telling someone out in the audience, to have such a full house.
So, welcome. Welcome. And we will open this meeting with the land acknowledgement.
The land that Eureka rests on is known in the Wiiat language as Shiruji.
Past actions by local, state, and federal governments remove the Wiiat and other indigenous peoples from the land and threatened to destroy their cultural practices.
The city of Eureka acknowledged the Wii community, their elders, both past and present, as well as future generations.
This acknowledgement demonstrates the city's commitment to dismantle the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism.
And can we get a roll call, please?
Council member Castellano >> here.
>> Council member Molton >> here.
>> Council member Fernandez >> here.
>> Council member Bower >> here.
>> Council member Contreras Delos >> here.
>> And Mayor Buel >> here.
>> And with all who care to join me in the pledge of allegiance.
>> I pledge algiance to the flag >> of the United States of America >> and to the republic for which it stands.
One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
>> All right. And was there a report out of close session, Attorney Black?
>> No final actions were taken in close session, Mayor.
>> Great. Thank you. And with that, we will begin with our first proclamation for public works week with council member Castellano. If you all want to come forward, whoever's receiving this award or proclamation.
>> That's awesome.
>> Great. Thank you all for being here. Um, and uh, thank you for your service to the people of Eureka.
This is the city of Eureka proclamation in recognition of public works week May 17th through 23rd, 2026. Rooted in service powered by community. Whereas public works professionals focus on infrastructure and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and to the public health, high quality of life and well-being of the people of the city of Eureka. And whereas these infrastructure and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of public works professionals, her managers, engineers, and employees at all levels of the organization who are responsible for rebuilding, improving and protecting our city's roadways, storm drains, water supply, water treatment and sewer collection, sewer treatment, and other services essential for our citizens. and who also serve as first responders in times of emergency, providing critical support for community special events, address and remediate illegal dumping to protect public health and the environment, and manage and maintain the city of Eureka's fleet to ensure reliable and efficient operations.
And whereas it is in the public interest for the citizens, civ civic leaders and children in the city of Eureka to gain knowledge of and to maintain an ongoing interest and understanding of the importance of public works and public works programs in their respective communities. And whereas the year 2026 marks the 66th annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association.
Now therefore, I um Council Member Castellano, on behalf of Mayor Kimberell and the city of Eureka, do hereby designate the week of May 17 through 23rd, 2026 as public works week in the city of Eureka. I urge all citizens to join with representatives of the American Public Works Association and government agencies and activities, events, and ceremonies designed to pay tribute to our public works professionals, engineers, managers, and employees, and to recognize the substantial contributions they make to protecting our health, safety, and quality of life.
Thank you, mayor. Thank you, members of the council for this proclamation and recognition. I'm truly pleased to accept this award on behalf of the public works department. This recognition reflects the hard work, dedication, collaboration of many people within the public works department. I am grateful to work alongside such commitment colleagues who care deeply about improving and strengthening our community. It is a privilege to serve the city. We appreciate the continued support and encouragement. Thank you again.
Come on. It's all in the back. Show in the front.
>> Thank you.
Thank you all for being here. And this takes us to mayor's announcements. And today we have the privilege and honor of inviting up Tay, their youth advocacy board to tell us what's going on with them. Come on up. Welcome.
>> Hello everybody. Um, my name is Jess Weaver. I've been a part of the youth advocacy board for about two years.
Pronouns are she, her.
>> Hi everybody. Uh, thank you for having us. My name is David. I'm also a YAB member.
And so I'm sure a few of you are already pretty well verssed on what HCTC is, but I'm just going to give another elevator speech. So, um, HTTC really focuses on using and empowering the lived experience of young people in Humble County. Um, it's a subdivision of Humble County Department of Health and Human Services. It provides opportunities and services for young people aged 16 to 26.
Um, there's a lot of psychiatric services included like therapy, first episode support. We also have case management, drop-in spaces, and workshops. And then my bad opportunity mainly lies in networking, our ability to help with referrals, and also the youth advocacy board. Um, personally, one of the opportunities that I've had through my work with the YAB is being voted in, I guess, as the youth chair, as one of the youth chair members for the Humble County Behavioral Health Board. And then also I have had the opportunity of being at the Capitol building and being able to present my my words there through the help of the Yab and now David has >> some more specifics about what we're up to recently. Thank you Jess.
>> Um so uh some of the things that we've done recently include uh a visioning event, a word world cafe workshop. Um, and I personally was not present at the uh service provider/general community world cafe event, but uh I want to give a shout out to Renee. Thank you so much for attending that event.
Your input is very valuable. We really appreciate you being there. Um, it helps us uh inform our our next steps going forward as uh as a YAB and as HCTC as a whole. Um another event uh that occurred recently that the YAB uh attended was the children's mental health uh conference KACI um which uh is very important uh because uh youth with lived experience uh it's valuable that they share their stories and attend these workshops and conferences where they can uh learn how to uh show up to service provider spaces.
and with with the knowledge that service providers have as well so that they can support themselves in those moments that are uh often times youth uh do not have support in. Um so uh moving on to what we're doing uh now just today uh I personally facilitated a workshop uh mental mental and behavioral health workshop um specifically uh it was for youth who uh are interested in Dungeons and Dragons. Um, it's character creation. Um, specifically an empowering uh method to create a a character that can uh help someone navigate some mental health challenges. Um we are uh in the process among other things of starting some new youthled collaborations uh uh one of which we are hoping to uh and planning to start a anformational campaign uh with the schools uh around the county um and where we can share youth voice and connect uh young folks to community resources um because outreach is so desperately needed in Humble County. Um, so one thing that's coming up soon or a couple things uh will be the uh the pop-up uh gallery where young people will be presenting their uh their stories, their lived experience through the medium of of photography and street art. And that will be on what was the date for that? That will be Friday, June 26th from 2 to 5:00 pm at the Schlutoter Gallery downtown in Eureka.
Um, and I will pass it back to Jess.
Thank you so much. So, yeah, those were kind of some of the practical ways that we implement our values and where we hope to go from here. Um, I again stuck to a more value- based side of things because as we know things are turbulent.
But what we hope to do is we continue we hope to continue to break down societal and systemic barriers and stigmas. We hope to further our advocacy as young people and show up to more important decision-making areas. Um, we hope to acquire new voices throughout the passing of time as there will be new young people surely with new things to say. We hope to continue our integration across the county as a whole and we hope to provide more consistent and relevant support to youth across Humble County.
And like David mentioned with the World Cafe, that is just one of the ways we do that through information gathering. So with all that being said, I would like to just take a quick minute to discuss things that I figured out would be effective in supporting the work that we do. Um, accepting feedback and actively looking for ways to engage with our youth advocates is insanely valuable, especially because since we are one group, trying to split ourselves many different ways is difficult. It's easier if people actively look to come and listen to what we have to say.
um incorporating our unique support system into important, meaningful, and actionable spaces like we already have established with the behavioral health board. We hope to continue to show up in important spaces all the time.
>> Thank you very much.
>> Thank you so much.
>> And I'm curious, are there any questions from council? Sorry about that.
>> Council member Molton, >> hi there. I want to thank you for the presentation and for all the work you do. Peer support is so incredibly important. Like knowing that uh coming up with a D&D character is a great way to like get people to comfortably discuss things that you know might be difficult to discuss is uh that kind of intuition and just knowing that is something that you only know when you're dealing with your peers. I um I engaged uh with a a Minecraftbased mental health program for for children. It's kind of the same thing just like you know get people feeling comfortable so that they can do the work they need to do without having like stigma. Um so I'm just I'm grateful for your perspective and I'm grateful for your work. Thank you for being there.
>> Thank you very much for >> council member Fernandez and then Castellano.
I'm I'm grateful for all the work that you do, too, but I want to hear more about Dungeons and Dragons.
>> Tell me.
>> Uh well, uh it's it's uh >> first and foremost, it's it's storytelling and um storytelling is uh in many ways uh it can be extremely empowering, which is one of the reasons why I uh designed this workshop. Um, and uh I I think in addition to storytelling, collaborative storytelling, it's uh it's a space where people can just hang out and have have fun and uh and build community uh especially especially for more introverted youth. Um I think it's a it's a very safe space or it has a lot of potential to be a very safe space.
the part of the workshop was learning to lay lay the foundation for the D and D to be a safe and inclusive uh space for folks. Um so but yeah that's that's my spiel about that. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> I'm I'm 100% in agreement with you and that's why I wanted to hear your your take on it and I'm curious was was this workshop the first time you had done it or have you done previous sessions? Uh today today was the first uh workshop uh that I have ever done for for Tay or uh in general but yeah it was the first yes >> and and then I know it it's tangential you were talking about uh being more involved with the uh K through2 schools and so do you plan on you know you had just done this workshop do you plan on piloting that at all with any of the uh students in the K through2 system or >> um I hadn't considered it until now um Uh mostly uh it is a matter of capacity.
Um unfortunately due >> I'm with you on that and that's why I wanted to ask you about it because I've been very curious about that myself for the last probably decade or so. You're talking to someone who's been playing since second edition. So >> gotcha. Gotcha.
>> Yeah.
>> Veteran.
>> Yeah.
>> Gotcha.
>> Um well yeah uh that uh sounds like an excellent idea and I will very seriously consider that. Thank you.
>> Okay. And then just, you know, maybe a few technical questions. I'm curious, you know, getting away from D&D for a moment. Uh, what are the challenges you're looking at in your organization?
How is funding going at the moment?
>> Yes. So, um, uh, recently I I helped give a a presentation uh to DHS on this very topic. Um there the the main thing that we're facing is uh budget cuts um unfortunately um and staffing shortages um right right now we currently have two peer coaches for uh lot of clients way too many um for for an individual uh case worker or or peer coach to to um to handle. Um so we we are strained financially and our staff are also uh very strained and stretched thin. Um the the YAB has also um faced some challenges recently. Um, however, we're we're overcoming these by, you know, reaching out to community spaces like like these um and DHS and um hopefully the board of supervisors um to communicate our needs and how important it is to support uh the youth of Humble County, especially in these very uncertain economic times and times in in general. So, yeah.
>> Thank you, >> Council Member Castellano.
Um, firstly, thank you for being here and for your leadership in the community, um, I'm curious as someone who during the day is engaged with a youth program, um, do you find many opportunities for cross-pollination with other youth programs or how might you imagine something like that taking place?
>> Yeah. Um so historically the uh HCTC and the youth advocacy board have uh done collaborations uh with other youth servicing youth serving organizations. Uh one one good example of this uh something I attended was uh and was a part of was the uh what was it? It was the conference for uh service providers. I'm forgetting the name of it. Um what was it?
I I forget what it was. It wasn't either of those, but um but we we partnered with two feathers um and we we hosted a panel um where we talked about our lived experience and gave some solutions some possible solutions to um to common issues that case uh service providers uh face. Um so that's one example. um holding hosting panels um doing outreach like shared uh like collaborative outreach um sharing resources and and things like that. Um those are those are the two I have off the top of my head.
Is there anything you want to add Jess about collaborating with other youth service organizations?
>> So thankfully due to Humble being a pretty tight-knit community, lots of service providers are aware of the other things that our community has. But one specific thing that we are working on actively is we are meeting with as the youth advocacy board. We have a group of people dedicated to implementing the youth homelessness demonstration project grant. And that is going to create lots of opportunities for people that need supportive housing to get supportive housing. And one of the ways we're doing that is by meeting with the RCAA and the good people over there who are going to help us through the implementation as the service provider. They are going to be building the housing and we're waiting currently to be able to meet with them from the youth service bureau specifically. Correct.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah. So that's my two cents for right now.
>> Yes. The youth housing youth homelessness demonstration project is a really crucial grant that has come up.
It was a federal grant. Um, and we are currently giving our input on some new contract stipulations um, which we have some uh, serious concerns about u, but but yeah, we're we're still we're still working on that and improving it. And um, >> yes, working working with YSB and RCA very closely on that. Um, but yeah, those are a few examples.
>> Thank you. And this is this is maybe just a comment for our city manager. I'm just curious. It seems like there might be some opportunities for followup related to the housing programs that the city of Eureka is doing.
>> Yeah, with the AS6 grants and some of the other grants that we have with the developments that we have now, we can definitely do that.
>> Yeah, >> maybe we'll we'll try to follow up with we'll follow up with y'all with some of the things that we're working on with the city.
>> Okay, awesome. Thank you so much.
>> Is there anything there? We can email you guys.
>> That's how it works.
>> Did you have something else?
>> Uh, council member Fernandez.
>> Yeah. I just want to know more about D and D.
>> On from that, >> I want to know what your thoughts are on critical.
>> Council member Contero.
>> I was just going to say thank you. I appreciate you guys coming. And I told Amy this today, but I want to just tell you guys just um that uh how motivated and how driven all of you guys are and the things that you're doing really gives me a lot of hope. I love seeing the different programs that youth are involved in and um I I think we have a really bright future because of the type of youth that are coming up. So I just want to tell you guys thank you.
>> Thank you very much.
>> Anything else?
>> Hi too. I just want to thank you so much for the presentation and you know I often I really believe that our community and that there is a lot of hope and that our future is really bright and you guys are a beautiful example of that. So thank you so much for your leadership and um and thank you council member Castellano for bringing that housing business forward because that's going to be an excellent partnership or at least discussion moving forward. So again, thank you and uh stay in touch.
>> Thank you. We could use all the hope we can get.
Okay.
All right. And then I just have a couple more announcements. Um for our board of appeals committee, we are still looking for two people. So if you want to get involved in the city, we'd love to have you. Um few things happening in the city. Friday night markets start this coming Friday. This coming Friday, Friday night markets. I believe the theme is the kinetics theme, which is amazing. And then of course the kinetic grand championship is happening. Starts uh Saturday morning at noon uh and moves on through Arcada, the triathlon of arts, just fabulousness. Forest Moon Festival begins May 30th. And lastly, and not as fun, we will be having a special budget meeting at 5:00 p.m. next Tuesday, the 26th. It could be fun. So those are just a few things coming up and happening in the city. And with that, we will move on to public comment.
Oh, no we won't. We're going to move on to presentations with EPD and their homeless survey. Commander Lef France and managing mental health commit clinician Rosen and Mr. Ross.
Sergeant Ross.
Welcome you guys.
>> All right. Good afternoon or good morning or good night. You have three options depending on when you're working. All right. So that uh every two years we do the homeless survey uh for the city Eureka. Uh this is different from the point in time count which is done by the county. Um but we present this uh every two years.
So when we run this uh survey, what's unique about this is a four-week survey.
We always do a four-week sample uh starting the first week of March and ending in the first week of April. So it's four straight weeks. uh and I'll share I'll give some historical stuff in the next slide here. Uh personnel involved in this are uh sees officers uh care so clinicians case managers and then uplift Eureka uh a bunch of their staff are involved in this as well. Uh but for those four weeks the primary focus uh for those teams is to go out and get as many surveys as possible.
And we use Survey Monkey because one it's easy uh and two because it's easy to use. So, and we can get data pretty easily off of that without uh having too much of a clunky system.
We have uh 40 questions in our survey now. We actually added two more. Uh we've really been pushing the threshold of too many questions. Um but every single year we're like, man, we need more. We more information. I know a couple years ago we want to add like the 10 ACE questions, ASUS questions, but it's like we can't do 50 questions. So, we've really kind of we've trying to streamline it down, but sometimes we just ask questions because we have to or they piggyback on other questions. But, uh we have 40. We have two new ones.
I'll share those with you. Uh all responses are self-reported. So even if we ask a question about someone having you been treated for or uh diagnosed with a mental health disorder, if we know they have because the work we do um and they say no, we still report it as no. So there is a margin of error in this uh because it is self-reported.
This presentation is just going to highlight the data. It's we're not going to show you all the data. Uh I actually had a 63page raw data packet I meant to bring with me. Um, but as I was leaving the headquarters, we ended up uh chasing after a wanted felon uh that we all went to. And so I unfortunately forgot that packet, but I can probably provide it to uh city manager to hand out later. So um but this is just the highlight of the data. It's not all inclusive. So don't start adding the numbers up and saying it's not 100. I know that. Um it's just the highlights. It'll be it'll be a comment somewhere. It's not 100. We know.
All right. Since 2018, we've been doing this. So, uh, 2018 initially was done under Chief Watson. Uh, that's when CET first started in July of 2018. Uh, and that time we had we've been through a couple different, uh, missed officers.
Uh, it was missed officer Wayne Rebang at the time, who is now Commander Rebang. Uh, and we had it was about a month about a month-long four-week sample uh, through the month of October in 2018. And at that point, if you look at COE, at city of Eureka, and then it's PIT is a point in time count. So, I just want to do some comparisons real quick.
So 2018 we did 190 surveys. Um we always hear these grandiose ideas that we have thousands of homeless here. Um based on our numbers we know that's not true.
Based on our experience we know that's not true. Uh 2019 we didn't do the survey because we do it every two years.
Uh the point in time count was 653 for Eureka. Uh 2020 we did the survey from same first week of March. This first week in April we did 205 surveys 2022 same time frame 249. The pit counts at 498. So a giant difference in those numbers. Uh what's important to know is the pit count uh has a correlation to getting money from the government. Our our uh homeless uh survey has nothing to do with there's no money connected to it. Uh so 2024 same thing uh same sample size uh 221 for for our survey. Uh pit count was 323 and then 20 this year uh we did 239 individual surveys and I tried researching the uh at least did the pit count this year. Uh if you don't know the pit count is one day um one morning they go around and there's a whole system I won't go into but I'm not a fan of it but they just get a general guesstimation of how many homeless are in the community. I couldn't find the number what they hit this year. I believe it dropped by 15% from last year. So um but I didn't get an exact number so I did not have that to share.
So it's a giant question mark.
All right we'll jump into this. Uh so our first question is is always going to be their name. I'm not going to show their names to you. It's just not polite um or the right thing to do. uh only a few of us have access to the actual the raw data. Um actually all the data only I think two or three of us myself and then uh Jacob and also his uh his admin tech um as we go through the data. So we always ask the age uh this is pretty consistent across the board. Uh we usually see the peaks around 40 to 44 years old. So throughout this uh as long as I did it right the gold bar throughout this entire presentation will be for 2026 and the light blue will be 2024.
So this is one of the first years we actually saw someone under 18. We saw one person under 18. Uh I'm not sure who the person was. Um this year I actually didn't do any surveys first year. Uh I just collect the data now, but we one person under 18. Um otherwise we're looking at really a big range of 35 to really to 49, but then we saw some peaks also uh with 65 to 69 and actually 70 to 74. So we saw some some jumps uh in those. Not sure why. We could probably dig in deeper and look at why that happened, but that's the numbers we had for this year.
uh gender. This has been across the board since 2018. It's usually anywhere between uh twothirds about two-thirds to 70% male and then the rest are female.
And so uh that's consistent across the board across the country. If you're a male, much more likely to be homeless than a female. That's just the facts based on the data.
Uh race or ethnicity. Again, for us in Humble County, uh white is a uh a predominant race here. So again, we saw 79%. Uh the Native American, Alaskan Native, uh these are not these are when we ask the question and if people say I'm Native American, we put Native American down. Um doesn't mean they have to be technically affiliated or have to have whatever in the books. They say it, we respond to it. So the one issue we have with this number, uh is that I believe our population in Humble is about 6.6% Native American. So that's more than almost triple that number, um if this is actually accurate. And so within the survey, we also record what tribe they are with. And from this we can also talk to our tribal partners and say hey we have some of your community members within Eureka. How can you help us help them?
Uh household family or relationship status. Most people are single. This a pretty steady across the board.
Apparently the long-term relationship stats and breakups. So that dropped down a little bit by about 4%.
And we probably had a couple more marriages. So but again across the board is uh commonly single.
Uh who do you live with? Uh, most people live alone. Uh, we saw a pretty good decline in about 4% uh, in having pets. I'm not sure. I'm sure Sergeant Ross can answer that question later if they're seeing more animals out there. Um, but data wise, we're seeing uh, less pets. And then when you look at children, that's that's going to be adult children, uh, not children children. If there's little kids on the street, um, that's something that, uh, luckily our mental health officer, Jamie Clark, addresses very very quickly with our other services.
And we if we find a small child uh they are not out there for uh many more minutes.
Uh education we always look at so biggest right now is 28% uh we had high school or GED uh followed by uh some high school then some college uh someone had a doctorate they reported that and then we have some a couple bachelors and some associates.
Again this is just looking at this is fairly the trend continues uh to be steady across the board.
monthly income. Uh biggest one is zero, which has been consistent since 2018. Uh we do have some folks that uh obviously make a fair amount of money, over 3,000.
Um and again, this is self-reported, so it's possible. Uh we I've known a gentleman years ago that would easily have 5,000 cash on them all the time. Um he just store it. Had some various mental health issues, didn't want to be inside, and he just stores money. So, uh but again, if you look at the numbers, uh I can't remember the average rent right now in Humble County, but it's probably around 1,500. So most folks that are on the street if they did want to be inside they could not afford to be inside.
Uh last time employment uh one to two years is the peak here again at 20%. Uh that and the less than one year actually dropped uh almost by half down to 12%.
And if you see the number on the bottom left there says 15s that's how many people skip the question. So, just understand again there's always with any kind of surveys, there's always going to be some form of of error. Um, but 15 people skip that survey out of 239.
Military service. We hear this a lot.
Uh, there's lots of vets in the street um that are veterans that aren't being served. This is not true in Eureka. Um, most people that we encounter that are within our homeless community are not are not veterans. If they are veterans, they are usually fairly uh swept up quickly to get services. Um, I see a lot of signs flying around town like I'm a veteran. Of course, we contact them, we talk to them, we actually find out they actually either don't qualify or they're not a veteran. Um, but if they are a veteran, we are pretty good about getting those services to them or uh the VA or the other entities. Um, Nations First usually picks them up pretty quickly to assist them.
Uh, where did you sleep last night? This is a giant drop for uh shelters across the board. Uh, shelter includes the mission uh family shelter and Betty's uh Blenjo village. So, we dropped from about 46% to 26%. It's a pretty big drop and I'm not I'm not sure why. Um it's possible Sergeant Ross can share some insight on that. Um I don't have that but we're just seeing the drop. Uh same with Encampment or Green Belt. Uh we saw a drop there also, but yet we're seeing an increase in street alleyway and doorways. And again, there's a lot more places that we have. There's a long list of places where people slept the night before. Um we just didn't share all of them. We shared the top uh top five.
How long you been homeless for? So right now our biggest is 3 to five years. uh fall by 1 to two years and then less than one year and 6 to 10 years. Uh we have some folks um that have been more than 20 years. We do know that the Crowley property um whatever the new name is now uh they sunset. Okay. A lot of Bayside. Okay. There's too many new names. Uh we know a lot of the folks have been on the streets for even I think 130 years it was housed down there. So which is 36 that's a long time. So we know that number would drop a little bit. Um but again these are again fairly steady um with some movement but nothing too drastic.
How long have you lived in Humbult for?
So about a quarter of our folks have actually been born and raised here. Um we always hear stories about people being bust in from San Fran non-stop and other areas. Um not saying it doesn't happen. Um but for the most part that's not true. Uh more than 41% have been here 20 plus years. So either born and raised or they've just stayed here.
total is 41%.
So a lot of our folks have been here for a long time.
Uh why'd you come to Eureka? Biggest one is family, friends, relationships. Uh recently, this is a new one for us is better life. Uh resources actually popped up to number three this year. Uh it was not there before. And then employment and then marijuana made uh showed its face again uh at number five.
You know, there's many many other reasons why, but uh these are the reasons from this uh 2026 survey.
uh where'd you live prior to becoming homeless? Uh again, most are from Eureka. And then we saw uh a tie with other uh California counties, other in other states. So when I was going through and looking at the data, various states from South Dakota to Oklahoma to I think Mississippi to all over the place and somehow they landed here in York, California.
Uh why are you homeless? This is always a fascinating questions. Again, with this type of question, they can actually answer more than one response. So, they can say, "Hey, I had a family. I got evicted and um I'm using alcohol and drugs. I just can't stay housed because of my addiction issues." And so, there can be multiple things. Um but the biggest one is family. Uh the evictions actually popped up this year. Um employment's number three. Affordable housing popped up also. Um alcohol and drugs is usually 10 to 15% which is pretty steady and we'll see why in a little bit.
And then personal choice is 9%. That's that's a factor we'll talk about in a little bit. What we do find with a lot of our folks that um this is a personal choice is mostly the same people from 2018 all the way to 2026 which is little little less than half my career here at EPD.
Uh periods of uh how many times have they been homeless in their life? So most people have had one set of homelessness. So they became homeless.
They've been there non-stop. They've not been inside at all. Other people have been homeless. they were housed or got in a facil got in some type of facility or organization or in a shelter live in shelter and then came back out back and forth back and forth. Uh but 30 uh 31% one time and then uh 13% for six or more. So that's jump a lot of jumping back in and out of housing which can be challenging uh especially after so many times you know why do you want to back inside if you just you keep losing housing for some reason?
Satisfied with your current life? This is a question we've asked since 2018.
Uh, are you satisfied? Uh, majority is no, 60%, uh, yes, about 20% and then neither about 10% or 12% for this one.
And those have been pretty steady across the board for since 2018.
I would have put I would have put all the data from every year on here, but it'd be so small we couldn't see it. So, but if you do want it, I can. It's actually it's located, I believe, on our website, and it's if you Google or look up anywhere online for Eureka Survey, you'll find it.
Uh, is your lifestyle a matter of choice? This is again consistent. uh we're usually around 30%. Um we've seen up to twothirds. Uh so 30% say this is my choice. I'm doing this. Uh and then I put this in here. 7% actually refuse to answer this question. Uh we actually have this is as a com not a common answer but people refuse to answer a question. And then uh incomprehensible or nonsensical. So we say you know is a lifestyle matter of choice the the moon is blue. Right? That'd be a nonsensical response to the question. And so we saw 4% there, but again about uh 30% or twothirds often say it is a it is a lifestyle of choice, which obviously makes it challenging when you're trying to assist them and uh improving their lives in the community uh and less the uh lessen the uh negative impact um that often people have uh in this environment on the community and themselves.
Physical disabilities or chronic health problems, this has been staying strong around 50%. So it's 48 this year self-reported um but it's usually around 50%. So half the population have a chronic health problem or physical disability which is challenging because uh healthcare in the community even though it's getting better um the hospital is doing a good job on many fronts. Um but it's still challenging uh diagnosed or treated for mental illness or mental health issue. So about 47% self-report uh yes 8% u refused and about 3% had a nonsensical response. So in theory if you take those other numbers we usually sit around 50%. Uh my opinion based on my experience being out in the field, it's probably around 70%.
Um and I'm sure Jacob can explain more on that. Um but again, self-reporting about 50% across the board.
Where do you go when you're sick or injured? Uh St. Joe's is the number one spot. Uh Mobile Medical, uh which is usually located down at Freemill, um or over the Blue Angel Village, I think on Wednesdays, uh it's a common spot. Open Door Clinic has definitely increased. uh 11% going nowhere for medical or uh issues or when they're sick or injured, which is not good because when they do go to the hospital, it's usually pretty traumatic uh for or they're injuries so much or they're so sick, it's going to be costly for them and they're going to be there for a while. And then urgent care at 9% which is an increase from uh two years ago visited the ER in the past 12 months. Uh about a little more than twothirds didn't visit the ER at all and then about a quarter visited uh one time and it went down from there.
Health insurance uh medical obviously is the top one here at 49% and partnership increased to 42% about 5% have none. We saw others with VA uh uh very like 1% very very low numbers or even less than 1%. But the the predominant one is medical and partnership which should be expected.
Uh this is a new question for us. Uh times arrested are in jail in the past 12 months. So about more than half said zero and then one uh one time 20% two times 9% and so on. So it's a new question we threw in there uh just to see where we're at. Uh again we could dig in our databases which is not it'd be way too much well we probably couldn't dig in the databases because it'd be a really really challenging to do that with our system. Um but again we know a lot of not a lot but a fair amount of our folks we engage with on the street they uh will end up in jail at some point or they're on probation or parole. Um, but we just want to get a general idea of how what percent are actually going to jail or not.
Uh, drugs or alcohol been a problem in your life. So, we have a couple questions about drugs and alcohol.
You'll see it. Um, we actually dive into daily or use how much they're using. Uh, but we do some other analysis on this.
Uh, based on the analysis about 56% of our uh, population of homeless community uh, say drugs are alcohol been a problem in their life. So, more than half. My opinion is probably a little higher based on some other data we have. Uh I think it's more of us more around 70%.
Um but again the data from self-reported is about 56%.
Uh drugs and alcohol been a problem in your life. Again we actually break it down to uh to actually these drugs. We talk about meth, alcohol, fentanyl, marijuana, heroin prescription medication and uh cocaine and crack.
We'll break down those even further. Um but that's where we sit right now.
Methamphetamine is always king in this town. Um, usually for females when we break down the data, uh, females the number one drug of choice is meth and for males it's alcohol. That's historical across the board and we can talk about that more if you want in >> commander. So the 21s at the bottom are people that skipped the question. Yes.
So those >> on every one there's been skips.
Correct. Y.
>> Okay.
>> Thank you.
>> So we're looking at all call use. So a little more than half say they never use alcohol. Uh about 10% or 9% say they use it daily. Uh 20% on occasion. And then the others from there and 7% refuse and yeah 19 skipped to this question.
So methamphetamine about 21% uh say they use it daily, 7% weekly, 3% monthly and 11% on occasion. A little less than half said never and nine refused the question.
And every year we get refusals. Um it is interesting that you'll see our officers talking to people and again most of our like cet they know the people out there.
I mean, they're pretty much their extended family because they see them every single day and they're Yeah, it's it's a unique relationship, but they're pretty honest uh about their use. I mean, we know they they're using they know we care about them. We also know that we want to get them in treatment if they want to go, etc. And so, it's unique to see these surveys actually go hand inand when someone tells you I use meth daily.
Uh heroin use, uh we see a more drop in this because I I honestly haven't seen heroin in a couple years. We don't see it that often anymore. Um but 80% say never use heroin and then these have these have dropped uh these have been dropping um because fentanyl fentanyl is cheaper, it's easier. Uh it's getting in the country and it's cheap. So 13% say it's daily. Uh 7% on occasion. 67% say it's never never use it. 8% refuse. My guess is it's still higher than than 13% daily. Uh because of stigma associated now with still with fentanyl. uh used to be the stigma with heroin uh that you know you could use you know you could use meth all day but don't use heroin there stigma and now the stigma is really associated with fentanyl um because we I don't have the numbers on ODS but we for a while we were running a lot of ODS and using a lot of Narcan and multiple doses of Narcan uh marijuana of course Humble County uh so 32 about twothirds are saying they use it daily 8% weekly 15% on occasion and 35% said ever.
Uh, have you ever, this is a new question for us. Have you tried to get clean on your own? If so, how many times? Uh, 40% said yes, I've tried to get clean one to five times. Uh, 5% six to 10 times. Uh, almost 10% refused the question. And about 30 or 36% said no, they've never tried to get clean.
They've been treated for all color drug abuse. So, we just asked that. Um, again, 49% says no. Uh yes uh one to five times at 33% and then 10% refuse that question as well. But we have seen a couple that 20 plus more times actually going to a treatment facility.
Uh how do you financially support yourself? So the biggest one again I know actually it dropped from it went up to the top is SSI SSDI or SSA. So 23% uh odd jobs actually rose up this year. Uh public assistance uh actually dropped. Uh I don't dropped also and then recycling apparently uh went up by 7%.
Do you receive any in the following public assistance? Uh food stamps is always number one 69%. And then I think it's pretty steady with the others. SSI uh general relief um social security disability and Cal State disability and then none.
What prevents you from using assistance?
So we we ask these questions. We want insight to why this is happening. Why if you're not using assistance, why don't you actually get it? The number one uh was nothing. Nothing prevents me from getting it. So about 30%. Nothing prevents me from using public assistance. So 8% lack of knowledge or how to apply uh lack of transportation is running third% I don't know 7% and then lack of knowledge of program 7%.
Those are actually pretty good numbers.
Uh they're all less than 10%. Uh, one I know one of the focuses with Uplift is really making sure people know how to get how to get places, how to apply for jobs. Um, I mean, you look at Pathway to Payday, these programs that we have are effective. If I did a historical on these, I think they're a little bit higher with the the lack of knowledge.
Um, but again, our numbers are pretty low in my opinion, uh, because the programs we have and that they're very very active and getting people employed and helping them get employed.
resources used the the number one spot in Eureka is still free meal at 60%.
Again, we track their every month I get numbers from them how many meals they serve against meals, not people. Uh but free meals has always been the king of resources here in Eureka. That's why for us uh for for EPD for uplift uh for care being down there at free meals is beyond important to embed with that community.
Uh be part of the staff, work with the staff, work with the clients down there, uh help serve food, have the barbecue every year we have, have the service fair. Um, but it's really important to do targeted outreach down there with folks. Uh, the missions number two at 41%, Food for People, uh, Open Door at 26%, and then Betty's at 23% staying strong.
Uh, what do you need? Uh, this is this pops back and forth quite a bit.
Bathrooms uh, 37%. This has always been uh, not always, it was 15% last time, but 37% is a pretty good incline this year. Increase double. Uh, that's been an issue. uh and it's a challenging thing to deal with, but again that's something that uh we've looked at in the past and that's a constant need that we're hearing. Laundry is interesting.
Uh Providence the uh resource center down at Freemill run by Brian the resource guy. Uh great guy. U but they lost the uh Providence lost some funding for laundry services. And so that's one gap that eventually I'm hoping someone will fill um if there's funding found and uh he would give out laundry cards to for people to wash their clothes. And so we've talked about mobile laundry services. We talked about we've brainstormed for years on this different things, but that was a big hit to the community when the laundry service stopped. Uh place to live, that's commonly up there. Uh having more money, it's throw me in there, too. And then uh hygiene as well and showers at 22%.
Which is interesting because we actually have showers down at free meal. And then we also have AHA as well. But again, uh we definitely can use more showers. So almost there. uh biggest barrier for getting housing is lack of affordable housing uh income, employment, upfront cost and lack of rental history. Again, I think our programs have been addressing that on various ends, but obviously more needs to happen.
And last but not least, the uh biggest barrier for obtaining employment uh housing is the biggest one, 17%. Uh disabilities or health issues actually dropped at 15% but still is number two.
Transportation number three is still at 14. Appearance, clean clothing and hygiene. That I'm sure is playing in also to the laundry service. And then mental health issues, uh, which actually dropped, but it still remain number five for us.
And these guys are here to answer any questions for you as well.
>> So, do we have any questions? Council member Castellano.
>> Yeah, just one quick question. Thank you for the report. Um, it's always interesting. It's not the greatest word.
Uh, share some insight into what the needs are. Um, I was curious the decrease in the treatment for drugs and alcohol.
>> Um, have you seen any correlation between that and the just the number of spaces available or programs available for treatment?
So, we used to use Waterfront Recovery.
Um, and they would take people we could we could take them there just at a drop of a hat. Um, a lot of places are wanting appointments now, which are really difficult. Um, a lot of times you get somebody having a bad day, you start talking to them about rehab, um, and you have somewhere to take them. Um, right now, right now, we don't have that. It's like, okay, now it's next Tuesday. Well, from this Tuesday to next Tuesday, thousand things happen. And so, we try to find them. We try really hard. Uh, that's that's been something that's pretty tough. Um waterfront's still great. It's just a little bit slower getting people in than it used to be.
>> Um and we don't have really any other option than that.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. Historically when CEST first started uh we had some we had measures Z funding as well and support with the county. Um so we could easily drop off that day for waterfront. That's why when I think years ago we showed our presentation for ceset numbers was like 250 referrals in a couple years. I mean we would call them uh when Sergeant Swanson was a missed officer and Sergeant Ross was the oldtown officer and ranger. We would find someone we have that 5 10 minute window 50-minute window. They want to get they want to get treatment, right? You're going to lose them after that. And so we can direct line of service right to the location and then uh they get they would get in that day or at least get this that started. Um but now it's just it's a limitation and part of it is how insurance works and some other things but it was a lot more streamlined back in 2018 1920 than it is in 2026.
>> But it was nice just dropped people off.
So part of that was related to uh the implement implementmentation of uh the drug medical system that Humble participates in where we're effectively sharing beds across seven six or seven counties. Um and I'm so full disclosure I'm on the board at Waterfront. Um and there has been an issue with retaining providers um and being able to staff up the number of physicians effectively um and nursing staff to be able to accommodate uh full patient capacity. So usually their rehab is full. Um however, their detox is usually not able to actually meet its bed capacity simply because of staff limitations and the staffing ratios required. Um and that really kind of harks back to the typical issues we have here in Humbult of retaining physicians locally.
>> Yeah. Thank you. Do you think um I know you there's some new programs being developed uh you know that are kind of mental health programs. Do you think once those will open it will help that situation?
>> I I do. Um particularly uh the expansion for Crossroads that West Harrison is working on um being able to add a significant amount more uh uh bids for rehab um will be super super helpful to the community. Um that said in in talking with both Waterfront and uh uh Crossroads, we don't anticipate that to still like exceed demand. Um I think this is a situation where we we are chasing a moving target. Um and we we will expand and that will help more people but we will not help all the people with the expansion.
>> Yeah. Thank you. Council member Conterus Dillo.
>> Yeah. Hi. Thank you. Um I was curious uh the one slide uh one of the questions that was asked was lifestyle choice um as a reason for being on the streets.
And I was curious um how with I think it was maybe three slides before that um there was a list and it included like mental health um a uh you know escaping abuse like there was kind of I think maybe six or seven different categories and I was wondering how um you squared those two things together because I was wondering if lifestyle and choice um could include people who you know chose to escape abuse. I just was trying to square those two different slides. Yeah, it's going to be up to the the whoever's giving the survey how to just decide how to how to log that. Uh but normally we have things pre-catategorized to to a degree and allow to open. So I I would trying to think if I had someone ask that question, hey, I'm fleeing abuse or abuse, is that a choice? Um I would expect their answer to be no because it's not what they're like, hey, this is the lifestyle I want to live. This is a something I have to do to get out of situation. But it's going to be depending on how they respond to that question. That's Yeah, I was wondering because the data seemed to be the statistics seemed so high on um lifestyle choice that it didn't seem to coincide well with that earlier slide where there were all these different reasons that seemed like a considerable number of those would not be lifestyle choice. So I was wondering if it you know within that that could be you know hey I I'm drinking and doing drugs and therefore maybe they're considering that lifestyle choice so that's a lifestyle choice. I was just trying to kind of square those two things. Could that include drug addiction then?
>> I mean it could. Um and I think when I historically done the surveys in the past since 2018, uh you know we and we talked to people just in general on when I was especially working as a sergeant with CET, you know, people you would ask them, you know, we give them these options. We talk to them about we see them every day, right? We want to give them inside or wherever and just like no, I don't want this. This is what I want to do right now. Yeah. Yeah.
>> And I think when we look at our population of my estimation of our homeless in Eureka is 250 to 350 probably more towards 300. Um you know we know like for I've been here almost 20 years there are people that are still on the street >> and almost 20 years ago that are still here now and they don't want this. They just they refuse to take the services and they refuse to change behavior. And so it's beyond challenging to >> sure >> you can still have a relationship with them but again the behavior is eventually we got to figure out a solution on it for for them.
>> Yeah. I wanted to make sure I understood, you know, what all was included in, you know, lifestyle choice because that makes it almost sound like, you know, I just enjoy sunsets or, you know, it kind of sounds like and I I wanted to make sure I understood a little bit better. The other question that I had was um uh I think you answered with laundry, but I was curious why um the bathroom and laundry needs like that data seem so much higher than a couple years ago.
>> Yeah, I know. our 2018 data for bathrooms, I think, was number one.
Also, I don't have the exact percent.
Um, I'll I'll pass Sergeant Ross here in a second. For sure, the laundry, that's the issue with um the community resource center uh no longer having funding for laundry service. Um, but maybe you guys can shed light on the uh shower situation.
>> And can you tell me about how much the funding was that was lost for that too?
>> I uh I think it was around 20,000 I believe.
>> That is that per year?
>> That was I believe per year I believe.
>> And all of it's gone. Uh I believe so. I think the and I also sit on the board for the hospital and I'm actually am the chair for the community benefits committee uh which actually oversees that. Um well I'm a new chair for it. Uh so I believe the somehow the funding is no longer there for that and so um that's where that was a big loss of a service.
>> Yeah. Okay.
>> The the showers um it's not so much that there aren't showers available, it's the times they're available that seems to be the biggest issue we're seeing. Um, people only get so much time and then they can't get everybody in in the same day. So, the showers might be open every day, but not everybody gets a chance to use them. Um, the problem with the bathrooms, a lot of them are closed at night. Um, which is a double-edged sword because if you leave them open, they get destroyed and they're closed anyways.
Um, and that's something we've seen in the past. I mean, the gazebo bathrooms at night, I mean, they would get shut down for weeks on end because they would get damaged so bad. So, shutting them at night, leaves them open for the day, but then people don't have anywhere to go to the bathroom at night. Um, and if you're 86 from like the shelters, then you can't go use those ones either.
Sometimes they'll still let you in, depending on what you got 86 for. Um, so if like you got in a fight at the mission, you're not going to get to come in and use the bathroom. If you know you got caught smoking weed in the back, they'll probably still let you use the bathroom, then just have you leave afterwards until your time's up and so on and so forth.
>> Okay.
>> I will say relates to showers. Um, Blue Angel Village, we're getting the handicap upgrade and they those will be available to the public soon.
Yeah, thank you.
>> With regards to the first question too regarding the the personal choice component, we we did just in terms of our process when we were reviewing the questions before implementing the survey, we did identify that as a potential issue and we actually I think probably spent 20 30 minutes on that question alone of that meeting trying to figure out how to how do we split that that hair so to speak. Um and couldn't really arrive at one that didn't also have other flaws. um it is on our list to continue to try and refine that one so that we can feel more confident in ruling out like the person perceiving circumstances out of their control as their personal choice um and really boiling it down. But um we we were unable to kind of def find a a unflawed way to remedy that. So, um, but, uh, we're going to work on it again next round and, um, with our admin tech, um, Jessica Wagner has a tremendous amount of experience in stats. And so, we're hopeful that with a little more time and, uh, capability, we can actually hammer that out and address that issue next time.
>> Yeah, thank you, Jacob. And al Oh, sorry. U,, but yeah, thank you. And I appreciate the, you know, just the details on it. So, I it gave us a lot of information even though it's it's I know nothing's going to be perfect. It's difficult to kind of get into those little nitty-gritty details, but I feel like you guys really tried and I appreciate that.
>> Council member Fernandez.
>> Uh thank you. And uh just for clarity on my part, uh when uh when council member Costalano was asking about uh the sta or the recovery services, it sounds like appointments were the new standard largely because of staffing and insurance. Is that okay?
Yeah, I just wanted to better understand that. So thank you.
>> High high demand, low providers.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. Uh going back to some of the housing elements then uh you had or demographic elements for the unhoused uh you had said that uh the folks identifying as as native you know you would try and get them uh affiliated with their tribe or at least inquire with the tribe. Do we know how many or how many are local with local tribes? Do we have an understanding of that?
>> It would be in my 63page package headquarters. Um >> I think we had the same conversation last time where probably some of the questions I have are going to be in that larger packet. So okay, >> but we can we can define those out. But normally what happens is we for actually for a while we had someone from Euro Rock actually years ago riding with us.
Actually wor with uh with at that time Ranger Ross and Oldtown Officer Ross uh and actually would come down and actually try to meet their uh their members as well. And if we do meet people u we have connections with the tribes that we just try to connect the dots or say hey we don't know um we'll call up our contact and they'll help us figure it out.
And then I know you said you might not have the answer for it, but I'm curious if there's a speculation on the shelter drops uh where people are staying uh to sleep. And so is that because people are getting more into, you know, permanent or maybe some sort of transitional housing like what's your perception on why there was a drop staying at shelters or even the green belts for that matter?
>> I'm going to hand this over to Sergeant Ross.
>> Yeah.
>> So I I think we do a lot of the surveys um at free meal and on the street. So, we didn't go into the the people in the shelters didn't really want to do the surveys that felt like this year. We I went in there a few times and I couldn't get a lot of people interested. Um, but essentially they get 86 from the shelters and then they're done for until they either work it out with the shelter and there's only so many options. So, once something bad does happen to them, they're kind of stuck on the street. Uh, and then they're sleeping. They like to sleep around free meal because they feel safe there. And so, a lot of less lot less people are sleeping on the trail um because they can sleep next to free meal. It's lighted. their services there, they feel safe, people can see them.
>> And so that's that's definitely a struggle. And then they, you know, they don't have anywhere else to go. So they get up in the morning there and they can get food and they can get services and things like that. And you go out into the into the bushes of the trail and, you know, you're kind of on your own out there. There's no lights. There's no people watching you. And so people don't feel safe and they don't want to go in the shelters for a variety of different reasons. Um it seems if if my personal opinion it seems like the drug use is the issue. If you go in there, you can't smoke weed, you can't, you know, use drugs and they can't live the lifestyle that they want to live um when they're outside of the shelter.
>> Okay. And and that kind of goes into the next question because uh when when we had gotten to the question about uh the needs or resources at play uh a place to live was actually down from the previous and so I'm curious if there's again a reason to that which you might be able to answer to um why that number has gone down.
>> I so there have been multiple uh permanent supportive housing facilities as well as the Bayside Village um that have opened up since we did this survey last. Um, so I don't know that that would explain all of the difference that we're seeing. Um, but I would expect that that explains a significant portion of it um, in in those changes in the data because we've I mean Bayside Village was able to pull a number of people in, especially um, who had been homeless for a very long periods of time. Um, the the average uh, years homeless there in the first round of bringing folks into housing was 15 years.
>> Um, and so that that that made a huge impact. Um but then there are also other permanent supportive housing facilities that opened up in the meantime since we did the survey last.
>> Okay. And then one of the issues that we'd seen that people were unhoused was was evictions and there had been that that bit of an increase. And do we know the cause for the eviction? Do we know the type of eviction?
>> No.
>> I would think the issue with that is is with the new housing facilities opening up, >> people that have not gotten a chance to live inside for a very long period of time get put into a place they don't do well. they get evicted. Um, that can be that can be very difficult for somebody if they've been on the streets for 20 years and we put them into housing.
>> And so I think their first chance at getting someplace to live didn't go well. They got evicted. It is getting easier to find housing for people. Um, with the amount of places that have been opening up, so it's getting better. Um, but I think the people, you know, the people were surveyed, they're on the streets today. And so they could have had a chance at housing since the last time we did a survey. Now there's so many options and it didn't go well for them.
>> Yeah. I think the the challenge any time we start housing folks is we've taken folks that have lived on the streets for sometimes years, right? And we put them in inside of inside of four walls and and a roof and a floor and it's different, right? It's not as free. And so and if we don't provide that wraparound support of uh case management, um life skill or teaching life skills, mental health support, sed support, all these different things, it's going to fail. And we know that um we often have discussions on housing first approach and why that works and doesn't work and why it can ultimately fail, but how it's a great idea. Um but again, you have to have that full wraparound support and when you don't have that, especially for folks that are moving right off the street into housing, it's you're it's likely going to fail. It is >> right. And I think we've had that conversation, you know, up here as a council and I think we've had it one-on-one or even in small groups. And so, um that's that's an essential service, too. And you know, again, going back to the lack of the lack of resources. Yeah, I have more questions.
Um, >> real real quick. Oh, sorry.
>> Because I wanted to give someone else an opportunity.
>> Okay, so let me get through my next two >> real quick. Mario, can I So, sorry, Council Member Fernandez. Um I think one of the other things too is that with that wraparound service is it's difficult because when we work with folks to get them into housing we see them in their current state of survival and so they are uh accustomed to the way that they are living and what we see is when uh we house people they come out of that survival state but that comes with a whole new set of symptoms um and their mental health needs often can get worse once they are housed because they've kind of been holding it together outside but then when they have that safety component they kind of drop like our our self survival guards kind of drop for that and they they can decompensate inside and then when we have the shortages and resources that we have that unfortunately perpetuates that that scenario of them being evicted and so then going into at least one of the last questions I have uh there was also a decrease in in medical recipients and even a you know small decrease in food stamp recipients and so the explanation behind that is there one is it because we're seeing you know cuts at the federal level having an impact here or is it just folks aren't applying like they had in the past?
>> I I don't know that the HR1 effects will have been seen by this survey just because of the time frame that we did the survey. Um I would very much anticipate two years from now when we reservey people we will see effects in access to Calresh, access to medical um and partnership. Um I I don't know if the uh decreases this round are considered like stat statistically significant, you know, drops like there's a cause to it or if it's just a a happen stance that we had a few folks drop. Um it's also based on self-report, too. So if if they like came from another county recently or maybe they didn't fill out their paperwork because they don't have somewhere to get their mail and they didn't keep up on that, um they they could have been dropped recently. So that that there are multiple explanations where we could see a small dip. Next round I would absolutely expect to see a much larger dip because of the HR1 effects >> and we did see the increase in partnership. So I think it's flip-flop.
So we're seeing some I'll come off medical go to partnership. So I think those numbers are kind of still in the same ballpark. Um but we're seeing this the switch.
>> Thank you.
>> Any further questions from council?
Uh council me council member Bower.
First, thank you guys for all your hard work. I mean, we all appreciate it and especially this report. every year I I sit there and I it's daunting looking at the you know statistics and seeing what you guys have to deal with and um but I'm curious in the future and how I'm trying to think of how to how to phrase this question but whether you know we're doing our our best to get them mental health services and you know are we successful I mean is that a and maybe that's a question for you Jacob you know how how's that going are people accepting you know help and getting on medication and and getting on the right path.
>> So we still see our our typical individual is in in terms of mental health right um we have uh our data shows that the anosnosia rate is holding steady with car's uh uh uh clients and that's even with the increase in clients that we're seeing per year. So even though we're increasing the overall clients, the percentage that end up having anosagnosia, again the symptomatic loss of insight um has has remained the same. Um I think that we have made headway with some clients and then I think we have more clients pop up. Um and something that actually we didn't get a chance to do um for this presentation, but we can certainly share out later. Um a again kudos to uh uh Jessica Wagner, our admin tech. Um she had the great idea of uh pulling the raw survey data from year-over-year and comparing to see um which names have stayed the same and which ones have not reappeared. Um to really analyze like are we seeing attrition um of some sort?
Are we seeing some cases resolve? Are there other cases that are remaining? Um we wouldn't of course publish the the specific names for that but we would at least be able to get an idea of you know x percentage of individuals have been surveyed twice x percentage of individuals have taken the survey all six times um and uh be able to get some new data from that >> and I think that's a hard question because our our mental health numbers have gone up for caller service wise however our training with officers and ces set they're much much by far in this realm in humble by far the best trained.
We watched body camera foot on this.
They're this IPA did an audit on it.
They're doing very very good work and they're doing a very good job evaluating if it's a mental health or not. Um very very good job. Then on top that we pull care on top of that. And so even though our numbers are increasing uh you know I mean we went we went from 330 mental health holds in 2020 to 105 or 120 last year. I mean at 2/3 drop um because we're diverting better. Um but are we seeing the same people? Yeah. But then you see folks that you know that were heavy hitters. you know, we're talking 350 calls a year for service that, you know, every everyone in the city knew them. You drive by, it's like, where'd this guy go? Well, we got got them, you know, got them assistance. And so that one individual that is very very taxing on the community and themselves because they're like the just the lifestyle is not good for them or anybody. Um, so once they kind of get them assistance, I mean that for us that's a giant win, right? You're looking for those big those are that's those aren't always going to happen. And also with Care Court, these guys have been uh working very very hard with the county uh getting folks to where they to getting treatment and getting assistance. Um so I think it's a it's hard to answer because we're getting more calls, but we're doing a better job I think on evaluating them. Um but also better job on diverting them.
>> Yeah, you have for sure. And that was one of my other questions was about care court. How many times we've been and that's not part of the survey, but that is a is an important tool that we have.
I was just curious are we are we >> Absolutely. Um so we we have sent uh over 10 referrals at this point. I don't remember the exact number but we've sent over 10 referrals um to careore from our clientele with care and sees set. Um we've also streamlined the process by which the county is able to issue welfare institutions code 5200 orders um which are essentially judge ordered 5150s at the petitioning of behavioral health. Um so if individuals have say decompensated and are incredibly sick and unable to make their care court dates because of their mental illness um behavioral health is able to petition a judge to write that order and then that's been streamlined so that if they're in the city of Eureka the orders go directly to Karen Ceset and then we're able to bring most folks in within a day or two um and then they're able to get that stabilization and what we've seen is when that happens then after stabilization they're able to re-engage with Care and continue their care, which has been effective. Um, the county has done a really great job with their care program. Um, and I think our our teams have done an excellent job. I mean, Officer Clark in particular has been really aggressive with getting those fulfilled and it's been great. I also just want to give a shout out to Humble in General for that. We are the only county doing 5200 orders in the state.
Um, and so there's there's a lot of pioneering on on that front.
>> Thanks. Appreciate it. Council >> member Conterus Delo, I just had one last question. Um, actually along the lines of what council member Bower had brought up about care court, I'd seen a, you know, a number of kind of negative articles written about care courts um, for California saying, you know, these aren't working, but my impression that I'd gotten from you guys here directly seems to be that it has been beneficial.
And I was wondering if you could speak more to our direct experience here.
>> Absolutely. So, um, Humble County was named a Care Court champion by the governor. um Humble County's programming and our collaboration and networking uh uh across the city and the county level and the county's other community partners um has really made uh Humble County system stand out um to the point where there have been other agencies from large cities such as San Diego um who have reached out to try and learn more about what is being done here so that they can you know try to kind of codify and reimplement it. Um, and so there there's been a lot of success.
We're kind of we've kind of been the exception. We exceed um petitions and success rates um uh per capita over most of the other counties in the state.
>> U do can I ask a followup real quick? Do you know why we're seeing better results here in our county? Like I mean I I obviously there's some we have something very unique here with our staff and the training. Um, but I just I was curious why I'm I'm not sure if I understood fully in your answer like how we're benefiting when others are kind of failing at this. Um, why it's succeeding here.
>> I think we're small enough to be able to gather consensus quickly about being creative, but large enough to have the resources to do it. And so I think that due to the uh level of interconnectedness with the various agencies involved and the the kind of people who are in the key positions to do that networking um combined with uh the creativity to kind of be able to think creativity and bandwidth to think outside the box on how we're going to do some of this stuff such as implementing the 5200 orders. um we've been able to to kind of fix some of the gaps and maybe tear down some of the silos that other counties might might be facing.
>> Yeah. When we designed CET uh back in 2018, you know, one of the founding principles that's also located on on our website is to uh is to remove roof barriers and red tape. U we want to be outside the box and so I think the strength of all of all these programs uh that even allows us to get this kind of data um is the fact we can collaborate together. Um yeah, Jacob works for the city manager, but they also are in the same building together and if there's an issue, we talk. If we need assistance from another CL or some another community partner, we call them directly and we make it happen. There's no we really really try to remove red tape and bureaucracy from the process which really fails uh people that are in need that you have to go through 30 steps.
That's a waste of our time. If I someone wants to get into a treatment or whatever, if I can get them from point A to point Z in 15 minutes, that's a giant win. If it takes me three weeks, that's a fail and that's a system fail. And so our job is to make the system better and make it work for us.
>> Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate it.
Any further questions from council?
>> I have a couple. Um, so I was curious. I just have um a couple clarifi clarification questions. The first one was there was the slide about children and you mentioned that they weren't little children, they were grown children.
Does that mean 16 to 18? What's the diff? No. Tell me more about that.
>> It'd be 18 or older. So that's where um so you're living with if you had I had an adult child. If I was living on the streets or in an encampment with that adult child.
>> Okay. Okay. Good. But yeah, again it's if we do find um historically we have not found many children and Sergeant Ross can confirm this for recent but historically if we have it was very very quick to I mean we even call the director of health and human services saying hey we're getting red tape unacceptable let's this needs to address now and and it does and so if we find those kids on the street um I mean we have people we call in the middle of the night to make uh to fix things like that. So, >> I appreciate that. And then just a quick clarification about waterfront. So, I know before they were entering people in um like you were saying before, just you know, I see you. You're having a problem. Do you want to go to rehab?
Yes, I do. Let's go. Let's do this thing. Um did they have to go through detox before they went into treatment at that time?
Is there a separation between detox and the treatment?
>> So, there's a separation between detox and treatment. Um the reason that there's the the fasttrack available uh before drug medical was due to the measure Z funding and effectively beds I don't want to say being held but there there was an avenue to get folks in faster and there was an availability um with drug medical rolling out and then really going into full effect. Um it's allowed uh a lot of these uh rehabilitation and and detox facilities to flourish in terms of being able to have full capacity or or as much as their staff allows for. um which is great for the program stability because before drug medical if folks didn't have enough clients then they were not able to sustain their business um even if it was a nonprofit right so drug medical benefited these agencies in adding stability but we also increased the um uh demand for those beds and decreased the ability to fasttrack individuals in >> so is there ever fasttracking with HRC or crossroads or is it mainly the fast track is through waterfront >> HRC and crossroads are also now on drug medical and have been for quite some time and um the the only fasttracking that I'm aware of that occurs is usually if there is a um a mother who is using who is pregnant um at which point once they're medically cleared at the hospital then there's there's usually some expedition of receiving uh uh detox or rehabilitation services but I'm not aware of any other fasttracks across any of the agencies currently.
>> And then is there currently something in process um to do a detox that would be similar to what say 14th and C used to be that's not medically with staffed.
>> Have you have you?
>> So I'm not aware of any facilities coming online that are going to be a social model detox. The issue with social model detox um such as the one on Sea Street was that all those folks still required a medical evaluation at the ER prior to admission. And so uh when we're looking at detox, the primary issue that requires medical intervention is alcohol. Um alcohol, benzo, and barbituates are the three substances that uh are actually have fatal withdrawal states. Um individuals may uh be incredibly uncomfortable with opiate withdrawal or with withdrawal from methamphetamines. Um but the alcohol, benzos, and barbituates are are actually potentially fatal. Um, and so they always require that medical component because if they're going to go into DTS, they need to have medical management and the uh primary treatment for that is with benzoazipines and a taper >> to get them through the first 10 days.
>> Gotcha. Okay. Thank you for that. And then lastly, I just wanted to say that I really um this this survey in particular, I appreciate the the way that we go about that that we actually meet the individual. It's an opportunity for connection. There are too many questions. I'm just going to tell you in my opinion. Um, but we're able to make that connection unlike the pit account or the PIT count where, you know, I've been on that as well where you go out and you maybe go out to Heric and you see three cars and you say, "Oh, well that car looks like it'll hold four people." So maybe, you know, we'll count that as a four and maybe that one's at a two and there's not that um personal connection. So I appreciate that we actually do make those connections and that we have names tied even though those names aren't released. we have valid data. Um, and I think that that's really important moving forward with for folks. And then, um, the other thing I wanted to say about that was, um, you know, I heard it here tonight, you know, well, you know, when you're housed, you're not as free. And what I want to say about that is that when you have been living on the street for 30 years, 15 years, 5 years, four years, it is terrifying to move into housing. It is terrifying to have to learn a whole new way to live. And I just want to say that out loud because I think that, you know, we don't give people enough credit for even being willing to try to move into housing. Um, and I really want to appreciate people that have moved forward with their life and as you mentioned a couple um that were particularly special to me that took a long time. So, thank you again for all the work you do. Appreciate you guys.
>> Real quick, just if I may, I want to give a huge shout out to all the staff that worked on this. Um th this survey this year coincided with a decrease in Uplift's uh outreach worker capacity and the resource center staff, the care staff and CES set staff really stepped up and and kind of carried things not just past the goalpost but farther. Um we were able to get more surveys done this year than the previous year and that was with staffing shortages and so I just want to give a huge shout out to the teams that put in so much effort into getting this done.
>> Great. Thank you so much.
Nothing further.
You guys are awesome. Much appreciated.
So, this will take us to public comment.
This is the time for members of the public who wish to be heard on matters that do not appear on the agenda. City council policy is to limit each speaker to three minutes. Such time allotment or portion thereof shall not be transferred to other speakers.
Pursuant to the Brown Act, the city council may not take action on an item that does not appear on the agenda and there'll be a maximum of 30 minutes allotted to receive public comment in the initial comment period if necessary.
An additional period for uh will be allotted to public comments after city manager reports, but only if the first 30 minute public comment period was not sufficient to allow all those who wish to speak to do so. So, thank you for lining up. Come on up.
>> Welcome.
>> Good evening. My name is Kyle. Um, firstly, please adopt the resolution by the Humble Anti-War Committee to condemn attacks on Iran and Cuba. Second, I'm here with the Humble Tenants Union asking to build on the protections given by the Tenant Protection Act of 2019.
The law itself is very strong, but there are some areas of improvement.
Specifically, the window of time it takes to qualify, as well as prohibiting tenants living in housing that's owned by individuals as opposed to corporate landlords. The majority of units here are not corporate landlords, and so we'd like to see local tenant laws more accurately reflect the conditions here.
Currently, it takes 12 months to qualify for just cause housing, which broadly limits the reasons for eviction. What the Humble Tenants Union would like to see is shortening that window from 12 months to 6 months. For example, a local tenant was recently served a 30-day notice after their building sold to a new landlord. They've been living in the same property for 2 years, but because they switched to a different unit and signed a new lease. The Tenant Protection Act has a gray area where they could be forced to move even though they've been living in the same building for three year almost 3 years. And more broadly, we are asking uh to require 90 days to vacate as opposed to a 30-day.
As you can imagine, with the current housing situation, it is very difficult to find housing within 30 days. Uh I'm glad that some data on homelessness was shared tonight because I'd like to note that 15% of those living on the street are left there due to evictions and loss of housing. Most of our tenant work is made up of no cause 30-day evictions. If we had stronger protections, according to EPD's own data, more than 30 people wouldn't be living on the street. Um, yeah, thank you for your time.
>> Thank you.
>> Welcome, Pat. I am I'm also a member of humble anti-war committee and um I also wanted to say that we need to we we really need to have a resolution for this city for no war with Iran and no war with Cuba. No more forever wars.
And I I guess um I I don't know whether I need to explain why we shouldn't have these wars. Um, but I will and I'll say we shouldn't have one of Iran. Iran never invaded us to begin with. And Iran never had any nuclear weapons. They did try to get nuclear power and enrich, but they didn't have any weapons. And Cuba never invaded us either. Um, I would also like to say that although Trump is the most blatant bastard, uh, all the other presidents and practically practically the the whole history of our country was very warlike and we've got to stop these wars. And you're probably going to say to me, well, why should we have this? I mean, you know, it's just a little city of Eureka. It's just a bunch of propaganda. But it's not. It's actually we have to get together. We we will be like um we will show the other country the other cities in this country that they can stand up also to the federal government and say we don't want this and uh it's just um I just want to say no more wars. Thank you very much.
>> Thanks Pat.
>> Hey there. Welcome. Give me a second.
>> Yeah.
There you go.
>> Hello. Uh, I'm Ryan Littleton. I'm also Oh, >> you're very tall.
>> Yeah, no problem. Thank you. I appreciate it. Uh, yeah. So, where was I? Oh, yeah. I'm Ryan Littleton. I'm with the Humble Anti-War Committee. Um we're here because we believe that Eureka uh the Eureka City Council should be as you know a governing force of Eureka should stand out and say that we do not want any US war with Iran or human viol uh human right violations towards Cuba with the cruel blockade that has been going on since I believe 1961.
one whenever. Yeah, it's been a long time. And also with the accrete um Trump's uh escalations on the blockade with the blockade of fuel and essential stuff for people to live. Um so yeah, I hope um you adopt our resolutions. I have it right here and I'll be happy to pass it out. Um, and hopefully we can work on uh making this uh quick and easy. So, yeah.
>> Thank you.
Come on.
>> Sorry, it's coming down.
>> There you go. Welcome.
>> Thank you. Um, I'm Elizabeth Haynes and I'm here to tell you about AaW Humboldt, an organization that I'm in. My colleague Chris will follow up with why we're really here. Just I'm going to tell you about us. She's going to tell you what we want. Um, so as I said, I'm Elizabeth Haynes. I'm a member of AaW Humboldt. We have a membership through much of Humbult County with members in Trinidad, Blue Lake, Hidesville, and Fortuna. as well as Arcada, McKinleyville, and Eureka.
Um, AAW is a national organization. It's the American Association of University Women. We've been advancing equity since 1881.
Nationally, we give out over $6 million in scholarships and fellowships annually.
Our legal action fund has supported women in Title 9 lawsuits, sexual harassment and abuse cases, and pay equity cases.
We helped fund the lily liy led betterers case and fought for the 2009 lily led better fair pay act and we've been working to close the pay gap since 1913 when uh Washington DC branch published a study that showed that women civil servants at that time made 78 cents for every dollar that male civil servants made. Well, that picture isn't much better now. It's today on average women make 81 cents on the dollar for males. And if you break it down by um a race, it's much worse. The native natives, Americans, and Hispanic women make only 58 cents on the dollar for a white male and um white women only make 77 cents.
So locally, what do we what do we do?
Well, we're promoting education because there's no better predictor of a well-paying job than a good education.
In in Eureka, we offer a STEM education program to middle school girls. And because we know that STEM education in middle school and high school opens possibilities for young women, the program that we offer is we send five girls from middle school in in Eureka to a summer camp tech program at CSU Soma where they participate in hands-on STEM activities. We have high school, we give high school um Chromebooks to students in high schools who are going through a nontraditional program. We have scholarships and we have a women's history tea each March.
This year we honored Dr. Anna Nuslock and Maggie Peters. And Chris is going to come up and talk to you now. Thank you.
>> Thanks for being here.
>> Hello and welcome.
>> Good evening. I hope you can hear me.
>> We can.
>> Is that right?
>> Okay.
>> Um, good evening. I'm Chris Will, a public policy director for AAW Humboldt.
Every spring, the American Association of University Women of California works with our state legislature to co-sponsor bills for the yearly legislative agenda.
This year, they co-sponsored two bills focused on human trafficking, education, and protections for youth. And a third bill that prohibits health plans or health insurance providers from denying coverage, benefits, or limited health care services to a person based on race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex. Nonpartisan advocacy for laws and policies to ensure equity and end discrimination is what we do. The California legislature is strengthening protections against discrimination at the state level as the federal government has abandoned diversity, equity, inclusion, and other anti-discrimination policies. So we are here we are here to focus our advocacy on local anti-discrimination education and protections.
SB 1340 a state anti-discrimination law was enacted in January of 2025.
A aw California launched a project called city council action and monitoring.
It is a project to focus on local activism because small local activism actions often have a ripple effect. My understanding is that law laws that this law permits city governments to enact and enforce local laws prohibiting discrimination.
Our goal is not so much to monitor local action on SP 1340, but to build relationships with this city council, to identify areas of local discrimination, and to collaborate with you on new policies that comply with state law. Our AW Humbult pro uh pro, excuse me, Humbult project team would like to meet with one of you council members to discuss SB 1340 and help enact local anti-discrimination policy if and where it is needed. Um, I have copies of my request here for each member of the council and also my contact information.
So, thank you.
>> Great. Thank you.
>> Good afternoon.
>> Hello. Welcome.
>> Thank you.
My name is uh Big Lou from the Eureka Sunshine Ordinance Task Force and uh we're here to shed light on uh the workings of Eureka simply because um light threatens darkness and we all know darkness serves nothing and light is the way forward.
So, we see uh violations and um we um bring them to you and um we have an order of determination whether it's a violation.
And if we find a violation, um there's an appeal process. You can appeal the order of determination um and you can appeal it to um the ethics committee.
Is it ethical or not for this ordinance to go forward?
And has the public been given due notice?
Unlike the uh recent meeting over there, the board of supervisors about the sheriff's oversight committee where the doors were locked. It's a classic example of the public being denied input for something that's crucial for the goings on of government. Correct?
So um that's what we intend to bring to Eureka government. It is a startling difference between other jurisdictions where they have a sunshine ordinance and Eureka doesn't. So, um, once we bring stuff to light, we'll start to realize that, um, you know, maybe the colonists weren't such bad people like, uh, you portray them to be.
um savages, colonists.
Flip that uh script to where the colonists are the savages and the uh savages were somehow uh superior in this domain. And um apparently the white man just treated him real badly and uh we need to constantly remind everybody at every point in time that fact. It's just so disgusting to start a meeting off with that negative context and it really shows where you're at. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Um, Big Lou, we did have a clarification at the bike month thing and I asked you to email me and I would send you a copy of that sunshine ordinance. I have not seen your email.
So, please email me. We'll get that right to you.
>> I did send you.
>> Thank you so much. I'm not going to argue. We'll talk after.
>> Okay.
Is there anyone on Zoom?
Oh, I'm sorry. Is there anyone else in chambers' like to comment on public comment?
Seeing no one. Do you see anyone on Zoom?
>> I see no one on Zoom.
>> So, we will close the public comment then and bring it to council reports and we will begin with council member Castellano.
>> Okay.
I attended the Humble Transit Authority meeting and I also attended a cookout in honor of the retirement of Greg Pratt who um has served uh at Humble Transit Authority for more than two decades and just uh want to thank him for his service to transit and to the local community and also welcome Katie Colander is the the new director for Humbult Transit Authority. Um, I attended the Eureka Main Street Spring Festival where I uh beautified about eight dumpsters and thanks to Recology or along with a bunch of community members. Um, but thanks to Recology and the Yuka Cultural Arts District and Yuka Main Street for supporting that. Those will be uh kind of part of a just a larger side project to beautify Opera Alley. They're going to get uh Recology has to take them back, put some stickers on them, and then they're going to place them in Opera Alley uh sometime in the next week or so. Um I went on a ride along with uh Eureka Police Department officers Clark and Sha and um just want to thank both of them for their time and uh for their dedication to the community. Um it was really yeah they're just both very thoughtful, very generous in their time with me. Um and I attended the H the Home Waste Management Authority board meeting and I also attended um Congressman Huffman's event at the base hike range.
Thank you, Council Member Molton.
>> Thank you, Mayor. I uh have no travel to report. I do uh want to take this opportunity to say that calling the indigenous people of Humbult savages is a dehumanizing slur that has no place in civic discourse.
Um onto my report. I attended the Humbult Bayfire uh board meeting as well as a personnel committee. I attended the Transparency Humble Coalition Blood on the Clock Tower event which was sort of a liars game. Um, including uh some politicians and some actors. Um, it's very entertaining. Uh, a little weird.
Um, I attended the It's great. I lying like on purpose. I don't know. I'm not very good at it, but I did win. Okay.
Um, attended the planning commission meeting. Um, I got to go off councsil stuff. I got to go to the Rudabagga Ball, which is a benefit for Kinetic Universe, the nonprofit that runs a Kinetic Grand Championship. If you aren't aware, that big amazing event is uh run by a local nonprofit. Uh the ball was a benefit for the universe as well as the Eureka Theater. All hail uh and glory to Ruda Queen 2026, Gustaf Wattlesworth III.
She is a very silly goose. I'm looking forward to Connecticut Grand Championship. Humboldt's oldest and geographically largest free public art event. It's all free and all over the county. Go to kinetic grand championship.com for a spectators guide and go check out our amazing backyard and our amazing neighbors and their amazing art. It's really fun. That's all.
>> Thank you, Council Member Fernandez.
>> Uh I too participated in the uh Blood on the Clock Tower event. Unfortunately, team evil won that night. Even though it's usually not uh you know easy dichotomy of life being good and bad but in this one there was a clear clear division. Uh but again fun at least had was or at least fun was had in that scenario. Uh as I had also attended uh congressman Huffman's I think it was a hoot nanny was it? Yeah. Yeah. Just this last weekend. Uh so it was good to hear him speak along with uh uh County Supervisor Mike Wilson. And uh that's that's all I have at least for for council business. And much like uh council member Molton, I too take some umbrage with earlier public comment and any inference of race from our land acknowledgement ought to look to some sort of uh inward uh psychology on what's going on there.
>> Thank you, Council Member Bower.
>> Thank you, Mayor. Um, I attended a Humbult County City uh 2 by two. Um, we had a Hanul Bay fire meeting um just recently as well. Uh, I miss quarter quarters for Carson and I had a 50th birthday party to go to. So, I couldn't I couldn't miss that, but I hope it I hope it went well. I'm sure some of you were there. I attended the Born to Breathe awards ceremony. a bunch of uh the high school our local high school students doing really cool art about the dangers of of of smoking and I also attended the uh Huffman Hoot Nanny and that was a great experience to see our congressman and hear what's going on and I think that's it for me. Thanks.
>> Thank you council member Conterus Delo.
>> Yeah, thank you mayor. Um I actually did something I haven't done in a while. I took a oneweek vacation.
I know. Uh but I did um I did, like I said, I got to speak at uh one of the National Day of Prayer. I talked about unity in the community. Um a call for unity in the community was kind of my theme. Um I got to go to uh the recent Humble Democrats meeting. I got to listen to Assemblyman Chris Rogers speak as well as um Congressman Huffman. um and uh went to a housing meeting. Uh also attended the board of supervisors 2 by two and then I bounced and went down to Davis and got to see a Miles Davis tri uh tribute band um and got to enjoy some jazz. So that was that was my little vacation I got to do. That's my report. Thank you. And let's see. I've been out a little bit um myself.
So let me just take a peek here.
So, uh, I too went to the Born to Breathe Youth Media Festival. Um, and Scott, excuse me, council member Bower and Council Member or I believe she's council member Atkins Salazar from Arcada were judges as well as myself.
And it was really neat to see these kids. I had a a former student that was there as well and it was just really great to check in and and see um the wealth of talent in our youth and our community. True blessing. I am MCED the Humble Literary Project outf fox trivia contest and was able to sing a happy birthday with the whole crowd to council member the lovely council member Molton.
Uh my town hall, our town hall was May 9th. Uh h it was incredible. We had 60 people there. Jessica counted. Um I want to thank Jacob and Laura, the NAMI CIT, DHHS Redwood Regional Center for providing translation. Um it was an incredible opportunity. It will be on video available um hopefully this week if not next week. So that was a real winner and Casaro did a great job on the catering. I attended the Boys and Girls Club 29th Enchanted Evening Champions for Youth where I got to see Michelle Constantine board of member of the year.
Leroy Zerling ambassador of the year.
Business of the year was Coast Central.
They were also the business of the year at CASA. Um, and individual of the year, K. Johnson.
Volunteer of the year, Carlos Sanchez.
And I say those names because they're important. These are incredible community members that are giving back.
And I know that there are many that don't get named, but I just want to name them in the moment. I did the Habitburger ribbon cutting, which was a lot of fun. I went to Bike Month Jefferson, and I'm telling you what, it was blowing a gale. D riding my bike down there. Oh my god, it was so miserable. But once I got once I got there, it was super fun. We rode uh that little bike to make sure that there was music allowed or or going. Uh let's see.
I did that. Uh oh, and then I went to the Eureka Heritage Society Preservation Awards where um the Westside Community Improvement Association was honored.
They had this great video. I want to show it at council sometime about their process and how they how they came through. Scott and Stephanie Phelps were um recognized for their uh restoration of a 1907 colonial revival house. And guess what you guys? The city of Eureka.
That's right. And Sequoia Park Zoo uh were awarded as well for the conservation of the Robert Usher Foundation and Fairy House. And Pete Johnston was preservationist of the year. He's a local contractor that does a lot of work in our region. So I've been a little bit busy. Oh, and then of course I attended um quarters for Carson Park. And you know, it's always fun hanging out with team Eureka, but it was so cool. I didn't win anything. And so at the end, this little boy, he was probably, I don't know, fifth grade.
He'd won this mirror in the raffle and he he says, "I'm going to get rid of this." He goes, "Do you want it?" I was like, "Yeah, I'll take that. It's a nice big mirror this kid gave me." What a sweetheart, right? See, again, our youth doing great things in our community. I was very grateful. Um, yeah. And then I got a a painting, too. So, it is always a great opportunity to hang out with community. I love it. And I do have to say I did attend the Rudabagga ball. Always so much fun. Again, we had one of our council members was a judge.
Guess which one. And um I wanted to announce also that cream princess, crown princess Jillian Justice and Glory Hog Princess Mother of Pearl were both winners. Jillian Justice is a young girl. She's like 18, 17, 17. Best energy, you guys. She was just incredible and just such talented women.
And so I hope that you all will join us out at Kinetics this weekend. It's going to be fabulous. It's going to be glorious. You're going to have a great time. You're going to see everybody you know. and it's just it's such a a community treasure. So, I guess that's it. We'll move on to consent calendar. Thank you for listening. Uh all matters listed under this category are considered to be routine by the city council and will be enacted by one motion. Pursuant to city council resolution 2011-22 if a member of the public would like an item on the consent calendar pulled and discussed separately. The request shall be made to a council member prior to the meeting unless a specific request is made by a council member. The consent calendar will not be read and there will be no separate discussion of these items. Uh no one's mentioned anything to me yet.
Is anybody have anything? Okay, great.
So with that, if we could get a motion and a second. I'll >> move we approve the consent calendar as written.
>> Second.
>> Motion a second. Please vote.
>> Five yes votes. Motion carries.
>> Thank you. This brings us to legislative action correspondence.
Looking to my left and right. Nothing.
This brings us to our ordinances and resolutions.
This is a special one tonight. um the devoy flatmo alley naming with staff senior planner loofner.
And I want to first um turn it over to council member Molton to say a few words about this great thing that is happening for our community.
>> Am I going to go first?
>> Yes.
>> I have a little slideshow.
>> Oh, do I have a little slideshow? Oz.
Oh, took him by surprise.
>> Do you have it?
>> It didn't make it to the >> A technical moment, friends. Give us one minute here or three.
Sorry about that.
He's got it. Just take a second to make this less complicated. Um, Oz, I I will just ask you to go to the next flag or I'll ask you to advance my slides if you don't mind. We lost it.
There he is. Dwayne Flatmo.
Uh, artist Dwayne Flatmo is a Eureka icon. Next slide.
>> Next slide.
>> He's got it. His work can be seen in every corner of our community. From the six-story dancer overlooking the city of town, the center of town to his memorable kinetic sculptures floating or sometimes not floating across the humble bay to local product and event artwork you can find in most of our closets, refrigerators, and garden sheds. Next slide.
Flatmo style is as unique and recognizable as the man himself. It has become a part of the landscape, part of the local vibe. It's a little gritty and pretty weird, but playful and approachable. Like Dwayne, next slide.
In my proposal, I laid out many ways Dwayne's work has shaped our community, how he's inspired a generation of local artists and represented Eureka across our country and even on the world stage.
And I want to point out here in the bottom left is um with a machine that Dwayne brought to the strange vehicle games in China, an international competition. On the top right is the tenpan dragon sitting in the Smithsonian, the only kinetic sculpture to ever be shown in the Smithsonian. On the bottom right is El Pulpo Mechanico which uh the first year it went out to Burning Man made such an impact that it has become an icon for the event itself and it has been used to represent Burning Man in art all over the world. And right there in the middle is my very first kinetic sculpture team. Dwayne on the right and that's me on the left with the pigtails.
Um we were riding a 900B lobster.
Next slide.
Dwayne Flatmo has left his mark on this city and I believe we should claim him as the local treasure he is officially and put his name on something in the heart of Eureka. So, on behalf of Dwayne's wife, Mickey, everyone who has ever counted him as a mentor, including myself, and everyone in our community whose favorite hoodie has a Flatmo on it, I propose that the city of Eureka name the alley between F Street and G Street, between Fourth Street and Fifth Street to Dwayne Flatmo Alley.
And now the the planners have some official things to say about it. Thank you.
Thank you. Good evening, mayor, council members. My name is Chris Loh Hefner here to present the Dwayne Flatmo Alley naming project.
The city's community services department received a proposal from Eureka City Council member Molton for a Eureka Alley to be named Dwayne Flatmo Alley. The alley proposed for naming is located on the north side of Eureka between Fourth and Fifth Streets and FNG Streets, one block east of Charlie Moonway, which is on the same alley corridor, but uh between E and F streets.
Along the north side of the alley is the Arkley Center for the Performing Arts and a parking lot for Redwood Capital Bank. On the south side are a couple of commercial storefronts facing Fifth Street as well as future home of the Ink People. Worth noting is that there are two of Flatmo's murals along this alley corridor. One of his most recognizable works, a tribute to architecture and performing arts, as well as the Alleycats mural.
Eureka Municipal Code 152.15 prescribes a process for naming and renaming of streets and other public facilities, a sequential process through various commissions before a final decision at city council. The Open Space, Parks, and Recreation Commission received a report and recommended the naming of the alley at their meeting on March 26th of this year. The planning commission then reviewed that recommendation and the proposal at their meeting on the 13th of May. After brief comments from council member Molton, the commission acknowledged the one public comment that was received prior to the meeting, which objected to naming any public space or building after a living living person.
Uh the commission then voted unanimously to also recommend naming of the alley.
And following the planning commission's action, the council may now make a final decision on the alley naming proposal or remand the matter back to the planning commission for further consideration.
Certain findings must be made to approve the alley naming which include the alley proposed as Dwayne Flatmo Alley is not a continuation of or approximately the continuation of any existing street or alley. There are no other streets, alleys or public facilities in Eureka named Dwayne Flatmo Alley. So there should be no confusion with other streets, alleys or public facilities.
Naming the alley Dwayne Flatmo Alley along with the wayfinding signage that will be installed references Dwayne Flatmo's contributions to Eureka's cultural life and visual identity and his mentorship of local youth and artists through community- based public art. And finally, Ali naming is not considered a project under SQA guidelines and is therefore exempt.
Staff included a draft resolution with the agenda packet and council council was uh sent a supplemental notice prior to tonight's meeting which included a revised resolution to reflect the planning commission's endorsement last week as well as a spelling error correction. And based on the staff report analysis and findings consistent with zoning standards, staff recommends you accept public comment and adopt a resolution to approve naming the alley as Twain Flatmo Alley. And I have a suggested motion when you're ready.
>> Great. So, do we have any questions from council?
Great. We're going to open this item up to public comment. Is there anyone in chambers that would like to comment on this item?
Come on up.
>> Welcome.
>> I'm a I'm a hakee. I've only lived in Eureka for around a year, a little more.
Um, so I I don't I don't have strong emotional attachments yet, but this sounds pretty cool. I I might I might have I might have feelings if it doesn't happen.
>> Thank you, Akeim.
Do you see anybody on Zoom?
>> I see no one on Zoom. Okay, seeing no one, we will close the public comment and bring it back to council for comment or actually for a motion, a second, and then comments.
Council member Molton, can I see that? So, there you go. I move the city council adopt a resolution finding the project exempt from SQA and naming the alley bound by fourth and fifth streets and F and G streets as Dwayne Flatmo Alley.
>> Second.
>> So, we have a motion and a second. Are there any comments?
Council member Castellano.
>> Sure. Um, thank you, Council Member Molton, for bringing this forward and um, honoring Dwayne in this way. Um he's definitely yeah made a huge impact on our community and um it's going to be yeah just another another sweet moment you know of of Dwayne and perhaps one day you know we we confuse the issue and have Dwayne Flatmo Road also who knows you know but uh excited for Dwayne Flatmo Alley.
>> Thank you. Any other comments?
I too want to thank you for bringing this forward. You know, Eureka's art rich and he is like the epic icon of that locally and so big appreciation.
Please vote.
Five yes votes. Motion carries. Great.
And we're going to take a short break and we'll be back in 5 to 7.
previous discuss the conflict between passing a local ordinance and our local coastal program and how an ordinance wouldn't be an effective way of um preventing um those uses. And so council requested that staff bring back a resolution um in opposition of offshore oil drilling off our coast as well as mining. And so staff um reached out to the county. The county had passed an ordinance um um in opposition of similar. So um staff amended that ordinance and it is in front of you tonight for consideration.
So staff is recommending the adoption of this or of this resolution, excuse me.
>> Great. Do we have any council? Um, yeah.
Any questions for city manager Slatterie?
>> Council member Bower.
>> Just clarify. I wasn't here at the last meeting. So you said that the county has an ordinance or you mean a resolution?
>> A resolution, I meant to say. Yeah.
Yeah. And maybe just a >> so recap of of what the um issue is is um our current zoning code in the local coastal program has a zoning designation of coastal dependent industrial um that um use of energy related uses is principally permitted under that local coastal program. if we were to pass an ordinance locally, it wouldn't usurp or trump the um local coastal program. So um in order to make that effective, we need to incorporate those changes that would prohibit those energy related uses as being principally permitted through our local coastal program update. So, council directed staff to pursue those changes as a part of the local coastal program update and then in the interim look at this resolution.
>> Perfect. Thank you.
>> Okay, seeing no further questions, we will open this item up to public comment. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this item?
Come forward, please.
>> Welcome back.
>> Thank you very much. And um great to have uh alternative energy sources, but um ultimately you can't create energy. You can only transfer it from one source to another. And um I've looked and researched into uh these offshore wind uh projects and I think it's a lot of um um virtue signaling basically. So, this item, just so you know, we're talking right now about um drilling, oil drilling. We're not talking about wind energy. Wind energy is not on the table right now. We're talking about drilling off the coast.
>> Right. Right. But um >> so we want to speak to whatever this item is.
>> Isn't the wind energy in place of drilling?
>> No.
>> No, >> it has nothing to do with this.
>> Oh, >> nothing.
>> Okay. Okay. Well, I just wanted to say that um you know, we're all having a real hard time with uh gas prices and energy and um I feel like this gas tax and um all the extra fees that are going to these projects like the rail and uh the green new scam um is really putting a crimp on working folks trying to survive here. And so, um, you know, it doesn't look like it's working out, um, and these projects, um, like the oil drilling need to go forward because we need cheaper fuel and, um, I don't think, um, an alternative wind energy source is the panacea that, um, everybody's looking at. that's going to be greener and so forth. Um, you know, tearing up the harbor and uh so forth and displacing the oysters um is not a way forward. So yeah, I mean we got to do what we have to do right now, which is lower the price of gasoline for everyday residents in Eureka so that homeless people will be able to get jobs because people have more uh disposable income to pay them to come take care of maybe their horses or do something that they could do. um you know homeless people can do a lot of things and you see that in different third world countries they they do everything. Uh it's only regulation and um procedures like uh ridiculous drug tests to do simple mundane jobs that prohibit homeless people from getting back into the economy. And that's what needs to change is places where um homeless people can interact rather than being in a building and an office being in consumerism. But back in the old days, we had a racetrack. We had lots of ways where people that were down their luck could actually get back into the job place.
And uh systematically over the years you've taken that away by closing those facilities um and reducing the amount of animal um interactions that that people have.
And that causes um disease cuz you you get disease stuck at home if you're not >> involved in the procession of life like I'm trying to be here. Thank you.
>> Thank you. All right. Is there anyone?
Come on up, Hakee.
Hi.
I think I I think I think for me the uh the main concern with oil is uh when there's industrial an industrial accident uh the the the government will be quick to site numbers about uh how much it going to cost to clean up. So, so in my uh in my mathematics for ecosystems, I I try to look not just at not just at uh the uh the positive estimate for any given market, but uh the negative estimate in case uh in case things go wrong.
>> Thank you.
Anyone else in chambers?
Seeing no one, we will move over to Zoom. And I do see a couple up there. Go ahead, >> Jen.
>> Hi everyone, Jen Cult with Humbult Watereper. Um, I am here to strongly support the approval of this resolution and thank you all very much for um directing staff to bring it back and include um offshore u mining as well. Um certainly um I I really wish the Eureka City Council had control over gas prices, but I know you don't. Um and we know that offshore oil drilling would be devastating to our coast. We have seen it time and time again. And um you know, we all wish that we didn't have to fight this again, but hopefully this will be um a process going forward where it's removed from the LCP, the local coastal program as a principally permitted use once and for all. And uh we support that effort as well. So, thank you all so much for um protecting our coast and our bay.
>> Thank you, Jen.
Marissa.
>> Oh, >> hello.
>> Go ahead.
>> Hi, my name is Marissa. I'm a environmental engineer. I went to school here at uh at Poly Humboldt uh about 10 years ago. I work in the energy industry and I live back here now. Um, and I' I'd like to also um uh support the council in adopting the resolution to oppose any new or existing offshore oil and gas uh from the, you know, significant environmental damage and habitat destruction that could happen. We know that, you know, we're under a lot of pressure for energy costs, but doing more drilling is um not the long-term sustainable solution that prioritizes the health of our ecosystem and our community. Um, so yeah, thank you to the council.
>> Thanks for being here. Do you see anyone else?
>> I see no one else. So, we will close public comment, bring it back to council for a motion, second, and conversation.
>> Council member Bower.
>> Yeah, I'll make a motion uh to adopt a resolution of the city council opposing new and existing offshore oil and gas drilling and deep seabed mining. Second.
>> We have a motion and a second. Are there any comments?
Seeing none, please vote.
>> Five yes votes. Motion carries.
Thanks everyone.
Uh future agenda items.
Okay. Wow. Seeing none, we'll move to city manager reports. City manager Slatterie. Thank you, mayor, and good evening, mayor and council, once again.
Um, just have a couple of quick um items I want to update council on. One is our housing element. Um, we recently brought forward to council a draft RF request for proposals to go out and seek assistance in putting together our next cycle housing element element. Um, our current housing element ends in 2027 and we need to start preparing for the next cycle. We've had a couple of agenda items related to our regional housing needs allocation and other items similar to that and this will be the next step in the process to get our next cycle for the housing element going. And so, um, we received proposals back. We have received two of them. We'll be coming back to council with a recommendation for one of those consultants to help us through the process. As far as the timeline is concerned, um we're looking at developing a draft by August of this year. So, we will be pushing really hard between now and then with a lot of public outreach um to develop a side inventory and other components of the housing element. And so, um stay tuned for more on that. And then the other item I want to talk to, uh want to present on is the community stewards program. And Oz, there should be a a link to a video on in a PDF there. Oh, there he is. Oz is on top of it.
So, you can start it.
>> There we go.
should help.
>> We meet on Friday and always plan to leave from the Warfinger building and head south towards Bayside Village down at the foot of Hilficker or we can go north.
And it's just a really awesome way to be connected to the trails, to the people who use the trails. And if we see any messes, we'll clean them up or we'll call them in if they're too big. But it's just a really great way to enjoy this amazing area we live in and this trail and to just be a pleasant presence.
these guys.
It is so much community.
So, we we're we're we're trying to recruit more um stewards for our program. I want to thank um our wonderful actors and community stewards, the the infamous Q, Scott Q, Marcus, Omar, Abby, Chris Bolle, and Kimberly Keiesling. Um obviously the mission of the Uplift Stewards program is to promote goodwill and hospitality throughout Eureka. Um we most recently have started the bike program for folks.
Um, thanks to EPD, we utilize some of the bikes that they um have in their evidence room and we give those to our stewards and they go out and go up and down the um trail and help out with um some minor maintenance, but mostly there to provide hospitality.
And so right now we're really concentrating on that and trying to get more participation along the waterfront trail, especially now that summer's coming on. So, if anybody's interested, um, they can send an email to uplift eurekaca.gov and we can get you all set up. You can also bring your own bike if you want to, but we have a bike available for you if you're interested. That's all I got.
>> Do we have any questions for city manager Slatterie?
>> Okay, seeing none, thank you all for coming. We appreciate you being here.
We're adjourned.
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