12-09-19 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

REGULAR MEETING December 9, 2019 beds, while saving tax dollars and improving patient outcomes. EMTs have also been on the front lines of coping with the opioid epidemic. Our entire City continues to work to deal with this scourge. We are participating in a lawsuit against irresponsible pharmaceutical companies and engaging in dialogue with the clinical community about the best way forward. We've also launched a partnership with Beacon Health and Oaklawn to fund the certification of recovery coaches, who guide individuals along the path to recovery. We also face a major public health challenge with lead exposure. City water consistently tests as high -quality and healthy —but most houses in our City were built before the 1978 ban on lead paint, and exposure from paint in homes is a major concern. After learning of high blood lead levels in children on the northwest side, we have teamed up with community partners to expand testing and remediation resources for residents. We have worked to deliver free lead testing for all primary school students in South Bend Community Schools, and have conducted three (3) major events to date, open to all students and hosted by schools located in the highest -risk neighborhoods. This work will continue, with the next event set for Harrison Elementary next week and another at Lincoln Elementary later this spring. We urge families to take advantage of this opportunity. Last year came the welcome news that we have secured over $3 million in competitive grant money to remediate homes with lead risk, including $2.3 million in Federal funds. This will help us join forces with partners including the St. Joseph County Health Department, the South Bend Medical Foundation, Michiana Health Information Network, Notre Dame, the Housing Authority and others to ensure we have a proactive strategy to protect our children. Mayor Buttigieg continued, Meanwhile, we have addressed homelessness with a historic concentration of City resources and attention. In 2017 our Working Group on Chronic Homelessness brought City officials, service providers, and community stakeholders together to identify solutions. The group endorsed a housing -first (I') approach, with two (2) major policy recommendations: 1) expansion of permanent supportive housing units; and 2) the creation of an intake, or gateway, center as a single -point entry into services. In keeping with these recommendations, the City has now helped to fund thirty-two (32) permanent supportive housing units at Oliver Apartments, operated by South Bend Heritage, and partnered with the Center for the Homeless to add another twenty-eight (28) units in scattered site housing, bringing us more than halfway to the goal of eighty-two (82) units recommended by the working group. We've worked with providers to fund a managed Coordinated Entry process, which guides those experiencing homelessness to permanent supportive housing. In 2019 we will continue our efforts to locate a Gateway Center to serve as a central intake point for those who are most difficult to house. Meeting this goal will require community support. It is not enough to set aside money and agree that more should be done for the homeless; a facility must be placed somewhere in particular, and when we do identify a site that can get the needed community support, we must commit to making sure that both the City as a whole, and the area around the site, end up safer and better than before. The other key part of our City's foundation is infrastructure, from waste water to street paving. This time of year, especially with the freeze and thaw cycles we've been through, we all have potholes on our mind. The City filled over 22,000 of them last year, and more than 365,000 since my Administration began. We've paved over one hundred and forty (140) lane miles of street and replaced nearly half a million feet of curbs and sidewalks since 2012, most recently including new sidewalks and curbs near Monroe and Studebaker schools as part of the Safe Routes to Schools program. I'm proud of what we have been able to do with the resources we have. But I am also concerned about the sustainability of our current approach to funding infrastructure. We celebrated when the General Assembly acted in 2017 to adjust the gas tax to create more funds for paving roads. But revenues this year are down compared to last year, and we will be watching closely to see if this number rises again as we hope. Meanwhile, in Washington, after raising hopes and expectations around a national infrastructure plan, the administration there has made it clear that local State and local governments will continue to bear most of the burden of funding our aging physical infrastructure. Mayor Buttigieg went on, Right now, our staff tells me we have enough funding to pave every lane -mile of road in the City Every one hundred (100) years. Unless an affordable paving material is invented that can last more than 15 years, it's going to take a new revenue model to meet our road funding needs in the long run. Despite these limitations, we have targeted road funding to 8