Travis County Commissioners Court
November 13, 2007
Item 8
8, consider and take appropriate action regarding update on a day counseling center for the community supervision and corrections department.
>> judge, and I --
>> can we have cscd? And if roger is nearby, it may be a good idea for him to come by. It may help the court to know what cscd has done already and then Commissioner Davis has some issues to discuss with us on this.
>> actually, judge, I think dr. Nagy is scheduled to be here. I think she's in executive session meeting upstairs.
>> there she is.
>> here we come.
>> I want to request that -- dr. Nagy.
>> pardon me?
>> dr. Nagy, cscd. We're here today to talk about the day counseling center and particular location on 1009 east 11th street as the location for that facility which would involve a lease of the county by that facility. I have a number of pieces of information to update you and to clarify exactly what the council's he willing center involves. -- counseling center involves. If you will turn to this page -- I believe you all have this -- we have provided you with a fact sheet to conveniently describe the major points here. First of all, the council's he willing center will -- counseling center will serve individuals placed on probation in Travis County. These are individuals that live and work in our community. They are still under the jurisdiction of the court and have a number of different conditions of their probation. We have provided you with information before during a work session in July, July 3rd, and then later in our budget hearing in August about this facility and the importance of it. We have now received the funding from the state. On October 10th we received formal notification we would receive $650,000 annually from the state to operate the facility. I believe we have received that money for two reasons. I think we have a reputation of excellence here in Travis County. And I think the other thing is that we can very clearly show that these funds can assist us in protecting the public here in Travis County. During the session in July and August, we talked about the lack of resources for individuals that are on probation. I want to make it clear the purpose of this is not to provide free counseling for people on probation but rather to impact this community. Our data shows that individuals that are able to go to this treatment, the council's he willing sessions, have a substantially lower risk of committing a new offense than individuals that are unable to go and can't access.
>> how is
>> [inaudible] determined?
>> we run the names against arrest records. It's very clear and -- data and data that we can have confidence in. It shows us whether or not they have arrests in this community or anywhere in the state of Texas.
>> you do what now?
>> it shows us whether they had arrests not only in Travis County but any community within the state of Texas. So it's very reliable information.
>> it's based on arrest? In other words, how many times they've been arrested or if they have an arrest record anywhere else?
>> it tells us whether or not they had an arrest, period, for anything, in the state of Texas.
>> but so low risk -- what you are saying is low risk --
>> what I知 saying is that individuals who receive outpatient counseling have a 7% chance of having an additional arrest of any kind in the state of Texas. Whereas individuals who do not have access to counseling have about a 6.5 times more likelihood of having arrest. So that data was provided to the state. We had a number of support letters from various individuals and stakeholders in our community and so we were able to get that fund.
>> so -- so the deal that low risk is that -- that it is predicated on the type of service that's being rendered. In other words, this 7%, in other words, if a person sees this type of service, then they become a low risk to repeat.
>> right. If they get the service but there's people because of our lack of funding who were -- who were supposed to get the service but were unable to get it simply because they couldn't pay for it themselves or we had limited slots available. So in a three-month period, we only had slots for 96 people and we had about 250 that were unable to access because they didn't have the money to pay for it or we didn't have the lots available for them. So we have advocated for this money in order to provide the same level of services to everyone that the court believes could benefit from these services. So --
>> so it's based on afford affordability also. If people can afford the service, they -- can't afford the service, they become a higher risk?
>> no, no, it really has to do with everyone that we assess that has a need for substance abuse services, we have run -- taken a quarter, a three-month period and looked to see the impact of treatment. And those who receive treatment because we have it available have a lower -- significantly lower recidivism rate, rearrest, than those who were unable to access treatment.
>> that was the point I brought up earlier. In other words, the service is contingent on the risk of recidivism. In other words, without the service, you are more likely to repeat.
>> absolutely. That is correct.
>> I brought that point up earlier and you kind of --
>> I知 sorry. I misunderstood.
>> I知 fishing all over the place trying to tie you down.
>> I think the problem is I we use risk, low risk, medium risk, high risk as an assessment indicator. So my mind was thinking of a specific assessment tool when you said that. But yes, you are correct.
>> okay.
>> where do these individuals currently receive services? They receive them throughout the community through private vendors and for those who cannot afford to pay, we have limited funds to pay private businesses.
>> do you have a demographic of where these particular services are --
>> I sure do. If you will turn to -- let me make sure I致e got the right page number here.
>> and tell me what they are.
>> there is a page with a map that says Travis County adult probation treatment vendors. Are you able to find that? It's several pages back. The last map. That is a map of all of the businesses currently in Travis County that serve our clientele. You will see that by far most of them are located west of i-35. The ones in yellow are ones that typically take payments from the offenders themselves or take insurance. The ones in blue are the ones that we work with with the funds that we get from the state for people who are unable to pay or do not have insurance.
>> all right. Okay. I guess -- so all of these ones that you have listed here are the ones that are current but do not have the ability to pay?
>> the ones that are -- yellow is where they do have the ability.
>> which ones are those?
>> those are the yellow.
>> yellow. And they are located where, as far as i-35 is concerned.
>> there is la hacienda, northwest counseling walnut center which is west, changes which is west, Austin drug and alcohol abuse program which is west, and the ymca which is west, life which is east.
>> so it appears that a lot of those west
>> [inaudible] the ones set up with the ones that have ability to pay. That's what it appears. Is that correct?
>> yes, and the ones that don't have ability to pay are equally split between east and west. There's four of those. Cornerstone counseling, which is west developmental counseling which is west, and then the other two which are east. And in some instances, I値l check, they also take people who have insurance.
>> yes.
>> so they are not exclusively just those that -- they don't just serve us, they serve the community. They are businesses and they also take other people that can pay.
>> the other thing I think is important --
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> yes.
>> the other thing that's important to note too, all of the programs that are identified in blue are required that the probationers make a co-payment. They contribute toward the cost of treatment. So while the department subsidizes the cost of treatment, the department doesn't pick up the entire tab. Research has shown that folks are more invested in their treatment if they are making a contribution toward the cost of that treatment.
>> what about the ones that can't afford to pay at all?
>> well, I guess our theory is everybody can afford at least 50 cents an hour to pay for treatment. That's less than a big mack at mcdonald's, a big gulp at 7-eleven and folks need to realize they need to change their lifestyle if they want to change their behavior. And if the courts have ordered substance abuse treatment, they theodosia to figure out a way to contribute toward the cost of that treatment.
>> you all have a breakdown of
>> [inaudible] as far as brown, black, white folks, broken down as who receives the service.
>> we don't have it for who receives the service, but we have it for our probation population in general and I would need to get that. I don't have that.
>> I would like to see what the ethnicity breakdown of this particular group that we all are serving as far as what you are serving to what we're trying to do to provide the space station to serve. My concern is I would like to see that as far as the ethnicity. The population itself. The ones that you serve in Travis County, that population, were they white, black, brown, asian or whatever the deal may be. I壇 like to see that breakdown.
>> the maps, caseload distribution, is this -- I知 looking at it, it looks liek a scatter from the south unit office taken north unit office.
>> yes. What that is is that currently people report to the north unit office and the south unit office precinct
>> [inaudible]. And what this shows is a particular point in time. This is April of -- may of 2005, I believe. And the line shows where they live and it goes to where they report. And we developed this map for a different purpose. However, it assists us in this because it shows the location, the proposed location for counseling center. And that was our biggest parameter for looking at location, is it a reasonable location for all of the Travis County population.
>> [multiple voices]
>> it's venl located. This is -- conveniently located. It's important for counseling center because, for example, if it was down near the south office, we have some people traveling hours to get to it.
>> uh-huh. There does seem to be a dirth of counseling noptionz south, west and northeast since most of the options are clustered around i-35 east and west.
>> uh-huh.
>> did we give you a chance to finish your presentation?
>> let's see if there is a couple of -- let me very quickly look at the fact sheet and see if there is anything else. One of the things that I did want to point out is we're not only getting funding for this, but we're getting a substantial investment from the state. We've been very proactive in planning for this. Our first presentation to you was in July. So this year we'll be getting $2 million from the state for various programs. When those programs are fully operational, it will be about $4.8 million a year that the state is investing in us here in Travis County. We have had the money for a while now. A little bit over a month. And I think it's important that we be prepared to move forward soon so that we can take advantage and start providing those services.
>> tell us about the program, hours of operation, number of participants.
>> yes.
>> time of day.
>> right.
>> days of the week.
>> so the program will operate from 11:30 to 8:30. We have evening -- early evening and evening hours in order to accommodate those individuals that are employed so that their participation in counseling doesn't interfere with their employment. We will also provide classes on Saturday from 8:00 to 5:00. We expect that at any one time we have no more than about 48 individuals at the center at a time. The only staff that will be there will be the counselors. And it's seven counselors, a manager and support staff.
>> parking?
>> the parking there is -- there is parking available. I think probably roger would be able to answer questions specific to the location.
>> good morning. Roger l. Khoury. For that location, if we move forward with the lease would have about parking comes with the lease about 30 parking in front of the building. On the north side of the building. My discussion with mr. Van johnson said that sometime we can overflow the parking toward the church parking.
>> identify the church, please.
>> ebenezer. I知 sorry if I mispronounce it. Ebenezer baptist church.
>> I know ebenezer has quite a bit of parking south of the church. Then there is street parking, first come first served. I guess you can park on the street, right?
>> that's correct. I知 looking from the location of the marvin griffin office buildings which is on west of the -- of the church. The parking is in front of the church and on the east of the office. If I have a map, I can show you exactly where that is, but it is between the office buildings and the church.
>> now, when I -- when this item came up before and even in the work session and as we've done and continue to do in the past, I always try to hear from the person that will be the most impacted or affected by whatever we do or whatever and I知 always looking for that because I知 a strong advocate of that. So it's no different in this and all the other consistent things that I continue to do from this dais. With further request, I requested that roger, as he's done before in the past, go out to the community to determine and present this particular service that would be located within the neighborhood, within a close proximity to persons in the neighborhood. And, of course, I think this was done as late as last week had a conversation with
>> [inaudible] and I had a conversation with alicia perez, manager of the facilities. But anyway, during that conversation I wanted to make sure that we heard from the neighborhood where this particular location is located within the boundary of that neighborhood association, which you have guadalupe neighborhood association there and greater guadalupe development corporation and things like that. I think roger you can refresh my memory that they may have been in the initial meeting, some of the representatives from that association that I just mentioned because this particular operation again is located within the boundaries of the guadalupe neighborhood. And my point is have we heard from -- I see a lot of names here or some names, not a lot, but some names that a person may have -- roger, can you tell me what the flavor of that and those persons that participated, but I want to make sure my last request was to find out whether or not what the position of guadalupe neighborhood and those folks, this particular facility is located within the boundaries of those neighborhoods.
>> Commissioner, could I give you a chronology of what we did --
>> no, no, well, hold on. I知 going to get back to you. Hold your horses.
>> okay.
>> I知 trying to -- my latest deal was to hear from the neighborhood association itself. And so that's what I知 waiting on to see what happened to that particular request. So can anyone answer that question for me?
>> sure.
>> the neighborhood association I知 speaking basically for guadalupe neighborhood association and -- they are some of the ones that --
>> I would like to address the one involved with back September 20th when we had the public meets for all the neighborhood association involved in that area. We went to the city and we got all the name of the neighborhood association and we invited six of them, one of them is our lady of guadalupe was one of those six. And we invited all of them to come to the meeting --
>> but I don't think our lady of guadalupe -- back up. This is actually within the boundaries of that -- that need to be set aside. It's kind of unique because that's where the suggested facility will be located is in that neighborhood.
>> sure, it is in the neighborhood --
>> [multiple voices]
>> where the city of Austin as part thafz neighborhood. And we held meetings on the 20th and I believe most of the neighborhood attended except one, robertson or ocean, I知 not sure at this time, but most of them attended and including dr. Rogers from the -- our lady of guadalupe church. And lots of questions and answer, dr. Nagy and her staff presented a program and lots of questions from community leaders and answers from the staff. And at the end of that meeting, you know, everybody wrote for or against that particular service to be in that particular buildings. And according to the sign-up sheet where -- probably two people did not sign for, all of them signed for, none of them signed against. Two of them left blank. But what I知 trying to say also, the -- cscd, they went back to the neighborhood and they sent a notification to
>> [inaudible] in writing from them and letterhead, that's being called neighborhood.
>> we have that. We have that. Do we have -- do we have that information?
>> yes, you have a pact that says -- packet that says community support for adult probation. And you have a summary dated 9-24 of who attended the neighborhood meeting on September 20th. So that's the first page. You have the sign-in sheet. So they signed in, there were 14 individuals that attended other than Travis County staff, and 12 of the 14 signed for, two left it blank, as roger suggested. You have responses back from individuals that did send a letter. So on October the 1st of 2000 --
>> I知 looking for the one that has the glued neighborhood association. -- guadalupe neighborhood association.
>> we never received anything back from them.
>> that's the one I壇 like to see because all these others I see here are -- you know, like robertson hill, that's north of this particular project.
>> what you have are the people that responded. On October 1st, we sent gain a letter and a form. We tried to make it as simple as possible so that the recipients --
>> in the packets?
>> yes. So they just needed to check I do or I do not support. The program being located on east 11th street. And then we asked them to e-mail it back to us, mail it or we volunteered to come and pick it up. And we did not receive a response from a number of neighborhood associations including gain. So on October 9th we sent an additional e-mail because we requested a response as soon as possible. We sent an additional e-mail reminding them that we had not received anything from them. On October 27th, we met with gain and listened to their issues during an association meeting. Subsequent to that we still have not received anything from them. So basically we have requested it twice and met with them once and have not received anything in writing and that's why we have nothing for you in the packet because they have not responded.
>> I guess what I知 going to have to do is probably make a call and see where they all met. I was asked alicia and I haven't heard from alicia perez. Let me hear what you have to say because I know I made a special request for you to contact a couple of people there in that area and so I want to hear what the neighborhood association had to say.
>>
>> [inaudible] the answer to your question is no, we have not received anything in writing.
>> but you did make the contact? What did you do?
>> [multiple voices]
>> the request was made Friday. I guess it was kind of late Friday. I didn't expect to have an answer.
>> it was late Friday I had correspondence with rosie and they stated that they had asked twice on October the 1 1st and October 9th for a response and they met with the guadalupe association on the 27th.
>> is anyone here from the guadalupe neighborhood association? Ee
>> [inaudible].
>> we do have letters from reverend griff fen, the east 11th street village association did respond as well as clay sharky of the Texas museum. So we did have some responses indicating that they were for.
>> I知 going to ask for a one-week delay on this until I can see exactly where guadalupe neighborhood association is. Ebenezer church is located in the boundaries of that neighborhood association. I知 just trying to see where they are.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> community facilities to serve the community and its development. The building that we're talking about and is being proposed here for the treatment program is very consistent with our mission and the church's mandate. This is exactly, that community has been gen trifyed and people have been rolled over and moved out. This is still a glimmer of hope that people, in that community people are going to be served. This is one of the things that the church, you know, is really insisting on. It's the ministry of the church. The other thing that just kind of floors me, these people we're talking about are children and our grandchildren. We're talking about our own children and our grandchildren. I know. And I can go through most of your lives and tell you a few things too, a good percentage of us are impacted heavily because we don't have facilities like this. I just wanted to kind of make that statement. Parking is not an issue, Commissioner, judge Biscoe, you were correct. Ebenezer has most of the parking in that whole area. As a matter of factrb we lease parking to the city, some of our parking. And we do have overflow parking, other than the 35 slots, we also have overflow parking with the church and we routinely do that. We have substantial parking, and it's not an issue. You had mentioned zoning. I did the zoning on the building in the nccd. And the zoning, and what that building is standing there for, is exactly what you are doing. It's what you are proposing exactly. You know, I知 just floored that there would be any opposition at all to this program and its location. It's very convenient to people. It's a great use of the community facility, and it's something, and the other thing you get, we don't just want to lease a facility to you. We want to partner with you. We want this program to be successful.
>> mr. Johnson, the only thing about it, I need to hear from the neighborhoods. Some of those folks--
>> you can double-check this, ron.
>> pardon me?
>> you can also double-check this.
>> I need to hear to be consistent.
>> I want to raise one issue, and you can check this. I haven't checked it. This things move and change in the city so fast. The office building, I don't believe, is in the neighborhood association.
>> what I ended up doing, I requested the robinson hill along with the neighborhood.
>> it used to be in robinson hill. Nevertheless, but the person who is objecting, I told everybody here on day one, you're going to get an objection from the neighborhood association. I was asked why? Because they are going to object to anything that anybody wants to do there that they don't control. Period. And I知 not a politician or anything. I didn't know how to clean that up properly. You know, this is a 20-year history that we have. I can tell you some stories that would just boggle your mind. I mean--
>> what I want to say, I need to see it in writing.
>> that's important.
>> it's very important. That is what I have done for all the other neighborhood groups.
>> how was this property used before?
>> right.
>> this property was used as a house of prostitution before. It was a place where process tutes hung out, an old gas station and funeral home and hotel was right behind it. One of the reasons, reverand griffin got tired of being propositioned so he bought the building.
>> who was most recent tenant?
>> the city of Austin. Important ten years. The first group in the apartment --apd that was there. No objection, this is nothing. When we had apd there, they did their midnight stakouts at that building. People got arrested and brought to that building in the early years. It was a much more in depth than what this program, this program is nothing. I mean, we got these kids at home with these adults, you know not a big thing. Yes.
>> we will take one week before we decide what action to take, mr. Johnson.
>> we're under the gun, but out of respect to Commissioner Davis I heard his request, and if it's going to helprb of course. We're not going to object to anything that the court has to do.
>> should be pretty easier for us to find out from the neighborhood association what their position is and why.
>> yes. Point is, you know, we already know what it's going, the position is going to be.
>> I think the why is important also.
>> I can tell you some stories. But that is okay.
>> we don't want--
>> ask the city manager.
>> I think you need to go down this road one time so you don't have to go down it again. Okay.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> good seeing you again.
>> good seeing you.
>> you take it easy and take care of yourself.
>> judge Biscoe, one of the concerns that the association did bring up was the potential impact on crime. And that is a difficult question to address, but we did get some data from apd that we have available. So would you like to hear that now or would you like us to wait?
>> if you have it now we may as well here it.
>> I値l allow to you do that.
>> sorry, I didn't introduce myself. Lelanodette, Travis County police department. We asked the Austin police department to respond to a request we received concerning crime data. The way apd has set up their database is they look at offense reports as opposed to arrests. That is the first thing I wanted to mention. There are three categories of crime that they track. Property, part one crime violence, part one crime, part two and definitions on there. The request that we got from the neighborhood association was wanting to know what the crime rate was in areas of Austin that had similar treatment programs. If you will remember the map that we should you that had programs located all over the city, we looked at three programs that we currently contract with, and those are identified here. Again, we really can't provide crime rate information because apd doesn't have that available. But what they were able to give us were the number of offenses immediately prior to each of the three programs starting and the crime, the number of offenses post the program being located in that neighborhood. And so, that is basically what you are looking at for each of the programs. For the first program on ashdale it started in 1997. In 1995 and 1996 the various crime types were increasing. The program started in 1997. 1998 and 1999, the crime offenses reported decreased. The same basically is true for the other two locations, with one exception. On the maynor road program in 2001 and 2002 there was a slight decrease in offenses reported. For property part one crimes. Once the program was in place in 2004 and 2005, the various crime types went down. We can't say that this was a direct relationship to the program being started in those neighborhoods, obviously. It probably is an overaltrend and the great job that law enforcement and community groups and neighborhood associations are doing in terms of seeing a reduction in crime or oft s in our community. But we wanted to be able to respond to the request that we received and so this is what apd provided to us.
>> let me be sure, when this comes back, I want to personally be involved in getting in touch with the neighborhood group to be sure we get something in writing. Whatever position they take and the why of that position. Not only that, I still would like to you bring me back an ethnicity breakdown of the persons we serve. It would be good to know, in my opinion, the breakdown of that. I heard mr. Johnson refer, saying these are our children, our grandchildren, da da da da, as far as practice folks --black folks are concerned. I壇 like to see whatever breakdown we have, I壇 like to see it. If you gave a breakdown as far as on the west side, those that have the ability to pay, you know, can afford to pay, that there has to be a breakdown even within that, as opposed to those that do not have the ability to pay. Next week if you can.
>> I知 not sure if we can break it down that specifically by next week.
>> I need to see it.
>> I will be mcontact with you as far as what we can get.
>> I need to see it as soon as you can possibly get it together. I don't know how much time you need to run the numbers but I知 sure there are available ways to do it.
>> I値l get what you can to you immediately and we'll work on breaking it down further.
>> do what you can by next week.
>> okay.
>> yes, ma'am, thank you.
>> anybody else here on this item? If so, please come forward. We'll have it on next week.
>> okay.
>> thank you
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, November 14, 2007, 18:30 AM