Human Rights Commission Work Session   6/6/2024

Well good evening everyone and thank you for coming on tonight.

We are the Human Rights Commission and tonight is June the 6th 2024.

I want to give congratulations to the Charlottesville graduates that are down in the pavilion graduating on tonight.

Good luck to them in their future endeavors and

As the mother of a Charlottesville high school graduate who is now living in Miami,

Let's get this done.

Yeah, it's very personal.

It's very personal.

I have one in the house myself, so I'll do a little bit there.

So I was going to get to roll, and it is 636 on tonight.

So I'll tell you what you are called.

I think he's so earnest.

I am so.

Wolfgang.

Here.

Let us recite our mission.

Just a note, for those that are attending the meeting and those that may be online, please be respectful for the order to be in.

If you need to speak, please raise your hand and we'll get to you.

Use our statements if possible.

Be respectful of one another, do a pause, active listening, and try to give everyone an opportunity to speak.

And I appreciate you for giving me grace and patience as we move through the process.

All right.

If you are someone that's listening virtually, if you experience technical difficulties, you may call 434-970-3151

and a staff member will assist you.

So if you are attending virtually and you are experiencing technical difficulties, you may call 434-970-3151.

Yes.

Just to make sure.

3115.

It's easy to do.

434-970-3115.

There you go.

Thank you.

Yeah.

What's the first one?

Do we have any attendees virtually?

And I think everyone that's attending here are panelists.

Okay.

So we don't have any matters about the public, unless one of the attendees would like to stand up for anything.

All right, thank you.

All right, so tonight is a work session for us

talking about housing, homelessness, and reparative services, basically a legislative policy.

And basically that's for us is we want to get information from all of you in the matters of housing, homelessness, and other services that are in the community.

And so that when we bring in or talk to

and then the legislators that are in our area as well as city council.

And we hear what they're supporting that we're either doing the same thing or saying maybe you should talk to someone else or talk to one of these groups because what you're supporting is not just saying where they're going.

I think we all know that housing

is a huge issue and not just housing, homelessness and what happens when you are, if you have been incarcerated and you need to get out and you have to find housing or if you're moving into town and you need to find housing or you're finally getting out of homelessness, you have a job or you have a job paying you enough to find housing and trying to find housing.

All of those things play a big role in a lot of what's going on here in Charlottesville.

It's very interesting to hear the numbers of what it takes to find a house in Charlottesville, or find housing, not just a house, but even to rent a home in Charlottesville.

It is very, very difficult.

and you know people have to get lucky and again I admit when I said at the beginning that I hope that what we are learning information that we're gathering that you know when the kids that are graduating tonight you know it doesn't make a difference if it's Charlottesville or Albemarle or

Western, or Monticello, because this is not just a city thing.

Canada's having the same issues as far as housing, but we're worried about what's happening here.

That we can find a way that a kid can go get a degree, come back home, find a job, and find a place that they can live.

Yeah.

So if you would, does anybody want to go first?

You can?

Well, when you come up, please give us your name, what organization you are providing information from.

And before you talk about your organization, I would love to know about you.

So my name is Shayla Washington and I'm the executive director of the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless.

We are the HUD designated lead agency for our continuing care.

I have lived in Charlottesville since 2006, experienced homelessness here.

briefly in 2012 and that kind of drove my passion, you ending homelessness here or at least trying to figure out how to navigate the resources available to Americans.

That's where my interest derives selfishly, but you know, I'm trying to give to the greater good as well.

But I prepared a little statement for you all.

Good evening human rights commissioners and fellow community members.

My name is Shayla Washington and I have the honor of serving as the executive director of the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless, also known as BRAC.

While I've only served in this role since November 2023, I have eight years of experience working and volunteering in the homeless services sector here.

As someone who has personally experienced homelessness in Charlottesville many years ago, I find that the priorities and concerns are still the same for the 207 people that we know to be experiencing homelessness in our continuum of care today.

We need more truly affordable housing for people who are at 30% of the area median income or less.

And for here, for a household of one, that would be about an annual income of about $25,000, just over $25,000.

Many folks that our agencies serve in the homeless system of care struggle to afford even $700 a month for a rooming house.

I would also like to encourage Charlottesville City Council to consider funding for a homeless outreach position, which would greatly benefit our unhoused population for connection and access to housing resources.

There were funds in the FY24 budget, but after researching the FY25 budget, which is structured a little bit differently on the website, I can't tell if there's more funding available for that position, but I would advocate for that as well.

It was a homeless services outreach coordinator for $67,000.

RAC is also in the process of applying for private grant funding for a homeless outreach coordinator as well, but it would be ideal to have a team of two to kind of work on that to provide more coverage for the city.

On the housing end of the spectrum, I can tell you that many folks are struggling with ever-increasing rents and being at risk of eviction.

Putting more funding towards agencies that provide targeted eviction prevention would be a welcome relief for nonprofits that are doing that work, like Piedmont Housing Alliance, which has already tapped out of its funds, but has several eligible households for assistance.

Thank you.

Well, don't leave.

You want to hear from everyone?

But I don't want to get into the Q&A.

Is everybody able to stay?

Go ahead.

I'll take it.

Where did you have a time constraint?

I did.

OK.

And sorry, just a clarification is we asked everybody here to come tonight with legislative thoughts, which I've already got some written down.

For me, yes, legislative.

policies or something like that, but I think also clarification on thoughts and things like that.

Right.

Yeah.

There's a brain press sitting in this room.

All right.

I know you just, you coming in hot.

And you say you have to leave early.

I do.

Yes, I do.

OK, so while I have you here, I would love you to come on up if you could.

So, you know, I don't want you worried about if you have to walk out.

We have had a chance to hear from you.

Thanks so much.

So what I've asked people to do is come up, give your name,

What organization you're speaking from and a little bit about you.

Let me see if I can remember.

organizations I'm with.

All right.

So I am with the city of Charlottesville downtown job center.

I manage the downtown job center.

So that's employment services.

And then I also manage the Home to Hope program.

Okay.

So you're in the office.

You're in the, okay.

In the neighborhood.

In the neighborhood.

Sheriff's Bay.

All right.

Who, you know, who,

How long have you been in Charlottesville?

So I've been in Charlottesville pretty much all my life, probably since about three or four.

So I'm going to Charlotte to Dillion, for sure.

I have been with the city of Charlottesville for five and a half years, approximately.

I came from, so to the city of Charlottesville.

Prior to working here, I actually worked at the Sexual Assault Resource Agency as an outreach advocate.

Well, yeah, as an outreach advocate.

That was for two years.

Yeah, but I'm from here.

I live in this community.

I attend church here.

I enjoy sports.

Really loved the community.

I did get a chance to complete the Leadership Charlottesville program in 2014.

So that was very eye-opening and it showed me things about this community that I didn't know before, even though I lived here for so long.

Yeah.

You got me.

I mean, yes, I know you guys have information, but I want to also know who the people are because I haven't really met some of you guys before.

And I don't think some of us have either.

So I would love to learn more about you other than just information that you have.

This role actually, so I enjoyed the work that I did at the Sexual Assault Resource Agency, but it was grant funded.

So because of that, I would just keep my eyes open to what opportunities were out there.

And I just had a, honestly, I had like a chance encounter with the manager at the time of the downtown job center.

She had an opening.

And then from there, we just continued to stay in touch, make connections.

And then I landed into the role of job center coordinator.

And then that role evolved into my current role, which is employment and financial opportunity management for the downtown job center.

So our department

So, Home to Hope.

You have to forgive me too.

I'd be a walk from the garage.

You fine?

It's warm in here.

Yeah, it is kind of humid out there.

This actually is a cozy setting, so I feel just fine.

But Home to Hope is a re-entry program

It started in 2019.

It was an initiative at the time that mayor and also the council at that time.

And it was basically just the city's attempt at trying to play a role in the field of reentry and to provide some type of resources that our residents could directly access.

And so that was a training program of eight individuals.

Four of them were hired by the city and four were partnered with other organizations, other local organizations, nonprofits.

And so we had the four individuals that stayed with the downtown job center.

It began with the Department of Human Services.

That was a bit rocky, so they moved over to the Job Center because the Job Center did orchestrate and facilitate the training.

I guess we orchestrated the training, but the experts of course carried out the training.

But it was just a good landing spot for the Ford Navigators since they have familiarity with our department.

We were there providing the support the whole time they were going through the training process.

And it was easy for them to land with us.

At that time, we were in the Office of Economic Development.

And now, of course, move on to

So one, peer navigators are still with us and two have moved back to the Department of Human Services.

Appear Navigators, they basically walk hand in hand with the clients that they serve.

So all of our clients, well, our clients are city residents.

We do branch out and are able to assist some with the county and surrounding counties.

And plus, if they cannot directly help someone, they'll refer them to a partnering agency or whatever resources that they need.

But they pretty much walk hand in hand.

They do have the

They do have the skill sets that they learn through the trainings.

They're all from this area or familiar with this area.

And they just assist our program participants with whatever needs they have in the community.

So basically getting reacclimated with the community after leaving incarceration.

They have the capability to.

It's a matter of buying into the opportunities that our program has made, but they definitely have the ability to.

For me, one of the things that I see that is a challenge, I think the biggest challenge that I see with our program participants is, of course, housing.

Employment is not really any longer that big of a barrier.

There are lots of employers that will give opportunities to persons if they're willing to work.

That's not really the issue is more so

And a lot of times what they run into is they can't, you know, drop the fact that

Criminal background.

So those three things, rental property can deny you or make it hard for you to rent from that property.

And a private landlord typically can just deny you or choose to go with someone else who has applied for the apartment.

So that's the things that I see is that even when they get to a certain place,

and they're making some strides.

What are some of the reasons that are given for being denied housing?

I try to capture some of the, whenever they'll share, I'll try to capture some of those

reasons for denial.

Most of the time for our program participants is their backgrounds.

And certain ones, they may prefer not to rent to persons because of those backgrounds, especially if they're violent in nature or if there's multiple charges or offenses.

So of course I get your rental history is very poor, especially if you have an eviction or multiple evictions, one of your rental history.

More times at work with the credit history, somehow, some way.

So if an agency is willing to, what we run into is

are able to provide, now what I'm starting to see is if you're able to provide basically a double security deposit in the first month's rent, then we'll rent to you.

We will.

I've heard that a lot.

For your program participants, I realize this is not one size fits all, but what are they doing in terms of able to find housing?

So it looks like sometimes they don't, which turns into homelessness.

It looks like sometimes living in your car until you can fix a problem and then settling for like

situations that might not be their preference like rooming situations around here.

We're starting to see a lot of landlords that will buy the homes and then split out the rooms, shared bathroom and kitchen.

So they'll go into those situations.

And sometimes that's not the best fit, I guess, for some of our program participants, especially if they have children or if they

Yeah, that's what they really talk about, the children's side.

Right.

That's just another, you know, in itself.

We presented to the city council, I think,

And the data was 50% of our intakes that we get come to us

So I saw a field battle for peer navigators off the bat because they are trying to convince individuals to make some strides, but the individual is probably dealing with God knows what in the background.

What recommendations do you have in terms of, like, as we think about recommendations that we may make to legislators or to the city council?

It's really tough.

I don't know.

I don't know what's up there.

Well, put it like this though.

Don't worry about what options are.

What would you

I think it's necessary to have some type of, we just need more shelters even if they're temporary.

I can understand if you begin somewhere there's a lot of spaces

and you have to make some type of progress by either one or two or whatever and then that space opens up for someone else.

But there's just not enough options to at least give people a chance to be housed like in short term.

So that's one, that's the first thing that comes to mind.

Let me ask you, because you said about someone having, needing time.

What do you,

I think it would, the resources that are in this area, I would suspect that it would take about

A year for sure if a person took the time to actually work with the, I don't want to say system, work with the resources that are available to me.

I would say a year I could move on.

Same, similar question but in a different way.

Sure.

What are some of the barriers that you experience in the direct service provision that is imposed on you at the local or the state level?

I think the biggest one is

All these events come to us on how probably about 60 to 70% of them come to us with some type of restrictions on their DMV licenses and records.

So that's another barrier that they face that restrict them pretty significantly.

That's why I see a lot.

it's like license reinstatements and then license reinstatements also restrictions due to car insurance even

I haven't gotten enough data as to whether our participants come to us with certain levels of education so I can't speak to that one but I do know that that's often an issue and I also know of course that it's difficult if you didn't get your

GED, it's hard to get a job.

Hard to get a job?

Hard to get a job as well because you don't have GED.

Anybody else have any more questions for them?

I don't think I have anything else.

Thank you, Roy.

I mentioned Sarah.

You were, where is your room?

I remember you.

Roy, may I just pose out there, did you have any thoughts on state-level legislative recommendations that you wanted to raise to council?

Because that's one of their roles is to bring those to city council.

For recommendation to the General Assembly ultimately, but any thoughts on state law that you would like to be amended for those?

That's kind of the key thing that we're interested in to you right now.

And if you don't have anything.

You're all in the same office.

Send something to Lily.

If something comes up, let us know.

And get back to us.

OK.

It's Pearl Island.

Good evening everyone.

I am George Dillard.

I am the chair that

You can't get into Rummel's or you're discriminated there or something.

They come with me with something to tell me that they wasn't happy.

So I got to investigate it.

That's what I did.

I let them know that I'm not a lawyer.

All I can do is provide you.

If you're not a lawyer, then you have to go get a lawyer.

But I do everything I can to fight, to help with people getting into how they need to get into

I don't know if they have problems with people working on their houses.

I'm working on the stuff doing stuff.

I've been doing a couple of cases in the past that people haven't had any heat over the winter and they go like two or three months.

And we don't know why people don't have heat.

I finally get straightened out.

They get heat.

Also, listening to what you were saying that a lot of stuff with the homeless,

Basically, and I'm a retired police officer for 31 years.

Charlottesville is my home.

I was born and raised here.

Never worked in the city, but I was born and raised here.

So I kind of give about everything.

I also hold the chair as a

I guess the president figured that she needed somebody.

But yeah, I work real hard with these folks in housing.

My state chairperson is very good.

She's been to the legislature.

She gives me stuff to help me here because actually the housing thing is new to me here, but I'm learning it.

And I have a good person out of Richmond that really works

phone up anytime and she tell me this is not what you need to do, cross your T's, dot your I's, so far with that.

Things been happening, it's been happening, it's been slow slow.

I really feel bad some of these homeless people around here I mean we really need to

to do something for these people.

I mean, we got a lot of stuff, a lot of properties sitting around at the city halls that they can really make something for these people.

So they might be sleeping in parks on the side of the streets and stuff.

And it's real sad.

It's sad for me to come back home to my hometown and see this.

I used to see it in the city a lot, but it really hit home when I come back here and start seeing this.

I don't think I'll see this here in Charlottesville, but it's here, you know, and hope we can do what we can do with these folks to get them somewhere where it's nice and warm and dry and get them to some of these people that's out here that it's, they have a life like we had at once upon a time.

It's just things went south and they just need help to put the knife on their feet.

So if you've been a lifetime person here, and you've seen changes.

Yes, a lot of changes.

That, you know, happened in this.

What, you said you were surprised when you came back.

Yes.

I mean a lot of stuff in the neighborhoods that have changed that outside contractors came in and built the stuff and they were supposed to be stuff that have low income families or whatever.

It don't work that way.

It haven't worked that way.

And I hear this a lot from a lot of people.

So, you know, that's why they got Pete Weihau's and everything for these people too, for help.

And it's when they go for help, it's hard for them.

I'm working with a client now that been waiting three months.

They put it, they work hard, put their money up and put the application in and everything.

They was waiting for the get there.

It's okay to move into that place.

When they did, they went back to ask the people, you know, like, what's going on with taking so long?

But we lost your application, you know?

So they come to me with the complaint.

I took care of it, you know?

Thank God they're in their apartment there.

They're in their apartment there.

I had to kind of step hard on some things, but yeah, they're in their apartment there.

And they have a little child, you know,

They need to be, they was living with somebody and people was ready for them to go and they, it's supposed to be like a short term thing.

But anyhow, yeah, that's stuff here in Charlottesville.

It's not, they need to stop saying affordable housing.

looking for affordable.

Can't everybody pay $8,000, $9,000, $1,200 a month rent, then pay $125 to park in a parking garage.

So then that's going to take the people in the neighborhood, that's going to take their parking.

So then you got a problem.

So I feel the city developers, when they talk to these folks and they sign off

and make sure they don't do what they want to do.

Somebody's getting paid up in the paper somewhere and say this is what we're going to get.

And it's not there.

I agree with you, Donald.

I wish that there were more individuals that, if they set it on do low-income housing, and they do that and not change.

Yeah, well, you know, when I come along, I remember, don't forget, I'll say this briefly.

My parents, we led apartment housing.

You know, it was one of the blessings when we ever got this.

The city came up with the city and it was, let me think back on this.

It was a city and low income housing.

They went in the neighborhood and they built houses and they put the

We'll go back to 1971.

They had a new home built.

They've been in it all these years.

They're still in it right today in a nice neighborhood.

And I mean, some of the houses, some people that live in it, they're not there anymore.

But when they did the subdivision, it was for low income housing.

And that's what I see here, low income housing.

You have people out there who can afford to make a

You got to have an extra amount of money.

Even if you work hard every day, you got a good job, you're making $100,000 a year.

It's hard to come up with 10% down to a mortgage lender to move in and you work it and you got kids and everything.

They're going to have to start working with people to make things better

George, what are the biggest, you said you, what are the biggest complaints you're hearing about housing?

The biggest complaint I hear about housing is that people put in an application and they're getting turned down.

That's the biggest complaint and they feel that they will

You know, I got good credit.

I got this.

Now, my credit's not this bad, you know.

Even though I have this and research is on some stuff that people had went to apply for, you know, an apartment or whatever, and the first thing they do is they look at their credit.

So then I asked the person, you know, on the confidential note,

People that I've dealt with, the other credit might have been a little low.

Some of them I've dealt with a person in the past, the credit was made at 620, 630.

So how bad is it?

You know, how bad is it?

I mean, if you got a 620, 630 credit score, then you ought to be at work with that person.

You know, like he was saying earlier that you may be looking for a dollar.

I can't afford that.

So it's tough.

I mean, and you got these landlords out here and I don't call them landlords.

I call them some landlords because they want to rent this stuff, but they don't want to fix something.

That's another complaint that I get from a lot of people.

I get a lot of stuff about, I'll pay my money.

They won't do this and they won't do the other, you know?

So I mean, I have a remedy for that.

You know, this is what you need to do.

When they do it,

And so it ain't that you have to have a lawyer.

This is what the law's gonna ask you for.

Cause you got a book that you can go get and it's called Landlord Tenant Rights.

And you got rights and a tenant got more rights than the landlord does.

If they know what they're looking at and read it.

And I show it to them and I'll take in the copy and give it to them that this is what you need to do.

And they've been doing it and it's been working out.

You don't have to give them, don't give them the money.

Give it, put it in the ash

If they take you to court, then you got something to stand on.

Legally, you have something to stand on.

So yeah, it's a lot of stuff that needs to be changed.

That's so needed.

Most definitely.

And if we all stick together,

There's people on my team that works with me.

And this is what we do as a volunteer thing.

It's not, we don't get paid or nothing.

It's volunteer.

And we end up spending money because we have to register every year to stay in position or whatever that we're in.

And we get appointed as chairs on the board.

And my thing is,

And I say it to my other members, my president of my chapters, and she laughs because she knows I'm telling the truth.

You stop and you say, why did I join this?

And I ask them, I say, why did you join this?

A lot of times they can't say that.

Normally just join this because you got a card in your box saying I'm into this.

Join this and make a deal.

Anybody else?

Well, it all depends.

I mean, this year, I've led a couple of them, and that pretty much changed me, and I'm just like, okay, this is what you need to do.

I think when people see that someone's there,

You just need somebody there to sort of have that little oomph behind them that some folks cannot speak up for their self on different things.

And if you're not a lawyer, but you just pretty much are in your ear, that's what you need to say.

And that helps them.

And so, yeah.

But to answer your question on that, it varies.

Does the NAACP advertise the fact that they have

Yeah, we let people know all the different chairs that we have.

We have education, medical, like I said, legal regress.

That's our biggest one, basically the human rights stuff, people working or whatever.

The education one is another big one.

It's like, we,

out there to let people know.

A lot of people get upset with the NAACP because they say the NAACP don't do nothing.

We have grounds and rules that we got to go by.

And that's what we have to do.

And I can't guarantee that I can help you all the time, but I can put you in the situation that, hey, this is what we can do or this is what we can't do.

You don't please everybody.

People get upset.

You don't do the right thing.

But I'm sorry.

That's what I said.

You know, there's rules and regulations and everything.

Yes, ma'am.

You mentioned you're connected to the NAACP state chair.

Housing, a lot of stuff with HUD.

and I want to tell you this right because basically this is all in a sense new to me but she's teaching me but the stuff that she goes to the legislature and they file different stuff she let me know and I got a sack of stuff that she just sent me for this last agenda they had.

This is nothing, nothing else, so I don't want to take something wrong with it.

Can you find something that connects in with Charlottesville?

And you can, you know, copy, paste, and click to us.

Well, yeah, I actually, before I come here, when I talked to Todd, I called her and told her what was happening.

She was just all excited, so

She's very supportive and she works very hard.

She actually lives in the city of Richmond.

She does live in the city of Richmond.

So you know how big the city of Richmond is.

Thank you, sir.

Okay, thank you.

Anybody need to take a break?

All right.

All right.

All right.

I've been adding to my list the whole time.

Everyone else has been talking.

So y'all are in for a little bit.

Some ideas.

So hello, everyone.

Thank you for having me here.

My name is Elizabeth Stark.

I'm the Housing Justice Chair of Charlottesville DSA.

But I do wear a couple hats in the community.

I'm also the eviction prevention case manager at the Vermont Housing Alliance where I administer the funding for the Virginia eviction reduction program.

I just want to be clear though tonight I'm speaking in my capacity as an individual and on behalf of DSA.

And so my opinions here today don't reflect those of my employer, though they might be informed by some of the things I experience in my day-to-day work as well.

So I came to Charlottesville in about 1994 to go to college here.

I went to UVA and I graduated and I've actually moved away from Charlottesville and moved back three separate times.

So most recently I've been here since 2013.

My husband and I have two daughters here who have gone through the city schools and I'm a tenant, I'm a renter.

So I think that says something too about the state of things here.

I have yet, I hope to be able to buy a house, I guess before at least one of my kids comes off to college.

And so through DSA, we started doing our work about four years ago at the height of the pandemic and the eviction crisis that was surrounding COVID before the moratorium was put into place.

And so just about exactly four years ago,

We reached out to LAJC and said, hey, can you tell us what to do at eviction court?

And they trained us very generously and showed us the whole process.

And so we would basically for about two years pretty regularly go out

and go to the court.

The eviction information is on the site, but you have to get the physical addresses from the console in the court.

And the only way to do that really is we would request those documents and it required a lot of admin.

Now you can just kind of go take pictures of the console, but then we have to enter all that information into a spreadsheet to know where to go, who's on the docket and go talk to those tenants.

So we would go out and canvas, I think for two years, I think we probably hit

maybe 90% of the people that were facing eviction in the whole community.

That's Charlottesville and Albemarle.

And then we also had a presence and we would talk to them about their rights.

We would connect them with aid, which we had a lot of at the time.

And then we also would go to eviction court, which is on Tuesdays at 1 p.m. here in Charlottesville and Thursdays at 2 p.m. at Albemarle.

And we'd stand outside there and

kind of bother everyone going in, hey, are you a tenant?

Like, do you know your rights in court?

And give them that information there.

And again, connect them with resources and make sure they knew their rights, which they had quite a bit of at the time.

As we know in the interim, you know, COVID moratoria and funding have expired.

So, and especially that's true

I'm happy that the city continues to have robust rental relief funding and other kinds of funding for crises.

The same is not true for Albemarle County.

They funded, they reduced their funding from 2.1 million to 260,000.

You know, saying basically that was COVID era money and we're reducing it.

So with that reduction in funding,

It's stressed the entire other systems, the churches and the private charities and other organizations that provide that rental relief.

We're all particularly stressed, especially right now because as it's June, fiscal year's ending and the funds are really drying up and the amount that's available is really, really reduced.

So that's kind of the funding situation.

And in talking to tenants, that's a crucial part

of what keeps them housed is you had something bad happened.

You got sick and you didn't work for two weeks, a month, and you lost that income.

That could be, you know, one or $2,000 of income, which they don't have a way to get back.

And it can start this cycle of crises and financial disaster.

And it really can be something that small.

and we know that, right?

We know that so many people in the country don't have that savings.

So, you know, without the funding really matters and it really makes a difference.

Here in Charlottesville, one of the big things I would mention is that while we do have that robust community resource line funding, people can call and get $1,000 a month

for up to $3,000 per year and up to a $10,000 lifetime limit, which is very generous.

But does anyone have rent that's under $1,000?

Because if you didn't pay your rent one month, that's not gonna be enough to cover it.

And so then we start the other cycle of late fees, of attorney charges, even though they know

You're probably not going to get evicted.

They're going to put you through the thing, put you through the ringer, extract those extra fees for attorneys and legal fees.

So one of the big recommendations I'd make is can we tie the community resource line funding that's available?

Could we tie that to market rate rent, right?

We're not just asking, you know, we're not saying like, hey, can you give us

You know, we're asking for something really specific, which is like, let's have this be enough to cover one month's rent.

So that's something that we could do locally.

And I think would be really important.

Another really big thing that's on the local place is representation for people facing eviction.

Legal Aid Justice Center represents people that have a housing choice voucher or people that lived in subsidized or LIHTC communities.

Those are the people you need to meet those criteria.

I mean, they have obviously, you know, there's like there are exceptions, but for the most part, that's who they're representing in court.

Central Virginia Legal Aid Society represents people who make less than the federal poverty limit.

So if you're someone making less than the poverty limit, you're struggling to afford your rent just out of the gate.

Whereas, you know, but if you're someone who's maybe at 30% AMI, someone who's 30 to 50%, you could still have major issues with your landlord, with conditions, you know, stuff that many of the folks here have talked about tonight.

You know, there's no representation option for you.

That's affordable, right?

So that's something that I really see.

I see folks falling through that crack of not, you know, and then there's capacity issues as well, but we need something.

So we need a resource for those, you know, low income, but not extremely low income tenants.

So they can assert their rights as well.

And they can use, you know, we all know that

Representation really matters, especially at eviction court.

So, let's see.

Locally, a couple other things for me are, I speak to a lot of families experiencing homelessness, and there's no shelter for them.

We don't have a shelter for families right now.

I think we've all told the same hundred clients to apply for the Hope House, which has two open, you know, two apartments coming up, right?

So I understand that it's a temporary gap, but it's still a very significant one.

And then also wraparound services for folks.

I have clients from

Friday, like around two o'clock, I sort of stopped my work because my phone starts ringing.

That's when the real emergencies start coming in.

And I said, well, let me, you know, we've got a few minutes.

Let me call over to the South Asian army.

But it's like, she was at work and she wouldn't get off work till eight.

And so then she had to wait till Monday to be connected with shelter.

So that's another issue is there's just a hole because people don't work all the time.

So it'd be nice if we did have some way to address folks that have emergencies not during business hours.

And then,

You know, another issue that, you know, we've talked about what, you know, it's come up a lot, what affordable housing is and what makes, you know, who affordable housing is for.

We know there's a huge need in the 30 percent and under AMI, but they're also that 30 to 50 percent.

Those are folks that are really, you know, really stretched thin, especially with the kinds of rents that we're talking about.

You could still be 50% rent burden, which isn't sustainable.

That's how you get on track to, oh, oh, your car broke down.

Now you're entering into crisis.

So, you know, really thinking about, you know, again, it kind of goes back to the thing I said, the community resource line.

Let's be realistic.

Let's look at what market rate rent really is here and try to see if we can address those services

to that market rate rent and stop pretending like if your income is lower, so is your rent because it's not the case.

People are paying through the nose.

And then, let's see, those, and then another one is, and this is something I know you know about Todd and we've talked about it in various things, but plain English,

Finding ways to share tenant resources in plain English.

I talk to tenants regularly who get the pay or quit notice because it says, you owe this money, you have five days to pay or get out.

It says, vacate the premises, right?

So people, and especially, lots of people, but for me, especially like non-English speakers, they think they've been evicted.

They think that's the eviction.

And they don't, you know, they may not realize that they have due process rights and that, you know, I have to really talk them down.

And I have this nice little map from Virginia Poverty Law Center that kind of shows you just how long the eviction process can stretch out, which is actually about like four to six weeks and maybe longer.

But people, you know, we need something we could, we could be having those go out.

with language that we're wanting to put in about representation, about resources, about tenant rights.

So I think that would be really helpful.

And I feel good because I was really worried that I was just going to say all things that have to do with the legislature specifically.

And those are some things that I really think that we can address here.

locally.

But of course, I have a pretty big wish list for the legislation as well.

You could just pull up the list of housing bills that were vetoed.

That's a good starting place.

But truly, you know, we had had the 14 day payer quit and that got rolled back.

So, you know, a 14 day payer giving tenants that time.

There was legislation that, you know, said you have to try if it's lower than one month, right.

You have to try to set up a payment plan.

So many of the tenants I talked to would benefit from that because again, they've just, they might get COVID and then they have to miss work for two weeks or, you know, saying a car, a child is sick, a child is sick twice.

That happens all the time.

So, you know, kind of having those, having some way for them to get back on track without catastrophe going through.

Let's see.

My big one, and I've gotten a lot of feedback from various advocates that this is too big for right now.

So some people call it just cause eviction.

I don't believe there is a just cause for eviction.

So I prefer to say right to renewal.

I see so many tenants who didn't know that their lease wasn't renewing.

didn't really want to know that their lease wasn't renewing and maybe weren't as proactive as they should be and are essentially facing a different kind of eviction where it's the same thing with the security deposits.

They now have to find a way to pay basically the equivalent of three months rent to find a new place.

And that's really impossible.

And there aren't services that really help with security deposits.

That's not something people help with.

So, you know, it kind of, if those tenants can really go back into homeless, you know, not back into homeless, they can start experiencing homelessness because they're just not able to find a place.

So, you know, I really see that.

And especially, you know, in Charlottesville we have left small landlords, they're protected.

They don't have to meet the same quality.

They can discriminate basically is what I'm trying to say.

They're able to say, I don't like that you always get money from the community resource line, so I don't want to renew you.

I do try to make fair housing complaints.

when I can, but that's not a solution to something that is a systemic problem.

So we really need a right.

And it's worth saying, and I always forget to mention this, but if you're in LIHTC or voucher properties, you do have more rights to renew.

And especially if you're a housing voucher holder, you do have a right to renew and you have many more protections.

But also with not being able to renew, it opens you up because the landlord,

If they say I'm not renewing your lease because you've been organizing other tenants, well then the tenant might have a case, right?

Because they can do it for any reason, but they can't retaliate.

So it's like if they say the reason, then sometimes they can get into sticky territory.

But in general, if they just say I'm not renewing, then we can all know that it was because that tenant was organizing other tenants and making complaints about conditions.

But there's nothing to be done.

So until we have that right to renewal, what few protections tenants have can't be asserted.

And then the other thing was conditions issues.

Like a lot of people facing eviction, they're very

I rate because they're like, my sink hasn't worked.

My kitchen sink hasn't worked for four months.

Or I have clients who right before the summons appears, or I speak to tenants right before the summons appears, oh, the air conditioner that was broken all summer is now fixed.

So conditions issues,

go hand in hand with eviction.

And there was a law to try to say that tenants could, there was proposed legislation to say that tenants should be able to assert conditions issues, even in the midst of an eviction.

And it's because they're like, well, now that I have you here, can we talk about these other problems too?

So I think that's really important.

And that's my list.

Can you all, can you take care of that for me?

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Yes, there was one this season that said you kind of need to list out all the fees and you can't have hidden fees.

You're like the front page of the lease.

Because the fees are a huge one.

I mean, you know, there's the sewer fee, but then there's the sewer connection fee.

There's the trash fee, but then there's the trash connection fee.

There's the rent, and then there you pay $9 to be able to pay the rent.

So these fees really add up.

And especially if you add late fees on top of it.

Are you seeing any restrictions in the community funding that's available to be able to pay for late fees or those kinds of fees?

I think most of the funding available kind of rolls all of that into the rental arrears.

Oh boy.

I'll be back.

Well, you know, I think some of the local ones that I brought up, because those are things that, you know, I mean, obviously I don't think anyone's going to build a shelter for families, but can we really work toward putting some kind of emergency shelter in place?

And, but

I mean, it's really tough.

I mean, for me, that right to renewal is essential because until that's in place, none of the other supposed rights that tenants have can be utilized because they will always face retaliation.

And in this market, I mean, I speak to tenants

at their door who have mold on their walls whose children are sick because of the conditions in that home.

But they don't want to move because where will they go?

They, you know, they can afford that place.

And so, you know, it's like people are really stuck because of affordability issues.

Any other questions?

I lived out of the office.

It's working on plain language stuff to get out to.

When I heard that, I said, wow.

But that is so true.

I guess about how people

And landlords, I mean, they use it as a, they weaponize it all the time, right?

They say, especially over tenants, usually not over eviction, but over other kinds of things like, you know, non-renewal for other reasons or, yeah, a termination of the lease.

You know, they'll say, oh, if you don't get out by the 30th, I'm going to have the sheriff come.

And it's like,

You're going to have the sheriff come in like August 15th.

You know what I mean?

Like they really threaten tenants.

And, and especially that can, that can be really scary if someone comes up and says that in front of their kids or something like that.

And I have a lot of tenants who are, you know, I speak to a lot of tenants who are in fragile states anyway.

They might have children with disabilities and that's part of why they're struggling with their housing.

And then the children hear that and it causes a mental health crisis for their children.

So, you know, there's a real cycle there.

So, but so yeah, having the plain language and making people, I guess you can't be like, you're getting evicted, but feel empowered, right?

To slow it down, you know, and say, okay, well, you know, what are, I have some rights, I have some things I can do.

This is not tomorrow, you know,

And it's very scary for tenants because they kind of almost go into that mode too early.

because they get that pay or quit and then that triggers all kinds of anxiety and stuff.

But it's like really that's the time that they should be saying, can I get an extra job really quick to kind of try to, can I take active steps to try to get some money together to cover this?

But it almost makes them feel like all hope is lost.

And it's really, even when they still have, you know, ostensibly if they had a trial, you know, that process from pay or quit, you know, you have five days

Then the landlord files for the first hearing.

That usually takes two or three weeks.

Then if they go to that hearing, they request a trial.

That takes another two or three weeks.

You know, and they're doing everything they can with working one, two, three, four jobs.

And then to still not have enough.

Yeah.

Or people that have lost their car, they've given up, you know, they have a phone, but like barely, you know, like that's about to go.

And it's like, they can't have these basic things, even though they're working hard.

So that's.

It is.

And I see a lot of folks who almost could be kept housed just due to the restrictions or things.

And it's almost like they almost are on this inevitable path where, OK, maybe they'll get the judgment, but then there's a ding on their record for so long.

But then maybe the Haven will have resources for them because they have funds that can kick in once you have that judgment and not sooner.

But in some ways, you know, it's a perverse incentive because they can get the funds to stay housed, but only because they will struggle to find housing again for the rest of their lives.

So there's things like that too, I think.

I wish there was a way to address them.

Like each agency has its little segment and people kind of bump around to the different criteria.

And I wish there was a way to just intervene and view the diversion and keep them housed.

Cause that's the most, I mean, obviously it's the best outcome for many reasons, but it's also frankly the cheapest for the community.

So yeah.

But thank you so much for having me.

I'm sorry.

I know I have a little bit of a laundry list, but I appreciate your advocacy.

And I hope if there's anything I can do, I'm going to try to be more involved in the legislative session in the coming year.

So I'm happy to partner or share ideas.

We never ask questions in Washington and we ask questions for everyone else.

I'll only come up if you can say my full name correctly.

You're too cute.

I'm doing well.

So I'm Neidra Cracy Karen Dungo.

I am the Senior Director of Adult Rehabilitation Services at Region 10.

And what were the three questions?

It was Roy.

So well, ask a little bit about yourself.

What brought you to the job that you're in?

So I

Currently live in Savannah County, born and raised in Savannah.

But of course, you know, we call this town.

So we come to town to work and play.

I do have a lot of family members, loved ones that live here in the city of Charlottesville.

I am the director to the board for Wartime Fitness Warriors.

in Charlottesville.

So I work here in that capacity as well, not work, but volunteer here in that capacity.

I'm from Savannah County.

I'm the vice president of a group called Savannah Leaders for Race and Diversity, formerly the president of the NAACP, now just a member because of the Savannah Leaders for Race and Diversity.

Our initiatives take up a lot of my time, so I'm unable to participate with the NAACP the way that I'm used to in Savannah.

But in terms of my job, so I supervise the directors that supervise medical, substance use services, mental health case management, and also the new Blue Ridge Center that is on Burnett Street.

So I used to have housing in my shop as well.

We just recently transitioned housing and we're doing a little bit of a restructure

But what along those same lines have is with substance use services and that is a program where you guys may know Harold Patterson and Cindy Richardson.

They work in that program and that program is for individuals who are experiencing homelessness, who have a serious mental illness and need assistance with navigating the systems to

be able to gain housing.

And so with that, I won't stand here and reiterate all of the things that individuals have said about adequate housing around credit checks, criminal histories, all of that stuff is right in line.

The thing that I really wanna discuss tonight is how

Housing is at the front and at the back.

And I'll explain what that means when I want you guys to remember that verbiage because in my role and where I sit, I see a lot of individuals who are either experiencing homelessness or they are experiencing a mental health or substance use challenge where they may need to go away in order to get the help that they need so that they can

Live successful lives of recovery.

And in that there's a lot of loss and housing is one of them.

That housing need is on the front and on the back.

When an individual is leaving and going to substance use treatment, when an individual is going to mental health treatment, there's still all of these things.

And so in thinking of what legislation to really hit or think about what

I myself wanted to stand here and advocate for it was difficult.

And I'll tell you why it's difficult because my experience has been when some legislation has changed, something else drops off.

And so in looking at, so at region 10 and in mental health substance use treatment, you're taught to look at the entire person, not just a little glimpse of the individual, but the entire person.

And so the thing that I would advocate for

is some type of unrestricted funding that we can individualize for individuals.

So let me explain what I mean by that.

So a lot of our funding is pretty good.

Of course, we know it runs out quick.

You know, we've heard some of the barriers with it, but there are some things.

So the funding that comes down, it always comes down with parameters of who can use the funding

And a lot of those parameters don't always work for the individual, the everyday individuals that we're seeing.

It's not enough.

We already know that.

But there are other things that come up that individuals need assistance with.

And so from the wraparound services,

Yes, of course we have the DMV.

There are sometimes immediate food needs, childcare needs.

Because, although, funding for childcare while an individual

is utilizing behavioral health services.

We're dealing with those childcare facilities and not always having room.

And then also, what about childcare services for individuals outside of behavioral health?

If you want them to have employment, assistance for mothers and fathers, parents who have children under school age,

who aren't able to do that.

Honestly, housing is a great point and we know that it is something that needs to happen, but we also need to look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs and individuals' recovery capitals or exactly where an individual is, what physical things do they have going for themselves, mental, social, employment, all the things that an individual has for themselves and look at where housing lines up in that because

It's great to give everybody a home, but there's so many other things that they need assistance with to sustain that house.

And so that's what made it difficult.

And just coming with one ask because it needs to be unrestricted.

So a big pot of money.

Big unrestricted pot.

Turns out that solves poverty.

Is that what we're saying?

Like I would give everyone universal.

I know.

I know.

And I wish we could, but I can tell you what it would do.

It would help organizations like

that are running out of funding for individuals who have high needs to function as members of society the way that they would choose to function to do a lot.

I mean, and also myself, this work, it is hard and it is daunting to see individuals trying so hard every day

and the resources not being put behind them for them to be able to thrive or success, the marks behind them.

If we want individuals to come out, of course, I attended the reentry summary, so a summit, excuse me, it's 738 Long Bay.

So if we want individuals to come out,

to come out, live the lives of recovery, to be able to thrive in the communities.

And that's truly the goal.

We have to put the resources behind it to make sure that it happens.

And so along with housing, I will reiterate this piece.

You do have individuals coming out with extensive criminal histories.

You do have individuals who are lower income or even medium income who can't afford to live in the city of Charlottesville.

And guess what?

They still deserve to have adequate housing, running water, heat, air conditioning, rodent free, all of those kinds of things.

And so also one of the things that we see that I didn't hear mentioned, but I did come in late, is help with pest control.

Some individuals, they'll say, well, I have this issue, you know, whether it's bed bugs or whether it's something.

And you're always kind of referred to APS for that.

But sometimes it's not really an adult protective service.

I mean, I understand why it's there.

But, you know, sometimes an individual has, you know, allow somebody to couch surf or something, you know, that's a term.

you know individuals have or they moved into a place where there are rodents and that stuff is expensive and the fundings are restricted so they're not unrestricted so you are aren't allowed to use funding or a lot of types of funding for those kinds of things um so it's a couple different issues it's inadequate housing um affordable accessible i don't use that term lightly mr diller and um just making sure we have the services in place and are putting the funding towards the services

I mean, I'm sure they could, but they're probably getting eaten up in the process, however long that takes for that process to

You know, rather than saying, hey, I'm experiencing this issue, this funding is here, you know, and then also, so then what does that create?

So let's walk through it.

You know, so we have an individual, they're going through the tenant rights process.

It's taken a while for this to happen.

They're getting ate up, their child's getting ate up.

Uh oh, when they go to school, what happens?

The teacher sees them and says,

We got to make a CPS report because this child is not, it's just, then this parent has to miss work, you know, and what happens if they don't have a job that is allowing them to miss that time from work in order to get this stuff taken care of?

It's mostly or hourly paid.

Right.

Right.

You miss it.

And so then your lights and water are cut off.

And by the time social services gets you, the situation that your child is living in, uh oh, it's time for you to remove your child.

So then now you're faced with whatever mental anguish from that.

Do you have any other underlying mental, you know, so many things that can happen and it becomes a domino effect.

I think the thing that you said that we had not heard, but it's so important, is sustainability.

Not just getting in, but being able to stay and sustain that.

You know, to have the money to get in a spot is nice, but also having the ability to stay in that spot, you know, and not struggle to try to stay, but to stay in there and then have the ability to have my needs met.

Meaning I can stay in there and I don't have to stress about paying my rent.

I don't have to stress about my kids.

I don't have to stress about, you know, all the other stuff that I don't have to worry about.

And I mean, we teach people, I mean, as little children, we teach our kids and some of us, you know, put your best foot forward.

You work hard and, you know, it'll all come for you.

It'll pay off for you.

And you have some people in this city

working hard.

I mean, every day, 12 hour days that are struggling, living in these conditions, inadequate pay, pay margins not matching the cost of living.

Some organizations like Region 10 are doing COLAs, but I can't speak for any other organization that is McDonald's doing a COLA.

And so,

It is a lot.

I'm here for the long haul.

I've been with Region PIM for eight years, but I'm here for the long haul to do whatever I can to assist and also just to provide any type of support.

I'll tell you just something quickly.

One of the other things, programs is peer support, that I have recovery support in my shop and they do amazing work.

Walking alongside individuals with lived experience.

They have lived experience themselves.

Assisting, providing the support, advocating, and teaching that advocacy.

So teaching a man to fish, not necessarily fishing for an individual.

The other thing that I would have liked to see, and maybe this is a second step or a third step,

is some individuals who are actually struggling with this stuff, being able to speak to what their needs are.

So, I mean, it's great for us as all service providers and experts, subject matter experts, and what we've seen, et cetera, but the people who are really struggling or some folks who can be identified to say, hey, what do you struggle?

What do you think?

I think we've talked about that.

I'm not trying to find a way to do that.

Any other questions?

Yes, that's a question for Ms. Washington.

Me too.

I'm just going back to the questions I asked to Roy.

Okay, so

I need more staffing, first of all, but I do have an assistant.

She's great.

She just started in February.

So trying to figure out the flow of things has been interesting.

At this point, I think city management has been really supportive.

I've got Ashley Reynolds Marshall's ears and Sam's ear as well.

So they've been really supportive and just offering whatever they can to help BRAC be successful.

I'm not at liberty to speak too much about it, but there are talks about a new road barrier shelter potentially.

So I'm excited to see if that conversation

It's off the ground and it actually comes to something real.

But yeah, there's definitely support there.

I think it's a funding issue.

It's the will of the community.

So a lot of people are kind of NIMBY people who they don't want a shelter in their backyard, but they want it somewhere.

And so I think there's a lot of public education and advocacy that needs to happen.

These are your neighbors.

These could be your family members, your colleagues.

A lot of people are embarrassed about being unhoused and not having enough money to afford a place to live or having been evicted.

And it can happen so quickly.

It can happen to me.

I had a paraquit notice as well.

And I read the language and I was like, oh my gosh, I have to get out in five days.

So I just left and then I became homeless.

And if I had known what my rights were as a tenant at that time, I probably could still have been housed.

And I might not even be on this professional path, but everything led me here for a reason.

And I think it's just important to educate folks about homelessness and why we're seeing folks on the downtown mall.

This is where a lot of the resources are.

It's very close to the bus line.

The Haven is here.

A lot of the faith-based organizations

that Pacham works with are downtown or centrally located in the city.

It's close to UVA.

A lot of our folks need to go there for medical appointments or mental health care at region 10.

So education, I think is the biggest thing.

So this is a question not just for you, but for everyone that's spoken to me.

And you said something, and I think everybody's kind of said a little bit about education.

But how do we get education to unhoused or homeless individuals?

You know, I know we, you know, sometimes individuals go through the haven and different places like that.

but for those that may not, you know, how do we get information to them so they have and the support they need to be able to deal with their homelessness or what they could do.

And it was, I think a lot of times when they are homeless, you know, they feel the despair of, I have no control, but I think if they had more advocacy or information

Did they really find out how much control or how many opportunities are out there for them?

I think Deidre touched on it with about the path workers.

They are employed by Region 10.

They're part time.

So I would love more funding to make them full time for starters.

But they only work with folks who have a serious mental illness.

And one of the barriers for that is folks have to self identify.

Yes, I have a mental illness.

Yes, I'm willing to go to Region 10 for supportive services.

So everybody has a number that is higher on how.

I also have to be that, you know, I mean, not to say that, you know, because I want to make sure I'm cognizant of not going against the individual half,

Yeah.

The city hasn't funded, but that's something.

Correct.

They didn't know what to do with it, so they left it as a line item and it hasn't been touched.

So I mean, you talked about prevention services, right?

And then Elizabeth talked to us about just funding, basically money to keep people.

What more, in terms of homelessness prevention services, would you like to...

It goes a long way toward... Yeah, it does.

And currently, the HAVEN has a justice prevention program that's fund funded and state funded.

And that can prevent people from falling into homelessness, but as Elizabeth mentioned, they have to kind of be at that point of almost being evicted before they can get the assistance.

They've put a monthly cap on their assistance so that once they hit that amount, they can't help anybody else for the rest of the month.

So there's definitely a need out there.

I think more prevention funding in general would help.

It would also help if we could increase the cap

Currently, they can only help people who are at 30% AMI.

So as I mentioned, that's about $24,000 for a household of one.

So yeah, to answer my portion of the question, yeah.

So that's exactly why I said unrestricted funding, because when you have some of the funding and some of the funding that Shayla has talked about, it comes down a certain way for a certain population.

And that's all we're allowed to use it for.

If not, we lose funding and you know, and so then the other thing to answer your question is, I think if things can be

Like, for instance, if there is either a meeting that's held for individuals who are experiencing homelessness, we have a great network of service providers.

BRAC does a lot of work around that so that we can get everybody together.

Even if we have a meal, you know, we're going to have to have some things to draw folks, but we have everybody together so that we can regularly give them that information.

And then also, like Shayla said, with the PATH workers,

although that caseload is filled with individuals who have an SMI and are experiencing homelessness when they outreach, they outreach to everyone, so getting information out, but

You know, we're going to have to kind of get them in a place to where the outreach and pamphlet stuff is good, but get them in a place to where questions can be answered.

You know, well, you know, they have a question about this specific thing, because even when somebody is outreaching or giving them a pamphlet or whatever, they're not, especially if it's long and lengthy, they're not going to sit, you know, with each person because you got to keep moving because, you know, large areas like by the river, you got to keep moving.

from person to person, but sitting down to explain all of the information that we want to get out.

And sometimes people come to the soup kitchen.

So does somebody come to the soup kitchen and, you know, start to see individuals and meet about this thing?

Can you work through public navigation?

Sure.

Yeah.

So I think one thing that's lacking in our community is housing navigation.

I think the About Housing Alliance now has like a housing hub that offers housing navigation.

But all the same agencies and nonprofits that work in housing are sharing the same list of landlords.

And I could easily name drop a lot of them, but it's not that many.

There's shared rooming houses that are kind of the most common that we send folks who have an extensive history of homelessness to, but they're kind of slum lords.

They have not ideal conditions for their apartments and their

65700 a month and you're sharing a bathroom and a kitchen with other people that you don't know.

And so it's just not ideal for everyone.

But yeah, housing navigation is tough.

And we just have a really stagnant list of landlords and property owners.

I just reached out actually yesterday to BRAC, B-R-A-C, the Blue Ridge Apartment Council.

And it said it was going out to about 80 or so property managers, I guess, in this area.

So I don't know who it's hitting, but I'm trying to do some landlord engagement myself and apply for private funding so I can invite them in and talk about all the different housing programs we have for our clients.

I have a final question for really anyone.

My personal final question is around gender, which I haven't heard folks talk much about.

And I'm just curious if there are any issues specific to women, to gender minorities, how you see violence playing into

to the issues that you see and if you have any thoughts or recommendations.

I mean, traditionally men are making up a lot or people who identify as men are making up more of the unhoused population.

It is a small minority of women or folks who identify as female.

And typically we do have housing or shelter options for them.

So there's bed availability every week at the Salvation Army.

When pachams open, they're able to accommodate all the folks who want to stay on the minimum side.

And transgender, if you're a transgender or non-binary, you can choose whichever side you'd like to stay on when you're watching some session.

Salvation Army, I think they're also able to choose whatever side they feel most comfortable sleeping on.

So I haven't really heard any complaints in that regard.

I do see a lot more people with service animals or pets who are emotional support animals and aren't like officially registered.

And so folks tend to sleep either outside or in their vehicle because they have that animal that they can't bring into a shelter.

So I'm seeing more trends with that.

I realize I don't know this.

Is the Salvation Army, is anybody moving forward with another shelter?

I know that was a conversation that was being had.

Yes, we're in talks with that right now with city management, so.

Okay.

The conversation's happening.

But that we're only in conversations, is that right?

But it sounds promising.

I was wondering about funding streams.

Does HUD limit what prevention can be used for?

That's what I thought, but then I was informed by someone that it might just be a local decision to do 30% AMI.

So that could be potentially impacted.

Kind of along those same lines when you talk about unrestricted funds, are there names of specific state funding streams that are coming down that do have restrictions that could be changed?

Like if we could name that fund and say, hey, let's change the parameters for that fund to broaden it.

Yeah, so I would say one of the funds is SA Block Grant funds.

And so they are specific for substance use.

They're substance use funds that can pay for treatment, you know, and pay for certain things.

But a lot of the parameters too, so let me tell you this, they don't just come around, which you can and cannot,

Um,

It's also around limits, but the limits are outdated and not realistic for today's time or depending on where you live at.

So we may be with a limit that is like here, for instance, if people are asking for double security deposit and last month's rent or either security deposit and last month's rent for us to be able to help someone, the parameter is security deposit and first month's rent.

So then someone may not have the rest of the funding or funding for furniture, you know, it's like limits, which I understand why it is limits and the limits also don't match the localities and where we are.

So is that a local thing or is that a state thing?

So it's a couple of different avenues.

It's kind of the chicken egg conversation as well, right?

Where we are.

But the other, so SA Block Grant funds, which are great, but it would be good if they could be unrestricted just so that we could do more things with them to support individuals.

Because it is a list of things that you can and cannot purchase for individuals around needs.

And also the thing that I will say is the Moore Center is really reasonable in terms of

But there are some treatment facilities where an individual needs a highly co-occurring enhance, meaning that they have a severe SMI and SA need.

And so us utilizing that funding, it is really expensive, like $20,000 for a month.

And we only get around $43,000 for the fiscal year, right?

So that has to,

for a certain fund.

So then that we have to kind of distribute that out and figure out how some individuals have Medicaid.

So that works.

It worked great with Medicaid expansion came.

But then, as you guys probably know, around a year ago, they started to send out the notices and some of the COVID things around Medicaid had stopped.

So some of our unhoused individuals who are maybe getting mail at the Haven or maybe, you know, not getting to their mail quick enough,

are not being able to get to like DSS to get their Medicaid, make sure their Medicaid is turned on.

Any other questions?

Wow, and thank you.

I also hope that if either any of you are open to it, would love for this.

You can look on the screen on the screen.

That's this.

Thank you, wow, and I'm looking forward, if you're open to it as being like the start of a conversation, I would love to continue hearing from you.

Some of the things we've talked about, just sharing additional resources as they become known to you, we'd love to keep doing the conversation and learning from your expertise.

Yeah, and anything that you're doing community-wise that you're having out

Let us know that we can attend, we can have our faces there, take information to meet the people that are going through those things.

I think that's important for us to know as well and for us to help.

Like I said, the more information we have when we go and talk to

Christina Colson or Amy Laughlin or any, you know, legislative person, Curry D's, anybody like that, that has anything going on around the city, around this district.

The more information we have, the better.

They come to us and we get to talk to them, as well as city council.

We'll be here with some of the things that they're trying to do.

Money-wise, because I definitely would love to understand if there's a position that could help, you know, what is going on with that money.

Is it being used, not used?

If there's someone that's supposed to be in that position, are you trying to hire someone or not?

You were just there actually.

You can't have a meeting that's not public.

Okay.

4 PM on the 17th.

Yeah.

I also hope that city council watches this meeting, right?

We presented on Monday and I definitely let them know about the meeting tonight.

That they should be listening or try to have themselves in the place.

I would think there may be one or two or probably after graduation, but that's not everybody.

They can't have more than one or two.

or as a meeting.

So it's not like somebody could not have rolled up in here or could be watching online, Facebook, some of that.

So I hope that it may be.

I just wanted to mention you guys asked about events.

So take my region 10 head off for a second.

So as a wartime fitness warriors board member, they're having the first like USA certified boxing event on Saturday, this Saturday at one o'clock at Charlottesville High School.

So I'm happy for him and wartime fitness and this opportunity.

As well as the heartbreak.

Yes.

and the homelessness side of it as well.

So I want to thank each and every one of you for being here on tonight.

Ms. Washington, Ms. Stark, Deidre, I want to thank you guys so much for taking your time out, sacrificing your evening and being away from your family to give us

information, give us your knowledge.

And I feel like you also gave us a part of yourselves as far as how important the work you do is to you.

So I just, I again want to thank you all.

Everybody good?

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you wanted to review where you're headed next in your work plan, you could.

Oh, yes.

So we, as you know, we have a work plan.

We're right now, you know, the other little, the faces is on our sheet.

It's second to last.

Is it on the screen?

Oh, great.

Yay, thank you.

So we are, at June, we just had our work session.

And he will hopefully have those things to us on next Thursday or the 20th.

Let's talk about

Jenny's going to be presenting us with her research presentation.

Will she do that in person?

Yes.

She'll be here in person.

OK.

So we'd like to have her there.

We do not have a session on July the 4th, but we will reconvene on the 18th.

And the focus area is legislative priority.

So are we reaching out to see the Colson and all

OK, so hopefully they can come.

And I think that's it for now.

We present it on Monday to the city council.

I'm going to just tell you all what.

You know, we gave our information and we had a couple of questions asked and Todd did an awesome job breaking down what we do, how we do, and the restrictions that we have as far as around the questions that were asked.

And so I was just, I stood there across from him

and on the other dies in all of just how great he brought those things down and the knowledge that he has.

I'm glad you were there.

That was great to present with you.

I think that was, I'd love to keep replicating that model, that co-presentation, because I thought you did a great job representing.

I mean, I felt like I was lacking.

I don't think so.

So I appreciate that you're presenting and doing it well.

And then any word on the conference?

The HR?

No.

OK. Yeah.

We actually attended a Virginia Beach commission meeting just to kind of check and see what they were up to and sort of put the bug out there.

But I think maybe folks aren't ready to revisit that just yet.

So we'll keep trying, though.

All right.

So July, we have no meeting for July.

Come back on the 18th.

Todd and Lily will be getting information about who's coming.

And during that time, I guess we need to be working on any ideas we have.

I will say go back and look at the things that were vetoed by Duncan.

And if you want my notes that I took, I took a bunch of notes.

Please send them out.

Yes, please send them out.

Get them out to all the commissioners.

Good question.

We need to talk about what questions are we going to ask.

Just wonder how many people could have been saved from eviction rather than ever spreading.

The city had put his money.

With those resources.

I hear you.

And that's a conversation we will need to continue.

So.

I mean, that would be a starting place.

We can do that, correct?

So let me get with Todd and Libby.

Well, I'm not leery of, I will be.

about it and happy to follow up on it.

So I will talk to Lily and I will talk to Todd and let us know how we can start to get that out to make the ask.

We'll do that for other investigations.

We have that capacity to ask for information from the departments.

And I think the other thing, too, that we can also look into is if there's already been a consolidation of information based on a FOIA request from a member of the public, we can draw from that really quickly because it's already compiled.

So some of those are faster.

Yeah, so that's something we can ask.

I'll have time.

Any other questions?

All right.

I'm three minutes longer than I want to be.

All right.

It is 8 39.

Thank you.