Housing Advisory Committee Meeting   3/19/2025

Heather Griffiths, Real Estate Broker, Pepulan & Atlarge Member, Former Nonprofit Director and Neighborhood President Mike Bruce, Atlarge Member, And Nicole Sprow, Real Estate Professional Sunshine Maython, Biedmont Housing Alliance Madeline Messler, Office of Community Solutions Antoine Williams, Office of Community Solutions And that is everybody in the room.

Is that you, Antoine?

2025.

Take a couple moments to review that and see if anyone has any comments or corrections.

Has that transcript always been generated?

Next is the meeting schedule.

The next year.

The next year.

The next year.

March 19th, April 16th.

But all the dates that you're showing above the line, even though they say 24, they're all the ones that are currently scheduled.

Haines.

We want to call them out.

I know that I've definitely, I've had to use it in years.

And there's actually, there's language that allows for those to be excusable, but we have to communicate that beforehand, so.

That's the question.

Can CRJ have the flexibility for the CRHH with the Kathleen Ward gentlemen?

Yes, change it.

I'm sorry, I didn't hear what the

When she comes to the meeting, so if I'm not here, she's always in person or online.

We cannot do it as a name.

You don't have it just like, yeah, you're assigned to.

City Council I guess.

But he's also a non-voting member.

So I move that CRHAs

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aside from that, are there any other suggested potential changes, again, either frequency, day of the week, time?

So just be knowledgeable about that, you know, hey, we might we might cancel.

Summer, some summertime.

I think it was later than, I don't think it was the summer, though, because I think I was there for it, and I was out there.

At the Governor's Conference.

On that note, let's all spend just a couple of moments to look through your respective calendars and see if there's any potential conflicts that we can predict.

I'm going to have jury duty in July.

You're not going to put me on.

The Governor's Housing Conference is normally the third week, right?

Which is the same as HAC.

Possibly.

Yes, Virginia Housing Alliance.

So the idea would be to bump it a week or something like that.

So the only seeming conflict is the Governance Conference, which would be on the 19th, November 19th.

Which I would suggest that if we're going to do anything, we back it up because...

Madeline, do you have the days in November when the city's closed?

I can look at this room calendar too.

That is a Wednesday.

So.

So.

Can you lock it in now?

I'll just sign a meeting invite for it.

Yeah, that's the meeting and then I'll set it.

The third.

Mid-state.

I'm guessing you were sort of looking for like big conflicts like housing.

Like, I don't, you know, that's where there's likelihood of more significant overlap.

Hey, Joy.

I'm ready to relinquish whenever you like.

No, continue.

We're looking at the calendar, proposed calendar dates for next year, Joy.

OK.

We can go through and accept or decline, and then you can see whether there's a problem, or do we have to set these right now?

Well, if you all agree to do that, and then I can just communicate back out to the group where there might be a weakness in terms of our quorum.

Because technically he doesn't.

There's probably a persistent conflict there, but that's true for everybody.

You want to consider that, or take it to a later date?

Well, it's not a bad idea in terms of people who don't have flexibility in their work schedule.

It could be something we do midstream, but just want to remind everybody that we talked about that.

I thought you might.

What does that look like, five to seven?

Far in advance, we'll be perfect.

Yeah, it's helpful for my schedule to know what the dates and times are, but I'm not currently working and I have a lot of obligations.

Would evenings be challenging for anybody else?

I'm absolutely agnostic.

It is for my schedule.

We have Thursday redevelopment, Monday either council board or CRJ meeting, and Tuesday we have eight meetings.

Sounds like John would prefer to not have a traditional evening.

If you're not going to be at that next meeting, at least your input has been provided.

It's actually the 22nd.

Earlier, I think, might be worse.

Yeah, it might be the holiday and all that.

I move we scratch the January meeting on the other hand.

All in favor?

that 19th, so we can all respond.

So we're going to send them all.

We're just going to create a new one.

But I see that there aren't any invites for next calendar year.

OK. Onward to Landlord Risk Production Program.

where I'm sitting at now and the information I have and because we've already started the budget conversation and that this requires money, it's likely not gonna happen until like tail end or where we find extra change that you, A, consider the timing, maybe this might be for something that we flush out on the subcommittee level and then make a recommendation back up to the hat.

Two-Pager.

You mean to give like program guidance or policy?

I'm just trying to consolidate efforts one way or the other.

Your idea needs to be flushed out a little bit more.

Well, I don't disagree with that.

That's what I'm.

Who's on your CBDG task force?

Yeah, I think we're at five people, four of which were present yesterday.

I'm sorry.

to have like a centralized, and you know, she's always like, oh, I'm sorry, they ran on funding here, so I'm gonna go here.

You don't have the whole community.

And if there were a centralized, and this is something, this is a little bit of a sore point, but if there's a place to centralize and talk about coordination, it's on the funder side, not on the provider side.

And we have to try to figure out, the common goal is not to make them homeless.

What would it look like if the funders would

But let's focus in back on the risk reduction program.

Can I ask you a question about what's in front of us?

Yeah, please.

So whenever you were tinkering around the edges with this, this was the last product.

So the status of this, because I read this and it's a fascinating document, I don't know who penned it, but what is the status of this?

It's unadopted.

It's unadopted.

That's why we're talking about it today is to see whether or not we want to recommend adoption.

All right.

It was formally funded, that money since gone, but so, but yeah.

So, if I remember it that right, those...

There was still an inspection process and everything else to justify the claim.

In other words, it was something that actually would provide enough incentive for landlords that they would

It was instead it was a guarantee program recognizing that much of the time it would not actually be utilized or for someone who's lived in a place for five years, it wouldn't even be, you know,

So now we can actually get a data point, Nicole, I'm wondering from your experience as a private market landlord who wants to rent to voucher holders, would something like this provide an office center for you to utilize?

And then if there's damages above and beyond that security deposit, then this kicks in?

Well, one of the points of this was that the security deposit itself was a huge impediment to getting it in the first place.

It seems like everyone goes to the Haven.

I mean, I would submit that, you know, a seventy five thousand dollar commitment from the city as a reserve fund is going to save the Haven money if they're not having to kick that stuff out.

It's intended as a cost efficiency measure.

I see.

And one of the things with the problem with the haven is that everybody doesn't get served and there is a minute process that they have to go through.

That's why it's always been really late.

If you were calling the emergency homeless line and nobody's calling you back within 24 hours.

Right.

But it's a roadblock getting through that.

Yeah, and it's often late.

Because if their source of funding is, for example, I don't know what it is, I don't think it is, but if it's the housing fund, this is essentially saving money from the housing fund that can be reallocated to The Haven to do other homeless prevention.

So it is intended to be more than what a normal security deposit can do, which would make it more appealing, ideally, for landlords.

The city's paying.

It's a guarantee.

If they would need to use it for something, the city would pay for it.

They're not allowed to take that money and utilize it.

Simple four-color explanation.

I'm not sure what's in there.

If it's more than $1,000.

But if they did something to damage my property, then it needs to be stressed by them.

So if there's something in the rental agreement that's specified that if there is undue damage, that would be covered.

Months?

There's an administrative entity, whether it's a city staff person or we also talked about the idea that this would go out for RFP for some nonprofit to potentially administer on behalf of the city.

I think that would be very important to.

It does see the funded mystery will release payments within 21 days following its review.

I would expect them to repair it, but they don't have the funds.

They did it.

Because I would think that there are a lot of

It just looks terrible.

It's just an example.

Yeah, I think that's the important question that's happening.

You keep track of everything and then say, We're paying for it to prepare for you.

Unless there's some very particular reason.

In other words, does this give people sort of license to not sort of be a normal tenant whose responsibility is to fix it?

I'm thinking that's how it works.

Does that incentivize the tenant to then take better care or not take care?

In the event the tenant fails to complete financial coaching or contribute to the camp.

Am I getting that right?

A lot of folks are going to have a problem, like if they're accessing these funds, they're going to have a problem paying a $1,500 bill anyway, on top of their rent.

I would suggest that the sort of game the system piece of it is a very minor error that we need to think about if it comes up and then, you know, either in the management administration of it or go back to city council and say, okay, so filed under a great idea that didn't work, is this paragraph, change it?

You lose your voucher, you can never get a voucher again.

That's a big thing.

And I think that may be enough to scare folks.

I mean, it doesn't really.

You have a contract.

Right, because it was I wouldn't say that.

I wouldn't say that.

But what would need to happen is an addendum would need to be signed with the city or whoever administering this program, the tenant and then the landlord.

It would be incorporated.

I don't think you fix it and said, you know, if it's broken, you don't tell them, oh, you fix it, but they probably can't, they don't have the money for it.

Then I can circle back to...

How you doing?

So, I'm just wondering, do we have enough safe bar that landlords don't abuse this?

There's a pre-inspection, a post-inspection, and the administrator has the ability to be involved with those.

Yeah, pre-inspection and

Yeah, but this is just like the front end and the back end.

It's not like every six months.

What for then?

Go ahead and inspect the house.

Yeah, it's only a yearly.

Yeah.

You can request more often.

Based on the lease.

Yeah.

Or is that too abstruse?

Which is sad, but I don't know how to get around that.

And this would be easier because they would feel better about having the entire city backing.

What's the state of that issue right now?

A lot of folks are looking back 30 years at what someone did when they were a teenager.

Yes.

So this isn't going to solve the underlying problems.

So this is not going to fix that.

It's not going to fix the problem, but it's going to solve one silo.

So I hope this becomes more relevant as renters get more power in the market.

Well, more apartment buildings are being built, so that will shift.

Does that make sense?

It's like, yeah, I mean, if you want access to these funds out landlord, you have to acknowledge that there is no.

They're going to have this guarantee from the city, which I think makes sense, but it gives the landlord an excuse not to rent to that person.

So I think this addresses that.

So can you accept a security deposit in addition to the guarantee from the city?

This would say you cannot.

That tension, I think, would give landlords an excuse not to rent because they're always looking for excuses not to rent to a doctor.

This is not going to be a silver bullet necessarily, but it will get some folks across the finish line where previously they might have said no to say yes.

And so this is supposed to ease those concerns, not for the landlords.

It might make sense to connect with Owen and just sort of understand how what he thinks about this and get that input in the meantime as well.

Let's say it's, I don't know, half a million dollars a year.

So there's clearly a need.

I also think it would be important at some point

of them and get their feedback if they want to participate, if they think it's a good idea.

Oh yes, somebody from The Haven, somebody from SupportWorks.

Not to mention somebody would presumably need to be administering this program so that also might give us a good opportunity to get people familiar with it and maybe one of those organizations would have some interest.

And I just found the same deal we were with Land Bank.

We hadn't figured that out yet.

So that would, to me, sound like you're not planning on the city to administer this.

I had one staff member at that point, I think.

I don't think that our plan is that you should administer this entire program if you want things done in 21 days.

It was one, there was no way that was going to happen.

I think we'd want to evaluate capacity and I'd like to hear from the city whether they could actually even take it on.

Let's figure out what questions need to be asked and go ask them and then report back.

There's a...

There's a list of boards.

That's what I said.

That was the... No, but they're not all the ones who... No, but they're the ones that I would want...

Do you organize things sometimes?

What's the...

Social Services, IRC, potentially the CAF doesn't have its own program.

No, we're giving money to other people to do that.

We didn't have Home to Hope to give money.

Or is that just... Out in Fund, those are all loans, right?

Get AIM, get AIM.

Yeah, private churches, and you have some philanthropists that does it too.

Once we do that, I think we can, then I think some of the other lingering questions, I think the idea was let's bring in the- Yeah, well, this list is on page 18, that's at the top of this.

Pacham, you know what I mean, to see how they feel about, yeah.

So the VASH is going to be CRHA, because we administer that, the VASH program, Veterans Affairs, supportive housing.

So that's the second question is, what do the people who administer rental assistance think of this idea?

Emily Dreyfus.

So she would be a wealth of information on this.

She has ministered to me.

She helped with the City of Albemarle.

I mean, we can ask a miscellany of landlords to come in, or should we ask the Association of Realtors, or who?

I think we asked the- There is a certain type of landlord that's- Yeah, there is a voucher holder.

Yeah, the voucher holder.

Yeah, we could have access to the voucher landlords.

Just have Doug come in and

There's your list of landlords.

approved landlord.

We don't have extra funding to set up an incentive program, but that incentive program works because it gives folks actual money.

Would you instead of asking folks to come in, is your group responsive to a simple survey like three, four, five questions to give you all the insight you need?

There's no difference.

How many landlords do we have in Charlottesville to do this?

We print out over 300 different vendor checks for the HCV program alone.

That's way more than what I thought.

We have a lot of small landlords with one or two units and then of course

So where are we headed with this?

Right.

Demographic that John's talking about.

As opposed to the new folks, would this incentivize you or the folks that you manage profit?

The city gets a call from somebody, a landlord, and says I want to know more about the Gotcha program.

about those callers to be able to contact them?

Thanks.

Is that online to use the landlord package?

And to qualify for that.

To qualify

We've lately been getting a lot of the online referrals.

I did not know that.

We can do that.

Yeah, that works, because he's just sending out information.

You guys put the soda can against the wall.

And then at our next meeting, we will.

Either that or what do y'all think the subcommittee meeting or just bring this back to the full meeting I'm finding it.

Is there spare change or?

I am not in charge of that.

I didn't hear there was spare change.

I think that's money that's already been set aside in the past that they're wanting to spend, not money to continue to set aside until a program may or may not be up and running.

So even if they set aside $50,000 in the budget this year, it's we're not going to be... How long did the last 75 sit there?

He said he got time.

To the next budget cycle, it was gone.

So you say we have time?

I mean, to work on FY 27.

Yeah.

I find this very impressive.

is really, I find it very impressive.

And I think John's taking it was the fourth rewrite of that, more or less from the...

It would have made it.

No, no, seriously, it was done.

So we focused on those programs.

We need to promote it to landlords.

COVID happened and it went.

So next steps is to for you and Antoine to get together and do the survey.

And we're going to make sure that report, but we're going to send it to the team first.

Or is that too late for you?

I don't think it's going to happen this fiscal year.

Agenda.

I think at least if you start drafting and get this final you put the paper in front of the dollars this time because I think the dollars got approved quickly and then you did your diligence and then we just then COVID happened you didn't catch up.

I think if we stand it up.

So you didn't change fund administrator for a reason.

Let's find somebody else who has it hanging up here.

He did agree in principle.

So Shayla Washington, thank you.

You can't verify that.

April 16th.

April 16th.

April 16th, OK. 2025.

So now we can go to public comment.

The thinking was that you would make people put their names in the hat and then in the next meeting you would vote.

Put your name in the hat.

I like you.

If y'all comfortable because sometime I miss meeting because I'm at a conference.

and with Sunshine, that's the side of the order.

Is this a formal nomination?

I mean, we're just putting people.

Yeah, you're not electing right now.

We ain't voting on anything.

All right.

Secretary is making it a little less time intensive.

I mean, that's awesome.

Yeah, Zoom has a transcript.

They changed something.

But I believe that AI could summarize the transcript.

Yeah.

There is an automatic capability to have that.

I would suggest, like, massively compress this topic, discuss this topic, and for full transcript press.

I'd take no more than 15, 20 minutes.

Well, once again, I went to the charlottesville.gov and went to half, and the minutes, the last minutes that are

OK, but I'm just saying.

It says then maybe we need to take out that portion that says... Sean Tubbs does always... Then I went to the Housing Advisory Committee and...

For Sean Tubbs, I understand your point.

So we will work on that.

I can take the page down and we're still going to hear complaints about I can't find your name.

Or say where, instead just say where in the room.

There you can.

That's my that's my submission.

I'll second.

All right.

Can I ask one more question before we go?

Sure.

What about the ADU manual and updates to the zoning ordinance?

I have no update on that right now.

Is that what we're going to do?

Yeah, that's what I'm suggesting.

We're going to have a survey and get more information.

And again, if the survey data shows that there's no need for this, we'll have a very short meeting.

And who's going to send out the surveys?

He'll send that out, and then he'll collect the data and bring the data to the next meeting.

But yes, I opposed to do that.

Oh, you move?

All right, all in favor?

Aye.

Since we're adjourned, I move to censor Phil for me.

Take a number and stand in line.

I'm number one.

That's good trouble.

Good trouble.

I thought it would have gone two months ago is what I thought.