CRHA Meeting   8/27/2018

I recognize resident advisory board and resident council for residents of public housing here in Charlottesville.

I have written comments and they are much more brief than normal.

Mainly just looking for some updates and some information.

I think it's really important sometimes over at PHAR we kind of know what's going on but the rest of the public doesn't necessarily know what's up.

We do our best to inform residents of what's going on but this is a great opportunity.

I understand you're on Facebook tonight so it's a great way to get a lot of information out to the public.

Would like to hear tonight updates on the following, and I'm not sure where you want to just get these, but kind of just sort of an understanding of the trees and the replacement housing and how that's panned out.

is still ongoing.

Staffing is big and there's some comments about that.

Vacancies I see in the site roll up, it lists that but it'd be good to just have some discussion.

It's been a while since you all have discussed that and I know it needs to be a priority so it would be cool to hear how things are going in terms of turnovers.

It's really hard narrowing down that.

that number but I'd see that there's also a lot of turns going on so there seems to be a thing there and it'd be cool to have you all discuss that a little bit.

What happened with the two REAC inspections so far?

I know you don't know much yet but maybe just a quick note about that.

and then hoping to hear about accounts receivable and summons from unlawful detainers that are issued and I just want to repeat a request from last month that those get included in the all sites roll up summary.

And then the capital funding budget, if we could get that over at PHAR and maybe have some discussion it would be cool to hear you all discuss the capital funding budget as well.

Tion tonight you have on your agenda safety.

As you know PHAR has chimed in on safety numerous times over the years.

We've offered recommendations.

Some of them have been fulfilled, many have not.

Some of them I think a big part of what the CRHA can do is lease enforcement and what typically seems to happen is like an immediate crackdown.

and people who really aren't causing problems get kind of swept up in that and people who are causing long standing problems somehow tend to avoid that.

So it's the consistency of lease enforcement that seems really important and I know there's other steps y'all can take but you know as always that needs to be a community conversation if you're going to talk about instituting any new kind of programming or efforts or policy changes.

but consistency in lease enforcement is huge.

I know it's not easy and I know CRHA staff gets frustrated with foreign legal aid's involvement when a resident comes to us and they may have a lease violation and we try to help them resolve a problem.

That's our job.

It's CRHA's job to enforce the lease and sometimes

We don't get the full story.

Sometimes you all don't get the full story and when we can address these, a lot of times we can resolve things.

We're not trying to get in the way, but we are trying to do our job.

Similarly, the barment policy is a really good example of that.

You have barment in place for a reason.

The policy was changed many years ago to make it more fair.

I know it's difficult to enforce as a result of respecting that, but that's just the hard work that has to get done when you have a cool policy, right?

You're a model agency in terms of this barment policy and the unbarment policy.

It doesn't mean you just scrap barment all together.

It means that you go by the rules that we all established.

and used that as a tool hopefully consistently instead of just an immediate crackdown that then kind of disappears.

And the parking policy I think is the same.

We had high hopes for the parking policy when it comes to safety and I'm just not sure how consistent that is or what can be done but I think from our perspective that still plays a major role in resident safety.

The Charlottesville Supplemental Rental Assistance Program

We listed a bunch of questions in here.

Some of this I actually know the answers to, but it would be cool to just have this sort of out there for the public to understand.

I think it's still kind of a mysterious thing to a lot of people.

I particularly would like to know if all those funds are gone, and honestly I get calls and I kind of wonder.

if it's something that I can refer people to, you know, how that really fits with the HCV list.

You know, there's still a lot of questions in our mind about that program and I think in the public in general.

Staffing, this is something I really hope the board will embrace.

PHAR has really embraced this idea.

We really encourage SWIFT.

a selection of sort of an upper tier management staff for the housing authority.

I know you've been moving in that direction.

You're moving towards this call center.

But redevelopment coordinator, HCV program head, director of housing services and facilities maintenance modernization.

I really hope the board will put the necessary resources into finding really awesome people and treat them well so that we really get a really great team to move forward in the future because the future all changes next month.

You all are going to take a big vote and let's get less seat of the pants and more focused on team building and creating a new future for everybody.

Thank you.

Are there other comments this evening?

Good evening, my name is Annette Wilcox.

I'm excited to see fall, usually I like summer, but not when it's too hot.

It's easier for me to try not to get sick with too many hot weather-related fevers.

I can always wash my, put an ice pack on to get well quicker.

It's easier for me to walk around and see the downtown mall and travel.

Thank you, Ms. Wilcox.

For me, it's back to the personnel policies.

I would like to see that we set a meeting tonight that we have

and the group that we selected that we do not cancel this meeting.

Regardless of what happens, we don't cancel this meeting.

We can show up okay.

We need to have this meeting to happen ASAP.

So at the end, we'll schedule it.

That'll work.

Also, you know, I too have concerns about enforcement with residents, not just residents, but staff as well.

Also with the apartment and the parking.

I mean, we make these, we spend a lot of time making moves and regulations, and they never are used.

They never are applied.

And then when they are, nobody knows

What personnel also need is just two of them up there.

I don't know which one they're using.

They haven't been updated and God knows how long.

That needs to happen and we need to stop playing games about this because we keep coming and we keep asking and we keep asking and nothing is happening.

Okay, thank you.

That was a good question.

So far we've been hearing some pretty good things about it.

I question people across the halls.

A lot of them are saying that they're, that a lot of them stopped smoking.

I don't think that they probably haven't really stopped smoking, but probably are using the smoking areas.

What I see in my neighborhood, people are walking out to the areas where they're supposed to smoke.

I haven't heard any negative stuff about it.

even though I'm sure there's some out there.

I think that with the services and resources that we brought in, I think there's more people who are thinking more about wanting to smoke.

and being able to use those resources that are still for me giving them time.

And I know we'll talk about it a little later but maybe I can put you on the spot Miss Sharon and say welcome and that the West Haven Clinic is open thanks to Miss Sharon and that there's smoking cessation resources there for sure and that the clinic there can help people get connected now that it's open so much more often.

I put you on the spot.

Why don't you come up?

That's quite all right.

We're pretty informal here.

Some folks don't know who you are and everybody needs to know who you are.

Okay, so my name is Sharon Fief.

Should I be looking that way or this way?

This way.

Okay, and I started at the clinic in the beginning of August.

It is not completely up and running that someone is there all the time, but I think I've been able to find a few hours every day to be there in the clinic.

It is a process, and I think that people are beginning to recognize me and to recognize my face, and I've had a few people come in the clinic and been able to do a few home visits,

So I am really just there to help connect people with resources.

I'm not doing primary care.

I'm not diagnosing and giving medications.

But it would be more like, do you need to be seen right away?

Do you have a family practitioner or provider?

Can we connect you?

Can I help get you in for an appointment pretty quick?

If you don't have one, let me help you find one.

And then just other resources.

I mean, I do see myself as an advocate as well.

I'm sure most of you know Holly Edwards who filled this position before and she left really really big feet print and I will never be able to fill those feet print but from working with her in the years past I learned a lot from her and so I do continue to carry that model.

I want to carry the model that she portrayed there and the role that she played in people's lives there.

and you know, using the CARES model and I don't look at help, it's just what you eat or what your blood pressure is, but it's everything.

It's your environment, it's where you live, it's all of that stuff.

So anyway, and then hopefully pretty soon when we get this clinic running well, we'll be able to spend more hours over in Crescent Halls as well to get that community going.

So anyway, that's me.

Thank you.

Great question.

Brandon, I just wanted to say I think 95% of what you asked us in comments will be covered tonight at some point.

So we won't address them all in comments now because I know it's coming.

I had one question that my feeble mind might be losing this, but I know I came away from that meeting believing that we had five or six residents that were having AC problems and they were addressed.

Deborah Booker's comment that came prior to the mechanical guy reporting out, she said 30 fans were handed out to people whose AC wasn't working.

Did she in fact say that and I only remember the last person that spoke on that subject or there seems like a conflict between what I thought I knew about that meeting and that comment.

And I do think with all the discussion that we have,

for the minutes to reflect something that she didn't say on that subject, I would like to clarify that.

I assume you look back at transcripts on all this, do we know that?

We didn't have 35 years that were out of it.

Is that what you're saying?

To people whose AC wasn't working.

I mean I think Miss Booker believed that to be the case.

at the time, and you know, followed by the caveat of working or wasn't working properly or not perceived to be working.

So certainly 35 fans were handed, or 30 fans were handed out.

Okay, well just verify that she did say that.

And if she said it, we can't change what she said, but it might be wrong.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

All in favor?

Aye.

I can abstain.

Ms. Rutgers abstains because she wasn't here.

Thank you all.

So we have next on our agenda a conversation about community safety.

And many of you pointed out that we are sort of reviewing the effectiveness of the policies we do have in place and looking at other measures that we might consider.

Certainly.

Thank you, Chair Jones, members of the commission.

To bring this issue back to our attention, as the Commission will recall last year, I believe last summer, we spent a significant amount of time as a Commission going neighborhood to neighborhood, requesting input from the community concerning public safety, community safety matters.

Very recently,

Several members of the community have reached out to me and other staff individuals, again expressing some concern about safety within their community.

It seems as though it's a prudent time to bring the topic back for the commission and the community to review and discuss.

Certainly there are a number of policies that we have put in place over the past year.

I'd be more than happy to talk about, sort of discuss the effectiveness of those.

I don't know if that is something, A, if this is a topic, the nature of which we want to delve into at this meeting in depth.

Is it something that we want to hold a workshop around?

certain immediate concerns that community has expressed and staff have expressed concerning safety.

OK?

Yeah.

No, that's a good point.

Over the past month, and most recently this past weekend, we've had

some disturbances at West Haven primarily.

I think we've had one incident over at South First Street that are a cause for concern.

We've had discharge of firearms.

There's been on a couple of occasions.

a reported carjacking incident, although I don't know necessarily all that has gone into that.

I want to be careful because I don't want to create an impression that there is sort of catastrophic community safety concern.

Nonetheless, we do hear from

A number of residents say, look I have some concerns and what can you, CRHA, do to help address those?

One of the recommendations or one of the ideas that staff have brought to me would involve an increase in the scope of Millennium Security's contract with CRHA to include some type of patrol among some of our other sites.

and certainly their budget implications around that and that's not anything that we've envisioned within the budget.

First I think we need to go into each community and find out what the issues are.

We have to figure out a way how we get residents comfortable coming out talking about what the issues are.

There are people who have issues that will not come out because they become snitches or whatever, whatever.

There are residents who pay rent who wants to live in a safe environment.

That's a part of

the lease that we signed that the Housing Authority is supposed to provide for us.

Secondly, we have Millennium who's at Crescent Hall, who we've had some pretty good meetings with.

At the same time, you have the city police who are patrolling as well.

I would like to see Millennium and the Housing Authority and the Charlottesville Police have conversations about

who's allowed to do what when they come on the property?

We keep talking about these issues that we have and nothing is happening.

They keep coming back to the board, nothing happens.

Keep coming back to the board, nothing happens.

I see people every day in my community and I'm sick of seeing it.

They can come in there and do what they wanna do, things that I'm not allowed to do.

Because my lease don't allow me to do those things.

It don't allow a lot of us to do those things that they do in the community.

So yes, we need to,

more important that we might do that other than safety for our residents and the perception of safety of our residents.

I mean if somebody's afraid to live in the community and is stuck inside their unit because their only security is the deadbolt on their door, that's just a sad place to be.

So I would absolutely support getting on top of this.

You know, maybe I'm old school.

I don't know if there's, you know, some sense that all these things kind of flare up a little bit in the summer.

Here we are at the end of the summer.

Are we naturally ending up at a point where it might not be as bad?

My immediate thought is, you know, what are city police doing for us?

Are they doing everything that they should be doing?

And is our residents feel comfortable, you know, having a police presence?

increased in the neighborhood if that's what it takes.

And then beyond that, what's the specifics of our millennium contract?

Would we have to rebid a contract for other sites or do we have a relationship with them such that we could enter into a short-term, you know, 60 days, we look at certainly adding West Haven and South First Street and get a better handle on, you know, what our problems are and are those going to be

continuing problems that we need to marshal forces for, or is the weather gonna impact it a little bit, or just would a little bit of presence of security walking down the street be all it really takes?

It's awfully easy for those forces of evil that's a little strong, but a lot of those guys, they're just looking for opportunities.

If it doesn't look like it's an opportunity, those guys will go somewhere else fast.

In my experience, when the police come into our communities, they're not sure what they can do and what they can't.

And I think when you look at millennia, they're limited to what they can do.

They know what they can't do.

It needs to be an understanding between the housing authority, the residents,

I don't know all the challenges the police face, but it's amazing.

You know, I've lived in my neighborhood for 30 years, and several times over the last five years, things that didn't happen for the previous 25 years started happening, and the police show up and say they can't do anything about it.

I have no parking signs all the way down my street, and people pull off the street behind the no parking sign, and the police say, look, I'm on private property now, I can't do anything about it.

It's the weirdest thing in the world.

So, I mean, I think police,

They're obvious and they're obviously not the police so it just seems like an ambiguous

Well, I think you have to question that about what they're, or what they're, you know, they're not getting paid money to do nothing.

But at Crescent Halls, it's very specific, right?

Well, that is one building.

Are there ways that we should think about containing our sites for those kind of purposes so that you really kind of need a guide to get in and out?

I say conversation with residential and talk about that kind of stuff but we need feedback from the communities of what's going on because something that each community is different something different is going on in each community so that's conversation we need to have with the residents but we need to have those with residents who are behind doors who want to be able to say stuff who want come out and say but will call me on the telephone and say okay yeah alright that's that's fine I don't have a problem with that but I need other folks to

Yeah, and I appreciate any, yeah, figuring out how we can get to a point where we actually hear it because we so appreciate you playing that role and bringing it back to us, but you can't carry it all.

So as we walk out of this meeting, what are we saying?

And is it, am I hearing, look, it's on the executive director to make the determination to deploy security service, additional pieces to help make something happen.

What I'm hearing, we need to conduct additional meetings,

things of that nature before we make any kind of operational changes in how we go to business on this.

I'm concerned that somebody's going to get shot and killed, okay?

And some of the behaviors that have taken place over the past six weeks, if they continue, I can see this becoming lethal.

So one of the great values that Millennium has brought at Crescent Halls is that they have come back to us at different points in time with real recommendations of policy changes, procedure changes, you name it, for how we can do it better.

So going back to Mr. Osteen's comments, perhaps without making it a permanent deal,

maybe there's a way to use Millennium for a couple of months and immediately with the idea that part of the work that they're doing is bringing us back information about

what we might be able to do better, where we need more lighting at night, where we need, where some hot spots are that perhaps we didn't know about, residents who might talk to them.

I know a lot of folks at Crescent Halls talk to the officers.

Maybe that's a way to sort of get some input.

As I said, each community is different

and you're not gonna get from the other communities what you get from Crescent Hall.

And I would use that information in a eight o'clock call to the police chief too to say, you know, we're having to take measures into our hands that we think is police business and before we have our own police force,

I think what needs to happen because right now Grant has concerns and I don't think he's put all his concerns out here that he has and it sounds like he might have some of the same concerns that I have.

I heard his concerns too and you as well.

And I think that we need to be able to have conversation with Grant and then before we make a decision of hiring Millennium to bring them back because they're short staffed too,

so we really can't depend on them so we need to figure it out.

I think we need to have conversations with Grant and then give him directives at that point of what we feel like he needs to do at this point because he has concerns and I do too because I know what he talks about.

I live in the community and where I don't live I get phone calls from.

So we figure out how we

Can we do a community meeting?

Can we do a closed session at the end?

Is that a topic?

How do we get it done for everybody?

And I'd like for the board to be here to hear the conversation.

That needs to happen too, so we need to figure out how we do that.

I don't know how many.

maybe there's an opportunity to do something before or after that.

I just have a quick question.

Hi, my name is Angeline Kahn.

I am an organizer of community engagement here in Charlottesville.

I run a website called powertothepeople365.org.

I went out.

to the community of West Haven on Friday to speak with some residents.

I got a call to come out and interview, you know, go out there and speak with some of the residents, see what was happening, how they were feeling.

This is a fairly new thing for me, the community engagement side.

So my idea, and I talked to Wes about it.

and several other people is to get more community engagement, to get people, residents from these neighborhoods.

You would have to allow them some other way versus coming down here.

A lot of people can't leave their homes.

A lot of people are afraid to leave their homes.

A lot of people don't want to be on television.

A lot of people don't, you know, they just don't want that exposure.

for this is to allow them to virtually attend these meetings because in reality everybody up here is making decisions about their welfare.

They should have input on their welfare and decisions being made about their public housing situation and ways to level the playing field for them.

In essence, a lot of people are misinformed because they're unable to attend the meetings.

So my idea, which I spoke with one of the residents out there, and I don't know how to go about doing it, but I don't.

I volunteer this but just to go out and say you know let me bring this here because you all can't come here I also have a few messages as well but I was stating that for public comment but so my idea because each each property has a community space correct is to set up a webcam and virtually

have another webcam here like that screen can come down and you can use an AV cord or however you want to set it up but to have it where you can see them and they can see you and you can communicate with them and they don't have to go anywhere.

A lot of people are interested in this idea because one, they don't have time.

Two, they don't have funds to get here.

Three, they're probably nervous or just

It'll eliminate a lot of factors.

And that's how you get community engagement.

You go out there, you don't have to have a title.

You don't have to have anything.

You just go out into the community, say hi to folks.

My name is such and such.

This is what I'm doing.

How do you feel about this situation?

What are the areas that you think can be approved on?

I was in this situation once.

You have to be relatable.

First of all, they've never seen you.

None of the people I spoke with had ever seen me before.

but they engaged with conversation.

So that is something that you need to look on and I also can do that as well.

So I'll be, my next stop will be a friendship court and then I wanna do all of the sites within the week if I can.

So it's great.

Thank you.

Yeah, I didn't expect you to be quite so long.

Yeah, yeah.

So we'll have public comments at the end.

If you have a clarifying question now, let me know.

Because I do have a question.

I mean, one, Millennium didn't do its job

So you definitely have to look into Millennium.

You know, and all these other things.

I mean, and it's like to watch y'all up there that aren't living in these situations.

Right.

I mean, to look at y'all's face and not knowing that y'all's really the meter to know what's really going on.

And so for me to sit here and now see

and the young man shot at his own kids.

So, I mean, we really have to definitely get through this security because I'm like, Miss Audrey, we're tired of keep asking about security.

We've been asking for years and years and years.

We just had this months ago, the same conversation in a resident service meeting.

You know, when can this be done?

I mean, we can't keep waiting.

Y'all don't live in these situations.

Like now we could go home right now and it could be a shooting.

You know, it could be something.

So we cannot just wait.

Millennium, we cannot wait because Millennium didn't do nothing August 11th and 12th.

They didn't even get off their cars.

So I mean, we can't just, like she said, we can't just rely on Millennium.

We can't just rely on the police because we've also got police officers that has been there and has been harming the community that we've also asked for to not be in the community.

And we're still having the same officers in the community have a private meetings with our property manager.

Lord knows what they're telling them.

Thank you, Miss Parker.

Well, I'm sure it's about this.

We're a little off agenda, but that's quite all right.

This is a really important topic.

I have just a few comments.

I think it is imperative that

A meeting is called with the chief.

She's here.

We're part of the city.

If there is violence that is upscaling in any part of the city, whether it's on a public housing site or a non-public housing site, it should be a calling for her.

And I think having feedback from the community about what it is they want.

It's going to be mixed.

That's how you go about it.

It is an urgency.

and all of the community because it moved from one side to another, it shifts.

So it's not just happening in just one.

The media just carry one side but it's happening on different sites and then some of the sites is hushed, nobody knows about it.

Other sites, there's big publicity about it for whatever reason.

But we who live in the community, we know it transfers.

So I think it's,

I think the police department should be, we're a part of the city.

Also, I think, lease enforcement.

I think these, my thing is, you can't ask the police department to be the property manager.

And the police department should not be the property manager.

They should not be influencing who get evicted.

The policies should be influencing who get evicted.

So I think that it's not just on the police department.

If we are employing people who is afraid to be on the property, find somebody else.

Because for me, appearance is a deterrence.

All I have to do is show up in my blue van, things change, right?

Same thing.

I mean, I know there are some property managers who drive around and take pictures at night because that's what residents tell me.

Then what are you doing with it?

If you have evidence, bring it to a committee, bring it to whoever to say, how do we deal with this kind of stuff?

So I just wanted to make sure.

I heard that there was some talk about the CSO officers, the CSO officers coming back.

I want to tell you all you better be talking to the residents about that or the community because we tried that.

It did not work.

It didn't deter anything.

It was just a changing chamber for the police officers.

So I just wanted to just say I don't think, I think if this is a partnership with PHAR, the Housing Authority and the Police Department, that's part of our annual plan.

We say we are having weekly meetings.

with residents.

That's not happening.

They may be having weekly meetings with the managers, but they ain't having weekly meetings with us.

We don't get to dialogue with a police officer unless we are at those meetings, the last meeting that we talked about with September 11th.

So I just wanted to put that out there about safety.

It is a high priority.

I don't think if you put manilium in our neighborhoods with the

Fire that is brewing out there is going to be worse.

I didn't know if I could say anything, but in the short time that I've been there, I would say that this is the number one concern that residents have expressed to me.

And they don't know me very well, but they've been very willing to talk about the safety and the gunshots and their fear of being there, and especially with children sometimes.

So this conversation clearly continues and continues soon.

We're not going to put it off another month.

So I think we still have an

to answer Grant's question.

Right now there's an urgency.

So when do we meet with him?

When do we talk with Grant?

Something has to happen in the next couple of days that we have a conversation with Grant.

Or I don't know if you want to send us something about what's going on so that we can look at it, we can talk about it.

figure out what his concerns are, let him send us something, email us or whatever you need to do so that we can have a conversation with him about what's happening.

Do we want to have a meeting with Grant or do you want to open the opportunity for Grant to maybe have some strategic phone calls individually with us?

Should we do a couple times?

I think we should just... Let's set a meeting of this board.

We'll invite the police.

I'll make sure we have a millennium there.

But this is a conversation that this board needs to have immediately.

Okay.

Maybe Mr. Bellamy can help encourage...

Well, yeah, we'll contact them.

I mean, they've certainly have been more responsive than the past police.

Past chief.

But who knows, they're good.

I could do tomorrow at five.

We have redevelopment at 12 noon.

Are you suggesting a noon, Mr. Frum?

We had a 12 o'clock.

I can do either one.

Five o'clock works for me tomorrow.

You said it doesn't?

Oh, it does work.

Wednesday looks really good.

I can do Wednesday.

Can you please make a count for that?

You part of the problem or part of the solution?

Good point.

We always ask, can you please make some time?

So we have City Council meeting from 3.30 to 5.30.

Six o'clock?

Probably it would be best to do it before because I don't know if the meeting is going to last.

Longer?

Yeah, longer.

I have a tendency to do that.

Two o'clock?

I could do that.

It doesn't work for him.

Oh.

Yes.

Is that something that can move?

Brandon, do you think we could push the two o'clock?

Could you do noon?

No.

Noon?

Noon.

Lunch?

What about Thursday, Friday?

Can you do noon on Wednesday?

All right.

Noon on Wednesday.

Thursday I can't do that.

So you can do noon on Wednesday?

Is there a preferred location?

Where?

Yeah, maybe one of the communities.

South First Street, West Haven?

Oh, so you're gonna do that?

Yeah.

Okay.

12 noon.

and let's say West Haven unless you hear otherwise, okay?

And then my apologies coming from one meeting to the next.

So I know I missed the majority of the conversation, but we were asking her to come to discuss the safety measures.

and to step it up.

I'm just asking what would be the difference between them coming now and the listening tour that we had two years ago?

To answer your question, I think this is a preliminary meeting that we'd like to have just with the board and Chief Brackney and Millennium Security if they're able to be there.

meeting each other, talking about what's been happening recently and developing a plan of action both for getting a lot of community input, tools we might be able to put in place right away and then what we should look to be doing in the future.

Great.

I just think that maybe we should have like an idea of what we want.

So some of the things that we specifically want to discuss with her that came up earlier this evening are it still seems to be the case.

that police officers are not clear about what the barment policy allows them to do and not do on our sites.

And so we want to have a discussion about how we get clear and get everybody trained on that.

We want to have a conversation about

We want to know more about what their plans are and her plans are for policing in our communities because I don't have a clear sense of that now and given what has been going on we want to understand what plans they have to address it and how can we be better partners.

I've certainly heard we want to have more of a presence and a positive way into our communities.

We've certainly seen that over the summer, but the enforcement side I understand a little bit less about.

Are we discussing cameras?

We're not discussing cameras?

We're not discussing policy?

And I'm not trying to say that being rude.

We brought that up that that was a point that we brought up last summer.

We said that we were waiting for the Crescent Halls camera system, the upgraded system to go into place with additional cameras, and that that would be our sort of our pilot to review.

Those cameras have been up and running and in action for about two months now so it's a really good time for us to review that and then to look at where we might run a couple other pilot projects on other sites while we have conversations about a policy.

So cameras are definitely back on the table.

in addition to the conversations that we've had about, we said we gotta use the tools we have in the toolbox first.

Did I get all of that right?

I would say, and you could let her know, Graham has brought up

finding, trying to find money to hire a private, you know, more private security.

That would be, you know.

They will be at the meeting.

Are you reaching out?

Yep, I got it.

All right.

Great.

Thank you.

I want to maybe all of us just to think a little bit so maybe we'll move on to the next agenda item and if other thoughts or concerns come up we'll have opportunity at the end to bring those because there's been a lot going around tonight so thank you all and thanks to everybody in the audience for being so willing to have the conversation with us.

Mr. Duffield, next on our agenda is the five-year plan process.

Sure, certainly.

And coming your way is a memo that describes or sets out the initial annual plan slash five-year plan development process.

We have

scheduled community meetings the next two weeks.

at this point involving Crescent Halls, West Haven, South First Street, we are arranging for meetings at Sixth Street, Riverside, Mickey and Madison, but initially it's where the initial meetings will take place.

The memo that's before you this evening maps out the timeline for

plan approval, references annual plan, again the same is true for the five-year plan.

We need to be in a place to submit the documents to HUD December 31st of this year.

in order for them to be reviewed and approved by HUD prior to the beginning of the next fiscal year, April 1st, 2019.

In your packages, in the jacket sleeve is a five-year plan.

areas of action, categories, this document, it's also in the document that was available for the public.

This is a summary of the discussions that action points that the commission developed during a meeting at Crescent Halls on.

May 31st, 2018, involved several commissioners as well as members of the public.

I think this probably represents a good starting point as we discuss the five-year plan and how we want to delve into the

the major topics that we want to see addressed in the five-year plan, which then the annual plan can be crafted to support.

Chairwoman Jones, I'll turn back to you, I think.

I'd like to, if we want to go through the five-year plan action areas,

We want to proceed at this point.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Duffield.

I want to say, you know, we started this process by meeting with a handful of residents who were at Crescent Halls and with PHAR really to begin to lay out a strategy for getting input for a five-year plan.

We looked at some example plans from other housing authorities and looked at our old plan which we really don't want to pick up with again but there are some action items that need to get carried over but felt like it would be a much more

Thank you so much for having me.

Action items over time.

And so this is the result of about an hour going through what has been in our previous plans, some ideas that we loved from the other plans that we wanted to see incorporated, but certainly understanding that this needs a lot of input and massaging.

And so I guess we just welcome either now or at one of the upcoming meetings, any input that the commissioners have on these areas of

of Focus, and then beyond that little, the things that might get included within them.

If you have thoughts that jump out at you right now of what's missing, or what's too much, let us know.

Otherwise, we'll talk about these in depth at our next round of meetings.

Who's going to be at the meetings?

It's staff and for residents, resident input.

Okay.

But we should certainly, we will

This is the beginning of those conversations.

Expect a long conversation at our September board meeting about what we learned and about this document as it gets fleshed out.

So September board meeting, we'll focus on that.

And if needed, a following workshop in early October.

And really, I want to ensure that we get

Just keep having those conversations.

So if we need to go back out for another round of a couple meetings in October, we can do that as well.

And hopefully, as has been in the past, and Ms. Johnson as Chair of Resident Services to help us entertain these discussions as well during the Resident Services meeting.

and a reminder that at our September board meeting we'll also be adopting the update to the HCD plan.

So make sure you're here in September.

I'm looking at the youth programming and the senior programming.

As we think about redevelopment, I think the age group that we continue to miss in our community is the 13th and 17th row.

I'd like us to start focusing a little bit more on what we can do as we do redevelopment, and even now, because that's the age group that we seem to be missing.

They never have anything to do.

There's not a lot in this community or in this area for them to do.

Thank you.

Are there comments or questions now about this?

Are we feeling OK?

I've been on vacation the 5th and 6th.

I didn't get to go to New York to Beyonce and all that.

I didn't know you wanted to go.

I was just in Columbia, South Carolina this weekend and was surprised to hear they canceled school.

Really?

Yeah.

Key to the city.

Oh, I thought it's so all the kids could go.

I doubt it.

They had a ton of free tickets though.

I can be there on the 5th.

Great.

5th and 6th.

The 29th is tough for me also.

Is there any board member who can be there on the 29th?

Do we think Miss Slaughter might be available?

I would hope so.

We'll ask her specifically.

You've already got a lot of meetings, but if you're available on the 29th.

Before you go on vacation, you're taking a work vacation, fair enough.

I might check with Miss Talbert.

and you said the 29th, Mr. Osteen?

Well, let's check with Miss Talbert and Miss Slaughter and then we'll get back to you.

Great.

Thank you all.

Next on our agenda is an update on the city rental assistance voucher program.

Yeah, I think so.

I'm going to put Ms. Jackson on the spot here in just a moment, but I will sort of give something of an introduction.

As the Commission's aware, clearly aware,

The City of Charlottesville has allocated $900,000 during this current fiscal year to support a Charlottesville supplemental rental assistance program that is administered by CRHA.

As part of that approval process, there were a number of target levels established for family and individual eligibility, as well as a certain amount of constraint, if you will, to reserve funding such that

Families served during the current fiscal year may still be able to receive funding in a subsequent fiscal year if perhaps the council did not reauthorize the $900,000 in the coming fiscal year.

Does that make sense?

It's kind of convoluted, but yeah.

Essentially what that boils down to is we have the $900,000 allocated.

If memory serves, 700,000, maybe seven and a quarter was deemed available for use during this current fiscal year to serve families.

We had initially projected about 120 families could be served.

with the reservation in place.

We project between 70 and 80 families are able to be served.

Currently, we have almost 50 families, just between 45 and 50 families who currently

have leases and are being served by the rental assistance program.

And that has been as of basically March 1st of this year to date.

So four months, five months, yeah.

We have approximately 20 more individuals, families who are approved but are actively seeking

Leasing.

If all of those are successful, that puts our total served number right around 70 families.

That's where we stand today.

We certainly have more individuals who are interested in the program and would like to take advantage of the opportunity

We have to be extremely careful that we don't over-promise basically on the funding piece.

So it's sort of a delicate process at this point.

Potentially we may be able to increase eligibility.

by a few additional applicants.

But doing so sort of places us at risk for how if we're able to serve the existing families or everyone.

Currently we're spending a little over $25,000 per month in rental assistance.

We have

have been allocated 300,000 by the city through the drawdown process.

The drawdowns arrive in $150,000 installments.

reached a projected need for a 12 month period of the 150,000.

We then go back to the city and say, okay, that 150 is encumbered.

We haven't spent it all, but it is pledged, right?

Going forward for the next year, they release another 150 to us to be able to then again serve the population.

So as we sit here today,

I would say we probably are in the $260,000, $270,000 neighborhood of encumbered allocated funding on the 45 to 50 families.

I absolutely know that there is need and demand for the full $700,000 spend during the fiscal year.

It's how do we get there.

responsibly.

Does that make sense, please?

I got questions.

Yes.

There are two obstacles that folks face.

There is, as we all know, there is a dearth of truly affordable rental housing in Charlottesville Albemarle area.

The way the program is structured, someone gets approved to participate in the program at 90, 90 days.

You need to come up here.

If you're going to talk, you need to come up here.

90 days to seek housing within Charlottesville.

And part of that is because it's city fuzz, we have to make the priority that they look in Charlottesville first, but essentially, I don't know, Mr. Atoya speak to it,

It creates somewhat of an issue because it seems like the city, we're using city funds and people are going and getting places in the county and the county isn't putting anything into it.

And that's certainly valid.

One of the things, it's all a learning process, and one of the things that we've talked about, maybe we tweak that program so that it is a, again, a live-work in Charlottesville.

If you have somebody that is working in Charlottesville, even if they're living in Albemarle County, they're certainly spending, investing in that area.

So yeah, that's the one obstacle.

CRHA has nothing to do with their security deposit.

It goes with the leasing company.

And what I've heard and what I see is

Folks will say, look, it's costing me money to move.

I have utility deposits.

I've got first months, sometimes last months, and a security deposit.

I just can't swing all of that.

I can get most of it, but when it comes down to it, it's the security deposit that is preventing me from being able to use the voucher.

That will set up the failure.

That will set up the failure.

Well, what were we supposed to do?

People that's got these vouchers are asking the same thing.

I mean, it's very explained to them when they come to briefing.

Oh, yeah.

This program is only a year program.

We don't know.

I have questions of are we going to be refunded back up.

But that is stressed a lot.

This is a year program.

But that said, I mean, certainly city council is our hope that city council will be renewing the funding and hopefully increase- So the funding, I mean, I can't, so legally we can't bind another council or even like in this kind of,

or Deal, we council can't say that, yeah, we're going to do it for 20 straight years.

When this was put together, it was with the expectation that this will be ongoing.

So I only can speak for one, and I'm rather confident that there will be funding, ongoing funding, for those who are in the program.

I don't think the funding is the issue.

The issue is the being able to get the housing.

And we've been in the program.

Well, okay, but let's be clear.

We don't yet have numbers for you on how much is landing in the Charlottesville and how much in Albemarle.

We'll get that for you.

But it's clearly working.

It's clearly moving people off of our wait list.

It is a success.

There's no doubt.

I like to see those numbers.

Y'all talkin' trash.

Oh, yeah.

Well, we can get some.

But I guess my rule, I had a question which was, and I think it's something for the board to discuss, when the program was passed, we said the eligibility rules would follow our HCV federal eligibility rules.

we are in the process of adopting a new HCV plan with an entirely new way to go about eligibility with the preference system that we've adopted.

And so there will actually be a numbered wait list which we didn't have before, right?

And so does that, how will that affect the city voucher program

Is that a decision that we get to make or is it one that needs to go back to the HAC and Council when it comes to eligibility?

I mean, I think in our contract it just says follow your LHCB eligibility.

But we are, so I'm just going to parking lot that question.

We don't have to answer it tonight, but I do want to bring it up.

It's not going to affect the families who are out on the street right now.

But it may affect the next generation, iteration of funding if there are more vouchers.

You know, at this point, if we lease 70 vouchers, we spend all the money.

When you re-up it, it's just keeping those 70 families in housing.

It's not getting additional families beyond that 70 in the housing.

So, one question.

I'm somewhat concerned I've been hearing these rumors.

I don't know how true it is that county residents have been using the vouchers.

If they were already referred to me for my program and they were leased up,

Because PVCC Self-Sufficient was one of our programs.

That's right.

That's correct.

if they were one of the target criteria eligibility that the program established was, correct me if it was a 20 self-sufficiency, I believe that's right, 20 individuals enrolled in self-sufficiency programs, reserved supplemental rental assistance for those individuals.

And that can be the city's GO programs, it can be through DSS,

problems that would be through PVCC.

Yeah, if those.

Oh, okay.

So then the question for me, I mean, it's not a question from here, but I'm just again, perplexed as to why the county won't chip in and we don't ask them.

Not we, I mean like the public, they don't often get challenged on this.

It's just like the city council needs to do that.

And like we putting in the money,

I don't get why doesn't anyone ask the county.

So essentially we're paying for county residents as well.

They don't bring any resources to the table.

So you know that 14 of your 45.

Fourteen of my 45 that is already leased.

Oh, right.

Okay.

Yeah.

So my biggest concern is we see public housing residents, working families who have vouchers who have moved out of public housing who are struggling.

They're struggling.

So for me, when you're saying you're not sure, you think they might pay for these vouchers for the next 12 months after the first 12 months.

but if they don't then we have homeless families.

Well I understand what you're saying but when you say that to me then that worries me about these people who signing up for 12 months and making sure that they understand

However, I mean, yes, all those limitations are there.

Yes, there's some advocacy work that we can do to support council in their efforts in the next budgeting session to ensure that this funding continues.

I believe this board is strongly behind that.

But we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater because there's still 70 families.

Yeah, who wouldn't have had housing.

Just as tenuous, if not more tenuous situations before.

And now, hopefully, they're in a program that

with the council that we have here I do have hope we'll find a way to continue it and I think then the the request to council as I understand you can't through the budget process you're using to fund this program now encumber future councils is there a funding process is there something that council can put into place that takes this yearly question off the table

Is there something like the housing trust fund that was created, which doesn't cover council year to year, but there are things that are saying a certain amount is always going to go and everybody, you know, that we can set aside for these kinds of, this program.

And I'm just putting that out there.

Yeah, no, those are great suggestions.

I don't take offense or feel slighted at all.

I think

I think everything that you're saying, I mean, it makes sense.

I'm looking forward to talking more with Ms. Kelley and Dr. Patia about how we can work out solutions.

And also, I would apologize to the board if my tone was as if I'm not happy with the fact that 70 families are indeed in a much better spot because that's

That's huge.

And we fought hard to get this.

And does the budgeting cycle, just the date, I think, I mean, I'm sure this has been thought out, but that it's, I would hope that those families get enough advance notice because I know a lot of landlords want two, three months advance before you

Move, or you continue your lease.

So we have to make sure the council's decisions can get timed into those decisions each year because that's going to be, yeah.

Thank you for the update.

other than Latoya's doing an awesome job administering the program, right?

You need to say that.

Great job, Latoya.

Thank you.

Yeah.

No.

Right now, everybody's doing good.

I have a wait list.

Thank you.

It just occurred to me that as we adopt new eligibility guidelines, folks who get the city rental assistance vouchers remain on the federal HCV voucher list.

So it is possible that they could come up and get a HCV federal voucher, which would then free up a city voucher.

I'm sorry.

That is a question.

I stated it as a fact.

It is a question.

It is something we need to investigate.

We need to investigate the implications of the proposed priority system for eligibility

on the families who are receiving this assistance.

Just big questions, so if we can dig into that.

Thank you.

We are moving right along.

I am wondering if you all would be willing to take a two-minute break or if you'd be willing to allow me a two-minute break and you can continue without me.

I'll be right back.

Literally two minutes, 7 47.

So just if I, Chief Brackney, she can't make Wednesday at noon.

I can't remember now what everyone had.

You had something at 3.30.

It did not work.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

or would you like to leave and Miss Audrey will do.

Would that be my blue sheet?

My name is Joy Johnson and I'm one of the co-chairs of the resident services meeting.

Sometime back we had been talking about

There has been a lot of questions about what is the function of the Resident Services Committee and also about the structure of it.

And we had talked before that is on the Housing Authority Board and that is charged was because back when

Rick Jones, Commissioner Jones was on the housing authority board because the meetings would go up for a long time just in public comment.

He basically said, you know, we should just have a committee that says resident services committee and have a venue where people can come and vent their frustration or their concerns.

Then that comes back to the board and we can bring reclamation back to the board.

Recommendation back to the board and then the board can change policies or whatever to try to deal with some of those issues and we've been struggling over the years just to be able to do that because a lot of times what end up happening is just it's a report in the board package but there's no action to whatever gets brought back.

So we had done a workshop when Connie Dunn was here

and then we asked Miss Karen Waters-Wicks who was the facilitator of that to come back and do a workshop and so she did a workshop and one of the things that came out of that workshop was that we actually planned for the whole year the resident services committee meetings and where they were gonna be and so that was a plus.

There were some other things that

We were going to really talk about, but because of the 11th and 12th, which was on everybody's mind, that was, we talked more about that.

So we talked a little bit about, so there's more to come on about that work plan.

There is a work plan, and we're gonna be spreading it out.

Hopefully September meeting, we will start looking more on the other pieces of the work plan that will come, so stay tuned.

And we did talk about West Haven Community Day, the community calendars, and again, the August 12th, 11th and 12th,

you know, there was an update about who was gonna be there, Millennium, the whole nine yards.

And the West Haven nursing clinic, we did introduce Sharon Beth, who is the new nurse, and Harriet Carter was the winner of the raffle.

We will be meeting again September

Great, thank you.

Okay, any questions for me?

It was... Sure, yeah, and I kept putting myself on the back.

Nobody wanted to be on that.

Budget Committee with me, I was a committee of one and they said we raised over $12,000.

That's for me hijacking people and asking to write me a check and give me money.

But so we were having an update about what was spent because we had to pay a lot of people and what we have for next year.

and we had 68 donations, bingo prizes.

It was a lot more than that.

Okay, so over, we had about 68 prizes, but one of the things was my daughter helped along with my granddaughter and this young lady, what's her name again?

Angelina helped, they were the volunteers, I want to say two,

to Christian Davis, because we had a real super, super volunteer who coordinate volunteer time and t-shirt, and it just worked.

She did a wonderful job.

But everyone on bingo, everybody won a prize and walked away, whether they have bingo or not.

And that was really to the volunteers, so thank you to the volunteers.

Thanks for everybody who put in the effort of putting up with me because they said I was volunteering people, volunteering people what to do.

Yes, well thank you.

And thanks for being here tonight, Miss Johnson.

and we will now go back on our agenda to the Redevelopment Committee Report which we don't have a written report due.

Well, we're really kind of between big events but the RFP is in the hands of six proposers and we will be receiving those on August 30th and the committee is scheduled to get together on

September 4th to review those proposals and rank them.

That's right.

So in addition to the other very important items we're discussing in September, at the top of the agenda will be a review and approval perhaps of a development partner for our first foray into

Just want the record to state that is outstanding.

That is absolutely phenomenal news to hear.

I wish the media was here to report on that because that is

That is phenomenal work.

So kudos to everyone on the development committee.

I'm kind of speechless.

I'm just really, really, really proud of you all.

It's further along than we've been ever.

Yeah.

I mean, people talk about all of this stuff like this should be happening.

I'm not going to say names, but there have been

and other electives who were sitting up here before and they would say, you know, we were working on it, why can't you guys get it?

But you all are actually doing it and it's almost here.

It didn't happen until you were here.

No, definitely not coming.

No, we're not going to do that.

But I'm very, very, very, very proud of you all.

Very proud of you all.

We want to say that we've had great support from our staff and from Miss Kelly with the city but that we have gotten here almost entirely on the efforts of volunteers.

Volunteers and residents who have come out

Thank you so much.

But excitingly, we won't be all volunteer labor for long.

That's right.

Again, just to follow on, the Redevelopment Committee process, as many of you know, has been just an amazing process to be a part of, to have seen some of the

Real contention at times, competing interests at times, and the fact that the residents, PHAR, Housing Authority, the city remained around the table together and committed to the betterment of our community on behalf of the residents.

I mean, that's just, it's chilling.

And it's fantastic.

And I can't thank PHAR enough for having been such a central, pivotal partner through the positive vision, the work with CACF, work with Redevelopment Committee, and all of the partners coming together.

Yeah, solid.

To that end, much volunteer efforts

going on up to this point.

As Mr. Osteen stated on Thursday, we expect to receive a number of proposals from developers.

We have a surveying contract that's out.

We have an environmental services contract that is out related to these efforts.

We will have a subdivision application to make for the city.

We'll have a demo-dispo application to make for HUD.

in the very near future.

We need to be able to begin projecting funding streams and strategizing really boots on the ground how we get new development moving forward.

All of that placed on the shoulders of Dave Norris.

So if it's successful, it's Dave's.

If it's not, it's Dave's.

No, I'm just kidding.

No.

Dave Norris has joined us on a part-time

as a full-time, part-time person, resource, 30 hours a week at this point to provide redevelopment coordination to help support the efforts of the Redevelopment Committee, the CRHA staff, certainly the CACF grant process as well.

His initial focus is going to be

Some of the initial relocation planning efforts.

There's a lot of demographic work that needs to go into that.

Riding shotgun on contract management for contracts that we currently have in place, working with Ms. Kelly and our partners at HSF Consultants to determine what type of contract vehicles need to be in place as we go forward with our redevelopment partners.

Certainly a full plate, but I couldn't be happier that he's on board.

Do you want to come up and say a few words, sing a few bars?

Okay, all right.

And just tomorrow we do have a redevelopment committee meeting at noon and we will be focusing on relocation principles.

So excited to have that conversation tomorrow.

Is there any way we could put this in like a press release?

I don't know if like just a press release but just to get the information out because I think there's a lot of members of the community who don't know

that all of this work is going on and we're on the cuffs of literally we're there.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Public information.

There I am.

Because the residents, like, I'm sorry, the residents need this information, so do you want, I could go out there and make flyers and do that and make sure people- Bless you.

I think the resident engagement pieces that are critical that you're talking about, I think those are things that PHAR absolutely has taken the lead on.

coordinating with them and then also I believe that Enterprise is scheduling dates to come to Charlottesville to also work on the registered engagement fees.

I heard in Mr. Bellamy's comments a lot more about sort of letting the broader community know and perhaps his colleagues on council giving them a sense of the progress that has been made in the past six months and so we can certainly

That would be great.

I know we have the upcoming session on Wednesday.

Thursday, excuse me.

Thursday at five?

Right, I know.

Yeah, just to say.

Yeah.

Great, thank you.

I'm sort of out of the loop.

I don't have the dates in front of me.

Brandon, do you recall?

Within the next month, three weeks to a month, we anticipate Enterprise will be on site.

Well, actually within the next three months, they've committed to be on site three times.

So with the first of those meetings occurring I believe in early September and yeah to begin working closely with PHAR and the project team and working on the elements of the CACF grant.

Let's have them for the Redevelopment Committee meeting tomorrow.

Great.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Are there other redevelopment comments, questions, things we need to share tonight?

Great.

There is thoughts going on.

We are meeting tomorrow.

We have another set meeting on the 18th of September, and that gives a couple of weeks in between for the review committee to do their work.

Executive Director's Report.

Thank you.

I'll be relatively brief.

Behind tab 3 is the Executive Director's Report for the period July 23, 2018 to August 24, 2018.

As I began, one of the initial bullet points you see

relates to August 12th, security.

I absolutely need to take a moment and I think the Commission needs to recognize the fact that there was tremendous community effort and support around ensuring security for

public housing residents and public housing sites during the weekend of August 11 and 12 this year.

Most particularly, St. Brandon, I know Brandon and his family were actually on sites and we had staff on sites.

Millennium Security was on site as well.

Ms. Rosita I know was very active during the weekend all of which I hope helped create an environment that I hope provided some additional sense of security for those potentially most affected and it's absolutely something that I hope the commission recognizes and joins me in

applauding.

So anyway.

Right.

Good.

Now, additionally, we've had REAC inspections completed at South First Street.

We are still awaiting the final scoring for both South First Street at Sixth Street and West Haven.

Our early indications are that we were successful in the inspection process there.

West Haven Community Day, talked about tremendous success.

Many thanks to Miss Johnson and PHAR for bringing that off.

Let's see.

West Haven Tree Efforts.

Yeah, I need to absolutely pick up on that.

There's some closeout work that's being done.

with the standard building that will result in some additional trees being added.

As we look at other items, we've got the, again, the surveyor work that's underway.

We've got the floor project at Crescent Halls has been completed.

Thanks, Mr. Bellamy.

We continued working with Ting on contract negotiations for internet access.

We will interview this week for candidates for director of housing services.

Much, much going on that is occupying our time at this point.

on the fiscal side of the house, the Page 3 of 51, your all-site roll-up.

At this point, through the fiscal year, through July, your four months through the fiscal year, yes.

We should be at a 33% benchmark on our annual year-to-date revenue and expenditure.

As you can see on the roll-up for the year-to-date, we're at 31% of projected revenue received.

We're actually at 33% of our projected expenditures.

At this point, we are showing the close of this period running a slight deficit largely related to additional utility costs and costs incurred.

Additional maintenance, we would anticipate those to balance out over the course of the year.

So while that does show a deficit, it is not alarming at this point.

The remaining data shows for each of the sites themselves.

Page 13 of 51, the Housing Choice Voucher Program.

We are, again, keep that 33% number in mind.

We've earned 31% of the revenue we anticipated and expended 29% of our projected expenses.

We show a slight gain on the HCV program side year to date.

The last page, pages 15 and 16 of 51 reflect the central office operations to date.

And those are favorable.

Overall, the housing authority is running year-to-date positive of a little over $40,000.

Which is a win.

I'm sorry?

Well, it's trending correctly, so yeah, that's good.

Thank you, Mr. Duffield.

I do believe in his comments.

Sure, yeah.

Our vacancy numbers are elevated at this point.

I think as we sit here today, I believe we have 46 vacancies showing on the rolls today.

I'm sorry my staff's on.

I believe 23 of those fall into a category of substantial rehab that we're currently working with Habitat on.

We have another three units that are vacated due to tree damage at West Haven, which I'll speak to in just a moment.

It leaves us with an operational of about 19 or 20 units.

The term process has been slowed in recent weeks as emphasis has been placed on REAC preparation, unfortunately.

I know that we have five additional units that are

either ready or we anticipate having ready by the close of this week.

I feel like we'll be able to bring the sort of operational vacancy number down beneath 10 in the very near future.

Now on the substantial rehab units, I know we have two units that have been cleared.

by Habitat for Humanity, CRHA in that process.

I know we have two more units that are just about to be released to come back into the housing stock.

If you haven't had an opportunity to see any of those, you need to forward some pictures.

The work there is just phenomenal.

It's been outstanding.

Yeah, the work that our construction assistants are doing

is significant.

It is certainly noteworthy.

It's a need to provide a greater update on that at the coming meeting.

On the tree damage at West Haven, we incurred on July 5th.

We actually have the insurance adjuster and the engineer, the contractor, be on site tomorrow.

They've had some challenges obtaining plans and permitting.

I think they've overcome those.

We should see work begin on those very soon.

One of the buildings they anticipate having back online within the next 30 days

the other, I believe the

Who's going to work on those?

Thank you.

Are there questions about the Executive Director's support?

Mr. Duffield, thank you.

No, thank you.

Thanks to you and your staff for all the work.

No, thank you.

So now is the opportunity for other business.

I have two things.

I received a communication back from Chief Brackney.

She asked if the meeting could actually be at 2.

She said she can make it there at 2.15.

Okay.

Let's go ahead and meet as a group with who we can.

If I have to step out, Chief Brackney can be there.

Okay.

She's requesting two o'clock.

Okay.

So at two o'clock, commission can be there, but you cannot.

Yeah.

Is that true for...

You'll be there.

I can be there.

I can be there at two.

I can't be there at three.

So two is fine.

And then you need to tap into Talbert and Ms.

I think we ought to meet the chief of who we can meet.

I would imagine her schedule is very difficult.

Okay.

And again, it's just the beginning of the process.

No, no, no, no.

Let me see if there's any way at all.

You all can join.

that we can make something happen.

Move forward.

Perhaps some property managers can be there.

Okay, and then what, all right, so we said to- She actually said 2.15, didn't she?

Yeah, she said her meeting finishes here at, she said like 1.50, 1.55, two o'clock she's hoping.

There you have it.

Okay.

So one other item.

So Mr. Duffield and I, we've been talking about computer tech courses for our housing residents.

So I have an organization We Code Too, which is a program for African American and Latino young folks creating a pipeline for coding and programming.

So we have partners.

I saw this thing in South Carolina in which they do Google digital tools for everyday tasks.

So we've talked about doing something similar here for our public housing sites, potentially three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday from roughly six to 7.30.

And I sent all this information to you.

Just want to give you guys an update since Mr. Duffield and I have talked.

So essentially what will happen is we will provide the laptops

And you would allow roughly eight to ten residents to come.

It's like an eight week course, so you continuously come every week and you learn Google digital skills.

So that goes from email, keyboarding, how to make PowerPoint or SharePoint or just digital everyday tasks that people

It also helps with job training and provides you a level of proficiency.

It's self-paced, but we have volunteers.

We just got an email today from Hack Seaville who are partners with us for our summer academy.

They have volunteers who are willing to come over and help.

As we wrote it up, we were thinking Mondays from 6 to 730 at West Haven, at 1st Street on Wednesdays from 6 to 730, 6th Street from 6 to 730 on Thursdays.

It's all preliminary stuff.

We have to double check, make sure the centers are available, but it's just something else for our residents.

If anyone is interested or we can continue to keep everybody up to speed with it, this doesn't start like tomorrow or anything we got.

Great.

Thank you.

And it's free.

Very cool.

Is there other business or comments, questions from commissioners?

All right, thank you all so much.

I think we've covered most of the meetings on our meeting date announcements, so I'll leave those unspoken because we covered them all already.

I look forward to seeing you all at redevelopment tomorrow if possible and at our safety meeting on Wednesday and our

Those of you who can make it on Wednesday also to the Crescent Hall's annual plan meeting.

So that's three meetings in the next two days.

And we already mentioned we've got a big agenda for September, so look forward to being back in this room with all of you again then and seeing you lots of times in between.

Hi, it's Brandon Collins with Pharr Public Housing Association of Residence, 984-3255.

Not going to take a ton of your time.

Thank you for getting to most of my questions throughout the course of the meeting.

That was super helpful and hopefully helpful to the public.

You know, it's very difficult for me to comment much on the safety situation.

You know, there are a ton of different resident perspectives on policing, on security, and everything else.

And it's hard for PHAR to even come to consensus to be able to have a position.

But I do know one very strong position that we hold is that lease enforcement is important.

And a brief conversation I had with our chair

you know property management residents some of y'all know where some of these problems are coming from right you don't have to have a total policy change to address this so that's all I'm gonna say about that redevelopment thank you for thanking all the people involved and I'm excited for

Councilor Bellamy's enthusiasm, hopefully that enthusiasm does spread.

The young lady was correct to point out that residents need to also feel this enthusiasm as well as the wider public.

Residents, we've been doing a lot to reach them and let them know this is coming, we've been doing this for a long time but they're still like super skeptical and I think it's important

As we think about press and stuff, residents get a lot of this information from the same way the general public does, which is from the television.

They don't necessarily see our flyers or come to workshops or anything like that.

So it's really important I think at the next meeting to make some kind of good show of this and to keep in mind everybody's going to freak out because they haven't been paying attention.

and people hate developers so once we name a developer it doesn't matter who it is, it doesn't matter what their intention is, their past, their

the public generally distrust developers there's a lot of angst towards this housing authority and whether it's competent I mean there's a lot of stuff to look at when that news breaks and everybody's gonna flip out so hopefully we can all kind of come together and be super positive and super clear on what's going on and you know I look forward to helping with that if possible.

Section three

It does need to come into some of this, and I do know that Mr. Duffield's looking at the policy.

I think he's got permission from you all to move forward with the policy.

As soon as this developer's selected, it may be time to start looking at some very simple Section 3 opportunities for residents.

in terms of say catering, smaller tasks that need to be performed where it's really easy to find someone and hire them to do stuff.

You've already got some movement through the residents on the job program for section three.

This is super great and I think Mr. Norris is going to be a huge help with this and I know he's going to keep his eye on that as well.

Very excited about WeCode2.

This is from my own personal observations as a member of the public.

It seems like an awesome program.

PHAR is expanding our capacity.

We've got a new employee starting next month and we will have an additional employee on top of that in the coming months.

So we would love to just have a conversation about partnering on that and certainly be able to spread the word and reach a lot of residents.

I think it's a perfect opportunity to do some really cool stuff.

So super excited for that.

And last thing, City Vouchers, that was a frustrating conversation for me to listen to.

It was not designed for failure, I would say.

change from what the original HAC recommendation was.

And I've been very critical about that.

And this board has also been pretty critical.

But you're working with what you have to work with.

I think the one thing that provides some stability and safety is that it is connected to the housing choice voucher list.

And so if the council said, nope, not going to do it anymore, there would be a way to sort of phase people out.

And it would have to be kind of a slow phase.

But the intention being that if you have the city voucher and your name comes up on the HCV list you then have the opportunity to take the HCV instead

it would be my recommendation to anybody to take that because it's much more sustainable.

Now if you have the continued funding what that does is free up the city money to add another person on there.

So it gets the list flowing if for some reason that money needs to get shut off and council won't pass it which they actually should just double the money and that would take care of a lot of problems and the idea of locking it up with the affordable housing fund might be something to consider.

There is some safety for it, right?

I think this housing authority is not going to let anybody fail in this and hopefully the council will continue it, but it's not super awful, it's not super dire, it's not awful, though it's a little frightening.

That's all I had to say about that.

Mr. Collins, I have something I want to say to you really quick.

No, no, no.

I just wanted to publicly apologize to you.

So I remember maybe two or three months ago when you first came with the idea and said we should build a $50 million bond, and I just thought that you were tripping.

I think I said you were tripping, but you weren't tripping.

One fifty.

Let's keep going.

Now see, now I'm apologizing.

No, I appreciate it.

I wasn't going to raise the issue.

I know you all have discussed it and if you've been paying attention, CLIC and PHAR have been pushing.

And I think with the support of this board, you know, we want to find you all some money.

And I think there are a lot of challenges to redevelopment and a lot of things that are in the positive vision and the things that would best serve residents of public housing for the future.

that are very difficult under HUD rules and financing structures that are available and this kind of public money from the city shows that public housing is a priority, a new future is a priority and these important things can get done with that kind of funding and I'm sure you all support it and I think you got the rest of the community behind you so let's make it happen.

Thank you.