CRHA Meeting   10/22/2018

What?

Well you know it's really I've been on a bunch of boards and in general we almost always at some point had a discussion about how you get minutes down to just the absolute essential facts but I think with who we are you know and

Some resident wants to second guess something six months later and some issue that came up two years ago is brought back up again.

I think these are unbelievably perfect minutes if we can afford you.

I don't know how much of your day goes into these things, but they're fantastic if it works for Grant's budget.

Great.

I'm happy to do that if you want to.

I don't think our board members would be doing that with me.

I just left Audrey.

I didn't hear otherwise.

Hey, how are you?

I'm good, how are you?

Good.

Hi.

How are you?

I'm good.

Good.

Have you?

What, maybe?

I haven't seen him in forever.

He's having me.

She's on her way, I think.

We just, I've seen her today.

All right.

Let's have the rest of us.

Oh yeah, for the moment, don't talk it up.

Okay, I won't say anything.

No, I haven't had a pulse problem.

The next time I saw her, I thought, you know, gosh, the surgery was fantastic.

We have reached quorum.

I haven't heard from Mrs. Oliver.

Oh, she's on the way.

I bet she wouldn't mind if we then got started.

You left me today.

I was looking for you.

Well, I had another meeting, so I was going straight to the other meeting.

I didn't quite get things under control.

That was a good meeting.

Let me lock it in because I won't.

Let me turn this off actually because I won't answer.

Miss Harriet, can you go look at my car and get the phone?

Good evening.

Good evening.

It's nice to see you all.

It is Monday, October 22nd, and this is the regular meeting of the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

Chair Jones.

Present.

Vice Chair Rector.

Commissioner Bellamy.

Thank you.

And now we have time for a brief moment of silence.

Thank you.

We'll begin this evening with public comments.

Oh, here we go.

Miss Oliver's here.

I'll go first and maybe you'll get some others.

I'm Brandon Collins.

I work for PHAR, Public Housing Association of Residents, at 1000 Preston Avenue, Suite C, 434-984-3255.

And you can find us online, www.pharcville.org.

And PHAR is the duly elected, duly recognized resident advisory council.

and Resident Advisory Board for Residents of Public Housing in Charlottesville, which gives us a great deal of responsibility.

And you have a number of things to consider.

I don't have a written report for you this evening, but I think my words should suffice.

Been a busy day on the redevelopment front and a busy month since you last met.

Amazingly positive steps towards making redevelopment a reality and bettering our community through your actions and with the help of others and we're really excited about that.

Just you know some words of caution today has been kind of a strange day where we started off talking to residents about one thing and by the end of the day much of that maybe has changed and

Just hoping that CRHA has the understanding and the sort of recognition that this is work that's been going on for many years and really requires patience and diligence with residents

on all kinds of different fronts.

It's not just a series of meetings or a survey or a workshop or some door knocking.

It's all these things combined that has gotten us to a point where residents are leading the charge for redevelopment and really making it a resident-directed process.

so that when we approach new things in this whole process that may be a shock to some residents and that's something I think we all have to take into consideration that some extra time and care and love needs to be put in working with folks to have everybody fully informed

so that we can move forward together.

I think the things that are being discussed are generally positive and are going to be great for the community and good for the public housing community, good for the housing authority and good for PHAR.

There does seem to be some increased

Burden on our organization in terms of engaging residents on this resident directed process which we openly embrace.

We are happy to take on that work.

We know we need to do that work and we're going to do that work.

But do keep in mind there is an added burden on PHAR to really make sure things go right and we need your support in that.

We really don't need your financial support in terms of capacity but we could use some of your mental support and other types of support so that we have the capacity to do expanded resident outreach and really make things work the way they need to.

One other thing that we could really use help with as we are expanding our workload is asking the Housing Authority to also expand its workload.

I know that's hard to hear, but it's hard for us to take on a lot right now as well.

But we've been hearing consistently and consistently that we can't have these conversations about redevelopment without them turning instantly into issues of maintenance and customer service.

Over the past six months or so, I would say I hear from at least 12 residents per month with difficult questions related to maintenance, related to customer service.

That's a lot for PHAR, I got to say, and we're currently working with a number of residents to address some issues.

These conversations about redevelopment are going nowhere if every meeting I go to turns into a meeting about somebody's leaky pipes or their air conditioner's not working, their heat's not on, they have mold in their house and their issues aren't being addressed.

So what we would ask of you is as we embrace this massive energy and this massive effort and put it into redevelopment and really transforming

the housing authority and transforming public housing in Charlottesville.

We need to put that kind of attention and that kind of effort into day-to-day maintenance improvements and efforts towards improving customer service.

I think we all have really high hopes for the housing manager who's coming on board November 1st.

and we really have some really high expectations that residents will have visible tangible improvements to their day-to-day life in public housing.

Otherwise we're going to get bogged down in this and this really has to be

what we've called a parallel track.

It has to be a meaningful track.

It's just as important as a site plan for South First Street.

It's just as important as figuring out a relocation plan.

It's just as important to fix the doorknobs on the people's doors that need doors to address their mold issues and get the work done that needs to be done.

So we really encourage you to embrace that as part of the effort and make that a reality.

I have the desire to go on and on and on about that but I'm not going to.

I will say CRHA staff I think may need a touch up on the eviction policy and some of the things that we fought so hard to get into that policy.

Some of the fighting we did involved very public protests and arrests and a lot of broken hearts and a lot of broken families.

and a lot of hard times and hard feelings amongst all of us.

And when we see parts of the eviction policy being ignored, we get exceedingly grumpy about it.

So I really think that's an important thing for CRHA to also dig into.

Are there other comments at this time?

I don't need to exercise.

All right.

Like I'm on coach, I haven't been to none of the nitsy, but I'll tell you when I get there.

Because y'all doing a good job.

And I told some, we had a meeting this afternoon at 3 o'clock, and I told them,

I had a new home one time.

That was a perfect day for me.

But I lost my home after 20 years.

But God gave me the last 20 years anyway.

So I really enjoyed that.

The reason why I didn't come down, I got a speech problem.

All right, sir.

What I was just saying,

I told them I got a speech problem.

I told them I had a home, and everybody had a home as a lesson.

And that got judged like it was another world.

And I really enjoyed it.

But I, like people's complaining about Chris's home, that's my home, you know.

I got a few problems, but I know they're gonna be solved.

So what I told you all last night that I wish to even just tie this tongue up, eat the devil out of my mouth because I want to talk.

My wife used to, my late wife used to say, this is what your problem is, you talk too much.

So I love to talk.

This is brethren over there.

I love to talk, but I don't like to be tied tongue like this.

You don't have to cut up.

But anyway, that's why I got here tonight.

And one more thing and then I'll let you know in a second.

Why I dressed up like this, I was standing in the front Sunday morning.

This young gentleman, he know me, but I can't play right now.

I said, man, I still want to be 77 years old.

He said, I'm 80.

I said, God bless you, boy.

Yes, you don't look.

So then most times, he said, where's your church?

I said, Pleasant Plain.

Pleasant Plain?

Yeah, man.

I said, you know, most churches have two cities, John's, two St. Luke's, two cities, you know.

The answer that Sunday morning said, what church, where you going at?

He said, you going to church?

Which one?

Well, we got one only doesn't play.

People get lost, I can't pronounce her name.

My preacher used to tell them, we're pleasant, we play, we definitely play.

It was all going to stay the same.

So I had to get that off my chest because I couldn't play last night.

And my ordination, Kenny Edwards, because my pastor was in his home in Ella,

Bellamy at the time, so he had to get him to do it for me.

And we thought it was a church going home, going for the love of me.

So when I'm trying to say it, I'm a person that when you see me, like a smile she got, I'm the same way tomorrow.

But it's bad, I don't want to go to my grave with somebody hating me.

You can ask all the people down there at the high rise.

Dee coming and said, hi, boyfriend.

My word, hi, girlfriend.

That's how we lived, everything nice.

And Nick was white and then black.

He was all, I'll tell you the same way.

I said, hi, girlfriend.

She said, hi, boyfriend.

I said, hi, girlfriend.

So, and I love crushing home.

See, me and my late wife, we moved at 95.

to 2011, she died in 2011.

So I love it so well that I went away for something like three, four years.

And CATEC, Mrs.

Lock, she called me.

I said, Mr. Jackson, I said, yeah, do you want to come back to Chris?

And I was standing in the place, going 20-some steps.

I said, where can that come?

She said, I'll be there till 4.30.

I said, 4.30, I'll be there in a bit.

So I dined, and I'm there in there.

Mr. Jackson, I just want to comment.

I enjoyed your input in our meeting today and tonight.

Good evening, my name is Annette Wilcox, a current resident of Monticello Vista Apartments on 1400 Monticello Road in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Last weekend I noticed that there's a new change going on where

Rita Tagam, Sam Bookstore that was up for over the years was closed down.

If I have any questions about new stores and changes going on at the downtown mall, I'll try to remember to get information from the neighborhood developer.

Brian Haluska?

from now on, if I want to shop for books, I'll try to remember to shop at the New Dominion Bookshop where I buy tickets for seasonal choir concerts held at church.

and where I buy tickets.

Wait a minute, this is a retail, Quilts Unlimited theme move.

Oh, I see.

I don't know whether, I'll check with my friend Joan Fenton.

Yes, she's the one to ask.

Hi, my name is Sonya Bell.

I reside at Riverside.

My comment is tonight I've been going to the redevelopment meetings and my concern is y'all haven't talked about talking to the people at First Street before you get started.

I think that's a main concern because they need to know what's going on before y'all start development, putting people here, putting people there.

They need to know what's going on and get their comments.

So I think before y'all move forward, we need to get out some flyers or something and get some of these people in meetings.

for they know what's going on in their neighborhood before you put these new buildings up and all that.

All right.

I have a comment.

Well, actually a question.

Brandon said that some of the eviction policy was being ignored.

It might be best to connect with legal aid on some of the exact issues.

And I don't want to violate confidentiality in any way, but I know of a couple of instances where a resident was told not to go to court and possession was sought when that resident didn't go to court.

which is a huge one which is one we deliberately made sure got into the policy even though everybody said oh no we don't do that anymore.

There have been some other pieces of the policy that I think are not necessarily being adhered to but I think that's probably best to deal with our legal folks on that stuff but I do think it's worth a solid training and solid understanding of what that policy says and what the do's and don'ts are about that.

I just have to make one comment to Miss Bell.

I can assure you that Commissioner Oliver is the strongest advocate of that concept that you expressed to us about getting the South First Street existing residents

Have you, I'm sorry, have you all thought about, Brenda was saying that the redevelopment meetings, maintenance issues because they're a great concern are coming up so it's kind of hard to move forward with the redevelopment meeting.

Have you all thought about maybe bringing like a concern sheet for maintenance and when those things come up so that we're not putting people on the back burner or making them feel like they're brushed off by trying to keep the meeting moving,

maybe pass the sheet around for those persons who have a maintenance concern and have them write their maintenance concern down and give that maintenance concern to maintenance afterwards, but addressing them to let them know that this is for the redevelopment

Committee meeting, though you have maintenance service issues and concerns we want to address, if you can get them down on the sheet of paper, we can get back with you later so that we can move forward in the meeting.

And also maybe at the beginning of the meeting addressing that verbally so that everybody knows because some people don't know meeting protocol.

So just to make it clear so that everybody is on one accord that it's not a maintenance committee meeting, it's redevelopment.

Though maintenance issues could come up and new redevelopment that if it's for issues that we're having right now, let's just forward that to the maintenance committee.

Somebody would get back with them and make sure that the person who receives it gets back with the people within 24 hours or 48 hours to say that we at least received your concerns.

Could somebody tell me what's the purpose of the maintenance committee?

That's on the agenda.

Thank you, Miss Oliver.

This is redevelopment, so we'll marry it all together.

I suggest, if you all are willing, we move to looking at minutes from our last board meeting.

They're under tab one.

It was just grammar more than anything that I have passed along to our minutes keeper.

All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you, the minutes pass.

Tonight we have with us Miss Kelly from the city who's gonna give us an update on the Pollocks Branch Bridge.

Good evening.

For the record, Brenda Kelley, Redevelopment Manager with the city.

The agenda item in front of you tonight is to request your approval of easements on your property in order to install a pedestrian bridge.

Quite a few months ago, we talked about a proposed pedestrian bridge and went through the process.

We are moving along a little slower than we thought, but Miss Oliver's been very involved.

We're now looking at a new bridge and we're looking at restoring some native habitat.

along Pollock's Branch, the bridge will eventually connect to the west end of Rockland Avenue with the South First Street property.

There are existing trails in place now, however, there are no easements for those.

And we recognize, the city recognizes that there will be redevelopment going on in the property.

So, while the,

Consultants were surveying the area to install the bridge.

They also put together this document in your package to propose some easements in place because the city cannot install the bridge without having the proper legal easements in place.

Otherwise, folks using the bridge and the trail will be trespassing on your property.

So we're requesting that you approve these easements.

and what the language says on this easement document is that as your redevelopment occurs and if this trail location moves, the easements move with the trail or we can come back at a future time when you get plans in place for redevelopment of South First Street and relocate the easements and put those in a permanent location.

With the easements in place, the city's Parks and Rec department will also be responsible for maintenance of the trail in this easement area.

And they'll also be looking down by the bridge to do some maintenance with the existing native vegetation and habitat and the new landscaping that will be installed in that area.

Miss Oliver, did I cover everything?

I just had two questions.

We've had conversations with the police and the fire department that this would be going in.

And my second question was, I didn't see anything about maintenance and upkeep after this was put into place.

And that's afterwards?

Yes.

As long as the bridge is in there and the easements are in place.

If you'll see on the Rockland Avenue side,

The bridge will be connecting to public right of way, which is Rockland Avenue right of way.

So that's already city property.

and I have one more question.

Right now you are the private property owner, the rest is the Rockland Avenue right of way, so that's city property.

But Rockland Avenue residents have been involved in this process and they've been notified.

One property owner on the south side of Rockland Avenue has asked,

for the city to work with him on putting a fence along his property line.

So I think the legal department and Parks and Rec will be working with that property owner during the construction.

Okay.

And the trail exists now, and it's been operating without easement.

And in fact, this actually gives us some more protections.

Yeah.

And we do have the neighborhoods, people who are attending the Redevelopment Committee, the Ridge Street, I just had a meeting with the Ridge Street neighborhood and the Hartnell Road, we had some folks from Hartnell Road,

of the Bridge meetings and the redevelopment meetings.

So they are, and we're going to be probably bringing more in because some things have changed.

No, the Reed Street group is really willing to give us support.

But our residents have been asking for a safe way to get across the creek up

Rockland to Avon to catch buses and be on that side of town.

So this is something our residents have asked for for a long time.

Correct.

Yeah.

No, I just want to make sure that the private residents were, you know what I'm saying,

So we need to take an official vote approving the proposed easements.

to make possible, to put an easement on the trail that runs along the backside of the property and for the bridge.

Is there anyone who would like to make that motion?

You said for the easement for the?

For the public trail and bridge.

And a second from Miss Slaughter.

Aye.

Thank you, Miss Kelley.

And Miss Oliver.

Both of you have worked on this project for a good year now.

and Christian Secu isn't here, but it's put in a lot of time.

Thank you.

Next on our agenda, if you'll look under tab three, we have an update on our annual planning and five-year plan process.

And it's going to end with a request to you all to have a work session now in the next month.

So be thinking about scheduling.

Thank you.

Chair Jones, members of the commission, behind tab three is a memo summarizing the annual plan and five-year plan update process thus far.

I'll read the memo.

Dear Commissioners, as you're aware, CRHA is in the process of redrafting its five-year annual plan documents to guide the organization as it works to serve our residents in the coming years.

To date, CRHA has hosted four site meetings and included the annual and five-year planning topics in one resident services committee meeting.

CRHA plans to host site meetings at Riverside, Mickey, Madison, and Madison Avenue over the next two weeks and outreach to our single family home residents as well.

To date the site meetings have occurred at West Haven, Crescent Halls, South First Street, and Sixth Street.

Below are listed several of the key concerns that have been raised.

during the course of the annual plan and five-year plan discussion.

On page two, you see a proposed implementation schedule, continued community input up until at least November 15th of this year, and the draft plan goes to the board on November 26th.

We open the 45-day comment period and then in mid-January seek commission approval and then submittal to HUD.

Within the packages is the copy of the annual plan which includes the five-year plan goals and objectives that comprise the majority of the document itself.

I just have one question.

So the concerns that I see are just I guess combined.

There's one from each site that y'all visited.

How do we know where to start with each concern if we don't know which concern belongs to which aunt?

because I see we have some stuff that belongs to Crescent Halls and then some stuff that may belong to Sixth Street.

So how do we know, how are we taking this list and saying, okay, Sixth Street wants to work on this and Crescent Hall wants to work on that because everything is combined together.

Well, great question.

And I do think, you know, the annual plan, as you'll see, takes these concerns and sort of

We get to choose our goals, but each one of these typically will fit under a broader goal.

So if customer service is actually sort of a city agency-wide goal, and so within the annual plan, we might have a goal that says something like, improve customer service, and then list out some measures of what that looks like.

And so I think you're exactly right, we need to take these and

I think it's especially important because some goals that we've met probably will come off of this five-year plan.

Exactly.

Well, we get to start from scratch.

So we get brand new.

Right.

So as we take things off and we put things on here, we need to know exactly how we're going to address them and where.

This is a good place to start, but I just think they need to be broken down more so we'll

Right.

Grant, is either the week of the 12th of November or the week of the 19th?

I'm looking at those weeks, I understand.

The week of the 19th is Thanksgiving.

Let's look at the week of the 12th.

Thank you.

I'm available during the day, the 12th and the 13th only.

Okay.

And evenings?

Daytime's better for me.

The 12th is Veterans Day.

The 13th is fine?

We have a standing meeting already at noon on the 13th.

You're not here?

OK.

Well, our board meeting is that night.

We need to approve the annual plan on the 26th.

So there's the 19th prior to Thanksgiving.

The 19th or the 20th during the day.

Are you here then, Miss Oliver?

during the day, the day of the 19th or 20th, what is better for you, Mr. Osteen?

At least an hour, probably two.

Is 9 a.m. early?

Is 9 a.m. too early?

Okay?

Okay.

Yeah, where?

So now as an individual who comes over and does the bus, why is 9 o'clock too early?

9.30?

All right.

at 10 a.m. on Monday the 19th will be a work session on the annual plan.

That doesn't mean that any input isn't welcome prior to that.

Grant will find a location.

I'm sure we'll have it at one of our community centers.

Either at South First Street or West Haven.

Do you all on the board have a preference?

Let's do South First Street.

Great.

Next on our agenda is a redevelopment update.

Oh, actually, please, my apologies, Mr. Norris.

We have Mr. Norris here to give us.

I just am not used to having you.

I'm so excited you're here.

No problem.

Thank you, Chairwoman Jones and commissioners and Mr. Duffield.

It's great to be with you all this evening.

I'm Dave Norris.

You are a newly hired redevelopment project coordinator.

Good evening.

So I want to just give a quick update on a few redevelopment related tasks.

I don't know for the redevelopment principles.

I guess we'll consider those next.

Basically, we are moving forward.

As you know, we put out a request for proposals for a development team to assist the Housing Authority in proceeding with the redevelopment work.

And the Redevelopment Committee recommended approval of the team led by Riverbend Development

We are working on a memorandum of understanding to codify that agreement and hopefully we'll have one any day now.

But that's moving forward and I think we're all sort of on the same page about what needs to happen.

Now we are.

It has been a little, as Mr. Collins said earlier, it's been a little bit of a topsy-turvy day.

In terms of thinking about the best way to phase in redevelopment, we came into today with one sort of general idea of how redevelopment might get started and now we're maybe at a different place, which actually would expedite the work of improving housing conditions for our residents.

So at the Redevelopment Committee meeting tomorrow at 12 o'clock at South First Street will be

discussing that further and potentially getting on the same page about the phasing for redevelopment and how to proceed there.

That is a public meeting so anybody is invited.

Miss Bell, I want to follow up on Miss Bell.

I absolutely agree with your comment about the need for resident engagement and as Mr. Osteen said, that's something that Miss Oliver has been really strong on.

We are looking forward to working with PHAR and with Enterprise

on really stepping up our resident engagement around redevelopment and also Colin Arnold who's an architect and planner has been brought on board to help facilitate some of those discussions about site planning and working with our residents to come up with some visions for how redevelopment might happen.

Absolutely resident engagement is absolutely central to that process.

Funding is also central to that process.

We expect that federal low income housing tax credits will provide upwards of 75% or more of the funding necessary to redevelop our properties.

There's a deadline coming up in March of 2019 for the next round of tax credits.

So we're working pretty quickly to try to pull all the pieces together to meet that deadline.

In addition to housing tax credits, low-income housing tax credits, we're looking at philanthropy.

You may have heard that the Dave Matthews Band has agreed to donate the proceeds of their upcoming concerts to our redevelopment effort.

We're very grateful for that support.

And of course the big enchilada is the potential for some city bond support.

So we're continuing those discussions with city officials and city councilors and we appreciate

Councilor Bellamy's efforts and his leadership on that and others.

So funding is obviously without the funding we can't do this work so we've got to keep a focus on funding.

Another key piece of this is getting our sites prepared for redevelopment.

So you know we've been looking at a vacant piece of land at the south end of South First Street as a potential step one for new construction.

That land is in the process.

We're in the process of doing some survey work on that land.

We're hoping any day now to get the survey back so that we can proceed with subdividing that property, which will allow us to proceed with the necessary approvals to start with construction there as soon as possible.

We also have to go through a demolition disposition process with HUD and so a few of us will be meeting with HUD officials on November 14th on that very subject.

Levy Avenue, which of course is another potential development site has some separate kind of challenges because it has been for many years the site of a service station and gas station.

So there are potential issues with chemicals there and contamination that we are currently undertaking a process with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to assess.

and I met with them this afternoon to talk about that whole process and their time frame for reviewing and also for the time frame for actually doing the remediation work.

So their best guess is it'll be at least a year and a half until that process is completed.

That's assuming they don't find major contamination.

If there's major contamination, it could take longer.

That doesn't mean we can't proceed with planning for the site and all the necessary approvals, but we wouldn't be actually able to start construction for a minimum of a year and a half.

Relocation is a very important part of the redevelopment process.

We want to make sure that no resident falls through the cracks as we proceed with redevelopment, and obviously we've been talking about crescent halls.

the first group of residents that will be directly impacted.

We have some redevelopment principles that the Redevelopment Committee has unanimously approved for adoption by this board tonight.

I believe those will be coming up next on your agenda.

And those principles I think really go a long way towards reassuring residents that we're not going to let anybody fall through the cracks.

so you'll be talking about those in a moment.

I also want to thank Miss Kelly with the city who's been helping to take a first stab at a draft of a site-specific redevelopment plan for Preset Halls and she's making good progress on that.

Redevelopment is not just investing in physical capital and improving our building stock but it's also investing in human capital and so we want to make sure that we use the redevelopment process to maximize economic opportunities for our residents, help our residents climb the economic ladder.

Section 3 is a big piece of that.

Miss Johnson and others have been really forceful in advocating for a bold commitment to resident hiring, resident contracting through the redevelopment process and so part of our visit in November with the HUD officials

There's also a meeting with some folks from Chicago about their Section 3 project and how we can emulate some of their success here in Charlottesville.

In addition to Section 3, we want to look across the board at how we can help our residents improve financial stability and build wealth through this redevelopment process to include the potential for home ownership for residents as part of this process.

So you'll be hearing more about that along the way.

Last thing I'll say and then I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have.

We are looking to our partners with Enterprise to organize a sort of a road mapping session soon, hopefully this fall, where we can bring all the key partners together.

kind of lay out across the board for each of our sites.

Which of our sites are the best candidates for full-fledged redevelopment?

Which ones are best candidates for sort of modernization, upgrading what we have as opposed to knocking it down and rebuilding?

How do we factor in rehabilitation throughout this whole process?

What's the best estimate on costs?

What's the best estimate on timelines?

kind of come up with a general roadmap for this whole effort so that we can tell the community with some assurance what's going to happen when and how much it's going to cost.

Obviously, these will all be guesses, but we want to at least have some educated guesswork completed.

Sure.

I have a question.

Thank you so much for the update and happy to have you on board leading the way.

One question in regards to timelines, I know that's kind of a

Great question.

So we have to submit the low income housing tax credit application in March.

That decision will be made in, I believe, May or June.

So we'll know by early summer whether or not we got the tax credits.

Again, the tax credits would cover about 75-80% of the cost of those projects.

Assuming we do get, we're going to be optimistic and assume we do get approved for tax credits, there's then some kind of pre-construction work that has to go on.

Riverbend thinks that would take approximately six months.

So we met with them today and they said they're optimistic that assuming everything goes well, they'd be able to break ground either in the fourth quarter of 2019, so towards the end of 2019 or potentially the first quarter of 2020.

That's best case scenario.

And then from just backing up and I'm optimistic as well we'll get the tax cuts within the event that we won't.

I would love for us to have some kind of dollar amount just so that we can

Absolutely.

We are crunchy.

We have some preliminary numbers already, but we're fine tuning them as we proceed.

And we met with one of your fellow counselors recently.

We asked the same exact question.

We need numbers.

And so we're very much aware of that.

And just to add to that, Dave and I have had the discussion.

Rest assured you're going to do everything, literally everything within my power to not only expedite but make sure

Council provides their full support both financial and procedural to ensure that this happens.

I have some questions.

And this is for my understanding.

So on attachment D, number two.

Bullet 1, you all have that, excuse me, that the, within the 6 to 12 month period before relocation is expected to occur, agency staff

full-time relocation coordinator working in collaboration with the team of local social services professionals shall meet with each affected household to conduct an assessment of the resident's current housing situation and desired housing goals.

So our vision is that we would have on staff a full-time relocation coordinator who would sort of play the lead role in mapping out that whole relocation process and housing planning process for each household.

and for instance for some of the households who that might be involved include seniors we probably have somebody you know on that team maybe from Java or an organization that works with seniors that knows about resources available to seniors it's all going to be individually tailored.

to the needs of each household.

If the household has children, we'll definitely want to have somebody from the schools on that team.

Thank you, Miss Talbert.

Just go ahead.

We're clearly jumping into a discussion of relocation principles.

Excellent summation.

Glad to have you on board.

I have two things.

Just a little bit of committee business.

I think we talked last week about getting a matrix of kind of the parallel track for each site.

That was in process.

Oh, the actual chart.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Miss Kelly sent that to me, and I can forward it.

It's just an empty chart at this point.

Oh, really?

The idea was with that roadmapping exercise, we'd fill in all the blanks in that chart.

I was expecting to see something in progress.

And then second, relative to the Avon Levy site, I know there were concerns about our obligations to the city.

So there's financial constraints on the Walker Barrage property that we probably need to explore to ensure that we are able to continue doing the work we need to do on the site.

Absolutely.

Great.

Sure.

Thank you.

Would you like to give a brief overview of the relocation principles as you were primarily offered?

My phone's going nuts.

I'm sorry.

It started going crazy.

So PHAR had identified the need to come up with some principles to guide relocation not for any one site but just relocation across the board.

What's the framework we're going to use when we think about relocation for all of our sites?

And so this originated with PHAR and basically there are four key points here, one is that

They want the Housing Authority to be transparent, inclusive, and proactive in communicating with residents about the timetable and the process for redevelopment and for relocation.

No residents should be blindsided by what's about to happen to their neighborhood and their own housing situation.

Two, the Housing Authority would engage with the residents of each household to develop an individually tailored relocation and housing stability plan.

Again, that's unique to the needs of each household.

that would identify both short term and long term housing outcomes for all of our residents and spell out the steps needed to accomplish those outcomes.

Three, the Housing Authority provides substantial wraparound services and support to each household

in carrying out its own relocation housing stability plan.

We were at a meeting today at Crescent Halls where somebody asked a very sort of practical question, which is who's going to help me pack up all my stuff?

That's a very real world sort of concern and consideration.

So this set of principles says very clearly the housing authority is going to make sure that there's support provided to every household in packing up all their stuff and moving and all the other things that go into relocation and covering the costs of all those.

And then fourth, as specified in the Residence Bill of Rights for Redevelopment, any temporary relocation would be minimal in impact and duration.

We don't want people who are displaced from their housing to have to sort of be in a temporary housing situation for years at a time.

We want to make this quick.

We want to make this as painless as possible.

Ultimately, we say in here that a relocation by its very nature can be very disruptive, but our goal really should be not only do we minimize disruption and absolutely guarantee that nobody becomes homeless in the process of relocation, but actually we use this as a

opportunity to create a better long-term housing outcome for all of our residents right and so by working with each household that's affected by relocation and come up with what's the best case scenario for you like and for some and for many it might be we want to stay in public housing and we're gonna make that happen for some they might want to say they might say you know what I would rather have a voucher to be able to go out on the market and rent a place on my own some might say you know what I really just want to go home and live with my family

Thank you.

There are questions from the board.

I have another question.

too is talking about in addition CRHA will assist each resident and secure other services as supports necessary to accomplish their housing goals.

These may include but are not limited to and then it has a listing underneath it.

No, it would not be required.

It would certainly be made available to them.

The goal is to maximize the amount and the

the breadth of resources available to residents, what we've seen in other communities, so this

a particular model called a financial opportunity center.

What we've seen, I was out in San Diego a couple years ago, their housing authority has an in-house financial opportunity center.

The moment you sign a lease to get into public housing in San Diego, you are automatically enrolled in this financial opportunity center.

It's not mandatory, to answer your question, but it's made available to you free of charge and it's very helpful, the kinds of support that they provide in helping people come up with a household budget.

helping people develop a savings, open a savings account, help people get a better job, help people, maybe they want to learn how to start their own business.

Whatever that financial opportunity is that works best for them, they provide one-on-one coaching to help you do that.

Again, not mandatory, but it's optional.

So many residents took full advantage of this because it really makes it as easy as possible for people to get the help they need to climb the economic ladder.

So it works.

So that was my next question.

Bullet 5, it says staff will also ensure that the housing options presented to residents are comparable or superior in quality, size, price, location, and et cetera.

Absolutely.

It was friendly, Wes.

That's good.

Well, you'll find some correct wording for that.

Yeah, I think that's an excellent statement.

Or necessary accommodations, maybe?

Yeah.

Or something.

Necessary accommodation.

OK, great.

Are there other questions?

I have a few thoughts and comments.

One, two, three, four.

In the fourth bullet under three, it says children of displaced families shall be allowed to attend school in their current school districts if they so choose and be provided transportation to those schools.

We kind of left that open.

The school system would be required to provide that transportation.

They do that now if you're a family experiencing homelessness, for instance.

The school system is required to do their very best to keep a child in the same home school even if the child's family is

bouncing around from couch surfing here to living in a shelter here to living with relatives here.

The school system already does that for families that are in tenuous housing circumstances.

Thank you.

It was just kind of open.

Who's responsible for that?

So I want to thank everyone for their work on this and it truly reflects the values I think of this board and of this agency.

I'm having a little heartache because while it fully reflects our values and who we want to be, it is not who we are right now.

We are not a social services department.

We can't even keep the FSS program operational right now.

And so there is an amazing vision here that I wholly subscribe to, but I am concerned about laying out some principles that we cannot meet.

At this time, we are not able to provide substantial wraparound services.

We are certainly able to, at our best of our ability, bring together the resources that exist in the city in hopes that our residents can take advantage of them.

We're doing that through the clinic.

We're doing that in other ways.

It's definitely where we need to get.

But we're never going to hire enough staff to be able to fully provide all of that ourselves.

I just don't want to

We have to be very careful what we promise because most important is that residents trust us and if we promise to deliver things we absolutely can't, then residents aren't going to trust us.

Can I offer maybe a wording suggestion that might address some of that?

Because it does say in here that in addition to the sort of core relocation services of housing counseling and those kinds of things that it says, in addition, CRHA will assist each resident in securing other services and supports necessary to accomplish their housing goals.

Well, Miss Johnson is correct.

Under relocation, there are some services we have to provide, right?

So those are spelled out here.

But I think there are above and beyond the ones that we are obligated to provide.

There are other services we want to help secure, help our residents.

Moving costs and moving support, we, yes.

And we want to be beyond individual counseling.

I think we do everything we can to get the funding to have a plan for each person.

But when we're talking about,

Yeah, work towards securing, work towards coordinating, you know, maybe that's coordinating substantial wraparound services when you talk about DSS and we talk about.

And then I think a piece that got left out that we had discussed in one of our meetings was going to some sort of

We did add that.

Oh, did I miss it?

It's under bullet three under section three.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I will say

I don't want to brag too much on our housing authority and our partners and PHAR, but I believe if this set of principles is adopted tonight, my guess is this may well be the most sort of forward-looking and comprehensive set of relocation principles of any housing authority in the country.

As inclusive and wonderful as it is, and we want to be that, you know, we want to be that forward-looking wave.

We really only have 15 people on staff.

We're in an agency where we are struggling to keep the doors open and barely in the black.

And I appreciate the support of the city, but it isn't there yet.

I mean, there's a lot of verbal support, but actually living this vision, we're not there yet.

I want this to be true.

I will work to make it true.

I think this board is committed to working to make it true, but I also want to be really careful.

I don't think this is strictly just a matter of, you know, writing a check or getting, you know, hiring staff.

I think, you know, moving, imagine how, you know, you have moved in your life.

This is, you know, on moving day, I bring my two pickups.

And, you know, if there's a van left early and left somebody standing on side of the curb.

I think all of us, all the staff, all this board will need to run and all of our residents.

You get your stuff moved and you don't go inside and turn on the TV.

I think he addressed a lot of what your concern would be when he said that looking for a relocation coordinator that would be working in collaboration with a team of local social services professionals address the wraparound services portion that you're concerned about.

because if we have social services involved then they're going to identify some of the wraparound issues or concerns that you're concerned about manifesting during this transition and so if we can pinpoint and identify who that person would be

and get that person very much involved, then that person can also work with the housing counseling assistance person that you wanna put in place.

Right, so we've just added at least two positions to our budget that are unfunded, which I appreciate.

I think we also can request funding.

Not only request funding, but he also talked about hiring section three.

We have a lot of residents who are qualified that we have not identified to be able to come in and do the work inside the agency.

I think some of the other things that we've discussed also is

And we have to keep in mind that our agency is not like other agencies and when we're looking at those other agencies we need to be taking from them.

And everything we're talking about relative to redevelopment is a very phased process.

So we'll be fighting off small increments of this and we will be gaining that experience that we're, you know, on our first move we'll look to other agencies, but we will have a lot of experience.

Because we also have to understand that we have to follow HUG regulations.

They're tight regulations.

So yeah, we are going to be looking at other agencies.

We're going to learn what their mistakes are so that we won't make those mistakes.

Thank you.

As presented with the friendly amendments during, as presented with friendly amendments.

A lot of progress, great job.

It is.

And next, Wes, we would love to talk about an upcoming work session with council.

Sure.

I can if you want.

You want to start?

So the date that's been proposed is November 7th.

They have not formally invited us in any way.

I was just tagged along on an email chain and a guest at that date.

I don't know a time.

Right.

So we've been discussing this time in regards to November 7th.

Is there a specific time that works better for us?

for this board.

We currently have on the council calendar, they have from 6 to 9 p.m. Now, I will admit in full transparency, I'm just gonna be completely honest, I don't think that date is gonna work.

That's my wife's birthday.

Well, I haven't booked my tickets yet.

Yeah.

All right.

Is there another date during that week that works for... Well, that works for council?

We don't have anything else on our calendar that we, other than the 5th, the 5th is our city council.

And the 6th, so the 6th was the original date that was proposed, and then, I mean, that's election day.

But I don't need to be there actually.

You all are much more important than, because... What do you mean?

What about the 13th?

Would your board be available during our next board meeting on the 9th, on the 26th?

Am I wrong?

I know we do have a lot of other board business.

That was just a proposal.

That would be great.

I think that's a good idea.

It is to be determined because we have to get input from all of City Council.

We'll know by the end of the week.

So we're doing, right now it's the 8th or the 26th?

Okay.

So essentially council wants to chat with the housing authority about a couple of different things.

One, getting an update on redevelopment, relocation plans.

We know that there, and I spoke briefly at the council meeting, the last two council meetings about how

We've entered into agreement with Riverbend.

Things have been going very well from my perspective.

Also, must give some kudos when Ms. Rosia Parker has been at the council meetings also filling in in ways in which I can't in some regards and providing some updates.

Right, Rosia?

Oh, thank you.

So council, again, wants to hear about redevelopment, but then also as we talk about affordable housing and this very real issue in regards to floating a bond from council's perspective to pay for some of the plans and the ideas that many of the members on this board and community members, PHAR, and Low Income Coalition, and several others,

I think it's a very, very real possibility, but I know my colleagues on council want to hear more details about what that looks like and then a full-fledged conversation of sorts before kind of going that route.

I can't give too many details, but I am going to say roughly I'm going to be presenting something to the public next week in regards to another dedicated funding stream to do this in affordable housing.

So again, colleagues, they just want to know kind of that we have our stuff together before we commit to a significant amount of funding for the housing authority.

And just to be clear, while we're there, and I know this is all public worker, I'll be speaking and requesting funding specifically for the housing authority.

This isn't going to be for other entities or anything like that.

I know that's to the chagrin of some.

kind of my priority is specifically the housing authority getting funding and then also in addition to the funding piece how can we be the arm for not just redevelopment of public housing sites but building so some of the lots that we've seen in the community opposed to us creating land banks or using other arms or entities

Why can't we get the housing authority to partner with the city?

If we see a lot, let's purchase a lot.

Let's maybe build a duplex on it or build two units on it or something like that.

And we build it up as we see done in other cities across the country.

I don't think we need to have a whole other entity because the housing authority's purpose was essentially to be the arm to build.

So that's kind of where we are.

That's how I'll be going at it in the meeting.

I hope we'll all be on the same page and we're working at this together.

Mr. Duffield, I know you and Grant also spoke with another counselor who had some ideas about what would happen in the work session.

From the meeting that Mr. Norris and I had with another council member, I certainly want to understand where we are in the redevelopment process.

relative to our current initiatives.

What I heard, and Dave correct me if I'm wrong, I heard a fair amount of concern about sort of the next phase of redevelopment, particularly as could pertain to West Haven and concerns about

the existing infrastructure there and what the plans of CRHA might look like around West Haven long term.

And to be honest, we shared that's really not been anything that we've looked at at any depth recently and it's outside the focus of the Redevelopment Committee.

Right.

I think, yeah, from a, and this is where we spoke more about, you have a redevelopment track, you have a modernization track, and then you have something that looks more like a rehab.

I mean if because if we're being realistic just even according to Mr. Norris as he broke down if we're even looking at breaking ground and kind of moving forward with the whole Crescent Halls and all that stuff first tree stuff if that's not until we think of late 2019 fourth quarter 2019 early 2020 then if we're talking about our other sites that's definitely like a five-year window of sorts certainly which

If that is indeed the case, and we know that we don't have the capacity to redevelop everything at the same time, there has to be some kind of rehabilitation for the other sites.

So I do think as well, I mean, while the Redevelopment Committee is meeting between now and then for whenever our meeting is, if we could look at, all right, we're looking to maybe create another RFP to meet with other developers about how we actually do

Rehabilitation for West Haven, First Street, Sixth Street, so forth, which units we want to identify, how do we make it nicer and whatnot.

I think that would also make council feel really good.

I mean, whether, I'm not going to say that.

We're going to fight to get the funding regardless, but I think that would also look.

It would look good for us to have some of those ideas.

And in all fairness, if we look at and continue to look at tax credits, the tax credits we talked about earlier, the 9% competitive tax credit, you look at a 4% tax credit, that's a non-competitive process, it's not as much money, but it is more geared towards

This is where we're looking at in regards to this site and that site.

I mean, us just showing that we're looking at some kind of planning process and we can show council tangibly this is where the money will go.

That's going to, or at least we've done the preliminary work to think about it.

PHAR is on all of that.

We up on all of that.

PHAR is up on all of that.

We're up on all of that.

We know, yeah, so we got it.

So we know what we need to do for you all, the information that we need to pass on to you, but we're going to be looking and talking to some other folks about

To show counsel, we here?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got you.

How about you meant like make sure that PHAR's at the meeting?

Are there other comments, thoughts, questions about preparing for this conversation?

I'm actually wondering, we just scheduled a work session on our annual plan, but we might carve out a half an hour of that just to kind of reconnect on this before the 26th should that date work out.

Great.

Thank you.

Are you all doing alright?

Do we need a break or can we keep going?

Yeah, in your binder behind the sleeve in the front is a document that's entitled Supplemental Security Services at CRHA sites.

As the Commission will remember at our last Commission meeting, we had discussion about

What's an appropriate response to safety concerns recently experienced at CRHA sites?

At that time, there was discussion about deploying Millennium Security to provide additional services.

Coming out of the commission meeting, we entered into a number of conversations with the community and with the police department itself.

and quite frankly there was some hesitance, some concern about

The best approach by which additional security services could be implemented within CRHA communities.

I had some discussions with the Charlottesville Police Department and are working somewhat with them to review barment policies, things that involve our parking policy.

As a parallel track, Millennium presented, came back to CRHA and presented what they would recommend as a possible step for additional security services In all events, I wasn't comfortable shortly after the commission meeting

engaging Millennium Security when additional conversations needed to take place and were taking place within the community.

So to that end, kind of bringing this discussion back to the board and asking for some guidance as to what the board sense is about additional security just given where we are today.

The information that Millennium has provided envisions providing two security officers who would rotate between West Haven, South First Street, and Sixth Street.

They're proposing Thursday through Sunday in the evening hours, nighttime hours.

One of the key points in the proposal is that security staff are not intended to take the place of or function in the same manner as local law enforcement.

are intended to create additional safety presence within the community and be more response oriented.

It's not what I would consider an invasive or investigative type of service, it's more

It's more of a community resource.

If you need some additional security in or around your home, give us a call.

Or if there's something that's clearly developing that doesn't look like it's healthy for residents, then the security service would be charged with making that phone call to the police and or to the property manager to help address

I think that's in a nutshell what we're looking at.

I have a question.

Nothing is addressing emergency situations for parking violations such as grievance.

Family members may have death in the family so they tend to come over.

Not spend a long time, but sometimes you have some family members that are in and out and it's not addressing what to do or how they're going to address that situation.

If they're going to extend courtesy to give out temporary parking passes for that time or that space in the moment, or if they're going to have people told off.

for violating.

I just think something needs to be addressed as far as that's concerned because you know we do have some residents who have death in the family and I know sometimes like on First Street they'll come and park at the yellow line sometimes and

I think that's a question they're proposing to

help enforce the parking policy when they're on site?

Is that a role we want them to play?

I mean, when there's a bereavement or a loss in the family, I mean, we have, that's part of our parking policy.

That's spelled out pretty clearly that if you know, you talk to your property manager, right?

We can't ask them to be property managers.

but you call your property manager and you get parking passes or you tell your property manager and property manager let security know, hey, you know, this unit experienced a death in the family, you might see some extra activity there, you might don't tow without knocking on the door.

If my son dropped dead right now, the last thing I'm going to be worried about doing is notifying the property manager.

My family is going to come

to make sure that whatever the family needs at that point in time is going to be handled.

No, I think that's an excellent point and we need to stress and I think we'll try to stress in the document itself is a heavy emphasis on

Again, not being necessarily an authoritarian type of service, but more of a, I don't want to say concierge, but more of a community resource.

And so in the event that that happens will we be looking for them to find if it's community resources will we be looking to for them to find a point person in the situation to speak to and say hey you guys we just want to get you reminded that we know y'all grieving but we need somebody to take care of getting in contact with the property manager in order

I mean, even if it's just a temporary two hour pass, you know, that expires, it's just something for that time that they won't be told, you know.

Are there other pieces in here that you all have questions about?

The thing I'm somewhat concerned about is if you have a community resource officer, are they going to be respected within the community?

And I think as we're hearing in the back, no.

I mean, I know when I was growing up in public housing not too long ago, attempts at community resource officers, we would just call them rent-a-cops.

and I'm not listening to you.

I wasn't looking to change the name.

I was just trying to find a

into a means, you know, a solution.

No, the parking policy, like I agree, I understand a lot of what you're saying.

What I'm thinking about is the security piece and keeping people safe, like really, I'm

I mean I'm just really confused.

I'm kind of at a loss because it's like

We hear from some people that we hear directly, y'all need to do something.

We need to feel safe on site.

And then we can hear from some other people and like, oh no, it's not that bad.

But then we don't do anything and it's leaving those who are feeling vulnerable, they're still feeling unafraid, or excuse me, they're still feeling afraid.

Well, I totally agree that safety is first.

But I also wanted to address within our safety situation because we're talking about towing and we're talking about notifying the tow agency when people are violating the parking policy.

I wanted to address the fact that sometimes this has been a very difficult situation for some residents.

And if we could come up with something constructive that's

Well, we are talking about, I mean, when we're talking about, we're not, I guess, Community Resource Officer, I think had more to do with the

sort of attitude that we hope security officers take in being there as a resource and support for residents as opposed to being law enforcement agents.

But they still have responsibility to be out on site, on foot, patrolling, noticing things.

That's the part, though.

To say, hey, you stop.

To pick up the phone and call CPD and say, look, we've got a situation.

I beg to differ.

I feel like Millennium has been at Crescent Hall for quite a while.

They know things, they see things, and they have meetings with us.

They address issues that they see.

We know that they are going, you know, things that are going on there.

I feel like they're very professional people.

When we've talked to them in the past and we've told them that we've had problems with certain people that they're bringing on the property

They either fire them or move them.

We no longer see them.

I feel like, you know, I have concerns about what they're going to be dealing with because I know what some of the younger police officers deal with.

But I know when the older ones come there, you don't hear the trash talk to them as they do the younger ones.

So you're going to get some of that.

But the thing is, is that we,

You know the residents are begging for help and we have got to help the residents who need help.

The ones who are complaining, who are saying we don't want them there, it's okay, they're lying.

Will the two of you walk me through an emergency situation or they come upon something that isn't right?

First of all, there's no communication at Crescent Halls.

Security doesn't know.

whether they're supposed to call Toad to have an automobile towed.

They have not been informed of, you know what I'm saying, the proper procedures.

Same thing with the city police.

Exactly.

So it's, you know what I'm saying, I kind of think that maybe holding a conversation along with Malillion, OK, you know what I'm saying.

I think that holding a conversation with them and letting them know that because residents are complaining they have nowhere to park we have to drive around a whole parking lot just to find a parking space for us because you have people either going to the beer plant you know what I'm saying or you know cars our residents not using letting their visitors use their visitors passes

So they don't know, you know what I'm saying?

So walk me through an emergency situation, what's known in here that needs to be?

Okay, for instance, there was an incident last week where a young man was caught breaking into cars in Crescent Hall parking lot.

The correct procedure for me, I would think, or anybody else would think, would be to, you know, I'm security, to call the police, or if I'm afraid, you know what I'm saying, whatever.

This security guard stood in the middle of the thing and was like, what do you want me to do?

But I would hate for that security guard to be the representation for all of them.

Like I hear what you're saying, but if we let that instance be like the representation for all of them, I don't think that would be fair.

We have some audience members who'd like to give us some input, but I'm curious Wes, you were like an emergency situation.

So for example, they see two residents or a resident selling drugs to another resident.

Or another realistic one, they see someone with a gun.

They see someone with a gun and they say, okay, what do they do?

Like are you going to, can millennials say this person?

I know they have, some of the officers are bond, or some of their security guards are bonded and they have licenses in which they can detain them and take them to general or not.

Are those the ones that we're going to have?

Or are we going to have the ones that aren't bonded?

Because if they see someone with a gun,

That's the way it is.

but it is the case, I mean, can they be there, can they be there recording that, putting it in the log and helping us make a bar mitt case, right, so that, I'm just, is that, but there are a couple folks who definitely want to say something on this so I'll definitely allow with the commission's permission opportunity for some comment.

I'm wondering why do we even have a safety committee that is meeting?

Because it's exactly what you all are sitting up here debating is the things that people are putting together.

You just need to move to a faster track.

That's number one.

Number two.

I thought that the police department, since we were working with the police department,

Millennium's plan so that they can sit down and do whatever.

Where is that?

I know, you know, we had that meeting and there were some things.

And there were some things that you all were supposed to send to them.

and then they will have their legal people look at it and then I thought they maybe have been maybe another meeting and maybe you need to make sure it's happening another meeting but also then to have millennium so that they can understand because the chief is asking for a plan for millennium

What I heard the Chief say is, if we do hire security, which she seemed to, well, she said, should the Housing Authority take the step to bring in Supplemental Security Services, she would advise that we share that information with them and the plan.

But Millennium doesn't have any responsibility to CPD.

We do.

which is part of why we're talking about it.

Okay, so I'm just trying to figure out, right, because it seemed like there's movement and then there's movement and now this is here.

I'm glad to see this because I have some comments on it, but I was just trying to

Get all the pieces, because you know, we have one meeting, the Safety Committee's meeting, we're trying to bring it up, I just want it to be, where are we on this?

I understand that you have something now, but I'm pretty sure the Safety Committee has been working, and they have some things to come back, but we have a separate meeting that we are doing to build a relationship between

CRHA and CPD, and to work with Millennium because, and what I have expressed and I will express this again, I'm a consensus person, I've been on boards and knowing y'all vote on things, we have to bless it.

The only concern that I have with this is that all three entities need to understand each other's responsibility.

The police department needs to understand it.

Millennium needs to understand it.

And the residents need to understand it.

So I just want to make sure that we are merging in that direction.

Because right now, sitting back there, I don't see that merge.

I'm glad you all are having.

Thank you for bringing this so we can have something.

And I'm glad you're having that conversation.

But I wanted to merge because.

you know CPT, Charlottesville Finders and CRHA cannot be the only two that understand and know it has to be all four entities now because now you have CRHA, Millennium, Charlottesville Finders and the residents and I have to say I don't care who hate me

I don't care who do what.

The residents hold some responsibility in this.

But we have to understand what it is that is expected when we see A, B.

We already know what to expect when we see A really, which is the housing authority.

But it's B and C. So I just want some clarity.

I scan things.

I have to read it when I get home, but I just scanned a little bit.

And on page two, where you say, make every effort to ensure privacy and peaceful enjoyment of the residents and community.

Staff will patrol all common areas, parking lots, playground, dumpsters, area, et cetera.

And we walk the perimeter of the property.

Security staff may patrol behind the units only when

So my name is Wanda Johnson.

Good evening to everyone.

I just want to caution the board against implementing, using Millennium to enforce the lease where that's something that's not being done.

So where we talk about the towing and parking policy.

Don't have Millennium be first on the scene to start doing this.

There needs to be a concerted effort from the Housing Authority with regards to all of these policies before I think we have Millennium step on the scene and start enforcing them.

We're waiting for this information to come back.

How does it fit in with everything else?

And this really is an opportunity for the board

to give some of their thoughts, but certainly isn't conclusive.

It's just part of helping to define the role of what security might play so that we can be sure that it lines up and we can communicate clearly with CPD and with housing and with residents about respective roles.

And so that was something that came out of the safety committee and out of the meeting with the police.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

I didn't ground this conversation in that.

So thank you for bringing that grounding to this conversation.

I don't think there's any action we take tonight because there's lots of input that's being gathered.

This was an opportunity to gather board's input.

Along those lines, if you have any other input, now would be the time to share it.

And if there's any sort of other advice or directive you would give to Mr. Duffield as he pursues

Certainly.

It wouldn't hurt, yeah.

So who do we want at that meeting?

Can we brainstorm about that in the morning maybe?

Give me just a minute.

Let me see if I can pull up these notes.

We had the meeting with CPD.

PHAR, I think it was on October 2.

Immediately prior, we had a meeting with, here we go, the Safety Committee on October 1.

A number of topics discussed.

The question comes back as Chief Brackney put forward.

What is an acceptable plan to address the violence in a community to that end?

She asked for copies of the barment policy, the parking policies, a copy of the lease.

She did express a desire that CRHA provide and Millennium provide a security plan to the police in advance of any private security firms coming on station.

I asked for a copy of what those look like and said well we really don't have any for anywhere else.

She requested of us not having been here and also understanding that times have changed that we review together the policies that we do have so that she can make sure her officers and that our MOU with them is up to date and we asked in return that she find someone on her staff who is our primary liaison and contact person who will work through us both in review of those policies but also should we

to pursue a contract with Millennium that they be the one that helps communicate those roles and most importantly that they represent the police at our security meetings, at our resident services meetings, at this meeting.

when needed.

And we're waiting to hear back from her.

She was kind of trying to figure out who that right person might be.

So I think the question to Chief Brackney is who's that person because they should be at this next meeting.

If this next meeting is really about barment policy and some other policies that they wanted to take a look at, then we need to get city legal there.

There was an MOU I believe years ago.

Right, but do we currently have it?

But I don't get why that conversation can't happen simultaneously.

Well, and all of this, I mean, all of this is important, right?

All of this needs to be done.

At the end of the day, Wes, you get the calls, I get the calls from people, residents who say, I'm scared to have my kids outside my unit, understandably.

That doesn't feel acceptable to me.

The police department says we have eight officers on staff at any shift to cover the entire city.

They're stretched too thin.

Gosh, I just, I'm scared for the safety of our communities.

And I don't know, is there any kind of interim

and is there a trial that we could run based on much of what's in here with the opportunity to revisit in the very near future based on resident feedback?

Well, they have more than eight when they come in our community.

It's true.

I will say that Chief Brackney was you know I think she really shares our values and our ideas and our ideas about empowering our communities and not just being straight

Law enforcement?

That's the wrong word.

Well, I think we need to give her what she asked for.

She asked for the part.

We did.

We're waiting for her to give us somebody on her staff.

Okay.

Does she have what Melania said too?

Does she have this?

Not yet.

Not yet.

Well, then maybe this needs to go to her.

So, okay.

I don't want to, I just, we, Grant, I really appreciate you bringing this to us.

Did you get the feedback that you want for now?

Is that the safety committee's role?

I just didn't know if they were creating the MOU.

Have we tapped?

But certainly you should come to the meeting.

Okay, you don't need our commitment.

That sounds good.

Thank you.

Why don't you, can we let Miss Johnson do the resident service thing before she leaves?

Well then I'm just going to take a little personal break.

But you get your report out.

I'm ready to get out of here.

Hi, my name is Joy Johnson and I'm the co-chair of the resident services meeting.

At the resident service meeting, we basically, we announce about the new housing service, the new housing manager that will start on November the 1st and I'm sorry.

We talked a little bit about the strengthening system grant.

So we basically gave an update about the meeting with Chief Brackney and that we was waiting on the housing authority to forward whatever the ask was.

And then after that, we would push Wes to kind of make sure the next meeting happened quickly.

because we know that safety is a big concern.

And hopefully, after doing that, that we would probably have another meeting with millennium.

You're not the only one having problems saying that.

Millennium also so that something can be in place by the spirit season.

So we were hoping that we could get that done quickly so I think it all depends on how quickly we can get a meeting with Chief Brackney and then after that set in another meeting with Millenniums and hopefully that new MOU between the Housing Authority and CPD will be done.

No, and she's not here.

So Miss Greenwick,

I recall that there was a barman policy that was created when Longo was here but doesn't really know what has happened when Thomas came and whether or not, you know, this current chief has that and that's what was sent to them.

So it was mostly about the, it was mostly about safety

but also some things came up about crescent halls and with people using that parking lot, you know, how people are parking there and how it's not safe.

And then Miss Wicks was there and she bought our work plan

and what we're going to be working on hopefully by the end of the month, by the first of the year, we will have a work plan for the whole year so both the board and everybody will know exactly what's going to be done and who is going to be there and who the speaker is and also so at least you will have a calendar

for the whole year of the resident services what's going to be discussed.

I think that was it.

I need to stop saying.

Oh, we also realize that we have some international rescue residents in our community who other than they're not feeling safe on a different level.

and we have to figure out how we help those clients and plus information that's going out is only going out in English and so we need to try to figure out how we start making sure, figuring out how many nationalities is in our community and trying to figure out a way how we get those information out.

Our next, okay, so going forward, hold a second meeting with Chief Brackney and Mr. Duffield.

Ms. Green, we will report back from the safety subcommittee, resume newsletter, they would ask that you resume a newsletter to put things in, and then we're gonna create a six-month calendar for topics upcoming, and we need to know who is the person from CPD

who is going to be sitting on our committee and they're saying that the notices for the resident services meeting is not being posted on the website and so people would like to have that posted on the website.

Ms. Parker was the winner for the $10 graph and the meeting was adjourned at 2.30 and our next meeting

Essex Street will be November 8th at 1pm.

Any questions?

Okay.

Thanks again to Miss Johnson and all the residents who were at that meeting.

So next on our agenda is discussing the maintenance committee report of progress to date and making plans for regular monthly meetings that we can advertise the way we do everything else and they're just set on the calendar.

You know, the biggest issue that we addressed was lighting on site.

I actually, you may remember, left this meeting a month ago to go walk some sites with a lighting contractor.

Got kind of a bad report from that day where basically we have three types of lighting on site.

We have some city lighting, we have some power company lighting, and we have some CRHA lighting.

And as we looked, it was primarily the city lighting and the power company lighting were in pretty good shape, and it was our own lighting that was in worse shape.

and they prepared a proposal to replace that lighting.

I had it forwarded to Mr. Duffield and he pulled the trigger on it immediately so that I can at this point report back that I believe 54 lights were replaced.

There's three or four that had issues getting power to the site where the existing light was so there were a couple others that

Well, not on 1st Street.

No?

Alright.

We'll take a look at those.

Somebody will.

Beyond that, you know, we didn't, we have had a problem having meetings and, you know, I think there was some sense the last time we really had a meeting there was an idea that we would have a staff person that would be responsible for facilities in the very near future and I think there was some sense that we would

kind of wait for that person to provide some direction and then when that hire wasn't made, you know, we didn't follow up as we should have and I think we're still in a position where a facilities director or a more professional maintenance supervisor, somebody is going to be a key role but beyond that the committee was kind of inactive this month.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

It's not really particularly organized.

We have, Latita and I have both attended the last official meeting, I guess, and Miss Bell was there and we discussed the idea that we would like a representative from every site and she was to look into kind of trying to make that happen.

Sonya Bell.

She was the one resident that was at our meeting, so I congratulate her for that.

Well, if we're trying to salute the residents, the resident's a pretty good person.

I think she can help out with that.

that probably need to be a part of that committee.

Each one of y'all can take a site or something to figure out who y'all can get on that.

Good point.

I have some concerns that I wanted to address.

When we first decided we were going to do the maintenance committee, we asked who wanted to be on the committee.

That person was myself and Osteen.

PHAR and PHAR and Mr. Duffield with me.

So with that being said, when we asked for a committee meeting, we didn't have a committee meeting.

The meeting was with Mr. Duffield and Mr. Osteen.

We've had problems with scheduling and problems with not inviting all who are considered committee members to the meetings.

And so, going forth, I think that if we're going to be a committee and we're going to say that people are on the committee, we need to be notified, notified in a timely manner,

and we need to discuss dates if there's gonna be any changes, change as far as dates is concerned or as far as meeting is concerned and we need to meet in the committee meeting to discuss those things to move forward.

I know staff.

The first meeting I went to, staff was there.

So I would like to suggest that in my experience on the board with the housing authority to date, those committees that we set a standing date for actually meet and make progress.

And so, if you all are interested, I think it might behoove us to set a, you know, this committee meets the third Wednesdays of every month at, you know, 4 o'clock p.m.

I'm making that up, but a standing time that works for you all, and then we mince

Ask Mr. Duffield to give us dedicated staff who can help coordinate, get the word out about those meetings, collect concerns to bring to the meetings.

And then maintenance staff will have that on their calendar so at least somebody can be there if we can get that standing time.

So what's the purpose of the committee if we're going to have one person doing all of the work of the committee?

and so that's kind of like my concern.

We have a maintenance committee that was supposed to meet because so many concerns was too much for one person to deal with so we was going to come together, collect input and have conversation and you know talk about the things that needed to be talked about and move forward with progress or you know identify some things that needed to be changed.

That's not happening.

where Mr. Duffield and Osteen's having meetings and then coming back and saying okay well we didn't have time or we just got notified last minute or you know and I'm like well what about these people got to be notified so forth and so on well we met and then this is what we propose and you know this is what we want to do.