CRHA Regular Meeting   4/26/2021

This is the monthly Board of Commissioners meeting for the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, Monday, April 26, 2021.

And we are still meeting under the virtual, virtually until we can meet in person.

And I'm

I think you're good.

Well, Leslie, could you do the roll call?

Chair Redger?

Here.

Commissioner Goldblatt?

Here.

Commissioner Green?

Here.

Dr. Henry?

Here.

Commissioner Slaughter?

Mayor Walker?

Okay, and we have a new commissioner.

Well, maybe I'll just introduce her.

Well, we'll just go ahead and introduce her now.

Heck, and then move on.

But Maddy Green is with us.

So you can note that in the roll call.

She applied and was chosen to take over Mr. Osteen's position.

the rest of his term.

And then I assume if she wants to, she could always apply and do a second term.

Hi everyone.

I'm just here to complicate things.

I hadn't even put that together.

Awesome.

Sure.

I've been attending the redevelopment meetings with CRHA because I was an intern at Legal Aid Justice Center.

I'm working with Emily Dreyfuss and some people with PHAR.

So I'm excited to continue working with CRHA and see where development takes them and all the other projects that y'all are working on.

So happy to be here.

And I'm just finished my program as a social worker.

Awesome, thank you, welcome.

Okay, so now we'll have our moment of silence.

So in terms of our general announcements, I would like to say Maddy Green is joining us, which is great.

And then if anyone else has announcements, you can chime in.

I'll just note for anyone who's listening, the meeting announcements, and these are

Generally, regular meetings.

I know there's going to be some new meetings coming up around redevelopment, but we have our next board work session Thursday, May 13th.

We need to figure out what we need to talk about at that point.

We have our regular board meeting May

24th, safety meeting April 27th and May 11th at 6 p.m. All was with the same link and there's a passcode that we can give you if you don't have it already.

The next free development meeting I think is first Thursday of every month.

I think it's next week, first Thursday of every month.

It is currently at 4 p.m.

and then resident services committee is every second Tuesday of the month.

So also coming up.

Does anyone else have any just general announcements or meeting notes you wanna share?

Okay.

So we'll go on to our first set of public comment and PHAR can share any meeting notes they might have.

There may have some meetings going as well that they would like to tell us about.

Okay, Brandon, how... Good evening, CRHA Board of Commissioners.

My name is Brandon Collins.

I am an organizer for the Public Housing Association of Residents, which is PHAR, and we are the federally and locally recognized resident council and resident advisory board for Charlottesville.

Not a whole lot to report today.

As to Betsy's thing, I believe next week we are holding the first of one of our Back to Basics workshops.

And we're actually doing those, a series of those throughout the year with some collaboration with the City of Charlottesville and with CRHA.

I believe our first one is gonna be focused on relocation in a broad sense.

And then we're looking forward to going into May, hosting a few of our good old positive vision workshops where we're just gonna break it way back to almost the starting point and work with residents and do an asset-based approach to thinking about the future.

I did wanna say welcome to the new Commissioner Green, which makes Lisa the old Commissioner Green.

I don't know if chronologically that lines up, but I think maybe it does.

But welcome Maddy.

I think it's important as a new commissioner and y'all are gonna have two newer commissioners in a few more months.

to recognize how special Charlottesville is compared to some of the public housing struggles that are going on around the country.

And we're really doing amazing work and considering where residents and PHAR were with the housing authority five or six years ago, we've all come a really long way.

And I think it's showing.

And we urge you to get involved and be an active commissioner in the active work of CRHA.

We do have some expectations.

We know you were really pushing forward to get to the end of March and turn over a new leaf with HUD.

And we'd very much like to hear how you feel things are and if there really is sort of a sense of relief after that and where things stand with HUD.

And remind you of our expectation that the amazing work that you did to get things in shape

Some of that amazing work needs to turn into amazing work for current residents particularly with maintenance improvements in their homes and we think you are super poised to do that and just want to remind you that that's a priority along with resident safety which continues to be difficult but high priority.

and remind you that phase one activities are awesome and amazing and another historical change in point for this community.

and phase two at South First Street, the work continues and I think we're all looking forward to looking forward and what that might look like and encourage you all to be very active in that conversation and really get prepared to do some super good thinking.

Lastly, well, two last things.

One is we did wanna say, we know y'all been working hard.

We know that John and Kathleen and the rest of the CRHA team has been working really hard over the past year under intense circumstances with a housing authority that was under a lot of scrutiny with a pandemic and with the expectation of a resident-led redevelopment coming to fruition.

And I think it's time to recognize that that

It really is amazing work and we're going to hold off criticism for anything probably for a little while as we continue to

continue our good resident relationship with the housing authority, assuming that that carries on.

Lastly, on Wednesday, one of my most favorite people on the planet, somebody who's a friend and a mentor, but is also a staff member of CRHA and also the chair of the PHAR board of directors is being honored by the National Low Income Housing

Coalition, and really encourage you all to attend that.

I know we got a workshop right on top of that right afterwards, but it would mean a lot to me personally if all of you were to be in attendance to give Joy her honors and to let other

Extremely high profile dignitaries that are gonna be in attendance.

Can I just ask a quick question about that before we lose Brandon?

I teach exactly during that time and I can't.

So I'm just wondering, is it gonna be recorded?

I think so.

It may be recorded, but your students would probably love to see such a thing, an important local and historic and national event.

There's reasons why they have these kinds of honors.

Awesome.

Would anyone else like to speak before we get going?

Okay, we'll move ahead.

We have approval of minutes and they're from January.

And I was looking at them and it's oddly when we announced that Mr. Osteen was leaving the board.

So it's nice, you know, that happens to be on Maddie's first meeting here.

Let me find where I put it.

Second.

Chair Redger?

Yes.

Chair Goldblatt?

Dr. Henry?

Approve.

Commissioner Slaughter?

And we have the new Commissioner Green, but I would assume abstain since you weren't at the meeting to approve the minutes.

Great, motion passed.

Next we have a safety committee update.

Yeah, so the main thing, we've had some active meetings and residents have done a really great job

talking and drawing a list of priorities that they have around safety and the ways that they, at least initially, and this is a work in progress, but the ways that they want, if there's going to be security or any groups in public housing communities, the ways that they want them to behave

what they expect from them and what safety means to them.

They've talked some too about the importance of community and I think staff has really heard that and thought creatively about ways to do community building.

I've taken very extensive notes, they're up on the CRHA website and so I encourage you if you want to see them that you can go and look there because the list of priorities is really lengthy and the vision of what people want

And I think right now that they're like what residents with the other thing that I've heard very clearly from residents in those meetings is a real sense of urgency.

People are really concerned about the change in the seasons and the summer coming on.

And they feel as though they need a concrete and firm plan that they need to understand what's going on.

And they need that to be communicated in terms of what safety is going to look like.

So we've heard that there is there's a full time

door person position at Crescent Halls.

And there's been some other conversations, but people really want to know what the chain of command is.

And they also want to, there's been, so Ms. Hyatt was really great in the last meeting talking about staff increasingly building relationships with residents so that residents feel like they can come to staff when they have concerns.

But I think something that we really need to have for residents is a really clear plan

Is that a plan gonna come from the subcommittee to our committee and is this something we'll vote on or is this something we need to come up with?

My understanding is that we've been generating like policies for an RFP and then that RFP would come to us.

You should correct me Mr.

Oh yeah, and there was one other change that was proposed that we said we would bring up here.

We wanted to make it so that as many commissioners as wanted to attended those meetings, but then they would need to be publicly noticed.

The only hesitation that Mr.

Sales and I had around that was not wanting residents to feel like they can't speak freely if there's press present on the call.

I don't know if there's a solution around this.

And so I did want to raise this in case people have thoughts.

I mean, I do try to take really detailed notes, but we don't record those meetings for a reason.

I've purposely not been, I mean, you know, we all have to spread ourselves out and go to all sorts of different meetings and I just felt like having, I just feel like since you all have been making

Progress, and maybe getting to know each other somewhat.

I would hate to just be someone sitting in there listening that people aren't sure, I don't know, if they need someone who doesn't live there in their discussion.

I do think though that as long as folks know that you're a commissioner, board of commissioner, someone who can help to move things along,

Yeah, that's helpful.

Because I could go either way.

I mean, I'd be happy to join and help.

But I'm also also like don't want to push in if people are feeling comfortable having, you know, some discussions about their personal safety.

Okay, all right then.

Next on our agenda is discussing other subcommittee assignments.

And we had sent around a sheet that had listed who was interested in being on different committees from the commissioners, which is ongoing.

We can still, you know, we can add, move people as needed.

I think the one that there's some that still need to get either restarted or started.

So I think we might need to get with, make sure that there is a commissioner and a staff member on each that will get together and make that and figure out what time works.

The maintenance committee, I don't think has met since Mr. Osteen's been gone.

And then we have a personnel and policy committee, which we had Lisa Green and Nikuyah Walker signed on to work on, but I don't think they've gotten the staff and the commission, you know, we just haven't gotten a time set.

The one I think, and actually I see that it's the next item, for redevelopment, I think we have to clarify, it's such a big subject.

And honestly, I feel like, as Brandon said, everyone's been working really, really hard, not only through COVID and all of the extra work that came with that, but also redevelopment.

And we don't necessarily have,

You know, I think we're doing amazing.

But I have to say, you know, that's a whole other job really, you know, like taking on construction projects, doing all the planning.

It's a lot of work.

So anyway, leading to, I think we're at a point where now we need to separate the redevelopment of future sites into a group.

Maybe it's the group that's always been doing it.

Maybe we add more people.

That's gotta be looking forward to the next tax credit applications and longer timeline and where we'll move.

like two or three years down the road just to even start thinking about relocation and all of the pieces that go with that.

But then

And Miss Glynn Matthews and I spoke on the phone today, so she can chime in on this, but I think then maybe we break out like eat.

Now we have three projects, you know, we have the South First Street phase one.

So the people involved in that and making sure that's going well and the constructions happening as it should and all of that.

Crescent Halls, and the residents that are living there during that renovation.

You know, that's a big one.

So that should have a separate meeting.

And then South First Street phase two, which is ongoing.

And the group of women who had been doing the design work with Bruce Wardell's group, you know, are back together.

And so that that kind of is its own piece, too.

So pulling those

four things apart, the future and the three current projects and getting that at a structured time I think will help.

just sort of put those in different categories because sometimes we talk about redevelopment and it all goes together and it's just a lot.

So that's the thinking behind those.

I don't know, Kathleen maybe can speak to the timing of when those might be and how she envisions that.

So yeah, so does anyone,

Right now, let's call this the Future Looking Redevelopment Committee.

We have myself, Mayor Walker, and Lisa Green, but we haven't been able to get the time right.

And I'll be done in the end of June, so let's think about who would wanna move in on that piece.

And Lisa, do you,

Do you wanna figure that out now?

It doesn't matter to me.

I know that too many commissioners makes us have to do that public, what's it called?

The announcement of the meeting.

So that's kind of why I had been sitting out.

I mean, it's nice to hear, I guess I could sit and listen and not participate.

Mr. Oberg, is that correct?

Or is it going to have to be publicly?

If you're there, it's a public meeting.

It would just be, I mean, technically you're probably right that if you just were silent, it would not be a problem.

I will say the meeting is already announced.

So every redevelopment meeting is announced.

So that shouldn't be an issue.

Do a public notice.

All right.

I was just thinking along the lines of the same thing as safety.

And so I that's why I stopped going to that.

So they didn't have to be announced.

I mean, anytime I can sit in a meeting that I have the time that it's not, you know, at the same time as when I'm working, I think it's always, you know, helpful to sit in and find out what's happening in the different subcommittees.

So I'm more than happy to participate whenever.

That's my fault.

I take full responsibility.

I will change that.

And then the safety committee.

We had Miss Slaughter on with Miss Goldblatt chairing it.

And I think Miss Slaughter and I are both done at the end of June.

So maybe if other commissioners want to think about who might replace

Ms.

Slaughter, if she doesn't reapply to be a commissioner, I haven't talked to her about that, but potentially there could be a new person there.

Resident Service Committee has been myself and Dr. Henry, who I know has been busy in our own lives.

But again, a place where I want you to think about, you know, as I move off, who might pop into that, that generally is a place where service providers that work with their residents come to either give a presentation or talk about what they're doing or just a place to coordinate between a lot of different partners.

And then the maintenance one is kind of hanging out there.

Miss Slaughter is there, but we're going to need someone to hop on that.

So just, you know, if you don't want to say no, that is fine.

But if anyone is interested, that would be a good one.

and that is sort of an ongoing just making sure residents are heard and are getting the service they need with lots of details about what's going on.

But Brauno is running that and I think just finding the right time so residents know when to call in and give input on that.

Okay, and then we had Miss Green and Mayor Walker on the personnel policy committee.

So they need to get with maybe,

I don't know who they should start with.

Maybe Kathleen.

Yeah, Mr.

Okay.

Should we just make that as one?

They're pretty different.

I think they'll have a pretty different focus in terms of what we need to do personnel policy wise versus financial oversight.

Yeah, it'll probably be quarterly.

There won't be enough information to provide monthly that we can't provide during this board meeting.

Right.

So the finance report is ran at the end of the month.

Our board meeting is at the end of the month.

It lines up.

If we meet in the middle, you will be going back to what you already talked about at the last meeting, which would be this meeting.

Okay, and right now we have Mayor Walker and Dr. Henry on the financial committee and on the personnel and policy we have Miss Green and Mayor Walker.

Just reminding everyone we need to get these going, or at least, you know, as long as we get these groups that can find times, you know, we can start getting it in the monthly or quarterly schedule.

And then I wanted to bring up with the group, for redevelopment, we're

We were sort of at the crux of start, you know, we really need to get moving on what we're gonna do next, the next moves and get it in front of residents quickly to get feedback.

And I thought the board of commissioners may not have been, you know, some of you just joined last summer.

I feel like we could use either one of our work sessions or do a retreat or something around redevelopment to jumpstart that next,

Keith.

We have some numbers and some ideas from Jeff Meyer and Dave Norris and Mr.

Sales from

Gosh, months ago, redevelopment meeting, looking at potential future sites and some numbers there.

But we need to, I think it would be great to sit around and kind of get an update of how decisions had been made, and then maybe rethink and clarify how decisions will be made going forward.

So I guess I wanted to hear from you all if that would be a topic for a work session or if you think we need a bigger chunk of time.

Is there any way to bring us up to speed on what Dave, and I forgot who you said just earlier, has presented as potential next steps?

So we do have a Redevelopment Committee meeting scheduled next week, and there will be an update from Jeff Meyer on that projection.

Oh, great.

Thank you.

And then, so at that meeting, there'll be a lot of other, you know, other partners, they're all thinking together about what needs to happen next.

So, Mr.

I believe what we were thinking, the nonprofit discussion came up a couple months ago, but we can kick that can to focus on redevelopment.

Well, so we wait and see.

How about this?

If everyone can come to the redevelopment meeting or whoever is able to come, we'll talk then.

And then if we feel like we need to have that work session, if people either can't join for that discussion, maybe we

Do that for the May work session and move the non, I hate to move the nonprofit, but move it down one.

But if enough people can come and talk during the redevelopment update or the redevelop, sorry, the redevelopment meeting, we can go ahead with the nonprofit work session.

Does that make sense to you all?

Is that, it's legal for a lot of us to come to that CRHA redevelopment because it will be already noticed?

Yeah.

Okay.

So we'll try to have a quick overview at the next redevelopment

Redevelopment meeting at the beginning to kind of kick off the thinking and just talk about how the first decisions were made, the voting membership, the way it was done, just for the commissioners who haven't been before.

And then we'll see where we get on that meeting.

Does that sound okay, Mr.

I think maybe if I missed it, but sending out when those four different meetings are happening, because I think I was at a meeting on Friday.

It's been that kind of day, but the P2 meeting, and I had to work that in.

And I don't know if we did polling or whatever at the beginning, but I wasn't available doing the, I think it's one or so on Friday.

And so now I have to rearrange some things in my schedule to try to be able to make that weekly.

So I think once people know, they'll try to, it won't always work, but you'll at least know when, especially since they notice that you can pop in.

Yeah.

You know, if you, you know, if you can just get the, get the dates together.

Yeah.

I'm glad you, yeah, I wasn't able to do that, that meeting.

And maybe that's to the commissioners.

I failed to, at least in my own brain, make clear that we should each

I think we all need to be involved in the future redevelopment talks, but in terms of the current three projects, maybe we can all choose one to focus on.

So there's consistency within the group of residents working on that project.

So at least for Crescent Halls and South First Street phase two, there's actual residents living there.

And it would probably be helpful if each of us took one of those on so that, especially during construction, we'll actually know more about what's going on than rather maybe spreading ourselves all over the place.

But we'll get those to you.

I know Miss Glenn Matthews has been working on trying to organize all of those meetings.

Okay.

You ready to move to executive director update, Mr.

Yes, that is good.

So good evening, everyone.

Like Brandon said, we have gotten to the new fiscal year.

So HUD will be looking at our programs to see how successful we are with meeting our corrective action plan.

I will say we won't really have a decision from HUD until the, I would say July, August, around that time period.

The financials, they aren't due to HUD until the end of June.

So then they'll have some time to audit them and go through them as well.

That's going to be an area where we're not going to meet it.

And they weren't expecting us to meet it.

They recognize that they failed to provide funding to address, to actually meet the goals that they identified.

So we created a financial plan, CAPS, last month that was approved by HUD and that released about $600,000 to the housing authority.

to work on some of the items where there were some deficiencies.

So we had two years to actually get there financially.

We're projected to get there at the end of this upcoming fiscal year, so March 31st, 2022.

We have until March 31st, 2023.

And we did get an email today that there may be some additional shortfall funds available.

I'll find out probably tomorrow whether we qualify

But they sent a generic email to all the housing authorities letting them know that about $25 million was available.

We did get an email on Friday.

about our physical inspections.

HUD will start doing the physical inspections sometime this year.

We don't know when yet.

They'll give us a four-week notice.

We received an email today from the Richmond Field Office requesting a meeting later on this week to talk about AMP4, which is Mickey Madison, Riverside, and Scatterhouses.

to figure out what we've done so far this year to address that.

This year is going to be a little weird when it comes to audits because they're going to inspect your properties, but they're not going to score them.

So scoring them is how you get out of trouble status.

And they really are having a hard time justifying scoring them because for a long period of time housing authorities were not

doing regular work routine maintenance on the units because of COVID.

So they're only focusing on emergency work orders.

So that's part of the reason, plus some individuals aren't allowing housing authority members inside of units.

Like when we had the firm from Maryland come inspect all of our units, we had some households that rejected them and told them they couldn't come in.

So HUD is also allowing their inspectors

to accept that denial as well.

So they're gonna have a hard time scoring us, but that puts us in a tricky situation because we depend on the scores.

Just like last year, we didn't do the CMAT, but we really needed it to get out of trouble status.

So they're gonna figure out how they can still score us while not having that scoring affect funding, because really that's gonna be the big issue.

If you have a bunch of poor scores, then it really hurts your funding.

One of the areas where we have not done a lot of work around the caps, at least I can say I have not, it's the board of commissioner training.

So it was identified in the corrective action plan that we needed to focus more training on for the board of commissioners and for the housing authority staff.

We've done a lot of training for the staff, but we haven't done a whole lot of training for the board.

So we know there's the online self-paced training lead the way.

And I believe some of the commissioners have already completed that training, but it's an online training through HUD and it breaks down the different areas of public housing governance.

And it provides a certificate at the end of completion, which we do need to provide to HUD.

So I'm going to send out that email to all the commissioners who have not received the certificate from, just so we can focus on that.

I think it takes

Probably a couple days if you dedicate three hours to it.

Need to be completed.

I haven't completed it.

One more time.

That was a date that was projected for last year.

And I discussed with HUD that a lot of commissioners have not been on for a year or have barely been on for a year.

And they know that.

So they did extend that.

So all new commissioners are required to do it within about a year.

So some of the other things that we need to talk about are board retreats for training.

Delphine Carnes, our attorney has offered to do some board retreats.

to focus on training what the roles and duties of a commissioner are.

PHAR just did one at their last board meeting.

It was really, really good.

Mr.

Sales, I think

I believe, yes, before you were hired was the last time we had a retreat.

And we had worked with the Center for Nonprofit Excellence.

And at the time we paid whatever it was to become a member so that we could get a reduced rate to work with them.

So I'm just throwing that out as another possibility.

And I don't know if you wanna wait and do it

You know, we're going to have two more commissioners starting July.

If you want to, you know, wait in and kind of jumpstart all of that with the retreat, or if you all will have to chime in and let me know what you're thinking on this.

Yes, I'll send a link around for the individual training.

But the individual training is not the greatest.

It doesn't go into detail much.

It's extremely un-user friendly.

So what we're talking about is doing some in-person training as well with our attorney who has done it before with other housing authorities, when new commissioners come on, like an onboarding process, but this will be for the entire commission.

And it will be in person.

or through Zoom, it wouldn't be the self-paced one.

It'll probably be a couple hours.

We don't have to make a decision tonight, but at some time we have to make a decision on that one, because that is a cap.

Are you just asking, like, are we willing to do retreats or do we have ideas of when?

Well, I'm guessing a retreat is probably the best way to do it.

Otherwise, it will take up a whole meeting.

Yeah, I mean, I defer to what makes the most sense in terms of getting out of troubled status.

If getting one on the books sooner is going to expedite that process, I'd be very happy to do a retreat.

So how would that work if we did it now and then we get two new commissioners and they've missed that?

We can either provide them with the recording of the meeting or we can have those commissioners do one-on-one or two-on-one with the attorney.

So I have a question a little bit being a new commissioner who's come on just in this pandemic and doing only virtual meetings.

I don't feel like I kind of know

the rest of the commission as well as I have known other boards that I've served on and so my question to that is if we waited with this would you envision this being something that we would do in person and also get a chance to work with each other more closely so that we could kind of get to know the board a little bit better or do you think that

I mean, I guess what I'm saying is, do we have any idea when we may go to not virtual meetings and in person meetings?

I guess I'm one of those people that probably would prefer to go on virtually, just like the school has the two options, whether you go back to the classroom or work virtually, because I'm still waiting to see what happens with all these variants and stuff.

So I'm not in any hurry to get around seeing people.

Absolutely, I totally understand that too.

That's what I'm saying is I don't know

How that works at that point.

And I didn't know, I mean, are we waiting?

If the governor takes away, I guess at the beginning of each meeting, if the governor takes away the mandate for virtual meetings for local governments, I think that's where this meeting falls.

You do not at this point.

State law does not allow that at this point.

Now it's very possible that that's going to be changed.

Okay.

Yeah, that's that's been a concern I have because I do think even with this virtual that I think sometimes we've reached more people being able to kind of just

So I think that you know look for some good that's come out of some of this bad that's that I do think that people have been able to stay more engaged that have the technology I realize technology also is an issue but for some folks that's just you know

I am certainly not wanting to put anybody in danger or myself or my family either.

And can I add, we don't have, I think we, this is probably something we need to do pretty quickly, but I know city council has a policy for not, for being able to be virtual for a meeting.

I don't know what it was.

It was before the pandemic.

So we wouldn't have even called it virtual, but like that someone could call in.

We don't have that.

So maybe we need to think on our own about,

how we would, besides the governor's order, like how do we set a policy so that two of us can be online while the other of us are in a room and still be able to vote?

I think Mayor Walker, do you know what the city policy is?

I'm sorry to call on you, but I think if we could come up with what we wanna do, that would help.

Yeah, we have a policy outside of COVID, but you're responding to the number of times you can use it per year.

Okay.

And so hopefully with, if the emergency order is lifted, that they will provide options for hybrid possibilities that you could kind of work around those.

I think it may be three times a year that we can use

you know, that we can join the meeting by phone.

It was phone at the time.

I don't even think it was video.

And so, but I don't have it in front of me, but yeah.

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping.

I would love to have, I don't know about you all, but I would love to have hybrid because in the past when we were in person,

and City Hall, it was already a bad set, it was a bad set up, sorry to city people, but to have us all sitting up high and then residents that come sitting in the seats looking up at, you know, and it wasn't the most accessible, our residents had to go and like, you know, I remember we had to have buses coming from Crescent Halls to get over to speak to the board

So I feel like, and maybe we could envision what we want these meetings to look like coming out of the pandemic.

I mean, maybe we can do them at the community centers and have, see if the city would still help or how we would broadcast those.

And then we can have commissioners come in person or not, depending on where we are in the public health locally, but

Why don't we put you all want to think about that and put that on our next meeting to have a quick discussion about how these meetings and maybe we can hear from PHAR and residents so that we could be proactive about you know when we when we are allowed to meet like what what do we want that to look like and what's possible because

It's been great to have the city's help for all our virtual, you know, monthly meetings.

I just want to return to this question about when we might have a retreat of some kind if the standard for other boards is that they have retreats however frequently and then incoming board members whenever they cycle on have like they watch the recording if it's recorded or they have

individual discussions with the lawyer and that's how Delphine Carnes does it with the other sites then that might be, there's a reason maybe we want to think about that model for ourselves moving forward in which case getting a retreat on the schedule and then saying like this is what it's going to look like moving forward so that I mean I

It's not to say that every other housing authority does things right and you do them wrong, but this might be a moment where like we can turn to housing authorities that we say like, your board is running really well and be like, we're just going to adopt that model.

And then there's no reason not to do a retreat sooner.

So

So we're going to get the board lead the way training, get that email out.

That will accomplish the cap of having a board training.

So that's the bare minimum that we have to do.

So some commissions have already done it.

I'll get the link out to everyone else for everyone else to complete it.

Let's shoot for a board retreat after we get the new commissioners on.

Is that what I'm hearing?

And that way we can set some procedures for onboarding during that time and also do a training.

And we also need to look at our five year plan that we said needed some work.

Does that sound good to everyone?

I think, Miss Goldblatt, what might be helpful, and I'll be gone, so I don't wanna, you know, you guys can figure this out, but because our turnover of commissioners is June 30th, maybe it's always that we have an August, September retreat every year to get to know each other and reaffirm the mission or the big priorities.

And that's what the,

Center for Nonprofit Excellence.

They were good at that, the kind of community building and getting on board with kind of a mission and organization.

All right, so I do have some programmatic updates for the HCV program.

So we now have a total of 1,311 individuals on the wait list for the HCV program.

So we got over 1300 applications in two weeks.

We've sent out $50 eligibility letters.

About a fifth of those are living in public housing now.

So we will have a large amount of vacancies added

At some point, same thing that we had last year, but last year we added more than 10 of them.

We currently have about 17 mainstream vouchers on the street.

We have leased up one of them.

We were awarded 40 of them in December.

We've sent out all the eligibility letters, so we're really waiting on the participants to respond with documents.

We fully caught up on our HQS inspections.

We completed 157 of them in the last two months.

For the public housing program, we had 30 vacancies at this point.

We have a large majority of them.

I think it's 21 of them are in the mod status, which means they're going to take longer than 30 days to turn.

They're really

The worst units we have at this moment.

We gave seven of them to Habitat.

They weren't able to turn any of them during the time that they had the unit.

So we've taken them back and we are going to slowly start turning them.

This month, all of our turn team has been focused on Crescent Halls.

They turned 10 units at Crescent Halls for the redevelopment process.

We had to relocate families on the eighth floor to units that were available throughout the building.

We've also started that process for the seventh floor.

So we have not turned a lot of public housing units on the other sites.

We've focused solely on Crescent Halls this month.

We have a $0 tenant delinquency account.

We received some funding from the city to take care of back rent.

So we have $0 in tenant delinquency at the moment.

We also have zero past due recertifications for the public housing program and the HCV program.

The recertifications were both things that we failed previously on audits for both HCV program and public housing program.

Staff updates.

We have a HCV manager starting on May the 3rd.

She's coming from Raleigh, North Carolina.

She has about 15 years of experience running the HCV program through compliance.

So that's an area we've been really weakened based upon HUD audit.

So that's going to be an area that should turn around really fast.

Raleigh is a much larger voucher program than we have.

I think we're probably about a fifth of the size of their program.

So her caseload alone is more than what we have total.

So that's going to be a really big addition.

We also have one property manager starting May the 17th,

She has, I believe is three to four years of tax credit experience, which is the program we're going to.

So that's gonna be really good.

That's gonna be the only tax credit property manager we have on staff.

We are looking to hire one more.

We have an interview, I believe it's on Wednesday with a potential candidate.

We're also looking at a compliance specialist that will tie in the public housing program and the tax credit program.

Just to make sure that we are bringing in clients that qualify and making sure that we're charging the right rent and not overcharging any family.

We do have some vacant positions.

The redevelopment project manager position is vacant.

It is posted on our website and several other sites for redevelopment positions.

We have a property manager with Flytek Experience position posted, and we have two maintenance positions that are posted that are open.

their maintenance two and maintenance three positions.

So they're highly skilled.

We've been looking to see that position has been open since I want to say November or longer.

It's one of those that is very hard to feel because there's a lot of people going after the same individuals, PHA, AHIP are all going after the same candidate.

So it's a very competitive process and we've had a very hard time filling those positions.

Why was Habitat not able to fulfill the, did they have, is it materials?

Is it the work?

Yeah, they had some staffing issues.

They focus a lot on volunteers.

So they had a shortage of volunteers and the two staff positions they had working, they had a hard time filling those positions and keeping them feel.

So we provided all the material.

It is hard to find folks in this field right now because of the building and upkeep that's happening in the construction industry right now.

When we met with GMA two weeks ago, we were talking about some of the positions that they're hiring for.

And they mentioned like the carpenter and skilled labor.

I mean, they were at $20 an hour minimum.

and it's hard for anyone in property management to compete with that.

I mean, we're paying more than some of the other traditional housing places but we are competing against construction firms.

I see it every day.

Jobs are behind, I mean, every day people are looking for people to work.

So if y'all know people that wants to change jobs, it's not easy work.

The other thing is not easy work.

Well, we're always trying to poach other employees.

So every time I go to a site, property manager, probably not going to want me there.

When we were doing HPS inspections, Brono, myself, Melinda, we were talking to all the maintenance guys.

Hey, you looking for a job?

We pay really good.

It's a good housing authority.

So I think we've been able to possibly get two of them.

So I think we're going to schedule interviews with two of those guys.

Hey, could you, is there a list of somewhere that you're looking for and what experience?

No, it's fine, I can look at it.

Okay.

Commissioner Green won.

I was thinking, I don't know.

I mean, other people may be interested, but given your background, I know when HUD came to do inspections and it was helpful when Mr. Osteen would walk around with them just to see what they were looking at and like,

They just had, you know, they had some bizarre things they would score us on that none of us would have thought of.

Well, potentially.

I was a construction project manager in a past life and I've spent the last 20 years in inspection so I might be able to help a little bit there.

It is something I like so I'm more than you know whatever you guys think I want to just be used where I'm most useful so whenever y'all tell me what that entails and I can see if I can't work that in during the day.

If I have enough time I can

So we should be getting some more guidance sometime this week.

And we have a meeting on Thursday where I'm sure they'll let us know a protected schedule for inspection.

The agency also has some extra booklets that break down the inspection process, what they look out and how they score it.

So if anybody's interested in reviewing those to see what's up and coming, I think I have four extras at the moment.

Could I swing by and pick one up at some point or?

Yes, ma'am.

They'll be housed at the 6th Street Community Center.

OK. OK, other thoughts, questions?

OK.

Oh yes, I'm sorry.

I guess we somehow skipped that in all the discussion about the Redevelopment Committee.

Hello, everyone.

There's a lot going on with redevelopment right now.

So I just wanted to get everyone up to date.

Let me start with Kressen Halls.

On the 14th, we had the Kressen Halls Redevelopment Kickoff Celebration, which was hosted by the Kressen Halls Tenant Association.

And we were all glad to get to be part of this event.

GMA has been mobilizing onsite at Crescent Hall.

There's a construction fence up, gravel drive in the back.

They're getting prepped on the eighth floor.

Work on the first floor is starting May 17th.

And the substantial completion date right now is set for November 25th, 2022.

Our relocation coordinator, Ms. Poynter has been really busy and doing some great work all of the ninth

9th, 8th floor residents have been relocated into temporary units as of April 19th.

The 7th floor we're doing bed bug canine inspections just to be careful and the 10th, 7th floor residents relocation process has begun this week and

So there's a lot of movement happening there.

The relocation assessment team meetings continue to be hosted virtually on the third Monday of each month.

See the next meeting is Monday, May 17 at two o'clock.

The Crescent Hall's resident release space and programming meeting is hosted biweekly on Fridays.

We just had one this past Friday.

This is a meeting about ways for residents of Crescent Hall to have spaces outdoors to get away from the waste and also just spaces in the community that might be good relief spaces.

See the next meeting for that is Friday, April 30th at 11 o'clock.

The first release space is going to be in the circle in front of Crescent Halls.

We're going to be working on getting some benches out there and there's already a pathway being marked out by Jamie and Martin Horn.

Conversations continue with everyone about impacts to bus stops with relocation at Crescent Hall and South First Street.

This conversation will continue as more research is done on options to improve bus stops and services through federal funding applications and exploring options of increased city funds for CAT.

And I'm sure Mr.

Sales will probably have more updates soon because he's been working really hard on that.

I'm gonna move over to South First Street a little bit.

The Redevelopment Partner Group has begun meeting once a week as Betsy was talking about for phase two.

We've been just working as a small group just to get a little more organized and be a little more nimble to bring information back in a more orderly fashion just to get things moving with that project.

The

Part of, it's called the Part 58 that was put in by Ashley to the city is moving forward.

We need to circle back around because the BRW Architects and Collins Engineering are still working with site plan amendments.

And there's a lot of work happening with that and we hope to have more updates soon.

The resident, this covers resident design work and coordination that's continued since our LIHTC submission.

We're also discussing pre-development and the contractor hiring process.

That's one of the main reasons we started having the small P2 group meetings.

These are just small group meetings talking about how things work.

So then we can work, you know, in a larger group.

on moving forward.

We're all making sure we understand how the process is going to get started.

The first resident consultation meeting on South First Street phase two

is gonna be held, it's now gonna be a hybrid as it was decided last night at the resident planners meeting.

It's gonna be held virtually and onsite at South First Street on Wednesday the 28th at 5.30.

And let me see, I'll share a quick flyer with you all on that.

So we're gonna be, can everyone see that?

We're gonna be in the grassy area where we had some meetings last year and I've pretty much pulled everything together today.

The one thing I'm still searching for is someone to help with maybe some filming and just some audio visual help I need for amplification.

We haven't quite figured that part out.

As I said, it was about five, a little before five last night when we got the requests that we're pulling that together right now.

We're excited to try out this virtual model, but we also really wanna keep everyone safe.

So BRW is continuing to meet virtually right now, but they're also talking about having a hybrid model for the resident planners.

And I think our meeting on Wednesday will be kind of an experiment to see what works and doesn't work as we space out the chairs and everything.

With all the balls in the air, we're focused on improving communication.

That's a big part of breaking out these groups as Betsy was talking about earlier.

Jay Kessler is helping us to improve just communication.

He's going to be helping me get more information, more detailed information for our reporting.

Jeff Myers has just been amazing and really patient with me because I've been asking to look at getting more specific sheets together reporting budgeting and I ran those by the P2 group.

on Friday.

And it looks like we're going to go forward with that to have it as an attachment going forward to have more information available to everyone.

So I think paying attention to date, times, having a timeline in front of everyone, it's going to be a huge help going forward.

As we were saying, the Redevelopment Committee right now is meeting the first Thursday of the month at four.

There's been a lot of discussion about what the perfect time is for that.

And we're also gonna be talking at the meeting next Thursday about what the frequency should be for that meeting.

So just a lot of different conversations happening there.

We're also gonna be talking about whether we're ready to move forward on discussions of

What's going to be the next project?

So it's going to be a very important meeting.

The monthly neighborhood update meetings between the general contractors for each site, GMA Martin Hornet Crescent Halls and Braden at South First Street,

are about to get up and going.

They're trying to think of different ways to have those.

I think we're going to start virtual, but we're still looking at that.

Braden sent out a flyer recently for residents just with a contact number in case there were concerns.

And we're working with GMA to have something similar.

We're probably gonna be looking at having a meeting with them next week with residents.

If we can all settle on a date that works well for everyone that's still in the works at the moment.

And I'm hoping to hear back from the Tenant Association tomorrow morning about that.

Our section three program, Go Joy has been really ramping up.

Joy's in her new office at West Haven.

We're working on posting a new revised section three policy soon.

We're also looking at having an MOU with the city and other community partners that we're gonna be engaging with on a regular basis.

Having some job fair set up with Braden and hopefully soon with Jimmy Martin-Horn.

We're continuing to work on building programs, exploring the possibility of

Well, we know we're going to need more staff and probably a committee as this program grows.

It's just been really great to see the section three program get off the ground and I'm hoping to be able to have

and in turn be able to be part of the program.

Betsy's been helping us with that.

I can't give a better opportunity for a student than to get to work with Joy.

And let me share a flyer that Joy helped put together.

And I'll let Joy talk for a minute if she wants to, cause she's had a huge response.

So,

Part of what we did was to put this flyer together because what Breen sent us was just a listing of what's needed.

And we sent this out.

People have been calling, but most of the calls I got today, they wanted to know what the job entails, which tells me that they probably don't have the credentials because

Other folks who have gotten done this work would know what some of this means.

However, most of our residents probably won't know what some of these work entails, even though they may have done it.

So like, we're gonna try to do another flyer that have some kind of description of what each topic is, or heading is.

And the other thing that about four people called today,

They wouldn't give me their last name, but I had their number and was able to call them back and just be able to get their name, first and last name was how much is it paying?

So they wouldn't give any commitment.

They didn't want to sign up right away.

They wanted to just know, you know, okay, how much is the job?

How much are they paying?

That kind of stuff.

And a couple of them basically said, I will get in touch with the contractors myself.

It's been kind of tough.

So I sat outside today and was just asking people as they go by in their car and all, did they need a job?

And we got two additional people to say, yes, I need a job and I have done some of this work.

So what I plan to do is just to be out in the neighborhood a little bit more with these flyers and everybody have the flyer.

I got in touch with a couple of agencies and they have posted the flyer.

But we're not getting that like beating down the door kind of response right now.

So I think it's just word of mouth and just seeing people and talking to people.

But I think if we have the description of what the job entails, we might be able to get even more people.

So that's all I have.

For Breeden, I think I sent you all five potential people today.

and for GMA, just for one and a half position, I have seven people who is rooting for the skip horse and just a part-time laborer.

So most of the folks who are on that list doesn't wanna do any, they feel like they don't have the experience to do what breeding is doing, so.

Yes.

Your program through section three, I got that list.

Do you train the people for those positions?

You're absolutely right.

When most of the folks called, they were like, I'm interested, but is there a training for it, or will they do on-the-job training?

And basically, what my response to them was that we know that we're going to be doing some training around some of the construction, but I could not tell them when or what we will be able to

what we will do soon.

So we do have a partnership with Holly Lee in the Department of Economic Development to do the job training

for construction.

And they're talking about doing another one this summer.

COVID really slowed that down.

I think they were able to put several of them in jobs.

with a construction firm.

And we've contacted them that completed that training to see if they would like to apply for the positions that are open.

So we are working on the training model.

We're working now with Holly Lita, how we can approve the program.

We had, I mean, only four people graduating.

That's really not that successful.

So we wanna figure out what we can do to improve that.

So part of and part of that too was that Network to Work, which we had an MOU with, was going to provide the wraparound service for the 11.

but the pandemic hit and then they just stopped seeing any kind and wasn't finding anything and then went to virtual and we had a couple of people who had some learning problems you know with virtual, virtual is hard for me sometimes I'm trained on in training anyway I would have to do it in person but they

and a couple of them had some personal things that popped up.

So that's why they need the wraparound service that can help them.

So Frank, I can never get his name right, from network to work.

He was on vacation last week.

He did call me today.

I'm going to set up an appointment for the folks who already is working with the housing authority under section three.

And also the folks who graduated from the four ladies who graduated from the

Carpentry Class to get them in to get their support.

And then hopefully the names that I sent

to Kathleen them that is gonna go to Breeden.

If they hire them, hopefully they'll follow up and let somebody, one of us know so that they too can get signed up for Network to Work.

But I heard Network to Work program has changed a little bit.

So that's why I was trying to see if I can get Frank to set up a meeting with the housing authority so we can understand along with Rich Scholar.

so we can understand what has changed.

And if they're not, if they're requiring them to be working first before they give them the support, that's a little different from what was happening before.

So, Dr. Henry, to your point, we understand that we are on the back end trying to catch up with the current projects.

So we're going to, starting where we are now, we're well prepared for phase two when that project does start.

And even for Breeden's, I mean, for GMAs project at Crescent Halls, we're going to be well prepared for those.

We missed the ball on phase one.

and the four women who graduated, the three women that graduated, I was able to get in touch with who they came and they sat up and said that they want to do it.

And just I think in terms of looking at the training program as an opportunity, I don't know what was put in those contracts.

I don't remember right off.

But part of doing this differently, they should be participants in the training of the individuals.

who are from the community.

One of the other things is I don't know all the section three requirements is but you have a lot of people and we've been talking about this with the safety committee who may not be current

People who are currently causing any other problems that's going on in the community, but they may have participated in the past and so you're going to have limits on

especially a lot of the males in the community or whether they could participate in a training.

So I'm also interested in if someone grew up in public housing or if they are a member of the broader community, like what does that look like on their ability to participate in

the Section 3.

And if we are training people and able to provide the stability for long term, then that serves the city very well.

So I really hope that that partnership can be strengthened there, even with Home to Hope and some of the employers that ended up in other places like the Fountain Fund.

on our own.

We had to provide those wraparound services to them.

We had to provide the initial trainings to them.

And we had to pay them while we were doing that because they were not in the fields before.

But what we said is that we believe that you could do this.

And I think one of the selling points are, you know, Kathleen and Betsy was talking about this earlier, the long term

Like we are already trying to talk about the next phase and which projects are next.

And so that's the ability that people probably haven't had, even though it's really difficult work that the potential pay increase over time and the ability to move up in a program that's kind of centered around and catering to their success.

Also, you know, one of the thoughts I had when someone said something just a few minutes ago, I'm tired today.

Sorry.

But when we talk about the interdisciplinary aspect of something like this, I'm thinking of we are talking about what does diversion look like to be able to train somebody in a career.

So this is something I've kind of talked with some folks in where I work as well because again when we're talking about having

We have a real shortage of folks in this industry in this area.

People can't find people to work.

So if there's a training program, I wonder, I saw

and I'll have to find it Joy and I'll try to send it to you.

It's a program that's in Pennsylvania, maybe Philadelphia somewhere that folks come in and getting some of this experience in high school like CATEC and in transitioning and then there's an automatic way to have a job.

One of the things that we're realizing in local government where I work is

Some of the, this is a very transferable job if you don't want to be in construction this entire, your entire life, it transfers into some other opportunities.

Inspections, for instance, if you've got construction background and you've got the training and construction in any of these kind of fields, you get the training and the certifications, then you have an opportunity to go for local government and inspections.

and one of the things and so there's a we're having a hard time finding inspectors in the community and so that's a you know that's a pretty steady job where you work for local government you have insurance you've got you know something where you can also build a career if you don't want to we call it swing a hammer from you know you know get started in this and and then be able to to move so there's a lot of growth opportunity

So I have a friend of mine who served on the coalition board with me, who is now working for the

and the Housing Authority in New Jersey and they just started a self-sufficiency program slash section three program.

It is connected.

And so she said she would send me some things and ideas that she was having.

But when I was talking to Kathleen, I was just telling Kathleen,

that for our population, and it's not demeaning my population at all, but even me, even myself, if I'm looking at something, I need to know, okay, so what does it entail?

Because maybe I don't think I am a bricklayer,

But if I'm out there working my garden and I'm laying the bricks in a different way, I'm a brick lay, right?

So someone who called today said, you know, I don't think I have much experience, but I work with my uncle and we were laying bricks and we would, I'm like, you got some kind of experience.

If we have some kind of description to tell people along with how much it's paying, I think you'll get more people to like seek.

But, you know, we're taking baby steps right now.

But those are some of the things that I'm seeing that for our population, we're going to, like you said, it's going to need training.

I have like eight people who are saying I want training.

They're on another job that they don't like, but they want the training.

They wanted to give up that job just to do a training where they're making $15 an hour.

So that should tell you something also.

So it's been interesting, but Kathleen and I, we went around and around and around and around about how we should do it.

But then all this week and over the weekend, most of the things that people were asking me, which I could not explain,

fully was one, what was the job description, and two, how much.

So they want to know how much they're going to be making.

So that will be helpful going along.

And the learning curve, you know, the young

The person who was having the difficulty with Zoom was the first one who said, sign me up, I'm in.

Even though that person didn't graduate.

So that ought to tell you something.

It's not that the person can't learn.

They probably was just having some issue with how they were learning over Zoom.

And I just want to address Mayor Walker's point really quick.

The program is for all low and very low income persons in the community, no matter the criminal record, no matter their band status with the housing authority.

And so Kathleen touched on the Section 3 policy.

That needs to be updated because there was an update from HUD.

And we need to identify clear goals that we need to hold every contractor to, no matter if it's a $50,000 project or a $30, $40 million project.

because section three should be a requirement for all federal funding.

So we need to get that approved so we can put it in their contracts.

So we think that should be in front of you guys within the next month.

Well, this is really exciting.

I know it feels slow, Joy,

I mean, I just, I'm really excited about it.

Can I ask, is there any, is it possible, and this is more, I guess for the contractors, I'm thinking of summer and high school kids and I don't know, is there any way, do they have summer positions open where students, I'm just thinking if they learned a little bit over the summer and then they come back the next summer or they come back the next year,

For section three, it has to be a full-time commitment.

Okay.

One of the requirements, it can't be, contractors can't hire individuals for the job.

They have to hire them for their company.

Right.

So they have permanent employment and it's not temporary employment.

So that's a requirement.

So what you're saying will be temporary.

So they wouldn't qualify and it wouldn't be

Is there a, and this is the same conversation I have with the city, because even if someone agrees to do the project, they don't necessarily buy into that mission.

So is there a way to take some of that funding and the housing authority, hire them as employees so that they understand the culture that they're trying to create?

versus kind of leaving people out there with all these different employees who might not necessarily buy into that mission.

And then they're left to the standards that they've set before, which they probably don't have similar people on staff.

And so it's just having the right person who understands the dynamics.

I'm thinking like, even, you know, I was talking to someone over the weekend, if someone shows up late for work, normally someone's like, you're out.

without even considering like why that person is out.

But if you have a program that's kind of centered around making sure these people are successful, then you ask them more questions other than just threatening them with like two more times you're late, you're out, which turns some people off and especially people who've just been mistreated by a system for a long time.

So I just think it's about, I don't know if that's possible, but if there was a way for some of that money to be

funneled back to the housing authority to hire people.

I don't know if section three allows that or whatever so that you all become the employer.

I don't know how you feel about that.

I'm just, it's my thought.

So the section three, there's several ways contractors can be in compliance.

And so they can provide funding.

I think it's 10%.

10%.

10% of what the total contract amount is.

They can provide that funding to the housing authorities section three program, which can then be used for training on the job training or for creating jobs.

So most companies don't do that because 10% is a lot of money depending on how big the project is.

So a lot of them don't do that.

And typically if they do do it, they budget it in.

So then the housing authority ends up paying for it anyway.

So

That's one way.

But what we have told the contractors is, hey, we want you all to hire people but joy is in between person.

So you got to keep joy in the process.

So if you're having an issue with the employee,

You don't just go fire that person.

Hey, you got to talk to Joy because we have wraparound services.

You haven't completed your job, which we're adding the contracts to have the Section 3 policy in there with the goals.

You haven't completed your job if you just get rid of them without talking to Joy.

Joy has to be involved in the process because we think it's important that we're building the people.

And that's what we have to do.

And if we're successful with Section 3, that's the only way we're going to do it.

So we've had those conversations and they know that this isn't a, hey, we're going to check a box by hiring people.

It's, hey, we're going to keep joining the process who we're having issues.

Let's help.

More questions or thoughts?

No, outreach is not what, you know, you just can't sit in one place and do outreach.

You have to be out like in the community.

And so I'm just hoping that we can get together with network to work to figure out what is it they can provide.

And if they can provide all of the things that we need, then where do we get the other services to wrap around the clientele's?

So for me, that's where

You know, once we get that, someone said to me today, I need this, I need that.

And I'm like, just give me, just give me another week or so, so we can try to figure out where we can get it from.

Because, you know, there are people who, you know, they might need a pair of shoes or they might need something, right?

But section three doesn't come with any money to provide those things.

And so we have to find other resources.

But I was talking to someone about the program or they were talking to me about the program and we were trying to think about it.

We know a lot of people who are electricians who can remodel a house and flip a house and do all that kind of stuff, right?

And it would be nice if we could get to a point where CRHA is doing its own training.

and a smart person sat down and was talking to me about that.

And I was like, you know, that's a very good idea.

And, you know, yeah.

So that's kind of where, you know, I can't get there right now.

Getting, making sure John and Kathleen get the people so that breathing can be happy is what my goal is for right now.

Then we can plan the program a little bit better going forward because a lot of our folks got issues.

Not only that, you know, you got kids at home who are learning through virtual that they have to maintain.

And if they're on the phone or if they're checking in with their kids because of, you know, whatever's going on, they can get dismissed.

And so those are the kinds of things that we have got to get out there because, you know, things are different now.

It's not,

So many more steps, yeah.

And funds to go with it.

I don't want to just plug the, I noticed that in the infrastructure bill that Biden have done, he have put $70 million, is it million or billion?

I can never get it right.

to help with public housing.

So I think we should be watching that just so that we can sign on or advocate, whatever we have to do to get rid of that fair cloth law.

Cool.

Well, let's go ahead and move on.

Thank you guys.

Anything else before public comment?

that we didn't need, we didn't report.

You guys can use the raise hand icon.

And if you're calling in by the phone, you can press star nine.

Good evening again commissioners.

I'm Brandon Collins.

I work for PHAR, the Public Housing Association Residence.

Wanted to just let you know that we're still here listening.

It was a really great meeting.

Discussion on a variety of things, and it sounds like everybody's really ready to dig in and do work.

I'm not gonna chime in on anything super specific, but something that Joy just mentioned, I figured I'd clarify for any commissioners who aren't aware, the Faircloth Amendment is what caps public housing and the creation of new public housing, and also that if you lose any, you're never getting it back.

And if there is the opportunity to get rid of that and potentially have new public housing, that would be a big deal and a game changer for Charlottesville and for the country.

I also neglected to mention section three in our previous comments, but that is a high priority for PHAR as we're moving forward.

You all have a lot of priorities, but that is certainly one of the ones that are there, and we're hopeful that we can do our part to make sure things happen.

COVID really put a damper on some trainings, and it's my

belief, just seeing what's happened in various other communities.

The more you do with section three, the more you're gonna do with section three.

So can we get over the hump, get the investment into the community, investment in training, investment in people and services.

But once we can get over the hump and start getting some folks hired and making money, it's going to make everything really blow up.

And so I think we're all committed to that.

And thanks to Joy for her hard work on all that.

Anyways, got a lot of meetings this week and next week.

Thank you.

Meeting Land, that's good.

Anyone else?

All right.

Okay, then I guess we can go ahead.

finish up and we'll work to send out the the several several meeting dates to everyone to try to get all of those straight and figure out who wants to plug in to which which meetings and also be thinking about you know at the post-COVID if you're talking to people how how those meetings should look because I do think it's a good

Opportunity to change what had been a rather stagnant, depressing scene in City Hall.

A motion that we adjourn.

Awesome.

Chair Weicker?

Yes.

Commissioner Maddy Green?

Yes.

Dr. Henry?

Yes.

Commissioner Slaughter?

Yes.

Wonderful.

Thank you all.

Good night, everybody.