CRHA Meeting   8/23/2021

Okay, so I'm gonna go ahead and start.

We'll begin by reading the governor's proclamation, executive order number 53.

Governor Northam issued an executive order E053, restricting public gatherings of greater than 10 persons.

Accordingly, code section 2.2-3708.2,

A3 permits public bodies to meet electronically to discuss business required or necessary to operation of the public body in discharge of its lawful purposes, duties, and responsibilities in times of emergencies and to address COVID-19.

Therefore, this meeting is being held electronically pursuant to Virginia law because the COVID-19 pandemic makes it impracticable and unsafe to assemble a quorum physically in a single location.

Commissioner Cooper?

Lisa Green, Commissioner Maddy Green, Dr. Henry, Mr. Jackson, Mayor Walker, we have a quorum.

We want to begin with a moment of silence.

Thank you, Dr. Henry.

And if anybody would like to address the commission at this time, please click the raise hand icon.

Looks like we have one attendee.

Not even Brandon?

Shelby, you're on with the commission.

Hi, everyone.

Oh, to give the PHAR update.

I guess so.

Thank you.

It'll be brief.

Good afternoon, Board of Commissioners.

My name is Shelby Marie Edwards.

I use she, her, and hers.

I'm the Executive Director of PHAR, the Public Housing Association of Residents.

We are the duly recognized and federally mandated housing association.

I'm happy to provide a brief update.

This month has been focused on providing different opportunities for resident engagement.

To name a few, we've hosted relief space meetings and a joint construction and resident association meeting.

We were happy to do so and support and with the housing authority staff.

Since the last CRHA meeting, PHAR has onboarded three new resident organizers, which is helping expand PHAR's capacity.

And we are also hiring for a housing and redevelopment organizer as our team continues to grow.

PHAR has heard from several residents that they feel cameras would be helpful in holding folks accountable when it comes to safety.

So we were pleased that last meeting, the camera policy was adopted.

And we have heard that

that the cameras are a way to help CRHA.

Well, let me go back.

We have heard that the residents would really enjoy it if the cameras could help with CRHA enforcing policies and procedures and keeping those in place.

Be it via a loitering policy or other means, we do hope that CRHA will move in that direction in a way that would be a great fit for both the residents and the authority.

Okay.

I guess I forgot in terms of general announcements.

And the only thing I had to say was that, of course, we are meeting tonight and our next meeting should be the fourth Monday from now, which I believe is September 20th.

And beyond that, for our September 9th meeting, which is a board training, I believe,

We should be having Miss Carnes and Mr.

Sales can correct me if I'm wrong.

And for that, she has asked us to begin the training.

that we so often complain about from HUD.

Some of you have already started it.

Some of you have already finished it.

I know the new ones of you haven't.

I also sent around a sheet, which was a beginning from that.

I know Lisa is very much interested in getting to know other people and on the board.

and I'm kind of interested in seeing some of our skill sets and what we bring and how that might influence what we do or don't do on committees and just trying to figure out how much what we're doing now in terms of committees matches what HUD expectations are because I think if we have that clarity it would make it a lot easier for us as well as for Mr.

Sales and the housing people to do what they're doing.

and other than that, I guess we can just move on.

The safety committee still meets every other Tuesday.

Our next meeting will be on August 31st at 6 p.m.

It's always the same Zoom link.

It's the one that's posted in the agenda.

You can also find it on the Facebook page for CRHA, on PHAR's page, so it's posted widely.

And to access the meeting, unfortunately, you need a passcode, but the passcode remains the same.

It's 181698.

Brigid and I met last week for the first personnel committee meeting and so we should have an update after our second one but we're really just you know getting started by looking at the HR policy manual and we met with John and Mr.

Sales and Mary Lou and

It's only the two of us wanted.

And so that's the only committee update.

I have the maintenance committee.

We are scheduled to meet in September, but we haven't had our first meeting yet.

So those two committees are finally set up.

And Laura and I, Commissioner Globe and I are gonna meet Thursday to talk about

Executive Director Evaluation.

And so we'll be bringing the rest of that information to the board and staff and also PHAR because it's a 360 evaluation.

So the staff and community members, our families will have a chance to participate.

And so once we know what next steps are for that, we'll be talking to other partners about that.

I wanted to mention that CRHA held its first annual team meeting on August 18th, where they began planning for 2022 to 23.

And it also grossed the topic of the five-year plans.

And perhaps Miss Glenn-Matthew wants to make more comments or plans to talk about that later in today.

Hello.

Yes, we had our first meeting with the Resident Advisory Board.

And our next meeting is going to be Wednesday, September 15th.

Again, with the Resident Advisory Board, we're having those meetings at five o'clock.

If any board members are interested, just send me an email and I can get you information.

Currently the group's trying to decide on some formatting and also whether we might want to have a consultant help us this year or not.

We had kind of a small turnout for our first meeting, but I'm working with Shelby to make sure our next meeting is going to be a lot larger.

Okay.

Anyone else?

Okay, and then I guess our next thing is with regard to the approval of the minutes from July 26, 2021.

Do we need to read those into the record or just to approve them?

because I know we received an update of those earlier this evening.

No, I don't think you need to read them into the record.

I just reviewed those.

I move to approve the minutes from the July 26 meeting.

Commissioner Lisa Green?

Commissioner Jackson?

Yes.

Okay, so then we will move on to resolution 1429, execution of a contract for sustainability study.

Yes.

Good evening commissioners.

Tonight I have in front of you a resolution.

to award a contract to Northern Real Estate Urban Adventures LLC.

It is a SWAM business.

We are looking to undertake a sustainability plan to determine the future redevelopment and positioning of the housing authority's assets to expand and prepare for redevelopment.

So we've kind of sort of already, well, we have already started redeveloping multiple sites and planning for the 6th Street redevelopment

working to create a group of resident planners for West Haven.

So we've already started, but we really do need to have a game plan for how we would like to redevelop all the sites.

So overall sustainability plan that incorporates

kind of sort, well, really future casting of what housing is needed and where we are today.

So looking at our current wait list, our current housing state, the residents that are in those units, whether it's the right size unit, because we do have a lot of units that are occupied by individuals that are one household.

One individual household units, but they're in like a three, four or five bedroom.

So it's really taking up a unit that a family who really, really utilize.

So it's about building and planning for that, for that build of what we need now.

what our wait lists look like and how we're projecting the voucher so a voucher has become a really big problem in the area it's always been a problem but it's slowly increasing because you're getting more funding and more vouchers on the street but less housing units so the developers aren't building the housing units that are needed for the individuals that are getting the vouchers

The payment standards on a voucher are really low compared to the market rate.

So individuals that are building market rate units cannot utilize, they're not going to get a family that can utilize a voucher there.

So when we build our units, we need to keep that in mind and build for that as well.

So that's what this plan will look at.

It will look at where we are today, what our housing units look like, what they need to become standard, regular,

Housing units are up to date.

We're addressing the AC issues.

A lot of our units don't have centralized AC units.

So individuals have to get AC window units.

And we've already had an article written recently about how that impacts families.

And it does.

I mean, it looks bad.

We have a lot of seniors that either can't afford to buy the AC unit and it's getting on a wait list to get one.

or they get one and they can't put it in windows and CRHA, we can't put it in a window because it's actually a violation.

And so we try not to get involved in that, but we know it's an issue.

So we'll be looking to address those things.

So in a sustainability plan, it's not only looking at redevelopment in the state of tearing down and rebuilding, but also looking at the parallel track, what we need to get these units up to par.

And it's a lot of work.

I mean, some of these smaller sites have been neglected because we've been focusing on this redevelopment and we're seeing it in the units.

The residents are complaining.

We're seeing it in the work orders.

So it's things we have to address.

But so getting that plan together, because it's not one community that needs work, it's every community.

And so we really need a plan for it.

So this plan is gonna help us with that.

It's also gonna look at the financial stakes of

What is it going to take to actually redevelop these sites and make it sustainable?

So housing authority continued ownership of the units.

So we had a total of three respondents.

We received all their RFP responses.

We went through them.

We scored them all.

There was only two that actually scored high enough to get an interview.

So the individuals that were on the panel interviewed the two firms.

and of those two firms, only one firm really felt like they were gonna support and had a plan for true engagement of the residents.

And that's what we're all about is engaging with the residents and getting them what they need to be successful.

So we are recommending that Northern Real Estate Urban Ventures get awarded the contract.

Not only do they have a concrete plan of actually getting the work done,

They support our mission and they already know what's going on in Charlottesville working with UVA and it's affordable housing redevelopment planning.

So that's all I have for you tonight.

I just kind of have a question.

If we know that the problem is UVA,

Well, I don't think our plan is solely I mean, our problem is solely UVA.

I think UVA has its stake in the game when it comes to vouchers, but that's only on that.

I'm talking about public housing when it comes to the sustainability plan.

I think it should include voucher accessible units.

So not only rebuilding public housing units, but also building units in addition so you can take in those additional vouchers.

But I think overall our problem is public housing and looking at how not only if we're not going to redevelop it within the next five years, figuring out what we need to do in order to get it to at a baseline where the units are actually livable.

You're not running into issues where it's like a mix-match towel in every room you go into.

The bathroom doesn't have shower towels falling off of it.

Interview process.

And my apologies for that was supposed to participate and had quite a bit going on and couldn't.

But in terms of the interview process, was it addressed in terms of as

No, I don't think we should expect that at all.

No, no, I don't think that's going to be an issue at all.

We're directing that.

We have a panel of not only CRHA, but PHAR residents, commissioners that are going to be on that committee that actually reviews that document and is getting progress updates.

So I have maybe just a straightforward question.

How long is, I didn't see in the resolution, how long is the term of the contract for?

I think we're looking at a year.

It would take about a year with the engagement that we're looking for.

We had certain milestones and engagement at each site to make sure that we're getting each resident like where they live and what they envision their community looking like.

and what their needs are currently.

In the process for the contract, there's always opt out.

So CRHA can opt out or cancel the contract at will for no reason, for any reason.

In the process for reawarding the contract, we had to go back out for RFP, the same process we just went through.

I think it took us,

probably all in like four or five months to get here.

I have one more quick question, Mr.

Sales about, you said like they'll do some financial forecasting as well for what it will take to redevelop the sites.

Is there anything where we can,

you know, advise them on what is a realistic HUD budget and what CRHA's, you know, like limits are.

They would actually look at our budget.

They would look at our books.

They would analyze our financials or what we're bringing in on what our average resident intake from our average rent which is about $243 per unit.

and then it will look at the federal subsidy and then look at the inflation rate of that dollar and then cast that over a certain amount of years.

Any more discussion?

So I'll make a motion to approve CRHA resolution 1429, resolution authorizing the executive

Execution of the Contract for the Sustainability Study between Shawsville Redevelopment and Housing Authority and Northern Real Estate Urban Ventures.

Commissioner Lisa Green?

Commissioner Jackson?

So now we're going to move on to resolution number 1430 resolution authorizing the execution of contract for video surveillance systems between Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority and L

Thank you, commissioners.

This proposal or this resolution is in front of you to award a security contract, security video surveillance system contract to ELA Holdings, which is doing business as Turnkey Technology.

We did

issued a RFP on March 8th, 2021 for security video surveillance.

It was after a request in several meetings of meeting and the safety committee.

Residents have continued to ask for this ever since I've been with CRHA as executive director.

So that's about a year ago in August.

There was a lot of violence, a lot of shootings going on at several of the sites and residents continued to ask about cameras and why CRHA didn't have cameras.

So we began talking about security camera policy, which the board passed at its last meeting, which would actually direct how cameras are utilized and how they are rolled out on sites.

So we really thought that a policy is the best way to ensure that the cameras are not used for things that they were not truly envisioned for at the beginning.

So we've talked about the safety issues on sites.

So that's where it all started.

But as we continue to have conversations with residents, they continue asking about lease violations,

Why can't CRHA utilize the cameras for lease violations?

So we have not expanded the cameras to that role yet.

But those are conversations that are starting to happen in the Safety Committee.

And we're not looking to do that right now.

But if the Safety Committee decides to

send a policy amendment to the board at a future meeting and the board approves that, then that's something that it could be expanded to.

But right now we're truly only looking at looking at tackling some of the

Safety issues.

So some of the drive by shootings that have happened on the sites, some of the walk up shootings that have happened, some of the random acts of shootings, and then walking inside of units that have happened.

With the cameras, we'll be able to access those.

And we'll really have a board and a policy that's in place that will keep individuals from taking advantage of those cameras for other usages.

So

There were two firms that actually received interviews.

Of the two firms, only one could actually get the cameras rolled out in a timely manner and actually address section three and how they planned on ensuring that section three was a part of their plan.

And so they've committed to working with an electrician in the area that section three qualified and will create either job opportunities or training opportunities

for individuals in our community.

One thing I noticed is that the written dollar amount and the numerical dollar amount aren't the same.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'll sign on if it matters.

Can you tell us just a little bit about the services?

Like what's that 186K number?

They're providing cameras and the infrastructure for the electrical needs for West Haven, 6th Street and South 1st Street to include

the wiring, the cameras itself, a maintenance plan for five years on those cameras.

And then the maintenance planning included 24 hour responses to camera outages.

They would provide cameras, if a camera needed to be repaired, they'd provide us a new camera to replace that camera and go repair the old camera.

So it really included

And just that maintenance plan, it's under any circumstances?

Nope.

They would do, if a camera was shot, they will come in and fix it.

If a camera fell down because of a storm, they will come and fix it.

For any purposes, they'll come and fix it.

Does the same apply if it's stolen?

Okay.

Relative to other cities, does Charlottesville have a huge crime problem?

The public housing, relative to other public housing places, because I kind of get the feeling that sometimes we get treated like a big city and we're not.

I mean, we do have violence, we do have problems, but compared to other places, it seems like they might be out of the norm.

It's not like something, I mean, anything is going to cause trauma.

I'll start with the first one.

I can't tell you about every housing authority, but I can tell you where I've been.

I'll say when I first got here last year, we had a lot of shootings.

I think it slowed down a little bit.

I mean, we're still having them.

We had one at West Haven over the weekend.

We had a drive-by at Sixth Street last week.

We had a shooting at South First Street.

I have a cousin who is a nephew who is a police officer in DC and he was unable to come on vacation with us last week because they had 14 homicides in one day.

What we're looking at, we're talking about a shooting.

They're talking about actual deaths and shootings in addition to that.

And so sometimes I'm saying like when we're getting treated, we're being treated like we're this major big city places that has all the problems of slums and all these other things and we're not.

and I think sometimes that's what gets projected on us and leads to a lot of overly, a lot of problems.

I mean, we're all having problems now.

A lot of it's related to COVID-19 and the absence of economic opportunities.

In this particular case of what all is going on nationally, locally and within states.

And so I would just hate to see it become over policed and over,

Yeah, I'm guarded.

I mean, we've gotten this far, so it's what we're saying the residents want.

I think you're right.

We don't have problems like some of the big cities, DC, Richmond, that's a local one.

We don't have those type of problems.

But the ones we do have,

I have a quick question just about the logistics of it.

So when they install the cameras, will they have the like

I don't know, the recordings of the cameras that's housed by their company or does CRHA have access to that or is it our property?

CRHA has access to it as our property.

It is cloud-based.

Along that, will we be obligated if asked to share the recordings?

I guess I have a quick question for Laura Goldblatt.

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to speak for all the residents because it's, you know, there's, it's not everyone goes to those meetings.

The residents who have been on the safety committee meetings since those began have been calling for cameras and they, there's only been maybe one or two meetings where there was anyone who was opposed to it.

So there really has been almost zero opposition.

The idea of cameras, and it's something that's come up almost every single meeting that people want, that people want cameras.

So that's something that I do think

Even when we came that the data on cameras is mixed.

It causes residents to feel safer, but it doesn't seem that the data isn't very strong that suggests it actually deters crime.

But residents felt very strongly about the feeling of security that cameras provided that they really, really, at least I should say the residents come into the safety committee meetings, felt strongly that they would make them feel more secure.

No, no.

Well, no.

Sometimes people had experienced things that they didn't like on properties.

But we have not heard from families who have been directly impacted by gun violence over the past year, or at least

If they were on the call, they did not identify themselves as such as a family that had experienced gun violence.

So oftentimes they lived at sites.

where there might have been drive-by shootings, but none of the residents on the call said, you know, I personally had some sort of a loss because of gun violence.

And did you all discuss the potential of using the cameras for lease enforcement, ordering?

So I wasn't at the Idaho work meeting for the last safety committee meeting, so I don't have an update on whether it was discussed.

That has not yet.

We've talked about trying to be very restrictive in what the cameras can be used for and to make sure that it's only at the current moment, it's only for legal infractions.

If you break the law, that's the only time that they could be used for violent incidents.

And so I have not been part of discussions about residents wanting the role of cameras to be expanded.

I don't know, I see that Miss Edwards is still on the call.

I don't know if these are conversations that have been happening within PHAR, but that has not yet been something that we've discussed with the safety committee meeting.

Do we want to use cameras more than simply when the law, when it's a matter of,

We approved the policy at the last meeting.

Mr.

Yes, the policy was approved at the last meeting.

And the comments about expansion of the cameras happened at the last safety committee meeting.

And it was something that was brought up by the residents after the shooting at Sixth Street.

And I think there was one at West Haven.

and some other activities where residents wanted to call and say, hey, this is happening with this unit.

Why can't you all do something?

And we really need the residents, that resident would need to go on record and let us know what that is so we can act on it currently because we don't have a way of going back to look at something.

to say it did happen and then going back and reinforcing and doing enforcement.

So it was something that the residents brought up at the last meeting.

Just before we vote, I think it's just really dangerous.

I know that the translation of my opposition to this has been that I don't care about the families in the community.

And so I'll keep taking that.

I think that I'm gonna vote no as I did last board meeting for this.

And it's for the very reason that was brought up tonight.

I think when we were already starting to talk about expanding this into other areas besides criminal behavior and safety concerns,

It's clear that any time and throughout history moments like this occur and it becomes that what could fit in this box and even some of the people who are asking about this today I'm sure will be negatively impacted by the camera policy in the future and until that moment they won't realize

I remember a conversation that I was having following the call the meeting that we had where I was accused of not caring if people kids got shot that people thought there was a list that they could give to the police on what they would police and that's not how that works and so whether you think it's a crime or should be a crime you don't get to decide that

And that's what I've been saying about the hard work that it takes to build healthy communities and a camera is not going to build that.

And so I hope everyone that is advocating for the camera policy is as equally as devoted to actually figuring out a way to create

healthy communities because if not we're going to be in the same cycles that we have been in in the past where this is going to impact people a lot and a lot of people are going to lose the only housing option they have in this area as a result of this no matter what we think are the intentions

And maybe we think if those individuals are somehow tied to something potentially happening or if the person happened to be loitering then becomes the person that entered their house at a point in time.

at some point that we can directly associate that person.

I've been not in recent history, but I know those are the type of things that used to happen a few decades ago.

And I just think that it's a very dangerous space to be in.

I voted the same on policies for the police department.

And I feel certain we know that people will do things until we create communities where they don't.

And I'm not talking about simply shootings here.

I've had to tell people that they

would be based on the conversation that they're telling me.

If someone looked into that, they would probably lose their housing while they were calling to complain on someone else.

I think it's just a really slippery slope.

And I think until people are impacted negatively, they won't even really realize those who have been advocating.

you know, what they've advocated for.

And I also think that there are things in the community, this happened, I think last July or this year, last year, last July, where, you know, there was conversations around whether there should be block parties or not.

And there were older members of the community who didn't think, and I think I shared this with you, Mr.

Sales, but if you live in a community, people are able to celebrate.

And I think the community discussion has to be around like, okay, so maybe you don't celebrate until three in the morning or four in the morning.

There's an end time.

There's a discussion with your community members about how they're impacted by it.

But simply telling someone like that you don't have like the right to do this here is I think part of the communication bridge that needs to be built so that people

are able to figure out how to have the same rights in their community, even if it's public housing or subsidized units that people have in any other housing across this country.

So you all know I'm struggling with it.

I'm sure there's a hashtag something.

as a result of my struggle with this, but I just think that it's a better way to do this.

I know that we haven't figured it out, but I think our energy has also diverted from figuring out to this

Am I out of order if I offer a comment?

No.

Okay, um, I just wanted to share, well, first of all, Mary Walker is always a hard act to follow.

So forgive me.

But I did want to speak to what I've heard from being out in the communities.

And it is they are a lot of the community members that I've spoken to are in favor of

the camera policies.

I think a lot of the residents that I've spoken to specifically are actually really excited for it.

And I'm thinking particularly about Sixth Street, everybody.

Oh, excuse me.

I think everybody on this call.

Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.

I think everybody on this call probably knows that the Sixth Street residents have sustained quite a bit of violence over the past month or so when really all summer and the residents there I was talking to them and they said that they feel like it would be really nice to have something tangible to look forward to next.

I do hear everything that the mayor said about you know as far as systemic oppression and

how the use of cameras could go left and I think that we've been trying our due diligence to let people know about that but I think the fact of the matter is there's something very real in front of them and they're hopeful that the cameras will be able to help mitigate that violence and that

The Housing Authority and the Powers That Be will learn from history and be able to use it in a responsible way.

Now we'll see how that goes, but I think that the residents really do want the cameras and we have interest in it, at least in 6th Street, South 1st Street and West Haven.

Okay, so

So I think these criticisms are really important.

And they're something that we have to keep talking about.

And I am committed to building healthy communities around other things.

Hopefully, who knows what's going to happen with the Delta variant and the ability to be together outdoors in person.

But I think there's a lot of energy and interest on the behalf of residents and PHAR

to be doing the work of community building.

I talked with one day Johnson last summer from far around community beautification initiatives that residents could be involved in.

And then we stalled because of COVID and we wanted to prioritize resident safety, but it would be great if that's something that we could begin to tackle to bring communities together as communities increasingly.

You get a second?

Commissioner Lisa Green?

Mr.

Sales, we got three to two.

Good evening commissioners again.

So tonight for the executive director report, I just wanted to let you all know about a few things that are gonna be happening in the near future for CRHA.

We are working with HUD.

We have a REAC inspection coming up for AMP four and AMP three.

AMP three is Sixth Street and South First Street.

AMP four is Riverside,

Madison, Mickey, and the Scattered Homes.

So we're preparing for those inspections.

They will happen next week, next Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

So the staff is going through and inspecting each of the units to address any violations that may find inside the units.

We also had a firm go to each unit and complete exterior work

or they're working to do that now on the site.

So Mickey was completed over the weekend.

It looks really nice.

We have, we're going to award that contract.

We attempted to go with maintenance staff completing the groundwork, but we quickly realized that was not working.

The equipment was in the shop probably longer than we actually had it all summer in spring.

and we didn't have enough manpower to do all of the sites in the hills.

So we have agreed to move forward through the end of this year with two contractors taking care of the grounds.

And next year, we are currently working on RFP that would then go out for next year, possibly to award a contract for the next five years to a grounds company.

So that should go out in January.

We're currently working with Delores Adams from Portsmouth to put that RFP together.

We did receive a notice from HUD for a West Haven REAC inspection.

So that's going to take place in September.

They are doing two weeks apart, which is kind of rare.

Normally they come and do all of them at one time.

But for some reason, that one fell off for two weeks.

That will get completed in September after the REAC inspections are completed for AMP three and four.

We will then turn our focus to West Haven and working on those.

And a lot of the units we have already done a decent amount of work because a lot of them have turned over recently within the last year or two.

So we've touched, we've already touched them recently where in some units they haven't turned over in a long time.

It may have been a long time since we've actually worked in a unit.

And based on when REACT fell on that site, it might've been a few years since the unit was scheduled, especially with COVID.

And that is really the only update I have.

The financials were submitted.

They were submitted pretty late.

I'm sorry about that.

We had some reports that came in late that we were trying to finalize that are needed for the financials.

Mary Lou has done a whole lot of work to try to get accurate financial information.

Sorry, give me a sec.

Sorry, Mary Lou has done a lot of work to get accurate financials and so sometimes it takes a little while because we're going back

in finding additional things and having to correct that and get a process in place.

But over time, the information will be easily accessible and we'll know that it's right and accurate.

My only question is, after finally months later completing my board training, I was wondering if Miss Hoffman can start presenting her report, and I don't know how the board feels about that, but that was, you know, that's a big takeaway from

The training is just really understanding the financials and maybe there's something that she would say to us or a question that we highlighted if we weren't just reading it.

And especially for people who may not understand, know at what point the questions, what questions should be asked.

So that was something that I had in my notes following, finally getting that done was,

And I will say, so when I got here, that's the industry standard is to have all the departments report out on each of whatever their report is.

That's the industry standard.

When I got here, the reasoning behind it was the COVID executive order only mandated COVID-related discussions

around the board.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Oberg, but that was the reason it was not, and it has not been on the agenda.

But Mr. Oberg, please correct me if I'm wrong on that.

I believe that was the guidance I was given.

Could we, in our work sessions, could she present?

I don't know if that's a legal workaround, but is that possible in things that are not board meetings?

I do, I agree.

It would be really good to be able to ask her questions and things like that, and to make sure that all of us understand the finances.

But is there any way that we could hear from her directly rather than simply receiving a report for the board meetings?

The problem is that we're in sort of uncharted territory.

It was the expectation that this would be over, honestly.

And so the government simply has not planned for this.

I hate to put it that way.

Is anybody gonna have a problem with you doing it?

I wouldn't think so.

But if someone did, technically, you'd be in violation of the Public Open Meetings Act.

I mean, that's Yeah.

but can we get presentations around like say shortfalls like in terms we get them I guess to some extent over other areas about why CRHA has problems with HUD, falling below that 70% or whatever.

We need to be looking at those things and seeing what exactly CRHA is doing to bring those up to

where they need to be.

I think my question is, could the work around be the finance committee?

It's not a board training, it's an update on the financial report given by the person.

So I move that finance is an essential function of the CRHA and we need to have the experts in the organization present to the board about how finances look in order to continue to function.

Commissioner Lisa Green?

Yeah, Mary Lou, you want to give an update?

Sure.

I did include some notes, you know, it was preliminary, like John said, we have been trying to get the financials current.

There's a lot of transactions that in the past have lagged to get into the financials.

So I would contend that any period that you had in the last fiscal year,

was extremely far from accurate.

I mean, I think when they were closing out last year, there were, I think, four months of health insurance to the tune of about $15,000 a month that was unrecorded in the financials.

The big stuff was recorded.

So there's a lot of catching up on that.

And right now I can say we're really close.

I know of just a couple of things that hopefully will get worked out in the next month or so.

I wasn't very involved in the budget.

So I think when you compare it to budget, some things are in different line items, but you're better off looking at the expenses and revenue in total.

So related to this financial period, we did talk about the shortfall funds, which John can kind of probably speak to the availability of that on any type of continuing or rotating or

on a periodic basis.

But our financials look really good this year because right now we have, I think it was around $270,000 of additional revenue that wasn't budgeted.

It's not related to our operations.

It's primarily in public housing.

So that's gonna fall to the bottom line.

And the good news is it's gonna get a little bit better because we have

a little bit over $200,000 of PPP money that's still available.

I will show you in the next financial statement where that gets transferred out.

It's better for the calculations for HUD if we actually pull the expenses out of the cost centers versus adding the revenue to it.

So we followed that advice from the FETROs and we will do that, but in the past,

The expense just came out.

So if you compared it year to year, you'd be like, wow, we had really low salaries this year.

So we'll highlight that next month or as we move that over.

And I'm trying to think what some of the other issues are on the HCV side.

I mean, I think it's already kind of been spoken to that we're,

When you look at the budget, we're doing way better than budget, but it's because we haven't issued the HAP payments and we don't have the revenue to do that.

So I just have a quick question about the PPE money, about anything COVID related.

What's the deadline?

I'm wondering, is this a kind of spend it immediately or lose it situation?

What do we need to be doing to make sure that we can use those funds for the things that we need, especially because we're going to be seeing the effects of COVID for long after all of this is over?

and it would be great to have a sense of how long we're going to have access to draw on those funds.

No, it's really not.

When you were, we were awarded the money for this, the second round, you had, I believe it's 24 weeks

from the time you started using it.

And we had to use it in the last fiscal year for the last payroll of the year to help the numbers last year.

So kind of that 24 week period, the clock started ticking at the end of March.

So we have through September, we're gonna go back and take a look and pull out all the cost centers where we can't really subsidize with any money from HUD.

Like in the public housing area, HUD has provided the shortfall funds to cover wages.

The other big thing that PPP is traditionally used for is utilities.

and again, that's not something that we can do here.

So it's mainly the redevelopment, some HCV and the central office cost center that we'll be shifting all those salaries out of.

In terms of the forgiveness of it, I had been checking the website throughout the summer and I think it was just within about the last month or so that you actually even can apply for forgiveness.

We do expect it to be forgiven.

All loans under $150,000 are immediately forgiven.

Ours was $270,000.

It's very small compared to what a lot of organizations got.

So as soon as we account for the spending, I had three big tasks.

One was to get the financials completed.

The other one

was to submit the shortfall draws that we could, which were caught up now.

They really needed shortfall money withdrawn within the month of July.

And we pulled out $200,000.

About $100,000 was for maintenance salaries and public housing.

And the other $100,000 was insurance.

We basically prepaid our insurance for the year using the shortfall funds.

So it's a little bit, as we see what the volume is that we can apply to that money that's remaining, then we'll see how else we might need to apply it.

We're trying to avoid using it for the public housing cost centers, just because we know we can get other money to cover that.

In central office, we can't.

Yeah, so two years ago when HUD did its last financial look at the housing authority, they were in a whole

I believe it was $40,000 the year.

So HUD looked at what you had or how far in the hole you were and what it would take to get you to their overall goal of getting to not only even but to have two months worth of reserve in your bank account.

So it looked at that and projected how much income you would bring in to determine how much you should get awarded.

So last year we were awarded $540,000.

So we looked at what we needed in order to get the housing authority up to par.

So we had a large number of vacancies.

in public housing units.

So we knew we had an issue with getting units filled and occupied.

We knew we had an issue with taking care of the property because we only had about four maintenance workers and some section three workers that were really helping with the grounds.

They weren't actually doing work in the units.

So we began looking at planning for hiring staff.

So we hired staff, we looked at the dollars and

We looked at the eligibility and what criteria was needed.

So we had to connect it to a HUD audit where it found a deficiency.

So we were easily able to do that based upon the physical scoring of the properties, plus a large number of vacancies.

And the vacancies were due to not have enough staff to turn to units to get them occupiable.

So we hired additional staff.

We're also looking to hire more staff in public housing for the property management side.

Right now, we only have two property managers.

One's actually doing public housing and one's actually doing lot tech units.

She's getting ready to take all the lot tech property.

So every property goes into lot tech.

She'll manage shows until we can get additional staff for her.

and the public housing property manager.

So it's building the capacity of the housing authority so you can get units filled but also building the capacity to turn those units.

So we've been able to do that.

We're down to 20, I believe 24 total units.

We were well over 70 this time last year.

So we've done a lot of work to get those units filled.

And not only are the units getting turned faster but the quality of the work is

Nine times better than what it was when I got here.

The staff is turning faster.

We're averaging about two weeks.

This time last year, we were adding more units faster than we were taking care of the units we already had.

So we were averaging about four a month.

We were turning less than one.

I'll just add one thing too, just to finish up the talk on the PPP money.

I actually hadn't looked at it prior.

We have a total of about $20,000 of salaries per pay period that goes to the central office, the redevelopment program and the city comparable HCV type program, the CSRAP.

While we get the money from the city to cover the rental payments, we don't get admin money to cover that.

So that's another eligible cost center.

We get admin, it's just not federally funded.

The two firms for the grounds, they were doing non-contract.

So it was task order based.

If we needed a project done, we would get a quote from them as long as we would get several quotes.

And as long as they were the lowest bidder, then we would award that job.

But now there will be a contract based.

It wasn't just hiring the additional staff.

Our big problem was our equipment.

We were buying, last year after I got here, I bought a $2,000 lawnmower and within a week the lawnmower was in shop with over

I think it was five or $600 repair bill.

And it was not in warranty because one of the maintenance staff removed something off the lawn mower before taking it into the shop, so avoided the warranty.

And I can give you probably 20 or 30 of those this year alone from riding mowers, running over something, bending blades, bending the deck,

Yeah, just constant issues.

I've been receiving some of those.

Yes, that's been one of our largest issues now.

Anyone else?

I have one question about the HAP payment shortfalls.

The HAP payment shortfall.

So last year, right around March is when COVID, really COVID hit and a lot of

A lot of our clients saw a reduction in income.

So the housing authority had to make increased rental payments for those families.

So HUD came back and said, if your per unit costs went up by X dollar amount or X percentage, then we will award additional shortfall funding so you can continue leasing up additional vouchers.

No, it's not an owe.

They give us some money, we lease up the vouchers.

If they gave us more money, they would catch it at the end and we'll still have it in the bank account.

So we have a separate way we track the actual payments and admin.

And admin, we only receive that based upon

the number of vouchers leased up at the beginning of the month.

Gotcha.

Are we ready to move on to redevelopment?

Jeff Myers is actually gonna be presenting this.

Oh, I'm sorry, Jeff Myers.

Well, that's a surprise.

I thought I was just here to add comment, but I'm happy to talk about where we're at a little bit.

So just starting with Crescent Halls, we know that we're kind of at a critical juncture in terms of revising our redevelopment plan for

or our construction plan for Crescent Halls ever since the water leak at the end of June.

And everyone has been working pretty diligently to kind of revise our approach in terms of the construction itself, going from a floor by floor

approach of rehabbing starting from the top floor to a tower by tower, meaning really side by side.

So 50% east wing and west wing we're talking about.

At least half the units have been vacated, unfortunately.

So that

gives the contractor an opportunity to work on many more units at a time than they had been and that had been scheduled.

but of course the extent of the work that we're gonna do is increased because we understand that we need to be replacing piping in the building which is something that we didn't know before and that also has allowed us to uncover other issues behind walls that we didn't know before as well and so we're adding that to our scope of work which can only be a good thing for residents and for the housing authority down the road

It means we'll have a building that truly could stand up to the next couple of decades, more than that hopefully.

And we were fortunate to be able to raise additional capital through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program and also from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development.

We're estimating it to be about an additional $1.4 million in financing for all of these change orders

At the same time, things seem to be progressing pretty well on South First Phase One and we're anticipating that we'll actually complete that project on time and I'll knock on wood but most likely on budget and hope to also be able to start leasing up in the spring and summer

of 2022, which will allow residents from south first phase, I'm sorry, from the existing south first public housing development to begin to relocate to some of those new units and allows to begin the work over in south first phase two.

And with regard to that project, we're

Continuing down the pre-development path with that, we still have some more capital to raise to fill out our financing.

But at this point, we don't actually have a fixed contract in place.

So what we're doing right now is pursuing the path of finalizing our plans and specifications.

And then we'll go into a bid process to select a contractor.

and at that point we'll negotiate a final contract.

We'll be able to fine tune a lot of our financing on it and then hopefully begin construction in the late spring and early summer of 2022.

And then at the same time, we're hoping to get started on an application for financing for Sixth Street.

And I think people have reported already that meetings have been taking place with residents.

There've been a lot of positive feedback from residents in terms of how we should be designing the first building

that gets constructed at Sixth Street.

We're a ways away from having something final, but we intend to apply for the initial financing in the spring of 2022 and take advantage of the fact that

Virginia Housing has targeted redevelopment of public housing as one of its top priorities.

And I think we've been the recipient of a lot of their generosity over the last couple of years.

And I think we are doing ourselves well to continue to pursue that financing while it's available.

And I

At this point, we're waiting for the contractor to get back to us.

They're

consulting with subcontractors and once they get back to us we'll have, we just finished the revisions to the plans to incorporate the additional, the change in the

in the approach to the rehab and also the additional costs or the additional scope of work that we're hoping to accomplish in the building.

Though the contractor has to absorb that, they have to discuss it with their subcontractors, they have to negotiate that out, and then they're gonna come back to us with a proposed change order that would include changes in the schedule.

and we're anticipating that it's gonna be a, you know, that it's gonna take less time.

Originally it was 23 months and negotiated down to 19.

We're hoping that we can get it down considerably below that.

And so that then we'd be able to provide residents with a schedule as to when they could move back into finished units.

Any more questions?

Yep.

Thank you so much, Jeff.

It's been tremendous to have Jeff as part of our team.

He's helped us normalize a lot of new things to all of us.

As we've been tackling everything, relocation has been a big part of the project, and I just

I wanted to give a shout out to our housing team with Melinda, Sharika and Perpetu.

They have been short a relocation coordinator.

We're still working on filling that position but the three of them have been tackling it on top of all their other duties and we've been really grateful for that.

I'm gonna go ahead and share real quick the

The new relocation schedule is in effect.

And the next round of meetings are September 2nd.

We have South First Street phase one and two, the brand new Sixth Street meeting, and then the redevelopment committee.

And then on the 16th, we'll have our vision keepers meeting and our very first West Haven planning meeting.

And also the redevelopment admin committee meets on that day.

If anyone is ever unsure of these times, please let me know.

I'm more than happy to share the schedule again.

I encourage everyone who's able to to drive by South First Street.

There is, they got all their lumber as I had mentioned last week and vertical building has started.

It's really changed the landscape there and you can start to get a picture of what it's gonna look like.

They just got started on that about a week ago.

We also, as we said, as Jeff mentioned, we've been having Sunday meetings at Sixth Street with residents.

We have gradually had a larger and larger turnout.

I counted at this last meeting, we had nine households there, head of households, and about seven kids, which was really great.

And we're starting to have conversations with them about ways that we can speed up work at West Haven by possibly considering relocation for phase one of West Haven as we're working on Sixth Street.

And we had our first meeting with residents at Sixth Street about that.

And we're hoping to set up a meeting soon with some West Haven residents to start getting those conversations going as well.

I'll try to keep it short, but there's a lot going on right now and I really encourage everyone who's able to attend our Redevelopment Committee meetings.

Okay, thank you.

If there are no questions, then we are...

This says Redevelopment Committee proposed changes.

No, we don't have any proposed changes.

Okay.

I think Alex Ikefuna from the city has already mentioned that he cannot be a voting member on the Redevelopment Committee.

Okay.

And if anybody in attendance would like to speak with the commission, please click your raise hand icon.

Dr. Henry, I see no hands.

Nobody wants to leave?

Motion to adjourn?

I second.

Or I motion.

This has been great, but I would like to leave.

So we've got a motion and a second.

Commissioner Lisa Green?

Commissioner Maddy Green?

Yes.

Mr. Jackson?

Yes.

Good night.