Charlottesville Redevelopment & Housing Authority   4/25/2022

So I'm guessing we have enough folks to get started.

And so I'm going to read the code and then I guess we call the roll, right?

I guess it goes in that direction.

Virginia code 2.2-3708.2A

3 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

Commissioner Green.

Here.

Commissioner Goldblatt.

Present.

Commissioner Wiggs.

Here.

I'd like to have a moment of silence.

As for announcements, the next board work session will be May 12th at 5 p.m.

The next regular board meeting will be Monday.

Well, that's the one for today.

I'll get back to you on our next one.

It's in May sometime.

The safety meeting,

I am working on it and I will hopefully have an update soon.

Okay.

Redevelopment meeting is every other Thursday of the month.

Well, it's two different meetings.

OK, got it.

OK, so that consists of two, OK?

OK. And OK, so every other Thursday is those two.

And then so the next meeting is scheduled for May 5 is a regular meeting, then the admin meeting is May 19.

Thank you.

Then Resident Services Committee is every second Tuesday of the month at 1 p.m. And so any other announcements or meetings that I might not have covered?

I would,

Yes, we have one new commissioner.

She has not officially been sworn in yet.

We've had an issue getting her connected with the clerk to get sworn in.

Okay.

Well, then that's my announcement is that at our next board meeting, we're going to go ahead and do the training.

with who we have and I guess by then we might have to take Miss Sandridge over to the courthouse and have her do a sit-in until they swear in.

Okay.

That suits me just fine.

Okay.

All the rest of us, we went so quick.

I know, I've called the messages, I've had Kathleen call, I've had Mr.

Public comments?

I think I may be the host, I don't know.

Okay.

Good evening.

Can y'all hear me?

Yes.

Lovely.

Good evening, CRAHA Board of Commissioners and to the many other stakeholders present.

My name is Shelby Marie Edwards.

I use she, her, and hers, and I'm the Executive Director of the Charlottesville Public Housing Association of Residents, also known as PHAR.

We are the duly recognized and federally mandated Resident Council and Resident Advisory Board.

I just wanted to give a brief congratulations.

I know the City of Charlottesville reimbursed CRHA in the amount of about 20K.

I know that y'all will use it to make sure that the residents are being taken care of.

I look forward to seeing how you all use that funding.

Secondly, in relation to the bus stop, I also would like to take this time to applaud

CRHA leadership, particularly John Sales for the advocacy done at the city council meeting last Monday.

PHAR stands wholeheartedly in agreement with CRHA and our need to maintain the bus stop in front of Crescent Halls.

I also would like to publicly share that Sam Sanders from the city manager's office did reach out to PHAR.

and has confirmed that the moving of the bus stop has been paused for the time being and for the conversation will happen before a final decision is made.

Unless there are any questions from the board of commissioners, I will be keeping my comments very brief tonight.

As always, it is a pleasure for PHAR to amplify the voices of low-income residents in the city of Charlottesville.

I appreciate the audience and CRHA board of commissioners.

I'm happy to take questions or comments if anything.

Thank you so much.

So I'm just wondering, the returned money, was that returned pilot payment?

Okay, great.

I do, but I will share that I'm biased and that my board chair is looking at me right now.

But if it were up to me, the funding, I know PHAR could certainly use it to cover direct costs as it relates to Back to Basics, which we all know is a program where PHAR organizers visit each site and go over pertinent information, such as the ACOP, leasing expectations,

expectations and field maintenance requests.

We could also use the funding to help us expand our work within the project management team.

I'm not going to preach to the choir here, but I think we all know that there's a lot of work that can be done between the city of Charlottesville and the residents and PHAR and CRHA, but also the city of Charlottesville.

And for those of y'all who are not familiar, PMT is a unified group where city officials, public housing residents, PHAR and CRHA come together and tackle

issues that affect residents' everyday lives.

To be clear, I know that y'all got about 20K, but we wouldn't ask for anything more than half of that.

Sorry to cut you off, Mr.

No, I just wanted to add that we have not received the money yet.

the city of the money and then they will grant it back to us, I believe is how they agreed to do it.

So they haven't received anything yet because we haven't paid it yet.

So this is future money, not money that we have right now.

Updates from commissioners.

Anyone have anything we heard from Laura, anything?

But not much that hasn't been discussed.

There's that update about the bus stop.

We'll definitely try to keep everyone informed as those conversations evolve to hopefully get to a good final resolution.

Send an email to some folks today.

I think there are some important midterm and longer term conversations to be having about CDBG.

Settling the question of CRHA as a contractual agency with the city which is something that council has discussed and sort of had an informal agreement on but we haven't fully fleshed everything out by any means yet as well as some really important longer term conversations that we should probably start sooner rather than later about how to incorporate CRHA and PHAR's need for that matter into next year's budget and also how to incorporate the future phases of redevelopment of public housing into our budget over the next several years

That's a very long-term ongoing conversation.

But for example, even just West Haven or the parallel track plan is not really incorporated into the city's budget in future years yet.

And I think that's something we absolutely have to be proactive about changing.

No big updates, but I've been at the resident services meetings and they're tracking forward with getting the resident satisfaction survey out this summer.

And that sounds really exciting and will be great to hear from more residents, their experiences.

Commissioner Wicks.

Commissioner Sandridge, I know you're new, but I know you've been doing some things, but we haven't had the chance to put you on any committees yet.

And I think we'll do that at our next working meeting.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Yes, and good evening, Commissioner.

I'll be introducing this item.

And so we do have one agenda item presentation from some UVA students about the CDBG process.

And so this conversation started, I wanna say probably about six, eight months ago,

with Joy talking to David from UVA about what opportunities are available for CDBG funded projects that the city is just not tapping into because we have a history of using the money for sidewalks and other public service items where capital funds could be used for those items.

And so,

Joy really tasked the students to figure out what other localities are doing with CDBG funds and how they're including the residents and the community members in that participation and determining what happens with those funds and so

I'm just trying to tee it up a little bit without giving too much information, but they look at other localities process and look at the city's process and then also what communities are included as priority neighborhoods and how those communities change over time.

and how the individuals that serve on those community panels may not actually be low-income residents, but they live in that community that's a low-income community.

And so really the voices of the residents that you want to hear aren't really the ones that you're hearing when you have priority neighborhoods still.

Just because, and if you look at Ridge Street,

I think there was one low-income family on the entire task force, but you're talking about $500,000 worth of money for a low-income community, but you only have one actual low-income individual on that committee.

And so those are things that they're looking into and trying to figure out solutions around it.

And so I'm gonna pass it on over to UVA.

And I think David may,

I'll be the individual I'm passing it over to for the students to go ahead and present their presentation but they'll also take questions at the end and I'll also talk about what the city is currently proposing to do with the CDBG participation plan and so it was perfect timing for when UVA finished their work and when the city presented or city staff presented

A modification to that plan.

I mean, it was literally within weeks of when we got a finished document and the city put their proposal in front of the community.

And so I do think this is a good opportunity to not only compare what other localities are doing, but what the city's trying to move towards.

And if it's something that's going to increase the amount of voices heard from actual low-income residents.

and I'll be very quick because the students have done all of the work with very good guidance from Joy Johnson, Mr.

Sales, Shelby Edwards and some other folks as well.

The only thing I would say is that the students have also done a good job of recruiting some younger students so that if there is follow-up or if there are suggestions to be made, a team is forming that can pick this up late summer into the fall.

Yeah, so thank you guys for letting us come present today.

As Mr.

Sales was saying, Joy's brought it to our attention, her concerns with the Community Development Block Grant Program and the need to reallocate these funds.

And we've also spoke with other people like Shelby and Mr.

Sales.

We've also added meaningful insights to our work.

And so, as they were saying, we're all students at the University of Virginia, and we'll just take a few minutes to introduce yourselves.

So my name's Brynn.

Hi, my name's Ned Flanagan.

I use he, him pronouns.

Hi, my name is Sophie Wagner.

Can y'all hear me OK?

OK, perfect.

Sorry, last time I had a mic issue.

I'm a fourth year at UVA.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Laura.

Hi, everyone.

My name is Grace.

Yes, screen one second.

Thank you.

Okay, how is that looking for everyone?

Good?

Okay, so the agenda for today, we will first explain the community development block grants, what they are, who they're for, and what they're supposed to be used for.

And then next, we will apply it to the specific context of Charlottesville.

and explore how income qualifications, funding allocations, funded and proposed projects and the Charlottesville CDBG task force.

And then lastly, we will review possible recommendations which include community workshops as well as our next steps.

The Community Development Block Grant Program was authorized by Title I of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974.

This program aims to provide communities with funding to address a wide range of critical and unmet community development needs with strategic and targeted investments.

And these funds are to be used for developing viable urban communities by providing decent housing, a suitable living environment and economic opportunities for low-income neighborhoods.

The CBBG program emphasizes residents' participation and decision-making to empower individuals and address their specific needs.

And as Joy likes to say, this is poor people's money.

And that means that at least 70% of CBBG funds must benefit low or moderate income individuals.

To qualify for these funds, activity must benefit all residents in a neighborhood where at least 51% of them earn low or moderate income.

and the service area must be primarily residential and the activity must meet the identifying needs of the residents.

CDBG funds can be used for activities related to redevelopment housing, public services and facilities and economic development.

In Charlottesville, approximately $45,000 is given to the housing redevelopment as well as economic development.

and $150,000 is typically allocated to public services each year.

So for housing and redevelopment, the funds can be used to redevelop public works or for code enforcement.

And then between 33 and 36% of funds have been used for housing related activities.

Additionally, a maximum of 15% of the total allocation can be used towards public services.

And these include activities related to crime prevention, childcare, drug abuse, education, and welfare.

Funds can also build or reconstruct public facilities.

And lastly, economic support can also be funded to create or retain jobs for lower income people and businesses.

And looking at the Charlottesville context specifically, the CDBG target neighborhoods include Belmont, Fifeville, 10th and Page, Ridge Street, and Rose Hill.

Over the past decade, the resident composition of each of these neighborhoods has shifted considerably.

and the CDBG map shown on the right, which was pulled from the city website, outlines the percentage of low and moderate income persons in each neighborhood.

But as Sophie is going to show shortly, the percentage of low and moderate income residents in each of these neighborhoods is no longer really accurately reflected by this map that's shown here.

Here we provide the income guidelines for programs in Charlottesville, which is effective June 1st, 2021.

And according to these guidelines, using a 40 hour work week, someone in the low income category makes roughly $25 per hour.

Someone in the very low income category is making roughly $16 per hour.

And someone in the extremely low income category is making roughly nine and a half dollars per hour.

But with an inflated median income of almost $94,000, many Charlottesville residents actually fall well below even this lowest income threshold.

Specifically, the average income per public housing household is $12,811.

According to CRHA, approximately 145 or 53% of households make $10,000 per year or less, and approximately 227 or 83% of households make $20,000 per year or less.

As these figures show, the 30% extremely low income category is actually quite high compared to where many public housing residents actually stand.

And as we consider income limits and CDBG's focus on benefiting low income residents, it's essential to frame and orient what exactly qualifications for low income could and should look like in the Charlottesville context.

Yeah, so as Ned mentioned earlier, the map that we saw from the city government is really outdated.

It's from like 2006.

And we thought it might not reflect current income distribution in Charlottesville.

So here we have a map with like the most recent data available to try to get a better sense of what Charlottesville neighborhoods look like now.

So on this map, we have the median household income of each block group in Charlottesville.

And a block group is just a smaller geographical unit than a neighborhood or a census tract.

So with this,

We can really see differences between neighborhoods and also within a single neighborhood.

Each of the bubbles on the map indicate the median household income for that block group and the shading of each block group just corresponds to that.

So the block groups with the lowest median income are in the darker purple color and those with the higher median incomes are in a lighter color.

You can see that the neighborhoods of Charlottesville are all named on the map and the ones with the red outlines are the ones that the city has designated as CDBG target neighborhoods.

And looking at the map, we can see that there are some low income areas that are not covered within the target neighborhood designation.

For example, parts of Grady Avenue are pretty low income, but those are within the Venable neighborhood, which isn't covered by CDBG eligibility.

I also need to note that these median household income statistics aren't perfect, and I've been trying to work around this.

Like, especially looking at the smaller geographical unit, the census won't provide a value if there's not enough people to sample.

And also with median household income as a measure specifically, there are issues with it being skewed by the presence of UVA students.

Students have

Low personal incomes usually, but will often receive financial support from their parents, but that isn't taken into account for household income.

So in areas where a lot of students live, like JPA, Venable, along like Wortland Street, which is included in kind of in 10th and Page, their lack of personal income really blazed down the median.

So it's probably lower than reality.

So I'm still playing around with different variables, like looking at rent versus owned houses to understand how neighborhoods have changed.

But as a more general note, the presence of student housing is something that we'd want to take into consideration when we think about what areas are eligible for CDBG money.

So on the next slide, this is just the same app as before, but it's zoomed into the current target neighborhoods.

And if you look at Belmont, we can see a lot of variation of income within the neighborhood.

As I'm sure you're all aware, it's because of recent gentrification in the last few years.

But if you look at that northern part of Belmont has an extremely high median income.

So we might ask if that entire neighborhood should still be eligible for CDBG or just the parts that still have a high presence of low income people.

And on the next slide, we have another map that shows a count of how many families have incomes under $30,000 in each block group.

So since median household income presents a more general overview, it might not capture where people with the lowest incomes are and who the money should really be reaching.

Again, this is a count of families with incomes under $30,000, which, as Ned said earlier, $30,000 is considered to be

in the extremely low income group by Charlottesville's calculations, but that's still really high compared to the average income of those in public housing.

Nonetheless showing the distribution of those qualifying as extremely low income can give us an idea about what areas of Charlottesville CDBG money should be focused on.

So on this map, each of the purple dots represents two families with incomes less than $30,000.

It's not representative addresses at all.

It's just a count.

Each dot represents two families.

And then you have the target neighborhoods again outlined in red.

So we can see that for the most part, these dots are clustered within the priority neighborhoods, but there's also a decent amount outside of those boundaries, which suggests some gaps in terms of who might need CDBG funding and who's eligible to receive it based on the neighborhood designations.

And then again, within the target neighborhoods, there's variation.

If we look at Belmont, the majority of the neighborhood doesn't contain any families with incomes less than $30,000.

But there are still areas within the neighborhood where really low income families live and should obviously be able to receive CDBG money.

So the previous maps have given us an overview of what Charlottesville looks like right now in terms of income and might

Help us reconsider how we define target neighborhoods in the future.

This map shows the change in median household income from 2014 to 2019 to kind of give us a sense of how the neighborhoods have changed in the last five years, roughly, and might continue to change over time.

So with this, we see Belmont has obviously had a huge increase in income over this time period.

We see that

like Belmont on a whole is on this like upward trajectory.

And that parts of Belmont have had incomes or have incomes that are much higher than other parts of it.

And have virtually no people that could qualify as extremely low income.

So we might ask if the entire neighborhood should still be considered as eligible for CDBG dollars.

And also,

JPA by this representation actually does show a decrease in income, which we kind of have to attribute to more students living there and just like imperfections in the variable.

But if we're thinking about where CDBG money should be going, JPA might not be one of those areas, even though it is technically on the lower side of income by this measure.

But overall, we just want to consider

Sorry, one sec.

These graphics depict the allocation for CDBG funding in the fiscal year 2021 comparing the national level to Charlottesville.

So nationally, public improvements are given the majority of funds with housing projects coming in second.

And since funding allocation depends heavily on context, it will likely vary to some degree in every community.

But in Charlottesville, the priority neighborhood, which is currently Ridge Street, along with administration and planning have acquired the majority of funds.

And then the rest of the allocations are fairly similar between economic development, housing and public service activities.

On this slide, we highlight the CDBG projects that were funded in fiscal year 2019-2020 and the proposed projects for 2021-22.

And the majority of projects focus on homeowner rehabilitations, literacy instruction, and business development.

That said, some projects for 2021-22 include streetscape and neighborhood improvements, the ones that are more in gray than in black.

and although vital, streetscape and public safety improvements could potentially be funded via non-CDBG funding channels and therefore might merit less prioritization than projects directly oriented toward low-income residents.

Further, an important aspect to monitoring for CDBG funded activities is ensuring that allocated funding actually results in the completion of proposed projects benefiting target residents.

And there could be improved mechanisms for monitoring project progress, measuring progress toward completing annual goals and publicizing project reporting.

And the city already reports on CDBG funded activities through consolidated annual performance evaluation reports or KPERS,

So here we've described what CDBG activities can be completed or carried out and it is fairly broad.

and we've also described what CDBG money has been used for in Charlottesville recently.

And we're questioning kind of how closely these ways of spending money aligned with what low income residents think of as a priority or need right now.

So we've spoken to Joy and Mr.

Sales and kind of gotten a sense of what activities might be more important for the city to use funds for and created this little visceral representation of that.

So the objective of CDBG is at the center that low income people should remain in dignified housing.

And surrounding that we have activities that we think better aligned with the school that aren't necessarily being prioritized by the CDBG task force and funding allocation process.

So those are in the bright yellow bubbles which include home repairs, financial counseling, assistance to community owned businesses, job training and matching programs,

and an important one that we thought the city really needed to focus on is hiring community residents to carry out CDBG products, projects, I'm sorry.

This is just another way to keep funds within the community instead of hiring from outside.

The ones in gray on the outside are activities that CDBG can technically be used for but we wanna point out that these are things that can be funded with the general municipal budget

like sidewalks, parks, and public work projects are definitely important to like having a nice neighborhood to live in, but they can be funded with other sources that don't take away from the CDBG budget.

So we're now going to shift to the CDBG task force and our recommended future steps.

So the CDBG task force oversees and reviews the applications of NGOs that apply for CDBG funds.

However, we find that the process works in a sort of backwards fashion because in reviewing these applications, the task force does not consider what allocations must be met or actually know the express needs of the community, especially those of low income residents.

because even the task force itself does not include many low income residents.

And although the member composition of the task force is supposed to be made up of different social groups to represent different social needs, a central group of the community that is low income residents are not present in the decision making because they are not

on the task force.

And as we've seen before the term low income does not accurately represent who is low income.

And as a result, the interests of low income individuals are not being conveyed through the task force or even represented on the task force.

And this misrepresentation of low income individuals is also seen

in the Ridge Street Priority Task Force.

The lack of knowledge of what low income residents need and also an unawareness of what fund allocations must be met is demonstrated by the authorization of sidewalk repair, as we've noted before, which could have been done using other funds, specifically municipal funds.

So we find that a clear concern with the task force is that there's no infrastructure setup that connects residents to the task force.

So the issue at hand is structural and in order to avoid the misrepresentation of low income citizens, we recommend fostering a connection between the representatives that are on the CVG task force and the represented mainly low income citizens.

Yeah.

So as Laura said, we've come across issues in both the structure of how CDBG money is allocated and also the representation on the task force itself, which has created, you know, kind of a distance between resident needs and what decisions are being made.

Given this, we asked how the process could change to be more responsive to the needs of low income residents.

And we looked to other cities to see how they were raising the money.

And a lot of residents are facing the same issues and representation and the money not going where they wanted it to.

But we found some really interesting cases of how residents have changed how the funds were being distributed.

And one of these is in Oakland, California, where residents got more say in the process by kind of flipping it on its head.

And I know Oakland differs a lot from Charlottesville, but this is just a very well-documented case.

Models like this have happened in other cities and towns of all different sizes and budgets.

So in Oakland, residents gathered together in community workshops where they discuss their present needs and priorities.

They learned about TDBG, what it could be used for, and design projects amongst themselves based on what they thought was important.

Residents talked to city officials, development professionals, and volunteer budgeters who helped them

work out the feasibility of the projects they had in mind and what kind of money they would require.

Then they voted on projects they had designed and the ones that won were sent to the city to be implemented.

So on the right side of the slide are some of the projects that they decided were important.

So essentially Oakland flipped the structure around.

Residents made the decisions and sent them to council or city council, sorry.

as opposed to projects being decided by the task force without necessarily consulting the residents, who the money is supposed to benefit.

And again, I mentioned this case in Oakland because it is well-documented, but it's happened in other cities, like small cities like Kingston, New York, which is population of 23,000, budget 45,000.

in Kentucky, a small jurisdiction outside of Atlanta, in high schools even.

And we're thinking something like this could be really beneficial in Charlottesville, especially if PhAR were to have a role in carrying out these workshops.

It could be a good way to have residents involved in the process and make sure that the city government is responsive to residents' needs.

There also have been, aside from community workshops, there have been some interesting partnerships between local resident-led organizations and the city government that have changed the way funds have been altered, specifically with use of Section 108 funds.

It's been really interesting to look at cases in like South Carolina, in Detroit, North Carolina, and ways that residents have gotten involved

Specifically resident organizations have gotten involved in order to carry out a larger project.

Fair and secure budgeting gives people real power over real money to make the decisions that affect their lives.

This is different because you're actually voting for where the money is going to be spent instead of allowing them to decide where to spend the money.

Be afraid of the big words, participatory budgeting.

So how does it work?

First, people brainstorm ideas.

We had to think big.

What are the real needs in the community if you only have a certain amount of money?

What is it that you can do that's gonna benefit as many people as possible?

I'm dreaming of new benches, modern benches.

So we're validating every voice in our community and saying, you know what, whatever your position is, you live in our community, you have a right to decide.

And that me as a representative and government should respond and should listen to that voice.

Anybody can vote in this process.

Most people, they don't even know that.

Some people come out here and vote today.

Some of them are really surprised.

They say, really?

Projects with the most votes get funded.

The Red Hook Library Community Garden, right?

The projects are then implemented over the next few years.

The following year, the process starts again.

People brainstorm new ideas, turn them into new projects, vote on them, and fund more improvements for their community.

PB becomes part of the budget process.

I think this is like the greatest wage of democracy coming into the United States.

From there it spread all over Latin America to over 1,500 cities around the world.

In Toronto, public housing tenants have decided how to spend millions of dollars in improvements to their buildings.

City council members in Chicago, New York, and other cities have engaged thousands of residents in allocating discretionary funds.

Higher cities have launched PV, such as in Vallejo, California, for funds from a sales tax and in Boston for youth funds.

This was a great opportunity for you to be a part of government and better the city you live in.

Creating a more educated platform of voters overall.

After researching these workshops in Oakland and consulting CRHA, PHAR, and other individuals with extensive knowledge on this topic, it seems that incorporating community workshops and participatory budgeting will be one of the best ways to reflect the interests of low-income residents.

By allowing citizens to engage directly with the CDBG program, it'll help increase their understanding of these activities and what these funds are for.

Consulting the residents directly will help to ensure that their perspectives and needs are being represented properly and give them a voice to decide what projects are funded.

CRHA and PHAR can fund these workshops using the planning and administration money.

And reaching out to these community members can happen through churches, neighborhood associations, and media outlets like Facebook Live events.

So some next steps.

Next steps include community engagement as talked about in the prior slide.

Community workshops and action guides for residents will help educate the community on what these funds are for.

And again, as stated previously, money for these community engagement efforts can come from CRHA and PHAR administrative funding.

Restructuring the Task Force, also talked about before, will allow residents to be involved directly in the use of these grants and will help to ensure that their needs are being represented properly and conveyed to the city in an effective manner.

It'll also be important to look back through what neighborhoods are considered priority and re-examine and define these neighborhoods as numbers and incomes may have fluctuated over time.

It is imperative that these steps are taken to ensure that

The funds are going towards dignified housing for lowest income residents rather than towards other projects that could be funded with non-CDBG money.

And with that, thank you all for your time.

We would appreciate any feedback you all have and we also may have some questions as well.

Dr. Henry, would you like to call on commissioners?

Yeah, I don't think Dr. Henry's on here.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, thanks.

So this was really great.

I just want to congratulate you.

This is a really exciting partnership, and I think it's really inspiring to think about the pedagogical and research uses.

So first, for Sophie, I wanted to say, and David can put you in touch with me and with him, but you should get in touch with Cayetano Campes Lopez from the C3 Project, because when they were working on their

Energy Burden Report two summers ago, one summer ago, they ran into the same problem of like, how do you deal with UVA student incomes?

And like, how do you, you know, how do you work around it?

And he could help, he could help you to talk about like how he manipulated census data to get a better sense of what the actual community need in different areas is.

So that's the first thing I think that that would be helpful for you just as you refine your maps and the way that you're looking at this data to get a better sense of where the need is.

And then the question that I have for you is just I'm just wondering if in your work with Joy and with others if you got a sense of like

If there could be a vision for CDBG funds, is there a project we want them to be building towards?

Is there a way that we could be implementing them for community momentum?

I think one of the first things on the wishlist would be the use of the 20%

Planning and Administration Cap, like right now it's being completely used by the city government and doesn't necessarily go towards CDBG funds or like resident participation.

So I think using that to like, even if it could go to like PHAR or some other organization to carry out like more resident participation,

That would be great.

And also I think a priority would be just the whole hiring within the community for CDBG projects.

If I could just make one refinement to my question.

One of the things that we've seen has been a problem is always the enforcement mechanism with these kinds of funds.

So there's, you know, you said, as Joy says, these are poor people's money, but it's not used for poor people.

So the enforcement is poor.

And I'm wondering if you've seen ways to tighten up that enforcement, like, is there a way either by looking at Oakland or other places that we can start to say, this is how people have really been able to make sure that the money is being used

Hey, baby.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

That's OK.

I didn't nurse the baby to sleep.

That's OK. One of the reasons why I ask David to have the student do this is because what we are finding out is that a lot of our community members

does not know what CBDG money is for, what rent relief is for, and a whole lot of other funding that is out there.

And so this was my way of saying, hey, let's use, let's,

use this and put something together so we can use it as a teaching tool.

As they're doing tonight, they're presenting it.

Legal Aid was also involved in this also.

I don't want to leave them out, but this is a way to kind of like start

getting people to think about funds that could help them to come up with ideas of what they would like to see improve in their community.

And so they're presenting it to you all, they will be presenting it to the Human Rights Convention and then city council, hopefully Michael can help us to get them on the agenda to present it.

And then we would post it

on the city website, CRHA website, PHAR website or whatever, and try to use it as a tool to educate folks about what CBDG money is used for, can be used for, and also use the technology that people have in their hands

such as their phones, you know, Facebook, TikTok, whatever it is, but just to get youth and everybody to kind of understand, here is what this money is supposed to be used for.

And I'm not, Laura, I have a task for you too, and I have a task for everybody else, but

It is to be used as a, you know, I wanted to see it as a tool where if you ask anybody, even down to the kids, what is CBDG dollar?

They can say it is to do A, B, C, and D. This is what we would like for it to do.

So to use it as a teaching tool, education tool, because a lot of our folks are being left out and it's not because they don't care.

And just to add in a little bit, I think that the funding allocation slide, like comparing nationally to Charlottesville, how the funds are being used and how I like was trying to emphasize that it definitely depends on context, the allocation, but just from like on an out of national level, like at least a quarter of the funds are being used for housing.

And as Joy and other people have repeatedly told, mentioned to us, at least that like housing is,

Huge area that really needs a lot of funding just to help community members even just stay in their homes.

But yeah, just wanted to add that into

Do you guys, I know when you were talking about the solutions, it's like the need to redefine the priority neighborhoods and change the task force.

Do you think that the task force model and the kind of grant writing that goes on right now is congruent to the community workshops?

or is it like you kind of need one or the other?

I think, I don't know.

Sometimes it's difficult to like completely change how the city is currently doing something.

So part of what we were considering is like

Even a way to make the task force more responsive to the needs of residents would be like, could be like having these community workshops and having task force members there to understand more about like what residents need.

And also like Joy has mentioned several times how currently task force members are not even involved in any training as to what CDBG like

can be used for.

So I think in combination with like community workshops and like CDBG training, it could be a lot more responsive to the needs of residents.

So it doesn't necessarily have to be one or the other, but like it could be.

And also by like redefining the priority neighborhoods, like that could change the selection like future

election of members to the task force to be more representative.

I do.

I just want to jump in really quick.

I do think it's hard for it to be both though, because with the workshop model, you're really changing how projects are even identified.

And so with the task force model,

there are organizations providing suggestions of what they would like to do with the money.

So like let's say Habitat, AHIP, CRHA could say, hey, we would like to do this with the money and these are the families that we would serve.

But with the workshop model, it's you're saying residents tell us what projects you want us to find a contractor to complete.

and so really it is a total different model and so maybe it works both ways if the priority neighborhood use the workshop model solely to award those funds but your general CDBG funds were on a task force basis but redefined to ensure that the families the individuals that are on that task force are actually low-income

Okay, so I kind of had a question.

And that is with regard to when you move in the direction of a community development block grant, you are basically consolidated a bunch of project grants.

And once you had the project grants, there was more of a guarantee that they were gonna get used for certain projects.

But now it seems to me like what you're in is a competition of the survival of the fittest.

and those that have the best organization are getting what they want.

And when you're talking about a block grant structure, that's always gonna disadvantage the poorest so that they can use those community lines to say you have poor people, but within those, it's still gonna be the folks that have the best written proposal, the most money, the most power that are gonna get what they want.

And so I think it's sometimes really great to come up with models and stuff and not really be able to effectuate them.

And I think that's the problem that you're having, especially within the context of gentrification.

Because gentrification has, and you're talking about grants that go back, I think you said 30 years almost, and the Nixon administration, and then moving forward and asking why, where we're at now.

and then to say that right now we can reverse things when the power of minorities in communities is probably at its nadir.

They're just not that strong.

And when you start talking about people need to be on this committee, that committee, a lot of us are kind of burnt out.

But I think that if, can I speak Madam Chair?

May I speak Madam Chair?

You got a head nod.

Okay.

Everything that you absolutely correct.

However, I do think that

What I am finding out, because even in sitting at the table with other community folks, I think this is one of the things that Kya and I talked about a lot, is that most of our folks, we try to explain things to people in the midst, they don't believe us.

But if you give them the information,

and just give them the tools and the information.

Maybe they will believe a little bit more.

I just think that so many of the residents that I talked to and so many of even

Professional people that I talk to, they don't even realize what CBDG money is supposed to be used for.

You're right, the nonprofits, a lot of the nonprofits, yeah, they know what it's supposed to be used for and they go after it.

And that's one of the things I know Audrey is struggling with right now.

We fought hard to get a low income person on the CBDG task force, but she is frustrated.

And she's frustrated because of,

You know, the folks who are there, they don't know what the money is supposed to be used for.

So they just throw out ideas where I think if we educate and get more low income people in the room, then we may be able to shift some things.

But I do agree with what you're saying.

I'm just trying to find a way of how we educate people a little bit more about what this fund is supposed to be used for.

and Capital Funds too.

But that's a whole nother theory.

That's a whole nother training.

I would like to see this be a part of something in the school system, right?

Where it should be a part of government.

It should be a part of,

Just what is it that happens?

You know, what funds are available to improve things in your area?

The kids, I think children should know about that, but that's just my thoughts.

To that point, the video about participatory budgeting,

Just turning a lot of gears in my mind, just thinking out loud here, but I know a couple of years ago, the city had started a participatory budgeting pilot program that was gonna use the strategic initiatives fund.

And it was gonna basically like pilot a process of how to do that participatory budgeting process, which is almost like a skillset that the city has to develop.

The staff member in charge of that left, it didn't go anywhere, but it got me thinking, you know, I almost wondered seeing that if whether participatory budgeting is, it's kind of like a skill the city has to develop, or it's a skill the city has to develop in partnership with PHAR, CRHA, and then you can apply that to CDBG, but also apply it to something like our CIP budget, or a year in surplus, because CDBG is a couple hundred thousand dollars, that matters for sure.

But when you're talking about our CIP budget, that's tens of millions of dollars.

If you're talking about a year in surplus, that could be $3 million.

So again, just thinking out loud, I almost wonder whether, I'm just trying to think about what it could look like for city staff and council to take this and get it from point A to point B, whether participatory budgeting is like a policy question the city needs to figure out.

Second, we have to figure out the policy question of how to,

to pay people to be on boards and commissions, which is not only relevant to CDBG, but I think a ton of others.

And that's its own policy problem to figure out.

I think we could probably find a way to get there, but that's more than just CDBG.

And then changes to CDBG are like a third policy, like individual policy change.

And I don't know if I'm making any sense, but it's like all three of those things connect.

but like the participatory budgeting and paying people to be on boards and commissions are almost like even bigger policy questions beyond just CDBG in and of itself.

Dr. Henry, can I provide my recommendations around

what the city currently has proposed and just some ideas and things that we should keep in mind when we're not only to having this conversation but talking in the future with individuals that are making these decisions on what happens with the CPG task force not only within the next month but long term because I think Mr.

Tack mentioned at the last meeting

that I think at the end of the year, they're gonna do a new plan that should be in place for five years.

And so that is also something that will have a much larger impact on planning and resident engagement in the future.

Okay.

So I do agree with

Counselor Payne about the pain the resident to be involved in the task force, especially when you're talking about low income families, having a volunteer their time, the little bit of time they do have.

because oftentimes their hours are valued much less than high wealth individuals.

And so we do have to honor that.

And so CRHA pays residents to participate.

They've received stipends to participate in the redevelopment planning.

Other commissioners, other commissions, I think it's just a planning commission maybe, also receives a payment for their work.

And so I do think, I agree, this has to be a much broader conversation, but I do think right now we should advocate for like a $50 per meeting stipend

for low-income individuals that participate in the City Beach Task Force.

You really want to hone in on the low-income residents participating in this process.

We've gotten away from that and I know we have because I was a part of the city process finding the Ridge Street individuals to serve on that task force.

And I know where the residents live

because I walked up and down the blocks to find individuals that wanted to participate and felt that they had additional hours to volunteer to participate and determine where the funds were spent.

And so I know the representation on that committee is not the community at large.

And so when we're seeing the priority neighborhood was selected because it was 51% higher of, I mean, poverty level, AMI level,

low income, then the members on that committee should definitely represent that makeup of the broader community, that broader neighborhood.

And so I do think we have to do that.

We're talking about a thousand dollars a year.

The strategic initiative fund for the council could pay for that easily for the first year until we can have that much broader conversation.

But I think we have to like rethink the way we're doing it now.

Why continue this cycle for another year when we know it will only cost us $1,000 to start that work down?

And maybe we'll have something that we can then look to improve because we already started with the baseline and maybe $50 isn't enough, but we have to start somewhere.

And I think that gets us that start that we are talking about.

And the most important piece is what I just mentioned.

Ensuring that that low-income individual is the one that's serving on the actual CDBG task force.

Yes, I think when we're talking about the priority neighborhood, we should include everyone in the neighborhood, but when we actually hone in on the task force itself, it should be the low-income individual that lives in that priority neighborhood that also serves on that committee.

So at Ridge Street, it's only one in that entire Ridge Street priority neighborhood that's low-income.

And that individual is not the one that's on the CBT task force.

And so that voice isn't the one that's being heard when they're making decisions.

And so when we're talking about wherever we're looking at a workshop model or task force model,

In that workshop model, the low-income family has a direct vote.

Well, in this task force model, that low-income family is giving away their vote for the high-wealth individual that's then making the decision.

There's no way to hold that individual accountable for the decision that they're making for the entire group.

And the other item is something that the UVA students did touch on, and that's the effect of the UVA students living in communities.

Like the 10th and Page number, it showed like an 11% change.

I think that's really low.

And if you compare it to like the neighborhoods around it, like Rose Hill, had almost a 70% change in AMI level.

And we're really talking about a year.

because the city's map was in 2018 and the data that the UVA student found and analyzed was in 2019.

So you're talking about drastic changes.

And so I think that 10th and Page numbers is flawed.

And so we really would like to try to figure out what the true impact is because that also would determine how

where you're finding that individual that should be serving on that committee.

I know CRHA has properties and for the priority neighborhoods.

And so a large amount, like if you're looking at the dot map, a large amount of those units are actually CRHA owned, or maybe there's a voucher attached to it that has some CRHA support behind it.

And so CRHA plays a large role

and all of these neighborhoods.

So I'm not asking for the city to give us any money to participate, but to ensure that we're at the table to ensure that the residents and low-income families voices are being heard.

And I think that's all I have.

Oh, one other thing.

CRHA is using participatory budgeting.

That's exactly what we did for the capital fund, meeting with the residents to figure out what items and projects were actually wanted when they were needed.

And then putting that in a budget that then a five-year budget that will then get more detailed as we've received additional funding from the federal government each year.

Thank you, Mr.

Sales.

I have one question for you.

We won't know until the council make that decision.

I think Rose Hill and Belmont are two that will probably need to come off based upon their current AMI level.

I think they're going to be above

Their number's gonna be lower than the 51% that's required to be eligible as a priority neighborhood.

Well, I think, so two things could happen.

The community or council could hone in on what they consider their priority neighborhoods.

And by looking at maps, you can determine where the families are living.

And so like Belmont, it was certain areas of Belmont where you still had relatively low income families.

And there was, it was the same way in each of the communities.

So you could carve out certain sections of the community, but I don't, sad to say the projects that we are talking about doing, isn't something that the city is funding through CDBG anyway.

And so we would not be impacted by such a change.

I was just wondering what falls under that administration category.

What's being done with that money today?

Unfortunately, you can't use it to pay individuals to serve on a committee.

But so for like the budgeting process that Oakland went through, they funded that through the admin.

So having like

Childcare service.

Let's say you're having a community meeting and you know you have a lot of kids in the community and parents want to participate but they have child care issues.

So I know at Citi at one point used to have an individual that only

Watch the kids during city meetings.

So if staff had a child and they had child care issues or if community members had those issues, they could also utilize this individual.

And so you could do those things.

You could fund the workshops themselves.

So if you had refreshments there, you rented out the center, you paid for architects to come in to check the feasibility of a project,

It's really about planning and executing the actual projects that the community has decided on.

Before this excellent panel has to leave, can I ask for public comments?

If there are any public questions that people would like to ask this panel?

Okay.

Okay.

So I would like to thank you guys.

It's an unparalleled education for us too to hear your comments.

I think we're learning quite a bit too.

Hello.

Hi.

I guess I probably need to share my screen.

I can find the right one.

I probably need to look at my notes too.

Sorry, I did get a little caught up in the presentation.

So the big thing to stress is that these statements represent the end of our fiscal year.

However, it looks really good at the moment

But I think what you guys haven't necessarily seen or had the opportunity to scrutinize in the past is the

Statements that are presented at the end of the year operationally versus the audit in a similar format compared to budget.

There are a lot of adjustments that will happen between now and I think when the FDS and financial statements are submitted to HUD initially and then several months from now when the audit is finalized.

And some of that is just,

Normal year-end housekeeping.

Some of it is a result of analysis and finding issues that maybe weren't recorded right that go one way or the other.

And some of it is in a way to maybe reclass certain things to our benefit so that our status with HUD is improved.

I think last year we did that with some of the income and how we took advantage of the

Shortfall funds and the PPP money.

Kind of at the 11th hour, we went in and we were able to reclass the last one week of payroll services to help our standing with HUD.

So we should do that.

It's appropriate for us to do that, but you're not going to see it in the year end statements.

So when we look at these, the bottom line right now has us at a million dollar surplus.

versus a budget of, let me find the right bottom line, sorry.

Let me be scrolling through these.

Versus a budget of $410,000.

Again, we've talked about it every month that I've presented that there is over $600,000 in shortfall funding in this budget.

So based on that, you take back that out and now it's like, well, we're kind of close to budget, but we're still in a great position.

I know just through probably the one area that I still have to actually understand it pretty well but it's a matter of going back and catching it up since actually before this last fall so around I think October is the last time I did entries for the

CRHA piece of our retirement program, a lot of that runs through because of the way it's funded by the employees directly.

The majority of it is captured on the biweekly payrolls, but there's a CRHA piece that I need to catch up and that's my

fault that it's not in there and I have made interim adjustments along the way but it needs to be reconciled.

There's also a reconciliation to be done with TARS that could have a big impact and then there's just a lot of everyday items like our Lowe's bill lags behind a month and I've tried to accrue for it

At the course of the end of the month, I noticed that there was a $3,000 recurring item that got actually recorded to last year.

And I noticed it because our numbers at the end of last year for comparative purposes changed and it shouldn't, we shouldn't have even been able to do that.

But it was just a mistake and it does happen.

And so there's a lot of corrections and operationally

The impact on here, I would think could have an impact of between one and $200,000.

And then I think there's a few other things that we need to start looking at to say, well,

How do we record this?

Or because we have a surplus situation, do we want to make sure that we've recorded every ounce of available expense into this fiscal year?

So it maybe lightens the load on the coming year.

So, I mean, all that to say is that I've presented you with the notes, there's a few items here and there that we know about that need to be addressed.

But

I don't want to dismiss the fact that it's been a great financial year, but we know that there's reasons for that.

And when you look at some of the items individually, you know, the impact that Crescent Halls had on us, especially in the COC, it was major.

It really, it significantly impacted our month to month income.

And then on the voucher side, it's been pretty steady, but there the reconciliation is that we've kind of been overfunded and we're aware of it.

So, you know, they're going to come back and do their own reconciliation and they're not going to ask for the money back, but they're going to reduce future funding.

So we have to have that in reserves for when that happens on the voucher side.

I think those are the main things that I guess I wanted to talk about.

John might be able to answer that better, but it's basically their formula.

Yeah, I was about to take an email off the screen.

Sorry.

Yeah, so when Crescent Halls was going through its initial redevelopment plan, the plan was to have voucher funded units at Crescent Halls.

I want to say it was supposed to be in June of 2022.

Yeah.

Yeah, June 2022.

And that did not happen due to the, as you know, June of 2021.

That did not happen due to the leak, the major water leak.

And so HUD had already given us some money.

They had already put it in the bank air market for Crescent Hall's tenant protection vouchers.

And so they didn't take the money back and said they put it in our reserve fund saying, hey, you have it there and it's for this purpose.

and when we do our reconciliation at the end of the year, if it's still there, then we'll take it back and you have to reapply for those voucher funded units.

And so we had a conversation with HUD last, I wanna say Wednesday during our HUD check-in.

And I think some of it too, John, correct me if I'm wrong.

It just has to do with like the maximum number of vouchers that we could possibly issue versus the number that we have issued.

I think that has something to do with it too.

Yep and so the emergency housing vouchers is one of them where they gave us the money before we even leased up a voucher just because they wanted to get the money out on the street as fast as possible which is really rare but that was one of the programs where they did and like Mary Lou said as we continue to add more

Voucher units to our portfolio.

I think we were at four, I want to say 423, maybe a couple of years ago or a year and a half ago.

And now we're over 600 is what our capacity is for vouchers.

And so as that number increases, the amount of money HUD provides us increases well.

but that also plays effect on how many vouchers we can get out.

And unfortunately in the Charlottesville market it is really hard to find a unit.

And just to be clear too, when we record all the fees that were, administrative fees that we're allowed to earn, it's based on what we've leased.

It's not based on like the highest estimate, like that's an actual number, but the funding goes in at the money that they make available to us.

And they do check that throughout the year.

For example, in November, they held back the majority of our payment.

and I had a little bit of panic until we went to look at where we were cash-wise and we did have the money and it we just needed to make it available to the vouchers we just had to have the cash transferred into the voucher program so that's something that I wasn't that versed on when I started here and I'm getting more familiar with now but

We do monitor that month to month, but the funding recently has exceeded what we've spent.

And you can see that here by the total HAP earned.

That's actually cash received exclusive of the admin fee and other, the service fee.

There wasn't a lot.

the voucher program of sometimes there's more miscellaneous the fees associated with the emergency vouchers.

But so 427 for this month is what we received almost $4 million annually.

And then down towards the bottom where we have the housing assistance that we payments that we paid out was 335 for the month.

and versus 3.857.

So that does create the large portion of the surplus, which it should.

We're not spending it anywhere else.

We have it.

Yeah, and I was just gonna note some of the other, and I think I had it in the notes of, you know, we haven't paid the pilot actually for 2021.

We owe them because after we've completed the audited numbers for the, it's the piece of tenant rent

Net of utilities that we pay is what we pay the tax on, the 10% payment in lieu of taxes on.

So we owe that for last year and this year still.

So I don't believe anything's going to be, I just found out about the $20,000 possible money available to us related to that this afternoon.

We haven't paid our audit.

We haven't got an invoice for that.

Likewise, we haven't gotten an invoice from Portsmouth Housing Authority, which we've used to do procurement last year after the fact, after we had presented these statements to you at year end.

I believe we got an invoice for 14 or $16,000.

So that does get reflected on our audit, but operationally, I'm not positive that we've come back in this fashion.

So we probably will do that this year.

I think that's all I have.

Any other questions?

Public comments?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, at your pleasure, I just wanted to give a brief comment.

I made two promises on Facebook this morning.

One was to Alice Washington who had her birthday.

And I also said there had better be singing tonight at the Board of Commissioners meeting for Commissioner Goldblatt, who also is celebrating a birthday.

So with your permission, Madam Chair, I would like for everybody to sing happy birthday on the count of three.

One, two, three.

Just think of all these wonderful people born in April, and I'm so happy to be amongst you.

No, my birthday is long gone.

Yes, happy belated birthday.

Good evening, Board of Commissioners and other stakeholders.

I just wanted to make a public announcement that PHAR is planning on having our West Haven Community Day on August 6, 2022.

So if any of y'all are looking for something additional to do and enjoy me, as well as my staff, we will be around.

And I think that's it.

Thank you so very much.

August 6th, Saturday, first Saturday in August.

What time?

It is going to occur from roughly 9 a.m. to about 5 p.m.

Okay, so before I adjourn, I just wanted to point out as the messages tell me that the next BLC meeting is May 23rd.

I second.

Commissioner Goldblatt?

Yes.

Commissioner Green?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Thanks everyone, have a good night.