Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority Board Meeting   4/28/2025

Allergy induced asthma, but he doesn't like wheeze or anything.

So he would just be asleep and I didn't know what was wrong with him.

It's one of my biggest parenting fails.

And then I discovered he was allergic to literally everything and he wasn't being lazy.

He wasn't getting oxygen.

And I was like... And we did the shots at the point that he was taking.

like two different medicines and an inhaler and I was like okay I'm well.

And the shots are definitely like a commitment and so I was like I don't know if I want to do that.

Oh I'm sure but they're things have shifted it's not because I've never had allergies in my life and now I've been getting them so

This is, that's for Sixth Street.

They got married at a court.

Did I just go to court?

No, no.

I think Trini's saying it's for his mom.

Yeah, okay.

That's for herself.

She's right.

Nutrient credits for Sixth Street.

Yes.

Okay.

What's his name?

Saunders?

Yeah.

Oh, I got one.

I got one.

Okay, so he has to confirm to make sure it's a good day.

Okay.

I will call this meeting to order.

Commissioner Goldblatt?

Here.

Commissioner Raudales?

Present.

Commissioner Payne?

Here.

Thank you.

Okay, we will now have a moment of silence.

OK. General announcements and meeting dates.

Our next board work session will be Thursday, May 8th at 6th.

And then our next regular board meeting will be Monday, May 26th.

That's Memorial Day.

So maybe we want to

to change that.

We can talk about that later.

The Redevelopment Committee meets every first Thursday of the month.

The Admin Redevelopment meeting is every third Thursday of the month.

The Safety Committee meeting is every second Wednesday of the month.

And the Resident Services Committee is every second Tuesday of the month.

No, I don't think we need that.

Good evening everyone.

My name is Latricia Giles and I'm the executive director at PHAR and I just wanted to give y'all an update on our youth leadership program.

We are currently looking for teens ages 14 to 17.

that we will be hiring this summer to model in the way of our adult internship program so they'll be learning community organizing skills, advocacy skills, they'll be out there flaring, door knocking,

but also we're looking to just increase their participation in all things so we hope to have that started by mid-June so that's what we'll be looking for youth and I will also say with that we had a really good outing at West Haven the other night we had our youth town hall where we were able to actually ask and invite teens and some of our interns

actually most of it all of it was around our intern program and their fight to have things for youth in community to do so we had some really good conversations one of the things that came up was about lighting at the basketball court that some of the young guys were talking about they enjoy playing into the evening but lighting was one of the things that they did have some things with and then also interestingly enough the I know our

adult interns were looking out for our teens and they were saying teens have nothing to do but one of the interesting things that came up from the conversation the teens were looking out for the littles and they were saying hey we want some more stuff for our littles to do so we really did have a good turnout we had about 14 teenagers come out

Can I just ask, is this youth organizing workshops or are you calling it the youth leadership program?

Is that new?

This will be, yes, piloting it, yes, so we will be hiring

We got a little bit of cash and I wanted to invest it in our teams.

We actually heard also from them.

Partly when I was deciding to get this jump started was when I was talking to teams when I first started working.

Okay.

Well, just a discussion on what that will look like for you guys if you went with a different day.

Yeah, I think so.

Let's see what they're going to do.

Listen, we can't do a second.

The second is Phars 40.

So, I mean for me, I can do

I am too.

Wow.

Okay, thank you, appreciate that.

Thank you.

Okay, approval of the board minutes from March 24th.

All in favor?

Aye.

Motion carries.

Motion carries.

Alright, friends.

Good evening to the board and everyone that's attending.

We just have a few things we wanted to highlight.

We are obviously still have high TARS.

We are continuing to

worked through the process in seeking assistance on behalf of our families as much as we can through our asset collections manager.

We are essentially taking payments right up through in the few cases where we've had actual evictions through that day.

And so quite a few evictions have been prevented.

Next month we will start tracking the actual number of non-payments.

I know the board has asked over a period of time to have better tracking for families that are in trouble.

So we're hoping that in collaboration with

the eviction diversion program which was launched officially last month I believe we're still working out some kinks but that has launched and in connection with that we are hoping to you know just work through the process get the kinks worked out and keep a lot of our families in place

Next month, you should look to see that on your report.

We're also working on the format of the report just to make it easier to understand and so that hopefully you'll want to read it because it's just a lot of numbers right now.

So we are working on the format just to have better tracking and easier understanding.

We wanted to mention that we've had our first beautification day, which is supposed to be a partnership with our residents, the staff, our partners, anyone who wants to join us just to beautify the properties, do some

some specific cleaning of small trash, cigarette butts, planting flowers, cleaning out beds, removing any trash that may have been overlooked.

We had our first one at Riverside.

It turned out really good.

And we hope that maybe some of the board and our partners

We'll be able to join us at the next one.

I believe we sent the flyer out.

We did adjust the dates to be a Friday as opposed to a Wednesday, so we hope that'll make more people want to come out and join us.

The next one will be May 16th.

and we'll be splitting into two groups.

We'll be starting at 830, half on Madison and half on Mickey Drive.

So if you can and you're able, please come out and join us.

If you have questions, you can shoot me an email.

We anticipate all non-public housing units having a full inspection no later than June 15th.

So we can anticipate that.

I believe that's everything that we wanted to mention.

Yeah, so just one update.

So if you could, can we get the new flyer for the beautification days?

I'd signed up for the 14th, and so I just want to make sure to move it, but I'd also sent the flyer to Congregation Beth Israel.

They said they wanted to get more involved with

Sara Jay Communities, and so there might be people who think it's gonna be on the 14th.

So if we could have the updated flyer, that would be great.

And then I just had one question in looking at the vacancies.

Could you tell us a little bit, Dogwood, I see has eight that are not ready to rent.

So it's just a lot of open units.

Ms. Banks, I can take that.

So we had a lot of vacancies come out one time, and so we've been prioritizing based upon the subsidy that's tied to the units, though it does not have any subsidy, not saying that we're not working on them, we are actively working on them, if you look at the report from last month, I think it's gone down by four, and so we are actively working on them, but we prioritize the public housing units, which have assistance tied to them, so you're only paying 30% of your income,

and we've also prioritized the project-based voucher units which also has a subsidy attached to the unit which helps the family.

But we are prioritizing them and those numbers should be drastically lower at the next board report.

The property management team has been doing a really good job leasing those units up and they've been leasing them up with folks with vouchers.

Yeah, and those new dates would be appreciated.

Yes, we'll make sure you get the updated flyer.

I wanted to plug one other thing.

It's not tracked inside of the document, but we pulled the number of funds received to assist families to stay housed.

Thank you Mr.

Sales.

And I'm going to be doing that one.

The program is staying very steady.

We have 652 families currently enrolled in the voucher program and that's through multiple programs, not just the tenant-based program but also the project-based programs and the specifics like VASH, FY, and Enhance.

We are going to be coming to you guys with the admin plan update and that's to make it so if a family was to lose assistance in the Emergency Housing Voucher Program we could then roll them over to the voucher program if we have

capacity there.

That became an issue a few months ago when a family lost their assistance and so we're making that modification to the admin plan and so that should be coming to you guys next month for final approval.

The program is no longer facing shortfall but we aren't pushing more vouchers out because that could change any month.

The program adjusts its rent based upon family's income

and so if families income goes down our portion of the rent goes up and so we have to be kind of cautious with that seeing how we just exited shortfall last year and it was 1.2, 1.3 million because they end up having to give us a second shortfall allotment in January of this year and so we aren't pushing to do anything extra there to lease up additional vouchers we're going to maintain our current caseload

This report also covers SISRAP, which we're at 70 families.

Our goal is to get to 75 families.

So there is a little capacity there.

We're able to fund about $75,000 worth of half a month.

And so there's a little bit of room.

And so we are starting to pull some families to start assisting families in SISRAP.

I think that's all I have.

and not about that, no.

Good afternoon.

Updates, the Crescent Falls audit has been completed last week finalized.

There's no findings, pretty straightforward audit there.

We are working with revisions for funding and public housing.

Our field office team has been cut.

So we're working with one person in the field office there to try to get those approved.

So since we have an update on that, I'll let you know.

Other than that, we're just kind of working towards getting our FDS together for next month and followed.

It was a little bit of everything.

Some folks took, I think one person took the buyout early.

Yeah, I think all the offices were drastically impacted.

There were three financial analysts, four program folks, there was an engineer and I think an assistant.

and they're down to just three, but there have been conversations that almost all the field offices will go away.

They've stopped making drastic renovations at one of the largest field offices in the country.

So we're hoping that the regulations also

go down with it because now there's one person running 30,000 authorities when that person had 10,000 authorities just two weeks ago.

Is that, I'm just, so on the one hand, like I know that sometimes that it can put can be a barrier to, I mean, is that gonna,

I'm just worried about are we going to be held up from progress because there's a bottleneck with HUD because there's so few staff.

Okay.

So there will, there will be a bottleneck.

We have, we have not seen it yet, but there will be because I mean, we just closed on South first street phase two.

maybe a month ago and if it wasn't for the individuals in the field office and the folks at the SAC field office working together like the day of to try to get everything figured out we would not have been able to close this quickly.

So if that happens at Sixth Street, which will be closing in hopefully two or three weeks, it will have an impact because we have to get all the, the property has to be released from its covenants through HUD and so it needs to be signed and then recorded and so we have a hard time getting someone to sign that document to get it recorded.

There will be an impact.

We are just hoping that doesn't happen.

We've been in close communication with the SAC office to make sure that we can get these things done timely.

All right, Mr.

My update's going to be pretty sweet.

We're going to get you guys the audit for Crescent Halls, so you have that.

But that came out pretty good.

And so we're looking really good on those properties.

I would say we have some upcoming, really big upcoming meetings, eviction diversion update.

It's going to be happening on the May work session.

So Kathleen in Toronto will be giving you all guys an update on that.

As TerAna said, we're going to be providing you guys in the report the actual information on notices sent out.

You'll be able to track, it's going to be hard to track it I would say from month to month, but you'll be able to see the large number of notices that we send out compared to the very small amount of evictions that actually occur.

Because we probably send out on average over 100 a month.

but we're not evicting nearly that many people so you're gonna be able to see that.

We also have a city meeting in June.

I believe it's the first meeting in June to give an update on the Dogwood portfolio for the city.

That's a portfolio that's jointly owned by the city and CRHA.

The funds that come into the property as profits are

are not CRHA's they're technically shared but we don't use them on anything but the property and so we provide an update on the city on that portfolio and so that will be happening in June.

We also are working on our joint meeting with the city council and that's going to potentially be August the 18th.

And so that will be an opportunity for us to talk to the city council about collaboration opportunities.

Yeah, it's going to be a joint session.

It should probably be located at city space.

That's where we had it last time.

But we will confirm that.

And can I just ask one thing?

Let me just make sure I have this down.

So I'm looking forward to the May eviction diversion meeting.

Can you let us know?

I don't know if there's a way to track this, if this is impossible with the data.

But I know anecdotally that sometimes when people get their first note, they just leave.

Yeah, I think at the next meeting we'll have we'll have TerAna go through the actual eviction process because it it's

A long time before we get to Sheriff being called.

I would say our most recently scheduled eviction that didn't happen, it started in June of 2024.

And the eviction wasn't scheduled until two weeks ago.

Like the actual set out by the Sheriff.

And so, not only during that time,

person was still housed but their account balance continued to build so we actually went to court when they were only a couple months behind but by the time we got to court they're $14,000 behind.

So it becomes sometimes it's negatively impacts folks because it takes so long to get through court but you know we can start showing you guys that information but it's a long time from when the first notice gets sent out before a sheriff is even

Contact because you actually have court cases.

Most of our cases go to court.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

We will be able to get you that.

And we're also working on modifying our

all of the board reports so then when you all have your board report you'll be able to track where we are with addressing like strategic plan goals and so we have folks in the Japanese department working on that so it gets integrated really well with what we're doing and so every month you can see we're this much closer to addressing this goal or if we've already passed that goal now we've created another sub-goal from that goal

and so that should be coming online within the next couple months.

and the only other thing I had and I think this will require some information from you guys is the SOPs whether there were any requested updates or changes from you guys on the board section of the SOPs.

Yeah, so I will say we've had a food program

Ever since I've been here, we've partnered with Cultivate Charlottesville to provide fresh produce to the community.

In 2024, we had another organization reach out to us about specifically working at Crescent Halls.

There seemed to be, and things were going well there, there seemed to be some miscommunication around expanding.

That program at Crescent Halls was free.

There was no cost to CRHA to operate it.

And then when there was a conversation about expanding, there was then some funds requested.

We did not budget those funds, and so we could not move forward with it.

What we typically do is work within the Caffeine's department.

She has a grants coordinator.

Her name is Katrina.

And so she works with any organization that wants to partner with us.

or if any department is looking for funding opportunities to complete a program, we work with them and we will apply for funds together and so I met with the individual at Ronzette organization a couple weeks ago and so she provided us with a budget that's due

the service everywhere not just South First Street and Crescent Halls and so we're going to work together to see if we can find the funds to make that happen but that would be the typical process and so I think there was just a lot of folks involved in and so there was a little miscommunication about what could go what could continue what needed to wait until we can find some additional funds and resources got it okay but I think we're all straight now

Hey, sorry, one correction to the meeting that was on the 18th is actually August the 4th with the joint council meeting.

So I apologize.

If you could ask, I understand that this could be like, if it's a huge logistical hurdle, I'd love, I'm gonna be out of town.

I'd love to be able to join by Zoom, even if it's just listening in.

Good evening, my name is Annette Wilcox.

Oh, we're going to move that.

Okay.

My name is Asia Green, and I am the Pharr Youth Coordinator.

The first thing I want to share is from one of our interns.

Her children were sick, so she couldn't be here today.

But she said she lives at South First Street.

And she was really thrilled that she had an issue with her, what was it, I'm sorry, her fridge in her oven.

And CRHA came the next day, and they got her new one, so she was very happy with that.

So she wanted to be in person to say, good job to maintenance.

but unfortunately she didn't be.

So the second thing that I have to say is we're having them for internship graduation on Wednesday.

It's going to be at City Space.

This Wednesday?

Yes ma'am.

It's going to be at City Space from 5.30 to 6.30.

5.30 to 7.30.

We would love for everybody to join us and celebrate with the interns.

Okay, thank you for your patience.

Do you have any additional public comments?

I'll motion to adjourn.

All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed?

Aye.