Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority Board Meeting   5/27/2025

Hey, Mrs.

Sales.

That's Laura.

I can't be sure.

You have a package for tonight?

Get it online.

I'm on the...

I'm on the...

Okay.

so we can actually give you the gift card now for the second meeting now that you are now under so you can get two gift cards that read it only going forward

and then next year, once the tax changes again, you can start picking it up again.

This Thursday, we're gonna do a special meeting on Thursday.

Okay, this Thursday.

for how you've been doing.

I've been doing pretty good.

I have a gear piece of paper.

And then a pen.

Hi!

Good, how are you?

I, like, got back, I haven't even made it into early.

No, I go two days a week.

I go Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

So...

There's a question in this seat.

Yeah.

Javier?

Yeah.

Got it, okay.

No.

Let me check.

I didn't think about it until I saw you.

It'll be in by 11 o'clock tomorrow morning.

No problem.

I doubt anybody's gonna go out in the rain and do anything.

It looks like a quorum.

Nice.

I'm not telling anybody they don't listen to me.

I should probably stop there.

Yeah, I like that.

We're good.

He's like, your faucet's so cool.

He does have that faucet.

All right.

Well, I guess we'll go ahead and get started.

Who's doing roll call?

Is it Miss Carey on the scene?

Hi, Maria.

Are you ready?

We're ready.

Commissioner Goldblatt?

Here.

Commissioner Bellamy?

He's not quite here yet.

Thank you.

All right, let's take a moment of silence.

Okay.

Just some general reminders.

The next...

I feel like we're missing something.

But the next board work session will be Thursday, June 13th, and then the next regular board meeting will be Monday, June 23rd.

We have the redevelopment committee meeting every first Thursday from three to four.

Do we mean for the next board work session?

Do we?

Yeah, it's the 12th.

What's wrong?

Like I was trapped, paralyzed.

Thank you.

I knew there was something off.

Okay, are there any

Well, so I'll open it up for public comment.

Okay, and any PHAR comments?

No.

All right, great.

Okay, next is approval of the board minutes from 4-28.

I move to approve the minutes from April 28th, 2025.

Thank you.

Commissioner Wicks?

Yes.

Commissioner Goldblatt?

Yes.

Okay, and I will be presenting this item.

Good evening, commissioners.

Good evening.

So this item right here is, it's not a, we're asking you guys to approve anything, but we're putting it in you guys' minds to start thinking about this change that we're proposing.

It's gonna be one of maybe a few different changes, and we'll bring those up once they're finalized.

But this initial change will allow us to start utilizing

the funds in the escrow program that the participants have contributed to so right now currently if individuals enrolled in the program they are they could be contributing escrow funds in some cases we have some residents that are but they're also at risk of eviction because they miss rent payments

but they have these escrow funds.

We currently don't have in our plan that we can access the escrow funds that pay off the funds that are owed to the housing authority.

So in the case that we currently have, the family would be evicted, those funds would then come to the housing authority anyway to then reuse on the program.

So what we will be asking you guys is to allow us to put in our plan that we can utilize those funds

No, the money, because you only get the money if you graduate from the program.

So if you get evicted or you drop out of the program, the money stays with the housing authority.

We can then reuse that money in the program.

before this second iteration that we're in now, you could just, the housing authority would keep the money because technically it's rent that would have come to the housing authority if they weren't in the FSS program and so the housing authority would keep the money and it would go to the operating account.

The way it's currently written in the program is the money, we're not asking for this to change.

So I just want to be clear.

So under all circumstances, we're saying that if a participant leaves the program, the money stays in the housing authority.

No, that's what the federal regulations say, period.

What we're asking for you guys to give us authorization to do is like, so we have a tenant.

Let's say we have a tenant that's on virtue of eviction.

They owe us $500.

Let's say they have $1,000 in escrow money.

Technically, you can't test the escrow money until you've completed the program.

You can give exceptions.

We could give exceptions inside of the policy to tap into those funds to keep their family housed.

I see.

Correct.

To keep them housed.

Got it.

Yeah, you can't use us for the pay of rent, but what you can do, what we're talking about also is that it's made really clear that if you are not paying rent, you're not escorting at that time, because no funds are going in, as well as if it's being paid by another source, you won't be able to escrow at that time.

but it's really specific that you can't use escrow to pay rent but you can use it to remove other barriers if you're meeting goals at the time such as your car breaks down, you need to fix your car.

Okay so then based on what you're saying let's say there's someone who falls behind on rent and they say part of the problem is that I have this big car repair and I haven't been able to pay it so I can't get to work it means it's hard for me to pay rent they can't use what's escrowed to pay background but what they could do is pull from that escrow account to get their car fixed

so that then they could get back to work and be able to pay rent again, is that right?

And stay housed and stay in the program.

So could we advise participants in this program about the various kinds of things they might want to include in their goals like job stability to make them flexible enough so that if somebody encountered, like staying healthy,

Yes.

Okay.

Yep.

Okay.

Other comments, questions on that?

I think that makes sense.

I look forward to seeing more.

I don't know if we're going to make the next meeting.

It may be the July meeting.

So the next thing that we're going to do after we finalize the policy changes, we'll post it for public comments for 30 days.

We'll wait to get public comments.

So while we're doing that, would it be possible, I'm sure you're already doing this, but it would be helpful for me to hear a little bit from the lawyer about how specific do these goals have to be in terms of the FSS plans so that we can think about how flexible we can make them.

Because again, I think

Yeah and we allow folks to modify their goals and so

This is a working program.

We're working with the participants to make sure that the goals best meet them.

It's multi-year programs, so folks' goals change.

And so we allow that flexibility.

Any other comments, questions?

No.

Commissioner Hicks says no, so.

Yes, so spring has started, but it feels like summer some days outside with the amount of activity we're getting with residents, especially at our larger sites.

And so we have moved forward with security at South First Street.

In 2000, when I got here, there was security at West Haven, 6th Street, Crescent Halls, and South 1st Street.

But it was on a rotating basis.

It was the same security going to three multi-family sites.

So they were spending maybe $2 million on the site.

And so it wasn't effective.

And so we immediately cut it, plus CRH couldn't afford it.

We always said once redevelopment is done we'll come back and we'll revisit this conversation because it puts the properties at a different financial perspective after redevelopment because you're bringing in tax credit rents and voucher rents which are

in some cases 10 times as high as what we get on a typical public housing unit.

And so it puts you at a place where you can afford these additional services.

And so we have entered an agreement with Millennium Security to provide security services every day of the week from 6 p.m. to 3 p.m.

That schedule may change depending on the activity on the sites.

6 p.m. to 3 a.m.

Okay.

My last staff person leaves around 5, 5.30 depending on if we have a program or not.

And then Parks and Rec is in the building until about 6 or 6.30.

and so we'll almost have complete coverage except between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. when my first staff person gets in that office.

We would like to do this at all the sites, but all the sites cannot afford it.

They all have activity and concerns.

We hear it at the safety committee meetings.

We hear it at every other meeting, redevelopment.

One of the big things that folks talk about is safety.

We had the resident service committee meetings and so this is one way we're looking to address that.

This is going to be a trial basis where we enter into an agreement between three months and four months for the service and we will be meeting with them I think twice.

Every two weeks is when we're supposed to be meeting with the security firm.

to go over the different activities that are happening on site, but they provide a daily report to let us know everything that's happening.

They also go, they have barcodes assigned to different areas on the site where they go and scan them, so they're making patrols around.

They started on Friday, so just in time for Memorial Day weekend, three-day weekend.

I will say Friday was probably the quietest it has been in a very long time.

and so I think it's working.

I reached out to a resident on Saturday to check in with her to see how things went.

She was really happy about the level of engagement with the security firm and she felt like folks left the site that weren't supposed to be there.

The security firm has a copy of the individuals that are barred on the site and they also have the authority to bar folks on the site.

Quick question just on South First Street in general.

I guess it was a week ago I was over there, and I don't know her name, but the lady that was staffed in the office was saying that there had been some trouble with people coming in the community room and making a big mess and taking stuff.

And she said, yeah, we're taking some steps.

Yes, but we still have some more things.

This will certainly help it, but we need to figure out more around programming.

And so we are short a resident service coordinator over at South First Street that would typically be there a little bit later in the day.

And we're looking at hiring a resident from that site to actually work in the community center on the off hour.

So after we've left,

and they're going to be working with programming and also making sure that the community center gets put back together the way it was.

There's some weird arrangements where we have to have the tables for the fire department for safety and so oftentimes it does not get put back when someone brings the center and so they'll be in charge of making sure that gets rearranged as well and so we're looking

So a couple, I have a couple of follow-up questions too.

So the first is the easy one.

I'm sure like nobody here feels great about the idea that private security would have unilateral ability to decide who gets to be barred.

So what's the process if security needs to bar someone?

So security can place a barman and then the individual has the ability to come to me to be on board.

The barman's aren't permanent barman's.

They depend on the severity of the issue.

And so they can range from a year.

And everyone has the ability to come back to actually be on-bar.

I mean we've on-barred someone that was barred for just a few months.

So it's really a point, hey we need to make sure this behavior isn't happening on the site again.

Cool.

So I know that there's like a lot of national data about when

Thank you for that question.

It's a great question.

I can reach out to Chief Cochise about that.

I know they're working to

make sure that it can provide a lot of this data in a granular level.

I will say the reason we picked our timeframe was based upon the level of activity.

So when we leave at five o'clock, oftentimes at five o'clock that activity is already picked up.

And we have gotten complaints from neighbors, not even just in our neighborhood, not in South First Street, but on Hartman's Mill about the level

Okay, so three or four is busy?

Anywhere from 6, 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning, it's busy.

Typically, it was not like that this weekend though.

When we started doing a lot of enforcement last year, it pushed folks from our community to the south.

like the street sidewalk.

So we couldn't do anything about it.

No cornhole at 2 AM?

No cornhole.

OK.

I think one of the issues is that the cornhole is very, very popular at South First Street.

Very popular.

And late night cornhole is a very interactive game that's played at that particular location.

And then, yeah, the residents have gotten wise and they just go on the public street.

It does seem, too, like there's an opportunity for the city to think about this.

Like, I actually, as a citizen, think, like, if people, I mean, I don't want to play cornhole between the hours of two and four in the morning, but if people want to, like, more power to them, it would be great if there were, like,

The problem with, I think, this city and so many others is that all leisure sites are monetized.

There's no place you can go that's free to just hang out unless you have a home that can host.

And we're saying now we don't necessarily want people hosting this on our sites.

So something to think about with city surpluses.

What does it look like to have a 24-hour site that people can just hang out in?

I realize there's a lot of costs associated with that.

But something that lets people say,

That's a positive activity.

If it was only cornhole, I think that would be cool.

I might even come over, but it's not just cornhole.

I love you and Laura's optimism, internal shining brightness of all things in the city.

I do appreciate that.

I miss that.

No, I will say we are looking at this

Can we cross-subsidize between sites?

Not when, so when like South First Street and Sixth Street were under the same amp, you could, but now that South First Street is its own tax credit property, that has, like those funds have to stay there, Crescent Hall's funds have to stay there.

So Crescent Hall's has had security for, I think maybe going on in a year now.

We got to the point where I said, okay, there's plenty of money there.

We need to do something.

And so that's why we pulled the trigger at South First Street.

Yep.

All right, so I would say that probably none of the public housing could

probably ever afford that type of security, or I don't see that ever, not happening at least in the next four years.

Come on, TC, you have to kill it already.

West Haven may in the future, if we keep transferring operating money at the level we do and we may need to.

It will probably need some city support.

But it won't nearly have the level that South Frisbee has.

I mean, like, if you cut it in half,

Yeah, we're gonna depend a lot on the residents and also just the level of activity we see on the sites.

We know what the numbers were last year.

We were averaging 30 to 40 people outside late at night up until two, three o'clock in the morning.

In several of the videos we get shooting requests for.

You look at the number of folks outside, it's an insane amount.

And they're not residents because as soon as the shooting happens, they all jump in their vehicles and leave the site.

They don't run into their apartments.

They jump to their vehicles and leave.

And so it is not the folks that live at the site.

A couple folks that live at the site may be encouraging some of the activity, but those aren't the folks that are standing outside.

Yeah, we can do that.

Awesome.

All right.

Good evening commissioners and attendees.

Just a few things that we wanted to highlight tonight.

Just starting with we realize that there doesn't seem to be a lot of movement with move-ins however we have done quite a few move-ins but we also have had some people move out and we've had a few that fell under eviction so

We are doing move-ins.

We do have some movement with that.

We had a strategy meeting for marketing today.

And so I just wanted to mention that we are happy to say that two team members have completed their occupancy specialist for public housing in an effort to

to improve team members working knowledge and overall improve operations.

Kathleen and I will be presenting the EDP program and how that's progressing at the next work session.

And so that will have some more details on evictions and lack thereof due to the referral program that has been implemented.

and I think, oh, and we also wanted to highlight that we were able in the last 30 days to get $16,223 to keep families in place and not have to move forward with the evictions for rent owed.

And again, we hope to come back

and again we hope to combat that with the EDP.

Oh, okay, thank you.

I think that's all we have tonight.

My only question is I'm just looking at the numbers of the property management.

Almost 1,500 people waiting for a one bedroom on the public housing list.

Is that something we're eyeing?

So there's a lot of problems with that.

It's hard to build one bedrooms in the tax credit program because there's a cap and once you go over that cap then you get penalized for building more one bedroom units.

They really look to build family size units with the tax credit program and so we're really stuck at like the 10% rule when it comes to the one bedroom units.

We are looking to see how we can change our model to assist folks

Not even just at the one beer room.

like that need one bedroom units but at the, just need a bedroom like the Cavillar Crossings model for folks who are just renting by the bedroom.

And so we're looking at which of our properties are best suited for that and then making sure that we have the staff levels needed for that type of renting.

Because I think at one of the properties we looked at we saw that we could probably do about 20 within one block be able to rent about 20 bedrooms.

So instead of renting four units we have 20 bedrooms to rent instead.

and another thing to add on with the marketing, I think within the last couple years is the first time CRHA has had to market units.

Like we have units now at South First Street that don't have subsidy attached to them and so we can't just go to a wait list and pull folks off a wait list and say hey, we have a beautiful unit ready for you.

We actually have to market these units and the crime that's happening in the units or at the site.

is causing a big issue with that.

And so that's also part of why this has to be addressed.

The next phase will not have any non-subsidized units, and we aren't building any in phase one of 6th Street.

And so we won't see that, probably, again, it's a West Haven.

But the unsubsidized units,

are a challenge because you're competing against with every other unit in the market and so if you have a site that is crime free or a lot less crime then we are not going to win out with that even though we're giving them a brand new unit including all the utilities including internet we just will not win and TerAna and her team has been have been trying to rent some of these units they've been empty three or four months and have been ready so they have been turned

Okay.

All right.

Don't have a lot of big changes here.

I will say the SISRAP number.

TC and I talked about this one earlier today.

The SISRAP number will improve.

I think this month already we paid out $71,000.

So we're gonna grow that program to about 75 participants because that's what the program can hold.

We do still currently have some vouchers with EHB.

I believe those have been rendered

rendered by now though because they have a sunset.

And so the EHV program was created around COVID.

And so they had a sunset of five years unless the person moved out and then they sunset at that point.

And so we've sunsetted three of those already.

VASH, we have two that are on the street looking.

Fostering Youth, looks like we have a total of 10.

And Ports, we have 11.

We're not currently absorbing until we're currently billing housing authorities.

We currently have a decent backlog of housing authorities at OCRHA.

One of the housing authorities is a close neighbor to ours and so we're working through those to get those housing authorities to pay us back for those vouchers.

We're not currently projecting a shortfall.

but that can change and so we're keeping an eye on that number and making sure we're running.

We found some new reports in Yarning that let us better analyze each section of the voucher management system which is what we report on each month and so we've been able to drill down a little bit more on our forecasting as well.

based upon that and looking at the actual per calls for the vouchers, which will allow us to better project our spending levels.

We do have vouchers on the street.

There's eight of them, but we have not pulled from the wait list.

Those are folks that are looking or they're in a special voucher program.

A kind of random question, but obviously the wait list is 1,700 for housing choice vouchers.

The crossing's wait list is 1,221 participants.

What's going on to make that wait list so large?

The crossing is still open.

The wait list is still open.

They're constantly accepting people.

No, it's their choice.

In fact HUD's recommendation is once you've got three towns which you can hold you should close it because you're giving people false hope in a lot of cases and also depending on like your preference system and your scoring system

you could have somebody that stays on the wait list forever because you continue to add people and it continues to bump them down based upon scoring which is kind of sort of how we got to at one point where you had folks who had been on the list for a very long time but you kept your wait list open and they came in with very high preference points so they automatically went to the top even though they just applied yesterday compared to a person who applied 10 years ago.

So that

Any other questions, basically?

So we are closing out our HCV program for the year.

So our CMF is due, so we'll be finalizing that.

I think we're going to score pretty good.

At least a standard performer for shooting for a high, but at least a standard performer for HCV programs where we're currently projecting.

Our FDS is also due.

It's due by the 15th of June.

That's the date without being penalized but it's actually due at the end of this month and so our team is planning to have it completed on Friday and so we're expecting good numbers there as well.

We have been doing really good with our FDS the last few years.

That has been where we have scored the highest financially and so we expect that to continue this year.

We also have a meeting, the city council meeting on June 2nd.

We're going to do a presentation on the city housing portfolio.

We have an agreement every year that we report to the city council on its financials, how it's performing budget, any other recommendations for operations or for the development and changes.

We are working on

the repositioning of that portfolio.

I do not have a determined end date for that yet but within the next couple of years our goal is to submit for a 4% tax credit deal to renovate the units and also pay back the city its investment in the portfolio.

And so that will

We may go into a little bit at that meeting but it's still a lot that needs to be flushed out before we can really say that's the direction we're going because we've looked at a couple different options including separating out some properties and doing individual development deals with private developers on their land lease option.

and so that will go in front of council on June 2nd.

On the 13th rule, on the 12th, I'm sorry, on June 12th at the work session, we're gonna do the eviction diversion program at the beginning and then the second part of that we'll be working on that joint meeting with city council, going over some of the talking points so then we can give you a better presented version of that for the meeting on July 10th.

at that work session.

So if there's any topics that you all want us to focus on and do some research for that meeting, please let me know.

Also, we had the SOP.

I didn't get any talk to Javier about that last week.

It was good on mine.

So we're all good on that.

And since we, I think we've tasked ourselves with going after these organizational changes, the next one that we're going to be working on is a better file management system overall for the organization.

We have stuff everywhere because we've had to move so many zombs.

I have a Conix box at a maintenance shop.

Stewart's facility that we've been renting forever.

And so we need to better manage and know where all of our files are.

We do have to keep them in paper, unfortunately.

Oh, that's unfortunate.

Yeah, some of them we have like 10-year requirements.

And so it's not easy and there's a lot of paper.

And we have over 600 residents in the voucher program.

and the other 400 in our housing programs and then every vendor has a file for every year and so it's a lot of paper.

And so we need to better manage that and so we'll be putting out an RFP to bring on a firm to help us organize that and then IT will take it over from that point on.

That's the same council meeting.

The joint meeting is until October, right?

August.

August.

We're gonna do a planning meeting in June.

So it's gonna be June 12th will be our first stab at that and it's gonna be after the conviction that there's a presentation and then the final go around for that will be July 10th.

I think it may also behoove us if there's any appetite.

I know summer's a hectic time, but we may want to have a small retreat of sorts for us to kind of have some goal setting for the next fiscal year, which starts July 1.

I think that would behoove all of us if there's an appetite for such.

We don't necessarily have to

figure it out today but I do think that well we may need to it would in my opinion it may be a good idea for us to meet and have again like our goals as a board together and kind of have our own retreat prior to us meeting with council in August I'm thinking you know something for an hour or two at city space as we've done before

Well, to bounce off of the Chair's idea, maybe us looking at that strategic plan we did last year, kind of using it as a way to say, hey, have we made progress on that or reorient ourselves?

And that might allow us to do that hour or two, because we already got the material in front of us.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

I think that's a really good idea.

So if I were meeting, our first one is July 12th, you said?

So we have a meeting June 12th.

I definitely need more time than that.

So yeah, I think it can be within maybe the third week of June between the second week of July and between that time frame that gives us enough time to get everything

For you guys to talk about for the strategic plan, like where we are for each of the goals, progress points, because we've already done a lot of that updating, but to make sure we have addressed all of them.

I was literally going to ask folks about the morning of July 12th, Saturday, July 12th, if we could, I don't know, 9 to 11, or 10th to noon.

I'm talking.

That's OK with me.

Yeah, that's actually OK with me.

9 to 11 work for you all?

Yeah.

July 12th.

July 12th, yes.

July 12th, OK.

Is there a specific location, city space?

I think that would be easiest.

Maybe, yeah.

No, they just, we're not even gonna go there.

We're not even gonna go there.

Oh, okay.

Her wishes are come in.

Thank you.

Colleagues, is that okay with you?

Yeah, it seems great.

Sounds like a plan.

I'm going to put it on my calendar.

Thank you.

I think that was all for us.

Mr.

Any additional comments?

One thing, one random public comment from me.

There is, the city is doing a teen event on Saturday, roller skating at Carver at 3 p.m.

If you know any teens that might like to come roller skate, it is free.

and Tonsler League starts this weekend, Saturday and Sunday.

Games will be starting at 6 p.m. at Tonsler Park on Saturday, 5 p.m. on Sunday, and then we'll move to the traditional Thursday and Sunday schedule.

Somebody here is really excited.

But yes, everybody please come out.

There will be free food for those who are 12 and under.

There will be free hot dogs and hamburgers.

Hot dogs, hamburgers, and chips for those 12 and under.

Mr.

Yeah, I could be wrong.

OK.

Alright, what's next?

Okay, if no one has anything else, that concludes our agenda for this evening.

That concludes our agenda for this evening.

Seconded.

Can I get a call, Miss Carey?

All right.

Thank you, everyone.

How are y'all?

All right.