Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority Work Session   12/11/2025

We'll get started in just a minute or two.

All right, we'll go ahead and get started.

Commissioner Rosenblith?

Here.

Commissioner O'Rourke?

Here.

Okay, we will have a moment of silence.

Okay, and then before I open it up for public comment and PHAR comment, just a reminder on our guidelines.

We ask that each speaker

State your name, address and topic to be presented before making comments.

And you will be limited to maximum of three minutes and include no profane language.

And you can only address the board once per meeting.

PHAR, I believe, is our exception to that.

And then we will refer any questions to appropriate staff members.

So just a reminder there.

I want to open it up to any public comments.

before he goes to it okay well I thought we might have more comments so now we'll just pause to wait for Javier to get here and then I will read the closed session stuff oh okay thank you

Sorry, I'm trying to be thoughtful about everybody's time.

And we need everybody.

So, okay.

Hey Delphine.

With Commissioner Hicks being here but virtual, could we still vote on annual plan?

Okay, perfect.

Awesome.

All right, then would you like to go ahead and proceed with the annual plan portion?

Yes, ma'am.

Well, welcome.

I'm Kathleen Glenn-Matthews.

I'm the Deputy Executive Director for the Housing Authority.

And one of the things I work with in addition to resident services is our annual plan.

We have an annual plan draft that we're bringing to the board tonight in hopes that they will approve it via resolution.

I just have a pretty quick presentation I wanted to go over with everyone.

I'm gonna repeat this a few times during the presentation, but if there's someone who is watching this or they know of someone who needs assistance with translation, that could be reading it

allowed or other languages to please reach out to me and I have my contact information here and I'm very happy to set up a time to go to them or have them come to me and we can set up translation services of whatever nature they need.

This is just a quick overview of the process.

We started in August and I was able to meet with

the executive director of PHAR and start talking about what the process would look like this year.

We started having planning meetings in September, inviting the resident advisory board and other staff were reached out to as well.

At that point we were talking about what meeting roll out would look like.

We were able to post the annual plan on October 24th, which was really exciting this year.

We had everything in place a little bit early, but the main reason for that was just that there were very few changes this year to the annual plan.

The housing authority's in the midst of redevelopment, so there were not a lot of changes that were in the plan this year.

We had public meetings throughout November and something I was invited to do this year that I'm hoping will become something we do every year was to do an overview with the PHAR interns and I found that incredibly helpful and had really good questions and I'm hoping it can become something we do every year.

Maybe even earlier in the process.

We had a public hearing last night at West Haven.

We had three children attended that were part of the beautification at West Haven.

And they had given me some ideas before the meeting of what we might do next year.

And it did involve pizza, but we're looking into some ideas for next year with that.

and then tonight we are having the meeting and asking the board to approve via resolution the plan and then I'm looking at getting it submitted to HUD by January 12th and I'll be doing that on a portal.

Just gonna go over a couple of the changes and amendments that happened, all of which were just adding documents that we had space savers for.

So,

If you are interested in seeing the annual plan or any other older plans, you can go to our website, which is SevilleRHA.com, and we have a pop-up right now.

We just got a donation from the American Heart Association of blood pressure cuffs of all sizes, and we're rolling out a program for that, so you'll see that when you first enter the page.

but if you go to our website and you go to About and Key Documents, you'll be able to see the amended versions of the annual plan as we've added the public meetings.

I did one today as soon as I got the RAB letter and I did one yesterday before the hearing just with the public meeting comments.

You can see the initial draft that was posted

and you can also see previous year's plans as well as our five-year plan and we're gradually working on getting the plan translated into seven languages and our translators have been working really hard on this so we're hoping those will be up here shortly.

All right, and then, pull this back up.

All right.

So these are the edits that have occurred since the plan was originally posted on October 24th.

I added notes for public meetings yesterday and, well, today.

We had some really tremendous feedback from PHAR interns.

They spent a lot of time with the annual plan and

Our executive director responded to the written comments that are now part of the document as well as comments that came to the hearing and he responded in person and those notes were also put in the document.

This form itself that I'm showing you right now on the screen, the update form,

It keeps getting put in as we update it, so this is kind of a living form.

It'll get one final update once we hopefully have this approved tonight and have all the documents attached.

Everything in a blue color is gonna be added after tonight.

Hopefully we have documents that need to be signed by our executive director as well as our board chair.

So once I have all these documents,

adding them to the annual plan itself and replacing the ones that are there right now that are unsigned.

But I wanted to make everyone aware that these amendments will occur.

We got a small change.

We were asked by the city just to add a sentence just around showing our consistency with the local consolidated plan.

They asked us to

say that we were focusing on goals such as encouraging home ownership opportunities and preserving affordable housing in the city of Charlottesville.

And Mr.

Sales didn't see any problem with that because those are also our goals.

So we made that change.

And since the city manager was out of town, the deputy city manager, James Freas, was able to sign for us.

So we now have that also added to the annual plan.

I was going to just pause for just a moment and see, did PHAR want to talk about your feedback at this point or did you want to wait to the end?

We got the letter from the RAB last night and

We also were able to get Mr.

Sales to give feedback to that and get it back to them this afternoon.

And I've given copies of that and there's also copies up front for anyone who wasn't here when we first talked about it.

We tried to make sure that every question was answered on that.

A lot of questions around redevelopment.

Note, it's all addressed in the letter and we just really encourage everyone to look at it and Mr.

Sales is also available online if anyone has questions about that.

We also talked about some of this last night in response to the feedback we had from the PHAR interns which was really detailed and we were able to go into some of that

One of the things we talked about was the new youth program that we have through the firearm violence intervention program.

There was just some feedback about how this can also be part of our economic opportunity programs that we're trying to do around workforce.

And I was really excited to see that feedback myself.

And I responded to the section because we

I really want to apply for a Youth Build Grant and partner with CATEC and work with PHAR and residents to look at how youth who are still in school can start getting on career paths around the trades and how we can have on-site opportunities for that with redevelopment.

The youth field grant is through the Department of Labor and it has not been posted yet.

Our grants coordinator and I check the site every week.

So we're really hoping it's gonna be posted soon.

We're keeping our eye out for that.

And we just think there's a lot of opportunities there.

I will keep moving along.

for the Youth Build grant.

That's something that the CRHA can apply for now.

Yes, but we just have to wait for it to get posted.

Every indication I've had talking to different federal staff has been that workforce programs are supported, and so it should come, so we're keeping our eye out.

It usually shows up in November, so we've been eagerly checking, hoping soon that it will be there.

We just see a lot of opportunity for partnership there for youth.

Not really a question.

I mean, you talked about this a little bit.

I would just note in reading through the feedback from PHAR, some of the things that jumped out to me is, as you mentioned, like a lot of concerns around information with redevelopment and being able to get that information out to as many people as possible and break down changes that are expected are coming, as well as some of the concerns around

Changes in how people's rent may be calculated and being able to provide information to help residents understand if any changes may occur and also issues that were referenced in terms of property maintenance and property managers at sites.

I think connected to all that, the concern that was raised in their comments around feeling like for projects that are further underway, there's perhaps some residents who feel less engaged in

A desire for kind of still having them proactively involved in a resident-led process even after the projects have broke ground and are underway.

So I would just note I think that those jumped out to me as some of the biggest points of feedback and at least as I interpret them it sounds like at least one of the things that's still

needed is to be able to provide the staff capacity and resident services and onsite property management to kind of deal with some of those concerns.

And I would agree with that.

I know

We are gonna be rolling out some more education programs that will involve our staff as well.

Around the lease, some of that will be falling under resident services, but some will also be done in partnership with property management with our eviction diversion program.

I'm also curious, I mean, some of the things that I'm seeing in this response, which is really helpful, so thanks to you and John for doing that, is like, you know, some of these kind of things that have been modified or should receive notices, new notices or new communication.

I'm assuming that there will be a little bit more explicit information around that for residents.

And I think, were you trying to talk, John?

Yes, sorry.

How's everyone this afternoon, this evening?

Yes, I 100% agree with that.

A better job will be done on that.

There was a slip in under section 40 OC that talks about a good neighbor policy implemented.

I didn't know about that.

and so yes that is something any policy will come to the board before implementation and so that was something that got through a couple years ago and the property managers that are there just continue using it

It was only utilized at South First Street.

And I don't know if it was because it was when the project came along, come out and tax share the property, that document was added.

But we are all on the same page at the agency that that is not a policy that is enacted.

And so that will not happen.

I will also add that any changes along with HODMA, HODMA changes, we'll work with PHAR.

And so when I got here in 2020, PHAR and CRHA worked hand in hand to rewrite the admin plan in ACUB.

And so we would do the same exact thing when we are rewriting those two documents to incorporate the HAVA changes.

Again, I would just note I think in the comments we received from PHAR, I think

are helpful and I hope we're able to continue to proactively work with PHAR and try to build the best working relationship we can have because I think there's an important role for them to be that advocacy group that is going to be questioning CRHA and I think that is important and that we're able to give them responses to questions they have and we're just

Note, again, a lot of these issues, it seems like onsite property management and staff capacity just jump out to me as issues.

Thanks, Michael.

I just wanted to let you know what happens next.

We will be taking everything we get tonight.

It'll all get signed.

We'll submit it to HUD.

Latricia Cowles, Executive Director of PHAR, and you said address, Nassau Street?

Just wanted to put that out there.

Thank you.

I definitely wanted to come up for a few things.

I wanted to, because at least one of the interns is here, I wanted to say thank you to the intern class because they were very instrumental in getting a lot of the legwork done on this, especially thank you Miss Tyree is here because she spent a lot of time reading that four or five hundred pages and did it with gusto.

So thank you for that and to the full class for their participation.

I do want to give thanks to CRHA for giving us of course I know within this planning it's part of it but actually coming in like Kathleen did and trying to get this process started much earlier so yes thank you for allowing us also to

running this marathon at the last minute, so I appreciate you.

Kathleen was definitely a good instrumental part of helping the RAB, getting this process started this year.

Our earlier conversation was really instrumental in getting that planning done, but also, like I said, having Kathleen actually come to the class was very beneficial, not only to the class, but I think is a reflection of what the program is actually meant to do, because it also is igniting a spark in the greater community, because they're like, oh, okay,

Even from some of the comments of the internship class they're like we're learning so much and now we're able to kind of if we hear things it's sparking for us so them able to be able to be in community and talk to neighbors and do different things to get more interest is part of why we're grateful for this document and I also wanted to thank CRHA for the responses to our

Questions, one of the things that I did want to give kudos to from just reading and reviewing was on the good neighbor policy because I can tell you it's been the bane of my existence but I appreciate the work that has been able to be done to make sure that there is a better procedure going forward to make sure that residents have what they need and

Yeah, so I thank you.

Also, South Park Street residents for that work.

Also want to say thank you for the commitment of more staff and training because I think that that has been one of the things that we have talked about a lot as well and having people to understand what's going on to help residents, especially when it does come around in rank calculations because some people really are having misunderstandings on how that works.

and sometimes there's errors and sometimes there's errors that can't even be explained in that time and so it's just we're so grateful and I know that I've been in conversations with Mr.

Sales on better ways that both PHAR, we can get training with CRHA staff so being a part of that so that we're also able to help with helping at least understanding and putting on clinics and trainings that can get

Better understanding for residents across the board about what their rent is, period, and making sure they're getting the proper statements on time so that they can make the best and most informed decisions about what needs to go.

Yes, they know their rent, but when things, when life happens, things happen, people need reminders, so that is one thing.

And then I think, let me see, I had a few more things here.

We also appreciate the hardship exemption education because that is just something that is really important I think stated throughout most of my conversation is the keyword education because that's a big part of what we really try to help do so putting that and getting it out there for residents to know because we've had several residents come to us that did not even know that that existed as an option and so making them aware when they have those extreme hardships is a critically

I'm important to when people are making critical decisions about their livelihoods and what they're trying to do because we know that a lot of residents are not not trying to make it but let's say for the most extreme of our residents if they are not making a thing

They're already behind in the eight ball.

So making it more accessible for them to have access to the tools that will help empower them, hopefully, to be more self-sufficient.

Because if they have that, then they're not going to possibly be fighting potential eviction if they just have access to a tool of information.

So we are grateful that CRHA is going to be providing and helping us.

And we are so happy to collaborate and be a willing partner in a lot of those education and training places where we can help

people uplift and advocate and organize to the best of their ability.

So we appreciate and will continue to work strong and hard with CRHA to make sure that residents have the best experiences in this community that they can and learn and

do all of the things that brings their heart joy in their places where they live and want to thrive.

So we appreciate all of the goodness and look forward to as we're going into 2026, the good that will come out of this great partnership.

So thank you to Mr.

Sales, thank you to Kathleen and all of CRHA, and thank you to you board as you also help us to collaborate and make sure we're doing the best for our residents.

Thank you, Ms. Goss.

Thank you.

Any additional comments or questions from board members before we move forward?

Okay, so I am putting up resolution 1498.

This is resolution approving the submission of the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority proposed annual plan for fiscal year 2026 to 2027.

Second?

Motion passes.

Thank you.

I am now going to move to go into closed session.

So let's see.

Be it resolved that the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority will convene in a closed meeting pursuant to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act as amended to discuss the following matters which are specifically exempted from public disclosure by the code section referred to below.

Personal matters involving the assignment, appointment, promotion, demotion, performance, salaries, or resignation of employees of the authority as authorized by

Section 2.2-3711A1 of the Act.

Can I get a motion?

Everybody left.

Thank you.

Motion passed.

OK. We will go to closed session.

That's OK.

Down this hallway right here.

To the right?

You know where the room is.

All the way at the end by the other entrance.

The conference room right there.

Yes.

I'm still on the line, but if you send me a different link, I'm happy to use a different link.

We're just going to a different room, Delphine.

Okay, sounds good.

I'll look for the email with a new link.

and Ben Chambers.

and it's just about Delphine and Earl.

Oh, there they are.

Yeah.

There's only one person.

Oh, okay, thank you.

who's that girl?

All right, hi.

Oh, geez, I'm so tired.

Oh.

Did you guys hear her?

I just thought about that, but I wouldn't want to come back.

So what does your son want for Christmas?

He wants some new cleats so it will become a combination.

I think it's going to be crazy.

Mickey said he wanted to wait until the break and then we would go.

Oh good.

So we're going to go and get a few things.

He would rather that.

I got him some shoes.

We have some Doc Martens.

Oh nice.

They'll be under the tree.

I did some Cyber Monday stuff, so I figured I'm feeling a good deal.

I'm so mad at him because I got my husband a new coffee maker for Christmas and he's obsessed with coffee and he broke our other one.

My son,

So I had three or four days on board.

He made this crazy cat house.

Y'all have a cat?

Yeah.

Oh.

He likes the building.

Oh, cool.

I came home, and I was like, you know, I grabbed it.

Aww.

He has the trouble.

Yeah.

Wow.

Merry Christmas!

So he's very creative.

It's a pretty crazy thing.

Yeah, because the dogs can't get in there.

We'll have to make it disappear at some point over the holidays.

And it takes a blood room.

You put it on top of the couch.

It's a couch, we don't use that.

Oh, okay.

But I still take it as a little couch.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

That date sort of crept up on me this year.

Mm-hmm.

She's all right.

She really likes, she's in Florida.

I sent her some really nice pairs.

And then that's one three, you can't get very sweet.

Aww.

No, her daughter, my step-sister is there.

No, we're all going to go.

We started going to Colonial Beach.

Oh, okay, yeah.

Have you ever been there?

Mm-hmm.

That's nice because you're wearing golf carts everywhere.

Yeah.

It's so much cheaper than regular beach.

Everyone rents their own little house.

Yes.

Oh, I like that.

Well, you're right.

So this way, everybody can rent their own place.

Yeah.

Tell me about it.

Come on.

She'll be happy.

Oh, she only has one daughter?

Yeah.

Oh.

And then there's usually just random friends to tag along.

Oh, okay.

Such a long job.

That was a public space record.

He was there last night too.

Yeah, I'm going to see him.

I know, that's why I chose your wig.

It is so weird.

No, I didn't.

That was one.

Oh, maybe that's what she was talking about.

Yeah.

Yeah, so we have it.

Okay.

What office do we have, though?

Well, there's two at 6th Street now.

We have the youth center now.

Okay.

Okay.

How do we like you?

Okay, so this is for drinking and

Yeah, Brigid's in there some because she gets to all the sites.

She actually has an office hours at picnic tables at like Riverside and Minky.

She just gets to the table and people, yeah, she's coming.

That's so sweet, that's the main thing.

Yeah, it's worked out really well.

And then she's trying to agree to let her have fun.

A little bit of time over in press calls too.

Our tomorrow's last day of surveys.

Very exciting.

I'm never good to see.

I didn't know that that good neighbor policy came in here.

At South First Street, I guess there was an insert about them having a good neighbor policy.

It's not First Street.

I'm glad she laid that chair on it so we can take care of that for you.

Did you read Eric's email about his friend?

About what?

Were you on the email from Eric about his friend?

I was gonna say I don't look at a lot of emails.

I think he said it's a mansion.

He had a friend that did the job.

Aww.

I just kept my coat on.

I feel the same.

Uh huh, exactly.

Maybe he was going home.

Hopefully.

Hello, hey, come on.

Hello, hello.

That's what Kathleen just said.

It's nice in the weird way we were in.

Okay.

So.

whereas the authority has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and whereas Section 2.2-3712D of the 1950 Code of Virginia as amended requires a certification by this authority so that such closed meeting was conducted in conformity with Virginia law.

Now, therefore, upon motion duly made and seconded,

We need to make the motion first.

Okay, make the motion.

No, you don't have to make the motion.

Now you can make it at the end.

Okay, thank you, Delphine.

You can read the full thing first.

Now, therefore, upon motion duly made and seconded be it resolved that the authority hereby certifies that to the best of each commissioner's knowledge

One, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were heard, discussed, and considered in the closed meeting.

And two, only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the authority.

Can I get a motion to close the closed meeting?

Motion.

Thank you, Earl.

Second.

All opposed?

Okay.

That concludes our meeting agenda for this evening.

Thanks, Earl.

A second?

All in favor?

Yes.

All opposed?

All right, thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

And Javi, I sent you, like, it's hard to say my schedule because it's just

Yours is probably the same, just meetings all day.

It's hard to meet today.

If you want to meet in person, it would have to be a, well, even if you didn't, it would be a Monday, Thursday, and Friday for me.

It's a Wednesday, so it's just harder.