 Tonight we are pleased to host a discussion of affordable housing in Austin and as many of y'all may know we just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development which my grandfather signed into law on September 9th 1965 and on the 9th we actually had our current HUD Secretary Julian Castro join us to mark the occasion and talk about the housing issues that face the country. So tonight we're talking about the housing issues as they face we face them in Austin and at the end of the program our guests are going to be available for Q&A and then as I said we'll continue the conversation with food and drinks in there so we hope y'all will stay around for that. We are so pleased to have y'all here I'm going to introduce our moderator and let her take over. Sherry Greenberg here is our moderator she is a lecture and fellow of the Max Sherman chair in state and local government at the LBJ school of public affairs she is a good friend of the LBJ library the LBJ family and the LBJ school of public affairs we're very happy to have her she served for 10 years as a member of the Texas house and as an expert on affordable housing herself so thank you take it away please. Thank you very much. We'll do so we are pleased to have a panel of experts with us here this evening on affordable housing Mandy Demayo has been a leader in the area of affordable housing and community development for more than 20 years she currently serves as executive director of housing works Austin Mandy holds a master's degree in public affairs from the LBJ school of public affairs and as the author of a variety of policy papers on affordable housing in Austin. Michael Gerber is president and CEO of the housing authority of the city of Austin known as HACA he previously served as executive director at the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs he has also served in the office of public and Indian Housing for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and he was responsible providing strategy and management advice to the secretary there he's also served as an advisor to Governor Rick Perry and U.S. senators Phil Graham and Kay Bailey Hutchison. Parisa Vachi Weeks is Google Fibers Community Impact Manager in Austin and I also have to add that she is a graduate of the LBJ school of public affairs where she holds a master's she's one of my students yes I am old and she also has a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin and we are delighted to have her here with us she grew up in Austin and she has served in a variety of capacities with the city managers office here as an advocate for civil rights in San Francisco and of course now with Google Fiber here. So each of our esteemed panelists here have been given five and only five minutes to give us a very quick take on what they see as affordable housing from their vantage point here in Austin then I'll have some questions and we will open it up to audience Q&A. Take it away Mandy yes absolutely. So I work for a small non-profit Housing Works Austin which some of you may be familiar with we were created in 2006 we are an affordable housing research education advocacy organization and I've been with them really for about the last five years as executive director the last two years. Affordable housing is an increasing problem in the city of Austin I moved here in 1991 to go to the LBJ school for public policy and it was a whole different world then. Austin was at the time it was the most expensive rental market in the state of Texas and having moved from Washington DC I couldn't believe how cheap it was it was incredible I think I rented I was in a two bedroom apartment and paid $400 a month I mean for the entire two bedroom apartment and those days of course are long long gone. We were created in 2006 around the affordable housing bonds some of you may recall that that was the first time in the state of Texas certainly but in the city of Austin that we voters overwhelmingly approved general obligation bonds dedicated to affordable housing and the reason that was so important was typically general obligation bonds are used for infrastructure and when we think of infrastructure as a community we think of roads and we think of parks and libraries but we feel very strongly in the affordable housing community that affordable housing is part of our infrastructure we cannot function as a society if we do not have housing stock that serves the people who live in our community. So we were thrilled in 2006 when voters approved 55 million in affordable housing bonds those dollars were all wisely spent and invested in a variety of projects that I'm happy to talk about but I can't fit into my five five minutes but we created more than 3,400 units of affordable housing and it was great and now we are on our second round of affordable housing bonds 65 million that we're currently in the process of investing so we were involved in that process but we were created because we realized that we needed more than just housing bonds we needed more than just financing we needed policies that really supported affordability throughout the city of Austin. So we brought a group of folks together that included really the spectrum from affordable housing advocates to business leaders to faith leaders to house private developers who do market rate housing we brought them all together and with the goal of sitting around the table a broad table and hammering out really workable policy solutions to affordable housing and so that's been our mission over the last seven eight nine now we're on nine years and we've had a lot of great advances but we have a lot more work to do and I think we'll be getting into some of that yes we will five minutes is ticking down I talked as fast as I could but we've had a lot on our plate recently you have a couple minutes to go oh I do okay growing challenges and really the biggest the biggest challenge population growth anybody who lives in Austin knows that you know that is just a fact of life historically we double in size every 20 years that's projected to continue into the future we have our imagine Austin comprehensive plan that looks to kind of deal with that population growth and really envisions this idea of not just compact and connected community but this idea of complete communities where we do have all types of housing in all parts of town which I think is critical and will help to address housing transportation jobs all of those things that that are intricately related so in terms of challenges I would say the biggest challenge we have is if you look at a regular old graph of income and housing costs our incomes are flat and our housing costs are increasing um exorbitantly whether you're a renter or an owner it is a challenge for most people across the income spectrum but it is a particular challenge for very low income people including people who are living on fixed incomes and seniors and people with disabilities so we hope that we can implement and that is our goal to implement policies that really increase affordability across that spectrum from very low income people living on fixed income up to first time home buyers folks in the middle income thank you Mandy Michael thanks uh good evening everybody let me give a quick shout out first to both Mandy and to Sherry both are providing incredible thought leadership on affordable housing in our community um and the work of housing works is really critical I think to that to that effort I'm proud to serve on the board of housing works um and one of the things that um yeah that I have found just remarkable really about the last nine months is that we have a new mayor who's really focusing very intently on issues of affordable housing and I'm just saying the progress that's been made about really confronting issues of inequality and affordability in our city we've made more progress in dealing head on with some of those issues in the last nine months than we have in the last nine in over the last nine mayor's terms it's really been extraordinary um so I anchor uh my organization the housing authority of the city of Austin which is a unit of local government uh really anchors one side of the housing spectrum if you think of housing from homelessness to home ownership we're far closer to the homeless piece we really are and do form the housing social safety net for for the city housing authorities for those of you don't know much about them there's actually about 3,500 of them across the country and we receive most of our funding directly from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and most of the money that we receive goes really into two pots one is to actually operate public housing units fixed assets apartment complexes here in the city of Austin um and then also for section eight now known as the housing choice voucher program um so I'll talk a little bit about both of those pots first though I should probably give you a little a little history uh about hawka hawka takes great pride that we're the first housing authority in the United States we take that pride especially when we go to other cities and they claim to be the first housing authority and no no no no and so the story goes that uh Lyndon Johnson as a young congressman uh was very um uh critical to the effort to get the 1937 housing act passed and in that uh as that bill was working its way through congress at the end uh three housing authorities were created New York New Orleans and Austin and uh then Carson Johnson ensured that Austin was that he wanted them put in alphabetical order so that Austin could forever brag that we were the first created housing authority in the United States and we take that designation very very seriously um we also take great pride that the oldest public housing property Santa Rita courts is here in Austin and the first three properties that were financed by um then the U.S. housing administration um are here in Austin Santa Rita courts uh Rosewood courts and uh Chalmers courts and as a sign of the time of segregation uh Santa Rita was devoted to uh was was dedicated to Hispanic persons Chalmers for whites and and Rosewood for African Americans thank goodness those days are gone and our properties are obviously uh you know integrated and um are just this incredible tapestry of folks um that really are at the very lowest income uh in our community so we operate 18 public housing properties and um as you might expect sadly they're in that crescent of poverty that exists kind of from north Lamar uh around the eastern part of the city and then down to about south Lamar um and um uh that's where we have our 18 properties um and they vary in size we have a high rise building that's right next door to right behind the Four Seasons Hotel uh right there on town lake that's uh dedicated to seniors and persons with disabilities uh that's our largest uh high rise building uh and then we have properties that look very much residential one down south called Bolden Oaks is really a nice community of duplexes and if you you get the sense that it's a planned community by certainly but you don't get the impression that it's public housing so there's really a broad mix we have 1,838 units of public housing and that serves about 4,500 people on the section eight side we we serve about 14,500 people um so on any given night here in Austin we're serving about 19,000 folks and so we're really proud that we're able to provide those services and we're the largest housing social safety provider uh you know here in in central Texas um and uh I would just tell you just a little bit about who we serve um we serve uh you know out of those 19,000 people uh you know roughly 5,000 of them are persons with disabilities nearly 3,000 of them are elderly persons almost 10,000 of them are kids um so it's an extraordinary amount of kids and I always am amazed when people say um you know your folks just don't want to work we always hear the pick yourself up by your bootstraps and people need to go to work and and and we agree that there are people who uh should uh pick themselves up and should and should take positive steps through job training programs and other programs to achieve self-sufficiency I'll have to come back and talk about that in just a second but a whole lot of I won't talk about later but um we're very much dedicated to self-sufficiency but I'm always uh interested in that because you know who exactly is it that you wanted to work did you want the 10,000 kids to work did you want the seniors to work did you want the persons with disabilities who struggle with profound disabilities do you expect them to work and so there's we'll talk a little bit more I think this evening about who can who comprises public housing and some of the services that we offer yes I will. So um thanks for having me like Sherry said I'm Parisa Fatehi Weeks and though I have a past life as doing as serving as a civil rights attorney working on affordable housing and access to public transit issues that's not why I'm here it's not what I've done in Austin really what the reason I'm here is really a testament to partners like the housing authority of the city of Austin and a partnership that Google Fiverr has gotten to strike through folks like Catherine and Mike kicking off a digital inclusion initiative at the housing authority that I'll tell you at the very end of my remarks but if you'll indulge me for a second I wanted to just say a little bit about my background personally which is when I moved to the United States with my family when I was five months old we came straight to Austin and we lived in housing subsidized by the University of Texas at Austin and though the red bricks that you would see on the outside looked very modest it was actually very rich because we had access to the top-notch public transit frequently running buses to the university we had access to strong community we had access to all the resources of the university system so I spent probably as much time at university libraries as a child as I did when I went to school here and it made all the difference for a family that was learning English didn't have a car and was in a new country for the first time and I think that's what you talk about when you say complete communities it's what we talk about when we say opportunity-rich communities that is exactly what I had the privilege to to come to when I moved to the United States as a five-month-old and it's it is those things that I mentioned that are those key building blocks to opportunity that access to the bus system huge it it it's one of those key building blocks the libraries and today access to the internet it turns out is one of those building blocks that's key we know that 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies require you to apply online and online only so if you want to work at Walmart if you want to work at Target you've got to submit an application online well if you don't have access at home you're going to have to jump on a bus hopefully you know when to catch that bus then you go and you hope to get a spot at the public library's computer lab you might only have 30 minute slot to work in that computer lab before it's someone else's turn so by the time you do that initial research to even see what jobs are out there you've run out of time to put your resume together and submit the application online so huge huge barriers right there we know that teachers report that 80 percent of them assign homework that you have to get online to complete so all of these really paint the picture of why the internet and access to it at home is just as essential a building block as we now know housing and public transit to be and it's for that reason that Google Fiber has had the privilege of partnering with the housing authority and others in the community to they lead this initiative called the unlocking the connection initiative and through this initiative if you're a public housing resident you get you will get access to the internet in your home in your unit at no cost you'll also get the chance to sign up for some form of computer training digital literacy training we call it and then third if you complete a substantial portion of that training you will then earn a refurbished computer device thanks to a donation from the Austin Community College system that refreshes their inventory every so often so through this program the housing authority has designed something that attack that really addresses all three of the major barriers we know folks face when they're trying to cross over to the other side the digital divide and that's one affordability of the connection itself so Google Fiber is coming in on that the education and the sense of relevance it turns out a lot of folks have no sense that internet today is essential to improving your quality of life so these classes really make that case but then also show you how to touch a mouse for the first time some people are scared by the keyboard the mouse turning it on and then third of course getting folks access to that device in their home so really lucky to be a part of that partnership because I think it's part of what is going to make housing a more complete and opportunity rich place thank you very much and thank all of you for your very insightful comments and if I were to to put a frame around this I think that I would speak of equitable access to quality of life right and what are the components here in Austin to have that equitable access to quality of life we speak of complete communities well if you don't have a place to live it's hard to go to school or workforce training you need transit you need all of these components but we know that there is a segment of our population unfortunately that's growing despite the fact that we're booming not everyone is sharing in that prosperity or we have a situation where as you said Mandy wages are flat but prices are increasing dramatically for rents and for home for buying homes so the question is how do we address this housing affordability issue I think and all of you came at that from from different points from the access Mandy I will we'll start with you and that is if there were one or two policies because you mentioned that you do policy that housing works if there were one or two policies whatever that that we could change that you think would start to move the needle what would they be oh it's so hard to narrow it down to one or two okay whatever because I could go on and on not on and on but um you know equity really resonates with me because I think that's the really the challenge that we're facing now Mike mentioned the the crescent of poverty and the eastern crescent the eastern you know that goes from north to east and then around south and if I could change one thing first we need to get our arms around the problem we need to really understand what the problem is and we just released city council district analysis looking at all ten city council districts and what their housing challenges and opportunities are going from homelessness all the way up to home ownership so looking at the number of unsheltered homeless people in each district the poverty rate in each district the number of subsidized housing units um and then also access to transit we looked at a whole variety of different indicators and the thing that really struck me was when we lined up all ten city council districts we realized that the council districts that are primarily primarily east of i-35 so districts one two and three um contained 48 percent of the um subsidized housing not just the housing authority units this is all of our subsidized housing stock we have about 18 500 including tax credits and other tax credits and um we have some programs housing for people with disabilities housing right um some federal programs housing for the elderly anything that's subsidized in some way or another either local state or federal but you didn't include in that market rate affordable we did not include market rate affordable so 18 500 is the universe we're playing with and we put them all on a map you can see all the dots so east of i-35 they have about half of the units and then once you got west of mopak which are primarily districts um six eight and ten are primarily west of mopak they contain three percent of the subsidized housing units so i look at that again getting back to my initial comments about housing as infrastructure to me it's not just an equity issue it's also an issue if we have low and moderate wage jobs all over the city there are lots of jobs that we have mapped out in districts six eight and ten and because we are not providing those affordable housing opportunities we're cutting people off from opportunity we're also exacerbating our transportation problems ask anyone with the top three issues are in the city of austin well it's you know congestion transportation housing and water so you're really getting at some of that suburbanization of poverty where people are moving further out because that's the only place they can afford to live but the jobs aren't there driving and the jobs aren't there and the public transportation and yes so some of them cannot work or if they can they're contributing to traffic right so in terms of changing policies i think we're moving in that direction if i get one quick thing would be aligning all of our housing transportation and economic development policies i think that's critical we can't just place affordable housing over here likewise we can't just place transportation over here or jobs over here without thinking the interrelation between all three so the nexus of housing jobs and transit it's it's it's there right we need to recognize it and we need to channel our funding um that way and we need to align our policies that way that would be one policy the other policy never mind more funding i mean that's critical and and we need that um but another policy would be really looking at our our non-funding resources so non-fiscal resources like publicly owned land we have an incredible um array of public entities you know including the county and the city and cap metro and austin energy in the state of texas university of texas aisd um who may be cash poor but they do have resources in terms of public underutilized land and i think we need to all get together and look at what are those underutilized resources and where does it make the most sense to actually invest in affordability because land is one of the most expensive when you're building a construction project depending on the location um you know land is a huge part of the budget absolutely thank you me so michael um i know that uh haka has um some very innovative programs it's not your grandparents housing authority and i was hoping that you could tell us about some of those sure glad to i was just i can't resist adding a third one the the rewrite the rewrite of the land development oh my god the land use code yeah how could i forget that i'm on the advisory group you know maybe that's why you forgot it development in this city is more expensive than anywhere else in the state of texas and it takes longer to get housing on the ground and the result is is that um those costs get borne by the developer who are and get passed along and they they can't afford to develop affordable units because of those costs because of those delays because of that uncertainty the risk factor is just to it becomes prevented well that could send to the permitting process to the zoning and the permitting i think you're alluding to both of those absolutely absolutely so um so i would add that um i with respect to haka there are some really creative things that we're doing obviously unlocking the connection is is uh one of the the the newest and coolest things that we're we're doing but um for many years you know we've really sort of changed from being just a housing authority that provides housing it's really also about where we can where people are able to to move them to self-sufficiency so it's meant really an incredible array of really rich partnerships focused really around three areas education health care and job training and you name it we have a partnership with them i was giving an example in the realm of job training we work extensively with the workforce solutions board we work with skill point alliance we work with goodwill we work with with capital idea um all with the intention of trying to come up with a customized solution for folks who live in our properties the reality is is that many of the folks who live at our properties have never had someone rooting for them have never had coaching have never had mentoring um and providing that case work piece really becomes critical and we have a team of of social workers and case workers who really track progress and try to encourage them through a variety of programs that we operate internal to haka one called the family self sufficiency program the other called the resident opportunity for self-sufficiency program those are also HUD funded projects but the idea is that we provide some basic support get people out into the community working with nonprofits and other agencies that really have the skills and capability to train folks not just with the intent of training them in something but training them with the intent of getting them a job um and where there's really going to be a job at the end of their at the end of their their program um we do the same in education and in and in health care as well um but I would want to tie it to to what parissa was talking about unlocking the connection you know it's great to give people a device it's great to give people the opportunity to have a free internet connection for for 10 years at no charge that's important to us because we for lots of reasons but um if folks only use it for accessing facebook and for video games the whole thing was a waste um the goal is to see um better outcomes in health care and job training and education so not just technology is a shiny new toy but actually with a purpose behind it exactly and giving them devices that are relevant for them so if there's kids in a household we want to give them tablets if there's if there's you know for seniors it may be a desktop for um you know for others it may be to start some may have the aspirations start a new business um and give them the tools to be able to you know operate quick books or other types of of things that's why the partnership with acc with austin free net with so many others to to handle the digital literacy piece is really key and then being able to make mid-term corrections as we roll this thing out because we really are rolling this out somewhat slowly um because we want to evaluate its progress and some of it's also dictated by how fast google fiverr is also rolling out so we're starting south working our way east and then we'll wind up north and finish out our properties um but we're also studying it there's two professors here at the university of texas who are doing a longitudinal study and they'll give us some early reads on our success and are we seeing those outcomes and so we'll have the ability to make mid-course corrections if we if we need to one of the things i'd mentioned separate from the programming that we have we also operate a subsidiary called austin affordable housing corporation that corporate i'm sorry people should donate to them yes they should but um uh we we we basically operate right now about 1600 off um units that are that are have no subsidy attached to them but they're fully open to section eight residents so their market their private market but section eight take the uh the vouchers correct and there's really a shortage of landlord who will take section eight and our goal by take acquiring the property is that we try to keep the rents between 20 and 30 below the market so in a lot of cases were really sort of the last vestige of a neighborhood's affordability and we're really we're really proud of that we also do some other things by way of tax credits and trying to develop some of our own properties those do come with subsidies and lots of rules attached to them and can talk a little bit about that more so prisa um you certainly um made a compelling case from your own history um and the work you're doing now about access and we we've talked about access in several areas and certainly with digital again it's not in this respect we're not talking about a shiny new toy we're talking about a way to for for people to have access and to improve their lives um and i know that's what you're doing um with rosewood but i'm wondering does google have other projects of this type in mind that would help with access that would help with those who don't have the digital technology they need either to do their homework or to to put that resume together to get a job or other other facets of their lives yeah so that's the issue i have the privilege of working on across austin with other partners in addition to the housing authority so the housing authority example is a really robust program and in fact i left out the fact it is it is such a model that president obama and secretary castrow announced this summer that they uh want to do this in 28 other communities across the country and it's really modeled on what haka's done and they've been named as the mentor city to these other 28 communities across the country to do an initiative just like this one that's multi-pronged and looks at all these barriers to getting online so um so yes uh we we actually have an entire priority in our work to advance social good in austin as our top priority is what we call digital inclusion which is another way of saying how can we narrow the digital divide and uh there are a lot of nonprofits a lot of community-based organizations in austin doing really wonderful work on this issue you heard austin freenet one of the longest standing in the country that's been doing um digital literacy work teaching people wherever it is they're starting pointed for some folks it's not knowing how to turn the device on for some folks they do know how to do that maybe they know how to use the the technology for one purpose but i've no idea how to use it for professional development to start a resume to start an email address for the first time so we certainly support um financially and in other ways um groups like austin freenet groups like river city youth foundation another really national model and how to build the digital literacy of an entire family they operate out of dove springs and they do so in a way that is um really tailored to the culture and language um of that rich community um that has such a history and and is ready to get into the technological world but really need some of those those classes and resources so i know all of us are very passionate about this topic and we've covered really a lot of territory so far talking about equitable access to quality life and how here we're that's starting with having a roof over your head a place to live and and the nexus of that with transit and with workforce and there are lots of other programs we could discuss and policy tools uh the city um perhaps making changes to beyond the uh zoning with co-next and the permitting the density bonus program and the smart housing program and some of these other tools certainly many of us are looking for innovative financing in this realm but really there's two parts of the equation as we've discussed one is the supply of housing that's affordable from people who are at the very lowest 30 percent of median family income all the way through workforce housing and up to 120 percent of median family income and the other is increasing people's ability to afford with with the workforce and somewhere in there is the transit to get them back and forth so i i thank you for these comments what i'd like to do now is open up to uh questions um from our audience here and i am sure you have some so yes sure so so you bring up a really big question and just i think it was this morning i was listening to something on the radio and i believe they were referring to a program in san francisco where subsidized housing had in this particular area managed to maintain some diversity and the character of the neighborhood because you had that subsidized housing and without it you would not have so clearly there is a role for subsidized housing and maintaining that neighborhood culture rich culture and and diversity but we we cannot escape the fact that you know the african-american population here is decreased the only city of its kind in the country where we're seeing that um and we we know that there are other issues with affordability that i think you're alluding to um how would you address those well it's interesting because i think the article you're referring to um it was the executive director of the tenderloin cc that was a neighborhood in san francisco and um what he said is i view our affordable housing as an inoculation against gentrification that was right and what he said which this is an interesting flip to what i had said earlier about you know districts one two and three having the bulk of the subsidized housing stock the guy from the tenderloin district neighborhood in san francisco said because we have i think they have about a third of the housing stock is actually subsidized and so it's required to be affordable for a certain period of time and there's monitoring compliance because of that he said i don't really care what the market does that's great we've got a third of the housing stock that is not going to change so he was you know viewing that positively in terms of an inoculation against gentrification but without a doubt we've got huge gentrification issues um and it's not just i was talking to somebody today who was saying you know it's not just on the east side people are getting pushed out um all over the city we talked about the suburbanization of poverty the poverty rate actually declined in the city of austin between last year and this year and ryan robinson our demographer said don't pat yourselves on the back it's not that we got richer it's just that we're pushing them to bastroff and you know fayette county and wherever um a couple of things that i think are really important policies um one i will go back to the affordable housing bonds and one of the um great things about the housing bonds is they support a program the austin housing repair coalition which is a coalition of five um nonprofits that actually go out and do home repairs uh for low income senior primarily seniors homeowners um and most of them have been central east austin um that fit in that category um and for an average of it was about seven thousand seven five hundred dollars it's primarily um fixing leaky windows accessibility modifications really health and safety uh issues they're enabling seniors who are long time these are mostly generational um homeowners central east enabling them to stay but the reality is we need more of that and again that takes resources right now i think that the budget for the housing repair coalition is about two million dollars a year we could certainly use more the other thing i will say is um we have we're finally about to get on the books um something called the homestead preservation district which was initially passed by state legislation but never implemented this was in 2005 so it only takes us about a decade um and that is the first district district a we've subsequently identified more districts that fit the criteria for it was basically a way to combat gentrification to provide additional resources for some of these areas that um have high poverty rates that are higher disproportionate to the to the city um and to provide some additional resources to enable people to live in their own homes and to provide additional um funding for housing in that neighborhood so the district that we are about to right to put into action essentially um will enable it'll implement a tiff tax increment financing district in central east austin that will ultimately generate funds that'll be exclusively for that district for affordable housing in that district and also provide the possibility for some um abatement tax abatement for both homeowners and property owners provided they improve their properties to keep their taxes low so that was a lot but yes sir progress we've had one affordable housing meeting with dr. McGee was one of the panels one there and um what i found out through um like 55 60 sick parents and our complex which is for brains but they're struggling some of them have real jobs like you know secretaries or notices and they find it hard just to get a home because that level is like 75 thousand per house so imagine a question how is that going to help michael um i'm not sure i don't know the specific program or the housing without a doubt when we talked about earlier about people struggling it is not um our homeless numbers are actually going down we're doing a great job um primarily through permanent supportive housing initiative which is great we've seen over the last three years our homeless numbers going up down but what we are seeing is um workforce issues workforce issues right um struggles with rent and home ownership our comprehensive housing market study which was released last summer and the data is still good summer of 2014 yeah 2014 um exactly and we're seeing that really across the city which is what i was going to say is we've got about 48 thousand we need about 48 thousand units that are affordable that's primarily to people making 25 thousand dollars in a year and less that's that's workforce those are people who are those are you know child care workers service workers that whole your critical industry um and then also i think you had mentioned home ownership that enormous need for housing in the 200 thousand dollar range which would be affordable to somebody who's earning between 60 and 80 percent of median family income which for a family of four is what about 46 thousand dollars that at 60 percent of median so those are those are nurses and and teachers and you know you're getting into kind of that income category so huge huge so i want to be able to take some additional questions yes ma'am we're very excited about them and very high on them the city has one as well but we we're operating something called a community land trust where we're trying to effectively land bank and and bet that the appreciation and property um that there's a there's a creative way to do you want to talk about how those work of community land trust you know essentially um you purchase a property we've we've i'll give you an example we've purchased one at um uh on uh it's called uh ventry apartments it's right off of mopak and stack on the west side of mopak and it's 128 units and has a wonderful group of residents who've been there for for quite some time we got a great deal on that property we've been able to we're going to hold on to that for quite some some time and the intent is over time we believe between the appreciation that we get one day we may sell it with the intent of maybe being able to buy double that 128 units um somewhere else um or we may choose to redevelop it which would keep more affordable housing in in west austin but we're we're sort of betting on the appreciation that happens over time on the homeownership front i'll give you an example for this gentleman who's talking about uh homeownership opportunities in east austin some of you may have heard about our efforts to redevelop a property called rosewood courts and and one of the components of that is that we heard a lot from the community about there not being any affordable homeownership we're proposing to develop 25 homeownership units at the at that property we would we would enter into a shared equity or we'd land bank them so we would retain ownership of the land it would be it would be home ownership but it wouldn't be able to be transferred to to to you know their their children or to to someone else they'd have to have to be a qualified resident who goes to live there hopefully a public housing resident or the next possible level you maintain the affordability by owning the land separate separate the land from the unit correct and and over time as the family lives there when the property sells we will then go and we'll share the equity but you will still own the land only the unit will continue to own the land the homeowner will get some a portion of that equity will retain that equity and it'll help us to pay to basically buy down the cost of it and retain the affordability over time and we pass it down to the next person in need and and and keep keep it as a fixed asset for us to do a similar model in Miller Mueller at the city of Austin has the city of Austin has one also Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Corporation on the east side also operates a community land trust and has a fabulous new subdivision that's coming online similar model just right the land is owned by the nonprofit and the improvement is owned by the the family who is qualified who is income qualified typically it's at or below 80% median family so I would add I think this community is looking to do more of these community land trust and I would just say I think that's a big theme of the the ability to as the state as governmental entities the University of Texas and and such you know have excess property putting them into a community land trust helps us all yes yes and co-locating that by schools and jobs given and transit given where some of that property is additional questions yes sir I think that's interesting that is not it was formerly publicly owned it was owned by Texas Department of Transportation and the city did make an attempt to purchase the property so I would use that as an example of city policy that we need to change and we're working on because there are going to be lots of other opportunities several in West Austin including the eight uh Austin State Supported Living Center which my understanding on the southwest corner of 35th and MOPAC that provides an opportunity because the city due to state legislation has essentially the right of first refusal when that comes up for sale which my understanding is it should be sometime around 2017 and I think this points out Mandy the need too for additional financing and something that the mayor and members of the community and the city council committee and others and staff are working on together is to put together a fund that would have money that is outside of what we have now not public resources we've done wonderful job with those general obligation bonds it's been able we've been able to do twice the amount of housing but to look to other sources whether it's a private sector or foundations and and what not to to come up with an additional funding source so that if this land becomes available additional land for instance from the state we're in a position as a community to be able to to purchase that land to acquire it and then entitle it which is essentially what happened with Miller Mueller the city was able to entitle it and then require the 25 percent affordability which is a win-win for the community and we'd like to see that in future opportunities particularly opportunities in West Austin or high opportunity areas it doesn't have to be West Austin but any area with access to transportation jobs good schools so I think we probably have time for just a couple more questions I see a hand back there a gentleman in the back yes Sunday church that's we found that yeah which was wonderful kick myself and I do it before but you saw how few families were there and that's a community that's a sense of spirit that's drawn we lose so much more than the next high rising that comes in so the question is these areas I think and I know Mandy will elaborate on this but when we talk about code next and we talk about changes in zoning and maybe something along the lines of what we we used to call granny flats but accessory accessory dwelling units some of those might hold possibility to enable some more affordable opportunities and you know kind of an established neighborhoods in the urban core but I would also say we're incredibly fortunate to have a handful we need more but a handful of community development corporations that were created in the 1980s and Clarksville is one is one of them you know as the mayor I've heard the mayor say multiple times you know we just have an issue we have great solutions we have an issue of scale so we have Clarksville community development corporation I mentioned before Guadalupe community neighborhood development corporation similar their nonprofits community based nonprofits the board of directors is people living in the community and they have acquired housing they own housing they manage housing in the community Guadalupe has scaled up you know they're central east Austin they they have owned they own and manage a 24 unit apartment complex they also have a for sale program and then own a bunch of rental housing my understanding is Clarksville community development corporation was a little bit dormant for a while I think they have a handful of properties in Clarksville that they rent to qualified income qualified folks but I know that they have another development hopefully a duplex on their on their radar screen and so we're hoping to see more affordable again subsidized so it is there's long-term affordability attached to it so that people who live in the neighborhood can stay in the neighborhood so I think we have time for one final short question I'll take one right here final short question right so the city had passed an ordinance and there was there was legislation that basically made that ordinance null and void talking about vouchers and there's also been a supreme court decision stemming from Dallas about tax credits and having housing not concentrated in certain areas so we'll roll all of that up together what do you think I well yeah so go for it Michael fortunately or unfortunately my name was on that lawsuit involving the said Dallas when I headed up the Texas Department of Housing I maybe happened to know that and and you know the the the embarrassing thing about it or maybe the wonderful thing about it is that looking back you know those of us who have been involved in public policy never like to suggest like to think that the thing we did had that kind of result and the issue was the was the way the state awarded tax credits unreasonably concentrating the allocation of those credits in poor areas of communities around Texas and could a particular approach to analyzing it looking at disparate impact could could that be used under the fair housing act as spring court said it could and as I've dealt with issues of inequality here in our city where we're so far from the progress that we would have thought we would have made since Lyndon Johnson delivered the violet on the tarnish you know the tarnish on the violet crown speech you were the most segregated city in in in the state arguably the most segregated city in the in the United States I heard a pastor from East Austin who shared that you know it's not bad enough to have to have you know East Drive or East Street you know now you know he's come to almost hate I-35 of course we all hate I-35 but but but it serves as a as a very physical barrier and to to poverty issues and to enter and and really is in a lot of ways a great divide all that all that said you know I think it's a shame that the state legislature went and over overturned what this city chose to prioritize we chose to we we said as a community value that if someone's having their rent paid for that they should be able to go and have any landlord in the in the city be required to accept that that that rent that that rental voucher and the state legislature said that the interests of the landlord uh overrode the interests of the renter and that it wasn't that it wasn't it wasn't legal to do so um and and and you know the result is is that um you know I I believe it's not going to be settled until it's taken to court and until those who receive rental assistance truly are able to in some means in either state law or in other uh some other form uh enshrine that doesn't matter where your rent comes from if it's come if it comes from a state state program a federal program um that's a legitimate that's a legitimate means of having your rent covered and that truly as Mandy said you know we really do aspire to as a community I think to the value of all types of housing for all types of people in all parts of town if you look at where section 8 housing is today it is heavily concentrated in that crescent of poverty it's a math that makes me miserable every time I see it um because we're not putting people in areas of high of high opportunity and we know exactly where those areas of high of high opportunity are and those are the communities that raise the biggest fuss in many respects on the source of income on the source of income issue which was very very folks who came from some of those communities and it was very very disappointing to to see that um so you know this is a case where really yes civil rights attorneys and fair housing attorneys you have contributed measurably to protecting the rights and interests and promoting opportunity through these programs and I think unfortunately because of some of the things that we're seeing in the state legislature on this issue where I need to continue to to do more I want to just one interject one last thing which is just sort of the scope of the problem because I don't want anyone to think that this is a 5 000 person problem or 10 000 person problem when Mandy talked about the first housing bonds that were passed for 55 million dollars in 2006 the number of affordable housing units that were estimated to be needed to be built were 39 000 go to when we went um to with the bonds um back in oh sorry it was 39 000 in it was 39 000 in 2009 right we did another housing study and then in 2014 five years later it became 49 000 shortly afterwards um when that first bond failed to pass but then came back nine months later it had gone up to 55 000 some folks in the community have suggested that their real number is much higher than that there's a need over the next 10 years to develop as many as 100 000 units of affordable housing well that's I would say housing in general housing in what I what I would say is that there's there's an issue of scale and that you you know you can look at the different levels you can look to needing 48 000 of subsidized across different income levels uh and that is a huge issue and then you add to that another may be 20 000 in the 80 to 121 right and and so the numbers are large so I think that our time has has come to an end and but we have have talked about uh challenges and certainly um you know we we have a challenge as far as the amount of affordable housing um and um some of the um changes that we would like to see but I also think that we have opportunities we have opportunities in this community with so many people willing to work together to work together for household affordability on affordable housing on workforce and on transit and to to bring scale whether it's with funding or these other programs so I thank you so much for your time this evening it's been a pleasure and I want to thank our panelists for their time thank you very much