 and welcome to the fourth annual, or annual, it's been hilarious, the fourth town hall in this series of town halls that we, the housing coalition have put together for you. Tonight we have a panel, as you can see, there is a whole line of distinguished individuals who are the top of their field. They're ready to answer all of your fantastic questions. My name is Emily Cundey, I am the coach here for the housing coalition of Sheboygan County. You're used to Joe and Abby sitting up here, so sorry, you have to deal with me this evening, but we really fortunate that the group has given us a huge list of questions. We've got 19 pre-listed questions. We will also give you an opportunity to share your questions with us as we move forward as well. So I do believe we have a PowerPoint that has some information about the individuals on our panel this evening, should we start with that? Oh, maybe we should just start with little housekeeping. The Sheboygan County Housing Coalition meets the third Tuesday of every month at 9 a.m. I can't advertise that enough. We are meeting virtually right now, so if you're interested in being a part of that, I'm sure some of the slides have our information on it, but Abby at Lakeshore Cap keeps the list. Joe from Safe Visible and the Warming Center, he'll make sure you get on the list as well. So as we move forward, please consider joining us with the housing coalition. We're really looking to make action steps and do things for our community. We're looking to educate, advocate, facilitate change. So tonight we're really looking at a variety of things, just to remember that we went through the bridges out of poverty and the Alice in our first town hall. Here's some information about the bridges resource builder model, just the different parts of those. If you are interested in seeing some of the old presentations, meaning town hall one, two, or three, they are on the City Hall website on Facebook. They are also through the housing coalition's Facebook page, and we are YouTube famous. So you can watch those on YouTube as well, but this is a little bit of information about the causes of poverty, the community wide approach. Joe and I really very thoroughly went through the information on here during the first town hall. Alice stands for asset limited income restrained employed. Constraint employed, so that was also reviewed during our first town hall. I'm gonna move on to the next slide. So what was one of our panel members, Daryl, you wanna say hi over there? Daryl has been involved in many facets of the community, and we lost our slide. Can I have my slide back? Look at me, I didn't print it out, I'm unprepared. Don't judge me. Has been involved in the social service advocate for showing I know Daryl for nearly all aspects. He previously led the Salvation Army in their fight against hunger and homelessness. Currently, Daryl serves as the executive director of the Consumer Credit Counseling Services. Consumer Credit Counseling Services is a HUD approved financial counseling agency. Their mission is to help individuals and families in Wisconsin and in Minnesota communities achieve financial stability to improve their quality of life. Financial stress can make you feel alone, but through our education counseling and debt management services, we will walk you through the path to financial freedom. So there actually are some questions on here that I believe Daryl is gonna have great answers for tonight. He's an excellent advocate for the community, and we're really happy to have him. Thank you, Daryl. What do we have next up on our list of people? We'll see. Kate, that's what Kate, Kate Markort. Kate serves as the supportive housing program director for Lakeshore Community Action Program and leads in the point in time, the Pitt Count, which you may have heard of, as well as Lakeshore, the COC, our coalition. So we have that Shoeing County Housing Coalition, which is more of our local Shoeing County base, whereas the Lakeshore Coalition serves Shoeig and Manitowoc-Kewani in Door County and looks at the interests across the board, and they do a lot of things around HUD and housing. So there's, oh, it just talks a little bit about what you've got here. Supportive housing programs, Lakeshore Community Action Program works with Wisconsin Energy Rental Assistance, where you might have heard the term WERA funds and permanent housing funds for individuals experiencing or at imminent risk of homelessness. The mission is to promote economic and personal self-sufficiency and wellbeing of low to moderate income persons and families through service programs, advocacy, community education and resource development in Door-Kewani, Manitowoc and Shoeing counties, and to enable and empower persons, parents, and families through voluntary prevention, education and support programs. One of the things we will get out of tonight is the fact that some of these mission statements have a lot of words in them, but there are a lot of commas. All right, let's keep going. Well, Kate, do you wanna say hi? Do you find Kate? All right, so who's next? Scott, what do we got? Chad, I mean Chad, Peleshek. Chad is the director of planning and development for the city of Sheboygan. In this role, he has been a proponent of affordable housing and is at the forefront of spearheading initiatives to provide equitable housing opportunities for community members. Chad has also worked with an education initiatives participating in the city's affordable housing study, landlord trainings and partnering with local businesses. Chad has been a part of our panel. He, last time, came to us from Wisconsin Dells. He did forego the waterslides in order to come and present to you all, and we were really lucky and happy to have him here. He's got a lot of knowledge and information, and he's got a lot to share tonight. Apparently, there are only two questions on the list he can't answer, so you're gonna hear a lot of Chad tonight. Who else do we have? Brian, ooh, Brian, I'm not gonna get on murder your last name. Okay, it's just Brian. Just Brian is the executive director of the Schwoiten County Economic Development Corporation. There he is, say hi, Brian. Just Brian, like Madonna. So he has been working to develop a 360 degree approach to housing solutions in Schwoiten County by partnering with both for-profit and non-profit agencies. Schwoiten County Economic Development Corp, S-C-E-D-C, that's a mouthful as well. A non-profit corporation works to build the Schwoiten County economy by providing project management and personalized solutions. We heard a lot from Brian last time as well. He had a lot of great information to share with us of new initiatives and ideas that are coming forth, and just so you're aware, I know a bunch of people that know Brian in the community and think really wonderful things about him, so he's not just good at what he's doing, he's a good person, so that's always nice to know as well. Who else do we have? Matthew, okay, Matthew. He's just gonna go away with me at, so Matt is a local landlord with mostly single home and duplex properties throughout the community. In his work, he utilizes a business approach while working with tenants to access resources when necessary. Partnership and collaboration are key components to a healthy and successful community. There's Matthew, so he's also a member of the Lakeshore Landlord Association. So I've heard also a lot of good things about Matt in the community as well, so I've also seen some of his properties and they're all really well taken care of and pretty amazing and sparkly shiny, so. Thank you for being here today. I think there are some really good things that you can share with the group too, so I appreciate the fact that you took the time out tonight. Do you, we looked at Matthew already? All right, well, Tracy. Tracy is a lifelong Shoeing County resident. She has worn many hats during lifetime and currently identifies as a mother, a wife, a caretaker, both personally and professionally, and a dog mom, you should see your puppy. We have been so fortunate that Tracy has chosen to share her lived experiences with the community through these town halls, and she said yes to coming back here tonight, so Tracy, that's Kate. Tracy's gotta be in there somewhere. Oh, look, look, look, look. So there's Tracy for you. So she's gonna be here to answer questions that you may have as well about just lived experiences and maybe some of the things that people in our community have experienced or gone through. She obviously can't represent everyone, but at the same time, anyone who was here during our first town hall may have some questions based on the story that she told or people have seen it since then. She was gracious enough to come here, so thank you, Tracy, and I know Tracy personally, and I think she's a fantastic human being as well, so. Thank you, and who are we missing? Did we get everybody? Oh, Mary Lynn, is she on the list? God's like, no. It's like the prices, right, where we get to blame everything on the person offscreen. Oh, there's Mary Lynn. She's occupying her previous seat. It still has her imprint in it. We're solid. Mary Lynn is a retired lawyer, practicing lawyer. However, she has had a long passionate career helping underserved communities, so Curly Mary Lynn is spending her time running and developing the Renters Eviction Assistance Project in Sheboyin County. The Renters Eviction Assistance Project aims to mediate landlord and tenant relationships and provide legal assistance to those facing housing insecurity who otherwise may not be able to pay for legal help. So right now, she's been connected to Lake Shore Cap and access to that program has been through the Lake Shore Cap website. So anyone who's been on the Lake Shore Cap website knows how busy it is. There's a lot of resources, a lot of assistance available through the Lake Shore Cap website. It can be hard to navigate, but if you do go through it and you look for the things and opportunities, there's a lot of options and opportunities, and one of them is Mary Lynn's program can connect you through there. So that's our panel tonight. I just wanted to say thank you. Give them a quick round of applause for showing up. Yeah, you can tell. We're a quiet bunch here. I think that I really wish that I'd brought my computer tonight. That was one of the things I forgot and I was gonna look and see. Does someone have extra questions and answers and keep an eye on the ground? Do you have it? You just, as like people decide to put questions in the thing, we're working here. We're working here, guys. This is what happens when we all show up late. No, it's just me, nevermind. We got it. Anything else shows up in the chat box. Joe is gonna be the voice of the people and he will step to the microphone and he will, everyone's gonna be speaking in the voice of Joe tonight, so anyone in the audience. If it's a lady's question, are you gonna use more of a high-pitched tone? All right, we're really rolling tonight. Okay, so we're gonna, like I said, we have 19 questions to go through. The style and format that we're looking to do this evening would be that I'm gonna read off the question and the individual who feels like they have the answer for it will give it a little wave and Scott's gonna turn on their microphone and they're going to share what they feel are the best answers to that question. In addition to that, we have other panel members that may have other things to add, share, or enhance the answers to each question and they will then raise their hand and we will move on through them. This may spur a discussion. It may spur some questions that you didn't even know you had until some of these answers started coming forward. So please add your questions to the chat box or wait till the end, in which case then Joe will chime in and he will do his best to imitate your voice if he knows you personally. I just made that up, we'll see. Okay, question one, what regulatory barriers could we remove at a local level to enable construction of affordable housing? I.e. adjusting parking minimums, minimum setbacks, minimum lot slash parcel sizes to allow for greater density and lower upfront construction costs. Who would like to start with that answer? Chad, all right. Thank you, moderator. So to answer that question, what I would say is that the city of Sheboygan, for example, I think so when we look at larger older communities, typically they're, in most cases, their zoning codes are pretty restrictive and are looking at the, have addressed these minimum setbacks and lot sizes and stuff. And so there's minimal regulatory barriers, I would say. For the city of Sheboygan, for example, our minimum lot size is 60 by 150. We issue a lot of variances to allow reconstruction in central city housing. So if a house was to burn down and somebody wanted to rebuild that house, the setbacks come into play, but there's opportunities for variances to the ordinance to allow houses to be rebuilt. So I think, just to answer the question, I think we feel that in the city of Sheboygan, for example, and I can't speak for all the municipalities in the Sheboygan County, but in our community, we are a very densely platted community. We have smaller lots sizes and we're trying to maximize it. And sometimes that, most of the time that can lead to better opportunity for infill housing in the central city and lower to moderate income neighborhoods and kind of keep the price of housing down. However, current construction costs, which we really have no control over, are really driving a lot of challenges in today's market. And I think the pandemic has kind of increased that and from hearing from developers and builders, it's very difficult to plan a property and plan a new construction or renovation with the current construction costs. And frankly, I don't know who has any control over construction costs. We just hope that they'll level out at some stage and people will be able to continue to rebuild and build properties at a more affordable price. So what I hear you saying is that there are some ways for this to occur and there's some kind of ways to go around from the codes or adjust some of the codes as people are building or rebuilding in some cases. Yes, there's flexibilities built in and we're not oblivious to those flexibilities and we understand that they need to happen. And some of them are in place for certain reasons, but there is the opportunity for trying to facilitate rebuilding in central city neighborhoods. Thank you. Do you guys have any pieces that like to share or add or enhance that? Ryan? Just from a rural community perspective. So he does. So the communities in the rural markets such as Shabuigan Falls, Plymouth and Random Lake very definitely have nostalgic or vintage type zoning codes to meet the minimum lot size that would be historical to like the city of Shabuigan. But the bigger question is long term for downtown is really tied to adjusting the parking requirements for up on second stories and other parts of the community. Chad, do you have any information around like when we talk about adjusting the parking rates downtown, is that something that you would like to talk about? Sure, in the essential commercial zone. Sorry. In the central commercial zone, which is really what the commercial areas within the community are, there are no parking minimums or maximums. Parking is waived and it's really up to the developer to decide how many stalls they may need for their development. So we already kind of do that in the residential neighborhoods. There's obviously minimal parking requirements but in commercial districts and industrial districts there are parking minimums, but we always work with them and issue a lot of variances frankly to that to try to maximize the space that we have versus parking because frankly we would like to see more people using non-motorized transportation options versus motorized. Excellent, thank you. Would anyone else like to add anything or enhance that conversation anymore? No, check in their head. Okay, let's move on to question number two. Cars are expensive to purchase, ensure, and at times crippling to maintain or repair but are necessary for many people to get around. How can we ensure affordable housing is supported by affordable transportation? Walking, biking paths, transit, ride share or otherwise. Cheap housing isn't valuable if it's not easy to get from that housing to your job, school, doctor, recreation, et cetera. Can someone speak to these concerns? Chad. So I would start out and then Brian can probably talk more on a county wide basis for this one but from the city standpoint we do operate a public transportation system and as part of our planning efforts we do engage discussions with the shoreline metro transportation service to make sure that wherever new development is happening that there is the opportunity to either modify bus routes or to use an existing bus route that's in place. So that is a key component of what we're trying to do. We also look at the non-motorized side of things. That's a little bit more difficult but through the county and some of their efforts they've done a lot of trail connections throughout this county. So that's provided another means of transportation but from a planning standpoint that's a well-rounded planning plan is to look at all options and make sure that we're not precluding people from participating based on where they live. Mary Lynn. Thanks. I would also add in at least the last time I looked there is reduced bus fare for low income people and that information may not be widely available but when you think about living in a big city buses are where it's at. If you're in a really big city you've got a subway but in bigger cities traveling by bus is just fine. And I think we have a varied people say oh the buses aren't used, that's not true. The last time I looked there were over 350,000 individual rides taken in a typical year in the, in Sheboygan. So it is, I think we have a good system. It's limited because everything is limited these days but I think it's something that the more we can make people aware of it the better it is. How do you, do you have any idea how to come about the reduced fare that you were talking about? Do you need to go to the transit office? I believe you need to go to the transit office. I had a client who I assisted in this process and there is an application that is some time ago and it may have been more streamlined or done online. Although for low income folks that can be just as difficult. But yeah, I think there, so it's either calling or going to the transfer point, the main bus, where the bus is transferred across city hall, there's staff there during the day and they can help with that. Brian, did you have anything to add to that? All right, anyone else have any pieces of that they'd like to discuss? I know that a couple of years ago there was a lot of bike lanes put in throughout the city of Sheboygan to allow people a non-motorized transportation access to the streets. You can still see the lines where those were put in place. So, you know, that is another thing that the city of Sheboygan put together for non-motorized transportation. The other thing I would say is some people like them, some people hate them but last year was the first year of the scooter program, the bird scooter program, which will be coming back at the end of this month again. But it, you know, we, for a community, we had 300 bikes last year. They were used over 55,000 miles, which was the largest municipality in the state of Wisconsin. So, in comparison, the city of Appleton, which is about 15,000, 20,000 more than us, they had about 300 bikes and only had about 33,000 miles. So, people are, and when you look at the heat map of where these things end up, they're all over the community. So, people are using them, not only tourists for recreational uses, but for transportation uses to get around the community, get to their jobs, use them as alternate forms of transportation. So, they really, you know, we just have to learn that they're there. Some people have a no-sense of them and keep them off the sidewalks, yes, but they are proving to be a alternate form of transportation. And when we look at that to their safety considerations, I think that because it looks much like a child scooter, there isn't that reality that there needs to be a level of safety with those, that that is, they do go almost as fast as a car. So, you really want to be safe while using those and make good choices, always make good choices. But I do know that, I know people personally who do use it to get to work and to home post work and I know some individuals, the youth that I'd worked with previously, they were over the age of 18, would use it to get to school in the morning. So, there's a lot of uses for that. Anything else you wanna like to add on that question? No, we feel solid on the transportation. In what ways can housing solutions in Sheboygan be more equitable? That's a broad question. Does anyone have any thoughts or feelings on that? In what ways can housing solutions in Sheboygan be more equitable? I'd rather answer that question. I'll just start and then I'll look to Kate because she might have a little bit more. But I think the whole idea of investing in affordable housing, which we've been talking about, I think is a piece of it, the existing programs and future programs that could come along as it relates to implementing new home ownership programs to allow people the opportunity for down payment assistance and closing costs and kind of deal with some of those burdens. The programs that Lakeshore Cap administers through rental assistance and mortgage assistance and all of that kind of helps the programs that the Family Service Association and Consumer Credit Counseling does with the financial stability and all of that. It all plays into helping people get on a better path to be able to find housing, whether it's rental housing or permanent like owned owner occupied type housing. So I'll turn it over to Kate. That question I'm wondering what the person meant by more equitable. Is it equitable between low moderate income households? Is it equitable between race, ethnicity, gender, that sort of thing? So I think the city of Shvoigin has done a housing study to look at how much affordable housing is needed versus other types of housing. From my perspective at Lakeshore Community Action Program, certainly we also review data that would tell us across race, ethnicity, and gender boundaries like who is receiving our assistance and if there's gaps in those types of services that we offer. So I don't know if that's really an answer to the question but I think the first step is certainly to recognize that we do want housing across all boundaries to be fair and equitably distributed to low moderate income people and race and ethnicity and that sort of thing. Does anyone else have any input or any information connected to that? Do you have a landlord perspective on that at all yet? Not to put you on the spot, like I totally put you on the spot. I guess, you know, I'm back to what you said about not really knowing what the question really means. And I guess that's kind of where I sit with that is I don't really know how to answer that because I'm not sure what the question completely is, I guess. As a landlord, do you feel like you choose, because there's restraints on who you can discriminate against in housing and there's ways around that, not around that necessarily, but when you look at that as far as equitable that there's the parameters already put in place as a landlord where you're required to be equitable, correct? Yes, yeah, there's definitely rules and regulations that we have to work around. I guess, I think most landlords do that. I'm sure there's a few outliers that are bad that don't, but I think to the far majority of them do. For the most part, we're just trying to protect, we're trying to make an investment, we're trying to have a successful business and we're trying to protect our property most of the time. For us, our biggest fear is something getting damaged or something like that, but I don't think race or anything like race or income, well, income does have anything to do with that, yes. When you became a landlord, because I know you own a bunch of properties, how did you learn what your rights were and what your responsibility were as a landlord? Is that, I mean, it's obviously not like you buy a property to rent and you all of a sudden, you're born with that knowledge. Was it something that you would just seek out that information or how did that kind of, your knowledge of what you were required, the rules and whatnot? Yeah, absolutely, so I started off with the, I started off with one upper lower duplex and got that up and running and then shortly after that, I found the landlord association. So I started going to that and through that, I found out about the city training, the landlord training, I did that one as well. And then I do the fair housing when they come and talk every year, I go to that one and, yeah, let's- So you chose to get educated on what the rules were to be the best landlord possible, is that what I hear you saying? Yeah, yeah, I think you have to, I mean, yeah, you kind of have to get trained as much as you can. Excellent, thank you. Oh, Daryl's got some questions and answers for us. So I just want to respond to just kind of piggyback on, on what Matt was saying about that. Your mic isn't on. What's that? Your mic isn't on. It has to be red. There it is. There we go. We got Daryl, he's locked. I just wanted to kind of piggyback in some of the things Matt was saying about the landlord training and as far as the renter side of things, through the kindness and the graciousness of the city of Sheboygan through the community development block grant, we're able to offer rent smart classes. And it's not classes where people get together where we teach them how to beat up on their landlords. That is not the point of it. It's teaching them how to equitably work with their landlords to have an amiable relationship to understand that that is the landlord's property. That's their investment. And what can we do to work with them? And helping the tenants or would-be tenants understand that that is an investment property and how can they help care for that and open the doors of communication. So the rent smart classes are available every other month and we house them in-person at the Sheboygan Chamber of Commerce and they can call consumer credit counseling service for more information about that. I also participate on the Lakeshore Landlord Association and I just have to give a plug and everyone I've met there, these landlords are very concerned about their tenants. They go above and beyond to help their tenants and are very well vested in them. I'm just very impressed and I've not seen that in other landlord associations. So I do tip my hat to them. Even though that we did say that the equitable question is a difficult question, which it is, it certainly shows just by the discussion that's going on here just in this little question how it can be expanded to many ways of looking at equitable in our community. And so I think that it really probably needs further investigation by sitting around a table and in groups and talking about equity and what does that really mean? I mean, you've all talked about different equitable types of things that go along with that and these questions or these comments that I have to share go along with the transportation and it has to do it equitable also. So first someone wrote, Tracy wrote, bird scooters are expensive. So I mean, I'm just a messenger by the way. Then Barbara wrote, these suggestions, and we're talking about the transportation again. Again, equitable issues that are here. These suggestions work for the young but not senior citizens or disabled that can't get around. Again, balancing. And then Sue writes, to me equitable means that houses, rentals are being built for people who make less than 50,000 annually. So again, that's another, looking at it from the perspective of the person that's looking at what the word equitable means. So I wanted to share that. And I'll maybe have more now that I've shared some, so. That's a great interlude. Do I get, oh, here we go. That was a great interlude, Joe, thank you. I didn't hear any of the voices that you promised me but thank you for sharing those with us. I agree. I think that we've addressed some of those ideas around equitability even around financial, and we talked about affordable housing and access to affordable housing. But there are a lot of different ways to look at that. The Housing Coalition is looking at ideas around equitability as well. This next month, someone from the DEIB, the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging, Housing Group for Sheboygan County is coming in to speak about what they're working on to the Housing Coalition and what some of the ideas they have for around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the realm of housing. So that is something that is always being addressed and looked at. I think that this also could be addressed further as we do more town halls. The group has already started talking about what we're gonna do for our next series. So as we hit specialty populations and different deep dives into some of the topics that we've already brought up, there is the opportunity to talk more around the DEIB ideas and housing. Does anyone else have anything to share based on Joe's comments? Go ahead, Matt. One thing I was gonna say is that they mentioned about housing for people with lower incomes. With recent pay is going up, it's been much easier to get people qualified for apartments lately. I've really seen that significance, a significant up kick in that. For our rentals, we do a three-time multiplier for income, for rent. So you have to make, you have to make, rent can't be less than a third, or yeah, rent can't be more than a third of your income. And it's been much easier to get people qualified lately. So. That's good to hear too. All right, so we're gonna move on to, believe it or not, question four. I want to know what or where we can get housing, et cetera, to help with homeless 24 hours a day. We all need help at times. So I think the question here is around getting assistance with housing. All right, we can definitely do that. We have some arms raised in over there. I'm gonna also read question number five, because it relates to question four. How can we open a day center that is available during the hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., or a center that is both a warming center and a day center? Oh, and we're gonna include number 13, because you guys all have similar ideas here. What are people with children supposed to do in face with homelessness in winter, and the shelter is full, which is nearly always is. So I'm gonna be honest with you. I think I might start with this one. You're comfortable with me starting with this one? All right, so hi, my name is Emily Cundee, and I am a coach here for the Housing Coalition. And I am also part of one of the subcommittees of the Housing Coalition as the After Hours Committee. So with the After Hours Committee, in Shoeing County, we've been looking at what do we do with people who are literally homeless in the middle of the night? A couple years ago, there were reports that came out of Milwaukee and Green Bay that someone had frozen to death outside in both of those communities, and my heart hurt. It was really hard to look at. It was hard to hear, and I was like not in my community. We brought it up in the Housing Coalition that this was occurring elsewhere, that this is something we did not want to happen in our hometown. The Housing Coalition started this conversation. It moved into the faith-based community, where they really ran with it, and were like, what can we do to build a warming center in our community? So when we did that, a bunch of really great minds got together, and they were able to run that out of the Salvation Army's lower level the first year. It just, it wasn't the best space for that. So they looked into their congregations and community, and were able to move it to another location. And it is running, last year I believe we ran for a month, Joe, am I right? There were some limits to it. Joe's talking about it, and it's now expanded, and it's running for a longer period of time. There's Joey's doing the arm gesture. It was only four days a week. That was my Joe impression. Do you like that? Okay, okay, okay. So it's expanded to a longer period of time. It opened on December 27th, and it runs through March, because it's cold in March in Wisconsin. So, and they've been averaging 15 to 20 people. Joe's not really to go to the mic, but he's been averaging 15 to 20 people a night. It's a place to stay overnight. Their check-in is between seven and 745 p.m. If you need check-in around that, there is a possibility for flexibility, but they would prefer that you come between seven and 745. That's for individual adults. So, do you have a question around that? Go ahead, get the microphone. Do you feel comfortable? Can you, if you speak into the mic, we should be able to hear you here. Okay, thank you very much. All right, I have a sister that has been homeless, and she was found with an 80 degree body temperature. I don't believe, I think that what you're suggesting, it sounds like to me that it's just a band-aid on a cancer, and you have to think, big picture. You can't think in and out, seven in the morning, they are out, seven at night, they couldn't come in, but what do they do during the day when they have diarrhea or any kind of inflammation, pneumonia? Yeah, you know, you have to think big and spend the bucks, because this is a trauma. It traumatizes the community, as well as the person that's suffering from homelessness, because people have seen, I know one man, a businessman that said, after he saw the effects of homelessness on one person, specific person, he cried for the whole night. We don't want that in our community, where this homelessness has tentacles that reach out and touch every citizen. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that story with us. I understand where you're coming from in the sense that this is, there's so many pieces of this, it's such a complicated issue. I understand it's just a band-aid, but the band-aid is better than letting it bleed everywhere, if we can have something, like a place for people to stay overnight, that's 15 to 20 people that are not sleeping on the street tonight. And they get a welcome back tomorrow night, and the next night. So it's better than what we had before, it's not the best choice, it's not the only choice, it's not the only solution, it can't be the only solution, but it's one of the options that we have available is the Warming Center. We are fortunate enough to have a homeless shelter. The Salvi Shinamori operates a homeless shelter for men, women, and families. Not every community has one of those and we are fortunate enough to have that. Their check-in, we believe, is between four and six. Someone's gotta know this. Yeah. Four, 30 to six is their admittance time, so there's an opportunity to check in at the Salvation Army and stay with them. They provide case management in addition to shelter, so their goal really is to assist people in ending homelessness, into getting into stable, secure housing from the shelter. In addition to that, the After Hours Committee worked on a plan because like I said, we were really looking at this idea of like, sometimes people can't get into the Warming Center or it's not open, or sometimes a family and they can't stay there and the Salvation Army is full, what do we do then? Like what are our options? We really don't want people to have to stay on the street. So we were fortunate enough to form a group of individuals that came together to provide an After Hours Plan. We have alternatives to individuals sleeping on the street, which involves a hotel voucher program. There are ways in. Obviously it's a program of last resort and do you want to talk about that, Kate? Well, well, I think I'm waiting for green. No, you're doing red. Oh, I'm good, sorry, excuse me, yep, sorry. No, I think there is a continuum of services that are available in Sheboygan County and certainly the Warming Center is sort of the first step along that line of possible housing services. So you start off with maybe a night by night shelter, which is what the Warming Center is, then there's maybe a long-term shelter like the Sheboygan or the Salvation Army Shelter, more long-term, you can stay there longer. Then Lakeshore Cap provides a variety of services for ongoing rental assistance and we work with those experiencing homelessness to become self-sufficient so that they're able to pay for their own hotel or excuse me, their own apartment by the time that our work is done with them. Then there's other things like in Sheboygan as well, the housing authority. Obviously that's long-term housing assistance for a lifetime if a person qualifies for it and then there's low-income or subsidized units available for those who are elderly or disabled or families. So in Sheboygan, there's a continuum of services that are offered. It's just important to make that first step to get involved or referred to or to contact one of those agencies at an access point to have the ability to pursue one of those options. So again, absolutely the Warming Center, that design is not to be sort of a long-term solution to homelessness, but it is sort of the first door you open and then they can make referrals and do things to help people become stable and find the housing that is best suited for them. And that, just to speak to that point, what we talked about the afterwards program that we instituted through the Housing Coalition started December 12th, 16 units or families or individuals have utilized that service since then and of them, I believe it was 14 have sought additional services and resources. So 14 out of the 16 that we gave a night of stay to chose to like use that as a jumping point for finding services for stable secure housing. So it really is a nice jumping point and a really nice way to get into that continuum. So I do understand it's difficult. Like not everybody's ready to seek that help not everybody knows how, but there are a lot of doors. We really talk about that idea of no wrong door. We want people to be able to access resources and services wherever they go. If they come to the table and say, I need help, we wanna know where to send them. We wanna be able to say like these are, this is how you can get this help. You went to the right place. We're gonna help connect you to the resources that are gonna support you and get you to this next step so that you can be stably housed. So I think that Kate's right, there's a continuum of services and hopefully between all of us that we are weaving together enough that nobody falls through the cracks. That's the goal. Does anyone else have anything they'd like to share on that point? I assume we had a lot of nodding tonight. All right, so when we talk about that, the other end of this that we did not address was daytime and like a daytime option. So one of the things that happens with Salvation Army, I did my internship there. We're not gonna talk about how long ago that was, but with my masters in counseling, I did my internship with Salvation Army. It's always been their policy that people do need to exit during the day and typically the hope is that they're out finding a job or working the job that they already have because we do have homeless individuals in our community who are working full-time and do not have housing, disabled, secure housing. So Salvation Army do ask people to leave during the day, the warming center is not open during the day. It's really been bandied around what are the options for individuals during the daytime hours. A lot of people do spend time at the library. Santino Laster is actually my co-chair for the housing coalition and he works for the Meepublic Library and works with individuals through resource finding and security through the library and community liaison. He, a lot of people who are homeless in our community do spend time there during the day. We also have an organization called the Open Door. Individuals with I believe mental health needs can spend some time there during the day. I do believe that they are connected with the program that's providing a lunch option for them as well. It used to take place at the library and I believe it moved over to the Open Door so that individuals who need that during the day have that option as well. But it had been, she had to point at Kate again. Oh yeah, she had to be one of them, I can't see it. Kate, did you have something that you needed to share? I would just interject. With regard to the warming center and the Salvation Army, that's a model that they are using, right? But that model could certainly be changed. If there were need, if needs were identified, that certainly people need a place to go during the day, then the community could certainly advocate for that to happen. That doesn't necessarily have to be the way it is. It's just one way of running a homeless shelter or a warming center. Go ahead, Darrell. I'm somewhat removed from the Salvation Army having left that position several years ago, but really the warming center was an impetus of a man who was filling up his tank at night when the snow was falling and wondering where were homeless individuals gonna stay? Where were they gonna keep warm in the evening and he approached us and going back to the whole idea of the model. That was, fruition came from that. And I know I've heard talk, maybe Joe could talk about it more with the warming center. There was some initial talks of maybe doing something with the day center with the laundry and things like that. And has anything been developed with that? Well, we have thrown that around. We've looked at a place or two. We certainly, there's a lot of moving parts with that. Obviously, you have to have the right staffing and the right people. And also, funding-wise, I mean, that's an important part of that also. So really, I mean, my opinion is that that need exists in Sheboygan. I agree with you totally that that need exists. And it's something to keep on the table and to talk about as we go forward. And honestly, like as the housing coalition, perhaps at the future conversation when we talk about action and facilitating change, that is something that as a group, maybe we need to look at moving forward as well. And if you feel passionate about it, audience, you can join us at the housing coalition on the third Tuesday of the month. So you can, are you tallying how often I say that? Oh, she's adding people to the list right now. Abby's over here adding people to the list. So we absolutely would welcome your input and your action. We want you to come in and we want you to participate and get involved, help us make this change, help us facilitate this change in our community. We do have needs in our community and we would love for you to get involved in the action and the change steps. So I think that's fantastic. Do you guys have more you wanna share down there? I see. No, we're ready to move on. All right, are we ready to move on? All right, so that was three. Okay, question number six. Why are there many income restrictions when applying for housing? You either make too much or too little. What is the reason for this? Chad wants to answer that. I'll start out. So I think a lot of it has to do with the restrictions that come with the state and federal funding. So the section 40, section eight, section 42 program. So we talked about in the previous ones the definitions of what a section eight housing is and what section 42 housing is. But those are all federally funded programs and in order to qualify for those programs income limits come into place. So for the section 42 program, which is typically where they provide a tax credit to a developer to build a property that's gonna have these affordable rents for 20 years. They have a minimum threshold for the income and a maximum threshold. And if you are in that area, you pay your rent based on that sliding scale, but that's a federal requirement. So if one wants to get around that, that's a good discussion to have with our state and federal legislators and talk about these challenges and keep this in the news and share concerns with them because frankly they're representing us in Washington and these are the things they need to hear. Mary-Lynn. The, oh, you're not on yet. There we go. I should remember this from the old days, Scott. The, there really some fairly serious policy considerations that play here that really extend locally and at the state level and certainly at the federal level. In the late 1970s, there was a substantial amount of money that was made available to construct housing for low income people. And it was through a tax credit program that was actually quite, quite lucrative. And so a lot of the projects that you see around town that are 40 or 50 years old were constructed with that money. In the early 80s, that money just really, really dried up and while money is provided, it is still far short of what we need and people need to understand that. So Chad's point about talking to people who control the purse strings I think is very legitimate. One of the, you know, the federal poverty guidelines. I remember at a council meeting, someone bragging that Shabuigan's, only 5% of Shabuiganites were below the poverty level. Well, the poverty level, even now for one person, is $1,000 a month. That is ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous. And when you take into account, for example in our school district, I believe the number is about 62% of our children are eligible for free and reduced lunch at one grade school in town. 90% of the kids and their families are eligible for free and reduced lunch. So I'm just saying that this is not, there are substantial income inequities that really play out so basically in the housing field. Matt, I was thrilled to hear, and this is such a key thing, when people are actually paid more for their work, they can actually afford to rent. They can afford to buy a car. They can afford to keep the economy going. And so to hear that is wonderful. And that needs, and I hope will continue, so that people's income, so we don't have so many poor people, I mean, really poor people. And let's stop talking about income guidelines. The good thing, and Kate will correct me, is that the Wisconsin emergency rental money, the WERA money, those income guidelines are quite high. And so they reach up to the bottom of middle-class income. And so that money is available for folks, and you don't have to be desperately poor or homeless to get the money. So I think those things are important, but we always need to keep in mind the big picture, which is that there are too many people in the country who just don't get paid enough. And when you don't get paid enough, bad things happen. Hi there. So I just wanted to interject down to the individual level, like we can talk a big picture and then we would bring it down to the individual level. So Lakeshore Cap provides rental assistance, case management, and rental assistance to those who are experiencing homelessness, who are literally homeless, who had been sleeping in their car, exiting a shelter, fleeing domestic violence. Those programs actually do, they have different programs that do different things, but the federal program actually does not have any income restrictions. You could be making $100,000 a year, but if you are sleeping in your car and we can document it, you are eligible for that program. And there is no ceiling to that program either. You may not always get a rental assistance benefit because if you're making too much and you can pay your own way, but you can still tap into the case management and supportive services for some of those programs. So granted income restrictions does come into play with some of our funding, but not all of it. I have a question for Chad. Chad, this is from Martha. Chad, in your presentation from the Dells, you shared several affordable housing projects. Are these projects fully approved and will go forward? And if not, do you think there is a good likelihood that they will? So I'm culprit of starting before it's on too. So unfortunately, we found out today from the state of Wisconsin, the Department of Administration that the ARPA, American Rescue Plan Dollar Act funding that the state released, they did not award any funding to the city of Sheboygan. We had submitted for two affordable housing projects and for some improvements to a park and a qualified census tract. And we did not receive any funding out of that program. So we will have to go back and relook if you recall one of those was gonna fund some financial issues with the Partners for Community Development Affordable Housing Project at 13th and Erie Avenue. It was gonna fund the Commonwealth one at 14th and Illinois. So now it's on the city to figure out we've got some thoughts on that. I think we have some flexibilities with our American Rescue Plan dollars, but they are still applying and are waiting for award through the section 42 WEDA tax credit program to fund the majority of those projects. So they're not a given yet. And hopefully we'll get some funding allocations to the city for affordable housing from this WEDA section 42 program that those projects can move forward. But we were sad to hear today the fact that the state did not give the city of Sheboygan anything of their $240 million and affordable housing was one of their main activities. And interestingly enough, they did not fund a ton of affordable housing across the state either. So I'm not quite sure what that is, but we'll see where this goes from here. Chad. You keep saying speak to your legislators at the state level. Apparently this is one of those times where that could probably help. Who, what level at the state are we looking at to let them know that we have feelings about that? I would say it would be, well, the challenges is our state legislators that represent the city of Sheboygan are Republican and the governor is democratic. So if you go to our legislators and you share their concerns with them as they've told the city officials that they have no control over what the governor is doing. So we have a split line here. So I don't know that it's gonna make a lot of difference going to our current legislators that represent the city of Sheboygan. Thank you. That's had news though. We're over here. You should see Naby and my faces were actually mirroring each other when we were a little bit shocked because we were so hopeful for the housing project. So what you're saying though, Chad is that those projects are not necessarily dead in the water. You're just reorganizing and refiguring out how to afford the options. Correct. And I don't know if Brian wants to talk about... Oh, I gotta wait till the next question. Anyway, so there is some opportunities with the Economic Development Corporation is working on that. We'll help in this. And the city did receive $22 million out of the America Rescue Plan. And we had originally dedicated the majority of the funding to two water and sewer projects. But one of the sewer projects looks like it's gonna get... The only sewer project looks like it's gonna get some FEMA federal funding. So that would alleviate some opportunities for this council to consider rededicating funding where the state didn't come through. So we're hopeful. And I think we have some opportunity to still see some success. But we just have to deal with the diversion in the road. So Brian, would you like me to ask the next question? Is that where we're at? All right. Why is housing so underfunded? It's difficult to find adequate housing that's at a reasonable price. Is that the question you're looking for, Brian? So I'll start and then Brian can just finish up. So it's a lot of the same answer that I said in the last one where... And I think Mary Lynn kind of covered where we've gone since the early time. So I think it's really... The buzzword now is affordable housing and funding it, but with current construction costs as I've talked about in my previous presentation and the rents that we're trying to fill issues in the community, there's just challenges. And I think, again, this is where maybe not our state legislators, but our federal legislators need to hear that everybody that we're all concerned about this. And we need help and they need to be equitable when they're dispersing funding to communities. I know there's a lot of requests and opportunities out there, but Sheboyin County clearly has a dedicated problem in the city. Recently, we released an affordable housing market study last March, so we've got good data that shows that there is a demand. We've got 3,500 jobs open in this county. So there's a lot of challenges that need to be met. And I think this is the time we're connecting with our legislators and connecting with our friends in our local private sector. And with that, I'll turn it over to Brian. As far as with housing and being underfunded, it really goes back and this goes back to my presentation last town hall is, since the Great Recession, just a lack of housing has been built because of all the financial challenges. This is a national issue and trying to get entry level homes with the construction prices that are going on right now is very difficult. And since we do have so many open positions, the SEDC, which we're about removing barriers to employment, but also to growth. So tonight, we'll announce that the SEDC, with several of our partners, have created a pool of dollars, $8 million, to go toward finding property, infill development and or new construction to fill the entry level home market as well as affordable homes and it's trying to fill gaps where our legislators are not being proactive in making housing projects move forward. This is not, we're at eight million right now. Our goal is to get to 16 million. So tomorrow morning on Friday, we will be sending out that press release, but we announced that to the county board today. As far as the recommendations for ARPA at the county level, there is a recommendation to use around three million of county ARPA dollars for this type of flexible funding. Most of, we'll have some flexibility between the income levels. So as a nonprofit, I wanna stress that the fund that we're, or the pool that we've created, there is no profit coming back to the SEDC. What we're trying to do is come up with strategies that bring the prices of homes down to affordability that if you're between 15 and $25 an hour, that you're gonna be able to find a way to get into a house. And so that is with the current construction challenges and material costs, that is we're gonna have to look at different models and potentially create some new ones in order to really collaborate across all organizations and communities. And so over the next three, four months, you'll hear different things coming from the Economic Development Corporation on how we are trying to drive some affordability or entry-level home solutions, but also we wanna partner with developers and or municipalities in filling gaps so that we can bring projects to market because our goal with this pool of dollars would be around 600 housing units over the next three to five years. And that sounds like a lot, but that is a small number of what we actually need in the marketplace. What we're trying to do is reopen the entry-level home market, which has disappeared since the Great Recession. And once contractors can see it can be done with the reduced lot sizes and other things that we need to partner with municipalities, hopefully we can get that market to function normally. The housing market in Sheboygan County this last summer, I think if you've watched real estate at all, there was a 10-day supply of houses. So when the house went on the market, 10 days later sold for anything under $250,000. And that is not affordable to everybody in the county. So the reality is we do not have enough housing units to fill the positions that we need. And over the next decade with the retiring of the baby boom generation, we're gonna need to really up the number of housing units going in Sheboygan County. So part of our role is to make sure that we identified sites throughout the county, but then partner with municipalities to make sure that they come in a price point that is affordable to the general population. Glad Kate. So I get, you guys are big picture stuff. I'm like small individual person with regard to like apartment units and things. And with our funding, we have to look at a measurement called fair market rent. And what I can tell you is that as incomes increase, so do the rental prices, right? As a landlord, people can afford more, which has put many of our clients out of being even able to afford local rental properties. And so fair market rent is the sort of number that HUD gives us that we have to find units below to provide assistance to those who are using our services. And that too is just kind of another whole issue locally that we've seen as a result of the pandemic. So again, big picture stuff for homeowners and low income units. But again, right now we're seeing that it's very difficult for our clients to be able to find affordable units. And if you're interested in more information about fair market rent, you can watch one of our previous town halls and it will explain what fair market rent is. So just a teaser there, Kate. So does anyone else like to have any discussion around question number seven? Why are we so underfunded? You feel solid on that? All right, question number eight. What are we doing as a community to help those who have little to no documentation in meeting their housing needs? So this is something that we've discussed in a couple of different ways. And the group here kind of had some questions around it, but basically when you're working with individuals who don't have any documentation and it's very difficult for them to find housing, whether they don't have it because they don't have it or because they're just as a lack of documentation. Kate, do you have ideas around that? Go ahead, Kate. Sure, so again, when you're receiving assistance through us, we are required as a strong word, but we are asked to get IDs and social security cards of our clients. They don't have it, that's okay. We're not going to deny someone a housing assistance program because they cannot provide a social security number or an ID at that time. If they can get it later, fantastic. If they can't, that's okay. We're a nonprofit, so we can skirt around some of the rules with regard to social security numbers and that sort of thing. With our WERA program, the first step in that program is to apply for energy assistance. Energy assistance does require social security numbers, so someone who does not have that would be denied that program, but the Wisconsin Emergency Rental Assistance can still assist people who cannot provide a social security number with rental assistance. So we don't want lack of appropriate documentation to be a barrier to housing. Thank you. One of the things that we had talked about previously in the work that I have done is it's difficult to obtain documentation even if you are a legal resident of Wisconsin. If you don't have your birth certificate, social security card, and your state ID, or driver's license, it's hard to get any of the other documents. So it's really a catch-22 situation. If you don't have your birth certificate, you can't get your social security card. If you don't have your social security card, you can't get your birth certificate. If you don't have those documents, you can't get your ID. If you don't have your ID, you can't get the other documents. It ends up being like with all wrong doors, essentially. When we talk about the no wrong door system, it's all wrong doors. It's very difficult. If you're born in Sheboygan County, you can pick up a birth certificate, but you need an ID to pick up a birth certificate. But fortunately, there's other people in your life or in your family. If you have a parent or guardian, they can pick up the birth certificate for you. It does cost money. I believe it's $20 for a birth certificate from the Vital Records Office. The birth certificate help you get some of your other documentation, which would need your social security card. The other problem that people are having is the social security office has been closed because of COVID, so then you have to make a phone call. That phone call is no less than 45 minutes. That would actually be a short phone call with them. So you get to hear the beautiful old music, and then they tell you they can't help you because you don't have the other forms of ID to get the social security card. So it ends up being just a circular conversation. It might work with youth in the past, runaway homeless, unaccompanied minors, and whatnot when they have tried to get their documentation. It's been the run around. It's a very difficult cycle. So there's individuals who don't have documentation because they don't have the ability to have documentation, but there's also individuals who don't have the documentation because it's so difficult to get the items that they need. So there's been a discussion of how to make those processes easier, how to help people get those items. We've talked with the school district, we've talked with community members on how to make those documents more accessible for those people who should have access to them. And it's just a difficult process. We're very fortunate that the state of Wisconsin will let you have a picture ID for voter purposes for free. So if you have your other documents, you can get a picture ID from the DMV, but you have to have those other documents to make that happen. So the question, like Joe had said before, there's many ways to look at this. Even when we look at it from this perspective, it's individuals who do not have the documentation, and there's also individuals who do not have the documentation, but those could mean two different things. It's a process. But there are people out here in the community who will assist you in getting those documents as you move forward as well, and help you, because the doors are difficult to open, but there's ways through. So did someone else have something they'd like to share around that point, or do we feel like we've, go ahead, Matt. Just one second, you're still green. We need you to go red. There you go. I was just gonna mention that I don't think I've ever had anybody apply for an apartment that didn't have any documentation. And my wife and I, we were in about 15 minutes in town, and that's never came up as a problem. I think it's because by the time they get to the point where they're actually applying for housing, they know they're going to need it, so they've gone through the process to turn it over again. And that may be, but I was also gonna bring up that, is this kind of more for people who aren't legal? That's the other form of not ability to get documentation. So if someone's here and they're undocumented, so they came to this country without the necessary documentation, that's one way to look at it. And then there are people who are here who are legal residents of Wisconsin and still have difficulty getting their documentation that isn't accessible to them. I was gonna bring up, as a landlord, I guess I care way more about their income and their ability to pay rent than their legal status, I guess. And I think that probably goes for almost every landlord. We're worried about that they have income and that they can pay their rent. And then they're gonna take care of your property. Yeah, and then we can find out, I guess that we have to have an ID to be able to do some kind of background check on them, but that's about it. Like we don't even ask for social security numbers on our applications. We don't, we never have. We can do our background check without it, basically. That was about it. Okay. Yeah, I think when basically when individuals get to the point where they're actually filling out applications for an apartment, I think at that point, they've either gone through the loophole, they have all the pieces that they need or, because it is well known in our community that you do need a form of ID to rent an apartment. So I'm glad that by the time they get to you, they've got that settled out. Yeah. So thank you for that information. Okay, I gotta mark it off, we did that one. Is there a lot of apartments that are too expensive and vacant? And if so, what grants, opportunities, and other things does one have within optioning for housing? Okay, so basically the ones, we have a lot of what we would consider luxury housing that was built recently and they're asking if that's vacant. So those that are more of a luxury nature or they're like high end apartments, is that currently vacant in Sheboygan County? Because there is, I'm gonna be honest with you, there is a perception that there are high income apartments that are vacant throughout the city of Sheboygan. And if that is the case, it's not just a perception but it's a reality. Are there options to make that more affordable or accessible? So I would encourage you to watch my presentation from the last town hall meeting because in that presentation two weeks ago, I shared with in one of the slides, the all of the housing developments that have been built in the city of Sheboygan since 2015 and the percent occupied and almost all of them are between 90 and 100% occupied. So the ones that have opened recently, the Badger State Lofts in the old tannery off of Indiana Avenue is 118 units. Those were all leased up before they even finished construction. So there is a demand there. Somebody is renting them even though a lot of people say they're expensive. As I stated in that presentation, 50% of the units are, people are telling us that the landlords are telling us that their tenant mix is kind of younger middle age people and the other 50%, 60% is empty nesters who are selling their houses and deciding to move into apartments because they don't wanna shovel snow and cut grass anymore. So there's a lot of information in the previous town hall and I would encourage viewers if you have further questions to watch that. Excellent. So Miss, perceptions off is what you're saying. Yeah, yes. And I would just add that from an employer perspective, trying to recruit people into the marketplace that they're having it, even if they offer a position, they don't have, they cannot find apartments to put people in. So from an employer perspective, the lack of available apartments is actually a deterrent for relocation of people to try to get into the market to fill the vacant positions that we have. So basically there's that low vacancy rate. So even the luxury apartments are full at this point in time. So people, someone is affording them. They are living there. Chad, you got more to add on there? The second part of that question, Kate's gonna answer. We're having a lot of fun on this. I know he keeps pointing at you. Like every time there's a question, he's like, Kate! So with regard to funding to grants that might exist to have options with housing, they exist, right? And there are probably nonprofits that are not Lake Shore Cap that may be interested in pursuing some of those options. But there certainly is availability to purchase units and provide them for those who have lower income. But that's not really my expertise at all. So let's move to the next question. Yes, I have one more thing. I'll go ahead, Matt. I was gonna say really the affordable housing isn't the new housing in Cheboygan, isn't it? And like the affordable housing in Cheboygan is really the existing housing. The upper-lower duplexes, the older homes that have been, you know, that are up and running as rentals, that's really the affordable housing, not the new construction stuff. I mean, like even Badger State Laws, which I think is like the, that's a newer, that's supposed to be like a lower rent. Minimum and maximum based on the, yeah. It's income-based housing. If you wanna know what income-based housing is, you have to watch one of our previous- You have to watch the first one all. But I think most landlords with the upper-lower duplexes, our rents are still below that. Correct. And almost also, really the affordable housing is existing housing, not the new housing. Correct. Correct. And just as a, to play devil's advocate here a little bit, one of the things that the community has seen and what we've seen as a housing coalition is that that it still is the most affordable options in Sheboygan, the C of Sheboygan are those upper-lowers and those apartments, but the cost for those have almost doubled in the last seven years. So, you know, you could rent an apartment like, back when I rented an apartment, I spent $400 a month and had a three-bedroom. You know, you're never gonna find a three-bedroom in Sheboygan for $400 a month. Like you're now talking $900 a month. That's a huge increase from what we had before. And I do think that one of the things that you kind of said is that people are being able to afford this more now because there has been an increase in starting pay in a lot of the places around Sheboygan County, which could have caused people to make more money, which means that it's easier to get an apartment. But there is a different differentiation in rent. Seven years ago, I was putting people in apartments for $400, $450 a month for a two-bedroom. And it's almost impossible to find a two-bedroom in Sheboygan, the city of Sheboygan right now for that rent. So... Yeah, I don't think that really even exists. Not right now, it doesn't, no. But it wasn't that long ago that it did. That was pretty standard. As a landlord, like both, you know, our rents are kind of tied to the housing market. Seems like that's kind of tied to the housing market more than other things. So like we try to operate with 1% of investment coming back per month. So if you have a $100,000 house, if we put a $100,000 investment in buying a house, people will try to get $1000 a month off of that. Obviously, the housing market has skyrocketed quite a bit and that's why our rents have gone up. Also, there's been other things that have brought rents off. Absolutely. The building materials and stuff like that. And yeah. Yeah, and I don't have a judgment or a feeling about it, it is a reality for the people living in the community that this has changed dramatically in a fairly short period of time when we look at it. The rents have gone up quite a bit and I don't know that the wages have gone with it as much as we would like sometimes. I think it's better than it's been, but when we look at that, like if you watch one of our earlier town halls, how much do you have to make? Cause you're talking like a third. We really, it's 30% is what we want. 30% of your income towards your housing expenses, not just rent, but utilities and all the pieces that come along with your housing. So when we look at that, like how much do you have to make to be able to afford an apartment and sheboy can, you know, at this point in time. And we were looking at that and certainly watch one of the previous town halls to look for the math on that, but it's hard. You know, it's difficult. So, you know, when we play devil's advocate, that's a piece of that. You want me to get back to the questions, Joe? There's another one then there. Okay. Who works with families to buy a home with less than perfect credit? Yes. Darryl and Kater fighting over this one. Yes, thank you. I've got one in my wheelhouse. So I think I can answer this intelligently or at least, no, I wouldn't pretend I'll give you the straight facts, but we often receive referrals from lenders to work with their clients who are very close to being able to purchase a home. We know right now in Sheboygan County inventory is obviously very low. I think the last report I received, there were 62 houses available and those go quite quick, but we have referrals from lenders and they'll say, hey, can you work with Mr. and Mrs. Smith or to do some credit building activities? And that's what we'll do, we'll work with them to do some credit building activities. We'll report back to the lender and it's really an open dialogue with us working with the lenders. Unfortunately, sometimes people are ready to purchase a house and not quite ready. So, due to some of the programming you do, opening the door to home ownership, we teach them everything they need to know to purchase a home from A through Z, including maintaining that home, asking them the most important question, are you ready to buy a home? And we can work with the front and back end ratios to get them to that point to do that, but more than willing to work with anyone to bump up their credit, whether it's to buy a home or just to get out of debt or be in a better financial position. Tracy, you just bought a house recently. I did. So, the first place we went to, we didn't have a down payment, we were going to hopefully utilize a down payment assistant program, but unfortunately they were not set up with that. So, we were kind of sent down our way. We weren't even told anything about you guys or anything like that. The next place, so we kind of took a year off, it was a bad situation all the way around. So, we kind of took a year off from looking and then we went to a bank. And we had the credit, and I guess I should back up, we had the credit even when we went to this lender, but because we didn't have that down payment, they wouldn't work with us. So, we had a down payment and we went to a different lender, a bank this time, not a mortgage broker, and we were turned away because we didn't have a big enough down payment for them. We were like, what the heck, you know? So, then we went to a different mortgage lender and that person was able to work with us. Nowhere in there were we ever referred to you or said we need to do, you guys need to do this or that. It was, well, no, you don't have the credit, you don't have the money, but then when I called them back, okay, yeah, you do have the credit, but you don't have the money. And then it was, you don't have enough money. And then the next guy, like a week later, was like, yeah, we can work with you. So, it really depends on who is willing to sit down and really look at your situation and to really look at, you know, to help you. But in no way shape or form were we ever told to see you guys, to see if, you know, we could do something or, you know what I mean? Like we found out about you guys after the fact, but regardless, it's, it's, it wasn't a good experience at all. And then Tracy, then you had to fight the really, really strong housing market. Yeah, yeah, we closed the end of April last year. So it was, it was, it was rough. Luckily we were able to bump up our offer and things like that, but then again, we found somebody that was willing to work with what we had, you know, and we had a really good realtor and it fell into place. It wasn't the best adventure of your life? No, not at all, I don't recommend it. It's a beautiful house, though. Yeah, thank you. Well, we're talking about renters and we're talking about people buying homes and Barbara has a question that goes along with protecting tenants from, so the question is who would people go to in the city or the county for advocating ordinances to protect tenants paying excessive land rents in manufactured house communities? These ordinances are being enacted across the United States and in counties and cities against predatory corporations. So there's really two questions going on here. Many senior citizens have lost their own manufactured homes because of the corporations are coming in and so forth. Any thoughts on that, anyone? Are we talking about reverse mortgages? Corporations have been known to come in to cities and I don't know if we have that issue here in the county or the city, but some large corporations come up and buy homes up so then they're not and then they can jack it up and they refix it and then they sell it for a higher price. Refactured homes, so that's a mobile home. This is mobile homes and it has to do also with paying too much for renting that land on those mobile homes that are there. Is there a place where the person could go to do something about that? You're older person? I don't know. You're older person. You're older person. I don't know. I guess I have to do a little bit more research into that because I have not heard of that problem in trailer home parks like the ones on the south side of Sheboygan. But, okay. And then there's a comment from Nikki also. Habitat for Humanity Lakeside is here to work with buyers who are looking to buy a home but have credit issues. Our clients work with Darrell, job Darrell, and his team at credit counseling, as well as Kate and her team at LakeshoreCat. Yeah Habitat for Humanity is a group that's not at the table today but they do a lot of great work within Sheboygan County also. And they do work with individuals within a certain income range. It's good to know that they have that credit history credit score recovery type things to work with Darrell and in assistance to the other programs. So they were not represented here but they do some great stuff. Brian's got some. The only thing I'm sorry Tracy went through the whole down payment situation, et cetera. I'll just say from our, because of what we're working on from affordable housing strategy, we've actually been looking at all the various down payment assistance programs and how we can actually do a better job of communicating that out to potential applicants. So hopefully it gets better in the future but there's a lot of work to be done. But just long term, one of the recommendations to the county for ARPA would be actually a housing navigator to help with people going down the path of down payment assistance, how those programs would work and also working with the Federal Home Loan Baker of Chicago on some of their down payment assistance programs as well. And housing rehabilitation. I think part of the issue with the first person we went to was she had broken away from her previous mortgage person so she wasn't completely set up. But she also wasn't forthcoming when I called to make that appointment and even before she ran the credit, she was not forthcoming with that information. Because if that was the case we probably would have taken a step back and said wait a minute, we need to find somebody who is because this is what we need. So I think we need more lenders in the community that I guess are honest about what they're hooked up with right in the beginning before they run your credit, before they take you to that next step because that's a punch in the gut. And I knew where my credit stood so I knew where I could get that FHA loan. I just needed help with that down payment first of all but to be told, no. And then I called later and said if I would have this amount of dollars today would you approve me? Well, yes. Why didn't you tell me that, you know? I'd also just plug for Lakeshark Community Action Program too so we do have a first time home buyers down payment program. I don't know that that's available in Sheboygan. We cover four counties and not every, it is available in Sheboygan, thank you. Yes, so Lakeshark app can help. Your first step in that process is always to be able to get funding through a lender. And then once that happens then you can begin the process to get assistance through us. Well, it sounds like what Tracy's saying is the lender wouldn't even consider her because she didn't have the down payment and you can't get the down payment assistance unless you have a lender. So we're back in that catch point too. We wanna keep going. Oh, Matt, go ahead. Hang on one second, we need you to go red. There you go. Oh, now you're back off again. I'm going back to that question from before about the manufactured home with somebody coming in from out of the community and buying that area. We are definitely seeing that as landlords with people coming from out of our community trying to buy houses locally. I get calls almost every day from people out of the state trying to buy properties. It's definitely pushing the housing market up higher, which is then pushing rents up higher. And some of it is definitely affecting our community right now. So you see it as a real issue in Sheboyin County that maybe is a little bit more under the surface? Yeah, for sure. Like I said, for like every single day I'm getting a phone call from some people from Chicago or people from California trying to buy housing here to rent out his rentals. And so that's going to be pushing our market up higher. It's also, I would question, with more the landlords being not local like they are now, I would question the quality of housing that they're going to provide. You know. That's far as upkeeping maintenance. Yeah, I would just, I think that the landlord that sees this property is going to care about this property a lot more than somebody from Chicago or California, which there's a huge uptick in them buying property here. So that doesn't sound to me like something that we can necessarily stop from occurring. I think the question that Joe presented included ordinances around preventing that from occurring. Is the city of Sheboyin or the county have anything that runs that would make sense for that? Does anyone know of any legislator? Like it sounds like someone had an idea that this occurred elsewhere and there were possible. It sounds like a rent control thing. A rent control issue? Yeah. This was rent, but you're talking purchasing homes and taking over those outside corporations. That actually is happening. Joe's talking to no one over there. He's coming to the podium. You're, there's two issues here. There's the rental issue that has to be rent controlled and not over-exorbitant for the person that was asking that question, but there's also a real issue across the United States which has to do with corporations coming in what Matt was talking about. And it's kind of, it sounds like it's a little under the rug right now here. They're coming in through landlords trying to buy that and that, but you have to be careful that because they're outside and they have different interests and what isn't shaboying an interest. So I think that if that's an issue, it should be looked at. And when local landlords are going to buy properties right now, we're competing against outside investors way more than we ever used to. You know, like I put an offer on a house this week. I went $6,000 over asking on a house that needed a ton of rehab. And I didn't even get a counter offer back on it. I had to have talked to somebody else who went like $12,000 over on it and still didn't get anything countered on it. I would almost guarantee the person I actually bought that is somebody from out of our community. And like I think like most of the new construction stuff is most of those ownership isn't in our community either, correct? And I understand it's hard to find, they're not, but there's opportunity for local developers to develop housing. So if you want to invest, you know, $12,000,000,000 into it, come and talk to us and we're willing to work with you. Matt was on board until he said all the $13,000,000. Perfect. No, I am. We'll meet tomorrow. Matt's over here. Matt, Chad, Jack, man. Well, like I've reached out to the city a couple of times about trying to develop a little bit and I've gotten very hard responses from the city or from especially zoning. I own some land on the south side that I wanted to turn into possibly putting in new duplexes and when I tried to contact the zoning, the guy basically didn't want to talk to me. Well, give me a call and let's talk about it. Okay, I'll talk to you after this then. And I've had this on other, where I've looked at properties that were commercial storefronts that had sat vacant for a long time and I want to turn into housing and the same thing. Well, that's a little bit, yeah, that's a little different situation. But maybe, but I can't get past the phone call. And like, even when I call, like they don't want to talk to me after a minute or two. And it's... Give me a call and we'll talk about it. Okay. We're making connections on our panel tonight. So that's good news. Thank you, Matt. I'm really glad that this is something that you feel passionate about and I'm glad you're here tonight to talk about some of these issues. And also to network and connect you with people who could maybe help you further some of these projects in the community. Brian, did you have something that you needed to share over there? Yes, I might start on, so. There we go. There we go. The only thing I'll mention is that we anticipate that in the month of April, that the Economic Development Corporation will actually run a affordable housing workshop to get more people educated on how the tax credit deals work that we have these outside people coming in and investing in. Because a lot of those dollars are coming in from the tax credit, selling of the tax credits and the amount of equity put into those deals is a lot lower than most people think. So what we're going to be doing, working with the Sherwochen County Home Builders Association is actually running a half day workshop on how to make the numbers work so that we have more local projects, more local developers and more contractors engage in that process. So that we, as pointed out earlier, local ownership is always better than remote. I'm going to skip 11 and 12 and come back to them. I'm going to skip to number 14. What are the parameters of the problems Lakeshore Cap and other housing agencies have with processing requests in an efficient and timely manner? And are there solutions to that? That's a very specific question. Kate, I think that's you. Sure. My hunch is that that would be a question directly related to our administration of the WERA, Wisconsin Emergency Rental Assistance Program. And we apologize that that program has not rolled out certainly as quickly as it should have. It comes down to really two factors. One is the staff capacity. As many jobs as there are out there, we have not gotten fully staffed. We have not had qualified applicants apply for the job and then additionally show up for an interview when they were selected for an interview. So that's a capacity issue on our end. The other issue is the need, right? That the need for that type of program and our inability to process things in a timely manner has just created a long wait list that holds true for our other supportive housing programs as well. We've had staff capacity issues in that program as well and need has gone up and that's essentially the issue. So we do our best certainly, but we can only do so much. So what Kate just said is, if you think that you're qualified to support Lake Shore Cap and would like a job, there are some openings and they'd love to have you on board. We are specifically hiring for staff for the WERA program and probably have maybe three openings and specific openings in Sheboygan. So look on indeed.com. You may be neck working farther than we thought, huh? Can I get people with jobs in our community? Exactly. We're gonna go, and I'm not sure if this question was necessarily answered, but how will the ARPA dollars impact the wide spectrum of housing needs, homeless to those unable to find housing, renting and buying homes, both for affordability and workforce needs? So I feel like some of this was already answered, but if you'd like to touch on this again. Can you take question 15 and question 18 because they're both related to ARPA and housing issues? Number 18 would be our American Rescue Plan Act funds being used to address housing issues in Sheboygan County. If so, what specific areas will receive funding? So 15 and 18 are definitely connected. Thank you, Chad. So related to the County ARPA Housing Task Force, so we had a task force of 21 people, met for over four months, seven meetings. The recommendations coming out of that related to housing would be one that is tied to creation of more affordable housing units, entry-level housing units, primarily single family, but doing a mixture of apartments as well, working with the tax credit projects as well, just because going back to the affordability, older homes are where you're gonna get the most affordability. Tied to that component is there's a second recommendation which is a home repair loan program. So it's a Revolving Loan Fund for Housing Repair. We've tried to allocate enough for 35 housing projects per year. So that we can try to upgrade some of the existing housing stock. And then the third component tied to ARPA would be down payment assistance. Most of the down payment assistance programs right now are tied to 80% of the area median income. What we're proposing and using of ARPA dollars would be 80 to 120%. So if you're even above the area median income, you would have the ability to have the potential for down payment assistance. Again, that missing middle for people that are Alice populations that were just above, we're trying to get them that assistance so that they can actually get into housing units that are affordable. And the last recommendation would be tied to the housing navigator. Again, trying to get less people going through the painful process that might be right today and making sure that they leverage as many state, federal resources and local resources as possible for the affordability. So what I heard you say is number one, if you're interested in learning more about Alice, you can see our first town hall meeting. And secondly, that goal really is to make sure that people like Tracy don't have to go through the experiences that they did. And if you wanna learn more in depth about the ARPA, watch the third town hall meeting where Brian presented it. Yeah, just watch them all. I mean, like for real, they're good. They're fantastic. Brian, I heard there was a meeting today to talk about ARPA money before our meeting. How'd that go? So the county executive committee met earlier today they had six task force and I'm not gonna try to list them all. The county originally had around $22 million available to spend on these programs. Based on needs, they're down, they have spent $7 million on operational needs within the county. So that would leave around 15 million left for these six task forces to look at. So over the next two months, the county board and the various county committees will take all the recommendations from childcare to mental health to transportation. And he said I wasn't gonna do this. Workforce development, affordable housing and I think, broadband, thank you. So that, more than $15 million of requests. I'll just tell you the housing component were over 5 million in requests. So the question will be how that process happens but then if there's an opportunity for the city and the county to actually collaborate on any initiatives with each of their ARPA dollars, that's yet to be seen but hopefully there's some potential partnerships. But again, it's a two month process at the county level for any decisions on how they will allocate dollars. Thank you. Are there any affordable housing options being considered for the Aurora hospital space on North Avenue once the building is removed? Chad. So the redevelopment agreement that the city of Sheboygan has with advocate Aurora prior to the demo, prior to the start of the new construction of the hospital requires that the repurposing, so it'll require the building to be completely demolished and it also requires that the zoning to stay consistent with the zoning around the surrounding neighborhood which is neighborhood residential six. So it probably, and I will also say that that census track is the highest assessed census track in the city of Sheboygan. So I'm guessing it's probably not gonna be affordable housing, it's probably gonna be more workforce and up kind of housing, but it'll be in single family of some sort versus multifamily. But at this stage, there's not enough information to really dive into the details because they have not really started the planning process. Thank you. Number 16 here, has Sheboygan considered any Memphis style code reforms to empower small local residential builders to build affordable missing middle housing? If you're unfamiliar, they give us a link at that point to look into it. I know Chad that you had looked into this a little bit. Do you wanna talk about what the Memphis style code reforms are and explain how that may impact our community? Yeah, as I understand it in a little bit of research time that I had today to look into this, this is Memphis had a lot of expansion where the city annexed a lot of property to the outside and their whole central city was neglected because they were focusing all their time on the peripheral new subdivision development more than the suburbs. They had a kind of a change of thought and after a number of years saw the decline of housing in their central city as what's happened into a lot of communities and they adopted their own ordinances that are not consistent necessarily with a state building code or a state commercial code and they were able to allow smaller one and two family housing developers to construct housing that was six and 12 units. So you typically have to be a commercial contractor to do those larger housing developments and this change allowed them to make it more fair, lower the price of the house of the competition and give more opportunity for different builders to build housing. Could something like that work in Wisconsin and in particular Sheboygan, I guess it could. This would be another reason why we'd wanna connect with our state legislators because state statute right now requires municipalities to adopt the state building code and that would have to be changed in the order to allow municipalities the opportunity to generate their own code and enforce their own code versus adopting what the state adopts. So what you're saying is that unfortunately even if this was something that could work here locally we can't utilize those codes because we have to follow the state's decision on how codes are met. That is correct. The state dictates what types of codes we can do and puts requirements that we can't be more restrictive than what the state is and those types of things are less restrictive or whatever. So it really the state really dedicates that designates that as part of the state statutes and those would have to be changed in order to get away from it. I didn't have time to look and see what they do in the state of Tennessee where Memphis is. Maybe they do have some more flexibility that allows them to go against their state but we do not have that flexibility. Thank you. One of our newer questions was are older persons aware of resources available to people in their areas and in those others in the community? So I don't know if anyone at the counter here is an older person but Chad has some ideas around that as well. I'll refer to Mary Lynn because she's a past alderman but what I've seen happen over my 15 years as in the city planning department is we try to educate the older persons on available resources out there but most of the time if they don't have those resources they'll reach out to city staff and find out what those answers are and either city staff will get back to the constituent or the older person will. So I'd be curious to know where the concern of this question came from because unless the older person is not answering questions but most of them will connect with city staff to try to get the answer and move forward from there. So I would value what former older person Donahue would have to say. I am. Chad, I mean I think you just pretty much hit it on the head when people are elected to office we expect them to take constituent calls to answer them and to try to find out the best information they can. In the nine years that I was an alder I found that number one you get a lot of constituent calls. Number two, most of them are pretty interesting. Number three, a good share of them are solvable. There are some that just aren't but and my resources just as Chad pointed out is to go to city staff and find out the answer or connect the constituent with the person in the department that could solve the problem. So police department, DPW were typically the two most often places where you needed to make those connections. So when you are listening to alder forums or whatever that's something you can ask the candidates. In addition to that we're looking at more like housing related resources not necessarily code or department of public works questions. Mental health America has a really handy resource guide on their website. You can go to mhhchaboygon.org and you can look up anything. You can find resources and just put anything in Sheboygan County online. They used to make paper books of those. I think that they've mostly gone away with that because resources changed so pretty often. But if you're looking for information around something that you maybe need a resource for that's a really good place to start. In addition to that United Way has 211 and you can call 211 and they have a whole slew of resources available at their disposal that they can give you. You just press 211 on your phone and you'll end up with someone from United Way to support you through those resources as well. So if your alder person doesn't have the answers that you need or the alder person are in this town hall and they're looking for more places to find resources and information those are two of like your go-tos. 211 and the mhhchaboygon.org resource guide for any non-public related issues. Right, although typically your alder is going to be focusing on city issues but those are excellent resources. Yeah, you never know what you're gonna get with those interesting calls though. Any number of things. So really honestly at this point in time we have two questions left and I believe Mary Lynn's gonna probably be able to answer both of these so I'm glad your mic's still on, just so we're clear. How do legal evictions work? And I'm actually gonna stick the next question right with this which is what can be done to change the process of terminating a person's tendency without cause and it seems unjust to give someone 28 days to find a place, pack and secure funds to relocate in such a short time frame. So both of those I think are fairly connected. Mary Lynn, I know that you have a lot of answers to that. And I'm gonna try to be quick. I know we're kind of over our time limit here. I will tell you that the legal eviction process is somewhat complex and there's simply no way I can go through that right now. And we rely on good landlords like Matt to be informed and know what has to happen. That being said, there are a lot of landlords who just aren't acquainted with what you need to do to terminate a tenancy. So I'm gonna just focus on three things. One, a legal eviction, not illegal, a legal eviction must start with a written notice to the tenant. The timing of that notice and what's in the notice depends on whether it's a month to month tenancy or a tenancy for a period of a year or less but there does have to be that written notice. The landlord can't come and say June it's time for you to move out. I want you gone in 14 days. Can't do that. Number two, the tenant actually has to get the notice. So it has to be properly served and that can be somewhat complex but step one and step two. Then the third thing is, and this is where I think people, tenants in particular, number one are frightened and number two just maybe not informed, a landlord has to go to court to get a tenant evicted. There is no self-help eviction in the state of Wisconsin and that is done by filing a small claims action and there's a process to that. If the landlord gets a judgment of eviction where the judge signs and orders saying, you know, June you need to move out, the landlord can't just go and start moving people out. The landlord has to get from the court something called a writ of restitution and the sheriff is involved with the service of that writ in order to move people out. It is a grim unhappy process both for the landlord and the tenant but self-help eviction, moving tenants' property out on the street, those kinds of things that sometimes landlords say that make people so frightened are just simply not legal. Now, that ties me into the second question is, do I need to get notice of why my tenancy is being terminated if I have a 28 day or month to month tenancy without a written lease? And the answer is the state law does not require a reason given in those circumstances. For five day or 14 day notices, yes. And again, I don't wanna get into the weeds here because it is a complex process but the law would have to be changed to say you have to give reasons in 28, a 28 day notice a kind of situations. There is federally subsidized housing that Chad has alluded to. There's section eight voucher programs, the public housing authority plus their heart and Joe Ruppnick who is magnificent. There are federal rules and requirements that lawyers love. I mean, I'm looking for technical defenses. I'll use what I can get. But generally in a 28 day month to month kind of tenancy, there's no requirement at all. What I say to people is the landlord, if he's properly served the notice, you have 28 days if you aren't out at the end of that 28 day period, the landlord must then file a small claims action to have you evicted and that process, it depends, can take 10 days to three weeks depending on where you are and what the court dates are and whether you appear as a tenant and contest or whatever. So you get a little bit. The problem is, and I'm just gonna say that a judgment of eviction or even an eviction action that has been started and is then dismissed is a true scarlet letter of our day. Given the extremely tight housing situation that we have, given the fact that people don't have a lot of money and then they have an eviction even if it's dismissed, it's an untenable situation. It's really, it's just very, very, very difficult. This leads me and then I'll be, because I know I'm going on here. When I started as a legal services lawyer many years ago, I became very involved in housing law right from the jump and I helped organize 17 tenant groups around Northeastern Wisconsin in the time that I was doing that work. People, individual tenants feel and usually are pretty powerless and that's just a fact of life and it's just something that we have to deal with. I was excited by the possibility in, almost a year ago with the Wisconsin, with the Wiramoney that lawyers could get involved in tenancy and terminations and evictions and actually have a tool. You see, because when you have, it's like being a defense lawyer. I mean, you often don't have very many tools to work with. Well, if I can say to a landlord, we can actually get you rent, we can get you back rent, we can get you forward rent, that gives us a tool. So we started something called the Renters and I'm just gonna make a pitch for this. The Renters Eviction Assistance Project REAP and we work through Lakeshore Cat. It is a true partnership. When people call in to Lakeshore Cat and say, I'm being evicted, I need rent, in that intake process, those cases get referred to us. When I say us, I have a colleague, she and I, basically with the assistance of a couple of pro bono corporate lawyers will contact clients and see what we can work out. And since the end of August is when we started, we have worked with almost 60 different tenants and so it's been really fun. And for me, I get to go back into court, which I haven't done for many years. And I have actually had some victories. Whoa, you know, it's like, maybe I could get back into this but we also have, we also have attorney Stadolka and I have just dealt with some of the most tragic, unbelievable heartbreaking situations. Thankfully, Lakeshore Cat provides hotel rooms mostly I think enjoying it, look into in. But people who literally have no place to go and with families and it's really terrible. And I'm just gonna, I called the small claims clerk today and I got these numbers in 2021, there were 256 eviction actions. So that's about 20 more or less per month. To date, to the beginning of March, there have been 70, so that's about 35 evictions. You'll remember there was a moratorium that was in effect that I think really did, wasn't universally effective, but it really helped. So the paces picking up, the ARPA, or the where a money is still there, refer your clients or the people you know and care about or who are having a hard time to Lakeshore Cap, not only for financial assistance, but if there are legal things that we can do, we're enjoying it. Well, not enjoying it, you know what I mean. We are, we feel like we're enjoying being able to help. There you go, there we go. Thank you. So that's it in a nutshell and it's, you know, the connection would be Lakeshore Cap and so I hope that's been helpful. Thank you, Mary Lynn. We didn't think we were gonna last an hour today with the questions that we had, we're now at 7.30. Joe, did you hit all the questions that came in the chat? Are we missing anybody? I know we're running over time. We appreciate the fact that you're sticking with us. There's just so much good information. Go ahead, Joe. Just, Martha says thanks to all for, of thanks to all of you for your time and efforts in support of access to affordable housing in Sheboygan. This series has been very informative and interesting. Thank you, Martha. I do wanna thank everybody on the panel tonight who's taken time out of their day to come here and present this information to our community and also who attended and participated in all of our town halls. We really appreciate everybody in our community and everyone in this panel for all of the great information that they presented this evening. So from the Shewin County Housing Coalition, thank you so much. We really appreciate you. I wish you all a great night.