 I think we are about to get ready, so thank you all so much for joining us. I'm going to move this house over a minute, and I have the great honor of serving on this task force as a chairperson. And I want to thank you all so much for being here. This is really an incredible showing of not just support for housing issues, but a real testament to the Mayor's wise decision to create a task force to look at developing the competence of housing policy and a comprehensive housing policy plan. Thank you Mayor for being with us. Thank you to your staff for their incredible support. I also would like to recognize that we have with us the honorable Councilwoman from the IRM from District 3. Thank you Councilwoman for joining us tonight. We also have Cheryl Solan, City Manager. Thank you Cheryl for being here. Along with Deputy City Manager Peter Sinovi and many of the members of the staff. Thank you all for your support, for ensuring that we have the level of administrative and logistical support necessary to conduct tonight's meeting. And this is really a historic moment. And if you notice a little bit of my voice, it's a combination of excitement, excitement for me at this table and for me being in this room with all of you. I know that many of you and many of us have been working on these issues in our communities, in our respective agencies, in many capacities. And so I am incredibly inspired and I think we all are to have you be part of this process. And before we dive into introducing the task force members, I would like to introduce our honorable Mayor, who's happened with them today, creating this task force and who's prepared to share welcoming remarks with all of you. So without further ado, I would like to introduce Mayor Ron Roper. Good afternoon everyone and welcome. And thank you, Louis, for the introduction. I won't take long. We're just sharing some thoughts to get us started. I do agree with you. This is a historic moment. And judging by the level of interest in a policy framework on housing as evidenced by the people who are here today, the number of people, this is long overdue. And it's not without its previous attempts, but I think that, first of all, the folks gathered here at the table to help us with this policy. The convening of this group is historic. The charge of this group, specifically on the issues that we've already been from gentrification to rehabilitation to addressing the shortage of affordable homes in this community, is also historic. So I first want to say thank you to the people who are present watching and also to our task force members. You probably heard my voice. I'm struggling with the allergens and the mold that's in the air, so I apologize if I sound like I just woke up. I promise I didn't. I will try to make it through some brief introductory remarks. And before I do, there is an agenda for those of you who are interested. The agenda on the flip side of the English agenda is also in Spanish. We want to be as cognizant as possible about the accessibility and needs for folks who may be watching. I'm excited about the energy and interest our community has shown in wanting to tackle our housing challenges together. It's critical to the future of our city and we do this well and that we do it now. As some of you have heard me say, San Antonio will be built in size by 2050. An additional million and a half people will be calling our home. San Antonio will be the size of Chicago. Over the next 20 years we expect half a million new housing units to be built in San Antonio, how and where these homes are built will help shape the city's future, its quality of life, and the opportunities for all of its citizens. All San Antonians deserve to live with dignity and our city should feature a diverse housing stock that is high quality, affordable, and sustainable. We must address the affordability challenges so that San Antonians can find quality places to live, regardless of their income level and regardless of which part of town they live in. Our housing must be affordable for all families of all sizes and market driven. It should give residents the tools and opportunity to age in their homes, rehabilitate existing structures, and preserve the integrity of our neighborhoods. I have charged a task force with developing a comprehensive and compassionate housing policy framework to address depressing housing challenges that our city faces from availability and affordability to gentrification and displacement. This plan will align existing public and private resources and address issues of gentrification, displacement, and the need for rehabilitation of existing housing stock. The task force has autonomy to determine the process and level and time and place of community input, gatherings, and we will do so to facilitate the objective of a comprehensive housing framework. I have complete faith in their abilities to execute a strategy that in six months will result in an action-oriented policy recommendation that the community will have an opportunity to vet and the city council will have an opportunity to vote on. I want to thank the task force members for stepping up to this duty, including the task force chair and with us, Kastaromiris, Jim Bailey, Maria, Maria Zaval, June Dawson Jr., and Noah Garcia. I also want to thank everyone in the community that is showing interest in participating and lending their expertise. The task force will develop technical working groups and many community members will be drafted to help problems all around specific issues. The working meetings, like this one today, are open to the public and designated community input meetings will also be scheduled so your voices can be heard. The mayor's housing policy task force will work in tandem with the city and agencies down to develop policy recommendations and connect these recommendations to the city's SA-MR comprehensive plan and with the vision of SA-2020. Regarding the housing commission, many have asked how its mission relates to that of this task force. The distinction is this, the housing commission oversees the long process of actual policy implementation under a council-approved work plan. The task force has a short-term, broad-based mandate to recommend what policies should be created in the future. I want to take this opportunity to thank the housing commission members for their ongoing commitment and for their hard work. We will be relying on their knowledge and expertise throughout this process. Thank you all for being here today and thank you again to the task force members, the city staff, to Christine Drennan and to our community members. In one last note, we've done a lot having lived over the last three months since the new administration took office. We passed a budget that is based on equity. We've had conversations that we probably previously wouldn't have had the courage to do. I chalked this up or I placed this in the same category. This will not be easy work. It will not be for the faint of heart. In many ways, embarking on this journey right now is an acknowledgement that these are going to be some difficult conversations. So, thank you to the city council, to the city staff who have led us in this direction that give us the confidence and the foundation to stand this task force on you and will afford to predict to the productive results. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Danielle. I also do want to announce that para personas que necesitan disfuerzo de nación, tenemos servicios aquí atrás. Anyone that's needing transportation, we do have an application services. We do have an interpretation services available. Carlos, do you want to make another announcement on that? No, no. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. So, on the agenda, the next slide is a opportunity for each of us as task force members to introduce ourselves. And I'm really delighted to work on Friday. and Jin, Maria, and Noah over the last three weeks. We have been working to essentially prepare for this moment and we have done so much work that we each prepared a three-minute statement and so I'm gonna go ahead and lead on and then we'll turn it over to Jin and then we'll go with Maria, and Jin, and Noah. You'll be the last person here, okay with that. All right, good. So Mayor, thank you again, thank you again for the appointment to this task force. I very much appreciate your mountains and my ability to serve as a chair and to work with these incredibly committed task force members but also to work with the community and to work with various stakeholders for an initiative in this issue. Thank you all for being here for our first task force meeting. In many ways, having this meeting on National Lightout is perfect. You know, this annual community building campaign on National Lightout is about promoting neighbor-to-neighbour relationships. It's about building strong community partnerships and it's about fostering safer and more caring places to live. I have dedicated pretty much my entire life to public service, struggling to expand choice and opportunity for all persons and recognizing that I have a special responsibility to address the needs of disadvantaged individuals. I have privately done this by working with individuals from the families of communities and institutions and using housing as a catalyst for community building. I see myself and I see my family reflected in the families that I have worked with my entire life, working men and women that are trying hard to make it, families of children searching for a decent and affordable place to rent or to own, a place near those schools, not far from their job site and in the safe and welcoming neighborhood, individuals that want to be mom and feel connected to the neighbors. During my time at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where I had the honor of being a public and a household program across the country, I saw how cities and native communities are working on addressing housing shortages across the country and doing everything that's possible to stretch and multiply precious federal resources by leveraging private and philanthropic center partners. With declining federal support for housing and community resources, such as a TVG at home, which many have occurred over the last five years, you know, at the time of these resources, now more than ever, local strategies are critically important. And as the mayor mentioned, since the announcement, there have been many questions about the purpose of this task force. And so we all recognize that there's a lot of critical work that is happening across the housing policy spectrum, from boards, commissions, community members that are engaged in the neighborhoods, committees, and significant ongoing physical planning to support our comprehensive plan. So let me try to clarify what we see as our purpose. We, the task force, have been tasked to be a visioning process that will enable us to develop a comprehensive and compassionate housing policy framework that connects, aligns, and identifies missing pieces in these efforts, from homelessness to home ownership. We have been tasked to ensure that ongoing efforts meet most of what we have applied. And most importantly, we have a broad mandate to explore long-term housing policy implementation and finding strategies that support our collective drive toward a sustainable future for all Senators Williams. We also know that the demand for affordable housing, especially affordable rental housing, far outweighs the supply. So assisting affordable housing. I believe that housing, as our visionary comprehensive plan says, is not a standalone concept. It's intertwined with our carbon footprint, our physical health, our education quality, transportation options, food access, cultural identity, economic bandwidth, and availability of city services. I believe that through smart growth policy implementation, we can utilize infrastructure deployment as a vehicle to mobilize the market forces and empower our non-profits to confront the crisis we face. Through the significant, sustainable, and locally sourced funding stream for affordable housing and big-living facilities. I believe that our banking sector is up to the challenge of shoring up home ownership in San Antonio and in partnership with our non-profit and for-profit developers, generating products to create more affordable housing opportunities for housing opportunities in San Antonio come forward. I believe that we as a community will choose to preserve our cultural resources, strengthen the integrity of our neighborhoods, challenge rising costs and historic inequity and agree on a housing policy framework that provides access to opportunity, education, transportation, and good health with safe, decent, and affordable housing for all. I believe that to succeed, we must be transparent and inclusive and develop trust between the task force and our neighbors that we represent. What we face is a systemic problem that was decades in the making and will take decades to reverse. Because if the work of this task force is to be lasting, it's not me here at this table that will make it so. It's everyone around us and all the generations that will come after us. Finally, I believe that we can no longer look primarily to Austin and Washington for solutions if you are forthcoming. Rather, we must be smarter about how we use our resources and do what Americans do best, pull ourselves up by our food straps. We have the vision, we have the leadership and the tools we need. Thanks to Mayor Nuremberg for giving me the opportunity to do my part, and thanks to our chair for our unerring guidance and data as we work through this initial organizational process. I didn't think of introducing myself, but I think a good way to do it is today I got a phone call from one of the television stations and the reporter wanted to interview me on affordable housing, and she said that she had done an interview with me 40 years ago on affordable housing. And she remembered, so, just the way I am. So, just my introduction. I've been at it for a very long time, and I'm so glad to be here. Thank you Mayor Nuremberg for the creation of this housing policy task force that will develop the framework for a comprehensive and compassionate housing policy. Thank you for the confidence and place to be, to sit around this table. I look forward to working with our chair, Douglas Asronamides, Jim Bailey, Jean Dawson, and Noah Pfeffsia. As you have spoken publicly, Mr. Mayor, about this task force, I appreciate your statements that reflect a comprehensive approach that we are to address. Housing affordability, neighborhood stability, gentrification, displacement, rehabilitation. When I see the problems in our older areas of our city resulting from disinvestment and lack of attention for generations, I realize that the tasks of solving these problems will be daunting. When I hear neighborhood and community leaders express concern and frustration over the challenges of growth in their neighborhoods, I see that our housing issues are diverse and complex, but many things encourage me. One is the public engagement and interest on the part of so many citizens. There are many people, many around here, right now, who work tirelessly through neighborhood associations and community groups to improve the places where they live. I am also very encouraged by the city council's commitment to addressing issues through equity lens as was done in the last budget, and I am very cognizant of the staffing that it took to get you all to that place. Now, it is time to address housing through equity lens too. One point I want to make to those residents who have taken time to attend this meeting and those who will view the meeting online later is that our task force wants to hear from you. Well, each of us has a unique view, one piece of housing, if you would, into the world of housing. All of us agree that we need a public to complete the circle. At this moment in time of our city, we will create the avenues for you to participate. I invite you to do so. Bring us your ideas and help us produce an excellent document that we can present to city council. I also want to recognize the work of the city staff who are responsible for the daily delivery of housing services, and they do it whether there's a report or not. This recognition extends also to citizen volunteers who serve on our various housing committees, task forces, and commissions. There is a lot of work already being done. At the end, our journey together is to take advantage of this moment in the history of our city, a hopeful moment, where housing for all has been lifted to a high priority, this is the story, Mr. Mayor. We want to make sure that the very basic need of all people to have decent, safe, affordable, and stable housing is a reality. And I want to end as I begin with Mayor Nuremberg's words. Quote, I believe in government that listens to you and is accountable to all whom it serves. End of quote. Our work therefore must be grounded in transparency, inclusion, and equity. And I am ready to start. Thank you. But Jean Dawson, when we think of infrastructure in the city, we think of street timings, water and electricity. From a business community standpoint, there can be economic development without infrastructure. Available infrastructure, based on long term planning, is a cornerstone of a successful city. And its importance is evident and not spent by the business community advocating for these issues. However, today another piece of infrastructure is in crisis and it is called affordable housing. That's an example of how the commissioners has given numbers making feel comfortable. In 2006, we had over 19,000 new housing starts in the Bear County area, and 7,500 of those were below $150,000. In 2010, we had 7,600 housing starts. 3,400 of those were below $175,000. Now in 2016, we don't even track new housing starts below $150,000. And we have 18% of our housing below $200,000. So you can see that we are moving in the wrong direction. And why would I bring up new housing that costs a new housing? Because the inability to produce significant new housing below $150,000 in the existing housing side fills the pressure as prices increase, demand when existing houses increase. Demand is greatest on pricing in our older neighborhoods. With an appreciation of nearly 25% over the last three years. Some of this demand is filled by new multi-family construction but it marked a great quality in our economy. Further putting pressure on our housing stock is deteriorating housing which we need to remain viable for our community. San Antonio seats staff as they tomorrow, the housing commission and many, many others spend their day working on this falling process. Most of the business community consider affordable housing as something addressed even in the halls of the city planning department by non-profits or by the federal government. I hope my participation on this task force will help alert the business community to this involving affordable housing prices and the threat to the city's economic success. Thank you so much. I am honored to be part of this housing task force. Thank you Mayor Narver for selecting me to be part of this very talented group of individuals that brings a wealth of knowledge and I hope personally to bring my experience of 30 years of commercial banking financing subdivisions that she designs to the financing hold that are no longer affordable because of the price. It starts at the price of the lot and our lot costs are creating housing costs that are way out of the reach of many people. So that experience I believe brings a real balance to this table. To my two years of being on the commission of SOC where I had the honor of interviewing with this and hiring with this and learning from her and really understanding the rent for individuals in our community, understanding how that great burden is now at 30% but sometimes increasing to 50% now and especially in rising costs. So it is, we are at a critical junction of really looking at this housing crisis that we're in. To working with the San Antonio Housing Commission which Mayor Narver appointed me to, that's doing great work and will continue to do great work and where I have the honor of working with Jim and getting to know Jim. To working in the community being on the Wildwood Cultural Board and chairing the Wildwood Cultural Center and having family that have businesses that live on the west side. So affordable housing is so important for us now and for our future and I am glad that as a community we are addressing this issue of rising costs and affordability before we price everybody out of the market and that's where we're headed if we don't address affordability and I roll up my sleeves along with the rest of this task force and I'm ready to join those in the community that are ready to roll with their space. Thank you very much everyone and this was shared by the remarks from each of the task force members. We have been thinking about these issues for longer than the commission of the task force and we are very committed to doing everything that we can to ensure that we develop a process that enables us to dive deeper into the policy areas. But we're also very committed to doing this process as a process that will allow for us to raise greater awareness about housing, greater awareness about the intersection between housing and education and housing and health and housing and jobs and housing and just the ability to live in a sustainable labor body. And so today we've got this meeting with a presentation by an individual that many of us have had the pleasure to work with, a professor and just an amazing woman who has been involved in a number of efforts. I first met Ashley Christian Drenn from the Drenn Entrepreneurship University and I was working for the housing authority and working with residents and a number of community stakeholders who launched the choice to promise a labor force effort. And I built that over the summer with Christian Drenn and had the opportunity to present the three of us, the mayor and the City Council a presentation that basically laid out the foundation for what we are now sort of speaking about the importance of looking at everything that we do whether it's in housing development or housing or even job creation from an equity lens. And so I'd like to ask Dr. Drenn to please come and join us for this next portion of the presentation for a presentation that is titled Housing and Able Hooks to the Equity Lens. So let's give her a round of applause. Nervous? It's so honored to be here because I know that you had dozens of people who would like to give this talk as you begin this work like an inaugural talk for the housing task force and again I'm honored because I'm going to try to say my beginning of work I don't have numbers. I don't have dates. I don't have statistics and you will have lots of that. I'm really sure you'll have lots of that in the coming months but I share some histories and some insights and some encouragement about where we've been and about hopefully where we might go. So what I'm going to try to do here is set the context for the statistics and all of the numbers that you'll get into so soon. We start here. We've heard this several times already. Availability and affordability to gentrification and displacement. I'll look at those words in a little bit. But first what I want to do is contextualize them. Just thinking about the vision. The vision and the mission of the city itself. I'm going to read all of these words. Don't worry. But just things that should help out is that our vision is that we're healthy. We have quality education and economic opportunity. We're safe. We're engaged. It's sustainable. We have public transportation in downtown. We're engaged. And the mission is to get all of us there. It's a vision of prosperity for all. So one of my questions is how does housing fit in that housing is private property? And this is the United States in there. So that is an honest, honest question. Is how does housing fit? In that, quality city services usually means libraries, roads, place protection, fire protection, waste removal, and I want to put your blood on top. Yet housing is not usually out there. So we need to figure out how does this come to be. And so we're going to do that by representation. I have a lot of slides, but I have a presentation and there's three parts. What's so special about housing? Why do we have a task force for housing? And how does it fit in that general articulation of the mission? And then if I can convince you that it is special, we're going to start. We start with my slate. And then finally, what are our shared priorities? What's so special about housing? Why do we have a task force for housing? Why do we have a task force for lots of things, for driveways, for us, lots of sidewalks? We bang. But housing is a catalyst. Housing is a catalyst toward opportunity. And there are so many studies done that says that if children are housed well, and this is my own work, if children are housed well, they're more likely to succeed in school, toward health. How comes associated with higher levels of behavioral problems if you're not stable in a home? Towards safety. Neighborhoods with high levels of collective efficacy or their trust have lower levels of violence. Toward wealth, the ability to accumulate wealth in the American society is very much based on our house. Toward community, there's so many things. That housing is actually really the basis of that we usually think of as social services. But so many of those are filtered through housing. And I have to add to that this as profit itself. Real estate housing development has become extremely lucrative. So it is also an opportunity, and we need to be honest about that. But so also housing is also very unique. It's a very unique commodity. And I taught my classes, it's not like my shoes. My housing is very different for four reasons. So I'll talk about really quickly. It's fixed. It has different forms of value. It's our savings account, and it's really, really expensive. So although it is private, it is privately owned, it is a private commodity, it's a very special commodity. For one thing, it is not just a house. It is not just a house. A house because it's fixed is part of the neighborhood. And neighborhood processes are different than just single houses. So this, I've got the one in the middle. That's my house. I just named it bright pink. But I also don't know where. I've been in a house immediately. Right now, this is my neighborhood. Don't exist. It's, you know, the fact that I, yesterday, like he and my house were at the paint, impacts my neighbors. They're actually quite different things. They like it. But it does impact them. The decisions I make about my house, the upkeep of my house impacts your house. Right? It's not like tomorrow when I change my shoes, they don't even get your shoes. But a house does. And so there's a very, very different kind of commodity. Housing has different forms of value. Right? And again, housing has what we call use value and exchange value. A house is a home. A house is where I live. My family is where I live. My dog, it's my safe haven. But it also has an exchange value. I can sell it. I borrow it from my kids. I hope to bequeathed to them, even maybe it won't be paid. But those, and those two things, depreciate at different rates. Right? And so sometimes when we try to communicate to one another about housing, some of us are talking about exchange value and some of us are talking about use value. And we need to be on top of both of those conversations. Right? And we need to recognize that both of those things are exquisitely and deeply important in this conversation. And that we can't just push use value, especially to the side. Right? In preference for exchange value. If anything, a lot of us are much more concerned about the use value. It's our savings account. Right? For many of us, for most of us in the United States that our house is our savings account. That's how we approve. That's how we approve wealth. Through wealth, not the money that I make in an Airbnb shop. Because that gets me through the week. But the wealth that I will then spend on my retirement and on my kids is improved through my house. And it's really, really expensive. And it's becoming more expensive all the time. And because it's expensive. Right? The entire housing stock cannot be provided by the private market. It just cannot be worn. And so we have to figure out how the public sector can have to figure out how the housing stock articulates with the local need. Right? And the numbers will come in at that point. It's important. My next question. Part two. Where do we start? Where do we start this whole conversation? Do we start here? Right? Let's say new land. Right? 142,000 units. We have all of these numbers. A million people are coming. And we just start new. And that's silly. That's ridiculous. So we often seem to have conversations that sound like that. We start with this. We start with an extremely built up environment already. And it was built up over a long period of time. And under very different conditions. We start out. And this is just a census figure. 524,246. Existing housing units. Right? Census. 54.4 of them are on our occupying. They're in very state of repair and despair. And in various balances of use and exchange value. And some of it was created under very specific conditions. In different time periods. And often under very small conditions. And it's actually some of the neighborhoods that were created in those time periods that are under the most threat today. They are our most vulnerable populations in neighborhoods. So I want to let's just start. Let's just talk about the neighborhoods for a minute. Right? And let's just like old maps. I'm a geographer. I love maps. Right? So I want to look at the neighborhoods north, southeast and west. Right? I was looking at how they were created. It was just fantastic. It's such an interesting process. So let's go north. Right? Bacon Hill. And I'm sorry it's sideways. I have to have north at the top. No. I have to. So Bacon Hill. Right? Fabulous neighborhood. And it's right up here. I don't think my pointer is working. No, it's not. But it's up there. It's to the north. Right? There it is today. Fabulous housing stock. We love this. We love this housing. Right? And here's the deeds. Right? And so when it was created, it said that you couldn't be a tense on your property. Right? And the house's hand to cost at least $1,500. Right? And then it also said that no person of any Negro blood should immediately be rejected from this neighborhood. They're not allowed in the same hood. Still, north hated another neighborhood. It's actually now part of Bacon Hill. Also, it was still out in the north. Right? It's at the top of the map there. Pew. Pew little housing stock. We love this. Right? Another one. It's beautiful. Also, lots of restrictions. Right? One, houses had to cost at least $5,000. Right? They had to be set back 25 feet from the street. Right? And then they should never, under any circumstances, any portion of this house ever been sold to anyone of Mexican or Negro blood. Right? So more of our northern neighborhoods. There was one. Let's go south. Right? South. Harlandale. There it is. There's the housing stock. Right? There's been some urban renewal. We can't sell wine. No open air structures. Nobody helped. Right? Beautiful neighborhood. We love this neighborhood. It's rapidly gentrifying. It's really, really beautiful housing stock. It also was racially restricted. So much that you can actually see it in the census. Right? New Broncos dividing line from between one neighborhood to another. One neighborhood in the 1940s census completely white across the street neighborhood, completely African-American and a little bit of Mexican as well. Prospect Hill. Prospect Hill is a wonderful neighborhood on the west side. Right? They're great, fabulous housing stock. Also, this stuff is in there. Right? Westside. North, south, east, west. Right? All of these neighborhoods that are being built up have these restrictions in them. This one. No Negroes. $1,000 setback. All of this. So, I'm really curious then if these are the conditions when our neighborhoods started to get built up. Right? And all of these. Right? These are neighborhoods that we and a friend of mine have been working in. All of these red, but just trying to trace them. What's going on then? In here. And in here. To the north, most of it has been, it's been removed. It's almost a commercial property. But what's going on in those neighborhoods that didn't show up on those flat maps. Right? Let's go look at some of those. And let's look at this first. The red, you see the red? Those are restricted areas. Those were neighborhoods that had housing restrictions in them. And across the street, the areas that aren't marked, they did not. Right? So like these areas up in there, no restrictions. Those did. And why don't you look carefully at these. Right? Zoom in. Look at the lots. Private pieces of private property. Right? Look at the lots. Look at the difference. From this. Restricted. Right? Angle only. To this. Non-white neighborhood. Right? And you think for a second about the houses that could go here and the houses that could go here. The accumulation of wealth here versus the accumulation of wealth here. Right? What do those places look like? Right? We know this. We live this. Here's the plots. These were small little developments. They didn't go in a thousand, two, a couple hundred houses at a time. They went in ten or twenty. They were small little developments. Right? This little one called the Big Five Block. Right? Just looking at one little house. No deed restrictions. No restrictions in these. These were open to the community of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. Right? This is the street. This is. These are the streets. It's dense. And the infrastructure is not the same that I was showing you before. This is the little house. Right? And this is the neighborhood. It's by the 1940s census. It's very mixed racially. Right? So it's African American and Mexican American and Chinese and Italian and Russian. And then some people from Louisiana and Oklahoma. Right? But these are the neighborhoods. Right? These are the neighborhoods. These are the neighborhoods. These are the colonial San Ignacio. Right? These also, with little tiny lots, right? They lend themselves to a very different kind of housing stock. It's a small house. It's a humble house. Right? And it's a very dense neighborhood. It's a very different kind of land use. And we do this over and over again. And we see evidence of this in a lot of our west side neighborhoods. So in other parts of town, these have been demolished. A lot of them are blind. But these are the neighborhoods that now are extremely vulnerable to the future. This is the street. That's not an alley. Right? There's a street sign right there. I can't read the other side. These are the old streets in the iron research neighborhood. Right? Right? Where it's so... I'm like the sixth or twelfth white woman. I know what the family's history that I inherited from. Because the housing in those restricted areas with the larger house and the more standardized housing was open to me. But to non-whites, those opportunities were not available through the beginnings of the book about 1950 of the 20th century. 1948 this stuff is declared unconstitutional. But by then, the landscape, and the neighborhood, the pattern, and the neighborhood's adventure, that it has settled even round itself in terms of private property. And then you were not able to accumulate wealth through our homes, right? Just, I could go on like this forever, and I promise I won't, because this is what I do, right, I find flats, and then I go find houses. But this is the thing, is that as we got, as we got more standardized with our planning, with our development, those areas and most of the neighborhoods that were being put in were restricted, right? And then on my population, that pushed into some other parts of town on smaller pieces of property, and then we're able to build smaller housing, right? And then this is what they then have been able to accumulate wealth based on. So all of these neighborhoods that I've checked in here, were all racially restricted. And it's these other areas that I'm really curious about. And again, just to see, just like a property itself, right? And how much smaller and what kind of housing it's gonna lend itself to in those areas. By the 1930s, the federal government was getting involved, all of that stuff was on a very local level between your personal developer and you. By the 1930s, the federal government gets involved, and they redline, they literally do redline these older parts of town that I've been just talking about. The smaller housing stock in my neighborhoods are redlined and thus denied investment into the future up until about 1968 with President Johnson. So if we start to put some of this together, what you'll notice is the areas that were highly racially restricted, they were greener blue lining, meaning that they were safe investments for the banks. But the areas that weren't restricted, that were non-white, smaller pieces of property, they were red and yellow lined, meaning not a safe investment. And so no investment dollars being into those for decades. Also though, some areas, you can see it on the east and the west sides, some racially restricted neighborhoods actually get kind of bundled into the redlining. And they also have not, they've seen more deterioration, especially if you think about the West Side. They've seen more deterioration in the latter parts of the 20th century. On top of that, right, that's just the housing story. And on top of that, our social service that is most tightly intertwined with housing is schools. We complain today that we have, what, 16 different school districts up until the 1950s, we had 68. Those were the old common school districts. And in the 1950s, they began to consolidate into the 16 that we have today and that we continue to complain about. But there was the old ones. Those were the common school districts. They were underneath the county, underneath the county governance. And they began to consolidate. And where I want you to remember is where all of these old neighborhoods were and then have been so racially restricted. And so we consolidate into the school districts that we see today. Well, we did it along racial lines. Very much so. So that when we drew those lines, those racially, highly racialized neighborhoods were on, everybody was aware of that. Everybody was aware of the property values that different areas of town were contributing into these new school districts. And they were consolidated, really kind of gerrymandered around some of those old neighborhood lines. So at this point, those old relationships get compromised, institutionalized into the school districts themselves. And now we need to think about real social services and opportunity. So by the 1950s, what have we done? We've created a highly differentiated social geography based on race, which is also based on income under incredibly exploitative circumstances and processes, and we got enlightened, right? We got enlightened, and we brought equality. We brought equality out, and then we said, we're done, we've done it, equality, right? We did it. And what does equality look like in our educational system? It was Brown versus Board, Robin Hood. And then it was Tix, Toss, Tax and Star. I agree we'll treat everyone the same. I'm going to set up this landscape and then we're going to treat everybody the same. In public investment, it was rough proportionality, right? We've got a city budget that's divided by 10 and everybody gets the same, because we're all equals, right? And even in political engagement, I argue that direct democracy also does this a little bit because we expect everybody to have the same voice that we know that they don't. So what's the cumulative impact of all of this? Status quo, total status quo. We bring equality to an unequal landscape. That just means that we maintain the status quo that we built in the first place. And we produce an incredibly inequitable society in the meantime that once again is very, very vulnerable. So if we look at current maps of income, right, just an income map, the lighter colors meaning lower income, we're looking at the old private property relationships. Those folks in those inner city neighborhoods that were that red line had never been able to accumulate wealth. And we wonder, as far as, well, why do we have such economic segregation, right? It cures for the data, for the data geeks, including myself, an area on the website. Yeah, the red line, yellow line, green line, and blue line, right? And this is looking at housing values, right? Over to 2010 to 2015. What it means is those, I'm quoting in brown, those houses that are appreciating at a rate less than the county need, right? And in blue, houses that are appreciating at a rate that's higher or above the county need, right? This is 2015. This is decades and generations past deep restrictions and red line. But look, in the red line areas, the houses are appreciating significantly lower and about lower than the county need. In the green areas that were racially restricted and then green line by the banks, they're appreciating your house. Your most valuable asset, your savings account, is appreciating much more quickly than the county need. Yes, this was illegal. It was made illegal a long time ago, but it still haunts us. And these are some of our most vulnerable neighborhoods now. Yes, the housing has decayed and deteriorated, but the use value is still so high and so strong. So we read headlines like this one just from last year for the past 50 years, seven, eight, 207, defined by poverty and equality issue and opportunity, but we'll do that. I hope so. We created it that way. We created it as a labor reserve. It's a labor reserve. Yeah, yeah, of course it is, right? So part three, what are we doing? What are we doing? We inherited this. We inherited this landscape, and what do we do, right? And then we get back to this. The mayor's task force, availability, affordability, gentrification and displacement. And I look at those words, right? I look at those words and I type them again. And how do I understand that? Do I understand it as a spectrum? Like from availability to affordability to gentrification to displacement? And do I understand them as independent of one another? Or as an evolution, right? And does it matter? It matters because each one of those words has a different geography. Each one of those words has different policy implications, and they overlap. In some neighborhoods, they overlap and they really are a spectrum. They're not individual things. So just really quickly, and I promise, almost done with the maps. Let's go to Maki Park, another neighbor. I love this neighborhood, we love this neighborhood, right? Original platform, Maki Park, I can't get over old plaques, I love them. 1919, who was what, right? There it is today, Maki Park, like I'm doing my math thing, right? Sorry about the whole in the middle of the picture. What's this, oh, how do I take a poll in the middle of the picture? There's Maki Park, right? Just beautiful, love it. It's just like the musky trees. Houses, right along Maki Park, right? Zoo at one end, Tampa Gardens at the other. Little humble houses, you know? Just little humble houses, little Texas houses, like my big house. Beautiful little houses, right? Very valuable property. There's the big Maki Park today, the whole neighborhood association. Here's what's really so interesting about an old neighborhood like this. Because we talked today about what are our goals? What should neighborhoods look like? Look at this, the pink is single-family houses and the blue is multi-family. It's all mixed up, right? It's all mixed up. Well, that's interesting. And so we've got these beautiful single-family homes built a long time ago, right? Just solid and appreciating. Sometimes quicker than people would like. And then we have the four plaques, right? And the four plaques, and also the cool thing, middle of the neighborhood, I don't know if it's my next picture, well, kind of, there's a school in the middle of the neighborhood, right? So kids living in the four plaques, kids living in a single-family house, all in the same school, right? This is mixed income. This is mixed income on a neighborhood scale, right? It's housing values, and the lighter colors from 20 to 100, right? I know it's a big range, but there is a large range in the neighborhood to the dark colors, which are four into the 500s, and that's all we're going to look at. We'll look at the side of it, because we're a bit of a mix income, right? Mix income, that's such a goal, right? And so again, we have the solid single-family homes, and we have this in the middle, you know, just middle of Texas houses that we love. Then we have the four plaques, so that a family can age in the same neighborhood. This is a model, right? But this is what's happening, is that the four plaques are being demolished, right? All of these four plaques are being demolished, and we're built, and we, I don't know, are building, building, these are $300,000, single-family. So we're taking out affordable homes. We're taking out affordable homes. We're building not affordable homes. That's four families are out. One family is welcomed back, but those four plaques is $4,000 a month. That means a median salary in San Antonio. These mean a lot higher salary in San Antonio. You need to think about it. You need to think about our vulnerabilities here. So when I look at that, from availability and affordability to gentrification in this place, when I thought of the words, like, we are so careful with this word, so it's very intentional with this word, and I think we need to think about the words very, very deeply. So housing and neighborhoods, right? Our houses are savings, but it hasn't always been for everyone, and so we do, we struggle with issues of inequality and income segregation. A lot, a lot, because it goes back to private property distribution of private property. And so we need to return to our core values. The mission of the city itself is prosperity, and prosperity for all, right? And so those inner city neighborhoods that are so, so about vulnerable today, that we need to remind ourselves, like how were they created, right? Why hasn't some of our population been able to accrue wealth like others have? We want to blame, we want to say, work hard. We need to understand, we need to take ownership of our story, and we are not unique. It's not our story only. I'm not from here, I'm from there, right? I'm from Rochester, New York, but I love this city. I love this city, right? And I love people, but you know what? I'm just thinking about there. I love like communities of people even better than individual people. Neighborhoods, right? It's neighborhoods, like that's where I grew up. Right? It's about neighborhoods. And so we hold on to those old pictures of our neighborhood, right? Because it contextualizes us. I think of those fancy pictures from the mall about like the blue walls. No, because it wasn't me. I held on to this picture, because it reminds me that's that neighborhood, it's a big union. And so we need to think house and elsewhere to think neighborhood. And just really finally, last night as I prepared, I went to the refrigerator and I saw the little magnet on the refrigerator door. My daughter drew this when she was in preschool, right? She's 23 now. So she drew that 20 years ago, a little drawing. And what did she choose to draw when they asked her to make a magnet for your mom? She drew a house, right? And then I still have the house out of all of her artwork. I still have the little house, right? That's what I think of you. That's what I think of you. Thank you for choosing me to give you an honorable talk. I don't know if that's what you expected. Follow-up items for public awareness are opportunity to pose any questions that you may have. I'm going to open it up. Any thoughts, any questions? I'm looking forward to the next six months with you. So I wanted to cover what Jim's point and the mayor acknowledged Dr. Brennan. Dr. Brennan will be one of our advisors throughout this process. We also will be meeting on several of your advisors and we plan to invite them also to DCA's. So we will very likely see more Dr. Brennan at DCA's. And I do see my, I know this is, like, I'm an Irish. But the contextualization, just a reminder about where we've been, and most of us don't have a lot of faith. I do have a lot of faith through my profession. I've a lot of faith out of taking the time to tell you that you go back to try to understand. And I understand myself, I don't have that. So that's what I choose to give. And I do hope that you will, not just as an academic exercise, but as a context for the work that you're doing. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Brennan. I also wanted to share with everyone that we are looking to create a dedicated webpage where we will be able to have this presentation. We are working very closely with the students out to develop that. And so once that is available, we will make sure that we announce it broadly. So if you're interested, I also wanted to mention that there, Ron Nuremberg, we had to leave early. He mentioned he was not feeling well, but he also reminded me that he's entrusting us to continue guiding this process. And to the extent that he can join some of these meetings, he will, but he's basically tasked us with coming up with a comprehensive policy, a document, a framework in the next six months. And I think we're all very committed and dedicated to doing everything possible to ensure that we deliver on that request. So he wanted to send, he basically let everyone know that he meant to leave early. So thank you, Christine, thank you very much. So we're gonna move on to the agenda. And the next item on the agenda is really opportunity for us to have a conversation among the task force. And at some point during the agenda, we do have the opportunity for questions and answers from the audience. So at this point, we're on item number five, which is developing that collective vision and mission statement. And I'm going to essentially sort of set this up and I'm going to turn it over to each of my task force members to walk us through this portion. And I'll start off by sharing with you, do you wanna know the values? Great, thank you, Jen. I'll start off by sharing with all of you that this is a process that I don't think has ever been done before, at least at this level. How do you have to come up with a very high level policy framework that is all inclusive? It's a heavy lift and we recognize that. And because we recognize that, we want to be very thoughtful about how we carry ourselves through this process. And we come out of this first by identifying the values that each of us have or the values that we each embrace. So we had an opportunity to have what I would call a planning meeting or organizational meeting and have an opportunity to discuss what values as a task force to be embraced and do we want to ensure guide in this process. So we've come up with a set of values which include collegiality, transparency, being inclusive, ensuring that we are focused on embracing equity, both in terms of how we carry ourselves, but also in terms of the approach and the process that we're engaged in. And there's a commitment to excellence, to engagement, to innovation, holding each other accountable and building a sense of teamwork. I think these are very common values that organizations, agencies, community groups you normally embrace and we want to be very clear that this is how we plan to conduct this task force. And so moving to, let me ask the task force member to any of you have any comments on that? Ready to go, okay, thanks. The next homework that I actually assigned to each of our, my colleagues here, in preparation for this, for this meeting, we thought it would be, I thought it would be really helpful to have us each think about the vision and mission statement that basically summarizes or crystallizes the effort. Earlier from Dr. Drenna, you saw the vision statement and the vision statement for the city. You heard from the mayor and he shared his overall vision. But we also think that as a task force, it's really important that we collectively come up with a vision statement and a vision statement that will enable us to always sort of check back to ensure that we are connecting ourselves and holding each other accountable to fulfill the vision and mission statement that we have developed. So the homework for each task force member was, come up with your vision statement, keep it short, inspirational or aspirational. And then also come up with a mission statement. And I know it's difficult to read, but these are the vision and mission statements that each task force member developed independently. But I did it myself at the top and I'll just maybe briefly read a couple of them. But yeah, this is my eyesight, it's good to hear. Oh, it's on my head, okay, excellent. Play it up, it might be better for me over there though. My vision, a city where all people live in healthy neighborhoods and we're housing this decent, safe, safe and affordable where people have a right to place and to meaningful participation in decisions that impact the places where they live. Let's jump to Noah, what would be his mission statement. To gather information from San Antonio residents, housing stakeholders and housing experts to develop recommendations for the creation of housing policies for San Antonio to be a city of the future. The recommendations will be comprehensive and compassionate that will allow for all residents to do the thing that encourages, invest in and that concerns heritage of neighborhoods. And then Jim may be. But I didn't quite do my homework. It's really just a fine little bit more. You guys see on this one. Yeah. That's not all he has to say. That's not all he has to say. That's not all he has to say. Jim's mission was we will challenge rising costs and historic, inequality, preserve, preserve. Oh, did I miss something? It was on the end of the video. And then again, sorry, thank you. Preserve our cultural resources and neighborhoods and create a policy framework that provides access to opportunity, education, transportation and good health with safe, decent and affordable housing for all. And I'll skip over many on the back. Gene Dawson, I'm going to be both of yours because you're from a very short gene, am I right? That's the point. Vision, ensure all San Antonio's have access to safe and affordable housing delivered to a sustainable system. Mission, the housing policy task force will develop housing policy by assessing the need, establishing priorities, developing public and private sector responses and measuring results. And then just the last one, I'll just read the vision under the vision like proposed here is San Antonio leads the nation in creating healthy neighborhoods, connected communities and shared prosperity that everyone has a place to call home. So these are the vision and vision statements that we all came up with. But for the purposes of the task force, you know, of course we think that it's really important that we come up with a collective vision statement and a collective vision statement. So I'm going to hand it over to Maria and Jim to guide us through this next portion that eventually will lead to the presentation of our draft vision and vision statement. Well, I actually just kind of collated with this stuff. I think this was really all Maria working late at night. So maybe you take it. Well, what I did was to be very simple from my school. I put together a list of all the themes that each of us had on vision and vision and just made a list of them. And then I was asked when I shared that I had done this, I was asked to put it together and create one vision and one vision out of all of them. Well, I accepted. And my aim was to include everybody's statement because when you look at all of it together, it was so complete. I was really proud that we had, you know, five people to produce something and that it all came together. So that's what became our vision and our vision. I did make a copy of what I did. I think it's there. And that, yeah, there it is. So that includes everything that each member contributed and they all agreed that their particular input was there. And, you want me to read it? Oh, it'd be great. Yeah. Okay, this is the vision statement that includes what each one of us contributed. Some of them were repeated and that's how the neighborhoods was repeated and the work for all was repeated too. San Antonio will be a place of opportunity for all current and future residents where people have a right to place and meaningful participation and decisions that impact the places where they live. Everyone will have a place to call home. The city will leave the nation in creating healthy neighborhoods, connected communities and shared prosperity. The housing will be decent, safe, affordable and stable, delivered through a sustainable system. There will be collaborative efforts between public and private sector to ensure that affordable housing alternatives are available throughout our city. Policies will exist and create access to education, transportation and preserve neighborhood and cultural resources. And I think this is really important that as we start, we all have an understanding of where the issues are. And I was grateful for Christine's presentation because I think this is an extent. She was asking what do we do? Well, at least we have a shared vision that we want to present to the community that's why it's so drastic. I do want to reiterate on that point that, yeah, that our intention is to bring this community vision statement to all of you and any other community here today to weigh in to help us add or delete or shorten a position statement. Because ultimately, we recognize that this is when we say collective, we mean this is the vision statement that we all hold and embrace. So our commitment to all of you is that you will have a say and participate and provide input in the final statement, the final vision statement and the final vision statement. We are currently working towards giving that community organized and scheduled. And so as soon as we have dates, we are also committed to making sure that we're providing ample notice so that all of you can make the proper arrangements to join us, but thank you for reminding us that this is our draft to the community and we look forward to receiving input as we finalize this. And also that we're working on a civic engagement process. Right, we haven't quite done that. It's not just one meeting. So then the draft community vision statement. Do you want to read that, Maria? Do you want to ask one of our colleagues there too? All right, Jim. Well, this was another one of, sorry, it's a microphone, this is another one of Maria's more submitting efforts, but I'll read it. So this is the draft community mission statement. The mayor's housing policy task force will lead a policy making process surrounding community data best practices that will address the full spectrum of housing. Process will include a commitment to inclusive community engagement that will generate trust. The collaborative decision-making process will gather information from San Antonio residents, housing stakeholders, and housing experts that will contribute to and result in comprehensive and compassionate recommendations that allow for all residents to live in dignity. Task force will assess the need, establish priorities, assure the equitable distribution of resources, and encourage investment that reserves the heritage of our neighborhoods. We'll challenge rising housing costs and historic inequities. Develop public and private sector responses, measure results, and advance meaningful opportunity strategies. The task force recognizes that San Antonio protesters will foster healthy, resilient, sustainable, economically integrated neighborhoods by preserving affordable housing, expanding housing supply for all, preventing displacement of low income residents, building infrastructure that increases connectivity and mobility. Thank you. Are there any comments from the initial comment on this? So moving on to the next item that we wanted to also discuss and share with all of you here tonight. Moving on to the next item that we are prepared to share with all of you tonight, the mayor was very specific about letting us know that he's expecting to see something in his plans, and we're all prepared and committed to deliver on that. To do that, we created this preliminary timeline that began to provide a picture of the work that needs to take place in order for us to be able to get to the fixed month mark. And it starts off with the task force, our commitment to have regular meetings. At this point, we are looking to have meetings every two weeks. For now, we're planning to have these meetings every Tuesday. The start time will be at 5.30, because we recognize that it's important to ensure that we have maximum participation in these meetings. And our next meeting, we're planning to have on October the 17th, but stay tuned for more information. We want to coordinate with the city to make sure that the day works in terms of the a little bit of sales and staff and resources. But the task force will be meeting every two weeks, and we will pretty much conduct our meetings in this fashion, although I do think that because it's a working task force, we probably will be gathering closer together and looking at information, and maybe not have as much of this formality tonight. Because I think it is important for us to feel comfortable and to be engaged. But definitely, the formality should have in mind to make sure that we are all able to participate and make sure that these meetings are reported and so forth. The next piece is the technical working groups. And I'll ask Jim to chime in on describing the concept of the technical working groups. Yeah, sure. So, since this is a comprehensive housing policy framework, we're being tasked with looking at kind of all aspects of housing of endowment supply chain. Looking at the bucket of issues surrounding gentrification and neighborhood integrity, the bucket of issues surrounding the condition of the new housing, labor availability, rising construction costs, financial products that are available. So there's a wide range of issues that we're gonna need to tackle. And we've been engaged over the last month or so, kind of thinking about those in broad terms. Our hope is will get some help from our advisors and our consultants to narrow down what those buckets are and those will be assigned to technical working groups that will initially better be out of the experts and community stakeholders. Right. And the next line is technical and housing policy advisors. And I'll get on that side, you know, I'll have to walk us through this. To the disease. And that was one of my best moments of the most short conversation that we had in the middle of this chart. But as we envision the technical and housing policy advisors, and that's really finding the experts in each field that impacts housing from the construction of new housing to the rehabilitation of old housing stock. The individuals that do the work day to day that are based with the challenges of doing that work and understand what it takes to get a project from K to Z. And so those are the individuals that we want to task to bring us their inputs so we can use those inputs to develop our. Thank you. Jean, do you want to go ahead and describe the role of the city staff? And really, and I also want to maybe before I turn it over to you, Jean, just I want to recognize again both the mayor's staff and the city manager's staff. Marisa Volno as the chief of policy has been incredible. The county voters have been really guiding and helping us sustain through the communication process. The mayor's staff and the trade jettison have also been really instrumental among the rhetorical topics we've worked in the mayor's office. And so I can't thank you enough on behalf of the staff force for your support. And Cheryl, to you and to Peter and to Veronica Soto, our newest addition to the city. She's the director of neighborhood and housing services. We look forward to working very closely with the Q&A we've got and the Q&A team as we continue this process. So I'm going to turn it over to you. Did I do this? It's too difficult on the right, sorry. No, I'm not sure what I'm going to say, but we are going to be very heavily on the staff and the city managers put together a very strong group and we think that we can be very heavily into the existing city staff and we look forward to either being led or leading with the city staff and certainly can do a lot in any city. And if I may add, that also in this report that the housing commission was doing, the city staff has done enormous amount of work already into that area, to that side, that they're not creating in the world yet. We're not showing them. They're really a headless type of thing. Yes, that's actually a very important point. A lot of the information and data reports that we will be using are really grounded in the work that has been done for the 2020 to 2020 model to the work that the housing commission is doing and also to the work that many housing providers are doing. The process city, whether they be non-profit, the housing authority, or the local private housing providers. And so that leads us to the next, the last item in terms of the timeline, the community activities and I'll have Buddy out and I'll figure it out if you can just describe the community participation and the community process. Well, like we have mentioned several of us already that we do want to have community participation and we would like to have, or we will have, an entity or facilitator that will help us create that community engagement piece. And we realize that to reach to the client or the customer, which is anybody who lives in a house, home, or apartment, we have a diverse community. So the outreach has to be sensitive to the cultural diversity language situation in our city. So I'm really forward to this piece to see how we can engage our community in what we're doing, that all the people that I mentioned in my initial statement that work in the neighborhoods, in their neighborhood associations, in their community groups, in their block, name club watch, any individual who's interested so that they can be engaged in the process. So this is our draft timeline. We will very much revisit this timeline anytime we need just to track our progress. We probably will make a few changes around our amendments. And this, you know, pre-condition also will be online as soon as we can make that happen. And so now we move into the next item on our agenda, which is an opportunity to hear from those of you that are here with us in the audience. We do have a Q and A portion. This is really an opportunity for youth to ask questions in regards to what has been presented today. And we do have individuals that are walking around with mics and you require interpretation services. We also have those services available. And I would like to just ask anyone that has questions if you want to just come up close and that would be great to make sure. Thank you very much, Andrew. I reside in the Potwell's Mission Beach Neighborhood Association. Thank you very much. Thank you. That's it. Hello? My name is Radio Andrew. I reside in the Potwell's Mission Beach Potwell's Neighborhood Association. I have one question to each task force member who's on the interest of gravity and clarity. Yes or no answer will suffice. In regards to the both locations in the affordable housing line, my question is whether a neighborhood association chooses to support or oppose a project within their area, will you support a policy that honors the association's position? Thank you. Thank you for that question. And I just said, I think it's too difficult for, at least for me to say yes or no answer because just as we heard today in terms of representation, there are a lot of different factors that you can consider with regard to housing. And so it is really important for neighbors to be made, to be involved, to be able to have a voice in what is occurring within their community. But I also think that, oftentimes, there's starting out information that needs to be provided to the neighborhood association. And that's not the fault of a neighborhood association. I think that that is where we need to ensure that there is enough information to make sort of important decisions. So we will be visiting this process. Very much appreciate you bringing this to this meeting. And thank you again for your question. Any other questions? Yeah, I would have to understand exactly what the particular process is, Mr. Alexander. What rules have been set up, what has been done before, and then I can make my decision. The easiest thing for me would be sure, you know, what I'm not gonna do that, until I know what rules have been created. And sometimes it's an issue of adjusting, tweaking, improving the criteria for how decisions are gonna be made. And I would have to understand that. I think the question does highlight the word, and so we will be establishing the framework that those kind of decisions will be made. We will not be making those decision decisions. We will not be identifying certain neighborhoods at the task force level. But certainly in establishing policy, we will want the framework that can make future decisions. And I'll just follow up on that. You know, there's a kind of significant and sustained effort within the city of San Antonio right now to begin to address, in the middle kind of a larger scale of the really office and sort of preservation, and the focus is only in planning. So it's a much larger conversation. And I can't give you a blank all-out and white answer to that question in a way, I think it's context specific. I think it's detail specific and I think it's neighborhood specific. And my hope is that this part of the conversation is going to begin to inform the answer to that important question. Next. Radon Sanders, District 3. Yes, I've got Edward Glasser, I'm in Council District 8. I've been a homeowner since 1993. My wife and I have. And I live in the components of District 678. And as far as policy is concerned, from what I've looked on online 30 minutes before I came here, all the issues that I saw housing in all kinds of things with transportation and solutions to transportation for suburban communities like ourselves. One of the things that I was guessing off is a funding source for our transportation users. You saw that one of these communities, they were tiny in this development. They were having to be paid by those developers. And those dollars were specifically for transportation. So that is a suggestion I would get you off because with all this, you know, the interpretation of the downtown community. I see that we're getting away with a lot of past and eight minutes, federal tax credits. Well, we need to give you something now that can help solve our transportation issues because housing and transportation, they all go together. Thank you for that. And I wanted to acknowledge that I saw, as I looked back, a member of the Via Board of Trustees, Mr. and Dr. Richard Caldea. Thank you so much for being here. I would, you know, wholeheartedly believe that as we look at housing, we need to ensure that we are timing housing to transportation and we understand the opportunities that are reported when we think about transit-oriented development. And I think that's what we're going to do and we hope to see you at these meetings, particularly when we hone in on the discussion of our community. And of course, I'm going to say that some of the dimensions connected to transportation, so we agree. Go over there and talk to them. Okay. Good evening. I'm Lika Mons. Homer Hayes. I'm with the Magic Park Neighborhood Association and District 2 Representative. And I'm very, very optimistic having been here tonight. And to help you, we have from the Magic Park Neighborhood Association a white paper, which I'd like to get to each of you in the land. My question is, will you please share it? I think there's several people around here that, since I got a name for the past four, have been calling me, sending me emails. I've met with a lot of people and also even had a group of people put a packet together and deliver it to my front porch. And I'm really grateful to the people and I just wanted to make sure that I will, I have read everything, try to unpack the people who send me information that I would continue to do this. And I'm meeting all of this, the actual statements from people. If we have the same citizens, we're very stupid women, that's good. But it's better if we can actually have those people and do it to give us things. So I'm very thankful to you. I'm Sheree Smeralgrini. I'm from District 1 and I live in the Milwaukee Neighborhood. I wanted to follow up on the transportation and ask you to make sure you consider not just the actual transportation, but the foot and bike as well. In-field development, which we welcome, there's also the added pressure of sidewalk use, which our own neighborhoods haven't really adapted for. So I wanna make sure that we consider that and we talk about infrastructure. So make sure that we don't forget the foot infrastructure, especially in our front porch. And relating to that, a lot of what I've heard from her health a few times, which I'll show you that because I work for Public Health, we spent the last five months or so on the community health improvement plan, which address some of these issues and not specifically related to housing, but a lot of the infrastructure issues that are connected to housing. So rather than pressure that I request, that we make sure that we do not work in silence and look at these some of the topics that came up with the community health improvement plan related to safe communities as we discuss our housing. One of the things that we have been doing is as we find articles, reports on the internet, we've been sending them to each other. We haven't discussed them or anything, we're just sharing them. But we already have reports that were done by the city of, what's it Oakland, who had a housing process with health system. There's another one that did housing with health and transportation, another one in education. So we have these individuals who we hope will help us with a very broad and bold look at the big picture, not just housing, but housing in relation to education, housing in relation to health, housing in relation to transportation. And individually, we have ideas on how we want that to happen, but your point is very well taken. I also want to mention that I have to create a monitor to try to all these documents because I like to read things and write on them. And so many of these document documents that my peers here have shared, that particular article on health is really a great article. And so I think as we think about the page or the task force, to the extent that we identify and research that might be helpful to continue the conversation, you know, be selective and try to do that. That's actually more than our voice, it's an entire compilation of innovative models of health and housing, a very good piece that was prepared by Mercy Housing and the low income investment fund for the California Downing Fund and the Cresty Foundation. Thank you all for trying to make that happen. My name is Dendole Thena and I'm the Housing Co-Chair for the Council of Metro Organization. Council of Metro have been involved with housing for many, many years. So we applaud the main decision for this task force. We expect great work from you. We will be working with you. We'll be sitting down with you, we have to. And we have heard so much about the decadence of the neighborhood of the downtown. Well, let me tell you, now it's time for the decadence of the neighborhood. Yeah, my name is C.S.C.E. I have a question and apologies for the introduction. Was it four years ago when the 300 folks were displaced from this trail? 2050. So, only two years ago? No. Three or four years ago, 300 folks were displaced and those individuals were the most passionate group of people that I've actually ever worked with in the last few years. And all the stereotypes I have, people living in trailer homes, you know, got blown away when I left and visited and shared coffee with them. And it reminded me of growing up in the historic west side that I grew up in that also got destroyed in the 1970s with urban mill. And because of that displacement, who now passed those starts this mayor's task force. And here we are, did you take four years to have this? So, years later, what happened to that task force and all those recommendations? What I've seen is, were there any policies put in place? What I do know is that housing values continue to go up. My first home in the La Baca area, which I bought for only $7,000, which is not bad, but at $200,000. And I didn't, when I bought that house, because I can afford that with the $30,000 or $24,000 income that I was bringing in at that time was probably $24,000. The house that I now live in that I bought for $70,000 went up over $150,000 in land value in just one year. And I'm fighting that. So were the policies that they're gonna be created? Right, I bought for $70,000 over $250,000 this year. And I didn't fight that. And I have a college education and I know how to speak it right in English and I'm fierce, but there's something about people that don't even know that they can go and fight, they're coming and I'm still gonna lose. So I'm making a point to fight. And now HUD has this last opportunity for Trump shuts down the funding for in future HUD money. And so SAPA is going fast-track to get this $30,000 from SAPA to essentially demolish the Al-Zan court by 101 units, over 1200 people will be displaced. And according to SAPA, their good record in Wheatley was bringing back 20% of those Wheatley folks back to the new beautiful housing. So everything that they've developed is only for 20%. If we say 20% for Al-Zan, that's gonna be 240 people that get to come back for whatever. So how do we develop the policies before we see the displacement of our communities from those folks who live in public housing to individuals like myself? Who aren't even doing well financially but won't be able to stay mining much less than the heathals who live there? That's yeah, I just wanted to mention that many of the themes of the Asia-Temperon are the issues that we're all very keenly aware of and we do hope that through this process we will have an opportunity, not just simply as a task force but through the technical working groups to advance a set of policy recommendations to the mayor or to the city council. I have to also acknowledge and recognize our city council members. Many of them are very keen to involve in addressing some of these issues within their own districts. So we very much appreciate you being here and we look forward to having your participation throughout the process. Thank you. Good afternoon. Selina Sanjavanez-Gipsic. I am a resident of District 2, specifically Harvard Place East Lawn. And there are a couple of things that I just want to point out and really just bring to attention. It was mentioned of labor availability. One, as a small business owner to a construction company, we're going to have a shortage of skilled labor to actually build these homes. And that's something that we should look at now. With everything going on between deportation and Harvey and everybody leading to build housing there, where are we going to get our skilled labor from? So just be cognizant of that. Second of all, I once again live in Harvard Place East Lawn. This is a neighborhood in Pennsylvania. Income rate is $17,000. And a house went for sale or got renovated. It was a former crack house. Went on for sale for $250,000 on the market. It would take 10 families to afford that one house. And that house is accessible to a family that could walk their child to Washington Elementary. And so now that house went for $250,000. It didn't get, it got dropped down to $250,000. And now it's an Airbnb property. And so I make that statement because this is not the only house. I live on the cusp of new rock walls. And so there are over many homes now that have been renovated for the pleasure of people to come here as an Airbnb resident. So just keep all of that in mind. So between labor, transportation, health, I also lived in Portland, Oregon, where housing along Pacific Northwest, West, housing first. So before we can look at education, transportation, it's housing. We have to provide housing to our families and individuals. Finally, I will mention the density. I know we've looked at clock. I know we've looked at loss. But when it comes to neighborhoods who are already dead to begin with, when our children, when we're expecting a million plus people in the San Antonio, then what are we going to look at in terms of policy for density? Because we already have a difficult time with pedestrian, with people driving, not looking attention to the signs that I was standing up in front of my Houston street home with my house, my sign that said, drive like your kids live here. And then I looked down the street and the flashlights aren't even on. So, you know, density for all these kids that are living in these areas, what does that really mean to the overall neighborhood? And then finally, could I say I mentioned East Meadows. I actually went to Middle School, so right across the street. Not all of that apartment complex, they'll make some income, has actually brought in people. I think less than 30 families or so forth have actually moved into that property. And that was a success in many people's opinion. And so not all of those families have actually returned. And then our surrounding properties, because of, because of the states, because of how it's been ignored for so long, what are we doing for safety in terms of housing? So thank you very much for your time and look forward to the future of this task. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I look at Jim when you mentioned labor because that has been a conversation that we've also had, the importance of ensuring that we can come up workforce and be able to be sort of a skilled laborer. So we're gonna take one more question because I recognize that it's two more questions if there are two questions. Or because I recognize that it's, or maybe we did limited to short questions that we really are running out of time here. It will. I'll give you the opportunity of, in that six months, to speak at length about all the issues. Okay. Thanks. I have a lot of work to do in some of the district one. I particularly care to hear from Jim Bailey, Jean Dawson, from Alamoar Architects and PayPal engineers, what particular projects you've done in regards to affordable housing and if a developer is getting money through the city, is there, what's the stipulation of what's affordable? Like 20% of the housing goes to affordable and then 50%. What do you view as affordable? Since I've used several words, been used a lot tonight. No, no, no, I got it. So there were a couple of questions in there. So, what do I view as affordable? I think these days the answer to that question is almost everybody in San Antonio, roughly 70% of San Antonio, can no longer afford or cost burden by the product that the free market is offering. Those are some of the numbers that he offered up front. I mean, and that's our teachers, that's our firefighters, that's our, you know, that's our police officers, that's our nurses. So it's possible. So there are all these various levels of affordability that are gonna require different levels of subsidy in order to make the development viable. Regarding what affordable housing developments I've done, well, I've done close to 20,000 units over the last 12 years and 80% of them have been affordable. I've worked on the entire development of San Juan for San Antonio Housing Authority. I've worked on various phases of the Authority of Commons in literally 18,000, 15,000, 16,000 affordable housing across the state of Texas. Just wanna emphasize that affordability is in stagnant. I mean, it's not just one number. Affordability is different to everybody. And so we have to create a policy that addresses every level of affordability. And I think that's gonna be an important task force. Are there any other pressing questions? Okay, we're gonna take maybe a film here. One more question and there will be more work. There will be definitely more opportunities to have more conversation to be part of the discussion. What is that? What is that? I think for the work that we've all been given, I want to briefly pick up on Dr. Brennan, sorry for the seat, comment on the context and focus of the framework we appreciate on race and class. And so I'd like to stand up and talk about gender. And so when you get to the demographics and all of the maps that you're going to be looking at, I would ask that in the demographics you'd be seriously thinking about gender, particularly when we're looking at public housing and looking at folks who income is very low and who maybe have two or three jobs. So transportation, health permission, but don't be like a particular public housing, the vast majority of the single-hetted household with families are, and it's not clear to me that in our examination of policies in the city, including in housing, we have paid in that it's a very central physical part in making the policies. And there are many other issues that I, but gender is my field, and so I really feel compelled to bring it up every time we get it. And I'm sorry, I think I forgot to say that I am a district one. And I'm also, I'm a member of the Website Preservation Alliance and our work in that line, which I will be speaking to you at some other point, is to reserve the history and culture of working-class communities in the website and sign up for them more generally, but certainly more to see on the website. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. So with that, people wrap up our Q&A and go on to the next slide on our agenda, which is just a reminder that we are working to schedule our first broad community input and stakeholder meeting. We are very hopeful that we can have this in the month of October. We will work closely with the mayor's office and city staff to basically pull all the logistics together and move away if anything is possible to provide as we'll notice. For this last meeting, it's scheduled Tuesday, October the 17th at 5.30. Stay tuned for the location and for additional details. I again want to thank you all for your time to be with us for your questions, for your recommendations and for the reminder that the work that we're doing is pretty important. So with that, you all have a great evening and a happy national night out.