 Since that has been Tom's day job all the time he's been associated with the trust and earlier, the housing and sheltering committee he is the executive director of home city housing in Springfield. Um, so I know I'm going to miss Tom and I assume everybody else will as well. The town manager has initiated a search for someone I wouldn't say to replace him but for a new member, and hopefully we'll get that done within the next few weeks. So, obviously, Tom hasn't not joining us tonight and won't be joining us probably in the future either, except maybe occasionally as a attendee or visitor. So, yeah, I just wanted to mark that because it is a significant change for us. Particularly as we're going through the process of looking to procure a new affordable housing development, which we'll talk about more later this evening. Are there any other announcements that anybody has. Okay. Paul, did you have an announcement. Okay, fine. I just saw you pop up so I was wondering if that meant you had something just changing headsets. Okay. Okay, so Nate has put up the agenda. The first item of business is to review minutes from October and November. And so, those were sent out. Actually, I think I may have only sent out the November minutes. I think it was the November, right. October. I don't know if I thought we saw to approve after approve those or maybe I'm wrong, but we only have the November ones right now. We've moved those in November. But October was approved last meeting. Yeah, that's what I'm okay. So we're up to the November minutes. I can share those that people like I know they were sent around though. Any other questions or comments on the draft. It's pretty detailed. Okay, Carol, I just had a number of little, little niggly things that don't really change actually exactly the content but feel like places where words are used wrong or something. And so I don't know whether we have to go through them all or I can somehow send them to somebody. Tell me what I need to do. I think if you send it to john and I. If you have a marked up copy or something. Yeah, I do. I can do that. And then we don't have to worry about it right now. That's a great idea. I like it. Thank you. Yeah. You know, if there's nothing major, then I think that's the best way to handle it. Yeah, it's just like wording things or spelling things or something. So yes, I will do that. Okay, and it's a john and john. Right. And then we'll make the changes and. Okay, perfect. Are there any other changes. Okay, then I'm going to say that the minutes are accepted as presented. With the exception of the changes that Carol is asking for, which will make between now and the formal posting of the minutes. Okay, the next item of business was supposed to be the update on emergency rental assistance program. The plan is tied up for the next 20 or 30 minutes. So we'll take that up when she joins us. And instead we're going to go to item four, which is the update to the housing strategic housing trust strategic plan. So, again, everybody was sent a copy of that. And whoops. And it would be helpful. Gee, Erica hasn't joined us yet, has she. Right. Okay, well, I've read is read is with us. Actually, she might be a column listener. Who's on the phone. Yeah, I think that's is there other sections on the plan you'd want to go over or. Yeah. So basically what we need to review our pages four and five, but to be honest, I can't remember exactly which elements are new I can remember some of them but I'm not sure I can remember all of them. So I was hoping one of them would be on the call on the call right now. Yeah, I think that's read on the call but I'm not not seeing anything so page four. And if we go to the bottom of page four, the word completed has been inserted and that has to do with the next four goals that are there. So if you go drop down to page five. Those four goals are considered to be completed. You will see this the text of the planner is that the first goal is to you know advocate for the adoption of a town property disposition policy. The second one is secure transfer of at least one town owned property to the trust for affordable housing, established funding thresholds and underwriting criteria and foster development redevelopment to create supportive enhanced SRO housing. And we've done all of that. If anybody has any question about how we did it I can answer that. Okay. And then the, there's the update is incorporated under the section titled FY 2020 to 2022. We are now working on fostering development of a second town owned property, and possibly a third or a fourth as well. I think number six is something we've already been working on I don't think that's a change. I don't think seven is something we started working on actually before the pandemic hit, and that's been on hold but we do expect to come back to that. Eight, again, is something that we've been doing. And we'll continue to do this evening. And again, is again, something that we haven't talked about. But certainly Erica and Rita both thought that was important for us to begin exploring new revenue sources to try to provide a former financial basis for the trust. So don Erica has joined us. Oh, okay. She been a panelist and then slow to get promoted. Thank you. Erica. Hi, sorry, I at seven o'clock after pick up my husband so I try to get in as quickly as I can. Okay, that's fine. We're just going over the changes to the strategic plan. And I was trying to point out the things that have changed that we did talk about last time. So, we're up to page five which is where most of the changes are correct. I just mentioned number nine, which is looking for new revenue sources to put us on a stronger financial footing. 10 is working on reviewing the town zoning bylaws and updating these, presumably with the goal of encouraging more affordable housing. And 11 is to work with the conservation department. It's missing a word. Yeah, to look for opportunities to do some collaboration there, where the, there either is existing land that might have a piece that could be used for affordable housing or as new pieces of property are acquired for conservation to look for an opportunity to put affordable housing on a piece of that property as well. And actually it's something that I've talked about with Dave's omic. And I thought it was part of our strategic plan but apparently it wasn't so Rita and Erica have added that. And the ongoing list, I think, are for the most part not new is there anything new that's there. Oh, no 131415 there isn't. Okay. So, that's basically what we're voting on. We're voting to add those elements into our plan. And that means committing to work on them in this year in the year ahead. We haven't talked about doing or creating a multi year budget, which is something that's later in the document so we don't have a proposal for that. But again, it's something we might work on in conjunction with number nine, exploring new and existing revenue sources since a multi year financial plan would include what we want to spend that money on and should dovetail with our other objectives. So, Eric, I, is there anything else you wanted to add to this. Um, I, well, the only other thing is just a correction or an addition on page 21, where we just sort of updated that the HSC was successfully merged with the trust we thought that was important and now operates with a nine member board. And even though I don't see it on mine, I thought we fleshed out a little bit the responsibility and the commitment of members to be part of subcommittees, and to ensure that new members understood that that's part of their commitment. That's it. Okay. Can I just say about number eight. I thought I remember talking last time about having this be more general than the COVID pandemic and to take the reference to COVID out so we were talking about the fact of pandemics kind of in general, although that's the one right now so maybe I'm looking at the wrong place but I thought we had talked about changing that a little bit last time. I think what we said was pandemics or disasters. Yeah, to make it less but this one's because it goes all the way to 2022. I mean we could have a major natural disaster in the town where half the housing is gone. God forbid. We don't want to but it seems like what we're trying to do is something that is actually maybe not just for this exact moment but will be useful in other similar kinds of things so. Yeah, I agree. It should be the effects of housing crises or emergencies, such as the COVID pandemic. Yes, very good. I like that. Yeah, I think that we should that should have been added and somehow it didn't get done. So we should add that as well. Mitigate the effects of housing crises or emergencies, such as. Okay. Other comments people have. I know we talked about this at last meeting I do think there are a number of goals here so you know we had a few standing subcommittees and some of them have been meeting some not I think. You know to Eric's point maybe we have to just discuss how we, you know, would there be a subcommittee or two to work on some of these because you know, in general, some of these things wouldn't get done if, if we're only meeting once a month as a group. Yeah, I think I just think, you know, we have traction on a few things but you know I know Rob and I were still talking about the zoning piece and so no one's that excited to look at zoning but you know Rob and I were going to write a memo to the planning board or. But you know, even the rental program we had started that a rental assistance, and maybe that can be started again. I said I try to help with the zoning thing that Nate and Robert doing Rob and I were going to meet at some point and then we had Scott postponed, but we are still supposed to do that at some point. Rob has been ill which is why he's not here this evening but he's expecting to recover by next month. Yeah, there are a number of things. I think our first step is to adopt this as a changes to our strategic plan. And then we need to kind of look around and say, Oh, okay, how are we going to make this happen. Well, I just wanted to say that as I was reading through it, I noticed I can't remember where it is right now but whatever it's talking about our mission. Let me see where it is where it talks about the board of trustees. It still refers to the select board. So, before we actually do it over again or we, we, you know, propose it it seems like we should fix that part to. But it's wherever it's talking about the board of trustees it talks about what it's supposed to do relative to the select board. Yep. Okay. So we should look for other places and just make sure that the document is updated. And we didn't, or Erica, can you do that with Rita. Yes, yes, I can do that. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay. And then john you didn't mention page 21 or some another page where there were changes or. Yeah, that's what Erica mentioned. Sorry, sorry everyone this is not nice on the eyeballs. Right. When you get there. I do believe that is Rita on the phone if, if you're able to bring her into the meeting. I think that is her phone number. It's not her to speak but I don't know if that's all I can do is with a column listener. Now it says talking permitted on the attendee list. Can you hear me now. Yes, we can. I've been here the whole time for whatever reason I've not been able to it said the host wouldn't let me in. Oh dear. So that's why I called in and I've been listening. John, I think that I had made all those corrections. I think maybe the wrong the original version of the of the strategic plan went out. Because I had made the changes you guys have just been talking about. Okay, I thought this was the version that you sent me the other day that highlighted in yellow the changes. No, they aren't. Yeah, so that's not the yeah. You try rejoining. I don't know why I didn't see your name at all. I'll try again. It's been really frustrated. Yeah, I would say in the phone, my computer was freezing earlier on. Okay, I didn't see that you were had joined at all except for your phone number. Yeah, yeah, well I kept trying to join and it said, So let me just see if I can do it. Okay. Okay. Okay. On page 21. Erica, there's, you know, there's a few new, there's some headings, but is there something. Nate. Great. Go ahead and read up. It's just saying the host has declined your webinar registration. That's interesting. Yeah, I know. I had to do it a couple of times too before I could get in. But this I've done about five times. I keep trying. I'm not sure what that is. I guess I'll just stay on the phone. Anyway, I think most, you know, I've been listening. So, um, I think most of the changes are already taken care of that, the language around COVID, you know, taking COVID out and just talking about, um, you know, pandemics or other emergencies. So. Could you go to the top of the page just for a quick second? Nate. Yeah. Sorry. I was just thinking. Okay. All right. So we'll just wait for Rita's copy. Um, the change that we had proposed is in there. And this on the, that's the last sentence of the top paragraph. All right. Yeah, that's, so that's the updating that you mentioned earlier. Yep. Nate. Yes. I did just email you and John that's corrected version. So I don't know if you, you know, I think almost everything's there. And I thought I had changed that select board language too. I thought, I thought we had done that. So, um, you know, I guess, yeah, I guess as, you know, now that would also be a chance for other members of the trust, if there are questions or, you know, we had talked about this previously in terms of those priorities and goals. I don't know if we, you know, have any other discussion we need to have in terms of. Those or if we think this is good. I want to hold up voting on it or whatever, but I wouldn't mind seeing the version with all the changes in it. Correctors. And at some point afterwards, whenever it doesn't have to hold up things right now, but I would like to see it. Okay. Yeah. We'll send it out to everybody. I think we'll do that shortly. And then, uh, at our next meeting, we'll take up the question about. Okay. What actually are we going to work on next? And what additional subcommittees do we need to form? I'm going to talk about later about, uh, forming a subcommittee to work on the request for proposals for the Belcher town road property. Um, and that could be. Essentially what we had earlier as a development committee. And that could become a standing committee, but we can talk about that later. And then at the next meeting, we can talk about what other committees to form or subcommittees to form to look at work on the other priorities. Are there any other comments? Questions. Okay. Uh, Nate, can you check and see if Jana is in the waiting room? If not, then we'll proceed to another item. Okay. Okay. Okay. Rita, you try rejoining Rita. I just went to my zoom account. I did. Uh, about two minutes ago. I'll try again. I don't see, um, Jana or anyone from community action. I think John, you had sent out, uh, the, the numbers. I mean, do, are we still going to wait? I don't. Uh, well, I guess we could start going over the numbers then. Um, she'll be available, uh, to us. Yeah. She sent me the numbers that I distributed. Uh, a couple of days ago. So they are current. As of a couple of days ago and. Uh, process. We haven't changed a lot. Um, I think on the one hand, we need to take a look at those numbers, see what questions we have. But the most important question really for us. To act on. Is, uh, Oh, wait a second. Sorry, we need to go back. I didn't take a vote on, uh, to accept the changes to the strategic plan. So sorry. Uh, let's go back and let's do a roll call vote on. On the strategic plan. Uh, I'll go. One by one and ask people if they're in favor of changes. Uh, Sid. Yes. Yes. Okay. Um, let's see. Uh, Paul. Yes. Will. Yes. Carol. Yes. Erica. Yes. Francis. Yes. And I'm a yes. So basically that turns out to pass. Uh, unanimously. Okay. Thank you. Sorry about having to go back. Okay. So we have new numbers. Uh, From, uh, Janet tech trope of, uh, community action. As I said, they're, they're not too different from numbers that we've seen in the past, although they do represent some progress. And I think the big question is, uh, do we want to continue this program? Uh, for at least another three months or possibly longer. Uh, to see what happens. Uh, I had an email today from the mass housing partnership. Indicating that, uh, Two additional towns have started emergency rental assistance programs. One was need them and I can't remember the other one. So, uh, it's still a major thing and, uh, People all over the state continue to see that, uh, Uh, we need this. Um, The town of Hadley actually had a proposal to create a program like this on its warrant. Um, but they lost the quorum at their last town meeting before they could vote on it. And as a consequence, uh, I assume they're not going to go forward with an emergency rental assistance program. Yeah, John, I think, yeah, another question that, um, You know, I think I'd like to ask the trust is, Um, I think it's important to know that there's a number of, um, Households to who were funded in round one to reapply for round two. So there have been a number of applicants who. You know, receive funding around one and they, They applied again around two and they were denied. And. You know, we're not spending the money down as fast as I thought we were. So. You know, there's still, um, You know, number of applications still pending, but in terms of the number of applicants, Um, you know, I think it's important to know that there's, um, The resources. So it's something to consider, you know, If we would allow that, uh, you know, If there would be a condition on that second award, but I know that there have been repeat, um, Applicants and part of that is, you know, they may have applied to raft, but I think, um, I was talking with a few different property managers. I mean, raft, I think it's telling people it's two to three months. Until they can hear anything. And so if someone is. Uh, You know, You know, You know, Being evicted waiting three months is not, you know, May not help the situation now. So. You know, um, You know, I think that that's one issue for whatever reason, Voucher holders, if they're behind wheel out, we said we'd help them. Um, they could be eligible for the program, but. You know, Jana had said to not many people are behind on rent. So either those, you know, those tenants aren't applying or, You know, I'm always surprised that we're not seeing more. More numbers of applicants. So. Anyways, that was my one question. Would we allow people to receive a second allotment of funding? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, it's not that we're not seeing applicants. Um, between round one and round two. They were now over 200 applicants quite easily. But I think in terms of approved applications. The total is probably only around 40 so far between round one and round two. Um, There are others that look like they're close to being approved. But at one point, I think we estimated that. As many as 60 to 80 households. Could be served given the amount of money that we set aside. So the question really for me, Nate is. Uh, Opportunity to receive funding. Do we mean, does it mean that there may be other households yet to come in that might be cut out if. We, uh, if we allow that. I really don't know. Because the numbers, particularly the numbers have approved to burn a lot lower than I thought they would be at this point. Right. I agree. I mean, I just, I just, um, I pulled up Jen as email so I can share those numbers. But I don't want to be able to, if that's visible. It's visible, but I have in front of me. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just kind of combining it in my head with what I remember from round one. Again, there were over a hundred applications and in round one. Uh, so we're probably up to 210, maybe a little bit higher. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We continue to have a significant number of people who are ineligible for one reason or another. Or whose applications are denied. And the numbers approved are. In round two or still only 11. My recollection is we had. Around 30 approved in round one. Uh, I don't have that in front of me. Yeah, I guess that's the number, you know, number we have in our list. Oh, okay. Paul. Um, so I think this is, um, A time sensitive issue. And I think we have people who need rental assistance. Um, who might be facing eviction or looking at eviction, proceedings moving forward. I think the goal on this fund and these funds is to get it into people's hands and, um, I don't know what the read logical is necessarily in saying, So I would encourage the trust that we move forward and allow people to, especially since our approval rate is so low that we, I think the goal on this is to get the money out the door and then did people's hands so they don't suffer housing and security. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I, my only reluctance is if there are people out there who haven't had a chance for whatever reason. On the other hand, there's been plenty of opportunity to apply this program has been an operation now since early July. Yeah, I don't, I just understood what we're waiting for, while we're sitting on the money. Yeah, I mean, I think originally I think we thought there'd be enough that we would, you know, by now we would have actually spent the money or at least have, you know, encumbered it all with tenants and that isn't the case so you know, now that it's a rolling application I agree I mean it's been months and we've emailed like I said all the landlords. We've contacted them at least two or three times we've done direct mailings to larger property owners or, you know, properties. Maybe people haven't heard about it but we've, we've tried to spread the word. Yeah, we've made a significant number of other marketing efforts. At one point we had tried to figure out how many months we would give and we decided to do three but if somebody reapplies after they already got three months it must be because and they still have to prove they need it then all we're really doing is extending it to six months or a month for those people who need it which doesn't really seem to me to be a problem if the need is still there. I keep wondering about if there's anything we can do to make some of this stuff you have to go through to get approved easier because it seems to take a long time and I'm hoping I read somewhere that we had agreed that if somebody could just use an affidavit to say I have COVID related lack of income if they couldn't prove it by some vast way and so I hope all those things are happening so that we've taken away as many of the possible roadblocks to making this just happen smoothly and quickly as we can. I think we've got it like why not I mean you're not going to you can't apply again and say well I might need it in the future because I'm already using what you gave me the first time you left it's needed and if you need it then why can't you have it. Well it sounds like the sentiment is in favor of allowing people to apply a second time for an additional round of funding. Does anybody not think that's a good idea, before I kind of put it to the question. Okay, does anyone want to move that we expand the program so that individuals who have already received one round of funding are eligible for a second round if they can continue to demonstrate need. So moved. I can't. Okay, then let's go around and again take a vote on that. Francis. Yes. Erica. Yes. Carol. Yes. Will. Yes. Paul. Yes. Sid. Yes. And I'll vote yes as well. Okay, so we have unanimous vote on that. We have an existing contract with community action that I believe ends on December 31st. So we also would need to extend that contract. I think. Sorry, John, Jenna just joined us. Okay, I see. Well, let me just go back for a minute and Jenna Carol was asking welcome first, but Carol was just asking. About the changes we've made to the program to make it easier for people to apply. So one of the biggest changes we made, which we thought was going to have a bigger impact was moving from the full online application to this pre application. So that we could still have an online application, but that we would then be able to provide some more, you know, help and support getting collecting the rest of the documents. But I think, I mean, I don't know, you can see from the numbers that I still feel like we have quite a few that end up in complete, or in some stage of like document collection. So I'm not sure that it had the impact that we were hoping. I will say that in conversations with the agencies that do the raft applications and the raft program. They're having the same kind of issue with about a 15% completion rate so folks start the application online, and then don't finish it. So we're not alone in having this sort of odd dilemma, but we really thought that that change was going to make it easier for folks, and it still seems like we get a lot of folks that drop out. The impression from talking to people elsewhere in the state is that that same thing has happened in other communities with their own emergency rental assistance program. So I, again, I don't think it's just community access problem. I agree it's a general problem. With all of these programs. I think there's a total evidence why this has happened. We know, is it just can't figure out the documentation is that language issues that lack of support in the communities do we know anything like that. You know, I don't know I mean I can say from the, the 15 in complete. A lot of those are people who just don't call back. You know, our general our policy is we call them twice. We send them an email, and then we send them a letter saying we're trying to reach you please call us back. And I myself have actually done some of those, you know helping out when the staff had a lot to call. And you know they don't call back and I think it could be people realize they don't need they're not eligible somewhere between filling it out and you know getting a call. You know we have a, there still haven't been a ton of notices to quit issued and so I think maybe there's still a little bit of lack of urgency. But I, yeah, I don't know. I mean I think we're trying our best to help people with the documentation I do think that doing things remotely is making it hard and I think that that is probably also true for the raft agencies you know when the old days where you would go up at the office and someone helped you go through your papers and made a photocopy right then and there. You know, it was easier. And so it is I do think covert and remote. You know we do have the option people can mail it in but you know mailing things in is also sometimes a barrier for folks they have to get a stamp they have to get to the post office so it's a combination of things. Yeah. And as we've talked in the past, and particularly I'm thinking about conversations I've had with Jenna, or a little bit with others, every case is different. Yeah, unfortunately there isn't one theme said that I've heard that runs through anything like a majority of cases. Yeah, I mean I'll also say, and I know I said this before I think to Nate and john but the cases are really complicated and so I think that, you know, each case is different each person has, you know, a different circumstance, different level of documentation about some things. There, there's certainly been some straightforward cases but a lot of the cases aren't straightforward. And so it, you know, it's just it takes a long time to sometimes get some of the documents and get people to, you know, submit the things back. I know Jenna the town's heard that sometimes community action takes longer than people think to get back to them so I don't know if you could speak to that or, you know how how soon after a pre application, you know what's the timeframe for getting back to sending a letter, you know, you know to sit's point you know are people just, you think if they need the money they would, they would, they would go through the process so either are they feeling like it's taking too long or, I mean to me it seems, it looks like the incomplete and withdrawn are different right so you're saying that like a third of the applicants have removed themselves from the apple, you know, from even being considered which is seems really high. Yeah, so about 14. Basically decide after speaking to the advocate to not move forward with their application. Some of that. Some of those folks are are so my job is to pull them off the online format and look at them. Anybody who we consider ineligible so those are the people who don't live in Amherst or say no I don't have a COVID loss of income. I contact directly and the rest of them I upload to our other system for the staff to pick up and call. So there were there sometimes I miss a few so I might miss a student of household that's a full all full time students. And so the advocate calls them and then they say oh no we're all full time students and then they withdraw some of them. I pull off where the COVID reason is not clear, you know either they they don't give an answer or their answer is a little bit like not direct and so I'll write a note you know check. And then some people withdraw because they they really, their COVID reason is not, not really a reason so you know in all those cases, if the person is behind in their rent, then the staff are making other recommendations of, you know, either the staff or, you know community action has some other funds that are not tied to COVID. If the person doesn't have a COVID reason that we might be able to help them with so some of those withdrawn folks end up getting help elsewhere they just don't get help through Amherst and I could get you those numbers. So it doesn't look like they just like get tossed aside. I can, I can get that information for john. That would be nice to have. Okay. The other important piece of business we have is to extend the contract with community action this would be a no cost extension I think if we were to add money to the contract. It would require probably a new contract is that right Nate. So again, we can that we need to extend the time that may. We can extend the time but we cannot add money that would require a new contract. So up into a certain percentage we can allow. You know it's like up to about 20% is the maximum left for a change order so if you know so there we can extend the administrative costs of a contract up until a certain point and then after that it would have to be a new process. Okay, so how long can we extend it up till the end of the town fiscal year. There's no, you know so I think, you know for trust members, you know, this was voted out out of trust funds and then we were told that cares funding could help reimburse this because it qualified as you know an expense and it was directly addressing the pandemic however as of December 31 this year that stops. And so, any, any rental assistance that's paid out after December 31 is going to be drawn from the trust funds so you know that John there's really, there's no requirement that it has to be spent by a certain time you know there's no, you know it's trust money so we didn't. It's really the trust decision about when to, you know, to end the program. In terms of covert or other reasons there's no reason to end it at a certain point. You know we had said we thought we were going to be done by the end of the calendar year we could say well let's try another three months and then we visited or another two months I don't. There's no reason. There's no hard deadline. Okay. Okay I'm inclined to say at least three if not longer. Again, discussion. Anybody have a sense about how long. You should extend this from your agency's point of view Jana. Would it be pretty simple to accept a no cost extension to the contract. Yes. Okay, so you'd be fine with that. Yes, that would be fine. Well I think the impact of cove it's going to be a while. And if we have the money, why not just extended to the end of the fiscal year. Agree with that. Yeah, so that would be basically six months to the end of June. Okay, I think at this point then we should vote on extending the contract till the end of June. And if money starts to run out before then we can consider whether or not we have additional money to add to the contract. But that would be a later decision it's not a decision I think we need to make this evening. So is there a motion to extend the community action contract until the end of June. I make a motion to extend the contract to the end of June. Is there a second. Second. Any further discussion on this. Okay, then let's again let's vote. Let's see. Erica. Yes. Francis. Yes. Will. Yes. Carol. Yes. Paul. Yes. Sid. Yes. And I'm also a yes. Okay, so, Jenna, you got an extra six months. Whenever the finance people get around to telling you formally. We appreciate the work that you're doing. One last question. How are you doing with respect to also referring people to raft. So we had a meeting last week with wayfinders. So just as a little bit of context, I think most of you know raft. We had a meeting last week with wayfinders. We had a meeting in Hampshire counties administered by wayfinders, which their main offices in Springfield raft has received a lot of, of funds to help with homeless prevention. Both related to COVID and not related to COVID. So they, they've have what I call like regular raft, which is not COVID related. And then raft and Irma that's related to COVID. That has a higher benefit level. So we had a meeting last week with wayfinders. We had a meeting with the action program agency. And there's 21 of us throughout the state. And so DHCD has asked cap agencies to help the raft administering agencies. With their backlog of. Incomplete applications and helping people submit complete applications. They have about a 15% completion rate, as I mentioned earlier. In the last week, we met with wayfinders. To go through the online application and to figure out how community action could help applicants. Submit the required documents that the online application is about 18 screens. And. And asks for documents to be uploaded about. Six or seven times. And so. And so, you know, you're not going to be able to do that. You kind of have to have the documents with you ready to upload. And it is smartphone capable. So you can take a picture of it. But as you might imagine, this is pretty challenging. So. The, the one thing that we've run into that I'm waiting on wayfinders to get back to us on is there's about six places. For an electronic signature. And so if, because we're all working remotely, if, you know, if we're working remotely, if we're working remotely, we're not going to be able to do that. So, so. I'm on the phone with John, or I'm on zoom with John. And I'm the one typing it into the system. When it gets to the place where it asks for John signature. John's not there. And we tried. We tried screen, we tested it out a few times with screen sharing and try to see if like, if I make John the host, can he sign it, but it doesn't work. So. So, you know, community action without permission from wayfinders. We're not comfortable signing the person's name. Without explicit permission from wayfinders that we can do that. And a permission form that would say, you know, I'm allowing, you know, Janna from community action to sign on my behalf. So we're waiting on that piece. Which wayfinder seems to be trying to work out. So, you know, I think that we will be able to help particularly folks. I mean, so for example, from some of the Amherst folks. That we've already assisted. There's quite a few that owe a lot more money that we were not able to resolve their problem. And so some of those people have already applied for raft and they're, you know, waiting and some of them have not. And so the goal for, you know, for those folks who we already have, you know, is to be able to get the signature to work. And that's already so for us actually. Uploading all that stuff is not hard because we already have it. But we can't sign for them. So we have to figure out how to get the signature to work. So we're waiting on that. And we're hoping that that's going to work. And then we will be able to offer. That assistance to other people. You know, there's a. We're trying to figure out where the best, like the sweet spot is because we can't. You know, we're trying to find a good balance of being able to help. Yeah, I don't know if you heard. Oh, sorry, Erica. Yeah. So in terms of the signature. So I know election boards are pretty tough. And they here in Amherst changed my party without me being. Approving it. So what they had me do is literally write something out, take a picture of it and sign it. They can't do that for this. I mean, currently it asks for, it actually asks for the head of household in all adult household members to sign off on. I don't know. Multiple disclosures and permissions. And so I'm hoping that the resolution could be something like, you know, they develop a form that the head of household can sign that we can then upload that then we can sign for them. It's not designed for a social service agency to help the person with the application. It's designed for the person to do it. But. You know, if you don't already have all of your documents ready to upload, it's, you know, it's, it's cumbersome. The state is, I think, you know, everyone's trying to make a good effort, but it. It's just complicated. More complicated than maybe they hoped it would be. Okay. I'll just close out this discussion. To mention, Janet, that before I think you came on, we voted to allow individual food already received one round of funding to apply for a second round. That's great news. Thank you. Okay. So I think you can implement that tomorrow. That's excellent news. Thank you very. That's great. There's, there's quite a few people actually that fall into that category. So that will be great. Okay. Good. Thank you. I asked one other question. It's a money question, but if am I correct that. If we don't, if the money hasn't actually gone out the door to the client or to the landlord to pay the rent by December 30th, we can't get, we can't get reimbursed by cares. So even if these things just take a long time, if the person's approved before December 31st, but we haven't spent the money, then it's not eligible for cares. Is that correct? Right. So I mean, we never anticipated that. We were going to be reimbursed. So if we spent, you know, $90,000 this year, so that'll be reimbursed, but the remainder of the program would not be. Yeah, I know. I just wondered if it was, if it was the date of the, the money going out the door or the date of the approval. That's all I was just curious. Yeah. I mean, you know, we, we, the housing one, I think we have until mid-January or. I fear what the date was. We have some time to actually. Report on it. So, you know, it could be that, um, you know, if tenants are approved for payments, um, you know, before the end of December and even if the checks cut in January, we still might be able to request reimbursement on that. So I think there's a, you know, kind of a forgiveness period. I read through those requirements, but not closely enough to know. So I agree, right? What if someone finally gets approved and actually owe for this calendar year, but at some point that it'll just come out of the trust fund. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Um, can I just mention one other thing that, um, I think Sid has asked me before about languages. Um, so in addition to Spanish. We've also had folks who speak Farsi. And Swahili. And we've also had, um, we've also had Spanish. We've also had folks who speak Farsi and Swahili and Korean. Um, and have all successfully been able to work with them. Wow. We use the language line as our interpreter service, but so far it's been working. Yeah. Good stuff. Congratulations. That's. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Okay. We'll move on to our next agenda item, which I thought was important, although I must admit, I'm a little concerned about where we are in time because we do have other things on our agenda. And only an hour or so left of the meeting. The next piece. We'll move on to our next agenda item. We'll move on to on local eviction prevention. Obviously the emergency rental assistance was a great step. Um, I've had some contact with what other communities are doing. Uh, and as I think I put in my note to everybody. Uh, summer bill. Although other communities, Boston and Cambridge, have been working together to create a new eviction moratorium. And I think we've taken at least four steps. Really not over the last month, but over the last six or eight months. Uh, One was to create a local eviction moratorium, which actually started before the state's eviction moratorium. And continues now that the state's moratorium has ended. A second was. A third was, has been to encourage, uh, people to submit the, uh, CDC declaration of need to their landlords. And the fourth, um, is the landlord housing stability pledge in which landlords around the state, including some that already operated in Amherst, larger landlords, um, sign a pledge agreeing to do their best to. Try to avoid eviction to work with people. In looking over that list and thinking about what Amherst could do. Uh, I was concerned that it may not be reasonable. To ask the town council or town staff to do all of those things. And so I said to myself, if I could pick one, what would it be? And the one that I chose was the housing stability. Act, which has been adopted by Somerville. And basically it's a program that requires local landlords. When they send a tenant a notice to quick. To quit. To, uh, Also notify them at the same time. About, uh, Uh, where it is, they might be able to get help. And, uh, Uh, who they might go to, to represent their rights. Uh, and a couple of other things that are part of this requirement. If the landlord fails to, uh, meet this obligation. Then, uh, Uh, she or he can be fined. Uh, so that's basically what I understand this to be in a nutshell. Um, Nate just put the ordinance up on the screen. It looks like a fairly lengthy document. It's not really that lengthy. About half the document is taken up with definitions. And it isn't until you come to the bottom that you come to the, what the city of Somerville is requiring of its landlords. Uh, so if Amherst were to do this, I think that would be something that, uh, The town council would have to adopt. And the question I'm really opening up for discussion is. Whether we should recommend that the town council adopt this. Or, uh, Adopt any of the other, uh, Three ideas that I also briefly mentioned before. I think that would be a good idea for discussion. I think one concern is that I would say is that what would the. Impact of this be on town staff. Because somebody does have to administer this program. I'm not sure that it requires a lot of administration. But it's not nothing. Uh, so that would be another concern. I think that we need to consider. Uh, I think that would be a good idea for discussion. I think that would be a good idea for discussion. When the town manager would consider in thinking about whether this should be adopted and Amherst. So the discussion for this is open. Well, in reading it. I would really support this, but I think, you know, as you said before, there's some practical considerations with regard. Um, can this be operationalized? And how would it be operationalized? Um, I think it's a practical, important. Intervention period. Um, and I think if you're going to be a homeowner, uh, and you're going to rent, you need to know what your responsibilities are. And you should be able to then give those, um, rights to your tenant. If you're going to proceed with an eviction notice. Um, so. Um, so that they understand what their responsibilities are. But again, the implementation piece of it does have, um, responsibilities for staff. And so I think, you know, there's a practicality of it. Can it be done with the resources that Amherst has? But I think. On a general basis, I'm all for it. I would echo Erica there. Um, I'm not sure what the solution would be. But I think maybe, uh, I think if you're. Those who are more experienced and sort of administration programs like these, is there any sense for how onerous this would be on the town to. To implement? Well, a couple of things I'll mention. One is the town of Summerville has a brochure. That they asked landlords to distribute. Now the town of Summerville. Actually designed the brochure. It could be us or it could be town, but it's something that we need to give to landlords to distribute to tenants. And as I said, it has the kind of information in it that landlords would be required to give. So one thing would be to notify all landlords of this and to make sure that they get copies of what it is they're supposed to distribute to tenants along with the addiction notice. We do have the capacity to do that, because we have a residential registration system. So it's not like we're starting from scratch. We have the lists of all landlords. Paul. So I think maybe the first step is to talk to some ago and see if they find it's effective if it's useful. I mean, they've had it in effect for a year now. Like, you know, as my former home, and I think it's useful to say, was it worth doing because it's not, as you said, it's not nothing. It's somebody's going to pay attention to it then there's a enforcement provision if you pass a law and you're not going to enforce it that it's not really a law. The council will be asking those types of questions, I think. And we're, you know, and from a staff point of view, we've learned to be very diligent about determining what the staff requirements are because they're they're cost involved for these things. So, I think maybe the first step is to call up someone go and say, did it change behavior in any way. It doesn't make sense that it didn't. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, Eric had the point of what's the immediacy of something like this so is it a long term policy or something that could help right now with, you know, with COVID and the pandemic. You know, I had, you know, I will say I talked to a property manager and even with the eviction pledge, you know, landlords could still give a notice to quit they just can't actually take action until April 1. So, the irony is that they still can, you know, maybe instead of giving a 14 day notice will give a 30 day notice, they can still go through the court proceedings and then, you know, the tenant incurs costs and stress and then you know they have until April 1 to remedy it but the process can still happen and so, you know I was surprised to learn that it's you know I think it's a nuance of the pledge and maybe it was. You know, some trading had to happen for people to sign on to the pledge but I somewhat disappointing because I know some landlords are going to be giving eviction notices even though they signed the pledge or had considered doing it so, you know, my thought is this housing stability act, I think, could be implemented through the rental registration and it could be a longer term thing I guess the question is what what could happen in the next month or two that could help tenants or say housed and so I don't know. You know what, you know, it's interesting when we talk about a local eviction program or what, what, you know, is it a policy or is it, you know, is there more outreach we could do so, you know, I try to let people know that family outreach is available to help tenants and make referrals and part of the pledge is that they landlords and property managers would do that they would make referrals to places and so, you know, local community legal aid has been trying to get the word out and so I, you know, are there other things we could do whether or not it's a policy but just to make landlords and property owners aware of resources for tenants and themselves. You know, my thought is if we did propose a policy for the council maybe refer to another subcommittee and, you know, I don't know the timeline for approval of that but I think there would be a lot of questions. You know, had some to just, you know, so is there other other things, you know, my thought be, are there immediate actions that we could take or recommendations or things we could do and then, you know, if we think something like this is important is there ways to have that move forward as well. Well, a few responses first in response to Paul. I have had contact with Ellen shactor, who's head of the housing stability program and summer villain is a former legal services attorney. So this is something that she designed. She's been in some reveal for 18 months to two years and not sure exactly. So I can ask the questions that Paul raised of Ellen, and see what responses I get. To go back to the point that you just made Nate what can we do short of passing this. Well, we can look at the summer bill brochure. There's nothing that would prevent us from distributing that to landlords without a housing stability act and saying when you send people noticed to quit. We would recommend that you also send out this information brochure. And hopefully we have it in a couple of different languages. And so that's a step we could take short of asking town council to enact something that included provisions for fines and the like, and it's something we could do more or less immediately I guess as long as the town manager thought that was a good idea. Since again it takes staff time it's not nothing, but it's less than implementing the full housing stability act. John does the town get notified whenever somebody issues a notice to quit to attend it. No, I don't think so. The, that would go through the housing court of Western Massachusetts. And does the, sorry, go on track what's going on there. Which I don't think is an easy thing to do Nancy Schroeder and I once did a retrospective analysis of housing court evictions. Because we're looking at recommending a eviction prevention program. Like what family outreach of Amherst does. And so, I kind of discovered this database and then Nancy went through it, but it was somewhat painstaking to do your risk needed to go record by record in order to create account. So, unfortunately, what you're asking for is not readily available. Would it be too, too big an ask to require or just nicely ask the landlords that they notify the town when that happens so that at least then we can prepare whatever resources are needed. We can distribute the brochure without waiting for them to tell us they have an eviction pending. We can just do that immediately once we have it designed. And then that can go out through the rental registration system. And then the question is, do we have any way to evaluate that or is it just something we put out there and hope that it has some value for people. So the family outreach through, you know, I'm not sure if it's now it's remote but they have been attending housing court every Monday through additional funding through block grant so they'd actually prior to cove it been, you know, I think it was actually making great strides at getting relationships with the courts and the landlords and attorneys to, you know, to work with tenants and now, you know, I think that's, I know. Again, the eviction process I know the courts are going to be overwhelmed so you know their first strategy is to ask for mediation or working with the team but you're already in court at that point so. Yeah, I mean I think the idea is a with a stability act my thought is if the town can intervene before it actually gets to court so when a notice is issued, you may have time to come up with a plan and then not have it actually go to court. And then have that notification process I think that's a lot to ask of the town and landlords I don't know how landlords would feel about that actually that they would copy the town every time they send a notice to their tenants but my understanding who are involved in this the judges are not eager to evict. And that's one of the reasons why Francine Rodriguez of family outreach of Amherst goes there every Monday. And I should also mention that Steve Connor goes there every Monday, we're pretty regularly as well to look for veterans who are at risk of eviction in Amherst and the other nine towns that he acts as the veterans administrator for. So there is a presence already in court, and this may or may not be helpful to Francine or Steve. I guess I can go ahead as I proposed and talk to Ellen shactor and try to learn a little bit more about what's happened. Since this program has been implemented and what she has to say about evidence that it has had some value in Somerville. You can also look at the Somerville brochure and think about how to adapt that. Almost immediately and and recommend sending that out as an additional eviction prevention measure. If you talk to Ellen, her husband was a teacher of my kids and Ellen. Yeah, John, I was just writing down a few things we could add, you know, depending on what the Somerville brochure looks like, you know, we have emailed the landlords twice now. I think the last one did have information about other, you know, mentioning that there are other local resources I don't know how specific we were but I think we could send something. Through email, the landlords who have registered with the rental program and we could, you know, we could, you know, make it really clear provide the hyperlink just click on it and just really help them with that. Okay, well, I can send out the Somerville brochure after this meeting. Didn't occur to me. I don't know why to do it before the meeting but I do have access to it. Probably everybody else does do if you go online but I'll do that task as well. Well I think you know the interesting thing is is that they does this September 2019 pre COVID, but I believe they actually instituted an eviction moratorium after the governor's expired. No they had it before Erica. They initiated that moratorium last February or March I can't remember which Yes, and actually that was an action that the mayor took in conjunction with his Board of Health, because it as with the CDC statement it was conceived of something that was a health measure, because of people are evicted, then they're at higher risk of getting COVID, because they become homeless or they double up with another family, or otherwise put themselves at risk. Okay, well I'll distribute that to everybody. And maybe we can think about how to change that so that it's adapted to Amherst, probably not too complicated to do that. I know when I looked at it it seemed like it would be pretty straightforward. Okay, any further discussion about that. Okay I have two other. Just one quick question, or hopefully this is a quick question. Is, is there a reason why, or would you not support an eviction moratorium or proposing an eviction moratorium, or is like, I guess I'm just curious why we wouldn't discuss that as well or is that just too much to ask or. I was, as I said earlier, well, I didn't want to ask for all four of these things so I chose one that I thought had both short term and a longer term benefit, because it's something would carry through the pandemic. That's not to say we couldn't propose an eviction moratorium. And I know that I heard informally that at least a couple of town counselors were interested in that. I don't think it's something the town manager in Amherst could do because he's not empowered in the way that the mayor of Somerville is. Pat, did you hear anything about people being interested in eviction moratorium in Amherst? I've heard very little about it and I'm going to check in with Evan tomorrow and see what I can discover. Yeah, so I'm not opposed to that. Well, I'm also like the idea of the stability act. So if I can, and now I have to be quiet. Yeah, I mean, I think the more time I guess Somerville's, you know, they, they made the case right so they had a legal backing or they had what they thought was a defensible reason to enact a more local moratorium. Right. And as I said, it's the health reasons very similar to the CDC moratorium. Yeah, I mean the landlords are supposed to be I don't know how many are aware of the CDC moratorium or if they're helping tenants complete that form but you know it's, you know it's ending soon anyways but you know that was another resource. Yeah I know from talking to Laura Reichman that they've been encouraging people to do it at family outreach of Amherst. It will only last till the end of December doesn't it. Yes, right. That's the problem. That's another reason why I'm not pushing that one. Yeah, I mean I think it just seems that I'm, you know, if raft is going to take several months and if people are falling through the cracks with our program, you know that the chance of chances are people are still going to be getting evicted because of that and you know having some sort of just some surefire way of preventing that from happening in this time. I don't know, I mean I would be open to exploring that further. Okay, well again I have the summerville order. And so we can certainly pass that along to town council with people think that's an appropriate action for us to take. Yes. Any other comments or thoughts about that. Well maybe we should also talk to the local board of health and see if they can support us in this. Good idea. Yeah. Yeah, we have a new health director, and she might be interested in this Emma dragon, right from a little bit of description that I've seen of her I've never met her. She's great. Do you know or could you want to talk to her about this. I can send you the summer, the relevant summerville materials. I certainly can. I just have to do it after hours. My bro. Yes. Paul, do you have any reservation about our doing that. Oh, you should talk to the health director, if you want to. Sure. Okay. Yeah, I mean well it's interesting I agree, you know, could, could I mean, you know, this could have an end date it could be, you know, it's a term limited moratorium. So it's not, you know, something that we're trying to enact beyond, you know, for years it's a as a specific purpose and so, you know, I'd be curious. John if you sent that summerville information around just to see, you know what the nuances are and how it, how it could relate to Amherst. I'll be glad to do that. Okay, I want to move on because I want to get to property acquisition. There are a couple of things that I'll just mention briefly. Yep. Will anything new on pending legislation. Um, we'll just give you a quick update for those of you who don't know or didn't follow this but the. So there was a bill, but the Senate, sorry, but the Senate and House House passed budget fiscal year 2021 budgets that went to reconciliation committee, and basically each, each fiscal year budget had various amounts of money for raft and home base, etc. So the, the, the conference or the bill that emerged out of the conference committee had basically all the best parts from both of the versions of the bill. And right now that is before the governor and waiting for a signature and he's assigned it by the 14th of December so four days from now. He has not yet signed it as far as I know. So basically this, this draft bill, this draft budget includes, you know, additional, you know, $24 million for raft and additional $19 million for Massachusetts rental voucher program and additional $20 million for home base. And, you know, added funding basically across the board for all a whole host of housing programs so all in all it's pretty good choppa really loves it so I'm inclined to follow their lead. And, yeah, so that's kind of where we're at I think if if there were a action that the trust could take. I, you know, I haven't checked with anybody on the house who would know if this would actually be particularly effective but we could draft a letter to the governor asking urging him to pass this or to sign this particular this draft of the budget, because it does it is very strong on affordable housing issues. So I think that's up to the trust obviously. Thank you. Okay. The other thing that I had, and I know Laura Baker is kind of waiting in the wings but I'm going to mention this and then see if there's anything she wants to add briefly. If people don't know the news about the status of the Amherst studio apartments or 132 Northampton Road couldn't be better. That happened more quickly but the outcome is exactly what we would have wanted the zoning board of appeals did vote to provide a comprehensive permit to valley community development. And then that was filed with the town clerk. There was a period I think of 20 days in which there was a possibility that someone could appeal their decision. That appeal has not occurred that is the period ended without anybody appealing. All of which is great and now Valley has a couple of opportunities that they're pursuing for two different funding programs of DHCD which I think are due in December and January. So, and they've received encouragement to pursue that funding. So all of that's really good news for that project. I don't know. John Dave Zomek had raised his hand a minute ago. Oh, okay. Dave. Can you hear me john. Yeah, we can hear you. I'm, I'm waiting for your executive session. So my apologies for interrupting. Okay, hit the raise hand button there, but I am here I've been here the whole time listening and it's great conversation and I'll join you when the time is right. Okay, thanks Dave. Okay, then there were two other requests that I had. Each of Amherst and Amherst community connections both have proposals before the community block grant development group. And they both asked that we send letters of support for their applications. I didn't have their complete application because I'm not sure they're complete yet. I did include part of a note that I got from Laura Reichman in an email yesterday in the morning that briefly summarized the work that they're doing which I think we all should be familiar with in any event. They're continuing to do that work and they need to have the community development block grant committee fund their program into the future. So that's their requesting, and then I won't read what I wrote for Laura, but I will read what I got from wayling greeny for Amherst community connections. This is voted recently to support ACC is $225,000 funding for supportive housing of six vouchers. This has doubled our capacity to assist those who experience long term chronic homelessness in our community. So the CPA funds do not cover the organization support service provided for the voucher holders to allow them to transition to long term stable and affordable housing and to achieve financial self sufficiency. ACC needs the CDBG funding to provide this support service that are crucial to the stability of these participants. We have family outreach of Amherst asking for funds to continue to work with individuals and families whose housing stability is threatened. And we have ACC's request. So does anyone want to move that we send a letter to the community development block can't grant committee in support of both of those applications. I would move that we support both applications. Is there a second. Okay, is there any further discussion. Okay, so we'll go and do a little vote. All those in favor will. Yes. Sid. Yes. Paul. Have stain. Carol. Yes. Erica. Yes. Francis. Yes. And I'm also in favor. Okay, so that's dispatched. And that leaves us about a half an hour. I think to talk about acquiring property. John, we still can allow some public comment before we. Oh, sorry. So just there's a few members and attend or a few public attendance. So the trust would have to vote now to go into executive session, John. Right. And then, but just to make sure we don't have any public comment. Take that. Okay. If there are any attendees who want to make a public comment, please raise your hand. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I think there's none. Or at least I think there's none. Yeah. Okay. Then we're ready to move on to executive session. So I move that we close out our regular. Meeting. And then reconvene in two or three minutes into executive session. To discuss the acquisition of property for affordable housing. Even though it's a pretty late date, as you'll see. We still don't want to talk about the details of this acquisition in public until at least the purchase and sale agreement has been signed. Should I leave this portion of the meeting? Yeah, we're going to, there's a new link. We'll start a meeting. So this actually meeting will end. And then there'll be a new meeting. That's a new zoom meeting for executive session. Okay. So all those in favor of ending. Our regular meeting. You need to do a roll call vote. Okay. Erica. Yes. I'm yes, Paul. Yes. Sid. Yes. Francis. Yes. Carol. Yes. Will. Yes. Okay. I think that gives us a unanimous vote. Okay. And then just to verify. Has everyone, did ever receive the email I sent earlier with the. Okay. Does anybody not receive it? Okay. Then we're all set to move into the next session. Thank you very much.