 So now we are being recorded. Now I'll see if any more attendees show up or panelists or something. We have two. We have two now, Calvin, Alice, and George. So now we have two. Okay. Hello, Calvin and George. Hello, Laura. Yep. We're just going to wait a few more minutes before we actually start. We don't have a quorum. We need a few more trustee members before we can start. And Pamela's on. Great. So Pamela is here. Welcome, Pamela. Welcome. Welcome, all attendees. But we need at least two more. Oh, Rob. Yay. Make him promote to Pamela's. All right. So we need one more. And then we can start. Thank you for, oh, Grover. Thank you, Grover. So thank you for your patience. Here comes Grover. Oh, it said failed. What failed? Mine said that promoting, oh, Grover's here. Okay. We now have five. We now have five members. We'll keep you. Why don't you start the meeting because you're supposed to start it and I'll keep watching for more people to show up. Thank you. Okay. Welcome, everyone. Welcome, everyone. This is the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust meeting. It is October 12th. It is now 7.05. We will start first with just checking on the minutes in terms of proving the minutes. So first, let's just see if anybody has any edits or comments or corrections regarding the September 14th minutes and just give a time. I don't see anyone from the trust. Okay. Seeing that there are no corrections or comments, we will go ahead and accept the minutes. Thank you. And now we will move. We actually have Pamela Rogers here, the Executive Director of the Amherst Housing Authority. And we're going to go ahead and promote Pamela to panelists. And all right, Pamela, you should now be a panelist. There she is. We want to welcome you. Thank you, Pamela. We want to welcome you. You're on mute. So you'll have to take yourself off mute. Thank you for joining us. We thought it'd be really important for us to have a conversation with you since the Amherst Housing Authority is one opportunity to ensure affordable housing. And so we thank you for coming and providing some background about the Housing Authority. And I think it would be a great discussion of how we can support each other and work together to ensure access to affordable housing through the Amherst Housing Authority. So go ahead, Pamela. Welcome. Oh, thank you for having me. I'm not sure what you folks really already know about the Housing Authority. I'm assuming a lot. No, I believe I've been to a couple of meetings early on several years ago and you folks do great work and you're filling in those gaps of where there's really no programming. So I think that's really great. I'm not really sure what you're looking for from the Housing Authority as far as, well, me telling you what the Housing Authority is, other than I guess I'll give you the basic spiel. So Housing Authorities were enacted by 120B of the legislature back in the early days, 1950s. Amherst Housing has been in business now for over 51 years this year. We are a corporate body, but we are also a government entity too. So that's where people get in all towns, all walks of the community, get a little confused about the role of a town with the Housing Authority or the Commonwealth in the Housing Authority. And basically we do answer to both. So there we go. So in Amherst, we have a wide variety of housing. We do provide over 12 different programs for applicants and our residents and voucher holders. We have over 200 physical units that we rent out and that we manage in the town of Amherst. We also have management agreements with the Belcher Town and Hadley Housing Authorities, which is strengthening our ability to deliver good programmings to our residents that adds an additional 120 or so physical units of housing. And then we have a pretty good slew of voucher programs that are being used in Amherst. There's the state programs, which is AHVP, MRVP and DMH. And then we have the federal Section 8 programs and subset of the federal Section 8 programs of mainstream vouchers, which gives us another 479 units of housing as well. I'm sure it'll be to no surprise to anybody on this panel that our vouchers holders are having a very difficult time finding available units in Amherst and the surrounding towns, so particularly in Amherst to lease up the cost for units is just too high. And then they're vying with students and other professionals that are taking the units away from them. So we are in quite a bit of a bind with our clients. So I think that's just like the brief overview of what we do and I'm willing to take any kind of questions. Thank you, Pamela. Just for clarification, and then I'll open it up to other members. When you say you have 200 physical units, those are 200 physical units in Amherst or these are, okay, so these are actual rental spaces. And generally what is the occupancy rate and turnover rate for that? So you all are probably very aware that right now there's a lot of buzz going on with the WBUR article and MassLive picked it up as did the Gazette and we're very happy to see that that's happening because we've been discussing and yelling and screaming for several years now that there's a problem with CHAM and our lack of funding for capital projects. So in Amherst right now, our occupancy rate is 9.67%, which is not good. It's not good at all. It should be under 3% and it's 9.37%. That's vacancies, right? That is vacancies. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, so right now we have 14 vacancies. Last week I had 11 vacancies and then I come in on Monday morning and there's been unfortunate losses of tenants due to our elderly disabled population and that adds to it. But we are working on that, getting that rate down. The Executive Office of Housing made some pretty critical changes to that CHAMP application system. Did everybody read the article and kind of get an understanding of what's going on? Okay, great. So they've made some changes right off the bat, which is good, but at the same time I'm concerned because all of a sudden, for the past several years I've been going through lists that I'm trying to get through all the priorities, homeless folks, people that are claiming they're homeless in an emergency situations and they're all gone from the list now. They're being worked by somebody else, but at the same time, they're losing an opportunity for housing. So the good side of that is, is I am seeing more local Amherst folks, people that either live or work in the community that have now filtered right to the top of the list. So we're hoping to get those folks housed pretty quickly. So I see Grover's hand is up. So Grover, do you wanna go ahead? Yeah, hi. So thank you for clarifying the vacancy rate. I'm curious how long it generally takes to fill a unit after it becomes available. And I mean, I did read the article and so I understand there's some complexity there, but on average, how long do units stay empty? So it's a great question. Back in the day prior to the champ happening, each housing authority ran their own wait list and we had a deadline of 30 days to turn over. So when somebody left, you had to turn it over within 30 days unless you had a waiver. And some time, in waivers can be if the unit is too badly damaged or if you don't have the staff capacity to go in, but then you really have to come up with a plan and to get that back online. The article said 60 days, but the 60 days is really, what that means is that it's 60 days before we get penalized through our subsidy. So the goal has always been 30 days. It is now taking us because of champ and then the lack of capital dollars. It is now taking us upwards of six months to turn over a unit. And it's, yeah, it's awful. It's way too long. Can you, I'm sorry, I should have raised my hand, I guess, but can you clarify any more about what it is that just more detail about what makes it take the whole six months? Sure, there's so many different factors that come into play. One of them is that statewide application system that they came up with. And that was promulgated through the 2014 housing bill where they wanted to try to streamline it. It was supposed to help. It was supposed to put everybody on evil, even footing. But, and it was supposed to be easier for applicants and the housing authorities. And it just hasn't turned out that way. So what happens is, is if you are a homeless person living in a shelter in Brockton, Mass, just as an example, you would work with the shelter personnel to help fill out a CHAMP application. So you would fill out one online application and then you have the ability to apply to all 248 housing authorities across the Commonwealth. And when CHAMP first started, that's exactly what everyone did. They did, they just hit every button and people were encouraged to because the more your name is on the list, the increases your chances of getting a unit. But what happens is, is then the person is inundated with follow-up applications, supplemental applications that they need to fill out in order to be vetted from all these different housing authorities and it bogs down the tenant, or excuse me, the applicant and it gives them lots of choices if they get through the vetting process. It does, there's some pretty high qualifications in standards to be considered homeless through no fault of your own. And a lot of people will claim that not understanding exactly what the criteria is and then they would be bounced down to a regular standard applicant. But by that time, you've already spent a good month back and forth with mail and correspondence and things of that nature. And then what we find in Western Massachusetts, all of the housing authorities in Western Massachusetts is that we'll be vetting these folks that were priorities and they're interested and they're giving us the information and they're qualified and we get to the finish line and we offer them the unit and they say, okay, so what T-stop is that? What T-stop is immersed? And you're like nowhere near, you know, it's just... So then they withdraw their application or they deny the unit and you've put all this time and energy and money as the applicant, they've put a ton of time and energy in it not realizing where Amherst is. So they have made changes where they've put in a map of the Commonwealth, a different region so folks will understand, you know, Amherst is over in Hampshire County, you know, while we do have some public transportation, we're not Boston, you know, we don't have that. So they've made those changes and that should be helping. The other part of it too is the actual capital dollars. So our infrastructure is very old. If you come on to Kellogg Ave and you look at the Anne Whalen building and you look at it next to Clark House, even from the outside, you can see there's a vast difference in the two properties. You know, we were a government agency subject to subsidy dollars. We only get so much capital funding and sometimes units just need a lot of electrical and plumbing updates. A lot of them could have tenants that lived there for 20 or 30 years and then the unit needs a complete overhaul or you do sometimes get tenant damage as well. So it's a big problem from lots of different aspects. Ashley, you have your hand up, go ahead. Yeah, so I was just gonna, it's kind of a roundabout way but like I moved to Northampton in 2015 and pretty soon thereafter I applied for section eight and then just in 2023, I did get a letter saying that I had been approved for a preliminary thing. So that is approximately seven years later. And then I put in all my documents and then I basically was projected to make approximately 100 or 200 too much. And so that was at the 30% level. But then I was, then they said I could go back into the list until they got to the 50% level which they're not even at. So could you explain the levels in terms of you're only at, you're still at the 30% level with people that applied seven years ago, you're nowhere near the 50, you're nowhere near the 50% level with even people that applied seven years ago? Right, and that is a, that's a great question and that is, that's a frustration from me and my staff as well. And we've raised the issue with HUD, they know it but changes in HUD take a lot more legislative backing than in the Commonwealth as you can imagine. But so what we found is happening is and it's impacting us on our voucher side too is we're running through our lists. Typically people on section eight would have, would tend to be on the list for a good 10 years. They truly would. And we have to go through that 30% income and the 30% guideline, well, it's below the 80% average medium. And what's happened now with that the wages in the Commonwealth and across the country have been increasing, which is a good thing. Minimum wage is increasing. But if you are working full time in the Commonwealth at minimum wage, you are overqualified for the section eight program initially. And that is terrible, it's just a terrible thing but that's the regulation. So what we have to do is we have to go through our entire wait list, which we're almost to the end of our wait list and there's been a lot of folks just like you that we had to say, unfortunately you're this much over income but you still stay on the list. We have to exhaust our list and then ask for, ask HUD for a waiver to go back to the folks that have a little bit hiring and then we start a process all over again. But who makes the same money seven years ago and 10 years ago? Even though minimum wage seven years and 10 years ago in Massachusetts has changed, I should hope. Like when I moved to Northampton in 2016, it was not the same. Nothing stays the same since 2016, like- No, you don't have to be qualified when you put your name on the list. We vet your income when we pull your name. When you come up on the list, that's when we're looking, that's when it counts is when you come up on the list. Yeah, that sounds kind of inherently quite dysfunctional because you almost need to apply 10 years before you think you're going to be poor. Like, you know what I mean, like- I absolutely agree with you. And that's where before we had Champ on the state side, we always pre-qualified people to put their name on the list. I don't wanna waste your time, I don't wanna waste my- So when you came in to put your name on the list, you couldn't apply for disabled housing if you're an able-bodied individual under 60. So we would qualify that ahead of time so it doesn't clog the system. But apparently HUD and the executive office have different ideas on that. So it's, I agree with you, it is a broken system. It truly is. And it's frustrating. I wanted to ask a question, and this may sound very Pollyannish, but when you talked about vetting individuals who are homeless, is there any way that the state vets programs that work with the unhoused, such as, you know, in our area, we have Craig's door and you know, they work with the unhoused and there's no like easy pipeline from vetted programs into housing authorities? No, unfortunately there's not. So what the Commonwealth has done is they hired an outside company to vet priorities going forward that they were doing some trial runs over the summer with the HVP and MOV programs. And now it's moved to the state housing 667, which is the elderly disabled and 705, which is family units. And they are vetting according to the guidelines what would constitute a homeless through no fault of your own. And they have the ability, it's DHCD, or I'm sorry, EOHLC, they changed their names, came out with a new guide, a public housing notice with the criteria for homeless through no fault of your own. And it's a 32 page document of what's needed because there's a difference between someone that may potentially have lost their house due to a fire or domestic violence or an a medical emergency or folks that didn't pay their rent and there is even a no fault of your own if they don't pay their rent is if the rent was more than 50% of their income, you want, we understand that's an approved reason. So folks like Craig's Door, they do great work but they don't have the ability to vet that type of information. But they are hoping that this AGI is going to be able to streamline that for housing authorities so that we can get through it quicker. Ashley, go ahead. I think you're muted. So Pamela, it is mysterious to me who is getting in. I mean, who is actually getting into these apartments? Like, what is their income? How long have they waited? How long are they waiting? Once they've even made contact with you, they're waiting six months sometimes, right? And then how much do they make? So the guidelines are not, if it's on the state side, it's different. So are you at Northampton? I won't ask that, I'm sorry. The state guidelines are different. So elderly folks, excuse me, not just elderly single people can make up to $48,000 a year on the state program. And then couples are like 52 and I can get you folks the most updated income guidelines and send those over. So in state public housing, it's truly moderate to low income folks. But we don't judge somebody based on how much they have or don't have. It's really irrelevant, except that they have to fall within that guideline of not being over. We do take folks that have no income on state housing and federal housing too as well. So folks typically weigh on the state housing list years as well, but we're going through those faster too because of the priorities. So it can just take, it can literally take years for them to get in. We have noticed over the past few years though, and I've been in housing now for 10 years. And in the beginning, there truly weren't a lot of true priorities because we didn't get that many applying on the local level. And that's, I started in Belcher Town before I came to Amherst. But now we are truly seeing folks that are in emergency situations and qualify through the 32 pages of what qualifies and those folks are getting in first. So the priorities would get in first and then we go to the standard applicants. If you live or work in Amherst, you would have a preference. If you're a veteran, you get a preference of being above other people on the list. And then it just goes by date and time when you applied. So if your application is complete, you get in. Well, I was actually just thinking of a Section 8 voucher that you could take with you to wherever would take it in Amherst, that you already lived in Amherst, and then you came up on the list. It seems like a very Byzantine system. So it's like, I'm not sure if I totally understand it, but for some reason I didn't make the 30% cut. So I made a little bit too much money. I'm just wondering, when you come up on the system and then you have to make quite, it seems like you have to make quite low amounts of money just to get the mobile voucher. So you can kind of take it wherever you want, I thought. That's correct. And the mobile voucher, again, the Section 8 vouchers take longer to get the actual voucher. And then when you have the voucher, it's the individual applicant's responsibility to find the unit that will take the voucher. So that's another hurdle for folks to overcome. And right now the Amherst Housing Authority has close to 50 vouchers, voucher holders on the street looking for apartments and they're not, they're having a hard time. And they've had them for several months. I'm routinely giving people reasonable accommodations for more time so that they don't lose the voucher so that they can find something. Grover, you have your hand up? And, oh, you had your hand up. Looks like you put it down. Okay, there's an attendee who had, Grover, did you wanna ask something before we go to the attendees? Yeah, if this time I am curious what your eviction rates are if you unfortunately have to do that? No, I don't have a percentage for you but I know that there's been, with the three housing authorities, Amherst, Belcher Town, and Hadley, evictions over the past two years have been about five or six folks in total out of 450 units. Allegra, I think you might have had your hand up to get in to being a panelist since you're one of the trust members. But if you have a question, go ahead. That is correct. I apologize for my tardiness but thank you for joining us. Thank you. So Pamela, I know that the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities is doing listening sessions. What do you think are some of the things that we can advocate for to support easier, quicker access to affordable units? A major overhaul of the CHAMP systems. And I do see too on your agenda that you're talking about the housing bill too. So that is a very important one too because that is going to give more monies to the housing authorities to get the infrastructure where it needs to be and hopefully the staffing too. So it would be. And then just streamlining of applications. I mean, it is a quite regular, I'm so sorry, rigorous system to have to get through but it is important at the same time. I believe Grover had just asked about the eviction rate. Some of our evictions are because of crimes on property. And that's not that those didn't happen because somebody already had a record. It's happening because there's an Allegra came. There's this growing mental health problem that we have in our communities and in our country that is really impacting us hard at the housing authorities and all landlords too. It's just, you get so many people in one location there's bound to be problems and there's not enough mental health help in the community and even at the housing authority. The Immers Housing Authority does have a resident service coordinator grant and we had a great resident service coordinator but she was became fully licensed and is moving into the field that she wanted to be in. So now we're looking for a new social worker, Allegra. I mean, I'll recruit here. So there's just, there needs to be more help from the state on that as well. That's a big portion of this. So what I'm hearing is supporting the bond bill. So you have more capital that you can get those apartments updated and renovated really quickly so people can then access them. So just major overhaul of the chance, streamlining the application. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are. As you mentioned before, there is the vetting through, you mentioned AGI, but I'm wondering if there's an opportunity to actually vet organizations. So if an organization is working with housing unhoused individuals, why can't they be vetted to actually help them navigate into a housing authority? Well, we will work with folks. We do work with Craig's Doors to help, they're helping their client get through the navigation system. But as the housing authority, we are the landlord and we have the obligation to make sure that the folks pass our background checks before they come in. So we're absolutely up to working with any agency though that can assist us with that for sure. Did you get to read the entire PHN notice about the vacancy initiative where they're allowing for the overtime and for us to partner with other housing authorities or contractors within the community. I'm not sure if you focus on it. I can send you that too. Yes, that would be very helpful. We have partnered also with MassNARO and they're gonna be doing our, because the other portion is we need the staffing. We don't have enough staffing to get through this fast enough. So we're partnering with MassNARO that's gonna be helping us when we pull the list and to get those applications out in the mail in a timely manner so that we can then spend more time actually vetting instead of stuffing envelopes with applications. So we do try to partner with as many folks as we can. Ashley? Yeah, I'm sorry if you did explain this, but just from that article and also your experience, just if you, like just the most basic way, why do you think there are thousands of empty apartments and rooms that are just sitting there for literally months and not necessarily cause there's water damage or there's like a whole bunch of bees in them. Like, why do you think that we are just leaving thousands of empty apartments and nobody's in them? Why do you think that's happening? Well, it is because of water damage and damage in the units and not having the maintenance staff to go into them. So the Amherst Housing Authority has five full-time, excuse me, five full-time maintenance men and we have five maintenance men, maintenance staff because we have the extra apartments and developments in Belcher Town and Hadley. If I didn't have those, I'd only have four. So having those two other authorities in two separate towns gives me the funding for one extra staff member. And these folks need to mow the lawn, they need to cloud the snow, they need to do the normal upkeep of facilities, developments all across Amherst and then Belcher Town and Hadley on top of when things break. And being buildings that are 50 years plus, we are constantly fixing a leaky pipe and snaking toilets and then they have the units to turn over on top of it. So there's just that portion and then I don't have the money. And whereas I would love to be able to say I can hire a contractor, I don't have the funding for it in my budget to hire the contractor. So that's the frustration and then there's that champ system that I have thousands of people on my list and I can't get a qualified applicant because of the bureaucracy and the red tape of it. But it does look better since last week. The applications absolutely look better from last week. So there's hope. Thank you so much Pamela. We really appreciate this and I just wanna again stress that the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities is doing listening sessions and focus groups. So it's a real opportunity for all of us to reiterate and emphasize the needs to get these units up to date and turned around very quickly, which means funding, which means staffing. And I think the other point that's really important which is housing individuals who have had housing and security or been unhoused, it's not just a matter of a livable space, it's the supports and the support system to help them really integrate and be secure in their housing space. So, as you mentioned, you had a resident service coordinator also ensuring that you have funding to make sure that the individuals who need support get that support so then they can be successful in having a safe, secure space in terms of the way they see secure and safe. So thank you very much, Pamela, for engaging with us around informing us more about the Immersed Housing Authority and how we can support you and how we can better work together to get people into those housing spaces. We have one attendee with a hand up. Oh, sorry, thank you. Actually, now we have two. We have two. Okay, so before we move on, we have a few more minutes. Go ahead, Calvin, we're gonna go ahead and let you go ahead and ask your question. You can speak. I don't believe you're muted. Just do I have to make a panelist? Now you're muted. Now you're muted again. All right. Go Calvin. Almost, almost. Speak now. Maybe we'll have to make him a panel or they a panel. They can, they should be able to speak. I mean, they're not muted. Calvin, say something. Calvin is now a panel member. Go ahead, unmute yourself. We can't hear you. Sorry, you are unmuted, but we cannot hear you. Okay, Calvin, we're gonna put you just a little bit on hold and we're gonna ask Laura to go ahead and speak and then we'll try to come back to you, Calvin. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, awesome. I had a question for Pamela about if she's still here, I don't see her on the screen, but I assume she's still with us. Get away. Oh, oh, Calvin. I'm not, I'm not seeing you either. Calvin. Okay, well then I'm gonna lower my hand. Sorry. You know what, if their questions for Pamela, it seems like Pamela has jumped off. If their questions for Pamela, we can note them. I will send them to Pamela and then we could add them to the minutes. Great, it's fine. Okay, Calvin, we can now see you. Oh, here's Pamela. Pamela's connecting. All right. Sorry. All right, Pamela. We have Calvin is gonna go ahead and then we'll put Laura back. Go ahead, Calvin. No, we can't hear you. You still can't hear you. We cannot hear you, audio. Nope. It looks like you're unmuted, but we cannot hear you. Sorry. Okay, go ahead and send us your question and we will get it to Pamela and we will now ask Laura to go ahead. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Go ahead. Okay, so question for Pamela. My name is Laura Baker, I work at the Valley CDC. So we often have MRVPs that are in project-based MRVPs. What we observe about both the section 8 and MRVP is that the fair market rents for our area, which is the Springfield statistical area, are very, very low compared with market rents, especially in Amherst. And so I wonder if you have any experience as a housing authority allowing people to use the small area fair market rent for Amherst in lieu of the area-wide fair market rent. We do, and I apologize that my computer like totally shut down and I got booted out, but again, that's public housing dollars at work. So I apologize. My computer needs it over all. We absolutely have that same issue. And just last month we went to the board of commissioners for Amherst to ask HUD for approval to use this small market rate and we've increased that. We've increased just in the Amherst zip code the higher rent. I can get you those figures over what we increase them to. And we're seeing them for October 1st, so we're seeing how much that's gonna help now. So it was absolutely a problem for sure. Did you go all the way up to the small area fair market rent for 01002? Yes. And just at 100%, not 110%. No, we did go to the 110. Awesome. And is that you're implementing that for your mobile vouchers? It's actually for this section eight side. I do need to look into it for the Massachusetts vouchers, but it started with our HPV voucher holders starting October 1st. Okay. So for everybody else who has no idea what we're talking about, I will tell you, because we're leasing up East Gables right now, that a studio under this kind of area wide market rent, which is calculated based somewhat on Hamden County, for one of those studios, I believe the fair market rent is $934, whereas the rate that we're talking about 110% of the specific Amherst fair market rent, I think it's over $1,300 for the same unit. And the tenant pays the same. This is really talking about how much that matching subsidy would be to support that unit. So it doesn't hit the tenants, it hits all of us as taxpayers, but it makes it a much more reasonable rent for the Amherst area, especially if you're shopping around with a mobile voucher, you just can't rent anything at the area wide FMRs. And those numbers have to include all utilities. So it just is a mismatch. Thank you. Thank you. And if I could just comment, can I comment that comment? Just a little bit, Erica too. My only other concern with that is I'm very hopeful that it's gonna help get folks into units and that we'll be able to be more competitive with the apartments. But for, I'm not sure, I believe yours worked the same way, Laura. I'm always concerned that we're gonna run out of actual dollars and it's gonna drop the number of vouchers that we'll be able to have. So the voucher number is a pretty fluid number. So we're gonna be able to help less people, but at least we're getting people in. Right. If you have 50 people walking around with vouchers that they can't use, no one's being helped. So I agree. It's a finite pie, which is another problem. But if you spend more for some people, then you have some people who don't get vouchers at all. I understand the math. Thank you. Thank you. So we have Representative Dom wants to ask a question. So I'm going to go ahead and you can go ahead, Representative Dom. Thank you so much, Erica. Good evening, everybody. And Pamela, it's good to see you. I'm looking forward to seeing you soon. And I want to thank, I don't know if Laura Baker is still on the phone, but I do want to, first of all, thank Valley CDC for everything they're doing in our community. And I want to ask Laura if she would make a Facebook post about the increase in the rate that she just described. And I'm thrilled, Pamela, that you announced it because I know it's something that as legislators we've been working on and not at the federal level we've been working on. And I think Jim McGovern has been working on it as well as Richie Neal, since the voucher amount was really reflecting the Springfield part of the region and not the Amherst part of the region. So I don't know if Laura feels that she could make the, or maybe Pamela, if you could send me the information on that, I'm just thrilled here that the reimbursement is more. I don't think we should be too concerned. I'll be honest with you about the money running out. I get more concerned when people get discouraged because they can't find an affordable place. And if the money runs out, then it's because there's an emergency and government's got to cough up more. And I think there is sort of an appetite at the state level anyway to thinking about what we need to do in terms of housing. Erica, can I say one other thing before I click off? And it's just, I know that on the agenda it talked about the housing transfer fee, public hearing that was held this week. Mandy Jo Hanneke and Anna Devlin-Gothier both testified for Amherst as did I for the home rule. And there were a lot of people there. The committee is still receiving comments on not only the Amherst home rule, but Senator Cumberford has statewide legislation that was filed as well as Senator Sear does. And people may want to, I know we got something from the trust, which is terrific, but if other individuals wanted to send comments, you don't have to be sort of with a position to send a comment in for public hearing. I'll send Erica and Carol the information and they can include it in the next mailing because there isn't, I looked on the sheet, there's no deadline for a public comment on this, which means that they're going to accept public comment until they make a decision. And what I can tell you is I'm not sure when that will be, but I'm pretty sure that the governor is going to release a housing bond. And we were in a meeting in Springfield with the Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of Housing, as was I think some other folks on the call. And they indicated that they are intending to put some policy into the bond. So usually a bond is just money for projects and programs. And it's usually a lot of money over a number of years. And so instead of using taxpayer money, just in this fiscal year, we borrow money so that we have it over a couple of years, but they are also looking to put and stick housing policy into this bond, which is exciting because it becomes a vehicle then for legislation of all different things. And so I have my own list and anything from right to council for people who are facing eviction to more money for programs to a local, allowing for local option for housing transfer fees. So there will be, it seems, this is my last thought on this, there will be a vehicle that might sort of be a magnet of sorts maybe, or just like a dust collector, maybe not a magnet, a dust collector for housing policy and legislation, as well as housing money that will be going through the state legislature. I don't wanna get our hopes up high on what that will result in, but it's good news that the vehicle will be coming through because vehicles can be amended, vehicles can be advocated around, vehicles can be what people write letters on and really harangue elected officials to what they want. And so it becomes sort of a way for people to influence housing policy. So thank you for letting me interrupt. I'm thrilled, so thrilled that the voucher increased for Amherst. This is great news for people who wanna live in Amherst. I think we need to get the word out because for too long, people have known that they can't use those vouchers and get an apartment up here. And I think it's great news that we can tell them they can and it starts October 1st. So we can get the word out quickly. Thank you Pamela for announcing it. Laura, thank you for explaining it and for all the good work at Valley CDC and the housing trust folks, your good work is always felt by me. I am indebted to you. Thank you. I think it's a very much representative Dom. We're starting to get a little short on time. So Ashley, you'll be the last one to ask a question. Okay, so this is very quick. Pamela, do you have any like very maybe easy, maybe not way to capture all the kinds of housing that you just mentioned, like, you know, section eight in Amherst, in a spreadsheet, however you do it and send that to us so that we can see you have, you know, just like so that we can get used to these numbers. You have this many section eight occupied right now. You have this many Massachusetts vouchers occupied right now, just a snapshot in time right now so the way you understand it, you go to work tomorrow, you see what you have occupied tomorrow. Can you give us that spreadsheet? Yes, we can compile a spreadsheet of the different programs of who's living in Amherst with our program for sure. Perfect. That's really helpful and, you know, to all of us so that like the point also just the point is the tone of Amherst is not transparent with this information. So we need people that are giving us this information because the tone of Amherst doesn't have it. I mean, clearly they're not even keeping it. Yeah, they don't have, because they're not in control of it. So it's, you know, the Amherst housing authority is a administrative agency of these vouchers but there's also other ones, Valley CDC, Wayfinders, other agencies are providing vouchers in the town as well. So it's, maybe we got all of them to send it to you. You guys would have all the information. That would be awesome. So thank you so very much Pamela, we really appreciate it. Both the information that you've shared today as well as giving us a little bit of a 101 as well so we can really work together and, you know, provide, you know, affordable options for individuals in the community. So, and thank you for also listing the priorities that we can then also articulate in advocating for support for housing authorities. So thank you. Well, I appreciate you having me here and for your support. It's very much needed. And I did just want to give us, I think she already left a representative Don but we have been in conversation over the past month too and he's coming out to the authority towards the end of the month to tour all of our developments and to see what firsthand what he can do too. So we're very lucky to have her as our representative. So thank you for having me. Thank you, Pamela. And I'm going to go ahead and hand over the floor to Carol. Thank you. Okay, well, this is the part of the agenda that we hope to be very quick. We made up this idea last time of having it be quick. The two things that we would like to do quickly is agree that we will write a letter in support of the bond bill even though we don't know exactly what is in it. We will definitely want a bond bill to pass and have a lot of money and put it in places where it gives people more affordable housing. I guess first we'll see if there's any comments. We will, we air between Eric and I will write such a letter shortly here assuming that that is agreeable to everyone. Are there any comments or questions? Hearing none, I will assume we're good with that. The other thing that we would like to do is a letter of support, which we want to do this before October 19th, just to the zoning board to ask them to support the ball lane project which begins its trip through the planning to the ZBA on October 19th. My understanding is that what will happen that night is that they will just kind of hear something, probably a presentation of what the project is followed by setting a schedule for when they will entertain public comment. So what we need to do, I believe is we, I'm gonna assume that it's okay with you all that we write a letter, but let's do that first. Is that agreeable we write a letter in support of ball lane to the ZBA? Yes, okay. We will do those two things. But the other thing is we should try as we are able to be at some of the ZBA meetings when there are public comment is possible. As individual, just as ourselves and it will put something out as soon as we know what the dates are that the public comment is actually gonna be happening, we will put something out to that long list that we have encouraging people to go to those meetings in order to support the ball lane project. So I believe that is the total of the things that we have called, we're gonna do these really quick. Those are the two things we have on there at the moment. And so seeing as we have permission to do both those two things or whatever you call it that we have, we can move on now to some town updates. I believe that Dave, Nate, this is something I wanted to say, Paul is not here because he has a conflict. Other, any counselor who might wanna be here is not here because there's a conflict. Nate, you will notice is not here for, I think this is the third time in the row because he has conflicts. So there's a possibility. I don't know yet, but we've been, Erica and I've been talking to all these people with conflicts, is there the possibility of some other day that might make this work better so that you could be here more? There's not a clear answer to that yet, especially from Nate for whom it seems like it's just all over the place when he has to be somewhere. But we may be asking if there's another time that we could meet in order to do a better job of being able to get more of the people that want here to be at the meetings. So that's just a heads up, but I'm gonna invite Dave to come in, although welcome David, I think I am promoting you. The first thing on our list here that our town updates, hi Dave, is about the hounding planner position and actually I'm gonna ask Erica to talk about that instead of Dave because there have just been interviews. So Erica, quickly, what's up? Yes, so good progress. The second level interviews have been completed. They're very well qualified candidates, which I think is often a blessing and also then a challenge because very qualified candidates means a difficult decision. My understanding is by the end of next week a decision will be made and the candidates will be contacted. So we are really heading into having an affordable housing planner on board. As I said before, I think whatever the decision is we're gonna have a really, really good housing planner that'll be working with us. We agreed up to 25 hours. It's a part-time position with benefits and I think everyone on the trust will be very pleased in terms of some of the areas that we haven't been able to get to that this planner will prioritize. So exciting news. I think it's really exciting news that we're getting to the point where we're gonna have somebody and they will be attending these meetings. Thank you, Erica. And now I think Dave has a few things to update us on a CPAC proposal that the town is working on, something about the VFW project and maybe something else that's not too long. We hope Dave, go ahead. Yeah, just if I could. So on the housing planner, we were fortunate enough to pull Erica in on the second round of interviews this week. As she said, they went very well. We think we have some very qualified folks. That person once selected will be recommended to Paul Bachmann and ultimately it's his hire and we will share that person. And as Erica said, they will come to the meetings. They will report to Nate Malloy, who's our senior planner and an expert on affordable housing. So we're really excited about that. In terms of CPA proposals, the town did submit a CPA proposal by the deadline, which I believe was about a week and a half ago. I'm losing track of this month, it's going so quickly. We put in a 275, I believe it was 275, $275,000 proposal to fund pre-development work at a number of sites around town, including potentially the VFW, strong street property that's downowns and potentially the pre-development work and study down at the South Amherst School, down at the South Amherst Commons. So, as you know, that process moves forward. I believe there were 14 or 15 proposals, a couple for housing, and those proposals will go back out to the full committee as soon as tomorrow. They have a week or two, I think about two weeks to submit questions back to staff. And those proposals range from housing to all the four categories, recreation, open space and affordable housing, of course, and historic preservation. And so they have about two weeks, the committee has two weeks to formulate their questions, they go back to staff, all those questions go back out to the applicants, including the trust, including the town, and then presentations will be scheduled for November. So it's a pretty rapidly moving process. And as you know, that committee usually tries to wrap up their work by mid-February or so. They're one of the first parts of the budget to kind of fall into place. The town is already beginning to move into budget planning for next fiscal year, starting July 1, 2024. So it's exciting to get that process going. I believe CPAC has, if the council, keep in mind they make a recommendation of the council, the council decides ultimately what to fund and at what levels. And I believe this year's available funds is about 1.5 million. So that is that. In terms of the VFW, I don't have any updates, month to month, I may not have an update on the VFW site every month. So we're continuing, we're finishing up all of our survey work there. We're very, I think we're completed with all of our, our hazardous materials study on the building and we'll be moving toward demo of that building as soon as possible. So that's kind of the update on the VFW site. David, it looks like there's a question so far from Allegra, so maybe she wants to ask it before you go into something else. Go ahead, Allegra. Yes, I think, I just wanted to follow up because I think in the trust CPA proposal, it stated that Strong Street does fall within the qualified census tract that we did. In fact, confirm that. Is that accurate in my thinking or did I make that up somewhere? That's a good question, Allegra, off the top of my head. I don't know if Nate were here, he could tell you, but I think it does, but I, you know, that's something we, you know, Nate has probably referenced it before in previous meetings. So regardless, we want to vet that site for the potential for affordable housing. It is a challenging site. I don't know if I think Nate has talked to you all about it before. It's a challenging site from an access standpoint. There's ledge there and there's wetlands. So it's not this easy flat site that we wish we had close to town. It's not on a bus line. It's from a development standpoint, there are challenges there, but we're going to pursue, we're going to still pursue it. The town owns it and it's, you know, it's worth looking at and taking a hard look at that. So we'll, we'll, we'll expend some funds on that. And then the last thing was just revisiting the town had a couple of meetings ago put in a modest proposal of just a couple of thousand dollars to the trust for actually for ongoing expenses related to the VFW site. And keep in mind these were, these are things that we cannot pay for with ARPA funds. For instance, the site currently still has electricity and needs to have electricity going to it. Some modest, you know, we're talking maybe $2,000 that the town needs to maintain that site over the next four to six months before we demo the building. And unfortunately we can't use ARPA funds. That is not an allowable use for ARPA funds for us. So we were just seeking $2,000 from the trust to maintain that property for the next couple of months before we demo the building. So that is the proposal. I think Nate had talked to you about that maybe two or three meetings ago. It kept getting postponed the actual official request. I assume this is their official request. The town is asking a trust for $2,000. I think it's up to $2,000 to do what we could call pre-development work since eventually there will be a development there. They keep the lights on or keep whatever else has to happen to make it pre-developable at the VFW. So that's the request. Are there comments, questions, et cetera? Grover. Can you clarify confirmation for me that the VFW site has definitely been voted on and approved as a site for the transitional supportive housing? Or is it just an idea? Or like our best idea? It is the only idea that we've moved forward with. The property was purchased with the express intent and stated intent using ARPA funds for a combination shelter, supportive, sorry, it's been a long day, a lot of meetings, supportive affordable units above on the second and third floor. So that is the stated purpose for the site. Could that change for some reason in the future? Possibly, but I think it would have to go through the council. That is the stated purpose. We expended over $700,000 for that and we've submitted that paperwork to the federal government as an allowable expense. So I think all of the town record is in the direction that we are headed. So that's the best I can do at this point, but there is no reason to believe we would not move in that direction. And every reason to believe we will, we are committed to that. Are there other questions or concerns or wishes to support? I'd like to make a motion to support that we use up to $2,000 for pre-development costs for the VFW site. I think we need to move on that site. I think it was to address having a permanent shelter for the unhoused in Amherst. And I think it's really important. So I make a motion that we support the request. Second. Grover seconds. Erica has moved. Grover has seconded. Is there any further discussion? Allegra. I think keeping the electricity on to the building before it can be demolished is important. Because I think we see a lot of buildings in Amherst that have fallen into disarray. So making sure that even though we're knocking it down that we don't damage any of the possible infrastructure that we'll be going to the building is important. So yes. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? If not, let's vote. I'm just gonna do this orally so that we don't just do thumb since we're talking about $2,000 at least. So I'm gonna go around the pictures on my screen. Erica. Yes. Myself. Yes. Rob. Did you say something? I can't hear you for some reason. Rob, suck his thumb up because somehow we can't hear him. Ashley. Yes. Allegra. Yes. Robert. Yes. So that has passed unanimously. Carol, could I give one other update unless there are any other questions? I don't think there are any other questions. Go ahead. I know you had made a comment earlier about just the meeting times and such. I just wanted to note and the trust may not be aware that we've actually been down a planner position as well. So we have two associate planners, one senior planner, that's Nate Malloy. Our other associate planner is Rob Wachilla who's relatively new and we have a vacancy in a planner position. So we're actively recruiting for that position as well. So once we bring on that associate planner and the part-time housing planner, some things will shift. Nate has a tremendous amount on his plate right now. He's phenomenal at all the things he does. Some things will shift off of his plate. I know that one of the conflicts he's been having is the historical commission often meets on the same night this Thursday night that you all do. So in choosing who's going where, Paul is often here. I'm trying to be here with you as many nights as I can meetings. And so Nate sometimes has to go right now to the historical commission to staff that. So it's just a, it can be a conflict there but I wanna give you some optimism that once we bring on another associate planner some things will shift off Nate's plate and he will have more bandwidth for you and also for me as a supervisor, but no, for all the projects he's juggling. I'll just add to that that I am very hopeful that having a part-time housing planner who comes to the meetings doesn't mean we lose Nate. That's not the goal. To me, of having a housing planner is to lose Nate. So just, anyway, that's probably not either here or there at the moment. I think that's it for town updates. The only other things I would say is just in a couple of the things that we have been working on. The East Gable celebration that some of us were at was incredible. It was so wonderful to see that building be there and to be, it was amazing to me how many times I said, this is the first time. This is the first time. This is the first energy efficient sort of building. And so low income people get the benefit of it. It was just an incredible celebration. And I don't know, I guess I should ask and since Laura is still here. Laura, do you have anything else you wanna say about that to add? Sure. Can you hear me? Yes. We liked it too, Carol. We had a good time. And we got a lot of attendance. We got a lot of really positive feedback. Very strong attendance from Dave was there, Paul was there, town personnel were there and a striking number of town counselors were there. So it was pretty awesome. So we're very proud of the building. If anybody here on the trust was not able to make it to that event, just send me an email. I will get you in. We have a small window left before everything is filled in there when we wanna show off the building. Once people are living there, we don't like to trot people into their units. So this is a golden opportunity to grab. And the only other thing I kind of wanted to reiterate what Carol said about the upcoming zoning board hearings for Ball Lane, we're hoping trust members will participate actively in that process and speak to what a really choice opportunity that that development is. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Let me say one other thing. So we're going to bring in tenants, tenants who will live in the building, many, many of whom are currently have no housing and are in Amherst. At all of the income tiers, 30%, 50% and 80%, we have unhoused applicants. So people who are living in their cars, people who are couch surfing were really pretty shocked, honestly, at the number of people at all different kinds of price points who can't afford housing in Amherst. And the simplicity of their demands on us. So for example, I toured one gentleman who is living in a tent in Amherst and we got to the end of the tour. He was overcome, so excited to move in, taking a video of his new apartment. And he said, can I have permission to have a, and I thought he was going to say Pat, and I was going to go into the whole thing about reasonable accommodation. And he said, can I have permission to have a plant? And I was like, yeah, you can have a plant here. I had several other people who toured who as soon as they got to the lobby were super excited because they realized they would have their own mailboxes. They hadn't even seen the units. They thought having their own mailbox was a cause for, that was a big step for them. So I just feel like we all, myself included, are a little bit out of touch with how simple, the simple level of needs that people have that they are lacking in their lives. So just wanted to share that. Now I'm really done. Thank you, Laura. And thank you for sharing that. That's really touching and kind of why we're trying to do this. Good to hear. Thank you. The other update, which is less exciting, but Wayfinders has said that they are moving along. They've had some bumps, I guess, in trying to come up with the final land development agreement that they have to create with the town, but supposedly they have told me they are very close to that. They're in the final design. I think they've upped the number of units they're looking at, maybe 47 units on Belcher Town Road, 31 at Southeast Street right now. They're hoping that the project will be eligible within the months for an application for the places in the state where they have to apply to and that they will, in mid to late winter, be at the ZBA with their 40B application. So we will have yet another opportunity to go and try and help the zoning board do what we think they ought to. And I think that's the end of the updates, the two that I had. So I will turn it back over to Erika for strategic planning. Thank you. So I'm gonna turn it over to Grover to give us an update on where we are with our strategic planning process. Okay, well, we submitted the application for the strategic planning support from Massachusetts Housing. And Carol, I actually, I'm gonna kick it back to Carol because your email was on the application and I haven't heard a result, but maybe you have. I have not. When did we do all October 2nd or something? And we got it in a day or two ahead, but so October 2nd, it's now October 12th and no, I haven't heard anything. Okay, well, I, we haven't talked about it, but I would imagine that as soon as we hear the three of us will make a plan to set the first meeting date and move forward with the process. Absolutely. And the application said that they would get back to us in a couple of weeks. So I imagine we should be hearing in the next couple of days. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you, Grover. All right, back to you, Carol. I did not really anything much to say here. Yes, we submitted our CPA application. And I haven't heard anything. Dave has already a little bit described the process that they will go through. One of the things that brought the process that they go through, at least if it's anything like it was last year is they take a while and they figure out what they're gonna do and then they ask you some questions and you have to answer them very quickly. And then they take another while and then you have, you go and make a presentation or something in it. So there are various places in it. As Dave said, it's not a really long gone out process because they do get done by sometime in February, but sometimes the parts of it where we get to interact with them are kind of quick and short. So we will just hang in there and make it through whatever it is that they need to ask us and pull in people who are willing to be pulled in. I just wanna say that in doing this, I am incredibly grateful to both Allegra and Erica who read and improved upon what I had started so that what we turned in I think was better for all of that than it would have been otherwise. And I don't know, I believe I emailed the thing that I got back from the town saying, yes, we have received your application. I emailed that so everyone should have it if they wanna read it, you certainly can. I don't know if there are any questions. Though I don't know everything I wanted, I thought this was an opportunity to talk about a little bit because it's been in discussions is something about what Community Preservation Act funds can be used for because 90 plus percent of the money that we have is CPA money. And although it's in our trust accounts, we are still responsible to use it within the guidelines of the Community Preservation Act program. And the main thing about the Community Preservation Act program where it is talking about community housing, you can do lots of things with CPA funds. There's a chart here that I can't get in on my screen but I'll send it to everybody after this. One of the interesting, I'm gonna read this little square that says about community housing support. What you can do is provide grants, loans, rental assistance, security deposits, interest rate, write downs or other forms of insistence directly to individuals and families who are eligible for community housing or to an entity that owns, operates or manages such housing for the purpose of making housing affordable. So there's some things that we can do and some things that we can't do. And one of the things that comes that we are expecting after some conversations that we will have a proposal coming to us from Craig's Doors that will meet these requirements, we think we will have such a thing next at our next meeting and we will have the proposal from them soon enough that we're gonna have a chance to see it before we have to talk about it. Are there questions, comments or anything about all of what I just said, which was kind of a rambling report? Erica. Thank you, I had my hand up and I'll lower it. So a couple of things that you said which are really important. One is that the majority, it's almost every bit of our funding comes from the CPA. And I think in reviewing the CPA funding and I looked at lots of different documents, MHP actually has a wonderful trust toolkit and they also have an operational manual toolkit that if people wanna look at. So the restrictions really are in the development and in the sustainability of affordable housing. And so development meaning developing like way finders and East Gable and Ball Lane or doing rental subsidies, we can do mortgage or rental subsidies, but it goes to landlords. So it's very, very restrictive. And so those restrictions follow our funding. That said, the real estate transfer fee, thank you Grover and Carol for submitting a letters of support for that is really important because we need other types of funding that's not restricted that would give us more opportunities to think about from the unhoused all the way to rental, to home ownership, to possibly subsidizing voucher aides, et cetera. So we need more funding sources that don't have such restrictions that would give us more leeway in doing some of the things that we think would be important and be a priority. So I just really wanna push it. If you have an opportunity to write a letter of support the way Representative Dom talked about, please do write a letter of support for the real estate transfer fee legislation. I think that would be really important. And so the other thing that I just wanted to say is that we absolutely are looking for as many opportunities as we can to look at options. And so again, having funds available to us, we ask CPA for about 500,000. They've generally only given us 250,000 because I know there's a high demand, other people are asking as well. So we need other resources to do the work that is really important for us and gives us the flexibility. So anyways, that's all I wanna say. So thank you, absolutely thank you Carol for spearheading this because you are actually on the hot seat when they submit the questions to you and you have to present it. I'm usually there just backstopping you, but you really do the work. Thank you. Ashley. Well, so I think that like part of the strategic planning also needs to be that it does not seem that we will be building ourselves out of affordable housing crisis. There just doesn't seem to be the political energy on the town of Amherst to build 1,000 units of affordable housing a year every year, if not more for many decades. So using these CPA funds in legal ways to fund the individual people to get into their affordable housing, somewhere in Amherst, according to that article, there's also 2,000 empty units. I mean all over Massachusetts. And so we need to be creative. We're not building much. The town of Amherst just isn't building very much. And they're spending a lot of money to build these buildings. So we need to use CPA money in the way that we can to not to do things that isn't building. We're just not gonna build. Like apparently that's just not, you know, we build like a hundred units a year. That's like helping a hundred people a year. We need to help thousands of people a year by doing other things. Which is part of what we will hopefully begin to come to grips with when we have this planning process that we're trying to develop. So thanks Ashley. Are there other comments, questions or anything hearing none? I will turn it back over to Erica. Thank you. So thank you Ashley for just again, just raising that the African Heritage Reparations Assembly put a report together. I thought that they were actually gonna be presenting to town council last Monday, but it's actually gonna be this Monday. They're gonna be presenting their report. In the report, there are priority areas in the recommendations. And so we thought that one, everyone should really take a look at the report. It's very comprehensive. It is such an important report in terms of those of us who live in Amherst and those of us who are advocating for equity and reparations and justice. And for housing, there are on page 10, you can actually look at some of the data with regard to the disproportionality of black households being rent burdened. And also with regards to the disproportionality of home ownership. And then if you look at page 22, the second funding priority is actually affordable housing. So I think it would be important to attend the meeting on Monday and to read the report. And then we also thought that it would be a good idea that once the report is presented to town council that we ask one of the representatives to meet with us and have a conversation with us about how we can support each other around some of these recommendations. You'll note that around the funding priority for affordable housing and equity, they actually give the example of Ball Lane as being a really good example of mitigating some of the injustice with regard to home ownership for the BIPOC community. So I think it's an opportunity to have a conversation about how can we work together in ensuring that affordable housing meets the needs of those who have been unjustly, not included and have opportunities to not be included. And so I would just like to propose that we think about inviting members or representatives from the assembly to come and talk with us. Ashley, go ahead, you have a hand up. Can you look into or can we look into if we can use CPA funds to specifically help descendants of the enslaved or African-Americans use the assistance for rent and mortgages? Can we like, can we look into that if that's a legal use of CPA funds? Yeah, I would actually like to attend the meeting on Monday. Part of the recommendations is to have CPA set-asides as well as block grant set-asides as part of funding. Part of their charge was not only to come up with recommendations around reparations, they also included healing and ways of creating justice. And so within the recommendations, there are clear recommendations around how to create a funding source and how to prioritize that funding. And so part of that is looking at CPA set-asides and block grant set-asides from the town. But yes, definitely Ashley. Any other questions or comments? Okay, so definitely look into, Carol and I will look into inviting someone to come and speak with us and then also with regards to Ashley's recommendation. All right, I'm turning it back to you, Carol. So we're actually doing better on time. We want to get behind at the beginning and catch up at the end, it seems, or often that happens. So we are at announcements. Any other public comments? If there are any, any announcements? Anybody, does anybody here have any announcements? I have maybe a couple. Our next meeting is November 9th. We assume there are things, there are a couple of things coming up. There's a great, on the 17th evening, a mass housing partnership is having a tour of a place in, up in South Deerfield, I think, a development that they've done. And then a kind of a round table discussion about what our housing trust's doing. I believe you can probably still apply. I think Nate, Nate sent out the invitation. If anybody's interested, let me know. I'll make sure that you get the invitation information if you have not, don't have it at the moment. I'm gonna go, John Hornick said he might be gonna go. Erica would go, except she has something more important to do. No, I think, so I'm presenting in South Hadley the next night. So I just wanna prepare for that. Around our Amherst Municipal Housing Trust, they're interested in also the possibility of creating a housing trust in South Hadley. Yeah, so actually that should be an announcement because Erica and John, because I have company all that week, are going to do this presentation at their request. They're thinking of doing a housing trust and are interested in what we have seen and learned and whatever. And so great work, you two. I'm not sure that I have any other, let's see. There is a list of resources on the bottom, at least of my agenda that I'm looking at. Was there a list? I don't think that was in what Nate sent, so. But this list of resources, I will make sure George has it, so it can be included in the minutes. And I think George, I actually sent you this version of the agenda, so you have it at the bottom, because there's the housing toolkit from the housing toolbox, there's MHP's housing data, there's the CHAPA stuff, and there's the mass housing partnership itself. And there's one other thing that I noticed just today that I don't have a thing for, but in Nate's, I can send a link when I send you this paper here. It's kind of interesting, that Community Preservation Act Coalition or something or other, I think it's called. And you can go on there and find a list of every CPA-funded housing project in Amherst back to 2002 or for years anyway, as far as 2007, they're all listed and there's just a general list, but then in any of them, you can go in and look at the detail and see how much money was spent. I thought that was kind of an interesting list. And so, is there any other public comment anyone wants to make who is still in the, as an attendee, if you would like to speak, please raise your hand, seeing nothing. I presume that we have no more public comments. I do not have anything that wasn't anticipated within 48 hours, at least by me. So, is there anyone else who has anything that needs to be brought up, seeing Erica raise her hand and then Ashley raise her hand? Go ahead, Erica. I just really want to emphasize that Carol and I are going to be forwarding you the Craigsdor proposal as soon as we get it. We're going to vote on it in November. So, please read it, you'll have opportunities to ask questions about it. Tim actually wanted to be here this evening, but wasn't able to, he was just going to be here as an attendees. So, he will be available to answer any questions, but I will just ask that people be prepared to actually vote on their request for November 9th. Ashley? You know, one thing that I was thinking that, going forward, this could be part of the strategic meetings also, but is that when we are proposing something just even in our meetings, I think that we need to put a time, like stamp and a time limit on it. Like, we vote on hiring someone, then we need to tell the town they have two months to hire someone. We're doing, you know, educational events. We need to make sure that we are saying to ourselves, we have to do that twice in one year or we're voting to do an educational event and we need to do it within the next three months. And then we need to plan the next one for the next six months, et cetera. Like, the strategic plan thing we've been talking about for quite a few months now, it needs to be done in a date. Like, if we start talking about it in September, we need to know that December 1st, we have a meeting in person. And then in December 1st, we need to know that February 1st, we have a new meeting. Like, there's got to be a calendar that says, we don't just talk about stuff. We have a date that things have to be done by. Kind of like, so that we know that we are holding ourselves accountable to doing things in a timely manner that we say we are supposed to be doing and also is in the charter. Like, not just talking about them, if that makes sense. Because, you know, who knows when we're gonna get an affordable housing worker, the town hasn't done it. So we need to like, put a timeframe on everything we do. Right, like the educational piece, the strategic meetings, everything has to be done somewhat timely, you know? That's an interesting suggestion, and we could work towards, we have actually, I think. I mean, sometimes the dates travel a little bit before they get met, but we have often started with, we had a timeframe we wanted to use for the listening session. We've had a timeframe that we're trying to use for the strategic plan. In doing the things, sometimes the timeframe stretches out a little bit, but I don't think we're completely timeless, not time sensitive. Could we do a better job of it? I probably. So let's consider, as we go forward, trying to pay attention to how long things should take. Grover. I hear what you're saying, Ashley, and I think that in order for us to do that and be successful, we would need to break into some working groups and some have some commitments for people to hold that work ongoing. For example, like the education piece, it's like, we already spend two hours a month here plus reading and some people have more capacity to do more on an ongoing basis. So then if, because planning a education thing and like coming up with the ideas and running it through the committee and booking the spaces and things like that is a lot of steps. So it needs somebody who's gonna drive it if we're gonna do one and then immediately start planning the other. It would need that, I think. Good point. Thank you, Grover, Erica. So I think those are really great suggestions. And I think, you know, both the suggestion of having, you know, time and then looking at resources. So I really like what Grover, you just said, which is who's gonna do what, when, where and how. Being part of having been, to have the privilege of being part of the second interviews, even though it's only 25 hours, part of what was raised was helping us with educational events, doing a lot of those pieces. I think, you know, when we make a decision about doing something, we have to look at what resources we have. And so I know that we have an area in our budget, I think for technical assistance. So the possibility if, you know, we make a decision to, you know, after doing X that we're gonna have a report or et cetera, that we may wanna think about having technical assistance or someone, a consultant work with us. I mean, I just look at, you know, the Reparations Assembly's report and it is first class, so well done, but they had assistance in doing that and putting it together. So I think, you know, whatever we do, think about what's the goal, who's going to do it, who's going to spearheaded, what resources can we then add to it or what resources do we need in order to achieve it for the timeline that we say we want. So absolutely. Okay, well, thank you everybody. I think we are wrapped for tonight and I'll see you again in a month if not before. Hopefully other things will happen. In the meantime, and we'll see each other. Anyway, thanks everybody. Have a good night.