 What would happen when her friend control can no longer help her because she would need to be in a senior assisted living facility? There is a family who is priced at the city that they work in and can so cannot afford to move back The neighbor who spent three years couchsurfing and as a result considers moving to East Coast These are the countless name then there are the countless neighbors whose voices are silenced by their institution from the cities Religated to far-reaching suburbs and burdened with long disputes on top of a high cost of living It's these stories and the thousands more that we collectively have heard That remind us why we do what we do. We want these stories of To change from heartache to triumph and being to choose being able to choose a safe affordable and accessible place to live So that's my story my neighbor's stories and I hope you hear many more throughout this weekend and I hope we can all walk away with Renewed interactivism and dedication to changing the status quo on house Friday evening afternoon There's a change to one of the panelists The year of cancer will be joining the Diego for the content machine the hashtag Now are located on each floor. We have signs marking Whether they have stalls or urinals Registration is here and they will be open this weekend for questions at any time You can also just look for an organizer and and then I'm conference is on Saturday. If any of you are unfamiliar with the conference Platform and format you will have a little info session on Saturday morning before we get started with it to kind of bring everyone up to see And tonight we have our reception at Boston To encourage the development of a horrible home for all incomes in all areas of peace Sasha earned a master's degree in regional and city planning from the University of Oklahoma And her entire career has been focused on freedom of quality and availability of homes for low and moderate So let's get up for Sasha The draw I won't say how but I will say what it do So good evening, I'm glad to be here with you today. I'm also here with my co-worker Mary eggs She's our senior planer to everybody So my fiance is also here joining me for support is also a letter to you though I want to start off by thanking all of you because y'all have a reason why we are here tonight I was upset and Mary can tell you one day last fall I was very upset because our one of our proposed affordable multi-county development And it was in a high opportunity area area that wasn't connected to jobs public transit the schools and they killed it Yeah, and I was upset and I got mad and I started researching and I said what can I do to convince these babies that use it needs affordable homes and I came across a chorus article called any nation and it talked about what Simon trust was doing in LA and I said To Mary let's do that here and she agreed so thank y'all for pushing the movement forward So that someone like me could see the vision and bring it to the third post. I know y'all the West Coast for the third Just So thank y'all, I want to thank this trust that she's here. I'm not sure and I also got a lot of guidance from better Boulder Kim Holtard. I'm not sure if he's here, but they Hey He was nice enough to do two conference calls with us And so he put us in the right direction for the vision that if you all have laid out Thank you Ken So the city of Houston we observe national fair housing month each April and so this year our fair housing campaign focuses on educating the public about the working individuals and families that could benefit from quality Affordable homes for all incomes at all areas of Houston So we believe that no matter where you live or where you want to live You should have the opportunity to reside in a quality home that is affordable for your income am I wrong? So that's why this at this PowerPoint is our educational presentation And we use this to inform the public about the what the why and the who The what is what affordable homes are why you see needs more of them and who benefits from portable homes And so we wanted to say yes campaign to change the conversation regarding the development of affordable homes We believe that by contacting homeowners associations Civic clubs professional groups other neighborhood groups We don't call them and request 10 minutes of their time doing their regular meetings and present this to them because we need People to be informed We need everyone to be a part of this conversation because this conversation is always Discussed and it leads low to moderate income people out of the conversation completely and we wanted to change that So currently in Houston, this is how the conversation starts it starts when Opposed housing projects sign those up and everybody sees it right and you would think that's a good thing, right? Because they come and they voice their opposition about What they don't like about working homes and so when there's too much community opposition It stops the potential development in its tracks and it eliminates the possibility of low to moderate income people from residing in areas With good jobs and good schools and just a chance at becoming upwardly mold And we want to create an environment where all voices are heard But we need to educate the public so that they know the facts to render an informed decision When affordable developments are proposed are y'all with me Glad to have that support So first we have to start the conversation out by saying what are affordable homes? So I'm going to break it down what we need when we say affordable homes What an affordable home is? Where public funds have subsidized or incentivized a home for low to moderate income families To maintain their housing costs no more than 30% of their monthly income So I know y'all are going to laugh because Houston has What you may think is more affordable I know the price is in Houston for homes and rent is nothing like California so don't laugh We know this but we're still Having issues with our housing affordability too. So this is what has says is low income for us Okay, as determined by HUD 71500 $1,000 is the area meeting income for the Houston woodland sugarland metropolitan statistical area And these are the incomes that are considered to be extremely low very low and low income So let me put this into perspective and the extremely low-income category People that make these wages are your baristas as Starbucks your cashiers Your childcare workers and your housekeepers, right at the very low-income category These jobs are pharmacy techs veterinarian assistants security guards and paramedics Jobs in the low-income population are administrative assistants entry-level police officers and fire fighters and also kindergarten teachers Are in this income category as well. I'll need professions, right? So we can't just say go get another job Because we see we need these services, right? Put that out there. Okay