 So good morning everybody and thank you guys for joining us for our April affordable housing task force meeting. I'm excited we've got a lot to do today but I don't think it's going to take us really long to go through everything so hopefully we can get you guys out of here a little bit early today but I'm excited about a lot of our discussion items today. Trying as everybody was jumping on to note everybody who was on. I think I got everybody but I just want to double check that I'm not missing anybody. So I don't see John Ando, Julianne Avan, Reggie Barner, Sue Berkowitz, Tanya Isaac, Aducey Shayla, Greg Sprouse, Allison Trascio or Lester Young. Are any of those here? Who's the- I think there's a phone number. There's Sue. There's a phone number I don't recognize so if I did not- if I called your name that means I didn't have you present so if I called your name and you're here tell me you're here. All right so I think I got everybody and I'll make sure as oh Greg is here now I'll make sure that we if other people show none I get them. So good morning everybody. Just wanted to start first jump right into the approval of our minutes for the March 9th 2021 meeting. Ms. Hammond sent that to everybody I think last week as well as earlier today. So hopefully everybody's had an opportunity to review the minutes from our last meeting and so if they have been reviewed I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the March 9th 2021 meeting. Motion to approve minutes from March 29th meeting. Okay and I'll second. Second by that was Jennifer. Second by Ivory. Ivory okay second by Ivory. All those in favor of approval of the minutes for March 9th 2021 please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposers? All right well then those minutes are approved. Before we go into any updates from committee reports what you guys have in your agenda packet as well is and we sent it around I apologize it was a little bit late. Okay thank you Brian. Afford is the affordable housing task force report as we discussed at last months meeting I think it's prudent for now that we've been meeting several months now to give an update to Columbia City Council and Richland County Council as far as the work that we've been doing and where we are and primarily I'd like to buy in an approval of our definition for affordable housing by the county in the city so that we have a good operating definition as we start embark on our community our community education piece as well as as we move forward making sure that we are aligning with what our governmental bodies have tasked us to do so still on this I'll just briefly go through I'm not going to read it all because you guys have had it but the the agenda excuse me that the definition that we have for affordable housing as affordable housing is a continuum of equitable inclusive and quality rental and home ownership ownership home ownership opportunities for people at every income level which is critical to creating safe complete and thriving communities and then Ms. Hammond has elevated some facts that we have regarding affordable housing here locally as presented to us and we discussed by Dr. Grady and then we talked about the affordable housing unit goal summary is that we talked about how we is imperative that we set an aggressive realistic goal to help add or preserve affordable housing units within our community and so we will base our goals for the next few years based on the purpose for 2021 and then we have elevated the priorities listed by each of the committees so based on this draft report I'd love to take some input from you guys on this this is just the draft that Ms. Hammond and I put together any additions changes solutions clarifications that you guys believe need to be added so that we can finalize this and get ready for a presentation to both Richmond County Council and City of Columbia don't I'll speak at once Jim I do have in our goal we talk about the number of affordable housing units but we don't talk to the issue that Dr. Grady brings up under facts and that's the lower income number of units that are needed and I'm wondering if we should state a goal for those specific units and that's the extremely low income and low income group okay so Jim do you have any suggested language and I'm thinking as you're talking maybe something about um some kind of addition of language maybe something like giving special attention to citizens in the low income and extremely low income group yeah because as I've heard on this in these meetings I think we're addressing some of the higher income levels and some units are being produced for the for that income group my concern would be for that lower income group that that is 30% or less 40% or less even 50% or less and it sounded like your your language would work if we just put a you know pause in there so I'd like to second that I think that you're absolutely right that's that's needed and I've been listening to Dr. Grady and certainly that number for the lower income just yeah just hit you in the face that I mean it's intuitive because we are the affordable housing task force but I think it would be good for us to state that proactively in it yeah I agree because although it's intuitive to us we're we're serving because we kind of know but as we get out in the community they may not and so that that makes sense um Calvin Davis did you put your hand up yeah I I agree with that and it I think it also helps when you take a look at what we include and talking points that I think that helps to make the case also and it helps to answer the question why that's always out there and so affordable and workforce I think really kind of helps us uh paint the picture of where we need to go in the city and there is a perception that most of the construction are for people of maybe middle to upper income and that's not necessarily the the end goal of the committee thank you Liana I think what you'll also find is a lot of these projects are what we consider mixed use right so they'll include 30 50 60 80 percent all in one development for lack of a better word um so you know as we we go back to that not in my backyard the wording think you know it is it needs to be crafted in a way that you know it it is all good quality whether it's 30 percent or 80 percent but 30 doesn't look and feel different than 80 percent in in in this world so um and and I would kind of defer to Dr. Grady on where where we draw that line as far as is it is it 30 is it 40 is it 50 how do you how do we want to what's the sweet spot as far as that percentage um sure so I can comment on that to some extent um you can see there that the statistic in the in the draft report is from the national owned and housing coalition every other they put out the gap report and they really highlight that um the the need really is in the in that ELI range um because once once you even move up just a little bit from that um there's a substantial increase in the number of housing units that are affordable and available not necessarily everywhere but writ large statewide um so I mean that's sort of why I focused on that and I focused on that in the preliminary estimates of of market needs so so yeah I would certainly be in favor of some language that says uh that the place is an explicit focus on uh producing and preserving housing for for that population okay yeah I I agree and plus a lot a lot of those 30 percent uh individuals are at a state in their lives where um more than likely their income is not going to increase just because they are um aging in place you know some of our golden age seniors or um individuals who are um you know they might have some income but um they might be disabled with you know with a limited amount of income they might be working but the income is is limited so um I agree that I'm able to make sure we cover um I think it makes sure we we really cover housing across just the spectrum because we're we're looking at the 30 percent they were also you know able to cover as uh councilman Dave you say cover those people that we think of as the workforce housing um folk who might be above the 30 percent but somewhere in between the 80 and the 30 any additional comments before I kind of give y'all a ward smith version okay so to adequately address the needs of affordable housing in our community it is imperative that we set aggressive but realistic goals to help add and preserve um this is add or preserve affordable housing units giving special attention to low income and extremely low income resident needs so look at you Eric I was like what in the world is going on my computer does that does that um feel comfortable to everybody and just let me take a break for a second Alice and I just wanted to bring you up what we're talking about we're reviewing the affordable housing task force report draft um just getting any input um and what we were sharing is that what we talked about last time is that after we can final we finalize this then um this can be presented to both of our bodies so we want to make sure that it adequately um reflects our discussion and our goals so that as it's communicated to the governmental bodies it's clear as to what we've been working on do you want to add anything thank you yes and you know um I love the uh do we use the word aggressive I think I heard that word in there so that's um exciting to me um I would also just say you know I want to be careful about um one of the things that kind of sticks with me is the use of like um like workforce in uh housing simply because to me it kind of haunders up the images of like you know I'm from Kentucky and you know there are farms that have these kind of like you know trailers pulled up on them for the you know temporary workers or just you know incredibly low wage earners to live in which kind of um brings to mind to for me that image of like well we're gonna subsidize people essentially paying uh super low wages to people um that that always kind of sticks with me so I want to be careful about the use of the word like workforce housing or the term workforce housing does that make sense so I don't think we're I know councilman Davis was talking just in general I don't think we use workforce housing in this draft um so that's your concern that we don't use we don't use that right is that your yeah I would in yeah just in general would would like to you know avoid that that term if we can think of um use a better term I know what we're talking about is we're talking about you know working people who can't uh really afford the housing that's available in the community I get that um but I also don't want to give employers permission to pay low wages because hey they're gonna be covered with um you know being you know they're gonna there's gonna be subsidized housing for their low income workers does that make sense yeah it does okay so yeah we're not we're not using that term in here and I think we've talked about it a little bit before about um you know even transitioning to using attainable um a little bit in our in our definition we yeah make sure that we put attainable in here because we want people to understand that it's what's attainable and there's different income levels um yeah so yeah that's um and that's really all I have to say about it right now okay all right so in committee uh committee priorities um we can go through each of them um we can go through it actually as we're talking about committee reports and see if anybody has anything add to add but under accessibility we have that the accessibility committee will delve into solutions for making access to quality affordable housing a reality for people within special proper populations i.e. people with mental illness, formerly incarcerated persons, people with disabilities, seniors, and other populations does that feel comfortable yes okay um we have under financing the finance committee will identify effective affordable housing financing tools that can be utilized current tools under consideration include but are not limited to the city of Columbia local affordable housing tax abatement program social impact fund for private investors an affordable housing bond one-cent sales tax program tax increment financing multi-county industrial park legislation unclaimed state funds land banks and affordable housing impact fees and a countywide trust fund does that feel comfortable all right so legal and zoning the legal and zoning committee will review laws needed to advance affordable housing opportunities laws that are in are an impediment to affordable housing and zoning changes necessary to support the development of more affordable housing other areas of focus include mechanisms to address the issue of providing assistance and funding for persons facing eviction and innovative ideas for the reuse of abandoned properties like hotels and motels partnerships committee the partnership committee will bring together partners such as other nonprofits and community-based organizations that can help support the mission of the affordable housing task force okay that's just okay and then public education awareness committee in collaboration with the partnerships committee the public education awareness committee will develop a strategy to help communicate the message of what affordable housing is and why it is needed while working to dispel negative stereotypes about affordable housing and who we serve we want to start a success story model the goal is to demonstrate the work and positive side of affordable housing to debunk the miss and work with opposition so we feel comfortable with with the priorities of all of our committees okay and i'ma go back um mary louise had a comment about under the outreach categories under outreach categories can we please add building trades this is critical population educate on the need and help formulate a plan especially when the cost of building materials are so high so jennifer i know brenna's not here did y'all discuss that yeah a little bit but brenna think brenna was more the one coming up with the talking points and things like that so does anybody have a counter to why that should not be included in an outreach category so mary louise we will we will add that erica if you could note that we're gonna add building trades and that's trads building trades yes uh is when you're looking at the report would it fit nicely with any of the existing categories or should it be its own category i kind of think about it somewhat in the business and in business and community because i was thinking when she said building trades i thought about like the home builders um and i know um you know they've been uh they've been instrumental in and kind of communicating some things through the chamber and others but a specific outreach to them because they represent the the home builders and and other developers um i don't and i guess i don't know that shayla i don't know if you know that question like do the home the or a lot of any you might know do the developers like a like the kevin connelly is in the reggie bonners did they are they part of the home builders association most of them are it's it's a membership organization just like any other statewide organization so they would be members it would um the level of engagement may vary from developer to developer if you follow me on that okay so erica may be under their business and community um you add um you know uh builder building trades or yeah like bia and cyclone yeah home builders association so somehow maybe included in there you're trying to figure out how to put it in what we have existing but specify it is that what you're looking at erica great and that was my initial thought to put it with that group but i just wanted consensus because like we have funding entities and real estate partners um i think that's good so maybe building community and then and building trade or business and community and then building freight all right thank you um i have a suggestion um maybe we should put um with this business and community we can put um housing developers um and that would cover some of the building trades organizations and it would also cover the organizations who are who we are going to extend a reach out that are not necessarily um you know might not necessarily be in columbia but might be somewhere else throughout the country that are willing to come to assist us in meeting our goals so it doesn't limit us to just looking at the the building trades uh folk in our uh community but we can certainly you know include those who are outside of the community as well great hearing business community and housing developers yes okay thank you mary louise talked about um remodellers um would though uh yes i think they would be asked to answer your question are they included would they be would they consider themselves ivory housing developers i think they are they they uh some of them consider themselves as as housing developers and then some also consider themselves as real estate partners um just you know based on what they consider themselves as yeah but i i think they would certainly fit in either one of the categories and we have real estate partners already listed under the funding entities all right any other feedback or input on the outreach categories so seeing none erica's making these these changes and then we can send these out and then um once we're all good with this and approved um allison tell me how you want to handle your body i my proposal would be my proposal would be that um we we work with miss hamant to see if we can get an official presentation to our council um just we can send a report but i want to make sure it's read and digested and understood so i think a presentation um in addition to the report is useful for for my colleagues so um we'll work with that and uh put it on an agenda upcoming agenda for a brief presentation to city council and then anybody can ask any questions you all all of you guys don't have to be there but certainly we would like you to be there as members of the task force um during the presentation and we'll make sure right now they're still all zoom and we'll send you that information so that would be my preference for uh priest um how we disseminate this information to the city of columbia allison what is your thought and preference about brishon county um i like that idea um as you may know our council presentations tend to be pretty short and um at the beginning of the session so um it will have to be kind of very high level um but i do think it is great to get the information out to council members and then also just gauge support and interest um currently the motion recording of affordable housing is sitting in um the committee that i chair the development and services um so i we can probably get you know uh more of kind of a work session going um in one of those committee meetings and then just invite people to join us hold on i'm gonna have to haunt my form okay that's fine okay so um so miss hamman you can work with um council woman to ratio about kind of the county thing and we'll disseminate that information to the the task force and then once you can look as far as the city goes what that might look like just send we'll send that out as well okay thank you okay um council woman um divine do we have um do we have any plans to present this information to the brishon county legislative delegation i think that's a great idea um miss matthews i can we can make those arrangements um currently city council is um we are actually um meeting individually with members of the delegation this week um i think the mayor is chairing some meetings yesterday today um part of the meeting for tomorrow so um i will i'll work with them but i think you're right i think of actual presentations of them probably would be difficult um because i don't think they kind of come together like that but certainly what we can do is maybe um a letter um from us along with our report um sending it to them and then those who may be particularly interested to hear more maybe we can set up a meeting with them that's a great idea you're right which kind of leads us into some of the other things i wanted to jump into so if we're okay with this um we can move on in our agenda any other thoughts or comments or questions on our report to our legislative bodies yes um council woman divine regina williams has posted is there a plan or wording for outreach to form partnerships with youth and communities to include these persons to learn trades uh not really um regina we could talk offline about that i'm not sure exactly what i mean so i think you're talking about more of uh like a workforce development is that what you're talking about regina you can come off mute go ahead or she might be doing something well if she can't come off mute regina you and i can talk offline about that if you're talking more workforce development um i don't know if it would oh there you are off mute you want to say something am i off mute yeah yeah i can hear you we can hear you oh okay yes um just wondering if we could somehow um incorporate the youth or the underemployed into the wording so that um when we make this presentation people will know that we are we do have this group of um spoke in the plans so are you talking more like for workforce development or yes and um learning trades so i'm not exactly sure that so i'm not exactly sure that is part of so what we're talking about is more the provision of the affordable housing and having quality housing i think right probably go more under i think you probably thought about that because we were talking about the home builders and that kind of stuff i think that's right a separate issue i mean it's definitely that we would support because you're if you're working if you do workforce development then you're helping people with income and and things like that but i don't know if it's exactly fits to be written in our plan okay okay yeah thanks but i'm glad that you elevate that because i do think that um as we as we continue to talk about partners and this might be more of the partnership committee as we talk about partners and regina you and i've talked about this i think the home builders and others having apprenticeship programs and others to keep people to let people to train more people in this field is useful to us and so as we establish more of a partnership with the home builders and and bia and others i think workforce development needs to be a something that we're talking to them about like how they can further support our mission so we can talk about that as a kind of a separate but i don't think that's really part of this report okay thank you they have reached out to me and um the fact that they have insurance to incorporate these both into their um into you know their building process is something that was was good but i do thank you for listening okay sounds good all right okay so now that we are finished with this i i just want to and then i'm gonna i'm gonna kind of give some remarks and then i'm going to kick it over to dr grady and miss colman who who is here and thank you so much co i said colman it's is it co jennifer what's your last name i want to make sure kogan right okay kogan so i'm gonna let i'm let dr grady and miss kogan talk but y'all i'm excited i've been sending y'all and i can't sometimes y'all excuse me i don't want to inundate y'all and send under your inboxes are probably like mine so i try not to send a whole whole lot of stuff um but there's so many things happening um that's really exciting and so um i just want to make sure that everybody kind of saw some of the announcements last week um i've said before that i i'm very excited about the the biden harris administration a lot of things that they're doing that i think completely aligns with the priorities that we set and some of the things that we want to do um i was uh i think additionally ecstatic um by the appointment and confirmation of secretary marsha fudge at hood not only has she been a mentor to me over many many years um and former president of my my sorority but she's an amazing amazing woman and i know that as a former mayor of her city and someone who grew up in public housing she gets affordable housing she and i've had several conversations over the years about affordable housing in our country and things that we need to do and so with her as the hood secretary i am just ecstatic because i know that she's going to get the job done and she's going to make bold moves and she has not disappointed last week um there were two announcements made uh regarding uh funds that will help uh state and local governments as far as affordable housing they are part of the american rescue plan but they are additional funds that come through additional um existing programs um and when i heard about the announcements and kind of watch her press conference particularly the one she did on on thursday um i was really excited and i was emailing gloria and others and say what can we do how can we take advantage of of these resources i know um you know miss matthews there's probably going to be some additional resources for you and what you do and and lala anna and us all but um it's a lot um and as i continue to get information i don't want to push out information without having all the the data and the guidelines so we'll continue to push out information once we learn more but um but with what she announced uh last week with the additional monies that are coming uh to the city under or two local state state governments under the national housing trust fund um i reached out um and dr grady um actually i talked to the shop shop at um late night i thank her y'all give her this kogan and dr grady give her my thanks because she accepted she took my call at 8 30 thursday night um and said you know yes this is definitely something that we're gonna you know we're going to be excited about and make sure that we get this money out but um and talking with dr grady i said you know what how does this work what does this mean and he said well you know i and and miss kogan can talk about what does that mean as far as additional support um and so um i'm going to let dr grady and miss kogan talk about specifically what does this allocation mean and what so we can be aware of how different groups are going to be able to access this money to do affordable housing um but i also just want to say lastly is that this is just i think from what i hear um in national league of cities has been in conversations with administration this is just going to be one of many things that i think we're going to see of more resources coming for homelessness prevention um for rehab and and building exist um new affordable housing for transforming along just aligns exactly what we have in our draft report transforming old motels and malls and other things being creative and how to add affordable housing with um abandoned structures that are already in our community so there's going to be a lot of things what i do want is for all of us to be aware because i do believe that a lot of times we're going to have to be very quick on our feet to get access to some of these things and so um so i'm going to let dr grady ms kogan talk about it but sometimes mayor louise sent me and i should shot out to all of you guys about a letter that home um that habitat was asking the sign on for to ask the governor to request money some of these things we've got to be up on this on guidelines all the time some money comes directly to us the city of colombia russia county we're in tidal month areas and so some money will come directly to us sometimes money is available and your states have to apply for it um and so you know that that's a role that i would like our task force to play sometimes is that you know um you know we were we were aware through habitats um diligence um about this money that has to be requested um and from our information it kind of it may not even been on the governor's radar um and so there are sometimes things happen and you know if we don't act and we don't act quickly then our state loses out and i think that's been happened a long time before so y'all if i send y'all alerts um read it and see how we can disseminate that in our our um organizations because i think that there will be a lot of opportunities over the next at least year two years of funds coming and being available we're going to have to be very quick to take advantage of it so that's my little um um would you say ml it is now yes we we we we've got it's a lot going on but anyway with that said i'm gonna let dr grady and miss kogan talk um but i'm excited i think there are a lot of opportunities but and i think we are uniquely positioned to take advantage of them but we gotta uh we gotta be aware of them first so dr grady if you would go and miss kogan talk about the national house of trust fund money and what does that mean for the state of south carolina sure so so i think what i'm gonna do first is because you you ran through all the different uh types of of funding that are rallying around so i just want to like make sure everybody has has a good handle on different provisions from different federal um federal legislation that affects housing so um um one thing to note is that we have um house bill 3770 which is if it's not literally on the governor's desk it will be soon for his signature um that would authorize sc housing to administer emergency rental assistance funding in the 39 counties that did not receive a dedicated allocation so richland was one of the seven that has their own pot of money and they've launched their program i believe it launched last monday um for applications so uh so that's one pot of money from the december federal appropriation um in the march bill um when will you release this uh sue that that is to be determined quickly uh certainly the the legislation task to work with a third party consultant as well as an advisory board and uh if the governor signs the bill we certainly intend to get out out the door as fast as humanly possible but i don't have a specific date um at that point so that is uh i believe 271 million dollars of funds so um now in the march bill there were several other things a there was a second round of rental assistance um which the state and counties will get somewhere in the ballpark at least 274 million and then there's also the homeowner assistance fund which councilman divine mentioned which uh would provide an allocation of funds uh for for mortgage assistance um treasury has not even released guidance on what those will look like so it is way too early to say who will be administering that what that looks like but there was also uh five billion dollars nationally in home appropriations that's designed for homelessness prevention services um so i went ahead and pulled the numbers on that so that um uh the state total the statewide non entitlement community total is is 26 million in change um city of columbia will get two and a half million richland county will get 2.7 million so that's money that's designed as i said for homelessness prevention helping those extremely low-income households um find and and and maintain housing stability um so that was also in in the um american rescue plan um the the pot of money that we're talking about today is is the national housing trust fund which is actually um not an appropriation it's an annual fund that is um basically there's a little teeny tiny slice of every fanny may and freddy mac transaction that goes into this this pot of money um it's been it was created in 2008 but didn't receive any funding until 2016 um it happened to get a big increase in in in collections this past year as as despite the pandemic the home ownership market it was obviously very very robust so um so the amount of money that is going to uh south carolina and specifically two sc housing uh roughly doubled to a little less than eight million dollars so we um in the past have used that money uh in our small rental development program which as the name would imply uh helps build and and rehabilitate rental housing um that serves low-income households um that is typically a smaller development than you would get through a low-income housing tax credit property um so i uh once once uh councilman divide expressed sort of interest in this topic i had uh i wanted to get jennifer online because she actually she's our director of community development she actually administers um uh with both the the home and and national housing trust fund programs for us so um jennifer can certainly go into more detail on on the logistics of national housing trust fund what what it can be used for and uh answer any sort of detailed subject matter questions that that anybody might have so hopefully jennifer is on and can pop in i see her there she may not be able to can everybody hear me now there we go okay good well thank you everybody for having me today um as brian mentioned i do administer the uh national housing we call it national housing trust fund um here at the state agency because we also have of course uh south carolina state funded program um you'll see to the program referred to you by HUD just as housing trust fund but um around here we put national in front of it so we don't um confuse the two funding sources but as as brian mentioned we are we're excited this year to see uh the increase in the allocation we began um actually receiving funding and deploying those funds um actually you know the as brian mentioned it was finally capitalized in 2016 and we had our first funding round in 2017 and so since 2018 we have been combining this funding source with our home investment partnerships program and our state housing trust fund and our small rental development program which um right now uh this year and in previous years has pretty much uh financed the development of affordable housing developments between um four and 39 units so in the past um few years though the program has become pretty competitive which we're excited about which means we don't have to leave any money on the table at the end of the application cycle which is always a good thing but that program this year will be accepting applications um in a two-tier system the tier of ones are due on may 14th and then august 31st for those that qualify to go to tier two those applications will come in but uh national housing trust fund is unique in that um it is it can only serve folks that that meet that ELI's um income the 30 percent and below um it's also unique in that whereas most of the HUD community development programs you won't see an affordability period beyond 20 years um national housing trust fund has to be remain affordable for 30 years so that makes it a little bit more challenging um the one of the reasons why we've combined it with our small rental development program is um we've kind of created an underwriting model that allows us to utilize um the home and the south carolina housing trust fund units in these developments to kind of support the higher income brackets to kind of make up where you're going to not get that income from um the cash flow from the um national housing trust fund units that are serving the 30 percent in AMI so what we typically see is in a project about six of the six or more units um about the maximum amount of national housing trust fund that really works that's financially feasible and cash flows for that duration is to have about 25 percent of those units serving this 30 percent envelope of AMI um we do have um a set of rehab standards that HUD is required us to submit as the state that get approved as part of our action plan so if um folks are going to uh apply to utilize the funding for rehabilitation there are specific requirements for that rehab that have been approved by HUD but um with the small rental development program you can apply for new construction um and or uh rehabilitation for affordable housing um I open up to any anybody anybody's got any specific questions about the funding source um or the application process Jennifer I have one so just thinking so Dr um Dr Grady and I'm sorry Miss Cogan and we'll make sure I have to be consistent that Dr Grady mentioned um about double amounts of eight million so and I know you don't know what the what the applications will look like but based on experience and what you've had coming in and what you've been able to fund realistically what does this mean can we see more projects actually getting funded and done because of this money and is there a time frame that you have to spend this money sure so we have um two years to commit the funding um we are all uh caught up on our commitment um obligations for previous previous years which is exciting and the um some of the changes we've made recently to small rental development have have allowed us to do that they have um really increased a lot of interest in the program with developers and it's gone from being a non competitive program to a competitive program so last year I think we had about 30 million dollars available and about 60 or 70 million in requests so we're expecting to see similar demand is not even higher this year so they we typically get around three million a year as well as what we've previously been getting so the increase to the 7.7 million is is definitely exciting um but where it should allow us to get some more units produced but then at the same time we are facing you know these really um exorbitant construction costs that um just really we haven't seen increases like this um in a long time so it may um also come in useful you know to um to help us head off some of those um those you know the exorbitant I think we're seeing 40 percent increase in development costs um so it may also help to offset some of those costs as well thank you and the application just if anybody's interested the application is is actually on our website and it's available anybody else have any questions from Ms. Cogan Lilley uh soon to be Dr. Solz we're four days um so it it's more of a comment this just just as information um we've had the privilege of working with Jennifer and her team on this project and it is actually what funded Myrtle Grove which will um welcome families on they first so again when we talk about that mixed use 30, 50, 60 um Councilman Davis this was a project that we were able to develop that included all all levels of income and it was um based on on that formula of 25 percent of the units being available to 30 percent um and it was it was accepted um by the by the neighborhood by the community um and it you know they're beautiful so um we're particularly excited about this because it does offer smaller developers like almost no more versus those that can come in and do 200 units at a time and I will say it is gorgeous I've drove through there this weekend and it looks so good I can't wait till May 1st um other questions for Ms. Cogan well thank you so much y'all this is exciting and I just I definitely think this shows that we we've got a tide that's turning and I think we'll hopefully support the the mission that we have um I think this means it's definitely all the more critical um particularly Jennifer and Bruna the the work that your committee committee will be leading for us because we want to be able to utilize these funds um but you know from from of course my experience and um Councilman Davis and Councilwoman Teresia could probably speak to this you know when you have everything aligning but then you have the community not understanding and accepting it sometimes complicates and slows down the process so um we want to be able to take advantage of of these opportunities as they come and I think there will be more that um but thank you Dr. Grady and Ms. Cogan for the work that you have been doing um we know the extra money although it was exciting for all of us um makes you guys have to do more work but uh we're excited and I think this this means a lot um before we close um and then I'll open it up see if anybody has anything to add um I'm sorry Erica um pointed out that I did not go over uh so Bruna and Jennifer worked on um these talking points um so if y'all look the paperwork that says housing and I love this putting the us in housing I love that that's that's great that y'all came up with that and it has it talks about who we are what we do um and it just gives some some facts um so y'all look at that and we will um talk about it next week when Bruna and Jennifer both are here or if y'all want to communicate with them offline by email on any um anything you want to add to this but I think this is a great document and thank y'all for putting this together Jennifer did you want to say anything about no all credit goes to Bruna she did a great job with it so um with that said um does anybody have any questions announcements I will announce like I just mentioned congratulations to soon to be Dr. Sol she has been working really hard I'm getting her PhD and on Friday we will be here we will be calling her Dr. Sol's and so we're so proud of you excited um for your journey your completion of your journey and looking forward to uh continuing all the great work that you're doing in the community congratulations thank you um my announcement is more about that um so we we welcome families on May 1st um to Myrtle Grove officially however we will have an official re-hanging ceremony we don't do a ribbon cutting we literally hang a wreath um and that has been scheduled for April 28th at 9 a.m. um we'll uh try to get the word out it will be socially distanced it will you know use of PPE etc um but um please if you were able to join us um we'd love we'd love to have you out after a very short ceremony you'll be able to actually tour the units and the the development and that is 15 new units and then we may meet before then we'll also welcome families back to family shelter that ribbon cutting will take place on um May 27th um and those renovations are done and we'll we'll reopen the shelter in a new administrative space so stay tuned for official invites but mark your calendars thank you mayor louise you're on mute you want to call in are you going to put it in chat okay all right anybody else while she is typing her announcement miss matthews do you have anything going on yes i do um i would like to um extend a personal invitation to all of you to join us tomorrow if you're available at four o'clock via zoom uh we have a very uh interactive presentation that we will be sharing with the community about our initiatives and putting residents first and so we'd certainly like to share that information with you some of you that are on the call today are um make it possible for us to put our residents first through the variety of partnerships and services that we offer our residents from infants to our golden age seniors so we would certainly love for you to join us if you can't join us we are going to be uh recording the presentation and place it on our youtube channel for uh future viewing awesome thank you all right let me check the chat so mayor louise everyone is invited to dedication of two new homes 28 17 peach tree peach street in kasey come see what today's habitat home looks like 4 p.m so that's today at 4 o'clock mayor louise nope okay she's gonna give us the date may 4th okay may 4th at 4 o'clock and erica will put all this down and we'll send this all these dates out to everybody so that you have it certainly as we all do this work together we also want to lift up amplify and support everybody else's individual work that they're doing in their organization so as we can make things available then we'll do that um anybody else uh uh no that was my hand i was like is that a hand suit but that was my my mouse over you but soon do you have anything only that i had um offered to put together a presentation on the housing eviction court that is going on down in charleston and i think it's a really good program it's mitigating the problem some of the problems down there getting representation for tenants so that there's actual negotiations with landlords and also so because of that um lessening the use of eviction as a collection form and helping people stay in their housing so um i i look forward to putting that together so we currently have that tentatively have that scheduled y'all for our main meeting so um as long as we can get the necessary folks we'll have that thank you stew so much for putting that together for us and i guess let me just say this too um sue and i will hopefully we'll be able to send something out to you guys but councilman howard deval and i have been talking and working with sue and jennifer i know she had to drop off um another thing i just want to make sure y'all know so that you can communicate this to the folks that you guys serve under the american rescue plan there's also um an expansion of the child income tax credit earn income tax credit um and they will they will be monthly payments that families will start receiving in july um the the kicker is that people have to have had to file taxes in order to get that and so there are some people who don't have income or don't feel like they need to file taxes so working with jennifer and united way and the vita program we will be able to assist folks that have not filed their 2020 taxes um so to make them eligible for these benefits so once we can actually get something in writing um and and sue i'll i'll be i'll get with you by thursday i've got an nlc meeting tomorrow on this topic and i wanted to just get their information um so i'll get with you by thursday once we get something in writing we'll send that out and if any of you guys uh ivory if you want us to do something for your residents or work with your your sustainability people a lot of anna your your folks jeff your folks if y'all want us to come and and um make a presentation and get that information out uh we'll certainly um want to do that but we want to make sure every single family who can take advantage of these credits um do if you have a child zero to five it's an extra thirty six hundred dollars a year um so we want to make sure that our families um get access to this because it's their money um so i did want to say that any other announcements jeff you you talked about family promise last time but you want to elevate that date again sure april 24th at 6 p.m it's free we have our virtual gala coming up um home of divine we'll be speaking we have some celebrity guests and we have our own much smaller gold than than this task force but we want to have 25 housing units by 2025 and we're doing that with some partnerships with our 33 congregations throughout the bedland so we're excited and we'll be speaking a little bit more about that during the gala great jim y'all have your nea my assembly coming up you want to announce that we do it uh is coming up uh next monday uh next monday the monday next monday after this next monday um we expect over 1600 people that'll be in a zoom format uh just like this uh uh we're actually requesting a couple of things one is uh gvi for um richland county to actively pursue that in the city to actually uh pursue that and we're also asking for the establishment of a housing trust fund richland county we're excited about it um it's at 6 30 uh i'll put my email address out so if you want to attend just give me just give me a call or an email tanya's putting in the chat tanya no you can make that announcement tanya oh everyone good afternoon good afternoon i was just telling to me about the uh mentioning the project of the library that we're doing out here in north front states that she has so graciously helped us with and pretty much sent it all up so um that's something we're doing out here north point on saturday at 2 p.m we're going to be doing the varnishing of our bookshelves that were um donated back to miss samika divine and we thank her for that and we'll be having an opening date soon we'll be putting out an invite to everyone to come out to the opening of the library before we open it up thank you tanya and tanya's giving me credit jayme and i helped get the books donated and sponsored some of the materials but tanya and the moms and the kids out there are really putting this library together so we're hoping this could be a model for all other communities um to you know have residents come together and and do something for their own communities so when we get pictures and everything on this we'll send that out and so you know jeff lyle and all your communities that don't work with hopefully we can we can replicate this model um anything else um shayla chris alice and anything else regina i don't want to leave anybody out if y'all have anything i just want to thank you all this feels this feels so real so um um hello hello everybody i didn't want to interrupt anyone um i do have some news it may be a little too early to speak on it so i'll probably speak on it and next time it'll be firmed up next time we meet but we will have some more single family affordable homes coming from um some of the partners that i worked with in the past so i'm excited about that and i will speak more on it once i have more firm locations for you awesome thank you thanks for all the work you're doing anybody else chris you have anything no ma'am nothing for me today uh but i appreciate the opportunity thank you for all your hard work and everyone's hard work on this call it's exciting to see uh some progress so thank you all awesome okay and regina just put in the chat just adding to the library um uh that uh the kids also were were giving the kids a stipend um for working on putting up the library so that they can then also uh learn more about how to use their money and save so i forgot about that piece ma'am louise says if anybody's hand sanitizer call her um so anyway so with that said if all hearts and minds are clear we are um we are done this this month um erica will send out the revised draft um if anybody has anything for brina on the talking points email her otherwise we'll we'll provide the talking points along with the drafts and then alice and i will get uh with erica on the dates of the presentations to the different um bodies and we'll let you guys know so that if your schedule permits for you to be available dylan i'm sorry dylan did you have anything uh nothing pressing today no i appreciate it though okay i'm sorry i missed you so we'll we'll send that in um we'll get y'all on agendas and then next month everything worked out we will have a presentation by the eviction court so if nothing else thank you guys for your time thank you for all your hard work as chris said yes we are seeing progress and i'm excited and i think that there are a lot of things aligning so we're just going to keep pushing forward um and we'll make sure that everybody has uh the dates of all the upcoming uh ribbon cutting everything else so that we can support each other so with that said you guys have a great week and i'll see y'all next month if not before