 Welcome to everyone. I am John Hornick of the Amherst Affordable Housing Advocacy Coalition and also chair of the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust. I want to thank those organizations and the League of Women Voters of Amherst as well as the town of Amherst for cosponsoring this event. We've also had help from at least 20 other community organizations in publicizing. So thanks to all. I'm going to briefly orient you to the plan for this evening, and then we'll begin. John, can you switch to the agenda slide please? Okay, that'll be up in a minute. It should be on screen. Let me just say, as you will hear this evening, the path to homeownership for low income households is not easy in Amherst. The three organizations that we'll be presenting tonight, Amherst Community Land Trust, Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity, and Valley Community Development are all doing their level best. Honestly, only two to three new households achieve homeownership in a good year, and there are years when unfortunately that number is zero. The goals for this evening are to understand what these three organizations are doing now, what the barriers are, and what we need to do to improve in the future. We will also hear from three homeowners who will talk about the benefits of homeownership for their households and how they were able to achieve this goal. Let me briefly introduce also the team working on this. In addition to the people you will hear from tonight, Francis Goye's floor will be moderating with me. Carol Lewis is racially volunteered to courteously but firmly keep our speaking to time limits that we have set. Nate Malloy, senior town planner will manage the webinar software, and John Page will be tracking questions in the chat. If you have questions, please post them in the chat, and John will do his best to break in when appropriate to ask them on your behalf. If we don't get to them all tonight, we'll try to respond by email in the next few days. When we come to the open-ended part of the discussion, which is a little past midway, please raise your hand if you wish to speak, and Nate or John will unmute you. Before I turn things over to Francis to moderate the first panel, I do have one request. Please put your name and email address in the chat so that we have a record of who's attending. Thank you all for your assistance. That's my turn. Thank you so much everybody for coming. We're very excited for this amazing group of people that have joined us and to hear more about what they're all doing to increase homeownership opportunities for folks all around the valley. First, we'll hear from Linda Slaki from the Amherst Community Land Trust. Linda, we'd just love to hear a little bit more about what you've done, what you hope to do, and just for folks that are familiar just about your organization at large. Thank you, Francis, and thank you, John, for offering us the opportunity to share the work of the Amherst Community Land Trust. I'm going to be showing a few slides. So, Nate, I'll ask if you'll take this down so that I can share a screen. Thank you. There we go. So, John asked us to address what we thought were the main obstacles to affordable home ownership, and the one that's really central to what the Amherst Community Land Trust does is simply the prohibitive cost of purchase. Over the last few decades, Amherst has gone from having homes that are affordable for our local workforce to having the least expensive homes on the market pay out of reach for families earning at the area median income of $77,000. And a recent home sale won a very few below $300,000 recently closed at $256,000. And to manage that by the usual criteria that you don't take on a home costing more than two and a half times your annual income, that would mean a household income of just over $100,000 a year. So, it turns out that in Amherst, the land value is typically a third to a half of the value of the homes that go on the market. So, the basic land trust model is one of share ownership, where the family owns the home and the trust owns the land. And in the current market, that's just enough to bring the cost of purchase back within the reach of area median income more a little bit lower. And then the relationship between ACLT and the homeowner is laid out in a green, a ground lease. And the ground lease is for 99 years and renewable, and it specifies that the home must be owner occupied, which addresses a second part of our mission which is to try to sustain the family character of Amherst neighborhoods. And the affordability is perpetual because the land always stays in the ownership of the trust. And the homeowner agrees at the time they signed the ground lease that the resale value of the home should they choose to leave it and sell it will be capped at what they've paid rising only proportional to the rise in area median income over the time they held the house. I just hit the forward button and for some reason it didn't advance the slide. Do I need to stop the share to do that maybe I do. Sorry, I practices at home didn't have this problem that changed. I'm just going to go back to the this where I can change them manually. So the land trust model has actually been around for a long time it started post civil war. And it's also in more current times been active in a number of university towns. But it's new to Amherst, and we'll celebrate the seventh anniversary of our incorporation this coming summer. So it's actually been critical to our success that we have partners who are more experienced than we are. Back to the one before. Sorry, sorry about that folks I don't seem to be able to get out of using the version that I can edit in and switch the slides. I hope everybody can see that I, I'm a little bit afraid that we can see your third slide. Okay, okay. You're still looking at the first one. No we're looking at the partnership has been key. Okay, and you can see the whole slide. Yes. Okay. Okay, fine. Thank you. So the art. The two projects that we've done one completed the first one and the second one in progress depended crucially on the partnership of the town, which has been providing the major funding for us through the community preservation act funds, and then we're going to be crucially on, especially the partnership of habitat for humanity and valley community development, who are much more experienced than we are managing this kind of project. So in the first project we bought the land from the North Amherst community farm and habitat built the house and also manage the selection and mentoring of the homeowners. We'll hear from one of those homeowners in a few minutes. In the second project again CPA funded a first time home buyer subsidy project and offer two families and we've worked with valley community development on that to both to market the project and to collect and mentor the home buyers. So one of those projects is complete we have one family in their new home and the second family still looking. Linda you're at about five minutes. And I'll just tell you a little bit more about where the resources come from for the, the homes that we are working with. In addition to the, the funding that I called your attention to from the town the interface housing corporations and individual donations have been but surprisingly to us and and also to the National Land Trust meeting organization, another major resource has been the willingness of a number of our members to donate their own properties. And the total value of the commitments we have in hand under that heading is slightly more than a million dollars. And what we've implemented is 14 best in street, which was the home of our founding president Maureen Adams, and I want to end my own remarks by acknowledging that the gift of her property is only the most outwardly visible mark of her contribution to a CLT. Her level of commitment and her organizational skills were absolutely crucial for turning this from an idea into a going concern. Thank you. Thank you so much, Linda. Community Land Trust are an incredible model and it's really awesome to see that be implemented here. I know that in Boston, deadly street neighborhood initiative is one of the oldest Land Trust in the country. So we are lucky to be in a state where it's put to use. Excellent. So quickly before moving forward, it looks like folks are trying to put their names and emails in the chat, but it doesn't seem like there is a chat option. So just IT pointing that out. I'm looking, I think this is Nate. I think the way the town's Zoom format, I'm not finding a chat based on the Zoom information. It should be available, but I'm not seeing it as an option. Sometimes I'm still looking. Well, we'll think about what to do about that. But moving right along, I would love to hear from Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity, Megan, McDonough, we are very excited to hear from you. So floor is yours. Thank you. So Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity builds homes in both Franklin and Hampshire counties. We do, we're an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International, but we're a local nonprofit organization here in the Valley. We see the work we do with home ownership as breaking the cycle of poverty for people. It's a generational change that can be made by moving towards home ownership. There have been studies that show that home ownership leads to increases in graduation rates, better health for children, net family wealth. It also is something that's really, this quote from back in 2007 about a safe affordable home being like a vaccine, I think is something that is very poignant today as we have been experiencing what it's like to shelter in place. So, we have built 46 homes since 1989. And it's 12 of those have been in Amherst. Amherst, the town has been a great partner in that. And we really couldn't do it without all of these partnerships, because the way that we build homes is with the community. These are old pictures. We don't have big crowds like that out there today. But there have been thousands of hours of sweat equity contributed it to our homes from community members from the future homeowners themselves. And that is something that just is unique I think to the Habitat model is that this is a picture of one of our home homeowners and they lift the hammers themselves. All of our homeowners must demonstrate that they have a housing need and ability to pay an affordable mortgage and a willingness to partner with us in the construction process. Right now, we are finishing houses in shootsberry and in Northampton to single family homes that should be finished later this spring. We are planning for breaking ground on two houses in Pelham right near the Amherst town line. The application deadline for these two homes was just a couple of weeks ago. And we had over 50 applications for these two houses in Pelham. So there's a really strong desire to live in this area. And we, you know, it's, it's pretty amazing to think of how many people took our applications, not simple, you have to, it's a mortgage application, you have to provide a lot of documentation, a lot of effort went into these applications. Sometimes people in the community think that we give away homes for free. What we actually do is we sell newly constructed homes to people with low incomes. We work with them on accessing affordable mortgage products, or we offer the mortgage ourselves and that's part of that solution. That eligibility includes an ability to pay the affordable market mortgage but they also do sweat equity and work on building the house. I think for the income guidelines for our most recent project in Pelham. I think that when people talk about affordable home ownership. People don't know if it is this for me, or is this for someone else. And I think that that's, it's a pretty narrow window of people we're looking for it's people who have a stable income. We have a minimum income of $29,000 a year, but they're under a maximum income which is 60% of the area median income here, which for a family of four would be about 51,000 so look think about who earns somewhere between 30 and $50,000 per year. A lot of our home owners are single parents. I think that's a aspect of not having to how incomes is really difficult to make that switch towards home ownership. The professions of our homeowners are across the board. They are in a variety of different fields. So they're they're your neighbors. You know, sometimes people get upset because we're not doing home ownership for people who are extremely low income, but when you're a homeowner and you have to deal with the repairs and taxes going up. There is a point where that's why we have a minimum income because we want to make sure there's a little bit of resiliency there. I mentioned earlier that we work with volunteers. All right. Well, we love our volunteers. We've been having to limit them due to COVID-19. So we have small groups right now. We still need volunteers. These are old pictures from when back when we had meetings in person, but pretty much everything's over zoom now. So if there's people who want to get involved, be it for committees, then we're happy to work with them. So thank you, John, and everyone who helped organize tonight's forum. Appreciate being included. You know, mentioning that we have 50 applications for two houses means that we have a big problem here with access to affordable home ownership. There's at least 48 families that I know are still going to be looking after we do our lottery. Megan, thank you so much. The work that you all do is incredible, both at the, of course, the national scale. I think Habitat for Humanities is actually one of the greatest providers of new units in the country, which is incredible and the work you're doing locally. Also, thank you about the challenges to home ownership and sustainable home ownership. So thank you again so much and we'll have a chance to talk more. Up next we have Jane, Jane, your name, your last name I made butcher Jane Lawler from Valley Community Development. Please welcome. Thank you so much, Francis. Thank you, John, for organizing this event tonight. It's a great conversation and Valley is proud to be a part of it. I think Megan ended on a really good point there to have 50 people apply and to know that 48 of them are still going to be looking. You know, I think that, let me say a little bit about Valley, I could not get my PowerPoint up so I'm just going to speak. But Valley historically has developed both single family and multifamily homes. Currently, we own and manage 80 affordable multifamily homes and partner with some projects that are in completion and operating another 136 units. Historically, we've developed 280 units of single family and multifamily housing for low income, primarily low income families. Our homeowner program is Donna Cabana is our homeowner program coordinator. She's fabulous. She's been doing this for a long time and she does a great job of connecting not only with her clients who come to us for services. Thank you, Megan, but also with our community partners and really just has her finger on the pulse of what's happening. And she is really great creative thinking about what needs to happen to really resolve the issues that we're talking about tonight, because in this region she just struggles to find the people who come to her who can have the income to support a mortgage, and our income qualified and then cannot find the housing that that in this market that they can afford. So programs like the Land Trust, what a boom that we've been able to place one family and one of those units and we'll be doing another. I would say that, you know, we, we also have down payment assistance programs that come through CDBG funds or CPA funds. One of the struggles that we see there is that we can have real estate agents who kind of dissuade people from using it they have a lot of easy transactions and we struggle with banks working with those programs as well. And so that's one area I just want to throw out there that more education and, you know, just having friendly partners out there and teaching folks how to get over those hurdles is a big challenge of being able to be effective with the programming that we have available. And Donna does one on one down to earth gritty work with our clients, helping them to prepare to buy a home to look for at the listings that are out there. I think we can talk straight to folks about what their expectations should be what they can accomplish. And I think that working with this clientele it's very important that we've got a good connection of understanding those realities. And watching Donna do her work since I arrived at Valley last year has just been amazing to me that she really is able to do that in a way that I think her clients love her for the help she's given and for the way that she's very down to earth about what the real issues and struggles are. So I think that right now Valley, we're looking to get more creative around the funding sources that we have CPA funding here's one another example that we're talking about CPA funding allows for a little bit higher ceiling of income, which allows us to find more potential home buyers that will have a little bit more income to support a higher mortgage. And also we're just looking at a higher amount of subsidy or down payment assistance to help to really make it worthwhile. For all the parties involved for people to kind of see the value of having some additional money to help with down payment assistance or any other subsidies such as the land trust that helps to accomplish a purchase for low and modern income folks. So, that's us in a nutshell. I didn't give us the I didn't give the whole picture of Valley but we are developing affordable multi family units we have a pipeline it's active and we also do small business counseling assistance to low and moderate income and our mission statement is to empower underserved populations in the region. And I don't know what can do that providing some folks access to home ownership. It's a huge opportunity for people to build wealth and stability in their lives so we look forward to this conversation and continuing to work with all of you. Wonderful Jane thank you so much. Excellent and I think if I'm not mistaken we also have some folks from way finders in the room. Oh, and we have an echo. Okay, so we have Mel and tuna and Sally Tejada on assisting runners to become homeowners. So you guys have the floor now. Thank you, Francis. My name is Sally. I am the property manager of Olympia Oaks and but on our farm St. Amherst mass. And I have with us is Mel and tuna he's the vice president of property and asset management and faith William who is the senior vice president of property and asset management here with us. I want to thank you guys for the invitation. This is a great discussion. We have a lot of new families in our portfolio and Amherst that have purchased homes within the last 12 months. I have about six families which is great. One of those families purchase in Amherst the other ones to purchase in the surrounding areas. We have brought over to our community members programs to assist them on how to budget financial literacy. We have a lot of resources and part of that is also the way finders way finders has that line of business where we could bring them over to our community rooms and give that our tenants that opportunity. While we have done that, because of COVID, we have limited our usage of our community room but we're looking to bring in those resources back to our tenants. So they could have the opportunity to meet their goals. And it's very important to acknowledge that the reason why these tenants have been able to move forward and set their goals is because of their live on affordable housing. And this has given them the opportunity to be able to set budgets or set goals by being in properties where they are actually paying 60% of the area, medium income. Or less. And I'm going to pass it on to Mel and Tuna so he could talk more about the affordability. Thank you, Sally. Just to capitalize a little bit on what Sally was saying, you know, we've done a lot of work in the Pyrenees Valley. But I want to focus on the affordability portion because I think it's important for us to highlight that the success of this of some of these folks in these communities has come for ways of the affordable rents that are provided to these apartments, which represent a safe, decent home that they can live and raise a family, while at the same time being able to meet their monthly obligations, and also be able to save for a down payment and to be able to save to maybe pay off some of those things that are in their credit reports that are obstacles to becoming bankable for them. So these are these are the things that a family living in some of the affordable housings that we have we own we we own and manage to in Olympia. One at a 85 Olympia lot of Olympia Drive called Olympia Oaks that's 42 units of affordable housing, and then we have 27 units on 12 momentum drive, also in Amherst called butternut barns and so I won't mention some of the other stock of rental units in Amherst. It's definitely nice with our colleagues right in the community. But as I was looking online today in preparation for just this discussion. You know that I picked three different sites, and again I won't mention them but the rents range from 1750 to 1955 for a two bedroom unit on this particular site that I looked at, and on another one it was from $3,000 to 3100 for a two bedroom. Again, in the city of Amherst. So you can see how that is is may be a barrier for folks to be able to afford a rent like that and also be able to make some savings and try to pay off some of the, some of the obligations and depths and things in their credit to be able to become bankable. You know we're really happy to be able to share that you know an affordable rent in one of our sites in Amherst is less than $1,100 for a two bedroom unit. Again, Olympia Oaks is a property that was built about six to seven years ago, and you're talking the envelopes are super tight, you know triple pane windows, you know 12 inches of installations is a beautiful property I invite anybody that wants to pass by to look at it, but our contribution here to this panel, which is a great discussion and I think that every opportunity that a home buyer has to be able to leverage opportunities from all the service providers in this platform is truly important and I think we see our mission as creating affordability to be able to allow folks to enter a city as beautiful as Amherst. And while it may not be an immediate way that they get into home ownership, they can enter our properties live in a safe, decent home in the town of Amherst while long term their savings to be able to overcome whatever obstacles are preventing them for home ownership at this time. And with that being said, thank you so much for the opportunity. Anyone that has any questions you're you're welcome to reach us at wayfinders.org. There is a property management dropdown and they're, they can look at all of our affordable properties throughout the pioneer value. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you both so much and I'm sorry we don't have the chat function as they're working for us right now but we will definitely give a shout out to other organizations and their links in a different way we will think about how to do that. And up next we'll have a chance for folks to ask questions but first we also wanted to hear the perspective from the other side so we are going to hear from three homeowners so congratulations to you all as a renter one day. I hope to be a homeowner to hear about all your experiences. So we will start with Jeremiah Wooley. If you are around. Yes, you're muted wonderful so love to hear from you. Alright thanks Francis. Again, my name is Jeremiah and I'm really glad to be here tonight it's an honor. You know a little bit about myself. I've been in Amherst for about 19 years now. I moved from eastern part of the state. To UMass Amherst and I just haven't left. So I love the area. I do miss the ocean but I love the mountains too so. You know, and I work in public transit, Pioneer Valley Transit as a bus operator and a graduate from UMass and you know part of. So I wouldn't be here today in my shoes. If it wasn't for the generosity of Maureen Adams and Linda Slakey did mention her earlier. I almost would tearing up because I mean, we had about 14 year relationship. I've been living in the studio apartment for about 14 years, you know helping out it started with just gardening and then it moved into sort of care you know shopping and helping and you know she did. So it's been over so it's been challenging. You know so now I do I have a house and so Maureen did gift the house to a CLT. And with the house came a person, which is me. So a CLT gets to have me part of their donation, and it's you know it's really been a blessing so this is really all new to me. So a CLT I just knew I just knew the four letters, about five or six years ago and it was starting Maureen mentioned him, you know, sorry I remember in the pioneering days when it started. But now I'm in it and it's it's scary at the same time because it's all new. But a CLT has been terrific. You know, let's see part of part of my arrangement now is, as Linda mentioned a CLT is it's part of land versus the house. So I have a life right to live in the home. And if I ever do choose to leave when I do. You know I can't resell at the at the value you know the house would be resold affordably. Right now I'm in the process of changing utilities into my name, you know electric so this again this is all new I've been living in the home but you know I haven't had to deal with the finances part and, and that's, that's a new, that's a new thing for me. You know, so it's it's learning new skills of the financing part of ownership. You know I do know the house pretty well, which is a good thing. So right now we're it's definitely in a big transition from me. You know, and part of the CLT you know they're not really at first I'm like, I really didn't know if I wanted to be part of this whole thing. What it turns out it's actually it's a really neat, it's a neat process. You know, they're not really at the end of the street watching everything go around you know it's part of it is a quiet and enjoyment living. And I'm also an active member and a resident of the ACLT which is, you know we have a meeting once, once a month. So that's been new for me in the last few months. So I think that's about it. Oh yeah one other thing. I will get a portion if I do decide to leave. There'll be a portion of the equity of the home that I that I will get but essentially I think my position in this home right now is being a steward, you know for future generations. There's no reason to come and sort of sort of the caretaker for the property, you know there'll be more people after me, you know so I'm just feeling very grateful for more in actually for for for leaving this home, and it's definitely a legacy. So I look forward to, I look forward to learning more as as I go on to I think this is the doors are opening, you know, for for new new adventures so again thank you for having me speak tonight and that's it pass. Thank you so much Jeremiah I can only imagine it's like half the struggle is getting the home and then you'd like have to maintain it and do all these things that as a renter you don't have to so it's it's it's the learn by doing awesome up next We'd love to hear from you. I think you had experience both with habitat and with a CLT floor is yours. Hello, everyone. My name is Brahim and thank you Francis for organizing this and thank you john as well and thank you all for attending this important meeting about home ownership affordable home ownership. So, my name again is a brahim saduni and I live in North Amherst and a habitat house that built in a CLT land. So, before, before entering an agreement with habitat and a CLT I would like to share with you my experience before that. I was exploring on the house in in the area. I mean the valley. And it was. I'm sorry before I was exploring the house in in the area and discovered that it was nearly impossible to own a house. In terms of the income and the possibilities and the jobs I mean, so the expenses comparing the expenses comparing to my income it was like impossible to own a house. Here it comes to discover that there is a CLT and there is habitat first I know about I know about habitat that they're offering that the opportunities for low income. I applied and back in 2015 for the first time, then I was not selected at that time. Then applied again 2018 2017 I was approved and my house was built by 2018 so the partnership here is between habitat and a CLT I'm really glad to represent both organizations tonight. So after after the after the house built we moved here with my wife and my two kids and so this partnership made it possible for us to live in a house that we will we will own. And made it easy for us to live a stable life. And so a CLT land lease the land for me. But I own the house but enter but the terms are 99 years with for a small fee which is basically kind of nothing so we made it possible still you live in a house for 99 years. Who knows if even my my kids will be here in 99 years so it's it's basically it's basically your own in the house on the land. So thank you for this partnership. We hope that we see more more opportunities like this that the partnership between the more organizations who knows a CLT habitat and value CDC and to make to create more opportunities for low income people to own their houses. And I mean to make that for to for them to. I don't know. I'm sorry for the low incomeers to find opportunities to own their houses for a better life. And a CLT also allow me to be a board member, which I am right now and it's it's good for me that I can participate. I can be interacting in making decisions about the future of owners that owned by a CLT. And it's it's a lot of it's a lot of learning for me but it's it's very exciting to be here that now I can I can help make decisions for who's going to own the house and and as well go back to habitat. Before that the house built I was participating in building my own house and I know all small details around my house. I already started making some repairs and so it's it's it's really important that you learn throughout the process while you're owning the house in the near future. And they think that's it and if they forget something I apologize for that. And here I would like to thank all volunteers. It's very important that the community is built by volunteers. I don't mean the community but the houses are built by all the volunteers so thank you all and thank you all for attending this meeting. Thank you so much for him really appreciate you being here. I'm sure you have many other things to do on a Tuesday night. But thank you so much for your time and really appreciate you and your story. And last but certainly not least we have Maxine Anderson here and Max I think that you had experience with Valley Community Development but we just love to hear what your what your path has been to ownership. Yes. Good afternoon everyone. I'm really glad to be a part of this and to share my story with Valley CDC. So I've owned my home now for about eight years. And it's it's really I can't believe that my dream has been a reality for the last eight years. So the way I've been I've lived in Amherst for close to 20 years. I was a single mom of two young children. I was working at UMass. I graduated from UMass been living here for a while. My kids, you know we're going to school. And there was no way that I thought I could own a home in Amherst no way with my income. Even though I was making decent income there was no way I could own a home but I was paying the rent that I was paying was also market rent as well which was pretty was not affordable I wasn't paying affordable rent, because it's pretty expensive to live in this area. And, and I was, you know I was thinking to myself I was, you know, I was like, you know my dream is to own my home. And so I, I, I was living at this, I was living at an apartment I was like the next time I move, I'm moving into my house and that was my dream. And, and I started saving I was I've been always been a saver, but you know my credit wasn't that great and and I would start to working on my credit but you know there was things that you know I had had no idea about how to work on my credit. And I started, you know, start, I started the process kind of looking around trying to find a realtor and everything went to a bank and my credit wasn't that great so of course they turned me down they weren't able to help me. So I started doing my research, and luckily I came across Valley CDC. And this incredible agency that really helped me. And that's when I, I met met the incredible Donna Cabana who pretty much took me by the hand and walk me through the process. She, you know, she went over my budget. She, she pretty much told me about all about Valley CDC and how they could help me to become a homeowner. And I just remember how discouraged I was. And I remember I was walking by and I saw her at one of the bank, because I had just been I was just turned down by one of the bank they told me that was, I was, I would not get the loan. Donna was on the other side I walked over and she was there with a flyer of affordable affordable home in Amherst. And I was like that home is going to be mine. And so she gave me the flyer and I work with Donna and with all the grants and all the and Donna was able to point me to the right bank and to get all the grants and I was helping me to get all my credit together and my budget and point me to another she pretty much held my hand and walked me through the whole process. She's incredible. So I was able to own my my dream became my reality and think I'm so grateful that I was able to. That Valley CDC is such an incredible agency that I was they were able to help me to own my own home and I'm so grateful that I've, that I've been in my home for eight. It's been tough but it's been all worth it. So thank you so much for all the work that you do. Thank you so much. We appreciate you being here. We appreciate all three of you being here and sharing your stories owning a home is both very personal and everything you know it's an emotional roller coaster. It's a financial insanity so we we can't appreciate you enough for sharing it with us. Thank you so much. And john I think you're up next. I am Francis thank you. I think since we've been unable to use the chat function. The sensible thing to do right now is to give people an opportunity to ask questions. So we'll do that next. If you're called upon you can also talk about barriers or any of the issues that you've heard raised. But if you have questions, please raise your hand, and we'll call on you. That means you'll have to unmute. And I hear I see sorry. Sayonara is the first person to ask question. And actually I'm not here to ask questions but I'd like to share that I'm also one of those people who have been helped by more than one organization who have attended here. And like coming from completely being homeless and had getting help from way finders who gave me a case manager a wonderful case manager who helped me to save. And then I got acquainted with Megan and her amazing program and I was accepted. I filled in this application it took me forever the minute I gave my application to Megan she remembers I bet I cried. And then I was so hard to let go of all the documents that I had prepared. And she advised me to take the first time homeowner workshop. And that helped me because when Julie at the town of Amherst contacted me with the flyer from Valley CDC that they have this house in Amherst. It took my I mean I like sadly let go of the habitat house and I applied and Donna Cabana helped me get this house in Amherst that I now live in since 2019, going from completely a homeless person. Right now, I'm the adult and I'm going to cry I'm the adult and youth education coordinator at Jewish Family Service of Western Mass. I'm a PhD student at the University of Amherst at the College of Education. I have three kids, and I'm a single mom, and I'm now helping others. Had I not received this help from Megan from way finders from Donna Cabana. I was not going to be where I am now so I'd like to say thank you for all of you. And thank you for allowing me to help others. Right now from my position. And I just, I don't know what to say but you've made my life and my kids life, a life. Thank you. Thank you Sayonara great to hear another story. And it's also great to hear what a team effort, the various organizations that work in Amherst as well as outside of Amherst to assist people in achieving home ownership. So great story. Thank you. And I see Chad, you look like you're here. Why don't you unmute and speak up please. Hi, thanks for the opportunity. This is a question that both Jane and John might not be able to answer the people to answer it or not here. The answer is really about why we need more diversity in class and race in housing. So the question is, how can we convert land and existing buildings into affordable housing. Thank you. Well, I don't know if I have an answer to that Chad, like I said, yeah, I will say you give me an opportunity to briefly announced that on April 20, we will have our second forum, which will focus on racial equity and housing. So it'll be again Tuesday, April 20 at 630. There'll be a more formal announcement. Does anybody else want to respond to Chad's question. Sorry to have the question was, how do we create more housing in town. Yes, from existing buildings and existing land. Some is the land. I make the distinction because some is open and some is already built on that which is built on should be converted. It's a lot cheaper way to make affordable housing than building a structure. Right. So I think that's, and I'm sure the CDCs can chime in here, but I think it's, it does depend. For example, there's some structures that are either very old or have a lot of issues with them that truthfully it makes more sense to tear them down and start over, but many times housing does get rebuilt, so to say, in existing structures. So there's a lot of schools, for example, that have been reused for housing. There's actually old armories all over the state and they've actually been reused a lot of it for veterans housing or for single rooms. But you know, we need to a mixture of both because we have not necessarily more people, but we have smaller families now. So you have people that need more houses than before basically. And so we need to both build and we need to keep what we have, which is why we have all these amazing organizations. And another thing is we need more money. We need more money from the government, from the state, from the federal level, from the local level. Because all these things are costly and it costs basically the same to build an affordable unit than it does a market rate unit. So those are a few of the things and we need zoning that helps us build housing in places where it makes sense and reuse places that make sense. But that's, that's all I'll say if anybody else wants to say something. Well said. Well said. Thanks, Francis. The next person who raised their hand. I agree with what Francis said. I just wanted to add that the local level habitat has been able to build affordable homes on land that the town has identified. So we built two homes on the Hawthorne Farm property that was part of a larger project. And it took leadership from the various town departments to set aside some of that land for affordable housing. So I think that the work of the planning departments and the housing committee that John is on advocating for affordable housing in town to try and really with a fine choose comb look for where those parcels might be. And we're talking about small home ownership projects. We happily build infill lots to fill in where we can with a couple more homes here and there throughout town. Okay, thanks Megan, and I'll have a little bit more to say about the development of affordable housing at the very end of the program. Janet, Janet Keller. Hi. Thank you for this opportunity to bring a message from my friend, Alyssa Rubenstein. She has been a 47 year resident of Amherst migrating from Cosby Avenue and Fearing Street, and now living at Greenleaves in Amherst. And she would like to comment on the need for affordable workforce housing. She says, I began working at Amherst Regional Junior High in January 1972. And during the 70s and 80s, my students were not only the children of college and university professors and staff, but of town firefighters, police officers, public school workers, plumbers, locksmiths, postal workers, farmers, and small business owners downtown, or as she says, or uptown as it was known in those days. Many of them had relatives who had lived in Amherst for generations. And I fast forward to June 22, 2002, when I retired. After 40 years of teaching at Amherst Regional Mill School, same building but different name. I'd noticed that the demographic of the school had changed. Many of the next generations of the children I had taught years ago no longer lived in Amherst. I also noticed that the houses where my former students once lived were now student rentals or else had been upscaled to more expensive residences. In the almost 20 years since I've retired, this trend has not changed. Yeah. So when the Amherst Community Land Trust was formed, my husband and I joined because we saw that here was one way to make home ownership possible for this missing cohort of working families. Thank you. Thanks, Janet. I appreciate that statement. I know I did some work with Pioneer Valley Planning Commission a few years ago. And we saw that there was a huge drop from about the year 2000 to more or less the present of 700 families with children living in Amherst. And that seems to mirror the statement that you just read of her experience. So I appreciate you bringing that to us. The next person up I have is Julio Alvis. Is that right? Hi. Thank you. I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas about how to make ownership home ownership possible for low income people who make less than the $29,000 that you talked about. I mean, there might be programs, for example, where someone could have a co-signer in the way that many market rate homes get sold. And also I'm particularly concerned about making home ownership possible for single people or maybe families of two who may have an income below $29,000. So I think that it's great that we are providing homes for families. But I would like to also see more opportunities for single people. I'm just wondering if anyone has any ideas. I remember a number of years ago reading about this church in Detroit that was building tiny homes that were very affordable in which people paid very limited rents and were able to own it after a certain number of years. I'm just wondering if anyone has any ideas about how we can go about doing that. Thank you. Thank you, Julio. I appreciate that question. And I'm looking, I don't see any more people raising their hands. So I think we're going to take this opportunity. I think, sorry, John, I think Megan wanted to respond. Oh, sorry, I didn't see that Megan. So I just, um, Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity built a one bedroom house in Northampton a couple of years ago and sold it to a single individual. So we have been working on diversifying the types of homes we build so that they range from the one bedroom to the more typical three bedroom family house. We, it's a real challenge to figure out how to get to those lower income groups. So even doing a one bedroom house, the infrastructure and land, you know, costs of bringing those things to the house are still significant zoning also plays a part in being able to find some place that's a good fit for a small house. We did that 650 square foot house on a, I think it was about an eighth or a tenth of an acre, a very small lot. But I'd love to see in the future something clusters of homes like that, where you have more opportunity for shared resources. The challenge with that is you have to have a big enough site to be able to do something like that and zoning that supports it. And I would definitely lean towards wayfinders of Ali CDC for more experience providing supportive services. So the project like the one in Detroit that you mentioned, I think was paired with a agency that did supportive services for those people making that big transition habitat does a mentorship program, but we don't have ongoing support in place after the homeowners move in and I think that that's, you'd need some really more hands on services to be able to help people through some of those challenges. John, you only have about a little less than a minute left for this section. Okay, thanks, Carol. Well, Kathleen, I see that you have your hand up. Kathleen Anderson, could you join us please? Kathleen, you disappeared from my screen. I think she'll come back. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes, now I can hear you. Thank you. Yeah, so I was just going to reiterate and to piggyback on who knows comment about tiny homes and Megan gave some good background on the challenges we need to overcome to make that happen. And so I'm looking to find out how and who we can get on board to work on zoning changes as well as cost efficiency in making a tiny home community possible. I know that the one in Detroit and there have been others, and I have sent lists around to John and some other people on the housing committee about the different communities around the country as well as in other places like Canada, for instance, that have built tiny homes that have made it possible. And so I'd like to see that happen. That's great, Kathleen, and maybe we'll find a place to be able to do that. Are you still there? Yep. Did I cut you off? Yes. Yes. Right now there are really big homes that are around the valley on big pieces of land that could have been multiple tiny homes on the same amount of land. So I want us to think about how to expand our thinking to include the possibility of homes. Great. Well, I hope as the Housing Trust we can look for opportunities to do that. I'm going to allow one more question before we move back to our original panel. I see Barbara Cooper has her hand up. Could you please speak, Barbara? Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I couldn't see my picture, so I wasn't even sure if I was on, but I could see yours. I think this is a zoning question. I think that was mentioned by the questioner. But until we have zoning support for tiny homes, I think it's going to be pretty impossible to construct them. I don't think they have the sort of project that would fall easily under 40B. So I think that's a planning issue. I think you're probably right. I don't know whether you could do it under a special comprehensive permit, but lacking that the only route would be a change in zoning. I agree. Okay, let me turn it back to our original panel members and ask them what else they think we should be doing as a community where they would like additional support as an organization. We can go beyond the relatively small number of new homeowners that we see in Amherst each year. So anyone can jump in from the original panel. John, I'll say something that continues to come up since the pandemic, which is, and that I think our folks who spoke about their experience, connecting with Donna at a bank, you know, the persistence that it takes that for people to like find a path towards the opportunities that are out there. I think that the challenge is outreach to find the folks and connect with them and get enough information and enough people's hands that there really is a word of mouth, a chain of communication that's getting the word out. I think that some of the ways that we used to connect with people are going to be quite reduced for a while. And a lot of folks who need this information are not going to be necessarily plugged in to all of the communication channels where they're going to learn about it. So I think that, you know, raising hopes and having stories be out there that this is possible, you know, to have Maxine talk about her dream becoming a reality. There's a lot of people who feel very defeated when, and we've had a hard time attracting folks to the land trust lottery. And that's one of the things I think we learn there is that people might not think that it's going to happen for them. And so where there are opportunities, I think those connections are really important. I'd like to pick up on that a little bit and go at it from another side as well and and also tie in that that communication piece and the working through the neighborhood and it also goes back to Chad's question about stepping into, you know, how do we work with existing infrastructure. So one of the things that Linda and Jeremiah pointed out in the stories about Emerson your land trust is that that we're actually covering this wonderful opportunity this wonderful resource in the community where we're more Ian and other individuals in the community are prepared to donate their home or some of the value in their homes to to make housing affordable to allow housing that currently is unaffordable to become a permanent affordable resource and a CLT is on track to to have at least four homes acquired that way. And the kind of networking and meeting people and telling stories that Jane's talking about this really important for the incoming homeowners or the potential homeowners is equally important for us as we build this resource within our community. As Megan was describing how sort of working with the town on finding these infill lots these pieces of land that can serve housing. We can also work with with neighbors whether they can, whether an individual may be able in the best case to donate their property to a CLT or another organization, or maybe they can just donate their land, or maybe they'll just won't donate, but maybe do a bargain sale and give us first option on their house when they're ready to sell it. So just the fact of not having to compete on the market. They can't discount their price is an opportunity. So this kind of networking that you're talking about Jane this kind of getting the word out and letting people know what's possible, and is a great way to capture resources that we have in our community. And I can add to that, John. There's one of the ways that I've introduced people to thinking about why, why to even think about something like the Community Land Trust and a way to frame the problem in terms that makes sense to people who've been here a long time. There is a significant demographic in Amherst of people who've been here a long time. And in fact, I would count these days even 20 years as a long time, but many have been here more like 40 or 50. If you ask someone who's been there that long to just reflect personally on what their economic circumstances were when they acquired a home in Amherst, and then do they know what would be the case for someone who tried to come into town in the same circumstances could they do the same thing. And if you came here more than 20 years ago, unless you came from substantial wealth, the answer is no. You know if you came with with a good job and could afford a house in Amherst 20 years ago. It's almost certainly the case that somebody starting in the same way you started couldn't afford a house in Amherst and people it. Talk to people that way. It often uncovers a sense of loyalty to the town itself as as though the community has a point of view here and they actually have a stake. I know it's a struggle that sounds very idealistic and if I hadn't already had the experience. I might have joined the crowd who say people are going to go for top dollar why should they not, you know, profit by the market rise but in fact, at least a significant part of our, our members are taking the opposite attack they care more about the fact that the home that they started in as a young family will be started in by another young family who came in and roughly similar circumstances actually matters more to them than maximizing their dollar at exit. Thank you Linda. Someone else want to jump in next. Talk about what else we could do. I think that I'm just going to put my development hat here on for a second but as we look at these challenges that we have it's all a domino effect and right now, you know the market is good, you know, we have a healthy market where prices are being driven up. And so what that creates is obviously a barrier for a level of folks to have a income that can't reach those prices. And so, when, when things like this happen we have to think outside the box we have to start thinking of different innovative ways and how do we develop. We could be my witness here that, you know, as we develop affordable five properties, we're dictated by what the HDD is funding, right and there is no funding dollars for homeownership. So that makes me think of, okay, this is the box in which we're confined to, and I'm going to think outside of it and it's it's maybe the opportunity of partnering up with a, with a developer that could see a piece of land and say okay I'm going to develop, you know, seven houses and a portion of the proceeds of the equity that you're going to make on those prop on those properties, you could put a certain amount maybe six of those properties that you could put some money into them so depending on what you build them for what you can sell them for, then you could take some of that equity and build them and build the six that are going to become affordable. So just examples that you really as a team, we got to look at what the regulations are what's what's out there for, you know, city ordinance and zoning, and seeing who is that developer out there that's that's developing market rate housing and maybe not see them as a threat, you know, given that the market is good right now, how we could approach them and see if they want to partner up with someone like, you know, like Jane and Valley CDC or any other affordable housing developer in this area to create different ways of looking at opportunities. So that's my two cents from my development hat that I like to contribute and I'll leave you all with that. Thank you, Mel. I just quickly chiming in there. There's, yeah, half of the problem is that there is just not a lot of money out there to create home ownership opportunities that are subsidized. I do have to say and disclose that my employer mass housing does have a home ownership development program but it is the first time and more than 10 years that the state has put money aside. But there are at least $60 million right now to develop first time home buyer opportunities. But, you know, I think that there's a lot more needs to be done at every level to really show that there is a huge need for this and a huge interest in creating more opportunities. But yeah, that's that's a huge barrier. I'm also in sorry if I'm asking a question prematurely, but I'd love to hear about sustaining home ownership. So half the struggle is getting into a home. But as we saw during the foreclosure crisis, it doesn't really stop at getting a home. You have to make sure that the folks that you are helping continue to be able to pay and stay on time so that they're not in a worse situation. So I'd love to hear a little bit about what you all do about that. Well, I can, I can say that Donna's telling me some stories right now about people who are as they're aging and they're on fixed income and they're needing real advice and sometimes they're facing a decision that it's, it's very, very tough for them to stay in their housing. And a lot of times you might have adult kids living with an aging parent. And, and even then, if the aging parent passes away the adult kids aren't going to be able to carry on the mortgage. And so there's, there's just a lot of different scenarios that require a lot of planning ahead. One of the things that we offer is post purchase counseling to try to set people up to succeed. I think that Mel's ideas are really good to think outside of the box of, you know, what can make affordable home ownership possible is really good but there is a opportunity that it takes attendance, it takes attention along the years to really help people succeed. And that's where there's not funding, you know, finding that funding to really make sure people are being supported as they go is a really key part of that success. We've got a lot of magic answers, but we are reaching out to banks to help anticipate the foreclosures that we think are going to be coming in the wake of the pandemic and getting some interest there. And hopefully we can come up with some, you know, help to at least people to at least equip people with the tools they need and to act quickly back sooner rather than later. From ACLT's point of view, we're quite new as an organization and don't have the kind of technical experience that Jane and Donna, Jane's talking on Donna has. But one of the things that I think is really strong about the community land trust model is that that we are, we are a membership organization. And Raheem pointed out earlier that in becoming a homeowner he simultaneously became a member and actually as part of our governance is on the board. And so, so when you become a homeowner with ACLT, you also become a member of an organization of a community organization that has both ACLT homeowners and other community members in it. And again, we're young as an organization, but elsewhere, what the model has proven is, is you have a kind of support system. And we intend to be there for each other to to provide linkages to support help finding the kinds of support people need when when they need it. And in that way, carry forward and and although I can't because we have just two home, three homeowners currently all new, but but statistically nationally community land trusts have done much better with foreclosures than other types of housing of similar price with serving similar income levels because of that model. Okay, we're getting close to completing the time that we allotted for this. So I'll give our panelists one more opportunity to offer their thoughts before Francis and I wrap up. I would just echo the point that Jim made that building community, putting some of the labor into intentionally building a sense of community. It's not just that you help people through a transaction and then say, well, good luck. People need to feel like they're part of a community and and that perpetuates the stability, both on the by on keeping people in place as long as they want to be there and then when they choose to leave. Or when when people vacate their properties for other reasons, the more awareness there is of that strong sense of community. The better the odds that that people will feel supported and will be inclined to continue to support the effort. It's a great point yeah. Okay, this is now our opportunity to wrap up and Francis. I want to say to everybody at this point. Well, I think everything most of you has been said but just thank you again so much everybody. We cannot say how much we appreciate your time your expertise and everything that you're doing to help provide more homes so that everybody that wants to can afford the opportunity to be in this very wealthy community both in terms of the rich and the resources it has. So thank you all so much. As the trust. We are excited and I think this is where I say that we are working on trying to put in our P out for the development of two sites. So we're hoping to help create more housing. And that's that's in the pipeline. So we're excited for that. And John, I'll let you chime in now. Okay, thanks Francis. Yeah. I did want to mention a Valley Community Development project which I know everybody was focused on up to, oh maybe about six months or so ago. It was a project at 132 North Hampton Road, or Amherst studio apartment so Jane you can correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that back in November. Valley received a comprehensive permit from the town or the zoning board of appeals to proceed with the project. In December and January, they submitted a request, or probably request for financing from the Department of Housing and Community Development. And we're hoping that they hear about those requests, hopefully by late summer, maybe not till fall and that those requests are approved. So they can proceed with that project if they are approved. I think Valley would begin to break ground in the spring. And then it would be at least another year or so before the first tenants at 132 North Hampton Road are able to walk into the door. Francis also mentioned housing trust initiative. The city council approved are receiving CPA funding to purchase property on Belcher Town Road, just east of the center of East Amherst. And we're in the process of combining a request for proposals for that piece of property. And the property at the old East Street school site into a single project. So we will be looking for a developer. We expect that the housing trust will complete its work on the proposal at its next meeting on April 8. And then we turn it over to Town Hall and the town attorneys and hopefully within a month or so, we'll see the request for proposal go on to the street. And again, hopefully we have identified a developer by fall, and they can begin that same process that Valley just been through of developing a request for a comprehensive permit for both sites. Let's see. A couple of other things I wanted to say. I just kind of went over what I considered very good news. I want to say that the town council community resources committee is drafting a comprehensive housing policy. And I wanted to comment briefly on that while it's still in draft. It has some important weaknesses when it comes to affordable housing. There are 51 strategies and I won't tell you what they are briefly described in the document thus far. They are labeled high priority, five medium priority and four low priority and seven are unlabeled. What do we find among the four lowest priority strategies. They are as three of them are as follows, identifying and creating additional funding for the housing trust, affordable home ownership and affordable rentals. The community resources committee apparently want to do something in these areas, but as the lowest among 51 strategies they've identified, these are clearly about to fall off the table. You can do something about this particularly now while the document is still draft. Please write to your individual town counselors or the entire town council at this email address town council single word at Amherst MA dot gov and you can see that on the screen. So if you have something to say about wanting the town to have a comprehensive housing policy that includes having home ownership as a priority. Please let folks know that that's important to you all. I mentioned. Also, let's see, sorry. Additional things and again will update you on these possibility, but when Pioneer Valley Habitat Valley Community Development, or the Amherst Community Land Trust request Community Preservation Act funding. It should be approved. If the town property is sitting unused, it should be a made available. If the town follows through on its planned acquisition of the Hickory Ridge golf course. The land along West Pomeroy Lane, which is dry should be allocated to affordable housing. I don't know about advocacy opportunities, but please let town council know now that new housing policy should make affordable home ownership, a high town priority. We need town council on board. If we're going to be able to give these organizations the support they need, and see more than a handful of new home ownership opportunities in Amherst every few years. It cannot be the lowest priority in the town's comprehensive housing plan. Okay, I time to wrap up. Thank you all for attending tonight's forum. We look forward to seeing and hearing from you all again about on from now on Tuesday, April 20. 630pm, when we are sponsoring a second forum on racial equity and housing. I also want to give a brief plug to our partners, the League of Women Voters of Amherst. They have developed two workshops for persons interested in running for public office on the following to Tuesday evenings. Thursday evening, sorry, Thursday, April 8, and Thursday, April 15. Please go to the league website to register. Good evening, and thanks again for all of your support.