 Hello, everyone. We'll begin in a minute. We're just waiting for people to zoom in. Hello, everyone. Let's get started. So thanks for joining us today. I'm Lauren QB. I manage ASU Stardust Center for Affordable Homes and Family. And Stardust was created by the philanthropist Jerry Bisgrove to address the urgent needs of quality affordable housing in our region, recognizing that affordable housing is critical to healthy, sustainable communities. So we use the tools of research, education, and public forums such as today's event to highlight the connections of housing to food access, transportation, and individual and community health. So I'm delighted to introduce our special guest today. And they include Gabe Haramio. Gabe is going to be our moderator. He directs community development for Habitat for Humanity Central Arizona. And recently he was presented with a Mark Vettel Scholarship Award. He's presented by the Arizona Housing Authority and AZ-NARO last year. And Gabe also has done amazing work throughout our region and is a rising young leader. He was also a valued leadership class just last year. And then Joan Service, she's executive director of the Arizona Housing Coalition. And she was the Cap Times 2020 leader of the year in public policy. So we all know Joan for her advocacy and for her wonderful newsletters and just informing the public writ large about affordable housing issues. And then there's State Senator Sean Bowie. He represents Legislative District 18. LD18 includes Awatuki, South Tempe, West Chandler, and Southwest Mesa. He is serving his third term after first winning office in November 2016. And he won re-election in 2018 and 2020. He's getting to be an old hand there down at the legislature. In addition to his work at the Senate, Sean also works as a professor of practice at ASU School of Public Affairs. He teaches courses on leadership, ethics, and research methods. Then finally we have State Senator TJ Shope. He represents Legislative District 8, which is Coolidge. And he represented LD8 since, I think 2012, correct me if I'm wrong, Senator Shope. He graduated from Coolidge High School in 2003 and earned a Bachelor's of Science in Political Science from ASU in 2008. Take it away Gabe and thank you all. Thank you everybody for joining us. I want to remind our audience that you can submit questions through the chat feature and we'll get to those towards the end of our presentation here, our discussion. I'd like to start off by asking all of our panelists, considering housing, how it is today. How do you see the current state of housing in Arizona? Joan, if we could start with you. Sure. Thanks. First I want to start off by saying thank you for having me, Lauren, in the ASU Starter Center and thank you Gabe and Senator Bowie and Shope for being here. State of housing in Arizona, wow. Even before the pandemic, we were having some issues with our housing. We really need to be addressing the affordable housing in our state. I think, I say this all the time, but I think everyone used to think that Arizona was this affordable place, that wild frontier with plenty of land options and housing options, but that's just no longer the case ever since the last economic downturn. We really need to address some of our affordable housing challenges. Thank you Joan. Senator Shope. Thanks Gabe and thanks everyone for having me on today. Look, I think that we most definitely have issues in affordable housing, as Joan mentioned. We have issues in new construction. It's not happening at the pace, obviously, that it was in the mid-2000s, which isn't a bad thing in many respects. Obviously, that was a bubble that was destined to burst, but we also have opportunity. We have opportunity in infill. We have opportunity in multi-story development, especially in the mid-town sections of various cities across our state. We need to go ahead and tackle some of that opportunity and make sure that some of those probably are, developers are incentivized to ensure that some of those options are affordable for people. One of the big things I think personally, really quickly, is one of the lack of construction has led to a lack of a ability for a new family to have a starter home. That is a big problem, especially in young, very young districts. My district is one of the youngest in the state to have to have that ability to have a starter home is very acute in my area. Like Joan had mentioned in Senator Shope, we knew that there was an issue prior, whether it was through the number and the quantity of houses that we could build, but also addressing various programs. Senator Bowie, how do you feel the state of housing is in Arizona? Yeah, it's a really important issue. It's something we were working on before the pandemic. In my district, hearing from my cities and hearing from constituents as well, and with COVID-19, it'd obviously become even more important of an issue. We've been trying to help folks with rental assistance, with eviction protections, and so on. Every year, we're discussing and debating this issue, but it's important to point out it's obviously more of an issue in certain areas in certain cities. I represent part of the city of Tempe. It's a really important issue in Tempe. I also represent Awatuki, not as much of an issue in Awatuki. When we're talking about what we're doing at the legislature, it's important to point out that we've got colleagues from all over the state, and it's really important for some of us and for others. It's really not on the radar. Building those coalitions at the Capitol is really important. I know we've got some bills that we're going to be talking about later that we're trying to pass to help us. We're also working with our cities. We're working with the private sector as well. As Senator Shope said, construction hasn't kept pace with demand, so that's an issue, and infill, like he said, and density. It's going to be an important tool as well, so it's something that we're focused on. We're just trying to find the right way to do it that's going to attract bipartisan support and will allow us to help not only families, but also our cities and the private sector as well. Absolutely. Well, and so let me ask your perspective, and I know from Habitat for Humanities perspective and community development, one of the things that we've seen since the onset of COVID is the need of a safe and secure home. Now that a home has become, and it looks like we're seeing some light at the end of the tunnel now, but a home has really become the center for education, the center for employment, housing, security, and health. How have you seen in your district how COVID has impacted housing? Well, certainly, last year, we were receiving a lot of emails and phone calls from constituents who were worried about the eviction protections and making rent and losing their job because of COVID and not being able to go to work and feeling like it wasn't safe. And thankfully, at the state level, we were able to put some eviction protections in place through an executive order from the governor through, I think it was September or October of last year. And then we've seen at the federal level with the Biden administration an extension of that that's been really important. And that's important, not just because it was hard for folks to pay their rent, but with a global pandemic going on, we don't want folks putting themselves at risk by being out in the community if they can avoid it. So that's something that we've been working on trying to get our constituents help. Obviously, we've received a number of federal dollars coming from the federal level through the CARES Act and the rescue plan. So a lot of those funds are at the discretion of the governor. So we're working with the governor in his office to make sure that dollars are going to housing, not just to renters, but also mom and pop landlords as well, who also have been struggling this last year. And then we're also hoping to be helpful in terms of affordable housing as well and steering dollars to grant programs around the state, this affordable housing tax credit that we'll talk about. So we've got a couple of tools in our toolbox that we're hoping to use so we can better help our constituents and those who have been struggling since March of last year. Thank you for that. And we are glad there's influx of money to address affordable housing on a broad range. And we all know that housing spans a spectrum there. Senator Schoep, have you seen, what's your perspective of COVID in your area? Oh, I think it's much the same. And I think that that's proof positive that COVID is not known, urban and rural distinctions. Perhaps in a sense, people have thought, well, the lower density, the thought hasn't been that COVID is acute, but that is not the case. And it's had an effect on homeowners, had an effect on being able to make that mortgage payment. I work in a finance sector away from the legislature. So I can tell you for sure that that has had an impact on financial institutions. Thankfully, those institutions are in a much healthier position this time around during this type of crisis than they were in 0708. So they've been able to absorb a lot of these issues. But Sean hit something right on the head. We often look at the home mentor, and that is very important. And I think we've tried to do a lot of things there. But many, if not most of the landlords, especially in an area like mine, and I'm sure in others, these are not conglomerations. These are not companies that do this thing that have 50 homes or whatever the number is. Many of these have four or five homes. And this is for these folks that they do much of the maintenance work themselves, and this is their job. So when people aren't paying rent for whatever reason, and that's not a knock, but that means that those folks, especially if they have notes on those homes, aren't able to pay their bills either. And that's one of the things that we do have to take into consideration because we sometimes focus on one aspect of it. Like the lack of actual housing, there are many, many things we can focus on that are contributing to the situation we're in. John, I know we get the opportunity. You get the opportunity at the Arizona Housing Coalition to speak about this a lot. I'm happy every time I can join as a member. So I wanted to ask you, we see it on a broad perspective as well as we address legislation both at the state and the federal level. How do you see the impact of COVID on housing? It's shown the spotlight on our crisis situation, not only in the housing spectrum, but also in folks who are housing secure and who may not have that safe place to shelter in place. I think we've seen, again, as Senator Bowie mentioned, we've seen an influx of federal funds coming to address folks who are experiencing homelessness. And that's great because we need our frontline service providers are doing an amazing job making sure that folks are not acquiring or transmitting the virus. But we really need to make sure there's an ongoing investment in support services for folks who are without that safe affordable place to call home. When we think about a COVID-19 recovery, we need to think about housing. When our federal representatives are looking at an infrastructure conversation, that needs to start with housing. Housing is that baseline foundational support that is going to allow us to recover from this pandemic. And I'm encouraged by all these conversations that are occurring at the federal, state and local level. But now we just need to make sure that all these funds are flowing appropriately and supporting and filling in the gaps where there is some struggles. Absolutely. We see there's a lot of support there at every level. So I'm glad to see that we're addressing the entire spectrum. That's something that we always advocate for, is making sure we're able to help folks on all ends of it. Rupert, isn't it? I'm sorry. Go ahead. That kind of hit on something right there. And I want to get Sean's perspective as well. The infrastructure, we talk a lot about what the next stimulus looks like, etc. in Washington. And a lot of the conversation is based on infrastructure. A lot of that conversation is based on things like light rail, things like commuter rail, street cars, things like that. I think it's important that I think folks like Sean and I probably use our voices as well on that type of thing, because if they're going to be investing in those types of options, we need to make sure that the land use around those types of options lend itself to these types of, whether it's affordable housing density, things like that. Much like what we've seen that have been the success stories around the Phoenix metro area, and I would say in Tucson as well. I saw an article in Tucson, they're changing some of their development on Broadway just east of downtown to allow for a lot more density as well because of their successes. Absolutely. With the light rail extension, like you were saying, the infrastructure and how it's going to affect the communities and how housing is going to be addressed, along with that investment in the community, how are the residents going to benefit from that, how are we going to be able to fully realize the benefit of that investment of infrastructure? My next question is for both the senators and you each represent a little bit different types of populations, and I know Senator Shope, you kind of touched on some of the things that are coming from your district, but what are you guys seeing? What are you what are you guys seeing in your constituents? What are the things that your constituents are bringing up as far as housing concerns? I'll start. So certainly it's becoming more and more unaffordable for a lot of working families. I think there's a number of reasons for that. I think the supply hasn't kept up with the demand. Maricopa County is the fastest growing county in the country. A lot of folks want to move here. The weather is really nice this time of year compared to the northeast and other parts of the country. So the Phoenix area in Arizona is always going to be a magnet for folks who want to move here. So we obviously have to have conversations about planning and about density and allowing cities the ability to to zone particular parts of their areas and just making it easier to build affordable housing. So I'm jumping the gun a little bit. I know we're going to talk about the affordable housing trust fund later. That's something that's really, really important. It's something we used to fund at the state level. We used to fund a lot of things at the state capital that we don't right now. But that's something that I think is really critically important as a tool to fund a lot of these projects around the state. We've got a number of bills the legislature right now that would fund specific facilities, safer veterans or for senior citizens. I know we've got some in the West Valley that we've already voted out of the Senate. So those are really important. So having the funding available, the legislature passing tools that we can give our cities and give the private sector. I think those are all really, really important. And this is one of those issues where every year we're hearing more and more about the need for us to be proactive about this. So we do have some federal dollars. Our budget's going to take a while this year because we have a lot of dollars available to use. And one of the things that I've put at the near the very top of my list is the affordable housing trust fund and in ways that we can fund these projects. Because until we can increase the supply to match the demand, we're going to have this imbalance and it's going to be harder and harder for working families. Senator Schottmeijen, he's got one of the youngest districts in the state. That's a lot of young working families want to be able to buy a home. And it's a lot harder for them right now than it was 10 years ago. So my hope is that we're going to have some bipartisan cooperation at the legislature this year to really tackle this problem. I agree. And I'm glad to hear that the conversation about the need for all the way through from local to federal partnerships, like you said, like you said, most of the times when we have conversations about addressing density and more affordable housing, it's at the very local level. So that deals with zoning, but partnering with the state to be able to address and subsidize that and whatever means possible to help get families into those homes. I'm glad to hear that conversation is having it's something that we've seen for a little while in the need for that. Senator Schottmeijen, I know you had mentioned a couple of things. What are you hearing? You know, one of the things, it's kind of in two camps. One of the things that continuously comes up is especially from folks who are, when I say native to the area, I mean have lived in the area for more than 20 years, etc. Locals are just getting priced out of the market. The wages in a district like mine historically have been far below what you would make in the Phoenix metro area, which is why so many people work in the Phoenix metro area. And as jobs have been have pushed into the Southeast Valley, especially very high paying jobs like in that price corridor, etc., and an Intel right up the road. You're talking about if a family is looking at working at Intel, they can drive 30 minutes from Casa Grande or Coolidge to go work at Intel or any of the corporations that are locating along that price corridor. And that's really had an impact on the available housing stock in places like Casa Grande, Maricopa, Coolidge, Eloi. And it has, like I said, priced many of the folks who are native to the area right on out of the market. Also historically, I think one of the negatives about our area, and I say this, I feel like confident I can say this, my dad was mayor Coolidge for 16 years. So I'm not blaming him, but I don't think people's really had the foresight of what the future economy was going to be like in Pinal County. There's a lack of apartments in our area. For example, you know, with things like while I'm excited, I mean, I am elated that things like Lucid Motors and 10,000 employees are going to be locating in Casa Grande. And if Nikola actually makes it through with another 5,000 to 7,000 employees, what's that going to do? Because those are going to be very highly paid positions for the most part of it. What's that going to do as far as pricing locals out of the market? And if we don't get in front of this, and I bring up, you know, folks like my dad, because it's not just a legislative solution that's going to get us out of this thing. We are going to have to work together with, in many respects, I have a lot of unincorporated territory in my district with Pinal County. We're going to have to work together with the cities in that area to come up with not just a master plan for a city or a county, but a master plan for our communities as far as how we're going to tackle this situation, because it is a very big concern, as happy as I am about the growth. Well, absolutely. And traditionally, you know, I would say it's Phoenix in the greater Phoenix area, but really the state of Arizona is known for building out, you know, drive out. And that's something, you know, that we're known for. And now it's reaching, you know, even the extensive coolage and the broader area, like he said, the industry is growing out. So how would densities becoming more and more and more of the conversation, that connectivity, and I know you hear terms like the 15-minute or 20-minute city, things of that nature, transportation, those are becoming bigger parts of the conversation. It goes into the infrastructure, like we discussed earlier. Joan, how do you see legislation at the state level? Because a lot of this is going to be partnering, like the senator said, at the local level. But how do you see legislation both at the state and the federal level playing a role? So, great question. I want to circle back to what Senator Schoep mentioned about, you know, the growth and, you know, that village planning concept of, you know, working and living in your same community. And I think that that, you know, we're at this kind of wait and see mentality as many, there are some industries that have allowed for working from home. So, maybe the commute may not be as bad. And so, and what will that do? And how can we repurpose existing commercial space? So I think that there's some interesting conversations that are yet to be had in that arena. But in terms of, you know, how some of our state policy interventions can mirror and match some of the federal housing programs, I mean, I think, you know, I'm just going to jump right in, Gabe, if you're okay with that, and talk about the state affordable housing tax credit, which is one of the policy priorities that the Arizona Housing Coalition is focused on and has been focused on for a few years. We made a lot of progress last legislative session, but then the pandemic pulled the rug out from underneath us. But basically that that piece of legislation mirrors the federal low income housing tax credit and or I'm sorry, mirrors the federal low income housing tax credit program, which is, you know, been around since the late 80s, came out under President Reagan and has had received bipartisan support since then, and is actually responsible for a lot of the affordable housing development you see across not only Arizona, but across the nation. And what this, our policy intervention, the affordable housing tax credit, it hopes to mirror that that program. And, you know, there's about 20 other states across the nation that also have a state light tech. And so we're hoping to do that as well. And what it what it does is it provides an incentive for affordable housing developers or developers to get into the affordable housing space, because the reality is, you know, there are folks that get into the, you know, into the development, you know, the housing development or construction space, but it's it's a costly endeavor, and making affordable housing development pencil and work. It takes a lot of different funding sources. And this state long-term housing tax credit would serve as one of those funding sources. And so that's something that we have been working on, along with the housing trust fund. But I know that there's probably some conversation around the tax credit first. So I'll pause there. Well, thank you for bringing it up that that's actually where we're heading next. And, you know, Senate Senate bill 1327 House bill 2562, the two bills that address the state tax credit that's making its way through. Joan, you had mentioned some of the details about it. How is it progressing through the how is it progressing? Sure. So Senate bill 1327 has heard was heard in the Senate and passed this through the Senate. It's gone through that that chamber and is now in the House for House consideration. I believe it was assigned to a few committees or the I'm sorry, to the House Ways and Means Committee. So we're waiting for that to be heard. And then 2562, which is the mirror of Senate bill 1327. It was heard through appropriations and heard through by the committee of the whole the whole representatives. But it is awaiting the third read. We believe some of the kind of pause and I think the two senators can definitely speak to this, that legislation and policy work. It's a lot of hurry up and hurry up and go, stop, start, go fast and stop, you know, and that's I think where we are with these these housing priorities. Thank you for the update there. So senators, I know the tax credits play a big role in housing, especially with the introduction of the two state bills. And I know at the federal level, and I had the pleasure of speaking with you both a couple of weeks ago about the efforts that we're doing at the national level with Habitat for Humanity International, what we're we're trying to do here. You know, at the federal level, there's another income tax, I mean, another tax credit bill, the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act or to help families with ownership. Senator Schoep, like you had mentioned about helping some of the folks with incentive or infill in a couple of other types of things and also including preservation. How do you both senators feel the tax credits impact housing in Arizona? We'll start with you, Senator Schoep. I feel like it's a it's a very important piece of the puzzle. I sponsored one of the first incarnations a handful of years ago on affordable tax credits, affordable housing tax credits. And we've been at this thing for a little while, it's a shame we haven't passed it yet. But I would tell you where it is right now, as as Joan was mentioning, I served as the rules chair in the House for a year. And anything that has a kind of a fiscal impact of any kind is is not going to pass both houses until there's a budget movement. So I think that there's broad enough support. I think it has the votes. I think it's high enough priority for people to actually be included this year, which is a difference over the last handful of years. It seems like there's always been just can we get that one or two last votes on this thing and move forward. And I think there is recognition, finally, from both the proponents of that and the proponents of filling dollars into the into the actual fund, that hey, maybe we ought to work together and accomplish both of these tasks and goals. I don't know that that was necessarily there a few years ago. I think you had two camps that really wanted their thing to get done. And now it does appear that there's a realization that no, we can do both. And it's probably beneficial for the person at home, if we do both. So, Sean, I don't know. I mean, do you think do you see it that way? That's kind of how viewing that these days. Yeah, relating to the affordable housing tax credit bill, it's a bill that I co-sponsored and we got it out of the Senate. It's an interesting issue because it's not a D versus R issue. You know, you've got support from both sides, but so folks on the far left and folks in the far right don't support it for different reasons. The bill this year is something that's been run for several years now. It's, you know, been stuck at some point in the process, whether it's either the rules chair didn't like it or the committee chair didn't like it. But I think as we go forward each year, affordable housing is becoming more and more of a pressing issue. And it's impacting more and more areas. Like I'll give you an example. You know, I represent part of Tempe. Tempe's always been a very desirable place to live. It's landlocked so it can expand. It's had a lot of density, especially in downtown. So affordable housing has always been a really prevalent issue there. So when I talked to the council and the mayor and I asked them what issues are important to you, I know that's always going to come up. But a city like Chandler, I represent West Chandler, really it was only a year or two ago when it started coming up as, oh, this is becoming more and more of an issue. Homes are getting more expensive. It's harder for young families to move to Chandler. So I think the longer that we take to address this issue, more and more communities are going to be impacted. On the tax credit bill, there is some concern about it because, you know, some of my colleagues just don't like tax credits at all because it takes money away from our general fund. And over the last 10 years, we've seen a lot of our revenue eliminated. So the more tax credits that we do, it means there's less dollars available for education, for infrastructure, for healthcare, all the other things that we do at the state level. But there are some safeguards in this bill that require, you know, companies that are going to use this tax credit, you know, the communities have to be built first. And they have to meet certain safeguards before they receive that tax credit. So when folks think of tax credits, particularly for developers or for larger businesses, they think, oh, there's no safeguards in place and they just get the money right away and maybe jobs aren't created. Like, this is not true for this bill in particular. We worked on it to make sure that the communities had to be built and they had to meet very specific standards before they could receive that tax credit. But if you think about it, the more and more developments that use this tax credit, the more it's going to cost. So it's going to have a pretty significant impact on the general fund. So we have to consider, you know, is this worth the investment? Is it worth those dollars coming out of the general fund that can't be used for education, for universities, for infrastructure, all the things that we do at the state level? So I think this bill strikes a good balance. So I was happy to support it here in the Senate. It is over in the House right now. It might become part of the budget too. That's always a consideration. So my hope is it can get through the House, it can get through the governor and we can have this as one of the tools in our toolbox to address this really important issue. Thank you for sharing that. You both touched a little bit on something that I wanted to ask is what was the, you know, you guys mentioned some of the opposition and the impact to the general fund and how we balanced that out. So that was one of the things I wanted to ask. Joan, just as we see this go through, this bill go through. I know Senator Shopey had mentioned Senator Bowie had mentioned the budget. Joan, what do you see the impact to the budget moving forward and how that conversation is going to go or how we anticipate that conversation? Great question. I will share kind of just a kind of 30,000 foot snapshot of the state investment towards housing and homelessness because I think, you know, when we think about policy interventions around housing and homelessness, we need to think about where are their funding buckets and there's not a lot in Arizona to address these two issues. I think, you know, the housing trust fund, as both senators have mentioned, is a bucket of funds. But ultimately, you know, we don't have a significant investment. We have a lot of federal funds that, you know, bypass the state level and go to the local jurisdictions. But in terms of a state investment, it's actually pretty small comparative to other states. And so, you know, I'm encouraged by these, you know, I think I remember back in the day when I first started meeting with legislators, you know, the state tax credit was kind of a foreign concept and the housing trust fund. But now it's on the tips of everyone's tongues that everyone knows these concepts, which I'm so pleased by. So I'm really encouraged by that conversation being included as a budget conversation because we need that state investment. Now, to Senator Bowie's point, it does come at a price tag, but we have done some analysis in terms of an economic ROI, you know, the state tax credit, you know, what's being proposed, it would bring in the necessary, during the length of the program, it would bring in about 6,000 affordable units that we so desperately need. It also creates about a $2 billion economic activity. And then it also creates construction jobs. And so, you know, that's the competing balance in terms of the price tag as well. There are, as the Senator mentioned, some guardrails around it. And, you know, and I hate to speak to the opposition point, but I'm just going to share that, you know, there are some concerns around tax credits down at the state legislature. Because as the Senator mentioned, it ties the hands of folks. The reality is, is that, you know, had we had a fully restored housing trust fund, which we've been working at for the past 10 years, you know, maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation, but we need to make sure that there's an ongoing sustained investment towards affordable housing and ending homelessness. And this is one of those ways to make that happen. Absolutely. As we always continue our discussion about, you know, the sustainable financing or the funding, the sustainable funding, housing trust when there's something that comes up, we all discussed it here. We currently, there's two bills, the House Bill 2049 and Senate Bill 1723, both address the housing trust fund and how the reoccurring funds that dedicated funding sources opposed to the one time allocation, which is something that we've seen a couple of times over the past couple of years are the one times allocation, but really addressing that sustainable funding for housing. And also, you know, expanding the use of the affordable housing, sorry, the housing trust fund. Joan, going back to that, how do you, what could we expect from Senate Bill 1723 as it makes its way through? Sure. So Senate Bill 1723 was sponsored by our longtime housing advocate or housing trust fund advocate, Senator Alston, as well as many others. I think Senator Bowrie were on it, but I can't remember off the top of my head. But again, I know you guys have supported this concept for quite some time. The housing trust fund Senate Bill 1723, it actually, the bill itself would restore the housing trust fund back to its original pre-recession level of receiving 55% of unclean property proceeds. Now, the housing trust fund does receive funds from other sources like fines and fees, but the major source of funding is that un-claimed property proceeds. It was capped in 2010 to about two and a half million dollars. But before it was capped, it had a today, it was about 30, 40 million dollars, which is an appropriate state investment towards housing. We were successful a couple of sessions ago in receiving a one time 15 million dollar investment towards the housing trust fund, but we, again, I can't beat this saying enough, we need an ongoing investment. So Senate Bill 1723, it's made its way obviously through the Senate and it awaits hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee. There was, and I'll just jump into it, Dave, I hope that you're okay with this, House Bill 2489 sponsored by Representative Chavez. That piece of legislation was also centered around the housing trust fund and it was originally proposing to make a 25 million dollar investment towards the housing trust fund. Unfortunately, just one time, but still, you know, we'll take, we'll take some any money you got, but the 25 million dollar investment was actually mended down to five million dollars in the Appropriations Committee. And it's, it's that Bill, House Bill 2489 has made its way through most of the process, but again, it's, it's, it's in this kind of holding pattern as budget negotiations are underway. Thank you for that. Appreciate it. And we'll see how it makes its way through. Hopefully, there's some great conversation. Senators, I know, Senator Bo, you had, we'll start with you, you had mentioned the housing trust fund and how to address housing at the state level and the need for funding. What do you see or what is, I guess, what is the nature of the opposition? And what do you see the opposition is for the housing trust fund as a, as a reoccurring funding mechanism? So the opposition, you know, this was cut back during the recession and, you know, there were a lot of programs that were cut and that's certainly understandable, given we have to balance our budget every year. I guess the opposition would be it's, it's just dollars that are going to a program that may not be at the forefront of a lot of members' minds. You know, if they can free those dollars up for tax cuts or for other programs that they want to do, that's certainly their prerogative. We did do a one-time investment in the trust fund two years ago. That's something I worked really hard with then Senator Carter and others on. I think it was 15 or 20 million dollars one time, which was great. But obviously, we would like a permanent funding source for that. So for me, and a lot of members of my caucus, really other than education, it's really at the top of our list in terms of priorities. And my colleague, Senator Alston, has been a champion on this issue for decades. She's leading the charge for that in the budget. So I think there's an opportunity for some bipartisan agreement on the budget this year. And this is one of the things that we would really like to see in the budget. Ideally, an ongoing investment, you know, 30, 40, 50 million dollars a year. But even if it has to be one time, that would steer us in the right direction. And if we could do an investment in the housing trust fund and get this tax credit bill through the legislature and to the governor's desk, I think that would really be a powerful, you know, approach to this issue and working with our cities. And I saw a question in the Q&A earlier. I'm always open to giving our cities and our towns more tools to let them handle this problem. Because I mean, this is obviously an issue of statewide concern, but it's much more prevalent in some cities as opposed to others. So whether it's Tempe or Phoenix or others, I would support legislation to give them more ability to address this issue and do what they need to do to help their residents. Thank you. Absolutely. Senator Shope, do you see anything different from that? I know you have mentioned getting the last one or two votes to help out. It sounds like there's more bipartisan support. It's closer than ever addressing affordable housing. I think that's 100% accurate. I mean, there's not a corner of the state that's not feeling some sort of impact. So Sean mentioned maybe 20 minutes ago, something that's very real down there, and not just on this issue, but any issue. Many times, we will bring something up that is really impacting a district more severely than another. And you really had to put a sell job on why another member should care about an issue that's not necessarily affecting them. But we've finally reached, I think, kind of a nexus point where there's a true impact being felt in all of the districts across the state. So yeah, I'm very confident that we will get something done. I know Senator Alston, I mean, my goodness, she's been pushing this issue for years. And it's something I know that's very important to her. I'd love to see her get a victory on this because it's not just a victory for her, but it's a victory for people that are having a difficult time and or may have a difficult time. Just because we come out of the other side of this pandemic doesn't mean, and I think it was mentioned earlier about real estate, commercial real estate, doesn't mean that companies that may have a lot of people employed right now aren't looking at how they have to restructure in the future. And there are going to be winners and losers out of this whole situation as are any time there's a crisis. So we do have to be prepared for all of those things going forward. Absolutely. And I know a lot of it comes down to the budget conversation. So we understand the complexities there and the general fund. Speaking about additional funding, we know there's an influx of funding coming in to address a variety of issues both health and housing concerns from the American Rescue Act. How will legislators prioritize housing programs for the state? And I kind of want to extend on that a little bit. I know, Senator Boa, you had mentioned the importance of prioritizing funding to get the tools down to the city. And like we spoke about earlier, that connection down to the local level is going to be extremely important to address housing. And it's going to need that partnership. How do you see legislators prioritizing funding for the state to address housing? Well, I know with the American Rescue Plan, there were dollars not just for the states, but for the cities and for the counties as well. And I know Phoenix, the city of Phoenix has been leading on this issue. I know Tempe has as well. The county has their programs as well. So a lot of this will be up to the governor and his discretion. There were some guardrails in the American Rescue Plan as far as what those dollars can go towards. You know, some of those dollars will be available for us as we do our budget this year. You know, we have a $12 billion state budget, and I think we're receiving almost $12 billion from the American Rescue Plan. So there's quite a bit of room here to invest in some of these programs. So I really hope the Affordable Housing Trust Fund is part of that. We did, in our budget last year, we called it a skinny budget because, you know, we usually work on the budget March, April, May. And that's when the pandemic hit. And, you know, the governor and the legislature had a lot of plans for what to do with some of the dollars that we had in a surplus. And we didn't do a lot of those things. So we just kind of passed a bare bones budget. But one of the things that my colleagues and I and the Senate were able to negotiate is we got a $50 million COVID pandemic fund that was specifically designed to help with rental assistance and a lot of the things that people needed last year. So we started that last year. And my hope is this year that some of the dollars that we're receiving from the federal government are going to go for those rental assistance dollars, again, not just for renters, but also for those mom and pop landlords who, as Senator Schoak said, might only own a couple houses. And if their renters aren't paying their rent, then it's harder for them to pay their mortgage on the house. So my hope is we can really fund some of those programs. And that's going to be a part of our discussion here as we work on the budget in the next couple weeks and months. Thank you for that. No, I completely agree, Senator Schoak. What's your take? Yeah, I think that's definitely the case. I mean, the appetite is there. And the money is definitely there, which is obviously different than in many years past. And that's, frankly, the case prior to the $1.9 trillion package that was passed and signed recently. So, Sean mentioned earlier that oftentimes we're there a little longer when we actually have dollars to spend. Everybody has a priority. I'm a broken record down there. All I ever talk about is Interstate 10 between Casa Grande and Phoenix. So, and so, yeah, everybody's got priorities. This is obviously a competition, but this is one that I think definitely has more broad support than a lot of other priorities. And I think that that puts this in a very good position to be in the mix for this. And thank you. Appreciate your guys input on this. I know we have a few more questions, but we're getting a lot of good questions from the audience. So I think we're going to take some from our audience here. The first one goes to all of our panelists. How do we expand our efforts at increasing infill housing without violating the existing neighborhood and community integrity and maintaining our commitments to long term inclusive planning and zoning and our commitment to implementing various municipalities, the general plans. I can start with that. I'll just say that that sounds like a great city issue to ask the council members and the mayors of the local level. They're the ones that make those decisions around the planning and the zoning. And, you know, we can be helpful at the state level in terms of maybe giving them more autonomy to do that or passing funding to help with some of these projects. But that's a great example of a local concern. Each city is obviously different, but I know Tempe's done a great job on this, but not every city is like Tempe. It's not as urban, it's more suburban, and they just have different issues that they focus on. So that would be a great question for your city council under mayor. Yeah, I would only double on that that, you know, when we write it to the extent that we write bills, you know, if there's a way to incentivize that type of development, you know, if they're within a tax credit bills, they're a further, you know, chip that you get to play for something that's infill, something that's, you know, like that. But no, ultimately, this is something that's going to fall on local government. Now, Sean mentioned Tempe, I mean, that's a different animal, you know, not every city is landlocked, obviously. I think Tempe is obviously the largest one in the metro area, that is, and most still have developable parcels within their city limits. So the urgency is maybe not felt for some of those local governments. Joan, do you have a take on this? I think the only thing I'd add is, you know, affordable housing is very much a zoning conversation, but also a community conversation. So when we talk about infill developments, I think it's really just being very concerted, concerted with the community voice conversation. I think if there's a way to ensure that, I don't know if it's through incentives or through state legislation, I don't know, but I think if there's a way to assure community voice is enveloped in the process, I think you're going to deal with, you're going to combat a lot of the opposition. Absolutely. And I think this is something that we've been discussing a lot. I know we work, Habitat for Humanity, we work in some of the communities and in a variety of communities and maintaining that community integrity is something that we really seek to do by getting community feedback. And one of the, I guess, biggest obstacles is once the community develops a plan to address affordable housing or housing in its own community to help maintain the residents within that community, whether they're renters or homeowners, how do we approach the city to find enough incentive or funding to make sure we can build to what that community is looking for or address the variety of needs? It's just such a complex issue without the state support to help subsidize some of the costs or create programs that allow developers to find that incentive to, as Joan mentioned, pencil out some of these projects. I think it's going to be important to layer up those. And that's something that we've seen in a variety of communities. And I think that Senator Scho, please correct me if I'm wrong, that's something that we could see both in our urban and our rural communities as well. I totally agree. I think that's 100% accurate. All right. Let's see. Let's take another question here. From the National Low-Income Housing Coalition gap report report on affordability and availability of units shows that there's a great lack of affordable units for low-income working families that are not in high-cost areas but are heavily in the Southwest. Southwest meaning Vegas, Phoenix, Houston. Is this due to the lack of state funding for new affordable units and overall reliance on federal funding? Why do we see a lack of affordable units in what traditional would be considered more of an affordable area? I'm happy to jump in on this and to share that the lack of affordable housing is not just an Arizona issue. It's very much Southwest, specific Southwest issue. I think it stems from the obviously the significant growth in our area, but also archaic federal funding formulas. We don't receive our fair share of housing choice vouchers. We don't receive, in my opinion, our fair share of the federal funding that goes towards housing programs. I think that the National Low-Income Housing Coalition just released a gap analysis to show where are states that are most hit with this deficit of affordable housing. The color red is the bad areas. Arizona, Nevada, Seattle, all these different areas are in California. Obviously, we're all experiencing these challenges. So why is that? I think it's federal funding declines as well as a significant increase of moving into this area. Senator Shope, what do you think? Joan, how much of that do you think? I mean, look, some of the places that you mentioned, I mean, are obviously sure one thing in common. They're in the West, where sprawl has dominated, where it's not just the home that is costing people dollars. It's travel to and from work. It's the cost of actually going places because of the distances covered. So I mean, there's a lot of things. And that's why I'm so supportive of kind of all of the above approach here for our issues that we face. And that's why I'm so glad finally that the folks on either end where there was a trust fund only people or the tax credit only people have finally, I feel like, started working together because we're going to need to do a lot of work to take care of this issue. Right. I mean, I got to say it's one of those things where you didn't want a pandemic to have that uniform opinion. But here we are. And I think everyone really values now and sees the importance of home. Senator Boyd, I believe you had mentioned earlier the need for, I believe it was you that mentioned the need for the incentive for developers. Do you think that how do you think that plays a role in building the units? We all know that Arizona has a lack of affordable units. How do you think are we too reliant on federal funding for that? Yeah, I think we are. And just in general, if you think about housing, housing is expensive where people want to live. That's why if you look at San Francisco or you look at New York, other suburban areas around the country, people want to move there. And we've done a really good job here in Arizona, making Arizona a really great place to live and work and play. And we've got a great regulatory environment. We've got great weather, all the things that you would want here in Arizona. So for us to, for the governor and others to put such an emphasis on businesses moving here and people moving here and move here from California and all these other things that they say, well, all those people are moving here and they want to be here. But for a lot of working families, especially younger families, they can't buy a house. So for all the time and effort we spend on tax incentives and regulatory changes and making Arizona a more desirable place to be, we've also got to tackle affordable housing. So there's obviously more that we can do. As I mentioned earlier, I really hope we can make an investment in the Housing Trust Fund this year, better partner with our cities. I know there's a very big land parcel in my district and I would took you to the state trust land that's going up for sale in May. There's going to be hundreds of homes. So there's obviously a lot more work we need to do and I'm hopeful we'll be able to do that this year at the state capital. Thank you, appreciate it. It definitely is and it seems like we always get back to the local area and how the partnership between federal and local and state intertwined. Speaking on that, you had mentioned, you know, big parcel and understanding that, excuse me, understanding that brick and mortar stores. There's, you know, shopping malls that are closing down. We've seen a couple of them here in Phoenix and there's strip malls closing down and being vacant all over the state. What is the incentive there? What kind of program is both, you know, at the state level or again, a lot of it's going to fall at the local level, but what can we do to help give incentive to help make those affordable housing units? How do we turn that asset into an affordable housing unit? Well, I'll take that one. Yeah, a lot of it would be helped with this affordable housing tax credit legislation if we can get that passed. You know, fiesta mall and Mesa is in my district and every time I drive by it, I'm like, that'd be great for some condos or town homes or houses there. We know there's a fries electronics just north of my house here that just closed that's right by the 10. Like, you could fit a ton of homes or apartments on that land. So a lot of these issues are a lot of these things are going to be local decisions because those are zoning decisions, but you have to remember if somebody pays a lot of money for the land, obviously they're going to want to build homes on that land to maximize their investment. So we have to have those incentives in place so developers want to build those homes so we can partner with the cities on that. We can have more state funding and have the state tax credit program. So there's a lot of tools in our toolbox that we can use. Yeah, 100%. Mr. Bowie is right on that, you know, fiesta mall. It's hard to believe that was the, we drive an hour to get the fiesta mall to go shopping from Coolidge on a weekend basis, it seemed like of my mom or whatever. But you know, there's parts just like that. I have a bad feeling that, you know, look, in my finance role, we just did, and I work in business finance, we did the whole PPP loan program, one of the largest things that finance has ever been asked to do from home. Nobody was in the office doing that. So I'm, I figure, I figure that you're going to have a lot of corporate space available, especially in our area. And what happens there, obviously somebody owns that and they have the right to do what they'd like to do is Senator Bowie mentioned, but yeah, what the incentive, the incentives that could be offered that we could make it as a legislature possible. Because a lot of times I think they're obviously our programs that exist. And for whatever reason, we find our, some members like to step in the way of some of those things, but if we could agree on an actual program that could be used to incentivize some of these things, then that would be, I think the right course of action. They could completely agree and then, you know, my side of town, shout out to Metro Center, you know, the final cruise down there and Senator Bowie, right next to me, there you go, exactly. And then I grew up, you know, I'm right down the street from the other fries electronics off of, on Thunderbird. So, you know, in a short, in a small area, there can be such a great impact for housing, given the right incentive to convert that asset from an empty warehouse and empty mall to affordable housing or, you know, like you said, understanding and partnering with the owner of it. But how does that relationship work and what's going to be the impacts of the community are things that we, you know, want to keep an eye on. I believe that is all we have time for, Lauren, is that Oh, come on, we got two minutes, one more. I'm fine with one more. Let's see here. Well, and actually, John, I wanted to ask you, speaking about the housing trust fund, we talked about multipliers. So you had mentioned, you know, not only using the housing trust fund to create more affordable units, but what does that do to the construction industry? What does that do to bringing in other labor? How do we include that multiplier into it? Well, the good news about the housing trust fund is that not only does it serve as gap financing for affordable housing development, it also is highly responsible to responsive to whatever the current housing challenges our state faces. So obviously, right now, we're dealing with a conversation around eviction. Obviously, the American rescue plan comes with us to us with a lot of emergency rental assistance. But as we kind of stop the hemorrhage, we can, we can use the housing trust funds and coupled with the state low income housing tax credit to not only build affordable housing, but, you know, have that conversation about, you know, how can we protect these small mom and pop landlords in the going out into the future? Because they are a very essential part of our affordable housing supply, these small duplex triplexes, et cetera. You know, also as we think about folks who are living on the streets or unsheltered or in shelters, you know, how can we ensure their safety and their support and transition to into a home ownership and speaking of home ownership? How can we ensure the housing trust fund can ensure that housing counselors who walk alongside, you know, families that are struggling post this COVID-19 pandemic, they can help kind of tease out what programs are best suited for them, what what rental unit might be best or what first time home ownership opportunity might be might be best. So I think, you know, to sum up, I would just say that we need all tools in the toolbox that, you know, to use both both senators analogies. We need both all of these tools. We need investments at the federal, state and local level. We need community buy-in and political goodwill. And I think, you know, I just want to thank both senators Bowie and Senator Schoep for expressing that support. So we couldn't do it without you. So thank you. That is a great way to conclude. Well, thank you, everyone. And if all the speakers could stay on for a photo, I'd appreciate that. But I want to thank all of our panelists, thank you for the excellent moderation and seeing all the questions come in. I felt like I love Lucy and that the chocolate episode, the chocolate actor episode, they're coming fast and furious. And we only sort of chew on the outsides of the questions. So thank you, audience, for being so engaged and all the ideas that came forward. And thank you so much, Senator Schoep and Bowie, for being leaders and being willing to work outside the boundaries of party to come together for the good of the community and the region and the state. Thank you so much for all your efforts. And Joan, you are a legend. And we so appreciate you being a housing advocate and standing up for people all across Arizona. Thank you to Brandon for doing all the hard work for this event. And we really appreciate you all taking time from your morning and have a great weekend. And speakers, if you could just stay on. And I'd love to take a picture of you. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Well, great, you guys. Thank you so much. That was awesome. Do a picture, Brandon. So how do we do that with that? Okay, great. Can we make you get your picture off?