 But then people can just get in automatically now that I've started it, right? I don't need to let them in. So it's being recorded. Oh, I'm going to make you a co-host, I think. Yep. All right, you should have a pop up there. Well, I know it is because I see the bottom part. I have a lot more icons. OK, you have more choices. Yes. And I'm going to look at attendees. OK, Tim McCarthy is going to present. I'm not seeing any other trust members as of yet. OK, Rob is here, so I'm going to allow him to come in, promote the panelists. Rob has joined us. Hi, Rob. So we're waiting for Grover, Allegra, and Ashley. Paul cannot be here. Oh, here's Ashley. Hi, Ashley. Hello. Hi there. We're waiting for Allegra. And then we can actually start. Allegra and Grover, and then we could start. Then we'll have Quorum. Here's Allegra. And then we just need Grover. No, Carol tonight? Carol is at the CPA. She will try to join us as soon as she can. But she is presenting at the CPA. And same with Nate. And Dave is staffing, helping to staff. And Paul is at a town meeting. Here's Carol. Actually, Carol is joining us. OK, all right. Carol, I think you're here with us. The only person missing right now is Grover. Let's just wait one more minute, and then we will proceed. Here's Grover. OK, great. We have Quorum. All right, well, thank you very much for joining us. It is 7.02, and I'm calling the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust to order tonight before we proceed. I just wanted to let you know we have Carol with us, even though she was just presenting at the CPA. So thank you for joining us, Carol. And Nate is going to be, he probably will have to stay there longer. So he will not be here. But we have Craig Rashane. And hopefully, Nate will come and do a proper introduction. Greg is actually the Affordable Housing Coordinator. So he just started this week, and we are very, very grateful for him to have taken the position. And when Nate joins us, he will give a proper introduction and a proper welcome to Greg. But on behalf of the trust, we are very excited to have you here. And this evening, Rob is going to take the notes for us. So thank you, Rob. George Ryan cannot make it this evening. And I just want to do a shout out of appreciation to him because he's consistently taken notes. And when he hasn't, then Rob has stepped in. So thank you, Rob. So we're going to start first with the review of October minutes. Does anyone have any omissions, corrections, comments? I'm not seeing any hands. And just so you know, I only see a few of us members all at once. So if I miss somebody, please let me know. I'm not seeing any hands. So I think we are going to accept the minutes as they stand, since there are no comments or no feedback or corrections. So the October minutes have been accepted by the trust. So thank you. We're now going to move to the next item on the agenda, which is an update on the strategic planning process. And I'm going to hand it over to Grover to give us an update. Yeah, so the information is that we did receive the grant for technical support. And the town has signed a contract with the person who will be supporting us in doing the strategic planning. And her name is Shelly. And the next step is that she is going to reach out to a list of people that provided the three of us that are on this committee, as well as the staff, to get the information that she needs. And our goal is to come back to you at our next meeting with a schedule set and everything ready to roll in moving forward. Thank you, Grover. Carol, do you want to add anything to that? That sounded fine to me. Thank you. And thank you, Grover and Carol, for moving this forward. It's pretty exciting that the Mass Housing Partnership is the one that's going to be working with us to do this, because they have a lot of experience in doing this and working with strategic plans with municipalities, Affordable Housing Trust and municipalities. So thank you. All right, any questions, any comments? OK, not seeing any hands up. I'm going to continue. So we have Tim McCarthy here from Craig's Door. He's the executive director. He provided to us a proposal. And I'm going to allow him to go ahead and present to us the proposal. And he's also available to answer any questions. So Tim, I am going to promote you to panelists so you can go ahead and share with us the proposal. And then we will open up for any questions and discussion. And let's go from there. So thank you very much, Tim, for joining us. Great. Can you hear me OK? Yes, thank you. Terrific. So I just want to start off by thanking everyone in this group for being so incredibly supportive and dedicating so much time and energy in finding ways that we can appropriately work together and collaborate at a deeper level and for you all to be able to support us. Also, Greg, before I forget, welcome. And I would love the opportunity for us to connect, particularly as we're in the process of searching for our housing navigator and filling that vacancy, which is intersected at a pretty deep level. So after getting some feedback, I wanted to really create a space for this to be a dialogue and for me to be able to address any concerns, questions, offer clarity regarding the content of the proposal that I'd submitted. And before kicking that off, I just want to give a quick overview, both of sort of an update on where Craig Storrs is at from just like a very factual, metrics-focused perspective, and then a quick overview of our proposed ask and the project that it is tied to. And then I really just want to, again, offer the space to answer any and all questions. So Craig Storrs remains the low threshold shelter for the region. We operate three sites between Hadley and Amherst. We have our congregate shelter at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Amherst, which supports 28 individuals, providing housing, case management services, and meals. Our non-congregate site at the former Econolodge in Hadley is a partnered effort with Valley CDC that provides shelter, meals, and support to 38 individuals. And our resource center, which is also right sort of in the center of Amherst as you approach the UMass campus, is up and running and evolving and helps between 20 and 40 community members on average per week. Those numbers are all on a positive trajectory. We operate the only emergency shelter operated free and fair public transit program in the country, offering autonomy and agency to all of our guests. We're partnering with a variety of legislators on that initiative to gather data and hopefully create broader supports and projects to other communities. Most importantly, I think, we've evolved from a seasonal overnight shelter into a program that operates 24-7, 365, allowing us to circumvent the limitations that the housing crisis has put on the housing first model and allowing us to really exercise innovative solutions in combating chronic homelessness. We're a totally different organization than we were a year ago. We are young, we're enthusiastic, we're innovative, and we're progressive. Our executive team in recognizing a gross disparity between executive pay and frontline compensation within the space that we operate. We have intentionally imposed a self-restricted cap on compensation, so no one at Craig's Doors will ever well, pending inflation, no one at Craig's Doors will earn over $70,000. In most organizations of our size, executive directors often make $120,000, $140,000 to provide you with a sort of reference guide. So we're really trying to live our principles and our values of equity and recognizing that the crisis surrounding folks who remain unhoused, often chronically unhoused, is a manifestation of wealth inequality in our country. I want to also emphasize we are not trying to be self-righteous or high-horsing. We want everyone to be able to earn and to be able to aggregate wealth in America. There's plenty of opportunity, just not pulling from this specific pocket of resources that is dedicated exclusively to helping unhoused folks. So it's not a judgment or like a moral condemnation, it's just what's worked for us. It's also radically self-serving. Craig's Doors does not have the turnover that other providers have. We don't have recruitment issues. We've really become a sort of magnet for people who want to engage in compassionate and trauma-informed service. And that's something that we're radically proud of. So we have been approached about potentially taking on a contract with the Bureau of Substance Abuse Services, which is a subsidiary of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, along with, sorry, the Bureau of Substance Addiction Services and the Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences. So all working together under MDPH in a procurement opportunity to reduce homelessness, improve health outcomes and advance health equity for residents who are experiencing homelessness and substance use disorder and maybe at a high risk of HIV acquisition. There is flexibility here in terms of program, in terms of being, I'm so sorry, an appropriate fit for the program in terms of being a viable and appropriate fit. So it does expand beyond those parameters. It deals with complex mental health issues, a lot of comorbidity and so really targeting the most vulnerable members of our community. The procurement through DPH is a 12 month contract for 15 participants with $40,000 aggregated per participant. And so this is really the first opportunity that I've seen to actualize the housing first model, just a super quick overview. The housing first strategy is endorsed by both HUD and the US Interagency Council on Homelessness as the best practice for governments and service agencies in their fight to end chronic homelessness. It's a policy that proposes unconditional permanent housing as quickly as possible to unhoused individuals predicated on the concept that unhoused individuals or households first and primary need is to obtain stable housing and then other issues that may affect the household can and should be addressed once housing is obtained. Again, we work exclusively with adult individuals, but this is a policy that spans all of unhoused conversations and approaches in the States, also in Europe. It's an effective solution to homelessness and it's also a form of cost savings. It reduces the use of public services like hospitals, jails and emergency shelters, particularly when it's properly executed. What historically, particularly in our region has been the problem is that we get folks into housing and we don't provide them with the support services that are required to help these folks reach a level of self-efficacy and independence. And that's where we are going to be able to really innovate. Our approach involves creating two living wage jobs by expanding our case management team. So there will be two full-time individuals focused exclusively on supporting this case load. We will be looking to subsidize rent. Half of the $40,000 is ideally applied towards rental costs, the other half towards service and support. Folks who do have an income will also be expected to contribute between 10 and 30% towards the housing initiative. We're in a unique position that unless, again, I'll answer any and all questions directly and transparently, but I'll just leave it at, there are folks who are in a program like this right now in town, and that we'd be coming into sort of help turn it around. I'll just, again, I'll leave it right there for now. So the ask from you all is for $180,000. It would, all of those funds would exclusively go toward rental subsidy for the 15 program participants, $1,000 per month for 12 months. We have kind of crunched the numbers and this is a one-year need. We will not be returning. The program will become self-sustaining after this year. The program also sort of fundamentally supports a variety of expansion efforts. So holistically as an organization, it really provides us with an opportunity to have a sort of gateway in terms of helping folks progress through the system. So entering congregate shelter, non-congregate shelter, and then eventually, particularly if we're able to see expansion in the number of units, entering into these low threshold programs, or again, alternative housing solutions where appropriate. The objective in supporting these folks is to put them in a space where they can feel safe, they can call home, they can exit the sort of survival mode that folks are forced to operate from when living rough or sleeping rough, providing them with the services and then helping them graduate from this program and into their own independent living arrangement. So we're able to again, sort of cycle through the entire community of folks that are currently living on house, address their unique needs and exercise whatever flexible supports are required through shared decision-making, recognizing that their expertise and knowledge of their own histories and what's worked, what hasn't worked and their goals for their future are met. And so it's really walking shoulder to shoulder with these tenants and helping them to reach a level of self-efficacy. So again, I think that that really covers up the foundation and I just wanna open this up to be a dialogue. Any and all concerns, questions I want to be able to address and I wanna leave the majority of the time for that purpose. So I'll leave it there. Thank you, Tim, that was a great overview and thank you for the proposal you submitted prior so everyone could read it and be prepared. Allegra, you have your hand up, go ahead. First of all, I think housing first is an amazing model. So I'm really glad that you guys are doing that. I just wanna make sure I understand the $1,000 is to go above and beyond what the subsidy will already cover that is subsidizing, that is the subsidy. So that's a, thank you. That's a really important question and I should have touched on it in my overview. The fund, so the funding itself through the program affords us an opportunity to help mitigate inherited administrative costs in getting caught up organizationally from a financial perspective in terms of filing and the performance of audits. I'm happy to go into more detail there. All I can say is that it was the product of a less developed and more immature iteration of our current organization. And so the idea would be that we're already appointed the opportunity by BSAS to take a substantial portion of the contract and put it towards those administrative costs to support our organization holistically. In doing so though, every dollar that is utilized for our programs security and benefit is removed from the resources available to the participants. And so our hope is that we can sort of rally around municipal supports so that the funding is going directly towards rental subsidy, which allows us to be more creative in the utility and application of the remainder of the funds in the contract. I'm sorry, that was so convoluted. I didn't mean it to be. I'm just... So I just want, because I was like a long time ago when I was working in Boston, we had like shelter plus care vouchers. So is that kind of what the BSAS funds is? It's the, obviously the support staff, but also a portion of the funds are going towards the, so it would be like a voucher. Exactly. A little different from a voucher, only in that like we have the whole, it's like, it's really a housing first. I've never seen a program that actualized the housing first model so authentically. Like it's going to cover the rent for a full year. And then the remainder of the funds that are available for each individual, those are unique circumstances, unique rental agreements, et cetera. But all of the remaining funding goes to again, expanding our case management team to allocate staff who are always available, but then it's to be able to support whatever the individual needs are specific to each person. So again, it's rental costs, internal expansion in terms of our case management supports, and then whatever else they need, it could be vital documentation. It could be mental subsidizing the cost of mental health care, physical, like general health could be bringing in peer supports or sobriety coaches, whatever. And in some cases, the department explained like someone bought a bike once, someone bought a television. It's just to really help develop a healthy and improved quality of life for these folks while they really work towards self-efficacy. A portion also goes towards training our case management staff, those two folks, in a variety of interventions were really focused on motivational interviewing. In particular, we've seen like the most substantial impact by exercising that intervention and really operating from a humanistic lens. So I think I captured what you'd asked, but I know it's a complex point of discussion. It's really straightforward, except that it's not. So I have one other question. Can I ask my one other question? Yes, but let me just clarify that what we're funding is the rental subsidy. So what we're doing is we are helping build with the small amount of funding that we're providing, helping to build a real complex supportive developmental partnership with Craig's Door, with those 15 individuals. Go ahead, Allegra. My, yes, my other question was just to clarify, are these 15 individuals already housed? So by not providing these funds, they would be at risk of home returning into homelessness. Yes. So there's a sense of urgency, in other words. Oh, yeah, yeah, major, major exigency in a few different ways, but that's the primary one. Rob, you had your hand up. I think most of my question was never by Allegra's questions. One other question I had though was you described this as being inherited, inherited program. You're inherited from some other organization or some previous generation of, okay. Yeah, the first one, yeah, another organization. Okay, thank you, Rob. That's an important distinction, thanks. Carol, you have a hand up? Yeah, I just wanted to, because this didn't come clear to me in what you were saying right now, Tim, but it has been clear in other times when we've talked about it. One important thing about it to me seems that this is a three-year funded program and we are only asked to do the first year of the rental and then the pro, because that's what they need to do something else with. And then what the next two years are already in place and presumably at the end of three years the people will be able to be somewhere permanently housed. Yeah, I mean, ideally, Carol, we're actually looking at what is intended by the folks who are administering this initiative to be a 10, 20-year program, like a very long-term program. We have to go through this sort of initial period about three years, but we're hoping that by year one we'll be able to transition or graduate the vast majority of program participants into independent living and then bring in the next, and in perpetuity sort of bring folks who are in particularly vulnerable positions into the space, get them to support, move them into independence, et cetera, like ad nauseam. But you already are funded for three years of doing it, at least, so that's like, I think that's amazing. It doesn't happen very often. No, it doesn't, you're right. Ashley, oh, sorry, I'm not the... No problem, you go ahead, Tim. It's not my job. Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely in favor of this. And I just want to reiterate like a basic apartment in Amherst often is about $1,500. And so you need first, last, and deposit often. And so that is $4,500 ish to move into an apartment in Amherst and many people who are homeless and also people who are working don't have $4,500 on hand. And so these are people that probably can't live at Amherst without it. And that's what Amherst has decided to be. We are not a town that welcomes people who don't have $4,500 just sitting in a bank account. So, and I want, I personally want people who don't have $4,500 just hanging out to live in Amherst. I think it makes it a better town. I want to welcome people who don't have that much money into Amherst. I don't wanna just hang out with people, just rich people. So I am totally in favor of this, you know? And it takes a while to get $4,500 and I work. And so this would be good. Yeah, Ashley, you touched on so many things that I'm really grateful for. I think the conversation surrounding diversity, financial diversity and experience and the social makeup of the community is radically important. I also wanna, you touched on another component surrounding vouchers. And it's important for everyone to understand that the way that vouchers are housing vouchers are exercised and applied in our region is based off Springfield's FMR or fair market rate. So the voucher's intention is to help subsidize to a significant degree housing costs. But when you move into a community like Amherst and there's such a difference in the housing market, those vouchers don't actually provide any realistic or adequate support towards allowing them to remain in their community of origin. So I just wanted to share that additional piece of context for what you're saying and thank you as always. So I'm not seeing any hands up from the trust members and I wanna recognize if any of the attendees wanna ask a question, oops, I'm sorry. So let me just put the hand up among the trust members. Rob. Sorry, yeah. You mentioned that or you said that that you expect to be self-sustaining. You're from now, meaning what, more funding from this program or how is it gonna be self-sustaining? So what it comes down to, and I just wanna be careful about how I articulate this, there are organizational operating costs right now. Okay, you did cover this, I just didn't get it, okay. Cool, thank you. Thank you. Allegra, this is probably more of a question for Paul or Nate who are not here, but I know that we, or at least when we talked about ARPA funds at the beginning of ARPA funds being a thing, there was a million dollars earmarked for the shelter situation and then a million dollars earmarked for other affordable housing initiatives that as far as I can tell, we haven't touched that pot of money. Is that, I don't know if Erica or Carol might be able to answer that question or if ARPA might be another pot of money that could be pulled from for this if the trust does not approve of this. You're right that Nate would have a better answer. I just stayed a little bit longer at the CPA presentation because Nate was making a presentation about what the town was asking for. And so I heard him say in that presentation that one of the things the town has used some of its ARPA housing funds for was to give money outside the CPA process and outside asking us to both Valley CDC for maybe Ball Lane, I'm not sure, but definitely to Wayfinders for the project that is Belcher Town Road in East Street. So my short answer without asking Nate more is that the town is holding that pot kind of tightly, but they have done some things with it because I know they've done those things and they've also used ARPA money for the VFW project. So how much they have left, whether they've used it all, I don't know, but I know that they've used it in those three cases, at least some of it. That's all I know. Allegra, maybe for the purpose of this conversation, it would be helpful. My first approach was to the town. And so it was made clear that funds from the ARPA funds have already either been distributed or they are already earmarked for allocation in other projects and that this, yet they just didn't have the capacity they wanted to. And they have been really supportive even in facilitating this dialogue, but that's not an option, unfortunately. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Of course. So just because I think it's such an important conversation, I do wanna open it up. If any of the attendees have any questions for us to also consider, maybe we haven't considered or any comments. So I'm just gonna leave a minute to see if any hands come up. I mean, it's very long. So not seeing any. I'm gonna ask the trust members again. Are there any other questions or comments? Do, are we at a point where we wanna move forward with considering this? We will need a vote. Okay, there's a hand up here, Grover. Yeah, I just have a question for, I'm gonna guess that it's air-cond roll, but it's specifically about which line item of our budget this would be, are there restrictions on the line item of the budget that this is eligible to come from versus not? Cause the totals at the bottom are one thing and then the sub buckets are another. It'll be the development funds. So be specific CPA funding. So, we're very clear that CPA funding can only be directly for subsidizing rent or subsidizing mortgages or developing affordable housing such as the projects that we've provided funding towards. So we'll be specifically out of, and what Grover is mentioning is Nate had sent us a financial document that we all have as a handout, except for the attendees possibly. And so it would come straight out of that line item. And then a follow-up question is, we have applied for more CPA funding and that will be disbursed. So it's likely that that pot will be refilled with more funds in the coming year. I would like, yes, thank you. I'm just gonna cross, I think Carol did a wonderful presentation today. The CPA members seem to be very committed to affordable housing, but we're not the only people asking for affordable housing funds. I do believe because they've in the past been very, very supportive of us. We've asked for 500,000. In the past we've asked for 500,000. We've gotten half and sometimes a little less than half. But I think Carol did a really good presentation today of why it's necessary for us to have those funds. And Carol also discussed, and I'm sorry I'm talking to you for you Carol, but you can certainly jump in. Carol also discussed what our funding looks like right now and what are some of the possible projects that people are coming forward to ask us for funding to support. So I think she did a really great job in stating why we need those funds. I have, I'm kind of ready to go forward with this to one thing that is still confusing or one thing I'd like to have maybe more detail about and it's how will this funding, how will these funds actually be dispersed? So because they're, go ahead. Sorry, this is a conversation that I've had with Nate and Dave. So essentially the subsidy would be provided in a lump sum upon agreement. And then every month we will be providing you all with records of the application of those funds to each individual rental costs. So that's really the primary reporting function provided that we have the honor of being awarded and in partnership with you all a bit more concretely through this initiative. So monthly reporting and records surrounding the rental subsidies themselves in an upfront payment to assist in ensuring that we have the capacity to immediately start assisting and inheriting those rental obligations and spending obligations. Does that answer your question, Carol? Pretty much, so that means we give, you get the $180,000 all at once and then we get record of what you've done with it as it happens. Yeah, it's the idea is to take the administrative burden off of the town. So you guys aren't essentially acting as landlord or leases or administrators for each individual. And so that falls to us. We provide the reporting. So, and if there's ever any questions obviously we would provide whatever additional detail might be of interest will be personal, like not personally we'll be internally collecting a variety of data points as we've become sort of a very, we're modeling the importance of data in terms of providing empirically supported solutions. So, we'll have tons of reporting but in terms of the actual allocation and distribution it comes, like you said, upfront, which is magic to us in a world of state reimbursement contracts. Right, I know what you mean. Yeah, so I just can't tell you how critical this is. So, that means I have, I'm being probably a, I'm putting on my finance hat, which I actually wear a lot of the time when I'm not here anyway. So I'm wondering what happens if somebody dropped, are you sure that you are gonna use every single month of every single person for the entire year? So the $180,000 will be used up exactly. And I mean, it's cause somebody could get, I don't know, somebody could have to go to a hospital with. Sure. I don't know what could happen. So I'm just asking what the, what if there's some contingency seeing like that what would happen? Yeah, so the contingency is the maintenance of basically a waitlist. So we're, what we're preparing for is that someone graduates into independent housing. That's our ideal outcome. Right, right, yes. And so when that happens, we'll have folks who are already prepared to transition into those units and to sort of take the place of the previous participant. So in perpetuity, we're always maintaining the relationship with the landlord and the access to the unit. So I have, there's no question that the full 180 will be utilized, particularly because that provides us with the foundation thousands, right? That's like the first thousand that we're able to pull. And then we allocate from the larger contract to supplement where necessary to meet the full needs. Okay, I think that's my question. Thank you. If I can just add, Tim is going to be responsible for providing documentation to the department public health. Oh, right, thank you. The substance addiction services and BIDDLEs, the Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences. So there's an added accountability there. Definitely we need our accountability, but there's a much larger added accountability as well as data, which would be great for us to, for you to share with us so we can see the success of this. This is a great, I don't remember what you used Carol or what you used in terms, I don't want to use pipeline, but in a gateway to permanency for individuals who have experienced being unhoused. And so this really maximizes the amount we are providing in order to get a lot in terms of having people be securely housed. Totally. And yeah, this $180,000 is exponentially more valuable than the actual number. Like in terms of its broader impact and its future impact, it's so I can't even put a value on it. I also just want to piggyback on what you'd said Erica and not only are we held accountable by those departments, we're also in partnership with them. So the supports that they're going to be able to provide us are super unique in comparison to our other state contracts that are sort of like, execute on your own, provide us with the data and reporting that we need, but otherwise we're sort of hands off. This is going to be like a really hands on supportive partnership to ensure our success. Yeah. And to hold us accountable. Yes. And I want to go back to what you said before in terms of housing first, it is in the interest, especially in terms of commitment. And I say that because I'm a little biased I used to work for the Bureau of Substitution Services, but they are so committed in terms of having a comprehensive, holistic response to their community and also have a partnership with community based organizations like yours that are very interested in social justice and in partnership and democracy. So this is, they're looking at this as an opportunity to demonstrate success and pilot what you have been promoting for a long time, which is not just about housing someone, but it's really about their whole quality of life and their engagement in a community, which is really important in community. So, yeah. So beautifully said, yeah. Yeah, I can say yes. That's precisely what we're after here. Well, I think we're ready. We're probably going to, unless there are any other questions we're probably going to put you back in the attendees. Let's see if I can put you back. I just want to, before I do, I just want to thank all of you again so much for your support and providing us this opportunity. I cannot state how critical this is to the future of our organization. And just the fact that we're having a dialogue is so illustrative of a community that really acts on what it says in terms of values and principles. So thank you guys again. Before you kick him out, since Nate just got here, can we just see if Nate has anything he wants to say about the Craig's Door application since he's now here and maybe he can't even think about anything right now after whatever he just been through. But feel free to say you don't want to say anything, Nate, but do you have anything to say? No, I mean, I missed the discussion. I've read the proposal. So I don't have anything to add. I think it's something that the town also sees as important in the trust. And so it's a difficult thing to... This kind of program is a difficult thing to fund traditionally. And so getting services and housing together is really important. I think we know that, but it's something that hasn't happened all the time. And so I think it's a really nice opportunity right now. Thank you, Nate. All right. Thank you so much, Tim. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to have this conversation and follow our commitments. So I'm going to change you back to attendee. Thank you so much. All right. So who would like to make a motion? So we can go ahead and first make a motion, any further discussion and then vote. So I move to take $180,000 from our development funds line item to fund the Craig's Doors proposal as presented to us. I second that. Any discussion, not seeing any hands up, giving a little more time. I think we're ready to vote. So I'm going to call each person to state their vote. Ashley? Yes. Allegra? Yes. Carol? Yes. Grover? Yes. Rob? Yes. Erica is a yes. So I think that is unanimous. The motion has passed. Thank you. This is really exciting. Okay, Nate, I think you actually moved the trust accounts under this, but let's leave it under town updates. Is that okay with you? Okay. All right. So the next item on the agenda is the June 20th community listening session brief. We sent out the brief and of course, I absolutely want to apologize that it took so long to do, but as was stated in the brief, it was somewhat challenging to ensure that the voices that came out of that listening session as well as the individuals who submitted their comments and their feedback and shared their stories to really get it on paper and to as much as possible, make sure that it was inclusive. So what I just wanted to have us discuss is is there any feedback, any emissions, anything that should be changed, as well as the planning group. So let me just thank the planning group. Allegro was from the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee, along with Phillip Avila, who was also from the Human Rights Committee. There was Nancy Gilbert from the Board of Health. There was Elizabeth Heygood from the Human Rights Committee. And then from our trust was Ashley Allegro myself. So we were the planning committee along with town staff, Nate and Jennifer Moisten. So we worked to put this event together, including having a website where people could submit their comments. And we had a real rich conversation on the night of June 20th. And we also had wonderful submissions in terms of people's comments. But as you saw in the brief, it really created a range of recommendations. And our intent was one to provide an opportunity for individuals with lived experience in Amherst as well as people who wanna live in Amherst or work in Amherst or study in Amherst to really share their lived experiences with us in terms of the challenges around attaining affordable housing, maintaining affordable housing and trying to get affordable housing here in Amherst and have those of us who are committed to creating affordable housing be listeners in this. And we decided that we would do a brief or a report so we could share it with town council, the town and others who were not able to be there or who were able to be there but maybe didn't get the richness of all the whole conversation because they were in one group or another to really be able to have that information to help think about how to move forward with all of the really rich ideas that individuals were generous enough to share. So two things, one is comments and feedback from you guys. The second is who else should we distribute this to? So I have town council, I have town staff, Representative Dom who's here, Senator Comerford, the attendees who left their emails with us. We were very clear that we wanted to keep things anonymous but people had the opportunity to leave emails with us because they were interested in continuing making sure that affordable housing stays on the agenda is a priority for the town and then we have a trust email list. So any other groups that we should include? Would it make sense to send it to Pamela Schwartz of the Western Mass Network? Thank you. Good idea. Very good idea. I'm gonna jump in and say Representative Dom has our hand raised and then I think the planning board is another one that this could be directed to. Planning board, thank you. All right, let me, Representative Dom, you can go ahead and speak. Thank you so much, Erica. Hi, everybody. I don't have to speak now because you're in the middle of this particular topic or I can jump in, whatever is more convenient. I don't wanna interrupt your flow. It's fine, please, Stu. Well, in terms of who else should get this, I am thinking that you may wanna make a social media post about the report and ask if someone wants a copy of it that they can email a request because there may be people that aren't yet on your mailing list who are interested in it. But the reason why I wanted to just speak at some point tonight was first of all, I wanted to introduce a new legislative aide, Grace Simmons, who's also watching tonight. And Grace just started about last week, I think, maybe this week. I don't know, my time has been vacant for sure. They're based in Boston, but one of their areas of specialty is housing. And so they will definitely be attending these and kind of watching and also seeing where we can be of support. And you should also feel free to reach out to them. I can't actually put the email address in the chat because I don't have access to the chat, but it's grace.simmons at mahouse.gov. And I can send that to you also, and Grace can send it to you actually. So I wanted to introduce Grace. I also wanted to thank Eric and Carol for participating in the meeting with the governor and the secretary of housing and livable communities when they came to visit. And I think that was a critically important meeting because it got us on their radar in a way that we want to be, which is as a community that's saying yes. So I just, I really want to remind everybody that the governor introduced a $4.1 billion housing bond. That's not the bond that will ultimately be decided on because it's a piece of legislation. It has to go through the legislative process. Unfortunately, I'm hearing concerns about revenue in the state, but that may not affect a bond because a bond is something we're borrowing over a long period of time and not just a one year fiscal year kind of budgetary. But the reason why I'm talking about the bond right now is because in order to get money in the bond released for programs or communities, the governor is the person that does that. So you can like get all these different budgetary kinds of earmarks, so to speak, or programs in a bond, but in order for it to be released from the bond, the governor, whoever that is, has to sort of what they call pull the trigger. They have to allocate it. And so it's really good that to have the governor and the secretary in Amherst seeing what we're doing and also getting an earful from the senator myself about all the things that are in the pipeline, including Craig's Doors at the BFW site, because I'm certain that that will also end up in a bond, like some homeless service capital projects. Because then when we go back and look at what's, and you look at what's in the ultimate bond and say, Mindy, how do we get our hands on that? Pointing to some dollar amount, we'd have to go and advocate and read lobby to the administration, but now we're in their heads. So that's a good thing. So I just really wanna point out that those kind of meetings are really critical, not only cause they get to show off what Amherst is doing, but in this case, it's really critical because we're gonna go back and want some of that bond money to come to Amherst for affordable housing. So there's that piece. And I also just wanted to say one thing on the strategic planning, if you don't mind me jumping in here, I love strategic planning. When I had to do it at the Amherst Survival Center, people warned me, I know it's very boring process, things get put on a shelf, blah, blah, blah. I loved it because it gave me an opportunity and the organization an opportunity to reach into the community and find out what people thought of us as an organization and also what they expected from us and from themselves in that case, as it related to food security. And so it just gave us this incredible opportunity to have these conversations using the strategic plan as the basis for it and then having them inform the strategic plan. So I think the amazing opportunity, particularly at this juncture in the housing crisis in Amherst as well as the Commonwealth, to be able to use the strategic plan to have these conversations and conversations can happen lots of ways, right? They can happen with actual discussion, they can happen via survey, they can happen via listening sessions and public hearings, like a whole range of things. I'm not telling you how to do it at all. I'm just saying it's an incredibly exciting opportunity to have folks sort of say what they expect in terms of affordable housing in Amherst in very specific ways. And I'm really looking forward to supporting you in any way I can with this, whether at the very least promoting whatever opportunities you want people to engage in and really encouraging community engagement with you. So please count me in as a partner and an amplifier always, but especially around this kind of thing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Representative Dom. I see Tim has his hand up. So I'm going to go ahead, oops. Tim, did you want to say something? Can you hear me okay? Yes, you can. I just wanted to ask that I be added to the distribution list as well, whatever mailing list it is that you guys have, that'd be great. I can reach out to you personally if I need that. I thought you were. I may well be, Carol, I just haven't seen the, yeah, I'll keep an extra eye out. Send me your email in case I have it wrong or something. I'm the keeper of the list and I'll make sure that it's on there correctly. I just wanted to verify is all, I also just wanted to thank everybody on the trust and also, and I know that she's not going to love that I'm doing this, but I just have to shout out Representative Dom and her support for our organization as a whole, but particularly that transportation initiative, we would not be able to do some of the more innovative components of our work without her support in her office's support in a myriad of ways. So just thanks, everybody. I'm overwhelmed right now with gratitude and thank you, just everybody. Really, really honored to work in this community. Thank you, Jim. So any other suggestions, we will send it to Pamela Schwartz who has a massive list in terms of housing advocates and also housing advocates within Amherst. I think we actually had an email list that we sent flyers to, we'll use that email list as well. And I think if you were to read the brief, I think it's a good starting point on some of the areas that people felt should be priorities for us around affordable housing. So that could be a beginning trajectory but absolutely what Representative Dom stated. One of the things that was very clear with regards to what I heard and those of you who are there, please jump in. And this is from the disability community which is nothing about us without us. And so it's the same thing in terms of community engagement is that for individuals who have this lived experience, if we want things to be successful, we need to have individuals and community, their input because they know if this is going to work or not in terms of the initiatives that we think are important to our priorities. So community engagement is very, very important. And as Representative Dom said that there are multiple ways of doing this. We did a in-person listening session but we also were able to ask people if they want to submit comments so to increase the access to being able to provide input and then maybe also doing something virtually in the future as well. Allegra? Do we have a vacancy on the trust right now? We have two vacancies on the trust and I was going to comment on that under the strategic plan and I'm sorry, I meant to give an update then. One of the things that we wanna make sure is before we start the strategic plan that our vacancies are filled, we actually did interviews and we provided our feedback to the town manager, Paul who unfortunately could not be here this evening and Paul will make the ultimate decision and then submit it to town council for approval. So I believe that's probably gonna happen within the next two weeks so we should know who will be joining us and then we will have a full membership and we can go into strategic planning with a full membership, which we're hoping that we will have a plan for the next three to five years to really help us guide around priorities. I would just add that all of us who were involved in the interviewing, we interviewed what was it, eight people but one didn't show up or something like that. Anyway, we thought we had a lot of good candidates so we felt like we had a good pool. It was an excellent pool. I'm glad you mentioned that Carol. It really was very, very difficult because we had such good applicants who were highly committed, very diverse around experience, age, where the backgrounds lived experience. It really, I suppose it was wonderful to have a very difficult decision but Paul will be making the decision. We've given him our feedback so we'll see. But I think whoever joins us in those two positions I wish we had four or five or six but whoever joins us I think will be extremely valuable in terms of the makeup of our group and the experiences and the insight that they'll bring to this group. Okay, if anyone has any other ideas about who to distribute this to or if they're willing to work with me on a social media post, let me know. You could just email me or email Carol and me. Okay, so we're gonna move to the next item which Representative Dom sort of introduced which is the Governors Affordable Homes Act. It's a massive, hopefully you had an opportunity to take a look at it. It really is very, very comprehensive and for me it really demonstrates that they have spoken and have listened to a wide range of individuals who have lived experience, who struggle with housing with advocates with those who are committed to affordable housing. It is really massive but it's going to require a lot of our support. When this comes up in the legislature we have to be ready to write letters of support and really be behind this. But it's, I mean, if this all could be passed and quickly, I think it really would make a huge impact on affordable housing from helping individuals going from unhoused to affordable rental and from affordable rental to home ownership, especially for communities, individuals who've been shut out of home ownership and affordability. So I'm gonna open it up to see if anybody has any comments or questions about this. We, as Representative Dom stated, we were able to meet with Governor Healy who actually, and with Secretary Augustus from the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities who actually toured East Gables and were highly impressed by East Gables. And I think Amherst, both from Representative Dom and Senator Comerford kept on providing examples of how Amherst has, one, been very, very committed to affordable housing is committed to continuing to ensure that there's affordable housing and also that there are a lot of firsts in Amherst in terms of creating such wonderful places like East Gables. And so it was really a wonderful opportunity to meet with them and they were very, very attentive to what's happening in Amherst as well as to individuals who are really struggling to stay in the community or to come into the community, especially if they work in the community. So I don't know, Carol, if you wanna add anything or anybody wants to give any feedback regarding the Affordable Homes Act. Nate has a stand up. I have something I'll say, but let Nate go first. Nate, go ahead. Sorry. I was gonna just mention that what Representative Dom said, it's that the bill is great, but then the money has to be released and that's where writing letters of support or having others also do it. So I think that it could be the trust needs to advocate. If there's a, we have others through the Amherst Affordable Housing Coalition, if we ask others to write letters in support, that's kind of where I think it could make a difference. So, I've always heard that the state can only borrow so much every year. And so they really need to hear how important it is because it's unlikely they will reach the full, the full amount that's being suggested. So it really is, if the trust has ideas in terms of priorities or just even just letting, encouraging people to write letters reaching out to different organizations because I think that's what they'll need to hear. That's all I was gonna say. I was gonna say one thing, but I think I'm gonna say something. I think I don't really understand how it works. Right now it's a bill to even become, for the bond even to be approved, the legislature has to say, yes, we approve this bond bill. But then after that, after that happens, then if any of the money gets released, we have to fight about it again. So my first question was, the bill, this list of things that we saw, are we sure that that's what the bond, was that what in the bond bill or do we have an opportunity to argue as we did to some extent when we saw the governor for changes to be made before it becomes a law? Because for instance, the transfer fee right now, the way it was written was set up, you only get to charge a transfer fee on the amount above a million dollars that a house sells for. So we're gonna get 10 cents. I mean, not 10 cents, but not very much. And there is a possibility it seems to me of having it say something about above 90%, something that would allow us if it was based on our own housing sales that are in Amherst to actually get something from it. I'd like to change it before it becomes a law rather than just have to go and get money out of it. Maybe Mindy can answer this or somebody is probably Mindy. I'm sorry, I'm being, I should know this, I'm sure, but I don't. We're lucky that Representative Dom is here and she has her hand up, but I also wanna say that Anna, the vice president of town council actually raised that to the governor and secretary, Augusta. So thank you, Carol, because they heard it. And I think that was a very important point, but I'm gonna go ahead and let Representative Dom speak. Thank you. I'm glad I stayed on. Me too. So first of all, Carol, please don't be upset with yourself for not understanding this can get confusing. And in some ways it's not, it's pretty simple. So I'm hopefully gonna explain it in a simple way, but before I do that, I do wanna also reinforce that the message around the transfer fee in specific that could be used for Amherst advocacy is definitely what vice president of the town council Anna Devlin-Gothier presented. So she has the language that the trust may wanna look at. I also wanna encourage you to think about what's missing from the bond that you think might be appropriate for Amherst. So this is the way the bond works. The bond is a bill. And so it's gonna go through the legislative process. And because it's come from the governor, it's not the same bond that's gonna end up resulting from the legislative process because both the house and the Senate are gonna wanna put their fingerprints on it. So it's gonna change and evolve like any bill. I want, it's like the budget, right? Governor Healy gives us a budget in like January, but basically the house and the Senate go through their own budgetary process. Using the governor's budget as sort of a framework, but not really paying too much attention to it. And ultimately we pass a budget. She signs it or she vetoes it. And if she vetoes certain things, we have the chance to override it. We don't, the veto piece of it doesn't happen with a bond. What's gonna happen is the bond will go through the legislative process. And by that I mean, it will have a public hearing. It may have two different kinds of public hearing. The joint committee on housing will have a public hearing on it. And there's a committee on bonds. That's for the house and one for the Senate. Each one may also look at it when it comes out of the housing committee. And so they'll have two different committees sort of previewing it before it gets to the respective houses committee on ways and means because it has to go there before it gets voted on. They'll have an opportunity to massage it or kind of look at it differently. And then ultimately it will come to the floor of the house first for a vote. House members will get a chance to put up amendments to it. I think we'll see what happens. They may wanna actually get it done very quickly and try to discourage amendments from the floor. I don't think so. I think there will be amendments from the floor. And then we'll vote on it. When we're done voting on it, it will go to the Senate. Starts with the house, cause it's a money bill. Then it goes to the Senate. They'll have a chance to amend it. Whatever they pass, assuming it's different than when the house passed, it'll have to be reconciled. Then the bill will go into a conference committee. It'll have a couple, three members of the house, three members of the Senate will go into a committee to figure out how they can reconcile these two different bills to create one unified bill that both houses agree on. And once they report out a conference report, which will be this reconciled bond, then the house and the Senate will vote on it, likely in favor of it because it'll come out of a conference and send it to the governor. Then she gets to decide if she's gonna sign it. I don't know how much it'll be. Will it be 4.1 billion? Maybe will it be 8 billion? Unlikely, will it be less than 4.1 billion? I guess that depends on what the economy's doing at the time to tell you the truth. But because it's a bond bill and not a budget, a budget, it goes into effect the next year and we start spending the money based on anticipated revenues. The bond bill is based on anticipated additional borrowing, not revenues, literally going to a bank and borrowing bucks. And so it doesn't get all borrowed at the same time. There's usually a time period in which you can borrow the money. So it's like a bond over a couple of years and you can spend it. But in order to quote unquote, release the money from the bond, i.e. get the governor to borrow the money that's in the bond for a particular purpose, that's kind of what's called releasing it. That's a whole bunch of other advocacy that will take place after the bond is set. So first we have to come up with how much are we gonna give permission to the governor to borrow and for what purpose that has to come to agreement and that's gonna be through the legislative process. But then getting the governor to borrow the money for the specific purposes, that's separate lobbying and advocacy, okay? And I think what the governor did in this bond that you'll see is it's not just money. The interesting thing about this bond, it also includes policy. So like the transfer fee is a policy piece. It's not, she doesn't have to go and borrow any money for that. That's, she's actually taken the legislative effort to allow municipalities to do a transfer fee and she put a version of that into the bond. So as you may know, there's like about, I think five or six bills about the transfer fee knocking around the legislature, some are for specific towns like Amherst has one for a specific town. Senator Cumberford has a bill that is what's called enabling legislation that allows any municipality to do it and they don't have to come in with home rules, they can just do it. So the governor was, I guess, inspired by those efforts and she put enabling legislation for houses over a million bucks into the bond. I don't know if that will pass ultimately in the house and the Senate because the house hasn't really demonstrated an appetite to pass transfer fee bills. But because it's in the bond, it starts a different conversation than just individual legislation. It's actually great that it's in the bond because it shows that some municipalities need this tool very badly to be able to move forward with more housing. I can talk about that in a moment but I don't wanna belabor that but there are other things that are housing policy that are included in the bond because I think she's looking at, well, this is a, we are in a housing crisis. What are all the strategies we need to have at our disposal and towns need to have at their disposal to move forward out of this crisis? So some of that is money, but some of that is policy. So she made a bond with both. And nothing is guaranteed at this point except that that's what she would like to do but the house and the Senate are still gonna get their whack at it. And then even when that's done, even when it gets signed, getting the money that's allocated in the bond for specific purposes will require additional advocacy. If policy ends up in the bond and she signs the bond that policy will become like, well, it'll come going to effect when it's supposed to go into effect. We won't need an additional hurdle but to get the money, we will need the additional advocacy. Is that clear Carol? Thank you so much. Yes. Complex and a lot of things to do. And it seems like a lot of opportunities for advocating all the way along the way. Yes. But thank you so much. Thank you very much. So I would encourage you to think about the times to advocate and to submit support letters or to testify are going to be when the house has their public hearing on the bond in the joint committee buzzing. Also, when they have a public hearing on the bond committee and then it's going to be like you're going to and then that's advocacy that's directed to the committees looping in the center of myself so that we're aware of what you're doing and we can amplify it. Then you're going to want to lobby us on the bills that are going to be before us. And then once it's signed, we're all going to want to look and see where does Amherst want to get money and we're going to have to help do that. So, you know, like, but I'm also encouraging you to look at the bond and look what's missing that would benefit Amherst. So, for example, I haven't looked at the governor's bond. So some of this is about what did she do? And then some of it is just like, well, what do we think should be done? And if she didn't do it, now's the time to advocate that it be included because the house will make it its own bond and so will the Senate. And so we want to advocate for the things that make sense for our community. So for example, I don't know what she did in terms of net zero. Building code, but Amherst has a very specific interest in that. So we're going to want to make sure that whatever Amherst's interest is and the money that Amherst needs to implement, Amherst's code is somehow represented in the bond. And I think it is, I think she has a green piece in terms of construction, but we're going to want to look at it through the eyes of what the Amherst bylaw is and say, does that help us? And if it doesn't, how do we make it help us? And then you're going to really want to make sure that the senator and I know that because that's where we have an opportunity to maybe incorporate in the bond specific kinds of things that would benefit Amherst. That is so great. Yeah, that's so very helpful. I mean, I know one of the conversations we had just was, you know, the fact that she included the seasonal communities designation, we actually wanted to know if that could be expanded to college towns because that also, you know, sort of impacts towns. So thank you for I think what Lynn, I think what Lynn Griezmer suggested, which is really fascinating and one something I'm going to look forward to advocating is that it should be according to the academic calendar in addition to the seasonal, which is very interesting because it's not only for us that allows us as legislators to go to other host communities for academic institutions and say, hey, did you see this piece? We could benefit from an academic year. And I have to be honest with you, whatever we can do to say it's not just Amherst, it's us plus these other communities increases the chances we're going to get it done. Absolutely, absolutely. So I'm not going to let you go until I'm just going to check with the rest of the trust members to see if they have any other questions. It's such a great opportunity for us to better understand, one, what this means and two, how we can support it. There are a lot of pieces here that we've had individual support that we've provided individual support to, such as, I mean, there's just so many pieces. We're interested in work for housing. We're interested in green housing. We're interested in developers having the funds, especially as construction costs get increased, transfer fees, inclusionary zoning. There's just so much surplus public land disposition. We know that UMass has surplus land. We know the state has surplus land that we could use for affordable housing. So there's a lot here, eviction ceiling. There's just so much here that we've supported in the past and bring it all together. But having a lens of what's not here and what we need is really important. So I'm so glad you raised the eviction ceiling because that's a good example of a policy piece that's included in the bond, right? It has nothing to do with money and borrowing, but it has everything to do with keeping people housed. And then there's the other flip side, which is like, what does it do about wage theft? Since we know wage theft happens a lot on construction sites and if we're gonna be building a lot of affordable housing, how can the bond be used to also address wage theft? It kind of, it allows us to touch on a lot of different things, but I'm glad you mentioned that, Erica, because that kind of shows how policy is being used as a strategy around housing. Absolutely. Rob has a question for you or a comment, Rob? You're a moot too. Sorry, am I muted? Yeah, I'm muted. Yes. It's a comment, not a question. So it's important for lots of eyes to look at this, what's in there, because different things jump out to different people. I noticed right above the local option transfer fee, there's language about accessory dwelling units as of right, which is fine with me, permits ADUs to be built by right and as they go to second-family zones and destructions in all communities. What I think it would be a problem in Amherst is prohibits owner occupancy requirements. That just means duplexes are allowed in every by right and people don't like that. So there are things in there that, there might be things that aren't in here that we want, but there also looks like there might be things in here that we don't want. Right, all of it needs to be, I'll be honest with you, making a list and not only using it as a basis for your own testimony and support or your comments to the committee is important, but also then getting Senator Cumberford to deny that list is really important for our ability to advocate for the town. That we don't know that there's an objection to something, we may not be successful in getting it out or we may be, but we won't even know that we should put it on our lists of things to talk about if we don't get it from you. Thanks for pointing that out. Anyone else? Thank you so very, very much, Representative Dom. Thank you so very much. Grace is still on. So they'll be listening for us and advocating and they're great. I am so looking forward to their contribution to not just my office, but to all of you. So look forward. And thank you for having Grace be the person who's going to be joining us at each meeting. We always love to have you here, but we know how busy you are. So having Grace is excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Erica. I'm going to sign off. Thank you, everybody. I'll be in touch. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. Okay. So our next item on the agenda is town updates. So Nate, and if you could include the financial statements part of it. So just so you know, I did a very peripheral introduction of Greg and I did not do justice to providing an introduction. So I said, we would wait until this time period and that you would do that. But I did welcome Greg and others did as well. So go ahead. Sure. Yeah. Thanks to everyone. So, you know, Greg is here. He's was hired. I started just this week as the housing coordinator part-time associate planner. Greg could speak in a bit. So we're really excited. You know, this is funded through CPA, through the town and through the housing trust. We're really hoping it can help augment, you know, staff and trust capacity. You know, we're looking at short-term things that the position can do with the longer-term involvement in projects, you know, the strategic plan. We need the housing production plan updated. Greg has, you know, personal and professional experience and interested in this. And so we're really excited to have him on board. Erica was part of the interview process. It was a, you know, there were some strong candidates as there were for the, you know, applicants to be on the trust itself. And so we're really fortunate that, you know, Greg accepted the offer, you know, Greg, if you want to say a few words, I don't know if I want to put them on the spot. You know, we'll say that Greg works through me and through the co-chairs of the trust. And so, you know, what we can do is at meetings and through, you know, the strategic planning process to determine what our task that would be that Greg could be involved with. So I don't want individual trust members emailing Greg, asking him to do things for them or for the trust. It really has to be something that's decided on by the trust and communicated through the co-chairs and myself. And so, you know, I think there's a lot of things. We already have a number of tasks we want him to start on and there can be more. So we're really excited to have this position. And can I just add, Greg only works 22 hours. So that's one of the reasons why Nate is very clear about that he will, you know, that we will be working together with Greg and that we really need for people to come through us. We want to make sure that Greg does not leave because he's overwhelmed by all of us. We want to keep it as much as possible. So welcome, Greg. Well, thanks. I'll just say a quick hello if that's okay. So yeah, again, Greg, we're Shane and I'm super excited. You know, I've been just reading a whole lot this week honestly absorbing a lot of different documents. So it's exciting to sort of be with all of you kind of, you know, digging into some compelling stuff live in the moment here. It's definitely energizing. So I, you know, have done a lot of work mostly in the nonprofit sector over my life but housing has been something I've come back to in a few different ways, both professionally and as a volunteer in other parts of the world and also here in the Valley. And I, you know, I'm very interested, you know, I mean, actually I made a good point earlier about, you know, wanting to create opportunities for people of a wide variety of incomes, you know, to live in places like Amherst and that's something that's driven me for a long time. So I'm excited to sort of do that work with all of you. And I should note too that I have, I've been doing that work as a volunteer for some time now on the board of Valley CDC, which is a partner, you know, that, you know, that works with Amherst and the trust. So, you know, when we hit those junctures, there'll be times for me to sort of manage, you know, appropriately conflicts and disclosure and all that. And I have been in touch with the state ethics board, you know, on how to approach that and I've got some good guidance there. So, but there's nothing on the agenda this evening, you know, so we don't have anything, any hiccups there. But yeah, so that's a little note, but I, you know, but that work more broadly, that work is, you know, something I've been excited to do as a volunteer. So I'm, you know, I'm excited to be with you all on staff here too. So yeah, I live in East Hampton, but you know, but I'm, you know, I'm definitely familiar with the region and I, you know, I used to run our regional leadership development program. So I really got to know, you know, kind of all the different communities around the region from Springfield all the way up to Greenfield and certainly including Amherst and yeah. So that's kind of a bit about me, you know, but maybe I'll stop there and, you know, but I'm excited to be here, I guess is the main point. We are very excited to have you here. And especially, I think this is such a great opportunity with us going into a strategic planning process. So we'll all be creating the vision for the next three years in terms of priorities and what we want to do. So it's great to have you with us at this time. Yeah. And I'll just, you know, maybe it's worth adding, thanks, Erica, if I could, you know, following Representative Dom's, you know, suggestion to you all, you know, community engagement outreach, you know, is something I've done a great deal of on both in housing and in other areas, you know, so to the degree that syncs up with the strategic planning effort, you know, that's something I'd be excited to contribute to, so. Excellent, thank you. Okay, so Nate, the next is an update on Wayfinders. Sure, so, you know, Wayfinders in the town have been working to move the projects forward at East Street School in Belcher Town Road. And there's three pieces. There's the land development agreement, which is, you know, the contract between them. And then they also have requested ARPA and CPA funds. So all those documents are really in final stages. And then they're hoping to start actually their comprehensive permit process by submitting their project eligibility to the state, I think this month. And so maybe next month, but, you know, really that they're trying to submit it as one project, two sites, one project. And so that would, you know, that's something that would then be going through permitting this winter spring. You know, I think it will be, you know, if approved, I think it's a really competitive project, but, you know, I think we all know that funding can be tricky. And so, you know, they're trying to reach out to different organizations at the state level just because it is its unique project. There's historic preservation and reuse of the school building on one site. There is a new building on another site, deep affordability. And so, yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, it's great that it'll start. And so, you know, I think that right now, you know, some of the neighbors support it. I think once it really, once this project eligibility phase gets kicked off, then, you know, more of the community will be noticed. And then there'll be a 30 day comment period. And so, you know, that'll happen the next month or two. And so then it really, that kind of starts the kind of big public engagement piece. So. Nick, can I just ask you, when you say the big public engagement piece is, does Wayfinder have a plan for that? Oh, we did do a community forum last fall. Should we be thinking about another community forum because we're not the point where they might break ground? So I think it's important for us to think about, I mean, we could reach out to them as well or have them come and talk to us about that. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. I've spoken with a few butters and property owners and, you know, I know Wayfinders has too. And so I think maybe having a kind of a bigger, kind of broader public meeting would be important. And I think, you know, I have a meeting with them, I think next week, I can bring that up because we don't want to catch them off guard. It is great that they're talking to immediate neighbors, but it would be nice to have, you know, just maybe a bigger meeting. Yeah, and I think because this has been a longer process, you know, people may not realize that, you know, they had submitted a repress for proposals, it was public and they had concept designs and, you know, right, there's been a, the trust worked on the RFP and it's been a few years in the making. And so it might be nice just to get everyone up to speed on that. Great idea. I mean, we did have, as I said before, we had the community engagement forum last year, but it's very different when you're starting to break ground and you're starting to see a lot of traffic both on Southeast Street and then on Belgetown Road. Once people start getting a little inconvenienced by construction, that's when usually you have some issues. So having a plan beforehand in terms of how is that gonna happen? How do we mitigate any sort of disruption in people's lives as we create this, you know, wonderful project? Yep, Grover, you have your hand up. Yeah, I just have a curiosity if that is generally part of way founders or development. I've heard them present community engagement plans, but also, so if we should wait to hear from them slash also I've heard a lot about the conflict that preceded my time here about the East Gables that was just opened. And I just wonder if there's a way of like messaging or signage or something that we could proactively set the tone or the frame of this conversation, like the public conversation of like great news, housing for like families is being built here across the street from this school, the largest school that's gonna be in our town, right? Like kind of presetting the frame, how much value or benefit we might get by getting an early jump on it. Thank you Grover. Allegra? Sorry, I would just press two buttons and one of them accidentally disconnected me from audio for a second. So I apologize if I'm repeating what Grover might have said, but one thing that I think that we can think about in terms of messaging, A in terms of like traffic and stuff is there is gonna be a school bill being built right there too, which I think would be a great like community building piece for like, look, we're building all this housing for families, they can walk to school, they're just gonna give this brand new school. So I feel like trying to work in partnership with something because the school building project ends up having a lot of community support. So I think building off of that momentum, perhaps we can tack on like, well, hey, and now we're worried about declining enrollment. Now look, we're building a place for families to live and they can walk right to the school through these beautiful gardens and everything. So that would be maybe one thing to think about in terms of messaging. Yeah, and I'd be curious to hear a timeline too because like, I just saw an email before I joined that, my kids go to Fort River that there's like a principal and PGO meeting happening in a couple of weeks there is like, at what point is it like, let's make some flyers and hand them out to parents, right? Like that, I'm thinking of that kind of proactive. Yeah, I think there's a really good point. So yeah, staff is meeting with Wayfinders on Monday to talk through some of these legal agreements just have to be, I think Wayfinders has signed them, the town has to then execute them. So it's really, if that happens in the next week or two, then I think they want to move pretty fast on submitting their PEL, which would make it public. And not when I say bigger public, it just means all of a sudden now, the information is public, but once they submit it to the state, they kick it back, we actually have to be advertised it as a 30 day comment period. And so I do like the idea of having something and framing it, there are other projects planned for East Amherst all for the benefit of residents, but we're hoping to redo route nine from the intersection of Southeast Street and your Cumberlands all the way down to the bridge. And so bike lanes and wider sidewalks and we're redoing the street and sidewalks in front of the East Street school, putting in new water and sewer lines. And so there's a lot happening there, right? It'll be disruptive for a bit, but in the end, the idea is that it'll be a much nicer setting in community. So yeah, I think it's a town project. It's the town land, way finders, we're kind of both sponsors. And so I think on Monday, I just made a note, I think we'll bring that up in terms of how, how do we manage this and who takes a lead and we should probably get it moving. So it gets tricky because typically once way finders starts running with it, we become a regulatory piece to town, we permit it. So then we're not usually, the trust could be advocating it, but say for staff or my perspective, we usually will then be working with it from a legal and permitting perspective and not doing more of the community outreach. And so I think it's a good discussion point for Monday just to see what they're thinking. I've encouraged them to actually do this. And so I don't know if they're gonna come and have an idea on Monday or what, but I think it's great to be talking about it. It sounds like we might want them to come and present to us where we can then work with them to do this. Yeah. Okay, great. Okay. Yeah, that sounds good to me. Yeah. Your next item, Nate was planning board discussion regarding zoning and affordable housing. Yeah, just to keep the trust kind of aware of what's happening. I think there's a number of things in town, right, both kind of policy and other things. There's the, we mentioned the transfer fee that council was looking at, the community resources committee, the subcommittee of the council has been looking at a new rental registration bylaw and maybe looking at a nuisance property bylaw. What the planning board is looking at is rezoning different areas in town to allow for infill and more density. And right now the focus is on university drive. So from Amity street, down to route nine. And having an overlay or a zoning district that could allow for redevelopment of those properties with four story buildings and much more density than there is now. And the planning board members are pretty supportive of this. I think it's really in the early phases we haven't reached out to property owners or anyone else. My proposal was that I'd love to see 1,000 beds down there. So that's a pretty big number. I don't know if people like that or not, but so we've just started, I just wanted the trust to be aware of it. I think it's difficult to determine the end user right of a project. And so through zoning, we could say it has certain setbacks and the buildings can be a certain designer style and it can look nice when you have street trees. The market might push to have expensive housing. And so I think the planning board is aware of that and some members are talking about what our incentives or tools we could use to, we don't necessarily want to discourage students, but try to have other housing opportunity. And so it's all part of the equation. I mean, it's really complicated. We've met with UMass officials. The planning board did the other month and talked to them about what their thoughts are on student housing and what their plan would be in the next three to five years. And so I think it was a really, again, it was probably the first in a few meetings with representatives from UMass and really trying to encourage them to think about what their impact is in terms of the housing market on the town and how we could partner with them. So I really think that I love this university drive piece to move faster by then be or have a proposal. I think that's probably optimistic, but there are things, the planning board is looking at ways to densify certain areas. And so, I can bring it up to the trust when it's necessary, but I just want to let you know that those are conversations that are happening. Thank you. And it's important for us to know too, so if we have opportunities to support or work with the planning board, that would be really important. So thanks. So keep us updated on how that's moving. A thousand beds sounds wonderful. But I've driven up and down there wondering like where exactly, but that's sort of future conversation. Anybody else regarding what Nate just shared with us? Okay. All right, so then the next is, but I'm sorry, Ashley, sorry, I didn't see your answer. I was just gonna say that students are low income people, it is a policy issue, but is there a ways to get the university to prioritize their low income students? I mean, is that even possible? Or do they just not care? They just want the numbers? Yeah, that was actually, it was really nice the president of the Student Government Association attended remotely and provided comments at one of the meetings and said that some of the housing is really not affordable for students. And so, they're aware of it. I think, we don't address that topic specifically, but I do think it's something to consider. It was brought up that the new housing on Mass Ave is very expensive, really expensive. And so, yeah, I think some of it is, we, I think it's just there's such a demand for housing. And so, there was some talk about how can the town or UMass essentially manipulate the cost of housing, whether it's someone, I think someone mentioned rent control, but what are measures that could happen? It's just something that the town doesn't control what happens on campus in terms of their housing, but it is something that was brought up that the cost of housing even on campus is expensive for students. And so, I think I said it was a initial conversation. And the idea was that they would come back, we provided them a list of questions, a lot of questions that we'd wanna have then answered. And so, I'm hoping it becomes a conversation over the next six months. Allegra and then Grover. So this question is about public-private partnerships, which I think is what the housing on Mass Ave was, but two questions. One, do they not collect property taxes on that because of the public piece of the partnership? And then two, does that also mean that they're not subject to any of the inclusionary zoning that would trigger affordable units being built? Right and right. So, the new project on Mass Ave was on UMass land, it was a private developer and it's gonna be privately managed. So essentially it's apartments for students that are on campus that are privately managed. And so other UMass boss has done this and I think there's probably some disagreement over whether or not it can be taxed, but currently they're not taxed. And the developer then kind of sets the price and essentially it's on UMass land. So it's a student housing is not subject to inclusionary zoning. So it typically wouldn't be. I think for instance, there's the area, we call it the gateway, it's where the fraternities had been demolished and now it's a green space on North Pleasant Street. That's university owned. And depending on what the zoning is and what happens, I mean, maybe there could be affordable units there, but it's tricky when it's university owned, even if it's outside the university zoning district. We have an educational zoning district, but typically those housing for students is not subject to inclusionary zoning. All right, thank you. Well, that would be a good bill. I mean, like that would be something that would help a lot of people. I wish that Mindy Don would work on that. Go ahead, Grover. Yeah, well, actually Ashley bridging to that and I think her assistant Grace is here to hear this. I just wanna note that and say it out loud into the record that I would like us in our strategic planning and continuing through the year ahead of meeting to think strategically and in terms of potential coalitions or really I would like us to be part of thinking creatively about how to press the university to actually provide some more of the housing. I know they came and presented to us. I heard what they had to say. I didn't always agree with everything that they had to say in terms of their frame or what they accepted as a given or as normal. And also we had the student activists call in and so I'm saying here that I would love for them to rejoin us for future meetings, love to keep working with them. And yeah, because I hear what you say Ashley, I was unhoused when I was in college. I slept in my van for part of the time in order to finish college and it's very normal and it's not good for learning, right? And it's unacceptable and also yeah, I think that pitting the tension of like student housing versus those of us who are living here potentially forever is the wrong setup. And I'm really interested in us working for long-term solutions and UMass has a lot of land when I drive through they have open spaces. That also could be built on for student housing. So I'm just saying that here and really hopeful that I agree that's something that could potentially go into the housing bill. Oh, and the last thing I wanted to say was that there's a new secretary of higher education who lives in Northampton and who was part of innovating a lot of really amazing policies at Julio Community College that serve low-income students in really explicit ways. And so I think she might be a good partner in maybe changing some of the laws that Massachusetts state-owned universities have about housing. I'd like us to consider that. I think Ashley put her hand up and next Carol, go ahead Ashley. Yeah, it is like there's a lot of affluent Amherst people that just really are like, they want the rent of students. And so we got to talk about kind of the structural issues. Basically, students are paying $1,000 and we really need to take those people on a little bit more than we ever have, because that's the problem. Thank you Ashley. Carol? I was just gonna say, it seemed to me somehow, I'm not sure how I got this out of it, but in the conversation with the thing with the governor and what was in the bill, and John suggesting that the way to solve it was build 3,000 places for people to live on the University of Massachusetts campus. Because when we here get to talk to UMass, we are down here somewhere, and what has to happen is the chancellor, I think we need to go through the state to get the state to change what it's telling the university to have to do. Because Amherst talking to UMass is like, this doesn't get anywhere. I think that we need a different strategy and maybe there's something that we should look at the bond bill carefully and see if there isn't something that we think should be in there in order to try to address this. I concur Amherst will never do anything about UMass. The state has to do it. The town of Amherst will never take on UMass. It's been with the tries, it doesn't, it's not successful. I mean, I feel like it doesn't even try. I don't know if I, let's not argue about that. I don't know if I agree with you, but let's not argue. Whatever it is that's happening, it isn't working. And so a new strategy from a different direction would be a good idea. Yeah, and I think the governor heard the president of our town council, John, we all sort of said, the elephant in the room is UMass, not as, there are a lot of benefits, but it has a huge impact on affordability. It includes students and it includes their own staff. And so there needs to be a resolution. And I agree with Carol. I think the pressure and the incentives have to come from above. And so when we saw in the bond bill this section around seasonal recognizing seasonal communities designation, it was great that our president and we also looked at and said, does that include college towns? And she recommended that there be a focus on use of academic calendars and having towns that have colleges and they'll also be looked at as very, as communities that need responses to resolving the impact of those colleges on them. All right. Any other comments? It's been a great conversation. All right, so the next is a financial account, Nate. You were just going to, anybody have any questions for Nate regarding the handout that was submitted to us, which is a, since September, our finances. Any questions about that? I was going to say that the account balance looks pretty big in the development funds, but we had to, what wasn't reflected was the amount for Valley CDC and now for Crank's Doors. And so the trust really has a balance. It could just be 200,000 and I say only, it'd be really nice to have that, but, if you say, if you look at it and you're like, wow, it's 800,000, well, really it's 200,000. And so I think, products can really, it takes a lot of funding sometime. So the trust did put in a request for more CPA funds. But I think, just moving forward, being strategic and judicious about how those funds are allocated. And so I can update that once things happen, but those two requests do take up a lot of the development budget. There's two, those two fundings. And that's one of the reasons why we've advocated for the real estate transfer fee. We need some funding. The more funding we have, the more we're able to act on supporting affordable housing projects or initiatives. Allegra? I was just wondering for our next meeting, if it would be possible to get an accounting of where ARPA funds have gone so far for the affordable housing line items that they were put, you know, the $2 million, basically, so that we can see what that looks like, especially if we're thinking about our own funds and if that has already been leveraged for projects or not. Is that something you think you can find out, Nate? Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna tell you ARPA funds to purchase the former VFW site and do some work there. We put some ARPA funds to a few other sectors, but... Could you like bring like the numbers? Like here, we had $2 million, and this went here and that went there and that went there. That would be a great way to see it. I'd love that. Yeah, but I mean, Allegra's right. I think there was actually like 2.2 million. There was a million for sheltering and homelessness, a million for housing, and then I think 200,000 for rental subsidy or services. And so I could try to get a breakdown of all that. Great. Great. Wonderful. Thank you. So the next, our next item is any announcements. I have two. I sent an email about the MPHA alert regarding Senate Bill 1299 and House Bill 2103, which is an act of enabling cities and towns to stabilize rents and protect tenants, rent control. And the year is going to be a public hearing on 1114, which I believe is a Tuesday at 11 a.m. And there's a link if you want to provide testimony virtually, or actually in person, I believe, and I'm sure you can do it virtually. And then you can also submit your comments. So I would like for us to consider submitting a letter of support for those. Do it. Go ahead. Just do it. Thank you. Thank you. It's something we've talked about. Just make sure there's nobody who has any comments or objections or I don't think so. Okay. I don't think so. And the other, I think is also very important. So Valley CDC has already started going in front of the zoning board. And I also sent that out. Thank you, Jessica Allen and Laura Baker's here if anybody has any questions. But there are different dates with different topics. We have submitted our letter of support. I've submitted an individual letter of support. I think others have as well, but it is also very important to attend and they will have public comments. I noted in December 21st, the topics there is extreme interest for me, but I will try to make some of them, but you have the schedule of when there will be in front of the ZBA and what the topics are for that evening. And any other announcements? Okay. All right. So I'm going to open up for public comments. Any public comments from attendees? Okay. Not seeing any hands up. Any items not anticipated in the last 48 hours? Comments, topics? Okay. So future meetings. So I have actually sent a, I spoke into Michelle Miller. This was, I discussed this at I think the October trust meeting about having the African heritage reparation assembly chair being Michelle Miller or representatives come and talk to us about their recommendations around affordable housing. So I actually had an opportunity to speak to Michelle Miller and she asked me to follow up with an email, which I have done. I've let her also know, we meet on the second Thursday of the month. I've not yet heard back, but she was very excited to be able to have a conversation with us, but I've not heard back when they might be available to do so. So that might be a future meeting. We just talked about having wayfinders come and talk to us about their community engagement and outreach and how we can help with that. And then our next housing trust meeting is December 14th. And hopefully we'll have a full membership by then. It'll be very exciting if we have all of our vacancies filled. And we also hope to be able to soon tell you when our first strategic planning meeting will be. And we agree that we would try to meet in person so we can also get to know each other a little bit better before we start digging deeply into creating a strategic plan. And I believe that is all I have. Let me just open it up to see if anybody has any comments. I just want to comment. Thank you very much, Erica, for doing a whole thing since I had to do something else first. Thank you. Well, we're a tag team. We're a wonderful tag team, but it also looks like there's somebody as they end up. Ashley. Yeah, Ashley. That's right. I was just thinking that the way that we are going to help people that, you know, Tim McCarthy is helping directly could be a model that we could use with reparations, with other people that are low income. And that helps people directly. I mean, it could be in any different kinds of ways and $200,000 that's just sitting there is not paying anybody's rent. And so, you know, there are homeless people and there are people struggling and Christmas is coming up. We're not paying anybody's rent. Why don't we use our money to help people and we really think about doing that in December. Okay, well, do you want me to put this down as an item on the agenda in terms of how you propose for us to do that? Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, definitely. That we pick another, that we basically just pick another entity and it could even be Craig's door and we just give them more money or it could even be, you know, reparations committee and they do the exact same thing or, you know, it could be any number of, you know, nonprofit that we trust. It could be the Amherst Survival Center. I mean, it could be a thing we do every Christmas because $200,000 isn't helping any homeless person right now. We have a lot of money. We should be using it to help people all the time. Okay, thank you. I'll put it on the agenda for December for discussion and Ashley, if you want to think about, you know, what are the different organizations and the specifics of it, you will be on the agenda to present that to the group and we can discuss it and then we can move forward with that. Awesome, thank you. All right, thank you very much. It is 8.55, not seeing any other hands up either from panelists or attendees. I am going to close our meeting for this evening and I want to thank everyone. Welcome again, Greg, but thank all of you, both all of the trust members as well as attendees, we've taken the time to have a very rich conversation and really move our agenda around supporting the most vulnerable individuals in getting stable and safe housing. So thank you. Good night all, thanks.