 Hello, Jeff. Chair Owen, we do have all commissioners and it is now 130. Thank you very much. I'd like to go ahead and call the meeting to order with a few housekeeping items. I wanna remind commissioners to keep their audio on mute unless they are speaking. Commissioners other than the chair can mute themselves. Staff will remain muted until meeting to speak. As members of the public join the meeting, you will be participating as an attendee. Your microphone and camera will be muted. Only today's panels will be viewed during the meeting. If you're calling in from a telephone and choose to speak during the public comments portion of today's agenda, the privacy concerns that host will be renaming your viewable phone number to a resident in the last four digits of your phone number. And as a reminder, the city of Santa Rosa is committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment free from disruption. You will not tolerate any hateful speech or actions and are well-staffed to monitor that everyone is participating respectfully or they will be removed. Also, if necessary, we will immediately end the meeting. Kurt, can you please explain how the public comments will be heard at today's meeting? At each agenda item, the item is presented. The chair will ask for housing authority member comments and then open it up for public comment. The host in Zoom will be lowering all hands until public comment is open for the agenda item. Once the chair has called for public comment, the chair will announce for the public to raise their hand if they wish to speak on the specific agenda item. If you're calling in to listen to the meeting audibly, you can dial star nine to raise your hand. The host will then call on the public who have raised their hand. Public comment will be limited to three minutes and a timer will appear on screen for the commission and the public to see. Once all live public comments have been heard, the meeting host will read email public comments. If you provide a live public comment on an agenda item but also submitted an email, your email public comment will not be read during the meeting. Additionally, there is one public comment period on today's agenda to speak on non-agenda matters. Item five, this is the time when any person may address the housing authority on matters not listed on this agenda, but which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the housing authority. Thank you. I'd like to go ahead and ask the clerk for a roll call. Okay, we'll go ahead with the roll call. We'll start with Commissioner Olson. Here. Commissioner Downey. Here. Commissioner Burke. Here. Vice Chair Test. Here. And Chair Owen. Here. Let the record reflect that all commissioners are present. Thank you. Moving to item, agenda item three, which is statements of abstention. Are there any commissions for the commissioners that need to abstain on any items today? Hearing none, go ahead and move it to item four, which is our study session. And Megan and go ahead and let you introduce the item. Good afternoon. Item 4.1 is review of fiscal year 2021, 2022's proposed housing authority budget. I will be presenting this along with Kate Goldfein, administrative services officer and Rebecca Lane, housing and community services officer, manager. Clerk, if you could put the presentation up please. All right, next slide please. The housing authorities mission is to create adequate, decent, safe and sanitary housing for qualified people within Santa Rosa consistent with federal, state and local law. The mission is incorporated throughout our programs that we'll be describing in this presentation. The next slide please. Rebecca will provide you with an overview of the rental housing assistance accomplishments in the prior fiscal year. Thank you, Megan. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Rebecca Lane. I'm the manager of the housing choice voucher program. And I will highlight here on these slides that the rental housing assistance program continued to provide rental assistance to our entire client base of over 2,000 families in the city of Santa Rosa. During the COVID-19 pandemic, without any interruption in our services, our offices did close to the public as you're aware, but we continue to provide the full scope of services of the housing choice voucher program, including responding immediately to requests from families who were facing financial crisis because of the pandemic. For example, families who had been laid off from their jobs, we were able to immediately respond to those requests to have rental assistance adjustments and pay a higher portion of our rent for those families on behalf of those families. We also modified our operations to ensure safety during the pandemic and we continue to operate under those modified protocols, including inspections, as well as our interaction with our families. During this time period, we also solicited proposals for project-based vouchers. And one of those proposals did include solicitation that was issued in conjunction with the Notice of Funding Availability for the CDBG DR funds and as you'll hear later on in the presentation, that was a successful solicitation for both of these resources that will be bringing a number of new units to the city of Santa Rosa, affordable units. We also worked with the trust division to initiate an emergency home-funded tenant-based rental assistance program. Those were emergency funds that we received. We modified our program in response to the emergency and we were able to begin pushing out a new form of rental assistance. Next slide, please. So as we move forward into fiscal year 21, 2022, we'll continue to utilize the CARES Act resources. So we both have programmatic waivers that help us continue to provide our program at the highest level while we're still operating under modified procedures to make sure that we are operating safely. So we'll continue to utilize those waivers. We also do have funding available that we have been using under the CARES Act to do things like purchase laptops for the staff so that they're able to work from home or work remotely. We will continue to pursue additional housing choice voucher funding, including special or disaster-related funding as it becomes available. We're anticipating that in this fiscal year, there will be new notices about funding increases under the voucher program. And so we'll plan on pursuing those. And we will continue to utilize the resources of the housing choice voucher program to strategically support affordable housing, development and preservation. All right, and then I will provide you with the accomplishments for the Santa Rosa Housing Trust. So as you may recall in fiscal year 2020, 2021, the trust facilitated two funding cycles that awarded over $42.2 million to affordable housing projects, most notably the $38.5 million in CDBG DR funding that the Housing Authority acted on in January, 2021. We continue to perform compliance on over 4,000 units. These are rental units, ownership units, mobile home rent control, and then some other programs that we monitor as well. And then the trust also administered additional federal CARES Act funding to address the impacts of COVID-19. So the city received additional tranches of funds for CDBG-CV, which we directed towards public services, and then also additional funding for HAPWA, which is housing opportunity for persons with AIDS, and that's administered by face-to-face. Next slide, please. So the key initiatives and challenges that the Housing Trust is navigating through in the upcoming fiscal year will be continuing to manage our approximately $122 million loan portfolio. As we look at these numbers in the next year, we'll see a significant increase because once we have our loans executed for that $38.5 million, you'll see a significant bump in our portfolio balance. We also will continue monitoring our affordable housing units. So likewise, I anticipate seeing a noteworthy increase in the units that are under regulatory monitoring. We will continue to solicit, evaluate, and originate affordable housing development loans. And as you may be aware, we're currently in the process of doing that with our Focus 2122 NOVA. So that will be presented to the Housing Authority in the near future. And then finally, we will pursue additional funding opportunities to further create and preserve affordable housing in Santa Rosa. And now we will turn the presentation over to Kate Goldfein, Administrative Services Officer. Thanks, Megan, and good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Kate Goldfein, Administrative Services Officer, and I'll be presenting the fiscal year 2021-22 proposed budget today. We follow HUD regulations, program and funding mandates, city and housing authority policy, and city leadership directives to formulate the authority's budget each year. By reviewing the budget today and then approving it in June in advance of the city council, you're directing us to expend these funds to further the authority's goals in accordance with federal, state, and local law. So this slide shows the budget, the summary of the budget at its highest level. And the proposed 2122 budget is very similar to the adopted 2021 budget. Fiscal year 2021 had several large one-time funding sources, including the 38 million, over 38 million of community development block grant that Megan just discussed, and CARES Act funding of about 1.7 million. So these one-time funds were added to the budget mid-year and we're not part of the adopted budget. So I'm not including them because I'm trying to show you an apples-to-apples comparison of budget year-over-year without those large swings. So 2122 funding is about, we're expecting funding of about 44.4 million and expenditures are just a little under 44 million. 2% increase on both sides. There are three program areas within the authority budget, administration, housing choice vouchers, also called rental assistance program, and the housing trust, which I will discuss in detail in the upcoming slides. Next slide, please. All right, so we'll begin with the administrative budget and we reviewed this in great detail during study session last month. So I'm not gonna go over all of that again. I'll just summarize by saying the admin budget is a little over 1.4 million, covers costs for shared resources for the programs that utilize its services and supplies. That's primarily the housing trust and rental assistance programs. They bear most of these costs and those costs appear as allocated costs in their budgets. Next slide, please. Okay, this slide shows the year-over-year comparison of the administrative budget. So salaries and benefits decreased almost $50,000 as the fiscal year 2021 adopted budget included a portion of a marketing and outreach coordinator to support the housing authority programs. However, we learned this year that that actual work for the authority has been significantly less than anticipated. So we reduced those charges in accordingly. Services and supplies, including shared services and controllable costs decreased around $5,500. We did an in-depth review of the actual expenses and for the past few years and we reduced where possible. Liability insurance increased city-wide to all funds including the authority, information technology costs were flat year-over-year and overhead increased slightly. Next slide, please. All right, now we'll focus on the funding sources that are available to the authority. The vast majority for both programs is federal comprising 93% of the total funding. The rental housing assistance program receives federal funds of about $34.5 million and that program also receives a very small portion about $10,000 of restitution reimbursements that's payback from clients who have underpaid their portion of the rent or landlords who have been overpaid. So we learned last Friday, April 23rd, HUD announced the calendar year 2021 administrative rates for the voucher program. And those did increase over fiscal year 2020 or calendar year 2020. So we're working with the finance department to get those charges, those changes implemented in the budget system and all have an update for you in the final budget. So that number of federal grants to the HCV program will increase very slightly. Okay, moving on, the trust receives three federal grants in the community development block grant called CDBG, home and housing opportunities for persons with AIDS called HOPWA. They collectively total about 2.7 million and the federal government announced those final allocations in March. There was very little change year over year. So then the non-federal funding to the housing authority goes to the trust and it makes up 7% of the total funding. The largest source of that is impact fees budgeted at $1.5 million. These are the fees that are paid by housing developers whose market rate housing impacts the surrounding area and the city uses that for affordable housing. We're budgeting 876,000 in loan repayments in fiscal year 2021-22. And this is significantly higher than fiscal year 2021. And this is because the trust received several large loan repayments in 2021 that we're utilizing in 2021-22 rather than waiting until the following year. The next source of funds is city general fund real property transfer tax at a little over a half million. This is the amount of real property transfer tax designated for housing and homeless services. The housing portion goes to the housing trust and then compliance monitoring fees of 130,000 and property rental income for the Brookwood property 9,000 round out the funding for the trust. Next slide, please. Okay, this slide shows summary expenditures by category. Rental assistance as usual is the largest expense by far 75% of the budget, $32 million. The housing authority passes through those funds from the federal government to landlords. Loan activity is robust at 4.7 million. We're utilizing carryover from prior years plus all the new funding that's available for affordable housing production, rehabilitation, preservation and conversion. Federal home-funded tenant-based rental assistance, TEBRA, is a newer program to the authority rather than using home funds for loans in 2021-22. The funding is gonna be directed to income qualifying residents for a rental assistance program. Moving around the PI subrecipient funding is the federal HOPWA funding and local fair housing funding going to the service providers who provide those services. CDBG public services is the portion of that grant that the city council has directed to homeless services for many years now. The next expense is salaries, benefits and services and supplies for the program staff who work directly for the trust and voucher programs. There's equivalent of 19.1 staff supporting those two programs. And then finally, allocated costs at nearly 1.4 million represent the portion of admin that is paid by the trust and voucher programs. Next slide, please. Okay, now we'll review the housing choice voucher program budget in greater detail. So as I noted before, HUD just updated the admin allowance. So at the time we created this presentation, we expected federal funding of about 34.5 million. The admin allowance increased slightly so funding sources will increase for the final budget. You'll see that change. Looking at expense, salaries and benefits are decreasing for a few reasons. One, four longer-term staff in the program left the city in fiscal year 2021 and were replaced by staff at a lower salary level. And then two, we eliminated code enforcement support to the program. So a code technician was charging to the program to assist with inspections and that's now all going to be handled internally. We reduced services and supplies about $27,000 but now that the admin allowance has increased, I'll increase that category so that we utilize the full amount of our allowance and you'll see that change in the final budget as well. And then allocated costs decrease slightly along with salaries. Rental assistance increased primarily due to higher per-unit costs for port-in clients. So port-in clients come to Santa Rosa from other housing jurisdictions. The original housing authority sends their rental assistance to Santa Rosa. So Rebecca and I reviewed actual expenses for the past year and found that while Santa Rosa client average per unit cost is holding steady at about $1,200 per month, port-in client assistance is closer to $1,400 per month. So we average about 275 port-in clients each month. 99% of those come from the County of Sonoma Housing Authority. And port-in clients tend to have more turnover and therefore newer, higher rental contracts and they tend to come to Santa Rosa for multifamily rental housing, which is also at a higher cost. And then finally, the reduction in full-time equivalent positions is the removal of the code enforcement technician from the program. Next slide, please. This slide just reiterates what I noted in the previous slide. So we can go to the next slide. Thank you. All right. The next two slides detail the housing trust funding expense and full-time equivalent positions. The trust is funded by 13 different federal, state and local funds, each with its own regulations. Federal and state funds are highly regulated, local funds somewhat less so. New revenue increased over $700,000. As I mentioned before, we had several large loan repayments and a large bond payoff occur in the first half of fiscal year 2021. And we budgeted to use that revenue in 21-22 rather than waiting until the next year. Transfers in increased as well. As I noted per city council policy, the city designates a portion of its real property transfer tax for homeless services and affordable housing. That amount increases 5% annually. Homeless services costs stayed flat and that's in a different budget. The additional real property transfer tax you see here was goes towards affordable housing. These increases are offset by less uncommitted carryover. So that's revenue that comes in over budget or was budgeted but not used for salaries, benefits and services and supplies and such. So it's available the following year for loan activity. And this is part of the funding and the notice of funding availability that Megan discussed earlier that was issued that you'll see in a coming meeting. So the major source of uncommitted carryover for the past few years has been impact fee revenue. Again, developers pay instead of providing affordable housing and their market rate developments. That revenue has been much higher than budgeted. For the last few fiscal years, it's now decreased closer to its budgeted amount of 1.5 million. So all that extra revenue is not coming in but we are still on track to receive the 1.5 million that's budgeted. And Megan and I will keep a close eye on that funding source and reduce that budget if we need to. So now we'll focus on expenditures, salaries, benefits, services and supplies, allocated costs and project admin. Again, we're discussed in detail at study session last month. So just very briefly, salaries and benefits increased primarily due to the continuing reorganization around homeless services. A program specialist position from the trust was assigned part-time to homeless services but has now been moved back full-time into the trust which increased those costs. This is offset by several long-term employees leaving the program and their replacements being hired the lower salary step. Services and supplies are essentially flat and allocated costs increased slightly along the salaries. And then just as reminder, project admin is that portion of home and CDBG funding that can be used for salaries and benefits for specific projects. It reduces the amount that we can spend on those projects so we don't often use it. We do need it to be available and any unused project admin gets rolled into the following year's uncommitted carryover. Okay, next slide, please. Thanks, okay. Loan activity decreased overall because less funding, less uncommitted funding from prior years is available and home funding is now being directed towards tenant-based rental assistance. This decrease is offset slightly by the increase in real property transfer tax and the large bond payoff. Subrecipient funding is the federal HOPWA funding and local fair housing funding going to the service providers. HOPWA funding increased about $6,000, which you see there. And then as we've noted, federal home funding is being used for tenant-based rental assistance in 21-22. It was not part of the adopted fiscal year 2021 budget. At the end of 1920, as COVID was increasing, we repurposed existing 19-20 home loan budget for tenant-based rental assistance. The 2021 home funding went to loans as usual and then now in 21-22, we're using home funding for tenant-based rental assistance. Finally, CDBG public services increased slightly over the last year. This funding is directed to homeless services like the city council. And then as I noted earlier, the full-time equivalent positions increased as a program specialist who had been assisting homeless services came back into the trust full-time. Next slide, please. This slide reiterates what I discussed on the previous slides and then also notes that the trust budget of reserve is at $371,000, which meets the requirements of the housing authority policy. And next slide, please. Okay, so finally, the next steps in the budget process, we will review the general fund budget along with all the other city departments with the city council on May 18th and 19th. We'll be back in front of you on June 21st and then back in front of the city council on June 22nd for approval of the final 21-22 budget. And this concludes the presentation. I'm available for any questions you may have. Thank you, Kate. Commissioner Downey, you have a question? A couple of questions. One question is, I was under the impression that homelessness was being administered by different agencies other than the housing authority. Is that not true? That is true. So it was in the Housing and Community Services Department in which the housing authority is also in. It moved to the city council department this year. Okay, and then the second question is, I don't know the particular, maybe Steve Burke can clarify this or Jeff Burke, I'm sorry. Under the housing trust, is the housing trust allowed to borrow money to build affordable housing? Or is that not within the tenants of the housing trust? And this is Megan Bassenger and I'd be happy to interject there. And we have done this in the past. The department or the city has taken out a loan to further affordable housing. And this was conducted, I think back in 2008, but there are costs associated with borrowing against our future revenues. So it's not in our best interest. It's in our best interest to just put out no fuss and have external contractors apply to build housing. We would need to evaluate the pros and cons of such an endeavor. And then also we don't own and hold real estate. We provide the financing so that it's all independently owned. We're not a public housing authority in terms of units that we own and operate. Okay, thank you. Any other commissioners, any questions? Oh, I hear one. Commissioner Olson. Can you hear me? Yes. So this new housing board that the county and the city has put together to spend money on affordable housing, are we gonna be keeping the loop on that? Hi, Commissioner Olson. So I'm assuming you're speaking about the renewal enterprise district, commonly known as the red? Yes. Yes, and right now there aren't any updates to share other than the city council identified $10 million of the PG&E settlement money to go towards the loan pool for the red. We are in conversations with them on terms for the city. So as we finalize those discussions, I will be bringing that back to the housing authority for your information. Well, thank you very much. Chair Owen, Commissioner Burke does have his hand raised. Yes, Commissioner Burke. Thank you. I appreciate that. Can you provide the total number of full-time equivalents in the department as compared to how many of those are supporting the housing authority portion of the budget? So at this point, because homeless services has moved to the city council, the only people remaining in the Housing and Community Services Department support the housing authority so that those totals are equal right now. So if I looked at the number at the bottom of your slides, I can see the total number. Yes, and it just reminded me of something. There is one position that remains in the Housing and Community Services Department general fund and we have not yet received direction on what to do with that position yet. The city is in the midst of another reorganization and I think the commissioners know the city manager is leaving the city and we have an interim assistant city manager right now. So a lot of that is up in the air. So I can tell you though that there's 20 FTE supporting the housing authority and then 21 in the department. Very good, thanks Kate, I appreciate that. In addition to that question about the portfolio management staffing and effectiveness, a lot of housing has been produced, a lot of housing is out there, big portfolio, but tracking all of that to make sure that people are honoring their agreements is really important. So can you tell me a little bit about again, who's doing that work and how effective that has been recently? So Commissioner Burke, and I want to apologize, I'm having bandwidth issue, so I had to turn off my camera. Just to clarify your question, you're interested in our internal compliance monitoring. Correct. So we have a Housing and Community Services Technician that retired in October and we were able to hire someone into that position in January. That individual oversees the regulatory agreements that the housing authority has in place on all of our loans. And so that includes quarterly in annual monitoring of those units. She also oversees some of the bond finance units that have those monitoring agreements as well. And then units that are created through the city's density bonus and housing allocation plan also have affordability agreements that we monitor on a similar calendar, so quarterly and annual reports. Thanks Megan. So basically there's a one full-time equivalent that's monitoring that responsibility and it includes the city's activity. So does the cost of supporting that portion of it, does that come out of our budget or is that another source of funding? So one of the additions, and Kate if you know the year, please feel free to interject. I think it was in the mid teens of the like 2015-ish. Monitoring fees were added to some of our regulatory agreements. So density bonus, housing allocation plan contracts, as well as new regulatory agreements have per unit monitoring fees that are associated with those agreements and those developers have to pay annually. So we generate, I wanna say about 130,000 a year from those compliance monitoring fees and that pays for the technicians salary benefits. Thank you for that. I do recall now that that occurred so that's how we get that portion of the responsibilities funded. On slide eight, it talks about the liability insurance and it's probably been on previous years, I just haven't noticed it, but I think on one slide it shows two or 3% increase, another slide it shows 52% increase. Slides five and six maybe. So maybe you can clarify that first of all. But my main thing is, is that still a consortium insurance group that the city is involved with? And does it include kind of everything associated with the housing authority, including directors and officers liability insurance? Okay, so I couldn't unmute there for a second. So on slide eight, it shows that liability insurance is 3% of the administrative budget. And then on slide nine, it shows that it increased 52% over the prior year. And so I know that it includes, I'll need to find out from the city's risk manager what exactly that includes when I asked about the giant increase we were told it increased citywide and that's just the number. So I can find out for you what exactly that covers. Thanks, I would think that housing authority would be interested in kind of knowing what that covers. I don't think we've talked about that for a long time. And so it'd be good if you can be, some kind of a written kind of update or whatever you might wanna provide. Sure. So thank you for that. And then I think, let me just take one second here. So yeah, with the inspections. So I know that the inspections at one time for many, many years been done in-house by SAAP. At one time it was people that were devoted to just that function and then it was responsibility of the managers or the people that actually work directly the technicians working directly with the clients. And then it went to code enforcement. So how is it handled? How is it going to be handled now? Or how is it being handled now? So I'll answer this briefly and I'm not sure if Rebecca is still on. So we had code enforcement. Code enforcement wasn't completely handling the inspections. They were doing the quality control part of the inspections for us. So our technicians, oh, there's Rebecca. Rebecca, do you wanna take this one? Sure, thank you. I missed part of what Kate just said as I was being promoted to a panelist. But so the code enforcement was offering our, what they call quality control inspections. So we had, we had a code enforcement staff go out and meet the requirements to reinspect a certain portion of the units just to make sure that our initial inspection hadn't missed anything. We did that as an arrangement. One code enforcement was added to our department to the housing community services department. And then once code enforcement under another subsequent reorg was no longer part of our department, it became harder to sort of manage that having it done that way. And so we reverted back to our original plan which is that a supervisor goes out to reinspect the units for those quality control inspections. So it's the technicians when they do annual reexams there's an inspection which I'm sure has been much different this last year but that's the process with the oversight by a supervisor. Thank you. Perhaps one more here. Let's see, I think those are my questions. I appreciate the answers. Commissioner Tester, Commissioner Olson, any questions? No. No. Okay, I do have a couple of questions. There was discussion both from Rebecca and from Megan about funds coming in from the CARES Act. Are any funds available going forward in the next fiscal budget from the CARES Act or any other federal funding that would not normally come through? I can take a shot at that, Megan, if you want. So all of that funding occurred in fiscal year 1920 or 2021. We haven't heard that we will get any new funding in fiscal year 21-22. The funding from 1920 and 21 in some cases has not been entirely used. So it may take us more than one fiscal year to expend it but we have not yet heard that we will be getting new funding like the CARES Act. If I could just add one addendum to that, Kate, is we did receive very high level notification without the additional home funds. So HUD has allocated additional home funding to jurisdictions throughout the country and the city should be receiving a little over 2.7 million. We don't have any information on the timing associated with that, but unlike the home funds that are included in our annual budget and are subject to additional items on today's agenda, 2.7 would be able to make a significant dent in an affordable housing project. So those will be coming in the future. We just don't have any information on the timing or the requirements for adding those to our federal action plans. And those funds, Megan, who are going directly to the housing authority, they're not being spread to, they don't go to the general fund first. Federal allocations do not touch the general fund. They are received into special funds, allocated funds, so CDBG, home or HAWPA. They are directed to the city. The city is the recipient and then the city provides them reallocates them to the housing authority for administration. And that's dollar for dollar? Yes. Okay. Thank you. The impact fees that are showing up in the budget, this is a point that Kate made of 1.5 million. How does that compare, was that flat from prior years? Yes, we've always, we've always kept the budget flat at 1.5 million, kind of in anticipation of what's occurring now, which is that for, we were getting like 2.3 million, 2.4 million for a few years and now that's decreasing. So I think we're gonna hit 1.5 million in fiscal year 2021 and we budgeted that again in 21-22, but I need, we're going to be watching it closely. And if it doesn't look like we're going to receive that amount, we'll reduce loan activity and the corresponding amount. Has the impact of fee schedule changed in the last few years? Correct. It has changed? There was an update to the impact fees and the addition of a commercial linkage fee in, I think 2019, it could have been early 2020. Okay. And again, just to confirm that all the fire rebills we see in our community do not pay impact fees because they're already existing, existing lots. So that's correct. That is correct unless I think there's a significant change. So unless you were putting additional units onto a multifamily property, for example, but they've already paid their housing impact fee, their park fees, those were paid when the units were initially constructed. Okay. Thank you. And then the other question I had had to do with the real property transfer tax, it's good to see that those monies are going up to over half a million dollars, but how much was the overall real property or anticipated real property transfer tax amount that goes in the general fund of which only 500,000 comes to the housing authority. Do we have that figure? I do. So the budget team is the city's finance department is estimating 3.5 million in 21-22. This year, housing and homeless services gets 40% of that. So 37% of that went to affordable housing and then we use a portion of that also for the fair housing contract that we're required to have, just a small portion of it. And then 63% of that went to homeless services, of that 40%, if that makes sense. So of the 40% of that dollar amount, so 3.5 million is the total real property transfer tax that goes into the general fund for the city, of that dollar amount, 40% comes to housing and homeless services, and of that 40%, 37% goes into housing authority. That's correct. And if a train leaves Paris at noon, right? Yeah, exactly. So I think I called that, thank you. The added aspect is at what level is the determination made of the split of the 40%, does that come from the finance department of the city or where does that decision made? So that decision is made within the portfolio level at the first pass. So we look at all of the expenses of homeless service, we start with homeless services. So what expenses does homeless services have this year? And because that has been the city council's highest priority for several years, we make sure that we can cover that amount within the finance department guidelines, which are often to keep a flat budget or to reduce budgets by a certain amount. Once we've covered the amount of homeless services expenses, the rest of that can go to affordable housing. So I'll come up with scenarios for that and present them to Megan and to the assistant city manager. And we'll discuss that, that gets run by the city manager to make sure that the priorities for homeless services are being met and then we make any changes from there. So if homeless services are taken out of housing and community services and being done at the city level and 40% of that real property transfer tax is to go to housing and homeless services. Is that a double count because housing and community services not handling homeless services at this point in time? No, and the council policy, it's written in a way that it assumes housing and homeless services are going to be in the housing and community services department. So that's, we may need to update that, but it needs to go to the program areas of housing and homeless services, regardless of where those are organized within the city. So homeless services is in its own fund and that fund moved over to the city council and a portion of that fund is the transfer in of real property transfer tax. And what is the trend right now in the homeless services costs? Is it black increasing? So this year, it's interesting. We were directed by the finance department to prepare a flat budget for homeless services. But I believe with the news from structure out there they would have to make some changes because of COVID that those costs may be increasing, but that will be for the city council and the city manager to review and discuss those upcoming changes. And this is kind of something I've been, I've brought up in other meetings because the 40% figure of 3.5 million is $1.4 million. And we look that we just had in our last meeting, a NOFA for $8 million to go up, but that's only because $4 million came back to us. So it would have been about $4 million. So $1.4 million, this is a significant dollar amount in terms of monies that can be made available in the year from the housing authority to build units. And still a strong believer that the way we get out of this is to continue to provide housing units and more units and study after study after study will tell you that. So that's why I keep bringing this issue up in terms of wanting to make sure that the real property transfer tax and as that goes up to 40%, 45% next year, the funds that are being spent on housing services do take away from the ability to build units, which is a good long-term solution. And so that's, I just wanted to reiterate, that's why I brought it up. Just, I don't have any other questions. Does any, do any of the commissioners have questions? Chair Owen, Commissioner Downey does have his hand raised. Yes, Commissioner Downey. My question is I was reading in the press democrat that Governor Newsom is releasing funding for pre-fire preparation, as we're anticipating a potentially robust fire season, which is pretty hard to imagine on top of COVID. So I'm wondering if any of those fundings will go into the housing authority, or if there are any other sources of funding to help us prepare for an event should something jump off. So any revenue sources associated with fire prevention or mitigation are being handled by the city's fire department, and then also in conjunction with the Department of Transportation and Public Works, which has a fairly robust maintenance crew. So those are being held at that level of the city and are administered by the city council, if such funding is to flow directly to the city. Any other questions from commissioners? Hearing none, I'd like to open it up for public comment. We are now taking public comments on item number 4.1, review of fiscal year 2021-22, proposed housing authority budget. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you are dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes to make your comment. A countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and viewers. The first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak. Please make sure to unmute yourself when you are invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown or at the conclusion of your comment. I do have one public comment. Gregory, can you hear me? Yeah, yes, I can. Thank you. Can you please confirm that you can see the countdown timer? I can see it, Mark. Okay, your time begins now. My name is Gregory Farron. I've been around the housing authority in the city for a long time, having gotten lots of money from you for nonprofit housing development. And I wanna thank Megan and Kate for the presentation today because it's a good update for me about the state of the housing authority and its funds. Nothing was terribly surprising, but I am interested in the conversation that you've had afterwards about the status of homeless services and homeless funding. We today are generally just here to give you an update on what we're doing to try to advance some of the programs that you have had responsibility in the past and responsibility for, which will end up somewhere in the city. And what we're doing in both this meeting and in the budget process to try to identify some more money for either you or whoever ends up having responsibility for homeless housing and services. Now, as you know, homeless housing isn't just shelters. It ends up being a lot of permanent housing too. So I'm not ever sure that you're going to be able to completely separate responsibility for housing for homeless. If you consider what Chairman Owen was just saying and we agreed to, which is that permanent housing is an essential ingredient to this whole thing. So somewhere a collaboration between homeless services, homeless shelters and homeless permanent housing is going to happen and we're gonna be right here with you to try to help make that happen. But the bottom line for today's comment is that we will be approaching the city council during budget hearings to try to get them to identify a significant amount of money to give to either you or the homeless services center in the city manager's budget, but some budget line items are gonna increase and they will be a holding zone for some reserve money, PGA money, rescue money, some money that has a lot less restrictions than state and federal and that can be used for the kinds of things that we see in the community and the council sees as gaps, as needed housing and services. And we wanted to give you a heads up for it because we consider you are partners and we are as we have in the past trying to work within your own budget approval, budget reviews and budget execution over the next year. And we have given also a site plan for what we put together for safe parking, RV parking and modular parking. I sent it to Megan, I think yesterday afternoon. It's not important for you to look at it now, but it is important for you to understand that as we ask the city for either sites or money, we do have plans and homes for homeless and saves are the co-authors of the plan that we submitted to you yesterday. It's just the best update that we have as to if we had a site and we had some money, what we would do with it. I'm here to answer any questions afterwards and I'm sure that if you wish to email me or get any more information, both the saves website and my own personal email that's attached to the email I sent to Megan. And again, I definitely understand what your responsibility is to review and approve a budget. I don't expect you to find money within your budget for what I'm asking for, but we will try to help get you with the money in order to be able to execute these plans. At this point, Chair Owen, I do not have any more hands raised and we have not received email public comment. Thank you. And thank you for that comment to appreciate the input and the work to trying to solve a very complex issue of homelessness and housing in our community. I'd like to move on to item five, which is public comments for non-agenda items. I'm sorry, Chair Owen, I lost the PowerPoint. Give me just a moment. Thank you. Chair, while Mark is pulling up the PowerPoint, were there any final thoughts or direction for myself or Kate Goldstein on the upcoming fiscal year budget before we conclude the study session? Commissioners, I don't have any. Any other commissioners? Commissioner Downey? I want to thank you for all the details that you put into this budget and it looks very sound and I'm assuming that it's going to be a very flexible budget as our needs are constantly changing in the jurisdiction of Santa Rosa. If I may, I agree, very well organized and presented budget. And I guess I would hope that there's stability in terms of the responsibilities of the department for some foreseeable future. It seems like there have been so many different iterations that it makes it kind of harder on staff and probably harder on the community to kind of follow who's responsible for what, but hopefully that'll stabilize. And just to follow up, I did have the question about the insurance and so hopefully that'll be responded to consistent with our discussion about how it was included in the insurance and is directors and officers liability insurance a part of that just up to end then on the budget in the mountain. So a response to that would be appreciated. Thank you. Chair Oh, and I am ready to move on to the public comment section. Thank you. Please proceed. We are now taking public comment on item number five non-agenda items. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes to make your comment. A countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and viewers. The first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak. Please make sure to unmute yourself when you are invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown or it's the conclusion of your comment. At this time, Chair Oh, and I see no hands raised and I have not received any email public comment. Thank you very much. I'd like to go ahead and move to item number six, which is approval of minutes. Are there any comments on the minutes? Fine to me. Thank you. Hearing no comments on the minutes, I'd like to go ahead and for the record to show the minutes have been approved by unanimous consent. And move on to item number seven, which are commissioner reports. And I understand that Vice Chair Test would like to discuss something. Yes, I have an announcement. Thank you. The city of Santa Rosa is now accepting applications for the Merit Awards for 2021. And those are for individuals or organizations whose volunteer efforts make Santa Rosa a better place to live or work. Information and application for the nominations are in both English and Spanish and can be found on the city of Santa Rosa Merit Awards online, as well as the Finley Community Center, a written application. The deadline for submitting is July 10th and the actual award ceremony will be September 20th. And members of the public are certainly invited to attend Submit nominations and it's a wonderful program. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Test. Mike, you go ahead with moving on to item eight, which are committee reports. And I understand that there are no committee reports for this meeting. Moving on to item nine was the executive director of ports and Megan, you had something you wanted to discuss. Yes, thank you. I just wanted to give the commission a quick update on the status of the vacant housing authority commissioner, the tenant commissioner positions, as well as the two commissioners that are up for reappointment. As of this morning, the city clerk has scheduled interviews for June 29th. The city clerk will be contacting all of the applicants to schedule the interviews directly. This could change the city council is working through a variety of issues and it's caused agenda items to move around on the calendar. But again, right now we're looking at the end of June for potential commissioner interviews. And the other item I'd just like to quickly mention is that with the change in the city manager and city leadership, they are extending the interim appointments for the assistant city manager as well as for the acting executive director, which I am currently filling. So there should be some continued stability in those positions for the future months. And I'd be happy to answer any questions. Megan? Yes. I'm going to be, I want to do this for two things. So it's time to be like there's going to be a meeting at the end of June, which you'll need a quorum for. And I will be out of the, I'll be out June 22nd to 28th. I'm going to a wedding in Savannah, Georgia. So not only for the interview, but also I thought like maybe there has to be a quorum for a meeting on the budget on that date. We will need a quorum. So thank you for sharing that with us. And we will look at our calendars and plan accordingly. And then commissioner Olson, in terms of any potential interview, when the city clerk contacts you, you can share with them what your schedule is. And again, the interviews could change again. It's had to be adjusted several times as issues have arisen. Yes. All right, thank you, Megan. You're welcome. Thank you, Megan. Any comments from commissioners? Additional comments? Thank you. We'll go on to item 10, which is consent items. And I understand from our agenda are no agenda consent items for today's meeting. The next item is item 11.1. And I believe that Rebecca will be presenting this item. That is correct. So item 11.1 is a report item, update to housing choice voucher program, administrative plan, project-based voucher policies and opening of a request for proposals for project-based vouchers. Rebecca Lane, housing and community services manager, presenting. Thank you, Megan. And good afternoon again, commissioners. This presentation is a two-fold item. First is to go over the updates to the administrative plan regarding project-based vouchers. And then also, if the administrative plan updates are approved, we are also requesting a motion to approve the release of a request for proposals for project-based vouchers. Next slide, please. So the administrative plan is the major policy document that guides the ongoing administration of the federally regulated housing choice voucher program. Chapter 17 of the Santa Rosa Housing Authority administrative plan outlines the policies regarding the use of project-based vouchers within the housing choice voucher program. The housing opportunity through modernization act of 2016, which is known as HOTMA, authorized regulatory changes specific to the use of project-based vouchers. Implementation guidance was also provided by HUD in PIH notice 2017-21 and subsequent notices. The regulations guiding the housing choice voucher program, the Code of Federal Regulations requires that any revisions to the administrative plan are approved by the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners and that they are also reviewed at a public meeting. Next slide, please. So I'll start with a little bit of background just about project-based vouchers and what they are. The housing choice voucher program does provide a form of tenant-based rental assistance in which the voucher holder, the participant in the program, pays 30% of their monthly adjusted income towards the rent in the property of their choice. The Housing Authority pays the balance of the rent directly to the owner. The project-based voucher program is a component within the housing choice voucher program that allows a public housing agency to attach up to 20% of its vouchers to units in specific projects. This percentage limitation is known as the project-based voucher program CAP. In the project-based voucher program, a property developer agrees to set aside a portion of the units in a new rehabilitated or existing housing development for voucher holders that are referred through the public housing agency. The project-based voucher program helps promote affordable housing development and preservation by allowing housing developers to leverage the project-based voucher funds to secure other forms of financing for the program or for the project, excuse me. So in this program, in the project-based voucher program, the significant changes that were authorized under HOTMA is number one that simplified how a housing authority can calculate what their specific CAP is going to be. Prior to HOTMA, the calculation was 20% of an agency's budget authority, which was difficult to nail down as our per-unit costs change over time, and those can go up or down depending on the rental market. And then our budget authority is determined by our per-unit costs. So since that was a moving target, really, the first change in HOTMA is a simplification of the regulation. And so now it says your standard program-sized CAP is 20% of the units that you have under contract with CAP. So grateful for that, and it makes it easier to talk about. HOTMA also changed the program CAP to allow public housing agencies to increase their program CAP for specific reasons. So HOTMA changed the program CAP to allow a public housing agency to use an additional 10% of its project-based voucher funding for units that are set aside for any of the following uses. Dedicated units for individuals and families who meet the definition of homeless under section 103 of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Dedicated units for families that are comprised of or include a veteran, units that provide supportive housing to persons with disabilities or elderly persons, or units that are located in a census tract with a poverty rate of 20% or less. So these additional units for those specific categories are called the exception units. And next slide, please. So what we are proposing with this item is a revision of the administrative plan to allow Santa Rosa Housing Authority Housing Traits Voucher Program to increase the number of units that we may make available for project-facing from 20%, which is the standard program CAP, to 25%, so long as the units meet two of those exceptional categories that I described in the previous slide. These would be in Santa Rosa for people who are homeless or for people who are veterans, households that are comprised of or include a veteran. The reason that we are proposing the change in this way, first of all, the increase at all, considering an increase in the program CAP, we have seen that the use of project-based vouchers in Santa Rosa has leveraged additional affordable housing units. The current program policies in our administrative plan do allow for the standard program CAP of 20%. And since 2007, when the program was enacted locally, we have set aside 369 vouchers for use as project-based vouchers, which is an equivalent of about 19.4% of our current units under contract with HUD. The 369 units, 139 are operational in existing developments, 90 are projects that are currently under construction and 140 are allocated to developments that have not yet begun construction. And these 369 units are scattered across 16 total projects with a total of 1,154 affordable units within those 16 projects. We also know that there continues to be a demand for homeless-dedicated housing. And so that is one of the drivers of the policy that we're proposing, which would be to increase for that particular exception. We also, in consultation with the VA, are aware that the VASH program and the other associated programs supports for veterans. Typically, the special needs of veterans and their families are better met with veteran-dedicated units and projects. So we know that we have the support and the interest from the local VA to continue potentially increasing the number of veteran-dedicated units in the future. We also, as we were considering the implications of making this change, we wanted to make sure that we're continuing to balance the tenant-based program and the project-based voucher resources. The Housing Choice Voucher program is so named because one of the fundamental values of the program is to make sure that families have housing choice. And so we believe that increasing this percentage slightly and increasing it only for these particular local needs is a good balance between those two needs. So the proposed revision that we're proposing today would allow for up to an additional 5% and that would bring the allowable program size as we have it right now under our current contract that would be an equivalent of 475 units. And if the change to the program cap is approved, this action will also approve the release of a request for proposals for project-based vouchers for projects that are providing permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless individuals, including units that are dedicated for individuals and families who meet the definition of homeless under section 103, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. And I apologize, I think I forgot to move to the next slide. Can we have the next slide? I think I just talked about it. Yes. So if the action is approved to modify the administrative plan policies, then we would also request that the housing authority make a motion to approve the requested proposals. This request for proposals would only be for individual housing units that are dedicated to individuals and families who meet the definition of homeless under section 103 of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Excuse me. This request for proposals also utilizes the point scale that was recently released under the NOVA. And that's similar to our previous rounds of funding where we attempted to have some streamlining between the NOVA's on the trust side and the request for proposals under the voucher side. And the reason that we are proposing to release an RFP now is because we are aware that there continues to be demand for the resources of the project-based voucher program and that there are upcoming funding rounds that this resource could be helpful for. Next slide, please. So this is a long recommendation, but it's recommended by the Department of Housing and Community Services that the housing authority by resolution adopt the revisions to the Housing Choice Voucher Program Administrative Plan Chapter 17 Project-Based Vouchers to bring the Project-Based Voucher Program Language in line with the current regulatory language that was authorized under the Housing Opportunity through Modernization Act of 2016 and implemented under the Office of Public and Indian Housing Notice 2017-21. These revisions also include a policy change, increasing the number of Project-Based Voucher Units allowed in the Housing Choice Voucher Program if those units are specifically made available to house individuals and families who are homeless or if those units are specifically made available to house families that are comprised of or include a veteran. Next slide, please. In addition, if the increase in the number of Project-Based Voucher Units in the Housing Choice Voucher Program is approved, the Department of Housing Community Services recommends that the Housing Authority by motion approve the release of a request for proposals for Project-Based Vouchers to solicit proposals specifically for units to be made available to house individuals and families who are homeless. That concludes my presentation. I'm happy to take questions. Thank you, Rebecca. Commissioner Olson, you have a question? I do. Rebecca, what happens to the people that are at the front of the list? Do they get the first shot at these Project-Based Vouchers or are they stepped over by people with needs or how does that work? I always feel sorry for those people who waited two years and all of a sudden there's a program that says, oh, these people are going in front of you. Is that what's going to happen again? Well, I think that's certainly one of the concerns that we thought about. And with this, we have 16 different projects where we have Project-Based Vouchers. Some of those are dedicated to specific populations already, like the VASH units or some elderly units. We always go to our existing waiting lists. The regulations require that we survey the existing waiting lists for people who are interested in specific projects that the Project-Based Vouchers are funding and or that they are eligible for those projects. So we have a variety. We have some units that do have a special designation and we have some units that do not have that. So if the family that is on the waiting list already is interested in a particular project, they can apply specifically for that project. So to answer your question, it is possible that that would happen if someone who is currently, a family who's currently at the top or near the top of the waiting list, if they are not interested in an invitation to apply for a specific project or if they are not eligible for a specific project, then a family that is below them on the waiting list may be eligible or be interested for a Project-Based unit and that person would or that household would move into that project before the other family. So it makes the waiting list a little bit more dynamic in terms of how it moves. That's true. So if you had to make a guess, how many people you think on the top of that list would take a project-based, if offered to them? Well, a lot of these are really beautiful, brand new construction units. So I think we have seen a lot of interest as we survey the existing waiting list for the different projects as they're coming online. So I think it really depends on the individual household and what their specific needs are and whether they would prefer to take the shot at applying for the specific project or if they would prefer to wait and see how much longer the wait might be for the tenant-based voucher. Well, that's always a concern to me, but thank you very much. Sure. Make sure to ask. Yes, hi. I had a question. The, so this is a proposal to increase by five, five percent, excuse me, five, yes, five percent. And does this apply just to new projects that will be coming forward or could existing properties apply for these project-based vouchers? So the policy and the regulations allow for new construction, rehabilitation, or for existing units to apply for project-based vouchers. The housing authority makes that determination upon the release of each request for proposals as to whether or not it will be specifically for new construction or specifically for one of the other housing types, the rehab or the existing units. Our, we have found the most success so far in releasing them for all three of the potential unit types because the resource of the project-based vouchers can be helpful to all of the different unit types. We have a lot of those units and a lot of the applications that have been successful are new construction. As I mentioned, we have 139 that are currently operational units, we have 90 units in projects that are currently under construction and another 140 that are new units that are have yet to begin construction. So the majority of our interest in the last few years has been for new construction. Thank you. Commissioner Burr. Thank you. The current utilization for our vouchers are at what level now, Rebecca? It is in the low, mid-90s, the utilization overall, yes. Mid-90s, so it's pretty strong. Yeah, I think I have, I share the concerns that Commissioner Olson had commented on earlier. This is an observation and it's not meant to say to be critical at all but I know on this one we're really taking potentially, moving in the direction of taking more vouchers out of circulation for the people on the list that can be used at large throughout the community. The next item on the agenda kind of goes the opposite way. We're taking money away from maybe an opportunity to produce or rehabilitate units even though it would be a modest number but it would be there as close to perpetuity as possible if you were able to convert that $750,000 into permanent units. But it's taking it out of that category and putting it into the vouchers. I think in that case it makes lots of sense given the circumstances that we face right now with people having a very difficult time paying rent. But this can be argued that this would serve the same purpose. Now, I'm sure there's been a very in-depth discussion at the staff level about the pros and cons of doing one versus the other and I know that you can't compare the two programs and their impact and their effectiveness but it's just a kind of a point that occurred to me. We are doing kind of two different things moving in two different directions with these two items. I think this is fine. I think we ought to keep in mind as we go along and probably have suggestions from staff about why we're doing it. When the next time comes up and we want to put out vouchers, their project base, we ought to talk about kind of the reasons behind that. It makes sense at this point in time because. Sure, thank you for those comments. And I'll just point out as to the concern about taking the units out of circulation and this applies to both Commissioner Olson's question as well as Commissioner Burke, your comment. The one thing to keep in mind is that the project based voucher while the contract that's tied to the project is long-term, the tenant receives the opportunity to move out of the project and into any other housing unit of their choice after one year of residency in the program or in the project. We hope that everybody really loves where they live and they stay there. But if they have a need to leave the project that they have moved into, they will receive a tenant-based voucher as part of the way that the program works, the reason that it can come from the tenant-based resources because it does ultimately turn into a tenant-based voucher if the family chooses. Oh, that's great. I'm glad to hear that. That makes me feel better. Thank you. I think that's an important point. And Rebecca, again, so if a unit is committed to a particular development that was due construction, somebody moves out. There's an effort made to try to refill that unit in that complex that received the allocation in the first place, is that correct? Yes, so the, if a family who first moved into the project moves out, then another family who is, again, eligible for or interested in that particular project is called from the waiting list and moves into the unit. So that's how I was trying to come up with a word to describe the impact on the waiting list is that it does make it a bit more dynamic because we might have different families, depending on their preference, if they want to move into a project and they're eligible for a project, come off the list at different times in order to go into the project that has a vacancy. So we're monitoring that for every single project that is currently in operation. We monitor that very closely and each individual project will, if it doesn't already, ultimately have its own waiting list. And we find that to be the best way to make sure that families are informed of a specific unit that they are aiming for that they're waiting for and they can be on multiple project lists. So they could be on the waiting list for crossings on Aston. They could be on the waiting list for Parkwood. They could be, they could take their pick and be on multiple waiting lists. And so have multiple bites at the, you know, at the apple, so to speak. Mr. Downey, you had a question? I think my mic was, hi, Megan. I mean, not Rebecca. So if I am Jane Smith, hypothetical construction company and I'm applying for a NOFA to receive funding for my building project, where am I going to get the most benefit or tax credits either going with a project-based voucher or just setting aside S amount of units to comply with the contract of receiving public funds? I guess I'm wondering which, what has the bigger carriage as for my construction company? Sorry, go ahead. I'd be happy to try and attempt to answer that with Rebecca's assistance. They're different. They both can count towards the local contribution for the project and depending on the tax credit round or the rules that a developer is pursuing, there may be different benefits. The project-based vouchers generally have a 20-year contract. And so that is ongoing anticipated rent that can be counted towards the income of the property. And so that can help reduce the amount of a first mortgage that the property would need to carry. Whereas housing authority contributions are often considered soft debt. So it's a debt on the project that doesn't need to be serviced unless there's residual cash receipts. So the project is generating cash flow. That's when we see repayments. And so that's generally several years into the operation of that project. So it depends on the project size, the funding that they're pursuing and how competitive the financing arena is with that particular juncture. Rebecca, if there's anything you wanna add? It sounds like if I'm allocating extra amount of units for project-based, then I can use the income from those units that are project-based as a source of funding for a lending institution or some other agency who could potentially help me finance my building project. Correct. And as Megan pointed out, the contracts are long-term so the property can plan the cash flow on whatever that number of units is in the project that are project-based. And also significantly those project-based units can charge what's essentially market rent because the project-based units, the rent on those units is tied to the fair market rent of the jurisdiction and the family, the tenant still pays 30% of their monthly adjusted income. So it's a win-win because the project gets to have higher rent on those units and the family, the unit is still affordable to them. So it sounds like the lending length is longer for just allowing vouchers in general in contrast with just project-based vouchers. So the, a lender and Megan might, you know, Megan's definitely more of a finance expert than I am, but a lender doesn't look at tenant-based voucher residencies as a commitment of financing in the same way that a project-based voucher contract is. If I can interject and I will put, and Megan's already smiling, I will put my other gig hat on, which is being a lender. And as a lender to affordable housing projects, a lender will always look at a consistent and reliable cash flow. And that is the thing that a lender will always want to underwrite to. So project-based vouchers allows for a consistent and reliable cash flow because it's a 20-year commitment. You know what the rents are going to be versus having to go out and find a tenant that brings that income in in terms of a housing choice voucher. So it is a better way and a more comfortable way and more reliable way to underwrite new construction for a project because as Rebecca discussed, it's looked upon as being, they're basically market rent. So even though it's an affordable project, it's affordable to the tenant, the market rate to the cash flow of the project, which allows to pick up the cost of four, five, six, almost $700,000 a unit to build a project. So that's why from a lending standpoint, project-based vouchers are viewed more favorably than to look at it from housing choice voucher. Well, since you've had your finance hat on, it sounds like it would be a better bang for a potential project to be project-based from a lending perspective. No, that's backwards. That project-based vouchers are a better way that a lender would look at. Now, they're all different. All lenders will always, but there is a consistency in how they are underwritten and the consistency is consistent and reliable cash flow and a project-based voucher provides that at a much stronger level than a housing choice voucher to a project. No, thank you. Just, you know, that interesting conversation. Have we ever had anybody apply for the project-based vouchers that have existing properties? I'm sorry, are you talking about families applying? Do we have existing? No, no, we basically have three categories, right, new, rehabilitation or existing. So if you have an apartment complex that's been there for 15, 20 years, have we ever had anybody in that category apply? I don't recall any. Parkwood. And, sorry, to interject, January of 2021, I believe the Housing Authority awarded eight project-based vouchers to Donito Apartments. That's right. And that's an existing complex and that was to help stabilize the financing of that project and allow them, I think, to do some rehabilitation. Exactly, yes. And that's a great example of the way that the funding can be used for getting new units online as well as preservation of units because that only took eight, I believe, vouchers to get them the funding that they need in order to work on some of those rehab projects. So we have Parkwood, Donito, as well as the Rosenberg Building was an existing structure when the project-based voucher contract was awarded. That was one of the very first project-based voucher contracts in the country. And Bethlehem Tower was also existing when they applied. And that was part of a preservation transaction as well. Yeah, the interesting thing about that probably is, again, for a different day for discussion, my guess is that the people that know more about affordable housing are the ones that are going to pick that up. The people that are out there, the mom and pop owners of rental units aren't going to be maybe as aware or kind of put two and two together to think that they might also be eligible and apply to something to consider going forward in terms of solicitations. Any other questions from commissioners? I have a question. So we're talking about project-based vouchers being 20 to 25% of what number? Is that the number of overall vouchers or the city of Santa Rosa has at this moment? Exactly. There are two types of vouchers. That does not include bash vouchers or does include bash vouchers? That does include bash vouchers. That's our total portfolio. So the increase in the 20 to 25% we're going to focus on projects that target, and Rebecca, you know the term better than I do, homeless in terms of initially homeless getting into units. And then also veterans projects. Correct. Okay, and then you mentioned something, this has come up in prior meetings. So say a family goes into a project that has project-based vouchers. They're in there for a year. They decide they want to move. They don't lose their vouchers, that correct? They can go to another project. So then that voucher stays with the tenant, the household, and it can go into another project. However, the project itself does not lose that. So you're basically increasing the amount of vouchers you have. What? Right. So that's a very good point that needs to be made. But so allow for project-based vouchers means that you can increase the number of vouchers in circulation. Is that correct? Yes, I mean, the number of vouchers on our contract with HUD, that stays the same unless we get new vouchers allocated by Congress. To our jurisdiction. But it does, the way that it impacts the waiting list is that the family moves into a project-based voucher unit. If they choose to vacate that unit, the housing authority refers another family to that unit from the waiting list. So it's still addressing the waiting list. Demand, the family that previously resided in the unit does not lose their assistance. They get to take it with them wherever they go. That can be to another state, that can be to another unit in Santa Rosa. And then the project does not lose the assistance either, the market rent on that unit because we're gonna fill it again with another family from the waiting list. So how does that affect the, because there's a cap that HUD provides in terms of vouchers, those Section 8 and BASH. So if that situation happens a lot, so you have a four-unit project, this project-based, and after say five years, 20 of those units, those tenants that lived there for a year qualify and move out. And now you have an extra, you don't have four units in circulation, you have 60 units in circulation. You follow the math? Yes, so if 20 families move out of the project, they have tenant-based vouchers and the project has 20 units to fill from our waiting list. So, but you started with 40 project-based vouchers and in this example, say after five years, you could have 60. The contract is a fixed number. We are allowed to amend it if that's something that both parties, the owner and the housing authority are interested in. If I'm understanding your question, you're talking about the contract on the property. Yeah, the project doesn't change. So that still can always will have 40 units. It's there, it's committed for 20 years, but a tenant, a household moves, they don't lose their voucher. And over a period of time, I'm just choosing five years, say 20 of those tenants move out after a year, you would now, they would keep their 20, the project keeps its 40, and you started with 40 project-based vouchers and now you're at 60. What does that do, the total? Well, it moves through the total number of units that we have under our contract with HUD stays the same in so far as, no matter how many project-based voucher units we have, the total number of contract units that we have with HUD, so that's known as our annual contributions contract or ACC. Right now, that's 1903 units. It's been that way for, I think about two years now, and in the time that I've been with the agency, just as an example, that went from 1400 to 1900, roughly, under contract with HUD and the vast majority of that increase in the number of vouchers that we have in this jurisdiction, that was related to VASH. So as new funding sources through the voucher program become available over time, we might see an increase in our ACC units, our annual contributions contract, which is the total number of vouchers in the jurisdiction. And we will have a certain number of those dedicated as project-based voucher units. So what happens is not that the contract with HUD changes or increases, what happens is that our waiting list moves faster, so we have just sort of more circulation of our voucher resources. Also, it would affect the utilization, that 93% that you were estimating would go up if those people were to move out. And until you got to a fine, it's finite because once you get to 100%, without any approval from HUD, you would have to draw the line and say, no more, we can't allow any more people into, we can not allow any more people to have vouchers. Right, that's a very good point, thank you. So if we do reach 100% utilization, we do have a federal regulation that prohibits us from going over, issuing more vouchers than we have a contract for with HUD. So we would have to wait until there was another unit or another voucher turned back in, another voucher terminated for a family and a project-based unit to be able to move out. Go ahead, Megan. As you say, if I may interject too, I think the attrition of our Housing Choice Voucher Holders may also help balance the project-based vouchers versus the Housing Choice vouchers. Right, the natural attrition in the program definitely accounts for that. I don't foresee a situation where we wouldn't have the resource available to do that, to let people move out. We have been over 100% in history, but it's been a long time. But it's all a good thing because utilization is what you want. Right. Okay, thank you. Any more, Commissioner Downey, you got a question? And so this question may have already been answered, but if this could be another opportunity to generate more units, is there a specific regulation within housing that stipulates that it can't go over 25 or can't go to 30 or 40 since we have such a inventory shortage? So HATMA allows a housing authority to go up to 30%. There are housing authorities that operate under a different set of regulations that are known as moving to work agencies or MTW agencies. We are not one of those agencies, but I know that there are some in the Bay Area who have increased their project-based voucher program size to as high as 40 and 50% and they're allowed to do that because they are an MTW agency. We, as Commissioner Burke was surmising, we did have a lot of staff discussion over the years about this proposal and we landed on 25% because as I mentioned, we feel like that's a good balance between what the ongoing needs for additional resources for new construction and rehabilitation and preservation are as well as balancing the tenant-based nature of the program. Any other questions from the commissioners? Hearing none, I'd like to go ahead and open up for public comment. We are now taking public comment on item number 11.1 update to administrative plan, project-based voucher policies and opening of a request for proposal for project-based vouchers. Account, if you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You'll have three minutes to make your comment. The countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and viewers. The first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak. Please make sure to unmute yourself when you are invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown or the conclusion of your comment. I do have one public comment. Our first speaker is going to be Gregory Fearon. Gregory, can you hear me? Yes, I can, Mark. Can you please confirm that you can see the countdown timer on your screen? I can see it. Okay, thank you. Your time starts now. I'm speaking in favor of the proposal and I want to tell you why. Thank you, Rebecca. I was the guy who pointed Clem Carinelli to you long ago to get the first project certificates for Rosenberg. So I take a little bit of pride in the fact that that all worked out. But I want to ask a question which is related to your waiting list and to the process of getting homeless into your project certificates, either project certificates or certificates at large, I guess is what I would refer to. The housing of homeless, the coordinated entry process for the continuum of care is in a state of flux right now. As you probably or may or may not know, it's been focused mostly on getting people from the streets to shelters. And it hasn't done very much about getting people from the shelters to permanent housing. And that's partly because, as you would probably guess, the folks who are in charge of the permanent housing have their own waiting lists. And don't really trust the, I think, the homeless continuum of care or anybody else to prepare people and effectively organize good applicants, applicants that will survive in a permanent housing or even a permanent supportive housing. But I want to point out that that's changing, that the continuum of care is putting out an RFP soon for a new coordinated entry provider. Catholic Charities is getting out of the business of it. And they're looking for someone who's gonna be trying to get people from shelters to permanent and permanent supportive housing. That puts another sort of clash in my mind between navigators or folks that they're gonna hire who are gonna be trying to prepare people to get from shelters and anywhere, I mean, interim, like we're trying to build and saves, to permanent housing, to the projects that also are going to be on your waiting list. So I guess my question is, have you given much thought to the process of trying to help coordinate the movement of homeless who are ready for permanent housing without having everybody compete against each other for who's got the best applicant and who's ready for it? Just a thought, because it's gonna represent another potential set of chaos if we don't try to figure out a way of working together. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate the input on that greatly. That is, as we talked about earlier, within this department, the housing authority is looking at units, but the housing, the homeless situation is also going through now through this city. But it is definitely a dovetail situation and how that works is something it is constantly worked on. So we appreciate your comments. At this point, Chair Owen, I see no more raised hands and we have not received any email public comment. Thank you very much. I'd like to go ahead and see if there is a motion to approve the resolution. I'd like to make a motion to approve this resolution. Thank you, Commissioner Downey. Is there a second? I'll second that. Thank you, Commissioner Test. I'd like to call for the vote on the resolution. Okay. We will go ahead and take a whole call vote. We will start with Commissioner Burke. Aye. Commissioner Downey. Aye. Commissioner Olson. Aye. Vice Chair Test. Aye. And Chair Owen. Aye. Let's record show that that motion passed unanimously with five ayes. Thank you very much. We'll move on to item 11.2, which is the home investment partnership program tenant based rental assistance. If I may, through the chair, I think there's a second part to that agenda item that you need to make a separate motion to approve the release of the RFP. Oh, thank you. Do we have a motion? I'll make another motion to approve the RFP. Thank you, Commissioner Downey. Is there a second? I'll do that second. Thank you, Commissioner Test. And we'll take that to a vote. So we'll go ahead and do a whole call vote on this motion. Start with Commissioner Burke. Aye. Commissioner Downey. Aye. Commissioner Olson. Aye. Vice Chair Test. Aye. Chair Owen. Aye. Okay, let the record show that that motion passed unanimously as well with five ayes. Thank you. And now we'll move on to 11.2, which is the home investment partnership program home tenant based rental assistance. And I believe Rebecca and Megan are presenting. Perfect. All right, next slide, please. All right, so to give you a quick overview of the home funding on an annual basis, the Home Investment Partnership Act known as HOME allocates approximately $750,000 to the city of Santa Rosa. These funds are used for home administration and as well as the Community Housing Development Organization deductions. So HOME is 10% and the CHODO funds, the Community Housing Development Organization is about 15%. Once you deduct those set-asides from the amount we have, usually about 560,000 that we could put towards acquisition, new construction or rehab, or tenant based rental assistance. And rehab is allowed, and I believe this was an inquiry of Commissioner Burke at a prior meeting, it is allowed the one caveat that the program regulations stipulate is you cannot use HOME funds to rehab a project that has already received a HOME investment. So for instance, if we used HOME funds for the initial construction or to assist with acquisition of units, such as Parkwood, we could not put HOME funds into the rehab of such units. Next slide, please. So last month, which was March 2021, we had a study session with the Housing Authority to review the use of the HOME funds. During that study session, the commissioners directed staff to return with a resolution to authorize the use of HOME funds for a trial two year period, and that would be for the tenant based rental assistance program. And that after year one, so we would anticipate this being in the summer of 2022, staff would return to present program outcomes and to kind of take the temperature of the Housing Authority on the continued use of HOME funds or tenant based rental assistance. And before we advance to the next slide, I just wanted to give you a quick indication of where our HOME funds have been over the past few years. Looking back over five years, our average HOME award has been about $645,000. So it's a relatively stable funding source. It has been ticking up by the year was 2017 where we received just under 500. And right now in 2020, we are at the highest allocation with about 750,000. Next slide, please. So Rebecca will touch on the TBRU requirements. So the TBRU program is a direct rental assistance program that is similar in its function to the Housing Choice Voucher program, which has allowed us for the emergency TBRU program to use for example, the same software that we use because the rental calculation is the same in the TBRU program as it is in the voucher program. We also use the systems we already have in place for the distribution of funds because we have a long-standing relationship and process with the finance department, accounts payable department to get those direct rental assistance checks, which are issued directly to the owner just as they are in the Housing Choice Voucher program. What's a little different with TBRU is that security deposits are an allowable cost. So that's something that we can explore. And the income levels are also different. The majority of the participants in the TBRU program are required to be at or below 60% of the area median income. And this is a little bit higher than the income limit for the voucher program. Next slide, please. So as with the emergency TBRU program that's continuing operating right now, the department staff, the Housing Community Services Department staff will administer that program. One of the policies that we may establish is a preference for people who are homeless, people who are elderly or people with disabilities. And we have based on our current funding and our spending for the voucher program and for the emergency TBRU program, we are anticipating that we'll be able to help about 33 households per year. Next slide, please. So the recommendation by the Housing Community Services Department is that the Housing Authority by resolution approve the use of the Home Investment Partnership Program Fund as a tenant-based rental assistance program for the city of Santa Rosa for an initial two-year trial period. And both Megan and I are available to answer questions. Thank you, Rebecca. Any questions from commissioners? I have no questions, but I must say, I appreciate having the provision for a two-year review period and it's certainly needed at this current time. So I'm going to be supporting this. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Burke. Any other questions or comments? Vice Chair Tess? Yes, hi. So would a program like this be used for people who not only are homeless, but those who have had a home that because of COVID lost their job or whatever, or had to take a decrease in the amount of hours they're able to work? So would this be a program to help them and would this program also be helpful if we have another fire and people are dislodged from their normal housing? Well, under the current emergency Tiber program that is targeted to people who had a financial impact from COVID, that was the purpose of those funds or that shift in the funding. The allowable preference for Tiber on an ongoing basis. So it's sort of the standard program is a preference for people who are homeless, people who are elderly or people with disabilities. So we can explore as to whether or not we can do some targeted marketing to people who, for example, continue to have experiences from COVID or if, as you mentioned, there's another fire, something like that that displaces people under a disaster. And that's something that we can explore where we're able to set one of the preference categories to attract those applicants. So that could happen at some point in the future if we decide that's the direction we want to include. Right, so long as it's allowed within those allowable preference categories. Yes, thank you. I got a question. So if our targeted groups are met, could this be iris down to include more income-sensitive people given the outrageous nature of rent in a local jurisdiction without going through the whole gamut of quotes, extreme and moderate low-income housing? I mean, just average people making an average salary are moving to Texas because they just can't afford to live in Santa Rosa. So I'm wondering if this could be a way to mitigate the exodus provided that our targeted groups are met? I think that's certainly the hope. Again, the income limit for the cheaper program is a bit higher. So if we certainly have had the experience in the voucher program where we find families who are over the income limit but still can't afford their rent and that's it's always unfortunate to have to turn them away. So this might give us a little bit more flexibility in terms of the income limits. Well, I'll be voting for this. Thank you. Mr. Olson, any comments or questions? I question whether it's redundant but I think I'll vote for it. Can I hear any more questions? Go ahead and open up for public comment. We are now taking public comment on item 11.2 Home Investment Partnerships Program, Home Tenant-Based Rental Assistance. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you are dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes to make your comment. The countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and viewers. The first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak. Please make sure to unmute yourself when you are invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown or at the conclusion of your comment. Chair Oh, and I do have one public comment. Our first speaker will be Gregory Fearon. Gregory, can you please confirm that you can hear me? I can hear you Mark. Can you please confirm you can see the countdown timer on your screen? Yes, I can. Okay, thank you. Your time will start now. The inevitable follow up to the comment I just made is, okay, so there's 500 people on the coordinated entry database right now who are all SSID, SSDI, they're all disabled, they're all elderly and they're all homeless. So where's the waiting list? How do any of them be considered for what you're now trying to decide? That's all. And it illustrates what I was saying about coordinating their database of people and your waiting lists. So I'm not really expecting you to have a complete, perfect answer, but I just wanna raise the question. Thanks. At this point, Chair Oh, and I do not see any more raised hands and I've not received any email public comment. Thank you. That is a question that is a very valid question in terms of understanding how the waiting list works with the housing authority and how there's a cross check with other waiting lists. We can probably, and we can talk about this whether or not that we bring that into sort of as a study session at some future meeting to understand how that process works. Megan, did you have a comment you wanna make on that? Sorry, unmute. Just wanna clarify, are you looking for a study session on how the overall housing choice voucher program is waiting list works or how these different layers work or maybe all of it in conjunction with one another? Just having a better understanding. I've been on the housing authority for a couple of years now and I'm not fully aware of how the waiting list works and just a process of getting on the waiting list and I think it would be beneficial for housing authority and the commissioners and the public to understand how do you get on a waiting list? What are the sources for those waiting lists? Are they cross checked with other agencies within the community? I think that would be a good, it doesn't have to be a long presentation but just have a general understanding of this is how that process works. Certainly, and I think that it might be very timely as we are looking at when to open our waiting list. So having that in advance of the waiting list opening would be informative to the public. Thank you. Not hearing other comments looking for a resolution. Motion to move the resolution. If you would like, I could make the motion. It would be a resolution of the housing authority of the city of Santa Rosa, approving the use of home investment partnership program funds for tenant based rental assistance for a two year trial period beginning July 1st, 2021. Thank you. I'll wait for reading of the text. Thank you, is there a second? I'll second. Thank you, Commissioner Olson. Can we call for a vote please? Okay, we will go ahead and do a roll call vote. I'll start with Commissioner Burke. Aye. Commissioner Downey. Aye. Commissioner Olson. Aye. Vice Chair Test. Aye. And Chair Owen. Aye. Let the record show that the motion passed unanimously with five ayes. Well, we thank you very much. And we've come to the conclusion today's agenda. I appreciate everybody's time and Megan, your staff again had done a phenomenal job. We appreciate all the work that goes into these meetings and everything you're doing throughout half of such as doing this. It's greatly appreciated and we're very professionally put together and thank you very much. And with that, I'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.