 Good evening, and welcome to the City of Columbia 2020-2024 Consolidated Plan, an annual action plan public hearing. I'd like to welcome you. My name is Dolly Bristow, and I'm the Community Development Administrator. I welcome you to join us this evening. And on behalf of Gloria Saeed, the Director of Community Development, we thank you for participating. Before we begin, I would like to give you some instructions because this is a virtual public hearing, and we want to make sure everybody has the opportunity to make comments. For the presentation, please submit questions by entering text into a Q&A button at the bottom of your screen. After the presentation, we will answer questions submitted through the Q&A button. After the Q&A, please feel free to raise your hand by pressing the raised hand button at the bottom of the page in order to make a public comment. Please raise your hand for public comments only portion of the public hearing. If you are joining us by phone, your phone number will be called during the public comment period. Once called upon, please be ready to state your name and give your comments. If you are joining us by video conference, please state your name before speaking each time if there is back and forth conversation. Please keep your comments to two minutes or less to allow other attendees the ability to speak. If you wish to speak during the meeting, please ensure your microphone or your cell phone audio is connected. Please know that this public hearing is being recorded for rebroadcast on YouTube and the City television station. If you would like to submit additional remarks, please email them to City Mitigation Act. If you would like to submit your comments to the City of Columbia email address at ColumbiaSC.gov or mail to Community Development at 1401 Main Street, 4th floor, Columbia, South Carolina, 2901. I would like to introduce Mr. Eric Chatham, who is the consultant, Civitas Consulting that has helped us prepare this presentation for you tonight. Again, please, we thank you for joining us. And with that, I'll introduce Eric. Good evening ladies and gentlemen and thank you, Dolly, for that introduction. As Dolly mentioned, we will be presenting this evening highlights from the City of Columbia 2020 to 2024 Consolidated Plan, as well as details for the 2020 Annual Action Plan. The Consolidated Plan is process required by HUD as stipulation for receiving three different entitlement grants from the Housing and Urban Development Department. The Annual Action Plan provides details as to how the City will allocate these funds each year to eligible projects. The presentation will highlight the details from the Consolidated Plan, as well as provide specifics for how the funds for the 2020 Annual Action Plan will be allocated. The City of Columbia in 2020 will receive the following grants. The Community Development Block Grant, the City will receive $1,040,310,000, as well as an estimated $550,000 in program income from prior year activities. For the home program, the City will receive $636,992, as well as $250,000 in an estimated program income from prior year activities. The final grant, HAPWA, which stands for Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS and HIV, the City will receive $1,517,489, and there is no expectation of program income to be received during the program year. The Consolidated Plan contains five major components. First, the needs assessment, which is essentially a demographic analysis of the City of Columbia. We take analysis of the population in the housing stock. Part two, the housing market analysis, looks at the condition of housing, the cost of housing, and the availability of affordable housing throughout the City. Based on that analysis, the City develops a five-year strategic plan, which highlights priorities and goals for the five-year period covered in this Consolidated Plan. The annual action plan then allocates funding to specific projects to address those needs and goals as identified in the strategic plan. Finally, as part of this evening, we are conducting citizen participation efforts. The City has already conducted online two different public surveys, as well as a series of neighborhood and community meetings hosted over the last several months. We are of course hosting this evening's public hearing, and we'll be presenting again to City Council later this month. Highlights from the Community Development Block Grant. These funds are primarily used to assist low to moderate income households throughout the community. You can see listed on the screen some of the eligible activities. The City often uses these funds for public improvements, like streets, sidewalks, parks, community centers, as well as public facilities, including nonprofit community centers. The City also utilizes some of the Community Development Block Grant funds to assist homeowners with rehabilitation of their homes, providing for economic development. And a large portion of the funds will be dedicated to outside agencies for public services, including job training, healthcare services, homeless supportive services, adult literacy, youth programs, and general senior services. The City also utilizes up to 20% of the funds each year to aid in planning and administration of these programs. The Home Investment Partnership Program, referred to as HOME, is primarily dedicated to housing related activities. These funds also must primarily serve households that are considered low to moderate income. The City utilizes these funds to provide for, again, housing rehabilitation for homeowner-occupied housing and renter-occupied housing. The City also provides first-time homebuyer assistance through its City Lender Program. And the City provides oftentimes funds for multi-family apartment development with local affordable housing developers. The Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS and HIV, these funds, as the name indicates, are primarily used to help and ensure safe and appropriate housing for individuals and clients with AIDS, as well as providing for social services, including healthcare services, transportation, and other social services that this population may need. Through development of this consolidated plan, the City has identified the following priority needs in the left-hand column on your screen. Expand and improve public infrastructure and facilities, preserve and develop affordable housing, public services and quality of life improvements, and housing and supportive services for persons with HIV and AIDS. On the right-hand side, you see specific goals that will be identified towards addressing each of these priorities. At the top, expand public infrastructure, improve public infrastructure capacity, and improve access to public facilities like parks, community centers, and the like. In the priority for preserve and develop affordable housing, the City will continue to increase homeownership opportunities, increase affordable rental housing opportunities, provide code enforcement in low to moderate income areas, as well as for the removal of slum and blight, and finally provide for owner-occupied housing rehabilitation. From the public services and quality of life improvements priority need, the two goals are to provide supportive services for special needs households, and then finally to provide vital services for low to moderate income households. Final priority, housing and supportive services for persons with HIV and AIDS. Two associated goals are provide housing opportunities and provide medical and supportive services for persons with HIV and AIDS. There are specific projects to be identified in the 2020 action plan starting with CDBG. City will allocate $179,604 towards administration and planning, $494,681 for public facilities and infrastructure, $550,000 for housing programs, $168,750 for public services, and $200,000 for economic development activities. For the home program, the City will allocate $88,699 for administration and planning efforts, and $133,049 for what is referred to as CHODO reserves. CHODO stands for Community Housing Development Organization, which are non-profit affordable housing developers. For the stipulation of receiving these funds, the City must set aside at least 15% of the annual allocation for these eligible non-profit affordable housing developers. City will also allocate $266,998 for the owner occupied rehab program, $133,049 for the city lender program, which is a home ownership purchase assistance program, and finally $266,098 for non-CHODO development activities, which is often non-profit or for-profit affordable housing developers working in our community. For the HOPA program, you see on the left-hand side the specific agencies that will receive funding this year. The City will use 3% or $45,525 for administration, $5,000 for resource ID to assist individuals participating in this program. $597,825 will go to the Columbia Public Housing Authority or its programs dedicated to these clients. $329,553 to Palmetto AIDS Life Support. $176,371 to the Cooperative Ministries. $25,000 to the Upper Savannah Care Consortium. $21,390 to Midlands Housing Alliance and Transitions. $400,797 to the USC Department of Medicine for medical services for these clients. For a total of $1,708,477, which does include reallocation from funding received in 2019. As I mentioned at the beginning, the city has conducted two different online surveys, one for the community residents and one for stakeholder organization or non-profit service providers. The community survey to date has had 50 responses and the highest needs identified in those surveys were public improvements, economic development, and affordable housing, all three of which are reflected in the city's strategic plan priority needs. The stakeholder survey had 33 different community organizations responding with affordable housing and homeowner assistance being the top priority, followed by public services such as employment training and crime prevention, housing rehabilitation, public facilities and infrastructure improvement, and finally economic development. The needs assessment of the consolidated plan identified the following demographic trends. From the year 2010 to 2017, the city's population has increased by about 4% and median income for those households has increased by 14%. The table at the bottom left, the housing cost. Unfortunately, housing costs have risen extremely over that same time period. In 2010, median rent was $742 for all renters in Columbia, and that has increased $878 as of the last data set available and 18% increase, which is leading to the cost burden at the bottom left of your screen. Over 55% of their renters in the city of Columbia pay more than 30% of their income towards housing cost, which means they are considered cost burden. Over 21% of all homeowners are cost burden, again, paying more than 30% of their income towards housing costs. The map on the right-hand side of your screen shows the population change between 2013 and 2017, again, 2017 being the most recent available data from the census. The areas in dark shaded blue have seen increases in population by 20% or more. The map on the right-hand side of your screen indicates what is referred to by HUD is low to moderate income areas, meaning more than half of the population in those areas are considered low to moderate income. The city identifies these areas and dedicates funding for public infrastructure and public facility improvements primarily in these areas. Again, examples would be park improvements, public facilities, sidewalks, community centers, etc. The bottom left-hand side of your screen, what is low to moderate income in the city of Columbia, and that means the household makes less than 80% of the area median income. In Columbia, the median income is $43,650, meaning LMI in Columbia is less than $34,920. That is adjusted by family size, so this is approximate calculations. Next step for our consolidated plan process. As Dolly mentioned, we are currently in the public comment period running from April 3rd to May 4th. The next slide will remind you how you may submit questions or further comments. Of course, we are hosting this public hearing tonight and it will be broadcast again via the city's television station as well as YouTube. Later this month, we'll be presenting the similar presentation to city council for their approval and endorsement before we submit the plan to HUD for approval on May 15th. These funds will then be available to the city starting July 1st of 2020. Now I'll leave it on this final screen so that folks may jot down this address where you may mail in written comments or by phone, or again, here is the community development e-mail address, as Dolly mentioned before. And with that, I'll be happy to turn it back over to Dolly so that we may field any questions submitted. Thank you, Eric. At this time, if you have any questions or comments that you would like to present based on the information that has been presented, now is the time to do so. We will be answering any questions as they come through Q&A, or if you'd like to leave a comment, you can just raise your hand and leave a comment based on the information that you have. So now the floor is open and please feel free to ask any questions. Okay, this is Andy. No questions so far, and no raised hands either. Okay, thank you, Andalyn. Oh, we have one question. How do we submit for housing help? Okay, so the question is, how do you submit for housing help? Yes. Go ahead. What we would say is for you, depending on if you're referring to housing help for an individual or housing help as an organization. A little clarity. She says for first time home buyers. For first time home buyers, we will, we have a home buyer loan program within community development. And what I would suggest the number that is on your screen, the 545-3373 for individuals that are interested in our home loan program, please call that number. And someone, one of our loan officers will field those questions for you and give you the information that you need in order to access the funding and the information. Okay, she says thank you. Are there more questions? None so far. If there are no more questions, please feel free to comment to make comments by the information that is listed on the screen that community development department 1401 Main Street fourth floor, Columbia, South Carolina 2902 9201. If you'd like to mail it in or again you can call the office community development at 803-545-3373 or you can email community development at Columbia SC dot gov. Those are ways that you can submit your comments or again, it will be re brought this presentation will be rebroadcast on YouTube and on the city's website and the additional information will be posted on how you can make comments at that time. So there are various ways to make comments. We urge you to make comments based on the information that you have seen today, or if you have any other questions regarding community development and the funds, please feel free to give us a call. We thank you, and we employ everyone to be safe. Be well, and stay home. Okay. Have a good evening and thank you for attending the public hearing.