 So I did receive it and I can, I will put those in the chat when, when prompted. Okay, we have about 30 people, including the panelists now. So I'll leave it a few more minutes before I get started. And hopefully we'll add a few more people. Since it's just 630. Yeah, more people are coming in. That's all good. Okay. I'm going to start by cleaning your in stereo. Yes. Say that again. Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm just being lighthearted saying I have you in stereo. Yes, you do. It's true. I guess you all can hear me. Yes. All right. Does anybody have any questions about whether they can be heard anybody else. I have a laptop where I can see a full screen of everybody on a zoom when there are multiple hundreds, perhaps of people, but the volume on my cell phone works best. So I use that as well. Okay, we're up to about 35. Hopefully still climbing. I'll start in a minute or two because what I have to say is probably the least important of what everybody has to say this evening. Again, thanks everybody by the way for agreeing to participate in this event. This is great. Thank you. Appreciate it. Attendance is still building, which is excellent. I forgot to get a pen. Okay, John, could you put the agenda back on screen so I can reference it in my introduction. Thank you. Okay, I'm going to begin as I put on my glasses to see what I wrote. This is the second forum of the Amherst affordable housing trust or housing coalition. Sorry, my name is John Hornick, and I am the chair of both the housing coalition and the Amherst municipal affordable housing trust. Tonight's focus is on racial equity and housing. Racial equity has been in the forefront of national discussions with the deaths of George Floyd and many other black Americans. Housing, the most attention range from community policing, especially with today's verdict health care jobs and education. We could easily spend the entire evening on any one of these issues. But housing is an equally critical issue, which too often at least to me appears to get lost in the shuffle. We have distinguished presenters who will help us better understand the complexities of housing tonight at every level, but with particular emphasis on Amherst. You should see their names and our agenda on the screen now. I want to thank the League of Women Voters of Amherst and the town of Amherst for once again, co-sponsoring this event. We have a crowded agenda that will move along at a fast pace to help us sustain that pace. We have asked Esoldo or Tega Bustamante to moderate the program. Esoldo has been a champion of equity and education throughout her career, working for different state and local organizations. She is also a founder member of the racial equity task force of Amherst. She will be assisted by three people, John Page, my principal collaborator in the housing coalition, who will be monitoring the chat function in Zoom this evening. If you have a question or a comment, please put it into the chat and as time allows, John will assert it into the conversation. We also have time reserved for public comments and questions later in the forum. I want to thank Rita Farrell, an expert housing consultant to the housing trust, who will help the speakers keep to pre-established time limits. And Nathaniel Malloy, senior town planner, who is hosting this webinar and assisting some presenters in getting their materials on screen. Now it is my pleasure to turn the meeting over to our moderator Esoldo or Tega Bustamante. And thank you very much, John Hornick and the team that organized this, all of you who work together for these important issues. I don't think that we can proceed as much as we're concerned with time without a couple of acknowledgments. I think, first of all, it's a very emotional moment. I would like to ask simply for a moment of silence, even as we take in the verdict. And we wait for some partial justice for the families of George Floyd, Don T right. I know, Breonna Taylor, so many others. And if we could, I know for myself, just before coming here and what has been in our minds and in our hearts, if we could just take a moment, just of silence to acknowledge today. Thank you. And I know that I could use a longer moment myself. Thank you for joining us today. Very historic day. Thank you for joining us tonight. And thank you especially John. When talking about housing, an area that is not an area of expertise of mine. I did think that it was important to have what will be my very first original land acknowledgement I've relied too often on colleagues and friends in this case my colleague, Jose Lugo from the collaborative educational services helped me. And I just wanted one minute acknowledged that we are present on the ancestral lands of the Nipmuc and Pocumptuk and acknowledge the lands of the past, the present and future descendants of our neighbors to the east, represented by the red and the Wampanoag and Massachusetts to the west, represented by the white, the Muncie, the Napa, and the South, represented by the blue, the Mohegan, Quinnipiac, Wapinger and Narragansett. And to the north, represented by the black, the Wabanaki, the Pinacuk, around Sagunta Cook. And it is on this land with these past, present and future neighbors in our hearts that we welcome all of you to this shared space of learning and action. John has shared in the chat, a tool that you can take with you. The first one you can type in any address and it'll show you the native tribes and languages that were present on the land. And the other one is simply an example of indigenous people today in these lands. And in this space tonight, we center and stand with our black brothers and sisters and folks as you bear the brunt of the physical emotional and spiritual impact of continuing police violence layered on the generational trauma of racism. As the basic human rights continue to be under attack, we name this oppression and aspire to be co conspirators for your humanity and dignity. We are here tonight with our hearts as well as our minds on the continuing struggle for civil rights, and with each of you as friends and neighbors may not know yet. Tonight we turn our focus on the to the basic human right to secure unsafe housing and begin with part one of the forum, a history of discrimination. And to begin, we're very lucky to have with us tonight Whitney Demetrius, who is the director of the Fair Housing Engagement for the citizens organization. April is Fair Housing Month, and we will be talking with us. I'm sorry I didn't say the full name of your organization director direct fair housing engagement for the citizens, housing and planning Association CHAPA CHAPA a statewide advocacy group. Thank you, Whitney. Thank you so much so that I am really excited to be here. And thank you for centering us in our conversation today, and taking a moment to recognize the moment that we are in, as we begin to have this particular conversation. John, I'll ask that you stop sharing your screen so I can share mine, and I'll begin to present with you for you all. Here, you can see this okay. You'll let me know, can you see that and you can probably see my entire screen but nonetheless so I'll get started and and again as I mentioned, I'm really excited and happy to be here to really talk about racial equity and housing and thank you for that context as you laid it out, sort of really being able to identify how these, these issues are really overlapping. So who is CHAPA and what do we do our mission is really to encourage production and preservation of housing that's affordable to low and I dare say no, and moderate income families and individuals to foster diverse sustainable communities right through planning and community development and so what I'm excited about in my new role as her housing engagement director is really to provide technical assistance right to start this sort of coalition efforts so excited and happy that the Amherst housing affordable housing coalition has invited me here into the space. It's been a pleasure to sort of work alongside you all, john and john and Kathleen and others here and doing this sort of work, but additionally my role is really to expand and work with other agencies and developing the field around their housing, specific strategies and I'll talk a little bit later as john alluded to to our legislative priorities at CHAPA. So I'll center our conversation really in that equity and access and inclusion right are all sort of central right housing choice is what we're really talking about do you have housing choice can you afford to live here. So not just housing affordability, but also can you afford to live here in every aspect of the word, right what does it mean to live in a community what sort of safety and level of comfortability and welcome this. Do you feel in living in a community. And so, as we think about housing it's really central to your life in terms of access to health and education and jobs and healthy foods and transportation and onward and onward right. So housing equities that we see are really a series of deliberate and intentional realities right so zoning restrictive covenants segregation Jim Crow laws redlining, you know, over discrimination right sorry my screen is having some issues here. So what we are what's what's important to know is that in reversing those impacts we must also be as deliberate right so when we examining local preference and affirmative marketing plans and housing as reparations and moratoriums and inclusionary zoning and local for housing committees and housing plans analysis of impediments diversifying your housing stock to bring more diversity in your homes, creating communities that are welcoming. So when you're thinking about doing all of this you must be deliberate and now I've thrown out a bunch of tools and terms, which some of which I'll talk a little bit about, but really to just give you context as to if you are doing things, are you looking to sort of intentional acts, we must be intentional and deliberate about how we undo that. And so, as I told him, I mentioned, April is for Housing Month, right. April 11 1968, it was written into law sort of as a civil rights law by President Johnson, really seven days after the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King. So what's important to know about when this was put in place is that it was an inflection point, right, much like the inflection point we find ourselves now in our current moment in history. Right. And so, where the country was was burning in many ways right people were upset and looking for change. And really the act in many ways was symbolic right in terms of it being passed, but really prohibits discrimination based on sales rental financing, any sort of housing related transactions relates to race, religion, and national origin and then later expanded to include some federal enforcement provisions. Gender was later added in 1974, and then disabilities and families with children in 1988. And so, I share this video that for those who might want to watch it later it's about the nationwide seven days nationwide seven days a seven days after the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. What was happening particularly in the country, right this inflection moment, similar to where we stand now, where it's an inflection moment for change and I think that's a lot about what we've been seeing recently. In terms of people wanting to think about what does it mean to create change. What should we be doing what policy changes should we be enacting how can we re examine our local policies to make our communities more inclusive. So I share that for you to dive in later. And what does this matter right housing matters. It mattered then, and it matters now because, as I mentioned, housing is connected to so many aspects of our life and it's part of the reason why, for so many years they've been trying to get this law passed prior to 1968, and it was unsuccessful. And really because I think people understood that if they change that so much of our livelihood would be integrated and change and so I want to give some context to Amherst housing data. Right, just quickly this is from MHP's data town website. And this really is useful for advocates as we do this work and understanding why does our community look the way that it does right. So this first chart on the left is referring to the housing stock. By the year it's been built right and so you'll notice in 1960, between 1960 and 1999, a lot of housing had been built. And so I share that in the context of lead paint issues right where there are, yes, am I at time. Two minutes. Okay, great. Two minutes. Awesome. So I share that in the context of lead paint loss and housing for for families with children, right. Our, are we creating housing that is, I'm just trying to get my, my thoughts back here sorry to, but trying to get our, our housing stock right to reflect the needs that are in the community for families with children. We know that oftentimes landlords are steering families away who have children under the age of six. So how that overlaps right with their housing law on the right you'll notice the number of units. That are built right then the types of units being built. And so you'll notice there's many single family detached, right, that are being that are built in Amherst. And so what does it mean to diversify the housing stock to get to housing diversity. And what does it mean to diversify the different options of housing so that more people will come and live and dwell and stay in your community. I also share this chart to really talk about the school age population, as you see it decreasing after about the early 2000s and onward that number really decreasing and what does that mean what does it mean this overall context housing context as to what is happening in Amherst and what is available for families and are they being steered away right populations by race. I share this to show sort of the diversity that is currently in Amherst right so you'll see here that the majority is not white, not Hispanic white population right. And so, and then the numbers really are overwhelmingly low on the other spectrums. And so if you think about this in terms of this recent case I think it's back in 2016 at the Massachusetts for Housing Center did looking at a particular property owner right and they are they were discriminating against families with children based off lead paint. Right and so some of their properties that they own were in Amherst and what does this really mean right in this overall context of housing discrimination and and what work really still needs to get done. So, I share this in terms of, and I'll glaze through this I think I'm at time. And I'll share a little bit more as we talk about the policy work but really what I'd like for folks to really get out of this is that everyone is a member of a protected class, and there is certainly much more work that we need to be doing in the context of her housing overall. Thank you so much, Whitney. I love this framing, but can you afford to live here and the historical placement and the current data masterfully integrated into a very short presentation which I could listen to for much longer. And also the demographic diversity. Thank you so much. And I really would love to learn in the Q amp a discussion more about your advocacy work. Thank you. The second segment of part one history of discrimination exclusion of black people from Amherst housing. In the first part, we will hear evidence of an archival research report that Michelle Miller and Matthew Andrews put together. Michelle Miller and Matthew Andrews are co leaders of reparations for Amherst, and many other things that we leave out. So we appreciate that. Thank you very much. And a preview that when Michelle and Matthew are done. Demetrius Shabazz will be presenting evidence from oral history of black people in Amherst and Demetria is a doctor in communications and faculty member teaching in various places University of Massachusetts Bay Path former president of Amherst media and local celebrity. I guess that's my cue to go. Are we ready. All right Matthew and Michelle please go ahead. Yeah, great. So, we're Michelle and I as I sold a mentioned her with reparations for Amherst. And our main objective is to acknowledge and recognize the crimes against humanity and the crimes against black people that have been perpetrated in this country and specifically in Amherst and to support a path towards healing. And so what that's looked like as far as the research is looking at in Amherst what is, you know, what is the nature of those crimes. And in order to understand the local situation which Michelle will talk about in a little more detail. We really have to understand why it is that when we talk about affordable housing often we're talking about black and brown people. And it's specifically when it comes to black people we all know about slavery. But there has been a structural so kind of two paths to concurrent systems that have created a significant loss of intergenerational wealth or an inability to build up intergenerational wealth for black people one of those is a structural system. So you have Plessy versus Ferguson, which is the Supreme Court decision that says separate but equal we are generally familiar with that. That's a structural thing lynching was a vigilante system it was an unstructured. It was often sanctioned by the structures but it was more arbitrated on an individual basis and so both of these systems systems of structural suppression and disenfranchisement and active intentional violent suppression, we're concurrently depriving black people of opportunities to build intergenerational wealth throughout this country, whether it's the GI bill when you know most of the home loans and mortgages and opportunities for education went to white people and black people were deprived of that, whether it's the red lining, subprime lending, mass incarceration, you know, so many different infringements on the normal natural capacity to build intergenerational wealth. So that leads to this moment where black people tend to have access, less access to wealth and capital to invest in something like a home. And so it's just, I know for myself a person growing up in an environment that was mostly made up of white folks, I didn't quite ever think about or understand why it was that when you think about affordable housing you think about black and brown folks. And so we have to get that context and bring that context into our consciousness in order to understand the situation in Amherst and, you know, where things are today so Michelle is going to talk a little bit more about what we found about Amherst's past leading up to the present. And one of the present statistics that we shared in our past research report is that 1.8% of all owner occupied housing in Amherst is owned by black families. And so that's just a significant difference when you think about 6% of the population being black. That's a major equity disparity. And so we wanted to dive in and understand why that was. So Michelle, you can take it from there. Sure. And I think it's important to note that our data mostly focused on black residents in Amherst. So just to note that. Matthew spoke about the owner occupied housing and we also found that a disproportionate number of black households are rent burdened. That is forced to spend one third or more of their income on housing. Additionally, we found that according to the most recent Amherst housing production plan, there was an unmet need for a total of 4,730 low to moderate income housing units. So we sought, we looked at a lot of different factors, but one of the things we wanted to understand is how Amherst became a white enclave and whether it had always been a white enclave and what systems are in place now that perpetuate it to continue to be a white enclave. So we discovered that it in fact has always been a white enclave. And this is true for the university and for the colleges as well. So the population of black staff and students has not increased in any significant way over the years. Some reasons for that and Whitney spoke to some of the reasons, the explicit reasons we do, we did found racial covenants here in Amherst, particularly in the blue hills and surrounding neighborhood and that neighborhood borders the west side historic district where African American residents have lived historically and so we also found a number of social reasons and again Whitney spoke to this idea of you know what makes one feel welcomed and so social reasons included any you know any spectrum from complete indifference toward black people to outright racism. There are there was Michelle. Yes. Thank you. Sorry. No, it's fine. So let's see I want to pull out the most important things here so I think the other big finding we had is nimby ism and the prevalence of nimby ism and Amherst. So that means for folks who may not know, not in my backyard. And this is something that you can see back dating back to the 1860s. At this time it takes the form of opposition to affordable housing, which is what we're all here to talk about. So, nimby ism serves as a proxy for racial discrimination. And, and, you know, that's I think part of a larger discussion we're going to have later about sort of, we name ourselves to be progressive and to be of good will and individually we are, however, when it comes to having affordable housing or opportunities for housing in our own neighborhoods there we've we've seen historically and up into the present moment opposition. So I'll stop there. Thank you. Thank you very much, Michelle. And Demetria is going to be beginning the section on the evidence from oral history of black people and members. Hello. Okay, so hi everyone. Thank you john for organizing this forum, lots to talk about. I'm going to share my screen in my very short presentation because I think we have so much that can be shared and learned through the panel. See. Okay, everyone can see that. I'm sure. So, you know, thank you Whitney Demetrias for going through some of the history and then bringing it locally. Andrew and Michelle. I just want to highlight kind of what we're talking about and we say, you know, there's redlining and the covenants and this whole inequality having to do with housing. That's historical, but the legacy here in Amherst and everywhere else is that you don't have access to better education, oftentimes because of this redlining and segregation and neighborhoods that still continues. You don't have access to other working and job opportunities that still continues. Healthy food options, you know, I think of my friends in Amherst who are unable to go to the grocery store, particularly if they have to take the bus the PVTA, and there's a restriction on how many bags that you can then carry on the bus home. So, you know, they're having to go to big Y or a stop and shop and can't afford to go to Ackens farm. So, these are things that create continual inequalities, health disparities, you know, not being able to access clinics again having to get on PVTA or what they're doing and during COVID, we know that this was a particular problem here in Amherst. And then it creates this type of social discontent that is historical, but of course we have so I just want us to look at this in terms of, yes, that's national. But then, what does that mean locally. If it will advance. There we go. So, I think Michelle had mentioned this district, the Lincoln Sunset Historic District that's now a course this legacy of where black people used to live. The Hazel Avenue, as you could see here that is now bordered by the field. This was an area in which working class middle class black people once lived and owned these homes. That is no longer the case, mainly the bridges and Roberts families all lived along Hazel Avenue. This was an area in which we could have had as Whitney Demetrius and Michelle talk about this investment in the black middle class and folks, you know, having some staying power here. This is no longer the case, of course, we could see this whole area that has been outlined as this historic district. This is once where black folk lived and owned homes. And that, of course, is is gone, and you don't have this collected stable black community anymore. I just want to begin by talking about some of the history that I've been collecting through the oral histories of black folk and African descendant folk here in Amherst Edwin driver. There was a story about him recently in the Hampshire Gazette. And here, he's talking about when he first arrived. He was the first African American to get tenure at UMass it incredibly he was here in 1948 was here retired in 1987 he's still living, and he shares, you know, that there was problems, of course finding a place to live just to to rent I have heard this also amongst black faculty interviewing them. They talked about, you know, having a lot of trouble when it came to finding places to rent during the 60s and the 70s. And, you know, I really feel this continues now out of scarcity that scarcity that Whitney Demetrius was talking about, and how black folk black and brown folk are being priced out. And this is how it works. This is a recent picture basically of what we have in housing stock that Whitney talked about. And then here's the prices of the homes. You're seeing a grad student or a young family, moving to this area, and seeing this because you're going to do your research for seeing this on the internet, and trying to figure out, is this a place where I can live comfortably with my young family. They're able to pay the mortgage and they being priced out. What I have found through the oral history now. Take this off now. What I found through the oral histories is that this is something that is a legacy, but it has continued. Folks came here whether it was during the 50s 60s or 70s. It was difficult to find a place to rent, or to own a home they were priced out. Two minutes, two minutes great that's that's all I need because I know we're going to have this. Yeah, that because we're going to discuss this more. And when we look at this legacy, it sets up a continuation of inequality. I don't like using the n word, but I think it's important that when we hear about this lovely historic district the Lincoln historic district. It was called the inward hill back in the day. Okay, and it was called that because of the red lining that took place that black people, some poor whites the poor Irish. They did not purchase or rent a house that went beyond to you know some of the areas and sunset, etc. You know there was this line this artificial line, and as Michelle shared with us, there was an actual covenant. It wasn't unique to Amherst. It was also in places like Levittown that were built for veterans, white veterans and their families that you know daily I think there is daily sitting near Chicago. It's very similar to what happened here. And so there isn't because we haven't issued a corrective, whether you want to call it reparations, or whether you want to call it simply trying to correct the past black folk black and brown folk can hear the ones that do do so at a cost. And I really believe that if we want to save this town, because people aren't moving here people middle income, we need to provide some incentive, offer a corrective. You know, let's call it reparations for what occurred and get things right in Amherst. Thank you very much the just looking at the at the arc of this section is so interesting that you started with Plessy versus Ferguson I really appreciated that Matthew, and moving through through the data, quickly Michelle that that you talked about that the first thing that came out of the enclave and the red lining, and then D bringing it to an individual level was really humanizing so many of the trailblazers, what what I say are the people who I call our pioneers who, you know, really went through what it means to try to live here in those years, breaking through all of those barriers. And also, I wrote down on the reset social indifference, and definitely, we should touch on that later what it what it is to feel welcome. And what people have mentioned and what that means, even even today. Both the legacy and the present, where we're really clear in that. And we can personalize that to the present in the Q amp a. We're going to move forward and to part two of the agenda. Moving forward if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem. And this third panel is on assuring access to affordable housing both existing and new. And we have three people speaking now. Thank you for being with us Keith fairy is the president and CEO of way finders which I do some of you may have known years ago as as have a very, you know, I would say, pre eminent really housing organization in the Valley. You know, I just cannot state that enough way finders, lights pathways and open stores to homes and communities where people thrive and we appreciate you being here with us. Tonight Keith is joined by Jane Lockler the executive director of Valley Community Development. Thank you, and we'll, we'll come back to to you in a moment. And of course John Harnick, the chair of the Amherst Municipal Housing Trust, but to start us off. I'm Keith, I believe we'll be focusing on the recent regional housing analysis report from the UMass Donahue Institute highlighting the findings. Thank you so much. Thank you and it's a pleasure to be here with you all appreciate the opportunity to share and to be part of this conversation which is so important as this at this time to think about where we've been, where we are and where we'd like to go. So I really appreciate the, the, the arc of this conversation in that regard. And there's always good time to spend in each one of those places, as we think about the way forward. The housing study, the Greater Springfoot Housing Study is part of thinking about the way forward from my perspective, it was actually undertaken and pre pandemic times with the desire really just to understand and better document what was happening really in the housing market where rents and prices increasing where demographic shifting. Where is there enough housing supply for the region and what kind of condition was it in. And so the first phase of the report which I'll share with you today, some findings from include economic demographic and housing indicators for the region. And they're at a regional level so that we're going to zoom back out from where everybody was we got a way down to a neighborhood here in Amherst but we're going to zoom back out and see that the regional context currently is, is the same as it is here in Amherst and in fact reinforces some of the issues. So as we think about solutions, both here in town, we need to think also about the macro environment around this in the region. I'm going to share my screen. So a little bit more background on the study for a quick second as, as has been mentioned, the primary research partner for us here in the study was a, is the U.M. Astana he went to Mark Melnick and Kerry Bernstein are the primary authors of the study and analysis. They're working with me at wayfinders and a community about the nation of Western Massachusetts and a stakeholder group of housing and community leaders from across the Pioneer Valley so the study includes both Hampton Hampshire and Franklin counties. As I mentioned the first phase of studies demographic economic and housing indicators. The second phase will look more closely at segregation and opportunity in the region, COVID-19 and housing, housing and supply and production. And we hope to make this a repeatable study, either annually semi annually and I think for us this is a bell whether year for many things are reckoning year and inflection point, as was said before, but we can use this as a benchmark for where we are now and where we'd like to go and measure our progress toward that. It's modeled after greater Boston housing and poor garbage is an annual study. And I'm only going to be able to share a few slides in the time a lot of today but on next week on the 28th. We'll be having a community stakeholder event and I'll put in the chat the registration link for everybody. And it's open to all. So again this is a study area for the region for the for the study I should say, Hampton Hampshire and Franklin County otherwise known as Pioneer Valley. Now I want to first talk about how people get housing in the region. And this is mentioned before with the homeownership rate and Amherst people of color the ownership rate of being about 30% figures of again 1.8 to 6% of the population. And what you'll see here on the left is a very lot of a lot of information on the side but let's just hang with me for more. You see on here on the left Pioneer Valley overall in blue renters 37% of households or renters where 63% are owners. That's pretty consistent with the commonwealth overall. But as we shift over to the next set of bar graphs here, people of color that's black and Latinx households in this case. In the Pioneer Valley, only 70% or I should say 70% of those households are renter households, only 30% are owners. You do the math with the data that Matthew think raised before 1.8 and 6% I just did it quickly at 30%. So it's consistent with what we're seeing in the region and you see but it's much more simply disproportionate to the commonwealth where 63% of people of color are renters. So there's a big disparity there in terms of what we're seeing in the region, compared to what we're seeing in the commonwealth overall in terms of ownership. I think that's important to point out. People often think of Western Massachusetts as the affordable, an affordable place to live more affordable than certainly Eastern parts of Massachusetts, but we're talking about issues of affordability so well and I'll go deeper into that. And what we see here is that. And so you would think home ownership would be more affordable and accessible and we've heard already from folks that it's not here in Amherst and it's not for folks in the region therefore people become renters often because of that case. Some people do choose to become renters, but you also see in the upper right hand corner of this slide. Or if you go across the bar graphs, the disproportionality in terms of the impact or in terms of the tenure housing tenure how people get their housing based upon race so black households. Just a little less than two thirds in the pioneer Valley are our renters and only 36% are owners. If you go to Latinx households in the pioneer Valley, 77% are renters 23% are owners. So when we think about that the housing tenure gap out of homeownership rate gap here it's quite significant and we know that directly correlates to family wealth and the racial wealth gap for many households. I wanted to share this as well in terms of looking at the other part of this and looking at poverty regionally and compare it to the commonwealth. Again, we see in the pioneer Valley higher rates of poverty than you do in the commonwealth overall. And we see those disproportionately high for black and Latinx households here. And then break them out across Franklin Hampshire and Hamden County. Now there are very few black people in and Franklin County, but if you're, but a high rate of them are almost one and two are. They live at a below the poverty rate. I'll move on here to talk, talk about income because when we talk about housing and affordability. It's not only what the housing costs with the rent is what the home prices, but where your income is and whether or not that income is enough to sustain buying homes or community. And what's what jumps out to me here is that you see five figure increases over the five a five year period pre pandemic were white and Asian households and income. But black and Latinx households, their income was flat during that time period. No measurable gain. That's a real. And as we look at in the study more deeply, and there's lots in the study, what we see as a trend that we found, we wondered if that was true. Before we started to study, but we found that housing prices are indeed going up. That's gotten even more severe during the pandemic where there's many people have read about it anecdotally, but the, if you look at the mission from the realtors and other housing prices are going up. The housing partnership. Recently, she did a study of rents, comparing communities in eastern Massachusetts and the city of Boston and some gateway cities around the region and some other communities in western Massachusetts and in the region, it was found that rents were going up by five or 6%. At the same time, we can certainly we know incomes haven't been going up given the high rates of unemployment. And we know pre pandemic where they were incomes were flat people were not seeing gains in their income. So when you look at housing affordability is that that cost of housing and and where people like people's incomes on is a little bit finer point on that. Yep, when you when we talk again, I'm going to focus here on the slide about renters. I'm going to focus on the bottom left here. There's a lot here to look at the focus on the bottom left with me. This is renters. This is looking at cost burdens for renters. If you look at Massachusetts overall, we have a high the expensive state to live in half of renters are cost burden paying more than 30% of their income on their on their rent in this case. And what we see in in 2010 is it's 51% and in 2018 it's basically unchanged at 50%. But what you'll notice there is that in the pioneer Valley is also unchanged it's about the same 54 55% but greater than the commonwealth overall again higher and then here in Hampshire County from 2010 to 2018 we've seen a measurable increase from 52 to 55% in terms of households paying more than 30% of their income on their rent. And who are renters going back to my very first slide. This was fortunately a renters black and Latinx households right 70% of them are renters. So when you're talking about being impacted by the affordability crisis that was apparent before the pandemic and it's only gotten worse during the pandemic. So the households are showing it here and then that on this on the 2010 to 2018 part of the chart on the right shows the households are paying more than 50% of their income. That's called severely cost burden severely cost burden means that people are having to make critical and severe decisions every day about whether they pay for their housing, food, and other things that their families may need. And what you'll see here in Hampshire County is that one in four families 25% are paying more than 50% of their income for rent. That is not sustainable. That is not a way. Is that a good place from which to re raising your family. That is not a place to build wealth from. And as again, who are renters black and Latinx households are disproportionately renters in our region. So when you look at that you see on the top chart you see owners, and you see owners that yes they're cost burden but about at a much lower rate comparatively. One final thing I wanted to talk about real quickly here this is just another thing that was revealed to the study housing supply housing supply is in general this is not housing affordable housing this is in general, in the region. We currently have about an 11,000 unit housing supply gap. If you look at household number of households and the needs for housing. And then if you continue that on a straight line basis to 2025, you'll see that that grows to about 19,000 units. And when there's a shortage, or not enough housing, people are low incomes are going to be having the most challenge and who are and again when we look at the poverty rate. We look at the renters, and we look at who are whose incomes are not growing. And we're going to be challenges environment again black and Latinx households are going to be challenged to find housing that's adequate for themselves and their families in this, in this environment. So I'll leave it there I think this there's a lot to look at in the study, I will put in the chat again and invite to, and then link to the larger study overall for you all. I see this as a place to build from for us to think about how we use the new federal resources that are coming to the commonwealth and hundreds of millions of dollars. Use the opportunity of things like the potential infrastructure bill and new investments in housing both locally with the affordable housing trust at the state level and federally to address these issues to solve for these issues in ways that we haven't been able to for Thank you very much Keith, that was very informative. And I'm really looking forward to actually looking through those slides. I think it you also mentioned an event on April 28 which hopefully is in the chat. There's a lot there to analyze. When you talk about the amount spent on rent. That immediately makes me think of the 51% of Amherst public school kindergarten through sixth grade students who are African American and Latinx, and the assumptions that are made about this area are often untrue because of the demographics and we see in schools, both ethnic racial and economic and how those families are affected by it by this incredible slide that you just showed. I need, I want to reintroduce Jane Lockler, because you know the Valley Community Development Corporation is such a key organization in our area, seeking to empower low and moderate income people and underserved populations to manage and improve the quality of their lives. And it's really an amazing breadth of programs that you offer Jane from housing services affordable housing development and small business development. So we really appreciate having you here. And the, as, as Keith said earlier, they're looking forward to solutions. So thank you and john reintroducing john are organizer and host chair of the Amherst Municipal affordable housing trust. So in this discussion period, we're asking the question, how do we assure that there's adequate and appropriate outreach to communities of color, both new affordable housing developments when those come online, but also later as units come online so both the development side of it. And then when units are actually available. Will they actually made available and how will that work when we see these tremendous disparities that Keith was just sharing. Jane why don't you go ahead. So, I think, I'll just talk a little bit about. I think that the panelists have just done such a great job to describe the global issues we're facing and the local, both regional and very local and Amherst Valley is right now sitting in a position where we have gone through a process of facing racism, having incredible support from many great folks in Amherst, but also facing fierce NIMBY ISM and enduring that and getting approval on an affordable housing project. And to the point of this question, what we now face is the challenge of outreach, and what does effective outreach look like. And I think that the one of those challenges is about in the population that we have, it is up to us, the white folks to figure this out, because we need to identify the effective means of communicating and building so that we find the folks that are not going to find their way easily to us, or are going to believe they're not going to have a chance, and we need to find the avenues of communication which are not the mainstream social media. They are about building one on one relationships individuals in the community between organizations in the community. But then I think one of the key pieces of that is making sure that people get guided to the right landing and that means people can't just hear there's a new housing development happening, but how do you actually get to the place where the application is. How do you get the application where it needs to go. How do you, how do people get in touch with our managers, our property managers and owners, other advocates, counselors and case workers who are out there who can connect people to what it takes to actually get in line, get into a lottery and get into housing that we're making available. And I just think that it is our challenge to be as Whitney pointed out intentional and deliberate in that method that, you know, we there are affordable fair housing marketing requirements for us as a developer, but it will take much more. You wouldn't believe how extensive we have to be in in developing that plan, and it still will take so much more than that to reach folks. And I really think that the main piece there is for us to really think about the awareness of our one on one relationships, our voices as citizens and how do we get that word out and make sure that we've got a great network that draws people in and all the way into the finish line of getting to us. So, I just think that it's important for us to know that that is about the work of citizens and the organizations and all Pioneer Valley to get us there. Thanks, Jane. I'm going to talk about planning for a new affordable housing development, which the town of Amherst and collaboration with the Amherst municipal affordable housing trust is now undergoing. Basically, we're writing a request for proposals, which I hope will be published next month. I'm going to write a request for proposals, the goal is to try to embody in it all the requirements that will assure that whatever developer is selected, and it could be Valley Community Development it could be way finders or it could be a different developer will take the goals that we think are important. And among those goals are assuring access to affordable housing for low income communities and particularly communities of color. So, when we think about this we really have one shot at it from the point of view of the housing trust, whatever we put in the request for proposals is what will get carried into a contract with the developer. And once that contract is signed, we can't go back and say, Oh, here's half a dozen other things we think you should do in order to do effective outreach. So we've tried to describe, having talked to various consultants, what it is, we would expect the developer to do. And I'm going to share that with you now. The minimum we expect the developer to do is to develop a affirmative fair housing marketing plan that at least meets the criteria for the Department of Housing and Community Development, which is the primary subsidizer housing in the state. We want to encourage developers, if at all possible to go beyond that. And so we've put in some specific things that we hope would be included in their marketing plan. For example, we would prefer the plans for marketing include specific provisions for assertively reaching out through various media to low income underserved households, particularly communities of color, who may be least likely to apply, both in Amherst, and even when development is in Amherst beyond Amherst. The successful plans might include partnering with prominent members of the Amherst black indigenous persons of color community, as well as organizations that have a history of engaging diverse communities. We expect that the successful developer will employ brochures that demonstrate a welcoming approach, possibly including photographs of households that show individuals and families of different races and ethnicities. We think that applications should be available both online and on paper. There should be assistance including language translation for applicants who have difficulty completing them. Other assistance should also be offered. We hope that by incorporating this language into the request for proposals, we will assure that the greatest possible access to low income communities of color will occur both in Amherst and as I said, beyond. There are development at two sites, the old East street school site and new site on belcher town road, both in East Amherst, that will probably have 50 to 60 units. The good news is we think we'll be able to do this. I think the problem might be that that's not enough units, even if we make access to these units to persons of color including other low income individuals and households. That's not enough. As Keith emphasized in his presentations, there's a real shortage of production production in the Pioneer Valley, generally, and specifically in Amherst. So we need to figure out how to go beyond that. And to be honest, it's not simply an Amherst government problem. It's a state government and a federal government problem and I'm sure Keith and Jane would second that. But anyway, I'm also curious how both wayfinders and valley community development, try to work to assure that they do the same kind of outreach perhaps that I'm describing or other things. So that when new units become available or as existing units turn over, there is appropriate access to low income communities of color. Thanks for sharing that about your plans for the upcoming RFP. I think those are all kind of really good best practice and what you can do. I would think about one other thing to consider is timing. It's often the case when people see a development up and nice and bright and shiny that it's too late. And, you know, we are just finishing a project in Holyoke, Massachusetts right now. There's 38 units we did. We're partially occupied the building and we have a second building we're building right now. But we did our marketing for that back in October. And we, because of the pandemic, we couldn't do some of the things that Jane was talking about. And because I do believe and true love that I do believe in getting out there. I started my career as a tenant and community organizing, I believe going door to door is key and meeting with people and connecting with folks in the community at that. But we got to use all methods possible so we, and because those were not as easily accessible to us because of the pandemic we did a lot virtually we reached thousands of people many more than we would have had we used our conventional methods of doing a few information sessions and sending out some some mailers. So we ended up with 1300 applicants for 38 units in Holyoke. So, again, no we don't read our housing supplies and great great shortage in the region we have to do much more. I'm hopeful, again, looking moving forward and thinking yet that we can be working together regionally and locally here in Amherst to think about how we harness the resources now being made available, and hopefully, through fingers crossed an infrastructure plan and includes housing where we can do even more. One thing I wanted to mention your point about housing once it already exists, and how do you know when there's a vacancy and other things that that is even even harder trick. So, one, again it's a virtual thing and again this is not virtual is not the way for everybody. In fact, cut out many people who don't have the access and we know access to technology and mobile devices and all those things are a real problem for many communities for low income communities for people of color in many parts of the region and undoubtedly here in Amherst. But there is an effort that is nearing kind of implementation right now called a housing navigator project. You find it out. I'll put it in the chat. It's Massachusetts based. Many folks are involved in it. From the state to other housing organization in the state to list all of the affordable housing in the state. So you can find it. There is no comprehensive place where that list exists today was created because that that didn't exist. And the first order of business is to create a searchable source that people who help people with housing navigations and have a housing search. You can find it at Valley or at community action pioneer Valley or others could actually go in and find that general public could find it as well. But often, they may not even be aware of it so one of the things what we need to do once that is up and running is to make sure that people know about it and then use that resource. And when you just put that into the chat thank you Whitney. And what they're asking is starting to ask affordable housing owners and developers around the region to list all their housing there so they can keep track of it and keep track and that's where a place where they can put their listings as well. So there is, and that's when you'll know they're affordable. If you just look on the open market. Housing is affordable enough that these will be affordable housing developments as you'll know their income restrictions and who they're designated for so there'll be information that I think will be important to reaching communities and keeping that awareness up. But I think it's about consistent communication, early communication and using all means necessary to reach communities. And did you want to add to that. I'm an exciting announcement and I don't, you know, I'm sure that others were aware of it, john. So it's, it's really the construction of affordable housing. And we, we didn't get to talk about it could do in the discussion period. Really the opposition to approving affordable housing we sort of glossed over that. And so just to say, you know, you're talking about two sites old East street and belcher town road. And, and it's just very, you know, I think it's worthwhile to talk about opposition to projects that has existed, and then looking to the future about that position. And then going back to Whitney's presentation, everything that every single one of you just said about the lack of stock and the need for state, and especially federal action. So as somebody who was in the room when there was an ancient firehouse in Holyoke that was completely unusable and made a presentation to our former Don over who then got federal funding and you can see today that the transportation education center on Maple Street where the firehouse used to be in Holyoke that really thinking about that tapping into federal funding as well locally. But I better move on. I was just going to say that new one to the next section. Can I just jump in briefly. Um, so Adrian to Rizzi has had her hand up so I wondered she's one of our the league is one of our sponsors so I wonder if we could just allow her to ask her question if it's relevant now. And then so let me do that. I hope she hand back down. So I guess not. But we do have a question about. Oh, do you agree you're able to speak should be able to talk and ask your question. Hello, everyone. My hand is a computer problem here, but I did want to say I'm following this extremely interesting conversation. And I just want to say thank you so much. I will try to control this erratic raise hands lower hand, John. Keep up the good work. I'll continue to listen with my raised my my lower hand. Thank you, John. Thank you, Adrian. We have one more question about home ownership so I know we did spend we had a form a couple weeks ago entirely dedicated to home ownership so I will find the link for that. But from Tracy Zafi on a question about, should we only be looking at at rental opportunities, or is the trust and other organizations looking at home ownership to so within you know the time that we have. If people want to touch on that very briefly I will go and find the link to our previous discussion on that exact topic. And just to let people know we have Kathleen Anderson, and another section but we are definitely coming back for public comments. So I hear that the message we're going to move along and a tighter clip so we have time for back and forth. Kathleen. Thank you. Once again, Kathleen Anderson have been doing work in many areas of civil human rights for many years is the former president of Amherst NAACP and the for the member a member of the National Coalition of Blacks for Recreations in America, and is talking to us tonight about an opportunity to develop tiny homes and Amherst. Thanks, Kathleen. Yes, yes. So, often the conversation about affordable houses are big called buildings with multiple units and one structure, and not a detached house. I am looking at detached houses, small tiny houses, as a way to bring the diversity and housing, and the diversity and housing and the diversity of housing stock. And I am particularly attracted to tiny houses. Now I have this first slide, which is to car garage. The definition of a tiny house is equivalent to a two car garage. So I showed this on this slide to give people an understanding of what a tiny house on a foundation could look like. Next slide please. Yeah, and another tiny house community that can be affordable. So the tiny houses are 400 square feet or less, but a small house could be 800 square feet or less. Next slide please. So this is a tiny house community or a small house community in New Hampshire. So I'm just showing the variation in the kinds of housing designs that can be achieved with a tiny house next slide. Another house, another village that has a tiny house development. Next slide. So these slides are basically examples of various kinds of communities that are tiny houses or small houses made available. They could be for home ownership or for rental. Next slide please. So they're livable communities and houses are closer close, but they're detached so you still have the sense of your own single family home. Next slide. Next slide please. Again, there's our examples of neighborhoods. This one is an example of Washington State developer in Washington State that has created a small home or a tiny home community. The next slide please shows the layout for that particular pocket neighborhood. So you can see there are multiple units. I didn't count them before. But somebody who's quickly looking so it looks like there are five, five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 25 units on this acreage. Next slide. And a charming village walkway cobblestones. So just another example of a small tiny home or small home community development. Next slide please. So people have a sense of their own home. And it's an affordable option. Next slide. Next slide please. This one is in Maine coastal area. Next slide please. Next slide please. And finally, in our own state, the example of the gingerbread cottages in oak bluffs on Martha's vineyard. So there's been examples of affordable houses that can be developed. There's some property in Amherst perhaps that is available that would allow the construction of a series of small houses. And that's the end of my slides. Thank you so much, Kathleen. A beautiful diversity of housing. That reminds me of a meeting that was sponsored by Rosana Salazar, Caitlin Marquis and Clark bankers when they were planning the mobile market and residents of Amherst made beautiful drawings together of their vision of a community. And that's, in fact, small houses with a big community garden in the middle, lots of community and those pictures. Thank you so much. Some people who need affordable housing they don't want to live in an apartment complex, but would like a detached home and tiny house is the option to make that possible. Absolutely. Thank you to all of us because the time is getting away from us. And in this next section beyond affordable housing normalizing opportunities for access to Amherst housing among persons of color. It's my pleasure to introduce Francine Rodriguez, the manager of community services for family outreach of Amherst, somebody who is a tireless worker for residents in our community. It's really nice to have you here Francine and Donna Kavana is the home ownership coordinator at Valley Development Development Corporation five valley community development and Demetria and is back with Michelle to discuss normalizing access to to Amherst. I'm going to ask whether we have Francine and Donna just open up since there are are new are newly joining us on this topic, whoever is is ready to go first. I want to thank you all because this has been a really great event and I, you know, there's been a lot of great stuff brought up here tonight. I think we need to go beyond the marketing plan. John, John Hornick gave us outline of what they're going to be looking for for the developers to reach out to the different groups of folks to try to bring people into apply for this housing. And it is true until that building's built and people can actually see it. Oftentimes people don't apply. And, you know, I have this very same task. We just rolled out a program in Amherst last March and then the world shut down because of COVID our in person meetings were canceled. Doing outreach during COVID was just like a nightmare. How do you reach people when we got to stay six feet apart. But I think it goes beyond that marketing plan going beyond reaching out to those home ownership home ownership staff and saying, Hey, can you share this in your workshop? You got to call that counselor, you know, and say, Hey, do you have any clients that could use this program? You got to reach out to the person you know at New North Citizens Council. And hey, do you have any folks that you could really share this with because I'm really trying to get the word out to get more and more and more people to share that opportunity because our usual marketing is not bringing the folks in. So we got to come up with even greater, even greater and more diverse ways to try to reach folks. And, you know, Keith had talked talking about, you know, his, his, his beginnings and door to door. And, you know, maybe we need to do some more of that. I will tell you, I did an affordable last year and Megan's group with the Pioneer Valley Habitat. They have like 200 volunteers and they called so many people. I never had so much, so many people apply for a unit ever, ever. Megan's volunteers really did fascinating work. I've really got to, I really got to find out every little thing that they're doing to reach people because they did a fabulous job. But I think they just have a really big list and they call all those folks who don't have email addresses. And I think sometimes we just assume everybody has email. Everybody's going to be able to see it in this electronic format. And we have to go beyond that and beyond our local housing groups and our regional housing groups to try to find people to apply. And there are a number of affordable units in Amherst. There's some units in Pally Village. There's some single family units. I've been involved in a few units in Amherst and when those come up for resale, you know, we do some marketing to try to make folks aware of those units. Even if we're not the resale agent of that property, even if the city of Amherst, the town of Amherst is doing that, we still want to make sure that our base knows about that unit and that, you know, as many people as possible know about those units that come up for sale. I guess that's all I'll say and I'll let somebody else have an opportunity to speak. You want to jump in. Let me unmute myself first. This is a great conversation and as you guys are all the panelists are speaking, it's a lens into what I do for work on a daily basis. We provide direct services and support and stabilization services and housing we have a housing support program. And we are the folks that provide that access. So when all of you have these developments that are created, we're ensuring that people are applying when the trust created an emergency rental arrears program where they are making sure people have the access to be able to stabilize their lives, whether it's through rental arrears. Home ownership has also been an issue because families want to stay in Amherst. And I'm when I work with families, I say, well, you know, you're paying $1,600 in rent. Why don't we go and do a first time home owners class and get yourself a home. You can have a mortgage for that amount of money. But then it comes back to I want to stay in Amherst my children want to stay in Amherst schools, and they can't afford to buy a home in Amherst. Again, even folks with like section eight and I'm, you know, if they wanted to move from their apartment in Amherst, I have to strongly recommend you stay put because there's not any other units that you're going to be able to rent with your section The rents are just maxed out where there are very few housing availabilities for folks that have section eight and the increase of rents. It's just yearly it never stops. I mean, every year, the fair market rents and Amherst increase, even for the families that have section eight, their portion is going up even though their income hasn't gone up because the rent is continuously increasing. So, you know, the, the, the markets not here the housing markets not here. We need more affordable housing home home ownership would be great. But again, it's, it's an issue in Amherst. I think that's the best option for our families with the rents that they're paying. I would come back to not wanting to leave the community with good schools and they're forced to make that choice do I struggle and keep, you know, doubling up with another family in a two bedroom apartment, so my kids can have a better education in Amherst. So the struggle is very much here and I've been here for 16 years in the community and I've seen it just getting worse and worse, which is unfortunate so I'm really glad that we're all coming together to have this discussion, and hopefully find a way to move forward and create more affordable housing and more home ownership home ownership options in the Amherst community for people of color. Thank you so much Francine you mentioned the doubling up and I remember in the spring of 20 with all that all the issues that are going on in the community and hearing, you know, from Rosanna side of side and from, and you all the work that you were doing and we haven't reached the communities during COVID, and the reality that we have in South Amherst, as many as nine people in units with two veterans, and that is a reality at Demetria and Michelle. We don't have very much time it's almost eight o'clock. Maybe like one. Is there anything else that you wanted to add before we go back to Whitney. You're talking to me and Michelle. So I just you know I appreciate kind of laying out rental, but you know when we talk about building wealth and working class folks building wealth middle class folks building wealth. It's about home ownership, and that is how white America has done that for so long. And black and brown people have been locked out of the ability to do that's not that we haven't done it, but when we've done it, it's usually been the exception. What needs to happen here there needs to be some incentive for black and brown folk to, you know, own homes to be able to own affordable homes that build stability, and it builds a base here for Amherst and it builds the future. So I just want us to really consider that and figure out what are the incentives what are the ways in which we could do that, who, you know what was mentioned homeowner classes, etc. You know, what's the starter home what does that look like, and are we priced out. Thank you, Dave. I'm going to move on to Whitney Demetrius advocating for changes at the state level. Thank you so much so I will be quick. I'm like, I'm like what I'm used to being but what I've done in the chat is just shared a full list of our chapel legislative priorities I won't go into my PowerPoint right now just based off time. So one of the things three of the priorities from that long overall list are really focused on fair housing, right so we have this fair housing legislative priority that are doing three different things right one is sort of establishing an affirmatively furthering fair housing policy statewide right so that cities and towns are examining whether or not just their discrimination in their programs, and sort of reshaping policies, undoing patterns of segregation right so we know we have that federally but we've seen some rescinding of that in the last former administration and of course it being reinstated, but we're looking at that in the statewide level. We're also looking at disparate impact, right how do we, how do we be able to bring loss bring bring suits rather right as relates to unintended and intended policies that have an impact on discrimination right so it's something that on his face may not be discriminatory but has an impact on communities of color for instance, and so bringing those cases forward in the statewide level, we're looking to enact that particular law. And then lastly, we are looking at an exclusionary zoning policy, which is going to make sure that people are not making statements like, we don't want to build this housing development because it would make more children in our community for instance, right and so so those are some of the things and I'm mindful of the time, but I've also shared our symposium happening at later this month, that we hope you'll join us in we'll be talking specifically about some of these work around that have to happen when we're creating our fees and we want to say certain things but we can't right we're thinking about racial homeownership wealth gaps. And so we hope that you'll be able to join us in that conversation so I'll end it there but also be able to share my slide that have more details. Thank you so much I feel like there is so much more to say and perhaps that's a separate panel at another point john, that's exclusively about the state and federal policies that we need. And the funds that we need to have a major increase in both rental and home ownership for all different kinds of families in Amherst so I love to help with that in any way. People have been really patient and I know john has quite a number of questions in the chat. I do remember Tracy zaffian being one of the first to ask it so john and I'm going to let you read the questions for us if that's okay. Since you're in the chat. Thank you. So I think the first one, which we've touched on a little bit was about how does home ownership come into play here, not just rentals but home ownership. And I did share our video from last time but if anyone wants to talk about home ownership opportunities that is our first question. I'll just add a little bit. People should look at the forum we did last month because there's a lot of information about there. They are about what three organizations are doing to try to advance home ownership in Amherst and includes valley community development. Pioneer Valley. Sorry. Sorry, I'm blocking the names and your valley habitat. And also the Amherst community land trust so you can learn more about that in the previous recording. Let me also say that this is a concern of the housing trust. And in some ways the issues aren't different in developing home ownership opportunities from rental developments, you need to have land and you need to have money. And it appears as if one of the quasi state agencies that subsidizes housing, mass housing finances, kind of dipping its toe in the water in subsidizing home ownership developments. So that's one thing that we'll be looking at, as well as I said looking for property. Another question I now have actually managed to put the chat on the second screen John will be probably, and I'm looking for the next question that we have. You did share the web address to the trust website I believe. Yes, that is in there and it can pretty easily found on the town of Amherst website. Once you get to there. Tracy's question here. Is the trust looking to create new affordable housing that is owned by low income households or only rental housing was the last affordable housing for owning not renting the development on Charles Lane. A neighbor told me that was a habitat for humanity project. And then affordable housing with units for ownership not rental, not rental units built since. And she's specifically referring to housing is restricted to ensure low income housing affordability, not market rate. Yeah, yeah, that's 738pm on the chat in case you like to see it. I think I did say that the housing press would like to do that. And we have the same barriers we need property in Amherst, and we need funding from the state to help us be able to subsidize low income home ownership. So this question. Has it been any since the answer is no. No, we have not developed anything specifically, but there is home ownership programs in Amherst several times using CDBG funds, right. Yes, we Valley Community Development has done some programming with the town of Amherst with CDBG has been a number of years our last program in 2017 and 2018 CPA funds for home ownership and those were $50,000 mortgage subsidies. There's a question here has anyone done an inventory of rental units in Amherst to me it seems that a lot of new apartment buildings have been and are being built. And I put the link to the housing production plan, which we did in the chat there's also a housing market study, as well as the brand new study done by the Don units to which Keith wonderfully mentioned today. Yeah, the town of Amherst does keep track of rental housing, because we have a rental registration by law. All of the available rental units are maintained in a day of database by the housing commissioner by Rob more. So that data isn't easily accessible but it is available and we can query that database and people have questions. But in terms of the advocacy that we would have to do to, you know, have enough of a fusion of state and federal funds to really move the needle here. And hearing the need, at least in this question maybe I'm reading into it for, you know, very clearly available information on what percentage of rentals are market value what is that market value versus affordable rental and then also the, you know, number and percentage of affordable housing I mean just by way of anecdote. You know there's a many informal barriers that we haven't talked about discrimination enough I think tonight. I can tell you personally that when we moved to Amherst, we had two professional jobs and you can try to rent and have a sudden list of documents required. In another state, you don't have any way of knowing whether it's discriminatory or not. I do know that my husband who is from Puerto Rico has a heavy accent would receive a list of twice as many documents, as I would receive an Amherst asking for the most, you know, simple rental. And if people look long enough through your records they may find that you pay that a student lonely and have an excuse to leave you out of an apartment. You know, with professional salaries. And again, very transparent here. The only reason we're in this home is because previous owner decided to give us a rent to own informally. And that was the only the only way that two professionals salaries could actually afford in our bracket to buy a home here. When we did go to buy, we had a crude escrow count and down payment, we were then penalized, not by the credit union, but by the federal lender, who apparently frowns on owner agreements, and we were then charged for a separate loan at a reasonable rate. Again, in that moment with our busy lives did we have time to investigate whether or not that was discriminatory. Likely. And so, and this is at a level of a lot of privilege professionals. And so we can only imagine the kind of discrimination that people are encountering and I would love to give Francine and others working. And others just a chance to talk a little bit more because I feel like we, we didn't, we didn't talk enough about all of those informal barriers and feeling welcome and those sort of issues that come up and having experienced it personally, not very many years ago I'd love to hear a little bit more about that. I can say myself and my case workers have definitely observed clients of color or families that we work with of color are under more of a microscope when applying for housing. They're scrutinized more, they're asked to provide more things. They seem to be treated a bit with more suspicion all the time. I've experienced where a housing issue that does arise, arrive with a tenant. The level of punitive action that's taken against a person of color, opposed to a white person is way larger than any scale that we could imagine language barriers are a big issue as well. Whether or not people that speak the language, or documents that are not in their language, or even accessing documents, the level of things that you need to provide is a job in its own and it's, it's very difficult. If you don't know where to get these documents if you're from another country you're newly arrived in the United States, you don't know even where to get any of these things. So it is a big piece of what our agency does is help folks, you know, acts have access to affordable housing to public assistance benefits, so they don't have to make those decisions of do I pay my rent, or do I just not buy groceries this week, which in Amherst is a daily help for the families that we serve. It is something that they have to especially you can imagine with the pandemic. It's tripled the amount of disparities are families are facing in Amherst, especially undocumented families are facing a lot of people of color. It's, it's devastating right now and we have seen a significant increase of people needing help to stay housed in a large number of people getting brought to court and not knowing their rights and thinking I got to leave they're taking me to court and we have to be there to say these are your rights, but you know I often wonder how many of those people that I don't know or that don't know us that have just up and left their apartments, especially in this pandemic, because they were told they had to. And so our job is to make sure people are aware of their rights and aware of what is illegal and discriminatory and practice for real for landlords which happens often here in Amherst. Absolutely Francine I see Kathleen and then Whitney please. Yeah, white people white people. Here's your job. Talk to your white people about this stuff. Thank you Kathleen. Yeah I think it's important for us to be talking about these issues but also knowing where we can go so I appreciate your comment Francine about what you guys are able to do to advocate for folks. I shared in the chat which I hope all the attendees can also see, but the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center, right, they actually will help folks right regular folks who have day to day lives to actually file the complaint to do testing to do mystery shopping that will then support your claim of of your housing discrimination issue right will help to move that middle forward filing at the Massachusetts mission against discrimination right so you're not alone in that. There are a lot of agencies there to really assist you but one of the things I did want to highlight in our conversation today as we talk about what can we do is really thinking about for housing committee, local for housing committee. There has been historically a sort of a decrease of active for housing committees right so each local municipality has historically had a active board or committee really working on those issues year round. In April, but a committee that's working to make sure that it's being implemented on an every level and doing that work right so there's examples of great ones in new in and in Cambridge that are doing great work. But is there an active and I looked on the website earlier today. It looks like it kind of like dissolved in kind of was in a different committee and sort of an umbrella committee but is that something that folks in the community think is important. That's a very important point, and I appreciate you moving us to the final section of what can we do fair housing committee has, and I don't know the history of that john or anybody who was here who participated in it. But it's a really important question I do notice that I didn't see this before I was only looking at the chat and actually, we do have a couple of statements in the q&a that I had not seen. Shalini ball is our town as a counselor for our district five and has written in here to address the systemic issues of income inequities and shortage of housing supply we need to engage our colleges and institutions related to hiring and retention and developing creative solutions like tiny homes, we need to engage other stakeholders like developers and banking. Do you have suggestions on how to engage different stakeholders to address the systemic issues and not work in silos. It's a huge point here to make that we those interested in affordable housing and often since we're talking about this today and a conversation I was in with some folks end up talking to each other a lot. But we need to to branch out to other stakeholders and as Kathleen was mentioning, all whether they're of different races of different institutions and bringing them into the conversation. So there's a question about housing developments being built seem like a lot of apartments being built right now. You know I also live here in Amherst. I think those apartments are for students they're not for for for working folks. So those are. We need to bring everybody's disabled the university and all others who are who have all these things that kind of distort and affect the housing market to be part of the solution. But there's there's there are things to be advocating for both at the state level. There are housing resources that are in play today to help people afford housing or that be the Massachusetts Fentanyl voucher program which we're looking for a significant increase in this year. It's been increasing but we need to help people pay for the housing the renters. So our programs and more resources for home ownership to the point that was raised before to address the racial wealth gap. There are when federal resources do come we need to be advocating East West to make sure that here in the West we are getting our fair do of those resources and the good work of Amherst and other towns and really documenting what the housing needs and challenges are need to be front and center but we all need to know them and then we need to bring the business community and we need to bring the other institutional players and to be advocating alongside us as unusual suspects in that conversation because when when John shows up they know exactly what John's going to talk about. Here comes John Hornick. He's going to talk to us about housing check the box he talked about it. If you get the Chancellor of UMass talking about it. If you get the head of Koolie talking about it if you get some of these other institutional leaders advocating alongside you because it makes a difference for them to makes a difference in terms of attracting employees makes a difference in how much they need to probably pay people. All those things have an effect on all of us. So this is a shared issue. This is not just about those of us who have been discriminated against it is that's key. We're at the bottom of the barrel there in that regard. But we need to make this a collective issue and pull those folks into this conversation and make it a to get them advocating alongside us and I think we can be leveraging not only federally so super private resources do much more from those institutions as well. Excellent points. The business community in particular a business roundtable on employment and housing would be would be really incredible. There is one more question in here referring to the statistics that you were sharing key. It says, these did not mention that the rental homes but you just mentioned that now are 50% absentee landlord student rentals. The population that is stressed, even more stressed by pop people by these kinds of exclusions has Amherst look to the CLT model. I'll need help with what the CLT model is for why swaths of land like Dudley Street or champagne Burlington Vermont does this place is a great deal. You know, a pressure that requires big solutions. So this is about different models that are being used in other places. CLT refers to community land trust and we do have an opportunity land trust. Well, I think we're bit past time. So I'm going to wrap up quickly. Just a couple of things. We do need more resources and we do need to do a better job of reaching out to developers and other people in the business community to get their support to institutional leaders as both Shawnee and and key said. So anyway, I want to thank all the people who have presented tonight, as well as our co sponsors again I'll mention the League of Women Voters of Amherst, and the town of Amherst. I also want to thank our excellent moderator, so don't take a lose the money. Thank you for keeping us on track as best you could. And for making many interesting comments. Again, I want to tell people to be sure to look for the following four events that are coming up later this month. On the 27th at 630pm a symposium on reparations sponsored by reparations for Amherst. The next afternoon, April 28 2pm. There'll be a discussion of the greater Springfield housing study that Keith mentioned in his presentation that'll be sponsored by wayfinders and the Donahue Institute. On May April 29 at 130. There is the Fair Housing Symposium that my good friend Whitney Demetrius mentioned and the cheese organizing. It's sponsored by Chapa, and it has the subtitle, building the framework for a more equitable Massachusetts. On May 25 at 630pm. The housing coalition has its last of three forums. This one will focus on climate sustainability and affordable housing. And I hope you all look forward to that event as well. Before we close out, before we close out. I just want to remind people to contact your senator and your representative and demand that they support and pass HR 40 and s 40. Those are reparations bills in the House of Representatives nationally. And in the Senate nationally. Also, contact your local area representative for reparations for Massachusetts. Thank you. Thanks and just to people don't know our local representative in the state legislature is Mindy Dom. Our local state senator is Joe Comerford. They find them online. And our national representatives are Jim McGovern, who's our congressman, and obviously Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, who are senators and Mindy Dom just put her. She's on the event tonight and she just put her email address in the chat. Thank you for always, always being supportive and always being here. John, I had that we were going to late 30 I hope I didn't abuse the time and you want it to end at 815. So, I said eight o'clock and we stretched it. That's me then the topic was too interesting I appreciate everyone's patience. What are we committed to doing next. I heard so much from all of you. And I think John we're asking you to do two more forums at least. And we heard the business one. We heard advocacy and the activism on the ground was discriminating so thank you so much for all of your work I really want to have a round of applause for both johns and everybody who helped organize this Michelle D Matthew and all of the organizers who is not me. Thank you. Thanks. I shouldn't mention the housing trust meets on the second Thursday night of every month. You can go to the town website to find the access for reaching us. And people are certainly invited to discuss these ideas at further length when the housing trust meets. Again, thank you all and have a good evening. Thank you john. Thank you so much everyone. That was a lot of information. Yeah. Well done john. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate your support. Are you going to make this information that was put in the chat someplace publicly because once this chat, once this session ends that that information will not be available so is there a way to access the different links that were inserted. Yeah, this is Nate I am. I was Googling that while this was ending and I'm recording it to the cloud and I, you know, I think it's going to be saved. I'm trying to figure out how I can copy and paste it before I end this as well because I don't have a safe function that zoom said should be there. So I'm trying to figure that out. I agree I'd like to keep it. I also have the recording gaffling but I agree it would be good to have references. The recording doesn't show the chat. No, no, you're right. I understand. Yeah, no zoom zoom said if you enable the chat and you're recording into the cloud. That I should save the chat as a separate file. So I am. I don't know enough though about zoom to feel confident in that. So I, I've been trying to copy and paste all the chat. And I'm having problems with it but I'm going to try to figure that out I'm not going to end this until I can figure it out so everyone else can leave I scheduled this till 10 so I have an hour and a half. Thank you. Thank you, Nate. I appreciate it. So I think you'll be able to find it once you go to the recording I've seen that chat show up in those. Yeah, I just, I, I, you know, I'm on. Yeah, I'm unsure. So it's just one of those things I don't want to, you know, I'd like to make sure. Better be safe and sorry. I'm trying to paste it to and usually it does I don't know why it's not doing it. Yeah, other people's webinars there's a recording function that you can request that it will copy the chat into a file days on my computer, but I didn't try to do that this evening. I mean, it's something I'm going to have to look at you know. Yeah, so I'm going to work on it. Good night. I'm leaving. Thank you all. Thanks, John. I'll work on this for a little bit and then Okay, I appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for all your help, Nate. It's been great. Thanks on that. This is really great. I can at least take a screenshot of all of it and then we can figure out how to. Yeah. It is not safe.