 Welcome to all you viewers of Longmont Public Media. My name is Rosana Longo, better, and today in the studios we have Boulder County Commissioner Marta Lochman. Marta has been elected to the board of county commissioners in 2020 with a term continuing through January 2025 and Marta is a longtime Longmont resident who has been working for social, economic, housing, justice, and building opportunities for many families here in Boulder County. She's currently appointed as a representative to the consortium of cities, mobility, and access for all metro area county commissioners and workforce Boulder County among other things and Governor Jared Polis appointed her to the Colorado workforce development council and we also have Tanya Jimenez she's housing developer Boulder County housing authority who holds a master's degree in sustainability or sustainable real estate development from Tulane University. I love Tulane University and also a bachelor's degree in environmental design from the University of Colorado and today we are here to talk about the ARPA funds. Why? Because the ARPA funds back in March 11, 2021 the American Rescue Plan Act called as you know known as ARPA was signing to law and as part of the ARPA the coronavirus state and local fiscal recovery fund was established to address specific impacts of the pandemic. Boulder County was allocated with 63 million dollars a little more than 63 million dollars and today we are going to be discussing how are these funds going to be implemented. So I would like first to ask Commissioner Marta Lodgeman to give us a roundup of how these 63 million dollars are going to be allocated. Sure thanks first of all thank you for the conversation and it's an honor to be here with you all I so yes we received 63.3 million dollars and I'll share as briefly as I can based on my previous experience and coming into this role as a county commissioner working within community understanding cultural brokering understanding human center design understanding that community voice typically has been and specifically for communities of color has been excluded intentionally from the way that funding opportunities programs processes that's just my firm belief and so when we heard about this opportunity and not everybody in the country took the opportunity of accepting ARPA funds because there's so many federal guidelines it is a very complicated process we learned that after the flood of 2013 we've learned that with other federal funding etc and my ask to the board of directors and to the leadership team at Boulder County in March of that year was how might we do this different to really complete the goals which was relief of COVID-19 and for me was how do we get to equitable outcomes which creates the question of how do we do the entire process differently and so it took a little while because systems are systems especially when they're built in white supremacy and to bring around a leadership team to be able to say okay we'll stop we'll move back we'll we'll try and not do shovel ready which is one of my favorite government terms and we will use a community engagement process that that I was able to lead for the county to ask community members how do we locally in Boulder County need to use this funding how we've been most affected and and so it was an extensive process but the the outcome was community members telling us we need to focus on economic challenges we need to focus on affordable housing and we need to focus on behavioral mental health after COVID-19 or in the midst of this time in the midst of COVID-19 and that is precisely where you know these three areas are important but the one that we're going to be talking today is affordable housing and why is it so urgent I would like to ask you Tanya why is the topic of affordable housing so urgent for our communities and how much money from these funds are going to be allocated to support affordable housing yeah well affordable housing is a big topic especially in Boulder County we have a lot of families that are paying you know more than half their income for rent and that shouldn't be the case people need to live and be able to not have all their money go towards rent you know they should be able to buy the things that are necessary food school supplies and whatever it that they need to just live a comfortable life so yeah we are working on Willoughby Corner it's our you know all affordable housing community in Lafayette and from what I can see Tanya the affordable housing called Willoughby Corner has been assigned almost 13 million dollars yeah to assist and to help communities of color and what you were saying commissioner Lachman people that have not been able to acquire wealth so it's really going to be it's you're making a big effort of really trying to bring these communities to apply for this affordable housing so if you can please explain to us how is it that you are going to be able to make sure that people can come in because as we know in our community in Boulder County the majority of our residents of color and specifically Latinos are living in mobile homes and the whole process of getting into affordable housing is so complicated and you need so many papers to show income and all that that it becomes like Marta Lochman was saying commissioner that it is really prohibit so what are you going to do in order to bring our communities into these affordable housing yeah so we've started having community meetings with the Lafayette community in the Boulder County community we really want Latinos to come and you know apply and even just get on our interest lists and our waiting lists for the for Willoughby housing you know we the way we set up the project is it serves multiple types of families and people individuals the first phase includes rental housing for 55 families of 55 years and plus as well as just rental housing for families so units vary from one to three units so larger families can also live at Willoughby Corner our last phase our phase three which is a few years away will be all affordable for sale housing so this is sort of that next step into getting into affordable housing into housing that you know you can build equity and general generational wealth and pass that on to your children that's something that's so important for Americans and families especially Latinos who tend to have lower rates of home ownership and who are severely impacted by you know the recession and all the predatory loans thank you thank you so much what you have said I think that that is a perfect way to ask Marta Commissioner Marta Lodge mean exactly about why is it important so crucial to have affordable housing for economic growth you that you have the knowledge the yeah the the background I probably have the most of a background 24 years in the housing industry in different ways understanding the mortgage market working with that and you're talking about the recession in 2006 those predatory loans that were happening we did a study later for the state of Colorado here through the city of Longmont in our region about what predatory lending really did to our Spanish-speaking families and also aging adults most of those loans were 12 to 24 months later is when we saw the adjustable rate mortgages the arms truly decimate families and specifically the Latino community in this entire country based on national work that have been involved in with the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals we have been talking about the the racial financial gap around families of color and communities of color in this country for for 20 plus years through that organization the other piece that's really important here is the pooling that we continue to do at the county and residents who respond to these polls continue to say that housing affordability is the number one concern and so there's a couple pieces of how do we respond to that will it be corner is one one project the other one that we've opened since I've been in office is spoke on Kauffman here in Longmont as another transit oriented development that just means it's a fantastic site that's near our resources as Boulder County near the DMB near Housing and Human Services near all the different clinics resources etc but also in walking distance and and close distance to the bus station here on Nathan Kauffman so those are pieces that we're looking at as well but the opportunity to and will be corner look at how do we serve and respond to different family needs like Tanya was describing the different phases and what that will open up for opportunities I am a strong believer I will always believe with my understanding of the way that this system in the United States works with finances and access to credit access to capital that affects every other walk of life and every other bill that we pay as people that if you don't own a home in this country you do not have the same opportunity to move ahead period you just never will and and Tanya is exactly right we talk about affordable housing the definition is if I am paying more than 30 percent of my income in housing it's no longer affordable and she's exactly right we have more than 60 percent of our folks in Boulder County paying more than 50 percent right now and it's not just mobile homes where we as Latinos live it's entry-level homes that are also missing from inventory condos townhomes smaller single family we have a crisis and we have for quite a while and so now in this role as as county commissioner working with our amazing staff and housing human service working with partners like you who are trying to bring the light of what is the need and how do we solve it this is just one piece of it and there's urgency there's urgency you can hear the urgency I feel like there's urgency every day and again what's going to happen and what you know I heard from people always saying what happens is that when there are these opportunities for people to access affordable housing they don't apply and you know people the people that are working people you know that the community where the Latino community has one two three four jobs many times or jobs during the weekends in order to just afford housing that is the most expensive thing but they don't apply to these supports you know the third almost yeah almost 13 million are going to go to support these initiatives so that means you apply and you get into the rental and you start forming a community because one of the things that I know as also as a reporter working here in in Boulder County that people love living in mobile homes because their community is in a mobile home but the mobile home is not going to allow them to grow economically they're not going to be able to use that mobile home as a stepping stone like an affordable housing like really owning the land where the house sits in so that's the reason my question for you will be how are you going to be doing this because from my experience I remember the Latino chamber of commerce what they did when there were some funds precisely to support the small the small businesses that were dying during the pandemic was that they sat with the people and they helped them feel the paperwork so is that something that the county is looking to do to support the people not only going online but also you know going to the places where our community is in order to help them feel all that paperwork yeah of course um that's something that we um bch a want uh strives to do is to help our community and that can be in um as simple as just filling out you know um getting on our interest list on our waiting list filling out applications going through the entire process of applying for housing um you know we understand that like those um applying that process in itself can be a barrier to housing and we want to eliminate those barriers we want to help as much as we can we have a team um on our leasing side that um works with our community um you know all it takes is just reaching out um you know we will help that's what we want we want to get people into housing well and I'll just add so we have a town hall actually tonight which I don't know when people will be listening to it but but one of the asks we have a town hall just at our new southeast Lafayette hub which we were just about to open uh and we're going to be talking about Willoughby Corner and so my call yesterday after talking with some housing human services folks like are we going to have our home ownership team on site like what's that opportunity and how do we continue as a county organization to think about what are the next resources that people will be asking about if somebody is in the room uh asking about Willoughby Corner they're also going to be asking about what's my opportunity for to access resources down payment assistance home budget counseling to get prepared because our phase it's going to be a while for all these phases to open and so we're continually having this conversation and the staff um I got the email late last night and they said yeah we'll be there but how do we continue to do that and how do we address these barriers that's happening super fast commissioner because from what I see these uh Willoughby Corner is going to be up and going 2024 uh already so people need to get on it because it's a whole process what are the requirements for people to apply for this first phase besides being 55 and over do they need a social security number do they need to prove their income if you can just you know tell us so that people listening to us get a feeling and also where can they go to find out more um yeah so I think the first step would be to go to the Willoughby Corner website and sign up for the interest list and the waiting list this just gives folks that are interested in Willoughby Corner that opportunity to get information updates and when it times when the time comes to apply they will get that notification to start applying the application for applying it's an application they fill out the form and then when it comes time to actually you know submit documentation income verification is required and um I believe that's all there's a lot of requirements there are a lot of here and I want to with this question I want to finish up the question is why is it that affordable housing is also an environmental justice well two pieces I would be remiss if I didn't just let viewers know that we have on the november 2023 ballot a county ballot measure which is a reallocation of a current tax as an extension to fund affordable and attainable housing we have never had a sustainable funding source like this so to move this needle by responding to folks who continue to ask about affordable housing in our county to be able to support our municipalities to be able to work with our housing authorities that all you know around our region to be able to even access prop 123 funding and the state of Colorado and some of these other significant initiatives that is a huge opportunity for people who are like okay I might not delete not need to live in willoughby corner but I do believe this is an issue for my neighbors my friends for the folks who give me health care for the first responders the teachers that support our youth and are building our future this would be a way for people to to respond to that so I just want to want to add that in there and I also um but I want to give Tanya an opportunity to to jump into your clear question yeah well I mean we are facing climate change and you know we think it's important to build better build more sustainable buildings our willoughby corner community our buildings will be net zero ready we will have geothermal geothermal heating and you know just different sustainable features throughout the community we'll use native flora around the the entire site so less water use we're just trying to build a comfortable neighborhood for the people who live there and something that makes a less of an impact on our earth and I'll just add in to that Rosana so that you you know and the viewers understand that this will be the net zero 400 unit complex of willoughby corner when it's completed will be the first in the state of Colorado to hit that mark so we're talking about breaking down a whole lot of barriers opportunities in climate change and access to community members and building a community with willoughby corner something extremely important don't thank you so much commissioner Marta Lochman for coming today and talking to us about this crucial and important opportunity for our communities to step ahead to really make a big change and thank you so much to you also Tanya Jimenez a housing developer and Boulder County Housing Authority for coming and talking about this because it's urgent that hopefully our communities that have been listening today and or that deed housing or that will like others to access these important services help them you know pass the baton help them so that they can continue living in our in our communities and not be gentrified I think that's an important issue thank you so much is there something else that you would like to add um yeah get on our waiting list get on our um interest list it you know get our updates and if anyone's interested just sign up sign up so that way you can get in the list Marta thank you thank you for bringing and bringing this topic to light and giving us an opportunity to share about this one project and my my hope is my desire is that I'm able to continue creating these types of opportunities to respond to the need respond to the crisis that we have right now here in Colorado in our area thank you so much thank you for coming my name is Rosana Longo better and thank you all viewers of Longmouth public media for listening to this short interview we're trying to really promote what the ARPA fans are trying to do in order to support our communities in need thank you