 of Maureen Adams, who was Professor Emerita at the UMass College of Education and an advocate for affordable housing and housing preservation in Amherst. So Maureen was, Maureen was pretty active on housing issues as well as other things. So I think she is a loss to the community. Okay, moving along. I wanted to introduce our newest member, Francis Goye's Floor, an urban planner and architect. I think I feel safe in saying that Francis is the first housing trust member from Quito, Ecuador. She is currently a... Are you sure, John? She's currently a special assistant to Crystal Cornigay, the executive director of mass housing finance. Prior to that, she worked for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, and she just brings a wealth of knowledge, experience and enthusiasm for the housing trust. So it's my pleasure to welcome Francis to this body. Francis, do you want to say anything about yourself? Hi, everyone, and thank you for the introduction. Can you hear me okay? Yes. You never know. Sometimes I'm talking and I'm just like, are people there? Can I hear me? Yes, so thank you so much. I'm really excited to be part of the trust. I lived here 10 years ago now as a student, and I'm happy to be back here as a working professional. I'm a renter, and I am a passionate advocate for housing within my work and outside of it, and I'm just really excited to contribute in any way I can to support housing here and make sure that everybody has a safe and adequate place that they can afford, that they can go sleep in every night. So thank you. Thank you, and I thought we would do a round of introductions. Everybody else can say where they're from. I'm from Long Island, New York, and I am John Hornick, the chair of the Housing Trust, and a person who's retired. Although some days when I'm working on the trust, it doesn't feel like it. Let's see. Well, I just see people on my screen, so I'll go to read a next. I'm a consultant to the trust, and prior to retiring about three years ago, I worked for 30 years for the Massachusetts Housing Partnership. Okay, and Nate? Hi, I'm Nate. I'm a planner with the town. I'm from Massachusetts, and I help South the Trust. Carol? Carol, I live in Amherst. I grew up in California and Connecticut, and I'm a member of the Trust. Will, you have to unmute yourself if you didn't already. I'm Will. I guess I've lived here for about eight years or so, but I'm originally from outside of Washington, D.C., in Maryland, and I am a member of the Trust. Thanks, Rob. You're muted again, Rob. Okay, now you're unmuted. Okay. I'm originally from Pennsylvania. I work for EquitTrust, a nonprofit doing some work in affordable housing. I'm also a member of the Amherst Community Trust. And Sid? Oh, I skipped over John. Sorry. John Page, originally from Pelham, so a stone throw away, having gone too far, and I take the minutes for these meetings. Sid? Good evening. Sid Ferrara, originally from the Capewood Islands. I am now a resident of Amherst, obviously. Work at UMass in the Student Affairs and Campus Life Office. I am also part of the Trust, but also a commission with the Human Rights, and I'm one of the co-residential directors at the ABC program, known as Amherst A Better Chance Programming Town. Thank you. Erica. Welcome. I'm Erica Piedad. I was born in Portugal. My father's Cape Verdean, so Sid is, and I must be family members, and my mother's German. I actually came by boat, right past the Statue of Liberty, and I have been in Massachusetts since I was six years old, and in Amherst since 1994. I worked for the Department of Public Health. I worked prior in substance use disorder, and now for local public health, supporting local public health. So welcome. And I think Paul. So Paul Vaughn, town manager, grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, came to Amherst to go to Hampshire College. Francis and I both went to MIT for the Urban Studies program with our master's degrees, and also for Rita, so Clark Ziegler and I lived where house floor mates had Hampshire together. Okay, and I guess Tom hasn't joined us. No, I don't see him. Okay, then moving along. Okay, so Francis, Francis, it turns out you are not the only immigrants on the housing trust. We're flooded with them. Good, good. Okay, I just wanted to mention two other things. One is last night there was a town forum on the 40R proposal. Actually, it was quite well attended. I think there were over 60 people who signed in and about 20 who participated. Our consultants did an excellent job of presenting. Rob and I did our best to provide some supportive comments. But despite that, there were many objections posed to making changes in downtown zoning. So there is a recording that will be posted on the town website in the near future, maybe about a week or so, if people are interested in that. Either Nate or I can also provide you with PowerPoint slides that were part of the consultant's presentation. And last, I just want to note that this will be a two-part meeting with a pat agenda. We will conduct regular business until about 830, and then I will make a motion to adjourn this meeting and reconvene an executive session. Only trust members can attend this session, which Nate has set up as a separate Zoom meeting with a new link that you should have received in an email earlier today. So are there any other announcements? Okay, then I think the next order of business is to review the minutes from September. I know I took a look at them and actually did some editing. So at this point, I don't have any comments. Anybody else? I just thought there were a whole lot of places, what did I say, in parts four, B to D. After every one of those things, it said that there was a vote taken or something that I don't recall. I think maybe that just, so right, unanimously adopted, unanimously adopted. These are just reports. We didn't really vote to adopt these little pieces of reports, did we? Is that just left over in there from something else? That's all. That's my comment. You could be correct. In my own notes to myself and planning for the meeting, I think I had a note on those items to vote. And so John kind of recorded it as if we had actually voted. And at this point, I personally don't recall. I didn't remember voting anyway, which doesn't mean we didn't vote, but because they read like it's just kind of you're telling us or something that is somebody's working on this and they're going to bring a thing next time. And we adopted that. I thought it was, I thought it was, I'm just, oh, I know, I thought it was maybe, sometimes I'll just write like agreed by consensus or something. So it wasn't really a vote, but it was a, you know, an agreement. I can change it to say agreed by consensus. That probably make more sense. I don't think we took a roll call vote. We're just supposed to record them that way because we're virtual. By consensus, would that more accurately reflect? It is a general agreement or something. I mean, because it seemed like it was, those ones there from like about B to D, I thought were just kind of, you know, yeah, that's a good idea, which is sort of our response. Nobody disagreed, but it wasn't really formal. Somebody else, if I'm off the bay, off the wall and everybody thinks it should be this way, it's fine, but it seemed a little weird to me. I like that my notes, I didn't see a formal vote there either. So I just, Eugen, note it. Okay. So we'll make that change. Are there other changes that people have to note in the, in the minutes? Okay. While we're thinking about it, I was going to say that Tom's joined us. So he's in the middle. Great. Tom, everybody else has introduced themselves to our newest member, Francis Goya's floor. Do you want to introduce yourself, please? My name is Tom Kegelman, member of the trust from its inception. And I'm not sure if there's more you need from me, John. Well, because Francis is from Keto, Ecuador, I've been asking people to note where they're from. And you might also mention what your day job is. So I have lived in the Pioneer Valley since 1983, and before that, from St. Louis and before that from Connecticut. And my day job is executive director of home city development, a formal housing developer in Springfield. Great. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So I'm assuming there are no other changes to the draft of the housing trust minutes from September. Okay. Then I'll let's assume that they're accepted as red and move on to the next agenda item, which I am pretty sure is to invite Jana Tetra to talk about progress with our emergency rental assistance program. Yeah, she's being promoted to panelist. Right. Jana, you're, yeah, you can just unmute yourself and you're all set. Okay. Hi, everybody. Hello, Jana. Welcome. Thank you for coming. Yeah. Let me find my notes here. Okay. So I'm here to give an update on what's happening. I know you have a full agenda, so I will try to be brief. John had some specific questions he wanted me to address. So I will go through those. And then if folks have questions or we have, I have a couple sort of in terms of, you know, new things that we've encountered that I love some feedback on. So just to recap where we are, we are in round two of the application process. We, the final results for round one just to recap. Round one cost $37,328.50. That is for the 18 approved applicants. For those applicants, their first payments to their landlord, my understanding have already gone out. And then many of them will get payments for October and November. As a recap, 18 were approved 104. We've received 104 applications. 22 were not eligible. They didn't meet the initial criteria for, you know, either not being a student or not being subsidized. 43 were incomplete and 21 were denied. And the average amount that we gave out per household was about $2,000. So that's about average of what folks needed for round one. As you all recall, we made a bunch of changes to round two. The most significant, I think, is changing from a full online application to a pre-application. So we shortened the application substantially. And what happens now is applicants fill out the pre-application. And then they get a phone call from an advocate at community action to complete the rest of their application. So they get a phone appointment where they complete the rest of the application. They get a little bit more assistance and education about what we're going to ask for, how to submit their documents, a little bit more information about what their individual circumstances are so that we can, you know, try to work with them. Other changes are subsidized tenants are eligible for renter rears only. We have the pre-application is available in Spanish and English. And we've done, you know, some additional marketing, including, you know, which I admit have not happened yet, but we will be giving flyers, for example, to the Amherst survival centers to distribute instead of just emailing some of these places with the flyer. So we're going to be giving them some things to hand out. I'm trying to think of anything else significant from round two. So we opened the application round two in September. I don't remember the date off the top of my head. So far we've received 63 pre-applications online. 14 of those have been in Spanish. To date as of this afternoon, we have two approved ready for payments that I need to send to Nate tomorrow. Two that are complete and waiting to get reviewed by a supervisor. Eighteen that have been either were off the bat ineligible. So we continue to get applications from people who don't live in Amherst, who don't have a COVID reason, who are all full-time students. We've had a few people withdraw because they've applied alone and they have a roommate and the roommate doesn't want to participate. We've had four that were already approved in round one and are looking for an additional three months of assistance. So we initially told them that they had, what we've been telling them is they have to wait. I have 29 that are in process. So basically the staff have called them. They are either had their phone appointment or they are waiting for their phone appointment to continue to complete their application. 12 people are still pending and waiting for an appointment. We've done some outreach to the people who were incomplete in round one. A couple phone calls or a couple emails, excuse me, to those folks. And so 10 of those have reapplied. So they've been in touch. As far as I can tell, I don't have a really good tracking mechanism for those folks because we told them that they should just call directly and make a new appointment. So I can't, in order for me to tell, I sort of have to like scroll through the call log or scroll through the appointment calendar. So I know there's 10, but there could be more. Sort of interesting tidbits about round two. 15 of the 63 are behind on their rent. So about 24% so far of applicants are behind on their rent. Again is lower than we would have expected. And languages that people have identified that they speak in addition to English and Spanish have been Korean and Swahili. We did ask people where they heard about the program. Let me just look at that. And several people have identified from their landlord, from Amherst community connections, from Facebook. Let me think. Town of Amherst website is a very popular answer also. So that's where people are finding out about the program. Any questions on the sort of statistics of the application round? Does anybody heard about the program from the schools? Not that they've identified. Some people, let me see. No? No. Okay. So it's good to hear the landlords. Again, for round two, we did this in round one. We sent an email to all the landlords that are registered through the town's rental registration program. And that's hundreds of landlords. And so they were sent to notice again in the flyer. So I'm hoping that if the landlords, if tenants aren't making payment, that they would approach the tenant. But it's good to hear that's happening a little bit. And we did, I asked the Amherst mobile market to let people know. And we did a little bit more emailing and marketing. Like John said, we went through the schools a little bit more too. So I'm surprised that we're not hearing about that. I think they did distribute that through the school, the regional and local schools. I have some questions that maybe other folks know already. But what happens after the three months? Three months is the cutoff for how much they can receive, correct? Yes. So then I know that it's likely that the eviction moratorium is expiring, but the CDC one will be in effect. When you put folks in touch and provide the funds, do you also tell them about that they can apply for the CDC moratorium if they're eligible? We do. And we've been helping, you know, we've referring people to raft if they owe additional funds. I mean, I think what's been interesting this whole time is there hasn't been that many people who've been behind on their rent. So I think I anticipate that that is going to change substantially in the next, you know, month as the eviction moratorium ends. The CDC moratorium is not quite as expansive as the Massachusetts moratorium. So, you know, not as many, not everyone may qualify for this, for that moratorium. But yes, we will be, you know, telling people what their options are. We've been making referrals to raft. And I anticipate that we will, you know, we will get more phone calls in the next few weeks or months as people start getting notices from their landlord. You know, I've been surprised this whole time about that. And is there a place where they can get help? I know that the, at least the CDC one, it requires them to submit a relatively lengthy document with all the backup information. So is there a place or places where they can go for help filling that out if needed that we've thought about? That's a great question. I don't know of any space, place that's specifically helping people gather that information and fill out those forms. What about your forms, Janna? The community action forms? Our application. Yeah. Well, so I mean, we're, are we helping people fill out our forms? Yes, you are, right? Yes. Yeah. But to Francis's question, you know, I know, I think Amherst Community Connections and Family Outreach will help. So, you know, we've alerted, you know, Family Outreach and those and, you know, through the Human Service Network that they, you know, this funding is available. So, you know, we haven't specifically, I mean, I'm assuming that they, they help. I mean, I think we do ask for income verification and certain things. So it may be that some right applicants have to then go and either find forms or work with someone to help them gather the necessary documents to apply. That's your question, right? Oh, I thought, I'm sorry, Francis, I thought your question was about the CDC more, the CDC documents. So it was, it was primarily around that because I know that once the Massachusetts one expires, that's what folks will be looking at. But I don't know if that's just outside the realm of the assistance program. I did have another question, which is, are you thinking of expanding it to other languages outside of Spanish, the application? So, I mean, currently our capacity to translate was limited to Spanish. I know that Nate has mentioned that the link from the town website has a way to translate it into other languages. And certainly if, I mean, I think, you know, what I want to stress and I hope applicants understand is if they need help and they can't fill out the pre-application or they need it in a different language that they should call our office and that we will help them with it. So if they, you know, if they need it in a different language, we, you know, have a subscription to the language line, which we use for other languages. We can help someone do it, you know, outside of the pre-application if that is the barrier. And I'm always interested, I've said this before, if people are hearing that that's the barrier, we're not getting a lot of calls saying we need help in other languages. So, you know, I'm, it's a balancing act of trying to figure out, you know, are they not calling because they think we can't help. Right, right. Awesome. Thank you. I mean, the things that, so I guess I'll say, you know, John had asked me to talk about what I think is, like, what do I think the expectations are going to be for round two? We have, the town has quite a bit of money left to spend. I have no prediction at this time. I am really curious to see what happens in the next six weeks as the moratorium ends and I do think that we will start getting more phone calls from people who are behind on their rent, which those are not the people that have been calling, have been applying by and large. So I don't know, you know, how much, how many more applicants we're going to get or when I think that we will have spent all the funds. It's just too hard to predict at this time. I only have two approved applications right now. It does take, oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Nate. Sorry. As I said, we know if any of those behind on rent, if they also have vouchers since we opened that up. So if you have a rear as you can be getting other assistance, do we know if that's... Hold on. I can tell you. No, one. Only one. Yeah, only one. So I, I mean, I, I anticipate that that's going to change. I think one of the challenges that we sort of continue to have is around the COVID having an income loss or reduction due to COVID. And one of my questions for all of you tonight, I mean, we had been trying to get documentation to show that they had an income or reduction due to COVID. Some of our other funds that we have, we had been taking a self declaration where the person just had to say, yes, I've had an income or job loss of income or reduction due to COVID. For some folks, it's hard to document it. And so it would make it a little bit easier if we could also accept a self declaration in cases where someone was having, that was a barrier to come up with the documentation. And I think the other challenge is we've had some applicants who've had COVID related issues that are not necessarily tied to an income or job loss. And I don't want to get too specific in a public meeting, but we've had a couple of people that, for example, may have had a job loss or change prior to COVID and then due to COVID, you know, cannot find another job, for example, or their child is out of school and they can't go back to work. And so, you know, I want to, we're trying to be flexible. And I think the goal of Amherst is to approve households and help them. But I just want to, you know, I don't, these aren't our guidelines. So I just need a little guidance on how, you know, flexible we can be about some of these issues so that we can try to help. Because we've had a couple of people where we feel like, I don't know if you actually meet the guideline that we're trying to meet. Well, I guess personally I would say if it's a borderline call, I would call it in favor of the household. But other people can, I see you got your thumbs up, Carol. Other people can also weigh in on this. Right. I think it's a matter of prioritizing. So if, you know, if things change and suddenly you have a variety of different applications and you see that there's different sort of levels of need or they can showcase the need, then maybe you have to prioritize those that can show the most maybe. But if, if we do have extra funds and we do see that there's borderline cases, I would agree with John too. Yeah, I think it's hard when, you know, for other grants, you know, we'll use a self declaration if the population is presumed to have meet, you know, categorically meet the, you know, that, those provisions. So, you know, certain populations are considered low-income so they can self-declare. But for this one, I feel like if the word gets out there, then, you know, you could have people who don't really need it and they're going to self-declare. So, you know, I don't know if we've exhausted, you know, the households who may actually have an impact on COVID yet. So, yeah, I would, I just wouldn't want to then have, you know, a number of applicants who, right, may not be the highest priority for the program. Other comments? Carol? That's not the only way. I mean, there's also some income stuff that they have to show. Is there not? And so if they have had it, I mean, it doesn't seem like somebody kind of can get it who has no need for it at all because they're going to have to demonstrate a loss of income. Maybe the question about whether that loss of income was exactly related to COVID or not is, is a judgment call on somebody's part if they have to self-declare. But it doesn't seem to me like there's going to suddenly be a wave of people who don't really need the money getting the money because they can self-declare. Right. They still have to provide, they have to be income eligible, right? They also have to show a need. So they have to show that they don't have enough income or assets to pay their rent. So that wouldn't change. You know, it's just we've had, I mean, maybe I could, I don't, it's a public meeting and I feel like Amherst isn't that big of a place. So I don't want to give too many specifics about a couple of the cases that we've had, but people that I feel like have, it's COVID-related, it's just not exactly a COVID-related income loss and or they are having trouble proving it. And I, it, you know, it's, it's hard to navigate that. So I can talk, I mean, I can give us, give more specific examples to perhaps John or Nate offline, you know, and we could, I get their opinion about what it is I'm talking about. Yeah, Jen, I mean, I felt like the examples you gave us, even if it's like a secondary impact or, you know, it still seems like there's a, it's somehow it is still COVID-related. So, you know, I, I mean, to me, those, those didn't seem borderline. It seems like, you know, that there was a COVID impact there. So, you know, I guess someone would be, we could talk, I mean, we could meet, you know, next week and discuss that just to see, you know, how, you know, how tenuous are some of these, you know, COVID impacts, but the ones you mentioned to me didn't seem, you know, too much of a stretch really. Yeah, I agree with Nate that as long as we can get connected to COVID, I, I agree with you, Nate, that, you know, we should definitely make a decision. Because it connects, right? And especially those examples that you gave, I think those, those great examples that those folks should qualify. Because even if it's a secondary impact, it still has an impact from COVID. So, okay, I was definitely, I would support that. Round two has already been going on for close to four weeks, if not more, and we're not being flooded. So, I don't think I'm going to be too concerned, honestly, that four weeks from now, we're going to have too many people that we already approved and others who should have been approved that are going to get turned down. I'm more concerned about missing people, honestly, that need the funds and wanting to be sure that we reach out to them and make sure that we give them whatever assistance they need in order to be able to apply properly for the funds. I mean, do you think other households are applying to RAF rather than this program? Is there, I mean, I guess I would have assumed that we would have had more applicants, whether or not they'd been approved, I just would have assumed more applicants just because, like I said, we did, you know, we've let the landlords know now a few times and, you know, I've talked to a few bigger property managers. So, they're aware of the program. I mean, so I mean, I'm assuming that, you know, if a property manager that manages hundreds of units has tenants who are behind on rent, I would expect that, you know, they could forward, you know, a dozen or so applicants that they could get people interested. Maybe it doesn't work that way. So I don't know if there's other reasons. I mean, maybe because the moratorium is still in effect or, you know, I don't know if there's any reasons why they're not. Well, I have a number of people I'll recontact and ask what their success, the lack of success may have been in encouraging people to apply. You know, I'll particularly get back to school people because I'm surprised that there's no evidence that that's a source of applicants and a couple of others that I've thought of that I would push. I think getting to the Yammer Survival Center also is important, possibly also the housing court. Yep. Are the housing courts still in session? No. Well, no evictions, but I mean, I've talked to legal, I've talked to community legal aid, so they're well aware of the program. And again, I mean, I think it'll be interesting, you know, if I come back next month, what's different? Because I think that the moratorium is having a huge impact on people's sense of urgency. And so I do think that, you know, if on Monday everybody gets a notice to quit, that it's going to be a little bit different. I think that I'm concerned that the trick is the struggle is going to be for the folks who do not have a COVID reason. And there's a lot of people out there who are behind on their rent normally and have not been getting an eviction notice. And so those people are going to be a little bit stuck because they don't have a COVID reason. And so, you know, this program and a lot of the raft money which is geared toward COVID is not going to be available to them. So I think that that is just an aside of like a challenge that we're all going to have for some of those families. But I think by next month, we will have a better sense of if that's made an impact. Well, October 17th is Saturday. And that's when it ends. Hopefully it gets extended. But I guess Nate was telling me before that, talking to people at DHCD, he's not optimistic. I'm not optimistic either just because of the challenge to the governor of having done this. Okay. Thanks, Erica. Okay. Well, thank you for your report, Jenna. Is there any other way which might be helpful in supporting you? No, I think that we're just going to keep plowing ahead. And I will be in contact with you, Nate, about some of these payments to the landlords that I have to send you. And yeah, I'm happy to come back whenever with another progress report. All right. Okay, then thank you. And we'll move on to our next agenda item. There are at least three proposals that I know of to the Community Preservation Act committee for community housing. I should have checked earlier today, but I forgot to see if they had any more. That's it, John. I just had the website pulled up. Okay. Yeah, I was kind of doubting. But anyway, so there are three applications. Two of them come from the Housing Trust, which I sent to you last week. And one comes from Amherst Community Connections. And so I invited Wayling Greeny, who's the founder and executive director of Amherst Community Connections, to join us this meeting to talk about her organization's application for Community Preservation Act funds. So I guess I assume Wayling's on to join us. She is. Yeah, I'll promote her to a panelist. Thanks. And so just as a quick background for newer members, you know, every year, there's a Community Preservation Act money that's available and it can be distributed, you know, for historic preservation, open space and recreation, or community housing. And the trust both submits proposals and then often discusses the proposals and writes a memo to the CPA committee with recommendations or suggestions. So, you know, this year, there's three new proposals for housing, as John mentioned, two from the trust and one from Amherst Community Connections. I will say that the CPA committee has about a million dollars. They have anywhere from 800,000 to a million in recent years. There's debt service for previous projects. And then, you know, there's competition between dollars with current projects. And I think this year, between all the proposals, you know, they're well over budget. So I think there's a number of big proposals, so including one of the trusts. So I think that the CPA committee has, you know, is going to have some, you know, I guess what is it like 14, I guess now, I forget what the total is, 13 or 14 proposals, you know, for probably twice or two and a half times the budget that's available. So there is, you know, competition for the dollars. Okay. So is whaling on? Yes, I'm here. Okay. I didn't see you. I thought I clicked you the wrong button. I can see you. Can you see me? I can. I can. Thanks. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. So why don't you reduce yourself whaling, although I've sort of half done that, and then talk a bit about your proposal. I did send it out to people a couple of days ago. And since we have a packed agenda, I hope you can do this fairly briefly. Thank you. Sure. I can do that. Well, thank you. First of all, my name is whaling greeny. And as John introduced me as the founder and executive director of emmerced community connections. And I grew up in Taipei and I immigrated here in 1980. And I live in emmerced since 1994. And I have a proposal here I like to briefly describe to you. The CPA has been funding our agency since 2016 for supportive housing. And for the past four years, we have received CPA funding in phase one and phase two. And each phase we receive funding for three vouchers. And this phase three, we are asking for six housing vouchers between four to six vouchers. But we hope we can get six and the reason lay out in the proposal because of the anticipated needs increase, given the climate and the COVID-19 the need for the homeless to shelter in place. And that's the needs side. And also because of our track record in the past four years, we have 23 people who have lived in our housing that we provided. And these are people who are struggling defined as have met the HUD definition of chronically homeless, such as people who have been homeless for a year or more. And they have to have disability conditions such that they need intense service. So we seek out the most challenging, most difficult people who are homeless and they have co occurring issues with a substance, psychological, mental and physical. So we pick the most challenging population. And for the past four years, we have had 23 people in the program staying in the housing that we provide. And each one of them receive intense service on a weekly one on one basis. So of which 17 they have graduated or they are currently in the housing program. So those 17 people 14 indeed have received permanent housing vouchers. And right now we have three vouchers. So we have three people in the phase two programming. So in our statistics, we found 100% of them they are disabled. And about 50%, a little bit less, they experience tri mobility, meaning that they have co concurring occurring mental substance use in chronic medical conditions. And they are low income or no income about 100% of them. And over 50% of them they have significant core issues, means that they have been involved with the justice system, have significant criminal background. And that make it challenging for them to get housing. And we found over 50% of the 23 people that we have served living in our housing are people of color. And the female the male and female breakdown is 65% males versus 35% females. And their age tend to be the older side over 55. And their average number of years homeless is 10 years or more. And because of our dedication and intense case work, and their willingness to you know, work with us, because now they have housing. So it's much easier for them to come and go to their meeting with us one on one every week. So we are able to graduate them in six to nine months. When they get their permanent housing vouchers from the housing authorities or from subsidized agencies who provide subsidized housing. So that's a track record, I have to say never heard of six to nine months. And the reason we could do it is simply because we provide support service to them. And the cost of the support service per graduate is $5,000 in our estimate. And the trust, if you will approve of this, if you will support this funding, we spent about $7,000 from CPA funding per graduate to, you know, help them in combination. Therefore, at the end of six to nine months on average, they're on their road to recover and to get into their own housing. So the total cost is $12,000. And we had to provide $5,000 and the CPA provides $7,000. So through this collaboration, we are able to do what we do. And if you consider the cost side of the people who are currently homeless, cycling in and out of emergency shelter, jail, detox facilities, emergency rooms, all these social services cost money. So the social cost to the taxpayers is average $35,000. So that's a big saving, wouldn't you think so? If you spend, we spend $12,000, we save the taxpayer, you know, about $22,000. And considering the time only to pay $7,000 and the risk comes from ACC. So just from the cost benefit analysis, I would say this is a darn good investment on the people who experience homelessness. And we can do this because we have a very successful social service program. And the social service program focuses on four areas. One, housing. We help them get permanent affordable housing in six to nine months, given their criminal background, terrible rental history, terrible credit history. You wonder how we do magic. We do magic because we apply to hundreds of places and we help them go through their criminal background, sponge those, we could sponge for them and help them build credit and help them build good housing history because they are our tenants. And when they work with us, we do housing inspection so we can give them stellar good housing recommendations as a landlord. So you build things from ground up. So the first thing first is to apply to many, many housing places. And the second thing that we have to focus is we help them increase their income. If you don't have income, it's hard to get housing. So we help them get a job, coach them how to do interview, provide uniform if they are working, and we help them apply for social security disability income. And the third part is the wellness. We need to help them establish their mental, physical well-being because they have been on the street for so long. Many of them, as a result, suffered tremendously on their physical and mental health. And we work with healthcare providers in the area. And the last thing is the foundation building, which is something we are very proud that we are able to help them remove the housing obstacles, such as the criminal record and the debt that they owe. And we make referrals for substance abuse treatment programs. So with the support service that we provide and the intense housing application, that's why we have that record of having 23 people gone through the program. And we have 17 people have graduated on the road to graduation and 14 of them have vouchers already so far in a short four years time. So this time, we want to go a little bit bigger instead of the original three vouchers on phase one, three vouchers in phase two. There was one year we had an overlap that we have phase one and phase two overlap. And that year, which was 2018, we had six vouchers. And that was such a banner year for us. We were able to take many people off the street and give them housing. So that's a demonstration of our capacity to provide social service, to assist them. So this time I thought, let us do a little bit bigger because the time is different in a COVID climate. And in a Black Lives Matter, given you can see our track record, over 50% of the people we serve in the program are people of color. So for social justice, for COVID-19, and for the track record, I would like to ask you for your support, for us to receive six vouchers from the CPA. Thank you, Aileen. I'd like to give people a chance to ask questions or make comments if they have them. Anybody? John, I would just like to say how, oh, I'm sorry, Carol had her hand raised. That's okay. You can go first. Go ahead. I wasn't following the protocol. I'm just going to say how much I appreciate all the work that Wayne-Ling has done over the years. And she's always been there and has fought nobly and courageously and extremely diligently to serve the people who are most vulnerable. And I'm just so glad she's out there doing all that great work and really appreciate it. I would just say, I want to say first ditto to absolutely everything that Tom just said. And I was just wondering, Wayling, what influence COVID has had on your operations, whether it's harder for you to work with people, whether it's harder for them to find the jobs and do the other things they need to do. I just wondered if it's what difference it's made to do what you do, the wonderful stuff that you've got now in this COVID environment? Well, you got to do what you got to do. That's my attitude. So we have teams of people, our case workers, one team doing the remote work from the comfort of their computer, their telephone, their cell phone. They do that every day. But we have a team of workers in the office working face to face with the participants. So between the remote work and the face to face work, we are still able to serve as many people as we have served in general as our one stop resource center. So this year as of September 30th, our statistics demonstrated we have had over 500 unique individuals. Our center has served. So that's the same similar to last year. And the number of visits they pay to our office, or they pay to our workers who talk to them on the phone. It's even more this year because people are able to be reached by telephone. They don't have to come to our office because of transportation issues. That was an obstacle for them. But now we can call them, we can text them, we can email them, we can face time with them. We can do a lot of things with the technology. So actually COVID-19 brings us together closer to them. So that hasn't been an issue for us to provide service to them. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else want to comment? I would like to comment. This is phenomenal because I think one of the goals of our affordable trust is to address homelessness in Amherst. And this gives us the opportunity to actually do something very concrete and holistic. It's not just about providing a roof over someone's head. It's actually addressing the housing instability and the barriers for them to stay stable in housing. So I hope that we do support this. I think it's great work and it really addresses one of our goals for this trust. Yeah, I agree with what the other folks have said. One of the reasons why I support this is simply that there's no other organization in Amherst that's going to CPA to ask for support for a rental assistance program. There are other programs that come into Amherst, like Jay Levy's program, and to a much smaller extent Craig's Doors, to try to assist people with housing. But Wayling has consistently been out front on trying to help people get access to rents in Amherst. It's not an easy thing to do. She's developed relationships with landlords over time. People know who she is. And I also think that we should be supporting this application before or for Community Preservation Act funding. Yeah, Wayling, my only question is you say in your proposal that it could be less if the participants pay some of the rent, which we've been doing. So I think, like I said, there could be competition for CPA dollars. So it looks like you have $9.50 a month per unit and then you're asking for six vouchers. So would you, for instance, if the CPA committee said $800 a month and five vouchers, because I just think that your request could be over a quarter of the available funds. So I'm just thinking if the CPA committee wants to scale it back, is that doable for you? Can you scale it back in a way that you still have a program? Okay, let me address this issue. Thank you for the question, Nate. Because this program is geared for people who have been chronically homeless and they don't have to have income. Otherwise, if I have to demand, require them to have income before they can participate the program, then that means those who are struggling to find ways to apply for social security disability, and they are not able to get that money while they are homeless. And really, the reason is that we put them in the housing. Once they have housing, they are much able to remain compliant to apply to fill the stack of paper just to get 750 a month from the government. So much work. So that's one of the reasons we only ask them, if you are chronically homeless and you are the most challenging people, you don't have to have income. We want you. So luckily, that many of the people through our help, they are able to get social security income because they have a roof over their head once they are in our program. So that's when we can start to ask them to pay 25% of their income. So I really feel that if you make the eligibility requirement to ask they have to have income, then I am going to exclude a lot of people to participate in this program. So I would rather let you know, I am very frugal in my budgeting, and I would rather let you know that I will save every penny I can, but I need to have the flexibility to allow people who have no income in order to get into this program. So I understand that it's four to six vouchers. If CPA can fund four vouchers, five vouchers, six vouchers, a 950 amount, and I can still save money for the trust because we are able to successfully navigate through the bureaucracy, get them social security income, I am happy to give the money back, but I need to have that flexibility to keep the rent at 950. That's the going rate. Right now this year, the Emirates Housing Authority, their ceiling rent cap is 955. So I think I gave you a better deal, 950 instead of charging for 955, even though for just five dollars. I hope I have no questions. I was thinking to make that, you know, having income, being eligibility criteria just that, you know, I could see the CPA committee because you said you may be able to save 20% of participants' pay that the CPA committee may ask, well, why not do 750 a month instead of 950? So I just think that, you know, it's a question that you answered, but, you know, I think that they may ask if they read the proposal too. That's all. So I, you know, you explained why the 950. I just wanted to make sure, you know, like I said, it is a big request of the available funds. I think that we should decide whether or not we want to recommend the proposal overall to CPA. I don't think we should try to take the time on a speed to negotiate what's exactly the right amount that Amherst Community Connections should be asking for. We'll leave that up to Community Preservation Act committee to negotiate. I mean, I think we know they're going to be competing alternatives. So those issues will probably come up before CPA. And I think it's best to leave them to deal with it. Oh, yeah, no, no, yeah. I, you know, I was just, you know, kind of previewing the questions I think the committee may ask. Okay, great. Thanks. So I'm going to move that the trust asked the chair to write a letter to the Community Preservation Act committee supporting the application from Amherst Community Connections for its stage three supportive housing program. Is there a second? I would second that motion. Okay, I guess we need to do a roll call. So I'll do this by looking on the screen. I should have a list of people, but I see on the screen for me, Erica's next Erica. Yes. Carol. Yes. Tom. Yes. Rob. Yes. Paul. Stain. Francis. Yes. Sid. Yes. And I think I missed Will. Yes. Okay, did I miss anybody else? Okay, well, thank you all and thank you, Wigling, for coming to talk about your program with us. Well, thank you so much. I wish you a very good evening. Thank you. Bye-bye. Okay, there are two more applications that are not dissimilar to applications submitted by the Housing Trust in the past. I'm going to very briefly summarize what's in our applications. They also have to say that the deadline for submitting them was last Monday, so I submitted them without having the opportunity to ask for your review and approval. However, I think since it's only four days since I submitted them, we simply have the option of voting to withdraw either or both applications of accepting them as written or amending the proposal if that's what you would like to do. So let me take them one at a time. The first proposal is for consultant support. We have been, we've had a consultant with us and people don't know that position goes out to bid. The person who was selected actually three years ago and then recently reselected on a rebid is Rita Farrell, who's here. Rita's done a variety of important tasks for the trust. There were things we simply couldn't have accomplished without her assistance, which has been really valuable and goes to who she is, her background, her willingness to work hard, and her willingness to be flexible so that she helps us out when we need it and isn't billing us when we don't need it, all of which is part of the application. So let me ask, the amount of the money that we're requesting is about $20,000. We have a bit, I don't know how much, in our current budget from CPA and we spend about $10,000 a year or that's been the rate at which we've been spending. So an additional $20,000 would take us probably two years beyond the current year. So other questions, comments? I have a question. I don't object at all, but I wonder why the consultant services are separate from the main request. Couldn't they be part of it? If we wanted to spend more than $20,000, are we not allowed to? Could we not take it out of the $800,000 if we get that or whatever we get from the other one? I don't have a good answer to that, Rob. I think the first time that I recall submitting this application, it was included in one single request. And at that time, the committee asked that I break it out into two requests. And so that's what I've done ever since. So it's just become customer habit to have two separate applications. It may be cleaner from their point of view, since I agree the purposes are totally intertwined. But nonetheless, that's the way I've been doing it. And I'm not changing now. Any other comments or questions? Okay. So does anybody have any interest in withdrawing the application? Oh, hey, Rob. Sorry, I was muted, John. I was going to say, Rob, I think that there's a I mean, maybe a slight difference. And with the development funds, I mean, it could be we still could hire consultants that may be specific to a project, the general consulting money that Rita has been contracted with. Like John said, I don't want to say we have her on retainer, but it's it's nice that, you know, we have a contract and then, you know, she can provide services as needed. And so I do think though that if you know, there was a project and we needed other funding that, you know, we could use the development funds for consulting services too. So it's not, I don't think it's, you know, it doesn't exclude that. And we do that we use it to hire a wetlands consultant, for example, or others against those funds. Okay, so I move then that we accept the application as submitted without amendment to Community Preservation Act Committee. And I guess we should do our own call. So I'm back to Erica. Yes. Francis, you're on mute. Yes. Yes. Sid. Yes. Carol. Yes. Tom. Yes. Oops, I got to go back. Paul. I'm staying on this one too. Okay. Will. Yes. And did I miss anybody? Good. Okay. Thank you all. Then the second proposal is for housing development. And again, in the past, we've usually asked for housing development. In the past, I've asked for four or $500,000. This year, I'm asking for $800,000, or we are asking for $800,000, I should say. And I'll explain the reason for the amount when we get into executive session. I don't feel free to talk about that right at this moment. I will say that our history with Community Preservation Act is they have pretty typically given us some money against the amount that we've asked for. It's usually been maybe 50% of what's requested. I should also say that overall, community housing has done quite well before the Community Preservation Act Committee in the last few years. If you count both past obligations, for example, for rolling green and other projects that get paid off because they represent loans. If you include the funding for Wei Ling's program, funding for the Valley Community Development Program for first-time buyers, and I must have something else in mind, but I would say pretty close to 50%, if not more, of Community Preservation Act money in Amherst is now spent on housing. So I think we have a pretty good track record, and I hope we continue to do well with them this year. So anyway, the description is in the proposal. Basically, it's to enable us to fund housing development, which can include a subsidy to a developer. It could include purchasing land, and actually in the past year it included the development of the Emergency Rental Assistance Program. So there could be things that we don't actually anticipate that I noted in the application like that, which came up this year. And we need to be free to be able to spend the money when we think there's something that's important to spend it on. Questions? Okay, so I'm assuming that everybody has carefully read the application, and there are no questions or comments. That's good, because I am trying to rush ahead to get to other agenda items. So again, I move that we accept the application as submitted. I don't think we need to recommend it, the fact that we've submitted is in itself the recommendation. So we should take a roll call for people in favor. And let's see, I see Paul was probably going to recuse himself. Paul? I'll come back to him. Francis? Yes, the group. Carol? Yes. Will? Yes. Tom? Yes. I haven't said I'm a yes, too. Paul? Nothing. And I've lost track. Carol, did I come to you? Yes, okay. Anybody else? Erica, yes. And Sid? Yes. Okay, thank you. And Rob, did we say Rob as well? Oh, yes, I miss Rob, also. Thank you. I should make a list for myself rather than looking on the screen. Okay, so I will not change those applications. They go in and submit it, and hopefully we'll do pretty well as we have in the past. Okay, the next item is updates on state legislation. And we'll agree in between the last meeting and this one, I think, to do that piece for us. Sure. First of all, so, Nate, thank you for continuing to promote me back up to panelists. I'm sorry for whatever reason, Zoom keeps on crashing on my computer. So if it crashes for a moment, just give me a second and I'll come back in. So my apologies for that. And thank you, Nate. So there's a lot going on right now on the State House with respect to things that we might be concerned about in our capacities as members of the trust. I think probably most pressing is the eviction moratorium and its expiration on Saturday and what Governor Baker has proposed in lieu of a moratorium, which he's calling his eviction diversion initiative. I'm not sure if any of you have had a chance to read about this or hear about it. But basically what it calls for, the big two items are, he appropriates an additional $100 million to raft and about $50 million to home base. He is planning on increasing the eligible benefit or the maximum eligible benefit for each raft recipient from $4,000 to $10,000. And then there is a few other things, you know, money for TPP and a couple other like housing court mediation stuff. Pretty much everybody who's a stakeholder regards this as inadequate, whether it's, I think the Regional Housing Network, Massachusetts Community Action Network and the Massachusetts Area Planning Council are all on the record saying this is a start, but it's nowhere near what is needed to stem the tide of coming evictions. So that's kind of what's on the table right now. There are a couple, there are two different bills in the State House right now. The first of which is the Housing Stability Act, which is being proposed as the alternative to this eviction diversion, well not the alternative to the eviction diversion, but sort of this is like the sort of, if you're not going to extend the moratorium, at least you could do this. And basically what that would do is it would, it wouldn't ban evictions outright, it wouldn't be an eviction moratorium, but it would ban evictions, non-essential evictions if the failure to pay is attributed to COVID-19. And it would do so for up to for one year after the termination of the state of emergency. It would also ban rent increases with this carve out for subsidized units and housing trusts and stuff like that, or housing authorities. It would also provide assistance for landlords and what else, oh yeah, and it would limit assistance to renters making less than, making out more than 100 percent, 100 percent of area median income. That is, just to show you all know in case you're curious, that's the House numbers, or the bill number is H5018 on that one. And then the other, the other bill before the state legislature right now is the Emergency Right to Council bill, S2785, which is, seems a little more piecemeal, but it would establish several different, two different sort of pilot programs in each housing court jurisdiction, which would basically aim to provide, you know, like tenant right to council, which is something that we talked about a couple months ago. And, but it's, it's a little more piecemeal and small, small potatoes compared to the Housing Stability Act. And the, the last thing is, this is something that actually that John, you just cited for me, over the yesterday, about the, the permanent supportive housing money that was in the, the COVID supplemental budget for July. Apparently, there's about 5.8, there's 5.8 million dollars for permanent supportive housing that has yet to be distributed for some reason. Which it's unclear why that is the case, but you know, the folks at CHOPPA and elsewhere advocating for Governor Baker to hurry up and disperse the funds. So that's sort of what's on the horizon right now. I think as far as like what we as a trust want to do, I mean, John, we haven't had a chance to connect about specific actions that we could take, but I think that's sort of up for, up for discussion. So I guess, are there any, any questions about anything that I just did a pretty big data dump? So I just have a quick comment. So I know that there are a lot of municipalities that are very concerned about this moratorium ending and they were looking towards if there's anything they could do. And the only thing that I heard that they can actually do is impact their housing authorities and not allowing addictions there. I don't know how much we can do, but I know that at least what we're trying to do statewide is contact the largest landlords around and we're looking at seeing how we can work directly with them. So if there's any way that we can, if we know who the largest landlords are in Amherst and I think they're already aware of the local program for assistance as well as the raft program, but making sure that we can reach the largest amount to try to prevent addictions from happening, because the, once the, once the moratorium expires, the CDC one will be in place, but the it limits much more than the other one who is eligible for it. So whatever we can do there would be good. Well, we have a few options going forward. I mean, one is we can join the groups that are pressing on the governor and the legislature to pass legislation that would extend the moratorium. Nate kind of indicated that what he heard earlier was that the legislation simply isn't moving right now and the governor is not disposed to sign it if it does move. So I honestly don't know if that's a productive use of our time or not. You know, we have been in touch with the largest landlords in Amherst, certainly. Nate's been in touch with them and Janet didn't say this, but I believe that she was also trying to call them to see if they would participate in our rental assistance program. So we've been doing that and honestly, I don't know what the impact has been. You know, it doesn't sound like Janet's been getting a huge number of applications with landlords as referrals. In fact, the total number doesn't seem honestly very large to me. Nate. So the question would be, what should we do as the next step, if anything, at this point in time? I mean, I know through the housing coalition, I was urging people to write letters to the governor and to the legislative leadership and I know some people have done that, but that's about all that I know. Each of us individually also can do that. I did send out a note, which I think all of you received, about how to reach the governor's office, the speaker's office, and the senate president's office. If anybody wants to see that again, I can send it out again. I mean, John, I think, you know, we had Mindy speak to the trust a while ago, but has the trust that we submit anything on either of those bills or anything like that, you know, the right to counsel, did we at one time or, you know, is it something that we would want to, you know, we did formally support the right to counsel. In fact, we urge the town council to adopt that as well, and they did. So that's the only thing that I can remember specifically. I mean, I've been in touch with Mindy about these, but not necessarily formally speaking for the entire trust. I've also been in touch with Joe, and to the best of my knowledge, they are supporting these moratorium extension initiatives, but they don't represent the legislative leadership, unfortunately. Right. Yeah, I attended a webinar yesterday, you know, on the new help from the state, and, you know, they did say that there's about 85 communities that are doing local programs like Amherst, and they said that those are probably the most helpful to reach people that, you know, may not, you know, get in line for some of these other programs. Although it sounds like a lot of money there, there really is a, there could be a, you know, they're anticipating thousands of households that would, you know, still need assistance. So yeah, I mean, maybe, you know, just our rental program is really good, you know, is a good step. I am surprised we haven't had more action there, but you know, I don't know if it's worth it to try to push the other bill that Will mentioned, just the housing stabilization in a formal way. Yeah, I will say, just to go back to the first thing that you said, Nate, my impression is that just like community action has had problems in getting people into the program, I think many of the other towns and cities that have local rental assistance programs have experienced the same thing. I mean, no one's doing a statewide evaluation of these programs, so nobody knows, but we did have a kind of a round table that was sponsored by CHAPA maybe a month ago, and I participated, and my impression is what I just said, that everybody's having difficulty getting people into these programs and the numbers that we all thought they thought was consistent with the need. Right. Well, I do want to move on, so unless Will or anybody else wants to propose something specific that we do. Well, there's one specific thing, I mean, regarding the permanent supportive housing, would it be worth it? Do you think, yeah, we could just draft a letter to the governor as a trust urging him to release the funds for shelters? Is that something that trust would be open to? I certainly would be. I mean, that came from a note originated with mass housing and shelter alliance of the executive director, Joe Finn. So is there a second to Will's motion? I second it. Okay, so we'll go down and all those in favor of sending a note to the governor supporting the release of those permanent supported housing funds, say aye. Erica? Will. Aye. Francis? Aye. Did? Aye. Rob? Yes. Paul? Yes. Carol? Yes. And Tom? Yes. And I'm a yes. Okay, so we'll do that or I'll do that. And so we only have a brief time to go over the general updates. Erica and Rita have been working on a review of the strategic plan. It's not quite ready for prime time, but it will be by our next meeting. Either of you want to say something about that? Very briefly, what we do want to say was accurate and comprehensive. We do want to update it and we do have lots of recommendations. I don't think we have enough time to go through them and I think they're worth going through. But we also want to propose because it is in the strategic plan that there's an annual planning meeting and we'd like to propose that. So I think we should wait till next meeting to go through the recommendations that we have for everybody. And I don't want to shortchange the time. Okay, thanks, Erica. The only thing I would add is that something that Erica said, which I thought was really telling was that she had read the strategic plan when she first got onto the trust and reread it as we were going through this process of reviewing it. And she said, oh, now it all makes sense. So I would encourage everybody to take a look at it because it really it is an excellent document. I think most of the recommendations we have is really about updating it. But it's very thoughtful. And even if you've already read it once, I strongly encourage you to read it again so that we can have a good conversation at the next trust meeting. And, John, if we can't put aside at least 45 minutes to have the discussion, then I think we should have another meeting where we just work on the strategic plan. Okay, I'll do my best, but and we will send it out at least a week or two in advance to the next meeting. Okay, thank you both for your work. All right, required reading. Okay, the next item was reconvening the subcommittee on improved access to rental housing, which Rita was leading. Do you want to say something briefly? Sure. So we got launched and and everybody had their assignments and the committee members at Carol, Erica, both Johns were doing a little bit of work. Nancy Schroeder who's no longer on the trust and then me and what we were going to undertake and some of us got started was doing some surveys of a bunch of agencies to really understand what the impediments are to low and moderate income people getting access to affordable housing and then coming forth with some recommendations. So I'm checking with before I sent an email to Nancy Schroeder to see if she's continued, wants to continue as kind of an ad hoc member of this committee and I'll get in touch with everybody else to see where things stand, whether or not you did get interviews done and then kind of pull that back together again. So expect to be hearing from me, Carol, Erica, both Johns, very soon. Was Will involved in that as well? I think I was. But you didn't have an assignment, Will. I think I missed the last meeting because I just had our, we just had a baby. Right, okay, okay. Well, you're doing the legislative stuff. If you're interested in doing this, that would be great. I have one other thing to mention for this committee. There's been a statewide initiative to develop something called the housing navigator, which is intended to assist people in locating available affordable housing in the town or a nearby town where they live. And that apparently is ready for prime time. There'll be a workshop later this month. And I think if you look in the list of meetings upcoming, I provided a link or the name of the workshop and also a link where you can register for it if you'd like to do that. So if somebody's interested in it and they can't find the link, just email me and I'll get it to you. Yeah, sorry. Just to piggyback, it's a really exciting new initiative. It's, some states have it, but not a lot, I think would be one of a couple. And it's basically like Zillow or something, but for affordable housing. So it's really trying to bring it into the 21st century and have a proper place where anybody can easily find what's available. So I highly recommend either going to it or just looking it up on your own. But it's an exciting new thing we have. Yeah, I agree. A lot has been promised. I hope it delivers. Okay, moving along. Nate, can you briefly tell us the status of analysis of developability, I guess, of the East Street School Strait site? Yeah, we have a consultant for the wetlands and that's happening. We are going to bring that to the Conservation Commission as a full delineation. So previously, we just had the wetlands identified. They're flagged, but it wasn't actually approved. So we're actually going through with that this fall. There was some questions. There is a culvert across the midsection of the property near the back parking lot that is, and that's failed, essentially. So we're still going to delineate the wetlands and it may be that over the winter, we have a discussion about the culvert issue before, you know, if we put the property, if you have an RFP again, what, you know, what to do with the culvert. The other one is we have quotes back for a hazardous materials assessment of the building and I hope to have a contract out early next week. So we're just going through some of those estimates and seeing what, you know, there's a few things that may not be necessary. So we're just, you know, staffs reviewing those. So that's something that could be happening pretty soon too. And, you know, I will say that, you know, Berkshire Design did the survey. I'm hoping they'll do the wetlands survey. And the thought is to have, you know, a number of questions with the property answered, you know, the wetlands and the hazardous materials of the building. There's still the demolition of the building or preservation of the building, which was somewhat of a question when, you know, this was put out as a site for affordable housing earlier. So, you know, the trust could submit a demolition application to the Historical Commission or, you know, really determine what's the best route for that building. So, you know, there's a number of questions on the property. You know, one is the wetlands, which, you know, as we found out, probably a lot of the site is considered wetlands. So, you know, there's a backfield. And so much of the property, you know, half the property is not buildable. You know, and then we're doing a hazardous materials assessment just to know the building and maybe inform some decisions. And once that's made, I think, you know, the trust could push what, you know, what is the position of the, you know, the town and the trust on either keeping or demolishing the building. And so, you know, before we didn't, we didn't say one way or the other. And, you know, maybe if we're going to put this back out again as an RFP to find a developer, we just say, you know, we have, we have a direct, we provide guidance or direction on that. You know, the other one is, I think once we have more of this, I'd like to reach out to some neighbors again, just to touch base and make sure everyone's aware of the project. So, it's not, you know, there isn't a surprise at the 11th hour when this goes out again. Okay. And I think two things are happening. Strong Street. Strong Street, you know, I'd say not much is happening. There's been some other developments that are, you know, with the trust. Part of the executive session is about that. Staff has talked about Strong Street. So, I'm trying to get the wetlands consultant to go out there and start looking at that site. You know, and there's been some discussions about utilities with public works or, you know, what, what are the utility connections and what's feasible on the property. So, nothing concrete yet, but, you know, some, some things are moving slowly. Okay. Thank you. And then I'll just wrap up. Tonight was, I believe, the last ZBA meeting on the review of Amherst studio apartments or 132 Northampton Road. My sense of it was that they were moving toward approval of the comprehensive permit. Tonight was the night that they were supposed to decide upon all of the conditions that would be attached to that approval, assuming they do give approval. So, we'll find out. I know there was one thing that was pretty sticky up until pretty recently. There was a concern about local preference. We're narrowly with the property like this. There's an expectation that the developer will have local preference up to a certain extent in the initial round of receiving applications for the property. The town council had advised the ZBA that they might want the local preference to be in perpetuity, which was a strange recommendation. It appears that that's dead, that conversations with people at the Department of Housing, Community Development indicated that they would not accept an application for funding if that was a part of the deal. So, I think that will, is no longer on the table, which is good. I can't tell you anything else, unfortunately, about what conditions might be approved, required by the ZBA. Hopefully, they do not undermine either getting the project off the ground in the near future or the long-term viability. But we should know more about that tomorrow or as soon as we get a report back from ZBA. Right. I'll say quickly the, you know, when John said town council, I think, you know, I think you meant the town, the attorney, not as an... Right, C-O-U-N-S-E-L. Right. So, there was a discussion about could it be a perpetual local preference and that was actually, this afternoon it was decided that, you know, we wouldn't, the ZBA chair wouldn't really push it. It seemed as if it really wasn't feasible and DHC and others, you know, said it's really not something they would approve. So, I think that's not going to be an issue. I don't, you know, speaking with staff earlier this evening, I'm not sure the ZBA would be able to get through both all the waivers and conditions tonight. So, there may be a meeting next week. Yeah, you know, you know, the draft conditions, you know, there's already, you know, there's a hundred conditions. A lot of them are somewhat, I don't want to say boilerplate, but, you know, there's a lot that they're trying to capture in the decision in the waiver. So, you know, there was a draft that was ready for review and maybe they made it through it, but it is a lot of material. Okay, thanks, Nate. Okay, whipping through the rest of our agenda, are there any public comments? Any items not anticipated within the last 48 hours? Okay, so then I am going to move that the housing trust adjourn its regular meeting and reconvene an executive session. The reason for the executive section is, sorry. You're not adjourning the meeting. I thought we were adjourning the regular meeting. Right, but you're making the motion to go into executive session. The meeting continues just in executive session. You can't, you're not adjourning the meeting because you don't have a second meeting posted. Ah, okay. It's a no, I'm so sorry. Yes, no, that's fine, Paul. I've been corrected more than once today on illegal technicality that I did not necessarily have knowledge of. Okay, so I'm going to move that we end the regular part of our meeting and reconvene in executive session. The reason for the executive session is to consider the purchase of real property for development of affordable housing. As the chair, I declare that an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the housing trust in attempting to acquire this property. So we need to vote to approve to move into executive session. Again, I'll go by who I see on the screen. Rob? Yes. Paul? Yes. Carol? Yes. Sid? Yes. Tom? Yes. I'm a yes. And Francis? Yes. And Will? Yes. And I think I missed somebody. Erica, yes. Thank you, Erica. Pop up on my screen. So just before we, you know, I had sent a link to possibly have a different webinar, but right now there's only one attendee that's a staff person will be admitted. So we can just continue on as we are right now. We don't have to necessarily leave and come back. But I think you do, Nate, because anybody could come in at any time with this link. I can remove them, though. I mean, is that, to be safe, we can just, I can start the next one. Is that what you want to do that? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I will see you momentarily. See you all momentarily. Thank you.