 Good morning, everybody. And thank y'all for being here. I know there's a lot going on. So we had several folks who sent their regrets that they would not be able to join us today. But I'm excited because we've got a full agenda shouldn't take us more than are a lot of the hour but And I think that's some really good information. I know we've talked several times about housing trust funds and so we do have Mr. Michael Anderson here, who is the director of housing trust funds for community change that is going to make a presentation. So before we go into that, well, I guess Eric, I don't know if I officially called this meeting to order, but I'm officially called this meeting to order and would like to entertain a motion for approval of our September 14 minutes. I motion approval. Okay, Miss Matthews motion for approval is a second. Miss Bino reads second. All those in favor either signal by saying I raise your hand. Hi. All right, great. Our minutes for September 14 are approved. If we could move forward. Jim, do you want to go ahead and introduce Mr. Anderson for us please. I certainly will. I'd like to introduce Michael Anderson he's with community change our group met him years ago now. When we were researching solutions to the housing problem in Richland County in the city of Columbia, and Michael was a just a great resource for solutions to the housing problem, and I'd like to welcome Michael to our task force. Good morning everyone, or a good afternoon I should say, I guess it's 11 for you all I'm on the West Coast in Portland, Oregon, so it's eight for me. I've just enjoyed my coffee and I'm excited to be with you all. Today, we're going to talk about housing trust funds and particularly the impact of housing trust funds in Richland County in the city of Columbia. But before I jump in, let me say a little bit more to introduce myself. For the last 12 years, I have directed the housing trust fund project for community change. Community change is a national nonprofit that was formed after the assassinations of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy to fulfill not just their vision, but the vision of so many of a world where all of us. But particularly, people of color and people of low incomes have the tools and agency that they need to shape the communities that they live in. And part of that strategy for the past 35 years has been working with state and local efforts to create or to expand this model called the housing trust fund. So I'm going to pull up a slide deck here and take us through a presentation, and then we should have plenty of time for conversation and questions. I would say though if I'm moving through my presentation and there is a question, you know, I welcome you to, to raise your hand up and ask it and if I don't see it right away because sometimes when the presentations up on these zooms it's hard to see. And just speak up and get my attention. I think we have enough time here to cover all the material. So I believe I should be able to share screen. There we go. And we do this here. All right. So I said, I'm very glad to be with you all here to talk about this model the housing trust funds, as I will get into there's a both some methodology to it and reason why this is such an effective tool, but also it's a fairly simple prospect on the top of it, which is to say that a housing trust fund created by ordinance or legislation commits public dollars to meet the identified affordable housing needs of a community. So, let me catch up to my slides here. So, when we think of affordable housing trust funds, what we think about is the most popular strategy that cities and counties use in the United States to bring in public revenue to affordable housing deals to actually do what the community most genuinely needs affordable housing trust funds can do a range of things. But in fact, in South Carolina, it's defined pretty definitely by what's called the measure act. So I'm going to spend a little bit of time talking about that. And we're going to get into this larger world of what housing trust funds could do, and the impact that they have in communities. So, the measure act which is state law in South Carolina allows for cities counties to create housing trust funds or to participate in housing trust funds specifically to advance the development or rehabilitation of affordable housing. So, back to the very simple core of this, this is a tool intended to fuel the development. And whenever we talk about real estate whether we're talking about the highest end houses or whether we're talking about multifamily apartments, real estate always costs money there's no shortcut to it. The measure act also is pretty specific about the type of revenue that communities can bring in I'm going to get to that later on in the presentation. But suffice it to say that the key to a housing trust funds is not just the structures of what it's supposed to achieve, but the fact that there is money in it. So it can produce. So to say it in another way, you can have the nicest car in the world. But if it's parked in your driveway with no gas, it's not going to take you anywhere. So when we think about housing trust funds, it's not just what are they supposed to do is where is that fuel coming through the trust fund so it can produce the results that it's capable of. All right, so I think you all might be treated here I have two new kittens in my house and I cannot keep them away from my work area. So hopefully they won't be too disruptive. I do see them making their rounds. So, housing trust funds are in its simplest terms how local government pays for affordable housing, especially the type of housing that they need. We know that state programs and more importantly federal programs. We're not necessarily put together with Columbia or Richland County in mind. It's more the big urban or at least coast or West Coast cities. At the same time, you know, for working families in Richland County for seniors living on disability for young parents just getting started and starting out the money that they have in their pocketbook does not match the rents that they're being asked to pay. And it's not a problem that is been staying still it's a problem that's been growing and not just in Richland County around the nation. It's a crucial time for you all to be having this discussion about what can we do in the city what can we do in Richland County to begin to allow our fellow members of the county to keep their feet rooted in the place they love in the place that they call home. Trust funds are an extremely prolific popular model for addressing affordable housing. This movement started in the early 80s and has grown steadily through good times and bad times in the economy. Because housing trust funds deliver because it is a way for a local government to have control over federal state and philanthropic resources in a way that allows for planning and execution of an affordable housing strategy over time. So as more and more community see that success and communities nearby and from around the country, witness it and say we want to do that too. That's the story of the growth of the housing trust fund movement. It is this a story of success and solutions that keeps building on each other. Almost every state in this country has a local or state housing trust funds. South Carolina. Actually, I need to update this slide I just noticed because we have the Greenville housing trust funds. I was thinking that the South Carolina community loan fund was online and functioning, but it's missing the money, the money resources similar to Midlands. This isn't to say that those two trust funds haven't done some things in the community, but this fundamental purpose going back to the measure act to serve households with a preference of below 50% area median income. There's no short cut to figuring out where that subsidy comes from. At the same time, the, what trust funds, their success and their popularity is because they deliver, they are able to do serve the people that other tools in the community are unable to. So, as I said, trust funds continued even during this very strange period in our country with the pandemic and the economic challenges that have rolled out of that. We have seen across the country, new communities, stepping up to create housing trust funds. Fort Myers, Florida, a Hillsborough County, Florida and Winterhaven, Florida for a period of time, just as recently as three years ago, the state of Florida had two operational housing trust funds in the state. Now all of a sudden that number has more than doubled. And again, it speaks to both the opportunity when you create a trust fund to be able to meet the challenges in the community. But also how success breeds success as Hillsborough County enacted the housing trust fund, it inspired the conversations and the imaginations in both Fort Myers and Winterhaven. Winterhaven, which most recently became a housing trust fund is using funding from the American Rescue Plan from the state and local government rescue money to fuel their trust fund and get it operational out of the bank to put that first full tank of gas in the car and really take it out for a spin. But we've also seen Missoula, Montana, Knoxville, Tennessee, Albemarle County, Virginia all create new trust funds. Richmond, Virginia, which has had a trust fund for a while, but more than tripled the amount of money that they are committing to it from about 2 million and change to 10 million annually. Again, using American Rescue funds, as well as other local revenue sources to hit a mark that really meets the challenges that Richmond families face each month when the rent check comes due. So local housing trust funds, why, why their success and you know I talked about it at a high level but now I want to get a little bit more into the details, because local housing trust funds are able to do things that oftentimes seem undoable otherwise. So this gentleman that we're looking at here, he's from a small town in South Dakota. And when he was born, he was born with certain cognitive challenges that meant for his whole life his parents needed to take care of him. But as we know, anyone who they themselves and their family has a child with with challenges, or they have it in their broader family. And at some point that adults child needs a level of care that their parents can no longer provide. But in South Dakota, there was really no place for him. So he wound up living in hospitals and institutions until South Dakota pass its housing trust fund. And in the first round of funding was created a adult apartments for adults with disabilities, like Ralph here. And for the first time in his whole life, Ralph had his own room. And I show this picture. You know, I'm not a huge fan of Lone Ranger and Tonto but I'll tell you this, those are Ralph's decorations. He put that up on his wall. It was his first time that he had that opportunity. What an incredible thing that that housing trust fund allowed for him. And it's not just people like Ralph. It's our seniors who are expecting and hoping to age with dignity and peace of mind, having that comfort that they can stay in a community. It's for young families starting out when pocketbooks are often the tightest, being able to give it a go to thrive to get to that that exciting stage where both the kids are getting older, and the parents are earning more. We know that housing trust funds create housing that's accessible for a range of different abilities and challenges that allow for full participation for people who otherwise are cordoned off or not given the full opportunity to participate, including in the place that they live. We know that people experiencing homelessness is a challenge around the country, all sorts of people, certainly veterans, certainly families, the list can go on. But we also know that housing trust funds are a proven solution that creates housing that allows people even in these challenging circumstances to get back up in their feet to find that stability and to find a way to thrive. So housing trust funds contain several core elements best practice elements that allow them to deliver these results. The first is, where is the housing trust fund administered or who runs it. And again, this is where the measure act comes in. For South Carolina, the requirement is that there is a nonprofit entity that would run the housing trust fund that would administer how the funds flow, how people apply for them, make sure the funds are going to the right place. And in this light, we of course have in your region, the Midlands Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Again, the challenge with the Midlands Trust Fund is it's never had the resources in it. But also, well, I'm going to come back in a second to that. I'll go one step at a time. But then the next piece is related to oversight. This is another place where the measure act speaks and says that each year trust funds need to do a report on what they do and how those resources were used. This is a really important part of what makes trust funds work. You need, there's a compact with the public whenever you talk about using tax dollars and public money. And oftentimes I think the public gets frustrated in situations where they see their resources go into things where it wasn't intended or they don't feel like there was a delivery of bang for the buck. Well, housing trust funds, not just in South Carolina, but definitely in South Carolina, have a built-in response to this, which is to actually actively report on how the money was spent and to do it in a way when you look at trust fund reports from around the country, to do it in a way that really lifts up the story of the impact in the community. And this is why when we look at that number of 800 housing trust funds, there's probably less than 30 over the last three and a half decades that have folded up. Without exception, those ones that have not continued on the trust funds that have not functioned over time, that's because they never put any money. It was just a car sitting in the driveway and after a while you get tired of that. But all the other trust funds where the money's flown through, the results are clear, the community loves it, and they become more popular over time. The area that's probably the most fun to think about housing trust funds is what do they do? What impact are they going to make? What are the highest priorities in the community? And certainly the focus on the preservation and the rehabilitation and new construction of affordable housing is the core activities that trust funds do across the country. But they often do other activities that augment that, such as allowing for the purchase of land that would later be used for affordable housing, or making pre-development funds available so that nonprofit and other mission-driven developers have the resources up on the front ends as do private developers in order to be entrepreneurial, seize opportunities, move projects forward. Down to when we talk about housing trust funds that are successful working with people who are homeless, having some funding that connects for services that support those people so that they can thrive once they get into housing. There are many activities in between. All of these activities are the choice of the local community making it. That is, again, one of the reasons that trust funds are so popular is that it is a vehicle for local control. So there's a menu of 16, 18 different things that trust funds do around the country. There's a trust fund that was to serve Richland County for a trust fund that was to serve Columbia. It would be up to you all to say, well, what does that trust fund need to do? What are the activities that ours needs to focus its resources and energy on? The next gets into who are the people served by the trust funds? And trust funds, this is answered in two major ways. One looking at what is the income levels of the people served? And then the others are trust funds that focus and give priority to certain populations. So I say young families, seniors, people experiencing homelessness. It could be a range of things that the local community says, hey, this is where we really want to make a difference. So to give an example, in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, it is a county that has had a long legacy of caring about children's educational outcomes. Now, every place cares about children's educational outcomes. But in Kalamazoo County, there's a particular philanthropist who a while back did something called the promise for Kalamazoo. I might be calling the name slightly wrong. But basically what it said is, if you can graduate high school in Kalamazoo County, you can get a scholarship to the state's a state school, a tremendous opportunity. But the people in Kalamazoo County began to realize when families were struggling to keep themselves a stably house because of rising rent prices. And their kids all of a sudden were shuffling between their aunt's house, motel, that horrible night in the car. The educational outcomes for the younger students were beginning to put that these young minds in a place where graduating college was the farther and farther away. I mean, high school was farther and farther away. So this promise was a promise that they could not get. And the reason is a group of churches and congregations got together and worked with the county officials in the city officials over time and created a housing trust fund that specifically serves families with children enrolled in the schools in Kalamazoo County who are on the verge of homelessness or experiencing homelessness. And that passed in 2013, and actually went to the vote, and people voted a property tax on themselves. 51% of the people voted a property tax on themselves today for this new idea. It was so successful that last November in 2020 that tax the voters agreed at over 54% to increase that tax on themselves by seven times. The reason they did it is because it was working, because the lives of families in Kalamazoo County were changing. The opportunity that had been shut off was opening up. So when we think about who trust fund can serve that that focus that ties to the local culture, the local flavors, the sensibilities. This is what really unlocks trust funds and why we see that popularity, because it both has a structure, but then an ability when we think about who are we going to serve, and how are we going to serve them. Is this going to be a home ownership initiative is this going to be creating more apartments that are affordable to people at the very lowest incomes, all of that is the decision of the locality. Details around best practices such as deciding who's eligible to apply for the funds. In most cases, nonprofit and for profit developers are allowed in many cases housing authorities. Again, these are decisions that get informed by what you all know locally, and what you know would work best in your area. Then there's also parts to housing trust funds that take federal programs and look at some of what I'll describe as their weaknesses and make them stronger. So the best example that I have of this is many federal housing programs that give public money to developers only require those developers to keep the property affordable for 15 years. Well, most housing trust funds say, if you get a dollar of the housing trust funds is part of your financing package, you need to keep that affordable for 30 years. Well, that's more than just twice as long, because if you think of families living in an apartment for maybe four or five years, all of a sudden, instead of serving three or four families, you're serving six to eight families that's generational that a trust fund can create for a community. It's not just one apartment. It's that apartment in the public covenant over time and the difference that that can make for the options that a community has for people to live, especially people at the lowest income. Finally, we're going to talk about the dedicated revenue. This is the gas in the car. And ideally, trust funds have gas that each year, you get your tank fully filled up, you drive it down, you come back the next year, you get that same predictable full tank of gas to work with. And there are certainly a lot of examples of trust funds that don't find this sort of gold standard of the dedicated revenue and do more of a model of ongoing revenue. So to give you an example of the difference between those two in Kalamazoo County, even though they have to renew it for seven years, the fact that that property tax that they know it's there for each year we call that dedicated annual revenue. If we look at a city like Louisville, Kentucky, they for the last four years committed between six and 10 million annually from their general fund. We call that ongoing revenue. Both are good strategies. The differences in Louisville every year around the budget. There's another big debate going over the all the same important facts that Louisville has some real housing challenges and the housing trust fund is their best way to address them. The dedicated revenue is, is, puts the community in a position not to have a new debate every year but actually to execute a multi-year plan to be able to say that, okay, Columbia is not going to solve all its affordable housing challenges. Richland County is not going to solve all its challenges in nine months or in 18. But if we can know that we have this much annually to work within our budget, we can enact a strategy over 10 years. We can do things that are going to lay the foundation that the problems that families face now finding an affordable place to live will become part of the past. Because once you start developing and building up the infrastructure that is online and affordable over time. That's all the sudden where you begin to tip the scales and change the prospects for those people who are at the very, very lowest income. But it's a big deal to talk about public revenue. And in the measure act, which I'm going to get back to in a moment here, speak specifically in terms of what type of revenue. That said, I want to be clear about why it's so important that we have this ongoing revenue in an affordable housing trust fund. The first is that for communities to thrive, the people who live in those communities have to have some options that fit within their pocketbook. The stress alone for parents of wondering, am I going to be able to put it all together this month. Hey, hey, can I skip my utility bill or delay it. It's a hot month. I got all the air conditioning bills and other of the utility bills. That kind of day to day life is horribly taxing on parents and on anyone really speaking of people in their golden years for retirement. It's another thing. Why, why, why do we have people experiencing that kind of unrest? And that's just the stress part of it. Because oftentimes it doesn't just work out. Then there's the reality of what do we do as we're scrambling. And so for a community to be healthy for the fabric of a community to be durable, people need to have a place within their price range to afford to live. The second thing is the private market is not going to step in here. The purpose of the private development market is to make money. And if that's not going to change, that is the purpose of it. So when we think about the housing that's not being created by the market, that's where the public subsidies come in. And it's the lowest income households. And the reason is, is because that doesn't generate a lot of money. It doesn't generate a lot of profits. So the third is, and this gets to the planning factor to execute. And this, this body of folks, you are all intimately involved with what the challenges are for Columbia. You've looked at the numbers, you've crunched the challenges, you've examined solutions. And you know that the reason that you're all together is because your collective brain power, putting the different pieces of the puzzle together, being able to try to figure out what are the strategies that we can act. It's hard work. There's a lot of moving pieces. Having a housing trust fund that has predictable, dedicated ongoing revenue allows bodies like yours, allows government officials, allows county and city departments to execute a plan over time, because when we think about affordable housing development, and I'm probably telling you all something you all know, the financing alone takes sometimes years to put together. So if you know, at the beginning, when you're approaching, say, a tax credit deal and trying to get federal tax credits from the state awarded, if you know that the trust fund is going to have resources for you come 2022, that puts you in such a more competitive position to get those tax credits to get the other federal resources, other state resources, because the full financing package is there you can predict it you can talk about how it would all come together. And then finally, affordable housing cannot be relying on budget surpluses when our communities need housing trust funds the most new resources for housing the most is oftentimes when we're very far from a surplus. So that's why the totality of those four reasons is really cements this, this reasoning of why we need ongoing dedicated funding. There are examples of revenue from cities and counties. There are some that are very popular there's some that only one or two places to this list is a little bit of a difficult list to share in the sense that for the measure act. There's a real limit in what kind of funding a locality can enact the the act is very specific about both bond revenues and grants and loans from state and federal sources. But other resources of how how you would commit them general fund is on the table, and then Charleston County went to the ballot that very, very, very close in dedicating. And I call it out wrong. I want to say it's their public purpose tax but I'm, but a tax that was already being assessed committing a portion of it to the housing trust fund. So there are avenues in South Carolina for sure, to put the revenue into the housing trust funds, and, and, again, not really the determinant of what's going to make the trust fund go. The trust fund does go. It acts like a magnet. It begins to bring in other resources state federal and local to be able to now do the things that Richland County that Columbia has identified as the highest priorities. And we call this leveraging in our survey of city and county housing trust funds we found that city for every dollar that a city housing trust fund invests $6 come additional dollars come into that city for affordable housing development. At the county level for every dollar $8 and 50 cents. This is an example of how, when you put money into a local housing trust fund, it begins to drive the results of how all the other money is used. So it both brings in money that might not have otherwise come to a locality, but even for the money that was going to come in, it makes that those resources more precisely align with what are the things that need to happen locally what are the priorities that have been developed. So finally, I'm going to close out my comments talking about some of the trends that we've seen with housing trust funds. One is so when you think about how much resources that you need for housing trust funds. That question is often more about political will, then it is about need there's no question. So in the studying that I've done of Columbia and Richland County. I think the county could have a housing trust fund that had $10 million a year flowing through it and easily, easily deploy that money into the community with great impact. So politics is probably we're not in that 10 million range. But one of the strategies of getting there is to look at how can we layer multiple revenue sources so we have the American rescue plan funds available right now what a golden opportunity that communities across the country are beginning to take advantage of. And that would be a great example of something that's totally eligible within the measure act that could really be that that first, that first tank of gas. And when we end, and I'm telling you maybe I'm going a little bit too big on this car analogy. But when people start stealing seeing that car tooling around time, people going to be impressed and say hey we need to get more gas in that car. You know, multi jurisdictional housing trust funds. So, in city right Midlands housing trust funds is a regional housing trust fund. So this is a good thing in the sense of, you know people don't just live in Columbia or just Richland County I believe, and I'm going to forget this is embarrassing right because Columbia is actually in two counties I believe. So, or on the edge of another county so people live in regions you know that makes sense to have a regional housing trust fund. However, the challenges of it and we've seen this a little bit with, you know how for for Midlands for the South Carolina community loan fund is that often meeting the needs of a community. It's different. It's difficult to do in in in a broad cross regional approach. And so, and still have the precision that each community needs. So, I'm not suggesting that regional is that is the direction that you all would go but just to say this is a possibility. And that's why I think thinking about Richland County why just like Charleston County was thinking with the cities within it we need to do something county wide it's that's different than regional but still I think a strategy that makes an extraordinary amount of sense for the Columbia Richland region. And then I talked about winning at the ballot and again we know that that's not the end of the story of what happened in Charleston County last 20 last November 2020 but that election night across the country voters did support housing trust funds. Charleston County was the tough story and it came within a percentage point, much less percentage point of winning. So, that might be something's like boy, we're not going to take this the ballot this guy doesn't know our area what's he talking about. Well, what I am talking about is places that never thought it was possible when they explored it and actually tested it with the people did see that avenue to advance it and win so again I'm not trying to be directive and in what the pathway here is, but to say that lane is more open than you think it is especially with with closer in spectrum. So, um, I said a lot I talked for almost 40 minutes I told myself I would be quicker than that but I will now open it up to questions and in this presentation and happy to have any kind of exchange with you on what I said or if you have questions about things that I didn't bring up that you're interested in. Michael Councilwoman to ratio has a question she put in the chat. She just said that she was informed the ARP funds would be tricky since they all need to be spent with an allocated period of time. Is that something you could speak to. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, that's why housing trust funds are such a good vehicle for those funds because committing the funds to the trust fund meets the threshold of what the federal government expects. Because it's in the trust fund it's already defined it will be used for affordable housing that will be serving these income levels. That's the threshold that the federal government. I mean we all know from affordable housing finance, even if literally they said you need to have this money and such and such that like somebody's going to get a key and open an apartment. So if you turn around for that if you were doing a direct allocations with development deal is longer than the timeline of turning around the money. So by that same logic if it's committed to a trust fund that already says well this is where it's going to go. That meets the threshold and that's, you know, I mentioned the cities and counties from around the United States that have used this fund. All those cities and the counties have attorneys and they very much look to say hey is this the way these funds can be used and the answer is definitively yes. Other questions and I can't see everybody screen so if you want to just unmute yourself and jump in you don't have to wait to be recognized. Michael, can you speak to establishing a trust fund through a third party. We're using. I think it was community works. Yes, so the measure act, and this is something that's that's different for South Carolina than for any other state which is that to have a trust fund in this state it must be run by a non governmental organization. This uniqueness is also an opportunity for so for community works in Greenville, the, the purpose of admission of community works really aligned tightly with what the city of Greenville was hoping to achieve with their housing trust funds and having that alignment, particularly around the income levels served, particularly in this relates to the income levels. If you want to serve people below 50% area median income, you really need to be doing it with grants. Loans don't work from a financing standpoint. And I don't know if it's exactly 50% am I in Richland County it might be a little bit higher, but loans don't work for the overall financing in terms of reducing rents once you get to a certain size of income level so you need to have an organization that is aligned around these, these goals and able to deliver around these goals. I think that's it so it's a combination of what the how the trust fund is written. And we recommend that it is as specific as it can be about what your goals around specific income guidelines are. So who you want served. You need to have that third party organization really being aligned and able to deliver are at that income level. Excuse me, I got a little frog in my throat. So, I don't know, Jim, if that's the full answer you want if you were wanting me to get into more detail. That's good. Thank you. Hey, I had just a quick question that's it came as divine. Since we have an existing regional trust fund in Columbia is that an opportunity to be a vehicle for possible dedicated resources from the city or the county, or since it's regional other counties as well since we need housing in all areas of the Midlands for people. And that was just a quick question again. No, it's that's a huge question and a very good one. And you all are closer. You, you are in Columbia, I'm in Portland from my vantage point as I studied it and the discussions that I've been engaged in. I think there's a couple challenges with the ability to just directly put money in the Midlands housing trust fund. The first is the income level served is that the priorities for, you know where the need is the greatest in Richland County and Columbia, what Midlands has been focusing on is income levels above that. The second thing is the loan and grant issue that my understanding is that Midlands housing trust fund is almost exclusively or almost, you know, maybe with a couple exceptions is really about loans and you doing a loan fund. It's a fine strategy, it just doesn't serve people at the lowest income. And then the third area is around, how do you segment a region, if it's a regional housing trust fund how does Richland County assured that the resources that the county puts in, come back to the city or how is Columbia assured that what the city puts in comes back to the city. And so that's that's a structural challenge where there's I think a couple different ways you could approach it. I certainly think scripting how the money would come in from the city or the county to the trust fund with specificity about the income levels about the grants and loans, and about where those resources could be used is certainly one way that would also require, you know, some shifts within Midlands in order to achieve that. So, so it's a potential, but it really those structural issues need to be figured out before it actually is a match at this moment. That's my understanding. Jennifer, I was just actually before you came in, I was going to jump in and just kind of give that history so I know the way Midlands Housing Trust Fund was set up was kind of for that intent that started under Mayor Bob and and I think just once he was, he retired, there wasn't really a whole lot of regional cooperation on finding the supports for Midlands Housing Trust Fund and I was trying to look doesn't look like Jeff is on this morning but you know, I think part of our task forces charge is to continue to look at all avenues and look at, you know, things that we need to recommend, and if there are things that need to be changed as well that you know that certainly could be done. So I think from what I hear Michael saying the income and the loan is a more structural issues that doesn't mean that that bill couldn't be used but if you know it could, we would might need to have some changes to the way they were organized or their mission. So, and I hate to speak for Jeff because he's not one here, but I do know that that was part of the conversation initially. And I'm just wondering, Michael, I don't know if you know or I remain no since Greenville is her old start on the grounds but how does Greenville, because you mentioned I guess that's the only one that's functioning right now in South Carolina. How was that funded and I was trying to look online I just didn't see specifically like where they get their funds. And I was, the fund actually was started when I was there in Greenville. It was the housing trust fund was a component of the community works organization. And so what they did was they just revive that trust fund, and they created parameters targeted areas targeted individuals that they would serve under the trust fund, and the first so they hired a an executive director who runs the trust fund, and they also received their first allocation of funds came from the city of Columbia. I mean excuse me the city of Greenville, and then they also received a small allocation of funds from a philanthropic organization, and then they receive the small allocation of funds from a church. And Cindy, you want to add any other information to that. No, it was the initial the initial funding was general revenue funds from the city of Greenville, the city actually started the fund with $2 million that came from the city itself. And then they reached out and have expanded it more into philanthropic donations at this point. And so they have a lot of philanthropic funds that come into into the Greenville housing fund now. It doesn't sound like it's a dedicated funding source though. Right. Not. No, it's not. It was a it was a beginning funding source with the intent that they would then go out and find other funding sources to keep renewing it. Yeah. We just spoke to Greenville and they committed 4 million this year to the fund. The city committed additional funds from the general fund. The city general funds, and they did indicate that the city would do that periodically but it's not set up that it's like an automatic annual renewal or anything. It's as the city looks at its budget to determine what's available. In conversations that I was having. And thank you both Cindy and Ivory I think the Greenville story is a great one and if you both played a part in it. Congratulations. I do think this allocation this recent allocation of 4 million when the initial was 2 million though does underscore. Once you see what the trust fund is capable of the appetite to do more increases. And so it is true that is neither dedicated or ongoing it's periodic, but it's also I think important to note that doubling of what the public commitment would be. My initial conversations with people with people from the city of Greenville and then the consultant that was working on the project. The initial concept was, if the city put this first 2 million in that philanthropy would match it be like at that level. And that never quite came to be there's been good philanthropic contributions but not at the intended level. And so the results of the trust fund were, as intended, and that's what I think spurred this next level of public investment. So especially I mean, you know, going I am talking a lot about the American rescue plan, I just think it's such a marvelous opportunity to really kickstart something and demonstrate what is possible. And then that changes the parameters of the discussion of well how much, how much public money should we put in do we have to put in becomes like, look at the results we have, how can we do more of that how can we make more of that kind of impact in our community. And that switch in the conversation is very key to the increasing of the resources that go into the trust fund. Well, thank you Michael appreciate it does anybody have any additional questions. I know our finance committee is looking at different things trust fund is one of the things that they, they put on their list and so having this level of detail is helpful as well. Thank you so much Michael we appreciate you. I appreciate all of you to working through this and struggling for Columbia to be to be what it needs to be a home for everyone who lives there so thank you very much. Best of luck. Thanks. Brenna and well sister Brenna and Jennifer I think Jennifer both of you do. I think that's the only committee that we had talked about that might have a report today. Do you guys have a report for us. We do and I'm looking I know Brenna had a meeting so I think she might have already dropped off. I'm just messaging sorry, but we do so we have the joint efforts of the community education and the partnership many others she is hello. Sorry miss you. So I'll start and then you please fill any gaps in brand. But thank you to every member of the members of that committee and thank you for Brenna's leadership as well. So what we've done is we have developed an outreach strategy that we'd like to start in the month of November. Focusing on outreach conversations with neighborhood groups targeted corporate or business community groups, or other just entities that we feel like could be one of two things folks that could be strong advocates for the message of affordable housing, and then also folks that we may have, you know, perhaps some hesitancy or maybe some enhanced education efforts might be needed. So we're thinking of using kind of the storytelling approach so folks can talk about what housing means to them personally or how they see it impacting the midlands community so obviously all of our different entities we think are going to have different approaches so if we are talking to a neighborhood group, we might be talking about the value of having quality affordable housing in that neighborhood. If we're talking to the business community we might be talking about affordable rental to retain young professionals that we want to attract and keep in this area so the message you might be a little different for different audiences that still would ring true to that concept of the value of affordable housing that we all know and believe in. So, Brenna has set up a Google document that will circulate with this group soon to get folks who would be interested in being a storyteller. You know we have talented speakers out there so we would love to have each and every one of you, or if you could help us identify additional folks that would be great to carry that message. So we would like to start that soon. The one thing that we really would love to have from the other subcommittees or maybe the whole group is if we could get maybe goals for affordable housing. And if there are specific asks that folks want us to make beyond just the educational aspect of it because we, you know, it's our goal to get folks engaged in that conversation and become, you know, advocates but then we do want to have that ask of them what do we want them to do, you know, in support of the work here. So I guess is that other subcommittees can help us refine that we would love, they would send us, you know, notes from their group or what they feel like those steps would be so that we can refine those talking points because we do want to have, you know, an individual approach from all of our storytellers because everybody has their own voice and they're in story right, but we still want to have some commonality about what that ask is, so that we have consistency in the community. I think that's where we are what anything I missed, Brenna. I think that's what I have to. Okay. So this input that you're seeking and I know Brenna will send the Google Doc. If you're looking at starting this in November, are you asking for that input to come by November 1 or what. That would be great because what we love to do is go back and try to put that into some common like talking points that folks could use again tailored to the audience and the message that they have based on their personal voice. We want to go back and then look at the have a committee look at that for us. I don't know if that needs to come back before this group or not. So, so definitely, you know, folks let us know that so we want to make sure that what we are saying truly reflects the spirit of the intentions of this group as a whole. But definitely at the committee at the individual committees. Like if the, for example, the finance committee is is going to propose particular strategies that they think are important to for us to advocate on we love, you know, just what those 123 and however many are. Same thing the zoning and the legal. They had very specific things they were looking at around inaccessibility and land use policies and things like that so if there's specific bullet points that you want us to include that would be super helpful for us. Some great thank you. The only thing I would say when you said goals. I know we talked about like maybe in December of this group coming together and setting like annual goals, maybe, you know for 2022 and so forth. But if you're not there yet is that what you're asking or keep it more general right now because we don't have that information and data yet. Yeah, I mean we don't want to hold up the outreach portion so if we could get, you know, those call to action items together I think definitely the goals could be added later. So, yeah, I think that would work. Any questions for Jennifer or Brenna. Awesome thank you ladies. And I could not make it today. And Sue, I think Sue could not make it either, but I don't believe they have a report. Reggie could not make it, and I don't believe he has a report. And then Julianne I think was going to try and make it Julianne did you make it. Okay, that's what I thought so our other committees I don't think have reports. So we are right at 12 o'clock. Is there anything else that anybody has any questions about anything you're working on that you want to give some announcements on. Yeah, no. I'm trying to look. I don't think they're here either. Any, anything else for the good or nothing else there, I will just say. Thank you guys are next meeting will be in November. I did hear from from Reggie finance I think we'll be having some kind of input. We'll be meeting and then legal and zoning may as well. I do I think since I got the email I will be remiss if I didn't say. For our group here we have been blessed to have Mr right as the legal people from the city on on all of our meetings. Now I'm going to be transitioning and no longer with the city of Columbia city attorney's office. But I'm assuming possibly that he'll still be working with us. If Patrick do you want to say anything thank you he's always on these meetings y'all to give input and he's taking notes and making sure that as we move forward on the legal standpoint from the city is very important. But Patrick you want to say something. Well I know. Currently you're my council woman, and then council woman to ratio has been on here she just, I think dropped off but she will be my council woman. Since I'll be with the new county attorney for Richmond County so still involved still trying to take care of the citizens of Columbia and Richland County. So yeah I'll still be involved. So of course from the city of Columbia standpoint we hate to lose you but I'm excited about you being county attorney, especially what as we're talking about this and regionalism and you know, Council woman to ratios is passionate about these issues as I am so I think having that bridge, because there's a lot of things the city and account will have to work together on to move these issues forward so having that continuity with you will be amazing but thank you so much for always being on these meetings and and giving your legal advice when we need it. No problem. Welcome. All right well no one else has anything I see a bunch of congratulations in the chat. No one else doesn't have anything we will see you next month thank you guys and thank you Jim for bringing Mr. Anderson to to our presentation today. There's a lot of great information. All right, y'all have a great day okay.