 one and welcome to our community development committee meeting the first one of the year and I'm still gonna say happy new year even though I was told that it's improper to do so after the 14 I might break and roll so we're gonna go forward with that the first thing that we're oh I also want to invite I'm happy to have he's an orientation today our new council person and new future member of the committee this is orientation for him today mr. Tyler Bailey and so we're glad to have you will I'll let you know if you can talk we'll see we'll see but this should be a fun one and I think we're gonna get some great information today so will you got anything to add to that madam show this more can we know for the record that we have mr. Brennan and myself here as well as orientation for mr. Bailey alrighty so the first thing that we have on our agenda today and I'm super excited about this is Homeworks of America for those of you all who don't know we used to fund Homeworks back in I always say back in my day maybe twenty twenty five thousand dollars to do the work that they do and I wanted to present this emerald to everyone because when I saw the information I was absolutely amazed and I believe that they could be a great great great partner this gentry for redeveloping a lot of our communities and at a really low price point which I think folks will appreciate so I am going to invite up mr. Joe Huggins and you go to the mine so we heard is that something for us we're all nice around the table so are we ready yes yes whenever you're ready well thank you everybody and good morning and thank you again for hosting us here and I want to thank Ms. Tina Herbert who has become a quick fast-deer friend of mine and I'm certainly a longtime friend of Homeworks and so we're very thankful and so rest of the council good morning and thank you for having us once again I am Joe Huggins executive director of Homeworks of America I have with me Ms. Madeline Smith she is our operations director at Homeworks as well as our health works coordinator on one of the programs we have inside off the bat homeworks our mission is to show God's love through serving those in need by repairing their homes assisting youth in their development and empowering communities to care for their own I'm a big believer that mission statements need a translation into English so we provide free home repairs to elderly disabled and veteran homeowners who qualify we use student volunteers I don't want to get hung up on that we work with anyone that's willing to come serve with us so adults whoever it may be our passion is students high school middle school high school and college kids that will come serve along with us we're more recovery based and disaster response obviously if something bad happens we want to get there and help but our our mantra is five and six years later after the flood we're still working on flood homes I'm currently as we speak so we are recovery based moving along we have a four pronged approach kind of our our four pillars or our business approaches there one of them is health we're looking at homes now to see what is making folks unhealthy in their home whether it be air quality or trip hazards or getting in and out of their home affordable housing is something we want to focus on today obviously also workforce development we're working with students right now as we speak teaching them trades such as carpentry the rest of the week we're gonna be working on two homes in the city with students there with plumbing electrical painting and that kind of stuff and so if we can get them interested in the trades we hope that I'll get them excited about workforce development here in the future our DNA is the gospel we want to love people where they are and I tell folks we're not a faith-based organization we're Christ centered everybody in this room has faith and gravity doesn't change the way we look at people our DNA that's what we try to do but obviously we're here to talk about affordable housing and what we can bring there we want to get homes warm safe dry and healthy we do a lot of roof replacements our founder 27 years ago said if we could get folks dry that's half the battle weatherization safety and fall protection when I first came to homework seven years ago you know we were replacing a deck on a lady's mobile home and I was kind of thinking what's the big deal about a deck well when you have a meeting with Prisma and their ambulatory care and if first responders cannot get in the home to get a heart attack victim out that's a very big deal and so we focus a lot on egress in and out of the home we do a lot of painting as I said we work with middle schoolers and we hope more paint gets on the home than on the ground or then before they go home during the day and we also do a lot of bath and kitchen retrofits we have a lot of volunteers that work with us that are two and three person teams that we can send in and retrofit bathrooms not only for mobility but we know where there's water in the home there's a leak where there's leak there's rot and so we want to replace those floors and get them safe so they're able to use matter of fact we're working on a bathroom right now that the lady hasn't been able to use for the last two to three years and so I'm getting her a bathroom into her home is going to be a life changer obviously for her fast facts our repairs usually cost five to seventy five hundred dollars all in per home with volunteer ism we can keep prices down is pretty much materials and then we take advantage of that volunteer service labor to get the work done average we're about 120 homes a year I'm throughout South Carolina most of those are located in the Midlands I'm proud to say that we in 2023 we repaired 65 homes in the Midlands since 2017 221 in the city of Columbia proper so we're here we've always been here and look to and look to work close to home we have a waiting list of about a hundred to 150 folks that are approved and ready to go so there's a huge need out there our office average is about 20 to 25 calls a day for folks seeking help so the need is there and and what we're here to do I guess scientifically or technically is we want to extend the life cycle of that home Columbia South Carolina is full of well-built homes that are from the post-war boom 50 60s and 70s that are just well-built good bones but like anything wood rods and you know and roofs have to be replaced and so if we can go in and extend the life of that home anywhere from seven and a half to 15 to 20 years that is a win for everybody especially our homeowner our requirements our board approved eligibility is home ownership we're not going to be able to do anything that's landlord or rental type and we want to take care of those that are on the low income to very low income with the HUD guidelines and we also look at family situation we want to be good stewards of donated dollars so if you have folks that are helping from the outside or if you have the ability to go get work we want to help those citizens of Columbia that that are that are elderly that are disabled and they can and so we want to take care of them especially first our handshake agreement as you've been there at least five years before we get there and you'll be there five years after we leave we don't want to get into a situation where we're fixing up a home for someone to sell but this is usually not a problem because either a husband or a father built the home that they're living in and they're not going to they're not going to leave and then we're starting to look at health criteria as well not emergent but if we have a home that comes across that they need a ramp that they need a deck to get in and out we're going to prioritize those for safety health and safety reasons like I said I stole my own thunder since 2017 we have repaired 221 homes in the city of Columbia and we want to look to increase that an average of anywhere from 30 to 40 a year we want to take that to 100 we want to move the needle and that's what we're what we're about just want to let you know we've got a very experienced team we've got the capability and the horsepower to do this Chris Kemp is a dedicated construction manager or organizing all of these homes in the scope of work and here recently we were able to add Mr. Roy Kramer who retired from Habitat of the Midlands gives us an all-time quarterback on every one of these homes so we're not just throwing volunteers out there to try to get something done we have over 40 years of carpentry and building experience to get quality to get quality work done volunteer depth our volunteers are traditional they've come from all over and we are never out of room for volunteers but like I said we will work with anyone that comes along our way one of the things I wanted to bring to your attention is the many contractor relationships we have with contractors here in Columbia that when we run into a problem that's a little bit more than a college kid they can come in and help us and they love to give back and we have several homes a year that local contractors just say Joey I got it just give me the address and we'll go do this so Columbia has a big heart they have a great we have a great heart and we love to take advantage of that wanted to let you know we never want to lose our nonprofit family feel of what we do but we do have a track record of program experience we're on year six of Charleston County CDBG which is averaged about $150,000 a year that limit is on them it's not on us we could handle more we're on phase three of Charleston County ARPA to the tune of about $130,000 a year down there we're on year five of Richland County CDBG and that's growing and then for also big program experience we went to Florence County met with the Darla Moore Foundation she gave us a three-year contract to do 83 homes we did 96 and this more typically doesn't go after year three but we're on year six with her and hopefully year seven when we hear that so if we could please her I think we could please anybody but I just said that on there anyway all right bold vision we would love to do a hundred homes annually here in Columbia at about an average of $500 a $5,000 so we're looking to put together a program of about $500,000 to go move the needle it's bold for us but I think we can do it and we would really love the help of the city in any way to be able to help our to help our citizens what's driving this not only is the vision of Miss Tina but I heard the mayor say in one of her meetings that in the next season we're going to need around 16,000 housing units in Columbia homeworks is not going to solve that problem it's got to be done like the mayor said through development through through government through private development but also I think we can bring something to the table to to extend the life of a of a of affordable housing that we already have the cheapest house is the one that's never built and I think we can be a part of that solution so thank you all very much and we return on investment extents into the structure life we mitigate the health and safety issues weatherizing homes and the 100 homes that we could do is probably an estimated of savings of nine million dollars in wraparound costs okay before we open the floor for questions video certainly if you want to run the video we would love to I love the video no you're gonna love the video it's how stuck right off of no one so that's whose house is oh peter should be here peter was just talking about mealwood and your bank through our church where there is a opportunity to put a roof on someone's house and I was more than happy and wanted to jump on that so I enjoy what I got to do and be able to use my hands be able to work in the community and be able to be able to bless homeowners that were in need I definitely saw the opportunity and wanted to just be a part of it I enjoy it and thankful that I get to do it from the start I mean a pretty good idea what you're going into you're not going in blind and misunderstanding what the work's gonna be we came in and we worked on her roof the day that I was here worked on her soft fit interfacial we did the repairs underneath and the knee walls up in the roof and we're able to get that square away and seal it off and more proofed and all that good stuff so she wouldn't have to worry about well me and my friends talked about maybe signing up together and we just signed up online and we were in the same group so we all worked on the same house and site together I was looking forward to trying some new skills and learning how to do some things so repair houses I think homeworks is a really great way to connect like younger people with the older people that we don't really interact with on a daily basis and we can just see how like even though we may not even know them we can help out and we can serve a purpose in their life that really means a lot to them I was married for about 27 years before I got divorced and then I moved in my own apartment on Broad River Road and after that I moved in a few other places and my father passed away and I moved up here on page with my mom I moved in this side and my mom was on this side level one and I was level one in the head so I stayed with her until she got she and passed away with Alzheimer's and heart trouble so once she moved once she moved in the nursing home and I still stayed here so then I had the whole house to myself so after that then the house of course needed some work so when I talked to my brother my sister and different family members but of course nobody could help because nobody had that kind of money because my parents took care of this house when he was alive my mom and my dad but once I could move then I didn't have the finances to do all the stuff that needed to be done so I had three leaks I got one leak fix and then the other two leaks didn't get fixed until I till homerooms got here and then I had some um what you call the things up on the roof shingles I had some shingles left over and I'm using my shingles and they fixed the whole thing where I had leaks and where the leaks were beginning to start that I didn't know but they fixed that so I only found out about homeworks when uh one of my insurance insurance people forgot me into insurance they called and told homeworks about me and I was so grateful because I'd done everything else I could do and I couldn't get no help so I was so grateful for homeworks oh I feel a lot better a whole lot better a whole hundred and a hundred and fifty percent better than I did before and I always tell people about all works I'm just always bragging on this house so I'm gonna hold my questions maybe well no um well no so this is very important to to us from a city perspective um because I don't when was the last time y'all were funded I want to say it was 2017-18 I want to say I have to go back and look but if you if you are considered underfunding what does it require of the city what does that arrangement look like from and I just I'm too I don't remember from back in the day we just cut checks our I think our original arrangement was just a grant that we applied for and so we uh we took that and that purchased materials for us to be able to to do what we do so a majority of ours is going to be building materials and the equipment needed to get work done and that was probably a cdbg grant I think it was okay I mean we'd love to follow up and have a conversation about the opportunity yes ma'am yeah I think that this would be um from our trip last week a good line item with targeted areas and not the seven targeted areas we have but narrowing that to really um have an impact and we know that if you can put all the resources in one space and be patient and that's the problem because everybody wants it you know it's hard but if we can have a strategy year by year in a particular area and allow people to actually see the change then I think folks um folks get to see the difference um and I think that's um I always go back to the facade program how you could see the difference downtown because it was condensed but you couldn't see it on north main street because it was eight miles um so now I will let you all but I guess just for clarity the city staff doesn't do anything no we're not responsible for anything no paperwork um we don't have to help you find contractors we don't have to inspect to make sure you've checked all the boxes no ma'am we do that anyway and y'all are familiar with cdbg cdbg compliance so I mean they'll have to turn in information so we've got to check compliance but again we're well established organization do you remember frank strange so he's a former colleague of ours that used to volunteer with y'all for many many years he's I think he's passed away now had so I have always heard great things about homework thank you ma'am a couple questions so you mentioned other counties I think I don't know if it's the city of Charleston you said Charleston russian county I don't remember the others and the mouse that you indicated and then on another slide it had like five thousand dollars per home so on the average have a couple questions on average is that the amount that you typically spend per home or the type repairs and you keep it at that and my other question is um have you ever gotten to rate allocations of funding from the state from the state no ma'am is there anything prohibiting you getting using state funds okay and then the other question about on average how much that's on average about five to 7500 it depends on scope of work um in the cdb content in the cdbg contracts I will tell you the the amounts are a little bit more because we can do more with that funding and so sometimes those costs range anywhere from 9000 to 13000 depending on if it's a roof replacement if it's plumbing we're allowed to get into a little bit more with um say termite damage and that kind of stuff but on a typical home that's a typical donation you know we try to keep it at that 5 000 so we because we have so many and so okay so in your in your experience when you are partnering with other entities or cities you go into it with the homeowners knowing that it isn't a fine amount yes ma'am of work that can be done so that you can help you know as many people as you can yes ma'am but on a long lap we don't have anything to do with that right like do you determine what that contract is or are they hearing from us what you're going to work on along those lines we determine that typically we've determined that right so when you work with the other municipalities or counties are you working with their departments when you get the CDBG funds and you're determining what those target in that target an area you may be working in the city or the county is not involved with that determination of where you're going to be working right so I think again those are things we need to be clear about because our programs have typically which is why I think our programs are getting a little bit out of our capacity of what we what we can do and do well I love this concept but I think those are the things we're going to have to be clear about because right now for example the city has done you know we have like a shine program and I totally agree with what you're saying but we're going into what's saying we're going to do much more than five thousand dollars a home and I you know to me the money could be better utilized by partnering with entities like you where there are parameters around it and I think too these projects to me are probably smaller in our shine projects um dollar wise and there's no labor costs because it's volunteer labor right yeah um it was something to do applicants get to you so if we had a pool of folks that have applied for funding but we're not serving is that a conversation y'all are willing to have with us as well yes ma'am we do have a waiting list but we would you know how many years your waiting list about about a year and three months right but if we if we gave funds designated to specific applicants in specific areas how does that impact your waiting list the people who fit from your waiting list in that well it would just be uh it would be it would be a conscious decision on our part that we've had folks waiting but we've got funding coming in that could be allocated to to folks that are on a separate list and I mean well so would so would it be fair to say that it would be most beneficial for you all if you had restricted funds but then you also had funds to deal with your backlog that would be incredible that you can use your own discretion for and Felicia and I will set up a meeting here to talk in more detail for sure that's a question yes councilman Brennan so can you do a great presentation y'all do a great work Joe Joe Joe came to our Main Street Rotary and um I think Tug did a few part shrinks there hopefully get some volunteers out of that the expectations and the scope of work can you dive into that a little bit more on how you make it clear to to a homeowner that you come into work for this is what we can do and give me can you give us an example of where that's kind of gone off tracks and how you have any examples would you what you want that's that's that's where yeah our anxiety and stress is after going through you know what we did with working on houses after the flood um to be honest with you it's not it's not too terribly often that happens because we try to have the clearest and upfront communication Chris Kemp our Midlands Construction Manager touches every home he does previews he has those conversations and you know we're able to explain that we are volunteers we are donated dollars and we're going to look to get you warm safe dry and healthy so Chris when he goes into that home is is looking at the issues that are making you sick that are making this house dangerous and we're trying to weatherize it so you know my on my circuit my joke is we're not chipping Joanna Gaines okay we're not gonna make house beautiful but we're gonna make house safe and we're gonna extend the life of that and I would say 95% of the people that we're we're blessed to work with they understand that but but to that's to your same point there 95% of people you work with probably could use more oh certainly whether it's electrical you mentioned plumbing you don't tackle electrical probably I'm scared of things that are invisible and can kill me exactly when it comes to health let's talk about environmental abatement I mean you're doing a lot of painting how do you how do you because that's expensive yes that's very expensive do you have to pick and choose to what level of say painting yes most likely sanding on the scraping and sanding yeah yeah so we try to we try to encapsulate and and mitigate where we can and so and our and our guys are trained they know you know Tuck Williams our construction manager in Charleston um works very close with their staff down there and we know um what what what fields to step in and what what not to um and we try to mitigate that and I think our our vision of what safety means helps us mitigate those big big problems we're looking for fall protection we're looking for floor replacement and and that that kind of keeps us keeps us in our lane I think as we move forward in these conversations with that let's just keep that in mind certainly we're clearly defining expectations and scopes yes we have you know who hears about it what that's what I was going to ask about how often out of 100 homes how often do you have to go back out and redo work and the next year after the work next six months I can use six months six months out of 100 homes maybe one and that's usually a roof and that's because in those situations it's the way that I hear you saying is because it really was an issue with the roof yes ma'am um not because someone complained about um they didn't like how the roof was put in or quality issues or anything like that now you've mentioned Richland County CDBG how much is Richland County giving me this year we receive 60,000 so we're currently working on that contract right now anybody have any other questions well thank you so much um I'm glad to have you all here and hopefully we can do some follow-up and see where we're going we're doing a lot of figuring out with where we're going with community development so this is this is an exciting time exciting time thank you so much no other questions yep thank you thank you miss Tina thank y'all very much all right now we're going to talk with Miss Missy Gentry and Krista Hampton discussing the town the Columbia Town and Gown Committee so we have um talked about Town and Gown for a while and we have brought back based on the last conversation we had with the committee um we have brought back an updated proposal to talk about Town and Gown and Krista will go over and we can answer any questions and there's also a draft letter that would be sent to all of the colleges and universities um seeking their participation and making sure that they want to be a part of it but I'll let Krista go over the updated proposal yes good morning we'll walk through this um let me know if you need to go slower and a lot of credit goes to Peyton Lang too for for putting this together um university partners to Rebecca Vestas here representing them so it will be 20 representatives from the all of the colleges and universities in the area um so seven uh hopefully with the president or their designee five being city of columbia staff representatives those folks will act in an ex officio capacity only so no voting for neighborhood representatives and those would be selected the those would go through an application process similar to our boards and commissions and so city council would appoint four neighborhood representatives and one of the hospitality sector representatives through that process we have one student from the mayor's council the collegiate engagement council representative and that would um the students would actually lift that person up and appoint them to to this group and then the co-chairs would be the mayor and a representative from the university of south carolina once that group is is formed then there would be subcommittees established and that would be these are the ones that we've discussed with you all that would that would be um recommended although those could change it's similar to an ad hoc committee what we would recommend is that once this group is formed that they establish that they that they have a strategic planning session first so you would have that probably february march more likely um get together decide what the the vision and the goal of the group is i mean we have an idea i think you all have given some feedback on that but i think that would be important for the group to establish through a strategic planning process and then they would meet three times a year with the subcommittees doing um a lot of the work in between times and reporting out we also recommend that there would be a group that goes to the international town gown association conference that is in maryland in june the beginning of june um and have as many of the representatives from from the various colleges in the city to attend that as well so it's a high level overview um happy to answer any questions and get feedback there's some examples of what what the planning subcommittee would um would take on it could take on things like parking or um really any of the land use items that come up in some of these areas as well and it doesn't have to be i mean it could be issue-based it could be could be um such as something that bubbles up that needs to be addressed or it could be looking forward thinking um you know how is the university's growing um what is the student population where are they living those types of things thank you now this may be um i don't know if i'm taking us back or not but i do remember us having a significant conversation about flagship universities are we not going that route at all or is this something separate and i'm okay i mean you mean flagship only well so what i learned during our last meeting was that this program initially came out uh it was designed for flagship universities um is that what i learned okay so the association yes i mean it was a flagship university um the direction we believe we received was we still want to be all inclusive not many cities have the number of colleges and universities we have so we wanted to be inclusive of everyone um the mayor and then the designee from the University of South Carolina would be the co-chairs okay so they would they would guide that um but our intent was to include all as we talked to the association they're neutral to that decision i mean it's really our decision we we develop our strategic plan we do our charter they don't have a right or wrong they just help guide you through a process they're they're more of a resource than a official um stamp of approval really a lot of it is about communication and just making sure that that's going on and the types of you know issues that are experienced by University of South Carolina are experienced to some to a lesser degree but by some of our other colleges and universities as well so i think it's just making sure that everybody's talking and communicating and there could certainly be subcommittees about a particular issue that might focus on one college or university rather than the other if there's a particular challenge or issue that needs to be discussed thank you i just needed a clarity i do think though the letter references a registration process with ITGA so to counsel on her first point when discussed with the association and i know we got into and we got into the various levels of membership or something so is that going to be i know they they were pretty much neutral but i don't know that for me it was totally the clearest how that will go so that in it will have all of the different colleges represented and they would they're going to work with us then wasn't it something about the amount that they the membership for the city and the University of South Carolina will be a higher cost than the other colleges and universities and the the draft letter is intended to just ask them all if they're interested in participating and then from there we'll talk through membership and what that looks like and if you need college or university needed help if the membership cost was the barrier we want to have that conversation with but they all have to be they all would need to be members yes ma'am and do you have any idea of what the registration fee would be 250 dollars yeah it shouldn't be a barrier but if it is we want to talk about how to help with that for those more associate members as i think how it almost seemed as if it was characterized what um the five city of Columbia represent that's advisory an advisory level to this can you let can we add a representative from the comment because i think transportation is so key in promoting transportation to the university students and and i think usc is a large contract provider to the comment as well so as as one of the as an advisory board yeah and i guess columbia cpd will bring in the sheriff's department as needed since some of these campus lie in the county just that's just to think about down the road i'm curious about the neighborhood reps um if we're identifying for um is so is the intent that you would have a neighborhood rep on every committee or no so the subcommittees could have additional members that aren't part of the the larger committee um but yeah i would think at least one neighborhood rep would need to be on every subcommittee oh and they could do multiple well you can have additional members that aren't on the large town gown steering committee so you could bring in extra people depending on the issue and they would be called what it would be up to that subcommittee to organize itself but they don't have to pull just from this group that's what i needed okay so they can go the subcommittees can look anywhere for the appropriate people sounds great all right so when can we uh get the letters out start recruiting you said february march with a strategic planning session when would you think i'm just trying to organize the group so it'll be a lot of calendar work chairman may i make a comment if you do you have to come to the microphone and what is it regarding is it on topic committee members i'm jim daniel uh two quick comments uh a 20 member committee is pretty cumbersome so it's going to be really important that we have in subcommittees that are willing to work secondly on the neighborhood representations how are y'all going to get the word out so folks will they have some interest will know who to submit our application to of and by when i think we'll do that the public relations the way we do it with all of our other committees okay because i know of several people that have expressed interest to me that they would like to be involved so can it probably be treated through ashley's efforts like other boards and commissions it's unless you're in the know quite frankly it's hard really to know what that information um and there's in the council neighborhoods their information about whose presidents of various neighborhoods is way out of date so they're they're somewhat difficult too but anyway i'll let people that have said something to me know that they need to check but when would you think you'd be sending out some kind of notice about that but then i mean next three weeks or so sometimes sometime in january or February okay great thank you any other questions can we can we get an updated neighborhood list for each district representative populated with the latest information of presidents and executive board members we can and and we do sometimes our list seems to be outdated but we make an effort to reach out and ask for new officers and we don't always get that um timely but yes we can get you a list yeah please send that out to us as quickly as possible and i would i would suggest too that we have a regular procedure and that that's what i was just talking um to miss kilgore about um because and i do know that there's such i don't know if maybe we need to use a different format because there are updates that we send that don't make it to the main list sometimes i send a couple of updates and it's not and the list hadn't been updated okay so um and maybe proactively trying to get updated information would be helpful once maybe once a year once or twice a year okay i don't have anything else that thank you will for that um anybody else have anything do i need a motion to adjourn or can i just adjourn all right with no other matters to be discussed this meeting is adjourned oh wait hold on mr bailey did you have any questions and follow up to your orientation today no questions anything clear this meeting is adjourned no other issues