 Good morning, everyone. I am truly excited to see you all. We've had a break over the summer, kind of sorta. My break was given to me, I didn't ask for it, but I'm glad to be back and to see all of the faces. And I'm hoping that as school starts back, I'm gonna get back into my routine, although I have no children in school, but I'm gonna use that with the rest of the parents who are getting ready for school. I wanted to start off, Erica, I don't need to do anything formal, do I? Just call the meeting to order. Yes, ma'am, because I am taking roll as participants join the meeting. Perfect. All right, so I am gonna call this meeting to order. I am glad to see everyone. I wanna make a couple of acknowledgments that we have Jeff Palin here and Ms. Wilson-Stead today, good to see you, Jeff. Good to see you this morning. And I also want to welcome, congratulate and introduce Felicia Kilgore, who has changed her name, but I think I got it right. Felicia is our new director of community development. And we certainly wanna welcome her and look forward to working with her in the future. Y'all will hear from her in the future as well. Alrighty, so the first thing on our agenda today, faces of affordable housing. And as y'all can remember, we wanted to do a campaign. People have the wrong, not the wrong, a limited perception of what affordable housing means and who's impacted by it. And we have started a little bit, but before I get to what we have done, can you all tell me your position on getting a short video from each of you as affordable housing providers or advocates so that we can include that on a webpage that we will have that is basically about the faces of affordable housing? And the reason I'm asking is because, intentionally I just think I said, that's what we're gonna do, but we plan with people, not for people, I'm learning. But I wanted to see how you all, if you had any thoughts about that, it would probably be maybe one or two minutes at the most with the introduction, who the organization is, what kind of services they provide. And one of the thoughts that I had is it could kind of be like the housing resource guide that we were talking about, but electronic as opposed to, because you know how some, well, I'm watching my terms. A lot of people, they're visual as opposed to trying to read a lot of information. So I just wanted to get some feedback, yay or nay or what you all thought about that. I love really, my name is Brittany Richardson. I'm the development director for Central South Carolina Habitat for Humanity. And I like the idea and we will be interested again, lending our video to, for the face of affordable home ownership and housing. Okay, I got one. I see Jennifer nodding her head, is that two? We can help, yes. Yes, definitely count us in as well. All right, so I think, and even if we don't get everyone, even with what we have, the next thing that we have to consider is formatting. And for the city, we would typically like to have like, and as Ms. Erica reminded me, a professional background with the same background for everyone. But I do wanna hear from you all, is it better to have a video from your office or on site somewhere or to do them all at the city or with the city background? I am totally up. I have no preference either way. Well, this is Yvonda. I'm certainly perfectly fine with the city's background, I think. In fact, having the city's background because it will be coming from the city could make an even stronger impression. So I'm perfectly fine coming there and doing, are you envisioning an interview of some kind? It wouldn't, well, I could make it a video, but that would make it longer. I think that the key to this is gonna be having short clips and maybe a few longer ones, but we will have the specific questions that we would want folks to answer. Okay, and I have a follow-up question. Is it limited to the committee? Is that what you are envisioning or are we potentially going to bring in residents or some of the individuals that we serve? Well, so we sent out an email about that a while ago. So this is me revisiting this because we really did wanna have testimonies. And our staff looked for a few people and we didn't get any feedback. So that's gonna be next as a part of this discussion. But right, this part right now is making sure we have enough resources that it's something that people will really wanna go to to the page to get information for. Gotcha. But that doesn't have to be limited to this committee because I didn't put this committee together. There may be other affordable housing agencies that we realize we may need to add and I'm not opposed to that at all. Thank you. Tina. Yes, ma'am. Are you able to resend that, the email that you sent out a little while ago kind of as a refresher? Which one? I don't know. And we could potentially, if you want to look at receiving some testimonies and we do have some that folks have done that have gone through our program in previous years and we assisted with housing. So that is an option on the table that I know that I can coordinate. And staff has tried, I think what they found is some of the folks were reluctant when it comes to being on a video. So sometimes it may take some persuasion or we may have to look at maybe how much of them that we show. But Erica actually sent the email but we'll send a follow-up after this one because I'm kinda reintroducing it because this was all before summer and before breaks and we're getting back on track so we'll send it out with the follow-up from this one. So question, does anyone have any strong heartburn one way or the other? Whether or not or where these are done. I think that's probably what I'm more concerned about. Anyone having heartburn? No heartburn? Yeah, I mean, I think the big end, hi, good morning. My camera is not working which I don't think anybody's really missing out on too much but nonetheless, I think really the important thing is I'm not the PR expert but tapping into those who are and finding out who the audience that needs to see it the most is going to best perceive that. And which begs, my next question is where is this video or series of videos going to be, where is it going to be shared and broadcasted? So it will be housed on the city's website and we have a place where we have special initiatives for the near future. It will be considered a new special initiative and we would, so we always put everything out through our social media pages and then council folks do the same but as we do some of the other things that we have envisioned. So for instance, without getting too far ahead but we wanted to do some capacity building sessions, I would want to have all of this information available on the website for those participants so that we wouldn't have to print out stuff or go through stuff over and over again but when people said they had questions, we can send them directly to that web page and they can get the answers to the questions. I'm just thinking, a hardcore NIMBY is not, which in my mind really is one of the biggest challenges to the goals of this or any affordable housing campaign because it's not just the action of the NIMBYs, it's that the NIMBYs, it's all the, it's the ripple effect of all the actions that take place from there and instead of governments being focused on how can we push forward and still continue to create affordable housing, what we now have to stop and hear out all the concerns and why they don't want affordable housing in their neighborhood and I don't think we're gonna change the NIMBY's minds. I think that it's really winning over the people who are indifferent, the people who don't go and vote in municipal elections, those are the ones that we're gonna have to start really getting out and then, I mean, I hate to say this but we're gonna have to start NIMBY shaming because I don't envision any of the people in my life that really, and so to that point, I mean- Look, I'm just, Ward, just one thing, the city of Columbia cannot do NIMBY shaming. I know, but give people a platform to where private citizens can go and NIMBY shame. Right, and- And I'm just wondering if going to a link on a website's gonna be, I mean, I'm thinking something as far as billboards on an electronic billboard on a highway where everybody sees is something that gets people's attention. As far as how far we need to go. That, and that, nothing prevents us from doing that in the near future, but I am more concerned about having a real resource for people. So for instance, if you did that big billboard, right, what are people are gonna do? What are they gonna do after they see the billboard? They need to- Well, I think go to your website. Right, right. So I think for me, this is kind of foundational- Right. It allows us to grow from there. And we are just trying to open people's minds, have them to see different perspectives. We may or may not be able to change how they feel, but I do think that it's important if they can see what the faces are, because I think everyone- Oh, absolutely. Assumes faces, yeah. Well, I mean, exactly, I mean, everybody assumes the face of somebody who's, and their house selling drugs all day long, living a non-productive life, which is furthest from the truth, that there's working class people that are struggling to find decent affordable housing in the city of Columbia. They're not the people that would want to be scared to have as their neighbor. And I think that we've taken five to 10% of the folks in affordable housing and have painted the picture for, and have painted that picture as if it were 90%. And so, I guess I'm saying it's a good step. It's just, I question how, I think social media is gonna really be the best avenue. And if that pushes, if the website's gonna be the ombudsman, I think it'd be good to have a dedicated person who can feel a lot of those questions. Because it's gonna be a new concept. Nothing that's been ever done. I think to really be a clearing, a central source for citizens with questions all the way to a small non-profit that's interested in developing a few affordable housing units, that's where we need to really point them towards. Right, and that's a part of one of the other parts that we'll get into, but even with our social media, we still have to have that foundation that plays. Right. You know, once we put a message out, find out more because we can't put all that information in the social media, so. Well, the other question is the city ready to commit to, because it sounds really good on paper, but at the end of the day, I mean, is it really, is realistically gonna be something that the city can commit to on a year after year basis, having that department that's dedicated, or department area that's fully dedicated towards aiding, and I guess this is really moving towards a, which I know we have a community development department really boosting what they do as far as being that outreach arm. Being the what, what's that last one? The outreach arm. Okay, okay. Well, so we do have community development. They are between community development and planning. That is what they help us do and make sure that folks are informed, but I think that we will be developing how we do that going forward. That's a part of our process. And we as task force members and Tina Herbert myself, as far as getting the word out, I think it's gonna be critical. Because different people listen to different people, so we need to have a big variety. And so some of this we can talk about too in our number three discussion, because there are questions about, what's the future of the task force anyway? And I think that falls under, that discussion will fall really good under that section. What we're doing versus what city staff can do, making sure there's no duplication in that we're partnering together. Got it. Sound good? That sounds good. No, that answers my question for now. And again, I just, I don't wanna be the guy that signs somebody for more work without making sure that there's gonna be people accounted for take out for the addition. Okay. And are you gonna do a video? That's what I need to know. Oh, I can't get my video to turn on today. So I don't know how I'm gonna, we'll gladly help with whatever's needed. Yes. Well, we'll figure it out. I think based on that, what we'll do is Erica, if we can coordinate a few times that PR would be available. That's similar to the schedule we had before. Is that what you're thinking? Yes, ma'am. And if the volunteers don't mind, I would most likely pass their contact information to the PR department and ask the PR department to coordinate with them directly, just to make it a little easier. Anybody have any problems or, look, my standard is heartburn. That's my standard. Anybody have heartburn over that? Okay. So the next thing, now that we have as a part of building our resources, testimonials, which is what Ms. Bing was talking about earlier. So earlier, we did try and get some staff, we, community development staff did reach out to some people. And Felicia, you may wanna check with the list that Charmaine checked with cause she did reach out to a few people, but we can still use like our development corpse. I may do a testimonial. It's not high on my list of things that I wanna do in life, but it is, if we need more faces, I'll do one. But I think it is important for folks to see the different faces. And I also wanna make sure we highlight not only rentals, but home buyers. Because that's kind of where my push is going where you can really, really see the difference in wealth creation is where we're able to get people into homes that they can purchase. Absolutely. If any of the other providers, if you have a good story, I don't wanna say story. If you know of a good and encouraging family or folks that might be good to help us with the face of affordable housing, please, please let us know and we'll arrange to get those videos. If they need, sometimes if they need help with the words, we can give them the wording. Anybody have any questions or concerns or wanna add something that maybe I may not be thinking about for the testimonials? And they'll be short too. Everything is short to keep people's attention. Nope. I can check with my management company. We can probably come up with some residents that would be probably really a pit for something like that. Okay. Yeah, I think again, and this is something that we won't just do now, but we'll do throughout the year because some of the videos will get old. You know what I'm saying? So I don't think this is gonna be a one-time only opportunity, but we do wanna start off with a pretty healthy variety. Seniors, homeowners, renters, single family homes, two-parent homes, just to get a variety. So if y'all can send those in, we can work with those. So- Shada. Yes. Shada. Yes, Ms. Williams. Hi. I think in the testimonials, in order to alleviate the angst that some NIMBYs may have, is to have the vote to share how they were prepared to become home owners. Or how were they prepared to have that paradigm shift? And I think if they share and it's really honest that they were prepared, then I believe NIMBYs will have less angst with affordable housing coming into the communities. Right. And I think sometimes it's also just being maybe a little more compassionate and realistic all at the same time. I think they'll become compassionate and realistic if they hear it from the mouths of the people who were actually affected and see how it changed them. Right. I think that's, to me, that's why the testimonials are pretty important. And to make sure that we have a variety of them. So, next, the mayor and I worked on a video. Remember, we were supposed to start with that first catchy video. We are going to preview it. We have not put it out. We're going to preview it and I am going to be quiet because sometimes when you're a part of the video, you know, you have all of this extra critique and I am not going to say a word, but I truly, truly, truly want you all, even if you just want to put it in the chat, but I do want to put it in the chat, but I do want to get honest critiques because we will, this is the initial one and we do get it to send it back for any corrections, well, not any, but, you know, we do have the ability to make revisions corrections. Ms. Erica, do you want to show that? Because I don't know. Yes ma'am, Justin's going to play it now. The city of Columbia needs housing for people, all across the spectrum, from service to clerical workers and even city employees. Having employees live close to their jobs is better for the employers as well as the employees. It cuts down on transportation time and all of these things help with the economy. Safe, affordable housing reduces stress, which leads to improvement in both physical and mental health. We really want a diverse community. We got to have a range of housing choices that enable people with a wide range of income and backgrounds to stay here. If it's our school teachers, first responders, hardworking folks should have the opportunity to live and buy a home that they can afford. Housing is the key to create generational wealth and increase economic mobility. Can you all hear it? No. No, I didn't hear any of it. I'm checking with public relations ma'am. I thought for a second it was just mine. The city of Columbia needs housing for people all across the spectrum, from service to clerical workers and even city employees. The city of Columbia needs housing for people all across the spectrum, from service to clerical workers and even city employees. Having employees live close to their jobs is better for the employers as well as the employees. It cuts down on transportation time and all of these things help with the economy. Safe, affordable housing reduces stress, which leads to improvement in both physical and mental health. We really want a diverse community. We got to have a range of housing choices that enable people with a wide range of income and backgrounds to stay here. If it's our school teachers, first responders, hardworking folks should have the opportunity to live and buy a home that they can afford. Housing is the key to create generational wealth and increase economic mobility. The city of Columbia needs housing for people all across the spectrum, from service to clerical workers and even city employees. Having employees live close to their jobs is better for the employers as well as the employees. It cuts down on transportation time and all of these things help with the economy. Safe, affordable housing reduces stress, which leads to improvement in both physical and mental health. We really want a diverse community. We got to have a range of housing choices that enable people with a wide range of income and backgrounds to stay here. If it's our school teachers, first responders, hardworking folks should have the opportunity to live and buy a home that they can afford. Housing is the key to create generational wealth and increase economic mobility. The city of Columbia wanna get feedback, honest feedback, good or bad, take out at end, because when we put it out, we wanna put out the best product that we can. But I am not gonna say a word. So you all have to talk during this portion. I think the audio needs to be improved. The audio portion of the video was not the greatest, at least what I was. Yeah, that's probably needed to play back. Yeah, the audio is professional. So I think it's just because of the stream and trying to get it to play on this call. Jim, did that mean you had a difficulty really hearing what it was saying? I did. I had a difficult time understanding the world. Okay. And that could be streaming. The visually, I like the visuals. You know where you're representing different people that need affordable housing? I think that's good. So maybe what we can do is email it to you all, but you cannot share this video with anyone. Who's laughing? I'm very serious. But I do, but because it was, the video was different from the speaking pace for me too. And I don't know if we're gonna get it, not unless we wanna try it one more time. I don't know if we're gonna get it exactly the way it needs to be. And it's hard for you all to get feedback if you couldn't really hear it. And for me, it wasn't so much that I couldn't hear it. It seemed as if there was a delay in between what you were saying and then connecting to the people that you were referencing. So, and that could just again be because we're playing it back on the computer. I don't know. Hold on one second. Are you saying like, for instance, if I'm talking about a police officer, there's no police officer playing or that it's just delayed? It seems it could be, I think the timing of the images, the people that followed your message, there was a disconnect for me. It didn't flow as I guess I would have liked to have seen it flow. So I think that's a timing issue. But again, I don't know if it's the video and trying to watch it on the computer or I don't know, it just seemed that there was a disconnect somewhere in there. No, I know exactly what you're saying, which is why I gave that example. But I know exactly what you're saying. So do y'all feel like because we can't really, and of course it's only a minute and we're asking a lot for this little bit of time, we will email it out. And if you could give Erica any, and again, good or bad, this way it'll be anonymous to you all. I'm gonna know who said what, but and I won't tell anybody, but I do want the honest, honest, honest, good, bad so that we can have a good video and maybe let us know by this Friday, is that too, is that enough time to give feedback? Yeah, I think that's fine. Yeah, that works for me. Okay, because it's only what 58 seconds intentionally. All right, so but we are, just so y'all know, we are working towards it. So that is the status, I'm still looking at number one, that's the status of the faces. Of affordable housing and the campaign that we're working on. Next, I wanted to get into the action plan. So the committees did a great job of coming up with goals, the development committee, as well as the advocacy committee. And I'm not sure where you all are in your committees because I know Lila, where is Lila Anna, y'all? She's somewhere in some country doing something. She's in Spain, I believe. Yeah, she's off having the time of her life so that she can come back and deal with us when she returns with great energy. But what I did, I'll kind of tell you all what I kind of went through, looking at what we can actually do, okay? So we have some goals, what are some low-hanging fruit that we can act on? And I think this is, the form is connected to the agenda, right? Erica? Yes, ma'am. Do each of you all have that? It's just the affordable housing task force, subcommittee goals, where we can put it up and then. No, I do not have that on the invite. Erica, can you put it up and then I can talk through it. Yes, ma'am. And I didn't tell her about that, y'all, so give her a second. Let's move out to Shear, you know, in my mind I was ready for this meeting. All right, all right, can you see it on the screen? We can, yes ma'am. All right. And maybe can you scroll it down just so that we see just the development goal committees, all of them? Yeah. Perfect, right there. All right. So I'm just, I think, I guess we do have some updates where I wanted to let you all know what we have been working on and we means maybe the city, maybe, you know, there are various folks who are addressing various issues, but the first thing here is capital funding for developers potentially available property owned by the city of Columbia. That is something that we have started working on. Missy Gentry has been the lead on that but taking some of the lots that we have had and developing them and we're actually selling them, a lot of them for home ownership. And we're using a price point, I think the price point may be 169, 159. I could be off with that. But if you all know the price of houses now, a person that I know was looking to buy a house in Hyatt Park that was less than 1,000 square feet and it was on the market for 150,000. And I just knew, I told this person, oh, you can get it for less than that. And they couldn't because it sold the first day. So the prices are getting higher and higher and folks, we have to have something that folks can afford and home ownership is just really, really important to me. We have used, well, at least I have used the market analysis and I don't know if we need to share this with everyone if you all already have it. The Palmetto State Housing Study of 2023. And this is where y'all have to tell me where you have heartburn or not. So when I read through it, I thought one of the things that we could really focus on are households between 35,000 and 75,000 annually who are as one area who are really, really cost burdened that would be from the city itself and its stock, if that makes sense. For instance, from the affordable housing purchase side. But we have used that. The mayor has a presentation to make but he was not available to be here on fees and incentives. So I am looking forward to that. We just couldn't get our calendars together. And then five as an update capacity building for faith-based organization and listening toward faith-based organizations and other nonprofits is probably what it needs to say. But I do want us to start doing maybe an annual seminar before the end of the year dedicated to folks who are interested in being developers, small developers. Right now, I have a church that has land banked, I think they said 37 acres, but they don't have an idea of how to start and actually put homes on that. That makes sense to y'all. And the other part too is helping people realize that the city of Columbia cannot fund all of these development projects. And so they need a little bit of, I just call it capacity building, where to go, who can do what and what options that are out there. Now, I just kind of went through my little updates. Does anybody from the committee want to add anything? Yes, Tina, one thing I think we should explore here that would be city-wide, would be a special development code for affordable housing. I'm not a lawmaker, law or ordinance writer. However, something that would really be along the lines of any grant, I'm not supporting any idea. I'm always solely supporting this idea from the gentleman I'm about to mention, but the state of Florida, Ron DeSantis live local act in Florida. I think there are a lot of elements from that that could be very effective on a local level. That was on the state level, but locally that if a project is fulfilling the affordable housing needs, we have to set what the maximum AMI would be average for a project that there would be a special development process that would largely bypass a lot of the typical roadblocks that are seen in a market rate development. But that's kind of part, that last part, one more time, special development process. So essentially it would exactly would be a special development process that would have set architectural guidelines, and it's IE, no DDRC, no DDRC wouldn't have to have a, if it's rezoning, wouldn't have to go to, it would be all administratively reviewed, not saying that the city wouldn't have input, but it would not be a full council vote, the IE staff has to ensure that the development conforms to whatever we want the guidelines to be. But the point is, is just a way that assures that there's a quicker means to get into yes. And so I'm gonna give a little background to you, I mean, not any particular case, but this kind of goes back to NIMBY. And in the city of Columbia, we do have certain guidelines with our DDRC, design review, and we have overlays. And just a clarification guys, this is not bypassing guidelines, these are setting guidelines that would be where projects would bypass the administrative, certain, excuse me, they would not bypass administrative processes, they would bypass full council or citizen committees per se. Right, and this- I was responding to a comment, I just wanted to make sure everybody was clear that we're not, this would not be in any way proposing that there would be any substandard require. In fact, I would propose that affordable housing should probably be more durable. So anyways, and yes, I don't know what that is, but again, sorry Tina, I just saw the comment, wanna make sure it was addressed before. Okay, yeah, no problem. I think so the other side from the developer side is the citizen neighborhood side. And so what Ward is referring to is if a development has to go through any of these approval processes, the community is made aware and they're able to come out. And the community can speak for or against, okay? And so we have had projects that have not gone forward because of community concerns. And so what I would be willing to do is have that discussion, but I will say I already know that our communities rely on those, but it doesn't mean that we can't come up with something because- If we made any changes, it would have to go through city council, public hearing and all that kind of good stuff. So I am not saying that it can't be done. I think that it just has to be thoughtful and take both sides into consideration, but I'm willing to have the conversation all day long or promote it. If you could send us the Florida example. Yeah, there's some elements to the Live Local Act that would not apply necessarily to this, but I thought it was amongst all the Disney Wars, et cetera. There's actually some positive to come out of some of what's going on down there. You said besides the Disney Wars? Amongst the other Disney Wars and all the other, all the other specific show that goes on. I actually, I learned about it back at a conference down there. Earlier this year and the developer community very popular, very well-received. It appeared that there was a, I didn't go and talk to neighborhood groups about this, but I would certainly advocate that throughout the development of this, whatever those requirements would be, that would eventually be codified, that they would certainly be involved in the process, just to make sure that nobody feels that they're not guiding the direction. So really what it would be is that it would be a way to deter people that say, oh yeah, affordable housing is great, just not next to me. Because if that was the case of every, if every community had the same thought that, yeah, affordable housing is great, not next to me, we still wouldn't get any done. Right. Right, I totally understand that. And you know, in my district, one of the things that we're really, at least I am really concentrating on is making sure not to be the district of no to everything, only because I think that developers talk and we potentially get the reputation of never wanting anything. Now, it doesn't mean that we will accept anything, but I do wanna make sure that citizens are well informed. And I think that the foundation of some of these issues are helping people be completely informed about what's coming and what's not coming and who the people are, what does affordable housing look like? So I think that's a part of it. But we can definitely put together a committee or a subcommittee or the development committee to kinda look at it and make some recommendations and get input from everyone. I don't shoot down people's ideas ever because I think that there's always room for improvement. And then we may look at it and say no. So I have no issues with it in having that discussion. It may be time that we have it. I don't know. And if I can offer something just to kinda expand on what Ward was saying, I think, you know, as a developer, what we don't want to do or what is very discouraging is having been espoused to say, welcome with open arms, come in. We want you to develop affordable housing and you spend time, spend money, you find a piece of property, you go in, you put what you feel is a great plan to gather, then you go in, you have to have these community meetings and then people just come out of the woodwork to think up everything that is not right about your development. Okay. And sometimes it's, hey, sometimes it can be factual. Sometimes it's fabricated. Sometimes it's just, you know, fears that come out of the woodwork. I had a development one time that we had tremendous buffers around the property. We were on the other side of the stream. We had neighbors from the community come over and come to the meeting and say they were, they had heard the rumor mill that we were gonna build a bridge across the river or across the creek so that we could access their community space. And I was like, nobody's ever said anything about that. So I think, and I'm not trying to put words in Ward's mouth, but I think if there's a standard that is established that we have to meet, then whatever community has to decide whether, yes, it's a viable development or not a viable development, it's almost like a border zoning appeals. As you say, look, you have to meet these criteria, these requirements. You can't violate these requirements. And if we meet those, then we've done our job to provide affordable, safe housing. Everything else is just unfounded fears. So I mean, I think if there's some standards that can be put in place so a developer knows what they're getting into and the community knows, hey, if they're not doing this, this standard that we set up by all means, attack from all angles. But if we're doing what was outlined as a general guideline to provide this housing and to meet with the character of the neighborhood, then we should be built. I will tell you, the discussions that I have had with some groups where they have begun to be more open is when we have mixed levels of income. I have seen perceptions change a lot with that. What I think we also have to do is show them the potential and what it can look like. Because a lot of folks have one particular really bad example and that's the one that they keep seeing. I showed some folks Celia Saxon and how we had some home ownership. You had some people with housing assistance. And the best thing was that they didn't know it was affordable housing. And I think that's kind of like the standard. We couldn't tell it. And so once I showed them that, it did open their minds. They're different ways to do this, but that way has been very effective. And that's the one time I got folks to kinda, but I think, but that still goes back to telling our story, okay? And helping people see the full picture of what developments can look like and the folks who are there. Well, that was the one I was gonna say about your video. You showed the firefighters, which is great. You showed them a couple of times. You might, because you'd be surprised how many people don't, they take for granted, who lives in affordable housing. They always hear the police officer, the firefighter, but bank tellers, people that are working in the community, we depend on every day. And maybe it'd be good to, you know, highlight some different people. And I don't know how long your video is or how long you can have it or whatever. You could make it 15 minutes long if you try to fit everything in, but showing different people doing different jobs might be helpful. So people can relate. Yeah, you're right. I think that one was kind of designed from the city perspective, like why is the city itself concerned because our own employees need to have, you know, qualify for affordable housing. But it doesn't, for, you know, I always tell folks, I mean, my mom was a secretary full-time and worked at the state newspaper part-time and she's still qualified, you know, for Section 8. So, but I think that goes back to having a real, well, they do more videos, but those videos can be expensive, but our testimonials too, and having a mix as we develop them as a part of this full campaign. But I do like that. And I really do like asking the neighborhoods, what is it, what do you, you know, what do you wanna see? Because I don't know if we've ever really posed that question to them. And I do know from a neighborhood perspective, they always feel like, you know, developments are being forced down, you know, their throats. And if we can engage them a little bit earlier, and I know they're pros and cons of that, but just trying to find a process that works for everyone is still, still what we're trying to do. So I like at least having that discussion, because sometimes honestly folks don't know what they want, and I'm not saying that to everybody, but you know, if you get someone to say nothing is acceptable, that's a good starting point for, okay. So we can't, you know, just think about what you're saying if nothing is acceptable. I think it forces folks to have a more realistic discussion. And that's exactly what they don't, the people that don't know what they want are the ones that what they all don't want is change. And that's really the complex matter to all of us. And so I think it will be getting just a really good step forward. And highlighting the benefits too, the benefits that come along with the development. So imagine something like this all coming out, with the video campaign, I mean, just I think something like this has to be wrapped up into something bigger too. I mean, something wrapped up in how really, you know, the city of Columbia's taking a significant step forward with affordable housing and you have, hey, community, we're serious about it. And this is what we're doing, this, this, this, you know. And again, the timing, that's for another conversation. I just, my point being that there's just an opportunity to do something more than just pass coordinates and move along. I agree. And then the more I think about it as we kind of put all of these pieces together, maybe just pulling everybody together for a big old meeting. And giving developers the opportunity to talk, neighborhood folks, time to talk, providers who are assisting people and providing services, you know, just kind of a culmination of this is why we're here and this is what we're trying to do, I think may be helpful, but that's gonna take a little bit of work. So I'm not putting that on the list or not at least the next three months, but only because I wanted to do the capacity building, not to skip too much, but the capacity building for the organizations. I think that that's gonna be a work, you know, really, really helpful. We can get some of our developers, people can find out about financing, the different financing opportunities beyond the city of Columbia, because we have the city, but our funding is so small compared to maybe state housing or federal. I would love to tell people too about how you have to stack all of these different funding sources. So it's because it's really, really hard to fund, not hard, but these projects are very expensive. So you all be on the lookout for a date, maybe like a Saturday morning breakfast, but I guess pastors can do during the weekday too. I was thinking Saturday for me, but a weekday breakfast with pastors, we have the ability, I think pastors is the first thing that comes to mind, but we definitely need, we can go ahead and do pastors and- Will Brennan. That is another guy might have heard a council person calling me. But I think putting that together is something that's not very difficult. It can be an hour, hour and a half program and giving them some resources so we can start working on some stocks. So some of you all may get an email about wanting you to participate in that. Next, going down to advocacy committee goals, and it's 1156. So we have four more minutes. We're working on the campaign educating landlords on the importance of maintaining self-safe housing. And Dylan was here. I was thinking that's more, is that more of a material type of piece? What's the word I'm thinking about? The tri- Yeah, kind of like a one pager. There you go. Is that kind of what you all were thinking or what? Yes, I believe so. And it was also, I think, some things that the Columbia Housing Authority was already doing. But I'll be honest with you, we're a little behind as a committee, so we need to regroup as well. Oh no, did you not hear my introduction? The whole time? Yes, I did. That's why I agreed with you. Look, we're all catching up. So you're right where you need to be at this point. I did like that and I did like partnering to educate the tenants and may I recommend, I think someone has already, well not already, but someone has done this, but a tenant's bill of rights, very simple, 10-pointer. Some organization already has that. It may be Apple Seed. Well, and Mr. Herbert, community development, our city and county recently partnered on some workshops regarding tenant rights. So Felicia may send a link to that if we... Okay, perfect. And here's the thing with the committees, y'all, sometimes it's something that just like in this particular situation that staff is already working on, so they can help us kind of close the loop on it. So don't feel like you have to do everything. Just give us an idea and we can see what we may already have in the arsenal or what a partner may have. Cause I don't want it to be overwhelming. The last thing, cause I do like to make sure we get done on time, establishing a housing court, I needed to get with Ms. Berkowitz to kind of get a timeline for that and a committee. Because I think it's doable. We have our own city courts here. Is it Livability Court? Someone from the city may have to help me, but we have courts that are dealing with nuke senses and all kinds of other issues with property. I don't know if that's if she meant specifically for evictions or not, but anyway, I will get with her to follow up and kind of see what the timeline is working, what the timeline would look like to have that discussion and who would be the relevant partners. Does anybody at 11.59 have any questions for me? Did I talk too much? No Tina, I'll round up anything I can as far as any sort of examples that may be a good starting point for development code or affordable development code. Okay. And then we will send you all, we do have some homework though cause you all will get information on how you all can do your own videos so we can add it to this page that we're gonna have. And if you have any people who would be great for testimonials, that would be great. And feedback on the video. So there is a, there are a few things that we need to get done. And then Ward will work on the ordinance. I think that's about it for today. I'm glad to see all of you all. I am back 94%, I got a little bit more to do, but I'm 94% back. So I'm glad to be back. And Dylan, don't worry about it. We're all gonna pick up. At this point, I really want us to focus on doing stuff. So, you know, we have these goals right now, I'm all about action. If we need to have some committees to help get certain things done. But at this point, I wanna kind of see us doing, if y'all don't mind, kind of putting some of these goals and trying to meet some of these goals. And all hearts and minds are clear Dylan, just put something. I do have. Yeah. Oh, I just really quickly wanted to share that link because it ties in with one of our goals that we had been going back and forth about staying connected with one another and sharing resources as service providers and organizations. And the Ritzen Library was already working on that. And so this might not be it, but I would think that most of you on the call probably are familiar with this anyway. But they did that do good Columbia project and came up with a way to share resources to service providers and they did it through Slack. And I know my first response was, I don't wanna do another program. However, I will say that they've set it up well in such a way that does give you an opportunity to share those resources and partner with folks. We've already used it for folks that were in need. So, it might not be everybody's GM, but I did wanna share that link to make sure everybody knew that that was out there. And did you say it may not be everyone's jam? You know, I'm- I said that. Look, I forgot what generation I am, but I'm a generation ahead of you. So, you gotta explain some of those terms to my- Listen, I'm old too. I'm on the other end of the millennial. So, I'm old apparently too. Dylan, can you send that link as well to Erica so she can send it out with the closeout email. And then we had Ms. Bing. Yes, thank you so much. And I'm a subscriber of Slack as well and we're utilizing the resource too. So, the library has done a fantastic job there. I just wanted to mention very quickly that this month, August is August Advocacy Month. One of our national organizations that advocates on behalf of housing authorities across the country launches a campaign in August because it's recessed for Congress. And it's an opportunity for us to basically advocate for more resources for affordable housing. We submit letters on a daily basis. That's part of the campaign and the letter topics in the subject of the letters are generated by NARA, which makes it extremely easy. But I just wanted to make certain that you all were aware that we are in fact in the midst of August Advocacy Month. And so you are going to see coming from our agency encouragement and reminders to submit those letters. There is a link that you can actually go to to submit that letter very easily. And so I will in fact, share that with everyone. So you'll have it, but beware I intend on inundating your mailboxes with requests to submit those letters. We found them to be extremely effective in terms of reaching Congress and getting our messages across. And so I would hope that you all would take part in the campaign and help to do the same. Yes, ma'am. Now I can't multitask and run the meeting and go into the chat. So I am going to ask Erica to do that for me. I'm up that generation. We're glad we just, I can multitask like I used to. All right. Anybody else all hearts and minds, please Erica, were you about to say something? I was going to ask Director Bean to send me the link. Thank you. I will. Thank you. All right, folks. I'm glad to see you all. Enjoy what little summer we have left. Stay safe. And the next thing you'll hear from us is getting the information from Erica and trying to coordinate videos. And we'll go from there. Thank y'all. Bye, everybody. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.