 Yep. Good afternoon, everybody. It is now 1.30. Our Jeff Burke from the city attorney's office is on, so we are going to go ahead and start the meeting. I'm sorry, commissioner or chair, and it looks like you are muted. There we go. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for the housing authority meeting. First of all, I'd like to note that we have new commission members. Megan, maybe if you could introduce everyone, but first of all, let me call the meeting to order, and go ahead and have a roll call for today. Clark Brown, are you able to call the roll? I am. Just one moment. Okay. We'll go ahead and do a roll call for attendance. We'll start with chair Owen. Here. Vice chair test. Here. Commissioner Burke. Commissioner Burke. Commissioner Downey. Commissioner LaPenna. Here. Commissioner McWhorter. Here. Commissioner Rawhouser. Here. Let the record reflect that all commissioners are present. Thank you, Clark Brown. Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Megan Bassenger and as requested by the chair, Jeff Owen, I'd like to take a moment to introduce our new commissioners. This is the first meeting with full seven members in quite a while. So first, Commissioner Downey has been reappointed. So congratulations on your reappointment. Then we have three new commissioners, and I'll go in the order that I'm seeing you on my screen. Commissioner Yvonne Rawhouser, welcome very much. Welcome to the housing authority. Thank you. Commissioner Thomas LaPenna. LaPenna. LaPenna. All right, welcome. Thank you. Sorry about that. That's okay. Thank you. Then finally, where did he go? Sorry. Sometimes it's really hard to click through all these little tiles. Commissioner Scott McWhorter. Welcome. I apologize in advance for what sometimes can feel like a clunky meeting on Zoom, but we are all just trying our best to navigate through this. So now I'm going to turn it back over to Chair Owen and Chair Owen, would you like to have the current commissioners to take a moment to introduce themselves as well? Yes. So Jeff Owen, I've been on the commission for, I think this is my third year, and then chairing in my second year, the chair and background in primarily real estate construction financing and real estate finance and a lot of focus on affordable housing. I'll turn it over to Vice Chair Tess. Yes. Hi. I too, I'm on the same term as a commissioner on. My background many years ago was affordable housing working for profit developers. Sure. Since then, I'm now retired by about eight years and I enjoy being on this particular committee. It's challenging, it's rewarding, and I encourage everyone who is new to take an opportunity when we're outside this meeting to go and visit some of the sites that the housing authority has helped finance. Thank you. Commissioner Berg. Yes. Welcome new commissioners. It's nice to have a full group of commissioners to spend a long time since we've been at that point. I go back a long ways. I started work for the city of Santa Rosa in 1976 and was the housing authority director for quite a long time, redevelopment director for quite a long time. I've retired and I've been on the board for probably I think it's a term and a half or maybe it's a little bit more than that. And I have been unsuccessful in changing my focus and getting involved with other things. Housing is still my main passion and I enjoy being on the housing authority and working with all of you new members. Commissioner McWarder, if I mispronounce your name, I apologize. Commissioner McWarder. Give me a minute, I'm getting you saw this technology. Scott McWardering, it's okay with the last name. Not too much to say right now, like if I am new to this and this is going to be a learning process for me. I do have a BA from Sonoma State and Philosophy. It's political philosophy with the emphasis on social justice. Housing is very important to me because as a disabled veteran, I did use it to get into place that I've been and I've been on six nations. I broke my back in 2008. So I have the experience of being what I would call being on the inside of the system versus being on the outside of the system. All right, that's it. Thank you. Commissioner Latina. Yeah, I have a passion about housing. I spent the last 10 years of my career I'm retired now in working in the community development department of a city in Georgia, I've got about 25 years of residential construction, residential inspections, and then code enforcement experience. And one thing that I brought up to the council on my interview was I wanted to put boots on the ground and visit some of the housing units and see because I wanna make sure people are in quality housing and good places to live. Just really quickly, if I could interject here, Chair Owen, if we could just remember if a commissioner is not speaking, if we could mute our microphones that way there's less interference. Also, Chair Owen, would you like me to go forward with the public outline or I'm sorry, public comment outline? I mean, miss a couple of the commissioners, perhaps. We did, Commissioner Rawhouser. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, hello, I'm Yvonne Rawhouser and I'm mostly a Santa Rosa girl. And so that was my biggest claim to fame was living here as a child going from Spring Creek to Sonoma State, opening up the Santa Rosa Plaza, managing the salon, being one of their top managers and then having my own little studio for years. And then I'm also a recipient because I was in the journey's end resident and got burned out and went through that whole nightmare and the whole experience of moving and the trauma of it all. So anyway, I'm really hoping to A, utilize my degree and to B, be of greater service to my community. Thank you. Anything else? Thank you. I think, Carolyn, we, Commissioner Downey, if you'd like to provide it. Oh, Commissioner Downey, my apologies. Hello, everybody. My name is Dr. Wayne Downey. I've been a teacher for 25 years. My degree is in leadership and community engagement. I've had the pleasure of being on the housing committee for a while. I'll make it vague because I don't remember exactly. This has been a fantastic experience to assist people who have had housing challenges. I am a person who uses a wheelchair with a lavender retriever who needs to be washed and she and I will mostly around town and inspect all the buildings and see what's going up for low income and affordable housing. So it's indeed been a very rewarding experience and pleased to be reappointed. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Want to move back and do some housekeeping. Just remind commissioners to keep their audio mute unless they are speaking. Commissioners other than the chair can mute themselves. Staff will remain muted until needing to speak. As members of the public join the meeting, you'll be participating as an attendee. Your microphone and camera will be muted. Only today's panelists will be viewed during the meeting. If you're calling in from a telephone and choose to speak during the public comment portion of today's agenda for privacy concerns, the host will be renaming your viewable phone number to resident and the last four digits of your phone number. And as a reminder, the city of Santa Rosa's community creating a safe and inclusive environment free from disruption. We will not tolerate any hateful speech or actions and are well staffed to monitor that everyone is participating respectfully or they will be removed. If necessary, we'll also immediately end the meeting. The Zoom host, can you please explain how public comments will be heard today at today's meeting? At each agenda item, the item is presented. The chair will ask for housing authority member comments and then open it up for public comment. The host and Zoom will be lowering all hands until public comment is open for the agenda item. Once the chair is called for public comment, the chair will announce for the public to raise their hand if they wish to speak on the specific agenda item. If you're calling in to listen to the meeting audibly, you can dial star nine to raise your hand. The host will then call on the public who have raised their hands. Public comment will be limited to three minutes and a timer will appear on screen for the commission and public to see. Once all live public comments have been heard, the meeting host will read email public comments. If you provide a live public comment on an agenda item, but also submitted an email, your email public comment will not be read during the meeting. Additionally, there is one public comment period on today's agenda to speak on non-agenda matters. Item five, this is the time when any person may address the housing authority on matters not listed on this agenda, but which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the housing authority. Chair Owen, are we ready for item three, statements of abstention? My apologies, I was sitting on mute. So we've gone through a roll call. Number three is the statement of this abstention. Do we have any commissioners that need to abstain today on any of the items? Chair Owen, if I may, I'm Jeff Burke for those of you who are new commissioners. I'm the counsel for the housing authority and statements of abstention are just if you have an area or an issue on the agenda that you think you may have a conflict of interest and can't vote on it, this is the opportunity. And it's a little awkward in the middle of a meeting to have those discussions because we haven't had a chance to talk before, but at least as a go forward basis, if you have any concerns or questions at all, you can get to me through Megan or I can give you my contact information and we can have those discussions offline. Hi, Owen. Hey, you're on? Hi, I was just curious regarding the issue on the journeys and residents. You're talking about the vouchers as being a past journeys and resident is what I'd be absent from that vote. Which item are you referring to? I was a resident of the journeys and mobile home park and there's an issue there about the vouchers for the park and that would directly affect me. I don't believe that's on today's agenda. Okay, I noticed it in the writings the records when I was reviewing the notes. Okay, it might be reflected in the minutes and I think Mr. Burke, the new commissioner should not be voting on the minutes or because they were not part of that meeting. So you wouldn't be participating in that action because you weren't at the last meeting. In the future though, I would be amiss from that vote due to my past residency. We would have to- It depends on the issue and we'll take a look and as those items come forward in the coming months, we'll have an opportunity to review them. Thank you. Thank you. I don't see item 11.2 which was a carryover from our last meeting before the DSLC being on this agenda packet. So I don't see any need to recuse myself unless it was renumbered and I missed it. It has been renumbered. It is item 10.1. So let's go ahead and recuse myself from 10.1. So if I made through the chair, thank you commissioner Downey. So when a commissioner or any elected official announces that they're gonna abstain because of a conflict, the laws also require just a very brief discussion of why you have a conflict. Okay, I have a conflict because I serve on their board. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We will move to item four, which are the study sessions and this is broken down to 4.1, which is the general plan vision statements. 4.2 is the housing choice voucher program waiting list. And then 4.3 is the notice of funding. I think I might be reading the wrong agenda. Megan, can you? Yes. Just one moment. Okay. We have the wrong thing here. Okay, we have several study sessions today. We are gonna start with study session 4.1, which is the 2050 general plan vision statements. Andy Gustafson, a senior planner in planning and economic development will be presenting. Andy Clark, I think he's got the PowerPoint up. That would be fantastic. And if I may, and I'm sorry to interrupt so much. I promise that you try to be quiet, but for the benefit of the new commissioners, so the study session items are there not to take action on, there won't be a vote on any of these. It's not like you're passing, you need to approve a resolution or take any formal action that you'll be voting. They're designed as a study session to provide information to you. And it may be appropriate that some direction will be sought, but there's no formal action or vote that will be taken. Thank you. All right, should I begin? Thank you. Thank you. My name's Andy Gustafson. I'm a senior planner and project manager for the general plan update. And the purpose of this item on your study session is to review what we're doing with the general plan update and provide you some information about a series of workshops that we have conducted to establish a vision statement for the general plan. And then as time allows, offer opportunity for the members of the housing authority to comment about the statement. So I'm gonna go through the first part quickly. And if we can advance the slide, we will begin. Thank you. Next slide. So the general plan, as you might be aware, is a foundational document and guides policy, development decisions, city services in the city, including, importantly, it contains the housing element. And in the general plan, we strive to connect the dots, how our city is organized, how it runs. And this general plan update, next slide. This general plan update will look at all the issues that affect our daily lives as residents, as employers, and as city employees who work here and deliver services. We will look at a variety of issues. Next slide, which on a comprehensive level will allow us to really rethink and reconsider where we are as a community. So much has happened in the recent years that it's really appropriate at this time for us to step back, take a look at where we're going and how best to achieve our goals. We branded the project, Santa Rosa Forward. We hope it evokes the spirit of moving forward and coming up with new ways of approaching the problems we're facing today. Next slide. The general plan update is a three-year program. We're really in the first six to eight months right now. We'll be talking about the vision statement, which is really the first public phase of the program. And you can see on this exhibit here the schedule of various activities throughout that 36-month period. We are now at the very start of that line that's called Line B Community Involvement Strategy. And I want to call your attention to that because it really is something that's going to be continuing throughout the entire project. It'll be punctuated by events throughout the project as we go forward for public comment. The first of these is a vision statement. The next will be Alternatives Analysis. And at each of these points we'll be reaching out to the public, to city boards and commissions, and also meeting with our Planning Commission and City Council. The other thing I just want to comment and note here for the Housing Authority is that this general plan update will update our housing element and work has commenced on that. We will be happy and I need to refer to my notes here. The first public product will be for the middle of 2022 we'll be putting forward the draft housing element. The goal is for this housing element to be developed, prepared in conjunction with the housing with our general plan update and submitted by January 2023 which is our deadline for our housing element update. Should there be any reason because of the two schedules getting out of sync we are prepared to work separately on the housing element to make sure it gets to the to the State Housing Development Commission. Next slide. Oh, that shows us where we are in the process. We formulated or we're building a number of support teams to help us move through the project one is the Community Advisory Committee which is a group of 25 members who represent the diverse interests, neighborhoods and people living in our community. Seven of those members are appointed by the City Council the remainder are at large members and they will be important not only for a sounding board for all of our products throughout the project but acted as liaisons who will get the word out to the community and help to make sure that we have deep engagement from all the voices that live in Santa Rosa. Next slide. Our technical advisory committee is comprised of our in-house experts and key sub-regional partners members of our agencies that are technical experts they are critical to make sure that this document gets it right in terms of all the technical issues that we have to address according to state law. So in addition to housing we have transportation, wastewater, water and a variety of other issues that we internally have a lot of expertise that can help make sure we have a complete product. And this team started the visioning process back in February and began to frame our discussion that we'll continue at this meeting today. Next slide. We have a project website these next things are kind of information for you if you want to attract the general plan update SantaRosaForward.com is gonna have a great amount of information and the current schedule. I encourage you to bookmark it for information. Also, if you individually wish to comment on the general plan you can go there and there's a comment form and you'll be able to get email updates. Next, the project started with a survey initially at the first part of the year we were asking people what they thought were the big issues facing our community and how can we ask them how is, what's the best method for us to reach out to them? We were very pleased to have an excellent response of 1300 surveys. Next slide. And this diagram shows one of the outcomes of the survey we asked respondents to identify their neighborhoods and this tells us a couple of things first is we had broad citywide participation. Next slide. Then we held a community, a series of workshops that we posted on Zoom. We had 10, seven of those were in each of the council member districts and then the additional three were duplicate meetings that were Spanish language only and this was our virtual town hall if you will where we introduced the ideas of what do people like or dislike about the city and what would they want to change in the future? Next slide. Here are some of the summary outcomes with regard to how people define their neighborhoods. Many of them look to the geographic center but a lot of them thought about their neighborhoods in terms of the focus of their activity areas and where they go to celebrate or meet with friends or family. Next slide. The survey has also told us a lot about what's on people's mind and not surprisingly a lot of our respondents were concerned about hazards especially in light of our last three years. It's been foremost and certainly housing. Housing has shown to be consistently a large significant issue within the community. These are really community sentiment if I know means drive what will be covered by the general plan but they tell us what people are thinking about. Next slide. We also learned from people what they were most interested in in terms of future change and housing again comes up as a top concern, top interest as well as our environment and access to services. Next slide. Again, these were virtual workshops with our consultant team began to deploy tools to engage people in that setting. It is our hope very soon we'll be able to meet face to face and get more of an immediate contact with people and develop a rapport and trust that's necessary to really get meaningful public engagement. Next slide. During these workshops, we again, we ask people to describe what they liked and what they disliked about the city and what we came up with or took away from that was the development of these 13 words or ideas and concepts which really served as discussion prompts for the community to bring forward ideas and issues that people had about the city. Next slide. And I'll just briefly go through these. I just wanted to show you that these were ideas that evolved these sentences associated with each of the words really stimulated a lot of discussion and allowed us to confirm that the direction of the general plan, its ultimate goal is to accomplish many, many facets. So I'll go through these rather quickly. We'll recall in the draft vision state and includes the idea of we want an inclusive city where everybody gets to participate. It needs to be a just city where people have access to services and a clean environment, regardless of the neighborhood you live in. Next slide. We want a healthy city. And I want to stop here a moment and focus on this because this general plan is unique in terms of what the city has done previously. State law has evolved significantly in the recent years regarding general plans. And now the environment concept of environmental justice is a part of the housing element. Also, as you are aware, probably we do have the commitment in our housing element to, you know, towards affirmative furthering of fair housing which gets at these same issues. We were fortunate enough to receive a substantial grant from Kaiser to help us look at these issues in greater detail than might otherwise be possible. That grant has allowed us to bring on board a planning public health specialist, a dedicated position that'll be able to enhance our public outreach and to truly analyze our housing policy, excuse me, our general plan policy through the lens of healthy city issues. So we're really fortunate to be able to do this and this will really help distinguish our general plan from what we've done in the past. The other issue, resiliency, we do want a city that can respond to change, to hazards and not be brittle. Next slide. Cities, our city is always striving to be well-prepared to meet all sorts of change or challenges. We want to continue to do this. We want to provide housing or shelter for all of the segments of our community with a variety of housing types. Next slide. Apologize if my signal is breaking up. I'm getting a weak internet connection. We want an equitable city where everyone has access to services as they need and so that we can support a healthy, long life of our residents. Next slide. And any city is essentially an enterprise. We want to make sure that all sectors of our city, its economy, of our households, that they're successful. And for a city to function, it needs to be well connected. We need to have all sorts of improvements or support mobility in our community, not just vehicles, but pedestrian, cyclists, so forth. Next slide. And of course, we want a safe city for all of our residents, our children, in all neighborhoods in the city. And we want a city where people can continue to learn of all their job skills, to enrich their lives, to support educational institutions. Next slide. And in recognition that the city is a diverse place, we heard a lot about the desire to preserve that cultural diversity, that richness, that tapestry that we enjoy about the city. And we want a city that can be sustained within a setting that is efficient in the sense that it's adapted to our climate and to our locale. Next slide. This graphic just briefly again, represents the sort of number of times these issues came up. And by no way does it set a priority, but it just kind of tells us what people are thinking in terms of their issues and concerns. Next slide. So all of these discussions, we had in addition to the 10 district workshops, we had 18 outreach events to a variety of community organizations, city boards and commissions. And these words came up repeatedly. And you could just see by the size of them, they were no somewhere more repeated than others, but clearly people want safe, vibrant, sustainable, equitable connected city. Next slide. So we've been meeting, and well, actually this, the Housing Authority is the last of our meetings tomorrow. We will be going to the Planning Commission and the City Council for a joint study session to present these ideas. This will not bring a close to the formulation of our vision, but will certainly represent or reporting the substantial amount of input we received on this topic. The discussion on a vision will continue as we move forward to the next stage of the project, which will be the alternatives, selection or preparation where we will identify three different paths towards attaining the broad vision and goals that have come out of this public input. That discussion will be brought to the public or there'll be commenced public discussion on that topic in the fall and the October, November timeframe. And at that time, we'll be reaching out to boards and commissions here at the city, including the Housing Authority, and we'll be able to talk about specific issues on the ground at this point. The vision discussion at this point is generalized at the 30,000 foot level, but it really will help us when we talk about issues on the ground, where we wanna go. So, at this point, I conclude my presentation. If you have any questions about the general plan process, please, I'm available, please feel free. Also, I invite your comments in terms of what you, as individual members of this authority, view as being important aspects of the city to keep or things that you really think need to change in the future to make our city a better place to live and work. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Andy. Appreciate that presentation. I will open it up for commissioner questions. If we could have a raise of hands to see any questions on, I'll call on you. Chair Owen, commissioner Downey does have his hand raised currently. Thank you, commissioner Downey, please go ahead. Hi, Andy. I had two comments. One is emphasizing more of a spending art towards keeping money local through the gold local community and the possibility of keeping our expenditures pertaining to needs and necessities within our jurisdiction. And the second question I had had to do if it hasn't been any conversation about restorative justice versus human justice. So if somebody is arrested as opposed to or a conversation of being institutionalized, mandating that this person owe the city of Santa Rosa X amount of hours in the form of restitution which would encourage accountability, lower recidivism and perhaps more connectedness with this Sonoma County forward, Santa Rosa forward plan, excuse me. The concept of self-sufficiency resilience and the idea that this community can grow and evolve in a way that it can provide for itself. In addition to working with all of the, I'll just say economic connectors in our community. I mean, the general plan and discussion at this point hasn't really moved into the actual implementation or strategy or tactics to achieve the goals. I think what you're speaking of in terms of policy that might promote local business first is something that can be part of that a conversation as we move from alternatives analysis into actual policy development. With regard to restorative justice, I think that's a great example of an actual policy or a tactic that might fall as a implementation program or part of policing in the community. The general plan will not go deep into that issue area, but it will talk about equity and public investment, not necessarily about the criminal justice system and issues that I understand are being discussed in other arenas here in the city. Commissioner Burke, you had a question? Yes, just, I do have a couple, thank you. One has to do with Andy, I guess along the lines of with the water shortages that we're now experiencing, which we hope will go away, but there's some doubt about that. And it seems like in addition to that, kind of an uptick in violence in the community, is there a likelihood, and I know it's in the formative stages of development of the general plan, is it likely to be more inward focused on what we can do with the existing infrastructure and population rather than necessarily adding production of say housing and the other supportive services to kind of anticipate that? Absolutely, and that's going to be certainly a big topic. The city is really a live organism, if you will, constantly changing, growing, diminishing in some areas in terms of how it's economic sector worship. Water is going to be, as it always has been, a critical issue in balancing that with the housing needs, development needs. So I don't envision a one mandate rule all approach in the general plan, the general plan is ultimately a balancing document. So we'll balance our resource constraints with our housing needs, with economic realities and strive to meet what best fits our community objectives, but absolutely water shortage, water capacity, as well as other infrastructure will be part of the discussion and our caring capacity as a city. As you know, we are obligated to provide housing under the state. We know regional housing needs assessment and we need to be proactive about how we're actually going to deliver that housing with the resources we have. Thanks, Andy. Couple other just related questions. Well, not maybe not related, but it's kind of the structural questions. The TAC, has that been formed? And so I kind of like to have an idea about what departments are included in that. And also, will there be a separate committee that will be working on the general, excuse me, the housing element of the general plan? Yeah, the TAC was formed last fall and met for the first time in February as it grew. And they are representatives from all our departments. They are liaison on these representatives who are sub-regional partners, the peers that they work with throughout the county and the state region. They will continue to have the next capacity. And no, we don't anticipate forming a separate housing element committee. We will work with our CAC. And as I mentioned, we anticipate the housing element. We'll look forward with the remainder of the general plan update. So the CAC in that capacity will be reviewing housing element in context of everything else. Thank you. Vice chair to ask you a question. I did. Andy, with regard to the broad recommendation of SAFE, is it appropriate at some point as you drill down on these particular topics to include concerns about gangs and gun violence, which is very real. And as a long time Santa Rosa, it's depressing to me to hear and read about guns and violence. And I'd like to see that that's something that somewhere gets addressed. Yeah, certainly it's a very pressing issue in our community. The general plan won't really speak to specific tactical ways of dealing directly with guns and violence in our community. But it will, I think, get at the core issues that influence and can positively reshape our neighborhoods and communities to help to reduce that. One of the things we've heard loud and clear is that while the general plan must be city-wide, that we really want it to focus on neighborhood. And when we get to the equity issue, we get to affirmative housing, affordable affirmative housing, we get at issues with regard to disparity in our community in terms of services, access to food, healthy, active recreation facilities, things which in time, I would hope, create an environment where the desperation that leads to violence could be diminished. Yeah. Thank you, Andy. Questions for any of the commissioners? Any of our new commissioners have questions? Andy, a few questions. You've been with the city for a long time. What do you see that's different in this general plan versus prior general plan amendments? The evolution of where we are today versus what we've had in the last amendments. What do you see has changed? The list is enormous. I think the biggest one is the city has recognized that it's pretty much built out and the prior general plans were really all about growth management and kind of a different environmental setting, kind of governing back the engine of development to maintain the community we want. Now, I think we're in a position where with a fully developed city, we need to look for internal opportunities to resolve issues that we didn't have before or that we may have had before, but we're not so present. So for instance, development on our perimeter in areas that are subject to fire hazard. While that was always there, we now know what the consequences are of that development and we need to be proactive in our planning. This general plan, as I mentioned earlier, is different than previous general plans where we're dealing directly with equity issues. So in the past, we haven't really talked about the disadvantaged communities in our neighborhood in the way that we will now and strive to invest to overcome some of those disparities in our community in the coming years. Economically, I think our region is challenged. We, as everywhere is, we need to really rethink how we are the center of the North Bay, how we, what our role is, what our opportunities are. So really this, compared to the recent updates, is a complete rethink, revisioning of the city for the next 30, for the next 25 years. So that's a big, big, big difference. One of the questions that comes back in, this has come up in prior meetings, one of the funding sources for the housing authorities, the real property transfer tax. And that goes into the general fund and then we receive an allocation of that and that allocation has not been able to be as great as the housing authority would like it to be. And one of the reasons is the amount of funds that are being used for homeless services. Where is the homeless issue contained in the Jonah plan? That you could read into it that it's in the safety area, it's the equitable area. How is that issue being addressed? Because it is incredibly important as you, as you talk about development being basically a built out city, big pushes that we have for city centered growth, downtown growth, homeless services in the downtown area, the Caritas Village, the housing authorities put money out and housing choice vouchers, but the project-based vouchers for Caritas Center. And just how is that factored into the general plan, that issue, which is a very big issue and it touches many aspects of the community. I mean, the most immediately the housing element talks about all types of housing, including supportive housing for needy population groups and homelessness is a part of that discussion. I think too, there are other topics within the general plan, circulation, services, even how we design our streets, get at housing from the direction of creating environments that are more supportive for healthy locations and housing types. So homelessness and supportive housing is probably, if the housing element was a stool, it's one of the three legs at least of the housing element update that I'll be accomplishing with the general plan. Yeah, any other commissioners have questions? My screen keeps freezing up on me and I need to refresh to have the video going, my audio works, but my video keeps freezing up. So if there are hands raised, I can't see that. There's no hands raised currently, Chair Owen. Okay, thank you. Like to go ahead and move it on to any public comment? And we can explain how the public comment portion works. We are now taking public comment on item number 4.1, general plan update. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes to make your comment. A countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and meeting participants. The first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak. Please make sure to unmute yourself when you are invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown. Chair Owen, at this time, I do not see any hands raised and we've not received any email public comment. Thank you. Andy, I really appreciate your time and I know this is a long process in terms of going through this and all the meetings and we definitely appreciate that. And we will look forward to the next step on this issue. Thank you. Go ahead, Andy. Let's just say thank you and welcome any opportunity of individual members, wishes to comment. You can always email us at srforward, one word at srcity.org or email that we accept public comments. But thank you for the opportunity to present it to this authority. Thank you, Andy. Our next item is 4.2, which is to review the nose funding and velvety process and point system, which would be followed by the housing choice voucher program waiting list overview. And I want to swap those two. So what we'll do is we'll do 4.3 first and then talk about 4.2. I believe Rebecca is doing the presentation of 4.3. Correct, item 4.3 is the housing choice voucher program waiting list overview. Rebecca Lane, housing and community services manager will be presenting. Okay, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking the time today to talk about this topic with me. My name's Rebecca Lane. I'm the manager of the division of housing community services that overseed the housing choice voucher program waiting list. Next slide, please. So the housing choice voucher program, just to start with a broad background is the federally funded major rental assistance program that is operating here through the city of Santa Rosa. We administer this program on behalf of the federal government. We receive funding directly from the federal government. We have a contract between the housing authority, board of commissioners and this entity and the federal government to administer this program. This program is a tenant-based form of rental assistance, which means that we as the housing authority voucher program staff work directly with the families who are receiving the assistance and we determine their eligibility for the program and then we pay directly our subsidy, our housing subsidy is paid directly to the landlords and owners of the properties that our participants in the program, our family participants in the program choose to rent. So we do have some other forms, sort of modifications that we can make to this program. Carol and mentioned it briefly in the last study session, project-based vouchers are one way that this resource can sort of help with the development of affordable housing, but largely this program is a tenant-based form of rental assistance. Currently we have 1903 vouchers that are under contract with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This number will be changing by next month because we do have a new program coming online, which we have another item to discuss later in this meeting. So we'll get into that, but the current contract is for 1903 vouchers that we administer, that we have access to through the Department of Housing and Urban Development. And we also administer additional vouchers. So our caseload, as it were, is higher than that because we have vouchers that our families have moved into our jurisdiction from other housing authorities. And so we administer those vouchers on behalf of the other housing agencies and we bill them to be reimbursed for the rental assistance, but that eligibility work happens here in the city of Santa Rosa. Next slide, please. So this is the map of our distribution of our vouchers. It's much better when it's an interactive map, but you can see the darker green shaded areas are representing a higher distribution of vouchers. And you'll see the blue outlines are the city limits of Santa Rosa. You'll see that we have extended our borders beyond the city limits of Santa Rosa. And the reason for that is because we have a sizable HUD-VASH program, that's the Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Program. And we have an agreement with the County of Sonoma Housing Authority that we administer those vouchers throughout Sonoma County. We have 414 HUD-VASH vouchers. And in the beginning of the HUD-VASH program is when we decided between the two agencies and with the VA involved in that conversation that it would be easier rather than trying to transfer those vouchers between jurisdictions that it would be better to streamline that process and just have our agency administer that throughout the County. So that's why you'll see that there are some concentrations outside the city limits of Santa Rosa, but the darker green areas are the higher concentrations. And you'll see in the sort of the northern, northeastern part of the map, or northwestern, excuse me, part of the map there, that is an area that has, I'm sorry, I'm pulling it up on my computer too, the interactive one. So that's 193 vouchers, the darker portion down at the southern part, the larger square, that's 185 vouchers. And both of those that are near large housing complexes, the large apartment complexes, the one in the northern part, that includes Del Nito apartments, for example, which have over 200 units. The lower part of the city there, that includes our downtown area. So there are the Rosenberg building, Bethlehem Towers, Silvercrest, some other large high density buildings. And so that's why the concentrations are a bit higher there. Next slide, please. So the reason that we're, there's a lot of topics that we can discuss with the voucher program and how it works, but we wanted to focus this study session just on the waiting list, because it's easier to sort of digest all the information in more focused conversations. So what we're talking about today is the waiting list for this voucher program and how that works. And the first thing that's important to understand about the voucher program is that it is not currently an entitlement program, which means that if you are income eligible for the program, it doesn't automatically mean that you will receive assistance, not in the way that food stamps or cash aid and those kinds of services at MediCal, those other government benefits. The voucher program does not work that way. It is not an entitlement program. So that means that you do not automatically get assistance if you need it. So because of that, we create a waiting list locally. Every housing authority in the country has a waiting list. They might vary in terms of how many households are on the waiting list and how long the wait for assistance is, but because it is not an entitlement program, that's why these waiting lists are created. More households in our jurisdiction certainly qualify for the assistance than there are vouchers available. And that's why we have the waiting list. Our waiting list is currently about seven years from the time that you apply for the waiting list to the time that you can expect to come up to the top of the waiting list to be invited in for an eligibility interview to receive assistance. So when we are talking to the public who's reaching out to us asking for housing assistance, what we often say is that this is not an immediate form of assistance. This is something that is a process and we always tell people to apply for the waiting list and then also give resources for some more immediate resources. Next slide, please. So the way that our waiting list process works here in the city of Santa Rosa is that generally we open the waiting list once every two years for one month to allow additional households the opportunity to get on the list. And the reason that the list is closed to new applicants for the majority of the time is because if it were open constantly, it would become unmanageable. We have to be able to contact all the families on the waiting list on a regular basis to check in with them, to make sure that they're still interested and still eligible for the program. The county, our county, our local county housing authority had kind of experimented with this waiting list being open for at any time and they very quickly ended up with over 30,000 families and that is just very difficult to maintain the level of contact that you need to be able to effectively develop those relationships and make sure that everybody's understanding the information and getting the information when they need it. So we have always had this process established where the waiting list is open for a brief period of time for on a somewhat regular schedule, I say somewhat because COVID did impact this process and we did not open the waiting list last year in 2020 as we would have if that had not happened. But as a basis of comparison just in terms of between housing authorities, I gave the example of our local county housing authority that had the constantly open waiting list. They do not have that anymore. They also open only briefly and we have other jurisdictions in the Bay Area that may only open their waiting list for a week at a time. And so we have a lot of examples to be able to look to in terms of what that process looks like for different jurisdictions and we have found that this way, opening a relatively regular schedule and opening it for a month at a time is the best way to make sure that we're getting the word out and that everybody has the opportunity to apply. Once we do receive those applications, and this again is an application to be on the waiting list, not an application for the assistance yet. Once we receive those applications, what we do is we sort them by lottery. So this takes away the element that there might otherwise be of the urgency. I have to apply on the first day. You don't have to do that. There isn't a big rush in the beginning. There is no benefit to applying at the first day of the month versus the last day of the month. And that also that is more equitable in terms of making sure that everybody has access to the list. So when the applications are received during the month that the waiting list is open, then they're sorted by lottery. And that group of people is placed at the bottom of the existing waiting list. So our waiting list right now, the top of it has applications from the 2012 or 14 or 16 math is escaping me, but we have at the top of the waiting list, a group of people who applied in a particular year and then people who applied after that and applied after that. And this way we are doing kind of a combination between a time that you applied and your time on the waiting list and then also the lottery so that there isn't, so that it's equitable among all the people who applied. Next slide, please. So one thing about our waiting list also in the city center is that we do not have general preferences and preferences on a waiting list that affects the length of time that a family might wait on the list. Those preferences are available through the federal regulations and they're specific to only certain categories. So a local housing authority may decide to choose among certain preferences that are allowed in the federal regulations. An example of that might be a household who has family members who are disabled or a household who has family members who are minors. Our housing authority has traditionally not had any of those general preferences. Our stance has been that we prefer to have this more equitable process just by sort of date and time of application. And we do have one general preference that applies to the entire waiting list and that is only for households who were terminated from the voucher program because of a lack of funding. We've never had to invoke that preference. We've never had to terminate anyone from this program for lack of funding, but we did set ourselves up to have that preference back in about, I believe it was 2011, we had a sequestration and the federal budget was slashed and there were agencies that did have to make that very difficult decision to terminate families from the program for lack of funds. We did not, but we do have that preference and we kept it on there just in case that ever happens. And that would give any family who's terminated from the program the opportunity to come right back on as soon as we had the funds for it. The other preference that is allowed under the program is what's called a limited preference and we do have a couple of those here. And the limited preference is a specific set aside with a specific number of vouchers that are targeted to a specific population in partnership with a service agency. And this is an evolution that came to be throughout the country and it was guided by HUD had allowed jurisdictions to start doing this as a way to address homelessness. And so we have a partnership with the coordinated entry program and we have a limited preference, which is about 25 vouchers for people household who are referred through the coordinated entry system directly to the housing authority. And then we also have a limited preference where it was targeted to survivors of the 2017 wildfires and our partner agency in that case was rebuilding our community or the rock center. And so those are our two limited preferences and our one general preference. Next slide, please. So once a family or a household reaches the top of the waiting list, then we call them in order of application, we send out a mail. So it is very important that we have current addresses and that's one of the things that we're constantly sort of reaching out and updating, making sure that we do have good mailing addresses for everyone. So we send out an invitation in writing in order of application to respond and to make an invitation or make an appointment rather with us to determine eligibility. That process can take several weeks because there's a lot of documents that the family is going to gather. So what we call the success rate of our invitations is by comparing the number of invitations that we sent out to the number who are ultimately issued vouchers. And so that varies pretty significantly. We've had some invitations where we're getting about a 90% response rate and then maybe a 70 or 80% voucher issuance rate. And we've had other times where we send out a hundred letters saying you can come in and schedule an interview and we only get 25 responses. So it really just depends on that particular group that we're inviting. Often people have been on the list for so long that they might have moved out of the area or they don't need the assistance anymore. So this is another one of the reasons that it's important to have a fresh waiting list and make sure that you're in good communication with the people on your waiting list to know that they'll be ready to go when it's time. Next slide, please. So once a household is issued or is determined to be eligible for the program, income eligible and they've provided all of their documentation, then they're invited to attend a briefing to receive the voucher. The briefing is a required part of the program. That's where they get an orientation where the families get all of the rules and regulations of the program and all the paperwork that they need. They have from that point from the day of the briefing when their voucher becomes active, they have 120 days to sort of search for housing. And if a household does not find housing in that timeframe, then they are eligible to request an extension of the voucher term. So that's something that we, especially in this housing market, we're well aware of the challenges that any tenant is gonna have looking for housing in this market. So that's why we have a pretty generous search time. That's actually the longest we're allowed to give initially is 120 days. Some jurisdictions, that might only be 30 days. It just depends on what the market looks like locally. So the households search for housing. Ideally, everybody finds something in that 120 days. That's about four months. And if not, then we can discuss with them what the challenges are and talk to them about an extension. So I talked about this excess rate in the last slide, which is the number of invitations that we send out to compared to the number of vouchers that we actually issue. And then the utilization rate is a different measure. That's the number of vouchers that we issue compared to the number of vouchers that actually become lease stops that the family actually uses the voucher. And our utilization rate has always been pretty good. We are having, it can vary certainly with the market especially, but we're at about 95% overall for the program. And part of that currently is that we've got a lot of households waiting in the wings for two really big complexes to open up. One, both of them are had bash. One is in Sonoma and another is in Windsor between those properties. There's about 63 households that should be leased up by the middle of August. So we'll see that utilization rate jump up again after those complexes are open. Next slide, please. And that's it. Okay, sorry. So that was a lot of information. I know I said, we like to try and focus on one subject at a time and this is why because I'm sure that's still a lot of information. I'm happy to take any questions. So thank you. Rebecca, thank you. That's valuable information I think especially, this is the first time I've seen it presented and I think three years I've been on the housing authority and have a more detailed analysis of how the vouchers are put out. Go ahead and open it for questions. Please raise your hands so I can see on screen. Commissioner Downey, as you have a question, please go ahead. Hi, Rebecca, thank you for your presentation. The question I want to ask you is, is there still hesitancy of landlords accepting vouchers? And if there is still hesitancy of landlords accepting vouchers, has there been any conversation about using a property tax credit as an incentive for landlords to specifically be more approachable to people with session eight vouchers? That's a great question. Thank you, Dr. Downey. So there's a couple of answers to that. So one is that I think if you ask our participants, we do hear feedback from our participants that it can be challenging, that it can be an extra challenge to be a tenant and have a voucher accepted by landlords. However, there are both local and now statewide prohibitions against source of income discrimination and that includes the voucher as a form of income. So for example, if you are a family that does not have wages as a form of income but you do have social security as a form of income, the owner is not allowed to discriminate against you by saying, no, we only accept applicants that have wages coming into their household. Now, beginning in January of 2019, 2019, I believe, and I apologize because the pandemic has messed with my sense of time, but there is a statewide ordinance that says you cannot tell an applicant that they can't rent from you because they have a voucher as a form of income. So the source of income protections have now been extended to Housing Choice Voucher participants. We also have that same ordinance locally. So it's at both the local and the statewide level. As far as property tax credit, we would not be in control of that necessarily here at Housing Authority. That would be a county conversation that that is an incentive I have heard of in other jurisdictions. I know there's a couple of jurisdictions in the state of Texas that have that as an incentive where the property taxes are lowered or as a way of incentivizing property owners to participate in the program. We also do have some local incentive programs that are being piloted right now that we tried to develop. We developed with the assistance of landlords in our community to find out what, and this was before the statewide source of income discrimination, but we had a lot of conversations with landlords about what are the reasons for your hesitancy and if we had an incentive program, how could we target it to make you more inclined to participate in the program? So all of those things are happening across the spectrum. Can I answer an addendum that's kind of anecdotal? I have landlord tell me that she really didn't like bending to people in the military. And it was kind of a he said, she said situation. The reason I got the place is I had the, the frame of mind to show it with about $3,000 cash. And I said, well, you can be uncomfortable or you can have this money except to you. And she said, well, I'll think I'll take the money. So it's still out there. Even though the source of income anti-discrimination clauses are there, people don't have to disclose that they're nervous about your source of income. So I'm just gotten a little bit more wily as I've gotten older because this is a real thing behind real stories. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Downey. If I share a task, do you have a question? I do. And I wanted to thank Commissioner Downey for those questions and comments. That was very helpful information. So Rebecca, you had mentioned that we didn't do an opening of the wait list in 2020. Does that mean it's open this year, 2021? Yes, we are gearing up for that right now. And because both because of having not done it during 2020 and because we're doing it with a new format, we are gonna have that open for two months this time. So I don't have the exact dates yet, but it is gonna be late summer and we will have the waiting list open. The new format is going to be an electronic application process so that that can be done on a cell phone or computer. We'll also have alternative formats available for those who can't participate in that. But we do believe that particularly given the challenges of the pandemic that having this electronic way of applying will actually give us greater access, give families greater access. So that is being planned as we speak and we're doing a big outreach effort. We're working very closely with the city's community engagement department to make sure that the word is out. We also have a huge list of social service partners who are gonna be working with us to make sure that during that opening period that everybody who needs the assistance can apply. Great, thank you. Just another question. What is the typical way to reach out to landlords that encouraging them to use the voucher system? So we are as an agency, we're members of the California Department Association and so we'll periodically go to meetings and give presentations. We also have connections with the local realtor groups which we find that to be more of a resource for people who might have just one single family dwelling that they're renting out. They might work more with the realtor association than the apartment association. So we do work with a number of organizations like that. And then we also have developed relationships over the years with property management companies because if you're a person who has just one or two properties you may be managing that on your own or you may be employing the services of a property management company. So that's another group of folks that we reach out to when we have an educational information that we want to give out to landlords, things like that. And so with regard to the last time that you had the outreach, technically how many new landlords sign up? Well, we have helped study between about 750 and 800 housing providers at any given time. So that's different entities. That can be a mom and pop type landlord with just one property and that can go into big apartment complexes as well. So there's a lot of turnover, right? So a tenant might be living in one property with a voucher and then move out of the area and that landlord we always offer at any time when we hear of somebody moving out of the unit. One of the first things that we do is offer to advertise the vacancy for that unit to our voucher holders who are searching. So we offer that service most of the time they take us up on that offer. But it may or may not be rented again to another voucher holder. So generally that's about the amount of housing providers that we work with, like I say, between 750 and 800. And that's been steady for as long as I've been part of the program. Thank you. Commissioner Veracute, a question? No, not a question, but just a comment for the new members. When you look at the budget, which I'm sure you will, you'll see that this is a huge portion of our responsibility is the voucher program. When you look at the budget it just overwhelms everything else. And sometimes it goes kind of unnoticed and unheralded but it's so important. And so I think it's incumbent upon us to try to get the word out about how much of a difference the voucher program makes for the folks in the city of Santa Rosa. The second comment is just kind of a follow-up to Commissioner Downey's comment on a way to incentivize property owners. And the predecessor of the Section 8 voucher program was called Section 23. And Section 23, the federal government provided an arrangement where if you were a landlord and wanted to participate in the program you could sign up for the program for a long-term commitment. And the management and the maintenance would be taken care of by the housing authority. And that was a huge incentive because at the end of the contract, the provisions and the agreement provided for the unit to be returned to the owner with repairs minus normal wear and tear. And so that really was a very strong and successful program. Section 8 took some of those incentives away and unfortunately to a large degree they haven't been restored. So it was a matter of the federal government just deciding that it wanted to spend less money on affordable housing. Any of our new commissioners have questions? Yvonne, you're on mute. Yeah, hi. Yeah, so I was questioning about for one, how do you get the people that are the landlords? Because my situation when I had my voucher was I was always told the quotas were met. And so I didn't understand how do you achieve a quota? How do you maintain a quota? Our quota is monitored. And then this whole thing of, you know, the getting the landlords, it's just a new arena for me. Because I thought that people were like, if you were built an apartment complex, you committed so many units of that complex for Section 8 vouchers. And so I couldn't understand a lot of times when I was pointing to newer building units why they had already achieved their vouchers when they were just being built. So in terms of a quota, like I assume that you're referring, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume that you're referring to like a building with a hundred units saying we have 10 that are going to be for vouchers. And then once we hit that number, then we won't rent anymore vouchers. Is that what you're referring to? Yeah, like one of my experiences was I went to one and I handed in my application and I was called like an hour later and I was told my credit rating wasn't good and my credit rating was over 800. Then my income to debt was ratio was wrong and I said I have no debt. And then I was finally told that we met our quota. And it just seemed to be a handy way for people to say go away little girl, we don't want to be bothered with you. So I would say one, I don't know anything specific about quotas in particular. I know that under the new state law that prohibits source of income discrimination, I would imagine that that is not something that not a policy that an apartment complex would be able to employ anymore, but I am not an attorney. And we do though, if we have participants who run into situations like that, if they are hitting roadblocks in their housing search that seem to be discriminatory, we will absolutely refer those families to the fair housing programs so that they can get some assistance. And if we see concerns, we will also approach the properties. So how do you get your landlords and how do you get your units to supply the vouchers to? Well, it's the name of the new program, Commissioner Burke, hearkened us back to the earlier days, but it is now called the Housing Choice Voucher Program. And what that means is that the families are the ones who, because of the nature of the program, have the opportunity to search wherever it is, whatever neighborhood it is, and for whatever type of unit it is that meets their needs. So there are some limits to that. The housing unit has to pass an inspection in order for us to be able to subsidize it. And the rent has to be reasonable in compared to the market. But other than that, it's really up to the families to figure out where they want to live. And so the majority of our sort of how our owners are found, how the property owners are founded through the families searching for housing themselves. But we also employ other measures of outreach and education to the owner community, as they mentioned, through those landlord organizations and through advertising and things like that. Thank you. Any other questions from the commissioners? Rebecca, just, and I'm gonna follow kind of Steve's, Steve Burke's lead on this. It's not really questions, it's kind of the, what I've learned process and on this is there's been one of the benefits that as I understand it is you go out, the city goes out and has the, I forget the exact term, the marketable rent or fair marketable rent dollar amount, knowing that this is what the unit will pay up to. And the vouchers, the difference between what say a two bedroom apartment is considered fair market rent, less what the tenant can pay based upon their income. And that's, that is what the dollar, the voucher amount pays, is that correct? So the voucher amount, or at least what the, I should say what the family pays is generally speaking between 30 and 40% of their monthly adjusted income. And then the housing authority is gonna pay the rest, the balance of the rent directly to the owner. There are, besides the rent being reasonable in comparison to other units that are in similar neighborhoods and have similar amenities, besides the rent being reasonable, we do also have the payment standards, which is a dollar amount that's tied to the fair market rents. But we are finding the majority of our households, household participants for the last few years, our market rents, the market rents that HUD has offered to us have been in line with reality. So that the rents are fitting into those payment standards and we're not seeing a lot of households having challenges with finding a unit within those parameters. So HUD first says this is what a two-bedroom or one-bedroom is to your apartment should rent for housing authority confirms that. And that's how the voucher amount is paid less the 30 to 40% of adjusted gross income that the tenant can pay. And then that payment is made on the first of the month directly to the landlord. Which from a landlord standpoint, again, and just comment, not question is good from their cashflow because they know they're going to get that portion of the rent on the first every single month. Whereas a tenant based upon their lease we pay the first through the fifth or whatever date is based per the lease agreement. So from a landlord standpoint that is good. And again, we've had this discussion in prior meetings just the education of the landlord and now that we have the non-discrimination on that they can be reported for such that that's also helpful. Any other questions from commissioners? Scott, go ahead and you're on mute. Yeah, there you go. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Rebecca for that presentation. My mind is racing. I have a lot of thoughts on this one simply because I'm going to go with what commissioner Downey first I want to comment on add on what he said. I do think it's anecdotal simply because that just because there are rules and laws that are put on the books that say that you cannot do something does not mean the landlord cannot find a way to discriminate against you or find reasons to reject you. I think it's a good idea. But I think also when you mentioned the fact they can report it then it becomes a matter of like commissioner Downey had mentioned he says she says and unless you have a witness there you never really know when that's going on. I have my first question would be or my first yeah my first question for back is why is the wait seven years? Because the number of families that qualify and that seek assistance exceeds the number of vouchers that we have available. So we have 1903 vouchers under contract that's had right now and they're the majority of them are being utilized. So when we have one available or when we have a group of vouchers available is when we would send out an invitation for people to apply. And so because our attrition is pretty low our turnover in our program is only about 6%. So because once you get a voucher you tend to hold on to it then we just that's how long it takes until one's available. Okay, my thoughts was probably running with the same thing. And then you have the limited vouchers 400 and something of those and I take it that's percentage that deals with the HUD VASH program. Yeah, the HUD VASH program we have 414 of those vouchers right now of our 1903. So that's a sizable portion of our program. Okay, and I do believe like later on is a gender and part of it is 11.1 or something where they're talking about the emergency vouchers but that's later. Yeah. So mean you've had conversations before what I felt what Section 8 or what they call it was it a choice voucher program issue is and I think the rebranding of the name is a good idea. But my next question is and I think I asked to talk to you about this before is there any, I know there's organizations that help people that are looking for places but is there any way that you or any program that actually teach tenants or participants how to actually go look for a place and how to approach it on the Lord? Yes, we work with a couple of different nonprofits that offer tenant education courses. So COTS has a program called Rent Right and then there's a community action partnership also has, I don't know if you can still see me, sorry about that. So we work with a couple of social service agencies that do offer tenant education courses and part of that is just kind of basic like this is what a rental application is probably gonna need to include and so these are the pieces of information that you wanna be prepared to share with a rental application and then also just how to search and what to search for as well as other kind of tips about the rental application process. So we do work with those agencies that have those programs and we've also done it in-house a few times. We also include some basic education and certainly opportunity for questions about those things when we are doing the briefings with the families. Okay, no, because I don't mean to say no, I sometimes hit it a lot. You gotta figure me, I got a broken back. So sometimes I fidget and sometimes that my mind tends to shift because I'm in constant pain. It's just something I just live with. I don't take a lot of pills, but it keeps me alive. The pain keeps me active. But what I was thinking was because everything right now deals with electronics, the internet, and I'm talking about, like I told you, my example was 120 days seems like it's a lot of time, but I know when people are searching, I know people out there that's been searching for three months and they have yet to find anything. I know your numbers are great and I know a large percentage of numbers has to deal with the public housing that is being built and that's where a lot of these participants end up going, but I'm talking about in a private sector just as far as approaching these landlords. I was wondering, has there ever been anybody that really total give them like a general standard letter? This is how you should write a letter to approach a private landlord. Yes, that is writing, like the cover letter that's something that, yes, that is included in the courses that I mentioned that the nonprofits are doing. Okay, well, I won't keep no more on your time. I appreciate it. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, hearing none, I'd like to go ahead and open it up for public comment. We are now taking public comment on item number 4.3, housing choice voucher program wait list. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes to complete your comment. A countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and meeting participants. The first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak. Please make sure to unmute yourself when you are invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown. Chair Owen, at this time I see no raised hands and we have not received any email public comment. Thank you very much. Rebecca, thank you very much for information that's very valuable. It helps us understand the process for the large, as Commissioner Birkstead, the biggest percentage of our budget and how that comes through HUD through the housing authority and how that process works. Like to go ahead and move on to item 4.2, which is the Notice of Funding Availability process and point system. All right, and Nicole Rappon, the interim manager of the Housing Trust will be presenting. Hi, good afternoon, everybody. I'm Nicole Rappon, the interim manager for the Housing Trust. Housing Trust is the division of the department that works primarily with funding developers to build new affordable housing units, a lot of times in apartment complexes. So this item that we have today is a review of our fiscal year 2021 to 2022, Notice of Funding Availability point system. Next slide, please. Thank you. So a little bit of background. We put out annual notices of funding availability, which are also called NOFA solicitations to the development community about once a year. And what this is, it's similar to posting like a job application or a job posting. So we let the developers know that we have some amount of funding available from these different sources and what their eligible uses are. And we invite them to apply for the funding to help get all of the funding in place for the affordable housing developments that they have in their pipelines. So we do this on an annual basis from our federal and local funding sources. And typically those happen in the spring each year. On March 22nd, we have a study session with the housing authority to review the NOFA and a new draft point system that we had used. So previously we were using criteria in our solicitations to tell the development community what exactly we were looking for. And that was all built into the narrative portion of the solicitation materials. For this first, for this NOFA for the fiscal year of 21 to 22, we wanted to implement a point system as you can see an attachment one to this item to help make the scoring system more transparent and help advise the developers ahead of time kind of how they could self-score and see how their projects would score before committing the time and money to applying for the funds. With this NOFA, after our March study session we received feedback from the Housing Authority Commission and incorporated their feedback into that solicitation and published it on March 29th. We had applications due April 16th. And from that point system, the first time we used it that point system, we got two projects that were recommended for funding. Next slide, please. All right, so the point system, this all of this information is also included in attachment one, whichever version is easier for you guys to review. The projects were scored and ranked using these criteria. So out of 100 points total, there was a category for readiness, which is basically how fast can a project proceed? How ready is it to start construction? Does it have all of its other funding sources lined up? Has it completed the required environmental assessments that the project would need? Those types of factors. Affordability. So up to 20 points for affordability. And that's basically the level of airing me and income targeted for each unit. So the developments have to identify to us how many units are in the project that they wanna build and what levels of affordability they're going to target with their projects. So for example, they might say we're gonna have 30 units targeted for people whose household incomes are 30% of air you median income or less and 50 units for people who are at 60% of air you median income or AMI or less. So that was the affordability category and bedroom sizes. We had up to 10 points allotted to a bedroom size category, which is for this solicitation, we have 30% of the units of the project as a total at three bedroom size or larger was the category for bedroom sizes. We also had a special needs set aside, which was for special needs categories as defined by the state and also for the seniors, any senior units. Leveraging was up to 10 points and leveraging is how much of the total development cost are you asking from the housing authority? So are you asking for $5 million out of a $50 million project or are you asking for $100,000 after out of a $5 million project? So the smaller percentage of funding being requested of the housing authority to get this project to move forward. The next category was project competitiveness for a standard lack or TCAC or MHP scoring and we expanded that to really any state funding source up to 10 points for that. These other acronyms are other funding sources available at the state level. So the intent of this notice of funding availability was to help position projects that were intending to apply for those other funding sources to help position them with local funds so that they'd be more competitive when they went to the state funding applications. And then we had another category for developer manager experience for up to 15 points. How many developments does this team have under the belt in the community and in the state as larger entity? Services and amenities was another category that was for up to 10 points out of the hundred. Services and amenities are things like onsite services. Are there classes being offered on site for the residents? Is there a barbecue pit? Is there a playground? Those types of onsite services, amenities are more considered as how close are you to a grocery store? How close are you to retail and shopping or trig transit line? And then we had the last category for other factors for five points and for this last solicitation the other factors were that if the property was on a city-owned facility or if there was prior housing authority commitments in the project already. All right, next slide, please. So we went through this process to score all of the applications that came in from the last NOFA and that was at the June meeting. We had the two projects that received the highest scores out of the hundred points possible that were awarded funding. And going forward, we would like to continue using this points scoring system with a few adjustments for future allocations. So that's why we're here to housing authority today going over the point system that we used, the minor adjustments that we would like to use going forward and to get housing authority feedback and also open it up for public comment to hear from any of the public or anyone in the development community that's online today. Based on the feedback that we received from developers and the initial review process using a point system these are the changes that we would like to implement. So possibly adding a preservation of units category we talk a lot about building new units and having new construction but there's also something to be said for keeping units affordable. So if there's a complex or development that is currently an affordable development and has an upcoming end date to their regulatory period which is what requires them to keep it affordable. So ultimately it could potentially go to market rates soon. We would wanna add a category to preserve those units to keep them affordable. We were also considering possible separate notice in the future for new construction versus rehabilitation and preservation putting those two categories together. So rehabilitation would be for an existing affordable housing complex say it needs a new roof or there needs to new stairwell. We need to make sure that we are keeping our affordable developments in good shape in addition to building new ones. So in a way to make sure that those types of funding requests are also competitive with the funds that we have we could add a category for new construction or for rehabilitation separately or we could do separate notice in the future. We could also align our affordability or sorry, our recommendation is to align affordability categories with the general plan and the regional housing needs allocation or sometimes called arena which is in the general plan. This category breaks down what levels of affordability we have in our community and what we need to have what areas we need to look at meeting a little bit better. We also wanted to separate the services and amenities categories. So services again are onsite services at the property and amenities are generally how close you are to other services. It's provided to be a bit difficult administratively to have those two categories in the same or to have those two factors in the same category. So we would look to separate those for a future note and also to keep an other factors category for the evolving community needs. We have the affordable housing community is dynamic and is changing every year and we have different needs in our community all of the time. So we wanted to make sure to keep a category so we could accurately reflect the needs of the community and position projects to move forward to the construction phases. And then possible adjusting of these spread of points within the categories to help distinguish applications that best meet the criteria. So what we found is we had a whole lot of applications that had a very similar scores from this rubric that we used for the first time. And we wanna look to it for a future funding availability to adjust the internal spread of those point systems for the existing categories so that there's more space in between the project application scores. So there's not projects that are hopefully off by one or two points in their scoring system and having that be the determination of who's funded and who's not. Next slide please. Okay, so this slide and I apologize. This was from our first run through of trying to get this on the June agenda. So this slide was not updated and it should have been. We received additional feedback from, it ended up being three developers about the bedroom size preferences. So we had two developers who wanted us to amend the bedroom size category to allow a maximum score of 20 for 25% of the units at three bedroom size or larger. Whereas as it was existing, it was at a 30% of the units or three bedroom size for larger. So that would be taking down that top score criteria by 5%. So two developers made that request for feedback and we have one developer that wanted us to eliminate the bedroom size category completely. Based on the feedback that we received and the needs of the community and the general plan as well, what we would recommend is to keep the bedroom size category and adjust the point scale to allow for full points at the 25% level, going with the majority of the developer feedback that we have received. Next slide, please. Okay, so we are requesting that housing authority feedback and to hear comments from the public and developers related to the utilization of the point system for future developers. Staff found it to be beneficial and have a more transparent and clear cut way for scoring and selecting NOFA's in the review process, but we do want to hear from the housing authority. We had an ad hoc committee comprised of commissioners test and former commissioner Olson who reviewed those. So maybe hearing back from commissioner test if you have any feedback on the point system and again, any public comment that we hear and discussion thereafter. Next slide. Okay, so yeah, it is the recommended by the housing and community services department that the housing authority hold this study session to review the fiscal year 2021-2022 notice of funding availability process and point system and provide direction or discussion for future funding solicitations. So with that, I would like to open it up to housing authority and possibly to commissioner test if you have any feedback as part of that ad hoc committee that met for the past NOFA. Thank you, Nicole, vice chair test. Yes, I think we realized on that last NOFA that the system was not gonna be perfect and that we will continue to learn how to change the system as projects come forward and more discussion takes place from the entire commission. I think the feedback from the developers has some merit but also I believe I'm glad that we are having this discussion again because again, it is kind of a work in process. Thank you. Any comments from the other commissioners or questions? Commissioner Berg? Yes, thank you, chair on. First of all, the staff report is really well written and it's very thought provoking and I think it hits out some of the key points and that's that you need to be flexible if we're gonna have a method that is responsive to the changing needs of the community. And as I understand it, the census data is supposed to come out maybe later this summer which should hopefully provide additional information. Give us an updated snapshot as to what the community needs are. There's, I particularly like the idea of separating the preservation of housing from new development and what I'm bringing back to my comment to the housing or the general plan in the housing element that will come out of that is that we're going through some changes and that's that there's less water which makes it harder to support probably new housing if that can be used and gets more severe. I also see lots of disturbing events in the community that tell me that there's a need to neighborhoods and try to make those neighborhoods safer places for people to live, for families to raise children and to by doing that, hopefully start to stem the wrongs of violence in the community. I think there's a definite relationship between neighborhood conditions and people's lives in those neighborhoods and the degree of activity that may be concerning to particularly those people in those neighborhoods but to the larger community in terms of violence. And I think that we can do things to help encourage landlords to pay more attention to the conditions in their neighborhoods. So I really think that's a great idea. Just a couple of questions. One is the, well, getting back to it. So your bullet points on page two I think are spot on and I think that there should be some process maybe kind of formalized before every several months or whatever, there's a discussion about what information we have, what needs exist and then to focus our solicitations for proposals to meet those needs. It could be geographical rather than going city-wide if we have particular concerns about a sector of the community and it could be for different types of housing. If senior housing is a top priority and it's in Oakmont then we ought to solicit proposals that are more focused and that's just an example and that's something specifically that I have any support for. So the more information we have the more scientific approach that we can bring to this I think the stronger and more successful the process will be. And let me ask you the question, is this particular document the point system which is kind of at the end of whatever solicitation we put out for ANOFA, is that going to return to the housing authority for formal approval or is that just gonna be kind of with the input that you receive from the housing authority administered well, from an administrative standpoint modified to respond to the information that you get today. For this is an administrative process that we are seeking feedback from the housing authority but not any formal action. Any future ANOFA we typically ask for an ad hoc committee and we bring the ANOFAs to that group for assessment. So that's a possibility in the future but we do not need action today. Okay, thanks for that. Generally speaking, I think that we're moving well, I think that it's a good idea to move to a more proactive approach in terms of our solicitations rather than kind of reacting to the proposals that come our way. That's not to discount the important developments that are in the pipeline. I don't think it's something where you flip the switch and you go from being more responsive and react to proposals versus being more proactive but I think we ought to have a real detailed discussion about being more proactive and what it is that the community needs and how we get that into the community. And I'm also very much interested in hearing from the development interests and nonprofits, the for-profits that are out there looking for sites and looking to put together proposals to submit to us for assistance to allow projects to go forward that couldn't otherwise go forward. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Burke. Commissioner Mopana, did I pronounce that correctly? You're still on mute. Yeah, I just wanted to reiterate what Commissioner Burke said and Rebecca also. From my backgrounds in code enforcement and building inspections, one of the things as these units get older that you find is landlords don't maintain them. They just keep taking the money out but don't put money back in for capital improvements or anything else. And I think it's very important to separate the new unit category from rehabilitation and preservation units. Thank you, Commissioner Downey. Thank you, Nicole, it's absolutely filling and you can get feedback back from developers this fast. And I'm sure that we're all aware that San Rosa's housing needs is very dynamic and constantly changing. And I hope that there will be an element of really approaching the scoring system as things change so that we can accommodate these changes to best fit the needs. The last question I have for you is, have you had any conversation with Andy about how your scoring system would flavor Sonoma, excuse me, Santa Rosa forward in regards to where and how supported housing is built in different areas in the city? Thank you, Commissioner Downey. With the affordable housing landscape, if you will, we have to respond to the projects that apply for funding. The housing authority and staff have limited ability to direct where that can be. It's up to the developers to identify and ultimately purchase the land on where they can afford and make a project pencil. So while the housing authority could try to direct certain locations of the city to have affordable housing, it's ultimately going to be up to the developer. It's feasible to build affordable housing. And I think if I can interject as well, this is Megan Bassinger, the interim director. The other thing we should keep in mind as we're looking at our NOFAs and how they intersect with our regional housing needs allocations or with the general plan is the general plan is an advanced planning document. So it's looking out 20 to 30 years and what one of our primary strategies with our affordable housing funds and also with our project-based vouchers is to try and increase the supply of units in the most expeditious fashion possible. And so that's been one of the factors that we've taken into consideration is how quickly can these units be brought to fruition and what other funding sources are they coupling the housing authority funds with in order to get these units moving forward. But we certainly do rely on the general plans policies to help us identify projects that will be successful. But we're looking within a couple of year timeframe whereas the general plan is looking out in the next couple of decades. Any other comments from commissioners? Niavalli, go ahead please. So we're looking kind of to envision are we going to be a creative community for retirement to emphasize housing for senior citizens or are we going to emphasize families? Like we're talking about three bedroom units. We would definitely want to have more three bedroom units available for housing because that's more family friendly than a one or two bedroom or studio. If we have a studio community that's going to be like a student-based community. If we have a two bedroom base community that'll give us just like a single person starting their life kind of or a couple maybe. But if you want family, you got to really think about a three bedroom units and that we need to really grow in our three bedroom units. Nicole, if I may step in through the chair I think it might be helpful for the commissioners. If you could put up the back up the slide. I think it's slide number three that has the point system. And that kind of relates to the issue that this commissioner is raising the bedroom size up to 10 points. And Nicole, I'm sorry, but are you looking to change up the point allocation? Are you looking for direction from the commissioners today to modify what was decided a couple of months ago or keep it as is? And I think that should be really the focus, I think of what the direction is that you're looking for. But if I'm off base, please correct me. Thanks, Jeff. So the intent today is to bring back the scoring matrix which is basically this point system that's on the screen in front of everyone today. And the recommended changes by staff are minor. They're basically changing the criteria for receiving a full 10 points in the bedroom size category. And also maybe changing some internal scoring like the criteria for getting a 10 out of 10 in a certain category just so we can expand the scores to help best select the best project that is responding to the NOFA. We're not looking for specific changes on the total number of points possible for any category. In response to the bedroom size comment, the March study session that was held, the idea of bedroom size came up and wanting to make sure that we were still providing units and a criteria where senior affordable complexes would score well. So from that direction at the meeting, we included a category for seniors in with special needs so that senior projects could score well in that category if they didn't score well automatically in bedroom sizes with sometimes senior units being smaller bedroom sizes of the studio in one bedroom size. Also we have the city's general plan that we do look to to see what the needs are of the community. The current general plan has a policy HC-13 that directs the city to encourage development of units with three or more bedrooms and affordable housing projects. So that is an alignment with the staff recommendation I believe on slide five to amend the bedroom size category to allow the maximum score for 25% of the units as three bedroom or larger. We wouldn't want to eliminate the bedroom size category altogether. So you're not looking to make any changes to the points on that slide, just how you get to some of those points, how you score within the bullet points. So you're not looking for any changes if you went back to that slide, correct? Yeah, so that's staff's position and we're definitely open to hearing feedback if the housing authority feels differently. Okay. But staff is not making that recommendation at this point. Thank you. Paul, could you actually pull up attachment one? I think that shows the point, the topic better because it reflects how those bullet points and the 10 points for bedroom size are actually stratified to how you get to those 10 points. Can we bring that up please? Give me one moment, Chair Owen, I'm working on that. Thank you. Here, thank you. Hopefully that's legible. I know people probably reading on smaller screens but within that bedroom size, there's 10 points or 30% or more of the restricted units, three-bedroom more, but that is offset by your seniors being able to have seven, 10 points for formerly homeless seniors or identified special needs population. So one of the things that came through was one of the projects that did receive funding approval for through this NOFA and point system process was one that was worker housing, a farm worker housing. And so that worked through the special needs assess asides, scored very well on that, had larger units scored very well on that. And then when they were going to the state, they were going under a farm worker housing financing program. So they were able to hit all of those criteria to score well, not only for a local funding source through this NOFA scoring system, but also as well as what they were doing for their application of the state level for a much larger funding source. What I'd like to do is go to public comment. I'm not seeing any other questions from commissioners. Go to public comment and see what public comment we have on this before we come back to this issue. So we can go to public comment, please. Give me one moment, Chair Owen. I got to get back to it. Thank you. We are now taking public comment. This is it. Oh, I didn't share, sorry. We're now taking public comment on item number 4.2, review of fiscal year 2021-22, notice of funding availability point system. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you are dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes. A countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and meeting participants. The first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak. Please make sure to unmute yourself when you were invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown. Our first speaker is Devin Neary. Devin, can you please confirm that you can hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? I can. Can you confirm that you can see the countdown timer? I can see it. Okay, Devin, go ahead. Your time starts now. Thank you. Hi, my name is Devin Neary. I'm with Midpen Housing's Santa Rosa office. We just wanted to voice that we're in full support of the implemented scoring system and we really appreciate the housing authorities efforts in developing this system. We do just want to reiterate our support for bringing the NOFA scoring criteria into closer alignment with the competitive state programs. So for example, as we discussed a lot in this meeting, the NOFA awarded maximum points for projects with 30% or more of the restricted units as three-bedroom or larger, but the competitive state funding programs define large family projects as projects with 25% of low income units as three-bedroom or larger. So we're very encouraged to hear that this is one of the items that's up for revision. And overall, I think aligning the housing authority scoring system with state priorities and especially including sites in high opportunity areas as defined by the HCD and TCAC maps will allow the housing authority to more effectively leverage their funds and having a clear scoring system will also help with objective review and transparency in the selection process. So thank you so much for your work on this and for allowing us to comment. At this time, Chair Owen, I see no more hands raised and we do not have any email public comment. Thank you very much. Jeff, for a question for you, would it be appropriate to set up a subcommittee to go over any potential changes that we can do for this so that when we do have the ability for a NOFA next time, we've already had a subcommittee discuss process versus having a subcommittee that works on process as well as reviewing particular applications? I think that's something that the housing authority that you could do in a future agenda and have it agendized. Megan. As I say, if I may interject, are you asking for a standing committee or would this be an ad hoc committee that would specifically be tasked with reviewing points in advance of a future NOFA? Ad hoc committee. And then in the interest of upcoming funding sources and just making sure that we are positioned to act accordingly, it would be ideal for staff if you could identify potential ad hoc committee members today. Okay, I'd like to if there's any other commissioners. First, I'd like to I usually have to recuse myself for reviewing actual applications. I'd like to be able to be involved with the review of the point process, the process itself versus and then usually I have to recuse myself from actually looking at applications. Are there any other commissioners that would be interested in being on an ad hoc committee? Review the point system? Commissioner Downing, Commissioner Burke. Just let me ask a question. You already have an ad hoc committee, I believe, but maybe that was a vice chair test and Commissioner Olson. If I'm not mistaken, is that correct? First of all, that committee was specifically tasked with reviewing the applications that were received from the most recent NOFA. I see. So that, okay. So that committee could change and probably will change given the purpose of the committee. And then how many members can meet without having to go to the full-fledged public noticing process? Jeff Burke, is that two? We have the Wices-Per-Owned Act issue? Well, now that you've got seven, you can do three. Okay. Well, I'd like to propose that we have an ad hoc committee to review the process of changing the point system and bring it up for an ad. Jeff, I understand when you do this as an agenda item for our next meeting. What's the process on this? So do you want to just appoint the members today? Yes. And what is the purpose? To review the point scoring system. So that is done by itself. And then when we have a NOFA next go round, we would have an ad hoc committee to review applicants under that NOFA scoring system. So it's bifurcated. And the committee will come back and present their findings? Yes. You can do that today. So I'd like to have that be myself, Commissioner Burke and Commissioner Downey. And Megan, we can discuss offline in coordinated fashion as to how that process would work. Great. Thank you. I think that moves us along to item five, which is public comments. On non-agenda items. Yes. Thank you for the clarification. On non-agenda items. We are now taking public comment on item number five, public comment on non-agenda items. This is the time when any person may address the housing authority on matters not listed on this agenda, but which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the housing authority. If you wish to make the comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. The countdown timer will appear for the convenience of speakers and participants of the meeting. At this time, Chair Oh, and I see no hands raised and we've not received any email, public comment. Thank you very much. We'll move on to item six, which is our approval of minutes. And this doesn't require a vote, but is there any comments on the minutes? I'm not seeing from any commissioners, or at the record show that the minutes are approved from the June 21st meeting. We'll move on to item seven, which is chairman commissioner reports. And Megan, do you have an announcement in this? Yes, so one of the activities of the housing authority now that we have all seven commissioners is we need to work on identifying a chair and vice chair. And the housing authority bylaws state that at the next regularly scheduled meeting following the appointment of new commissioners, we would select a chair and a vice chair. This is a special meeting. So our next regularly scheduled meeting is August 23rd. And it's of the interest of staff and the housing authority that we, in the past practice, that a nominating committee identify interested parties that would like to be chair and vice chair and present those at the next meeting in August. So I am looking for at least two individuals who would be interested in identifying potential chairs, vice chairs, and that could be incumbents as well, who are interested in continuing to serve. Any questions about the intent? Any commissioners wanted volunteer to be part of this task force? I'm available if needed, I'd turn it on. Commissioner, that's one. Any of the incumbents or, well, not hearing any, I'll volunteer as well for that. And Megan, is it work that we have to? I think that does work. And then the task will be at our August 23rd meeting. One of the items will be the identifying or selection of a chair and vice chair. And that'll be occurring at the beginning of the meeting. Okay. Is it appropriate to ask for any interested members of the housing authority to reach out to you, Chair Owen or to me or to Megan? Just so we, when we meet, we have an idea of the interested participants. I'd like to have things funneled through Megan and sorry to volunteer you from our work, Megan, but if anybody is interested in either position to please contact Megan and then she can coordinate with Commissioner Burke and myself as to how we go through that. And Megan, would you, you want a deadline for that? Yes, I'm looking at the calendar really quick. If we could have any interested parties contact me by Friday, August 13th, that would be great. Okay. Okay, thank you. Item seven does require public comment. So I'll open it up for public comment. Chairman on, before you move to that, I mean, I suggest that, I know it's a lot of work for everybody, but it seems like it would be appropriate. I know there's been some discussion about it to start work on a retreat, particularly with our new members, sometime before end of summer or early fall, maybe. Commissioner Burke and Chair Owen, how about staff returns with some potential dates? And we can also put an item, if Jeff Burke agrees on our August agenda to develop a retreat agenda so that everybody is informed in an agreement about what we will be discussing during the course of the retreat. That would be great. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Burke. As long as I've been on here, we've been more along the COVID restrictions. So Megan, what is this, where is the city or Jeff, where is the city right now in terms of meeting in person? What's this, what's going on with the city? So the city council is having hybrid meetings where some of the council members are there live and kind of waiting for some direction on boards and commissions. And of course with the uptick in COVID cases because of the variant, you know, proceeding cautiously, but no news at this time. I'm not aware of any above boards and commissions. Okay, so I guess we'll proceed with a recommendation. Yeah, and unless there is a change in protocols, I think we'll be continuing to meet remotely. And the city council did conduct one of their goal setting sessions remotely and it worked relatively well. Okay. Okay, thank you. Again, let's open back up for public comment on item seven. We are now taking public comment on item number 7.1, appointment of nominating committee. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes. Account down timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and meeting participants. The first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak. Please make sure to unmute yourself when you were invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown. At this time, Chair Oh, and I see no hands raised and we have not received any email public comment. Okay, thank you. We'll move on to item eight for committee reports. Megan, do we have any committee reports? No, I don't think we have any committee reports. Okay, thank you. We're moving along to item nine, executive director reports or communication items. All right, so attached to your meeting packet, you will have a memo and this memo is an annual process to outline changes in the fees that housing authority charges for various compliance related services. They are increased by CPI on an annual basis. If there's any questions, Nicole and myself will be happy to answer them, but this is primarily for communication. And other than that, I do not have a report this month. Okay, thank you. And as my understanding, there's not a voting this and not a voting item at all. It's just for informational purposes. All right. Are there any comments from the commissioners on this? Not hearing any item, any comments. This is an item that we need to open up for public comment. So opening up item 9.1 for public comment. We are now taking public comment on item number 9.1, annual adjustment to the housing authority processing fee schedule. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes. The countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and meeting participants. The first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak. Please make sure to unmute yourself when you are invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown. Chair Owen, at this time, I see no hands raised and we've received no email public comment. Thank you very much. Moving on to item 10 for consent items. Megan, you wanna read the titles, please? Yes, so we have one. Chair Owen, if I may just interject, since this is the first consent item with some new commissioners, just for the benefit of the new folks. So consent items are action items which do require a vote, but there was a decision made in consultation with the chair and with staff that it be treated differently that are a regular item. So a consent item is seen as generally not controversial and more straightforward. And so there's no presentation of the item, but if any commissioner has any questions, the item can be pulled and there is a presentation ready and the staff member is prepared to go through it if any commissioner has questions. So I just wanna give you that brief background. Thank you, Jeff. Are there any questions for the commissioners on the service agreement? And I believe this is the item that Dr. Downey is going to be recusing himself. Thank you. Okay, so item 10.1 is a resolution. This is the second amendment to the professional services agreement with disability services and legal center to increase the funding for the housing accessibility modification grant program by $20,000. And just to provide a very brief amount of background for our new commissioners, this grant provides accessibility modifications for rental households. So they work through this nonprofit to obtain a grant to provide improvements for their rental units. Any questions for the commissioners? I'm seeking a motion on the resolution. The vice chair test. I'll make a motion to approve a resolution for the housing authority of the city of Santa Rosa approving a second amendment to the professional services agreement with disability services and legal center for the housing accessibility modification grant program and waive the reading of the text. Thank you. Is there a second? I would be happy to second that motion. Now, my understanding is we need to open this up for, Jeff, do we need to open this up for public comment? Yes, you do. We will go through that process and open it for public comment. We're now taking public comment on item number 10.1, second amendment to professional services agreement for the administration of the housing accessibility modification program with disability services and legal center. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes. A countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and meeting participants. The first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak. Please make sure to unmute yourself when you are invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown. At this time, chair Owen, I see no hands raised and we've not received any email public comment. Thank you very much. So on the resolution, we have a motion from vice chair test and a second from commissioner Burke. I'd like to go ahead and have the clerk call for a vote, please. Okay, we'll go ahead and take a roll call vote on item 10.1. We'll start with commissioner Rawhouser. Yeah, A. Yes. Then commissioner McWhorter, commissioner Latina. Aye. Commissioner Burke. Aye. Vice chair test. Aye. Chair Owen. Aye. The motion passes with six eyes with commissioner Downey abstaining from the vote. Thank you. We'll move on to item 11, which is the report items. All right, item 11.1 is a report appropriation of $2,542,392 of emergency housing voucher funds allocated to the city of Santa Rosa under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Rebecca Lane, housing and community services manager and Kate Goldstein, administrative services officer will be presenting. Good afternoon, commissioners. Thank you again for your time today. I'll be presenting the majority of this item and then we also have Kate Goldstein here who's our administrative services officer and can answer more specific budget questions. Next slide, please. So, excuse me. This is, as I mentioned in my previous study session, this is a new opportunity with the housing choice voucher program that was authorized under the American Rescue Plan just in March of 2021. So nationwide the American Rescue Plan authorized $5 billion to housing authorities for an emergency housing voucher program which is targeted for individuals and families who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence or human trafficking or who are recently homeless. Next slide, please. So this program was only a certain number of housing authorities were selected to participate in this program. It was based at the selection of the housing authorities that were selected to participate, was based on the need in the area, the regional area for the program or for assistance targeted to homeless individuals as well as the performance of the housing authority. This is a new program, as I mentioned, and there are parameters of the program that are still being developed. But what we know so far is that this voucher program will allow new participants to come onto the program for three years. After those first three years, the housing authority will not be able to reissue the voucher. So in a way, this program is anticipated to sunset and the way that the legislation is currently written, the participants in this program may keep their voucher for up to 10 years, but we anticipate that we'll find the funding to make sure that families who come onto this program in these first three years of the program are able to stay for as long as they need it. The housing authorities are also required under this program to work directly with our local continuum of care for the participant referrals. So what this means is that both the housing authority and the continuum of care are partners in this program. We're currently working on developing our memorandum of understanding for the program. And in a way, this program operates in terms of the partnership. It's very similar to the HUD BASH program where our program partners are the Veterans Administration. So in this case, it's gonna be the continuum of care. So they will be responsible, the continuum of care and the participating continuum of care agencies will be responsible for the initial screening of the participants for the program, as well as referring participants to the housing authority. And then the housing authority will be responsible for determining the eligibility of the households based on their income and their documentation. We will also be responsible for administering the program with all of the other parameters of the voucher program, including inspections and annual re-examination. Next slide, please. So Santa Rosa was one of the agencies that was selected for this program. And we were awarded 131 emergency housing vouchers, which comes with the following funding. There is $1,749,732 for the housing assistance payments. That's the rental assistance portion of the program, as well as $203,160 for administrative fees. So that's the money to operate the program. We also have a significant infusion of one-time funding for this program and HUD created these funding sources to help support a successful rollout of the program. So the $458,500 in service fees are for our set aside for resources that the participants may need access to, such as furnishings, if that's something that we determine that the households need to have access to, could be landlord incentives. This is a pretty broad category of funding, the one-time funding to create a pool of funding for participant needs. We also have $53,400 in preliminary fees, which just cover the startup cost of the program. And on the administrative side, we also have $13,100 available in issuing fees, which is a higher administrative fee that we will receive if we are able to lease families up quickly under this program. And then we also have $65,500 in placement fees, which is another incentive to allow to encourage that the housing authority and the continuum of care to lease up quickly and also give us the resources that we need in order to be able to do that. So if that's augmenting staff in order to conduct inspections or something like that, we have those resources available to do this. Next slide, please. So this item is specifically targeted to our budget amendment to allow us to amend the budget to accept the $2,542,392 in the initial emergency housing voucher program funding that we've received. This is our recommendation, is that the housing authority approved by resolution to appropriate the $2,542,392 of emergency housing voucher program funding allocated to the housing authority of the city of Santa Rosa under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. That is our recommendation here for this item. And we do anticipate that we'll return at least once, if not several more times with more items related to the emergency housing voucher program as the program develops. So thank you. That concludes my presentation and Kate and I are both happy to answer questions. Questions from the commissioners? That's your test. Yes, hi, question for Rebecca. Is there anything that would prevent us from a developer say who has received funding from us for a project that has not built out yet? Is there any reason that developer couldn't offer or utilize these emergency housing vouchers? Well, the emergency housing vouchers are strictly going to be tenant based. So there's no opportunity with this resource to project based the vouchers. And I do not foresee that there would be any conflict. For example, if a developer had already received funding for project based vouchers, if they have other properties that they would like to make available for the emergency housing voucher program, that's fine. This will be a tenant based form of assistance. Thank you. Any other commissioners have questions? Commissioner Downing does have his hand raised. Thank you. I didn't think I had any questions, but I do have a couple. I think you've answered my question. I went to the question I had was that the county did not receive an allocation for this program? They have. They have. Oh, I missed that. Okay, good. That's good. I've got some trepidation on the program refunding. You know, there's a lot of things that could happen with that. So with the options, if there wasn't the funding available from HUD, would they be to sever the voucher or to look for a local funding just to replace the federal funding? Would those be options? I'm sorry. Are you referring to the 10-year sunset on the program? Yes. Yes. So at this point HUD's advice is that the current legislation authorizes the funding to be used for 10 years, but they have every reason to believe that Congress will fully fund the program after the 10 years. They don't want housing authorities to be planning for or thinking about replacement funding or termination of families. It's just that because this was an emergency program, the authorization is for this long right now and that within the first few years of the program, they'll find a way to make sure that for the voucher holders who are still on the program at the end of those 10 years that there's funding for them to continue. But if it wasn't, there wouldn't be the option to simply say, sorry, these vouchers are no longer available. Is that the worst case scenario? I actually think the worst case scenario would be that HUD would allow us to transfer them to a regular voucher program if we have them available. I can't imagine that a program like this would just cut people off. I've never seen it happen, but there's a lot of things I haven't seen happen before that's been happening in the last couple of years. Okay, so with some trepidation, I understand that and I support it. And then just to comment, and that the outreach and marketing, those are going to be crucial for this. And hopefully we can kind of join forces with the county to do the outreach and make sure that we're successful. We've been working very closely with the county already and that's part of why we're so pleased to have the additional administrative funding to cover some of those efforts. Thank you. Commissioner Dunn? I think... Commissioner Dunn, do you have a question? Oh, there we go, go ahead. Yeah, hi. My concern is that the level of domestic violence in the city is at an alarming rate right now. And my other concern is the length of time from application to issuance. Most people need to get out of a physically violent place right now. And I know you can't predict how long it's gonna take. Could there be a partnership for an interim place to go while this application goes through those channels and a voucher is issued or is the person just stuck until the voucher is issued if one is? So there's a good question and there's a couple of answers to it. One is that with a partnership that's mandatory under this program with a continuum of care, that mandates our service partners to work very closely with us. And we wouldn't anticipate that a family would be referred to the housing authority without a significant amount of the documentation that's required and all that kind of thing that might take some time without that already being done. So what we're anticipating is that our service partners will be identifying families who are currently in their programs, whether it's a domestic violence program or a homeless services program. And they will be working with those families right now in order to make sure that they have the documentation ready so that once a referral comes to the housing authority, we can issue a voucher very quickly, much more quickly than we would necessarily if we're working with a family who doesn't have that same level of support in the community. Thank you very much. Any other questions from commissioners? Commissioner Rawhouser, did you have a question? Okay, thank you. So as I understand it, this is a grant for 2.5 million and going through your slide that breaks that down. These are for vouchers for three years, but they can be up to 10 years. But that funding is funding for initial 12 month period. That covers the entire 2.5 million spent in allocator for one year for a three-year commitment that could go up to 10, is that correct? I can tell you, we can issue vouchers for up to three years. So that means that if a family got a voucher in the next month and then didn't need it anymore within that three year period, we could re-issue the voucher. So that's what that three-year period is. And then this is very similar to the housing choice voucher program where we get an annual allotment for an ongoing program. So this is HUD looking at our normal expenditures for a unit within the city of Santa Rosa and saying, we think about 1.7 million is what you would need for the first year if you were to lease up all 131 of these vouchers. And I apologize, I haven't introduced myself yet to the new commissioners. I'm Kate Wolf, I'm the administrative services officer for the housing authority and I handled the budget. Thank you, Kate. My concern is that we're making a commitment for multi-years with funding for one year. Which we do every year. So that's how the housing choice voucher program works. Each year we create an annual budget and then we work with HUD through the year on this budget. So it works exactly the same way as the housing choice voucher program does in that regard. In addition, it has a bunch of one-time and incentive-based fees. But the housing assistance payments and the administrative fee allowance that we get work exactly the same way as the housing choice voucher program. But if we've got, this is coming from the ARP Act of 2021, is it a, HUD is an annual allotment. It happens every year, the dollars change but it happens every year. Is this gonna happen again next year? We're gonna get another $2.5 million. That's important, I'm missing. Okay, yeah, so we're all about one-time funding is just one-time funding. But next year, Rebecca and I will look back at the expenses that we have, that we've, I guess, expended over this last fiscal year just like we do with the housing choice voucher program and we'll request that funding from HUD and we'll also be back with you just for the next budget cycle with a new allotment of funding to ask you guys to approve it to expend in the way that HUD has allowed it to us. Does that- So this is not a one-time grant? No, this is an ongoing grant. And it- Okay. Chairman, if I may interject, what you'll see next year too is this will be built into the budget cycle. And this is a standalone item today because we received the information after the budget was prepared around mid-June. So it was too late to incorporate it into our June 21st budget action. Okay, my concern is I'm used to seeing a grant being a one-time allotment. And I was, there was a disconnect between a one-time allotment and a multi-year commitment and I wanted to make sure that that was not what's going on, but that's not what's going on. So thank you for that. Any other questions from commissioners? Chairman Allen. So just to follow up on that, I know that the venture program, there's a housing assistance payments contract between the housing authority and HUD, correct? Is there also going to be a separate HAP for this program or does it somehow get attached to our existing contract? So the contract that we have with HUD is the annual contributions contract to the ACC. So that's the housing authorities contract with the federal government to administer the program. That contract will be amended to add 131 emergency housing vouchers. The contract that's between the housing authority and the individual property owners who are participating in the program, that's the housing assistance payments contract. And that will operate the same way as the regular voucher program. Thank you. Any other questions from commissioners? Not seeing any, we'll open for public comment. We are now taking public comment on item number 11.1, appropriation of $2,532,392 of emergency housing voucher funds allocated to the city of Santa Rosa under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. If you wish to make a comment and be a Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing and be a telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. You will have three minutes. At this time, Chair Oh, and I see no hands raised and we've not received any email public comment. Thank you very much. Now seeking a resolution, a motion for the resolution. I'll make a motion. Thank you, commissioner. Downey, is there a second? Thank you. We'll go ahead and go for a real call vote. We will now take a roll call vote on item 11.1. I will start with commissioner Rawhouser. Aye. Commissioner McWhorter. Commissioner McWhorter. Oh, I said aye. Okay. Sorry, I didn't hear you. Commissioner LaPenna. Aye. Commissioner Downey. Commissioner Burke. Aye. Vice Chair Test. Vice Chair Test and Chair Owen. Aye. Okay. And that motion passes unanimously with seven ayes. Okay, thank you very much. That is our meeting for today. We had to welcome all new commissioners and welcome aboard and look forward to working with everybody again and thank you very much for every time and with that, we'll conclude the meeting. Thank you all very much. Thank you.