 Thank you everyone and good morning and welcome to this month's meeting of the affordable housing task force. I'm excited to see you all and I know that we have a few folks who are unable to join us this week or this month but I'm glad that all of you guys are here. I did want to welcome a new addition that will be working with Julianne. So Julianne, do you want to I guess reintroduce Anita? I think probably most people on here know Anita for her many years of work in this field but do you want to go ahead and introduce Anita? Okay if there's anyone on this meeting that does not know Anita Floyd, you need to. Anita is one of the most respected advocates and planners affordable housing for folks in the Midlands of South Carolina and I'm absolutely thrilled to announce that she's joined Mercy as our Chief Operating Officer and will have responsibility over all our housing projects. Thank you all it's a pleasure to see so many old friends. I'm really pleased to be here and back in the business that I started in so thank you for those kind words. Awesome and thank you for being here. I don't think Mary Louise is here to introduce Brittany so I am going to introduce Brittany and then let Brittany introduce herself and so there have been some changes over ad habitat for humanity that who remains a huge partner and an intricate part of this task force and but ML has moved positions and so Brittany will be serving in the capacity on this task force representing habitats so Brittany would you go ahead and introduce yourself please. Hey everyone my name is Brittany Richards and I'm super excited to join all you all this is a great cause very passionate about this speaks to everything I want to do in the world and I operate as the grants manager here and so I'm looking forward to sharing a wealth of knowledge and learning so much about everyone in this topic. Awesome thanks well welcome welcome Brittany so let's start first with Erica has sent everybody the packet and so we actually have to approve minutes from two different meetings our May 11th meeting which unfortunately we did not approve those and then we also have our August 10th meeting and so if everybody has had a chance to review those minutes does anybody have any um additions or suggestions or and if not I will entertain a motion to approve both both the minutes from May 11th and August 10th it's been moved by Jim Zeke is there second a second second by Miss Ivory Matthews all in favor say aye or raise your hand all right all right all right awesome thank you so it has been approved the minutes for May 11th and August 10th okay guys we had summer has summer and COVID spikes have just made things a little bit difficult but we are still moving forward with everything that we've been doing and so but we've had our committees meeting we've not had an opportunity to kind of finalize some things that the the committees have worked on and so I wanted to move forward with that so the the bulk of our discussion today will be our reports from our committees and next steps um we are now in September and so uh just so we kind of have a a thought process for the last quarter of this year our next meeting will be October and then we've got uh the November and December meetings and by December we need to be um approving one of the things that we've talked about before is having um or recommending to both city council and county council uh uh the amount of units that we'd like to see um as a benchmark to be introduced into the market um even private sector or public sector um for next year and then you know have a multi-year plan I know there are several things that will help us get there one is certainly uh Brittany and um Habitat are doing some very innovative things and they're going to be working in Richland County uh Brittany for 2022 is that the goal yes yes man that's a goal for us okay um so I know there will be some things that Habitat will be doing we've heard last month from um from Ms. Matthews and Ms. Herrera about all the great things the housing authority is doing so they will have some things as well um I know um Mr. Gunnels is over here we've heard previously from um Haven Haven Homes or Haven House Dylan uh and I know that's Haven Homes okay and we've got a meeting coming up tomorrow maybe for you to brief me on things so that's going to be there's there's a goal for for um some new units there as well as um we've got lots of things happening in the private sector and then of course our public sector so we need to have that information and then come up with our goal so that's what I anticipate some of our work over the next month or two will be so that we can have a presentation by December and come up with our our goal to make a recommendation to both city or county council but part of that is all the independent work that the committees are doing um so wanted to first Erica I think is Brenna Brenna could not make it was that correct that's correct okay um did she did she send something I thought I saw something it was an email and like I can read it into the record okay all right okay so Brenna has a meeting this morning she said that the education and awareness committee is ready to move forward once the new definition is adopted once the description is ready we will meet again to review the two-page task force fact sheet for September we are working with the partnership committee on a google doc with group suggestions for outreach contact information and who should make the first contact we hope to have everything ready for October if anyone has any ideas for outreach or how we should present the material feel free to email Brenna and she will add it to the meeting so thank you please let me know if there's anything else I can do thank you Erica and then I know I got a separate email from Jennifer Moore who's working with Brenna on that and so the public public education and awareness committee remains positioned to start moving forward with a plan so I think we do need to finalize that definition um and so Dr. Grady I'm going to come to you because I know that y'all we had another subcommittee who was working on that final definition for us to discuss and finally approve today so Dr. Grady are you ready sure sure so um so I had a conversation with the superquits and Lilana souls by email um kind of hashing out this question of of our final definition and and terminology so I know the last time there was sort of this question of affordable versus attainable I think that personally based on my awareness of the industry affordable has a pretty clear definition whereas attainable is a little more nebulous and and and while that has as positives and negatives but I think it makes a defining quantitative goals and other things like that a little more challenging um so there there are three options that that I kind of came up with for how to how to deal with the definition one is to just kind of go with what we had previously um with the one change that was articulated here we go um so this is the same definition as we had last time except I believe we have the word engage instead of participate or something of that effect so this this is essentially the same definition as we had previously option two would be to simply have the same definition but use the word attainable instead of affordable um and then the third option that I came up with was what if we simply um decouple these words and have different definitions that sort of reflect different elements of of this so I'll take a little more time to spend on this so affordable housing as mentioned sort of in in the housing industry refers to these 30 percent or less of income being spent on housing costs that's what governs the programs that Columbia Housing offers us what governs the programs that that s.c. housing administers etc attainable housing would have a somewhat somewhat broader definition so it would be any home where residents are able to afford living expenses after accounting for housing costs it sort of pulls that concept out of our existing definition and puts that attainable label on it and obviously attainable housing is going to be a very different thing depending on the income demographics socioeconomic status of the family or household or individual in question. Third concept is workforce housing which we've heard kicked around there's sort of an issue here where workforce housing gets applied to higher income levels which sort of implies that people who are in traditional affordable housing don't work which is not accurate so I think it would be useful to have a definition of workforce housing that simply states that any affordable home that workforce housing is any affordable home developed to provide housing for employees of local businesses because that's the whole point of workforce housing is giving people places to live and that's going to be a variety of different price points you know that that could be you know your white collar teachers office workers or it could be low wage service workers and then the fourth thing and this is based on academic literature and other concepts is there really is this this severe deficit of housing available to people who are making less than 30 percent of area median income this is this is what's referred to these these extremely low income population and I sort of emphasize this in some of the documents I prepared last year for this group when you look at national data when you look at state data when you look at regional data that's the population that is unable to access housing there are a lot of people who who aren't able to access the housing they may want but people below 30 percent of area median are simply unable to access any housing that's provided by the open market because they don't have a sufficient income so those are four terms that I think we could advance as parallel concepts and then I've also got the the two definitions that were mentioned earlier so that was sort of a first cut of thoughts on my end in consultation with everybody else so happy to entertain a discussion on this thank you Dr. Grady are there any questions or comments on on this let's start with just the general definition Erica put that one back up um so this is the this is the definition that we have been talking about um if you guys recall uh we had a definition um it was presented to city and county council uh there were some questions particularly by um Mayor Benjamin about uh the definition of affordable and and whether or not there needed to be any kind of dollar amount or something placed in their AMI amount and so and we kind of commerce had a conversation on that and it was pretty much thought that we need to stick with this and I think what Dr. Grady has presented allows us to have at least a multiple definitions that does it um address that priority housing but I think this is a good way any comments on this or any suggestions on it and if not then we can move forward and entertain a motion if if anybody wants to move to approve this definition to be presented all right Julianne um has moved to approve is there a second a second okay Pam has final read has a second all those in favor say unclick unmute and say hi or raise your hand hi hi are there any nays okay so I think we have a definition of affordable housing which consists of inclusive equitable and safe places to live for owners and renters price such that all columbians can afford necessities of living and fully engage in our community uh so we like that um if we move um Eric can you move to the multiple ones the the the third yeah um and so let me ask this Dr. Grady I want to make sure we're clear on this but I like the way that you have put forth these four um are you are you suggesting that we have our general affordable housing definition um but that we may need to as a subcontext have these four um and I know affordable housing we already have but the the way we're defining particularly priority and workforce um for me I'm thinking we need to have that actually spelled out in our documents yeah I mean I think I think uh having both of these side by side is is clarifying uh because just the amount of time we've spent kind of banding about terminology um so I don't really have any this was sort of considered as an alternative to the to the definition we just approved but uh I think they can certainly work together I think and this is this is Cindy Herrera from Columbia Housing the only the only thing that I would add is that under priority housing we do use a percent of area median income and I'm wondering if we shouldn't you know consider that for some of these other definitions for example affordable housing really is everybody at 60 percent or below um both by the low income housing tax credit program as well as all of the HUD programs and so um you know I just wondered if there's a reason um as to why you chose just to use the the percentage of area and for the priority and not for the other three definitions well so I think um for for the for the first three definitions this was designed to kind of we had a definition originally that we just approved that was sort of very holistic in nature um so I didn't want to deviate dramatically from that uh you know the last the priority housing definition I think just because you know research from the national income housing coalition and other people who have who have repeatedly identified that extremely low income is a particular range of concern is why that was pulled out as a separate thing you may remember the analysis that I did in December that's sort of the group that was focused on when I was putting putting proposed targets for the number of units together um so I think that's that's sort of why it was it was kind of designed to carry that spirit over I'm certainly aware of of the way that affordable housing and workforce housing are defined elsewhere but uh you know at its core affordable housing is is housing that fits within that income bucket as as typically typically defined so there's not really a grand explanation so I I'm not sure if that was helpful or not I just I guess I'm just struggling with the fact that these other definitions I don't think really help all of us on this task force understand affordable housing much better than the general citizen does and so I'm not sure these definitions are really going to help the general citizen really understand the difference between affordable attainable workforce priority I think you've clearly described what priority housing is for people I'm I'm not sure that the general layman who's not in the housing world will really be able to distinguish that that that was my concern thank you Cindy any other questions about um this or any thoughts I did have a question um where is the greatest need Dr Brady in terms of in terms of what we need where is the greatest need for housing is it in that priority housing section I I think that's accurate yes that would certainly be my inclusion from from the available data and and existing research that's out there is that there are there are existing resources that are available for obviously the low income housing tax credit is designed for 60 percent AMI there are other programs that serve higher income levels um the National Housing Trust Fund is the only funding source that is explicitly exclusively for the this extremely low income population and because their incomes are so limited it's essentially impossible to um for that for that household to to afford housing on the open market there's no way that housing can be produced that serves that population without an explicit um subsidy essentially um so I would say that that yes if you're looking for the what was the group of people that is in most in need I would say absolutely it's this extremely low income population I guess to my point um if that's what we know is the greatest need somewhere and maybe may not be in the definition but somewhere this group needs to say okay we're going to focus on the people that need the help the most because I think I've heard on a couple presentations we're working on some of that higher end affordable housing need wherever developers are building units or that higher end that um where the income level is a little bit higher but I think the priority housing is definitely where our group has been focused on those people that make that 30 or less and what I'm thinking this is um my thoughts is you know at some point we will have a document and my thought is that we will have our approval our approved definition of affordable housing uh then we also will certainly lay out some priorities but also could have a glossary of terms and in that glossary of terms we may want to you know define that priority housing and use this definition I also think I like that Dr. Grady put in workforce housing because I do believe as I hear people talk they use all these terms interchangeably but and when we're talking about it we need to have some in people's minds to clarify what they're talking about um and then who it's for and so workforce housing uh to his point sometimes I think it's thought about um a lot more broader than some people's definition is so having maybe a glossary of terms or something this would be useful to have in our our final document any other questions or anything well Dr. Grady thank you um I think now that we have approved um has council woman to ratio come on I'm not sure I can't see everybody but um Allison are you here I will make sure that I um send this over to council woman to ratio Ms. Hammond can we um I guess next week's meeting I'll make a report from out of committee to the general council and we will go ahead and move forward with this definition once we are okay with that then um Brenna and Jennifer can give us a plan for how we're going to start a public engagement we we do know that a lot of folks are still doing things virtually as are we um and so we'll we'll probably have to um think about what does that plan mean as as far as starting that public education process um I know that um Melanie Huggins at the library has reached out about how they can be supportive of this task force efforts um and of course our amazing a PR department at the city of Columbia our award-winning PR department at the city of Columbia um is going to be positioned to help us um move forward with getting this definition out so at next meeting we'll have kind of the plan for public engagement and education um so if you guys have any additional thoughts on that please send an email to Jennifer or Brenna uh so that can be included in included in the presentation that they're going to make next month okay all righty um and so that leads us to accessibility and um Julianne Julianne do you have a report or any thoughts that you want to share on this week this month's meeting um yes I can share we're working on um actually formalizing a report that we can send to you in print but the um the main things that we're still looking at is um universal design so that for folks that perhaps have a disability or for people to age in place um that we should be concentrating on universal design requirements um enhancing the federal fair housing um minimums for ADA compliance um creating when we're you know we do set-asides for a percentage that have to be accessible units but to make all units um especially um first of all multi-families available for visitability so that if we do have folks that um are needing the fully accessible units they're not limited to be able to visit with their neighbors um and then um we're going to have to come up with some way to whether it's through incentives um to have landlords work to make units available um or accessible to individuals that are returning from being formerly incarcerated so those are kind of our key areas the um you know working with landlords universal design um and um visibility all right I know I have a question but before I go does anybody have a question Mr. Davis not a question just a follow up comment on that um a few years ago on one of my other lives when I was working with the with the state and uh we were developing and trying to put in place in communities and neighborhoods um housing for people with disabilities most of them were um were developmentally disabled one of the things that I was doing was going when we went into the counties we tried to intercept the construction process where there were new constructions about to get off the ground or some discussions about it we tried to get commitments uh from from the builders and the owners to make sure that they go they went with at a minimum the federal set aside in terms of physical accommodations so I think if if that if that becomes um one of the strategies that would I think increase the numbers and you know as as they all come online and I want to think about that you know to know what the needs are in advance of of uh you know putting the the uh units in place thank you mr. Davis anybody else uh julian I had a question this might be for you or in miss matthews or miss air or air might could jump on that as well but going to the returning citizens and you mentioned like maybe incentives and other things um I I know that one of the challenges has been I guess due to the federal guidelines the accessibility to section eight or anything else for returning citizens so have you guys seen any models that are happening other places that we need our legal team to further research um that support incentives or is there anything else out there that we need to be looking at because I know that's a huge problem yeah there um I've seen several models that that does work um you know the only federal requirement that we have that's mandated by federal law for returning citizens is if they are um you know a child molester or if they um have been convicted of um producing methamphetamines on a federally assisted project um that's the only federal requirements uh so most returning citizens their criminal backgrounds would not prohibit them from receiving assistance under our housing choice voucher or public housing programs we did do a pilot project in greenville and one of the things that was a barrier to making it very successful was that our returning citizens the program landed them with very good jobs which therefore they their incomes exceeded the income criteria for to receive a voucher and so that was the it was a good thing um but you know it it landed us in a place where we were unable to provide them housing because their incomes were too high great all right any other questions for miss avan for accessibility so julie and you'll send a report erico will make sure she gets the written report out to everyone so for you guys what's next steps the written report to us and then what's next steps on the work that you are going to do or do you have any needs of research or anything else no we'll we'll get a report and um and should i just send it to erico yeah go ahead and send it to erico okay okay all right thank you all right mr bonner how are you i'm good how are you all good good at this time to make a i don't have a report i've missed a couple of meetings so i will commit to pulling the group back together again and uh since our last presentation we did back in the spring i'll pull the group together and finalize a report and get that in within the next week and a half okay thank you and can you make sure um i'm not sure i think you might may have sent your email and if not i apologize chris zimmer is a new appointee on your committee okay chris put your screen on so y'all can i can do a virtual intro there he is so chris and ready chris wants to be on that committee and he brings a lot of knowledge as well sounds good look forward to it i'll reach out thank you also i will say ready i still and i've got a i've got a bump the email for her because she couldn't find it but i do have a friend who works for the governor ohio and i know your first report had some um innovative things that ohio is doing and she was doing that research so um hopefully i can get that to you before you finalize your report and you can include that okay sounds good thank you all right all right sue where are we with your committee legal and zoning add some next steps on eviction court too um we had tried to have a meeting um i not sure what ended up happening why i i showed up and at lila and and it turned out the rest of the committee was um somehow not invited so we did not do very well with our meeting i i apologize um i know that uh there has been an application that has been um submitted to hud through 180 plays um with a number of other providers i don't know whether south carolina legal services actually put in their application to hud or not it was really unclear as to whether they were going to do it or not the the hud application is for actually to do eviction legal assistance so we're waiting to hear back as to whether or not one both you know if there been two or just one application has been approved by hud richland county is part of the 180 place so i'm assuming that they would be the ones to be a part of that actual process um and i will be very honest with you right now i've been spending all of my time trying to figure out how we help people get to the rental assistance around the state um unlike rich county it is not going quite as well as it is uh around the state so we've been working on trying some of the rural areas get their access and um to the rental assistance so uh we will have much more and do do much better going forward i i promise and lila and i would have to tell you about the zoning piece because that was her part of the um co-chair for that committee and let me just check and erica you might check for me i know lila and i have sent a couple emails this morning i know one was the stuff she's working on with dr gradey i'm not sure if she had anything on zoning no man i didn't receive anything from her on on the zoning aspect okay okay awesome okay all right okay um and i've got a couple announcements but um i know uh jim has to pop off for a more justice meeting so i didn't want him to give a brief update on more justice and what y'all are working on as far as affordable housing thank you um and our group is continuing to work with the richland county council to have them form a affordable housing trust fund we firmly believe that some of the a american rescue plan funds can be used for that purpose and across the nation we have seen several counties and cities actually designate money from the rescue plan funds to be used to establish trust funds so we're proceeding on that vein uh we have uh five council members that have strong support for a housing trust fund that would be controlled by the county and uh we're looking to um get the five other council members on board with that thought it has been slow due to the covid nature of things but uh we're making process and um we're meeting with council members on on a weekly basis thank you to make thank you jim appreciate it thanks for the work that you guys are doing um before i go to my analysis so does anybody else have any analysis i do want to before i go out now just want to go to next step so i know um julian will get us her report um reggie committee will meet and report sue and lauanna they'll meet and report julie um jennifer and brena are going to come up next meeting with our plan for public education and awareness and outreach and so um it's kind of so we know where to we're going in the next quarter october starts our last quarter of this year so by the end of this year we need to have what our goals will be for 2022 um and recommendations that can be looked at so if all of these reports committees that haven't met can meet before next month we'll go through the reports next month in october and then uh what i'd like miss haman with miss hamans of support we will come up with a document that has um very clear um next steps and goals that can be presented both the city and county council um for their review and digestion before our november meeting uh so that we can actually go into the end of the year knowing um what we're planning for for 2022 does that sound like a plan and does anybody have any questions on that okay well seeing none i did want to well like i said i'll go back to my announcement i want to start um and i'll just look at my screen does anybody have any announcements anything that your individual agency is working on or anything that you believe uh this body needs to be aware of right now yes um councilwoman i have an announcement um i've got a couple things and i'm going to be really quick uh first thing is um i just want to thank all of you for supporting uh columbia housing and all of our housing ambassadors during the month of august we launched the campaign um to advocate for federal resources um most of you know we we the housing authority is is not a part of the city budget or the county budget we receive all of our funds directly from congressional appropriations so your support um on advocating with us during the month of august really really means a lot we had a goal of 12 000 letters we actually sent over 43 000 uh letters to our congressional folks and um it really made a difference because we do see that in the reconciliation bill that congress is considering right now housing has been included in that bill so our voices matter thank you and um and you this will not be the last time that you're here for being on advocating for housing um this week we did start the um demolition of um uh allen benedy court um starting the demolition does not mean that heavy equipment is out on the site right now and that buildings are being moved it just means that we've given the okay to our demolition contractor to begin the demolition and so we'll continue to keep the community abreast of what that really means and um and also um you know the redevelopment plans as we move forward and keep the community engaged in that process we are also partnering with the state housing finance agency and the county to um to host next week um an emergency rental assistance funds program to match our landlords with um those services so that if they have tenants who might be behind in their and their monthly rent that they can know how to access those funds to keep our families housed and uh and not when I say our families I mean the community's families not not the families of the housing authority um because our families are already protected under federal protections um last thing I want to add is that we um also working on our vision 2030 and we have some ask of the group to help us with reaching out to um folk at the state fiscal accountability authority I'm going to turn it over to Cindy Herrera really quick to give a quick update um one of the primary resources to produce and um sustain affordable housing is through tax except bonds for the first time in the history of the state of South Carolina it is anticipated that the local fund administered by the state fiscal accountability authority will reach its bond cap and by the end of the year we will not be able to address several projects the housing authority alone right now has three very priority projects of our own which is the replacement of Gonzales gardens as well as the replacement of the Marion Street High Rise um so it's the Oaks at St. Anna and the Haven Palmer Point um both of those projects are in the pipeline right now we have made it clear to the state fiscal accountability authority that we um that those are priority projects but in addition to that we have 12 projects from the private sector in which the housing authority is inducing the bonds and the city will approve those bonds and a large portion of those projects may very well not come to fruition because there will not be sufficient bond cap to be able to handle those in the local fund um in addition to the local fund for bonds what happens in South Carolina is the bond allocation is given to the state from the federal government on an annual basis and it's based on per capita so the amount of bond cap that a state receives is the per capita the per capita um population of the state um and so in South Carolina that bond cap is split into two pools what they call the the local pool which goes to the state fiscal accountability authority and the South Carolina housing pool gets the additional amount um our understanding is that South Carolina housing is currently working um in 2020 South Carolina housing did not they froze their bond program and in 2021 they opened it again but they had specific time periods when you could apply for bonds and so a lot of private developers have gone to local housing authorities across the state as well as here in Columbia um to to request their bond inducement um so it has to go to the local fund so there's two things that we would really appreciate assistance on number one is basically um to open some discussion as to whether bond cap that is sitting with South Carolina housing could be moved to the local fund so that by December there will be some additional cap available in the local fund and some of these projects in the pipeline will not be killed um and then the second piece is that overall we need to basically um advocate for it for an increase in the per capita bond amount that actually goes to treasury and so that's something we need to um actually advocate with with our our federal legislators um so we need to do two things we need to advocate with the local legislators the state legislators um to for the for the projects here in Columbia that we are trying to get through the pipeline and then secondly we need to advocate at the federal level in order to be able to increase the per capita bond amount I know that was a lot and I'm sorry I was trying to hurry so I wouldn't hold us up but if anyone has any questions Cindy can you do for us and we'll make sure that everybody on the task force has it can you do like a and just an action sheet and say one two this is what we need um and you know several of the organizations are nonprofits so they may or may not be able to do certain things but we can certainly put let supporters and everybody know and if you just give us a point what you need from us absolutely we had started on that this morning already so we just learned yesterday that the bond cap was going to run out probably they will probably not even be able to allocate bonds for all of the projects that are in the pipeline for the October meeting so they won't make any for December probably and Ms. Wilson can we put that on our list and maybe talk with Mr. Michelle and others about what you know we can do to to advocate for the Columbia project or Cindy did you say that it's a state level change or a federal change or both well it's both it's actually there's two the federal the federal legislation dictates the per capita bond amount that a state receives right but how it's allocated obviously is done at the state level yes ma'am will do all right thank you does anybody have any questions for Ms. Herrera or Ms. Matthews on that thank you ladies thank you very much any additional announcements Mr. Von I know that you're um involved with with this as far as the relocation or expansion of the turning leaf project to Columbia which is a great project that has been in existence in Charleston to reduce recidivism but it dawned on me as I was I think hearing Ms. Avins comments earlier about accessibility and then after a really great meeting yesterday with the turning leaf founders and the ladies are really excited about their move they're having a grand opening for the new location in Columbia on October 27th and so I know they're trying to get the word out and just begin to partner with many of another practitioners probably also on this task force that will be interested in the work that they do on just a significant strategy that they have to complete to make sure that individuals are are are be able to reacclimate to society with rat with wraparound services um when they've been formally incarcerated and so I know one of those rat services ultimately and what we would hope for after they complete the programs with the turning leaf project is that they can find suitable housing and become productive members of our community so um just wanted to put that out there that Mr. Von had um been very much so communicating with them wanting to make sure that they had uh different resources as they were making the transition and expansion to Columbia and also Dr. Belinda Gergel who was a formal councilwoman for Columbia she had also made a connection for us um because of the work that they're doing in Charleston and the fact that she now lives in Charleston so we have made that connection um Chief Holbrook um Missy Kaufman and Benjamin all of us several others on staff met with them yesterday we had a really productive conversation but just wanted to let you all know that they'll have the grand opening in October. Thank you Miss Wilson and I'll make sure we send that out as well um I know we're we have a actually two meetings with them this week tomorrow and Thursday um so I know they're in preparation for that October so we'll get that out and Dylan I think I saw you yes sir you have an announcement. No you're good yeah I just wanted to say I know that many of you on the call probably remember months ago now um Lauren giving a presentation about the sentiment of Havenholm and the the idea behind it but now we are official and actually doing the work and so I just wanted to put out that opportunity that um if you have questions about our methodology and how we're looking to accomplish what we're doing um I would love to set up a zoom call have coffee with any of you we really are a good puzzle piece to some of the conversations today especially folks who are in that middle income range who are still struggling with affordability and we are on track raising money right now to serve as a line of equity and so we're on track now to start purchasing properties by the beginning of 22 so we'd love to talk to you more about what we're doing and how we're doing that because I know that that was a in-depth presentation and and now that we're doing the work again we'd love to partner with you all as that puzzle piece I also will let you know hopefully some of you have seen that we're having our Havenholm market on Saturday it's kind of like a mini soda city so we'll have yard sale we'll have vendors a food truck and all of that is of course to raise money for the organization it's at Reformation Lutheran Church from 8 to noon and I'll drop that in the chat but love to have you guys stop by if you're available thank you Dylan appreciate that anybody else have any announcements just three quick things I was gonna say one is that you guys may have seen that gosh my months are running together it was either in the last month or early this month I don't know my weeks have all run together but we South Columbia was was blessed to have a visit by our Secretary of HUD Marsha Fudge who was in town primarily to promote vaccinations but some of us were able to meet with her I know Ms. Matthews, Ms. Sharpshire who Dr. Radio works with and Ms. Berkowitz were all there and I'll let you guys say if you have any quick takeaways from that but one of the things I just wanted to say for me it was a takeaway with Secretary Fudge was just of course her passion for making sure that HUD is a partner on the state and local levels and understanding that we're all working towards the same thing but she really talked a whole lot about equity upgrading upgrading facilities and then understanding the intersectionality of a lot of issues such as health disparities with lack of affordable housing or the ability for people to have access to jobs and quality services so there was a lot of things that she talked about regarding what HUD has done and y'all have probably seen over the last couple months they have announced lots of things that they're doing as far as funding and addressing needs but there's also a lot of things that she is going to be doing so I thought that was really exciting. Sue or Ivory did y'all want to add anything about what your takeaways were from the meeting with Secretary Fudge? I just want to say Councilwoman I did tell your comments you know my takeaways were I think you covered everything so thank you. Agreed. And eviction is huge for her as well she talked a lot about that so Sue and I are still talking about the eviction court and what we can do here locally. Unfortunately or fortunately I had reached out to Judge Daniel Kobel who helped us when we were establishing the City of Columbia's homeless court and he was instrumental helping us move that along and so since he was a magistrate I was hoping that he would allow help us establish an eviction court here in Richmond County. Unfortunately he has left being a judge and started his private practice so I am still working to identify a magistrate in Richmond County who can be passionate about this issue and help us move this forward. Unfortunately the magistrates are not city so we have to work with our magistrates and our state delegation who appoints them to get that up and running like Charleston but we are working towards that so I wanted everybody to know that. Two announcements just for me I am going to I'll be in D.C. this weekend Friday I've got a couple meetings some HUD meetings as well as some congressional meetings to talk about kind of all the great things that we're doing here in in Richmond County and so just want to offer if any of your organizations or agencies are doing any amazing things that you'd like me to add to my report to our delegation as I meet with them on Friday please email me that because I want to you know make sure that everybody knows what we're doing it's not about what the city does but about what we all do here in Richmond County so I want to make sure that they know all the great things that we're doing and then also know because we're doing great things we need resources to continue to do great things so I want I want to have that information so send that to me and then the last thing I had and Dr. Grady I'm not sure if you are aware of this but I had a great conversation with Ms. Schroppshire and we have talked about a housing needs assessment Dr. Grady has done a great job for this task force in giving us analyzing the data and giving us information we've talked about that 16,000 unit deficit based on the data that he has compiled but in conversations with Dr. Grady and Dr. Solve previously about an idea that the mayor had both of them felt really strongly that in order to get the real data that we need we need to have a housing needs assessment completed and Ms. Schroppshire has agreed that a state housing can help us get that done so I'm happy to announce that we are going to be partnering with state housing and Dr. Grady you and I need to talk about what that looks like in those details but we'll be partnering and getting that done but Dr. Grady do you want to just tell everybody briefly in our next last six minutes what what that does and what that will give us as far as what we need to move forward with our action plan? Sure so for those of you who may not be aware I've been the lead author twice now of a statewide housing needs assessment last published in March I believe so basically what that does is it puts all the data on the table for stakeholders and policymakers to consider about what's the state of affordability what's the state of housing availability how many people are unable to access affordable housing what what are the challenges with regard to housing what are the demographics of the community and how does that feed into housing so there's there's a lot of different directions a housing needs assessment can go it can be a fairly short document it can be hundreds of pages it can be any number of things so you know I I think basically the the main thing that it does is it focuses people it helps inform strategic planning it helps inform program design of here's here the facts on the ground how do we address them so that's sort of the what a needs assessment is designed to do so I'd be happy to like you said speak at more length about what this project could look like. Well thank you Dr. Grady and thank you for bringing that to my attention and when I talked to her about it she was very excited and and so I'm I'm glad that we're going to be able to get this done so that is it with five minutes to spare so does anybody else have any last minute announcements or questions I know Dylan has placed in the chat and Erica will make sure she sends that out as well anything else for us okay well again welcome to Anita and Brittany and Pam who we've already welcomed but I don't think she said a whole lot the last meeting so I think this is Pam's second meeting but thank you guys so much for for being here and we look forward to all the committee's meeting in the next a couple weeks and getting those reports okay so all hearts and minds are clear we will adjourn this meeting you guys have a great week a great month and we will see you next month on October 12th at 11 a.m. thank you thank you thank you