 Okay. Well, it looks like the clock that normally was on the wall has failed. But we do have other time devices, so I know we are starting a little bit late. It was a welcome to the November regular meeting of the housing authority of the city of Santa Rosa, and we'll call that to order, and the first item is roll call. Chair Harris. Here. Vice Chair Lemke. Here, here, sorry. Commissioner Burke. Over here. Commissioner Burke. Here. Commissioner Downey. Here. Commissioner Johnson-Morgan. Here. Commissioner Olson. And just a reminder to the commissioners to please turn on your microphones when speaking. Okay. And that takes us to statement of abstention. We don't have much voting to do, so other than minutes, and I will abstain from the minutes of June 25, since I was not present. Chair Harris, I apologize. We changed the procedure to be just that you approve the minutes as submitted, unless there are facts- Right, well, we haven't gotten to minutes yet. We're just talking about abstention. So I could say it when we get to the minutes, but I- I suppose so. Right, because we have a discussion item next on the agenda. The possible motion to determine if the Housing Authority will draft, or will direct staff to develop preliminary Housing Authority agendas, nine days in advance of Housing Authority meetings. So there's a paragraph there. The question came up in our last meeting, a discussion of whether preliminary agendas was all we were concerned about because there's very little information was a preliminary agenda. So do you have any further comments on that, or should we work on this? Should we continue this? I mean, to me, I don't feel strongly one way or the other just because without the attached reports, I think the agenda itself is not helpful, but I don't feel strongly about it. Anyone else have comment? Turn your mic. I'd like to know if staff can tell me this, what the additional cost would be to do that? We haven't factored any consideration of the request in terms of time or cost at this time. You don't think there would be any? I'm sorry, Dave, are you just having worked at a- I'm more interested in hearing from the commission about the purpose and what you would hope this would achieve. And then I would have to then sit down with my team and move up the agenda summary process. So for example, if you were to support this item, the preliminary agenda would be posted next Friday for your December 17th meeting and the impacts to staff, we would have to talk that through. Right, because we have a shorter interval because in December we have an earlier meeting and that happens another time during the year. So there are items here. Does anybody else have any comments? Well, I think we need more dialogue with the staff too. Let's try and come to some workable understanding. And my inclination would be to continue this so that we can have this interaction and get some opportunity to understand what is most workable. Because this goes on to say that the regular packet with the attachments would continue to be 72 hours prior. And I think that's really what the question is is whether, because our meetings are on Monday, 72 hours is Friday at 1.30. And then you got a weekend leading into the meeting. So I think we need to have a further dialogue. So that would be my recommendation is that we continue this for a later agenda. And do I need someone to make a motion that we continue this? I'll make a motion to continue. And I don't have a strong, compelling need to have this implemented. But I particularly wouldn't want to ask for that to happen unless we had a better idea about the implications on staff workload and cost. May I just clarify then that you're asking for a continuance of this item 4.1 regarding the preliminary housing authority agendas nine days in advance. Right, to allow more dialogue with staff. And we want to reach some amenable understanding there rather than just bring it on the diocese. I mean, we're certainly open to input today and we've gotten some, but. So you would like, then it sounds like some response regarding the amount of time and or cost associated with this preliminary agenda. Right, I mean, we know it certainly puts time crunch on staff. It also gets the information out to the public sooner if we do something to the minimum under the Brown Act of 72 hour deadline prior to regular meeting. So if we can, yes. Was a reminder to the housing authority, typically your packet goes out on Wednesday afternoon. So it's more than 72 hours. It is generally more than 72 hours, you're correct. Yeah. So another question I would have about the other boards and commissions that agree to which they have experience with this and what their experience is. There isn't any other board or commission that is considering this item. So is this the city council right now that's doing this? Yes. Right, the city council has a preliminary agenda which, you know, we haven't had one that's gone public, right, to my knowledge. That's correct. The housing authority does not have a preliminary agenda. So that would be a change. Okay, so I would say we should vote on continuing this or hearing no objection. I will say we continue it to the next agenda. Okay, yes, there is an agenda item 4.1, a card from Mr. DeWitt. My name is DeWayne DeWitt. I'm from Roseland and I am supportive of this change to having these preliminary minutes sooner than later. The idea is because you folks exist to help the public and the oversight of the public's taxpayers' monies. You don't exist as a business, although you operate like a business. As a matter of fact, it's been, well, 25 years I've been watching this and I thank you because it actually spurred me to go to college and study this more deeply. But essentially the housing authority in Santa Rosa is like an independent kingdom and operates in a sense of almost a fight them with a bureaucracy that is siloed and it doesn't really share much information with people. And for the basic person to understand what's occurring and even be able to come here to a 130 Monday afternoon meeting is very difficult. I've made a point of trying to follow it and understand what you folks do. One of the problems is even in your culture, you don't get the information of the public very quick. The minutes you'll be approving today are from five months ago, four and five months ago. There's nothing about last month's meeting when an item was introduced that should have been shared with the public according to the Brown Act. And it's not in the packet here today. That item that was turned in to the board and should have been shared with everybody. So the staff will look at like, well, that's just the way we do business. Well, it shouldn't be just the way we do business because the city has embarked upon an open government task force. It's paid hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars and had many meetings which are videotaped to show that they want a culture of openness, accountability and transparency in the activities that occur. Even in what you call your action minutes, it doesn't show what I say sometimes. Here's an example, you'll be approving for June. Spoke regarding property owned by the city that have no tenants. What I specifically said is that the city properties should be utilized to help house people, veterans with their hud bash vouchers, the homeless, things of that nature. So if you can't even put in your minutes what the people are saying, how can you expect the public to actually understand the whole nature of your activities? So my comments typically are to try to get a better approach to housing in Santa Rosa, especially for low income people. That's what your mandate is as a housing authority, not just to spend money and to prop up nonprofits at various situations when you've already given them some money, throwing good money after bad sometimes. So please, go ahead and get this on the agenda, get it passed, let's have preliminary agendas. Thank you. Okay, I see an orange card there, Mr. Elbs. Appreciate the opportunity to speak and what the board does and the housing authority, even it's reconfiguration. Looking forward to an opportunity when it can be possibly expanded again into redevelopment. That's a potential at the state, apparently. So look forward to that. Here with regard to the timing of preliminary agendas, very, very important and the reason I'll just express now, we're looking at various things where the housing authority or other groups spend money to buy existing housing. So assuming you have within your agenda, you come up with a few days notice on a proposal where someone is going to have a project which purchases an existing group of housing. Let's say it was affordable housing before and the terms up and it's an opportunity to buy from the housing, the tax credit finance owner or any other type of housing that is existing, such as the Palms or any other housing that's existing. When you do that, it actually is, I'm gonna make an analogy between a stock buyback and a housing buyback. When you're buying that existing stock, it's the same as buying an existing shares of stocks of a company. The company invests its money in its own shares of stocks because the rise in the price of the shares after they've purchased those shares will be more than what they've invested. The corporation would not engage in that if it was not going to produce a higher return in the price of the shares for the rest of the owners. They would not buy those shares back if it wasn't gonna produce a higher value. That's what happens when you buy existing stock of housing. It actually raises the cost of housing because if you were to take that money and invest, I mean, that's just that aspect. Additionally, a second aspect, if you take that money and invest, instead of buying that housing, you invest in another equal number of housing. You have twice as many houses and that person who has that existing housing, they're going to have to do something with it. They might rehab it, they can sell it, they can do anything they want, but they're still going to be housing there and you'll have twice as much housing for the same new investment of money. And so it's very important to notify people so they can come and be in this dialogue, as Dwayne says. It's very important to have public participation. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Ells. Any additional public comment? Any further comment from commissioners? That takes us back to the actual motion of continuing this item with regard to agendas to a future, to the next month's meeting. And hearing no objection, I guess I can say, let's continue it to the next meeting. Is there a second on the motion? Yeah, there would be a second and then a vote to see if you wanted to continue this. I had made a motion earlier that we set a time for this and I didn't specify when that would be, but, yeah. Without, when would that be ready? So the chair has made a motion to continue? Actually, the chair is Mr. Birx. I mean, the motion is Mr. Birx. The motion is on the floor, but. Okay. I'll second. Okay, thank you. Here we go. Okay. Commissioner Burke. Commissioner Johnson-Morgan. Commissioner Downey. Commissioner Olson. No. Vice Chair Lemke. And Chair Harris. Aye. Let the record reflect that the motion carries with one no and five ayes. Okay, so that takes us to public comments on non-agenda items number five. And I have one card so far from Mr. DeWitt. My name is DeWayne DeWitt. I'm from Roseland. I've been fortunate that in my short life, I've met a number of people who've served our country in various military capacities and they're known as veterans. During Veterans Day ceremonies on the 11th of November of this year, I was fortunate to speak with some young veterans who've returned from the Iraq Wars and the Afghanistan Wars. They talked with me about their concerns about how the term veteran gets bandied about often by political players without necessarily taking into account what the veterans themselves may have an interest in and want to do. This is especially more prevalent now that the federal government has put something together called the Veterans Hud Vash. It's Housing Urban Development, Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Bouchers. So these young men told me that they were putting together a group called the Sonoma County Veterans Housing Coalition. And it was an ad hoc group that's come together not to get money, but to actually try to have a voice in how the money gets spent because they feel that often what's happening is the money's getting, if you'll excuse the expression, funneled into places where it doesn't maximize its value or show efficiency, but gets spent. And that's just the key is people want to spend it, not necessarily provide that housing for veterans that has been shown to be needed. I want to give you an example. You can go home and Google this if you have never seen this, but there was a guy, his name was Master Sergeant, no less, Ernest T. Bilko. I don't know if you ever heard of Sergeant Bilko, but I think you really ought to know about Sergeant Bilko. And Sergeant Bilko's are those people in the military that find ways to procure things, to do things that aren't necessarily as legitimate as they should be. So Sergeant Bilko is a well-known term to many people who've served in the military. It frequently is applied to people you would say are con artists, people who basically are Bilk in the system. That's where the term comes from, to Bilk, a verb. So I talked with these guys at this Veterans Day event, which was right out here at the Vets Memorial. And in the discussion, it came out that they don't like working with the current Veterans groups that are getting the money because they got Sergeant Bilko's involved. And I mentioned the Benton Street Veterans Village. They're like, whoa, man, that is some serious waste of money. So you gotta keep it in mind. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. DeWitt. Okay, Mr. Ells, I see you are waving an orange card. B, I'm so glad you're meeting. I would like to be an advocate for additional project-based vouchers that they be assigned to new projects, projects that are fundable and offer to build new housing that that can support their financial structure rather than community-based vouchers. Some proportion of those, a significant proportion of those can be project-based vouchers and allow for construction of new housing as a foundational grounding, grounded funding that can be offered such as the hud-vash vouchers such as other hud vouchers. They can be used as the significant financing to overcome either down payments or other types of funding that produces, it can produce on its own gap funding for private financing, which private financing can take up a lot of the actual cost of projects. They can come in and buy that with private financing, but there needs to be gap funding. And this actually can function as that kind of gap funding. Really talking about a different kind of funding than your normal stream, I'm looking to produce housing that can be produced at a lower cost. So those are two separate issues. One, project-based vouchers that can develop the permanent housing that you're looking at that can also help in developing temporary or transitional housing. And those projects, project vouchers can be assigned to them as well. And the person who has a voucher can transition to another spot that has a voucher. They can also obtain a voucher, but the project-based voucher would stay there to help that funding of that temporary facility until it's funded, until it's actually paid for. And because they're less expensive on the temporary housing, it doesn't take very long to actually accomplish that so that those can be returned back into your community voucher system. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you, Mr. Ells. I have one more card for agenda five non-agenda items from Victoria Yanis. Hello, my name is Victoria Yanis and I've never spoken to this group before, but I am from homeless action exclamation point. And I was trying to think of what I was gonna say. And really I don't know the function of the housing authority, but I would like the housing authority at any opportunity that they have to chime in with the city council and the county board of supervisors on the housing emergencies and shelter emergencies that have been declared. I don't know, you know, the Human Rights Commission put a very good letter out against the way homeless are being treated now given these emergencies. I, as an attorney, through a homeless action represented many of the people who were charged with infractions when the sweep under the Sixth Street Bridge occurred in November of 2017. Now that that has been completed and people are being moved around the city all over the place all the time. And so we have many property claims to make. This was different. It was by the CHP and people's property was taken to the yard in Sebastopol. Nevertheless, right now what we're going through is the fact that some independent auditors have reviewed the way homeless are being treated with the police department and also the sheriff's department. That's Io Laro for the sheriffs and Bob Aronson for the city criticize the city on their approach to criminalization of the homeless and how it's brought down police morale and then the city didn't want to accept the report. So we're going through the same thing with Io Laro. The sheriff wants to disband Io Laro and just hire an independent auditor at Hawke whenever they need one. So for this reason, I have been motivated to try to come to more commission meetings and learn more about it. And I'll be happy anytime you wish to give you a report on what's going on with the homeless. I hope I serve some purpose speaking up here. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Amidstianis. Item number five, any further comments? Okay, that takes us to number six, approval of minutes. And as I'd stated earlier, since I was not present on June the 25th that I was on vacation, I will abstain from that. But in response to the comments, Mr. DeWitt had spoken, I think, in both the June 25th and the August 27th meetings on the same topic. And his comment, I think, is better reflected in the minutes of the 27th than on June the 25th. If you look at those minutes, it actually said on the 25th, the, actually, no, on the August meeting, the minutes state this electronic method is slower than flipping paper. Oh, okay, agenda. I need to look at this meeting, not that meeting. It actually states there that he requested or suggested that those units be used for housing on the 20th. So I would raise a question of whether the minutes from June could reflect the same statement as in the August minutes. I'm not clear, Mr. Chair, what you're saying. I'm saying that in the public comments, it says on number six on the minutes for the August 27th meeting, DeWitt spoke advocating for properties bought by the city of Santa Rosa to be used for housing low income citizens. That's what it says there. If you go back to the prior months or the June minutes, that's what he commented on and it does not give that clarity. It says, Dwayne DeWitt spoke regarding properties owned by the city that have no tenants. He urged thousands already to become involved with housing veterans. If it said the same thing, housing veterans, I guess Mr. DeWitt is not here to make his wish is known. So I would then raise the question of the approval of the minutes of June the 25th. Any comments or corrections? So I'm sorry, Chair Harris, are you approving the minutes from June 25th? I don't know, do you need a roll call or are you? Nope, you just need to say you approve of them. So June the 25th, hearing your objection, we will adopt those minutes. Now on August the 27th, I do have a question that I've been trying to figure out here. The limited preference item that we passed. Does it not have an indicated number of vouchers that we would make available under limited preference to the homeless? I'm unable to see any reference to numbers in my memory. Was it the original recommendation when we had talked about this I think in May of 2017 was 24 vouchers would go into that limited preference. What is the method by which we were determining the number of vouchers to be administered under limited preference for the homeless? Because it's not clear, I don't see in. Do you want that reflected in the minutes? Is that? Well, basically I would like to know where we would find it since I don't find it in the minutes, nor do I find it in the resolution. And this month's report indicates that there are 30 some. Right, just jumping ahead to the staff report indicates that there are, for this month, staff report, let me see, that would be 9.1. No, 9.4 says 11 families have been housed using the limited preference vouchers. 16 additional voucher holders are currently searching. So that's 11 plus 16, that's 27. And then five families have been referred. So that's 32. And so I'm just trying to understand if we do have any numeric method for determining or how we are going to, I mean, I don't have an objection. It's just that I'm not understanding, you know, if we get another 10 referrals or the same thing gonna happen or do we face that at some future time? Because I mean, limited preference would indicate there has to be some definition. We're under minutes, the 27th, Housing Authority acted to approve 24, total limited preference. We interview more than that number going forward. It's like, since we are currently have 32 in the process, but you're not awarded 32, so. That is correct. Okay, so, but apparently we have awarded 27. 11 have been housed and 16 are currently searching. Are they searching some, that would suggest that three of them are searching and would not be able to get a voucher even if they found the place. That's correct, unless we had some turnover. So, okay. And if I may just return to sticking to item 6.2, approval of the minutes. If you would like those to be revised to indicate a specific number, we could do that or it sounds like we could have this discussion below. Right, if we would. In item 9. That are, I assume we're gonna do, if we feel that that number needs to be expanded, that will become an agenda item. That's correct. Okay, but I do think it would be useful to have the minutes reflected that we're currently operating with that 24 number. Well, you would ask your colleagues to see if they're willing to. Right, I would request a very minor amendment to those minutes that I go to the 27th. Look at the draft minutes. And the last item is the report establishing a limited preference for housing choice voucher program waiting list. It's 24, it's in there. I don't see it. Is it there? Director Gwine, I'm sorry. And Chair Harris, if I may. It's within the resolution verbiage. Right, but I would like to see it appear in the background there, that we had this approved 24. Any housing sources wishes to implement a limited preference for housing choice vouchers for families affected by the October 2017 wildfire disaster? So is this a different preference than the one that we had previously talked about? That's what's not clear to me. Do we have two limited preferences now? One wildfire and one homeless? That's correct. Okay, so how many then? We had 24 was the number I remember from the homeless. Now we have another 24 or some other number for the wildfire. Okay, so they are both 24. So we have a total of 48. I mean, without this discussion, this would not be clear. How many we're talking about? Okay, so I think we should not, we had, it was clear in the May of 2017 that there were 24 for homeless. And we're saying that this resolution also specified 24 for fire victims of October, 2017. And we just need to add for families affected by a wildfire disaster, 24 vouchers will be available. I would make that amendment to these minutes. 24 vouchers would be available until further action. So what I'm hearing is it's the language is specific in the resolution that we adopted. So you're asking that it also be in the minutes? Right, because if we go back and look and try and track this, reading full resolutions becomes a bit burdensome. And this has helped to clarify to me that we actually now have two lists of 24. That was not clear to me. Yeah, I mean, I was focusing on up to the 100, which would be there. Well, the 100 are the project based vouchers. You know, keeping all these numbers straight is what the issue becomes. Okay, so I am proposing that we adopt these minutes of August 27th was the addition in the first paragraph of background, affected by the October 2017 wildfire disaster, comma, 24 vouchers will be available. You know, it's not clear to me whether that was actually said at the last meeting or whether we're now retroactively making a decision to include something that we think would be good for the record. What I understood is that from staff is that 24 is in the resolution. It just was not pulled out as a relevant fact in the minutes. Is that correct? It's in the resolution and it's not in the minutes. Right, so that we are adding to the minutes what was actually buried somewhere in the resolution. Well, I don't know, it's fair to say it was buried in the resolution. Why is the resolution? Well, it's particularly confusing that we have two limited preferences, both of which have a number of 24. I'm just trying to get clarity. I mean, we are, if we don't amend the minutes, at least I would hope we would have some comment that we have clarified that there are 24 in each of those limited preference programs in today's minutes. And in it. I mean, the whole question gets down to the age old discussion about how much detail should go in the minutes. And I know that for lots of good reasons, it's been decided by the city council and other boards and commissions to have brevity in the minutes, and then to have the other records stand behind that with more detail and more specificity. And I just would be a little concerned about kind of mission creep in terms of, you know, I mean, I can read things and I say, well, I said more than that in detail, but it's in other places if, and I don't want to see the minutes grow and grow and grow. Well, I mean, adding forwards, I didn't think was taking us down the path, but if no one wants to support the idea of adding the number of 24, I will accede to accepting the minutes without that specificity. Okay. So as long as we're on minutes, where are the minutes from the last meeting? September and October due to Commissioner Bulldoch's vacancy, there was a problem with making it reflect the correct voting information for both those sets of minutes. And I could not get the glitch to fix before I had to post the agenda on Tuesday. So we went ahead and pulled them and you will be seeing them in December. It's just the voting information would not reflect correctly. And I didn't want to present them to you with that voting information incorrect because then they become record after the meeting once you approve them. No, we could have amended them here, but because the glitches, it shows her as absent rather than no longer a member, right? Yeah, she has to show as vacant. Well, I would hope that we're having trouble amending minutes, but that's the case or if we'd have just had the practice of amending those slight glitches that we could have dealt with those other two sets of minutes today, I would think that would be a practical way to proceed on a minor glitch like that. But since we are very in disinclined to amend minutes, I guess the best thing is to have them months late. I mean, this is the conundrum that we're getting into. I understand what you're saying. I still feel as strongly about it as you do to make a motion at this point in time. Okay, so are we calling for a vote on the minutes of August 27th? Or am I disapproving them? We have not done August 27th. We don't need a motion to approve. We can just say hearing no objection. Is that correct? Well, except I do object to not adding 24. So if we want. But you withdrew your objection. Well, I said I would exceed to accepting that. But as long as it is noted that I did with that comment approve the minutes, okay? I don't think it would be inappropriate when there is an objection to have a vote and just have the record show that you wanted more specificity than other board members, at least. Yeah, we're certainly passing the time of diminishing returns here. Okay. Okay. So that takes us to chairman and commissioner reports. Well, as chair, I will report that I did have a conversation today with the city attorney in response to some information I had sent her about the Brown Act. And I have found additional evidence support from other bodies that have engaged outside legal counsel with regard to interpretation of the Brown Act. And my conversation with city attorneys who Gallagher was we are proceeding to evaluate this information and to use her terms in the goal of adopting best practices for the interpretation of the Brown Act. And I have to say that eight years on this body, this will represent a change in the interpretation of the Brown Act. And you will have an opportunity to see more about that in the future. So at that point, I will turn to the fellow commissioners if anyone has matters to report. If I may chairman Harris, the book to commissioner Downey and both he and I had picked up the information which probably other members of the housing authority picked up as well at least those that were serving on this board when Emilio Gonzalez was on the board. He passed away on October 21st. He was an excellent commissioner that provided a lot of time and energy to the housing authority as a tenant commissioner. And I just suggest that perhaps, Mr. Chairman, if you would agree that we can, when we get to the point of adjournment, we adjourn the meeting in memory of Emilio. I certainly would concur with that. I would just thank you for bringing that up. I saw his obituary in the paper and I second year comments. He was a lovely person. He wrote a wonderful book, Cigar Stories, if anyone hasn't read it and I have a copy, I'd be happy to lend. And he was a very good commissioner. Yes, he did sell a number of copies of his book and it was very entertaining. Okay, any further commissioner comments, reports? Okay, hearing on committees. I don't believe I've been a committee meeting since our last. Full board meeting. So that moves us to item number nine, executive director reports and communication. And thank you, chairman. There are nine memorandums under the executive director's reports. We can answer any questions you may have regarding those. I was also asked by commissioner Lemke to make a few comments about the pending community development block grant disaster relief funds. It's been in the paper and some news media events. The state's action plan is out for public comment. And within that action plan, it identifies Santa Rosa receipt of $38.5 million for multifamily housing. So tomorrow at the city council meeting, we're doing two things. One is we're having a study session where we're presenting what our consultant finds as the unmet need to recover from the disaster. And then under reports, we're going to seek the council's comments on the action plan. The clarification we're getting from the state is that there's four categories of disaster relief that is funded by HUD. One is owner occupied single family dwelling. And they're recommending that the state run a statewide program to help those who lost their homes that are low income in that category. The second for multifamily is they're recommending that we apply just to make sure we're block grant eligible and would plug that resource into the affordable housing pipeline. The third category is infrastructure. And that is my opinion of a modest 1.2 million for both the city and the county to apply for. And the fourth and final category is economic development recovery. And there isn't any proposed funding for that category even though there is an unmet need. So in sum, the results of this work is that we want to advocate with the state, the county, other communities that have been impacted by disasters of 2017 as well as this year for the federal government to provide additional resources going forward. So that's a quick summary of the disaster relief discussion. Could you clarify, I mean that number of 38 million was that a result of the consultant working on behalf of the department who came with that number? Or is that a number that was taken from Sacramento or Washington? Thank you for the question. Yeah, it came from Sacramento and it's data driven based on people who applied for female individual assistance. So they're relying on that information, the status. So where does that put us percentage wise? I mean, the total amount for all four of those categories that you mentioned, our 38 million represents. For the amount the state's proposing, fund multifamily, Santa Rosa stands to get about 58% of the total. And that is from the fires that would be in amount to Sonoma County, to Napa County, and to Southern California, right? Correct, and is there going to be comment from the city government that would end the public comment period to try and support a different number? There, we'll have that discussion tomorrow to see what the council wants to do, but our point is that we're woefully underfunded as is the state of California from those wildfire disasters. And we want to make sure we're in position to work with our legislators to advocate for additional resources going forward. That would not be a CDBG disaster relief, additional resources from the state's funds, or is there another round of disaster relief? We anticipate there'll be another round of disaster relief in light of the experience Butte County just had, readying before them. I have a question. Yes, please. Do you have any indication at this point whether those funds will be implemented by the housing authority directly by the city council or possibly by another department? It would be to be determined. The council hasn't had that conversation yet. It would be my recommendation that we use our existing affordable housing pipeline that the housing authority has. Run a notice of funding availability when the money's available probably in the spring. Do you call what the number is for the county of Sonoma? County of Sonoma received 4.6 million. So not much more than the 10th or 12% of what we... And that's just in the multifamily category. Right, right. And one would expect less multifamily in the rural parts. But I could certainly envision them wanting a bigger number, but okay, are there any more questions about this Community Development Block Grant DR disaster relief? Was there any owner-occupied low income awarded to the county? Do you know that by chance? No, the proposal from the state is that the state would run a statewide program themselves so there wouldn't be an allocation to any jurisdiction. So that means that they're kind of operating that like they do for smaller jurisdictions the regular Community Development Block Grant. No, no, it's a clarification. If you were a low income owner-occupant impacted by the fire, you would be applying directly with the state. Yes, so that is very different. It's not to the smaller jurisdictions who apply but actual homeowners. Right. So that means that people from Santa Rosa and from Sonoma County could individually apply? That is correct. And we have noted that we did have some cases within the city. Yes. Okay, well, that's useful information. The other comment I would make as your director is this Thursday is the dedication of the crossings at Aston's. Chairman Harris has agreed to be one of the speakers. You're all invited. So, so that's 1230, I think it's 1230 on the 29th. I would like to go back to last month's report. Remember, there was a Cal Home Disaster Assistance Funding in the census tract didn't make sense. And it looked to me like, you know, it did not look like there were any destroyed homes in the census tract that was identified here. Did that get clarified? Yeah, thank you for that catch, Chairman. That was a typo. It was referencing the wrong census tract. We've since reached out to the state and they've made that correction. Okay, so it's a census tract that's above that one. Okay, yes, because it would not be good to have money to rebuild where there's nothing that needs to be rebuilt. Okay, that clarifies that item from the October 22nd report. Okay, so that takes us, we're still on item 9.1. And that includes the financial report for the first quarter of this fiscal year. Now, there is a typo there on expenditures. And that second numeric column should say expended through 930-18. It still says 630-18. So that's just a date correction there. Thank you. Because on the back, in the funding sources, it is correctly labeled as 930. But I observe in the loan activity, committed funds 3.220 million, it's almost identical to the year end report. It was 3.221. I mean, we're a difference of about $600. Is that an incredible coincidence or is that the same money? It's still committed from last year. Let me follow up on that question. Okay, yeah, because it looks very much like the same number. But the fact that we're a quarter of the way through and overhead expended, I mean, we've expended 88% of the overhead in the first, administration overhead in the first quarter. Or no, let me see, I'm looking at last report. At this point, we've expended 21%, right? That's correct. Sorry. But that means the expended 2,930, we will see another one of these reports for December. And I do have some questions on the income side that housing impact fee, the whole year budget is 1,497. And for the first quarter, we're at about half of that number. Does that mean that actual, these funds coming over as they are received each quarter, we potentially will have significantly more housing impact fee than is shown here in the budget if in one quarter we've gotten about 50%. Potentially, yes. Because that's basically based on the valuation of houses that are sold within the city limits. Correct. Suggesting that we may have another million and a half that what guidelines do we have on what we can use housing impact fee for? I mean, we traditionally put it in the housing trust and make it part of our own portfolio. But do we have other options with the housing impact fee? It is to produce affordable housing. So I don't think so offhand, but I could research that. Well, I mean, affordable housing can be a bigger, smaller category, depending on how you define it, right? I mean, if it was, we have traditionally built bricks and mortar permanent housing. When you have a disaster, the question of how much interim transition housing is needed in whether this potentially could be used or something that's less than permanent housing. It would be producing housing. It's just that it would only fund that housing until it moved on to another use and potentially would be sold. That's a question I'm raising there. I mean, if you need to research that, we can discuss. Well, I'm referring to the note here that it's paid by housing developers for the impacts of their development on infrastructure and in lieu of providing affordable housing in their market rate housing development. So that's the definition we're operating under. We still use room for interpretation if you get a bunch of lawyers in the room. But that's the thing I'm taking note of is that we potentially have a larger number. It's also rather striking that that number budgeted is almost identical to the CDBGDR that's shown here. In that now, with what you've said, it is 38 million. What's the timeframe? Would that all occur and be received in this budget year? That's approved budget to administer the CDBGDR over time. Okay, so this is the money that we would expend in administering the 38 million. But it would come from within those funds. We didn't get separate allocation in addition. This isn't to be a million and a half, basically. Is that in addition to the 38 million or is it from within the 38 million? It was a transfer of the general fund so we could launch program readiness. So it is not CDBG money itself. It is general fund funding, which we hope to be reimbursed by, okay. And so basically the large part of that is is for the consultant who's working on the DR funds. Yes, and staffs charge this as time there as well. Okay, staff and consultant. And it shows that we've expended at least in the first quarter zero, but I'm assuming by year end that will not be the case. I mean, the other very sizable issue that it came up in our annual financial statement, loan repayments or budgeted for this year at 65,000 and we've already received 424. So that's 652% in the first quarter. I mean, we've not made a practice of revising budgets, but that would appear to be another case where we may actually, in addition to a million and a half that may accumulate in housing impact, we could conceivably have more than a million accumulating beyond what we have budgeted for income. Well, to your statement of practice, depending on the demand for the resource and project readiness, many times the housing authority has revisited its budget mid-year and decided to allocate additional resources for project going forward rather than waiting for next fiscal year. Right, I mean, my memory is it's really been closer to the end of the third or in the fourth quarter that we've kind of dealt with that, but I mean, do you see anything else that it may provide income that we have not anticipated or at least not reflected in the approved budget? I can research that question. Okay, very good. So sorry, I've been taking up the time here for comments. Are there any other questions from commissioners? I just have one. Dave, I'm sure you've told us to me before, but bear with me. Transitionary housing, something that's not permanent. Do we have money somewhere that we can actually use for that or is transitional housing out of our realm within the categories of the housing trust? You could, instead of producing affordable housing, consider a different project for transitional housing. What we're observing is HUD no longer sponsors funding for transitional housing. It's going into the Housing First program, but if you had a project before you to consider, you certainly could look at moving your resources accordingly. Thank you. Because I would assume, I mean, I know there's some demand for transitional housing that would then move to the next disaster and we now have the scenario where we've got a row of disasters that will recover over time and there will be a market for anything that we might still be using for a year or two because we're more than a year ahead of the most recent disaster. And unfortunately, that's become clear enough that they're likely to be more. This is, you know, so it makes it more viable to think about transitional housing because I think there will be a market for it. It would not just be something that we've built for transition and then don't need anymore and it sits in a lot unused. Okay. I do have a card here from Thomas Ells for public comment on 9.1. Thank you so much again, you know, this budget opacity sometimes. But I do want to mention that as disaster relief, the single family residential type properties, I'm not really sure how many multifamily properties burned in the fire. So to have such a predominance of it or in fact, maybe all of it, depending on how you count and who's doing what, the state doing the single family resident program, if you will, for low income. It doesn't, I'm not sure how $38 million goes to that multifamily housing. Where was that multifamily sum in Larkspur, I think and so on. How would that be in the city? You mean Larkspur? How would that be in the city? There's no Larkspur in Santa Rosa, that's true. Yeah, that's what I mean. So where was that multifamily housing that that would be stretched to? It's a question I just don't, I'm not familiar with. But the possibility to stretch funding to single family residences that could be transitional housing, I would recommend that you seriously consider that, whether it's from a trust fund, housing trust fund or not, how you accomplish that, that's your opportunity. But I would remind you that there were over 21,700 counted individuals from the homeless count that are couchsurfing. And that is an increase of 10,800, over the original 10,800 that are now couchsurfing because of the fire. So as a disaster relief, there are additional 10,800 people who are now couchsurfing who are technically not counted as homeless under the federal definition, but they are expected to become homeless. How long can you sustain having people living on your couch? How long can someone sustain being a person living on a couch? So and then if there was additional housing available, regular housing, then they could transition to those. Or is the expectation that those people are just going to be out of luck, you didn't win the lottery of life, you're gonna have to move to Calusa County or Vallejo or something like that. So that's where we have the opportunity to actually have some housing, transitional housing and other housing that can be established for those 10,000. So they just don't become homeless or they don't have to move out of the community. And so I would recommend or ask you, plead with you to get some of the funding and single-family residences are the most adaptable, take the least amount of time to build or to re-figure. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ells. Do you know further comments? I think that takes us to item 9.2. Nancy Manchester's memo is the cover. The point there being no low moderate income housing asset fund is being held by the housing trust from the redevelopment agency. But I do have a question about the number of units 24. Can you expand on what the 24 units are in item 12? Inventory of home ownership units assisted by farmer redevelopment agency. Those all located in a contiguous area or are they spread? Bear with me a minute while I pull my notes back up. So these units were predominantly silent seconds and they are all also released once they're paid off. So there's only 24 left of those home ownership units that were produced with low-mod funds of the redevelopment agency. And so those are making regular payments or are they of a type where they only do if the borrower wishes to make a payment or if they sell the property? It's either optional or on sale that they pay off the balance. That's correct. Do you know what the total outstanding balance is? I mean, anything we can do to increase the amount of capital we have to lend presumably gets us to the goal of more housing being built. But this number, I don't know, if there's 24 of them probably those seconds are 10,000 or less. I mean they're relatively small since they were issued quite a while ago. There's a variety of amounts and I'd be happy to look into the total outstanding balance and get back to the housing authority. Because that is a pretty passive portfolio. I mean, it's totally dependent on those borrowers is when we see any funds. Okay, well I would be interested. I mean, I know there were some down here in Burbank Gardens that had silent seconds. There are other parts of the city where these, to your knowledge, are they well spread across the city or are they just in a few locations? They're well spread out through the city. There were quite a few in Rancho Miguel. That I shouldn't say quite a few. There were a handful that were lost in the fire at Rancho Miguel, but generally speaking. And that was a mobile home park? No, those were single-family homes. Okay, right, although they were long wheels at one time, I think, weren't they? I'm sorry? I think those are units that were, they weren't stick-built on site, but that's a minor detail. Okay, well I would be interested, and you did put your phone number in the cover memo if you have any questions. So I would like to follow up with you on just a little bit more information. On what that total is and whether there's any expectation of any significant amount. I think it's a pretty minor amount, but I don't know. Okay, are there any other questions or comments as opposed to regard to the Housing Successor Agency report? Okay, hearing none, that takes us then to the next item, 9.3. And 9.3, the first item is the letter from HUD to the Executive Director reporting again a another high CMAP score. And all except number 14 were the MAC score. And so that takes us, actually, the report, the first item there was the fact that now there are 50 participants in the Family Self-Sufficiency Program, which is an increase. As I remember last month, it was 44, right? Or something like that. It was in the 40s, yeah. Right, right. Well, let's take a moment to congratulate staff on yet another year of notice by the funding source for doing a good job. Thank you. Yes, there is a long history of being designated as a high-performing voucher program. Yeah, I just want to echo those comments since it's a significant accomplishment now all due to the hard work and diligence of staff making it happen on a consistent basis. Keep up the good work. Well, but there are certainly challenges in what we see about these limited preferences that people have been awarded vouchers and they're still looking. So in general, to get these high scores, you've got to be in the high 90% of utilization of your vouchers, right? But we must be falling within that guideline even though people do spend a significant amount of time looking for housing after they've been given awarded vouchers. Okay, any comments from staff on that? No, it's here for your information, so thank you for the comments. Okay, so that's item 9.3 and we have one more item 9.4, which is, okay, I mean, I guess I already commented on the item about the 50 participants in that family self-sufficiency item. I guess I get it up on the screen here since I point four. Well, you're looking for that. I just, I mean, there hasn't been full utilization of the family self-sufficiency program, correct? I mean, so full utilization, in other words, the 50, so that's a program that's been implemented quite a long time ago. So tell us a little, I mean, and there have been 20 people that have graduated from the program so far, correct? Yeah, so I was just curious to know how robust and how successful that program was. I know it was an idea that I came along with with the idea that it would be a stepping stone out of utilization and dependence upon voucher, and so funds could be set aside. And we've been aggressively seeking participants and usually when they know that, you know, we ask them during the re-exam, if especially for those who are on the cash aid or if they have no income and they are able-bodied, we request them if they want to see our family self-sufficiency coordinator or they wanna meet with them so that we can include them in the program. And we've been working also with the county and inviting people who are showing interest to apply. So we're trying to do everything we can to attract more people to join the program because it is a good program. And it requires a commitment. Yes, they create goals for themselves and we try to help them. We have different resources available, resume building, what they need, where they could find the kind of training that they need. So we try to offer all of that so that people will be interested. And of course, the goal is to save enough escrow money where we reported before that some people have received between 50 to 25, 30,000. So then after they graduate and be in the program, then they can buy a house and use that for a down payment or use it for something they feel like they need to make them successful in their career. Which doesn't go far in this market. I suppose, I don't know if it, are people transitioning when they are successful into condominiums typically? Well, it has been, I think so far of the ones who have graduated, we have very few who have been successful. But there are some graduates who are working now with credit agencies to help them kind of be successful to make sure that they meet the credit requirement to be able to buy a house. Right, I think last month, Rebecca did mention that there was one who had about 25,000 and somebody asked the question of whether she potentially was going to use that to buy in Lantana. And nobody knows. But the fact that there were 44 last month, that number I do remember, this month you're saying there are 50 active participants. But I think our capacity is somewhere over 60, isn't it? I mean, there's still space to recruit more people. We would prefer to have more participants more than what we required. But so we are required by HUD to have 75 and we have already graduated some so that we're meeting the HUD requirement. And that's the reason why we've been successful in getting the family self-sufficiency grant yearly. Because if not, we would not receive that grant. Okay, so that 75 number is accumulates. Yes. I mean, because if we've only got 50 participants, okay, well, there's obviously more numbers to tracking this but you're saying that there's still more capacity in that accumulation of funds, the 25,000 that people get, is some of that is funded? It takes them five years too. Usually it takes five years. You have five years to be on the program so that whatever you accumulated in five years is what you receive as your escrow account. So every time your rent goes up, and for example, you started with zero income, every time your rent goes up, that money gets put in an escrow account like your savings account. So, and then after five years, you will get that money or you can get it before if your rent becomes zero where you have to pay all your rent, then they can graduate before the five years. Okay, well, there's obviously details to that program and whether it really does in our market allow people to buy a place is not clear to me but maybe we'll get some further information. Okay. I have a question on that. I did hear conversation about the city of Santa Rosa getting a program much like the county has where they turn around and help persons who have graduated from or may just be in the self-sufficiency program as well. Basically the voucher can transfer from assistance with rental to those persons who can afford or qualify to purchase into a assistance program to help them pay their mortgage. And there was talk about that program coming to the city of Santa Rosa but I think it might have stopped. I'm wondering if there's- We're still exploring that. We just didn't have the capacity and the funding to be able to do that but since and we've talked to HUD about that and they do understand that we didn't have the program and if they are able to buy something then we will refer them to Sonoma County where they could kind of use that program because Sonoma County has and we've done that once. So that is a standard pathway. So someone inside the city of Santa Rosa if they wanted to utilize that program there is already an established connection with Sonoma County to go ahead and become heard of their system. Right now I don't know if they have the program available but we are exploring and we are going to that's our goal is to have the home ownership program become a reality here for us. Within the city. Yes. Because the county- Within the city, yeah. The county does have the program. The county has a program but I don't know if it's active right now. I see. So it's for that for their assistance. Do you know what they use for their funding source, Carmelita? It will be the voucher program basically instead of paying rent we help them pay the mortgage. But it sounds like this supplements. Well it would basically it's for voucher holders who are currently renting. If they can qualify to purchase then their voucher just becomes assistance in paying their mortgage. So it's really not a change. I mean it's just money. It's about the same money that they would get towards a rental assistance that then goes towards their mortgage. So will I allow that? Yes. Oh absolutely. So pay it towards a mortgage? Yes, absolutely. There are states that use their state funding dogment at. I believe there's a limitation as well. After I think the max for that stage of program is 15 years. So whereas a regular rental assistance voucher could be lifelong it's capped for 15 years for mortgage. And if the owner, if the voucher holder's income goes up then of course when it's become zero payment then they will be removed from the program. As long as they meet the income requirement for that mortgage. Right, but then they're on the road to being homeowners. Okay, that's useful information. And I mean it does say that we have potential to expand into some other areas. I mean it would really raise the disaster relief funds are multifamily whether the home ownership portion will come in another round. It's something to have an eye on. Okay, so you've mentioned that tomorrow city council will be talking about and making some kind of recommendation on how to proceed with this CDBG disaster relief, right? And when is that on the agenda? How early in the council meeting tomorrow? So you will be on deck for that. So the study session is slated to begin at 3 p.m. And that is where they receive a report just information on what the consultant for the city, Hagerty Consulting has found for Santa Rosa's unmet need. Then during the regular agenda we're the first report up for reviewing the state's action plan and getting the council's comments on that plan so we can submit them. So do you already have some idea of what the number is, of what the consultant is saying our unmet need is in comparison to the 38 million? Well, yeah, it's the 38.5 million is just for the category multifamily but there's four categories I went through. The total unmet need, we estimate to be about 55 million right now. So if you're interested to tune in or attend we'll go into more details then. So when do you estimate after the report is given that how long do you think the report will take? Are you presenting that? I am representing that along with the consultant. And that happens right at three. Yes, yeah, we figure our presentation lasts about 15 minutes and then typically it's open for discussion after that. Okay, thank you. Okay, I am aware that apparently Councilwoman Combs is sponsoring an event here on Saturday, December the first from one to three on new ideas for Santa Rosa's homeless crisis. So I just want to make mention of that open to the public obviously and here in the council chamber on Saturday. Okay, seeing no other indication of comments I will mention that we do want to honor our former member, Emilio Gonzalez is passing as a valued colleague and in his honor, I will declare this meeting adjourned. Thank you.