 So we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order the first item on our agenda is public invited to be heard. I don't think we have anyone, but just confirming we have no public. Okay. Just us just us. The next item is approving the minutes from our last meeting on February 11th. Are there any questions or discussion or a motion to approve? I move we approve the meetings from the meeting minutes from January 11th. Second. Okay. February 11th. My apologies. Okay. Motion from Brian, Graham seconded. All in favor? Aye. Okay. unanimous with Madeline's aye. All right. The next item on our agenda is an update on engagement strategies to gain deeper understanding from the community about human service needs. And this item is really a continuation of conversations we've had over the last few meetings around community engagement. Ellie Berto or Karen, do one of you want to start or should we start with some discussion first? I have a PowerPoint that I was going to take us through and then we can get into discussion. Okay. Perfect. Oh, I have it up. So I'll be driving that. So let me let me do that. Can you all see the PowerPoint? Yes. So we we've been talking about this for some time. And Karen and I have been talking quite a bit about it the last several weeks. And we wanted to bring this conversation to the board really to get input on on how to move forward. Part of the challenge and we'll get to it was just trying to figure out what is what is what we're asking the board for. And that took some time. But I feel that we've reached some conclusions of where what we're actually asking for. And so we'll get to those in a second. So this is a quick PowerPoint that provides some context and background on why we're having this conversation. That makes great goals. There we go. So, you know, our 2021 funded funding matrix just as the background and for Kim raises kind of new information for you. It the way that it worked was it was based on a tripod. I like the word tripartite sorry because that comes from CSBG. But three hours impressed. Yeah, well, that CSBG stuff doesn't. It's that's not CDBG. You don't you don't get to use it very much. Don't get to use it very much. I thought I would throw it in there. It's really it's three parts is third. So so the matrix the scoring process is a third the board, our average score a third the staff. I mean, your average score a third us the staff and then a third the way to metrics in 2021. We we removed weights from the scores. So in previous rounds, questions were were weighted not not just the weighted activities. Actual questions were weighted and in 2021 we removed weights from that. And so we had straight whatever your score was. That's what it was. We also removed in in the actual weighted activity matrix we removed the target population between 27 2018 and 2021. People agencies and programs got weighted points for specific target populations that have been identified in the 2016 2017 human service needs assessment. And so we removed that. And then and in discussions with the board, we we kind of bifurcated the big word bifurcated the the weighted score between whether the program was addressing one of our priority areas. And if they were doing one of the activities that we had identified via the new human services needs assessment. So that that's kind of the way it was. And what it did it looking at the data, it did not have a large overall impact on funding. Only one agency who was previously funded did not get funded. And there were two agencies who had not been funded but had a in 2020 but had applied in 2020. This time around they were funded in 2021. And part of that was because of the change in our priority areas. So there was that that change in priority ranking that did make a difference. And the other big change was had nothing to do with the matrix itself. It was at the board's decision to fully fund housing stability. That was the other. But again, that was less about the matrix and more of a board decision. So why are we having this conversation? Well, I don't know if you all remember, but I definitely remember that there was there was some angst, I guess is the word I'm going to use with the with how this funding process went. And part of that angst, at least on Karen and my part was that the 27 16 2017 human service need assessment was presented very differently. It was very outcome focused and program focused. What program should we fund? What target population should we we make sure that are prioritized? And this new one is very different. It talks about activities, some activities, some very specific activities. And I'll remind you like things like car repair. That's not necessarily a program unless it is a program, but not many people have that. And then also it also talks in a lot of principles and big philosophies like no wrong door type of so or more wraparound case management type of situations. So it was very different than the 2016 2017 needs assessment. So the challenge has been that Karen I has like, and I borrowed this from a friend who always when I was doing programs would ask me what's the what what what is it that we are asking? And so it took me a while to figure this out. But here is what we need the board's help for and can please jump in at any bone. One question number one is this needs assessment highlighted areas that city the city has not traditionally funded. For example, employment, yet the needs assessment says support or it actually said proactively support employment. And Brian, we're not going to talk about this tonight, because I think it's different. But Brian has done a great job of looking at that and looking at linguistics and making some really good recommendations that we'll get to and we'll get to tonight. But they're not what we've funded. So how should we address these areas? Also, it provided principles and best practices. No, no wrong door approach, wraparound case management. What's the other one? I think other principles. There was reducing racial tension or the importance of all of these. And so the question is, how do we address these? And I have some options. Do they become part of the you know, if we think that they're really important, do they belong in the application and how we evaluate the application? Do they become another weighted matrix or do we add them to the weighted measure we have now? Do people get extra points? If they describe how they do these things? Well, or do we want to fund these areas? They become another area? So that's the conversation that we want to have with the board. And then once we do that, then we have there's more to this PowerPoint, but I'm going to stop sharing for now. So we can have the unless we all need the questions. But if not, I'll just stop sharing and we'll have the conversation. And then I can continue with a bar point. Does anyone have any questions about what Ellie Barato just shared or any reactions to that? Yes, Brian. Thank you, Caitlin. You know, having gone through a little bit, some of that language, it's a it's remarkably different. The 2017 Human Services Assessment versus the 2020. And I really myself struggled with, you know, these, there's like the the what on one hand, which is really kind of outcome related. And then there's, as Ellie Barato, as you mentioned, there's these how. So the what could be, you know, increase housing stability, right? And that could be rent support. And then the how ends up becoming something like no wrong door. And I guess one of the questions I have is to what extent is the how an agency thing to address? Or is it more of a systemic city level thing to address? Like, if the agency provides a program, that is rent relief, is it then kind of, is there a network, so to speak, where the city says, okay, no matter where somebody walks in, they're going to learn about this program. Because the agency can't control where that's going to happen. So that to me, I just struggled with that a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I would say that question of whether it's on the agency or if it's systemic is really, to me, that particular example is really systemic. And it requires the leadership of the city. So like I reread through the executive summary that was included in the packet. And one of the things that struck me is that some of the things that are identified here are very much things that like we can fund, but that we also like bridging the digital divide and having a clear, like, strategy for that, rather than like putting that in the hands of a, a nonprofit or an agency, that how question becomes of like, how does the city actually like, corral, essentially the agencies that we're working with toward a strategy. So they're not just all throwing, you know, spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, but that it's actually like done in coordination. And there's only so much we can do through funding agencies to achieve that. Because it still needs like that, similar to with the no wrong door approach, like, that has to be something that is like emphasized throughout all of the agencies, it can't be on one agency to do that. Kimberly. Feel like some of the how criteria or the weightedness of the how might unnecessarily narrow the the ability for some organizations that really weren't funding from being eligible. It seems like the impact, the what in this situation, I think, in general would be the priority in my mind and not the how because I just don't think capacity is present in most small organizations to take on those how components. Graham. I agree. It does seem like a call to the city to help resource the organizations, you know, to interconnect services or if somebody enters a door for a service in our community, they have their instantly resourced with any other relevant services. But if we were going to work it into the context of a grant grant application or review, I think, you know, we ask, I think one of the assessments is, you know, does this organization, you know, what are their partner organizations? Are they connected with other organizations or the sort of siloed? And I think you could rephrase that question or add a question into that. Evaluate of assessment to to, you know, see if they're at least working on on that, you know, providing those resources, whether their city brochures or links to the websites or whatever it is. Similarly with the unemployment issue, you know, I think that maybe that's a call to the city. I may see how it's on us on this group to a large extent. And, you know, one of the buckets would be security and education. You know, I think there's a couple of buckets you could make arguments for were relevant for employment. But I don't know, I would ask the city council, I guess if there's some other mechanism to support employment. Yeah, I mean, I think about for employment, you know, things that attract companies to bring, you know, to come here to, you know, and having a lot of the services that we have, you know, I've talked to folks who have small businesses here, and the fact that there are resources for folks to get, you know, English as a second language training or the one agency that we heard from the actually good, like sort of not just like introductory ESL, but a second, you know, essentially like more business oriented language. Those types of resources are the types of things that essentially create a population that they want that the companies then want to hire. And so all of those types of things contribute to employment, even if it's not like the city's employing or the city is specifically providing unemployment benefits, but rather providing the necessary resources to draw talent and families or, you know, people who work there can make a big difference. Other questions or parts of this conversation before we continue? I'm curious what folks think about. Yeah, Brian, go ahead. Sorry, I was just going to say on the employment question. You know, the only thing I would be interested in understanding better on that is to what extent is there are other programs that are already doing this. So is it really the best use of city funds to duplicate those efforts or try to go down a different path with agencies? And I'm not even when I think through the agencies that we typically work with, I'm not even really familiar with any that that focus in that area outside of potentially something like Bridge House that were to come to Longmont, but which is more about homeless solutions. I say scrap it. Council Member Christensen. I think that employment is really critical, but right now it's privatized to employment agencies and the county does it through workforce. And the city actually has outsourced their economic development to another entity called Longmont Economic Development Partnerships, who are the ones who get people to come in. So that's one of my frustrations is that we really have nothing to do with employment. And what we it seems what we could do is build, you know, if we want to be involved with it at all, which I do, but build up things like the the new bill that just passed has, I don't know, there's something called the Apprenticeship Act that will provide apprenticeships for people all over the country. That's a national program. That's a good, very good program. And tying that in with programs to the St. Brain School System and through Front Range Community College. Now, City Council also has no ability to have any control over the St. Brain Valley School District. So this is this is, to me, very problematic in terms of if we're just talking about employment. So to me, we shouldn't be thinking about trying to undermine or develop our own kind of economic our own kind of workforce development programs and fund them because as Brian says, they are already being done by other people and they they are better funded than we are. And so I'm just giving you a little feedback on how the workforce stuff goes on in town. Appreciate that. Brian. Well, one opportunity that occurred to me is if again, if we're looking at the matrix of like the what someone access and then the house, there are programs that we fund that actually result in hiring more staff and potentially directing that hiring in a certain way. So for instance, though, that hiring might be directed towards more equity kind of based hiring rather than, you know, the standard process. So that I suppose we could consider if that's efficient to add that as a as a bonus, if a program contributes to this. But I feel like it's going to have such a nominal impact on the issue of employment that it may be more of a red herring than something that's actually adding value. Yeah. I think I like your idea. I like this idea of like the what and the how being, you know, kind of framing those as two different axes that we're thinking about. Because I think about like, for example, folks who go through their have access to a case worker who helps like reinforce this like no wrong door policy. And so like what they do is, you know, not necessarily around that, but they do it in a way that reinforces like the how. And so thinking about how we might map programs and agencies on the like both the what and the how as two separate measures to, you know, to think about that gets really complex in terms of like scoring agencies and that sort of thing. And so we have to think about, you know, what matters in that in terms of that and how to weight those things. But thinking about them as separate questions instead of all being the same question, I think is helpful because we have some agencies that are doing the what and the how some that are doing the what but they're maybe not reemphasizing how some that are providing that case worker services, even if they're not providing, you know, one of our top priority funding areas, maybe they're providing case worker services that end up getting folks connected to other agencies that do that. And so thinking about those things both being important. And, Caitlin, if I may add, I think that that's right. And perhaps then what the how really needs to be redefined because, for instance, it's really an access issue, right? It's it's increasing access to these programs by not having people have to knock on four doors to get the answer they're looking for. But there may be some programs that really are so accessible, even though they don't they don't have a structure around it. But it doesn't really apply to them. I can't think of an example, but we would just have to be clear that we don't we're not driving unintended consequences by penalizing programs because they're not doing something that doesn't need to be done in the context of what they do. Yeah, I think that's a good point. Ellie Berto. Yeah, I think that is a good point. I was I was envisioning, you know, again, it around the weighted side, right? So right now we have the matrix that looks at priority areas and activities. We have the board and staff. Could we add a can make it a quarter, right? Quarters instead of thirds and that fourth quarter could be the how could be the philosophy or the that the that the needs assessment has identified as important for Longmont, right? And I but I get what Brian's saying. So for example, if you are I'm trying to think, you know, of our funded agencies like intercambial, right? Intercambial provides English English language learning. Now they do connect folks to other resources. I know they've been helpful during this pandemic, but that's not their. That's not their thing, right? Their thing is teaching folks English. English. So would they be penalized because they don't have a formal how right? We could put that into the application, right? So these are our values explain how you you know, use a no door, no wrong door or whatever other things you want to add. We could add a question about that and we could and we could and we could rate board. I mean, programs on that, but will it unintentionally will it unintentionally impact agencies? So that's that's my question. Yeah, one thing I think might be interesting to think about there too is maybe the that how particularly around the like no wrong door approach, maybe it's less of a criteria and more of something that we emphasize that we expect agencies to to do to some extent or to help us understand why it's hard for them to do it because I think some agencies obviously have a lot of resources and they have caseworkers and so forth and some agencies don't and maybe you know, maybe one of one of the things is less about like requiring agencies to show us that they do that and rather looking to them for feedback on how they can do it better and have a supportive system within the community to do it. The second thought I had was that maybe it's also something we do based on how much funding an agency is asking for, you know, an agency that's asking for a hundred thousand dollars versus an agency that's asking for two thousand dollars. Like those are very different requests and very different like ways that they could put that money to use. And I think that like, you know, an agency that's only asking for two thousand dollars is presumably a much smaller agency probably doesn't have as many resources, that sort of thing whereas one that's asking for a lot, I think we might have higher expectations of what they're going to do because that's a fairly significant investment by the city into their agency. And so we want to make sure that they're, you know, the top of the top if they're going to be getting that much funding, whereas, you know, there's less risk when we're giving smaller dollar amounts to two agencies. Councilwoman Christensen. In observing this over the last seven and a half years, I think we're getting more and more and more complicated. And, you know, originally we decided we had these five or six pillars of things that we would the city would fund because these are what the city needs for the people who live here. And we made housing a priority. We made safety. We made self-sufficiency. And now we're adding more and more and more layers to things. And I and we are expecting the agencies to know what we're doing and to put this in their description every year when they apply without knowing that, oh, we've changed the. We've changed what we're looking for. It gets to me, this is just very complicated. I would. I don't know why we're making it so much more complicated. To me, the the concept of no wrong door just sort of opens it up as to. Well, we should just fund everything, but we can't fund everything. We have to really be selective to these these priorities we've decided are really essential to the people in Longmont. And that's just my opinion. I'm a simpleton. Graham, you're muted. Thank you. Is the no wrong door issue brought up because in surveys or in focus groups, people, people express frustration about going to an organization being turned away because their needs weren't being able to be met there and then not rerouted. I mean, that and then if that's really what that problem is, like, what is the magnitude of that problem? Because it big enough for us to kill our brain cells over? Or is it just like something you know, that we bring up at site visits and sort of like, you know, hey. Based on the fact that it shows up as like one of the top things from this human service needs assessment, I would say that it sounds like it's one of the the bigger priorities. And the suggestion was that it's hard for residents as well as stakeholders, which says to be our agencies as well and folks who are supporting them to find information. It's the executive summary says it's hard for residents and many stakeholders to find information about programs or services available in long line. Difficulty finding information is amplified for residents who lack access to the internet, internet capable devices or have limited digital literacy. Language access is also a barrier. So that sounds like a long marketing issue, not an agency issue. We need to publish and distribute information about the agencies that we fund and are available for services. That's my view. And because that would be accessible to many agencies as well, right, like they they don't necessarily know what all the agencies are that are around them. So Brian and then Councilwoman Christensen. Thank you. Ignore the cat in the background. So I agree with Councilmember Christensen that, you know, the outcomes are primary. That's the direct benefit that residents are getting. These these questions of how efficiently are they getting them is more a matter of you know, there's frustration in the system, right? I mean, it's a big system. There's a lot of agencies and it is frustrating. So there may be things that can be done in order to facilitate facilitate the cross flow of information. I think of, for instance, at the markets, we have people there who are also can direct people to other programs, but they can't sign them up for those programs. All they can do is say go over here. And that's not what people are necessarily wanting. So I would just I would advocate that to Councilmember Christensen's point, we focus on outcomes and then keep an eye on these kinds of efficiency issues. The one issue that is not efficiency and is critical is equity, which we are working to include. And I think that's one of those clear like kinds of cross matrix things. But other than that, maybe it's just something we can be aware of and see how it fits into these opportunities. Councilmember Christensen, I was misunderstanding what we were talking about with no wrong door, but you know, when we set up the coordinated entry system, that was supposed to solve this. They were supposed to be people were supposed to go be able to go to the our center or hope or the hub or any of these agencies and register with them and get the same thing everywhere. I don't think that's working so well, perhaps because that's what we're hearing. It is working very well. And so that is something we need to fix. And you know that Austin, Texas created a program called ask at birth.com about 10 years ago. Anybody can use this, but our city has refused to purchase or purchase it, which would make it much more effective for Lyman. Anybody can take their cell phone, go to this, go to ask at birth.com. They can type in housing. They can get it in five different languages. They can look up food. They can look up anything and they can find out where the agency is, one of the hours. What do you need to have how to get there? This isn't, you know, the stuff is out there to do these things to make it more accessible to people. We just I do think that's a problem because it's also it's a problem of the complexity. We're offering many, many services. People are very confused. They're so intimidated that they don't even start because, you know, if you go to the hub, for instance, to get some help, you first have to fill out a 20 page form. Well, that kind of stops a lot of people because they have to go home to get the information they need for that. Plus some of the people at the front desk are really quite rude. So, you know, these are but that isn't a problem with our funding. But that is a problem. That's, you know, if you are poor and you're troubled and somebody is rude to you and then they hand you a 20 page letter or 20 page form until you they won't even talk to you until you fill that out and have all the proper stuff with it. That's a problem. And that but that doesn't have to do with our funding. But it is something we need to think about because it really does affect people and they don't go back because why? You know, Shakita, did you want to add something? Yes, I just want to make sure that I I agree definitely with Ellie Berto and Councilwoman Christensen, Brian. I agree with everyone. I do want to this this scenario just reminds me of the schools. When we are asking teachers to now become counselors to now become security officers to now become, you know, all of these different things that they were taught to be teachers, right? They learn to be teachers. And so when there are disparities in education system, who are we blaming? Right? So we have to be very mindful of what the agency position and what their duties are. And the more we put on them, the less capacity they have. And then if they focus on pleasing us for that 2000 or 5000 or 30, whatever, how much that is, then what happens is there become gaps in their services. So let's be mindful of what these organizations are there to do and let them do their job at 100 percent and less fill in if it's the digital device so people can do their own research, then let's work on the digital divide. You know, I just don't want us to put more on these agencies than what they can bear just so that they can get funding when they just need funding to repair bathrooms or something. You know, we do have to be mindful of that sometimes funding is for repairs not for their services or hiring more people. So I just wanted to throw that out there. Karen Phillips. Yeah, it's the problem of how people can find out what, you know, like what you're talking about, Polly, about the trying to go somewhere and find out what's available. It's just like, you know, with my son being handicapped. There are so many agencies in so many different directions that you have to go in that you just get mind boggled of which where to go, who can help you? What agency does this? What agency does that? It's just, I don't know how we can help people resolve that situation of, you know, sitting down and trying to figure out to get through it, let alone the funding part of it. But to get people to know what's available and what direction they need to go and who they need to talk to. I just wanted to add that to. Yeah, I mean, I can totally like my mom was sick and couldn't work and came out of a hospital and had to go into a rehab center. And when she came out, we were told, OK, you can contact these like eight agencies for various things. You have to contact this one for food, this one for housing information, this one for medical. And every single one had different paperwork and a lot of it was very similar, but a lot of it was different. And it was just like. And I was I think at the time I had like a one year old and a five year old. And I was like, I'm sorry. Who who actually even has like I was like, she's not in a position to do this. I don't have the time to spend four hours filling out forms for each and every single one of these agencies. And so it's easy. And I was like, and we have access to a whole lot of stuff that many folks in this community may not have access to. And so. Yeah, I really appreciate the like, you know, what Chita and Karen and Councilwoman Christensen and Brian are saying also about like simplifying rather than making more complex. I've been thinking about this like we did a whole bunch of like adjustments around which priority areas got what percentage and stuff like that. And it got really complex, really fast in the last funding cycle. And I'm wondering if they like how we might trim that to simplify toward those outcomes in some way. I also think about the fact that like we're holding agencies that are asking for a whole lot of money to the same standards as agencies that are asking for a couple of thousand dollars to pilot a program or to do something. And so and that just doesn't feel like it it helps us. It ends up favoring the agencies that already have a lot of money or already have a lot of services who may or may not be filling a gap that's there. So I think Ellie Berto, you had your little digital hand raised first and then Karen Roney. So just just a couple of these when I want to pay attention to the time because I know Kathy has stuff as well. And we and this is a great discussion and we can take it for a long time. But I want to make sure that Kathy gets to her stuff as well. But just a couple of context points to the board. One is the conversation about no wrong door is much bigger than the than the city. It's been I've been part of that conversation for years with the county and other nonprofits. It's a big challenge. And part of the challenge is that there are things that no one agency can control. For example, HIPAA laws or federal requirements on documentation and all sorts of stuff. So I just want the board to be aware that our funded agents can't always control what they ask for. You know, our CBD or CDBG folks, right? Rental assistance was much more complicated than our covid relief rental assistance because federal rules. So just want to make sure that we that we keep that in mind and also watch the time because I know Kathy has has things that we need to get through as well. Karen Roney. Well, I took my hand down. I was really going to the same place of Elibardo is that, you know, we've been at this discussion for about 45 minutes, and I know we have some things that Kathy needs to talk with us about. So so I'm just wondering to Elibardo, do you have any? I mean, we have a lot of input. Maybe we just try to synthesize that. I'm hearing try to, you know, don't overthink it. Don't make it over complicated. You know, keep our focus on the primary outcomes, yet how to consider some of these other. You know, how's if you so I think we have a I took a lot of notes and so, you know, unless someone else has a summary, let us just kind of go back and put this together. And I think we I think we have some ideas. Brian. Thank you, Karen. I would just say for my part, I'm I think the question is if they should be considered not so much how right. So just move that dial over a little bit more. Yeah. OK. Does anyone have any parting. Items before we move on to the next item and agenda. I want to make sure folks feel like they've been heard here. OK. Elibardo, I think are you going to pick up the rest of your PowerPoint later in the meeting or anything else you wanted to cover before we move on? You know, if we have time, but I feel that what like Karen said, what we've got, I think I'm OK. We can come back in April. I mean, the good thing is we're doing this early in the year. So we can come back in April with further conversation, depending on how how heavy the April agenda is. And and if if if need be, we've done these in the past. If need be, we will call a special session to to to suss this out more. So with you killing about that and see where we are. OK, thanks so much. I appreciate that we're having this conversation from the start of the year because even if it feels like we're spending a lot of time on it now, it also feels like we're going to get to that funding cycle and all be have shared a bunch and thought about it a lot together as a group so that when we get to that funding cycle, we're not having to like wrap our heads around all of the questions and how we're going to do something and that sort of thing. So I want to thank everybody for time and energy put into this over a period of time. I often think about how it takes many of us, you know, advertisers talk about it takes seven to 11 times seeing something before people will actually buy it. So I think about that when like thinking about processes that sometimes people need a little bit of time to like wrap their heads around it. So our next item is training on affordable housing investment strategies. And I believe that is Kathy. Yeah, so we are bringing this back and I have revamped it somewhat. The last time we took a look at this, some of you were new. Some of you had been through maybe one or two cycles of housing funding. And so and we have a new a new board members as well. So kind of wanted to throw this out there again for thoughts around it and and just as a a training around housing as we get ready to release another fund round here. Probably now in April, I thought we'd hit March, but we're probably not going to make March. So let's see if I can share. See this one. Yes. And so so as you may know, the Housing and Community Investment Division of the city is the one that manages the affordable housing fund, the CDBG program and home funds when we get those in the inclusionary housing program. But what we're about is making thoughtful and responsible investment in Longmont connecting residents with safe and affordable housing options, supporting small businesses with opportunities for growth, although we haven't done that for a number of years because our focus has been on affordable housing and then partnering to make and keep neighborhoods vibrant. So again, that's something we did have done in the past as well. Our regional and. Hold on a second here. Our regional and Longmont school is to have 12 percent of our housing stock be permanently affordable by the year 2035 and permanently affordable means that the housing is deed restricted to be permanently or very long term affordable. To get to 12 percent in 2035, we need fifty four hundred affordable homes and we are currently in 2020 at two thousand four hundred and thirty two affordable homes, which is about six point oh seven of our total housing units in Longmont. So some of the strategies and goals that we have created around that to help meet the goal. One is creating new affordable housing and that is broken out by to reach that goal to try and get to about two hundred new homes each year. That could be through the new construction of homes, part of the inclusionary housing program, partnerships to finance and deed restrict housing, acquisition of existing market priced housing, converting city owned housing to affordable rentals and even accessory dwelling units might be something for affordable rentals. So in the new construction of homes under the inclusionary housing program, we have completed sixty six rental homes in twenty twenty and fourteen for sale homes and that's with partnerships with Habitat and the Blue Vista development is constructing for sale affordable homes and then the sixty six rental homes was the Fall River Apartments and the Micah homes that actually received their C certificate of occupancy in twenty twenty through the acquisition of existing market priced housing. If you remember, we gave funding to the in between and they went shopping, so to speak, and they acquired a market property of ten rental units and they will be converting that to affordable as people who are currently in the units move on and don't renew their leases. So we're not displacing anybody. They're waiting for it to be their choice. And then we have we received approval to convert ten or eleven city owned homes to affordable rentals. We have one home that is leased right now and we're working on again, moving the others as their leases come up and we did get a little behind with covid last year, I have to say. The other strategies and goals is preserving our existing affordable housing because if we lose that then we're just keep spinning our wheels and we're behind the eight ball. So we are. Hoping to preserve some housing. I did take a look in about three hundred and sixty existing and they're primarily rental units have deed restrictions, which could expire in the next five years. That is back when we didn't put long term deed restrictions on properties. And some of them are related to HUD. And so they are annually renewing like Stonehenge is a property that's annually renewing with HUD. So they're probably not going to to convert, but theoretically they could. We look at the rehab of existing rental housing as part of that preservation. And in 2020, we provided again the in between for another one of their properties with funding to rehab 12 of their homes. Rehab of owner occupied housing. I see I did not fill this in. I'm sorry. Again, because of covid, we kind of shut this program down and only worked on. Emergency situations about March, April, probably April, I think is when we did that. We did get one general rehab done, which is a homeowner rehab where we go in and we do a fairly extensive rehab. And then I'll I'll get you these figures on how many accessibility improvements we made and how many emergency grants in 2020. And then tax crediting or refinancing existing affordable homes. We in 2020 provided funding and worked with the Longmont Housing Authority on to preserve 50 rental homes at Aspen Meadows Apartments up at 21st and Meadow Alpine area up there. The address is actually 70 21st Avenue. So that project is ongoing, the renovation part, but we did do the the re tax crediting of that property in 2020. Land acquisition is another goal. The more land we can acquire and or have donated to us that we could preserve, save and eventually develop the better because you can't recreate land. So we did acquire about 10 acres in 2020, which gives us a total with the Housing Authority pieces of land that they own as well. A total of 23 acres that we can start working on that those land donations could come from us or land acquisition from the Inclusion and Housing Program, working with partnerships with others and just going out and purchasing land as well. And then another strategy is preserving mobile home communities, trying to create more resident owned communities like Longmont Mobile Home Park that we did a couple of years ago that we invested in. Encourage and incentivize the current owners to invest in infrastructures for the long term preservation of existing mobile home communities and then investing in the mobile homes themselves. And we do operate a mobile home repair program and we did do some this year and I'll give those figures as well. So some of the tools that we have to make these investments, you're aware of, the CDBG program, which we get anywhere between 550 to 600,000 or so directly from HUD to the city of Longmont. We generate about 25 to 50,000 in program income each year for loans that we've made that are getting repaid. It has pretty flexible uses. It can be for housing, infrastructure, neighborhood revitalization like I talked about, economic development, public services, kinds of activities. And we do have the ability that we can either grant the money or loan it depending on what makes sense for us. The funds do have to benefit low and moderate income households or families. We also have access to the home funds through the home consortium partnership that we have with the city of Boulder County and the city and county of Broomfield. We go on a rotating basis with each of the four communities receiving the funds. All of the funding basically every five years, Boulder gets two years of allocation because they contribute more to the home formula. But it's about $750,000 to a million dollars each time to each community. It's not very flexible. It has long-term commitments by the projects that we invest in and the developers and owners that receive the funding or that the funds go into the project. It has to be used for affordable housing. It has to be used for affordable housing. It can be granted or loaned, but they're really ratcheting down how you can use the funds. So HUD is making it less and less flexible. Actually, Congress is doing that. And then we have our local affordable housing fund where we get a million dollars a year that's transferred from the city's general fund. We get about 150,000 to 200,000 in loan payments that come back in Revolve. We've been getting about 150,000 from our share of the marijuana tax. And then we are starting to get some inclusionary housing fees paid in lieu of providing affordable housing. I think we got 14,600 in 2020, and we're estimating we might get about 800,000 in 2021. These funds are highly flexible because the city controls them. So we can go to council and if there's something really innovative and ask to do something a little different, they do have to be used for affordable housing and they do have to be loaned. There's a couple of times that we have gone to council and asked for them to be granted that those are very few and far between. And I should say, if anyone has any questions, somebody call it out because I can't see anybody. So some of the tools, again, that we have talked about, we've got regulatory tools to help us meet our goals. One is the inclusionary housing program, which requires 12% of the homes in a residential development to be affordable, either through constructing them on site within the development or constructing them offsite in some other parcel, making the fee and lieu payment that goes into the affordable housing fund, donating land or other options that council might approve. And both of these pictures are prior for inclusionary housing when we had our first program, these structures were built and have affordable units within them from that program. So Kathy, Kimberly has a question. Okay. I had a question about the fee and lieu. And just wondering if maybe an unintended consequence of that was that it's an actual barrier to affordable housing. Well, so there's a couple of opinions on that, I would say. And council member Christensen can correct me if I'm wrong, but under the prior program that we had before it was repealed, we did get a lot of fee and lieu that went into the affordable housing fund, which we then turned around and put back into the community and loaned it out for other projects. And we did a study and we actually ended up with more affordable housing units than we would have gotten if we would have just gotten the units instead of the fee and lieu. And that's because most of the fee and lieu payments came from single family housing, for sale housing developments and most of the funds were reinvested into rental, affordable rental projects. So we got a lot more units and they actually served lower income families by doing it that way. So when we started the program again this last time that was at least to some council, that was a real benefit that they saw that we could better invest that money for more housing in the community. So I think it just depends on what side you're looking at it or how you perceive it to a certain extent, if that makes sense. That's really helpful. Oh, sorry. Brian might have a question or comment. Thank you. Kathy, I'm curious, because the fee and lieu efficiency makes some sense to me because you can also, like if you're contracting with the builder, for instance, you can have smaller units, that kind of thing. So when somebody's doing, excuse me, onsite construction, are they also potentially reducing the size of a unit to make it affordable or does it have to be affordable at the same scale as the others? It does not. So actually a for sale housing development could choose to do its onsite affordable housing as a small rental project on site if they wanted to or they could do town homes as the affordable instead of single family detached homes. So there's a lot of flexibility within the code. Thank you. I have a question, Kathy. Have we seen a lot of, I know when obviously developers are coming forth, development, large developments have to be approved and that sort of thing. Have we seen a lot of pushback on if we've had developers that want to do essentially like multi, so like essentially various income levels within the same neighborhood. Have we seen pushback against that? I've seen that in, for example, the city of Boulder. There's a lot of pushback when anyone wants to put anything that's like more mixed income or like multi-family units, that sort of thing. I wonder how Longmont has, how much we've seen that and what the results have been. So yeah, I'd say there's usually pushback, especially around density. So if there is a multi-family development that's going in anywhere close to a single family neighborhood, there's usually pushback on that. The developers themselves, there's some. And I think, to a certain extent, it is giving them the benefit of the doubt that you're asking market rate developers to do something they're not familiar with. If it's a rental property that they now have to income qualify for low income and manage those units differently, not differently, but how they choose people that go in there differently and make sure that they are complying and that there's reports that they have to file, et cetera. In a single family development, it's kind of the same thing they're cautious about. Well, are there people that even are gonna qualify to purchase the homes, assuming we build them? So we are trying to plan out. We can't get too far ahead because it's not fair to the people who might wanna purchase to get them all excited about something and then no one ever builds it. So we're trying to align our marketing and get a wait list of people for when we know we're gonna have units coming up. So, but I think that would help assuage some of that if we knew that we had 50 people, families that were waiting to purchase the 10 homes that they're gonna build or something like that. So there's a lot of aligning processes and things to help them feel comfortable as well as be fair to people who wanna get into housing they can afford and purchase something. And am I correct? I think last year we had one proposal where they basically because you had a market rate developer they basically ended up partnering with Habitat for Humanity, I think, was to essentially do it essentially on site but then they didn't have to be the ones running all of the like income qualification and the things that Habitat was a little more versed in doing. Yeah, there's two projects that are proposing that. One is Mountain Brook, which actually had eight Habitat units. So there'll be eight for sale homes and then 26 tiny homes for the Veterans Village project. So that's one. And then Habitat is also partnering on sugar mill development which is kind of where the apartments are going up now. It'll be kind of back behind those apartments and that'll be 12 duplex units. I believe they are when that gets going and approved. So yeah, having some partners like that is a great idea and something that probably will be considered by other developers when they see how these go. Councilwoman Christensen. I was wondering why you didn't include Shafa in funding sources. Well, cause we don't control Shafa and we don't get a direct allocation. Oh, okay. But yeah, they're a big partner. Everybody, almost everything actually goes through them first. I'll tell you the truth. And that's the Colorado Housing Finance Authority. They issue the low income housing tax credits for projects which is what keeps long-term rental affordability. And then they also issue bonds which is another funding mechanism that is needed in low income housing projects. I don't see any other questions. Okay. Comments, thanks for all of those, Kathy. Of course. So some of the policies that we have to follow and use that in housing investments, they have to be permanently affordable. That's a new council directive. They have to serve target populations. They have to go to eligible applicants and for eligible activities and eligible use of funds depending on what funding source. And then there's a lot of rules and regulations that have to be complied with, including federal regulations around accessibility for housing, historic preservation, environmental, labor standards to make sure the contractors are paid appropriately, property standards. We've got our Longmont Municipal Code which has the inclusionary housing, land use requirements and building codes that have to be complied with and then there's city funding policies. So our target populations for housing for rental properties, it's now 50% area median income or below. And we do prefer a mix of AMIs within a rental project. So some 30s, some 40s, some 50s if possible, as opposed to having all of them at 50%. And for ownership housing, it's 80% of the area median income or below. We do prefer not to go below 60% AMI as a straight four sale project unless Habitat is a partner. It's very difficult to afford home ownership and to qualify quite frankly, if you're too much below 60%. Some people can do it, but in those cases, Habitat is a good partner because they provide a lot of support for their homeowners. Kathy, do you know what the current, roughly what the current AMI is, area median income? Oh yes, I shouldn't know that, it's a tough on my head. Let me, once I stop sharing, let me get back to you on that. I wanna say 80% is, I think it's around 65,000. Just, oh wait here, I might have it on this other sheet. 80% is, it's a little bit small print. Yeah, I can share if you want me to. I'm looking at the Boulder County housing. Yeah, I think it's just under 70. Okay, that's fine, just to give us a sense of where those are, thanks. Okay, so some of the eligible applicants, you've got nonprofits, you've got housing authorities, you've got private developers, community housing development organizations is a special category that some nonprofits belong to. Habitat is a chotto is what it's called. And then the types of eligible activities we can acquire property or land. New construction is eligible, redevelopment, rehabilitation, capital improvements, land banking for multifamily, single family, any kind of housing basically other than shelters. Could be rental or ownership, mixed income, mixed use, and can provide programs and services within it. Some additional CDBG and home requirements. The CDBG funds and home funds have to have a direct benefit to low and moderate income persons, and at least 51% of the beneficiaries of any project we fund have to be qualified as low and moderate income. It's about the same eligible applicants. We usually don't find too many private developers that want CDBG or home, sometimes home, but CDBG carries a bunch of other requirements they usually don't want. And then it's kind of the same eligible activities with the addition that neighborhood revitalization and economic development can be funded with CDBG and infrastructure as well and services and programs. We usually try and do funding rounds for housing in March, July, November is kind of what we were anticipating that's gonna be off a little bit. The city also gets private activity bonds that we can issue or we can give to a project to then take in, they'll have somebody else issue the bonds. That usually is released in March through May and this year we're gonna get $5.3 million in bond cap. And then the housing authority can issue another $10 million a year in bond cap. And it's like putting out, issuing a bond, people invest in it, you use the investment to fund the project and then as you repay it then those investors get paid back. And then CDBG and home, we usually try and do a November funding round. So for the next calendar year coming up, but this year because we only found out a little bit while ago what our CDBG funding is, it'll probably be in that March, April timeframe where we're gonna put those applications out. And then we hope to get back on a November funding round later on this year. So we've got our advisory groups, as you know, that are city council appointed. They recommend funding awards to city council and city council actually is the one that proves all funding awards. So on the housing application side, they're reviewed by staff initially and then go to the technical review group and they make a recommendation to your board and then you make a recommendation to city council. And then kind of on a concurrent track at least once a year, community or economic development type applications. So like the Boulder County housing counseling program, sometimes the R center comes in for money, just different organizations that are not housing related. Those come in, again, they get reviewed by staff but they go directly to the housing and human services advisory board who makes a recommendation to city council. You kind of know your purpose I think, so I'm not gonna go over this in the interests of time but you really represent broad public interests and that you review those community development applications, hear the recommendations of the TRG on housing and then make those recommendations to city council and provide direction and advice on housing and human service matters. And the TRG was set up to have the technical expertise and to represent specific public interests. They also review applications and seek more information and understanding. So really try and do an analysis of the housing projects. They recommend funding awards and loan terms to you and then you can consider those. They're set up on a three-year term with staggered and there are no term limits for them. They have moved to being considered to be a public body so their meetings are now subject to being broadcast before they were able to review the applications in private, so to speak because they were just making a recommendation to your board and your board was the public facing board but the city attorneys have determined that they really should be more transparent in their workings. So some of the things that we look at when we get applications is does the project meet city goals and priorities? Does it provide a community benefit? Is there a documented need for what they're proposing? Do they have a proven development and management capacity and experience to complete the project? Is everything lined up and ready to go? The last thing we want or need is to have a project sit for years and years and not spend the money that we could have used for something else. Do they have committed leverage funds and collaboration with other agencies for projects and is there a reasonable per unit subsidy? So one of the things that the TRG has really helped us with is coming up with some underwriting assumptions for housing projects so that there's a debt coverage ratio we examine for every project and compare them with each other when we get multiple applications, try and get the cost per unit per annum for their expenses. How does that compare to other projects? We require replacements reserve of around $300, $400 per unit so that they're saving money and they aren't continuing to come back to us as a project agents and they need to rehab or renovate or do something like that. That they have operating reserves as well so again, they're not coming and saying we can't continue to operate this project because we've run out of money. We look at the vacancy rate that they are using and what the annual increase is in that and then their developer development or administrative fee. And a lot of these are similar to what Chaffa uses or the Colorado Division of Housing and then matching funds is important but we haven't set like any kind of minimums. We do try and use a loan grant guideline so projects that are serving the lowest income at 30% or below would be eligible for a grant or a forgivable or a deferred loan. If you're kind of in that middle area, 31 to 50% area median income it might be a deferred payment or a forgivable loan and if you're above 50% to 80% that likely you could pay back a low interest loan. We are committed to try and have public engagement and transparency. So we do post funding availability on the city's website. We provide direct notification of open fund rounds to all known housing developers. And so we get a list from planning and development services as well as folks that we've talked to over the years. All of our funding related communications and documents are available for public review except personal financial information and then the TRG and your meetings are public and noticed. So are there any questions that you have or anything around that and I can stop sharing here because you've got a copy of the presentation as well. It's a lot, it's a lot to take in which is why we thought maybe another go round of it might be good. Yeah, I appreciate it. It's very complicated and it really does help to go through it multiple times at least for me. A couple of questions. One is of these projects that are getting done do you have a sense of how much of that funding how much of the total funding is coming from the city of Longmont versus other federal sources or investors or just the banks? Well, when we get to the inclusionary housing snapshot I believe there is some information on that and it does vary from year to year. We do have some averages. So we, boy I'm gonna be talking off the top of my head here for the affordable housing fund I think our average investment in a for sale home has been around 30,000 per home. And for rental it's less than that but not a whole lot less because costs are really increasing I wanna say 20 or 25,000 maybe. And that does take into consideration fees that we waive when we make a payment from the affordable housing fund to offset some of the fees as well as direct loans or grants to them. I need to update that so I can provide that information when we're doing a lot of updating at the end of every year you plug in a lot of numbers and do a lot of updating. So. And that gives me the ballpark that's kind of what I was looking for. Thank you. And then also when I look at like the low interest loans at the 50 to 80% AMI I'm thinking about how interest rates are just so low anyway. How does, how do those rates impact or do they just market rates versus what you're doing? You know, like do you see less demand at those 50 to 80 because they can go to the bank and get really low interest rates anyway or any sense? Well, when, what we usually see are the projects that are almost 100% affordable is usually the ones that are coming into the city for additional funding. Market developers that are just doing to meet their inclusionary housing maybe they just use normal financing and then they get some of the fees waived and offset sometimes. So there's a little bit of investment but not the major, you know, $500,000 loan kind of things. You know, for construction loans, they are not I mean, relatively speaking, they're cheap but they're not cheap. They're probably six to 8%. Okay. And so ours are usually, you know, less than out or less than 2%. So yeah, it's a meaningful difference. I hadn't realized that about construction loans. Thank you. Any other questions? Kathy? All right. Thanks, Kathy. The next item we have is the future reviewing the 2020 discussion about the future of the technical review group and providing direction going forward. Ellie Berto or Karen, I think one of you all maybe. That's Kathy. Oh, is it Kathy again? Okay. It's me again. Kathy is the, is six, seven, is five, six and seven. Okay. On to number six then. All right. So I'm gonna share my screen again and I am going to, where did it go? Here it is. Nope. You know, these are really little. Oh, there it is. Okay. Okay. So some of this is gonna be a repeat and I'll go over it really quickly because we just went through everything but the bottom line is you have seen through what we went through how complex things have gotten with the inclusionary housing, with the loans, all the funding sources and all the restrictions or requirements that we have on those. So again, this is just, I won't go through this again but all the different funding sources that we have available to us to make sure that are spent appropriately and properly and meet all the requirements so we don't have to payback funding. The policies and processes that we go through all the different requirements around eligibility and target populations and who is eligible, et cetera. The evaluation criteria and the underwriting assumptions, we just went through all that. So this is just to let you know that that's as complex and it keeps getting more and more complex as we go along. So I think really what we would like to consider and propose is that we combine the housing and community development application review and not split them out anymore, have a review by staff and instead of the technical review group reviewing housing applications, going right to the Housing and Human Services Advisory Board who makes the recommendation to city council. And there's a number of reasons for this. We've had an increased staff capacity with the addition of the inclusionary housing position that we've added. She has a lot of experience in housing development and managing projects and we've had additional staff training over the years in some pretty specific financial capacity management and the low-income housing tax credit programs, et cetera. There's more complex rules and regulations that are requiring staff decisions and direction regarding what funding source to use, what type of funding, loans or grants, et cetera to make sure we're ensuring consistency. We were finding when the TRG was doing that trying to do that that we weren't getting, it just wasn't consistent. There's more complex financing of affordable housing projects requiring more detailed review than a volunteer committee can provide resulting in the really detailed staff review and analysis that we've been providing the past year, year and a half. And as I noted before in the prior presentation the TRG did help us set unwriting standards and grant and loan guidelines. So that was really helpful to have that input. However, we're finding the work of the TRG's redundant with the detailed staff review and analysis that we now prepare for each project. It's adding duplicative work for staff and gets to the same overall recommendation we are finding. As I mentioned before, the TRG is now subject to open meetings requirements which has impacted their participation. They're much less inclined to ask probing questions, I guess I would say. And even with expectations and direction to the TRG, as a result of the last time we talked about this and the direction that we got, we're still not getting those deep diving questions and analysis of projects that we get from staff. So one of the, some of the benefits or options that we have here is we think eliminating the TRG at this point would allow the Housing and Human Services advisory board to be more involved in the housing needs and housing projects. So you'd probably feel less like a rubber stamp than you kind of do now, I think. We think it would allow for better integration of housing with human service needs and goals. We've been trying to become more integrated in considering those and I think this might really help with that. It would provide quicker consideration and response time for applicants because it wiped out a month to six weeks of review time. And then some of the options we could explore using the new Longmont Housing Authority advisory board, maybe in a different capacity to provide some input on some of these. And or we've talked about maybe changing the makeup of the Housing and Human Services Advisory Board itself to include more specific areas of interest and expertise kind of pulling in some of those elements that the TRG did provide. So that's kind of our take on this. And so we'd like to open it up for discussion and what you think about it if you have any questions around it. Thanks, Kathy. Councilwoman Christensen. I can see how you think this is a good idea. I think it does, if staff is already doing this and they have the expertise to do that, then I think that's a good idea. I do not think that it is a good idea to try to make this particular board. The whole purpose of these advisory boards is to have community members be part of them, not community experts on things, not community professionals necessarily, but people who have actual experience, for instance, with Housing and Human Services from the grassroots level. And so I would not like to see us try to get real estate developers and real estate people and whatnot on this board because that would undermine human services to me. But I do think that there's, I understand what you're saying about how it really has gotten a lot more technical in terms of what kinds of federal, state, and local rules and situations come up. And so I'd be very comfortable with staff reviewing it, but perhaps staff would want to add a few other people to be part of their review, like people who have those areas of expertise, people who understand the real estate market a little more, people who understand development a little more. Thanks, Councilwoman Cushington. Graham. It sounds like it makes perfect sense, Kathy, to disband them and let staff do that part of it. Other folks, Brian. Thank you. Kathy, my understanding was it's removing one of two areas of review from TRG. Is my misunderstanding that that would it be, TRG wouldn't be necessary anymore? That's what we're proposing. I am proposing. And to what extent was the TRG helpful because there was expertise that maybe wasn't in-house, like you mentioned, a new hire, and versus the idea that it's a citizen group that is making sure that government funds are being spent in accordance with citizen needs, that kind of thing, so more of a guardian role than an advisory role. Do you have a sense of that? Was there concern about the city making these kinds of decisions without citizen oversight, so to speak? I mean, that wasn't why they were convened Yeah, sorry. Originally put together, it was to provide the analysis and expertise that the Housing and Human Services Advisory Board didn't think that they had. I think to a certain extent, they felt a little over their heads around that and wanted that group to review it from those different perspectives to make sure that the project that we were recommending for funding was a good one. And I think at the beginning, it did serve that purpose. I just think that as things have become more complex and as we've added staff capacity and knowledge that it just is redundant to a certain extent or duplicative work, so. Sorry, in this context then, our role would be more to provide feedback on how these projects are meeting the needs of the community based on something like the needs assessment or it wouldn't be technical expertise, it would be more kind of programmatic outcomes that we'd be looking to meet. So that's how it would work. Yeah, I think it would give you a better understanding of what is in the community. I think it would be something we've tried to do and haven't gotten all the way to is looking at the housing needs the same way you look at the human service needs and being more directive about what we should be funding with housing. So do we have enough senior housing right now? We need to focus on family housing or do we need to focus on permanent supportive housing versus 50% AMI housing kind of thing? So I think it might feel more ownership to y'all and I'm not trying to be condescending or anything but that you might have more of an ownership about the housing like you do about the human service agencies funding around gathering the needs, understanding the needs and then directing the funding more appropriately. You would still be hearing the presentations of the project you'd be getting our review and analysis and our recommendation just like you would from the TRG staff I'm talking about. So trying to, I think it will feel that you will feel much more involved within the funding process. Thank you. Madeline. Yes, yes, thank you. I, Kathy specifically do remember at the time TRG was formed and happened to be one of those members that felt that it was the need for expertise in that specific area was very present at the time. And I'm agreeing with everybody that now I think it is time for more involvement on our parts. Things have changed. And yeah, I think it's something that that was the time for us to kind of reassess. Yeah, I specifically remember those meetings and the decisions and the presentations that they did how involved you guys made sure the community was in the recommendation phases and all of that. And I think it has served its purpose very well. And now it's the time, absolutely. And you've done a great job. Thanks, Madeline. Yep, Julie. Brian. Caitlin, you're just not gonna get rid of me tonight. Just one comment. I feel comfortable assessing to the level that you need, I think in the scope of our role. But I would love to consider if there's kind of a consistent framework for presenting these projects that for instance may reference, you know, like which fund is going to be drawn from? What is the balance? Just these kind of context pieces. Just so for somebody like me, it helps me understand like is this gonna, you know, deplete the funds that are available for the rest of the year? And how are we measuring these things on an outcome basis? Hopefully just something simple. Yeah, I think that's great. Even as a newer member of the board, I think, you know, what I've seen and what I've heard about the role of TRG, it does seem like it's duplicative. And to the extent that like we're asking folks to volunteer to provide the expertise, it seems like that's asking quite a bit when things are very technical and very complex, all of the different rules and requirements. So it's heartening to hear that the city has staff that are doing that, where we're appropriately compensating folks for that expertise and we're getting consistency in how we're treating that. It gives us more, in some way, a little more accountability of like making sure that the folks we have have the right expertise and are applying it consistently and, you know, have a manager who is doing that and that sort of thing versus a volunteer board where we have no necessarily, you know, I don't wanna say that we would fire somebody, but like if someone is not showing up and not participating and not asking the types of questions that we need to be asked, we don't really have any recourse there. And I think when we get into those technical pieces, we really need that expertise and we need to know that it's, you know, that we have ways of making sure that that stays, you know, that we are complying with all of those rules and regulations and that sort of thing. That doesn't feel like something that we want to leave, you know, that we don't want someone in the city sort of overseeing that because it's such an important piece of being able to continue getting those funds and using them in the community. Karen, Rony. So I would say that, you know, that staff, I think to Brian's point, I think, you know, we see a lot of that documentation when the recommendations come to you for the housing investments. And I think staff has put together a pretty consistent format in which to, I think, address and present the information that you talked about, Brian. And so, you know, so I think it's, it doesn't mean that when we are recruiting new members to serve on the Housing and Human Services Advisory Board that we might not reach out to and look for, again, folks that can bring some of the technical expertise to the, you know, to this board. So it doesn't mean that we still might not have that on this particular, this particular board. It's just that we're not going to have a, you know, an additional advisory group to advise the advisory board. And so I think over time, you know, Kathy's been with the city for, she's been working on this skill base for, you know, a long time and then we just really are looking for ways to streamline, really to streamline the process. So if, and maybe the question is, so Kathy is, if we, are you looking for like a motion from the board and then what happens from here, then do we take a recommendation to city council? What maybe are some of the next steps? Yeah, I think probably a motion and then I think we should probably take it to council or at least advise them about that. I can't remember it is in the, is it, it's not in the code. The TRG I don't think is a formal advisory board. So I don't know that there's a- I don't know if it's in the code. We would look- Oh, you just went mute. You just muted yourself in the middle. I muted myself. So I think we did have, we do have a provision in the ordinance that establishes this advisory board that indicates, and it might be that it stays there. It indicates, I think from time to time, we can appoint, you know, advisory groups or committees, but we certainly will look at what's in the code and make sure it's aligned. All right. If folks don't have other questions or comments, do we have a motion to move forward with the recommendation for staff to look at removing the TRG from, I guess the review and approval of things for us? I think that's the best way to put it. All motion to recommend the city council, the disbanding of TRG per staff's recommendation. Thank you. We have a second. Madeline, seconds. All in favor, please raise your hand. We've got unanimous. All right. And then Kathy, I think we're onto your last item, inclusion in housing program metrics. Yeah. So this is, I'm going to share the screen. I did send it out to you. I don't know if y'all had a chance to look at it, but really I just want to share it and get your feedback on how it looks or what kinds of information you think is good to put in here. We are further refining this and it will go to council, I think on the 30th. So any feedback that you have would be appreciated and defined it. Where is it? Right here. All right. Why is it not? Oh, there it is. All right. So I don't know how small I can make this, but so what this is showing is on the inclusion in housing program. What the goal is that we're trying to meet over here on the far right and where we are so far, 2018, 2019, 2020, we added 90 units to get to our 2432 and the 6.07% that I had talked about earlier, which is about 45% of the way to our goal. Those 2432 units are made up of 94% of them are in rental homes and 6% of them are in purchased or for sale homes. This chart here is the leverage thing that I had talked about. So in 2019, it shows a really high leverage because Fall River and the Micahomes project were included in this, where we spent about 300,000 in federal funds and 1.2 million in our local funds. And then the 50 million was what was leveraged in 2020. Even though we show more homes, we had less money because Fall River and Micahomes had the investment in 2019, but the units didn't come on until 2020. So we spent about 745,000 in federal funds, 230,000 in our local funds and 15 million is what was leveraged. And that was primarily the Aspen Meadows Recyndication and Renovation Project. The fee and loo pipeline that we're anticipating, we got $14,622, I think is what it says in fee and loo in 2022 or 2020, sorry. We're anticipating about 800,000 coming in in 2021. It's a little hard to anticipate because the fee and loo isn't paid until the certificate of occupancy is polled. And so that's towards the very end of a project. So these estimates are gonna probably pretty drastically change from year to year with only the actual obtained funding being for certain, but about 800,000 in 2021 up to 1.8 million estimated in 2022 and 1.9 in 2023. And then to give you a snapshot of the Longmont market in other areas, not affordable necessarily. So median sales prices in Longmont, this chart shows from 2010 to 2020. The blue line is single family detached homes. And this is from real estate records or the MLS records. We are up to 478,951 is the median sales price of a single family detached home in Longmont at the end of 2020 and 347,700 for attached product for sale. This chart over here on, I guess every year right as well, looking at this is new homes versus existing home sales. So we take assessor's data and figure out by how old a home is the newer homes, so less than, I think it's 18 months is considered a new home. How many of those are compared to the existing home sales? So as you can see, the majority of all of the years are existing home sales versus the brand newly constructed homes or first sale homes in the first year. And the 2020 figure is so low because it's only through October 31st of 2020. So there's a lag in the assessor's data. So we will hope to get this updated. One of our staff is working on that right now as well. So the income needed to purchase or rent a home in Longmont also continues to go up. So compared to that single family detached home price and the single family attached home price, the blue line here is the income needed to afford that single family detached home sales price. And the orange line, the next one down or reddish line is the income needed to afford the attached median home sales price. The orange line that's kind of in the middle, so one of the changes we're gonna make is to make these easier to tell what the colors are. The income needed to afford the average rents is the second line up here, second full line. The gray line that's kind of in the middle is the city's median household income and we don't have it for 2020 yet because it's based on census data. And then the dashed lines, a gray dash and the kind of orange dash is just showing you where the 80% HUD median income figure is for a three-person household and the 50% median income, HUD median income for a two-person household. So those are kind of the figures that are used for an average rental and an average sales family. And then finally, the bottom chart is showing the current residential growth that we have had in Longmont. So all residential growth. So it's showing in the dark blue and dark orange, the permits, actual permits for each year, 2018, 2019, 2020, and then the actual affordable homes provided in the orange. And then the lighter blue and lighter yellow are the estimated permits. So this is again, based on the permits are based on planning and development services, estimates and then the affordable units are based on ours on what we know is coming up in the pipeline. The other thing I guess I just didn't point out that I do want to point out here back at the first page is that we are projecting the units that are in the pipeline coming up for 2021 is about 73 units we're anticipating 2022, 175, 2023, 243. The further out you get a little more nebulous the figures are, but that would bring us almost to 3,000 by 2023 if we can reach those goals. And again, they're gonna change as projects come and go get approved and don't get approved. So are there any questions on this or what do you think generally of the layout or is there information missing or pieces of information that are on here that you could care less about? Any kind of thoughts? Councilwoman Christensen, you're muted. Kathy, we didn't get this in the packet. Could you send it to all of us? I sent it, it just got finished today. So I sent it in an email that went out at about. Oh, okay, I must have missed it. All right, thank you. You know, about 40% of the people now are living alone and none of these include how much would cost, how much of, how much money you would need to afford a rental of a studio apartment if there were any or a one bedroom apartment. That might be helpful. Okay. Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines of like being able to see what the income is needed for the various types, you know, so studio one bedroom, two bedroom, three bed, like to actually break it out by that to understand, you know, if you've got a family of four, you roughly, you know, you might need two bedrooms at a minimum and that sort of thing. So it'd be interesting to see the income or the, at least the rates for what those various rentals in particular cost. Okay. Brian. Kathy, I think this is absolutely lovely. It's informative. I like the graphics. It's got a lot of really good information. So I applaud you on this. Yeah, I really like bringing the information into that graphical format for people to see and to see like where the progress is. Graham. I also like it too, Kathy. Thank you. I think the only thing I might add, if it's possible, if it's there is, you know, how the city measures up to national averages, you know, in terms of the delta between the affordability of homes and the medium income, right? So that seems to be the key gap, right? As people in Longmont tend to make X and houses in Longmont tend to cost Y and you know, there's a difference there and how does that chart nationally or maybe even in the county, because I think that just 12% goal was a county-wide initiative, right? Yep. Just a thought, not necessary though. Even at the state level, it might also be interesting to compare like what does it look like across the state in terms of the amount of affordable housing and that sort of thing. I don't know if that needs to be here, but I like the idea of comparing where Longmont sits. The other thing that struck me seeing it is seeing, you know, from 2018 to 2020 how many affordable units have been added and then the predictions for the future years. The first thing that comes to mind is what are we doing to make sure we hit those target? Like this is like the stats, but I'm looking at that and I'm like, we don't have any history of hitting those numbers of, you know, 125 or 175 and then 200 plus. And so like the first thing that comes to mind is where, how do we get those estimates? How reliable are they? How does it match up with like what's actually in the pipeline and how much are we just sort of saying that this is what we wanna do? So those are all figures that are actual units in the pipeline and they're tied to either inclusionary housing projects or I mean, everything falls under inclusionary housing now because we're pretty much past the cutoff but it includes things that I know the housing authority is considering and has moving forward on that isn't in development process yet as well as, you know, projecting forward what we know is in the development review process right now. Now that's not to say some of these might, you know they decide not to go ahead with it but that's not something we can really predict we can only go with what we know at a point in time but I, until you get out to 2023 I would say 2021 and 2022 are pretty realistic. The further out you go obviously the more kind of wishy-washy it gets so but we've got, you know, like the 73 there's 33 units at the farmhouse that's that rental property off of where third comes into 119 those big apartment buildings that are going up by I can't remember the name of it it's not Harvest Junction it's East of Harvest Junction so there's gonna be 33 affordable units in those and they should start leasing yet this year at least some of them we've got 10, probably 10 habitat homes that are gonna be coming online I forget what the 26 is but anyway it's all tied to specific projects at least for 2021 and 2022 that are pretty firm. Yeah so maybe on that first graph with like the really nice cityscape on it identifying that 2021 and 2022 are based on projects already under, you know however you want to phrase it that those are based on actual projects in the pipeline and not just whereas 2023 is maybe not it's partially just to give a little bit of context there. I don't think it would need much more than that I think it's just nice to see like where estimates are coming from or the methodology behind it. I really like that cityscape one it's like a really nice timeline Any other questions or feedback on that from folks? Alrighty then. Excellent. Thank you, I appreciate it. Thanks for putting that together. All right. Number eight is a discussion around the digital divide. So Caitlin it's Karen so I realized that it's nearly, you know, nine o'clock we knew it'd be a pretty full agenda so we can certainly have the digital divide discussion at a later time. You know what we did want to include it was a it was a suggestion when we talked about what did we want to put on our agendas for this year for 2021. So what is in your packet is again if you read the summary of the needs assessment there were a couple of references to the digital divide and certainly how we saw more of that issue when we moved into COVID, particularly around older adults and by not having access to technology or internet you know how that continued to contribute to isolation certainly as we all isolated in this last year during the pandemic as well as for you know lower income households whose children, whose students were in had to rely on technology for learning and just some of the gaps that we saw around that. So and then what I included was just a summary of some of how we use the city used its initial allocation of CARES Act funding which was around $100,000 that we invested in trying to address some of the digital divide. We couldn't give devices away. It was prohibited by the CARES Act but we could do an extended loan and so that's really what we worked on in terms of the Chromebook loan process that's coordinated through our public library because we could not give the devices away we had to loan them. So we can go into more detail about that but I just wanted to let you know that is there plus you know our next light service broadband service did has come up with some different options some lower cost options as well as they for their service as well as they partner with the school district and brought in a big grant I don't remember what the exact amount was but over a million dollars to really help to address and bridge that digital divide among students in the school district. So we can spend more time with that later I realized it's not a clock so I just wanted to let you know what was in the packet. Councilwoman Christensen. I just wanted to add in terms of the digital divide I was talking to representative Ngoose yesterday and there will be some funding in the COVID relief package for the digital divide because we actually have quite a few members of Congress who understand that's a big problem. So that's good news coming to us. I think it would be great to come back to this if folks are okay with that. I did have one question Karen. I know that some of our agencies that applied for funding I can think of at least one off the top of my head they were actually specifically providing cell phones to people who did not have them to ensure that they could access services but also I think show up for court dates maybe while things were being done digitally because they couldn't go in person and if you don't have a cell phone or a computer it's a little hard to show up for something that's being done virtually. I wonder if as we are looking at some of these grants and so forth, if there's an opportunity to partner with some of our agencies to actually do this as well where they have connections in the community to provide devices for example but might need some programmatic or some financial support. So I would just suggest that we think about looking at that as well. Ellie Berto. So just real quickly just so you board knows through HSBC we were able to give out $27,500 in cell phones to people experiencing homelessness. So that's one area where we were able to pass out phones. Awesome. Because those were flip phones so it had to do with the value of the device. So because they were flip phones and old technology we were allowed to use CARES funding to give away those devices versus Chromebooks that were of a higher value. Interesting. We'll see what this new and I'm assuming Polly you're talking about the American Rescue Fund plan whatever. So yeah, we'll see what, how those dollars what kind of restrictions are on those particular dollars. But yeah, it's a, we are continuing to look at that because it's a significant need in the community. Are there any other? And then the other one really is because it's in the packet and Madeline's been asking for this forever. So I did wanna point out and get some direction that what I included in the email invitation that I sent out to y'all was a couple of links to what the Multicultural Action Committee with their pages looked like when we added photos and some information about the individual members. We used this questionnaire that I included in your packet. We modified it a bit, but we just basically asked members to provide some responses to a couple of these about, you know, you can see there what's your, what's the best part of being on this board? Why did you join up, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so when folks members responded to those questions then we, you know, we had some of our marketing staff that took those responses and placed what you saw on the website for the Multicultural Action Committee if you've got a chance to look at that. So I think we just really are wanting your feedback about A, if you wanna do this. B, would there be different questions that you would like to respond to or see anything else that you want to suggest? I say, let's do it. Questionnaire looks great. You know, let's go with what we have and we can build from there. That's my thought as well. My question is, do we have a way to get nice consistent photographs of folks of individuals to put on there? And what's the option there? Do we send a Zoom of the board members? To account for current state of affairs? So we will go into that a little further. We'll consult some of our technical folks about what's the best way to do that. And, you know, and maybe one of these days that we will be in person, but yes, when we did this before with the Multicultural Action Committee we actually could be in person. So we will explore what technological options would be available to get your photos. And not everyone wanted their photo. If you looked on the, what's called the L-MAC, you know, we had our pinwheel. We had a logo. So some people like, na na na, don't want my photo and they have a nice pinwheel in their place. So we want to honor what your preferences are as well. So we will figure out that technology option. If it helps, I just went through this with the Community Foundation having to submit a photo and the bio, you know, that little bit. And Eric kept it real simple for me. I just took an old photo, they backed it up so that I wasn't directly in, you know, too close. And with minor adjustments that were able to make it fit. The rest of the boys that's been there for a while, of course, they were able to go to all the meals of whatever COVID wouldn't allow that. But it was really simple. So, and one other statement, I just like to say as a volunteer of many, on varied levels, while we're not paid, I don't really want, that's not why I do what I do. I do it because I want to make a difference in the lives of our community, the citizens, in terms of knowing who we are and what we're doing. For generations to come when I'm no longer here, I'd like my grandson's grandchildren to know who Grandma Madeleine did back in 2020, in the 2000s, because we won't be present and the same for each of you. So that's the only thing we can do. We do the work. So let's just, I just want it to be known at some point down in the future years. Yeah, she made a difference. Might've been dead much, but it was a difference. So that's really the why behind it. And thank you. Thank you, Karen, for following through on it. Well, it's only taken what? A year? Year and a half? Two years? Oh, it's been a little longer than that, Karen. But it's okay. It's all good. All right. Any other business that we address? And if not, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. I'll move. Okay, seconded. Anyone? Seconded by Shakita. See you all in about a month. Thank you so much. Good night, everybody. Bye.