City Council · Regular Meeting · May 25, 2023

Man.

Reginald Johnson director Department of Community Development it's always great to be in the forward here we're here to prevent the Community Development departments after about 24 budget I have with me leadership team for Community Development of Terry Porter Home assistant director in this game manager. Michael Dr Michael Pullen who's the chairman Dr Michael Pulliam who's the net worth stabilization team manager Colin Davis who is the homeless Services the homeless team manager Matthew Walker who's our multi-family team manager and the newest addition to our leadership team Bridget Stevens who is the contracts and compliance manager so welcome.

So I'll start with the Old Chart we have 35 ftes for fy24 the difference here between 37 and the 35 is that we had two LTS for federal grants and then that we no longer have and so this two two positions and so we no longer have those two positions so that's the reason we got 35 positions performance measures these I start off with the performance measures in the homeless Arena we need the one some critical ones that we keep on track but I'll have to make a couple of notes on these performance measures one these measures are going to be different from the message you're accustomed to looking at for us as well as others because one these are system measures not departmental measures meaning this is a measure expensive lives refer to the system as a whole meaning all the images that worked in homelessness and doing digestive Department we're just one of 50 entities so that's one caveat the other caveat is these measures are.

A calendar year as opposed to the fiscal year for these calendar year Majors because of system measures made fortune Hood it went through January through December as opposed to our traditional fiscal year and the third point is that you'll see the last what we haven't talked is FY 23 these are a lagging measure meaning that we don't have FY 24 targets yet because the fy24 hasn't come in yet as an American medication process to go before we know what our numbers were for FY when people so I just wanted to give those I have yet some beads concise before how can that can be going to be different from what you've accustomed to recommend that said the first one is exits the permanent housing in FY 22 we were at 40 well we were at 40 and so we were a little bit higher than what our Target was and in our Target for FYI or calendar year 23 is 35 and you'll see the trend is going you're down in terms of excellent.

Permanent housing but if you remember we made our system made a change that we would start working with harder to serve persons and so that's the reason the number were gone because it's more challenging than those who who relatively more easier certain that means we would have items that we had in calendar years I went to 19 and 22 2020. But I would just say overall that our home assistant is what I'm saying sturdy and and improving and so that's that's a good measure for us the next lentil slide is the length of time for homelessness and so our Target is 110 days and you can see it has increased in terms of a trend goes to the same point that we've been making that we're working with order to serve persons who are going to have more challenges but that's the way we as a system have designated our resources but still with that said where I think holding study and we'll see what our numbers are you know coming up for this this.

Coming year calendar year 2023. In terms of substantial repairs this is the program and we'll talk about this later in a second presentation but we're getting ready to issue RFP to have a vendor webinar substantial repairs that's going to do intake and actually do the work substantial repairs has distinguisher line were passed is this critical appoint substantially passed we do up to fifty thousand dollars worth of work repair work so we do fever of those and and one of the things we were going to do those internally though that the the intake will be done as it done for when I say you can take the application process by external vendor we're going to actually move all of it to an external vendor that means the intake as well as the world and our goal for FY 24 is 12 homes and that's at up to fifty thousand dollars in terms of the amount of repair of which is the basically 9 500 or less we did 29 homes in FY 23 and we.

Our goal I Target this airport I'm sorry FYI 24 is 42 all homes for the next few we expect to make that we're going to issue RFP with the vendor and maybe more than one that will do substantial repair intake and the work and then the amount of repair intake and the work they will habitators are current than the for the modern repair they also do the intake for the substantial prepared. In terms of new affordable rental units under contract the Target was about was about three three hundred we did 303 this year in FY 2023 we have a target of FY 7 that's why 24 572 units in new affordable units under contract that definition under contract means that have ever executed contract we're optimistic as you can see with the fy24 you know a good part of that it relates to the Housing Authority and the work that they're being doing but we also have some other ones that's going to be going on as well in terms of the allocation table.

This is the all source of you see with the operating a minus 40 I stand that's the the eviction to Virgin money that was at one time that was put into down fed to help with the eviction diversion other than that everything else is is we'll talk about it in the other side so we have multiple tables this is a general fund table there's nothing in terms of we just have to increase with Personnel basically these standard standard increases with the dedicated housing fund.

We have to have some money and you see a negative 46 percent but that's the money that we have removed from the fund balance to dedicate for one year to expand on some projects and so that's the reason we see that differential there and the grant table I see a negative 3597 line I upgrade that's the the egg grant that I just shared with you earlier that we did not we're not continuing. So the budget highlights one of the things that we did request that was that's in the oh but it was additional training resources because of the number of new staff that we have and the number of increased staff and the technical parts of our job a lot of persons may not appreciate their the work that we do it is regular pilot regulated and so we have to have resources for training whether it's virtual of course that's what's been going on during covet also sometimes we have to send persons to various trainings and so this.

Is a part of our training resources that that we need for our staff and then affordable housing project completions that will highlight we'll talk a little bit more about this in the next presentation JFK at Towers Apartments rods roads 42 units this pal apartment Rehabilitation the recording loans to a project and then some project about the project initi agents and many of you are aware of these the Elizabeth Street Apartments I wasn't doing Housing Authority Commerce Street as well as I was a question Street Apartments but also budget highlights and other Arenas initiation number data driven planning and resource allocation project assistant that's one of the things that's important for us is that we keep our on the system thinking of itself as a system and no you know big eyes and little views and home when it comes to homelessness we're rated at the moment and so just because you have one group that may be doing very well that doesn't grow well for the entire world as we're rating as.

A collective now there's a group of individuals then the next part next a budget highlight which we're excited about the relaunch of the city's down payment assistance program to talk about that in the next presentation but we're excited about that and we've been doing some work on that and then the continuation of the city's eviction diversion program the amount of repair program has been talked about and the substantial rehabilitation program or both will be doing on this upcoming year on our students have been for any questions.

Thank you for yelling part one presentation thank you just wanted to thank you I don't appreciate your staff and support and addressing that deep dive questioning from the Durham Realtors association and getting that down payment assistance program back on track and I did want a new is there is there a report coming out of that lead Hazard reduction work that's happened over the last five years so I don't know that we have a report we were not able to get the program going as as was planned and so when the time ran out because of covet and the way we had to revamp the program when it was first transferred to us to Community Development and it just posts quite a bit of challenges that we were not able to get it off the ground as we should have or wanted to and so we had to in that relationship and I just want to kind of just note that that lead Hazard is still in our in our community and.

It's concentrated in Northeast Central Durham and I do think that we have to come up with something or some type of response because it's still a present concerned for a long time homeowners who have homes built before 1976 I mean I just want to make sure that we don't lose track of that because we didn't get it moving out of clothing yeah and then also are are you tracking measures out of your department in this homelessness services or essentially our folks we're noting that folks are leaving Durham are we noticing noticing the same things as our homeless population as well because I know sometimes it's a time and point in time count was a lot was a lot lower than normal so so are you asking whether our weekend track whether the persons are leaving Durham that are homeless yeah so I'm going to ask Colin to respond to that in detail my understanding is that people may in fact be constantly doing let's get to everybody else.

Good afternoon Alan Davis manager of the homeless system and Community Development Department answer your question can we track whether make sure I understand the question are you asking can we track the inflow of people experiencing homes exactly and not so not so much that not just the inflow but noting like there are folks who are being housed like housing new houses running home or any other organizations working with us but if if there's a not a gap but if there's a like a trend of folks who aren't getting that housing in place and then they're leaving and I don't know if that's being captured and so yes the inflow and where they land and where they exit to so it's our database doesn't track to the exit zip code for lack of a better term where somebody finds a permanent house what we are able to track is how many people exited our system to permanent housing and that permanent housing could be renting a unit here in Durham it could.

Be the household of those experiencing homelessness and then at urban ministries for instance but they were able to reconnect with family and we were able to assist it going back to South Carolina or Virginia or California to reunite their families in their experience but we're not really able to get to that level of detail in an easy way and not all people who exit our system want to tell us where they're going Duda so the distrust and certain things so that makes sense thank you you're welcome.

Anyone else have any questions about this presentation I'm sorry no thank you thank you thanks Reginald just one quick question about the down payment assistance program as housing prices go up down payments also need to go up right so I'm wondering if our assistance program is going to be sufficient to allow folks who are you know needing to try to buy these higher priced houses to you know whether the assistance is going to be enough to let them like to allow them to get in the door and then also whether there are I don't know exactly how the down payment assistance is structured but if there are other ways that we might be able to help people with the cost of acquiring their first home other than down payment assistance like could we help with closing costs or like right now people you know folks are coming in with huge offer like earnest money offers that you know ordinary folks can't necessarily compete with like are there ways for us to assist people.

In those ways or are we limited to down payments thank you I'll answer part of this part of your question that I'll ask Dr Bulloch to respond to report so in terms of will the program we have how successful will it be our goal the manager challenged us to make sure and ensure that a person could use the resources you have and be in the current market added since today we have consulted with others and come up with looking at the resources we have and have you know with the a plan that we think that based upon a person at 80 Ami and use our resources and still be in the funeral market today where there's availability about having some goal that was for this period right now one of the advantages of that one of the disadvantages of that and one of the challenges with that is we're at the top of our income bank because we have to make the numbers work on death dead to.

Income ratio so you know how far can you go below 86 it's going to 70 that that's going to be one of the challenges the other challenge is a simple if the market keeps is going to talk about it in a little bit but if the market keeps increasing and that's one of the things with this program that that we thanks for now it can but that doesn't mean that you know in December when it's next year we're working between the same increases so our goal is to get this program going and use the resources to help the person that we're able to help them.

Is there a maximum amount that folks can get and what is it eight thousand dollars eighty thousand email assistance okay and do we have enough money to do 480 000. We're going to Target 70.75 okay and because of the debt to income thing we're probably looking at people of between 70 and 80 of Ami is like The Sweet Spot it's gonna be high or closer to 80. so like just add 80. okay. Yes it is I thought you also have to make sure our numbers so so the most recent analysis that was does you know it does show that in this market even though the inventory may be very very small you know with the right condition someone at 60 could still qualify in this market but we are very very careful to say that that you know that would not be a huge number of residents and there is not a lot of inventory in that space so it is and Michael has some more details on the.

Program but but certainly we are in the 300 300 a thousand dollar range with at least with the program we currently have in place and have it stacked with some of the state program dollars that also are similar to our program I think the state mostly has a program that allows about 15 000 to be stacked on top and then in some census tracts if a particular available property is in certain sets of tracks They also have a program for I believe fifty thousand dollars thank you and thank you madam manager I will ask Dr Fulham just to come up and talk a little bit about the programming the different uses yes it has the name down payment assistance but that's not a the only restricted good afternoon Dr Michael Pullen community development manager with that down payment program is director Johnson has stated we knew that we had to take a look at how to restructure it in order to try to help as many qualified applicants as possible.

We recently did make the move to increase the actual subsidy amount to 80 000 now increasing it will help tremendously but it does not always resolve the issue of trying to help that particular income will become homeowners one of the biggest challenges that we face is actually the inventory manager page has mentioned that we're trying to get houses in the 300 over 200 300 000 range those are the homes in which the people who qualify for our program are desperately need up now there was a question about can the down payment assistance funding used for other parts of the program where we are using the board in addition to just the down payment assistance is also foreclosing costs we are trying to put that into effect as well the leveraging from the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency is almost a must to be very very successful in the strategy that we're now presenting for the homeowner and any other resources that we run into or come across where you know certainly going to.

Examine and try to see if it will be helpful to the potential bars in that particular income group so it's still very challenging but we are looking at other cities across the country and we also are looking we're taking a heart in the Dural Market working every day with practitioners who are out there seeing exactly what in order to try to shape the program that we have here you know thank you when you say foreclosure honestly can you tell me a little bit more about what that means of closing costs okay.

Thanks thank you director Johnson team two questions do you track what some of the contributing factors of support are for folks that are actually Department of portable housing so you're asking when they exit those who are successful.

Question a little bit more the question about it if I just was able to matriculate to promote a reportable housing X to help me get there what contributing factor was it any job was a better job I found a house that was affordable apartment that was affordable from the homeless system yeah okay it's from the homeless system to exit to affordable housing right now there's a shortage of units that are affordable for people making very low income and a lot of the households that you serve in the homeless system are making less than 15 an hour many of the persons in the homeless system are relying on social security disability income which may only be about 914 dollars per month and at 914 a month the only way you're going to be able to exit homelessness into affordable housing is with a housing Choice voucher or exiting into public housing or doing a shared housing arrangements and shared housing is a newer concept that is starting to try and work with and very.

Other high rent and high-cost areas shared housing is often the only way for single individuals to exit homelessness due to the lack of housing Choice vouchers of public housing available for that population thank you for that the other it is more General that you all have any ideas on how we can manipulate this Market how do we create more inventory in affordable range I think that's a much larger conversation than we could get into today but I think it's something that we are talking through and it's a question in terms of under the basis foreign.

We just we need to work on creating more affordable housing I mean that's that's the bottom line answer landlords in our Market they're they're in demand I mean when you you have persons coming in from whatever they're coming in from and they need the place to stay they don't have a place to stay and they're going to pay for it yeah and that's that's the landlord making a rational decision and so what I have one like to have conversations about institutions and and lawn mowers about making they have to go against the grain and then as you can imagine being a business person that can be a child yeah okay so we need to build more affordable housing that is on you know that the city in in the County area or that we can do or we need to just increase Supply in general or that on both in it's a both endings it's not just us producing it but it's incentivizing and creating opportunities for others that create.

Affordable housing to do it and there are different ways to do that and it's not just the non-profit exactly especially now it can be the for-profit accepting someone space that's what I was really important appreciate it. Okay thank you thank you the purpose of this presentation as a follow-up to the budget please give a update on forever I am doing the affordable housing plan at the city has implemented and so this is fixing this with the media annual update what I'm going to talk about is of housing affordability weekly then I'll talk about forever on Durham FY 2223 highlights some of which you already had participated in and then I also talk about the federal home during 20 20 23 24 priorities encounters we didn't stand for any questions the affordable housing affordability that you're doing and I'm going to pause right here picture that we've used the real estate without the invitation for our section breaks but this picture if you look to the left to my left is JJ Henderson and then the.

Building next to it is the joys JJ Henderson as you know is a standing of development and the Housing Authority has rehabbed that and we contributed 2.9 Million Dollars to have a home to enable the housing authority to renovate this particular building and then the building to the right to Joyce and many of you were at the ribbon cutting the First new affordable housing instruction quite some time we spent contributed three million dollars for the 80 units that are here you know our role is to provide Gap financing and this was the Gap with the money that we contributed I had a conversation with the housing authority of President CEO Melissa Scott you know we were just talking and said would would you have how would you have done this without the resources from the city and he said well in particular for the the choice we would not have been able to do who would not have been able to do it at all it would have been really really.

Tough with the especially being able to get down to the subsidy level that you have in the choice in the number 30 of Ami units there's no way that we would be able to have done that and then with the rehabilitation he said we probably would have been able to do a rehabilitation but it would not have been to the degree that we have done that we actually did the rehabilitation without the city of city city support and so so I just wanted to share that with you in terms of forever home doing what we do with whatever home deal does make a difference it has made in my mind a significant difference it's not you know creating you know you know it created 80 new units we have 172 in our business you know every unit is a good team you know every family we help you know surely we'd like to help thousands in Alternatives it's the thousands they won at a time and so we instead of that yes I just.

Wanted to make a moment to to share that with with you so in terms of housing for housing sales going to realtor.com the median listing home price and doing almost 382 000 500 a year in February of 2023 the next chart just shows a trend of the increasing no rents Apartments the I think the median is a hundred and fourteen hundred dollars a month now so the snapshot that you see those affordable units the chart on the left on my left is the apartments rent with the median rent a one bedroom like I said about 1400 and there were four forty three hundred six and three apartments that were available on apartments for rent on apartments.com when you look at what the rents were there were just 145 head monthly rents of 1134 full one bedrooms that's 145 and the reason we use that number is that that's a fair market win for one bedroom apartment so you can see the contrast yeah this aside of course I always keep.

This this slide in so that just a reminder why we even have this conversation on how do we help if you're in a market rate and you see this all over the city if I'm a market rate developed by just getting to run away in common I can pay all my operating expenses and the debt and you have an investment return and get the market you know bring interest rates grow up like this raise the rents and everything is covered from with rental income on affordable yeah rental income is fixed and so the operating expenses and debt payments you know go up but the rental income will still be fixed and so that's the subsidy that we contribute to the Gap financing is what we talk about so that's even why we we have we're having this conversation so the FY 23 highlights one of NFL 23 we awarded 16.7 million dollars to create and preserve 681 units Cedar Trace Apartments 6.9 million 180 units Sandy Ridge station 5 billion 132.

Units Fair Haven walk 3.3 million dollars 192 units they have paid hours preservation 1.5 million 177 units we committed 0.5.8 million dollars to create a reserve 355 units Southside stages 34 7.7 billion 100 units and then this Street Apartment 6.6 million 72 units party Street Apartment 6.9 million 132 units and acting Place which is right next to the Williston Department committed 4.6 million for 51 units and so I appreciate your indulging me as I went through that list but as I shared it's really for us one unit at a time so this is great that we're able to get this this number of units on track but it's a challenge in the market and in the economy that we are working other highlights I'll have to mention the 40 million dollar Choice neighborhood initiative Grant to redevelop and Revitalize 519 Main Street Liberty Street and surrounding the downtown neighborhoods while you know this is not part of the other home there's no question that the fact that.

We have forever helped us and put us in a position to get this this land there's no question about that and it gave us a foundation that established us and I say us the city of Doom as well as the housing authority to be able to launch and to be competitive to be one of the four awardees so that's another reason I this is a highlight for another for forever home and then okay and then we also mentioned the 10 million dollars in Opera funding because we sought out because we had funding and we sought out projects we were not able to fund them all but then Arbor came along we already had projects that were ready to go and so that was part of I would say support for a highlight for forever home that's why we didn't finish we were able to get another resource to help us in the work that we would have started but we haven't started with forever home so I considered that to be a highlight as well.

Just a brief reminder our home forever home that's 160 million dollar multi-family multi-gear investment in affordable housing the Cornerstone is the 95 million dollar affordable housing behind and 65 million dollars in existing City and federal resources and the goals are to build 1600 new affordable rental homes preserve 800 affordable rental homes provide 400 affordable homes ownership opportunities for first-time home buyers move 1700 homeless persons to permanent housing help 3 000 low-income renters and homeowners remain in or improved their homes and create at least 130 million dollars in Contracting opportunities for minority and women on business Enterprise this is the we have seen this before this is Justin projection of what we started with we've had to make some some changes to this at based on the realities but we still proceeding and you'll see that shortly this is just a reminder of the funding if you remember we talked with the council during covet that we needed to extend the time period due to the impacts of covet so you'll go to.

2026 and so we have the we'll have our own journal of these entitlement funds and the dedicated housing fund will now go to 2026 in the Cornerstone as I've shared with the 2019 and affordable housing funding sources not within forever home doing the federal entitlements cdbg home Community Development Library home investment partnership emergency Solutions grants and housing opportunities with AIDS and Associated program income prior to 2019 that's this remains unchanged the dedicated housing fund prior to the 2019 and then Bond program income of any year is not within forever home Durham this has been received from the repayment of past affordable housing Bonds in between payments in monthly from various engines developer projects as well as individuals but that's not included in the funding services this chart right here shows our progress to date.

And we'll start with the rental units created remember we had a goal of 1600 units in the pipeline now remember the definition of in the pipeline means that we are having a developer conversations that their projects that are coming together but we have not signed an executed contract where we're providing the Gap financing but we've been able to have additional projects that are in the pipeline and that's 1257 under contract we have business units 451 units and then completed we have 162 units that are complete that means we have a CEO and so that's a total of 1870 and the remaining balance it looks like baseball where we are now we're going to over reach out go over 1600 and exceed it in that category and so that's one of the things that we consider to be a positive in terms of rental units preserved we had a total of 800 we have in pipeline right now 27 we have under contract 56 completed is 355 for October 4 38 and so with with that.

We have a balance of 362 remaining home ownership opportunities that's the area we just finished talking about in part there's some other parts to homeownership opportunities other than the down payment assistance program but in the pipeline we have 90 that includes the 70 rooms that we just talked about as well as in other projects we have on the contract six we have not completed any for 12 of 96 we still have a balance of 304 to reach that goal they're homeless persons in permanent housing we have a goal of 1700 this is a point in time when the server recounted when the service is completed and so that's different from being under contract and that so when it's completed and so now we're up to 1481 persons have been homeless persons have been moved to permanent housing we have a balance of 219 and then low income housing stabilize we have a goal of three thousand we have completed 1 810 and we have a balance of one thousand one hundred and ninety that.

Includes the eviction conversion as well as some other programs obviously under there in terms of stabilizing household so we this is the reflection of the progress that we have may this month the federal home Durham the 2024 budget this is the amount of money that we have that from previous years that are in contracts and new contracts that they're going to be started the total of about 44 million dollars of the increase over 2023 is driven by The increased budgets for multi-family production definitely neighborhood stabilization and on this services this chart I'm not going to go through in detail many of you familiar with the project but it's a total list of the rental Housing Development and preservation projects and gives the the status on the you have the name of the project in the the status as well as the number of affordable units and then you have whether it's in the pipeline because he understands whether it's under contract whether it's completed.

Remember I shared with you that they were shared that there were projects that are in forever home dorm because we had financial resources and for everyone and then there are funding that's not in forever home doing and remember we discussed those funded this is additional activities that are not in the forever home Durham funding meaning we have used other funds to work on these projects which include Laurel Laurel Oaks Mooring row Willard Street 702 and 704 Grant Street Southwest 10 rehab and South and you see the homeownership opportunities that are also there as well and you see the status that they're under under contract completed.

This is also a slide we added this is also additional additional activities not including forever home during this is going to be the aqua funding that I talked about that we're I've will be fortunate to have in these are projects that will be funded with the aqua funds that would create additional affordable housing sorry originally I thought there were four projects for them initially when we talked about it was for but one of those was able to get funding in another way okay and so it's funded in another way so it's not included.

In terms of well forever home doing homelessness Services again the servants the lead agency one of the goals for the next year it's a continuation of serving as the lead agency for the Durham County homelessness Continuum Affair which includes the staff thinking advisory committee which you are familiar with some Associated graduate committee by preparing the annual funding application the number I shared with you shared that we have to think about this the homeless system as a collective not as an individual entities and so we're the staff for that our support for entry point during which is the front door of the homeless system the FY 22 23 32 percent of the person who experience homelessness who contacted coordinated entry were diverted from the homeless system without entering an emergency shelter so that's really important that we don't we have a mechanism where persons who are homeless don't always use the homeless shelter in the place of First Resort and so we haven't created that was part of our system work where.

We invested money to be able to create that then we continue to find the the UCA which is the unshafted coordinating agency which important should we do in County provide Street Outreach and encampment response and then support the emergency shelter operations and rapidly housing and these are some of their indicators that help with that families moving forward whatever negatives having through the whole project access. In terms of Memphis deprivation we're going to take a swig right please.

For neighborhood stabilization the goals are from honor repair and substantial Rehabilitation we've been launched requests for proposal will be issued in June 2023 for vendors to administer both the minor repair and substantial Rehabilitation programs this is including application intake and working with selected contracts to perform the work we shared about that just a few moments ago the three-year contract with the vendor will assist low-income seniors 65 and older all disabled persons homeowners of any age with the past we have the fourth year of the city funded eviction diversion program completed resulting in 391 tenants 50 of the cases close the government tendency the long-time homeowner grant program to be completed in June 2023 for the FY 20 actually at 744 eligible residents and again the city of Durham's down payment assistance program where we launch in July 2023 program will provide up to eighty thousand dollars in down payment and closing costs systems to call monitors with incomes 80 percent of the area median income or below Community Development staff will administer.

Engagement Commander but we're going to shift it back to in-house Missouri program. We still are on we are working with some elements of public response of course it's not as much as we have been doing in the past but we're going to continue the open-funded non-congregate shelter support including hotel and white flag shelter through June 30 yes 2023. we're providing additional funds to support expanded rapid rehousing capacity through December 31 2023. we still have the CD Community Development and office for Economic and Development Partnerships that provide assistance to micro businesses impacted by the pandemic and in the city of Durham and Durham Public Schools partnership that we still have to address over 19 mining laws in four schools located in low moderate income areas like the burden Elementary and ww.g Pearson why East Memphis.

In terms of the FYI 24 priorities they can see our priorities listen to their under rental housing continue to move under housing projects forward I'm very grateful we're very grateful to the council for the support we remember I shared with you probably two years ago now that our recommendation was we try our best to keep our projects moving forward despite the interest rate increases the cost escalation increases and all of the challenges that the projects were facing during coving and we've been able to do that we haven't lost one project yet and we're coming in we can see our way through to the other side though I spilled some issues with with some projects and and we've been fortunate to have additional resources we're helping the Housing Authority complete structure and complete coordinated construction and 519 East Main Street in the introduction of the replacement housing units in the CNN footprint Choice neighborhood initiative Grant we're planning in the balance of bdnb sites and we're beginning Contracting projects awarded.

With Opera funds argumented in the FY we include RSV process in the homeless Arena maintain support for the Honda system and providers increase the number of landlords willing to accept vouchers and how you value a household this is where we're gonna have to spend some time and effort and this is a challenge that councilmember Leonardo Williams kind of alluded to because landlords can make rational decisions and when those rational decisions are made persons can be left out we can expand technical assistance to our talk about us that's one of the things remember we are looking at ourselves not as one entity but a collective election that everybody needs to improve in different organizations be at different points in the technical assistance and then we're transitioning from pandemic operations to The New Normal whatever that means and neighborhood stabilization well the down payment assistance program that we've spoken about eviction diversion amount of advanced technical Rehabilitation we're getting ready to get you on rip on Surface property this is the about 20 City Lots that.

We have and the goal is that is home ownership you know which is one of the important pieces that we have to create home ownership opportunities in Union City so I'd say we're actually going to be providing the goal is to provide some funding additional funding in addition to the locks so that the non-profit augmentation can be able to construct houses at the income level that we are at the time and then the maintain the expand the supporters of small-scale production and move forward on our projects with the new rsps you know the challenges that we face and yes they are significant challenges but like I said the first thing I was sharing in the past last year I mentioned the challenge in a couple of years I mentioned the challenges that we had without keeping our rental projects going and not losing them even though the cost you know was escalating we've just stayed with them and they appreciate our community appreciation yes the money with the expensive at.

Times and still is but the challenges we have is still the rising rental prices and the lack of landlords that will accept vouchers the increasing cost of for sale housing we just talked about that and then the workload capacitance CD team developers and providers if you talk to the developers so I'm a particular affordable housing developers Dash stretch as well as on non-profit providers we have to be mindful of that we have to find out rfps so that they don't all come at the same time with this rfps from the state and hood and they're just so we should expect to be in and be able to apply and apply competitively all at the same time so in summary we are making progress go not uniform through all of the federal home your own categories some categories we are projecting to exceed our goals in some categories we're still striving for progress as a reminder though we have it's been the resources those resources were not enough to address that I need.

Which is being exacerbated by the current economic and housing market we have been successful to the point of providing some addition and efficient additional funding to people on both their family projects proceeding despite increased instruction cost and interest rates that concludes my formal presentation not a man asked to answer a question thank you for very sobering report now open it for like questions from my colleagues in you're I guess your take on any innovative ways to be able to have landlords except the vouchers I mean I know you know that's saying one of your challenges but have you thought of any innovative ways I've seen common saying yes.

Good afternoon Colin Davis major the home assistant Community Development so incentivizing landlords is is what we'll term that as to answer your questions we have talked about that and we've had some success in being able to incentivize landlords through financial means we're able to use funding to help people get in the door providing a double security deposit a first month rent and a last month rent so right off the bat a landlord would have the equivalent of four months worth of rent in their hands before somebody's ever come in and had to pay month number two we have it had some success used in private dollars that came into the system to do incentive payments that there might be an incentive of twenty five hundred dollars or fifteen hundred dollars to a landlord to take somebody who is considered higher barrier that ordinarily the system would say the income doesn't match the criminal history doesn't line up with our rent stuff but okay for this incentive payment we'll be willing to.

Take the risk so we've had some successes with that those tend to work very well with the small local landlords during the pandemic a lot of our local landlords had historically had low income housing and would take higher barrier households sold to out-of-state investors this out-of-state conglomerates have used much more of a robotic here's the application that goes into the computer says yes or no it's not the same thing and even if a local property manager is willing to work with you take an incentive then it sort of is well it doesn't fit the corporate strategy wherever that may be and some of those run into concerns on fair housing laws and getting getting outside of their land for other tenant selection policy so we have tried some of those and we're going to continue trying and talking to landlords and seeing what works thank you thank you allergies I I did want to just follow up on Colin's comment and just acknowledge that's really the Crux of where the issue is because.

Affordable housing is not affordable if you can't make it fixed and so these costs as they continue to rise it's not going to decrease it's going to continue to increase and create even more pressure and so is there any look at how to actually incentivize or develop and focus of supports so that if there is actually sites built that reflect what is needed around shared housing or specifically just like if you are dependent on social security or disability income none of the tools that we're talking about right now to kind of get into even ownership or working and so at what point do we shift to stop trying to chase the corporate entities that are not built for that to actually develop Partnerships with organizations and developers who are willing to do that I think there's a couple pieces there one you clearly understand the economics of it make 15 an hour of 600 a week times four weeks is the twenty four hundred dollars and fourteen hundred dollars is your average.

Rent for a one bedroom it leaves you a thousand dollars people in taxes the math doesn't work you can't make that work so where I think we're we're really working a lot with that Walker's team and Reginald on the multi-family development and that forever home Durham piece and as these 17 you know 1700 units start to come online those developers are going to be incentivized to take vouchers because that's the type of housing they do so it's kind of we're in this really tight space But as those units start coming on assuming vouchers are available we'll be able to have more landlords willing to take vouchers because of those units their performers tend to work very well when there's an ongoing rental subsidy with households coming in will it still be competitive yes because there's a lot of people at that 60 Ami that can qualify to go in that don't need a voucher when you've got somebody at five percent Airline voucher and it's going to be a competition so that's one piece.

Where we can do it other places I've seen jurisdictions have created when HUD doesn't have enough money going into housing Choice vouchers other jurisdictions created their own local Housing Voucher out of local funds to try and sort of create more subsidy to be able to do that so it's a lot of ways to try and do it it's just how much money is available and how much land is available can I ask if you have a number like if we currently have I think just when the numbers today there's a thousand additional units being created for rental is there a number for for units for rental in total and then versus the number of units that are affordable or purchased like like are we even tracking that level of detail I don't I have to convertibles I'm not sure because that's so it sort of gets into the multi-family or essentially like if we know that we have six thousand I think six thousand three years ago and you know Housing.

Authority units whether they're nine now or if it's 12 I don't know so is there somewhere that we're looking to kind of make sure that we're keeping track of and making sure we are increasing like we say we're doing like we're adding units but if we're losing units at the same time with the local affordable housing providers selling course to corporations are we losing at a greater speed than we're adding which I think we are but I do think it'd be better to have numbers I I don't know so I'm I'm gonna have to look at that council member because I don't know we keep track of every homo every winter landlord that makes their own decisions what I can say about the Housing Authority and the goals and the work we do are additional units that are permanent permanently affordable so we don't have to worry about someone making the decision well I did it this year I don't want to do it next year versus individual owner who can make that decision.

Frankly at any time so we don't necessarily keep track of individual landline I appreciate that I think it may be good to kind of talk with some folks of the community that may be keeping track okay. Thank you madam mayor good afternoon to your entire team good to see you all I want to thank you for this this really important work that you do this Front Line work on behalf of the city of daunton where I think sometimes important to remember the people of Durham have agreed to tax themselves to go into debt for this issue we've agreed to use land that we could sell for a gazillion dollars to attack this problem so while this we're in this Silo it's important to realize just how Cutting Edge Durham is with that said I want to speak specifically to the the issue of landlord's sentence of gold to increase the number of landlords willing to accept vouchers and rent a higher barrier households you may remember the the Realtor Association who presented to.

US during a deep dive on a housing deep diving I I question one of them specifically about this and what the gentleman and I'm paraphrasing one of the things the gentleman pointed out was that you know the landlords aren't bad they they you know and I thought well they're not all created equal but they're not bad that the problem two things he identified one and you touched on it was the security deposit if we can have and you said double it what I got from him it was just the president of at least one just you know the high barrier residents were not able to come in with and pay the security deposit so we could do that second thing he also mentioned was communication that when they had a question if the if the potential resident didn't get their voucher in time and the landlord says where's my money I don't know you got to talk to them and then when the landlord calls them on hold the runaround nobody to.

Talk to so if if if there's some way we can I know the feds have something to do with as well there's just somewhere at the local level in addition to providing security deposit assistance in addition to the voucher but also some way of streamlining communication or improving I like what the water department did with their letter their cut off letter they did a lot of work proactively reaching out to folk that were showing signs of possibly being laid on their water bill if there's ways we can things we can look at protocols we can look at to streamline communication when these landlords have questions about vouchers or where they have issues with the folk that are providing the vouchers if we really want to put some meat on this and and operationalize this this goal so let's continue with the the assistance for security deposits and let's look at if I'm taking what you said it pays better from the deep dive look at how we can better communicate with these but we'll.

Give them a front door that they can come to continue continuing with care if you will landlords when they have issues about their payment second thing real quickly then I'm done in the in the in the chart that has the pipeline in the forever home German progress to date for example running units created Total the goal is 1600 pipeline 1257 contract 451 completed 162 total 1870. Can you give me a sentence that mass suggests to me that you know the pipeline isn't just aspirational it's going to happen if we do so explain to me what what does it mean to be in the pipeline even though you're not in the contract yet and why is it so secure to be in a pipeline that we can still count it even though it's not because so nothing can happen that it can fall out of the pipeline it's why we want to be so secure with the Bible oh good question and all council member try if they move into a little bit to the.

Be a bit more specific so pipeline means that we are having conversations and there's a deal that's hasn't come together yet that we have put our money in okay right right but we're not are we suggesting that the deal cannot fall apart at that point is oh so council member Fields can fall together including that close right below so so I would just say it you know we bring most many of these projects to cancel twice on the first time we are bringing it is to get an allocation so that we don't reuse that allocation for another project and then and once you all say yes to that we consider that Michael got you and then when that occurs this staff goes back and works with the partners and the developers to get to closing right and then there's sometimes an adjustment up rarely is it ever adjustment down but sometimes it is but when we do get to closing we're still talking about the same project.

But we are now ready to be you know for it to close as a trans action and that's when it gets under contract perfect and all of that makes perfect sense to me as you know as a as a elected person a policy maker one this paper I'm not going to take the whole report this is the kind of sheet that I carry on with in my pocket so when folk ask about our products such progress on a slide so you know when I say 1870 and so we're ahead of gold by 270 you know the asterisk is it it's in the pipeline it might this math to me implies that we're already counting them and so I could see myself saying we got 1870 you know done because remaining balance 270 when the actual I just want to understand that pipeline does not mean it can't can't not happen if that if that makes sense also I want to share with you in in juxtaposition to other measures so the.

Other measures categories are major Milestones right so one is when we have get to the point of the manager to talk about it's an actual contract legal legal rights have been established back and forth and okay that's a major major Milestone and of course completed is when you have a certificate of occupancy somebody don't get the key right and so we've completed it and so but what the point is with the pipeline we may have a conversation within six months it may be half before we get to under contract right right but I'm still taking a Victory lap for him but thank you thank you thank you thank you Mr Jonathan I do want to follow up on a couple of things with the landlords we have a subcommittee meeting with the group of presenters I want to say it was the General realtors association and there will be a meeting convened with the landlords to talk with them about how we have an ongoing conversation and I think.

That will be coming up in the next month so we we're picking that piece up on the landlord issue also in the housing Deep dive as you already know as you all know we have completed that and now comes the task of compiling that information in a way that's usable I've been in touch with the city manager about I would like to have some of the next generation of eyes on this document as hopefully it will be a usable document not only for us as a council but it is an educational opportunity for our young people to be engaged so we are in the process of talking about hiring some interns who will compile that data for us in a in a form that we can come back as a council and look at and figure out how we will get our guide principles are going back to when we had our Retreat so so stay tuned as we talk about that and I welcome your ideas on how best.

There's a lot of information over a month and how we best want to direct those young people to be involved in this process but I really would like to turn that over to for our young people to kind of help us compile that information so stay tuned on that your ideas are welcome so thank you Mr Johnson for that report that I think that was a good way for us to end our presentations today I do want to turn our attention to Logistics before we the council has closing remarks and then we will turn it over to our city management for closing remarks if you know on our adoption schedule our budget for doing review on the docs and schedule there is a June 5th the day as well as a June 8th if needed I'll talk with David manager and suggested that we go ahead and have our clerk to schedule that meeting and then if we cancel who can counsel it at a later.

Date but if that is the will of the body to go ahead and have her to send out those notices though that it were already there and determined that we don't need it it's just a matter of calculation in the back of reality done as well. And then say Tuesday Thursday from 9 A.M to the sale it is not America did you want to have it at the same time and location from nine to one from nine to twelve because we only have work session at one so we'll we'll schedule it publicly for 9 to 12. thank you in addition to the second third or something that's really simple right okay for some reason I have June 7th as an additional organization foreign.

Or is a meeting and get needed and then we'll go into our regular workstation from one to come with him yes yes thank you if we do have the returns no it is if we do end up having that meeting that morning I will not be in attendance since my son's 8th grade but we understand me. I'll be in Chicago for a basic income guaranteed income conference so I won't be here in the 80s whatever I'm done with looking at today and how far we got doing I don't know that we'll need it but we do need to allow for our clerk to go ahead and schedule it hopefully we will be Council because we do have another meeting on June building the public hearing but we will be able to address it at that point if we definitely need it we think what would we need to make the determination that we will definitely need to have the donate so one of the things that you know we.

Certainly know that we post the budget budget that we proposes balanced and we've had a lot you know a lot of discussion around it we've heard from a lot of people through emails you know in in person you know during your regularly scheduled meetings we will be hearing again from you know anyone from the public that comes in on Monday June the 5th that is a regarding public hearing for us to have well staff will be doing and I plan to say this in my clothes are in Lawrence but what staff will be doing is they have been taking notes they have been listening carefully at questions that have been asked and they will be preparing a follow-up written document to council and they will be shared with all council members so whether that was additional calculations you saw some of the information granted or presented yesterday so that will be you know there was an additional information asked about some of the other community that was that was presented by the human resources.

Department so all of that would be considered a follow-up information document for Council you will be getting that very shortly and everyone will be receiving it and you know certainly you know we don't we don't make the final decision the reason we put the area over meeting up here is if there are additional items that we need to have long conversations about a decision that will be be made on the budget that comes between today and the budget final preparation and adoption so that's why we always have it here but we we will certainly be available to responders any questions that you have and you know we we don't have to have the meeting or be present at the meeting but if you have significant questions or concerns that we want to develop and I I think probably our our biggest question for us will be around the salaries right now if we plan for a for a long meeting on June 5th then there's a possibility that night we.

Can answer all of those questions and not have that meeting on the 8th we'll turn just go ahead and plan for a longer meeting than like we we're scheduled it looks like we're scheduled to start at six o'clock according to my calendar on I don't know that may be wrong but is that correct it starts at seven so and I'm open to suggestions because we definitely want everybody here for those conversations so and we had a very long meeting on that I'm not sure about that calendar looks like on the 5th or other things we know we have that public hearing but if we can make every effort to get everything done on the 5th then we'll just have a scheduled meeting that hopefully we won't be on the 8th yeah go ahead yes ma'am did you say the salary conversation yeah around file Fighters and I think that's kind of the biggie that we'll need to I think they're going to come back this is the suggestions for us on that.

So that's going to be yeah in terms of what we're going to do with that so as it relates to stand we've basically done all of the calculations that we are presenting the council around the different pay plans that everybody works in and so we we don't have we're not going to have additional suggestions but we're going to be listening to the guidance from Council and providing it you know additional information so right now the budget is balanced we've made detailed presentations on our Revenue picture obviously anything that would be added to the budget that is not already there that will have to be a revenue source for it or we would have to make a reduction in some other area that would be a similar area so if it's a one-time thing then you know that's that's something that's somewhat easier for us to make the calculations for in a short period of time if it is a change to the budget a proposed change to the budget.

That is recurring and it has to be included in our recurring Revenue sources you know we do have to have time to make those calculations once we receive correction from the city council but that is you know that's part of what we do and we you know we will we will do it but we we do not as an Administration have additional recommendations around pay that is related specifically to to one of our group of employees we do not have that may approach him vote by councilman yes thank you madam mayor and that and I just want to be clear that was my essentially my understanding when the staff presented I guess it was yesterday with the 16 million dollar price tag they said that they were doing a comp plan study six to eight percent raise in this next budget at least my understanding is that in the given the general flow of the conversation was that we were going to wait for the outcome of that comp plan study which is.

In this budget alone along with the six to eight percent raise that's in there I think the chief even said that that that's a good signal that we're doing the comprehensive land study along to eight percent signals to our workers that we're you know taking some some deliberative action I I did not understand that we had an action pending we talked about a four percent four cent raise to the tax we talked about 16 million dollars every year moving forward to to to adjust that at least it wasn't mine to say I thought we were going to go with the the plan I didn't understand the staff was bringing back any further recommendations and what we had gotten yesterday here's the price tag if we want to do it here's what we plan on doing the comp plan and starting with the race so that that was at least my understanding of things thank you madam and.

Just acknowledging that anything could come from public hearing and we want to give staff the chance to review that I don't think that night will be appropriate just put them on the spot to respond and so I do want to make sure that we are mindful that we have we can have the conversations as we do always with one another I just don't think there needs to be moved I think customer cover and Radley and he alsoever invention can be absent that's wrong I am open to suggestions as to you know I don't think it'll make a decision if you want to have her to publish that date or not yeah thumbs up thumbs and multiple way of understanding thumbs up just give the numbers and we'll settle that for Journeys and all the particulars can be in our diet if we get closer okay now we will take closing remarks from the council and then we will end with our city manager I think we're just very quickly I want.

To thank staff again for excellent presentations and all of her work and appreciate the last two days with all the extra information and I I'm glad that we were able to stream these as well and the so that the public is also very aware of what's going on anybody else I just also want to say thank you for the hard work and information thank you so much ditto most of the staff has departed yeah please pass on our thanks to everyone who's left and we again appreciate all of your words yes sir thank you madam here thank you Christina for a great job and with our challenging time this is my colleague congratulations as well this is the start budget this is literally a budget that everybody want to say at the point to something in it and say that you had it handed and I hope that's what you'll be talking about within the coming days and congratulations for the first time in decades we're actually going to.

Pass a budget I believe that was a significant way to address a historic this investment and equity in our city and that is a historic threshold of the crossing so congratulations. Thank you I'm sure a lot of work and very difficult for you in the team right now manager and staff everyone thank you all so much I think that the the only thing that I I personally would love to see more is you know we spend the least amount of time on our continued playing goal of shared economic theory and it does it doesn't fit well with me that we're an entire city and we don't talk a lot about it and I would love to see us put some amount of energy as we do and trying to figure out the housing situation into also the other side of that which is producing more Revenue that can help us address some of those things we're an entire municipality 74 74th largest in the country and we have a lot that we.

Can be proud of number one state for business number three best place to live in the country you know the blue scene is talked about all over the world and we aren't leveraging that and I hope that the upcoming fiscal year we started developing that culture to where we are going to hear presentations from Economic Development we're going to have a robust Department that is going to you know leverage all of the things that are happening and can help us address some of these shortfalls that we have the powerful situation it's not going to get any better you know so I will I just want to say to my colleagues I hope that we can start highlighting more of that and being much more robust in that area thank you I think about last year this time we were out at Miss Lake and we were having on we had we had Mr John paulor with us to lead us through this process and on last Sunday we were having his the Lord of service.

And we acknowledge our Deputy city manager Bertha Johnson who spoke at that event on last Sunday and also also would like to acknowledge those who were there with us for that event just goes to show you how life can change really fast and expectations of where we are were last year and where we are now now they sometimes don't pan out and then it also shows you how we continue to move forward and how people line the midst of grief and change at the Forefront of that change come forward and put on excellent presentations so I would like to thank Ms Christina Riordan and her able staff for all that they have done to guide us to this point today in the midst of their agreement blue city is still strong and so thank you all and we look forward to whatever is going to happen in the next year knowing that we will stand ready for the challenges ahead so everyone city manager for you and your your executive team.

For leading us through this effort thank you to my colleagues for us being able even in the midst of all our trying times to come here today to get things done as for the people of Durham thank you all for that and I'll turn it over to you city manager page to close us out thank you thank you madam mayor I would just like to again say thank you mayor for your leadership mayor Pro tem for the members of council for providing us together that we need to actually bring you recommendations bring you information that we believe represents you know many of the priorities of our community as well as be able to provide our employees with a a quality of work life that wants that helps them want to be here rather than other places we don't take any of that for granted we do our best to you know provide you with a complete analyzes to help you make very very difficult decisions that you're required to make.

From the seat State and sit in we are always here to answer questions as we continue down this road to final budget adoption as as I prepare to say my last words I too I want to thank Christina Reardon she's done an excellent job stepping into the interim budget Management Services the regular role she's led her team I see one member of her team sitting over there who really supposed to be all parallel lead but he wants to be here today to be with his team as we continue to listen write notes and I could not ask for a better team of leaders and and support Personnel I'm just I'm just one person but I'm surrounded by many many people who are not in this room they're out working certain potholes and picking up your garbage can or your your recycling bin or a couple of mattresses that some people have put out today but you know we all work together to make this City a a great place to live work and.

Play we we're nowhere near perfect we're nowhere near where we want to be but we are making progress and I appreciate I appreciate you all so thank you all right nothing further being said we.