Consider Directing Staff to Present the Steps for City Council to Return to Its Role as Board of Commissioners for the City of Alameda Housing Authority.  (Councilmember Matarrese) [Not heard April 4, 2017]
Okay. This was my referral. Um, the referral is to propose to return the City Council to its role as the Board of Commissioners for the City of Alameda Housing Authority. And my request is that a request that the city council direct the city manager and city attorney to present to the Council the steps necessary to reinstate the City Council as the Board of Commissioners for the Alameda Housing Authority with the responsibility for policy and approval of the HRA budget. What I would like people also, and I'm mindful of the threats that the federal government has made against sanctuary cities. And there's quite a bit of federal money that comes in the form of housing vouchers and housing subsidies. So I also like the the report to include an analysis of that and. I think I'm not insisting that we actually do it immediately, but I would like to have us consider taking the steps. The justification for this is we all know that there's a housing crisis here, and I believe that the best way to address affordable housing has been and will continue to be through the housing authority. It's more reliable and it's more has more certainty than the home market rate. Deliverance of affordable housing units. Alameda residents also expect the city council to do something about housing. They also have expected in the past when that council was the policy board to do something about when there were problems with the housing authority. And I've heard some complaints about from the residents of Constitution Plaza about the change in atmosphere and changing some of the rules there. That's a minor point. But those individuals expect to go to an elected body to seek to seek of a voice, to a sounding board and in a direct line to action. I also think personally that if I'm being held accountable for housing the city as a council member, I think we should have the authority and with our rec system, whether it stays or goes, all of all of the rental activity goes through the housing authority as well. And we're being the council is the expectation of people as council. Responsible. That's my justification. Hey, we have a speaker. Uh, I know it's the first, but unless. Or is it just one too? There's a. Okay. Vanessa Cooper. Sara, are you speaking with Officer? I have left if you want to speak on this. Well, actually, no, because I thought the room would be full and you wouldn't know I was here. I just wanted to make sure that I was here to answer any questions that you have. We are mindful that, you know, in December, we got a 5% cut on our Section eight program that approximates to about 82 families that we have to unhoused somehow by the end of the year. So we're really looking at that. We expect to do that through attrition, but we don't have budget authority until April 28th. And if the government shuts down or the president's bill for the budget passes, we can expect increasing changes to the Section eight program, which is really the bulk of the work we do. There's not a lot of policy making there, unfortunately. It's not driven policy. And so I'm here to answer any questions that you might have. We are concerned about sanctuary city. We are concerned about the just the sort of level of tension right now in terms of the federal and the state government. And my staff are fully occupied on getting people housed, keeping people housed. We are at almost zero vacancy every week. And so we're busy tackling the housing crisis. I remember Ashraf. I'm so. And Ms.. Cooper, we heard Councilmember Matt Arrestee refer to complaints. He's heard about Constitution Plaza, I think maybe Independence Plaza perhaps. Are you aware of what those complaints are? Right. So so when I first came to the housing authority, we looked at our policies, we looked at our lease, we brought in a new lease, which, frankly, was not that popular, actually, it had been designed by my predecessor and implemented under me. We have really moved through the housing crisis to try and maximize the use of our housing. And frankly, sometimes that has meant we've had to enforce the rules more clearly. So, for example, Independence Plaza, we have clearly enforced the rules about extra guests. There were multitudes of people leaving early in the morning who were not on our lease. Similarly, we have enforced payments so people were behind on their rent. And in order for for this type of housing to work, you have to get the rents in place. What I do realize is for some people, they don't like a more formal property management approach. But I will tell you, for those that have complaints, there are those that come up and say to me, thank you so much, you know, we want addressing such and such or this wasn't getting getting done. So the other thing to say is that the housing authority also has a much more formal complaint process now. So there's a site manager, the manager is available. There's someone on site seven days a week for people to talk to. Then there's a supervisor that's available. And then then we have a complaint form. We have a social worker who is available to every single resident, not just in a properties, but also in the private market in a section eight units that social worker and our translators will help them fill out the form if they can't do it and they will get a response back. We say ten days, but I will tell you, those responses go out in 2 to 3 days unless there's some kind of data inquiry. You know, sometimes and I think you've probably seen this yourselves where perhaps what you're getting from the tenant is not exactly what the data shows on the other side. So I'll be honest with you. You know, we're in the business of housing people. And when you house people, you have to address the rules. And there are some people who don't like the rules and there are some people who do. Those that get caught in perhaps stronger enforcement of the rules are more likely to be unhappy. What I will tell you is that the residents at Independence Plaza have had lots of new improvements. They have had us go through and sort out a lot of their parking issues, which has been a 20 year problem from what I can see in the documents. But not everyone is happy with that. And some people would like to have a softer touch in terms of that. But it's our job really to maximize the use of affordable housing in this market. Thank you very much. Anyone know the background in regards to why was it separated by was housing authorities? Well, yes. So there's a long history of coming together and coming apart. What I will say is that at least from the research that we've done, the work that was done in 2012 to separate was predominantly to put in place a fiscal and reputational firewall so that the assets that the housing authority has, which, for example, have large capital needs, would be dealt with by the housing authority and not impacted by the city. And similarly, you know, we're very much a retail business, and other than your permit center downstairs, you're not an amp, you're not really a retail business. So in terms of tackling those tenant issues, those types of things, this sort of reputational and financial firewall was put in place. All right. I mean, I'd like to hear more about this plan and this idea, mostly for the reasons that my colleague mentioned. You know, and I, I don't receive a lot of complaints, but, you know, I do. I have received one kind of continuing complaint. And if the complaint is with the person who said the resident manager, what would you call. Right. So so your complaint is with me actually, we've been been working on that, but they do pass them up very quickly. They are instructed as soon as they get those complaints, as long as they can be resolved right there, face to face, they come on right up. Now, her her issue is not with you. Her issue is with the person that runs the. The building so mean. But the point of that is that there's no accountability to an elected official like a council member matter, he said. So I'd like to hear more about this. And I also think that the rent thing, if we do do a contract with the Housing Authority, I mean, the buck stops here with us on all that rental stuff. And to not have a lot of these considering having some control over that when we're making the policy and we're dealing with the constituents, I really think it's important to have this discussion. So I think. Mr. Matter SC for bringing this forward. Member Ashcroft. Um, so I, I mean, it's true. As Council members, we hear from disgruntled constituents all the time. When I look at the housing authority, I try to figure out what what's broken that we would be fixing, what's the problem that we're trying to address. I mean, I think that, you know, as the city, we do have rental properties that at Alameda Point and we keep ourselves busy just making sure that's all administered well. But my biggest hesitation and why I won't support this council referral is we have the potential of placing these housing authority section eight funds in jeopardy. And I don't take that lightly, and I would not in any way want my name associated with taking that first step. I think this is a very dangerous time. And, you know, for all intents and purposes, people the next four years to be fooling around with something as essential as funding for needy people housing. So I think there are a myriad of ways to address problems that people have with their housing providers. And we should know as well as anyone that, you know, there's always many sides to an issue. So I just think this seems like an extreme remedy with a lot of dangerous repercussions. And I I'm kind of chicken when it comes to stuff like that. Last year. You know, I have concerns about the fiscal impacts of a decision like this. And I also would just say that I think that there are other checks because just like we have when we have a contract with any other provider of services, I think there are there are connections. Our staff is working with the Housing Authority staff, and I think we could maybe address some of the issues relative to the rent program in connection with the contract for services. And I would prefer to do it that way than to kind of take a bigger step right now when there are so many so much funds at Jeopardy. Based off of what's coming down the pipeline from the federal government. All right. And. So great. So at this point I'm hearing two to choose member two just said and I'm going to I wanted to ask Steph, could we have just some some more of a discussion rather than this? So this referral is speaks to looking at having the city return a housing authority to the city. But could we just have a presentation from the Housing Authority? Where we could talk about, you know, what about these complaints? How do they address it, things like that. And then at some point, we could reconsider if we decide based upon that, that we do want to look at more. But at this point, that's what I would suggest, is that we have a presentation by about the housing authority where we talk about things and answer these questions. But I would not be agreeable to supporting this referral. And my concern is that that's why I asked why did we set it up this way initially fiscal firewall. And I think that that could and I wasn't on the council when they did that 2012. And were Madras were you on you weren't on the council then either. Was there anyone here that was on the council in 2000? Okay. So elected at the end of 2012, I said, okay. So it was a fiscal firewall apparently. So I would think that that is an important reason to keep it separate for fiscal reasons. And then yes, member Ashcraft. I didn't mean to cut you off. I didn't mean to do that. Oh, well, what I was going to say is we have this council referral in front of us and we've just tabled a couple of others. I. I think that we, there's other ways we can. You know, find out more about what the housing authority is doing. But right now we have a council referral to present the steps for the City Council to return to its role as the Board of Commissioner for the City of Alameda Housing Authority, which would make the Housing Authority part of our sanctuary city resolution that we did. And that's what's before us. And that is what involves giving direction to staff and nothing beyond that. It's just not agenda. Okay, so, so. But modify. It. But we want to list that we'd like a report. On and just get a report. To review. All right. Very. Member matter as you. Would you consider modifying your referral? Well, then I. Don't think it would be a referral, I would think. You know, maybe concurrent with the next report on. The Rent Review Advisory Committee and the. Managing of of rental complaints and supervision that's being contracted by the housing authority could be expanded to include. The status of the of the housing authority projects. President. Okay. All right. Yeah, it was their privacy issue. I was just trying to ask if there's a privacy issue, because, like the Section eight folks have privacy. Yeah. Well, yeah, so so I. I'm not there's a federal privacy rule that is specific to section eight. So I can't come to you and say, Mrs. Smith and my unit, such and such, I can tell you is how many complaints you received, how they were resolved to a certain extent, except for the very smallest properties. I can't tell you. I could tell you, you know, there were five from Independence Plaza and three of them. Were getting worse. Yes. That that we could do. Yeah. All right. So we're good with that one? Yes. Withdraw or referral. So you were. Saying thank you. And now. Uh, that was the last. Time enabled. Everything. Yep. So we just. So do I. I'm sorry. I don't. During the meeting. Do we just continue to. Right. So there's still during the meeting then at this time. Okay. So it's now 155 in the morning, um, during the meeting. Thank you, everyone. Have a wonderful morning.