Recommendation to respectfully request City Manager, Department of Health and Human Services and Development Services Department to develop an incentive package to encourage landlord acceptance of subsidized tenants through the Housing Choice Voucher Program, and return to the City Council in 30 days. The incentive package should incorporate the following options: • Align and streamline the current city-mandated inspections with the HUD-mandated Housing Choice Voucher inspections; • Waive various permits and inspection costs for apartment owners who accept Housing Choice Vouchers; • Create a Damage Mitigation Fund which provides financial assistance to landlords to mitigate damage caused by tenants during their occupancy under the Housing Choice Voucher Program; • Provide landlords vacancy payments to hold units while the landlord is going through the Housing Choice Voucher Program approval process.
Item 20 is a communication from Vice Mayor Richardson, Councilmember Pearce, Councilwoman Mango Councilmember your recommendation to request the City Manager, Health and Human Services Development Services Department to develop an incentive package to encourage landlord acceptance of subsidized tenants through the Housing Choice Voucher Program and return to the City Council in 30 days. Thank you. And Mayor stepped down. So I'm going to run this portion. So about a year, a little less than a year ago when I became chair of the Housing Authority, I sat down with the chair, with the executive director, Allison King, to learn more about the various programs and the support that they offered Long Beach residents . It's an amazing program that serves many hardworking Long Beach working families, and we're in a particular time when the status of the program is in jeopardy given the climate in Washington, D.C. and the dynamics of our local rental market. So let's look at what's stood out to me was when I learned that our housing choice voucher program, commonly known as Section eight, is not being utilized to its full potential with a 2% vacancy rate in the Long Beach housing market. It's become increasingly difficult to subsidize for subsidized tenants to find housing. There are over a thousand families and individuals who hold a voucher but are unable to find a landlord that's willing to rent to them or a vacant Section eight vacancy. So we began to look into why this is so. So we partnered with the Apartment Association. We conducted multiple focus groups and surveys to better understand apartment owners barriers to accepting the housing choice vouchers. After speaking with several apartment owners, we found that there's a strong need for modernization for the program to compete with rising rents, coupled with an education campaign to dispel the many misconceptions about the program. Throughout the process, we explored questions like Why would a landlord bother with a housing choice voucher when they can receive a higher premium in the marketplace? Why bother with yet another, more rigorous inspection when we already were already subject to other multiple inspections? Why would an apartment owner hold a unit vacant while a potential tenant conducts a Section eight process? When we can lease up to a market rate tenant and less time with less bureaucracy. It's clear to me that in order for the housing choice voucher program to compete with the open market, we need to modernize and create a better value proposition for property owners. In addition, early on we found that apartment owners felt that applying for the program was a difficult, difficult process to navigate and the website was not as helpful as it could be. So the Housing Authority was able to respond to some of these quick concerns quickly and realign their resources to create an ombudsman position to work specifically with apartment owners who are applying for the Housing Choice Voucher program as well as well as current owners in the program. Further, the Housing Authority is moving forward with redesigning its website to be more friendly and modern before. But there are some elements that require a deeper dove. So let's go ahead and move to a staff report so we can hear a little bit more on the focus groups, the surveys and some of the some of the next steps. Alison King, our director of our housing authority. Thank you. As Vice mayor stated, our program is one of the largest affordable housing programs here in the city of Long Beach. We provide financial assistance to low income, elderly and disabled residents of Long Beach so that they can live with dignity and decent, safe and sanitary housing. Currently, the Housing Authority, in partnership with 2600 property owners, assist over 6300 households that lease units in the city of Long Beach through various programs, including the Housing Choice Voucher Program. In addition to the Housing Choice Voucher program, we have other programs that specifically support veterans, those with HIV and AIDS and those with mental health challenges. Our tenant based rental assistance program offers much of a subsidy to housing residents. They generally pay between 30 and 40% of their income toward the rent, and the housing authority subsidizes the balance. We currently receive $68 million for the Housing Choice Voucher Program and have the opportunity to serve 7398 families with permanent, stable housing. The problem is that the housing authority for many years was a high performing agency, and that means basically that we achieved a 98% utilization rate of the vouchers that we were allocated over the last several years. There has been a increase in the number of vouchers that we have been provided, largely due to the VASH program, which is the only program that has had an increase of allocation. However, we have had a significant decrease in the number of owners who have been willing to offer their unit in the service of the Section eight voucher program. Currently, we are at an 85% lease up rate. This means that we are in jeopardy of having leftover funds recaptured by the federal government to assist other programs throughout the country that are running a shortfall. Understanding the problem to attain increased program utilization. Vice Mayor Richardson has engaged in a process, along with the Apartment Association of Southern California Cities and the Housing Authority, to engage apartment owners and identify causes for the recent decline in use of the voucher. Through this process, we convened three focus groups with over 40 owners and administered over 150 surveys. The owner demographics are 60% of our owners owned five or less units. 30% own between five and ten units and 10% owned 20 or more units. In our own conversations, there were many misconceptions, such as different rules govern subsidized tenants. The truth is, is that subsidized families are subject to the same rules as market rate families, as long as they are applied consistently, with the exception of the notice to vacate, which must be a 90 day notice. Without cause I can't ever evict or ask a subsidized tenant to vacate. This also is a misconception in that, as I mentioned, the 90 day notice to vacate without cause is always an option after the first year of tenancy and an individual can be evicted for cause at any time. I cannot charge voucher tenants. Market rate rent payment standards are what we publish to owners, and yet they are not the cap on the rent, only the cap on the subsidy. While some of our voucher holding families have significantly low income, they cannot pay more than 40% of their adjusted income in the first year after the first year of tenancy. That can indeed increase as long as the rent is reasonable. Section eight Tenants are criminals, drug dealers and bad people. The majority of housing choice voucher holders are simply low income families, and any owner has the ability and should take the responsibility to vet any individual who occupies their unit. Through these various focus groups and some and surveys, a number of recommendations have emerged from these groups to help increase the voucher lease up. The findings largely included the need for more outreach and education to landlords to address the misconceptions about the program. We believe that this has presented many opportunities for us to move forward. Some of the concerns that were raised are the city mandated inspections and fees that owners pay. Owners believed that if they accepted a Section eight voucher that they had to upgrade the unit, which is definitely a misconception. Voucher holders are hard on the unit and leave them with high costs to fix damages, and the section they process takes up to a month and they are expected to hold the unit for that period of time. These are some of the things that we hope to address along with, as vice mayor said, streamlining our website, having a single point of contact with an ombudsperson and improving our communications with owners via our newsletter as well as other opportunities to engage. At this time, I'll turn it back to Vice Mayor for the opportunities he'd like to propose. Thank you. So before continuing with my emotional and take a minute and just thank Alice and her team at the Housing Authority for educating my staff and myself these last few months and working together to think outside of the box, to find new ways to address the needs of both the program participants and the apartment owners. I also want to thank the development services partner for being a well being willing to color outside of the lines and explore some ways to partner and create some efficiencies. I want to thank the Apartment Association for coming to the table, convening multiple focus groups of apartment owners. Your assistance, your support has been instrumental in shaping how we modernize the Housing Choice Vote Voucher program. I also want to thank the tenant rights groups for supporting this effort as it's our single largest resource to keep families from slipping into homelessness. So tonight I'm requesting that the City Manager, Department of Health and Human Services and Development Services Department develop an incentive package to encourage broader adoption of the Housing Choice Voucher Program and return to City Council in 3045 days. I'm requesting that staff work to incorporate the following elements align and streamline the current city mandated inspections with the HUD mandated housing choice voucher inspection. Waive various permits, license fees, inspection costs for apartment owners who accept housing choice vouchers. Create a damaged middle damage mitigation fund, which provides financial assistance to landlords to mitigate damage caused by tenants during their occupancy under the Housing Choice Voucher Program and provide landlord landlords vacancy payments in order to hold the unit while the landlord is going through the housing choice voucher program. These are elements that could be a part of this incentive package. The obviously we've done a little bit of homework, but they still need to be vetted out completely. So we do have the flexibility to come with what we think will work and what we can support. And and so with that, I asked my colleagues for their support tonight. Thank you. So next we have Councilmember Pearce. Thank you, vice mayor, and thank you staff and the apartment association and all the housing advocates that have done work on this saying in my office, as always, that everybody needs to be at the table and that if we're not talking at the same table together, then we're always going to have misconceptions. And so I really want to applaud the vice mayor for doing that, not just on one occasion, but on multiple occasions where we can really take apart some of the misconceptions and start fixing our program. And so when I first came into office, homelessness was one of my biggest issues in my district, and we continued to meet with as many department folks as we could and many advocates and try to find out some of the challenges. And so I'm thankful that Rex is leading on this. Proud sponsor, co-sponsor, because we know that the housing choice voucher program is a critical tool that can be used to combat and prevent homelessness at any given moment there . Between 506 hundred voucher holders in Long Beach who cannot find an affordable unit to lease. Oftentimes their vouchers will expire, as the vice mayor mentioned, and many have to start the process over and reapply all over again. The impacts on this are huge for our city, and we are now at a new opportunity with new revenue sources as well from the passage of Measure H and unique opportunity to develop such programs as this. I had just two questions on are there opportunities right now outlined in Measure H that directly connect to Section eight housing? That's for staff. I can't answer that. Yes, Mr. West. I'm going to turn that over to Allison. There are opportunities. They have not specifically been defined at this point. Our director of Health and Human Services, Kelly Calliope, is serving on a county wide committee to review those. So, yes, there are opportunities. Great. Thank you so much, Vice Mayor, for bringing this item forward. I hope everybody can support this tonight. Sure thing. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Well, I think. My question was was certainly answered here. I will definitely be supporting this because I think it merits a look in and I'm very interested with what I'm going to be most interested in, what comes back from staff. I think I'm concerned about the funding, obviously, with the at least three of the points here. I'm wondering where those funds are coming from. And I heard Measure H being an opportunity. I'm curious to know you mentioned that that we were at a 85% threshold. So can we use the rest of that 15% toward this? Unfortunately, no. HUD funds us in such a way that our housing assistance payments are specifically only for the purpose of paying rent, and that is only once an individual begins their tenancy in a unit. We would have to use our administrative fees, which are being pro-rated at about 80% of what we should be receiving. And we are only getting those administrative fees when an individual leases up. So our revenues have been dipping and do not present an opportunity for them to use in a very broad manner. Okay. And I understand the challenge in terms of finding available housing with those who are holding vouchers. And I know we've we've had housing authority meetings pretty regularly. What is the vacancy rate here in Long Beach now? It still remains at about 1.8 to 2.2%. I believe that has been the information that has been reported. So if we were to actually incentivize Section eight housing, incentivize landlords to to to make that 1.8% available, how many would what does that look like in terms of real numbers? I'm sorry, I couldn't answer that specifically, but the challenge has been that many owners in the area are not even giving an opportunity to voucher holding families. We understand and respect their need to vet these families and anyone else who occupies the unit. We simply want them to have a chance to apply and be considered based on their suitability for tenancy. Understood. And then and then lastly, on the first point, I mean, it says to a line is drawn line. The current city mandated inspections with HUD mandated housing choice voucher inspections. And perhaps somebody from staff can tell me how those inspections are currently done. Now, are they done by the same personnel? Each of them were conducted by two separate departments, and we are investigating where there is synergy in each of those. At this time, we don't have that information. Okay. Now, in a. Former. Role, I was I represented a Section eight housing inspectors in for Hakala. And I know their role is a lot different than code enforcement. So I know that's something that's going to have to be really vetted out and worked out through with staff and with the the impact of labor organizations. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Austin. And those are some of the things we hope to explore. Maybe if one inspections happened in on one day, the other inspection could perhaps happen the same day. So there's less, you know, disruption to the landlord and the folks who live in the complex. So these are all great questions. Thank you for those. Councilman Price. Thank you. I want to thank the vice mayor and my colleagues for bringing this item. It's a great item. I look forward to hearing what representatives from the Apartment Association and the tenants rights groups have to say. I know we have received some letters, but I like to hear that everybody was at the table and input was elicited from everyone. I think that's really great. I know that one of the things and I read the stuff, I read the agenda item a couple of days ago. So my memory may not be correct on this, but I think I also heard Vice Mayor Richardson make a statement about maybe needing an ombudsman, too. So my concern is I'm wondering what staff resources we already have, at least maybe for a pilot. Graham could we use our existing staff resources? And that's something that I think would be included in the city manager's report. Is this something that we can explore without taking on an additional cost in terms of staffing for the city? So the city manager can look at this issue with an eye towards us not having additional staffing? I would feel a lot better about it, at least for a pilot period of time, until we can figure out whether we can use measure funds and things like that. I think we can say to a rest we already figured out the Ombudsman without spending an additional dollar rate. That's fantastic. That makes me feel a lot better. And I think the other thing I was going to ask Allison is I think I had read an article about something, a similar program to this being used in other municipalities in the Western Cities magazine. Is this something that other cities are exploring in terms of incentive packages? Absolutely. Our neighbors have it. The County of Los Angeles Housing Authority and the City of Los Angeles Housing Authority are already doing many different things. I was at a recent meeting where they identified 1553 I'm sorry, strategies that they are using to combat this issue. They, however, have elected to turn over all of their new vouchers for the purposes of homeless persons only. So there was a recent article that indicated that their waiting list has over 40,000 persons, and that is because they are targeting specifically homeless individuals. And in in terms of that, were they experiencing the same problem with the the that the voucher is not being utilized to their fullest extent? There were challenges in getting owners to the table. They are already doing things such as the vacancy payment and the security deposit. Yes. Okay. That's that's an interesting consideration. Utilizing it for exclusively for homelessness. Is that something that you think down the road might work for, for the city of Long Beach based on your expertize? That's not an answer that I can really give. However, I will say that we currently do set aside vouchers to our multi-service center. They are our coordinated entry system and they do already identify those persons who would be a good candidate for the voucher. We have been increasing that number as the need arises. Fortunately, we are all in the same department and will continue to be responsive to the need as it presents itself. Do you know if all the vouchers that the Multi-Service Center has get used to any of those not get used? Every one of those that they get allocated are referred to us. Now, of course, those persons are also struggling to find places to use them. But every voucher that we set aside for them, we get a referral from them. That's great. Thank you, Will. Thank you for the report. It was really informative. And again, thank you to my colleagues for bringing this item. Thank you and council members. Yes. I, too, want to just say thank you for bringing this item forward. Vice Mayor and council colleagues. I think it is a fantastic item that, you know, where we need to look everywhere to find housing opportunities. And so thanks to everyone in the audience as well for being a part of it. I have just a couple of questions on the item, and I want to also thank Housing Authority Alison for your great work as well. So the damage mitigation fund, I was talking to Council Member Pearce and what other cities have something like this and what are the logistics? The county is doing this program as well. It's a $2,000 fund that they set aside with very strict policies on how it is used. They implemented this in February of 2016. At a recent meeting last week, they indicated to date that they have only had to pay one damage claim for an individual who had only been occupying the unit for two months before they destroyed something. But they also do have supportive services in place to follow up with families once they lease a unit. Okay, great. That's good to hear. And then next question. I know you had mentioned that we received an abundance of ash vouchers, and I know we haven't we haven't gone through all of them. Is that correct? At this at this time. We have not least of all of our ash vouchers, they, too, have the same concern of not having places to be able to use them. However, we do have a new project based development that is coming online in the fall anchor place on the property of the villages of Cabrillo. Those will be 75 project based vouchers. Vouchers. And those are specifically for veterans. Correct. Okay. So if we don't have and who knows, you know, the specs, of course. But do we have an ongoing need for veteran housing? I mean, it would seem like we would, but I know we don't have a place. So I guess my question would be if if say we don't have any more veterans out there that need these types of vouchers, would this with these vouchers possibly, is it possible to convert them to just generic vouchers at all? No. These vouchers were specifically identified by HUD for the voucher program. We receive all of our VASH referrals directly from the Veterans Administration, and those are sent to us. And I do believe that they still have a very significant number of persons that are in need of housing. Okay, great. Thank you very much for that. And again, appreciate all your work. Thank you. And that was a good, robust discussion. It's not so often that we see, you know, something come the council that has apartment owners and renters both saying the same thing. And that said, let's let's go ahead and have public comment. So please come forward and you have state your name. You have 3 minutes. Thank you. Robert Fox again. Sorry to be in front of you so often tonight. I gave you all a letter, and I hope you will read it. It sounds a little harsh, but it's my personal experience. The Section eight Housing Department. At one time, I worked very closely with the head of the department, Laura Joseph, when she was the director. And we did have a reform of Section eight housing, and it worked pretty well for a long time. Unfortunately, in the meantime, that those reforms were kicked out the window. So I appreciate the fact that we're at least coming to the table and talking about reforming this department. Let me tell you what my problem is with it, because I don't accept Section eight anymore. Like many, many landlords and I'm I'm just angry that I don't because I'm like this crazy, generous person. I sat on the board of the Gay Lesbian Center, so I accepted Hopper grants, you know, and I wanted to help people. I furnished an apartment for somebody who didn't have any furniture, you know? I mean, I've done way over-the-top stuff, but I got burned so bad by this department. It was amazing. The inspectors would come in and literally tell me if my toilet didn't flush in 3 seconds, I had to replace the toilet. And I thought, Where in the hell is that in the code? You know, I helped write the building planning code for the city of Long Beach long time ago with Jeanne Zeller. So I thought that sort of weird, you know, they had inspection standards that would be like for a mansion in Newport Beach. What I in my buildings are in great shape because I'm fanatic, you know? But it's like they cited me for all this stuff and I going, What? What are you talking about? Oh, what the PSA is and how high enough in your your kitchen faucet. Really? Because mine is just the same as that in my house. We need to codify the kind of inspection that we are going to do on housing. We are not in Section eight giving palatial palaces to rich and famous folks. We just want good, standard, clean housing. That's what we want. And I provide it. I don't provide anything else. But. And yet. When you're in an inspection process with Section eight, they can just withhold your rent and it doesn't matter that you took care of it in 10 minutes, you lose a month's rent and there's no negotiation with these people at all, period. So it brings me to the other issue that, of course, me as a landlord and as a person have that department is so hostile. And when I go up there trying to do my best to get a friend of mine into the Section eight program and he's going to move into my unit, it's like the two of us just I mean, Vince and I just were freaked, you know, he was treated like some sort of lowlife criminal and I was treated like some greedy jerk. They'd close windows on us. They'd make us wait for two and a half hours, you know, sitting there and it's like, wait a minute. So I go up to the window. I said, How long do we wait for this stuff? Shall I make an appointment with you? Now you just have to wait. And rudely. So I got to tell you something. It's about staff, Allison. You have. Got to. Train people. To have good manners. You know, you. If you anger people that much, what landlord wants to go through that. So if you can direct. Well, it looks like a few minutes, but thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening to Mayor Garcia in his absence. And greetings to all on the panel tonight, especially Mayor Rex Richardson. My name is Rhonda Butler, and thank you so much for being concerned about the housing problem that we have in Long Beach. I am one of the ones who is unable to use my voucher. I was on the list for 18 years before my name was chosen. I was issued my voucher in May of last year. I'm at my last extension and I have nine days left. No one will take my voucher. I have always worked hard and have always paid my way. Being a city employee, working my way up from the bottom custodian, parking enforcement officer, and then to public works as a parking checker, I made the 525 when working a city vehicle, came out of gear and pinned me up against a parked car. I was let go due to my non career status. I'm not looking for a handout, just a helping hand. Thank you so much. I've been here since 330. I need to say something to you tonight, and I just want to thank everybody that came. I don't know about the gentleman in the red shirt, but I've never came to office, man. And nobody never treated me wrong there. I've never waited longer than I should have. I waited for my name and I waited for my number. And I always got service when I was there. So maybe he just showed up on a bad day, but I never came here and got mistreated. And I'm so glad to see you here tonight. And I'm so glad that everybody is here tonight. I know that Long Beach is working. I've been in this city for 60 years. Me and my mother came here when I was a little girl. Before all this stuff was even here. So I just want to say thank you for. For looking out for us. We need somebody to look out for us. And I don't want to be homeless. But I'm on my way. I ran out of all my options. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, sir. I read that article. Somebody hurt us and God is using you. He's using you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello again, Sylvia Contreras. I just wanted to make a comment. Years ago, I had a family member that lived here in Long Beach, worked in Long Beach, and moved out of the city and then moved out of state. Came to a point that when she moved out of state, she needed state assistance and she wanted to come back to Long Beach. And I said, well, you know, what? Does she have state assistance out there? Maybe you can qualify for state assistance here. So so let me call a section, a group, and see how this can work. So when I did, what they told me is that, no, it cannot be a family member. They have to wait in line. I don't know if that's true or not. But what that made me feel, I said, Well, if I can't help my own family, like, you know, I felt bad helping strangers. So that deterred me from going to Section eight. She came back again about a year ago and I said, you know, that's what they told me years ago. I can't help you unless I become the subsidized person, and then that would affect my income. So yeah, incentive maybe an incentive would be to let landlords, you know, if they have a family member in need and they qualify, why can't they be the ones to move in? I don't know. That's just my comment. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, everyone. Can we fight and live at 17 Pacific Avenue? And I'm with the Long Beach Gray Panthers. And affordable housing is one of the key issues that we are addressing this year in our campaigns. And I'm very heartened to see that the working towards creative solutions to an affordable housing issue. And I just want to commend the Housing Department. And Ms.. King has been amazing in her willingness to work with the community to create solutions that really help our community. But we still have a number of issues with affordable housing and unjust evictions, and there's just going to be more and more demand on our housing and our landlords. So I'm very hopeful since we're beginning to take steps to address some solutions. Thank you for all your efforts. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Mayor Garcia and Honorable City Council. My name is Johanna Cunningham, the executive director for the Apartment Association, California Southern Cities. I am happy to come before you this evening on behalf of and in support of work that was spearheaded by Vice Mayor Rex Richardson and included ARCC and the Housing Authority. ARCC boasts over 2500 multifamily property owners, landlords, management companies and vendors who support this industry an industry that contributes greatly to our local and statewide economy, but an industry that has also been misrepresented by a few bad owners over the past few years. It has been our mission to connect with our city representatives and to inform and educate the truth about owning rental property. For over 98% of our owners in our city, you have responsible, compassionate and reliable owners who care about their residents. This is why it was a welcome partnership to engage in a conversation on some of the challenges that exist with a program that so many owners participated in and supported. In the past, over 98% of housing vouchers were being used, but it became clear that the changes in policies had not been adequately passed along or adopted by our owners. After several meetings with both the vice mayor and Alison King from the Housing Authority. There were issues that were not only cleared up as misunderstandings, but also made both sides aware that communication needed to be consistent. Needless to say, the meetings resulted in positive outcomes for both parties, and we look forward to continuing to work with willing partners. So I come before you this evening to thank you for including the Apartment Association California Southern cities in this process, for being willing to listen to our concerns and for being willing to work on an incentive package that will help increase participation in the housing voucher program. In conclusion, I want to thank Vice Mayor Rex Richardson, Alison King, and I want to thank you for those who have signed on to this recommendation. Janine Pearce from District two. Roberto, you on the from district seven. And Stacey Mongo from District five. We look forward to continuing this partner and we look for it as an industry that is more than just people oriented but is family oriented. Thank you for your time this evening. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello. My name is George O'Hara, and I have a small apartment in District seven. I'm new to residential housing, and I'm an insurance agent by day. A couple of years ago, I bought a small property built in 1955. Since that, it has required regular maintenance and repairs to plumbing systems, landscaping. And I just replaced that entire bathroom because of rot to the supporting beams under the floor. I guess that's to be expected for a 60 year old building. By chance, I was already a member of the Apartment Association of California Southern Cities. Their input has been instrumental in educating me on how to operate as a property owner. And inspire me to maintain a. Clean and attractive property. I want to thank Vice Mayor Rex Richardson for opening dialog with the Apartment Association on how to improve the Housing Choice Voucher Program in Long Beach for both landlords and tenants. I also want to thank Alison King for giving me an education on how Section eight of the voucher program works. I feel more confident with it now. I thank you. Thank you. Next bit of news. My name is George. I'm the total and I was here in October. I want to thank you, Mayor. You gave me a card and I got my section it. But five months I've called at least 400 numbers and either it's like we don't want to work with them and they hang up. Or there's just nothing there. There's nothing there. So my daughter is getting ready to run out. And I was told I don't get an extension. I know another young lady with three kids living in her car. When I was here last time, it was because we got evicted by. It's called the Dome now. It was the Mike Dunphy group. And they told us when we got kicked out that they were going to remodel and that we would have a chance to move back in where they're remodeled. So I went to a to apply for an apartment in the same building with Section eight. They accept Section eight, but they still want you to make twice that amount of rent. When I lived there, I was paying 750. A little small studio now. LS 1195 section. I don't pay that much. They only pay 1128. You guys build them all so everybody can be homeless. You know, it's just it's crazy. I've been here 52 years my whole life. And now I'm here again. Go again. Going to be homeless. There's got to be. Maybe when we turn, if we get our package turned in, if we bring our package in to section eight, can they get them going faster? So the managers don't give us you know, don't want to give our apartment away? Or is there a way that because I'm doing Multi-Service Center, if they can pay the deposit to guarantee that we're going to have that apartment, because a lot of managers said, well, we have to wait, you know, they don't want to wait. They don't want to leave their apartments sitting for a month, sometimes two months. There's got to be some. You know, we got all these abandoned buildings around here. You guys are building all this stuff. Redo a building for people that need it. Not all the homeless people out there want to be homeless. They don't want to be out there in the street. But there's no housing. None. There's more kids homeless out there than I even care to think about. So one more time. June. If I don't find a place and they won't give me an extension. What am I supposed to do? I'm 57 years old. I have lupus, I have Parkinson's, and I'm on a liver transplant list. And I'm in recovery, so I got ten years clean. If I have to go back out there and be homeless. Well, we understand. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor and city council and staff. I want to commend Vice Mayor Richardson and all the coauthors on just thinking out of the box and really thinking about innovative ways to help solve this affordable housing crisis that we have here in the city. I think it's a it's a great first step to, you know, to to move towards actually housing the people that need it the most. As you heard from Georgianna, Georgianna is definitely you've been having a hard time as well as another person out here in the in the audience that is also in Section eight, having a hard time finding a place to live. So and it's also just a shame that we're we're at the brink of losing all this funding from the federal government if we don't find, you know, find a way to actually keep it here. And then and then on top of that, the new administration and the threats that come to to the housing authority because of that, you know, and all of this ties in together, because I know the homeless the homeless or the people without homes is a huge issue and problem that the city is trying to tackle. And this is just one way, one step in moving toward actually solving that issue or finding a solution for that issue. If we can't if we can't remedy this, if we can't save this this great resource that that our city has, then we're just going to find ourselves piled up, piled on top of more people without homes . I mean, we have two people here in the audience, three people that are on the brink of that right now. And I know we can't build housing that fast, but we can try to encourage property owners to take Section eight and do whatever we can to think outside the box to make sure that people do have homes . So I do commend everybody on working, working on this and just let me know, you know, again, I didn't introduce myself. I'm sorry. We're hearing that our program director of Libra. So anything that we can do to help, to help educate the community, to let us know. And when you do come back with some educational program, I do recommend that you probably give VIP seating to Robert Fox because he definitely needs to to be educated on maybe dispelling some of the myths that he has on Section eight voucher holders, because that's definitely something that we need to do. Not everybody that holds Section eight, as you saw, is Georgina is not a drug dealer, is not a gang member, is not some sort of criminal. And we're not trying to to protect them because there are laws to get them out if they do if they do violate some sort of laws. But we do need to educate the community and those property owners that still holding on to those myths about Section eight tenants and and just maybe educate them and open their minds a little bit. Thank you very much for all the work on this. And thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor. Vice Mayor and other members. Other council members actually came here for a different reason, but I thought I would propose an idea. It's a long term shot, but I actually represent a landlord that borders a Section eight housing community in North Long Beach. The people there are generally good people. My proposition is find contractors, contractors, people that are willing to donate lumber, maybe renovate some projects in Long Beach that could use an uplift and find these people that were normally going to use the vouchers. Because it seems like there was two problems with your report, ability to use the vouchers and problems with the landlords so the city could then themselves become the landlord. And you hire or you teach these people that are willing to do contractors that are willing to donate their services, help people in need, learn a new craft. Therefore, they can be employed by the city afterwards, stay in Long Beach, pay taxes to Long Beach, and they live in a home that they helped build. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Next speaker, please. John dilatory names on file. Mr. Honorable Mayor and City Council. I appreciate the opportunity to come up and speak with you tonight. Before I can go into my speech, first thing I'd like to say is I think, you know, what we're hearing here tonight is that there's hope, right? You're hearing from all sides and from everybody. There's hope because we do have a crisis. Right. We have too many people and not enough housing. It will take just like the last two gentlemen said, it's going to take a while and hopefully working together, we can come to that. So I think it's just it's encouraging as a citizen of Long Beach that we do have hope. So I am also an association member. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak. I just want to let you know, we fully support the recommendation that that's in front of. And we really appreciate all the work that Allison and city staff and the council members have put in putting this together. And we like that we were included as a part of this solution because really solutions only come if everybody's at the table has been said many times tonight and we really look forward to continuing being a part of the solution over the next 30 days, whether when this comes back. So, again, thank you. And we do support this. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thank you council for tackling and looking to tackle this project. I'm a Bill Davis and I'm actually a property manager who does accept Section eight and I can testify that some of the inspectors do get a little bit unreasonable with their inspection items. But that being said, for. The most part, I haven't had too much. Of a problem with that. I do want to address I do agree with the three points that have been made in regards to on the incentive. Side and the education side. Those items are good. There is some very practical, non expensive methods. That can be used to alleviate some of. The timing gap that occurs and that would be in the preapproval aspect for the tenants. Currently I have a unit, I've had 20 people, 20 on on vouchers come through. Most of those were people that had their we're looking for a ground floor unit because they had some type of a disability. And in regards to a comment that was made that the price per zip code is not a fixed point in total. My experience is that is not true. The local office does treat that as a mandatory cap. They don't take the person's available income under the 40% and add two. They merely say what that zip code cap is, is what we're going to. Pay no matter what. So that has been an issue that has caused almost all of the 20 that have come to look at the unit to say, you know, look, I'd love to take it, but, you know, they're not approving it. The pre-approval thing that I've been working with the local office on is to be able to basically say, Look, here's the stuff that you're really looking for. It's pages three and four of the owners packet. That's what they're looking for. It says We have this many units that we've rented at this price. Here's the amenities that we're putting with this unit and to be able to subject that for the pre-approval, if we can keep that on file instead of having to refill out every time someone wants to come and apply for it, to be able to work with that local office and say, Hey, look here, you already know you're going to need a price exception or you know, because you're doing a mandatory cap on that zip code. If you could just keep these pages on file so we don't have to the managers don't have to constantly fill this out and send it back. It would speed up the process. Okay. If we can get the approval times down to a day, we can then get the inspections done in two weeks because that's generally about how long it takes them to get out. And that alleviates having to pay the apartment owners for an extra month. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Okay. Next speaker, please. Good evening, members of the council. My name's Andrew Weil, and I live at 1995 Canal Avenue. I lived in Long Beach since 1986, and I've got rental property in the first District, the second District, the seventh District, and the eighth District. And I'd like to especially thank Councilmember Pearce, because I found out about this meeting and from one of her relentless emails. And what I want to tell you is why I'm no longer taking Section eight. And there are two reasons. Number one is last year I had an inspection for one of my tenants and they point out some things are wrong and we fix and they put in a time and they did the rent anyways. So I'm quite angry about that. And now the end. But here's the main problem. I think that probably affects most other landlords, that makes them reluctant is, you know, over the years I got my first Section eight tenant back in 1991 and over the years maybe they had a dozen or two. And I found that the vast majority, the vast majority of them are bad housekeepers. A lot of them don't even know they're bad housekeepers, but they're bad housekeepers. And a huge percentage of them are horrible housekeepers. And what's the consequence of that? Always, roaches. And when they move out, it's just a terrible condition to try. You get to do so much cleaning, replace so many things. So, you know, every year and over the years, how many how many times have you ever been cited for this bad housekeeping? None, even though it's right there on the inspection form. So what I would recommend is that, you know, you hold us accountable to a certain standard because we have a yearly inspection, is that you should hold the tenants accountable to a to a standard, hold up their end of the bargain. And for those that need a little help and and a little direction that you provide that to them so that we know that when we rent to Section eight, we're not going to get someone who's going to be creating a problem for the neighbors and a problem when we have to come and redo the apartment. So and was those are my $0.02. I thank you very much for your time and have it evening. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. I really wasn't planning to come today and speak tonight, but I've got to take this time to thank everybody that's up in front of us. Let me just say, I've lived in Long Beach for 77 years. I've been on housing cabinet and, you know, helping them. And nobody is doing a better job right now. Than Rex and Alison. Let me just tell you, I've been up the 50 vouchers that I've had under my control. I grew up in the projects of the Carmelites, and now I live in a better part. I love this system because it's better than the projects where you put everybody. The kids are playing with other people that are going to work and doing it. All I can say is we're here tonight. Fox I mean, everything that people have said here, it's true. It is truly true. I haven't heard anybody get up here and say something that I would say was a lie. But the thing is, is what we're doing now is we're correcting it. This is the first time. And believe me, I've been way before, Alison and Reggie and Laura and, you know, the whole bunch. We used to have committees that got together as owners. Now I'm the chairman of the board for the Apartment Association. I think they gave it to me because we never had a chairman of the board just because they didn't want me to leave. And I've been in that even longer. So with that being said, we're on the right track, guys. And let me just tell you, Robert, believe me, talk to them, because I've had the same thing happen to me that's happened to you, but to communications. We're going to change it. Thank you. That's enough for my time. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Bill, Mayor, City Council. Thank you for taking. A minute. To listen to me. I work for our county, contracted our peer run community center in Huntington Park. And I worked in a lot of there this this nonprofits, agencies, places throughout the county because we have over 200 groups that are assisting individuals who have lived experience and are now doing better recovery. The part of the system that we're discussing today and I thought it was important to show show up and converse for a few seconds about our agency. There are alternatives. There's a share program. They have a program where they share space to individuals. They have different places like National Affordable Housing, where they have Section eight listings in different states and they let you apply there. There's, you know, a few alternatives, but as you can see, it'll all work somehow. And the Wells Fargo Bank has a two year waiting list with Habitat for Humanity. And that's because they have to do all the process, find the people that volunteer for them. So we've discussed some of those particular alternatives. But when I went to Japan a few times, it's really difficult because they have a place where I went to and it was just outside of Tokyo and it's a combination hotel, hot springs and restaurant, and they train individuals who leave the mental health hospitals with a ten year minimum stay, and only one owner is a doctor of that place. So he's responsible for everybody there. So it's really difficult over there. I brought this to the attention of individuals here at the county level where I am assisting with peer run wellness centers throughout the county. There are 69 of them and I let them know that it's not enough because basically there's a lot of people and I can show statistics where Proposition 63 was put to the vote twice and twice. The voters said, do not use that money for anything else but mental health services. So the. Money's there. Somehow we have to find more inclusiveness for individuals like myself, who is a person with lived experience and has continued to work diligently to somehow alleviate the problem with what is available out there and what people can understand and want to be a part of. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Very good to address on file. Following up on this comment from the speaker a few moments ago, relative to some of the Section eight people being bad housekeepers, as it were. Perhaps what the city should do is take a city staff member well-trained in that, you know, our Marine. Bureau. Has. I know. People that do a great job of keeping the restrooms around the area clean and other facilities as well spotless and had that as of have them go in and if they are challenged, if their housekeeping knowledge is challenged, show them what to do. And if not, then read in the riot act and say, if I got to come back and clean this up again, you're out and see how that works. Thank you. Thank you. And say no further comment. I just want to thank everyone who joined us tonight. And later, comments like to the city council and the staff. And even if we move the needle just a little bit, it's going to make a big difference to Long Beach families in need. Seeing no further comment. Comment members, please cast your vote. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you. And thank you all for coming and for your involvement. Appreciate that. Okay. We're going to go back to the regular agenda. We do have some members of the public that signed up on on non agenda items.