Public Hearing to Consider Amendments to the Community Development Block Grant Action Plans for Fiscal Years 2019-20 and 2020-21; and Authorize the City Manager to Negotiate and Execute Related Documents, Agreements and Modifications. (Community Development 236)
Public hearing to consider amendments to the Community Development BLOCK Grant Action Plan for Fiscal Year 2019, 2020 and 20 2021 and authorize. Sorry. My eyes are going. The city manager to negotiate and execute related documents, agreements and modifications. Thank you. And who's presenting this item. At Lisa Fitness? We're adding. Pronounce it. Hello, Miss Fitz and Miss Butler. Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Lois Butler and Lisa Fitz will be presenting this item. Perfect. Nice to see you, Ms.. Butler. And welcome biscuits. Hello. Hi. So, good evening, Madam Mayor. Council members. Staff. Oh, I do have slides. Yes, we're putting them. Thank you. We can arrange that. So my name is Lisa Fitz, and I manage the Community Development BLOCK Grant Program, also known as CDBG. Do I have control over the slides? No. We can advance them for you if you. Okay. So I think we're at like number four. If we could go to number two. That would be great. Okay. Thank you. So CDBG Cares Act funding. As you know, the city of Alameda receives CDBG funds from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD. And in September 2020, HUD announced that the city of Alameda would receive an allocation of $597,112. This is in addition to the first tranche of CARES Act funding that the city was awarded in June of 2020 in the amount of $683,116. Next slide, please. So the purpose of tonight's hearing is threefold. First, to accept and allocate the recently awarded funds. Second, to reprogram entitlement funds for the purchase and installation of community cabins. And third, to authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute related documents, agreements and modifications. Next slide, please. So staff. For this for the CARES Act funds staff proposes that council accept and allocate 100% of the new CARES Act funds to public services that provide food or shelter to families and individuals who are vulnerable and in crisis as a result of the coronavirus. So please refer to the five programs shown on the screen. It should be noted that both emergency rent relief and emergency case management were approved and included in the current fiscal year action plan. Tonight, we are proposing to remove those from the current plan and have them funded by the Care with CARES Act funds instead. By doing this, it frees up money in the entitlement. I would like to also point out that the services on the screen would be offered through the end of the fiscal year. And if HUD continues to offer or continues to waive the 15% cap on public services, then safe parking and day center operation services could potentially be funded through June 30th of next fiscal year as well. In the event that the expenditures for next fiscal year are constrained by the 15% cap, then staff will propose to reprogram any remaining funds and will present recommendations to council with the action plan that will present to you in May. Next slide, please. So CDBG entitlement funds for the current year. Entitlement Funds staff proposes to amend the action planned to program $200,000 for community cabins, leaving the remaining $961,057 untouched. Please note that just last week HUD notified the city of a $230 typographical error in its award letter, resulting in a new total allocation of $1,161,057. Staff will reduce administrative expenses by $230. Next slide, please. So that concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Ms.. Fitz and Madam Cook, do we have any public speakers on this item? Yes, we have one. Okay. But before we take our public speaker at counsel, any clarifying questions of misfits? Okay, let's. Let's hear from our public speaker. And I. Have. Yeah, Mr.. De. I'm sorry. And this way. Councilmember Desai. Yeah. Just to go on. Okay. Good. Clarifying question. In terms of the community cabins, do we have any are there is has any thought been given to persons who are in the parking program, transitioning them to the community cabins, making them available? How how what kind of thought are we giving as to who is eligible for for for that? That's a great question. So tonight, actually, we're really talking about allocating funds for the potential purchase of the cabins before the program is designed fully. We will have to identify there are few steps that will be taking, including contracting with a social service agency to provide services. But realistically, we expect that the cabins would become could potentially become shelter to people who are currently living in their cars. And quick question, how many cabins. Does $200,000 purchase? We expect that it'll cover it will provide 12 to 15 accounts. Okay, great. Thank you. Bank accounts for birthdays. Any further clarifying questions? Council. Okay. Madam Kruger. Public Speaker. Herman Read. Good evening, Mr. Reid. And just go ahead. There you go. Hello? Can you hear me now? Yes, you can. Good evening. Good evening. And thank you very much for for taking my question. I just had a question about the community cabins and where will they be located. That's a great question, and that's something that is currently being worked out. City staff has said that it's no excuse the interruption and this is perfectly appropriate. Your your answer. Public comment is normally public comment and not Q&A. However, I think we can apply common sense and I'm sure that would have been part of your presentation and maybe in answer to a few future council questions on this item. So go ahead. Mr. Chair. Sorry about that. So, yeah, there will there are like I said, in response to Councilmember de Sox question, there are a few steps that have to be taken before my money will actually be expended. We would have to identify a location. I will have to contract with a service provider. We'll have to assess the location to meet HUD standards. So at this time, the location is it has not been identified. Thank you, Miss. And that was was that all of our public speakers? That was all of the speakers. Okay. So council member Odie has to stand up. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thanks, Miss Butler. I'll miss your presentations when I don't hear them anymore. And thanks misfits for your presentation. I think in this particular topic you'll have one of the most heartwarming but probably one of the most frustrating jobs. Because, you know, every every dollar that you give benefits an individual in need, yet there's never enough to go around. So I appreciate all the hard work you've done to serve our community and serve some of our most deserving. And I think what's what's important to me about this agenda item is it shows what government can do. I mean, government should be there for the good of people, and it has a purpose to help people and serve people. And that's why, you know, I always get emotional during this presentation, even after six years, because, again, I think it shows what we can do and it goes to the core and the heart of who we are as individuals and our belief that our government can actually spend money and make things better for people. So tremendous thanks to you all and all the hard work you do and all the tough decisions you make. Thank you, Councilmember Ody, and other comments. Discussion. Vice-Chair That's why I guess I'd be happy to cosign everything Councilmember Odie said in approval of the item. Give me a minute to make my comments too. But Councilmember, despite Councilmember Vela. I was just going to second. So we have a motion of approval. We have a second motion by the Vice-Chair, seconded by Councilmember de SAC. Any discussion? Yes, Councilmember Vela. But hence you go first and I'll go next. I just want to just thank staff for their work on this. I know that there are a lot of moving parts, and certainly I think we've made it very clear, at least from the council perspective, of our desire to fund these things and to put housing and transitional housing at the top of that list. So I want to thank staff for making sure that the money and the funds that we're receiving are going directly towards that. So that was my comment. Thank you. Councilor Rivera. And I was just going to say that I found out last week that there's your double use, a countywide sales tax increase passed just barely by the skin of its teeth, because on last Wednesday night, we had our Alameda County mayor's covers meeting and our guest speaker was Cory Abbott, who is in charge of the county's program on homelessness. And so then I asked her the question because she was talking about these Project Roomkey hotels that are being purchased by the counties and by cities. And so I asked her with funding from Measure W, could that be used to help purchase some of these properties? Because I still have my eye on the Marina Village in and I know we're on the short list. We didn't quite make it, but we're on the short list and and her face just fell and she said, well, you know, I don't think Measure W passed. And then I felt terrible for even asking the question, but the next night I was checking results and I looked and it had gone ahead just barely. But it needed, you know, 50% plus one vote. And it got more it went vote over 50%. So I quickly emailed her and I said, Am I reading this correctly? Mr. Abbott emailed back and said yes and I look forward to working with the city of Alameda on the allocation of these funds. And I will let you know that the mayors of Alameda County, most of the mayors, I'd say serve ten or 11 of the 14 have signed a letter to the county board of Supervisors asking that the mayors have a seat at the table when the county is determining expenditure and allocation of these funds. So we can just make sure that our needs in cities are known. So that's to be determined. But, you know, I think it's it's good news, certainly, that I mean, obviously, it's a sales tax and the revenue has to come in. And so that would be right away. But it is an ongoing source of funding, so we don't count our chickens before we hatch. But I'd say they're incubating right now. So with that, I'm very favorable and very excited. Councilmember Odie is right. This is what some of the good thing government should be doing. We hope to see even more of that in the next four years coming out of the federal government. But we've had our motion, it's been seconded. Maybe we have a roll call vote. So thank you both for your good work on this. Councilmember de SAG. Yes. Next. Right. Hi. Judy. Hi. Vella. Hi, Mayor. As the Ashcroft high that carries by five eyes. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Fitzsimmons better always great to see you and thanks for your good work. Okay, counsel, we move on to item six D.