Public Hearing to Consider Approving the Housing and Community Development Needs Statement for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Annual Plan for Fiscal Year 2019-20. (Housing 236)
So what is CDBG? There are federal funds, funds provided by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But the explicit purpose of assisting low and moderate income persons by developing decent housing, suitable living environment and or economic opportunity. The city is required to prepare a five year strategic plan, which outlines the housing and community development priority needs that will inform the CDBG funding decisions for the upcoming. Period. We are in the last year of the current five year strategic plan to receive CDBG funding, the city has to submit an actual plan to HUD. Which details the program's activities and resources that will address the housing and community development needs that are outlined in the five year consolidated plan. In addition, there is a priority among the needs for non housing. Community development. Public service needs. An Exhibit one, the Social Services and Human Relations Board has provided a refined priority statement that reflects the social service needs in the community. I'd like to take your attention to page one, paragraph three. Which identifies that the needs should focus on the following activities. Case Management. Domestic Violence. Victim Support. Housing, Wellness Services. Information and Resources. Legal Assistance. Outreach and Engagement. Senior Services including food security. The current five year strategic plan has emphasized preserving Alameda safety net, addressing the needs of those who are vulnerable, vulnerable and in crisis, and recommended that funding for public services focus on food, shelter, case management services , personal safety services and homeless prevention services. Tonight we commence the fiscal year 2019 2020 needs process. The first of those steps was on November 29th, when we when the Social Service Human Relations Board heard public comment and prepared the needs statement that I referred to earlier tonight, city council will hear public comment and adopt the need statement . And shortly thereafter we will release the RFP that is based on the priority needs. I know that we've got several of the social service providers here to speak, so I'm going to let them speak. All right. Thank you. Okay. And those are the speaker's lips I have. Are there. Were there any clarifying questions from council? Okay. So then I will go ahead and call. Just in the order I got the slips, the first speaker is Dan Ashbrook. Hello. Good evening and thank you so much for this opportunity to present. My name is Dan Ashbrook and I'm with Legal Assistance for Seniors. When a senior faces a problem with their housing, it is critical to their. Health and safety that they receive timely and accessible and affordable help. Seniors are often at risk of being. Harassed by landlords due to. Physical and mental health impairments. When a senior is handicapped. It is easier for. A landlord to intimidate them by pretending to have more power than the landlord actually has. In addition, a senior facing such intimidation may not seek help to avoid conflict among among family and friends, making it that much easier to be evicted and even abused. To address these problems among seniors, Legal Assistance for Seniors has launched its housing legal services for the prevention of evictions. We want to thank you because we did that partially with the City of Alamitos help because of the numerous challenges seniors face in meeting their basic needs on fixed incomes. Hiring a private attorney to protect their rights is not an option for most. And with the number of seniors doubling in Alameda County over the coming years, even more will be at risk of homelessness. Since launching our Housing Legal Services earlier in 2018, again with the help of the city of Alameda, we have received we received roughly . 50 calls a week with very limited outreach. And advertising. We're still very much in the development phase. Because of the complexities. Of dealing with cities throughout Alameda and all the various ordinances. But we are receiving roughly 50 calls a week. We currently have 30 to 40 cases being assessed for legal issues and we have four that we are attorneys is working with that have filed eviction actions. One of these cases is a city of Alameda resident fighting a retaliation for holding a landlord accountable to a lease. Finally, counseling and represent representation by attorneys is needed more than ever with the increase in our senior population, not just for housing, but for health care, public benefits, elder abuse and guardianship of minors. Without the ability to legally advocate for. Problems with accessing Medicare. Social Security. Supplemental Social Security income, or the legal authority to care for family members, a seniors welfare can be gravely at stake. Abuse continues. Health care stops, income stops. Families separate and evictions continue. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Liz Varella. Bear Council members and staff. I'm Liz Rowland, Executive Director of Building Futures. And we are a domestic violence homeless and housing agency serving Alameda. We run the Midway Shelter. The newly opened Alameda warming shelter and basic home court on the point. I think it's so important that we all do what we can for those that are most vulnerable in our community. We are building futures supports the needs statement safety net services that are like homeless services, domestic violence support, housing, legal outreach and senior services and food security are so important to help those neighbors in need. I want to thank you, the city and especially Shrub, for continually advocating and understanding what the community needs here in Alameda. Thank you. Thank you. And our final speaker is Stephanie Penrod. Hello. Good evening, everyone. I'm Stephanie Penrod, Im the managing attorney at the Family Violence Law Center. And I'm just here to again say thank you to the Council for your continued support of Family Violence Law Centers programs. I completed our quarterly report today, so I'd like to share with you a couple of numbers. We received 25 to 35 domestic violence referrals from the Alameda Police Department. Closer. Each day. Our items are each month. And in the last two quarters, we provided 80 Alameda residents with direct crisis. Support and advocacy services. And approximately a quarter of those requested and received legal services. I'm including restraining orders and family law and including orders that allow those clients to remain stable. House and City of Alameda. Without your support, these residents would have nowhere to turn. So again, I am just here to offer my thanks to the Council for your ongoing concern and efforts to assist survivors in the city of Alameda. Thank you. I just have a quick question. Thank you. Councilmember Jason. Did you say that that you average 25 to 35 domestic violence referrals each month in the past fiscal year? Yes. Yes, it is the last actually, it's the last four quarters. So last last four quarters. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm sure on behalf of the council, I just want to thank all three of our speakers for the work that your your agencies and groups do. Thank you very much. Okay. So any council discussion or do we have a motion? Can I ask a quick question before. Of course. Sorry, Vice Mayor And that's wait. So I'm not sure who this question is for. I will preface it by saying I found trying to figure out what the exact need statement was a little. It might have been that I was jetlagged and a little addled, but a little difficult to find. And I wanted to suggest that when we actually approve it, that we we pull out the need statement. But the staff report mentions and one of the speakers mentioned that food security was a key item. And yet in the actual need statement, food security is not mentioned. So I wanted to see if that was intentional or if it was an unintentional unintentionally just not mentioned explicitly. The fact that it's in the staff report made me think that maybe it just wasn't written into the made statement. Too to be a staff member. You will to address that question. Thank you for your comments. We will make a more concerted effort next year to specifically identify the needs and more clearly. And regarding your question regarding food security. I think that was unintentional. I know it does cross the groups. Few food security affects all of the populations that are described in the Schwab newsletter. But I think it would be helpful to explicitly state that. Thank you. I know that we've been a long time provider of CBT, CB DB G grants to the food bank, and I would just want to make sure that when we send a needs statement out that they are aware that they can apply again. And they were our highest scoring nonprofit last year, so we would want them to look like we are. Unfortunately, we have a lot of great applicants. My other quick question, I guess this is just a question for consideration for my my council colleagues. We have the council last year funded tenant legal services and tenant legal services are also specifically called out on the CDBG needs assessment. And I wonder if we wanted to perhaps talk about that. There are some other. Now either, you know, whether we want also to be funding additional tenant legal services here or if we want to look at other. But with as anything, whether we should remove that, clarify what we mean so that we're not actually having two pots of money funding two different legal services efforts. So I don't I don't have a specific recommended. Point of I think we've probably exhausted our need for. Under the CDBG program, the only tenant legal services we fund are through the senior legal services. So those services are strictly for the seniors. And that was a service that that was a service that senior legal services recently expanded to. When they the first year they were funded, they did not provide legal services for housing related issues. And they because the need is so great and we hadn't yet the Council hadn't yet done its legal services funding contract that just went in place in November. They expanded and it's a conversation that we can have as part of the NOVA process to see if there if there's a need or a specific kind of niche for seniors that we would want to continue to have them provide. Or they could go back to the kind of legal services they've been providing, which tend to be about benefits and other kinds of services for for seniors. Councilmember Vela. I think just where we're at in terms of the cycle of funding, I would hate to see that change be something that we're discussing now. I do think that with the new legal services contract that we have and through the city, I think it'll be interesting to see what happens. As somebody who used to work in legal services, I found that a lot of times when clients come to you, they come to you with a number of different issues specific to certain groups, whether it's youth or seniors in particular. Typically, when they come, they come with a number of different issues. And so those specialized legal services really are helpful. And while we might have a vendor that does overall tenant protections, that might not be something we wouldn't want to necessarily have. The senior then transferred to another attorney, start a case file all over again, kind of relive whatever trauma they've been through yet again. So I, I hear the comment about, you know, is there is there a possibility of maybe consolidating these two things? But I'd be interested to see just how many of our seniors are using the legal services specific to seniors, what they're using it for, and then make a decision later on about if we want to open it up. And then relative to the need statement, the need statement is, is from the way we talk about the need statement from the president of the Social Services Human Relations Board. That's exhibit one. So we would be just amending that to include the food services. Okay. Thank you. I have a question regarding the the legal services for seniors. What is the venue of that if a senior wants to seek legal services? Mr. ASHBROOK, Perhaps you can if. We're going to have someone here who's the expert on that. Just I want to clarify. Something, and if you could, I just speaking to the microphone. So first off, I just want to say I'm not sure. If there are other legal service agencies being funded through this process. I believe legal assistance for seniors is the only agency that is providing legal assistance specifically for the needs of seniors. From what I. Know, I'm the development director, so I'm raising funds for the organization. But from what I know. They started developing this program, obviously, for the benefit of the seniors to prevent evictions. Now, if landlord assistance or landlord representation is also needed, then we are designing those services to also address that as well. So it could be that the legal representation to protect the senior could be legal, represent representation on behalf of the landlord or the tenant. But we're not doing two separate. It's one legal housing program that can address the needs of both the tenant or the landlord. Okay, so that's one issue. But you also talked earlier about seniors might contact you about health benefits, about elder abuse, financial issues. And my question is simply location. Where does a senior go to avail themselves of your services? The Mastic Senior Center. We have attorneys that hold regular hours there on a regular basis. And we also run a health insurance counseling and advocacy program where we do Medicare counseling also. So in addition to Mastic Senior Center, we also do those out of our office on at three, three, three, Helgenberger. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. That's very helpful. When you sit down, that was that was helpful. One of the concerns that I have expressed to staff and we're going to continue to look at this is the and we do have a contract for legal services through. Since they are allowed in but it's in Oakland in the Fruitvale District. And so it means that our tenants need to get themselves over to Fruitvale. So I think especially for seniors who may be limited in their their mobility, I think it's great to know that your services are provided at Mastic. I almost forgot. We also provide them in the home. I believe we we do. Go out and do home visits and take care of any need in the home. All right. Thank you. Yes. Councilmember Garza, did you have a question for Mr. Ashbrook? No, I just want to comment comically. I do. As a council member, I do think it's imperative that we as a city have a special set aside with regard to tenant protections for our elderly, largely because when it comes to the elderly, how they respond to crises is very different from the working age population, for example. Oftentimes, they can't fall back on a job to deal with issues. Sometimes they're also frail. So I think it is imperative that that we acknowledge that that unique situation that elderly residents face. To be sure, many residents are potentially vulnerable when it comes to housing issues. But in unique ways, the elderly are especially vulnerable. So for that reason, I think it is important to have a set aside with regard to them via the CDBG program. Thank you. Councilman Brody, did you have a comment? Sure. I'll be quick. Just echo a lot of what my colleagues just said. I mean, we're just adapting the needs statement today so we're not deciding any funding or making any direction on funding. So I'm comfortable with the needs statement. And these are the problems that are the most pressing in our community. And, you know, we never seem to have enough for that release. But I just wanted to just point out, you know, the second priority there. The first one is affordable housing. And the second one is is preventing homelessness and other housing crisis is increasing housing opportunities for homeless and extremely low income households, deliver support services to promote stability and independence and measure these successes. So we should keep those in mind as we make other decisions. Thank you. And I would just like to echo all my colleagues, really, and to say that it is overwhelming every year to know that the need is so great and yet our resources are finite. But I do sincerely appreciate the work of all the agencies and committees and staff who go into helping bring to our attention the most pressing need so we can triage these items, if you will. And I congratulate you for that. And if we do, we have any further comments. And if we don't, I'm going to ask for that. We approve this Housing and Community Development Needs statement. Yes. With the amendments. As noted, that motion. Second. Oh, who's. Who's moving? Oh, I'll make the motion. All right, who's second? Sure, I'll second. All right. We have a motion in a second. All in favor. I. All right. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, everyone. All right. Moving on to item six C. Recommendation to receive the report on the initiative measure to change the land use designation for an approximately 3.65 acre site on the avenue. By amending the general plan designation from office to open space and by amending the zoning ordinance from administrative professional district to open space district and consider the following options. Option one Adopt the ordinance or option to adopt a resolution submitting the ordinance to the voters. And I will give the brief presentation on this item on December 4th. A certificate of sufficiency was presented on the initiative and the Council ordered a report pursuant to Elections Code Section 9215, and that report is required to come back 30