Public Hearing to Identify Housing and Community Development Needs for the Community Development Block Grant Annual and Five-Year Plans and Approve the Community Needs Statement as Recommended by the Social Service Human Relations Board. (Housing 236)
And we also use them for non housing, community development programs in projects for public services, economic development and public facilities and infrastructure. The program. First purpose is to develop a viable urban community, primarily for low and moderate income persons through decent housing, suitable living environment and economic opportunity. In the past five years, CDBG funded programs have served between seven and 8000 individuals per year. The city is required to prepare a five year strategic plan, which outlines a priority needs that will inform the CDBG funding decisions for the upcoming five year period. Also to receive CDBG funding. The city is required to submit to HUD an annual action plan detailing the program's activities and resources to address the housing and community development needs as outlined in the five year strategic plan. These will come before you in May of this year. In addition, there's priorities among the needs of the non housing, community development, social services, the Social Services and Human Relations Board. Shrub provides a refined priority statement to reflect the social services needs in the community, which is included as Exhibit one in your packet. This will be included as a part of the RFP that will be going out specifically for public services. And the RFP is tentatively scheduled to be released this Thursday pending your approval today. So in October of last year, we had an a community outreach meeting. In attendance was three housing authority staff members and 27 community members. Groups that were represented from the City Alameda Department was the Community Development Department, Public Works, Park and Rec and the Fire Department. In addition, there was the Commission on Disabilities, the Mastic Senior Center and Social Services Human Relations Board. Nonprofit providers such as the Food Bank, Building Futures, Family Violence Law, Eden Housing and Alameda Point Collaborative. And also residents. A summary of the discussion of the needs is included as exhibit two. Some of these needs included. Large scale collaboration grant writing for leveraging funds to fill the CDBG gaps. Services for elderly abuse and aging in place. Family Services. Homeless Services. Other housing services such as. Supportive Housing. Transitional housing of. Shelter for the chronically homeless and then economic development needs, such as facade improvements, business loans and job training. Business plans. Exhibit three of your packet includes all of the priority needs that will be included in the five year consolidated plan. Staff received. Staff received comments from the County Housing and Community Development Department and the County Home Consortium, which the city is a part of. So staff would like to make three edits and the original priority needs for affordable housing in order to be parallel with the county. Those three edits include the second point under affordable housing. Rather than reducing the household to sorry, we want to reduce the household from 128 AMI to 80% AMI. Also, we want to combine the third and fourth point to read as reduce housing discrimination, which will automatically cover all who are discriminated against fair housing and tenant landlord services. And we would like to add a point to assist low and moderate income first time homebuyers. So the the process for the needs starts with the Social Services and Human Relations Board, which is which has already happened. On November 20th, 2014, the Social Services Human Relations Board heard all the comments from our community outreach meeting, heard additional public comments at that meeting, and incorporated that into their needs statement, which is included in your packet. The second step is today the city council hears public comment and adopts the needs statements. And the third process for the needs will be that the RFP will be released based on all the priority needs. Exhibit four is scheduled to complete both a five year strategic plan and the annual action plan for the upcoming fiscal year 20 1516. And that concludes my report. And I'm not sure if there's somebody here from Shrub to speak at Amir. I have a question. I have a question. Mm hmm. So one of your recommendations to be aligned with the county is to. Change. The target population of who are grantees. Support from 120% of I to 80% of am I. That would be the threshold. So we're looking for anyone who's we're looking for grantees. We're looking to fund grantees who support households who are at 80% or below of am I. So only for for the second point. The the original point said preserve existing affordable rental housing and ownership for households of below 120%. So we want to reduce that to 80. So for example, a family of four at 120%, they have to make 110,000. So we want to reduce that to 67,000. So basic. But the key thing is what we're really saying is we want to target our limited CDBG funds away from moderate income families, which is the definition of 80 to 100% of my low income and lower. Correct. It'll allow us to be more flexible. Yes. Thank you. Or do we need to do something? I think we need to do something at this time. Then I'll ask my question. That clock's actually a little bit so fast. Didn't 1029 according to my iPad. Did anyone else have clarifying questions on this right now? Well, I did, but you go ahead and do what you need to do. So at this point, I'll just go ahead and do it. We need four votes to consider additional items. Do we have. Does anyone want to move that? We do that. All those in favor. I oppose none. Motion carries. All right. So so my question then, I thank you for your report missing. I'm looking at the and by the way, all of the needs and everything you do and or address in these reports are so well needed. I just wish there was more money to go around, but I applaud you for trying to do the triage here. So I was looking at the exhibit two, which was the summary of the Community Outreach Workshop on October 22nd of 2014. And on page two, there is a discussion about housing and then public services and the homeless. And, and I don't disagree with anything that's on here. It's actually kind of heart rending to, says, domestic violence survivors, elder abuse, homeless shelter. But one of the categories that I don't see, although maybe it's can contain elsewhere in this report, is we hear a lot about young people who age out of the foster care system in the state because at 18 you've aged out of the foster care program. And yet for anyone who's raised children, you know that they do not magically become mature young adults at the age of 18 in a day. Is there anything within these proposals that would catch that group or is the county doing things? I think it would be under affordable housing and in public services. So we kept the categories in the parades a little bit vague to give us some flexibility to be more specific every year as things come up. So we'll revisit, for example, for public services. We definitely revisit the priorities every single year to see what's happening in our community. The needs are. Okay, thank you. And then on page three of that same summary, there was a line item about unsheltered and chronic homeless, including homeless veterans. And I had participated and so did the mayor. Before she was the mayor, she was on the school board. Then when do we do that? In the fall or the when we did the walk early in the morning to try to get a count of the homeless on our streets. And one of the things that we were told is that a larger percentage of homeless are homeless veterans. But I think I understand that the VA, the Veterans Administration has some programs because that was one of the referral sources for for us on the walk. Correct. So there they work with one of our service providers, but we're definitely going to be looking into how we can zone in to the extremely low and the chronically homeless, I think is one of the goals for the county as a whole. Right. Right. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other comments. Request? Yes. I notice that in the groups represented from the city of Alameda, the Alameda Police Department is not mentioned. And I know and in the past they were quite participatory and as a service provider and they're often the first people who come into contact with a homeless person representing the city or are often called upon for service and in some of the public housing units. So my request is that as you go through the process, that if they weren't present there, that you can integrate the service that they do provide in your implementation of of the of the services that are going to be funded by the grants. So we definitely look at that. When we go through the RFP and look at collaboration. So many of our service providers are actually working with the police department. So for example, Family Violence Law Center Building Features. Alameda Collaborative, selected the logos and all of them have a connection. There is interaction with the police and I'm hoping that there that they get a seat at the table as you go forward. Thank you. Yes, I was just going to add and in fact, it was the police department that that organized the walk that we went on. And I will shout out to a particular officer, Elisa Ledbetter. She's an amazing resource of of knowledge and in different services in our city and all over the county for various homeless and other other folks who were just out and down on their luck. And it's not always necessarily a crime, but as the vice mayor noted, that the police are often the first to encounter people in these situations. But, you know, they're definitely there. I don't know if their logo wasn't presented just because they weren't looking for anything. I just didn't have enough room yet. But we definitely work with them and I'll make sure they're at the table. And they are great. Thank you. I want to confirm you finished giving your presentation. All right. And we do not have any public speakers. This is the first part of this agenda item is a public hearing. There were no slips turned in. Wait a minute. One is coming up. It. So do I need to open the public hearing then, since we have a speaker now. So. Yeah. So I'm going to open the public hearing for this item. You may proceed. And then this. Well, and this, of course, I'm kind of in between. Hi. My name's Jennifer Bolan. Hi, Madam Mayor. And council members. I came from building opportunities and out of your homeless program and am in need of your disabled housing. So this pertains to me, but I currently live in a private housing program or I'm currently privately housed, so we need to maintain the other housing because I may end up back there. So part of the needs thing is to maintain. And when you're developing the rental thing is to have senior and disabled housing. Because I came out of building opportunities and I may end up needing the rental or ending up back on Alameda Point because when I can't afford the other housing, I'm going to need the senior and disabled housing. And that way I don't end up homeless and back on the streets here in Alameda. And because if you keep developing and I can't afford the other housing, I'm going to need the disabled housing. And if they raise that, the rate that you have to make so little money or too much money because I am on SSDI and I don't make a lot of money, but I'm. Too rich for Section eight, but too poor to make rent. So I'd appreciate if you could include those of us that make like $1,000 a month in this needs category. Because I'm 51 and I do go to Mastic and I do go to I came out of building futures and I really appreciate those programs. And, you know, if you keep funding Midway Shelter. Thank you. Thank you. I have a question. Yes. For us. This is our public hearing, though, right? You can close the public hearing, go to an. Audition if there's no more slips on it. I'm going to now close the public hearing on this idea. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Madam Mayor. My interpretation, what the resident had just said, was that she is at a certain income that is above the 80% AMI because she cannot she is not eligible for Section eight in section eight, you know, certainly has its income triggers. So to the extent that she is not eligible for Section eight, that tells me that she's above that 80%. Am I? So the implications of what we're doing with regard to housing and change from changing the threshold from 120% of AMI, which is the top bracket for moderate to focusing just on 80% or below the implications of that are tweeters like her would be were would could be affected. So the question is. Is that altogether possible? You have a special continue with the transition from 120 to 80%, am I, as you're suggesting, but have a certain dispensation with regard to age? So whoever because age is a protected category and in special needs housing. So age. So if you're 55 and over and you and you're anywhere between 80 to 120%. Am I then that will be an exception to the. It's something to think about. So in the in the first point, it actually includes 30% AMI and 50% AMI for rental. But if we want to be more specific, you can make any of these points just a little bit more specific to prioritize seniors or. Anything that you want. But it does include 30% and 50% AMI for rental. Mm hmm. Oh, I know, but. But she wouldn't even be eligible for that because she's above 80%. She's the age was 51. All over. The age at this. We can be. What she was saying is, though, is she the way that she was framing it is. But she would like he might need it in the future, because the extent that she's 51 now, perhaps in four years and she's just one individual of it, perhaps is altogether illustrative of the dimensions that we need to look at this issue . So we can make it a more refined priority and add that we want to give priority to senior housing or whatever. I rely on. And when do we revisit this item? Would it be in a year from now? You you'd give us an update. This is an annual. So these are for the five years. And every year I come to you with the needs for that year in case we need to refine every year anything to be more specific to our needs. So can you keep track of people that are not included that reach out to you for help if we are whose needs we're meeting and who we need to? Really, maybe we do need to reevaluate that. Okay. That would be great. And then on this item. Madumere, just one more point. And the reason why I'm pushing this like I just did is because I think there has to be something said about someone taking the time to come to a public hearing to talk about this issue. And while I don't know if you know what she has to say is statistically representative of her income and age cohort, I do know that she took the time to come here tonight. So in that respect, I would hope that, you know, she and others see that this city council is trying our best. So this side and we had the public hearing, but we also need to my understanding, we need to approve. Approve the priority needs with the changes that I submitted. Yes, sir. Do we have a motion? So moved all those in favor. I, I oppose and motion carries. Thank you very. Much. Thank you. Next item is six H report from a. Report from the Almeida Rental Housing Community Discussion Group and request for the Council direction concerning various proposal. Thank you. And if anyone's wondering real quick, we have 14 slips on this item. You may proceed. Good evening. I'm Debbie Potter. I'm the city's community development director. And I was going to do a brief introduction to this item and then turn it over to Jeff Canberra, who is going to report out on the community process that he's engaged in over the last three or four months.