Affordable Housing and Community Equity Development Commission - Regular Meeting

I'm going to call to order the affordable Housing and Community Equity development commission for their meeting of February 27th 2025 first I'll call the role Patrick [Music] present Karen Brittain present Terry Bond present Elijah herck bla not here yet and Rich Halverson not here okay first order of business is the approval of the minutes from January 23rd do I hear a motion to accept the minutes from the 23rd of January so moved a second all those in favor I opposed the minutes from January 23rd have been approved okay the main or order of business today is a presentation of the 2025 analysis of impediments to fair housing choice in the Baltimore region it's a report that's done I'm not actually sure how many how many years between reports um five years maybe Dan can tell us Dan Pontius of who's the housing policy coordinator from the Baltimore area council is going to do that presentation for us um Josh can you bring Dan in so that he can tell us about the impediments to fair housing and there's Dan

all right hello Dan hello I don't know I don't know if you know who we are so let's first do that um great we're the affordable housing community Equity development commission for the city of Annapolis and our main focus is to talk about affordable housing and how we can increase the availability or the the production preservation all aspects of affordable housing and also be housing for the city of Annapolis we work on that as well um tonight you have four of four of members of the commission and I'm Nancy libson and I'm the chairman and I'm going to let everybody else introduce themselves so Pat do you want to start sure uh I'm Patrick Sheridan U retired but also on the Housing Authority the city of Annapolis board and also worked in federal government and rural housing service for a long time along with CDA and couple nonprofits so a lot of housing experience so Patrick and I go way way back to the 90s I guess in our work in affordable housing so we've been around this stuff for a quite a while in fact I would say whenever I worked I worked at acds um as one of my jobs and when I worked there I actually worked came to the meetings of the Baltimore um area Council as they were developing their AI report the N which was I guess in 2003 so I've been around this for a while as well um Karen who's snuck out of the picture there's Karen okay hold

on okay yeah I'm sorry that I muted myself um hi I'm Karen Britain um I have worked a lot with affordable housing through the United Way Winston Salem North Carolina and the lighthouse shelter here right now I'm at the visitors center but next week I'm back in nonprofit and Human Services where I feel like a belong so thanks for coming to talk with us great and hi Dan I'm Terry Bond I um my background is in planning I was a county community planner for both an Rundle where I started started and then a long time in Prince George's I did just about everything down there and I retired in 2016 so now I'm volunteering here great Denise do you want to introduce yourself I've talked to Denise on the phone good to meet you oh okay she's muted right there we go sorry and I'm Denise ruffen I'm a housing affordability specialist for the city of Annapolis I come with a history of over 42 years in affordable housing I and uh I've done actual boots on the ground Property Management I worked with the Developers for the developer when they redeveloped two of the public housing developments there in Baltimore 20 plus years with the state of Maryland as an asset manager worked for a nonprofit and uh did some housing developments so I'm kind of like uh the nuts and bolts from beginning to the end and what I mean is from you know starting at the bottom and just going all the way up so I have a lot of experience as well and this commission has been wonderful working with them some of them we cross paths in our careers at least I know Patrick and I have yeah you guys work

together um I guess they didn't tell you about me I work for Whole variety of different housing organizations from a developer of rural housing um to the Banking Committee on the hill the housing subcommittee and Banking Committee I worked for 10 years in the 90s and acds for a year or two and HUD for a year couldn't take it much more than that um uh where else did I work and then the last job was with the with a nonprofit Association Leading Age where we worked on senior I was in charge of all their senior housing where I cross path with Patrick again when he was with vaa um who by the way Patrick I've been hearing their ads on the radio all the time have you have you been hearing them yeah I actually heard a first one the other day I think was pop like during the main drive time which I don't know whether they got for free or they had to pay but was kind of impressive pretty interesting yeah anyway so Dan welcome to you and we're very glad that you're going to present your report to us um I've been reading through it it has a a ton of information in it and it's it's fascinating we've been for as part of the commission we've been trying to figure out ways to look at fair housing and the and the availability of affordable housing here in Annapolis and this does help us see the intersection between the two and the impediments and so we look forward to hearing you present the findings of your report and then maybe enter into a little bit of a discussion about how we can help um

overcome those impediments in the city of Annapolis so Dan Europe great well thank you very much for having me boy there's a such a wealth of experience in this room in this virtual room here that's uh terrific I uh I mean I I got my start in this type of work uh doing Community Development type work in Baltimore I live in Baltimore city um and worked in Community Development sort of Neighborhood Community Development in the 2000s and then did a couple of years with the city housing department in Baltimore and then uh took this job in 2012 uh so I've worked with Kathy kooch quite a bit I even worked with her a bit when I was at cpha in the 20 but um uh and work with I think you said mentioned Elijah's name I work with him quite a bit now that he's at acds and I work with Melissa Maddox Evans at the Housing Authority so it's great to hear you're on the board there Patrick in fact she is chairing we kind of have chairs of each of the the jurisdiction group and the Housing Authority group and Melissa is chairing the Housing Authority group right now she's she's terrific um so well let me uh and so I uh I got started just after the local government so uh Nancy you must have been involved when they well actually they the very first one of these was done you know the federal government did the regulations for this in 1995 and so we actually did one of the first Regional ones in 1996 I mean that wasn't I wasn't involved but Kathy kooch uh headed that up she told me the story at one point about how she called all the other housing directors to say wouldn't this be easier if we did it together you know and so that was the birth of the first region analysis I think they updated it in the early 2000s which was probably when you were involved and comeing I think BMC helped with that and then um PUD started to get on them in the late 2000s to say hey that's getting kind of old that 1996 document so they worked over and it took

them a while but they finished one in 2012 and so I came here to help them implement the action steps there and then the Obama Administration passed a rule in 2015 that kind of tightened up the rules around this and said hey you should really do it every five years uh before you do your five-year Consolidated plan so every jurisdiction like Anapolis that gets money directly from HUD has to do a A Five-Year Plan Consolidated plan for how you're going to use the HUD money and so as they started and actually HUD in the late 2010s got all of us on the same cycle in this region and everybody's latest was going to start July 1st 2020 so we did one coming up to that so that's our last one and now now it's five years later so they're starting their new con plans that start July 1st 2025 and so we're doing it again even though while we were doing the last one the first Trump Administration repealed the 2015 rule that kind of set the guidelines but The Advocates were all saying hey you should do it anyway and we're like all right we'll we'll do it voluntarily um and then the Biden Administration uh oh and then they repealed the whole thing as just as we were finishing up yeah they repealed the whole rule then the B Administration reestablished the definition of affirmatively further for housing in 2021 and then they proposed a rule for uh new system for planning in 2023 but then they they never finalized that and they actually withdrew it before President Trump was inaugurated and then Denise what you were mentioning I think just a day or two ago they repealed the 2021 just definition of affirmatively furthering fair housing so so there's really what's that we would not want to affirmatively further fair housing please yeah now in the meantime uh delegate then delegate Brookman now our state's controller uh uh got a bill through the state legislature so now there's a state duty to affirmatively further fair housing so and a number of states did that after the first Trump

Administration repealed that 2015 rule a number of states said we want to make sure that and then there still is the statutory Duty too but so that's that's probably more Exposition than you need so let me see if I can um I have a little slide so I I put together some slides that I tried to focus on I tried to make sure to highlight the Anapolis information here um so let me see if I can yeah I'm just going to share my screen and then um do the presentation so here we here we go here's the a few slides or a number of slides I'll try to go pretty quickly so we can have some discussion um first of all this is sort of this is our collaboration um it includes these five County 11 jurisdictions and the City of Annapolis and you can see all the housing authorities for each of the jurisdictions participate as well uh Carol County and queen ants County are in our metro area but they are they don't they get their HUD funds through the state of Maryland so they don't have planning and Reporting requirements uh we're kind of you know for the regional um uh you know we kind of this is sort of the uh the map that we're kind of trying to undo this is affirmatively furthering fair housing you know this is the epitome of the federal government stepping in and saying we're going to subsidize wealth building home ownership for white people only in the suburbs and um and we're going to ward off that kind of investment in uh areas that are more predominantly people of color especially African-Americans at the time um and so those those redlined areas got all the public housing that got built in Baltimore city um while the suburbs just kind of set the template for the construction of the suburbs and there's not there is not a a red lining map for Annapolis although as you folks know I mean there there was segregation in Annapolis certainly and so there were the same kinds of patterns uh you know

the old Fourth Ward you know there were there were the same kinds of patterns of segregation and disparities and investment um in Annapolis as well so when Congress passed the fair housing act in 1968 you know in after a lot of unrest that was uh geared around this this segregation restriction from opportunity they said it's not enough just to stop uh discriminating you have to you have to affirmatively undo the that damage of those of those policies so this is where this is the actual Statute in the Fair Housing Act which is what we have left now essentially since the regulations have been uh all repealed now and then HUD passes this Duty on through its granting of uh funds uh you know and this law has resulted in judgments one was against HUD itself in 2005 year and so the remedy for that was primarily focused on Baltimore city and it and it set up a ultimately set up a 4,400 voucher voucher Mobility Program where uh there's a whole nonprofit organization that we work closely with the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership that administers these vouchers and and helps families especially families with children uh find homes in safe communities with access to good Public Schools so that's sort of helping low-income people who've been restricted from existing opport opportunity areas access them the flip side of of affirmatively furthering for housing is bringing investment to these areas that that have not gotten them historically so the Huds Choice neighborhoods program hopefully that will continue um that they're finishing up uh the Perkin the Redevelopment of Perkins uh homes in Baltimore city um that's the top image and then as you folks I think know uh hacka is working to redevelop Harbor House Eastport Terrace uh through a they have a planning Grant right now and hope to get an implementation Grant and then Baltimore City the housing authority of

Baltimore city is working on that same process in po homes which is in Southwest Baltimore uh so we um held three large stakeholder meetings two of them were virtual like this um but then we really wanted to have an inperson meeting so October 1 we got together at the Harriet Tubman Center in Columbia Maryland um which was terrific and so had a bunch of people in person and then a bunch of other people online uh so we've had a bunch of invol stakeholder involvement in this process we also put together at at you know some members of our housing committee which has a bunch of stakeholders on it suggested uh working groups so we pulled together one on enforcement and the private Market one on renters in particular and one on housing Supply overall and where do we site affordable housing we had a a public agency housing agency co-chair and a private sector co-chair in each one um and so so anyway that's sort of how we got a bunch of public input now I'm going to run through a bunch of stats uh and feel free to stop me if you have a question about one of these slides um but this is sort of a a comparison the region we looked at sort of the demographics in in our last uh fair housing plan we used 2016 uh census data and we used 2022 census data so it's sort of a six-year uh Gap in our um in our data here so you can see this is the region overall our region grew slightly uh became slightly less white um and the growing populations were uh especially the Hispanic population in Baltimore in the Baltimore region actually grew by about 20% it's not really a reflection I think but um the Asian population did grow as well and then all others is getting bigger in terms of how people identify and then Anapolis had somewhat similar Dynamics um although more growth in the

black population a bit of shrinkage in the Hispanic population um so anyway those are those are just sort of the broad kind of demographic Trends uh since our last analysis um one of the things we we pay attention to are racially ethically concentrated areas of poverty which which line up quite a bit these are these are areas that are mostly people of color and that have at least three times our regions poverty rate so 36% poverty uh the dark orange sensus tracks you can see they line up in bmore quite a bit with the redlined areas um so those these are areas that we need to just you know really focus on revitalization I uh there is a and then we looked at Edge AR caps which are just below that level of poverty um and you can see there's a number in Baltimore there's uh and then there's one that was identified in Annapolis I think this is the area kind of around cars Beach I guess uh uh but although I checked the you know census reporter.com which has the 2023 data and that poverty rate is way down so I I I'm not quite sure what uh what to make of that of that thing on our that aspect of our map whether that is truly a a a concentrated area of poverty or not uh but what we are calling for regionally is investments in those areas like Baltimore city has a new strategy to to rehabilitate vacant homes on on large scale um partnership with the state on that there's the the red line Transit line propos in Baltimore um education Investments through the Kerwin blueprint which obviously the state is having a challenge with right now uh and affordability preservation so those are sort of the strategies that we were looking at there and then we looked at access to opportunity in a couple ways the Maryland Department Maryland dhcd is the the main fun of affordable housing

through its low-income housing tax credit program and dhcd uses this opportunity map with these indicators that are listed on the left here um and then the blue areas on this map are the higher opportunity areas and so there are some incentives to um to create uh to award low-income housing tax credits for family housing that's open to families in these areas and we looked at um where people live uh broken down by racial group um and you here you see sort of the legacy of that redlining in the early 20th century uh that in general most people live in Opportunity areas in the region and that's true for all racial groups except uh except African-Americans in our metropolitan area so that's sort of a continuing Legacy of that that we are uh working to change um then we looked at um the the residents of folks who live in low income housing tax credit uh program because there was actually a fair housing uh agreement signed in 2017 there was a complaint brought against Maryland dhcd uh for the way they allocate their tax credits in the Baltimore region the complaint was that they were focusing uh disproportion of their family housing in these formerly redlined areas these areas that already had a lot of poverty uh rather than giving their residents access to the opportunity of the region and so they are have just finished building a thousand units of of uh affordable housing in Opportunity areas some of it's in Anapolis um and we were worried you know is that going to is that just going to continue the patterns in the Suburban areas in the higher opportunity areas or is that going to give uh U Mo moderate income modest income African-American families access to those areas of opportunity and this analysis that we did with data we got from Maryland DCd shows that it does

give black F families that opportunity that that homes created by the state through its long composing tax credit program are as you can see disproportionately um serve uh African-American residents um and it's about 72% as opposed to a 31% share of the population uh and when those homes are built in those opportunity areas African-American families gain gain access to them but you can see that disproportionately there still even now these are the ones funded in the last 15 years and they're still predominantly being located in the lower opportunity areas of the of the metropolitan area um we look he is getting a little bit in the weeds but the the state has a competitive 9% program um uh where they can influence where things go due to scoring and then there's a a non-competitive 4% program that's less valuable and so we wanted to tease out because we were never able to change you know kind of separate them in our analysis for but we were able to do that here and it shows that the scoring is really important because uh the 9% uh homes are located more it's still only about a third in areas of opportunity since 2010 but they are located at a higher level in areas of opportunity and then the 4% credits and these are new units not rehabilitated units but new units so you can decide where they go they they they're only about 20% are located in areas of opportunity so we've been trying to get the state to to do more scoring incentives to help folks live in areas of opportunity and they've kind of resisted that and so this was our pitch to that to that hey you really should you really should uh uh do do that here's an interesting I I pulled out this slide because this shows just all affordable housing open to families in the metropolitan area and it shows

that Annapolis is somewhat similar to Baltimore and and some and even more so actually what this does is it compares the share the blue bars here are each jurisdiction's share of the Region's total homes so you know Baltimore city is 26.4% of all the homes in the Baltimore region and you know Napolis as a relatively small city is 1.7% of the total homes in the whole metropolitan area uh but then when you look at publicly assisted homes open to families with children um the city of Anapolis has six and a half percent of all of those homes in the whole region so it actually has quite a bit of proportionately has quite a bit of of publicly assisted homes you know has its own Housing Authority has public housing which only outside of Anapolis only Baltimore city and an and an rondle County have uh in the Baltimore area I guess hav Grace has a little bit up there um so anyway Baltimore City also has a higher share of assisted homes open to families uh than it does regular housing and then you can see all the other Suburban jurisdictions have you know don't have as high a share of the of the affordable housing open to families as they do a share of the of the overall homes so U this kind of an interesting slide I think just in terms of sort of are you know do does each jurisdiction have its its share we also did we did our own opportunity map this is something we did in our last one as well and we we refreshed that that map we we worked with the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership that does that Regional Mobility Program to do this these are the uh indicators that we use we use some education indicators because we think you know life quality schools

is really important um and then some rental housing indicators but you can see the map is you know very similar um and we we looked at who Liv where and has a very similar pattern here where the the number one is the highest opportunity quintile and so you have higher nonh hispanic white populations and Asian populations in the higher opportunity areas and then as higher share of African-American population as you uh as it goes towards the lower opportunity areas um and then the key thing is looking at our you know how are our Housing Programs interacting with that are we reinforcing those patterns that are kind of left over from that 1937 red lining map or are we countering them and this chart shows that we still have some work to do um because as you the the Bottom bar on this chart shows that the total homes in the region are kind of evenly distributed among the quintiles the dark purple are the top two quintiles the green is the lower two opportunity areas opportunity quintiles and the light purple is the medium and you can see that all of the publicly assisted housing whether it's open to families the top one General occupancy this is the fair housing act accessible to people with dis ambulatory disabilities people use a wheelchair or something like that um the reason we separate these out is because actually elderly housing tends to be more in Opportunity areas than family housing and in fact for a lot of our you know recent history in fact this is part of what the fair housing complaint against the state was is that the Suburban jurisdictions were building a lot of homes just is restricted to elderly people in the nicer parts of the region and uh so the argument was you really have to open that to families with children and then the housing Choice voucher holders obviously vouchers are supposed to the idea is you can live anywhere but then when you look at where people actually

live it's not by itself not kind of really offering people that ability to move and access these areas of opportunity without without a lot of help so that's sort of the regional picture uh and then pulled out the ones that separate out the city of Annapolis so the city of Annapolis actually has compared to the region you know this is compared to that top bar where you know we have less than 10% in the very highest opportunity areas but Anapolis has you know good 15% of its housing and then a whole bunch in the middle opportunity quintile which I think is significant as well in fact more than anybody but Howard any jurisdiction but Howard County and Howard County is a is a largely High opportunity County so that's sort of a bar chart that shows how and this is the again this publicly assisted housing open to families with which Anapolis has quite a bit of this like 1,800 units of affordable housing um and then here's the map of the region that sort of shows how this a lot of these homes are concentrated in the green lower opportunity areas of Baltimore city um and this has an inset for Anapolis where you can see Anapolis homes uh specifically and you can see that they are a bunch of them are in the higher opportunity parts of the city of Annapolis uh then here's um here are the homes that are restricted to senior citizens and you can see Anapolis according to our data Anapolis doesn't have nearly as many of those you know a lot of suburban jurisdictions built a lot of you know publicly subsidized homes that are off limits to families with children they're only for for senior citizens um and those tend as you can see from this chart those tend to be uh you know Annapolis is more in the middle of the pack here in terms of access to opportunity for homes open to uh restricted to senior

citizens and here's the map of those homes as well um and then one of the things that we are working to do working with meliss MX Evans and the other housing authorities um we started this in 2016 we got a grant from HUD a seed Grant from um and all the housing we learned this from Chicago uh which was doing it and has stopped doing it so I think we're the only ones in the country who are doing this now but all of our housing authorities chipped in vouchers proportional to the size of their voucher programs so we have a 90 193 in the pool now and most of those are from Baltimore city um Annapolis you know has a relatively small voucher program so it's only three vouchers in that pool of 193 from the housing authority of the city of Annapolis um but what we do is we put out a regional RFP for developers and we say hey would you know if you need you know would like some help financing and would like to provide some homes for for very low-income people in some of these uh safe communities with access to good Public Schools um you know we will consider we we have a whole rank you whole scoring system to award those vouchers that we think works pretty well and so we've awarded 150 vouchers um to developments that have a, units total in them 13 developments around the region including Town courts and Willows at for Town courts which is open and has six families living in our uh units um and Willows at Forest Drive which I think I'm not sure if it's under under construction is it under construction under construction yep so we have 11 you know so we helped finance that and um and so an appolis gets you know 17 units of affordable housing um even though only chipped in three vouchers that's kind of how it works like the you know these we have not yet awarded a a development in Baltimore

City yet um so a lot of these are Baltimore City uh vouchers but they're being used in Opportunity areas of the region and then we try to help people live in these units proportional to the to the um uh housing authorities that contributed the vouchers so a lot of these folks are are Baltimore City residents who are now getting to live if they want to in a uh in a in a a safer Community um in our Suburban jurisdictions so uh so unfortunately the that that HUD seed money provided uh Mobility counseling money so we were able to help people with their credit rating if that was a problem to leasing up or uh tenant history budgeting that kind of thing um but we've run out of that money and we need to find another source of it so we we actually did not do an RFP this year for the first time and and that's one of our steps we also this is the last part of the data piece we're looking at racial home ownership gaps that's something we started focusing on in 2020 um you see the region has a 30p point gap between non-hispanic white people at 76% home ownership and black families at 46% home ownership and then every jurisdiction including Annapolis um you know have pretty pretty good size gaps racial gaps in uh in home ownership and for the first time this year we looked at um the overall supply of housing because Brian Green who was at HUD for a long time and now is at the National Association Brian makes a um makes a compelling case here that really uh we're not building housing like we used to just overall and so that makes it very hard for people who don't already have wealth in housing to break into Home Ownership um so that's sort of our our statistics and then I have some slides here on our action plans so we have

Regional action plans and then there are jurisdiction plans for each jurisdiction who that participated so uh regionally they the jurisdictions want to keep coordinating regionally and keep supporting my position at BMC we want to continue convening the housing committee which we kind of paused to do this document but that's sort of a monthly Forum that's open to anyone and we have a lot of stakeholders come and we we do it virtually and we discuss key issues related to fair housing in that in that monthly group we want to sustain the regional Project based voucher program and we need to identify funding for Mobility counseling we want to as you know as I kind of mentioned we want Marilyn DCd to adjust their their scoring on the 9% lcom housing tax credit program to have more homes built in areas of opportunity while targeting that 35% you know of the tax credits to revitalization strategies like uh choice communities um we want to continue to preserve affordable housing uh and then we have a few steps related to the renter uh small group um to help make sure that renters overall not just subsidized renters have uh and they are disproportionately uh people of color in our region that's sort of the flip side of the home ownership gaps is that renters are disproportionately nonwhite and so we want to uh take some steps to make sure they can have the renters have safe places to live um we want to address racial home ownership gaps including kind of our big new Step here was to convene the planning and housing directors every every six months to try to to work on addressing um obstacles to building new housing I know I've talked to Chris J kubak in Annapolis I know you're new uh comprensive plan kind of looks at that you know how can we um kind of in do some infill and uh add some homes even

in Annapolis um but this is a bigger problem in the counties there's a lot of restrictions because of crowded schools on building homes in a lot of the counties in the region um and then we want to address barriers this is sort of the revitalization piece um with that I mentioned before um some of this is kind of in the weeds but uh these are all steps that we've been kind of working on that that help people help bring opportunity to areas that have excluded it historically and that help uh lower income people access the opportunity that already exists in our region and then the last thing a lot of this came out of our enforcement um working group we want to take steps to help uh promote fair housing enforcement as well um including working with the Maryland Commission on civil rights which does the bulk of the enforcement um to uh make sure that complaint process is as good as it uh as it can be uh we're working right now um Maryland is one of 11 states whoops that doesn't uh allow recording of fair housing tests you know when you do paired tests you send people to a realtor or a landlord who only they only differ by protected class and you see if they get treated differently um right now you have to they have to leave and then write everything down really carefully um but in most States you can just press record on a recorder while you're in there or your phone or something like that um and so we're trying to get that exception written into Maryland's uh all party consent law and then um and then these are the Anapolis uh action steps these are the last couple slides here um so you can see that Anapolis is uh steps are to enhance very housing

resources and compliance through awareness through Distributing information revising the zoning code to expand choice for people with [Music] disabilities um and then I think the last slide here is to encourage development of additional affordable housing is what we theoretically do and increase ownership opportunities for under represented household so that's getting at the racial uh home ownership GS and I think that is it yeah comments are due tomorrow so that's where we were thinking you know better to do the meeting now you know and just do the notice as best we can especially since there are no regulations really uh deciding how exactly we have to do this but there was we did try to do like at least one public meeting or public Hearing in each jurisdiction and so this is the one for for Anapolis and and the local governments and housing authorities will finalize this in March after we consider all the comments uh we're going to print like a 100 final copies so if people want those let us know um and that's it I think uh yeah there's my information but um I'm happy to go back to any of the other slides if you want to if I was going a little too quick or to take questions or hear any thoughts that you might have thank you very much for for doing this presentation is there some way you could send your the whole presentation to I guess yeah to Denise and then she can get it to all of us so we have it as a quicker reference than 500 and whatever Pages um yeah a lot of lot of lot stuff in that document yeah and we

didn't get a a um at least for the draft we didn't get an executive summary done which which is too bad so uh we'll have to see how we how best it can be packaged for the final yeah yeah so that that's one thing but um it's really it's packed with information which is it I have tended to use it as kind of an encyclopedia actually I I find that over the five years I'll be you know I'll I'll be working with something and I'll say what's this statistic wait I think that might have been in the AI and I'll look back on it and sure enough it was so yeah it is it's not designed it's probably not best to be it's not like bedtime reading really no no it's not but it um it is it does have a bunch of stuff you can just kind of flip through and look at the charts and the maps I think those really do have the the key statistics that we were trying to highlight like I did here this presentation then you can kind of look at the text to kind of explain it and then the bottom line really are the action plans at the end and the idea is that each jurisdiction includes these action steps in their Consolidated plan and then they that's how they make sure that as they operate their housing programs with Federal housing funds they are affirmatively furthering threats so I'm G to kick off some discussion or question given what we're witnessing now in um Washington in terms of the all the cuts and all the the backtracking of everything that we have looked at and held dear for a number of years what do what do you think the prognosis is for implementation of any of the goals of the communities I mean

can the state funds and the local funds and initiatives fill the gaps cuz we're not going to have a whole lot of federal impetus that's for sure yeah anyone T I mean obviously this was done before we knew how horrible it was going to be but I'm just curious if if anybody has any thoughts about that there's a lot of stuff in there that is not going to be possible given the the future that we so far see yeah I don't know if Denise has heard thing I mean I feel like the impact on HUD is not clear yet I mean obviously they're trying to cut all kinds of things um and they're there right now exactly yeah boys are there now yeah so you know in all while you were doing this presentation Dan I that question just kept whirling around in my head we we we don't even know which way to go we're at the for in the road because we don't know what's going to happen you know as far as you know housing period and and and they don't understand what it all incompasses and what HUD does I mean if we don't know about any other uh government agency I think all of us on this meeting can really recognize how things cuts that they make how it will affect you know the communities all across the nation you know and um so we can almost understand and have compassion for what the other agencies do that we don't work

in but this is this this one's scary because we work so hard to get where we are over the course of 40 50 years fair housing Equitable housing and now it's like okay are we going to just stop right here or are we going to roll backwards and I'm afraid you know HUD Hud's an easy target for them I mean when Trump was in time he went after it so I'm just you know you use that word Equity I mean it's I'm I'm very fearful unless I mean this is a public meeting but unless Congress does their job unless our Representatives start to put some muzzles on this but otherwise I'm very very because we're already in a a housing affordable housing crisis as it is we don't have enough and now if if it stops um or you know if it stops or it gets cut what are the people going to do but I did have a question for you Dan um and it came to my mind and went away um I noticed here I noticed that most of your focus here you talked about the low-income hous and tax credit program um and I I guess that that is just the way that we would provide housing through that one particular program we're not providing housing under the Project based Section 8 um multifam developments because they haven't been doing anything there so I guess the one reliable source that we can um count on is the low-income housing tax credits that's what I'm getting from the meeting so I guess when they cut the IRS that's the end of the credits right just don't know well those credits are in statute you know I mean I think we're are gonna try you know it's it's going to take a little while to

play out I think but we're gonna see you know what they can't cut because it's in statute and um right so I think that is the advantage of low-income housing tax credit program I believe you know it's not even operated by Hud it's it's it's administered by the treasury Department right right um so uh so that's that and then and then I think do think that the voucher program I'll be really curious to see funding levels for that I mean there you really are talking about like throwing people out of their housing onto you know and so that is something that Congress and the president have not been willing to do and I I I think that would be hard I would hope that that would be hard to do so I think between the long in tax credit and the housing Choice Voucher Program um you know now what the you know the home program you know we'll see with the these other programs that are in Hud's budget we'll see what happens with those cdbg you know so we'll see what happens with those kind of hot breaking just kind of hot breaking because we just see how it really will affect the most vulnerable in this country you well we'll see I mean all kinds of jur itions use home funds and cdbg funds you know it's not just blue states that that use and need that money so um so I'm curious I I think we have to see how this all plays out I mean it's a it's a you know there's sort of a lot of uncertainty but um I think we really need to kind of see how it all see how it we have to keep fighting for it though right yeah and that and it we'll see what what Congress does you know because yeah we'll see we'll see what Congress does I guess so far it's roll over and play

dead um I had a question um when I was in Winston Sal with the United Way I I was housing quality standard certified and their standards are pretty high in for housing inspections and I think they're a little bit looser here I'm a renter my house would not pass inspection well I I wonder about how strict the the inspection standards are that discourage landlords to want to work with housing programs with the voucher program yeah are you are you talking about hqs for the voucher program in particular yeah well we do we have um you know actually since our last report I think I think it was was it 2000 it might have been you know Maryland has s of income protection now so landlords are not supposed to be able to say oh I don't want to deal with your inspection program oh I know that they can't say that but I know that they do because I was landlord engagement with the unit or the lighthouse shelter here and then you call and they're like oh our their ant their workaround is our house won't pass inspection oh interesting so that is their workaround but I mean it was real strict to North Carolina I mean if plugs weren't grounded you know tiny cracks some windows and they were like we just can't afford at this rent price to get everything perfect so I just didn't know if you've seen a deterrent for working with our programs because of that or there's any loosening of any requirements we we are trying to yeah and I don't know you know I'm not I haven't been close enough to that inspection program to understand how restrictive it is or not um but and I you know it's obviously administered by different housing authorities um but uh I do we one thing we would like and

this is a resource issue too you know but we would like to have kind of a robust testing program because I think that's the only way to have these um protections enforced which are state level protections so yeah I mean I'm just thinking it's it's so strict that it's hard for people to be compliant when taking the bottom wrong of the you know rent that they could expect you're saying it's hard even in there at with the because we have tried to I think housing authorities are trying to keep payment standards competitive for yeah areas um so I would hope it would be enough I personally don't see the the inspections being that strict I mean you okay um you know it's the same standards that they use under the protocol of housing because if you compare all the inspection they are the same the city of Annapolis every landlord has to if they rent property in Anapolis they have to go through the inspection and when you when you compare the two inspections the city of Annapolis uses the international property maintenance code I think it's called IPM and when I compare that to the Hut inspections they look at the same exact thing so I don't see a disparity but if if I want to move into your house well I I expect it to be within the code so right I don't see it as being rigorous I think I think what it is is it's repetitive which you know over overbearing sometimes for land laws but I thought when they when they deter determined the U Market rents for the

housing Choice vouchers that that was one of the things that they factored into the rent was the cost or something towards the cost of doing the inspections okay that's good I mean like my windows don't open that would never pass inspection well well well that doesn't sound so good you own the house no I rent renting your local municipality and see what happens because if they no that's okay I think my point is I like my house I'm glad to be where I'm living so I think getting people in housing and then and that was my whole thing like yeah I can stick to my landlord but I'm okay yeah yeah then I live where I want to live but you know one one experience I had this is Baltimore not Annapolis but I worked for the as I mentioned I worked for the city housing department like 2010 to 2012 it was during the stimulus payments and the Great Recession so there was a bunch of weatherization money we were trying to leverage that for green and healthy homes and uh I started a pilot program for rental housing because we were the city was only supporting those types of Renovations for owner occupants lower income owners um but you know that the the majority of the city had just flipped to renters over the great over the Foreclosure crisis so so we started working with landlords and I thought oh we'll just enforce Cod you know that that because whereas with homeowners you you know they can't afford the the repairs you know you need to help help them out but I thought well we just we'll just enforce code and then and then I did find some voucher uh some landlords who use housing Choice vouchers uh wanting to get in on the program and what I found was that those homes were in the best shape actually and I think it was because the voucher payment standard really did make sure that they had the resources to be able to keep up

Yeahs okay that totally makes sense I was just checking because my house clearly passed inspection but I'm sure it was you gotta stop saying that you're on public TV girl true some look at my address I'll be homeless well that's are you uh I mean that was my experience in Baltimore as well because we thought yeah we'll just enforce code but then we we really deferred to the tenants and we found that a lot of tenants didn't want to enforce code because they felt like they were getting a break on their rent in return for living in substandard housing yeah um so that's a break that's a that's a that's a tough one but we did I mean we we you know Regal action steps we did want to try to make sure that every jurisdiction has sort of a minimum health and safety standard that that can be enforced and that um and the results of those inspections can be easily access and things like that yeah and there's some jurisdictions that don't like like the City of Minneapolis requires inspections in some different counties um require inspections and then there's some that don't you know so if every municipality did everything the same across the board then you would have these inspections everywhere but I I know in the city we do them but I know in around the county doesn't like you don't have to go and get an inspection in order to rent a unit I don't know where you live and I'm not asking I'm not saying it now that's for sure so and I don't know how it works in um um Howard County I don't know how all the other Co counties um work but in my experience they really didn't go out you you know your affordable housing communities got inspected because of different regulations but I don't know

about individual yeah um land private for the voucher program there's a standard I mean the standard is the same B bottom level but there's a standard and and anything that's in the voucher program is going to have an inspection right I do like that um Dan was talking about that they did help you know landlords because they do focus a lot on the homeowners but the landlords or who we need to provide the AFF V program yeah yeah and sometimes they don't want to rent because they don't want to go through that inspection process you know and so and then some don't want to rent because their neighbors don't want you know there's so much discrimination out there in housing that we just don't see unless your boots on the ground witnessing it yourself you know far as the voucher holders and that's what ends up putting them in non opportunity areas sometimes because the communities they like to go to for some reason or the other they face you know nope not in my neighborhood kind of oh 100% yeah yeah so I don't know I liked it way back when when we all lived amongst each other you know so different growing up as a kid because the neighborhood I lived in everybody lived in I lived in a high area of immigration at the time so you lived amongst all kinds of people and it was just you know it was really really great growing up and somehow we has got pushed in the different directions anyway yeah anyway for uh Dan one thing city of Anapolis did is we did Implement a program to U Aid private landlords for repairs in return for some affordability and it was funded but no one used it that I understand right no no no really

we redirected the money to ha anyway which we needed it there just as much but uh I don't maybe Denise knows is there any funds left in that account or no that money went that they felt it would have been to went to a better use with you know where they sent it it wasn't a big pot of money and $1,000 I think or something wasn't a lot it was 500,000 500,000 we we discussed it at our meeting here right we did anyway the program's on the books it just needs to be funded by the city I guess but had got hadn't gotten used by anybody besides the housing well that's where they reallocated it to they voted to reallocate it over there so it we probably going to better use given the situation as it is right now so and I you know I worked a program like that and I worked a program like that when I worked with Maryland where the homeowners and um got money to picks up their house in exchange for leasing the you uh the renting them to low to moderate income I can't remember the actual restrictions so the program got off the ground and it was a uh 10year forgiveness program where they reduced the balance of what you borrowed by 10% and when I picked up that program none of the landlords were complying every single property that I went to too that was giving the money you know they may have started off and then they wouldn't send the information on the tenant to make sure that it was an affordable unit and then we went and some of the buildings were just abandoned you know like put perfume on a pig for that program I hate to sound like that because it didn't really serve a purpose and we weren't talking about a

half a million dollars we were talking about millions of dollars that were poured into and a lot of it was poured into the city of Baltimore and these landlords never followed through on the affordable housing in after they were given the money to fix up the units so I didn't see it successful but that was my first experience in it too you know Dan Dan what do you think the likelihood is that a lot of your recommendations a lot of the recommendations for each jurisdiction get implemented or how long did do but there's another five years before you do something is that is that sort of the the time frame that you've given each jurisdiction for implementing their proposals yeah well the whole yeah the whole document is a five-year plan and so we I kind of help monitor the regional ones and um and we do the best we can I mean historically uh I mean there's a couple ways to look at this one is to kind of aim low in a way that can definitely do it or you can aim high and try you know try to get there and and The Advocates in this region have preferred that we aim high even if we don't always get so that's that's what we are do you know you if you look at the regional I'm mostar with regional list it's it's pretty ambitious and you know and I'm one person very ambitious uh so we do as as best we can and and part of the housing the monthly housing committee meetings are kind of keeping our keeping the dialogue with the stakeholders and practitioners and Advocates to to make sure that we're addressing the things that that are the most depressing um uh and so but yeah the the both for us coordinate cooperating voluntarily as a region and for each local jurisdiction

it's it's supposed to be a five-year plan so the idea is these will get done over the next five years now we talked about at the Lighthouse shelter was kind of like corporate housing where um you know you just make it whole at the end you know you're asking people to rent to these high-risk tenants and we'll get it back to square one and they have to rent it again has anybody been working with that or had any success with that you mean like funds for repairs and that kind of thing to kind of refresh the units between tenants yeah yeah so we're going to put these highrisk tants in there if they trash it you know we'll make it whole and then you rent it again but they're kind of tied in to having to rent it to another one of our clients I know there have been um efforts to to do that uh I don't know um like for example HUD you know I don't know if how much this might continue but HUD had been or congress actually had been appropriating money for Mobility counseling um we uh we applied regionally for the this uh demonstration program and didn't get it and then we were not able to get an application in for the next one which was it was not even a the first one was a whole random control randomized control trial it was all very rigorous and the second one was really just money for Mobility counseling and unfortunately we just weren't able to get an application in for that one but um but I believe that those types of programs sometimes those programs include money for things like that as incentives for landlords so uh I'm not sure um where we talked about it we got caught up in the the old classic

analysis paralysis and then everybody lost their minds and then we didn't move forward but it seems like a low risk option for landlords yeah yeah it's tough the tough thing is finding the money for that's what we're struggling with with this Mobility counseling for uh Regional Project based vouchers our our idea first was to charge it to the development you know like I mean these are really valuable vouchers you know it's like a $ thousand dollar a month you know over 20 or 40 years like that's quite a bit of money and that it helps developers borrow more to build their so we we said hey you know we just need like $2,500 up front to kind of get people in here um um so they were happy to do it but then the state Maryland dhcd said no everybody would do that then you like because apparently people who provide services to ten to vulnerable tenants want to fund that through the development like everyone would want to charge their thing to the development and then the cost the development would go up and up and up so so they've said no to that and so we're trying to work with them I guess this this session is not going to happen and the state of course now is in a budget crunch too um but I know the the we were hoping that there might be some way to identify some funding source to to do that but that's always the challenge you know uh how do you where do you find the money uh for that thank you anyone else have any questions comments well the only I had is I really enjoyed the presentation yes oh thank you well great great discussion great questions very very educational and sometimes we don't know everything that's going on but the

stuff that you put together that gave us some of us uh uh a real vision of what's going on around the state so thank you so much for your hard work and for coming to our meeting as well appreciate that and it's great to see all you yeah good to see you how old is this a relatively new commission or has this been around for a long time I I don't have a sense been around a while uhuh it started originally um I don't remember I don't know when maybe Terry knows but um it started originally as a yeah it's been different in iterations and it was a committee that included Council the older people so um yeah because I did come before the pandemic We were finishing up our last one right just before the pandemic and so I I I came to Annapolis once and I'm trying to think if it was this group um I think it might have been I was I think it probably was and it was down city hall probably yeah yeah and it was I can't if it was late 2019 or very early it was probably late 2019 frankly um but it was a neat it was a neat Gathering you know back when we assumed we would be in person we've changed and now we're commission and we're just advisory and we don't have we don't have um we're not a committee anymore in and working with this directly with the aler people so it's a little different right originally we originally we we had the as a committee working with the alderman we had a um a role in approving cdbg granes ETA uh we don't do that anymore but our our mission's actually gotten broader you know but we don't have

power right we have no power but we have a broader broader portfolio I suppose um and there around quite a while there a wonderful group of people Denise agreed second that yeah I can tell I mean I that's uh I I was a history major in college so I just love the the background stories yeah and also just well just I just the value of people with different perspectives who've been doing this a while you know who can who can bring that all to to Bear is uh is really is something so it's great to Great to talk to all of you you're you are an amazing group thank you a great you guys have done terrific a terrific amount of work and I think the report is going to be if people look at it and follow it and all of us try to implement the the recommendations for each jurisdiction it's going to be it it will have an impact it should be good um yeah I don't know Patrick how much I I know Melissa obviously participated I don't know how much she's talked about it with your board or if she has it all but yeah curious to see yeah we have plus we need to do our own affirmative fair housing marketing plan it sort of flows into what Dan did too so a lot of information that sort of cross pollinates right and with the trying to implement the choice neighborhoods Grant probably as well um yeah okay yeah hopefully get an implementation grant that would that could I mean I know the boy the stuff that's going up uh on the

Perkins site in Baltimore city is really quite something it's h it's remarkable so it' be great to have that in Annapolis too that's Perkins was the school right was the school uh no it was Perkin homes it was a public housing oh perk homes okay all right yeah big a big public housing site and then there was another one Somerset which got demolished in the 2000s they're redeveloping both of those sites um and it looks great it's really beautiful actually what Perkins Perkins homes yeah I mean they're they're redeveloping it into more more homes so they're replacing all the public housing but then they're adding you know I think some with with higher income affordability and then some Market kind of like a mix so that you can offset the cost of I I was shocked to see they were doing po homes because they did everything on that side so when they was over there in the '90s they should have just included po homes and are they doing something with poppleton over there too oh boy poppleton been around forever in a day right well and they the city originally contracted with this developer who just didn't come through on things so they they just said the city finally just severed their relation they they tried to sever their relationship with the developer years ago and the developer Pur sued and went to court and the judge said oh Baltimore City you can't do that you gotta keep you got to keep working with this guy so then it didn't work for a bunch of other years and the city tried again and and they were able to do it this time so hopefully hopefully they can get bit more of a fresh start there yeah well Dan we thank you very much for coming coming and partic and if you could share that presentation with Denise and Denise can get it to all of

us I'll PDF these slides and send them to Denise right now get them that' be great Nancy can I do it in the morning I'm a little tired now you don't have to do it tonight'll for don't worry about it I'll get it to you all right well it's great to see everybody I guess good to see you thank you very much have a great night bye um any further business for all of us if not I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved all in favor I all opposed there's nobody to oppose it um so we are adjourned until the