City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

It doesn't look like any of your colleagues are getting out. I'm just going to give it a few more minutes, just in case. That was good. Thank you.

I am the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Housing and Community Development. Today is Friday, June 12th, 2026, and it is exactly 10.05 a.m. In accordance with Chapter 2 of the Act of 2025, modifying certain requirements of the Open Meeting Law and relieving public bodies of certain requirements, including the requirement that public bodies conduct its meeting in a public space that is open and physically accessible to the public, the City Council will be conducting this hearing virtually via Zoom. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being livestreamed at boston.gov-city-council-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Files Channel 964. Writing and comments may be sent to the committee, email at ccc.housing at boston.gov. It will be made a part of the record and available to all counselors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you wish to sign up for a public testimony and have not done so, please email our central staff liaison, Ryan Pratt at ryan.pratt at boston.gov for the student link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket number 0792, message in order authorizing the city of Boston acting through its mayor's office of housing to apply for and accept and expand the federal fiscal year 2025 continuum of care grants fund of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in an amount not to exceed $50 million. These funds will be used to support programs that provide services in housing persons experiencing homelessness. This matter was sponsored by Mayor Michelle Liu and was referred to the committee on April 15, 2026. We will also hear on docket number 0913, message in order authorizing the city of Boston to accept and expand the amount of $16,834,742 in the form of a grant. The federal FY26 Community Development Block Grant awarded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development will be administered by the Mayor's Office of Housing. The grant will fund housing, economic development, and social service programs. the award amount is estimated from prior years. We will also hear on docket number 0914, message in order authorizing the City of Boston to accept and expand the amount of $4,825,132.90 in the form of a grant, in the form of the grant, the Federal FY26 Home Investment Partnerships Program grant awarded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to be administered by the Mayor's Office of Housing. The grant would fund the production of new affordable rental and home ownership housing and also provide operating support for community development corporations. The award amount is estimated from prior years. We will also hear on dot gate number 0915, message an order authorizing the city of Boston to accept and expand the amount of $3,859,049 in the form of a grant. The federal FY26 housing for persons with AIDS HOPWA grant awarded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to be administered by the Mayor's Office of Housing. The grant will fund services for income eligible individuals and families affected by AIDS. The award amount is estimated from prior years. Docket number 0916, a message in order authorizing the city of Boston to accept and expand the amount of $1,489,616 in the form of a grant, the federal FY26 emergency solutions grant awarded by the United States Department of Housing and urban development to be administered by the Mayor's Office of Housing. The grant would fund street outreach, emergency shelter, homelessness prevention, rapid rehousing assistance, and shelter services. The award is estimated from prior years. These matters were sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu and were referred to the committee on May 6th, 2026. Today, I am joined by my colleague in order of arrival, Councilor Aaron Murphy.

Um, I think Council agreed.

Okay.

Sure. I'm seeing everyone. I don't see her on yet, but when she goes on, I will acknowledge her. Um, okay. I'm going to waive the opening remarks for today, just because we could go straight to the presentation. And now I would like to introduce today's panelists. We have Rick Wilson, who's the Director of Administration and Finance. We have Christine O'Keefe, Director of Neighborhood Housing Development. Katie Cahill Holloway, who's the Director of Supportive Housing. Daniel Johnson, Director of the Office of Housing Stability. Christine McCrory, Assistant Director of Home Center. We have Donald Wright, Interim Chief of the Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion, Alicia Porcina, Director of Small Businesses, and I believe we should have Katie Gow as well, Director of Workforce Grantmaking. So with that, I want to pass it over to today's panelists.

Thank you, councillors. Okay, so Ryan, I'm sharing my screen, right?

Yes, that works.

All right. That work, I think it worked. Okay, good morning counselors for the record. My name is Rick Wilson and I'm the director of administration and finance. At the mayor's office of housing, I'm joined today. By senior staff from as well as. Uh, interim chief Donald right from the office of economic opportunity and inclusion. Um, and and other senior staff from the office of, uh, economic opportunity, inclusion and the office of workforce development. We're here today to request approval to accept and expend our annual grants from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, for the upcoming fiscal year. Today's hearing covers funding from five HUD programs. Our 4 entitlement grants, a community development block grant. Home investment partnerships initiative, housing opportunities for persons with AIDS. Emergency solutions grant and and the continuum of care program. Combine these grants total over 79Million dollars, which will primarily be used. During the city's upcoming fiscal year 2027. As you will hear, these are extremely important sources of funding for the city that support a number of programs for low and moderate income Bostonians and formerly homeless individuals and families. It's a screen sharing working still. Looks like it is okay. So, 1st, I'll talk about our entitlement grants home and. These grants are determined by statutory formulas. Based on factors like population, age of housing, extensive poverty and housing overcrowding. The funding allocations for each jurisdiction depends on the total of funding available for the across the nation. These formula inputs as well as the number of jurisdictions eligible for funding. In other words, the more jurisdictions are eligible, the less funding each jurisdiction receives. And that is a trend. That we've been seeing from seeing for many years. Luckily, the Appropriations Act passed by Congress earlier this year rejected some of the Trump administration's proposals to slash funding for these programs and provided close to level funding for these grants for PY26. So here are our PY26 allocations for CDBG and HOME. We're seeing small decreases of about $100,000 each. Um, while has an opportunity for persons with aids. It's increasing by over 200,000 dollars and is declining slightly. By 21,000 dollars, so our total allocation is essentially level at just over 27Million dollars or 0.17% less than last year. um i will point out that these uh grants have basically been flat or even declining for many years um and as costs as we know costs are are increasing and that means that we can do less and less with our hud funding i'll start by i'll dive into a little more detail for each of these sources so starting with cdbg Our 27 allocation is 16.8M dollars. Is the primary administering agency for these funds. But we do sub grant a portion of them to for small business assistance to workforce development for job training and readiness programs. Add to the office of fair housing and equity for investigation activity. For MOH, we use our CDBG funding for first-time homebuyer assistance, home repair programs, acquisition and preservation of affordable rental housing, and the development of community gardens and open space through the grassroots program. Next, we have home and our 27 home allocation is 4.8Million dollars. And we use this entirely to fund the development of affordable rental housing. Home funds must be used for households out of below 80% of. But 90% of the units funded with home have to support households up to 60%. Um, for our application is 3.9Million dollars. Is the administering agency for hopper for all of Norfolk, Plymouth and Suffolk counties. We use opera for tenant based rental assistance, short term mortgage. Right utility assistance, housing counseling and permanent housing placement for people living with HIV AIDS. And our last entitlement grant is the. It's our smallest 1, 1.5M dollars of their allocation for 27. Which we use to fund street outreach and homelessness prevention activity. So, those are our 4 entitlement grants. Next, I'll talk about our largest HUD grant, which is the Continuum of Care program. This is actually a number of different grants, but it's all through the same program. It's a competitive grant program focused on homelessness. If you add up all those awards for the upcoming year, it's about $52 million. MOH administers the COC funds for the City of Boston, but the vast majority, 94%, are passed through to 18 different nonprofit housing and service providers. Um, as shown here, uh, you'll see that, uh, in the city of Boston, 90% of our funds. Support permanent support of housing and rapid rehousing programs. For nearly 2000 homeless, formerly homeless households, we believe in housing 1st. The targeted populations for this funding include a chronically homeless individuals, individuals with disabilities, mental health and substance use disorders. Veterans domestic violence, survivors, youth and young adults. We also use CSE funds for our Head-Mandated Homeless Management Information System, or HMIS, coordinated entry and housing navigation. I'll just take a moment to just provide an update on. Our funding overall, as you probably know, counselors last year. How to attempt it to reorient the program away from housing 1st, away from permanent housing and towards shelter, transitional, housing, treatment and work requirements. They should know at the end of last year that. Prioritize those programs over permanent housing. Those changes would have resulted in the loss of hundreds of permanent housing units in Boston, and would have jeopardized housing. For many vulnerable individuals and families. Thankfully, we, along with a number of other jurisdictions, or 6 that have been successful in court. And in Congress, I'm feeding back those changes and how is in the process of renewing all of our grants for for this fiscal year and for the next for the next fiscal year. And that's what we're showing here. And that's what you're voting on, or that's what this hearing is about today. However, HUD did just release their 2026, COC 2026 NOFO. And as we expected, they are once again trying to move forward with these changes. It's not quite as bad as the NOFO they released last year, but we are working through that right now and working with our provider partners and with the state and our lawyers to review that NOFO and take action. So that covers all of the HUD grants before you today. I did want to just quickly highlight what we intend to accomplish with these funds. As I mentioned, they support a broad range of impactful programs and services. The targets that we're showing here are just for our HUD funds. They don't include city operating, inclusionary development, neighborhood housing trust, or community preservation act. For 27, with our head funding, we are planning to create. 750 income restricted housing units. Uh, provide down payment assistance to 115 1st time home buyers. Help 230 homeowners with home repairs. Provide home buyer education and foreclosure prevention to over 1600 individuals. Help 2000, formerly homeless households with permanent housing and supportive services. provide housing assistance to 500 people with HIV AIDS, and help 900 individuals with homelessness prevention services. The Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion is planning to help 1,700 businesses with technical assistance, storefront improvements, and small business loans. OWD will provide job training and readiness programs to over 2,000 individuals. And finally, through the grassroots program, MOH will help create or expand six community gardens or open space projects. The next few slides just show some photos of funded activities. Here you see on the left, a recent home repair project carried out by the Boston home center. And on the right, a 1st, time home buyer who was assisted with funding. These are these are both important funding activities from the home center. Next, we have homelessness prevention and street outreach the photo on the left. Shows our office of housing stability at a community event, sharing information about tenant rights and eviction prevention. Utilizes both and funding. And on the right is you have a pine street industry outreach worker. On the street, and that activity is is funded by. Next, we have neighborhood development and business assistance on the left. You have a very recent, uh. Acquisition opportunity, a program project, a council of evidence is in your district Parkside on Adams, right? Right in Rossendale square. And we use funding was 1 of the sources we use to support that acquisition to convert those 43 units to income restricted housing. And on the right, you see a small business that received funding to do a facade improvement program to do a facade improvement project. And here we have workforce development, um, on the left, you see a graduation day at the justice resource Institute, which is a reentry program. And then on the right, you have recent graduates from the international Institute of New England's bridge to it. A proficiency program, and again, to utilize the funding for for their grants. So, before concluding, I didn't just want to note that our funded activities are informed by input from Boston residents and stakeholders. We have a hard approved citizen participation plan that we have to follow and developing our 5 year consolidated plan and our annual action plan. We hold virtual and in person hearings. We post our draft plans. Online for public comment before submitting them to HUD. We also post all of our consolidated annual performance and evaluation reports or capers online. So residents can see what we accomplished with our funding. And all of these documents are available on the, on the website. So, that concludes our presentation, I want to thank you again, counsel for your support of our work and for your time today. Again, these are critical funds for our funding is. Close to half of our budget comes from HUD funding. So, really important for us and the work that we do, and we're happy to answer any, any questions you have and I. I think I'm the only one presenting today. I think the rest of the folks here are happy to answer any questions you have about our programs.

That's perfect. Rick, thanks so much for that very thoughtful and just informative presentation. I am a big fan of the projects that have already been started and have been able to really benefit from a lot of these grants. So thank you. I want to also acknowledge that we have been joined by Councillor Luigi and I believe that Councillor Flynn is also listening and so wanted to make sure I acknowledged him. I'm going to dive right into questions in case my colleagues do have questions about the grants or if they want to find out more. Starting with Councillor Murphy, I'm going to be flexible with time. Don't abuse it, but if you need five, seven minutes, I'll be okay with that. And just let me know if you need more time. So Councillor Murphy, the floor is yours.

Or if you have questions.

Okay, Councilor Murphy, can you hear us? I'll come right back to Councilor Murphy. Councilor Louis-Jean, do you have any questions?

good morning everyone yeah good morning everyone thank you for the presentation um i just had a question and i was um i've been on double duty and i joined a bit late um obviously these grants are super critical and i will be very enthusiastic in supporting them i want to thank all of you for the hard work that you do to make sure that everyone is housed in our city as many of us say housing is a basic right and everyone should have access to it um i just had a question i think the question will be for rick or i'm not sure who can answer it on the call but um i know that a portion of this grant of these grants is for the continuing is for the continuum of care and i'm wondering i know that there was an ongoing lawsuit uh challenging the administration's termination of the continuum of care grants i just wanted to sort of know how that lawsuit interacts with accepting these grants that are currently before us

Yeah, I'm happy to, I can get started and if necessary, Katie Cahill Holloway, who leads our supportive housing division and oversees the COC funding can jump in if necessary. But yes, we last year, well, we're involved in a few lawsuits against HUD right now. And we should be. Yeah. Um, 1 has to do with some terms and conditions that were added to our grants, not just our grants, but across the country. Um, terms and conditions that were added to hard grants by the Trump administration around. Um, you know, what quote unquote activities or gender ideology, things like that and. Requiring jurisdictions to certify that they would not engage in any of those activities. There were other conditions as well. We, along with a number of other jurisdictions filed suit in. King County, Washington to, and we're successful at getting a preliminary injunction. Against those, those terms and conditions, so that that preliminary injunction is still in place that we are. Able to access our funds without having to sign on to those conditions, which is great. And then I think the 1 that you're probably more specifically referring to is the case in Rhode Island. That has to do with the, the, the nofo, the notes of funding opportunity that. Had put out last year where they were attempting to shift the priority for funding away from housing 1st, away from permanent housing. Towards treatment and shelter and street known encampments and work requirements. And again, we were successful with another another another. a number of other jurisdictions in the National Alliance to End Homelessness, we were successful at winning a preliminary injunction in that case as well that prohibited HUD from implementing that NOFO. We also advocated in Congress with other jurisdictions, and Congress included language in their Appropriations Act that prevented HUD from doing some of the things that they were attempting to do. So they pulled back that NOFO. And the grants that you're hearing about today, the CFC grants for PY25, are all just renewal grants. So HUD, at this point, thanks to the lawsuit and thanks to the congressional action, HUD is just renewing all of our CFC25 grants so we're able to retain all of our permanent housing Um, with these funds, um, so that that's what's in front of you right now. Now, did just, uh, I don't know if it was last week or the week before just issued their note for the following year. Where they are once again, attempting to do, you know, put in place some of these changes. Decreasing the priority or for for permanent housing. It's not quite as bad as what they tried to do last year. I think Congress put some parameters in their Appropriations Act that limits what HUD can do, but it still has some problematic language. We're looking at that right now. We're talking to other jurisdictions. We're talking to the law department around that NOFO. But what's in front of you today is, thankfully, is we're able to renew all of our COC grants, all of that permanent housing with the funds that are in front of you right now. And Katie, I'm not sure if there's anything you want to add. I think I covered it.

No, I think you covered it well, Rick. I think the only thing I would say is COC 25, as Rick said, is being non-competitively renewed. And the reason that HUD is able to do that is because in COC 24, they actually released a two-year NOFO. And so in the prior administration, the intention had been that they would noncompetitively renew COC 25 based on performance in COC 24. The Trump administration tried to sort of upend that by releasing two NOFOs in COC 25 to try to implement the changes that Rick described. But thankfully, through the court action, HUD withdrew those NOFOs and then reverted to the noncompetitive renewal of COC 25.

Thank you. Thank you for that update. And thank you for that update. And the lawsuit, it's a preliminary injunction, so the lawsuit is still ongoing. Is that correct?

I think it technically is, but I think at this point it's probably essentially moot because we renew our funding. Yeah.

Okay, great. And then I think this is my last question is, are any of these grants helping us house victims of domestic violence or any of these, do we use any of the funding from these grants to help those? who are in search of housing as a result of intimate partner violence or domestic violence, sexual assault?

Yes, we have several grants in the portfolio that are specifically targeted to support people that are survivors of domestic violence and other forms of intimate partner violence, gender-based violence. Those are sponsored. There's a mix of providers in them. Some are certified as victim service providers like Casa Mirna. They sponsor a couple of them, and then we have other providers like Justice for Housing. They're not a victim service provider, but they do have specialized services to successfully serve this population. So within the portfolio, I think we probably have like four or five grants that are specifically targeted to that population.

Thank you. To the chair, I'd love it if I could get information more like just in writing about the grants that the Mayor's Office of Housing uses or just the financial numbers behind the housing supports that we provide for folks who are victims of intimate partner violence or sexual or domestic violence. So to the chair, if I could get that information, that would be great. Thank you. I think those are my questions. Just want to thank everyone on the call for the incredible work that you do for most vulnerable residents. Danielle Johnson, for the incredible work that you do in the Office of Housing Stability. Chief Wright, because of the important overlap between, you know, economic opportunity and housing. And Alicia for all that you do to support our small businesses and everyone. Christina, keep everyone on this call. I'm just really grateful for the work that you do and your belief that everyone deserves a place to call home. Thank you.

I did want to step in counselor. I'm just, I don't want to get in trouble with the lawyers and take back my comment about the loss of being moved. We are still in the process of getting our grant agreements from from HUD for our 25 grants. So, even though they are in process, but. The lawsuit is very important because we actually haven't don't have signed grant agreements yet how to keep saying that they're working on them and we're sure that they will that they will come. But it's very important that the lawsuit is still in place so that we can put pressure on how to actually deliver those those grant agreements and make sure we can access our funding.

Okay, thank you. Good to know. Whatever the council needs to do, I remember this started last year. I'm sure we're happy to continue supporting the lawsuit effort. So thanks for that update, Rick. And thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councillor. Okay, let me check if Councillor Murphy is with us. Yes, Councillor Murphy, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. Just want to thank everyone on this call. And honestly, don't have any questions I listened in and I've been following these grants and just will be. Strongly supporting them and all the work you do just thank you again. It's Friday, it's a warm 1. I hope everyone has some nice plans for the weekend, but know that this budget cycle, I guess it's somewhat almost 98% behind us, but we'll continue to advocate and work alongside you. throughout the year to make sure that we're housing. And especially these grants, it's special to see, you know, that we're targeting most vulnerable populations that, you know, we need to continue to support. So thank you all for the work you do. Appreciate you all. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor. Thank you for joining. Okay, let me just make sure I don't have any other problems here.

I think they came back.

Okay, no. Just to make sure, Ryan, I'm not missing any colleagues, correct? Because I got a few messages saying that they were listening, but they're not asking questions.

Gotcha. I believe that everybody who should be a panelist is a panelist.

Perfect. That's great. I am very grateful for the work that all of you do. The housing department has been doing such heavy lifting for the city and for the residents of Boston to make sure that people are housed. I've obviously been able to learn a lot The work that you do, the grants that you administer, the amazing projects that you not only have done in my district, but across the city. Being able to, I was able to have a nice, beautiful meeting with a lot of the department heads of the housing cabinet a couple, a few weeks ago now. And it was just brilliant to see the different areas that you all covered. And the work that you do does not go unnoticed. So I just wanted to make sure that I was saying that here in this forum. I don't have questions on the grants. I will be supporting them. This is important work for us to continue to provide for our residents. And yeah, but I wanted to make sure that if you had any closing comments or any final remarks that you would like to provide, I would love to give you the opportunity to do that now.

Well, I'll, I'll just say, uh, we are so appreciative of your, your support counselor and all of all of your colleagues on the council as well as the mayor. Um, in, uh, you know, our work and in supporting our use of this of this funding. And our fight to preserve it and continue to operationalize it for, um, as, as council members said, the most vulnerable. Members of our, our community, um, I'm not sure I'm not sure if, um. If Donald is still on, or if he would like to say something. But, again, just really help grateful for your support as well and not just in our headphones, but also in the city budget process. I think we were following that closely as well and glad to see the actions that you took there.

Nothing really on my part. I just want to thank you counselor and as well as the others for your support and also wreck and to the team, your continued partnership as we collectively do this work. So thank you all.

Thank you, guys. And I actually thank you to Ryan for pointing this out. And in the docket for regarding continuum of care grant, it says 50 million by the presentation, it says 52 million. Can you just provide a clear clarification?

Sure, yeah, and we did ask through, we did ask for that to get updated on the docket. So I hope it's not too late to do that. But I think initially we had estimated 50Million when we 1st submitted the request for the hearing. And then subsequently, we actually got the awards from HUD. So, so we asked for that amount to be increased to 52. so. It's a great, it's great. I mean, a lot of that has to do with just kind of rent increases on the, on the operating side. But. But it is, you know, of course, we're very happy for our grants to go up every year. We wish we wish, uh. The others, uh, you know, CDBG and home and the other grants would would also, um, would also be increasing.

That's brilliant. Okay, thank you so much for providing that clarification. And I guess the good thing that's a little more than expected. Okay, that is it for me. Ryan, do we have any public testimonies?

No public testimony today.

Okay, perfect. All right, well, if that's the case, then I truly hope that everyone Have a good weekend. Thank you all so much for the work that you do. It's going to be a busy weekend in Boston. We have a very important game of Haiti versus Scotland. A little bias is called Haiti. But I just am so excited for the work that you all do. I'm looking forward to it.

You and me both.

Oh, let's go.

And Alicia is not saying something, nothing. But I know Alicia's biased, too. I know who she's rooting for.

I 100% Haiti, so.

I need to find a Haiti jersey somewhere because everyone's repping. But, okay. But with that, this hearing on docket number 0792-0913-0916 is officially adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.