Commission - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. Like to call the um March the um 10th meeting to order for our work session agenda for the day. And at this time we got um four items on the agenda. Most of coming from HCG. So we got um Manda Lord Alejandra and then we got the Athens homeless coalition will give us an annual update. So, with that said, um the Lord will go ahead and get started with item number A.

Okay. Good afternoon. We're going to review the FY27 Community Development Block Grant and the FY27 Home Investment Partnerships Program funding recommendations. Review. We're going to do a quick review of our FY26 through30 consolidated planning goals. Then we're going to look at the past funding trends. We're going to do a quick review of the application process for CDBG. Then we'll look at the proposals and funding recommendations for CDBG. And then we'll roll right into a preview of the home application review process, the proposals and funding recommendations for home. and then we can take a quick preview of the remaining annual actions plan for schedule. The new FY26 through30 consolidated plan goals were approved by mayor and commission on September 3rd, 2024 and these help to determine priority needs and specific goals that will guide eligible project funding determinations for five years. These goals were used for the FY27 CDBG application release and request for proposals process. HCD's current FY26 through30 consolidated plan goals include goal one affordable housing, goal two, public services, goal three, economic development, and goal four public facilities and improvements. And these are listed in priority order. The vision committee supports housing and community development in its annual action plan process by providing input on emerging community needs, by sharing feedback, and by reviewing and rating

submitted applications to assist HCD staff in prioritizing CDBG funding each year. And this is just an outline of those meetings and the times that vision committee were with the uh HCV staff this year. Based on active membership, nine members were available to assist HCV staff with the review and rating of all CDBG applications submitted. Anybody participated this time? Pretty much all all the members participate. No, there were two or three that did not fully participate in process this year. So,

are they is that on a regular basis or just here and there? Um, for CDBG and CPP, I believe it was the same two people that did not fully review the applications. Um, so it's it's been generally hard to get 100% participation on committee and Well, that's helpful for us when we're doing it's not unusual. Okay. Okay.

So, HCD this year currently has approximately 34,000 for reallocation funds available to support FY27 applications and we're using our FY26 CDBG award as the assumed total available for FY27 awards. If HUD announces these FY20 or our FY27 CDBG funding awards after the May 5th vote, HCD um will work to provide actual CDBG award amounts to the public um for each program. We've um and including those required increases or decreases for planning and admin um for 20% regulatory cap and 15% budget cap for public services respectively. Um if the if the announcements are made prior to the May 5th vote, HCD will update its funding recommendations in the agenda for mayor and commission consideration as soon as possible prior to that session date. If we remember last year, they actually announced on the day that we were supposed to vote, so we had to delay an extra week to get those into you. Unlike with CDBG awards, the home funding recommendations will not be impacted by HUD's FY27 allocation announcements since we don't use FY27 potential funds in the application process. We're working on FY26 funds that we released. um only the HCD planning and admin total request will be subject to change due to its 10% regulatory cap. So between FY22 and FY26, this is just a snapshot of the annual CDBG funding allocations. CDBG funding for the past five years includes that 15% regulatory public service cap annual regulatory cap

of 20% for planning and admin support and then that leaves the remaining 65,000 allocated toward affordable housing economic development and public facilities and improvements projects with with an emphasis on our goal one which is affordable housing activities. Any unexpended CDBG funds that were formally available are being recommended to support FY27 affordable housing projects. So, it's important to also remind you that any reallocation funds can only go toward affordable housing, economic development, and public facilities improvements activities. In our FY27 CDBG funding request snapshot, HCB received a total of 23 requests totaling 2,345,662 for FY27 CWG funding including HCD's percent planning and cost. HCV and the business committee are recommending funding for 15 requests totaling $1,256,199. And just again a visual that shows a gap of $1,89,463 exists between the amount of funding requested versus the anticipated amount available.

But we don't know right now exactly what we might be getting. That's correct. But I know just sort of guess everything's going on. I think it might be lower than we got. So the adopted budget was actually 10% more than the last budget which is baffling given all the doge drama that happened. So um I would anticipate it would be add or maybe even slightly

be slightly higher especially since our timeliness has improved significantly and up until FY25 we had no reallocation funds available. everything that we had was encumbered and is is being expended. So, we're in good standing at CDBG right now. Thank you for that, Pat. That's good. You're welcome. We're very proud. Yes.

Um, so our application review process, both HCD staff and the vision committee members evaluated all of the eligible applications and scored their respective criteria. Total combined scores with maximum potential score of 140. determine the rank and funding recommendations for all four eligible funding categories, which is again affordable housing, economic development, public facilities, and public I'm sorry, public services and public facilities and improvement activities. And now we're going to get into the actual recommendation preview for affordable housing. HCD received four applications. Athens area Habitat for Humanity uh requested $235,000 to carry out its brushes with Kindness Homeowner occupied rehab and Renew Athens program. They scored uh or they ranked one in score. HCD is recommending 165,000. Historic Athens ranked second requested 181,000 for their homeowner occupied rehab program. HCD is request uh is recommending 145,000. Athens Land Trust ranked third requested $380,000 for their affordable housing program to support home new construction activities, rental rehab, and home buyer single family units, including down payment assistance. We are recommending $140,000. The Athens Housing Authority requested 350,000 to support their act one homes program, which is support of home new construction uh home buyer single family activities and down payment assistance. HCD is recommending $121,414. And again, as a reminder, this these

four categories include the 34,000 um reallocation funding that's available. So are you saying that there are only four applicants in this state? Correct.

Do you know why? I mean if there ever thought why these these are our regular folks. Is that it?

Federal I we we can only assume because we do significant outreach is that because the federal regs are so cumbersome. There's a lot of red tape. A lot of developers just are not interested in getting mixed up in this type of funding. So our public services projects, they provide supportive services. It is our number two goal. The public service cap is 15% that is regulatory. It cannot be exceeded. And in the fifth FY27 competition, challenge grants include that minimum of $30,000 request and a 25% cash match requirement. Eligible public service request. Uh number one is Georgia Conflict Center. They requested $50,000 ranked number one for the youth development uh restorative justice program. HCD is recommending 40,800. Sparrow's Nest ranked number two requested 40,125 for their supportive services program at their day center. HCD is is recommending the full amount. The RQOC uh ranked third. They requested 30,000 for their Commonwealth economic development program, public service economic development program, financial assistance. HCV is recommending that the full amount at 30,000. Family Promise of Athens, ranked number four, requesting 40,700 for their homeless program to support their shelter. Uh HCD is recommending full 40,700. YWCO ranked number five. They requested $30,000 for their youth development young girls club. HCD is recommending the full request at 30,000. We also received numerous other applications from Athens area homeless shelter, the acceptance recovery center,

Athens Okone Casa Inc. which was a new application. None of those have been recommended for funding due to the limited amount available. And then we had four more. Divas who wins, Athens Land Trust, Chess and Community Conference, and Moms Adopting Moms. Again, uh no recommendation for funding. HCD did receive one application that was deemed ineligible. It is determined to be a planning and administrative activity, not a public service. And the 20% admin and planning is only eligible for HCD. So that is why it's ineligible. We will work with them for next for FY28 to see if we can't help them develop a public service application that's eligible. Moving on to economic development, we have our neighborhood revitalization plan which is Hancock Corridor 6 and 9, East Athens census tracks 301 302. These nurses allow us to um support community-based development organization activities that exceed the 15% service cap public service cap if they're conducted by those certified CBDOS's. Currently, East Athens Development Corporation is the only certified CBDO in Athens.

And I understand that um for the West Side, there's no active CDO and there was an effort to try to identify and and and find some organization to um uh fill that slot. I guess my thought still is um and maybe you can't answer it now and maybe Commissioner Link needs to be answered this question more than me. Um I am concerned that we do not have an active CDO on the west side. I think in the long run you're going to see it may not be so impactful now but I do think as Athens grows that it's going to be crucial that uh the west side is not excluded. So, is there a criteria? Is there um

there is a certification process? They have a specialized board that they have to be set up. Um they I don't know right off the top of my head all of the criteria, but there there are very specific kind of requirements to be a certified CBDO. We're happy to share those with anybody that's interested in looking at them and reviewing them and considering if they want to become a CBDO. Melinda, if I recall correctly, McQueen had done some outreach to organizations here. It's probably been a couple of years. Is it correct to say that if any organization that's based in these footprints was interested, we would provide technical assistance? Absolutely. Leaison with HUD, you know, we want CDBOs,

CBDOS. We just don't can't make one. I do. Yeah. Okay. Well, I like I said, this is probably Commissioner Link's emphasis. So, an existing nonprofit could apply to become city, correct? They have to be physically located in the space. Oh, their office has to be

because this is their identified service space with CB CDBG in order to qualify as a CD CBDO to serve that area without having some of the red tape like uh income verification that that area has been identified as area benefit but they would only be able to serve with CDBG though those two identified census tracks with our money doesn't mean they couldn't serve external it just means They couldn't do it with our money. Otherwise, they would sub subject themselves to the 15% public service cap. Is um our faith-based groups that have a nonprofit, are they eligible? Yes.

Thank you.

Welcome. Okay. So, we received five applications for economic development activities. East Athens Development Corporation uh ranked number one for their operation one family at a time. Uh that is a partnership with healthcare institute requested $150,000. HCD staff is recommending one $17,777. Goodwill of North Georgia scored a ranked number two for their good biz microenterprise program. They are requesting 51,000 and staff is recommending 51,000. East Athens Development Corporation for their bridging the gap job coaching programs for a ranked third. Uh their funding request is $50,000 and staff is recommending $33,000. East Athens Development Corporation's youth economic development program uh ranked fourth requesting 50,000. Staff is recommending 32,000. And then Athens Land Trust has requested $100,000 ranked at number five for their microenterprise program. Staff is recommending 35,000.

Okay. If there are no other questions about DDBG questions, go ahead, Commissioner Johnson. I'm still writing them out. If you want to go ahead, Excuse me. I'm still writing mine out. Okay. So um I've asked this I guess on several occasions. So we got one organization getting you know 300 uh awards. Does it make sense? Y'all tell me. Does it make sense collapse those into one or are these truly different type of awards?

Are you talking about economic development? They're they're truly three different types of awards. They're so when we set up programs in the HUD in um IDIS system, we have to set them up as independent programs based on the criteria. So for example, the youth program has its own matrix code, program code, which is entirely different from an adult program. So we have to be able to not only identify the different types of programs specifically because of the reporting criteria. So for youth we have to report the beneficiary numbers for youth. So we don't we we have to keep them separate unfortunately.

And Melinda I know one of the challenges we've had in the past which we which blind a good bit was insurance. If one organization is um getting multiple awards with us, then it's the same criteria. Yeah, it's it's the total combined amount of all of their awards together. So, they're not having to get three different policies. They'd only have to have one policy in that respect. Oh, that's good.

Oh, and another reason why um East Athens wouldn't be able to have three um or one contract is because they have different partnerships like the Innovative Healthcare Institute is specifically with that agency. And then their youth economic development program is with a different partner. So we have to keep those independent as well for that. Commission. Yes. Thank you.

Um so the presentation includes a lot of uh data related to the funding recommendations. Um, but it doesn't provide any information about performance metrics like based on the recommendations. It's a two is a two-part question because I I'm going to follow up with how did how were the amounts the allocation amounts determined. And so we have a lot of data about the criteria, the bud the funding recommendation and the score, but we don't have any performance measures included in here to help us um without having any additional information. Like there's no information that says we chose to allocate 10777 instead of 150 because of past performance measures or performance measures submitted.

We'll have that with attachment two of the agenda. All performances listed in attachment two of the agenda. It has a summary of each application and all of their past performance information if they were funded in the past. Is there any reason why it's not included here? Would it be overwhelm over cumbersome in a work session? So, we just

we can we can also email it to the group. I it wasn't that's a that's a call individual call but I would have um so I would have liked to have that information because I've read it um this two or three times and I was just curious when you have an agency that has a high score but you only award 72% of the funding. Can you give us any insight on why 72? I I hear I heard you say the vision committee made a re recommendation but the HCD staff recommended the funding. Correct. So how did the funding percentage go from 100 to 72? Do you have a specific I mean

so it's the top one is 77. It uh it's based on the amount of funding that we have available and past performance. So if they are currently if they've been awarded a certain amount over the past 3 years and there was a struggle to expend a greater amount then we reduce it to help ensure that they're able to expend 100% within the 12 the 12-month time frame. So you're saying that in that particular instance there was a struggle to spend the money. That's what you're saying to get reimbursements. Yes. Submitted approved and yes. So with the reimbursement submitted approved and whatnot. So they submit it. Part of that is the approval. They left money on the table last year.

Okay. I just want to make sure I follow that.

Again, we'll share this with the group. It'll be in the agenda item. Performance measures cover both how much of their prior awards, if they have any, were they able to spend and then what were the specific outcomes? How many households were served? How many people received assistance? Whatever. Um an important point about that spending you you heard it mentioned briefly that comes into two two places. One is so much of this work is built around that 15% public service cap and money that's not spent in that area cannot roll forward to public services. And so there's always been an emphasis to get that out. And then the second thing is um we're reviewed on our timeliness. how how quickly are we getting this information to HUD? Are we maintaining our contractual stuff and that influences how they award future funds to us? So, we look at both the impact in the community and kind of that grant administration. So just some insight that I was um afforded last week from various agencies is that when they submitted information the the improve the the reimbursement process was so behind that they could not continue to pay out of pocket to um sustain the program. So they just an inaccurate statement.

Please please finish your question. I apologize. They provided information. They provided data. they basically could not spend the additional funding that you're talking about. Now, it makes sense why. Um, what they explained was that they could only pay so many months out of pocket for, you know, receiving it or not receiving a reimbursement. And so, it does make sense to me why it stopped and why they don't spend the money because they stopped. They just stopped. And I talked to an agency just last night that wanted to make sure that they weren't paid.

Unfortunately, CDBG is a reimbursement. We can't change that. So we can't provide advanced payments for them on this. If if they ask for this money, the assumption is is that they have enough money in the bank to carry these activities out. If they don't, then they need to look at their available budget and ask for what they can afford to support. or they can consider and we try to provide technical assistance as far as consider taking a line of credit out so that you can constantly have that cash flow going

and for CDBG and I'll just jump into for CDBG specifically and CPP and the grants that we administer at HCD we have a pretty wellproven record that we are able to reimburse agencies within 30 days on average from the moment they submit accurate and complete reports to us. We have a really comprehensive tracker that we're always happy to share. So for CDBG, CPP, our contracts, all of these agencies listed, for the most part, they get them within really one or two weeks. At the max, it's 30 days. Um I do understand that with other uh sources, um especially the ones that were up or recaptured last week, that is different. No, I'm not talking about those.

We hear we hear often that this is not the case. I mean, I think I guess what I'm going what I'm trying to say is that the reimbursements were behind according to some agencies, not the ones last week. I'm not talking about that. But what I'm saying is that um they almost get penalized because they have to when you say they have to have enough money. Well, if if the reimbursements are behind two or three or four months, we we've received emails. We can't be able to share those agency names. would love to look into them and see which specific and I want I want to get a commission thought and I'll come back to you Andrew. I think though we're talking about two different type of reimbursement.

We're talking about Well, well, no, we're talking about ARPA. I think I'm not talking about AR. Okay. We're talking about CDBG. Okay. Well,

from my experience, I have not heard as much reimbursement from CBD that I have had from AR. So again, just my conversations too with other agencies. So, so I I think you know this may not be the play from space. I think we do need to have those conversations for how people do get reimbured in a timely manner from what you know comparing different programs based on government regulations and what needs to get how people get their money back. I am concerned you know to your point you mentioned about people may have to go out and get loans or that's a concern for me. I I would hope that nonprofits wouldn't do that if the reimbursement got done enough time. They would have to go back and get those loans. But I think at least from what again what I'm hearing more of a dollar or more of the concern maybe so again

I was say if they submit them

it's okay. We have a very very very comprehensive list. If they have submitted, we note the date they submit it, the date that it's reviewed, approved, and our average is less than 30 days. If they haven't submitted a reimbursement and then they submit three or four at the same time, that is not HCD. That is on the agency. We don't have any outstanding reimbursements that have been pending for three or four months unless which I don't can't think of any that had that kind of a delay. The only reason there would be a delay is if they're not providing the documentation that's required to approve it. Mr. I was going to go with uh Commissioner Fiser's recommendation about another place in space, but

we rarely have times the places in space,

but right now that Miss Lloyd has brought up about when they submit everything and it's Yeah, we need another place and space because what I'm hearing is they submit their paperwork work the way they read the directions to submit. Then they get a letter or a call saying you're missing this and you're missing that. So either they're missing it from the beginning or something is changing at the office and the way we're hearing it now. So this is going to be helpful for you. It's not a criticism. This is helpful for you. They're saying people nonprofits are saying you were HC is changing the information required. Now when we get to another place in space, I'm willing to sit down with HC and those agencies that are saying the rules are being changed. when they submit. So, I'm going So, like I said, there's no criticism. So, we're not going to I'm not going to we're not going to go there. But, if you're saying one thing, we need to bring the sources together. And I don't have to I don't have to make this up. I get those same calls that Commissioner um you have to do.

Uh Johnson are making. So maybe that's what we need to do almost like we did with the um homeless coalition and the advantage group. I don't know how helpful that has all been for the outcomes because I haven't heard anything negative, but I'd rather for us to talk about misinformation or the information that seems to be construed differently.

Yeah. And what I was going to mention is a is a precursor to that, we'll share their tracking reimbursement tracking sheet that'll show you exactly when it was ca came in and if it was rejected and sent back for additional edits, what was asked for from those folks. That would be helpful

because you'll see people that submit timely and have their paperwork in order, there is a churn. And I want to follow up on last week's conversation. we can do better with how we pay people and that will trim one to two weeks off of how long they're waiting and so that's something the manager's office is looking into. Um but we're happy to share that information and have conversations with any partners andor commissioners to to provide clarity on it because certainly it's never been my experience that the rules are changing but if they are we need to address it

well and I will say that if something changes it's typally typically because we've gotten called out for it. We were doing it incorrectly. We have been corrected by HUD and we have to turn around and correct it. It's rare that we would make just a random change for no good reason. Well, I get it's even more of a um a conversation of place and space because you just said if you get a call from Hood,

they don't know if you got a call from Hood. You're fixing stuff that somebody told you to fix. So that right there by itself could be some of the confusion if you get called out and then you call them out. You see what I'm saying? So let's let's let's let's try to fix this. We got good nonprofits and we got good absolutely agree. Let's go ahead and move on. Okay, we're going to roll into the home investment partnerships program. I just want to make sure ICDG is five years, three years, three years, year to year. It's annually annually.

We have a consolidated Okay. actual funding is annual.

Okay. So, real quick, we're going to go through the home application review process, take a look at the application release, um, available funding, the proposals and funding recommendations, and then finally, we will close out that AA aual action plan to schedule. So, for the home program, the one goal that is specific to this program is our number one priority goal, affordable housing development and redevelopment. Eligible home activities include homeowner development, down payment assistance, rental development, and community housing development organization activities. So, it runs the gamut. This is the one funding where we can currently actually use funding for new construction and rehab for home buyer units where CDBG is limited in its ability to be used for these types of activities. There is a proform of requirement for the home application. Um, home is gap financing and does not support 100% of the development project due to the regulatory subsidy limits and our funding limitations. All home projects are subject to an affordab affordability period that may run from 5 to 20 years depending upon the activity and the home subsidy amount. And finally, current home income limits, rental limits, and utility rates, and home ownership value limits must be used for all projects as applicable. HUD provides all of these limits on an annual basis. Home is one of the most heavily regulated federal funding programs that exist. For the home application review process, staff review six application categories

for a total potential score of 100 points. And then HCD must complete that thorough subsidy layering and underwriting evaluation and review of each application to that to ensure that a project is viable, that no more home funds are invested than are necessary to ensure the project is completed and that annual regulatory subsidy limits are not exceeded. So for FY27 home funding availability, we have $172,536,000 from FY25 and FY26 unexpended. Um that can be specific to CHTO set aside 93,000 for F unexpended FY25 and 26 hometo operating funds. The remaining balance can go toward non CHTO activities. We have FY25 and FY26 unexpended home entitlement funds totaling approximately $653,000.

Yeah, said I just want to be sure. Um FY25 funds unexpended were the 172 536 the 98 92. No, those are specific to CHO unexpended funds for FY26. Which one? Which one was 26? where we are right now which figure it's all combined. So within the overall pot of money there's car balance that HUD requires us to dedicate. Sorry I didn't understand project. Thank you. I was just trying to find out. Sure.

Um CHTO set aside and operating funding may only be used for CHTO applications. So that money for 24 months cannot move into entitlement. However, if they're unexpended within 24 months, HCB can request that HUD allow us to transfer those funds into entitlement, which would make them then eligible 100% for all entitlement activities. We only have one active CHTO, our certified CHOT in Athens, and that is the land Athens land trust. So this year, um, our home available funding versus the application funding request, there's a 2,779,000 gap between what's available and what was requested. Now, we will get into our application review, but first I wanted to give you a quick summary of current development projects. The Athens Housing Authority has an FY25 active contract. it's executed, but the development for the four home buyer units at Savannah Heights has not started yet. They have an FY26 award that the contract has not been executed at this time um for the development of two further home buyer units at Savannah Heights. The reason that contract could not be executed is you must be ready to break ground within 12 months. And because the 12 the FY25 contract has not started, we cannot execute the FY26 until it's ready. Um, they also have a an ARPA contract for the North Downtown Athens phase 2 and a housing or affordable housing fund contract for Classic City Heights multifamily rental developments.

Can you give us more details for this area? Which one? for the Evans House Authority. Like how long has it development? Like what is the why why hasn't it started?

They had program home program income that they were using to develop two units at Peach Street. There was some delay there. It ex it went past or exceeded the time frame that they expected development to occur. They finally had the two home buyer units sold at the end of February, but they're using the the same contractor to start Savannah Heights. So that's that contractor could not start the four units at Savannah Heights until we finished Peach Street. So there was just a delay from one program to the next. And again, if we if we Okay, so I I need to make a clear understanding. We may encumber award funds, but we cannot encumber them in setup projects in IDIS until that contract is executed. And we don't want to execute a contract until they're ready to break ground. So, if we were to go ahead and do the contract and set it up in IDIS and then 12 months later they haven't started development, then we're in trouble.

Okay. IDIS information. Oh my goodness. I don't know what the It's the As long as we both don't know. I mean, I don't know. Right. I mean, I didn't mean it that way. I'm just saying. Okay. I don't know what I'm trying I'm trying to catch these acronyms. Integrated dispersement and information system. It is where HUD formalizes a project and then lets us draw money as as appropriate. So we do everything in this system for CDBG and home. It's everything goes through there. Our reporting, our annual action plans, our caper, our comp, everything is done in this system. That would be in our agenda. What we get? Yes.

Yes sir. Yeah. Again, attachment too. It's all of the um summaries along with performance for the third bullet, the articles and contracts. There's no state. It just it was there's a statement season. We're just trying to show you all of the current active uh development programs that these agencies have. What's the status of it? It doesn't say the stat not phase 2. I think they've been blowing up they've been blowing up the stone. If you feel the earthquake, that's that's the them blasting um back there. So that's what I want to move. It's currently underway. Yes. All right. Got it. All right. Let's keep let's keep it moving. Okay. Habitat

Athens area Habitat for Humanity also has FY25 home contract that is executed and it's for specifically for infrastructure development at Micah Creek. It is underway. However, because it is not complete, they are not ready to break ground for the FY26 contract that was executed or has not been executed, but that was awarded to start development of four home buyer units at Micah Street. So, there's a delay. We have this contract, everything was awarded last year and we're still not encumbered the money. They also have ARPA contract for Micas Creek infrastructure and development of five home buyer units and they have an ARPA contract for rehab of rental properties at Magnolia Terrace in in a partnership with Family Promise of Athens. And then finally, we have the Athens Land Trust. They have an active FY24 contract that's executed, but the project is currently stalled um due to environmental review mitigation requirements. We also um they requested that we add an additional $75,000 home funding to this unit because it was stalled for two reasons. Income or available income to get the project completed and this environmental review. We're working very closely with them. We have submitted the documentation to Shipo to try to get that moving forward. Um and we're just kind of pending their determination before we can move forward with activities on that. We have an FY25 active contract that's executed, but this project is also stalled due to environmental review mitigation requirements and that is also at free street. So you have two historic properties um that Shipo is requiring mitigation to maintain the integrity of the historic value of the homes and that has caused some serious delays in these projects moving forward.

and uh find oh I'm sorry they also have I I apologize it's in their attachment too but I failed to add it here um they have an FY 25 contract for a new construction of a single family home that is also active but it is um off it's not on track for completion they are working on it but it's not on track for completion and finally they do have their offer contract for development of the remaining five homes. They did five at Dublin. They have five more at Hawthorne Extension. Um, so these are all of the active activities, development activities that our agencies currently have going on. So, as we can see, they got a lot there's a lot going on. Um, they're pretty pretty loaded up with funding at this point. And of course, we're pushing them hard to get these ARPA contracts finished by the deadline. So they're kind of having to prioritize ARPA as their number one over pretty much everything else to ensure that none of that money gets taken back. So with all of that in mind, we're not recommending funding for the four agency or the three agencies that applied for home funding this year. Rather, what we're asking you to consider is allowing HCD to carry out demolition, new construction, and down payment assistance for few home buyer units. What we're proposing is that you take a look and allow us to work with those Creekwood duplexes that are sitting out there and falling apart, dilapidated. It's more money to rehab those projects than it would be to build two new units on that site. Yes.

Okay. This you you um Can you put down my mouth now? Um I sent Bob an email about these two properties. I I really had planned to come in at our next meeting and my CDO for these two properties. This is a recommendation. I'm gonna be honest with you. I'll be be honest with everybody. This needs to be voted. This needs to be on the agenda. How do we get this on the agenda?

It is I mean for a vote to start. I mean I don't want a study. I don't want something down the road. I I mean if I got to do this is approved, we would start effective immediately as soon as you vote approve it. This this was my my my my uh y'all already got my email about the mailouses and what I think about all of that. This was going to be my substitute um for my CDO. So, what I'm hearing you say, I don't have to do a CDO because when we vote on this, this is going to Please don't make me cut up at the next meeting. Okay. So, so this will be on our agenda said no next Tuesday. So, correct.

Vote. No, no, no. I'm sorry. This is um the April May agenda May vote. Okay. All right. So, is not on our agenda next week? No, sir. No. Okay. And I So, that's my point. I just want to be clear. Nothing's for Thanks, uh, Commissioner. Uh, right. Right. Just call me Alison. That uh Allison and I have talked about this. It it it always evaporates. The last time we talked about these new properties, uh, Blaine Williams was here.

We were in the Snipes building on anyway. So, it's happening now. It's happening. So that I mean that's that's my that's going to be my um compro compromise not not to fight with about these millhouses because we just HCD has to take a lead in affordable housing and not just we're proposing not just our nonprofits. Yep. Yep. Yep. We agree. We 100% agree. We're very excited about it on your speech for the May for the April meeting. Okay. agenda says no get off these next so I want to be clear this particular work site item will not be on the agenda for next Tuesday

no not for next Tuesday but it is absolutely on the April May cycle I want everybody to be I want for the public to know because it's only it's our work session so yeah okay there are those two duplexes out there right subbs um there are four units correct we are proposing to create two units. Two single family. Two single family home buyer units. Okay. Home buyer units. How many bedrooms are in those four unit? There's two bedroom there. There two, four. It would only be eight. Eight bedrooms. Eight bedrooms in those and we're replacing them with six. Six. Six. Two.

I mean, is I'm wondering if there's any way we can get at least three homes out. I mean even if we have to divide the lot and save it for later complicated subject let's get this so it's better off that we reduce the

I promise you yeah we we've already met with planning we've met with TPW we have met with PUD we have discussed the feasibility of this the if it's something that would require reszoning it doesn't um we would have to work with the environmental uh protection agency for them to go out and check make sure that the septic the current septic system is viable. If not, then we would have to invest in improvements for that infrastructure. Um, and then we we would be able to build the two houses on the two separate parcels, no problem. And then the benefit, jumping ahead just a little bit.

Um, this is kind of the history of it, but one of the huge the best the biggest benefits, not only are we putting two low to moderate income households in home buyer properties. We are also able to generate income where most of our projects don't. When we allocate our home funding, we allocate it as a grant. So when they sell the home, that's it. There's no money coming back to us. But when we sell these homes, even at an affordable rate, whatever we sell them for comes back as program income and they can be reused in future allocations. Maybe we do the other two. Yeah. In the future. Dr. ARP is out.

So it it this is a way if HCD is doing some of this that we can actually start generating program income and increase not only what HUD is allocating but that extra money on top of. Are we prepared? Is HCD prepared administratively to be a developer? Absolutely. Okay.

We're excited. Okay. um code enforcement and building inspections has already agreed to assign two staff members to assist HCV during the building and construction process to ensure that everything is on track that there's no concerns and catch everything up front so that we don't get to a place of CO um you know application and something's majorly wrong. So we've got that support. Um, again, we have already met with all of, you know, the the other departments that would be involved in this like an RFP that goes out the contract.

Yes, we would do P. We would do a competitive bid except the best um bid and then move forward from there. And again, the benefit of this is we're using um because it would be us using it, we can get started as soon as you vote to approve it. So, what about the um perpetual affordability of these properties? What kind of 20 years? 20 years. 20 year affordability. Yeah. And it's done with the lean. If for any reason the house was sold, they would have to pay back whatever percentage uh is still remaining in that affordability period which again would come back as program income.

So that so we are still even if the house is sold there is a piece that it stays affordable. Yes. May for 20 years. 20 years. Is there any way we can make that perpetual kind of like the land trust does? It uh let's look into it. We can look into it. I mean problem with perpetuals.

Seems like a long time, but I've been in my house for 23 years now and it doesn't seem like that long. No, I mean you we you can put your own affordab the HUD requires 20 year based on this the subsidy that we would use to put into it. We could expand that affordability. It's just a matter of keeping up with it. And of course, the further along you get in that affordability, the less money is going to be owed if they sell. By year 20, you're only talking about those 10 years worth of remaining balance. It could be no more than $20,000. You would just like to see it be a property that when the time comes for the family to sell it, it is sold at an affordable rate to another.

That is a possibility. If they sell it to somebody else who meets those eligibility requirements, there is no repayment. Correct. The lean transfers with the new owner if they meet that eligibility requirement. It's only if they sell it to somebody at market rate that's not low to moderate income that they would have to repay. Correct. And with and with the um qual um what was the developer? The developers have to be any developer um put in for this. Okay. Because I know sometimes they have to be certified. So this I mean always going to be always mean government certified. Correct. So so they have to be

No, no, no. Any developer can as long as they have their license, insurance requirements. I know cuz sometime we get into well we want we want want to use developer but because they not under the government. No the no the competitive want to do it because they don't want to go through all of the rigor. And we're going to release this as a competitive RF. Anyone is eligible. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. So, just a quick I mean I'm sure but this is kind of more just for public information to put out there. So, we did acquire these Creekwood properties way back in 1993. Um, and Advantage Behavioral Health Systems did lease these properties up until 2018. Um, and since then those units have been vacant. They have become extremely dilapidated and extensive rehab activities are required and that would exceed the subsidy likely that we could put into these units to get them back up to code standards which is why we're recommending just to demolish um in the first place. Six units in the neighborhood that are surrounding this these parcels are already owner occupied and the parcels are currently zoned as RS8. So again, as we said, it would not require any reszoning. they would fit in and be very compatible with the existing neighborhood area. And the infrastructure is already in place. There's already water. There's already septic. We would just have to make sure the septic is up to code or do what's required to get it there. Um and then all home funds would be used. Here's another thing. All home funds are going to be used for hard and soft construction costs because we already have our program or admin and planning. So, we don't have any extra money that's going out for staff cost in that respect. We'll be able to sell these units at well below market value and we'll provide um up to $25,000 down payment assistance per unit. So, we can make it even more affordable. So, say we sold the unit at 150,000, we'd technically be selling it at 125. But again, all of that would come back as program income.

What's AMI? Area median income. It's 80%. Oh, 80% or below. I'm very sorry. 80% or below. So, all home and CDBG to to meet LMI qualifications is 80% or below area median. All right. And and that's all right. And Oh, okay. Because we're still using government money, right? We have to. Yes. Okay. Because I was trying to get to 60. All right. All right. All right. I tried. It's up to 80%. So, somebody come in at 60 was qualified, etc. can get the mortgage then that's what I would love. Yep.

Again, any proceeds from the sale come back as program income which would then be released um re-released in the next most recent um application process. And then we have the two single family home buyer units um developed made available to those low to moderate income households in the FY27 performance period. while our partner agencies complete their ARPA and their home development projects. And then when we release an FY28, hopefully everybody will be more at a better capacity to really apply for these funds and get get back on track. Um so they can prioritize what they've got going on right now while we still get two units on the market.

I want to ask Andrew a question. Yes, ma'am. Um, did you tell somebody or was somebody told that houses that are on um maybe it was the tax success? Houses that are on the um courtyard steps for tax. Okay. delinquency delinquency that we the local government could really we could step in land bank.

Yeah. So that that has come up when we reviewed activities of other land banks that that is a common way where they get blighted dilapitated tax delinquent properties and then they can return them for activities like this or they can sell them back into the market. So yes, that is a mechanism that can occur as um capacity is built in that area. Okay, I got two in my name. It's only for blighted areas. It's blighted areas as a corridor. It's not No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not that. Well, then we're talking about two different things, Stephanie, because talking about houses that go on the courtyard, the court steps

that are behind in Texas. That's what I'm I heard you. I'm I'm saying the land bank authority I've said it four or five times and the attorney agrees that it's not it's not for ones and twzy houses that are on the court south courthouse steps. It's for corridors of areas of blight per Georgia state statute. So it's going to be used for onesie and twzies and I'm just saying that's not what the what it was set up for. And I'm not going to talk anything anymore for the rest of the meetings. I I hear you um want to get get it get it going and get it over with. So I

I just need I'm just No, no, no, no. Um I think then what what I hear you saying there's two different things that is being discussed. You're talking about Mr. Attorney, jump in here anytime you feel like it. Um making bib does exactly what you're talking about and bank authority does exactly what you're talking about. They have examples that I need to look at. I agree 100%. Commissioner Johnson was correct about the it being land bank is to revitalize blighted properties. I need to look about the quarter thing and see if that's

Yeah, that's that's what I was struggling with is too is um blight is definitely in the enabling legislation. I don't recall anything about it having to be a corridor or like concentration of blight as opposed to spotlight if you will. And again, typically that's what they do, but they're not restricted only to that. there are other st or there are other things that they're able to do that may not be typical but legally they can

and I guess I guess that's why we have a work session so we can get because I really do not want to be in a commission meeting all night. I don't want to be here all day either. But I'd rather get the information out here. So if there's two different things so I don't have to ask on our regular commission meeting. I'd rather for you to jot down my questions now and um and address Commissioner Johnson u um um example and the uh judge has already said he's going to look into it because there's a lot more opportunities down the road in the future. It's definitely thinking out of the box. It's definitely doing stuff that we have not done. It's definitely not status quo.

One or two of that word. It's definitely not stat. So, I'm I'm just saying I see you jotting it down, but I think this is how we move forward with housing. That's all I'm throwing. Okay. And I'm not promising not to say nothing person.

Next steps in the schedule for the annual action plan too for CDBG and home. Um, we will publish uh the notice in the Athens Banner Herald on the April 12th. We will publish the actual annual action plan 2 draft for public comment 30-day comment period on April 13th. We have the agenda setting session is scheduled for the 21st of April. The voting session is the May 5th. Um, we will initiate award notification and contracting on May 6th and FY27AP2 deadline to HUD unless they tell us otherwise through CPD notice is May 17th which is why we have this crunch time for all of these other activities is we have to get this done by May 17th. And then the home CDBG and home funding availability is July 1st, 2026 with the exception of HCD. we would get started on the bed.

Bless you. And that's it. Good report. Thank you. Bless you again. Thank you. And as as we go along, um if you got questions, let's wait till they finish up, then we'll come back. We are switching gears. Yes, sir. So, yeah. So, we can just let them go through the presentation, then write down your question, then we'll ask the question. Do you want me to wait until everybody's back or just jump right in? Go for it.

Go for it. Okay. So, now it's my turn to talk about Home AR funding recommendations. It's been a little bit of time since we last talked about Home ARP. So,

um So, it has been a a little bit of time since we last talked about home ARP with you. So, I'm going to be going a little bit uh over again about what the funding source is, what it's for, our local allocation plan before digging into our local application process, our proposals, and funding recommendations. So, homep era funding sources. It is a one-time source that came down to us from the larger American Rescue Plan Act that put aside $5 billion of supplemental home funds specifically for homeless related assistance. Um it is separate from ARPA. Um so we got to keep those separate. Um again it's very specific to homeless focused housing assistance, homelessness assistance initiatives and supportive services implementations. We cannot do anything outside of that. Um, oops, skipped ahead. Uh, in September of 2021, ACC gov was awarded uh, $2.5 million of home ARP funding. Since then, uh, HUD discovered a couple of administrative errors on their end. That actually reduced our award to $2,498,955. And so that is the amount of funding that we are talking about today. Uh, one of the key regulations for home ARP is that we had to develop an allocation plan that HUD had to approve. We did this in late 2022, early 2023 around the same time we were doing the strategic plan for homeless homelessness. So, we were able to piggyback on a lot of that consultation with 45 stakeholders and service providers. Over 200 residents that could benefit from these programs were also participants in that public input process. Um that allocation plan was approved by this body in March of 2023 and HUD quickly approved it thereafter within a month. Um we do have the ability to submit a substantial amendment to this allocation plan should we feel that the current setup no longer

fits our needs as a community. This is what uh the allocation plan currently looks like. Um the percentages are the same as in the original allocation plan. of the actual numbers again had to shift a little bit based on that reduced funding. Um but you can see we set aside a 52% towards the development of affordable rental housing specifically uh for individuals at risk or experiencing homelessness. Uh supportive services was allocated 25% of our award. Uh and homear has this really um pretty interesting categories for nonprofit operating and capacity building. uh we have a max of 5% of that that our agencies awarded full mark could take advantage of. Uh and there's also a 15% cap of administration and planning that would go to HCD. You can see here we only allocated 13% so that we can maximize as much as we could towards our partners. Uh so you're probably wondering why have we been holding on to this funding for these last couple years and the answer as it tends to be is ARPA. uh our partners were really focused on AARPA uh expenditures, homelessness, and affordable housing. So, we wanted to give them a little bit of breathing room. Uh which is why uh we held back this application until uh September of last year when we released it. Uh the original application date was October 6. Um we provided as always a lot of comprehensive technical assistance as we always do. Uh we by the time the October 6th deadline came through, we had only received seven supportive services applications, nothing for affordable rental housing. So we extended the deadline by two months uh encouraging our affordable housing partners to submit something uh which they did and I'll talk about that in a minute. Um grant period goes through September 30th, 2030. So this is one of those multi-year uh contracts that we could do. You'll be glad to know that the majority of the proposals we received were multi-year. Um, so that will almost

in some ways kind of replace the ARPA funding for some of them. This is a reimbursement only grant. There is no opportunity for advanced payments. Our agency partners that applied are aware of this. Um, and I did not write this down, but I will mention we currently do not have an obligation deadline from HUD, but it's going to come any minute uh or any day we feel like. So, we just want to get ahead of the game and and not have to be dealing with last minute decisions. Homearb again, it's a little quirky. Uh we can only use these funding to primarily benefit individuals or families from these four qualifying populations. They are number one, individuals already experiencing sheltered or unsheltered homelessness. Two, individuals at risk of homelessness. Three, persons who are fleeing or attempting to flee situations like domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking. Four, anybody else who might be at risk of housing instability, but who might benefit from supportive services to try to prevent that from happening. Uh, and also veterans and families that include a veteran family member can also benefit from these programs as long as they are already part of one of those four categories. Uh something else that HUD is requiring us to do is to make sure that all four qualifying populations are represented across our portfolio of contracts, if you will. So we've we've made sure to consider that in our recommendations here. Um again, the allegible activities that we put forth in the RFP that are also part of the allocation plan are rental affordable housing. We were focused on shovel ready single or multif family projects. It could have been new construction, um, moderate to major rehabilitation. There was also room for agencies to request funding for acquisition or demolition as part of the larger project. Uh, we were also looking for homeless supportive services applications. And that really covers

everything you would generally think of under that category. Everything under Mckin Bento, housing, counseling, direct financial assistant, childcare services, etc. Um and then again we have these uh really interesting opportunities for capacity building and operating funds to help those applicants be in the best place possible to implement their home art activities. There are a couple of um little details with those. Um only agencies receiving other home art funds can receive those two buckets. And then there's also a cap that in any fiscal year they cannot be spending more than up to 75,000 in those types of um budget line items fiscal year. Our applicant eligibility, nothing too surprising here. Uh nonprofits with 501c3 status with at least one or two years of experience in operating. For-profit entities were elleible. Our community housing development organizations were elleible. uh because of the complexities of these funding regulation, it's it's almost as complicated as home, perhaps a little bit more because it merges all sorts of regulations all at once. Uh we were looking for agencies that were currently in compliance with any open active contracts that we administer. Uh we were looking for agencies with a minimum of three years of experience admin administering similar programs. There were no match requirements, but we did uh encourage leverage as we always do. Uh and then for all those applications for rental development, we uh were giving some preference to agencies that could demonstrate past or current capacity to success uh excuse me, successfully manage and complete home assisted housing developments. Again, we're always looking to to help our agencies make sure they have everything they need to succeed. Our rating criteria, again, very similar to what we do with CDBG and home, up to 100 points.

We typically consider 70 points to be the absolute minimum threshold for to be considered for funding. Um and that has served us well in the past. Here is a quick snapshot. Uh we received a total of nine applications uh totaling $6.7 million. Uh seven of those were for supportive services coming in at about 3.7 million. Two requests for affordable housing at 2.9 million. You can see here um staff is recommending we fund six supportive services projects at 2.175 million and no projects for our affordable housing. And I will talk about why in a minute. To give you an idea, we had a funding gap of $4.2 million in difference between available funds and funding requests. So, we're going to jump into supportive services first. Um, I did want to because it's been um at the top of conversations recently, all supportive services applications allocated between 14 and 90% of their budget towards direct client financial service. So, everything from eviction prevention to first month's rents, child care, etc. So, um that is something we expect them to keep. Um, Family Promise came in at number one for their prevention and diversion program. Currently funded by ARPA. They requested a total of $875,000. We're recommending $564,84153. Um, the ARC came in at number two for their eviction prevention project. Uh, they requested 400,000. We are recommended 270,000. The Athens area homeless shelter requested 780,000 for the almost home emergency shelter supportive services.

We are recommending 480,000. And you can see here I hope on the slide we broke down their total requests by their their main activities, capacity building and operations requested and recommended. Um, Advantage Behavioral Systems came in at number four with uh an interesting new partnership with uh Athens Housing Authority that would essentially place uh Advantage case workers within the residential communities to assist those that are currently facing um likelihood of eviction or just housing instability. Um and it would also set aside a certain number of housing authority units for individuals kind of working their way um with the images care system. So they're requested 300,000. We're recommending 240,000. The Athens Community Council and Aging requested a little over 439,000 for their housing counseling project. We are recommending a little over 320,000 for them. Number six uh was our Athens Clark homeless coalition. They requested 300,000 for the flexible housing fund. This is uh I believe this is the agency that's 90% direct service uh provision or direct service financial assistance. We're recommending the full amount there. Salvation Army came in at number seven. That is the only application that we are not uh recommending for funding. They requested 687,000 for their sustaining those in needs program. Um, and we just we're not recommending them. Jumping into the affordable rental housing requests, again, we received two. Uh, you can see them here. It was Athens Habitat for Humanity and Moms Adopting Moms. You can see I'm going to start from the bottom. Moms adopting moms requested 1.5 million. Their score was 53 out of 100. Uh, and so they did not meet our minimum scoring threshold. This is the first This is I think the

first year that this agency applies for any of our funding. So, we were excited to see new agencies. Uh we're going to continue working with them to to make sure that they can they know what they need for the next round of funding. Um Habitat for Humanity is recommending um they they own a property at 243 Bra Street. There's currently one house there, but they are trying to develop up to 12 additional single family units. are relatively small in the lot. Um we consulted with planning department with PUD with our other partners uh here at ACC gov just about around feasibility and we do have some concerns about how feasible this would be. Um the lot is very unique. It's very skinny in the front and then it widens up. Uh they would likely require an easement from a neighboring property to with sewer concerns. um the plan that they submitted u for our planning partners. It's it would probably require some work just given the layout, given the topography, living just kind of how the law is set up. Uh and because again we're talking about federal funding. We're talking a very restricted timeline. We just don't feel comfortable recommending funding for them at this time. Um especially as they're still working on the Micah Creek project and and all the others that Melinda shared earlier in her presentation. Um and so in short, this is our larger recommendation. Um would end up shifting the 1.3 million we had set aside for affordable rental. We would want to shift it towards a supportive services. You can see there we would keep our nonprofit operating and capacity building and admin and planning as it was. Um, you can just hopefully easily see there. We're just shifting from rental housing to supportive services. Because it's a substantial change to our allocation plan, we would need your authorization to submit a substantial change request to HUD. We're pretty confident we would get it approved

because we we could very easily prove that we just don't have the local capacity to move into that rental housing activity right now. Um, so you would see that in your agenda report. This again would be in the April May cycle. You will see these two action items. One to authorize us to submit that allocation plan amendment and number two pending that approval allow us to move into contracting as I've outlined in the last few slides. We would of course we would have to do a 30day comment period uh before submitting a substantial amendment. So, we would probably start that in the next couple of weeks so that by the time we roll into the May 5th meeting with you all, you would be able to see whatever any public comment we might be getting around this change. So, that would be part of your agenda as updated as we can. Um, we would submit that substantial amendment to HUD as soon as we have that authorization from you on the six and initiate contracting. We would not be able to execute any contracts until HUD says you're good to go, but we would at least get the balls rolling. Um, and that that's what I've got on home. Any questions?

I got one. You go ahead. Question. I'm sorry. I had um at the last G meeting there was um really a good presentation about rental um plan. Um, I know you have not done a plan plan like what you're going to tackle first with what we were shared with GI. Is any of these dollar will any of these dollars be considered in anything that we heard at the g meeting or possibly

No, these are specific to homeless activities. Oh, this is so I thought I saw rental. Well, but it's rental for homeless act. Yeah. So, it' be people moving out of homelessness. It's almost like a transitional housing. Okay. Okay. Very specific.

But want to highlight the fact that of the six that we're recommending, four of them are diversion, uh, eviction prevention, and they'd be able to serve the entire population of Athens Clark County as far as you'd have families being served, singles being served. It would run the gamut. So, we've heard a lot um from this body and from the residents about the need for uh more money to help evict or prevent eviction. We know um per the money that it's cheaper to keep people in their housing than to help them once they become homeless. Um, so that's another very important thing to put up front to you is we're the re another reason we're recommending this is the need is so high in Athens that we see a a good opportunity here to put these money this money to very good use. Is this does this has any of your recommendations? Does this have anything to do how did the homeless um there was the the most recent study, how did it fit into your recommendation,

the strategic plan for No, the one that was about two or three months ago, the $10,000 study. Oh, that's not ours. That's the homeless coalitions. Okay. So, we work with the strategic plan to reduce and prevent homelessness and it very much falls all of these activities fall directly in line with strategies mentioned and listed in that homeless strategic plan. So, so we know that ARPA money is going to end in 2026. So, will this keep the work going after ARPA?

Yes. In fact, I want to say the majority of agencies, if not all, that are recommended for funding now are currently recipients of ARPA funding or if not currently, they have closed out ARPA contracts with us. Um, so all of this would essentially in in many ways help continue the ARPA work all the way through the fall of 2030. Okay. Um, so it's a lot of continuity. Okay. in that sense.

Um any before I ask Michael any other commissioners got a question? The McKinnon veto um is that in conjunction with school district or working with them on this that's norm they do follow Mckin Vento. The way that we talk about Mckin Vento here is that all the services that the schools can offer under Mckin Vento, we can also offer and fund through this uh funding. So direct services, child care, um all of those Mckenni Vento is actually the homeless umbrella and school is part of McKenna Vento.

Um so it's that big umbrella picture. Well, I'm ask but I'm my asking is that in partnership or do you all do that separate separate? It would be separate. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Now, it doesn't mean that our partners can't work with the school district to identify people that would qualify for the need. There could be a referral system set up between the agencies that are awarded and carrying out the activities with the school district to refer any families that they identify. Why? Because I think that is where your biggest referral I assume will come from though. Oh, it wouldn't be surprising at all. Yes. Mhm. Okay. Question. All right. Okay. Thank you. Sure thing. Next.

Okay. So, the next is our community partnerships program. This year um Envision Athens was allocated um the responsibility and authority to assist HCD with our vision committee. As if you recall, our vision committee are the ones that review, rank, and make funding recommendations for community partnership funding. HCD is not a part of that. So without further ado, I'm going to hand this over to Sally who led this process this year and let her take over. Hey everybody, I'm Sally Kimmel Shepard, Revision Athens. Sorry. All right, so what we're going to do is talk about the community partnership program grant. Um this is how we got to where we are. So in the past in the past oh this is different from what I had in the past um this grant was uh this partnership was conceived around end of 2023. The mayor commiss mayor commission voted on having like a set amount put aside specifically for nonprofits in Athens to apply for funding and they labeled it under the community partnership program. Um so what we're going to talk about today is the review of those proposals for the fiscal year 2027 and what the recommendations are from the vision committee. This one's a little bit different because the vision committee is the organization or the entity that reviewed all of the applications and then completely decided on the funding recommendations for those applications. So even though HCD was very much into the process of accepting applications, providing technical assistance, and even assisting the vision committee and reviewing some of those applications, um they weren't really they didn't play a whole lot of input as to what what the funding recommendations were. There it is.

Yeah.

Okay. This kind of this slide just went over what I told you all. U there was about a million dollars for uh uh funding to be allocated um through this funding source. And to reason why I'm here is because in addition to the other things Envision Athens does, ACC gov paid $60,000 not just for this but for everything that Envision does. Um and so this was one of added to my responsibilities with Envision Athens for this year that we're currently in. So there's two type of activities for this. Um Oh, did you want to mention that at the end? Okay. All right. There's two type of activities that are eligible for CPP funding. One is community services and one is uh homeless services. And you'll see here that community services, it's neighborhood re revitalization, poverty reduction and economic strength activities, intervention prevention activities, which are all very broad. Uh but in homeless specifically it's case management and if you're a homeless serving agency applying for this funding you must assist with the an annual pit count. PIT stands for point in time count which is the one day in January where we count all sorts of people who might be experiencing homelessness in Athens and around the country. And then also they need to participate in the continue of care which is the group of all the agencies that come in contact with folks experiencing homelessness. So again um Linda went over who are who sit on the um vision committee. Uh this year the vision committee also added bylaws. Um we appointed and elected our executive committee with our chair vice chair and secretary. Um, and I just want to say a big thank you to all those who um, agreed to be part of the vision committee. It's a lot of time and effort that they put into reviewing not only all 27 of these applications, but also the applications that were previously spoken about. And this meets

So there's a rating criteria uh, that this falls under. The way this kind of goes down is that the vision committee has access to all of the applications online through Zoom grants, which is the platform that was used for this. And then they on their own time, within a specific time frame, but on their own time get to review all of these applications. And there's a rubric that they follow as they're reviewing the applications and they score them internally within this rubric. Um, and then that rubric can add up to 100 points. So, this is the uh funding applications snapshot. There were uh by November of last year, there's a little bit over $3 million worth of applications or requests put in. Again, they had to decide out of that three million who rose to the top to get about a million dollar a million dollars in funding. Um, yeah, there were two organizations that applied for funding that were not eligible and so that brought us down to a little bit less than 3 million. About 2,800 were actually requesting funding. This slide here breaks down um the type of activity type and you'll see as it's broken down into which ones are homeless services, neighborhood revitalization, intervention and prevention, poverty restruction, economic strength. The thing that I like to look at a lot is this other chart over here with the bars and it kind it tells you exactly out of all those applications what type of activity those that applied for the funding are wanting that funding to go towards. And as we review the actual recommendations, you'll see that they are colorcoded for those activities. So you'll get to see um so as we look at this, just a couple things before we dive into this. Um first of all, the vision committee

decided out of the gate as we had this several hour conversation which was recorded y'all can review. um that we would not be reviewing applications that were 75 scored 75 and below because there were a lot of applications to review. So we had to have a cut off somewhere and that's what has been done in the past and so we decided to move forward with that. That doesn't mean we didn't talk about those but that is what we ended up with um to give you some sort of idea. Also those that are in bold are those who had received funding in the past. Those with an asterk indicate agency program that is recommended for other funding in this fiscal year that we're talking about. And then you'll see them highlighted. So the light color are homeless services. The green is reduction, poverty reduction, economic strength, intervention prevention is the funky aqua, and then the more blue is neighborhood revitalization. So I'm going to go through these. Now the what we've got here is the name of the organization, their program name, the amount they requested in that third column. The fourth column is the score that they scored on that rubric which was done by the vision committee on their own time as they reviewed these grants through Zoom grants. And then that correlates with the ranking was the higher score. Um, and then the final column is what the vision committee actually decided that the recommend recommended funding would be. So, Athens Area Homeless Shelter requested 200 around $200,000 and the recommended funding was around $100,000. Athens Area Diaper Bank $52,000. We kept them at the same amount at $52,000. Family Promise requested $200,000. We did a slightly we re we recommend or they recommend a slightly less amount at $170,000. United Way 211 requested $26,000.

We wanted uh they recommend their funding at the same amount at 26400,000. Acceptance recovery center $18,000. We had the same amount recommended at $18,000. Books for keeps 90,000. We recommended 67,000. project saved 100,000 and some change. We kept them at the same amount um that they asked for at 100,000 and some change. Athens Land Trust 136,000 we recommend 90,000 for them. Advantage Behavioral Health and this is um the homeless day

homeless day service center. Thank you. Um support services at 50,000. We re recommend that amount at 50,000. Downtown ministries, specifically our daily bread, community kitchen, they asked for 200 around 239,000 and we recommend 104,000. The homeless coalition um asked for this is for their continuum of care program um they asked for 76,000 almost 80,000. We recommended 70,000. Horizons Atlanta at UG which is workforce development um working with children um trickles up to workforce development. They uh asked for 25,000. We recommended 25,000 for them. And then the homeless coalition submitted an additional grant for community services for 88,000 and we recommended 75,000 for them. And then Sparrow's Nest um requested 40,000 and we were re recommended 40,000 for them. We're still here. We're at 76 for the rubric. Um if you look for the rest of them, we did not recommend funding for them. Uh I have an asterk beside the arc. Um even though they are above the 75 points of our rubric, uh we did not recommend funding for them. They are also receiving funding in fiscal year 27 through another funding source. Athens Community Council on Aging is also receiving money through um another source for this fiscal year that we're talking about right now.

Y'all have any questions about this part? This is the major bulk of it. Don't open that can up. They'll ask you the questions in the middle of it. I'll tell you right, I'll get to the last slide then. How about that? So, we're talking about this today, the recommendations from the vision committee for the community partnership program funding and then uh hopefully it'll be then brought in front of the agenda setting meeting. Perhaps y'all will vote on it at April the 7th meeting. Contracts would be awesome if they went out in April. Um but the funding should start around July. It will be available for the fiscal year from July 1st to June 30th, 2027.

Yep. And one more item that you will see in your agenda um in the April March April cycle is we are asking uh for you to consider setting a minimum funding request for every application of $60,000. Currently, there is no minimum request. So, as you can see, some applications are coming in at $18,000. Uh so this recommendation comes in line with our internal audit findings and was Gavin left right now. Um so one of the recommendations uh from them to us was to increase our efficiency and our efficacy and able being able to provide technical assistance and make sure every agency can do that and one way we can do that is to award a fewer number of contracts but with a higher dollar amount. Uh, one way we can do this is to set that threshold of 60,000. Um, it really was only five applications we received this year that was below 60,000 and we're pretty confident just knowing those agencies and programs that they can probably ask for that minimum 60 um if they knew they could do it. So, we we're feeling pretty confident about that and hopefully uh you can consider that as part of your votes um into one other point before you get into Q&A. Um this is proposed awards for FY27. So, the actions you take here do kind of set the stage for the FY27 budget, but procedurally, so let's say this goes into the April agenda and you all say, "Awesome. We'll work on contracts. We'll go through insurance review and get everything in align, but uh they will not be submitted to the mayor for execution until you've approved the budget because if for any reason you wanted you needed to deviate from that, we don't want to get the cart before the horse

because it's part of our general funding. So yeah, that's right. Questions. Do y'all have questions? Worn out or worn out? No, I don't I don't want to say the wrong thing. So my question that's good practice doing good. It's too important. We're good. All right. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Sally. All right. Excuse me. Nope.

And last but not least, Michael Bean from the home coalition coalition. Thank you, Michael, for being here today. Thank you. Thank you everyone for your time and for your attention today. I know uh we've been here a long time so I have a lot of information but I'll try to move uh move through it as quickly as possible. My name is Michael Bean. I'm the executive director with Athens Homes Coalition.

Is that better? These chairs are a lot more comfortable than the ones back there. This mic is on. So, first I just wanted to start when the Athens Homeless Coalition uh was founded um that we had a contract with Athens clar county to achieve a handful of specific mandates and I just wanted to report on those uh at this time. First was to hire a full staff which we have our community engagement coordinator, our community data coordinator and executive director. Improve our coordinated entry system. Uh I'll get into more detail, but we have successfully uh built a brand new coordinated entry system from the ground up. Uh set set up policies and procedures for that program and it's uh in implementation. administer a flexible housing fund which I'll talk more about also but that is uh something that we also set up policies and procedures and launched this housing fund and I'll uh provide some statistics on that in a few minutes increased participation with people with lived expertise uh sometimes we hear the phrase PL people with lived experience I prefer people with lived expertise those are people who are either currently experiencing homelessness or have experienced homelessness and bring with them a level expertise on navigating the system and a landscape of homelessness. Collaborate with faith-based organizations. This was one of our focuses in 2025 and 2026. And I'll talk more about that also. And engage with nonprofit and for-profit entities, which is one of our our main priorities. So, um you can see here that we fulfilled all of our contract uh requirements with Athens Clark County. Now, some program updates.

One of our main tenants is to support our service providers, and that's kind of a broad definition. So, we think of homeless shelters, emergency shelters, food relief programs, uh but it also includes faith-based organizations, uh the Clark County Library, um some for-profit entities, any any entity that is uh that is a part of the continuum of care. It also includes the Athens clar county police department and um concerned citizens. So lots of lots of people as is part of that continuum of care. So homeless coalition provides guidance and expertise on requests. One of our big focuses is facilitating collaboration among our continuum of care and also churches, businesses, healthc care providers, and especially in the last year, shelters and warming stations. We also monitor state and federal legislation and regulations and share that information with our service providers uh to give them a heads up on how they might be affected by uh new and recent uh legislation or if there's a call to reach out to your elected officials and voice uh voice your opinion on anything that's coming down the pipe. And a specific effort that we did um last summer uh we had such a hot summer that uh if you all recall it got pretty unbearably hot but not hot enough to trigger emergency shelters or cooling centers. So what the coalition did is kind of proactively reach out to our partners and say how can we support your clients and how can we help people who are unsheltered to uh get some relief from the heat. And so based on those conversations, we provided uh industrial um uh sprinkle fans, industrial fans with uh sprinklers in them, cooling fans, and also canopies. And then more

recently during the winter months, uh provided propane for different agencies who do some outdoor heating for their for their clients either during their business hours or early morning before business hours. So, I'm going to speak about coordinated entry. It's a complicated system and a complicated concept. Um, but I'm it's something I'm really proud of and probably one of the proudest things we've done with the Athens Homeless Coalition is completely innovative. We are the only community in the state of Georgia to have revamped our coordinated entry system. uh every every other community, every other city in Georgia and most cities across the nation use kind of the old uh tried and tested um system that was developed in the 1990s and as has several flaws with it. So to improve how we did this and also upon recommendation from the strategic plan to reduce an homelessness uh we built a brand new coordinated entry system from the ground up. What it does is it allows us to engage with people experiencing homelessness, ask a series of questions on on a survey and gather that information. That information is used both to refer and provide housing solutions for those individuals when they become available and also just to gather that information to better understand uh the scale and scope of homelessness in Athens. So our coordinated entry program was launched um about eight months ago. I think it was in June of 2025. Um again we uh created a whole set of policies and procedures. We created a training module for our partners who want to participate and conduct assessments. and we recruited um a really wide swath of organizations, agencies, fa based organizations, government agencies to

participate and to help uh conduct these assessments and engage with folks to gather this information. So we currently have 22 partner providers um and over the last eight months uh they have assessed as you can see here almost 900 uh adults and children. Those are people experiencing homelessness in Athensclar County. So on the back end of the coordinated entry system is working uh with providers and identifying opportunities, housing opportunities or available units or available housing programs and then using our database of information to identify which participants in the program are eligible for which housing solutions. So if for instance it is a family with two children um escaping a domestic violence situation, well we have that information and we can filter that information. So if there is an opportunity through one of those housing programs, we can identify families who are eligible for those programs, contact them quickly and get them referred and housed uh quickly, efficiently and equitably. Not just families, not just children. We can also identify uh people with veteran status, people living with disabilities, whoever's eligible and most vulnerable and eligible for these specific programs. So we maintain a real time dashboard on our website. Our website is athenhc.org. If you go there and click, I don't know if you can see in the corner, but uh local data is the link there that will take you to our different dashboards. Um this is not the entire dashboard. It is just a screenshot of the top of our dashboard, but it provides real-time data um from the information that we have gathered uh specifically to our coordinated entry program. Um you can see here some of the

race, gender, age, physical disability, mental health condition. But if if we were able to scroll down the dashboard, you could see uh chronic diseases, um how long people have lived in Athens for, how long someone's been experiencing homeless for, homelessness for, um where someone or family lived before they were experiencing homelessness or during their transition to homelessness. So there's a lot of good information on our dashboard. So next, I'd like to talk about our flexible housing fund. Uh this fund was designed to prevent and reduce homelessness. There's already been a lot of talk about um financial assistance. Uh so this fund was designed both to help individuals and families exit homelessness into housing. So if someone is faced with a financial barrier, we provide one-time financial assistance, for instance, to pay a security deposit or an individual or family experiencing homelessness who is identified a unit or a house but is unable to get there based on a one-time financial need. On the other side, it is uh this fund is also designed and utilized to help people who are in an instable situation, currently in housing, but maybe in danger of being evicted or behind on their rent or utilities. And so, this fund also was used to serve those those individuals and families to help prevent them from being evicted or prevent them from facing. So, we have uh $300,000 allocated to this program. You can see we've currently spent over 250. Uh a majority of that went towards rental assistance. We found that there's just a a terrible need for rental assistance, particularly with uh rental rate hikes and kind of current wave of uh layoffs and people being unemployed. So um each time we released these funds, they were they were snapped up very quickly. And this fund is designed to

uh dispense that money as quickly as possible, usually less than 24 or 48 hours maximum to um help people out of that crisis situation. So in the time that this fund has been in existence, less than one year, we have uh supported 106 households uh totaling over 300 people, adults and children. And just like the other program, we maintain a dashboard on our website, athenshc.org. It's the same. Click on local data and choose flexible housing fund. And uh has real-time data of uh the amount we've spent, how many people have benefited from the program, and also some ex some pie charts that show how that how that money has been distributed to what different um costs. Like I mentioned in the last year, faith-based programs has been a big priority of the Athens Homeless Coalition. So, um, we've really started the bowl ball rolling on strengthening our network with faith-based organizations. We started with, uh, downtown churches and held a forum there just to allow different people representing their, um, congregations, what programs they're conducting, what their experiences are with homelessness. uh ask any questions, ask hard or uncomfortable questions. You know, there are no bad questions, there are no dumb questions in these forums. So, we set up a safe space for uh for kind of an open and honest dialogue on the role of faith-based organizations in housing and homelessness. Um based on this response, our participating network um also uh some some of our partners have started gift card drives and those gift cards are specifically for the Athens Homeless Coalition to compensate people with lived experience who we consult

with or who we work with to provide their expertise and guide the work that we do. We think it's only fair that people are compensated at a competitive rate just like any subject matter expert would be. Um, however, our funding kind of limits how we're able to provide that compensation. And so that's why we started this gift card. at our last forum uh our our second faith-based forum we held on the east side because the east side of Athens has kind of a different set of homelessness looks a little different on the east side and the resources are different and the challenges are different so that's why we held uh held our second faith-based forum on the east side and honestly I think this picture was taken of someone expressing interest in sort of what do I do if what does our church do if this situation we're talking about real time crisis management What if someone is asking for food or needs a place to stay that night or appears to be uh acting erratically or possibly having a mental health episode or is putting themsel in danger and um I think those are valid questions and not just limited to church staff but to you know to a lot of people in in this community. So what we kind of hash hash this conversation out and um we're told that a navigation tool would be uh would be of benefit here. So we provided some re resources in the past. We have other resource list that you'd all have seen some of but this will be a specific kind of navigation tool decision decision tree to help um help respond to a crisis situation in real time. We're also working with First Baptist Church downtown um who will be citing our pilot locker program. This is a program for people experiencing unsheltered homelessness uh specifically people uh living downtown on the streets to have a safe and secure place to store

their belongings. uh so it can be kept out of the weather. And so people can do things like attend a doctor's appointment or see their case manager or get something to eat or apply for a job without having to carry a giant backpack or an armful of blankets or or all their possessions with them or worry what's going to happen to everything they own while they go take care of this this important business day today. Uh we're also planning in the works a faith-based housing workshop that is in coordination with uh some folks in the Atlanta community. Uh the Atlanta faith-based community has done a lot in terms of providing housing and actually establishing housing programs uh to help people exit homelessness usually through very innovative partnerships uh with government entities and other nonprofits and developers. So we think there's a lot to learn from experts in that field. And so we're in the in the basis of bringing that community together with our community and sort of learn how our faith-based organizations can level up uh the work that they're doing to help reduce homelessness. People with lived expertise is another program that we take very seriously. We think that this is a kind of a tokenized term that that some organizations uh use, but this is really one of the foundations of the Athens Homeless Coalition and how we do our business. It's not our main priority to do face-to-face direct care engagement, but um our community engagement coordinator, Mike Moss, does do a good bit of that to establish relationships with our own house neighbors. And you can see here um he's been with us just over a year and and done quite a bit of work in that regard. He also facilitates monthly listening sessions. They take place at the Clark County Library. Um that is a safe space uh currently a closed space for people

uh experiencing homelessness to get together uh share their perspectives, provide each other with social support and make recommendations. Technically, it's not a closed space because I think any event that we hold at the library is open to the public, but um primarily people experiencing currently experiencing homelessness are are the ones who attend that. I personally do not do not attend that room because I don't qualify in that regard. Another really innovative uh program that we have is called Street News. Um, we have reached out to all of our community partners in other cities in Georgia and haven't found anyone who's doing something like this. This is a paper and also a digital publication. Um, completely edited and contributions by people with lived experience. Um, so far we have two issues that are out. Our latest one is available on our website, athenshc.org. Uh, it's under what we do if you'd like to get an idea. But we support this effort and we facilitate it. But it is the editorial staff and our partners who are people with lived experience either people currently experiencing homelessness or who have experience with homelessness who provide the layout, review submissions, submit articles, artwork, photography. Um Mike Moss is also in uh the process of creating a curriculum for uh a new program called lived experience ambassadors. This is to kind of widen his team of people with lived experience of homelessness to amplify their voices, work together and promote change in our community. So community engagement, this slide is primarily focused on our engagement with our house neighbors and with other organizations. So you can see uh some examples here. I've mentioned uh that we held a down I think I mentioned we held

a downtown forum that was uh on request. a group of downtown businesses were kind of circulating some challenges that they were having um with with people on the streets and and how they they felt it was affecting their business. And so Athens Homeless Coalition caught wind of that email chain, reached out to this group through the downtown development authority and held an open forum kind of similar to our face-to-based forums. where is a safe space people can talk about their experiences, share their challenges and kind of have some open dialogue towards solutions. Um, one of the things that they requested kind of a theme was a resource list and uh, you know, we kind of operate in a bubble and I assume that everyone knows what all of our emergency shelters are and know what our downtown food relief programs are, but that's not the case. And so um we provided a resource list if someone uh needs to get lunch and it's during a weekday uh our daily bread is available downtown and these are the uh emergency shelters that are within walking distance of downtown. So that's something that we did for the downtown businesses. Um I mentioned uh our faithbased network and then we also get requested to table and speak at events. This is uh this is me attending the Backpack Project of Athens, which is a UG student organization. Uh the Backpack Project community resource fair. And like I mentioned, we also played a a role in bringing partners together to respond to the extreme weather response, particularly in the most recent snowstorm in a and ice storm that we had in Athens, working with Food Bank of Northeast Georgia, um emergency response, the police department, uh Bigger Vision, other other agencies to help provide food and help support our volunteers. the second Wednesday of every month. Uh we also hold a community conversation

and connection meeting. I think there should be commas in that in that bullet, but um we call it C3 for short. It is open to the public. Anyone is welcome to attend. Uh we're happy to buy you a cup of coffee if uh if you're not able to to buy coffee there. We've been holding that at Hendershots. That's five o'clock on the second Wednesday of every month. And again, it's to open dialogue in the community, answer tough questions about homelessness. um hear people's thoughts and perspectives. Uh we're also active members in uh the GIT committee and so we're active in in those meetings and also our board chair um also attends those meetings and and did a great um uh put together a great presentation representing the gig committee specific on alternative housing solutions and missing middle solutions. Again, we're going to continue to support our providers. Something that we could do a better job of, I think, is to communicate successes and challenges. We don't we don't hear a lot of success stories. They're taking place every day. Um, sometimes they're small wins, sometimes they're big wins, but that's something that that Homeless Coalition is committed to doing in the upcoming uh year. Now, we have a really tight relationship with our service providers, but we're trying to expand that net even wider to improve our relationships with folks like the University of Georgia, the big hospitals, uh, and leadership at those levels, and also businesses. We'll continue to communicate with and support our providers. We meet with them regularly. We speak with them weekly, if not daily. our flexible housing fund. Like I mentioned, we had uh we've distributed most of our funds from that fund. We have about $45,000 remaining. And so what we've chosen to do um is to address

a population that really didn't have access to the funds previously, which are um people uh either in recovery or dealing with the challenge of uh substance abuse. So it works the same as our flexible housing fund. Uh by we are researching the most effective ways to help people succeed in their recovery and the fund will be used to either help people exit homelessness directly into a recovery program or if there are people currently who were previously experiencing homelessness and are in recovery but in danger of um of being evicted from that program based on financial constraints. We can uh subsidize subsidize those funds that way to keep help people stay in recovery. Um, as as the evidence shows, the longer someone is in a recovery program or as long uh longer someone is in recovery, the more success. We're also conducting three month and six month follow-ups with all of our recipients of flexible housing funds. So, it's a onetime fee to help someone say for instance um catch up on their rent, pay rent a rears, but uh it's not always clear where that family or that individual is three months from now or six months from now. We think that's really important information and so that's something we're conducting to assess the stability outcomes based on this program. And then we want to raise awareness and advocate for additional funds. It's already come up in this meeting and uh I've uh we recently had a rental assistance meeting where I think all of the commissioners currently here were present. So, um, this is a challenge and that makes all of our phones ring off the hooks. And so, we realize that there is not a supply of funds to help that that meets the demand for people in danger of, uh, of being evicted from their homes. I'm going to try to move quickly. Uh, I I appreciate everyone's time and patience. Uh, community engagement. Uh,

we have plans to expand our community conversation connection, our C3 program. Um I mentioned the de uh navigation tool that I think is appropriate for faith-based organizations but also for local businesses. Um we did hold a town hall uh state of homelessness u roughly a year ago but we want to continue that series uh and uh create additional fora and invite a wider range of individuals to come and hear about homelessness and also share their experiences. We're also focused on addressing stigma and misinformation related to homelessness. There is a lot of talk about what what people think homelessness is and what's it about. Um we find that the information that we have and the research and the data does not support a lot of this misinformation. Um data does not show that people experiencing homelessness are lazy or don't want jobs or that they want to be homelessness. There are possibly exceptions but overwhelming majority of the information we have contradicts that. So that's the type of thing that we want to help inform people about. Evaluation is something that's really a priority of the Athens Homeless Coalition. We are uh working with the UG School of Social Work. We thought it was important to have an external partner help us with evaluation or design our evaluation plan. I don't want to we don't want to grade ourselves. Um and so it's challenging to develop metrics in the kind of work that we do, but that's something that we're working with some experts on. Uh measure program outcomes. What are the what are the outcomes? What are the effects of our programs and how can we use that information to improve our effectiveness? And I mentioned street news and that's uh that's another program that we want to level up. Uh like I mentioned, we're in partnership with a group called uh movement and storytelling made up of people with the lived experience of homelessness. Um, with that gift card program, we are now compensating the editors who put work into street news

and also people who submit content to the street newspaper and then increase distribution. Um, we print up paper copies and distribute them with our partners, but we want to spread that as much as we can. uh probably our main focus of what we plan to do in the next year 2026 and 2027 is focused on policy and policy advocacy to improve access to affordable housing and deeply affordable housing. So we're currently in in kind of a research phase so that we can continue to gather best practices and evidence-based practices and share those share that information with you all. And that's the that's the communication um component of this slide. These are some solutions that are some of the gold standards and some of the time- tested solutions to reduce homelessness in communities across the country. Permanent supportive housing, incentives for developers to provide additional affordable units, uh incentives to attract more lowincome developers. I noticed that came up in a previous presentation today. And also diversify housing solutions. There's more solutions other than single family houses on a big yard and giant apartment complexes. There's a lot more than that. So, we think it's important to explore those ideas. So, I mentioned the rental assistance meeting that uh that a lot of you attended. Um kind of a theme there and a request was that there is a resource list for agencies that do provide rental assistance and and and who can we call. And so I did mock this up um to share with this group. Um like I promised, I do want to say that funding is spotty and goes really quickly for all of these programs. So just because there's a there's a phone number on here or there's an agency does not mean that they have available funds or that the person you're speaking to is eligible for those funds. But I did want to make these available to you since that was a specific request. Um we have plenty. So

take more than one. And if I know there are some commissioners who aren't present today, so feel free to take them for your colleagues. We got Commissioner Wright has a question. I have a I have a couple questions. Um your list of the 22 partner what do you call that? Partner providers or uh partner partner agencies who are

I'd love to see that list. I can't think of 22. It's good to know that. Is that something I would find on the website or is that something you could email us? I' I'd be happy to email that to you. And uh really hats off to our data our community data coordinator. Her name is Claire Kates and she really made an effort to recruit organizations outside of kind of the usual the usual suspects. So I mean it includes the police department, the sheriff's department. Um I'm trying to think the library. So yes, I'd be happy to put I'd love to see that. And and we're interested in expanding it

even wider. you know, we started with kind of a small circle of our of our core supporters and and are branching out. So, we see uh say a church, you know, community outreach liaison going through our training and being able to conduct one of these and getting that person into our system so they can be identified and referred.

Right. And then you you it's trusted because of not just from the vetting but the training that you're doing. That's great because you can't just I think we learned a little bit more about that in the ice storm and you know how do you get volunteers to help? Well, you can't just have anybody. They have to have um training and make sure they're trusted helpful versus could be potentially aggravating situation. So, that's awesome. The what types can you also send us what are the types of gift gift cards that are being found? It's not all grocery. It's not that kind of stuff. If you send us that because um you know, I know it's kind of risky if anybody went and got 10 gift cards, you get questioned to make sure you're not getting scammed. You know what I mean? That that it is legit, but I think it's interesting to learn what the resource help can be because when people

are asking us what can we do, you know, you're giving me a good bit of stuff to direct them. Um but even that you know it's like don't give money but what gift what kind of gift card? So you said I mean thank thank you for acknowledging that because that that is something that was an opportunity that we thought working with faith-based organizations that they already do gift card drives and they know about this. So they've been really receptive to it. Um HUD restricts how we can compensate contractors for their time. Um, so there's a a tax form to fill out and then we can write a check to someone, but that's not useful. Not everybody that we've worked with has a bank account or you know that that's not useful for everyone. So what we wanted to do was lower any barriers and any restrictions on what that payment is. So if someone hired me to be a consultant and work with them for a couple hours, I would expect to be paid in a way that gives me the freedom to spend that income however I want. So to answer your question, um we're requesting either really our our top request would be like a Visa gift card that is useful useful anywhere and we're we're not handing these out uh like this charity on the corner. This is this is payment for services render.

Okay, that's awesome. Um I did get a uh I saw a digital version of the streets news. It was it was long. That's a lot to print in there. But do you have a spot in one of our the magazine racks for the printed versions? Are you using our magazine racks like that are like in front of city hall? No, they're empty. It's like flag pole is the only thing left. They used I remember when they were filled with handouts and stuff, but it seems like you could claim one of not claim, but if you put a sticker or something on there that helps people know how to the QR code to get to your digital version and but yet your stack could be in one of those. I don't think I don't think it's a permission needed. They're free. They're open.

No, there is. Huh? The process. I knew Jeff. Hey, we already got we already got permission. I'm glad to point it out. Well, that's why you're here, to make sure misinformation is not shared. Well, if we're happy to participate in that process because like like I mentioned, distribution is is one of our priorities and right now we we share them with our service providers and a handful of businesses have them by the register. Well, if you can get through the gatekeeper over there, hopefully that fits. You can see where that would be effective. And then um the um support uh the recovery support is the advantage behavioral um active in recovery program is that part of your outreach when you're or is that part of your future plans? kind of missed.

These are these are future plans, but we are, as you can imagine, um this is a sticky and kind of challenging policy to come up with because a we want to do what's most effective, but we also want to cast the widest net. And um not every recovery program is equal. Some are are certified and some are not. So we need to be really mindful of who's eligible for this program, what the highest success rate might be for this program, and also what who who are we referring people to with their greatest chance. And good making sure making sure that the connection is a positive one for the person who needs the support. Yeah. And make sure Okay.

To answer your question, Advantage Behavioral Health is a close partner of ours and you know, they run the homeless day service center and are very active on the COC. So along with other COC members, they're they're tight partners with ours. So in these pilot programs, a lot of time we start with our our our core partners and then try to expand central and then I hear Hendershot is closing. What are you going to do? I heard that too. Yeah, I just I just heard that today. So we will be we'll be looking for a new location for our C3. But you have you also have time for for that transition like do you have some more of these things happening at Hendershots to share the the new location?

Yes. And and uh we tomorrow is our next is our next E3 and then a month from then. So so we have a month to find a new location. That's a great one because it's a partnership with the local business and uh you know coffee is available for those who want it. Um, we've also held sessions on the east side at Herd Community Center. I think some of you have attended those also. So, we have options. I think that's it that I want to ask some feedback on. Great question. for you, Michael. Um,

if there's a situation after hours, if with a family, who do who would they contact? Would they go ahead and do the 211? If we get if any of us commission going to call after the hours, who would we refer say somebody's spending night at the hotel? Who who we refer them to? How are you having anything at night?

Yeah, I think that's I think that's really challenging. Uh 211 I think is an option um where you can get someone on the line and can provide some resources. Now those resources might not be might not be available in real time in the middle of the night. Um also I don't know if you're aware but ACCPD has put together uh a similar resource um database and so that's available online. They have a QR code and uh they have some cards, but um that's something else to to provide that real that real-time information. Um

you're you're in a you're in a sticky wicket and it comes up quite a lot. These things happen, Friday evening and weekend. So I I empathize and there currently there aren't a lot of great uh great solutions. I think it would depend on the severity and sort of the circumstances. So if it's someone fleeing domestic violence, there are a couple of hot lines that personally call. If it's a veteran, then there are afterhour services for for people in that situation. Obviously, if it's a medical emergency, that's a different, you know, that's a different set of circumstances. If it's a mental health emergency, uh you know, Advantage uh has a crisis unit that's over. Uh my next question I was making you say what you said about some of my homeless population that you know folks on the work and what I one of the suggestions that they may be in here but I don't see how do we tie people in and then get employed next I don't hear that enough u what you not only employment but they with child care so how do we tie and individual, you know, because I think that where I'm going with this because of what they do at the chamber now with um trying to help somebody reach out to the chamber to help them find jobs. How do we tie in what you doing people that may want employment? I was just out at Johnson and Johnson day for that rebel cut was out. They got a big hiring side. They hiring folks and some other industries are hiring people. So y'all went into that connecting with businesses all with people that are hiring and I guess it's twofold now I don't hire but poss trying to get them trained even maybe we working with Athens tech hey you know we got programming they can give them certificates and get you know again to me the quickest way to get people out of homeless situation and into housing to get them good paying jobs. Yeah, I'm I'm

glad you I'm glad you brought that up and really I when I edited this uh the future activities because workforce development is is one of our future goals. Um so we have had uh um meetings with the chamber and also with the program that they're doing with family connection community and schools for workforce development. Um and also Athens area homeless shelter has had some successful programs with Athens Tech. And so, uh, another sub bullet when I mentioned, uh, the peer ambassador program under community engagement, um, life skills and job skills and, uh, workplace skills are are also part of that ambassador program, part of that curriculum. So, um, that is something we're definitely aware of and, uh, and focused on.

Thank you. Thank you for bringing that up. I appreciate it. Any other question on the commissioner? All right. I I was trying to get the line in two hours and we did. Okay. 18 minutes over. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you. No wor. Thank you. Um All right, guys. Have a good day and I'll see everybody on next Tuesday. Good job. We don't have an executive session. So, but please show up conduct business and be out.