Housing Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. We have a forum, and so I am starting the commencement of the housing commission meeting for this evening. Thank you for all coming and being here for this process that we have for selecting grantees. And I think we also have something else important is to just real quick introduction of some of our new folks here. I'm not new, but I'm Connie Cunningham for those of you who don't know me. And to my left is well,

Linda Gindy. Okay. And Michelle.

Lily. Very nice to meet you. And Ryan Gulls, our vice chair, is on Zoom. So welcome to all of you here. At some point, we will be talking with all of you. So we called the meeting to order at 05:30. And if you would take the roll call, please.

Certainly. So when I call your name, please say present. Chair Cunningham?

Present.

Vice chair Goals?

Present.

Commissioner Heath? Present. Commissioner Narayan? Present. Commissioner Cindy?

Present.

We have a quorum.

K.

Next, we will move on to approval of the minutes. Have you all had a chance to read the minutes? Okay. We've all had a minutes. And are there any questions or corrections?

I just wanna state, on behalf of staff, we did notice there were some spelling error on the minutes, particularly if came to people's names. So, miss Nichols and Andy Leaf, your names will be infected in the posted official version. I didn't know. Okay. Okay.

So given if there are are there any and there were no other issues or questions for the minutes, then all in favor say aye.

Aye. Aye. Okay.

So that is closed.

We'll move along. K.

Sorry. I think for this one, we motion. A motion to

accept Motion.

Yeah. Motion to accept the minutes. Someone to second it.

Okay.

Second.

Okay. Is there is

there a Okay. Yeah. Second. Got it. Okay.

Any calls? Okay. And then we can do I'm gonna call Will Paul, you guys can say aye, nay, or abstain. Okay? This is

is that right? Okay.

Go ahead. Chair Cunningham?

A. Aye. Vice chair Goulds?

Aye.

Commissioner Hee. Aye. Commissioner Naye. Aye. And commissioner Cindy.

Aye.

The motion passes five zero. Okay.

Thank you. Then we can move on. And are there any postponements?

None. None. No postponements in the last meetings. Okay.

Do we have any oral communications for business that is not on the agenda?

None that was received. Okay. But we can also open that to follow-up if they have anything to comment that is not agendized.

So we'll just I'll be quiet for a second so that we can hear if anybody says, yes. I would like to speak. Okay. Hearing none, then we will move along from oral communications. And were there written communications?

Yes. We actually received a number of written communications from the public. It was on an agenda item, which was actually going to be for the NOFA. So we've brought copies of that today, provided at the table as well. We could have it electronically as well.

Okay. Yes. Thank you.

I'd like to I'd like to nominate chair Cunningham for a second year, please.

Do we have a second for that motion?

I can second.

Oh, thank you.

Second? Okay. Do you have any more nominations?

I wanted to nominate Ryan Goulds for the chair.

Do have a nomination? Goulds? Do you have any sec?

I respectfully decline. Thank you.

Okay. Well, you I nominate myself then?

You may.

Okay. I'll nominate myself.

Okay. Nomination for commissioner heat. Do we have the second?

I second the motion?

Yeah. Does does anyone second the motion?

You'll second the motion? I did. I just took.

Okay. Alright? Okay. Do you have any other nominations?

Okay. So hearing none, I will ask for a short statement by the nominees in order so that people can know their the reasons for wanting to become chair. So why don't I don't know. Should I go first? Yeah. Go. Okay. I will so I'll just go first. The the reason that I would like to go first is I do have the experience. It doesn't sound like so far tonight, but I do have experience with being chair before, and I'm familiar with with how to to run the meetings.

The biggest issue is that I have such a deep feeling for the projects, which are below market rate projects, and I'm very interested in successful conclusion of our agendas. So I guess that's primarily it. I'm running a loose okay. Thank you. And okay. And next, Yugi, if you would like to commissioner he, if you would like to speak.

Yeah. So I joined the commission last year,

so I've been on commission for exactly Could everybody speak up a little bit? Okay. Just follows the sound.

Okay. Is this a little louder. That would be great. Okay. That's good. But is this a microphone?

Kind of. It's picking it up and taking it to the livestream. So

Okay. But not here necessarily.

Can just talk a little

Yeah. For everyone who don't know me, my name is Yui, and I joined the commission about a year ago. So in this year, I learned a lot, and I really I also learned so much from chair Cunningham. She was the one who really helped me with all the process and all these things in the housing commission, and I really appreciate it. And I went to one of the housing, one of the mayor's meeting in place of chair Cunningham and vice chair goals, and I'm just learning a lot. And I would like to be given a chance to be chair this year.

Great.

So now that we've had statements from commissioners, we've been told from the clerk's office that as an agenda item, I have to also open it up to the public to have a chance to come Oh. As well. Do we have any comments from the public about the any nominations for the chair? Good. Seeing none, we can go ahead and, to vote. If we have no other comments from the commissioners? Okay.

None? Okay.

Alright. None.

So we'll we'll hold it to a vote then. I guess we'll we'll first say say, like, do we I guess, like, do we do we vote to have one person as chair, and then we'll go ironing, and then we'll go to the second person. Is that how it's worked in the past? I've never done elections with this group yet.

I I think I think last year we voted on the chair position first, and then we, from that point, then went to vice chair.

Okay. But, I mean, like, do we do we call one person's name and then we go I or NA, or do we just say the name?

Well, last last year, they they took one nomination, made it and then had it seconded, then voted that on that item, and then they went to the next agenda. I don't think we've ever had it where we opened it for multiple candidates. I think don't isn't that true, Chair Cunningham, that we we voted on it, and it was then seconded and then voted, and then then we went on to that next one. That's how I understood it, but I'm not sure.

Exactly right. I think more and that's true. That's exactly how we handle first chair and then vice chair. What we're talking about here is voting on whether commissioner he or myself will be chair. And so I think you open the vote for one of them. Yeah. And then after an a. And say, aye or an a. And then when that's closed, then you go for the next person.

Okay. But it is both for the chair position. Right. Got it. Okay.

Thanks for that clarification. Yeah. Okay. So we'll start with the nomination for chair Cunningham to go for a second term then. I'm gonna call your name, and then you can say aye, nay, or abstain for the vote. Chair Cunningham?

Aye.

Vice Chair Bowles? Aye. Commissioner He?

I have a question about so, like, how would abstain and say nay be, like, different?

Abstain just means I declined a vote. Like, you just that is it's it's basically neither. It it works the same, I guess, in in this context as a nay, right, because it's not voting yes. But people sometimes do it when they have, like, a conflict of interest or something that's genderized. They'll be like, I have state voting on this one.

Okay. Yeah. Got it.

Yeah.

I'll abstain from this.

Okay. And then commissioner Nayan. Aye. Commissioner Cindy. Okay. So we have four ayes, no nays, and then one abstain. And then we will go for a voting for commissioner He. So commissioner Cunningham.

No. Nay.

Mhmm. Vice chair of goals?

Nay.

Commissioner He?

Aye.

And then commissioner Narayan?

I'll abstain.

Abstain. Commissioner Cindy.

Oh, dear. Nay.

Nay. Okay. So that'll be one aye, two nays two abstains? What was it?

One abstain.

One abstain. Sorry. Three nays, two abstain. Okay. So closing this vote, I think that means we've reelected Chair Cunningham for a second term.

Thank you very much. Thank you. And I will also say that I think you will be a very fine chair in due course of time. Okay. Thank you. And so the next thing that we will be doing is electing the vice chair. And so if I hear nominations for vice chair.

I'd like to nominate, commissioner Yu for, vice chair.

We have a motion for commissioner He.

I second it.

Do we have a second?

Mhmm.

Okay. Do we have any other motions? Okay. Hearing none, we can open this up to the public. Do we have any comments from the public on the nominations? Okay. Hearing none, I think you guys have both already spoken. Do you wanna speak again, or are we good to just take it to a vote?

We're good.

That alright. Excellent. Okay. So we're going to take it to a vote. Then as I call your name, please say aye, nay, or abstain from voting in commissioner e as vice chair. Chair Cutting it.

Aye.

Vice chair Goals?

Aye.

Commissioner He? Aye. Commissioner Ryan? Aye. Commissioner Cindy?

Aye. And

if if before we close this topic, I guess I would like to go on record as saying that I think that commissioner Yee will Yee, excuse me, will make a very fine vice president, chief vice chair, whatever it is. Because she has been here a year and has shown remarkable growth and always participates, always has a good smart question, has always done homework, all the kinds of things that you want for someone in a leadership position. So

from her last year being a new member on the commission. So I believe that she would a 100% be a very good chair, and I believe that we will be a very good team.

Thank you. This is Holly. Fine compliments.

The motion passes five zero. So Okay.

So now we have we've elected the vice chair I mean, the chair and the vice chair. And so we can move on then.

Agenda item number three.

And the subject of that is fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty six community development block grant program, a low market rate affordable housing fund, general fund sources grant, permanent local housing allocation, and county funding allocations. So the recommended action is to consider all of these things, and to make recommendations to the city council, and the city council will make final approval. So, on that basis then, I think what I'll just give a little rundown of how that works is that Nikki will give a class of presentation. And then after that, I guess, question is maybe to the applicants or some of them wanted to talk, so is that next right after you?

I can definitely describe that. Okay. So tonight's process, right, I will be giving a staff presentation on the topic and what will be staff's recommendation. And after that, we will be opening it up to the public. Right? I a lot of you ended on behalf of of one of the applicants. And so I have taken made the decision not to really be describing your guys' services in a lot of detail. Right? I'm leaving that up to you guys, kind of advertise yourselves to the commission. And then after that commission, you guys made a lot of comments on your evaluation, so that will be your chance to address them with the attendees personally. Right? Ask your questions to them and get your clarifications from them. Right then.

Right. And as we ask questions, then we can get answers. Correct? Exactly. From you or from the the applicant. Exactly.

Okay. Exactly.

Very good.

Alright. So, thank you all for attending. It's time for the main event. My name is Nikki, senior housing coordinator for the city of Cupertino. I'll be giving tonight's staff present. Tonight, we will be considering the f I twenty five twenty six CDBG, Myanmar, KLHA, county, and general fund HSG funding applications and legal funding recommendations. Mhmm. You'll notice there's a couple more funds added that was on the NOFA. Right? NOFA only says, know, MAR and HSG.

We have a lot of applicants, and there's a very large need. But and there's actually more money that is applicable actually to housing services that we were able to identify, but we wanted to supplement applications you receive with the additional funding, which is why there is two more funds that appear tonight. Now we are addressing a lot of housing element policies with tonight's action. We're not gonna get into what each and every one of them means. Just know that this does a lot of things for a lot of people, and, we wanted to just highlight that and advertise that.

And we will be reporting to ACD, you know, of course, with all their necessary reporting tools about tonight's Give me a second before you move. Yeah.

I didn't see all. I just wanted to check.

Okay. Thank you.

No problem. So first, we will go in with what are funding sources that are before and what are the amounts in that we have in the balance, essentially. So the biggest one is the BMR, affordable housing fund. We collect that money off of development applications we get from our planning and building projects. Right now, the total balance for that is 4,800,000.0. That's everything in the fund. Next, CDBG, G and A development block grant that comes to us from the federal source department of housing and urban development. We are estimating

the next

$187,000. It's not confirmed, that number. It's subject to some changes and then also, changes in the federal government. Mhmm. But we are operating under the assumption that that will continue. And so that's that's where we'll leave that. Next, general fund human services grants. This is a local contribute from your city council, right, to the general fund to, services to the low income populations and the nonprofits could service them. Next is PLHA, permanent local housing allocation. That's a state source that is generally designed to increase housing affordability.

It does also allow for certain extremely low income services. And then finally, we have some funding from the county of Santa Clara specifically to go to services towards the unhoused. The total amount of money that we are looking at is around $6,200,000 from all funding sources combined. But I also want to put a caveat on that. Right?

We we we listed the total balance for these sources out of transparency. Right? Particularly when it comes to below market rate fund, there's 4,800,000.0 true in the balance. But in or in addition to doing construction of new affordable housing, right, there are other things that do get charged to that fund that we can to account for. They all draw from the same pot, and it is kind of staff's recommendation to not award out money that's already been committed to another service.

So these kinds of things would be like administration of our BMR program, right, that goes to RISE housing. And then also provision of fair housing services, that's to protect against housing discrimination. Both of these are mandatory services, one of them federally mandated. Okay. And so for those, our estimated, cost for that per year is about 350,000.

And so to budget for the provision of these services until 2030, which is more than four years from now, and four years is no specific number, the chosen, Staff recommends that we do keep a reserve in the fund of about 1,800,000.0 just to make sure that until things become regular and we expect more money to come in, that we will be able to fund these services. That is that's high high recommendation. Right? That we keep a reserve of 1,800,000.0. So we will now go into funding by activity.

Right? So within each of these grants, there is kind of, like, stipulations on what can be spent on what type of activity. We have funds that are specifically for services to nonprofits, and then we have funds that are specifically more for, like, the built environment stuff, public infrastructure, building affordable housing. So we're splitting those up by activity before you say so you can understand what we're working with. Low market refund, about 50,000 of that is for activities. Community block block grant, you can only spend 15% of that grant for public service. That's about 58,000. The services grant, the whole thing is for services, so 129,000. And then county, state, Clara, same thing, full thing. So that's a 50,000 right there.

And then next up, the second activity we have is the capital housing. Right? So that's the acquisition, predevelopment, development, rehabilitation, all sort of things related to affordable housing and the creation protection, preservation of it, etcetera. So as we said, we want to be awarding out or committing out $3,000,000 out of the DMR fund for this activity as well as from CDB, $282,000, and then through the permanent local housing allocation fund, $900,000 as well for a combined amount of about 4,200,000.0. So in the end, we actually ended up near the same kind of 4,000,000 amount ish that we put in the NOFA just kind of through other sources by any

May I ask a

question before the end of your proposal or make me wait until the end? I can wait.

I would prefer just to get through the whole thing. Okay. Yeah. So now before you, I have the commissioner recommendations. When applications were submitted in, each of the commissioners did their own evaluation online. Some of us, you know, we we had issues with, like, text unless we had a lot of, you know, personal crazy things come up. So I really do appreciate the commissioners taking the time and making up the effort to reach out to me to try to do their best with these recommendations. I I don't take it for granted. I know it was a lot to look at. It was a ton of work.

And, I put them before here, you all today, for for you to look at, but also to let you know that, like, we we definitely took this into account. We I read I read all of your comments. And so I just I do appreciate you putting it up this morning for us. So these are commissioner recommendations. I'm going to very briefly explain, a little something that Connie has touched upon. I'm going to be doing a staff recommendation tonight, but that's just it. Just a staff recommendation. Whatever the commission decides tonight will be the official recommendation that goes to city council. Right? So these are the people you guys wants to convince just so you know.

Okay. So staff recommendation was based on a lot of different things that I looked at. Right? And just so you guys understand, when it came to the development of a whole housing, things I considered were what units and clients that will be served by, you know, your proposal. Your program delivery outcomes. Right? Like, what are you aiming to do? Will you be serving any special needs populations? Is your service unique? Is there nobody else that kinda does what you do? What is the consistency that your service has with our kind of long range goals that we have in both the housing owner and our consolidated? Level of affordability. Right? Like, this is particularly for affordable housing. Like, do you get to the really extremely low income?

Do you get to the very low income? Things like that. Construction readiness. That this is more specifically for construction projects. Right? Do do we feel like you're ready to go? Community feedback. What have we heard from the community regarding your project that may or may not cause, you know, a roadblock in the future? Financial viability of your project, project feasibility, and then finally, availability of other funding source.

Is there

is it possible for your project to go forward with other project, funding sources that we can help you identify? All of this kind of played a part. So now we'll get into it. With the first section, CDBG for public service funds, We had two applicants for this, area. We have Live Oak Adult Day Services and West Valley Community Services, specifically for their care program.

The staff recommendation for this section is to award $18,000 to Live Oak adult aid services and $40,000 to US Hawaii Community Services for their care program. This makes up the total of the 58 that we mentioned before. The next staff recommendation is for the BMR fund public service funds where we had one applicant, project Sentinel, for the provision of fair housing activities. Our recommendation is to fully fund their ask of $50,000 provision of fair housing services for the next year. The next category is for the human services grant public service awards.

We had three applicants in this category, Catholic Charities for their ombudsman program, senior adult legal assistance, and then finally, Westlake Community Services for their Haven to Home program. This is kind of their home, homeless case outreach program. Staff recommendation is you fund the first, item cafeterias for $11,000 to fund senior adults legal assistance for $18,000, and Westlaw Community Services, 100 whole program. Combined amount of $429,000. Finally, for the county of Santa Clara funds, since this fund was outside of the NOFA, we were able to, fund it to not technically respond to the NOFA, which is for Maitri, which is the domestic violence transitional housing shelter for the full amount of $50,000.

You'll notice there's a slightly different from the other awards you suggested, which is this is going to be for fiscal years of 2025 to 2027. So this is a two year grant of $50,000, which will kind of align them with the other public services that also kinda run on a two year grant. Only this is a one time funding source, so we just we're we're suggesting we'll work the full thing out at once, but for the two years. Staff recommendations of that, just to explain a little bit. Everybody didn't quite get what they asked for, but they got more than they received last year or at least the same amount.

And we saw, generally speaking, people meeting their deliverables, proposing good, unique, and valuable service, and we just wanted to fully fund everyone to the extent we can, right, at at a way at a level that would still allow them to still perform their services. So we all got pretty close for all of them, and that's just not quite. But, know, that is competitive funding. Next, we're going to move on to the affordable housing applications. We received two affordable housing application this year, very unique.

So it's heartening, right, to see, you know, that we we have projects that are being proposed, especially after the housing element effort. The first one is from Charity's Housing for the Mary Avenue project. I'm going to just briefly state kind of, like, matter of fact, what are, like, the facts about each, application. So the unit count for Mary Avenue will be 40 units. The affordability mix proposed is 20 extremely low, 19 very low, and one manager unit.

And their special needs population that they are targeting is for intellectually such developmentally disabled, special needs units. That there will be 19 of those. The second project we have is from Eden Housing at the Wolf Road project. Their unit count at a total is 249 units. This is in two phases.

The first phase at a 101 units, and the second phase for a 148 units. And to specify, they're funding us specifically for the set. Their affordability mix includes 34 low income and 30 67 moderate income units at first phase. And then in the second phase, there will be 60 very low, 86 low, and two manager units. Their special needs category that they're aiming for is teacher housing, educator housing for 101 units in that first phase.

Okay. So first category of staff recommendations is the CDBG capital housing award. Now we had two applicants that we thought that, be applicable under CDBG. Now if you guys don't know, CDBG is very limited on what you can actually do for affordable housing. But for one of them, we have we're building together Silicon Valley who do our low income rehabilitation program.

They did a funding request for $107,000 $107,500. We are our recommendation is to fully award that that request. In addition, we wanted we are making a recommendation to fund Charity's Housing Mary Avenue for $174,500. This is because specifically for the Mary Avenue project, it is on a parcel that currently contains part of the public right away. And the thing with CDBG is you can use it really only affordable housing when it comes to public infrastructure changes.

And so because this contains part of the road, reconfiguring that road is considered a public infrastructure upgrade, which makes makes this applicable. So that is why we recommended this funding source to go to the Chase Charity's Housing Project. For the PLHA capital housing awards, we had two we recommended a split between Charity's Housing and Eden Housing. The staff recommendation is to work $6,600,000 to Bay Avenue and $300,000 to also Eden housing. So PLHA is also unique in that it can be used for predevelopment as well as development.

And so this split is just only based on, the fact that Charities Avenue Charities Housing has a planning application currently under progress. But we both wanted to have both projects kind of be able to kick start their development and to have free development funding that they could start to use. Because we as I understand it, eating housing is not that far longer. So we we were we recommend this,

but we can look at it.

And then

finally, we have our BMR capital housing projects. We have we are again recommending Charity's Housing and Eden. Our funding commitment recommendation for that 3,000,000 that we previously mentioned is for 1,000,000 to go to Charity's housing Mary Avenue and for 2,000,000 to go the Eden Housing Wolf Road. Ultimately, both help us further our housing online goals. Right?

And they both touch upon things we need. So we wanted to try to hover around the same kind of 2 ish million, like, when when we combine all the funding sources together between the projects so we could work on both today. That was fast recommendation. Now when it comes to the BMR fund, we do have to include a contingency. We're just anticipating making sure that this gets approved by our city council later.

Both these projects do not yet have planning entitlements. Right? So what we're recommending, so I'll push this through, is to be specifically for the BMR fund to do these as commitments of funds, which means we're setting aside the funds. We're not letting them be touched by any other project yet. Right?

And these commitments will become awards, which authorizes us to connect an agreement and stuff they use upon them receiving planning entitlement. Right? And then we're also adding a stipulation that if we receive additional funds during this process that we can basically hold on to these applications and we'll work more funds laid out at future health and commission meeting just in case, so that we can supplement funds later on. This is our kind of, contingency that we're recommending as part of, staff recommendations. Okay.

So, now we've reached the part where actually, first, I wanna allow the commission to ask any clarifying questions because I think we got we might have some. Right? Just about, like, technical things about about anything I've said about the funding process, my recognition or anything like that.

I Okay. Are there any questions, commissioner Lee?

Yeah. I do

have one question, which is that so with the funding for item housing, just support, like, phase one and, like, would it support phase one and phase two, or would it just support phase one?

Great question. If it's for predevelopment, it could be it will essentially be for both. Right? Because you have one planning entitlement for the entire project. Mhmm. When it comes to construction, my understanding from the application is construction would be just for phase two. They they can clarify that, Adam

Okay.

If I understand that correct.

Okay. Okay. And

if they need future funding, they can apply again. Right?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

She's asking if they need future funding, can people apply again? I say absolutely. But, also, I'm I'm adding a stipulation. I wanna hold on to these applications. So if more funds come in, like, absolutely, we wanna be able to, you know, commit those out as

Okay. Yes. That's it.

That's my question. Thank you.

Are there any other questions? Commissioner Narayan, maybe?

Yeah. I have more of a clarification. You know, we're looking at evaluating all the applications I tried to put together under which funding they were applying for. And somehow, I kind of got the idea that the the CDGG housing projects, nobody had applied under that. Oh. Nor for the BMR, the public services. Those two categories, those two funding sources, nobody applied under those. So

this is kind of like a technical thing where it's like, I I think I maybe have overcomplicated that application a bit. So I think in the future like, because I separated out. Right? I added, like, a CDBG housing, CDBG public service.

Alright. Yeah.

Public service.

Yeah. Was like It's part of

I think in the future, I'm just gonna have it by funding source because I think people, like, maybe thought they were applying just for, like, the public service, but they might have put in the wrong section or something like that. But, like, know that, for example, rebuilding together, they're not a public service. You know, they're they're they're doing rehabilitation. Right? That's that's a housing thing. And so so I can basically just I I know they're supposed to be in that category. So that's what I just did. Just moved them over.

That that that's why I was just thrown off by those numbers. Was

like, yeah.

But nobody applied for those two More people applied for this.

We'll simplify the application.

Yes. Got it. Yeah. But that was mine.

Thank you. That's a great question.

Commissioner. And commissioner,

I have a question

for Jimmy.

Actually, on the last very last part of the presentation, it seems like both the Charities Housing and Eden Housing had requested the same amount Yes. To be granted. And somehow, the staff is recommending only 1,000,000 for the Berry Avenue and rather 2,000,000 double for the Eden project. My question would be, those projects, do they really serve the residents who live in Cupertino? That's my first question.

Second would be, what's the feedback from the community, from the residents? Do we have any positive feedback that kind of vouching for to one of those, you know, organizations versus or projects versus the other? I know from the amount of letters that we received toward this agenda for this item, there was strong advocate for the Mary Avenue housing, and I did not hear anything. I think I believe there was some no email regarding the item that it came from the staff rather than the residents. My question seem to be multiple questions. I'll try

to do my best. Yeah.

Thank

you. I'll start with the first one. So, the funding distribution by staff was considering what are the the total number of sources that we could try to make available for each project. Right? And so, like, kinda like as I was saying how we can actually use CDBG for Mary Avenue, which is kinda rare because their their parcel is so unique.

And, also, they have an IDD component, which this is something I didn't mention in the presentation, but the county home funds actually has a set aside specifically for IDD funding. That's why I think, when it came to just the BMR fund that we have locally, which is a little bit more open ended, I proportion that one slightly more more less likely, more for Eden, right, than charity housing because I know that, like, there aren't really a whole lot of other IDD projects going on right now in Santa Clara County, which I think would make that funding from the county more available to charities. Does that make sense? That's that's why I recommended that funding split. It's just availability of funds in many projects.

If I understood correctly, it seems like the Eden project might get more funding from the county No. No. No. Versus?

Charities. Charities.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah. Sorry. And your second question was about what was your second question?

My first question was about what's the population that is going to benefit from those projects? Are those residents, people who live in Cupertino, or

Okay.

Maybe people who live in the county versus people who live in the county.

I mean, that that depends on how you do lease up. Right? But generally speaking, these I think either projects would be drawing from our BMR waitlist. Right? And so the BMR waitlist that we currently use through RISE housing, they they do place priority placement for people that work and live in Cupertino.

Mhmm.

So so we would see people from Cupertino being housed first primarily. Yeah.

Thank

you, Nikki.

Okay.

And let's see. Oh, vice chair of goals oh, man. Commissioner goals, did you have any questions? No? Okay. Okay. Then I will follow-up with my questions if I And so one of the things that I noted in your presentation was that you were making some you were making judgments, right, based on the various priorities that we have. And on page 55 of the staff reports talking

about

the number of affordable units provided, level of affordability reached, special needs population served, consistency with long range housing goals, availability of other funding, project readiness, community feedback, financial viability, and project feasibility. So when I read that, I was looking at project readiness. And one of the things that stood out to me was that the Okay. Mary Avenue has been through several years' worth of reviews through the council and through other processes that were required at the time. And so therefore and they said in there that they would start immediately and be finished with the project in two years.

And I thought that was that that spoke to me because it's been around, and ELI is particularly difficult to fund when you're talking about this funding availability. They have, like, a layer cake and stuff, and you have to get this, and you have to them, and you have to get this. Anyway, if you're not familiar with it, it's very complicated. And each one has their own timing, and each one has requirements for giving phones and that kind of thing. So since it's been a, as a matter of fact, a city priority since I've been on the commission In 2019, was that?

Six years ago. In any case, it's been a city council priority. And so it's made a lot of progress over over the years, and so I was very much interested. And the project readiness saying that they would start immediately and be finished by 2027 spoke to me because that means new housing for people that they would be available. And when I read the other Eden's report, it said they would start in 2027.

So that means that there's a lot of things that might get in the way. That's a terrible thing to say, but that's what happens with long term project. Something might happen. And even though that's very fine, all the things that they would be providing, I think they have less of a hurdle when it comes to financing because financing for very low and low income is more readily available. And so I was concerned about the fact that it wasn't even gonna start building the homes until 2027, and there wasn't anything in the project report that said when they thought they might actually be completed.

So that's that's that's why you may find that well, anyway, that was just one really serious difference to me is project readiness versus some of the other issues that be well, and very e e I e l I. So that was my question, especially when I saw all these other new fundings, PLHA and the county. Little confusing because in the past, we haven't had those fundings available to us, which are great, but I don't fully familiar with them and how they parsed in. And so I have to admit that's a little difficult for me to say, well, you know, especially these two, the PLHA and the county. I'm not exactly sure how they fit into our funding.

But I have to admit, since it was a little confusing, I'm sticking with the ready the project readiness and the people who are served, you know, population served, period. I just wanted to make it clear that there really is a lot of judgment allowed on these projects and that we can think about that, especially as we're gonna hear from tonight. So I will have those kinds of questions when when that comes up. Okay. I'm finished.

Yeah. Thank you. I have

one point to add to commission on the Eden Housing. Right? The I think what they had indicated as a rent for residents Mhmm. Somehow it didn't seem to be for low income.

Okay. So that should

The amount of rent that they had suggested.

Oh, okay.

It was still, like, some $354,000 3,500 to $4,000 per month of. So that was one of the things probably we could get clarification on.

That's a good point. Well, addressed. Yes. Thank you, Okay. Any other questions before we

I just have one.

Is that for, like, the moderate income that I'm showing in phase one? Is that Perhaps

they perhaps you can address that because it's hard for us to answer a question between each other because we're not fully Right. But thank you for the I do the same thing.

These are great questions to ask our attendees. They're

here to Right.

So I'd like to open it up now for an attendance. First of all, who here plans on speaking? Just just show of hands real quick.

What?

Who here plans to speak? Oh. I mean excellent. So we've got a packed house today. So that everyone gets a chance to speak, I'm what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have a timer. Right? And I'm gonna just put three minutes on it. Right? And then so as we go, we're just gonna go in order like this around the table. Can we ask questions before we speak? Questions for

Verification on everything you showed us.

Sure. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Yeah. Yes. Yes. We can, actually. Do we have any clarifying questions from the audience? Okay. Go ahead.

So this is seven. It looked like you split the PL, whatever it is, PLHA money. Yep. Staff report said it all. It's part of

the program.

Yeah. I can I can explain that? So, previously, we had fully committed, funding to the Mary Avenue project. This was back in, I guess, January, February year. Back then, we only had one project application submitted at the time, and we needed to have it committed basically to satisfy some state deadlines.

Very briefly, the difference between committing and awarding funds is seems like just like legal wording, but in essence, they do two different things. Committing is you set aside money and make sure, like, it's they can't be taken by anything else. Awarding authorizes an agreement to get executed so that people can start spending it immediately. So we had it committed, right, to the Marriott new project. Through this action, we'll be we'll be recommending awarding it out, which means starting to, like, put it out for for, like, immediate use, essentially. So this this is it's a different action slightly we're taking tonight.

So you've currently corrected the staff report is what I'm hearing.

No. We we are we're we're going more forward with the next step, essentially, and we we will be, we're basically allowing projects to go forward now with with money. And awarding, right, if it is in any split, will be there will essentially be also a recommitment as well. Right? So it's recommitting and fully awarding out, essentially.

The word wording here is that we see if I heard what you said. As of 2025, the fund is not expended. It's a $108,000, but has been committed

Yes. Committed. Sharing.

So it's committed, but not awarded so it could go away.

So no. No. No. It's been committed. It can be it can be recommitted, right, if the commission decides to to a different funding split, or they could just choose to award it exactly it is or award a different funding for for recommitment. It's one of the And

definitely, we're all done.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. That's a great question, though.

That's right. You also mentioned something about county funds that you thought may be more applicable from area avenues, specifically, but then I didn't understand where that was coming from, what the pipeline was, and what how much it was.

It's it's called HOME, h o m e, home funding through the county. We share that money with kinda all the other cities, Santa Clara, and we all kind of, when we all have projects, all the different cities, we're allowed to basically kinda, like, push our projects to to apply for that funding. And within that bucket of home funding, they actually do have an earmark for IDD projects specifically. And so that would be funding that is not available to any other kind of affordable housing project if they don't have IDD projects is what I was mentioning. So the idea that potentially if if there is another funding source that could be more less competitive essentially to the general public, can use maybe other funding that is more open to other projects.

Right? That that was the idea. Right? Just just the idea of the availability of funding.

They made great sense, but they didn't hear behind things.

Oh, yeah. I didn't know.

Like, is it a million dollars that has to be awarded

in 2025 or

is it 10,000,000 that has to

be awarded within 2025

to 2030 design work?

My understanding is the county balance is somewhere between 3 to 4,000,000 of home, and I think their their the earmark is about 1,000,000 for IDD, but I'd have to talk to my county counterpart to confirm that.

Might I just ask a follow on to that question? Because I thought the county that we were talking about was 50 deaths.

That's a different funding source entirely.

Yeah. Which funding source then is he talking about?

He's talking about home home funding. And that was in the report? No. No. No. That's entirely separate. That would that I don't I don't Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you. I

Yeah. Okay. We can't award that money. It's not even controlled

by can't award it. Yeah. So the only county funding was this 50,000.

Correct. And that is specifically for services to the unhoused. It's homeless services. That one. Yeah. Thank you. That's a great question.

Alright. Yeah. Thank you.

Do we have another clarifying?

I have a couple

of questions. First, with regard to that county fund, how much did you say is in that fund?

The the home funding?

Yeah.

I believe somewhere between 3 to 4,000,000 in total.

That's tiny compared to all of the cities around here that are trying to build the same kind of housing that we're trying to build. So that's minuscule. The other question I have is I'm really confused about the Eden Housing project. Why would they be asking for funds for phase two when they haven't even done phase one yet? And if our if we're supposed to have a project that's almost shovel ready before we even bring it for funding, why would a why would a developer ask for funds for the second phase of a project that they haven't done the first phase on yet?

These are great questions to ask the people in attendance. I I'm I'm not here to be exposed

to But I think it's important to understand why we would even accept those applications because I thought that we had to have our project almost shovel ready before we could apply. And so now we're up against something that's years ahead that's applying for the same funds that we're applying for. So I think it's important for the people that are making decisions tonight to know the answer to that question.

Project readiness is definitely something that the commission would be considering in their recommendation and whatever their decision may be. Right? That that is something to consider.

Do

we have any other questions?

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Maybe similar, but just would it be possible to know what these funds would be used for? Both of the all of the projects that's going to find? Because we're talking about the year twenty five six. Right?

It's for the 2526. Right.

Think these are questions for the applicants. Yeah. Okay. So we're just gonna go in this direction around the room. K. Sorry?

Would you like us to make our presentations first?

That would make sense.

I think okay. You know what? That makes a lot of sense. That makes sense. Let's have the two affordable housing projects go first. Yeah.

The second question I have for you is that this is a a housing commission meeting, and it has not been my experience that anyone other than housing commissioners ask questions to the presenting party. So are we answering questions from the public as well? Just the commission. But the com through the

commission, if they want to reiterate any questions that they heard from the public, that's fine. So so that's how we'll do that.

Okay. Well

I apologize. Would it make sense for the other long ramp organizations to actually go first since it sounds like the goal

There are seven other applicants.

That's There are seven other applicants. Okay.

I have no idea. Asking for a reorder.

Okay. I I hear I hear I hear everyone that has good points. We're gonna go back to just in this direction now because I'm not supposed to show any sort of preference. So if you can send anyone with that. So I'm gonna go three minutes on the clock starting here, going around. And then when I hit one minute, I'm gonna put up the one minute mark with that. Alright. Let's start.

Before we make our presentations?

This is everyone gets three minutes to speak. Everyone gets three minutes to speak.

I didn't understand. Are they making a presentation or not?

They everyone here gets three minutes to speak on behalf of their application. So Nikki Yeah.

May I suggest something?

Sure.

If the organizations that are applying might have already, through their presentation, given the answers, it may cut the time of people asking those questions ahead of time.

Mhmm.

So I'm thinking perhaps we can give those organizations a chance to go in whichever order, it doesn't matter

Yes.

To present what this project is about, what's the readiness, how that ranges the facts and such.

And then

allow the public to make comments, whether support certain project or certain organization or ask further clarifying questions.

I think that's a great idea. Yeah.

I'm becoming so brave today. You're brave. Excellent.

And who is here on behalf of a project? A representative of a project.

Happy to let the other organization Sure.

Yes, please. Sure.

Yes. So then I know it's a lot of complicated work. Happy to see to the other organizations first.

In my project, do need any applicant?

Any applicant. Any applicant. Okay. Then we'll start over here then. Yeah.

Hey, guys. We're part of the housing applicant,

so we'll it'll be a lot of questions and stuff.

Alright. Okay. Okay.

You know, ex excuse me if I might, Nikki. Yes. I think that it would be very useful to name the one that we're going to listen to, and then then they'll know who they are that we're talking about. Sure. So I think since we have a whole list that says who they are, just start at the top of the list and go down. Okay. Because I know that I have a whole list of those Thank from you, and it all started with, you know, some beginning and then went to the end, and that was how we organized them. So you have a list. Right? So you start at the beginning of the list, call out that applicant's name, and give them the time to and I'm assuming that they were gonna have

Yeah.

Three minutes. And within that, they can organize who they want to speak to get the most information

Okay.

Out in that three minutes.

I like that. Great. I like have Live Oak adult day services.

Alright.

Are we ready search?

Yep. Yep.

My name is Heather Moore. I'm here from LabUp Adult Day Services. I've been the executive director there for the past year. And so I'm just here to to share updates on our program, specifically addressing our Cupertino Center. So we operate four adult day care centers in Santa Clara County.

And at the Cupertino Center, we served in the last fiscal year 50 dependent seniors as well as their households providing specialized day care and respite for their caregivers. We specifically served 14 low income, you know, senior residents, three very low income senior Cupertino residents, and two extremely low income Cupertino senior residents, as well as their households. In total, we served 19 low income individuals residing in Cupertino, providing them with specialized care, nutritious meals, referrals to other services, and most importantly, by providing, dependent seniors with their own space to socialize, with new friends and enjoy activities suitable to their individual, ability levels, such as daily adaptive physical exercise. And I just wanted to, thank you all for your support and, answer any questions you might Thank you.

Awesome.

Great. So next, we can go down the list. We have West Valley Community Services.

Thank you, Nikki. My name is Sujata Venkatraman, and I'm the executive director at West Valley Community Services and organization supporting Cupertino residents and the West Valley region for fifty years. Before I start my comment, I really wanna appreciate the staff and the commissioners taking time reviewing it and making the recommendation. All these fundings, whether we are talking about services or housing, is meeting a need for Cupertino residents and the most underrepresented or the vulnerable. So I truly appreciate you putting the work.

The money is there, and now we have all these organizations supporting. West Valley Community Services Care Program, which is community access to resource and education, is for our house client. These are for families who are low income seniors, who are low income, and families who are at risk of losing housing. And in this particular program, what we offer is food assistance. They come weekly to our market to provide to get food.

Each family can save up to 400 to $500 on their grocery bill, which they can keep as their asset for emergency. The program also provides intensive case management to making sure that people can navigate social services. It helps them to connect with social services because many of these families could benefit from that. It also helps them with rental or PG and E prevention shutoff. Last year, we served nearly 200 Cupertino residents and provided them in financial assistance in the amount of $195,000.

And what that did is it prevented from people from becoming unhoused. My other program that I applied under, Haven to Home, is primarily for the unhoused or the residents who have or taking or not in the shelters, out on the streets, people who are in their safe park, in cars, or in their RV. That is an intensive program. We serve nearly 150 households, through that program, families with children, seniors, single adult, youth as well. And that particular program is, intensive around finding housing for them, helping the city do outreach, and finding ways that we can move them out of encampments, but also giving them resources like laundry quarters, warm meal, bus passes so they can, again, navigate the social services system and eventually be passed.

So I'm here for any questions you all have.

Quick question because I did have a question earlier. And now, of course, some looks like someone's gonna have a

question at West Valley as well.

Should we I'm not sure. Let's let everyone go first. Let everyone go first then ask questions. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah.

Can I

make a suggestion?

Sure.

As you represent your organization, so we are fully aware of what you're offering. I wonder if you could add one single line whether you're pleased with what the staff has recommended versus what you wish to get. So that way, we may understand probably, like, give some supporting evidence that what the staff is recommending is going to meet the need at this percentage versus what you really need. And, of course, there's multiple factors contributing to how you're

Thank you.

Sounds good. Do we have Project Sentinel, Do we have Catholic Charities? For Ombudsman? Yes. Yes. Alright.

Thank you.

Hello, of the commission, everybody present here from the different partner organizations. My name is Milton Cadena. I'm the program director for senior services for Catholic Charity Santa Clara County. I would like to say thank you for the ongoing support and the support that this city has provided to the ombudsman. Could be for so many years.

And in this case,

the application is for the ombudsman program, which serves the vulnerable seniors living in long term care facilities on our facilities or RCFs in some cases. Since it falls under the to the for low income, and she's stable. The ombudsman is an advocate for the most vulnerable citizens in your city, those living in nursing homes and assisted facilities, and we advocate for their dignity, rights, and needs, especially for those that are seniors and disabled. The ombudsman program is authorized by the federal and the state, of the Americans Act to advocate for their rights and, is the is an unduplicated program that has full access twenty four seven to those facilities. In fact, they are mandated to keep our posters in all the facilities at all times in a peaceful place.

The main function of the program is to investigate and resolve complaints made by or on behalf of the residents related to issues of quality of care or abuse. And ombudsman protect, and help to improve the quality of care in those facilities. Leaving long term care facilities is not everyone's first choice. Many seniors and disabled adults have no other option but to live in a facility like that. And for that, it's important that we protect their rights.

These these facilities are their homes in this case, and sometimes they are discharged due to problems with the the the their intensity of care or their families or sometimes because the facilities prefer private pay. If they notify on time, an ombudsman can actually prevent that and prevent a senior from being left out of his house in a Richmond. In essence, we investigate other abuse, and we're so convinced that we mediate and give referrals and a witness advanced health care directives in collaboration with other agencies. Some of them here present like SALA, the service department at the protective services. For the city of Cupertino, we serve three skilled nursing facilities, three r s RCFPs with at least six beds for a total of 429 beds in the city of Cupertino.

We applied for 12,000. I stepped on this for 11,000. We can work with that to deliver the the the outcomes that we propose. If you divide 12,000 by the number of hours, service is an average of $47 an hour.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Do we have senior adult legal assistants in attendance?

May I approach table?

You may.

I wanna talk to the people back. Good evening.

I'm Georgia Paseal, directing attorney of senior adults legal assistance or SALA. We are a nonprofit law office. We provide free legal services to older adults, seniors, targeting clients that are very low income or at risk of abuse or loss of independence. We are the only provider in Santa Clara County authorized to provide these services under the Older Americans Act. We are a current current human service grantee, and we thank you so much.

Your funding supports expanded availability of our services here in Cupertino. Last year, at least 80% of the Cupertino clients we serve were very low income. 57% were seventy five or older and forty three percent had a disability, placing them in high need. We provide our services monthly at appointments at Cupertino Senior Center and by phone for clients that cannot leave their homes or that have emergencies and can't wait for an We are recommended for eighteen thousand dollars, which we would be very happy and grateful to receive. It will enable us to provide our services, so we thank the staff for the recommendation.

We address a range of legal matters affecting our clients' daily lives. For example, we assist with legal problems involving public benefits, Social Security, SSI, Medicare, and Medi Cal, benefits that our clients rely on for daily living. We assist clients that are worried about eviction, clients needing reasonable accommodations in their housing usually because of a disability, or clients whose housing is otherwise in jeopardy. We help clients do very basic legal planning for the future to help them age in place by appointing someone they trust to step in and make decisions for them when they can no longer do so, usually through powers of attorney. And regrettably, we continue to help clients that are victims of elder abuse and domestic violence, both physical and financial, usually by someone living in their home, an adult child, a grandchild, a tenant running out of a room, and sometimes even their neighbors.

And we are attorneys. We're a law office, so we are in court getting restraining orders under domestic violence if the clients are 65 or under elder abuse if the clients are 65 or older. Under the Older Americans Act, we cannot charge fees for our services. We can't accept fee generating cases. The only way we really support ourselves is through grants, and we have a variety of grants from almost every jurisdiction here in Santa Clara County, including the county and other sources.

For the past two years, we did receive some onetime money, COVID related money of over a $100,000 each year to augment our services throughout Santa Clara County, including in Cupertino. That funding ended in September. So we need your support now more than ever so we can continue to provide the highest level of service possible. So we thank you so much for your support, and we hope you will support the staff recommendation. Thank you. Happy to answer questions.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

We have Maitri in attendance. Okay.

Evening all honorable chairwomen, members of the commission, and fellow agencies who are here today this evening. My name is Tejasvi Danda. I'm here representing Knightly, a native that is a survivors and victims of domestic violence since 1990. I want to begin by thanking the city of Guberdhilh for being a steadfast and long standing on my journey since 2012 in different forms, especially supporting my transitional housing program. Before 1991, immigrant women in Santa Clara County and San Mateo Counties had a very difficult time seeking services for domestic violence because of their linguistic and cultural barriers.

And that is the need that this agency was born out of. And the transition. A transition program serves everyone, all races, all. And many of our residents are at the risk of being because of different suppliers. We provide weekly case management services.

We accompany them to courts. We provide legal advocacy there. We work with them to obtain restraining orders, sometimes go through the family law process, their immigration. We work with them on transportation, whether it's bus pass or any other transportation needs that they might have. We frequently work with Best Valley Community Services, where our clients go.

Charities housing, once they graduate from our program, where they stay from nine months to one year. Today, I would like to take the opportunity to read something of a note that we received from one of our clients, At present, I do not have a family that I can rely on for help. The only support I have is from an agency and my case manager who has been a constant source of encouragement and assistance, where I have found genuine support for their family, especially after my husband abandoned my son and me. It is something I never expected to find in such a big and strange country. During my time at Maitri, I have not only received a roof over my head, but also been encouraged to work on my self growth.

The staff at Maitri has helped me in motivating and helping me believe in myself. I started working, something I never thought would be possible when I first arrived in The US, given my circumstances of my marriage and the controls that my partner is. However, one fear I've always had is the uncertainty about what to do happens outside of MIT. Here, I feel a sense of knowing that I can reach out for help. The support has been invaluable.

Malki is a place where I finally felt secure and safe and feeling I never thought possible. What feels like a dream to me is that Malki encouraged me to work on my education and has even sponsored me with a scholarship tuitions. This support has been life changing and given me hope that I can build a brighter future for myself and my children.

Thank you so Thank

you so much. Do we have Rebuilding Together Silicon Valley here?

That's. K.

You have the floor.

So much.

Honorable chair and members of the City of Cupertino Housing Commission, Nikki, thank you very much for having me here tonight. My name is Elena Purcell Schrader. I'm our development director at Resilient Together Silicon Valley. We greatly appreciate your partnership and all of those fellow organizations here presenting tonight. And thank you for the opportunity to speak with you all today.

Rebuilding Together Silicon Valley is a local organization. We've dedicated to we are dedicated to providing life changing home repairs for low income neighbors in need across Santa Clara County and explicitly, of course, within the City Of Cupertino. We're deeply grateful for the City Of Cupertino's long standing support to the community development walk grant program and of our safe of our safe and healthy housing home repair program. With the city of Cupertino's funding, we've been able to make a significant impact on the lives of residents who face financial barriers to maintaining safe and healthy homes. These critical repairs, whether it's fixing a leaky roof, installing a wheelchair ramp or lift, or addressing unsafe electrical issues, help prevent displacement, improve health and safety, and create stability for vulnerable families.

In the past year alone, your investment at the City of Cupertino has enabled us to serve seven households, ensuring that 11 vulnerable residents can remain in their homes daily. The work that we do is not just about critical home affairs and safety modifications. It's about giving people the opportunity to thrive in an environment that promotes well-being and community. We deeply value our partnership with the city of Cupertino. And with your continued support, we can expand our services to reach even more of those who are most in need.

We're proud of the part we're proud to be a part of this community and committed to ensuring that every resident has access to safe, affordable housing. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to working together to build an even stronger city of Cupertino. And then specifically, to answer your question, our request was for 107,550 to serve seven households, and we greatly appreciate making it as a staff recommendation to fulfill that. So thank you very much. And, of course, here at Anson.

Thank you. Okay. Next up, we have Charities Housing. I understand you submitted a visual aid.

I did. Okay.

I will

I will I just I'm not

a good at speaker Dixie, and

it's all it is.

Good evening, commissioner.

Oh, I'm sorry. One second. Sorry about that.

I can I can start? Yep. There you go. Alright. Good evening, commissioners and Nikki. I'm Andy Leaf with Charities Housing. I have with me, development director, should questions come up later. Thank you for considering our application through the city's NOFA. Next slide. For commissioners not familiar with Charities Housing, we are a nonprofit developer dedicated to serving Santa Clara County. We have 31 developments, 30 of them in Santa Clara County. One little project in San Mateo County. Next. Thank you. Our current development we have in Cupertino is the veranda, which serves 19 seniors.

And we we move on. Our project that we've applied for funding for Sofa is on Mary Avenue between the dog park to the North and the new Westport development to the South. Just to give you a visual context. Basic project information. The project is, two two story buildings separated by a, parking lot in between the two.

And we have 40 units, three studios, twenty two one beds, fourteen two bedrooms, all serving residents between 30 to 50% of AMI. 20 of the units are actually at 30% extremely low income. And 19 units will serve individuals with, developmental disabilities.

Next, please.

We would like to request additional funding. We would like to request from whatever sources are available, $3,000,000. This would provide approximately 8% of our project funding. And my point in making that is saying that is that that's a fairly high percentage of the funding compared to, you know, larger projects. It would make a great impact on the Mary Avenue's budget.

The local source would really help in scoring for tax credits and, other state funding. The funding will leverage the city's current investment in the site. City created this parcel, has dated dedicated it for, low end for this housing. And so we believe the time is now to make eight plus years of planning a reality for this IDD housing. So this funding can be put to use, in fairly short order.

The funding, if we get a higher amount, would enable us to avoid the state super NOFA process. I don't wanna the acronyms too much and in the weeds, but it will make a great difference in allowing us to move forward at the time frame that we'd hope to do. I have one minute?

Oh, so that that was That's three?

Oh, okay.

How's that?

I am good. Yeah. We're we're good. I think the rest of it is we have some part

That's.

Well, if my three minutes are up, my three minutes are up.

When I

get up Sure. If if you have a follow-up after Finished Liverpool. Yeah.

That was a fab And

that's life. Okay.

Dating is tough.

I mean, it is. We're gonna go on to to Eden Housing. You will have three minutes. Whenever you're ready.

I'm gonna talk fast. Greetings, housing commissioners. My name is Dixie Bouse. I'm the director of real estate development for Eaton Housing. I'd like to thank you for considering the Wolf Road affordable housing for an award of BMR and PHLA funds.

You your staff record the staff recommended $2,300,000. A funding award from the city is pivotal for making the project competitive for additional funding sources, then will be a massive boost to move this project forward. Wolf Road affordable housing is a 148 homes, a 100% affordable new construction development that's part of a larger Wolf Road development sponsored by the county of Santa Clara. The other component of the project is Wolf Road educator housing, which will provide 100 units of moderate income educator housing to employees of school districts in the West Valley area of Santa Clara County. The county of Santa Clara selected Eaton Housing in early two thousand twenty four to implement their vision for educator mixed income housing at this incredible location.

The project is in predevelopment with a preliminary planning application under review by the city by Cupertino's planning department. We anticipate planning commission approval later this year with construction slated to begin at the 2026. The construction timeline is expected to take around two years with residents anticipated to move in by 2029. Our goal is to have both the affordable phase and the educator phase under construction at the same time. Wolf Road affordable housing will offer a variety of unit types with emphasis on large family housing with half of the units as two and three bedrooms.

Community input is a key driver in shaping the project's final design, and additional target populations will be determined based upon ongoing community feedback. The project consists the project represents a unique opportunity to provide affordable housing in the area of Cupertino that is undergoing significant transformation. Future residents will benefit from the area's walkability, proximity to schools and jobs, recreation areas. Eden Housing will manage the project through its management arm and provide resident services through its resident services arms. I thank you for your time, your consideration, your work, the other organizations that are here doing fantastic work for the people we house and and for those in our community in Cupertino, and also for my colleague who provides housing as well.

Congratulations.

K.

That's it. Thank you. So I think we've managed to hit at least every applicant at least once. Do you wanna open it now to the public to allow them to also speak your piece as well? Start asking clarifying questions first.

I don't believe we have any public other than the folks here, but we can open it and see if there are.

Do we have any members from the public here present who wanted to speak on behalf of any applicants? I have seen two. Right? Seeing 2, you

should On

13?

K.

2. Wait. 2. Here's the third

one. She?

She is here.

Yeah. LB. Okay. 3? Okay. Alright. I think same rules. Right? Three minutes on the clock.

You should like to be last.

You'd like to be last. Got it. Okay. Would you like to be first? Alright. Okay. You sent which which one was it?

Gia, g I a.

This one?

Oh, not that one.

This one? No.

That one. No.

Not

that one. No, sir.

I'm just gonna keep going until we we hit something. This one?

Yes.

Okay. Got it. Okay. You made it.

Yeah. Good evening, everyone.

Thank you for the space to speak and all the time and consideration staff to for this process. My name is Gia, and I'm with Housing Choices. We'll be the on-site service provider for Mary Avenue, Delos, and manage the lease up process for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities or IDD. We were founded by current advocates who wanted their young adult with IDD to stay in the community as they aged, especially when they have little to no income. Next slide, please.

We partnered with developers all across Santa Clara County to set aside affordable housing for individuals with IDDs since we were founded in 1997. This model has worked in San Jose, Santa Clara, Mountain View, but as you can see, Cupertino still lacks solid independent living options for people with IDD. Next slide. To qualify for our services, including the IDD units at Mary Avenue, individuals need to be part of the regional center, which is like a big resource hub for people with IDG. In Cupertino, that's gonna be SART, the San Andreas Regional Centers.

We help our residents secure and maintain housing, navigate benefits, and engage in their communities. Next slide. So Cupertino needs Mary Avenue Villas, and thank you for city staff and the commission for recognizing this. The city has 325 residents with IDD, yet nearly seventy percent of its adult population still lives with aging parents. Where will they all go when their parents can no longer care for them?

Mary Avenue is a rare opportunity to be that answer. In Santa Clara County alone, sixty one percent of our clients earn $45,000 a year or less. We all know 45 k a year is not a survivable amount in the Bay Area. This is extremely low income, putting out disability folks at risk of displacement and homelessness. To have much needed deeply affordable housing, we rely on VMR funds.

Mary Avenue's location gives residents transit access, essential services. We know that many of our IDD residents don't drive as well, meaning reduced parking demand and less traffic compared to other populations. We've been fighting for IDD housing as many of you know this room for years. The VAALCO project our previous ED worked on back in 2008 once included IDD units, 40 of them actually, but it was shut down. Other sites were too expensive because the developer would have to buy the land.

We can't afford to lose another opportunity. I appreciate the commission's work a lot, city staff, and kindly asked to prioritize funding for Mary Avenue. There was a question, about the home county grant, which I'm with our ED, Denise, who can answer questions more about that. I think there's a little misinformation about that that was said.

Oh, yeah. So regarding the home fund the home funding, if I may. The funding was for measure a funds, which have been earmarked for other projects. We are in the process of of meeting with our new council members to see if they can increase that funding, but it was previously with Joe submitting it that, you know, was able to get that funding. So that's a that's some funding that we aren't sure we'll be able to get into since they've already been committed. So I just wanted to provide a

little more information on that.

Thank you.

Yep. And then I think we also had one person here or here. Is there anyone's over here? Did you have a visual aid? Or

I don't think I know the reason. Okay.

You got it.

Just like

Mel's not because I I thought that the I thought that we'd be dealing with phase one of the of the Eden Housing project and not phase two. So most of what I had written to talk about had to do with Okay.

Phase one. We'll just go we'll just go with that.

So I'm I'm here on behalf of three others. So if I go a bit over, please don't cut me off. But I also I also had to cut this all up because of it the logic I had written out was for

something else. Alright.

Anyway, thank you very much for having us here tonight and for dealing with this the awards of this funding money that's very important. After over twenty five years of advocacy, creation of affordable housing units for adult Cupertino residents who have intellectual and developmental disabilities is long overdue. Advances in medical care plus Cupertino's special education programs have enabled people with IDD to live longer, become more capable, and be more independent, seeking respect, dignity, and the freedom to make their own choices. They wanna move out of their parents' homes and live on their own in their hometown with family nearby. My daughter, who's over there, let me tell you.

You wanna stand up, Cindy? And you can look around the room, and then you can sit down. Has an apartment in Cupertino because she benefits from having her own section eight voucher, which is nearly unheard of today. Without it, she couldn't afford to live independently. We support the Mary Avenue visit villas because we want others with NDD to experience the same joy she has had from living in her own place.

Adults like her on an income below 30% AMI can only afford very low income or extremely low income housing. Mary Avenue the Mary Avenue Villas apartment project on leased land from Cupertino could become home for people in Cupertino who have IDD. This nearly shovel ready project is now applying for much needed below market rate funds. Recently, the county purchased land in Cupertino where they intend to develop rental housing that will bring affordable housing to educators and school district staff from 15 West local West Valley school districts. So I'm trying to understand why they're why you're working first with phase two rather than phase one.

And I'm also trying to understand if that project is going to be open to people from 15 different school districts, why can they not be applying to 15 different cities at least for the same moneys that they're applying for here? Our project is dedicated to residents of Pilbara. We've been working on this project. It seems like forever. We finally got the ducks in line, and we wanna go forward with this project if we possibly can. So we would like, if possible, to get all $3,000,000 because we think that the other project will be able to apply again and that more monies will be added to the fund. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You can

take my slide back first. Yeah. Is it

Sorry. We got a lot of visuals. This one.

Right? Yep. Alright. K. So I wanna give people a little bit of some of you may have it, some of may not. My name is Warren. Thanks to your resume. Need a little something here. As you heard, in 2018, the need for portable housing for those who've been around the developmental disabilities was met in the Marriott in the Valhall project, giving hope for the first time for people to have homes here. That project went away for various reasons, but the city council at the time really cared about still delivering that capability.

And in 2019, this slide was presented by the mayor at the State of the City saying, we need to do this. We need to find a way to do this in the city. You know? And I was sitting in the audience at the time, and he he had no idea about the possibility of what we did with Mary Avenue, but he was gonna go find some land. He had an example of Minneapolis to get the city getting together. That's how this project was formed. I'll take that last slide. You got it.

This one. Right? Yeah.

Alright. So so we started to work on it. And, you know, how do we do that? It's the city's land. City said, I can't give that to you in spite of the good intentions. We have to put in an RFP for anybody to bid on the opportunity to do this. Council of order unanimously to proceed with the proposal back in 2020. By the way, you know, we're now in a certain area called COVID. It just slowed everything down. But we worked on that, received that.

The RFP was submitted. Again, unanimous five vote votes, which don't come easy in the city of Virginia nowadays. And then we won the RFP. And then the next thing was a draft ENA, exclusive negotiating agreement for us to go and proceed with the project. And that was signed between the developer and the city with, again, unanimous council. And we've had community outreach meetings. We're ready to go today. So two things. We're ready and we're needy. So the idea, well, there's some other money here and other money there or whatever. That those are the monies. Like, we're counting everything. We're already in the plan, so it's not magic that you know? And so we're ready. We're needy.

Thank you.

Excuse me. Nikki, if I might Sure. It's 07:00.

Okay.

Okay. The meeting started at 05:30, and I'm normally, they go an hour and a half. So I just wanted to touch base with everyone here as far as their availability to stay longer. It's unfortunate. It sounds like it's gonna take a little bit longer to get through the whole process. What would you estimate from here is the right amount of time? Thirty minutes? Or

Well, that really depends on how many questions the commission has for the applicants. Right? If if you Well, I don't you guys Mhmm. This.

Okay. I will suggest then since it depends on the commission now. I was wondering if that had we got to that part. Yeah. We have now heard from each of the applicants, and we have each asked questions and clarifying questions already. So we can do one more round, I think. If you have a question that you need to ask in order to make a decision

Specifically to the applicants. Yeah. Mhmm. Specifically to the applicants too since they're here.

Yes. Yes. That makes sense. Yep. Thank you. A question that you need answered before you can personally make a decision about the our final thing, which is to make that recommendation to the city council. So with that, then there's five of us. And so we can maybe three minutes at least. We'll just take three minutes and see how that works. If that gets us enough information to move forward, then that's good.

If we need to, maybe at that time, ask for another extension. But it wouldn't be nice if we, in fact, have version off and all that. So I'm going to then ask for I'll just say, who would like to go first with the questions? Go first.

Want to

ask? Yes. So for charity housing, I have two questions. Number one is what's the occupancy rates usually is for, projects you mentioned? And the second question is that what would be the consequence? Let's say you walk away with the funding recommendation today that Nikki have. So it seems like it's short of what you guys are expecting. So what will be the consequence of that? Would it be, like, delayed development or what would

K. Thank you, commissioner. So you're asking about the Veranda senior project. What is the occupancy? Yeah. I might defer to.

I Unfortunately, I We can I don't know

if that answer off? I would My god. I would venture to guess it's a 100%.

Okay. And it has been

Yeah. So I'm pretty certain that

We can see.

The second question. So, yeah, it was rushing through. So thank you for a little more time. The with a lesser amount, we may be forced to go to a state funding source that then becomes a little, a lot more uncertain whether we get the additional funding. And, you know, with Citi's money, we're confident we can package that with the other sources, with the county money, with tax credits, and avoid going into this state super NOFA project, funding, which is very competitive.

Okay.

So So it's it's critical for us to have the city's funding.

So can I understand it if if you walk away with Nikki's staff recommendation today, there might be some delayed development? Is that, like, a safe assumption?

Or That's fair to say.

Okay. I have the same exact question for Eden and oh, housing. Housing And and I just I heard in your presentation that both phase one and phase two would happen at the same time, and I wanna make sure that is correct. So phase two with the BMR housing would ideally get started as soon as possible after the

Yeah. Correct. So both phases are financed independent of each other with different sources of of funding. The county of Santa Clara is, fiscally supporting the teacher housing one, out of funds, previously committed. So our task was to create more units, but go and get funds outside of the county to make the balance of the $2.49 a reality.

We appreciate the work that Charities does. We appreciate our partners also with the IDD community who is in a lot of our a lot of our projects. And so if 3,000,000 is going to get them to the finish line, Eaton can certainly work with what we have and continue to raise funds to not put them in the whack a mole project at the state since I will be at the whack a mole state project. So we would support that recommendation from the commission as well. So, just to throw that out there.