Safety, Housing, Education & Homelessness Committee - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the safety, housing, education, and homelessness committee of Denver City Council. The safety, housing, education, and homelessness committee begins now.

Hello? Hi, everyone. Welcome to safety housing education and homelessness committee. Today is Wednesday, June 18. I want to welcome everyone. My name is Serena Gonzalez Gutierrez. I'm one of your council members at large and also honored to be chair of the committee. And I will start off with introductions from our council members, and then we'll talk about our agenda today. I'll start over here on my right.

Alright. Good morning. Amanda Sawyer,

district five. Jamie Torres, West Denver district three.

Good morning. Paul Cashman, South Denver district six.

Good morning, madam chair. Stacy Gilmore, district eleven.

And then I'm looking to see who might be online.

Good morning, madam chair. Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver district two online. Hello,

councilman Flynn. Thank you for joining us. And then I think I saw that

Yes. Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver district four.

Fantastic. Alright. I think that's all that we have joining us from council. Before we get into the presentations that we have with the timing of the holiday and everything, we do need to take care of a little bit of of business prior to getting into the presentations and and action items. So with that said, we have eight items on consent today.

And seeing that nobody has called any of those items off, those will move forward to the full council. With that said, we have up to date a few action items coming from host. These these are three contract agreements with the Salvation Army, and so we will go ahead and go right into that. We have from 10:30 to about 11:15 for these action items to be presented and for, questions to be asked. And then we have a briefing from host on the affordable house loan development, agreements. So I'll turn it over to the two of you. If you can introduce yourselves and go ahead and proceed.

Hi, everyone. I'm Polly Kyle, host government affairs officer.

Good morning. Jeff Kaczynski, deputy director for housing stability and homelessness resolution.

Okay.

So today we are coming before you to ask to discuss the three contracts with Salvation Army, a $7,000,000 contract for the Aspen, 4,200,000.0 to operate Stone Creek, and 8,000,000 and some change for the Temerac. Just a reminder that all three of these contracts will end on 12/31/2025, and that host issued an RFP on 05/30/2025, and we will have news providers selected for all of the hotels and micro communities in July, and we will present those contracts to you sometime in September. I'm sure you all are aware, but just as a reminder, non congregate shelters are shelters in which individuals have their own private units, individuals or households. We have two types, hotel based shelters and as well as micro communities or tiny homes, as they're sometimes called. And all the NCS sites, addition to having a private unit for individuals, couples, or households, also provided meals, laundry access, and a variety of social services.

To go in a little bit more detail, at the NCS hotels, providers are offering maintenance services, including making sure units are kept clean or turned over, janitorial emergency repair. Note that in this in the for these three contracts, all these buildings are either owned by or leased by this city. So general services is providing larger maintenance and doing any kind of major repairs. There's guest services staff available twenty four seven just to meet any immediate or emergent needs that may come up. There's also food being provided.

The guest services staff are enforcing expectations, doing room checks, and ensuring a safe environment. All these sites have parking, Internet, television, storage, laundry, and weekly linen changes, and guests are provided three meals a day. The staff of Salvation Army in this case are monitoring the facility twenty four seven. Their staff are trained on de escalation, on CPR, and first aid. But also, it's important to note that general services manages a contract contract with Securitas who's providing security and security guards at all three of these sites.

As far as social services that are available, again, there are people on staff twenty four seven to deal with any urgent or emergent needs, But there is also case management available for all providers or for all guests. They will help with seeking employment, obtaining vital documents, obtaining benefits, helping applying for housing, connections to physical and mental health and substance misuse treatment and transportation if necessary, and also coordinate really closely with host housing central command to get residents placed into permanent housing. But as a reminder, there are no housing resources as part of these contracts or housing specifically assigned to any of the shelters. And lastly, before we get into the contracts, just a reminder around how Host works to hold all of our providers accountable. We have mandatory quarterly reporting coming from all sites.

It includes qualitative and quantitative data. We have at least monthly operational meetings with all of our providers. With Salvation Army, it's actually weekly with both us and with General Services, quarterly programmatic site visits as well as quarterly contract monitoring, and also a reminder that Host has the ability to cancel all city contracts with notice if providers are not fulfilling their obligations. So with that, we'll move on to each one of these agreements starting with the Aspen Shelter. Again, this is a $7,000,000 amendment to a $6,200,000 contract, again, that will run through 12/31/2025.

The Aspen is a 289 unit hotel hotel that serves approximately seven fifty households each year, primarily single adults, but also couples. And we also have been using that facility for cold weather shelter using the hotel ballrooms, and they can serve up to 300 people during cold weather and severe weather events. To summarize the budget, the majority of the budget, 3,600,000.0, is going to staffing, 2 0.4 as for other costs with indirect costs as well. This represents approximately $49.43 per guest per night. And TSA also reports contributing $2,100,000 of their own resources to keep the shelter functioning and to add additional services.

As requested last time, this is a detailed description of the staffing there. You'll see they have 67 staff. Currently, 57 of those are filled. That's a 14.9% vacancy rate, which actually compares favorably to the nonprofit average of a 19% attrition rate in that's a national average for nonprofits. And as far as outcomes go, Salvation Army has been on par or exceeded what we're seeing at the other NCS sites.

We'll say and this isn't included in the slide, but 68% of their clients last month were receiving social services of some kind. That compares to 71% system wide, so it's mostly on par. You'll see their positive exit rate at the Aspen was 62.6%, meaning folks did not leave the site and become homeless. That compares to 65% system wide. And their negative exit rate, meaning people were asked to leave the site or became homeless after leaving, was 37.34, which compares to the system is 35%.

You'll also see that they had four eighty two total exits, three zero two were positive, and this is a little bit confusing on the slide. But of those three zero two, two thirty were exits to permanent housing that host helped facilitate. The other remaining 72 were either to other shelters or, in many cases, to long term care for folks who were not able to do well on their own. And I think also important to note the average length of stay was two thirty nine days. Okay.

So just to summarize this contract and what we are requesting is just the amendment of $7,000,000 to cover the costs really from January 1. I'm sorry, in this case, 03/31/2025 through the end of the year. And I will move on now to Stone Creek. In this case, we are requesting a $4,200,000 contract 01/01/2025 through 12/31/2025. Stone Creek is a 182 unit hotel based noncongregate shelter that's serving approximately 450 individuals each year.

Some details on their budget. Again, vast majority of or the majority of it going to salary and fringe and the other expenses to direct operating costs and indirect costs. The cost of this site is a little bit higher. It's just under $60 per person per night, and that's due largely to the economies of scale that we see with larger sites. TSA reports investing $979,000 of their own resources into the site this year.

And on the staffing on this site, Again, this is the the details of the staff. This their vacancy rate currently is a little bit higher, but they as you'll see, they are onboarding staff right now. The vacancy rate here is about 24, which is higher than the 19 per percent average. However, as far as outcomes go, they have exceeded what we're seeing system wide. 96% of their clients as opposed to the 71% system wide are receiving services on a monthly basis.

And their positive exit rate was seventy one percent as compared to the sixty five percent. And as you'll see, the average length of stay is two seventy three days. Positive exits were two zero eight. 155 of those were exits to permanent housing that Host helped facilitate. And again, just to summarize, we're asking for a $4,200,000 contract for this 182 unit NCS site contract ending 12/31/2025.

And last but certainly not least is the As you know, the Tamarac is also a non congregate hotel based shelter, but it serves families. And that will include parents with a dependent child and but also a family that may have a dependent adult would also count as a family. This contract is just over $8,000,000 amendment to that will move bump the contract up to $16,000,000, again, will end 12/31/2025. There's some nuances to this budget and the outcomes that I'll get into in just a moment. You'll see this is a 205 unit shelter that has served 600 households during the year.

This contract, in addition to the $8,000,000, 1,100,000.0 of this is actually going to support rapid resolution, housing focus, case management, housing navigation, and some expenses related to the connection center. This is the last year we'll do this kind of mixing of funds into one contract. We're breaking this out separately in the RFPs that we're issuing this summer. So in addition to the 600 families that were served as guests of the shelter, approximately a thousand families will be served through the access and intake services that are being provided through this contract, and 200 households will receive rapid resolution services. So in addition to that, of course, responsible for the day to day operations like they are at other hotels.

Breaking out the budget for you, this is a little bit flipped upside down because there's approximately $1.11200000.0 in other direct costs that are going to the services that I had just mentioned, serving about a thousand families. I did break out the cost per night for you just so you can compare it to the other sites. This one is $93 per family per night, but the average family is roughly I think it's 3.9 people in our system. So it's it's serving more people, and we would expect the cost to be reflective of that. As far as staffing goes, really pleased that they have only a 12% vacancy rate, which is much better than national average and we're seeing across our providers.

And again, here's the breakout of the staffing available to you. And as far as outcomes go, they're also outperforming the overall NCS system with 85% of the families receiving services. And by the way, this data is not coming from TSA. It's coming from HMIS, so it's data that we have access to. So we're able to see how many client people have had services on a on a given month.

And again, on the exits, outperforming the positive exit rate of 75.6 with four forty four positive exits, two twenty six going into permanent housing. And again, just to summarize, asking for $8,000,000 amendment to this existing contract through the December 31 to both provide about a thousand individual families with access and house to the intake team, 600 families served as guests in the shelter and another 200 receiving rapid resolution services. And that is the presentation.

Great. Thank you so much for getting through all of that. We'll go ahead

and start with the queue because

I know almost everybody's in the queue. So we'll start online with council pro tem Romero Campbell. Oh,

she's not. Oh.

Oh, okay. We'll start with councilwoman Torres, first.

And then Romero Campbell.

I don't know where.

She's very

insane. I got it.

Oh my gosh. She'll be missed. Thank you all very much. Excuse me. When you mentioned indirect costs under those, is that the admin cost that TSA receives to do the work?

What Yes, that's correct. All of our providers are allowed to apply an indirect cost rate to all contracts, excluding direct financial services that might be going to the guest.

Is it a straight percentage or is it calculated differently?

It is a straight percentage. Which is what? 50 it's the post policy is now 15% is the allowed indirect cost rate for most of our contracts. It's different for federal and state contracts in which they're accepting the federally recognized NICRA indirect cost rate. What's the federal indirect Each provider has their own indirect cost rate that they negotiate with whoever their cognizant agency is at the federal government.

Is 15% what we apply to other groups, or is it different because of

what they're This is a new thing. So we're still kind of moving into this policy. But we've decided that we're going to have like a maximum indirect cost rate of 15% for locally funded contracts. And then I believe a 38% max on fringe rate. And and providers can go lower if they want. Some providers, you know, will choose to take a lower indirect cost rate. But that's up to them. The 15% is the maximum.

Okay. Thank you for that. When you mentioned in Stone Creek that Salvation Army invested, is it in the property? Or what did their $900,000 investment what was that?

I would ask Salvation Army to answer that question, if that's Okay.

Are they here?

Yes. Oh, hi.

Can you

come to the microphone and introduce yourself?

I'm Tyler Burwell. I'm the, interim director for Denver Metro Social Services for the Salvation Army. So that that just usually goes to pay for a salary fringe and other expenses, so that can also be direct cost to clients that are either non reimbursable that we deem we need to buy or other such things.

And 900,000 in 2024, you put into that location?

That is my understanding. Yeah. So I across the board, Salvation Army spent something around, like, $5,000,000 more than that, like, across all the programs. I believe it's 900 something for the allocation.

Is was that unexpected on your side?

It was it was more than expected, but, yeah, we knew it was I mean, part of our of our what we pay for in benefits, things of this nature, but it it just isn't covered. So we have to cover some portion of the expenditures.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay. Is that typical when we have host sites? Yes.

Okay. Very typical. Thank you. And I would also add that in some cases, like in Salvation Army's case, their indirect cost rate is much higher. So they're having to fund that, some of the administrative costs, those amounts. And as Tyler mentioned, there are some things that may be unallowable city expenses that they might want to buy for a client. Like maybe they want to get an e scooter so somebody can get to work that host may not allow and that Salvation Army typically purchases on their own.

SPEAKER Okay. Thank you so much. Can you remind me the status of the three hotels that we're renewing two:

these contracts for? Do we own or lease all three of them?

Yeah. So these three hotels, the Stone Creek or Best Western is actually owned by the housing authority and was purchased in partnership with the city and will eventually be developed as permanent supportive housing by the housing authority. We don't know the exact date as to when that's going to occur. The Doubletree is owned by the city. The city does have to pay interest on a loan that was used to purchase it. It's called a COP payment. And I'm sorry, I can't remember exactly what that stands for. And Doubletree is the Tamarac. Yes. And I'm sorry, no, I got that wrong.

The Tamarac is where we're paying the COP, but is also owned by the city and will be developed into housing at a date. It will be in the next few years. And we don't know the exact date yet, but we're looking twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight for the Tamarac, which I believe was also known as Embassy Suites. And then the Doubletree, also known as the Aspen this always gets me so confused. The Doubletree is owned by the city, and there is no plans to convert that into housing at this time.

The state has also invested funding in that, and it also is serving as a navigation center in addition to serving as the cold weather shelter facility.

Okay. Thank you. And then just one final question. You mentioned a number of key expectations of TSA at the beginning of the presentation. Are those in the contract? And then are they new?

I would say both. I mean, there are, in our contracts, minimum standards that all providers are expected to meet in terms of keeping the buildings clear, keeping the perimeter clean, providing security, providing meals, etcetera. And then there are outcomes that they are expected to achieve, of which you saw sort of the main outcomes a number of people served in any given year plus outcomes primarily related to housing. And in TSA's case, as I've talked about before, we are meeting with them on a weekly basis with their leadership and working through expectations that we have that aren't separate from our contracts, but wanting to just make sure all parties are clear on those expectations. And those are broken into sorry.

I'm just trying to find my notes here. Yeah. So it's facility, just, you know, cleanliness, maintenance of the facility, safety and security, social service provision, human resource practices, as well as just contract administration practices. Practices. So So we we're were meeting meeting with with them them and kind of going over expectations and working on both sides. And general services is also involved in this because they're an important player as well.

Great. Okay. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you.

I'm a Thank you. I do want to welcome Councilwoman Alvidrez. Thank you for joining us. Next up, I have Councilwoman Sawyer followed by Councilwoman Alvidrez.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks, you guys. This is very helpful information. I do not want to beat a dead horse on the fact that these contracts are retroactive. We have to pay The Salvation Army for services that they have already provided to us. And it's really concerning that we're sort of all put in a situation where we have to retroactively pay TSA and future pay TSA. Can you just remind me again and I think it's helpful for the public watching at home What the plan is, timeline is for the RFPs? And then tell me, how many more contracts are we going to see like this going forward?

Thank you for that question. I think those are really important issues. And again, we've you know, acknowledged and apologize for bringing contracts late to you. Poly will soon be putting together a memo for all of you that's laying out both all of the improvements we've made in 2025 and 2026 around just contracting in general, as well as a schedule for when you were going to expect to see contracts starting in August. And at, I think, suggestions we received from some of you, we were gonna present them to you in batches so you won't be getting, like, a shelter contract in August and then one in February and kind of so you'll be able to look at the whole shelter system.

And if we may not be able to do all of them, but you'll get most of the congregate shelter, non congregate shelter, rapid resolution, permanent housing in in batches. And we will provide you a rough schedule. It's like which month we think we'll be doing that. We should have that done, like, in a week or so for you. Okay. And then we also are moving to a three year contract with COLAs built into the contracts, subject to available funds. So we are not having to come back to you. I I feel like we're coming to you, like, twice a year for every contract. Yeah. The contract and the amendment, the contract and the amendment.

And it's a lot of work for you. It's a lot of work for our providers. So we are gonna get into a cycle. It'll take us a few years. So now we are issuing RFPs for three like, we'll be issuing every RFP every three years and then every contract every three years. And we'll have a schedule for for that as well as we're trying to figure it's kind of a a game agenda right now. So you will see some one year contracts coming up. So for example, we're we are all of our non con our congregate shelters out probably in February 2026. So the 2026 contracts will be for one year, but then 2027 will be for three, and that and then we'll get into a cycle.

Okay. Alright.

Sorry That was too much information.

No. That's really it's great for us to see because and here because it is very confusing, and it is a huge lift for your staff and for our provider staff to keep doing these contracts over and over and over again. And I think this is the result of moving too fast in 2023. And so we're having to clean that up now. It's gonna take some time to clean that up because these contracts span expand over a period of time. So appreciate that. Appreciate what you are doing. Thank you for the clarity on that. I think my specific question is still how many more retroactive contracts are we expected to see

this year? Yeah. I apologize for missing that one. So with No.

I asked a lot. Sorry.

Thank you. Salvation Army, there's gonna be two more. Okay. The rapid rehousing contract, which actually will end and not be renewed in December 2025, I believe. And then it's a state funded contract that's tied to some of the non congregate shelters. I believe those are the only two moving forward. I believe so. And I, would ask Polly of this if there's any more retroactive contracts coming through the

I don't believe not. That started in January. The that we're kind of wrapping that up with the rest of these contracts. We might have some I I know, like, some of our TruA contracts started May 1, that are moving through right now, but we we shouldn't have that big of a delay with any of our future contracts moving forward this year.

Okay. That's good to know. I appreciate that. I think, like I said, it just it's really it's a very difficult position for us to be in to be approving contracts retroactively for work that has already been done by our providers. But it forces us to approve these contracts because we have to approve them. They've already done the work. We have to pay them. And yet, it puts us in a situation where we can't ask the questions we want to ask or insist on some of the programmatic changes that we feel really strongly about as council. I will only speak for myself, but I know that this is true for other council members. And that's really it puts us in a really bad position.

We cannot do our jobs properly when we are put in this kind of position. So I will not beat a dead horse, but I just want to make that clear. I appreciate that there's only a couple more of these coming through. I'm not sure I have a patience for more than that. So I really appreciate that.

I think that's it for me. Thanks. Of course. Next is Councilwoman Alvidrez, followed by Councilman Cashman.

Thank you so much, committee chair. And thank you all for coming forward with this and sharing some of the information. I feel really positive about those outcomes. That's pretty high and positive. Exit's definitely higher than what I've seen at the tiny home village in my district. So that's impressive. I'm curious overall, I was looking at the May report that we got from the Salvation Army. And it was almost 1,600 people that they had sheltered in one month. What percentage of total people sheltered in the city is that?

That's a very good question. I'll have to get you that information. But I would say it's less than half, more than a third. It gets complicated because I believe they're counting people in that. And we tend to look at units. So I'd have to go back and calculate how many people are in the various family units.

Okay. Thank you. I'm just curious what portion of our unsheltered population and thanks to the Salvation Army sheltered population are we talking about here? So that's helpful. Something that's obviously come up, and thank you to the Salvation Army for being here and all the work that you're doing, has been incidents. So do we have access to incident reports of the things that are happening in the shelters or when there's some kind of incident?

Yeah. I mean, Salvation Army keeps their own records, which we look at when we do site visits. But we also have a a critical incident reporting system. So when, you know, a critical incident occurs, any kind of violence, you know, major damage to the building, fire, flood, somebody getting injured, overdoses, we will get what's called a critical incident report that comes to host and general services and Securitas. So then we are able to respond.

You know, we usually will get those, like, in real time right when they fill them out. And then our and also will say that Tyler also calls me anytime there's an incident that occurs, you know, or or if there's, like, significant police activity or police activity that we're particularly concerned about.

And is the council member of that area notified? Or what how was that communication getting back to us? I know we don't need to be involved, like, that same day, but it would be good to know when things are happening a lot sooner than the news, at least.

I believe that in the case of the Tamarac, Salvation Army has been asked to and does let the councilwoman's office know when there's an event there. And I don't know if you are providing that info to any other council members at the other sites.

Hi. Tyler Burwell. Yeah. If any council member wants to have us communicate out directly, we do that. Yeah. Usually, first messages go out to host as the contract holder and then reach out to the relevant parties as well, whether it's a council member or other folks who are looking to be informed quickly. Yeah.

Thank you. I think that would be helpful to come from host just so that we get the information maybe on a regular basis of, like, how many incidents are we have? We have this many incidents this month or so that I don't have to dig up and find and reach out and figure out what shelter or who to contact. I think it would be helpful information for us to have so we're aware of general incidents that are happening. I I understand incidents happen in all of our shelter system.

I wanna state that. And I also wanna state if people are living on the streets, it could be far worse than what incident happens in a shelter. And so wanna take all that into context, but I just think it's it's hard for us to manage these incidents that are coming to us. People complain to us. It'd be better if we could find out at least, you know, we had 10 incidents in our system in the last month or five incidents in the system in the last month. So we can at least have a pulse on what are the issues that they're facing and how are we responding to them because that's what I think the general community is very critical of us. How are we responding to incidents, these critical incidents that happen?

Okay. So would it be helpful if like we contacted you if there was a a critical incident, which are which are relatively rare, and then provided you, like, a monthly or weekly report of number of incidents maybe broken out by category?

I think that would be amazing. I don't know how my colleagues feel, but I think I would definitely like that. It seems like most people would appreciate that information. That that was that was my question there. And, I just wanna echo what councilwoman Sawyer said. We have to get you guys paid. Thank you so much for doing this diligent work without pay for such a long time. I really appreciate that. Let me just scan my questions. I was curious that the variance in exo rates this is for you, Tyler, so don't from leave yet 62% to 75% as far as positive outcomes? What's the difference that you're seeing there? Why are you able to get seventy five percent at Tamarac?

I would certainly say that the populations are different populations. The folks who are showing up to the Tamarac or family units often, the folks coming in do still have some support systems in place. Whereas I would say the average person in a place like the Aspen, much of that support system has deteriorated by that point. And again, that's not every person, but you just see on average that families tend to have the ability to bounce back a little bit faster.

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm curious something that we've been hearing about is just an uptick in domestic violence. Have you all been hearing about that or seeing it treating that in different ways?

Yeah. We have yeah, every person there is tied to case management. And we have heavy staff involvement. An uptick, I wouldn't say necessarily. But it is something that we regularly encounter just it being a family shelter and all, and the high stress of the situation for the people living in it.

Great. Thank you. That's all I had for you. And then just one last question for host. I know there has been conversations in the past about transitioning away from the hotels being that they weren't made for long term housing. And so I'm curious how are we preparing for that change eventually? Are we preparing for that change eventually?

Yeah. I mean, think, again, the Aspen, the Doubletree, there's not a plan to transition that. We're just continuing to and I think we have kind of stabilized the systems in the building, and we'll continue to operate that as a shelter. We will, at some point, be losing the Tamarac is going to be converted into affordable housing, so it's something to celebrate. But we are working with real estate to determine how we are going to replace those units.

So we absolutely cannot lose 200 units of family shelter. And we're looking at various options, whether it be some type of tiny home, another hotel, or maybe another facility and are starting to engage with both advocates and families on what might be the solution for that. We have a few years before that becomes a reality. And then on Best Western, I think we've got a longer runway on that facility. But again, also we'll look to determine what's the best replacement product that we can offer, whether it's another non congregate site.

But those buildings, again, that will become permanent supportive housing. So we're happy that that's occurring, but we'll work to replace the beds.

Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thank you, committee chair. Thank you. Councilman Cashman, you're

up.

Yeah, thank you, Madam President. A couple of details. Madam President Chair. One can only dream. Yeah.

One can only dream.

I don't know if it's in

the The security contract with Securitas, is Securitas under contract with the city or with the provider?

With the city. Okay.

For instance, Stone Creek contract, they're contracted for 43 FTEs, 31 filled. Tamarac, sixty one and fifty four. So do we pay less because positions go unfilled?

Yes. So these are cost reimbursement contracts. So if the position is vacant and not replaced permanently or temporarily by Salvation Army, they're not paid for. DELL: They have to submit their payroll records to us with every invoice.

Okay. The only details I have, your excellency.

GREGORY Thank

you. That's very kind. I have a couple of questions. And then I think know Councilwoman Tamara Campbell, who wasn't able to be able to ask questions, she's going to send me, I think, some things that she wanted to ask. And I'm guessing it's about Tamarac since I know that's in her district. But I had a couple of questions real quick before we do wrap up. So one of the things that you've mentioned when you were going over some of the data or outcomes was that host helped people find stable and permanent housing. And so I guess then what that brings to my mind is we're paying for the services through Salvation Army to provide case management. Are they not assisting with that transition piece?

They are. And that's, I think, an important question. And this is a transition year. So as I believe Cole has probably presented to you before, we have set up something called housing central command to really make sure we're not leaving any housing resources on the table. Right now, Central Command sort of manages the exits from all of the on mile high sites into permanent housing, through a variety of programs that we're running.

Our providers have been gracious enough to reassign their staff members to work at Housing Central Command. So in the past, Salvation Army had, like, a housing navigation team and a housing stabilization team. They're now still operating under that contract, but they are doing the work in partnership with the city through more of a kind of centralized efficient system. Again, this will change with the RFP that will be broken out into separate contracts. So when we come back to you in September with hotel contracts for the providers that were selected under the RFP, the amounts will be lower because we are doing a separate RFP for housing stabilization and navigation services because it was frankly not working well before and we weren't seeing the housing outcomes that we wanted to see.

So we are using this system that has worked very well in other communities and has worked very well for us. We saw almost starting in September when we did this, we were seeing three times the number of housing placements a month than we had been seeing in the prior nine months.

Thank you. And this might be a question for South Asian Army, I'm not sure, but I was just curious about caseloads. Seeing the number of individuals that are served and then seeing the number of case managers, and I think not all of those positions are still not filled at some of the shelter at at some of the sites. What is the average case load for a case manager?

So it would depend on the site. So for a place like Tamarac because you're serving a family unit. There's often individuals in a single unit. It's gonna we are counting it as households in these situations. So it'll be lower like at the Aspen, it's like it's 40 is roughly where we're at.

If it's goes, if we are not fully staffed at the time, then we do redistribute that caseload. So nobody is ever without a case manager and that goes for all of our sites. But that also shifts for example, like with the stabilization folks that we're working in conjunction with the HCC, those are smaller caseloads of 20 per stabilization case manager. Just because you're out in the community, these are more intensive, multiple time a week visits that you're doing, especially up front when somebody's first moving into housing.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. And then my last question before I go to some other questions here is around the kind of new process, right? The accountability matrix think, that was presented to us, some time ago and and what that will look like in the new contracts.

And I guess I just wanted to ask, I think it was slide six. Just wanted to make sure that these are performance based contracting, like, what we've discussed previously, and that and I guess it would be great to just get a little more information about that. We don't have to go through it now, but Yep. Just to better understand, like, what is that all equate to.

Yes. So we are doing a pilot with performance based contracting for all of the NCS sites, the hotels and the micro communities, in which rather than doing a cost reimbursement approach, we will be paying for outcomes. So the main outcomes we're looking at would be the number of people who are sleeping there, heads in beds, what it's sometimes referred to, to help ensure that if a provider isn't turning units over and they're leaving units vacant, they won't get paid as much money because they're not fulfilling their obligation to keep the units filled. And then there will be outcomes based on services touch points. Like everybody will need to be meeting with a case manager.

I believe it's going to be twice a month. And then we're also going to be requiring a certain type of service called pre critical time intervention, which is a best practice that's designed to help people living in shelters prepare for the transition to permanent housing. And if this works, we've obviously met with the controller and DOF and city attorney and others on this. And if this does work, we hope to apply it to not all, but most of our contracts to get away from our providers having to spend so much time generating invoices and looking at receipt. And our staff end up spending all their time looking at receipts.

We want our staff to be looking at outcomes rather than having to spend hours and hours each month pouring through 50 or 60 pages of of receipts. And then we will have other financial controls in place separate from the invoice process. And but, again, not wanting to jump right into this without knowing it's going to work. We are we are piloting it, and hopefully, it will work. It's worked well in other communities.

And over time, we'll transition contracts to this this approach. And, also, we'll say, back in the day, this is kind of how shell how Denver paid for shelters. I don't know why we switched, but, you know, in order another way to look at it in some of these contracts that are more simple may be more of a fee for service as opposed to a cost reimbursement to take administrative burden and to really focus on the services and the outcomes, not on the, you know, whether or not you turned in that Amazon receipt for $22.

Okay. Thank you for that. I'm gonna flip over to some questions that council pro temer Mario Campbell, wanted to ask. In the contract, there are expectations in the contract for facilities out for facilities outside safety, HR practices, etcetera. In the presentation, the data shared was the HMIS system. Do we have a report from the Salvation Army about the other aspects and expectations for the other aspects of the contract?

They they do submit quarterly reports. Okay. So we we do have those. But also, we are they're they have documentation that we collect when we feel that we need to see it on things like do shift change meetings happen with the security company. They're required to have every time there's a shift change, the guest services staff and the security staff need to meet and talk about what's happening in the building.

They're required to do unit inspections on a weekly basis and regular inspection, daily inspections of the building and the perimeter. So they're required to document that that's that that is occurring. So that that data is available. And then we also have the quarterly reports. The we do tend to want to use HMIS for the client level work because it also allows us to see where else that client's may be receiving services and be able to look at the bigger picture for each individual.

Okay.

And then last question is when will the new RFP for the Tamarac be released, and what is the timeline?

Yeah. So that RFP was released on May 30. Okay. The proposals are due on June 30, and we hope to announce the provider selection by mid July.

Okay. Great. Thank you so much. Seeing nobody else in the queue, so no other questions, are we doing this as a block? Yes. Yes. Okay. So these will be as a block for these three action items. No, ma'am. Thank you. Alright. Moved by councilman Sawyer, seconded by councilwoman Torres. Is there a need for a roll call vote? No need for a roll call vote. This will move forward to the full council.

Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, we're doing the presentation. I'm just going to take a minute to transition to our next presentation. Oh, I forgot to ask Councilman Flynn.

I think he wants me to run a fly.

He would've said something.

Yeah. Yeah. Like a kid. Usually ends up a challenge. Tired of you doing okay. Yeah. Alright. Or something.

Welcome, everybody.

Hi. Good

morning. Good morning. This is our host affordable housing loan development agreement presentation that we get you know, as often as we can or as often as they're coming in because I think there was a little bit of a, you know, time where there wasn't really anything happening. But we thought we would have you in to to kind of update us. So we'll go ahead and do introductions. If you all can introduce yourselves and then proceed with the presentation, and I'll take I'll start a queue for council member questions.

Thank you so much, and good morning, everyone. My name is Alex Marcasse. I'm a housing development officer here at Host, currently acting as the development director.

I'm Kendra Garrett. I'm housing development officer as well.

Laura Allen Hatcher, housing development officer at Host.

I also just want to recognize that we've got two team members who were integral to this process but are not here today. One is, John Torres and then also Michael Davis.

Great.

So just a quick overview of what's been going on since we were last here. Chairwoman, as you've mentioned, it's been a little bit. We've had a bit of a delay just due to the natural cycle of tax credit applications as well as a few delays from turnover in the city attorney's office. But happy to report that we have brought six projects through the city council process for total investment of just over $20,000,000. And through that, we are able to produce just about four fifty affordable units. I'm very excited to present these projects to you all today.

The first project up is Christmas Apartments. It is located in District 10 right at the intersection of East 18th and Franklin Street and City Park West. It is a 70 unit PSH project. And so we have provided financing in the amount of $3,150,000 in a performance loan to the Empowerment Program. This is already an existing property.

It was a nineteen ninety five light tech property that's going to be demoed and rebuilt with more units. It will be 30 studios, thirty five one bedrooms, and five two bedrooms. As it is a PSH project, it will be serving folks experiencing homelessness and justice impacted persons as well. It does have 70 CDOH PBVs. It's a performance loan, so zero interest rate, sixty year term, and then a sixty year affordability covenant will be recorded on the land.

And then it's expected to close in August and September this year. Included in our budget is a fifteen year service budget of around a bit more than $500,000 a year. It's a mix of deferred developer fee, grants from the state, some fundraising, and other funds from the sponsor. This is sort of the capital stack mix. The total project is bit over it's about almost $35,000,000 And so it comes out to be about $421,000 per unit.

They have a CHAPA capable loan as the senior lender, a mix of federal and state light tech equity, a loan also from CDOH. It is 100% electric building, so it's got some funding from Denver Casper. And then the rest is a seller back note and deferred developer fee. And this is just in the unit mix. Since it is a PSH, Empowerment Program has been a local nonprofit that works with particularly folks that are justice impacted and also folks with experiencing homelessness.

So they have a wide range of services provided to their tenants. It is also a trauma informed designed building with ample communist common space for student services and then just community gatherings as well. Next. Perfect. And that's Christmas program Christmas apartments. The next project is Dimmer Dry Goods. So Dimmer Dry Goods is located downtown in the central business district of 16th Street. It's an existing building. It was built in 1918.

A long time ago.

There you go. It was 1889 as a department store. And then a few years later in the early 1900s, it it's converted to a tea room, expanded from three stories to five stories, and then added a tea room. And then it served as sort of a department store and a tea room until the mid-1990s, where it became a mixed use that included affordable rental units, some market condos, and then still commercial space. So this is going to be host subsidized cash flow loan of $5,500,000 It's 106 units, so it's 55 new units and 51 existing units that are going to be renovated.

They're taking the existing vacant commercial TGA Max space and converting it to 55 new affordable units. The mix is one studio, fifty six one bedrooms, forty nine two bedrooms ranging from 30% to 80% AMI. So it is an historic building, so and it's got a mix of state and federal tax credits, also state and federal historic tax credits, energy tax credits, additional city funds from CASR, and then restructuring on some existing loans from the '90s with ours and Dura. And then a 60 covenant will be on the land. So this is sort of pictures of the building throughout its evolution to where it is today.

And it was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1978. So the first one sort of shows you what is existing and then what it will be. So we're going to be including the existing units in purple and then some new units that will be part of the new partnership for the Light Tech property. Including the in the renovation of the existing units, instead of replacement of countertops, kitchen appliances, repainting flooring, and then all windows will be repaired and restored. And then there'll be some restoration to the exterior of the building, all within the compliance of requirements for historic structures.

Additionally, because they're getting money from Castor, about a little over a million dollars, they're moving from a full steam system to an electric heating and cooling using split system of heat pumps and electric baseboard heating as well. It will be housing individuals and families. Included in the amenities will be community room, fitness center, food pantry, and bike storage. And then, obviously, have a part time service coordinator as well. Again, their extensive capital stack, this project is 66 a little over almost $67,000,000 but comes out to be $629 and some change per unit.

And again, this is the unit mix, 16% 30s, quite a bit of 40s and 50s. And then we had some additional 60s, 70s, and 80s, so pretty split around the 106 units. And the last project for me is ILIF Senior Apartments. It is a 50 unit senior property, 62 and up, ranging from 30% to 80% AMI. Host subsidy for the property is $2,250,000 at cash flow loan as well, 1% interest, twenty year term, and there will be a sixty year covenant that runs with the land.

This one is located in District 4 in University Hills right next to the University of Denver. It will house seniors again. So 10% of the units will be accessible with the others being convertible as needed. They do have a bit of green sustainability features to it, so they're aiming for to meet the 2020 in GBS program bronze level certification for the electric building. Including the property is community and pollination gardens, a fitness room, a rooftop sky lounge, pet park, and activity room.

They did receive a grant from the Colorado Health Foundation to help with some service programming and some service coordination build out of offices for the tenants. And then they will also have a resident coordinator on-site. This project's a bit over $25,000,000 which comes out to $305,000 per unit, dollars 106,000 per unit, a mix of light tech equities, federal and state, some commercial loans, our subsidy housing, and then a Kessler loan as well. And so this is sort of the unit mix between of the 50 units.

Next up is Henergi Penninger, excuse me, Legacy Homes. A lot of people have trouble saying that, including myself. This funding was awarded under Resolution eleven twenty six this year, actually in 2024. And the city is providing a $3,000,000 performance loan to the Atlantis Community Foundation, who partnered with Bayard Services, who actually was the owner of the building that was on that site. This project demos that building and builds 60 units of permanent supportive housing and also includes in exchange for a solar carry bag from Bayonne.

They're getting offices within that building as well on the 2nd Floor. Is a as I said, it's a permanent supportive housing project. So all units will be at 30% AMI. This project is a 9% light tech project and is also leveraging a couple of CHAFA loan products. And the city did not provide any permanent supportive housing vouchers or tenant support services, but those were provided by the state.

And if I could get mine to advance there you go. This is where the project is located in the Baker neighborhood in District 7. It is just off of West Bayard near South Eladi Street, a few blocks west of Broadway Lincoln, and just south of the Daley Park, as you see the green squeeze right there. As I mentioned before, Bayard Industries was the owner of the property and sold it to the project and is carrying a seller carryback note and will have offices within the building as they are going to be the main service provider as well to the project. So the next slide just is sort of an overview of the first level of the project, which will include in the beige areas common space entry level front desk work, as well as in the blue sections, community based sources such as a food pantry.

On the next level, the beige areas are the Bayade offices. And then we're starting to look at apartments on the left hand side. And then the remaining floors for three three through four, three through five I can't read it will be all the apartments. And as you can see, it's a CC building with an interior corridor. Okay.

This next slide shows the capital stack, including the CHFA loan products, the 9% LITEC equity, host performance loan of $3,000,000 the solar carryback loan. CDOH is also providing a home grant of $3,000,000 and then some other grants and deferred developer fees. The total project cost is around $28,400,000 and so the per unit cost is $4.74. The developer is deferring 33% of its developer fee. Unit mix as a PSH, they're all 30% AMIs, all one bedrooms.

Okay. And that's it for Henninger. Next project is 1315 North Logan Street Co Op. This one you might also hear named the People's Mansion. It is the former Starkey Mansion, right, if you're familiar with it. And so it was a single family home for many, many years. And the Boulder Housing Coalition convinced them to sell it to them. And they were a very good partner, being very patient as Boulder Housing Coalition put their funding together. And so the city has provided a $1,020,000 grant for the acquisition of the property. And my apologies to Polly.

Please ignore the next bullet point. That was actually for a performance loan. But it is a grant that we provided. There will be a ninety nine year covenant recorded on the property. As a part of the renovation that Boulder Housing Coalition will do

is that they will

add bedrooms to the home. Initially, are 10 or 11 bedrooms and they're very large bedrooms and so they're dividing up the entire property into 19 SRO style bedrooms with shared community and bathroom spaces. Multiple shared community spaces would include the dining room, the kitchens, many living rooms. There's some outdoor barbecue space and courtyards. Let's see.

As far as the unit split goes, there are three units that are at 30% AMI and the other units will range between 4080% AMI. Other funding for this project, particularly for the conversion of the bedrooms, is from Mercy Community Capital and Shai Financing. Here's the location of the property. It looked like some of you kind of recognized it. It's definitely right there at 13th And Logan, very close to the state capital, walking distance of Colfax and other R2D main routes.

The renovation should be completed by the end of this year. And one really interesting part of this project is it will be operated as a cooperative rental project. And what that means is the people living inside will actually govern the operation of the building. They will have staff support from Boulder Housing Coalition as they do that. The next few slides are just sort of informational to kind of show you how they're carving up the building.

We'll just run right through those and get to the project details, which shows the capital stack for the project. Because this is a historic project, they will be leveraging historic tax credits as well as a historic preservation grant and CDFI mortgage products. Developer Boulder Housing Collaborative is not taking a developer fee for this. The total cost of the project, including acquisition and renovation, just over $4,000,000 or $2.8 per unit. And here's the unit mix.

So they're all the zero bedroom SRO types units, but we've got a spread between 30% AMI up to 80% AMI. And that's it for the Peoples Mansion.

Last but not least, we've got Vigna's senior residences. This is the second phase of the large redevelopment at 48th And Race up in the GES area. This is actually two separate loan agreements. It's a it's a nine four combo. And so in order to increase the overall financing for the project, the developer is going through quite a bit of brain damage to condoize one building into two and have two completely different tax credit partnership structures.

So two separate loans to the larger 4% project will be a $5,270,000 cash flow loan. To the 9% portion of the project, it'll be a $560,000 cash flow loan. Both loans are are 1%, thirty years. They provide a bit of a priority cash payment to come back to the city before the developer fee is paid off and as well as 50% of surplus cash flow, which is proceeds after the developer fee is paid somewhere in year twelve to fourteen. There'll be a city covenant on the land for sixty additional years.

This is a senior serving property, 152 units, combination of one and two bedrooms. A few of them are gonna be extremely low income, but most of them will be in the the 40 to 60% AMI range. And they've got some additional funds from CHFA in addition to their tax credits and first mortgage. A little bit of context. Again, this is the Elyria Swansea neighborhood.

It's right next to the Tepeyak Community Center and, Bina phase one, which is a general affordable, project. There's also additional land there, I believe, for for future market rate projects. Not too long a walk to, the fortieth and Brighton RTD, and I just wanna acknowledge that the city's actually been investing in this project for for quite a while. We were part of the investment with ULC to purchase the land many years ago. Here's a rendering of the 1st Floor.

It's gonna be, cars are gonna come through Vine Street and then turn, I guess, left or right, depending which way you're going, into the driveway. Some tucked out in parking. There will be a senior center along 49th Avenue and then access to the residential units either through 49th and Gaylord Corner or along Vine Street. The other notable aspect to this property is on the 2nd Floor, there's a rather large outdoor courtyard courtyard as well as some amenity spaces, administrative offices, and kind of counseling rooms and and those sorts of spaces. Developers could be deferring 45 Percent of their developer fee as well as lending an additional half million dollars into the project as a sponsor loan to make the numbers work, comes out to about $409,000 per unit.

And the the numbers below there, I should say, are a combination of the two projects just in one summary, so it's little bit easier to digest. And as I mentioned, one and two bedrooms, which is pretty normal for senior project, maybe more two bedrooms than we would typically see in a good range of 30 to 60% AMI. And with that, just our our deep gratitude for supporting affordable housing in Denver. This is difficult and expensive work, and we couldn't do it without the support of council and the people of Denver. So thank you very much.

Great. Thank you so much, for going through all of those, walking through all of those. We'll start off with councilwoman Alvidrez followed by councilwoman Sawyer.

Thank you so much. This is exciting. Super excited about Atlantis and District 7 for sure for some of our residents. One thing that I didn't see on here was are these for rent or for sale?

Apologies. It's permanent supportive housing, so they are rentals.

Okay. So there's no permanent supportive housing that's for sale. That's not a thing.

No.

Okay. Correct. That's helpful. Also, I know you're saying host funding, but I'm curious is this from, like, homelessness resolution fund or what fund it is. Right?

For This is all manager, it is the homelessness resolution. For the Starkey Mansion, it was actually Skyline funds. And as far as What are

Skyline funds? Sorry. I'm not familiar.

That's those are some legacy funds. Leftovers from a program well before any of our time, actually. But I think the eligible uses for that were acronyms. That's what we're

Is that a fund that's no longer don't know if

we spent it all at this point, but that was

I believe it is. Some of it any of it that comes back, we immediately just revolve back out. My understanding is it's local dollars, but we spend it in alignment with CDBG guidelines.

So

we traditionally use it for acquisition and rehab for that reason.

Okay. And so none of these are general fund dollars?

None. We do not use general fund dollars Okay. I think ever for these these projects. They're all, for most the part, special revenue funds. Linkage fee is the vast majority of our investments. Okay. Little bit of property tax, little bit of federal funds, then a smattering of of legacy funds or kind of older ones that we're just trying to close out.

Great. Awesome. One thing that is concerning to me looking at all of these projects is that they're vastly studios and one bedrooms. And I'm concerned about, one, I've been looking at the host dashboard a lot with the five year plan. And the number of people of color in the city is going down every year.

And we argue that building affordable housing is going to solve that, and that's not correlating. And I think part of that probably has to do with the fact that we're really building I think out of all of these 300 or one bedroom fifteen, fifty are studios and 84 are two bedroom and zero are three bedroom. And so I'm concerned that we are not thinking that we're not leveraging our dollars to create housing that actually meets the needs of the people that currently live in the city. I think when we build studios and one bedrooms, that's really attractive for people that maybe wanna move to Denver, people that are a little bit more well resourced. So I'm curious what how are we thinking about that? And how are we and how can we leverage those dollars in that way?

Yeah. I really appreciate that question. I think part of why you're not seeing any threes and fours here is because many of these are senior serving or permanent supportive housing, both of which are almost exclusively studios ones and some twos. So part of it is just an artifact of timing. We presented to the South Platte River Committee recently with Board nine sixty five Washington, which, to your point, when we went out to the community and asked, like, what is it that you need, Overwhelmingly, what what we hear is family size rental units, three bedrooms, four bedrooms.

Two bedrooms sometimes work for that. But our I I think, you know, we have followed our strategic plan guidance, which says try to get as many threes and fours as you can. And so we provide subsidy bonus for those. And so in terms of kind of policy direction, that's how we're trying to effectuate more threes and fours. But I hear you.

It is a a continuing issue partly because it is easier to finance a building with ones and twos than it is threes and fours. Just for some rough math, you can fit two two bedrooms into the space of a four bedroom. Right? And that one four bedroom unit provides, like, 30 or 40% less revenue than the two twos. And so that's why from Host's perspective, we are always willing to try and invest more.

I appreciate that. That's just a big concern for me. And then additionally, said most of this was senior housing. I thought two of them were senior housing.

Some of them were senior housing as well as permanent supportive housing. Okay. And so for people exiting homelessness, we traditionally see mostly smaller units.

Okay. I will also say I know there are a lot of seniors that have a caregiver or partner or they end up taking care of their grandchildren or they have adult children that also live with them. So saying that seniors only need studios or one bedrooms, I am concerned about that perception because I think that's not ideal maybe for the senior, maybe for their family members necessarily.

Yeah. Don't I don't disagree with that at all. I think I'm trying to reflect the the average project that is given to host.

And

so I really appreciate that comment. We're we're lucky enough that next year we get to go through another strategic planning process, and we're gonna be having a housing needs assessment that comes with that. And so I think those are the kinds of comments that we need to hear from council, from the community, from everyone so that we can ask the right questions there. So I'll be sure to bring that

to the process. Will the housing needs assessment, is that in progress at the moment?

I believe we have not completed contracting yet.

So Okay.

So we are contracting our own because I was trying to find information online, and it looked like doctor Cog was doing a regional one, but the city is doing our own specific to the city of Denver?

Yes.

Okay. That's good to hear. Great. Thank you.

Great. Thank you so much. Councilwoman Sawyer.

Thank you. Thanks, you guys. This is absolutely fantastic. Just had one concern pop up, and it is around the co op. So there was a co op that was contemplated in District 5, which is why I know a little bit more about co ops in the state of Colorado.

And it's really concerning because there are no regulations and no legislation, state statute. There is no city statute at all that regulates coops. And that is really concerning to me because coops, particularly in older, well established cities like New York, Boston, whatever, have been a double edged sword, let's say. They are very wonderful in some ways, and they are very awful in some ways because there are, because it is a group of people who get together and decide to live together, and they decide kind of what rules they're gonna live by, to the exclusion of some groups of people. So I'm I guess I'm just I'm I'm curious whether with the model of coops that are that is now sort of coming to Denver and the state of Colorado, this is new kind of all over.

Is there are there any plans to develop some regulations either within the city of Denver or within the state of Colorado to, manage some of the issues that we know are going to happen because we have seen them happen in other cities.

I'm not sure I could speak to any legislation that may be upcoming, but what I can speak to is how host is approaching this from a standpoint of compliance and fair housing and that sort of thing. That was definitely a conversation that we had with the Boulder Housing Coalition as they were putting this together. So as we will be approving their leasing. We will also be approving they'll be reporting demographics and things like that. So we can look over the project over the course of the ninety nine years that we have a covenant to make sure that fair housing is definitely addressed.

It was a conversation that we had both myself and the project, but also with our compliance group together to make sure that we felt Okay with that. It is a new type of project. Definitely, we have never done this before, at least not through host. But the Boulder Housing Collaborative is also working with the Queen City Collaborative, which is more of a local Denver group. The Boulder Housing Collaborative has been operating these types of projects up in Boulder for a number of years.

And Boulder did not report to us any concerns regarding the fair housing. But you're right. Was definitely a flag that came up for us. Yeah. But as far as legislation goes, I can't say that I'm aware of any. But that doesn't mean there is anything happening. It's just not part of the way.

I appreciate that. And I will say it's not just fair housing. Right? Like, there are lots of issues that come up, even if they are renting to all different kinds of people from all different walks of life and incomes and all the things, right, it's not just fair housing issues that come up when it comes to coop. It it there are livability issues. There are, you know, a a lot of different things that pop up in coop housing, and there is nothing Right. In the state of Colorado or the city of Denver that provides any guidance or requirements at all beyond I I very much appreciate

that this is a

concern for you, that you've had this conversation, but it is a real concern for me because, this is a type of housing that is headed our way based on conversations I've had with people because it is, as we saw from the project,

cost so much cheaper. Mhmm.

Right? I mean, it's 40% of the price of some of these other projects that that we're doing. So it is a it is a viable housing option for a lot of different people. It is a double edged sword for sure. And I'm just I am very concerned at the lack of guide guidance of any kind in the entire state of Colorado when it comes to co op housing.

I would be very interested in sitting down with you, getting more detail on your your concerns beyond fair housing just so that I can understand that better and circle back to this particular developer because it is their intention to try to make more. Right?

I don't

want to cast this version and sell for

I'm you're absolutely not. But just to the point that I would understand your concerns around that since you seem to have a lot of experience and understanding of that. So I would like to learn from you for that. And then as we see more of these pop up, I could bring that forward to at least, from host's perspective, try to redress what we can if there's no other legislative avenue that's addressing it.

Yeah. And I think the reason I asked the question is because it might be worthwhile for hosts to consider putting in place some legislation to

kind

of govern coops in Denver because there is nothing. Right? And and so I just think I think this project is great. I really appreciate you guys having eyes on it and sharing some of the same concerns I have when it comes to co ops. I just I'm not sure that the way we should run our city is, like, we just trust you to go to, like, have eyes on this for the next ninety nine years because I suspect you're not going to make it another ninety nine years.

I agree.

And so having some specific legislation in place neither am I, so don't take that as an insult. Right? But I think that having some clear legislation in place that sets some boundaries around and clear expectations around what co ops how co ops function in the city of Denver would be valuable if we're seeing this stuff coming forward. So Thank you your feedback. Appreciate it.

Thank you. We're gonna go to online to councilman Flynn.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A couple of questions. The Denver Dry Building and I think the Starkey Mansion are both Denver landmarks. Is it possible to determine how much of the renovation costs are due to increased costs because of the requirements for the window treatment? So I noticed on Denver Dry, the exterior renovation includes a replacement of all the residential windows.

And the the woman who sold the Starkey Mansion to the Boulder organization complained publicly about the cost she was given of having to find period wood for the windows to have windows constructed for the mansion. So are the costs for the landmark buildings that are being used? Are the costs higher because of that?

I'd say yes. And I get I don't have that information available now, but I can definitely, provide it to your office.

Thank you. I would I would love to know that.

I appreciate it. And I'm sorry. Excuse me. Regarding the Starkey Mansion, there are no renovations that will be taking place on the exterior except for in the rear. I think they're gonna they're adding a lift for accessibility purposes. So the issue with the windows, think, had already been sort of crossed before, the acquisition of that property. If they do need to do any renovations ultimately on the exterior indeed that would have an impact on the renovations.

If that could be determined for the Denver try, know there have been several renovations in the building since the Denver went out of business decades ago, but it would be nice to see what the impact is. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, councilman Flynn. I have a couple a question from councilwoman council pro temer Romero Campbell, then I know I have councilwoman Gilmore in the queue. Romero Campbell, she said that she's excited for the I Lift Senior Housing apartments coming to District 4. Was curious who the developer is for the project, and that June 9 was the date showing for closing. Do you know if that occurred, or do they have any information about the time for construction?

MGL Partners is the sponsor and developer on the project. They're sort of a for profit. They're also partnering with Eaton Senior Communities who will be providing the support services to the tenants. And they did close last week, last Wednesday, so especially closed.

Great. Do you know any timing for construction?

Most likely we'll be starting in the next two weeks.

Oh, wow. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. Councilwoman Gilmore.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for your work on this and the presentation. I would follow-up to Councilwoman Sawyer's questions and just ask, are there documents that this entity maybe has that they haven't shared with us for counsel to learn more. Like how do they solve disputes? How do they address mediation?

If there's a conflict amongst the folks in the co op, Just more background information, I think, would be really helpful and beneficial. I mean, when you think about the co op concept, it sounds really, really great. But knowing the HOA foreclosure crisis that we had in Green Valley Ranch and when folks those power dynamics sometimes can go awry. And just want to make sure that beyond fair housing, we have safe housing for folks without that additional overlay of conflict, etcetera, knowing that we can't control for that. But just more information, I think, would be super helpful.

Absolutely. They definitely have that. In fact, I have quite a bit of it myself on file. So let me get that out to you. I'll provide a summary and then the back up, the full document if you want to take a look at it.

But because of their experiences up in Boulder, they already have very well developed manuals, handbooks, guidance. And because this is a rental co op as opposed to an ownership co op, not only are the residents involved in governing, but the Boulder Housing Collaborative has staff support to assist with that. And they do run a number of programmings such as mediation for disagreements and things like that and trainings on how to do that. Also trainings about how to be good neighbors because there's a lot more people living in one space. So I'll get you that information. Thank you.

Thank you, madam.

And just one small follow-up piece. I also had concerns about how do they take care of the building and make sure they're investing enough in the long term.

I

think we've seen with condo associations throughout the nation how dangerous that can be. And one kind of routine compliance mechanism of host is regular inspections. And so we do have an avenue that we are in there every three years at least. And we also require a capital needs assessment, I think, every 10 so that we at least have third party eyes on the building.

Yeah, definitely. And I would assume that this is part of the rental license program

as well. It would have to be

Or Yeah. Because of the numeric of units. Okay. Great. Thank you.

All right. Great. Well, thank you again for joining us. We will see you again maybe in a few more months or so. We'll check-in. So thank you again for for providing all the information. And we already did our consent earlier. So with that, we are adjourned. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, guys.