Community Development Block Grant Committee - Abolished 5.11.2017 - Regular Meeting

Alright. Good afternoon, everyone. We're gonna call this meeting to order at what time? 03:12PM on 01/28/2026.

I

believe everyone is present. 306306 works too. Why not? Let's do it. All commissioners are present. Yes. And we'll now move to the approval of the minutes. Is there a motion motion made by council president? Is there a second Second by commissioner Lee. Any additions or corrections?

Alright. Seeing none, please signify by saying aye or a thumbs up. Alright. And no abstentions and no nays. Moving on to our first agenda item twenty six zero zero three zero, annual code of ethics policy review. Please signify by raising your head if you have read the ethics policy or plan to read the ethics policy. Alright. So that is good. Moving to our next agenda item, twenty six zero zero nine three twenty twenty six CDBG public service presentations and possible action. Hello, Lindsay.

Good afternoon. The city's twenty twenty six CDBG public services funding process includes a strong pool of applicants providing services to low and moderate income residents. They're here today to present their projects to you. The priority needs for our 26 action plan is homeless prevention along with alleviating poverty and increased self reliance. We anticipate roughly a 180,000 will be available for twenty twenty six public services.

The actual amount available is capped at 15% of the city's annual CDBG entitlement for 2026 plus 15% of twenty twenty five's program income. Because of this, the final amount will be confirmed after HUD releases the official amounts. And last year, for reference, that was in May. So unless there's any other questions, I would recommend starting with Catholic Charities.

Are there any questions from any commissioners? Alright. Seeing none, please proceed. Also, as you come up, I should state when you get the microphone, state your name and your municipality, please. Thank you.

My name is Kevin Birch, director of housing services with Catholic Charities Warming Center, and other shelters and programs within Catholic Charities. I just wanna thank you for your time today and wanted to give you an idea of kind of where we were at last season. I can't believe we're first. I always say we're the worst, so I don't know why we're the first, but no. I joke, my coordinators actually kind of get mad at me when I say we're the worst, but I do I would say that somebody spending a night in a congregate night by night emergency shelter, that that's one of the worst worst experiences someone could go through other than not having shelter and being on the streets or fleeing domestic abuse.

So but it is also the first, so fitting that we might be first too. It's the first way that we can help stabilize people, provide them with their basic needs, and then hopefully, you know, get them ready to move move on to that next step and that next journey into, you know, a housing stable housing situation. So wanted to give you kind

of a recap of our twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five season. We saw three twenty five unique individuals at

the La Crosse Warming Center. That's over six almost 6,000 night stays, 6,000 evening meals, and almost 6,000 breakfasts. Just a little background of how it how we operate. We are night by night, so we're not a program shelter. We're a congregate shelter, and each person has an opportunity to come and go as they please.

How they present that night, we take the 34 people, and we do a random selection of that. On cold evenings, like we've seen a big push here, we try to work with city emergency management on some of those plans between us and the Salvation Army, but we do increase our capacity to 44 from that 34 number. We're a no wrong door agency, so as people come in, we're we're connected with the homeless management information system throughout the state, try to get people on the housing prioritization list, and provide them supports and resources and referral resources to help them on their journey. It costs approximately $380,000, give or take, each year to run the La Crosse Warming Center, and the majority of that cost is for our staffing. So but I will say, and we found this out quite quickly through COVID, without the people, we can't help the people.

We can have all the money in the world. But if we aren't supporting the people that are helping the people, we can't have it. So that's one thing that I will say, and I wanna thank the city for their support this last round in '25 for supporting the warming center. I wanna thank you for considering our application that we've put in for 2026 and hope that you continue to see the need that is out there and pray for those that are that are on the streets or in shelter and hope for a better day and housing. We need housing. So thank you. Any questions?

Any questions from any commissioners? Alright. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Who do we have next?

Kiyashia.

Good afternoon. I'm Song Sheng, the Executive Director at YESHEA, a nonprofit. We work mostly with Hmong folks and with victims of crime, mostly domestic abuse and sexual violence victims, but we serve the Hmong communities. So our 2026 proposal is for three main things. The first thing is we want to propose, like, four quarterly seasonal, bilingual home repair workshops for Hmong people living in the city of La Crosse.

And so the goal of these four workshops is to connect low income Hmong families in the city and with tools and training to improve their skills in, like, fixing their homes and improving their homes. And people home folks who are renters or homeowners, both can qualify. And, again, we focus most on low income home families. So you're wondering, like, what would this look like? And so an example would be that this next Friday, we're hosting an energy assistant workshop, and we're partnering with, like, across county economic support.

And with this, families come to our agency and our two housing advocates and a lot of our staff help them apply for energy assistance. And then we offer them shovels and ice, and then just talk to them about, you know, what does it mean to actually, like, like, be in like, with the city's code as far as, like, you know, cleaning your sidewalk and make sure that it's clear for for traffic. And then the second thing that we we will we propose on doing is to have individual at home instruction and supplies. So our housing advocates will go to our clients that that can actually or don't have transportation to our our agency. Our housing clients, our housing advocates will go to their house and help them out, mostly elders and folks who have who are limited ability.

And so, like, help them replace their furnace filters or, like, correctly help them install, like, their their their window installation stuff. And then the third thing that we're proposing with this proposal for this year is actually just paying our housing advocates salaries so they could coordinate our home repair shop as well as help victims and survivors that come to our agency with how do we help them improve their needs. So for example, our past collaboration is with, like, Habitat for Humanity. We have found several families that we helped through the application process. So they could apply for housing homeownership to Habitat.

And the city rehab program with helping with, like, replacement costs. And then we've also worked with Coolie Cap to get our folks connected to them for other services that we might not be able to provide in house.

Thank you very much. Any questions from commissions? All right, Sienna.

Thank you. Thank you.

Family and Children's Center would be next.

Hello. I'm Danielle Spudberg with Family and Children's Center. I'm the coordinator of the Child Advocacy Center Stepping Stones here in La Crosse. And this year, we are asking for CDBG funds to help support, our staffing, but looking at one of our new initiatives this year. So a little bit about, our Stepping Stones program.

It is a child advocacy center. So we're doing the forensic interviews and, family advocacy for child children who may be victims of abuse. So with that, in the last year, we sixty two percent of the people we've served have been children. The other have been their caregivers. And with that, 95% have been low to moderate, and 49% of those that we have served, both children and adults, have fallen into the extremely low household income.

So we do take referrals. It's not based on income, but we can see that that is the majority of the families that we're seeing that are coming through our Stepping Stones program. And we're looking to find ways that we can help support the victims that have come through Stepping Stones in a more meaningful and lasting way, and that's our new initiative this year is to look at a teen support program. So that would be focusing on teens who have been victims, whether they have come through Stepping Stones or not. We're going to partner more with schools, YMCA, other programs that have teen programs.

So a child or a teen does not have to be a victim that has come through Stepping Stones. Any teen victim would be eligible for our teen support program. And we know that funding, insurance, those kind of things are big barriers to teens, especially being able to get supports. So we are looking to offer the Teen Support Program at no cost to the teens. The new initiative that as a the Teen Support Program that we are hoping to start would be looking at not only giving the teens the opportunity to talk with other individuals who have experienced similar abuse, but also to be able to teach them coping skills, resiliency skills, and other forms of healing so that we can help strengthen them.

We know that abuse is one of the main reasons that teens are homeless or end up in unhoused situations. And so this has been a need that we have seen at the child advocacy center, but it has also been brought to us by school counselors or other, therapists, programs working with teens to say we could really use a program like this. And Stepping Stones has stepped up to say we'd like to be the ones to provide that for the lacrosse community.

Thank you. Any questions from commissioners? Alright.

See you then.

Thank you very much. Oh, you want me to just call them up?

You got it. If anybody needs to recuse themself, now is the time. Oh,

my bad. I forgot about that.

The next presenter would be La Crosse County.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Isaac Hoffman. I am the director of La Crosse Area Family Collaborative, which is a prevention program part of La Crosse County Human Services. And we are asking, you all in the city of La Crosse via the CDBG funds to help fund half of the costs associated with embedding a neighborhood social worker in the Schumullen neighborhood on the North Side Of La Crosse, which is a La Crosse City Housing Authority neighborhood. As a background on this project, the effort was a result of our community, our collective community responding, to persistent and complex needs among residents in this neighborhood.

Partners, committed to doing so collaboratively, which included funding models. It also included implementation and the launch of proven approaches to meet the needs in the neighborhood. One of those proven approaches was the La Crosse Area Family Collaborative Neighborhood Social Work Model. And as I mentioned, the shared funding source that are short shared funding model has always been a part of, this commitment. The city of La Crosse, was one of the initial partners for this project, and we're asking for that to continue with this award into 2026 and 2027.

The neighborhood social worker, their primary role is to provide direct supports to the community. And what that looks like is a holistic case management for anyone living in that neighborhood. Over the past couple years, that's been over 200 individuals who in the neighborhood itself. Some of the supports include housing supports, mental health and medical health navigation, transportation needs, educational needs for adults and children, basic needs, and other just kind of general support and advocacy. However, the primary partners to this project are quick to point out that the neighborhood social worker is a central role plays a central role, and it's kind of the glue for all of the other exciting elements to the project.

For example, there's partnering with the parenting place for parent cafes, partnerships with Western for educational opportunities for residents, partnerships with the School district of La Crosse, for many, many things, the Boys and Girls Club. Dropping a flyer off on doorsteps for all of those awesome services only brings in a certain amount of people. It's a neighborhood social worker who has those personal, professional, individual relationships with the folks that can identify the needs, but then also invite people in on her behalf and sometimes accompany them so that they can kinda get over that initial barrier of whatever it might be to, you know, sharing your parenting practices in a group full of strangers. So for those reasons, the the the the partners are are quick to point out that that's a central role to to better leverage all the other things that are happening in the neighborhood. In addition to the primary primary role of being a neighborhood social worker and providing those direct supports.

These supports move the needle on the CDBG priority of, levitating poverty and increasing self self reliance. That's one of the core components of the La Crosse Area Family Collaborative is to meet needs quickly. And in doing so, we hope to form long term relationships that result in deep rooted work. So getting to the root of whatever caused these folks to be in these situations in the first place, usually tied to some type of childhood trauma, which led to mental health and some in some situations, substance use concerns. However, I do also wanna point out that that these efforts also focus on the CDBG focus area of homeless prevention.

This proposal, it's a little bit of enhancement, to our prior effort, includes some new intentional efforts with the city housing authority. The city housing authority places more folks from homelessness into housing than any other landlord in our community. We also know that folks who become homeless the the the the number one population of folks who become homeless are those who are homeless in the past. And so by focusing these efforts in this concentrated matter on this population in this neighborhood is an extreme bang for your buck, so to speak, as it relates to investments that you can make to prevent homelessness. I think that's all. Any questions?

Any questions from commission commissioner Lee?

I just have a comment. I really enjoyed reading some of your successes in that, in your submission, and I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that.

I it's awesome to hear that you're reading those. Thank you. I I I would say I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but when I'm writing those and whenever I'm asked to highlight success story from our work, I I I honestly don't have to look any further than the previous couple weeks. And so I can tell you that those stories, there's a bunch more from where those came from, but it is fun to write. I appreciate you reading them, and I really do try to highlight the work, the challenges of the work, and also that, you know, we're just an intervention in a point in time, and that that long term supports that we're hoping to provide with these efforts are really what's gonna pull people out of these situations.

Thank you. Any other questions? Appreciate you.

New Horizons?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's right. Sorry. It's been a while since I use Zoom. I usually use Teams.

Here we go.

Okay. Hi. My name is Heidi Spie. I'm the director of programming and personnel with New Horizon Shelter and Outreach Centers. And I am here today to talk about our CDBG request, which is for funding for our facilities manager.

This is something that, the city has funded many years in the past. We continue to write for it because it's a needed position at our agency. I did wanna quickly go over our mission, vision, philosophy, and values because we updated them as a team early on in the year, so they are new from our last request. Our mission is to support victims of abuse and create a safe community for all through education, advocacy, empowerment, and collaboration. Our vision is simple, ending abuse and saving lives.

Our philosophy is that we oppose all forms of dominance over others. We believe abusers must be held accountable for their actions and that systems must be responsible to the victim. And then our values, equitable teamwork, proactive, invested, and growth. So although we're talking about our facilities manager who mainly focuses on work in our shelter, we are more than a shelter. And for those that aren't familiar with New Horizons, we do a lot of different things.

Community based advocacy, support groups. We have a domestic violence rapid rehousing program. Bilingual advocacy, we serve folks in Trumbullo County. Rural advocacy, our crisis line, youth and family advocacy, education and awareness, emergency financial assistance, our homicide prevention shelter, and legal advocacy. So our impact and I think that this is important to call out because we've seen an increase from twenty twenty four to 2025 in services utilized by our community members.

Specifically, with our shelter, we sheltered a 133 victims of abuse in 2025, 75 from the city of La Crosse. Total, that's a 125% increase from 2024. Of those folks, 60% identified as black, indigenous, or a person of color, which if you're in this work, you know that folks from marginalized communities experience abuse at much higher rates than their white counterparts. And then we had 618 calls for emergency shelter that we had to turn folks away or refer to other agencies because because we didn't have the space available. Our crisis advocates work in the shelter directly with the clients that are staying in the shelter.

They also answer answer the calls. We take domestic reports from La Crosse Police Department as well as other law enforcement entities within the county, and really maintaining a safe shelter for everyone that's there. Our facilities manager then, who's been with us for coming up on twenty years, does a lot of projects. So we are in an old house. It was built in the late eighteen hundreds, and there is constantly work going on with increased numbers of folks utilizing our shelter, then we see things breaking down more.

We need to paint, replace floors, all of that good stuff. So last year, he completed 96 projects total and 88 of those were at our shelter. And I just put a listing of some some of the things that he does, interior, exterior repairs, plumbing, electric, constructing things, assembling things, painting, making sure our security system is working the way that it should be. And then he does other things on a regular basis, going to hunger task force to pick up food for folks in shelter, working with our security company, making sure our fire extinguishers are up to date, lawn care and snow removal, and he brings donations to the shelter that our community drops off for people that are staying in the shelter. So he has a big job.

And, without without the funding, we would probably have to make the position part time, which then could impact a lot of things like safety in the shelter. Any questions?

Any questions from commissioners? Alright. Seeing none. Thank you very much.

Thank you. You're welcome. Saint

Health Mission?

Hi. I'm Jason Larson, executive director for Sinclair Saint Health Mission. We've requested funding this year from CDBG. We have a special needs fund that we use for kind of rent security deposits, back utilities, and things like that, and we often it's kind of a match with TNT. So a lot of times, an example right now, a group who will find, we can get this person housed three months from now, her income comes back, but it's 1,100 for two months.

TNT is not gonna do all of that, so we'll all kinda wheel and deal. So I think we're doing 700 for 2 TNT is doing a bit, and the county is doing 200. Typically, in a year, we probably spend about 25,000 Sinclair Health Mission dollars doing that, and then we call all the different churches. And so a lot of times, it's not even passed through. They'll write a check directly. And an exciting thing that happened recently is our program director helped to get one of the major funders to fund TNT at about 60,000 a year. So what we're asking for St. Clair Health Mission is a match so that when we can't quite get someone housed and stable with just that TNT or other funds, then we use our special needs fund to do that.

Any questions from commissioners? Thank you. Oh, sorry. Commissioner Lee? Yeah. How

do you sustain this? If you're ramping up what you're doing, how do you sustain it?

Yeah. So and that's a good question. It's growing every year because our community health worker team is growing every year. Right now, we're at six. We'll kinda more next week, but we're kind of at the 80% end on a capital campaign, which a big focus of it is a fund for just special needs where we don't use the the I'm forgetting the terminology, but the balance. We just use the interest every year.

Any other questions? Alright. Thank you.

Salvation Army.

Hi there. My name is Quinn. I'm the shelter manager for Salvation Army. Just started at the August. Our proposal this year was to help the Pathways Home project achieve their surge shelter is what they were calling it.

I'm gonna start calling it a temp selch temp shelter because I think surge is more for, like, zombie apocalypse. I'm not sure. But so temp shelter, opening up just 18 beds in our chapel. So funds will just primarily be used for for keeping individuals or, those 18, additional individuals in the chapel with a staff person there. We're really gonna leverage the, county comprehensive community services program, CCS, for doing case management management for those 18 individuals while our case managers work with the 64 other people in the shelter.

Yep. So primarily just operational costs. It it's a desperate urgent need, I would say. Yesterday, we saw somebody hanging out outside who had frostbite on their nose. It was all black. Like, more shelter spaces is a really urgent need for us. For sure, it's heartbreaking to watch. And I think that what we're requesting right now for CDBG will only be about 15% of what's needed. So our request would get us about ninety days of that temp shelter.

So

Yes.

I have a couple questions.

Yes, ma'am.

Do you foresee this expansion being permanent? No. Okay. And then our I noticed in your application that it mentioned starting funding immediately. Our program year doesn't actually till April 1, so the funding wouldn't be available until after that. Is that a problem?

If that's the best we can do. You know? Okay. Yeah. Just making sure

it wasn't gonna

Yeah. Cause a huge hiccup. So

Thank you. Yeah. We're ready to roll whenever we get funding for it on our side.

That was one of my questions, so thanks. Any other questions? Alright. CNN, thank you very much.

The YWCA.

Hold on one second. Hold on one second. Hello. My name is Elizabeth Faiseth, and I am a housing navigator with YHTP program at the YWCA La Crosse. Today, I am a part of the YWCA, which has been a long standing partnership with the city since nineteen o three.

We have come today to ask for the CDBG to expand our programs. As we know, homelessness is an issue within our community, and an expansion of our programs would be significantly increasing our value within what we serve. Currently, in the last year, we have provided housing for 77 youth. And with Ophelia House, we have helped 34 people. We are asking to provide wraparound services to expand and offer more.

We're looking at case management, housing navigation, and also providing those wraparound supports as barriers to transportation, looking for housing, support with recovery and substance use. I think that is it. Thank you so much. Any questions?

Yes. I have one. Based on the the budget that you all have submitted, if we're not allowed to or not allowed. If we're not able to fund you at the max capacity, would you still be able to pull off this program?

Absolutely.

Okay. Lindsey.

I'm sorry. Did you said that you would still be able to do this program if you didn't have the funding?

Yes. Well, no. We

Yeah. Okay.

Clarify. Didn't have the full extent of funding. Yeah.

Yeah. You would just do a portion of it then? Yes. Got it. Do you currently do all of these services now, or would these be new services you would be adding?

This would be an extension of the con the current services that we provide. Okay. And it would be offering our YHDP youth that are aging out at 25 an extra buffer because we know that housing instability with that age group can vary.

Sure. Do you, have a play a plan to sustain this in the future? Yes. What's that look like?

It looks like oh goodness.

You

Roseanne, you come up. Yeah.

Can I help her?

So sustainability would be we're looking to house 10 individuals with this funding. So, folks at leave Ophelia House and then our aging out YHTP youth really have a lot of barriers to finding housing. So this would provide the support for sustainability and be able to offer support while they're in housing so they can sustain the first year with financial some limited financial support and then be able to get, a rental history, work on income increasing. And then, if we're not able to get the full funding, we would help less individuals specifically with this intensive wraparound support, but we would be able to continue to build on

that.

We also have a property that the YWCA owns that is open, and we're hoping to use that for housing purposes as well. Does that help? Is that what we're k.

Yes. Thank you. We're good. Commissioner Marksen.

Hi. I just wanted to make sure I understand the budget that was submitted then because the budget talks about salaries travel and IT and office supplies. So is it paying for housing or is it paying for the staffing?

There is staffing specific that would be designated depending on the funding level, specifically to these 10 households to do that intensive care and provide support to the scattered sites. So the the staff that could be added would focus on these particular consumers that would come to our program, and we'd be able to do that intensive case management and housing navigation. They are part time positions dedicated to the 10 households that we are slating to help. We would be able to we'd help less households, and we could also limit the hours and maybe make it one position instead of the possibility of adding two part time positions so that we'd be able to meet the need. But it's the case management, the personnel needed to do it, and then the case management related to HMIS and other services that we need to do on the computer so that they can do the work and be effective in documenting and doing the things they need to to help folks apply for housing and other supports in the community.

Thank you.

Any other? Yep. Lindsay?

Just to confirm, this is the only funding source for this project?

It would be the start up funding to get us started to do this then so that we could have designated. Okay. Yep. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other commit any other questions? Alright. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

So I'm just gonna say I was holding this in. Thank you all for the amazing work that y'all do in this community because it is definitely needed and we definitely appreciate this. And, with that being said, the committee and or council may convene in closed session pursuant to Wisconsin state statute section 19.8518 to deliberate its decision. Following any closed sessions, the committee and or council may reconvene in open session.

Mayor, I'm sorry. Staff would request we do the home ARP presentations Okay. Prior to the closed session.

Sounds like a plan.

Thank you. And

as you get ready to talk about well, I'll let you talk about home ARP, but, also, can you make the distinction between home ARP and the program services? Public services.

Do you wanna call the home a RP item?

You're right. Sorry. Next agenda item, twenty six zero zero one zero one one zero, home ARP proposal presentations.

Hello. Okay. So some of you who maybe have been on the commission before applied for this funding, you're familiar with the CDBG public service process. As Lindsay meant Lindsay mentioned, every year, 15% at a maximum of the allocation that we get annually from HUD can get allocated to public services. So those are the presentations that we just heard.

We don't really know exactly what that dollar amount looks like today because we need the federal government to decide on a budget before we eventually get that allocation. We also, back in 2021, 2022, received some home ARPA dollars. So that's now kind of shifting our focus from CDBG. That's now what we're going to hear proposals regarding. As a part of that process, an allocation plan went through in, I think, February, March 2023, with really the focus of the use of these funds being to develop affordable housing for individuals exiting homelessness and provision of supportive services with a focus on keeping people housed and homeless prevention.

So those are similar things to what we may have heard with some of the CDBG focus, but really when we're looking at housing folks with our home ARP dollars, that's gonna be taking someone who is in an active having a housing available for someone who is experiencing homelessness. Andrea did a really awesome job giving you guys a little bit of a spiel on this back in December, but I am happy to answer any questions you have regarding the funding. Otherwise, I do think our applicants are here as well who to to present. We won't make a decision on this item today. That will then come back around in February. And I guess I'll just say we have approximately 658,000 for development of housing and about $330,000 for supportive services available. So,

again, as we call you up, make sure you state your name and your municipality, please.

And we'll start with Heritage Laughs. And I will work on getting your slides up here.

Alright. Mike, could you go or we I'll work I will wait there. Alright. Good afternoon, commission members, mayor. My name is Tyler Sheeran with Commonwealth Development.

I am based in Madison, Wisconsin. Here this afternoon to present our proposal for a proposed affordable housing development known as Heritage Lofts requesting the full amount of the home ARP for housing. You know, with the understanding we've already submitted a fairly robust application, just kinda wanna take, you know, five or ten minutes of your time and really just run through the highlights of Commonwealth as a company, the project we are proposing, and then a few of the highlights that we believe kinda set our projects apart from some of the others. Others. So to begin with, Commonwealth as a company, we started in 2001 in Fond Du Lac and really originated as more of a community based organization that was put in place to address affordable housing needs in the Fond Du Lac community.

After realizing success with that early on, we continued to branch out into neighboring communities around the Fond Du Lac, Fox Valley area, and through continued success with that, expanded into the entire state of Wisconsin. And through more success, fast forward now, Commonwealth now act is active in in 24 states. All we do is affordable housing. That that's really kind of our our bread and and butter, our niche space, and what we're good at. To date, under the Commonwealth name, develop a 125 projects totaling over 8,000 units.

Of those, 70 projects are based here in Wisconsin. And then a couple accolades consistently ranked as a top 30 affordable housing developer kind of since that ranking commenced in 2018. And another thing that we like to hang our hat on is one of the largest woman owned affordable companies. Transitioning into the heritage lofts at Lincoln specifically. If you could go to the next slide, please.

Thank you. So the development as a whole entails taking the former Lincoln Middle School and converting this 1920s historic building into kind of modern loft style apartments. In total, it would be 51 units with bedrooms allocated across one, two, and three bedroom sizes. The ideology behind that is really to try to appeal to as many individuals as we possibly can or households, rather. The one and two bedrooms are great for some of that senior demographic that's looking to age out of their current house as well as young individuals that are entering the workforce looking for a place to live as well as kind of some of those small starter families.

And then the three bedrooms are are great for some of those larger families with a couple kiddos running around that are maybe saving up for a house or not interested in living in a house at that time or maybe can't afford one. But in terms of the revitalization efforts that we would do specifically to the building is kind of a twofold in that it would entail kind of modernizing the building to ensure that a structure from 1920 is now brought up to present day and able to be around for another hundred years. Some of those modernizations would be to really kind of gut out a lot of the the major mechanical systems and upgrade those as those have had a lot of deferred maintenance over the years. So that's one of the big things that we would do as well as really kind of updating this to fair housing practices, ADA accessibility, things like that that, again, were not really front focus centered back in 1920 when the building was first built. But more importantly, it is our goal to preserve the historic nature of this building.

We understand that this is a landmark within the community and want to do that appropriately. And so that will entail, you know, revitalizing the the exterior work, making sure the brick facade is up to date with some tuck pointing work. And then in addition to that, one of the sources we intend to bring into the project is historic tax credits at both the federal and the state level. And so in doing that, you bring in the state historic preservation office, often referred to as SHPO, as well as the National Park Service NPS. And so while it adds two additional cooks to the kitchen, you know, for Commonwealth and our design team, the the benefit that the community is able to realize of having them involved is that the historic integrity of the building will remain intact, and they will have final say of that.

So just putting that out there just to make sure that everyone is ultimately comfortable, you know, with this plan, and and at the end of the day, it's still gonna look like the Lincoln we all know and love. Taking a deeper dive into the 51 units, along the same lines that I mentioned of the the bedroom size, what we've done here is allocate units as evenly as possible amongst various income ranges. And so this is an income average project which allows us to target some of those deeper area median incomes, those lower income earners, and therefore would have lower rents at the 30% level, and then median or the median kinda middle ground would be 50% of the area median income, and then up to 80% as well, with that ideology of every every household's a little different, everyone's income's a little different, and trying to ultimately make sure that we're not turning folks away that are looking for housing. And then just highlighting a couple of amenities that would be in the apartment. You know, as I mentioned, it would have kind of that new construction feel where we're we're trying to modernize these to the extent possible to make sure that they are appealing to modern day renters, you know, which would include LVP flooring where applicable, energy efficient appliances, any unit washer and dryer, central AC heating, modern countertops, things like that.

Again, items that everyday renters are are looking for in today's markets. Taking a step back and looking at the site plan, not gonna run through all the amenities, but what you'll see here is improvements that will be taking place outside of the school. One thing to point out here is there is the kind of native plantings that is a part of the school district that they were adamant on keeping. And after hearing the community's voice, they they wanna see that preserved as well. So that is something we remain to keep intact, but then also trying to better benefit the development and the future residents by adding a parking lot just so that the street is not overcome with now a bunch of cars being burdensome to the existing neighbors as well as adding a playground for the future kids that are that would be living at the space.

You can go to next slide here. Here's just kind of the the floor plans laying out just how the units would scatter. We are featuring units on all three floors as well as some community space on all three floors. So really trying to make this very appealing for for various tenant needs, if you will. Next slide, please.

Now looking at a couple of the the highlights of the development that, you know, Commonwealth feels sets us ourself apart and our proposal apart is really the partnerships that we've put in place here. Commonwealth, as I mentioned, I'm I'm based in Madison and recognize that I don't have the greatest sense or touch and feel what's going on in the lacrosse community. And in kind of raising my hand and recognizing that, we've brought in two key partners to the development to really kinda serve as, you know, local boots on the ground and give us a better lay of the land, and that starts with the Wisconsin Partnership for Housing Development. Do have Todd Mandel here today who is a La Crosse resident, who's a nonprofit that has partnered with Commonwealth on a plethora of deals, providing kind of that nonprofit supportive service background and really kinda serving as the expert on the project in that regard as well as the La Crosse County Human Services. One of the really unique aspects about this deal is that we are reserving a space for them that will feature a couple offices and a meeting room so that they can actively meet with tenants that are existing residents, but as well as the surrounding community and addressing a need that they have and that they're looking for space in the Washburn neighborhood.

So very unique aspect. Just heard from Isaac earlier and, you know, all the good things that they're doing in the community. And so the fact that we could implement that into housing, think, is would be a great key component to this. And then just to kinda round things out, covering just a a few points of how the proposed development aligns with the RFP and the goals kind of outlined with this specific funding. And, again, don't wanna run through all of these, but a few to highlight.

Strategic use of hallmark funds. I think the biggest thing here is to take a step back and look at Lincoln Middle. And if it is not the Heritage Lofts development, what is the future use of that building? It's a gorgeous building that should be preserved. It's a historic staple within the community.

And if it's not housing, then what will it be? We appreciate the the school district for their ongoing collaboration with Commonwealth in allowing us to kind of extend site control. This is a project that we've been working on for a fair amount of time, and I think that alone is a testament to not only the school district supporting this, but kind of subtly saying this needs to be housing because we don't have any other end use for this building. Another one, demonstrating strong project readiness. As I mentioned, we did extend site control with the school district, but the big thing I wanna highlight here is the neighborhood engagement.

The Washburn neighborhood is one of the oldest neighborhoods, as you are all well well aware of, and have a a very sensible pride of what they do in their neighborhood. And that was something that we had noticed early on and have done a neighborhood meeting right there at the school, and it was a great opportunity just to kind of answer folks' questions, alleviate some concerns. And through that, it really kinda had everyone leaving that meeting that this is something we really support, and we're kind of on board that this needs to be housing. So we thought that was great just to get local stakeholders' feedback in the development and have their support as a whole. And then I think the last thing to highlight here is the financial feasibility and public investment leverage.

I think another key thing to really take a look at is how far can the city stretch these home ARP dollars. And in looking at the development, 51 units, you're getting the most bang for your buck. So I think that's another big thing to consider. But with all that said in mind, again, I appreciate everyone's time this afternoon and happy to answer any questions that you may have, if any.

Thank you very much. Any questions from commissioners? Council president?

I'm just excuse me. I'm just curious to see if this particular presentation could be sent to us

as members.

It's a bit more condensed than the

one Like 166

I said, realize it was We're a robust

the material.

Thank you. Absolutely.

Any other questions from commissions? Commissioner Markson?

I will admit I was kind of struggling to get through the 169 pages. I tried, but some of this stuff is so small. And it's not necessarily my role to say what's happening inside, but I still just don't have a great grasp of the project. So having kids that went through that school, it's things like you have an auditorium, and it appears that you're gonna keep the exterior in there. There's three I think there were three additions to it, so some of it's not accessible by the elevator that's there. So just an idea of how you're going to adapt this to meet the needs of those individuals. I I would like a clear sense of that.

Sure thing. Yeah. So it it again, it's it's a complex process in trying not to get too far in the weeds. I do apologize if there was something that was was missed in the application. But the building does have to be a 100% visible, and so that's something that we're working through right now with the architects, the construction team.

They've all walked that building. However, when bringing in the National Park Service and SHPO, like I mentioned, they're they're very touchy on kind of those community spaces and how they get revitalized. So to your point on the auditorium, oftentimes larger community spaces like that cannot be converted into apartment units because they were kind of a a key component of this being a school building. So, typically, in these projects, aspects like that will remain untouched and then just kind of available for tenant use. And then the classrooms themselves are what gets turned into the apartment units.

So it really is kind of this blend of modernizing it in the floor plans here. And, again, we can send this around so, hopefully, it's a little bit easier for you to see. But that kinda gives a a clear depiction on what will remain as requirement from the National Park Service and then what we are altering what we are altering and what they will then be turned into, if that makes sense.

It does. Just follow-up. Too so if I'm envisioning this, this upper area is an old gym. It looks like there's still some open space there. I think there's varieties of levels. So is some of this not going to be accessible and other areas are?

No. The the plan is to have it fully accessible. I again, we we've walked this with the architects. This is all very preliminary stages, but it is the plan to have it fully ADA accessible.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions from commissioners? Seeing none, thank you very much.

Thank you.

And I will have Senair come up next.

Hello, everyone. My name is Nicole Solheim. I am with Senair. Thank you so much for your time to present. I'll very briefly just go over a few slides. First, I just wanted to start with some experience that is very relevant to our proposal and to our request here today. Up here is the collective on 4th. I'm sure many of you, if not all of you, are familiar with it. This is a development that was a strong partnership with the city of La Crosse. We completed it last year.

It is 62 units total, 52 of which are affordable. And importantly, 13 of those units are set aside for folks that are coming out of homelessness. And in order to serve those individuals in those units, we created a new partnership with the Pathways Home team, so working with the city and the county. We established an MOU before we started the leasing process. And through that, we were able to get all of our referrals and ongoing case management with the Pathways Home team.

This is really an ideal partnership for us. We need someone that we trust and can work with long term to provide referrals that we know will be there when residents need support. And the Pathways Home team needs units to put folks in. So it's really a wonderful partnership for us working with Brian and Jim and the whole team there. We work with case managers throughout, you know, multiple agencies that are serving residents.

Those units also have a component that relates to our our proposal here, and that that is that they have HUD rental assistance. So those residents, although those units are our lowest income income and most affordable units, those units also have rental assistance. And that ensures that those residents pay only 30% of their income max on rent. So they could be making, you know, very little or or nothing. And we accept that, and HUD will make up the difference.

So that ensures that we can serve folks at all ranges of their affordability, and they have that long term housing stability. If their income changes over time, their rent will change over time. And that's something that we're looking to apply to in this proposal as well. So you can move on. Thank you. All right. So 7th Street Residences. This proposal is on land that is on the Amplify Health campus. The land is currently owned by Amplify and will be donated via a long term ground lease for a dollar. The new building is proposed to have 45 units total and it will be a 100% affordable.

This aerial view, which is also in our proposal, so you can see it a little better, shows the outline in blue along the creek there, along the pedestrian path, which is a great amenity, is our new parcel. That is where the building will be developed. And then Kitty Quarter to that are two existing HUD assisted buildings that are owned by Amplify. They are aging. One of them is occupied.

One has been vacant for a while due to the building condition. And Christopherson, which is occupied by 20 residents who have various levels of physical disabilities, many who have lived there for a very long time, the intent is to move that HUD rental assistance and those residents into a new building. And then, of course, expand that building so we're able to offer additional housing to other residents within the community. So it's really important that we are preserving that HUD rental assistance, which is really rare and valuable and needed in the community and that we can transfer that to a new building. That is a process that we are familiar with.

It would be the third development in Wisconsin where I have gone through this process. Those residents at Christopherson really value that location on Amplify's health. They receive health care on the Amplify campus and want to stay in close proximity to those services. So it's really important that we develop on this site that is still accessible to them. In addition, there's a lot of dominoes in this proposal in that when we're able to develop on the new site and move those residents in that HUD assistance, that opens up that Christopherson building.

And that is what Amplify is planning to expand their Unity House treatment center, so where they provide addiction treatment services. That is, of course, another extreme need in the community, particularly with the closures in some of and some in the region. So the idea is to repurpose that building and be able to expand services. So there's, again, multiple layers within this overall proposal. With the new building 7th Street, though, again, 30 of those 45 units would have rental assistance, and we would look to expand our partnership with Pathways Home that we have at The Collective into this new building.

So receiving referrals and services for those residents and be another another resource to house those individuals coming out of homelessness. The building will have a a lot of focus on accessibility, particularly knowing our current residents at Kristofferson. We met with those residents along with our architect and contractor, walked through their units so they could tell us what works well for them, what doesn't, so we can start planning to ensure that we meet their needs in the new building. We also will have a 1st Floor community space. So Amplify actually surveyed the programs that they have within their organization as well as partners they work with just to get starting a big spreadsheet of what could you use this space for, everything from, you know, CPR and first aid classes, mental health programming.

So we plan to utilize that. Amplify, it has is a big campus, and it can be kind of intimidating for people to to find a place to park and and find a service like that in their campus. So we're hoping that this community room can be more accessible for that type of programming. And then with this request, just in terms of timing, we have currently a pending application application with with WIDA. WIDA.

It's one of our primary funding sources. It's the same kind of capital stack that we had at the collective on fourth. And we would plan to start construction in 2027 and complete the following year in 2028. We are requesting requesting the the full amount of of the development funds, the 658,000, as well as some supportive service funds, and that would be to capitalize a service reserve, knowing that we will have residents that require supportive services to remain stable in their housing. That reserve is intended to be able to work with local service providers and pay them for their time and ensure that we can provide that for the long term. I'll stop right there and can answer any questions.

Thank you. Any questions from commissioners? All right. Seeing none. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Habitat, do you wanna go next?

And I'm gonna see. Well, let's see if this works.

Alright. Good afternoon. Thank you for having me. My name is Anna Sprague, and I'm the development director of Habitat for Humanity at the Greater La Crosse region. So I am I'm here on behalf of Kaya Fox. She had an emergency come up. She was really hoping to present today, but I will will try to be brief. The need for affordable housing. Right? I'm not gonna lecture you on something that you already know, but home values have outpaced what people can afford, and we have a huge housing crisis.

And there's a lot of data that we can back up, back this up with. So access to affordable housing, especially affordable single family housing, is really limited right now. And, you know, if you talk to any developers, they will talk to you about the rising costs, all the things that go into development, and what the bottom line is. And that's why a lot of affordable developers choose to work on high unit rental income, or rental properties, and don't really go after the single family homes. So Habitat is some of the only affordable housing developers working on single family homes in our area.

We, you know, are not in it to make money, so we're not looking at that bottom line like a lot of companies are. And while we didn't

request any supportive services, I also wanna call out that we do a lot of homeowner support,

while both in the application process or for people interested in Habitat homes or homeownership in general, but also after the purchase. Habitat homeowners are some of the most successful low to moderate income first time homeowners that there are. They default on mortgages at a much lower rate than the general public. So the solution to this crisis, right, is to obviously build more homes. And Habitat's been building homes in our area since 1992.

We've built over 90 homes. 41 of those have been in the city of La Crosse. And so part of this proposal brings brings in both old habitat and new habitat, which we've recently got in into a lot of modular construction. So that is factory built housing, which, you know, sometimes people hear factory built and they think manufactured housing or mobile homes or things like that. A of that knowledge and what's happened is outdated.

Modular housing is built to the local code. It is highly efficient, energy efficient. It has to be transported through the highway, right? You have to withstand highway speeds. Modular is what's also known sometimes as prefabricated housing.

So it's built in a controlled condition, right? You are not building things out in the rain where materials are warping or, you know, you don't see a lot of people building right now in this climate, but it's very controlled. Things Things are squared and they tend to be much more efficient. So it's faster, it's more cost effective, it's on average probably about 30% cheaper for us to use modular housing than our regular stick build. And the long term effects of cost savings as far as energy efficiency are huge, especially for the low to moderate income households.

As part of this, we won't be only suggesting modular housing. The first two units that we submitted as part of this proposal are identified. Are in the Washburn development that we have. They were donated to us by three sixty Real Estate after they received them from mail. One of them will be a home preservation project. So it's a house that's been there since 1926. We are moving it over. We told them, please don't tear it down because we also love to preserve and reuse materials at Habitat. But rehabbing housing is expensive. And that affordable starter home doesn't really exist outside of what we do and what we can put into it because our housing stock is really old here.

And so in order to get into home ownership, people are generally outbid, they can't afford it, or they have to buy something that's going to need a lot of work and a lot of money put into it in the coming years. So we are rehabbing that house, which won't be as cost effective as putting the modular unit that will live next to it. But it is very worthwhile and a staple of that neighborhood. And so in our community listening, we knew that that was really important to the neighbors to keep that house. And so we worked with three sixty to have that house also donated to us.

We just had to move it. And so we are about to break ground in the next month as long as, you know, the weather could maybe warm up just a little bit would be helpful. And we will start on that project and, you know, be working diligently to get that finished. And then we also put in for three additional units that would be identified at a later date. Most likely would be modular housing, but we would look to see what the community and neighborhood needs are specifically, or if there was already an existing house, we'd be open to that.

All of are under 80% AMI, and they are first time homeowners, and Habitat provides 0% mortgages and additional assistance. We often partner with Cooley Cap for down payment assistance to make everything truly

affordable. Affordable. Thanks. Thanks.

Thank you. Any questions from commissioners? Alright, seeing none. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Julie with Karuna, if you wanna share next.

Hi. I'm thank you so much for having me here today. You know, we're a much smaller local organization and younger than any of the other folks presenting here today. But I think we have a really important project to share with you. So we've been, working on our supportive housing program for the last two years.

Our program is the only program in the community that offers twenty four hour on-site supports to our residents. And all of our residents are folks who have been chronically homeless in our community. We offer twenty four hour support with a focus on shared lived experience. So a lot of our staff members have certifications as peer recovery coaches and peer specialists. They have that lived experience with mental health and substance use issues to be able to provide support twenty four hours a day to all of our residents.

So currently, we operate, whole living style housing. We rent out a duplex building that has two sides to it with six bedrooms on each side. And so we rent out individual bedrooms. One of the bedrooms is currently used as an office space. Our residents, pay rent, and they also participate in community service to be a part of the project.

And we have a case manager who provides, lots of care coordination throughout the community. We don't like to duplicate services. We collaborate with other agencies and organizations in the community to provide a lot of those, support services that our clients need to gather or to gain employment or access to benefits, that kind of thing. What our our target population is it's a small population. It's it's about 20 to 23% of the total overall homeless population, but it's a it's a very important group of people to serve.

These are the folks that oftentimes are in our parks. They're oftentimes the folks drawing a lot of attention to the homeless population and giving it, a negative reputation. It's folks with a lot of mental health issues and substance use needs. These folks are still deserving of housing, but they just haven't found the right program to give them the support that they need. Most of our residents have actually been through other programs in the community, but, not because the programs weren't awesome.

I think all of our programs are awesome. They, these folks ended up returning to the streets because they just needed a lot more support. So the last two years of our pilot has been super successful. We actually earned a reference from, the city of La Crosse Police Department. We've been able to keep people housed.

We've even been able to have one person do tremendously well and graduate from the program and go on to living in the community on his own. And with help from the city of La Crosse in November, we were able to close on our very first owned building. So now we not only have the rental unit, we also have, a house on, Copeland Avenue. And, this was this was due to money that we got from the city through, the last round of ARPA dollars, and we're super excited about that. We're beginning to move, residents in there.

We're doing some collaboration with Pathways Home and Cooley Cap, in order to select our residents to be living there. So we're super excited for that. Thank you very much for that. And so, you know, again, this was a smaller population, but we still have some more folks that we need to get housed. And it's important to house this group because this is the group whose name comes to the top of every housing list in our community.

When it comes to our other programs in the community that are HUD funded, they are required to take from the top of the list. And so oftentimes, you know, a lot of our folks have been through these programs again and again. You know, when they're discharged back to the streets, they come back to the top of the list. And we never get to help other people, further down the list who might do really well in those programs if given the opportunity. So they kinda create a little bit of a clog in the system.

I don't like to necessarily use that term to describe people. But if we don't get these folks housed, well, then it it sort of mucks up the whole system. It has a lot of impact. And, of course, you know, we know from, you know, having, you know, park closures in the city, and lots of lots of, conflict over how we manage the homeless, the homeless population in our community that, you know, being able to resolve this problem will have a tremendous impact on all of La Crosse for the businesses downtown, and just being able to attract employers and and new folks to the community. So our request to you is to help us continue to grow.

We are looking at two additional buildings. The both buildings that we're currently looking at are with the same seller who who, sold us the house on Copeland. We're not glued to that by any means. We're still continuing to look. But we like both of the buildings because each of them offers a different layout.

So like I said, we're still we're currently still doing, coliving style, rentals. So there's, in the new house, there will be four people on each, level of the house. There's two levels. And then in the duplex, there's 11 people total with six on one side and five on the other. With one of the new buildings, we'd like to be able to offer some efficiency, apartments because we do have some books that will do better on their own rather than in a group living situation, but they do still need that 24 support.

So we're looking to expand and add some diversity to the types of units that we have available. We continue to collaborate on filling those units. And I did want to mention too that in Mara's report to the staff, she notes that our request would fund 12 units. It actually would fund 20 to 24 units. Based on the buildings that we purchased, we're looking to house 10 to 12 with each building. And I think that's it.

Thank you very much. Any questions from commissioners? Commissioner Markerson?

Thank you for presenting. Just one quick question. There's a pretty big price difference between the two properties. Can you just describe, is that more build out costs that are needed?

No. It's it's the actual it's the actual price that the seller has quoted to us, and that's why I say we're not glued to those properties. I wanted to give you an idea of types of properties we were looking at. The one that's larger actually has the efficiency units in it. So we anticipate it will probably any building with, you know, efficiency units will will probably be more expensive. But like I said, we're not necessarily glued to that bed right now.

Thank you. Any other questions? Alright. Seeing none. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you for the correction there, Julie. I appreciate it. Next, we'll have the county come up.

Hi. Jim Drees, La Crosse County Human Services, homelessness response, system manager for Pathways Home.

Annalise Skoda. I'm the Manager of Integrated Support and Recovery Services with the Cross County Human Services.

First, I just wanna take a a moment to acknowledge and recognize all the time and energy, all these proposals put in our system. You know, it's a complex challenging problem we have, and this many proposals to me are just a sign of of a healthy system. So it's it's great to be able to see that. We're two years into our Pathways journey, and it's really deepened our understanding of our response system and our and our system gaps. Last year, 2025, through the help of a lot of community partners, some of which you're hearing from today, we were able to put a 193 households into housing with a 90% retention rate.

Yet, we ended the year with 235 people we know by name that don't have housing in our community. To address that, whenever possible, we're always looking, for existing programs and resources, that we can use and leverage to reduce the burden on our, local resources and our taxpayer burden. An example is, like, La Crosse County Human Services specialized unit now has a team of six full time social workers and three full time peer support specialists with lived experience that are dedicating to helping people exit homelessness. Their work is sustainable because it's funded through Medicaid supported programs, but those programs come with a lot of statutory requirements. And we're finding individuals, a lot of individuals, particularly those with higher needs, aren't able to meet those requirements.

This creates a significant gap in our homeless response system. So our proposal is around requesting funding to establish an intensive housing support service for folks with higher level needs, that aren't matching into our existing programs. We've learned from Milwaukee County, they've seen a lot of success with this as a cost effective way, to work with folks and get them into housing for high needs. And so we have this opportunity now. And and without additional unrestricted and, high intensity support, As you've heard from others, we're gonna see some of these high individuals still unsheltered in our community, cycling through emergency shelter, jail, hospital rooms, parks and ramps, and other places on there.

While they're really waiting for our limited supply of really the specialized housing to come available. And we know this just has a negative impact on our community.

So my role as manager of Integrated Support and Recovery Services, part of our department has the specialized unit that's been talked about, the case management and peer support workers. So this case management position would supplement those already existing positions within the Pathways unit. As Jim spoke about a little bit, we do have CCS and CESP, but they're Medicaid funded and state regulated. And they work really well for the people who are ready to engage in that level, but we're seeing a gap for people who aren't quite there yet. So the program would assume a level of stability and consistency that many people don't have when they're first identified through pathways that'll help to get them ready for the ongoing programs.

Without something in between, we worry that people remain unsheltered or cycling through crisis systems while waiting for the limited high needs housing. So what we're proposing is the intensive flexible housing focused case management that meets people where they are, often before the formal program enrollment is possible. We're looking to stabilize their housing and behavioral health needs, reduce crisis use, and ultimately transition people into sustainable services like CSP or CCS when able. So it's not about replacing the existing programs, it's about strengthening the system so those programs can work as intended. We look at sustainability with this that we could look to braid those sources in because those those programs that exist, we can do a flexible braided funding source to be able to have this case management program at some point utilize those supports once people are ready to get into those levels of services.

So this case management would offer frequent, flexible, community based services delivered in the community, connections to mental health and substance use services, life skills development, crisis response, care coordination, benefits navigation, and system advocacy. It also allows for a great deal of relationship building, which we know is necessary to help people trust our system and for us to get to know them. So the request represents the full amount available for supportive services under the home ARB allocation. But if awarded less than the full amount, we can scale this to the duration and intensity level of service proportionately while maintaining the integrity and service quality. So by investing in startup intensive case management, we'd look to strengthen our home local homeless response system, reduce reliance on our high end services, and accelerate progress towards the Pathway's Pathways Home goal of achieving achieving functional zero homelessness.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Any questions from commissioners? Commissioner Marcus.

Just a question. So would this predominantly be adding staffing or some of the, I'll just call them tools that staffing have access to? Yeah. This would

be for staffing specifically for a case management position.

Doctor. Thank you. Any other questions? CNN, thank you very much. And that's our last one. Correct? Okay. Alright. I'm not gonna read that statement again. I'll take a motion to go into closed session. So moved by commissioner Lee. Is there a second second by commissioner Markison? All in favor signify? Alright. We'll be moving into closed session.

Yes. We can take a point of privilege to how I don't know. Five minutes. Alright. We're gonna move back into open session.

Again, we're, online item or agenda item twenty six zero zero nine three, the twenty twenty six CDBG public service presentation and possible action. And today, we're gonna be taking action. So can I get a motion? Commissioner Lee. Okay. Can you use the microphone for us? I

propose we fully fund the county's proposal, fund the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities at 20% of the grant that we the money that we have available through the grant, and then, New Horizons Family and Children's Center and among organization at 9%.

I second that motion.

Motion has been made, second by council member Goggin by a show of thumbs up. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Alright. That motion passes with What is it? Six. Six. Six yes and one abstention. Moving to our next agenda item, twenty six zero one zero nine, action on offers to purchase. Jonah.

The easy decisions continue.

So,

1223 9th Street South. This is a project home in our replacement housing program. The students at Western Tech built this house. You can see the pictures on the memorandum that I sent around. We're pretty happy with this one.

It fits really well in that neighborhood, and there's been a lot of interest on this one, for quite some time, actually. So you can see there the the list price was 292,000. Same setup as in the past. 55% of that sale price, the buyer is responsible for in a first mortgage, and then we provide 45% of that sale price in mortgage assistance in a deferred second mortgage and a forgivable third of $25,000. Again, front end ratios, back end ratios, those are numbers that HUD holds us to.

So we need to be, buyers need to be at least 30% on the front end. That means no more than 30% of their monthly gross income goes to mortgage, taxes, and insurance. And then the back end just adds any additional, debt that the, applicant may have that caps at 43% for HUD. So all three offers were well within those guidelines. I did note the number of times, these folks have offered, specifically because one of our buyers has has worked very, very hard over the years.

I'm always careful to advocate for one over the other because all three of these folks are very well deserving. They all work hard to put these offers together. I know they all find as much money as they possibly can to put down on them as they get pretty competitive. But as you can see, the first offer we received, this is this will be his sixth time, offering on a house. What else do I have to add? I put in the staff report, you know, the all the changes in in assessment, that sort of thing. So it's you know, we'll be over a 100% of the previous assessment once once this is back on the tax roll.

So can you clarify what our role is for today?

Well, so I'll I'll add that, when we put these offers out there, I don't use names at all. We wanna protect people's anonymity, in a public meeting. We're talking about people's finances. So I just list them in the order in which I receive them. I need you to tell me who we're gonna sell this to.

Can I ask a question? Commissioner Lee, you go first.

No. No. Oh.

Okay. In regards to the documentation and the staff report in which you just stated, you said there was one person that have put a offer on six houses.

This is his sixth or seventh. One one

of the two. Sixth or seventh? Yeah. Is there without identifiable information, is there a reason for that?

He's been a victim of circumstance a couple of times. You know, we try to with with me only giving you numbers, you know, typically, we would look at these and just go with whoever has the best numbers. Okay. There's been some I know he missed out on one, that we sold to a disabled veteran. That gentleman's numbers weren't the best, on the list, but, you know, he missed out in that instance. You know, it's it's mostly been circumstance. He's had really solid numbers on on all the offers. It's not like he's shorting us in any way.

Gotcha. Commissioner Lee?

Yeah.

Feel free. I

would make a motion that we accept offer number one.

A motion has been made to accept offer number one by commissioner Lee, second by council president Dickinson. Any other discussion? Seeing none by a show of hands or

I would I would just like to make one comment that I really appreciate all the hard work you do on this, and your passion for this is we can see it. So thanks a million.

Thank you. Thank you.

Ditto on behalf of everyone here. Alright. With that being said, signify by saying I are thumbs up. And that motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Oh gosh. I envy you, baby.

Can you

Well, I don't envy you that part.

Alright. And our next agenda item, twenty six zero zero nine one housing rehabilitation programs subordination request.

Hello.

So we have an rehab applicant that's requesting a subordination of our $14,000 rehab loan mortgage. It's a second mortgage that we have. They're requesting about $35,000 for this new mortgage. They are requesting it for $25,000 ish of debt consolidation and the other 6,000 and or 800 for rehab. And our program guidelines state that it has to be the proposed loan has to be used for property and home improvements or for refinancing an existing home mortgage.

Because of that, staff recommends denial because the majority of the new loan is for debt consolidation.

K. Can you clarify? I feel like in a meeting, a few months back, someone mentioned that this program no longer existed.

That is not correct.

Okay. I feel like in the

We have we have taken a break on the program for about a year here, so we're getting ready to bring it up and running again. But we do have a lot of loans that are still outstanding also.

Okay. That thank you. That actually probably what it was is that it was taking a break because I remember in the budget conversation, this was all part of that. Okay. Councilmember Goggin.

I'd like to make a motion to deny.

Motion to deny. It has been made second by sorry. Rewind. Motion to deny has been made by council member Goggin, second by commissioner Lee. Any other discussion? Alright. Seeing none, all in favor of the denial signify by saying IR with the thumb. And that motion passes unanimously. This has been a great meeting. Thank you all so much. Meeting adjourned.