Redevelopment Authority - Regular Meeting

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outside of reading. Are you speaking on anything that you've said or anything?

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if they wanna do mine soon. So I I didn't show you mine there. That's the total of mine.

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I'm here. Yes.

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Yeah, what's going about committee meeting? I was like, okay.

Committee meeting started at three, so I think she'll you call her.

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granddaughter is gonna see me on.

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she said probably too that she can tell her to show it on the.

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like an import there.

Grandpa. Yeah.

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Lisa, I think you could call Norma. Everyone's sitting on commissioner Moro, I believe, is in a committee meeting. So following. Yeah. She I had called her earlier today. I'm going to my committee meeting. It's great thought. Was.

Oh, that's right. That was. That's right.

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It's Sorry. It's

especially with our issues. Think

she is okay with your soul flower. Mr. Tance. How are you? Your name

was mentioned during a Brewer's Facebug. Wasn't it? They broke in with breaking loops on the radio snare. Oh, I said that housing guard has. They got two out of Greenland. Well, they have

the junior, so I can't die.

I told Amy when I saw her the other day. Somehow we got on the rate we got on the movers. I've always had that. Rumtree store.

And the cashier introduced herself. She said, you didn't know that kid.

Right? It's still kid. Yeah. So he was like Yep.

Check out first. Yeah. Right?

Me,

Mhmm.

Your hair there. A summer bob.

So Everybody had some sassy news ago about it.

Yeah. I'm just chatting. Good, obviously. I'm.

Okay.

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love the.

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Are we good?

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We'll go ahead and get started. Alright. This is the regularly scheduled meeting of the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee taking place at 4PM on Wednesday, 05/20/2026. Can we get a roll call, please?

Commissioner Nelson?

Present.

Commissioner Epez Klassen? Present. Chair

Hazlett? Present.

Vice Chair Gottsler? Present. Commissioner Snyder? Present. Commissioner Moore?

Item a is approval of the consent agenda.

Okay. Would a commissioner like to move approval of all items within the consent agenda?

So moved.

Second. Alright. Can we get a roll call, please?

Commissioner Nelson.

Approved. Thank you. Aye.

Aye. I'm so sorry. Yeah.

And so many different meetings. This

is the aye meeting.

Aye. I like it. Commissioner of his class. Aye. Chair Hazlett. Aye. Vice chair Gonczler. Commissioner Snyder. Aye. Commissioner Moore. Under b reports and discussion items, item number b one is a communication regarding Hakim's eviction process and a quarterly update on Hakim's evictions. Greg Cruz and Joseph Dobbs will speak on this item.

Good afternoon, everyone. Greg Cruz with the city attorney's office. Joining me is Joseph Dobbs. Joseph, you wanna introduce us?

Yes. Good afternoon, everyone. Joseph Dobbs, city attorney's office. I am the attorney in charge of evictions for the housing authority.

Welcome.

Many of you probably recall about a year ago, Alex Carson from our office was here. He had handled evictions for the city attorney's office since maybe 2018 or 2019. In the last few months, Alex has sort of transitioned Joseph into that role and trained him. And within the last couple weeks, Joseph's been flying solo, in court, and and we've had great results. So I wanted Joseph to show up. He's not gonna be here for all of these quarterly updates, but I thought

it would

be helpful for all of you

to know who's the person actually in the courtroom talking to the commissioners and Thank you. Comments. So the chair had asked me to, put together, moving forward, a quarterly update about the status of evictions for the housing authority. Because this is the first one that we're doing, I thought that it would be helpful first to just sort of talk more generally about evictions so that all of you understand what that process looks like, how long it takes, what are the different kinds of evictions we handle, all those sorts of things. So if it's alright with you, I'm just oh, lost my chair.

I'm just gonna go ahead and walk us through what a typical eviction looks like and and some some general concepts. Feel free to stop me and ask questions along the way if you'd like. So the housing authority has an evictions team that is, of course, Joseph and Alex who are the attorneys, and they also have two legal paralegal and a legal assistant, Mike Miller and Megan Linde, who do a lot of the a lot of the heavy lifting for us, all of the drafting and reviewing of all the documents and the sort. The two of them are actually physically located in the city attorney's office, but they are HACM employees. And so it's kind of a slightly different arrangement.

But because they work so closely with us on a day to day basis, we thought it best that they'd be housed in our office. So evictions, ultimately are referred to us by property management and the staff of the housing authority. The determinations on when and whether to affect client, tenants based on conduct or rent issues are made on a case by case basis, and they depend heavily on the individual circumstances involved, as well as an evaluation of the evidence we actually have that we can present to in court to support an eviction. And that's especially true when it as it relates to conduct based evictions, criminal acts, things like that. As I I'll frequently say, it's not what you know, but it's what you can prove in court, and that's especially true with the commissioners.

As a general matter, residents facing potential eviction, because of conduct and rent issues are provided with either a five, fourteen day, or thirty day notice to vacate depending on the underlying reasons leading to their eviction. These notices are sometimes curable, meaning we we issue a lot of thirty day curable notices for rent, for example. If they get caught up on rent, they have cured the notice, and they don't have to vacate. Some of the notices are non curable, and that is to say even if they change their behavior, we're it's too late, and we're going to be moving forward with with the eviction. Rent notices, at least the last six years, five or six years, are always thirty day notices, and that is a result of the CARES Act.

Federally assisted housing, eviction notice for rent are required to be thirty day curable notices. So the days of being able to issue shorter notices like a five day notice for rent, HACM does not have the ability to do that. In the event that a notice is not or cannot be cured and the tenant hasn't voluntarily vacated the premises by the end of that notice period, Hakim is forced to file an eviction action in the Milwaukee County Circuit Court to evict them. After an eviction is filed, an initial appearance takes place no more than twenty five days after the filing of the case. If the tenant doesn't appear or there and or there are no legitimate disputes about the cause for the eviction, often the judge or court commissioner will grant a default judgment or a judgment in favor of HACM and issue what's known as a writ of restitution.

A writ of restitution, which we commonly just refer to as a writ, is the document that tells the sheriff's department to help, the housing authority evict an individual. Once we get that writ, we provide it to the sheriff's department, they will come and assist with the eviction generally within ten days. If the tenant does appear at a first hearing, or there are potential factual issues that are raised, the court might set a contested hearing. Those generally take place within the next thirty days. From there, however, often tenants will show up and say they're looking for an attorney or they just got an attorney, and and the attorney needs time to get familiar.

So sometimes the court will grant additional extensions. So, occasionally, with contested hearings, these matters can stretch on for months from time to time. Same thing, though, at the end of a contested hearing, assuming that the court does grant, an eviction, we get a writ, we send it to the sheriff, and then they they, evict from there. After the writ is acted upon, there's another stage of the eviction process, which we commonly refer to as seconds and thirds. What that means is I saw that look.

What that means is there are three causes of action in an eviction. The first is a request for the writ, a a judgment saying that we can evict the person. The second cause of action is for rent that is owed, and the third cause of action is for costs and fees, damages, court costs, attorney's fees. Those are all in the right bucket. Right, Joseph?

Yes, sir.

Okay. We commonly refer to it as seconds and thirds. But it's a follow-up hearing where we actually seek a money judgment against tenants who owe us either for rent or for damage to the property or at a minimum, the filing fees and and legal time and and those sort of costs associated with the eviction. The judgment that we get is ultimately valid and collectible for twenty years from the point it's issued. So the housing authority is able to go ahead and collect those for two decades after after we get them.

After after we get the the judgment, our role is pretty much wrapped up. We communicate all the information to the housing authority, and they will, you know, report the debts to HUD and take collection steps, all those sorts of things. So that's kind of the very basics of an eviction from start to finish. I did put together a written narrative and a little flowchart that you guys should have too, but I thought it'd be easier to just talk you through it. So I wanted to stop and see if you all had any questions before I started talking a little bit about eviction diversion and some of the other options we have to work with tenants, especially as it relates

to to rent. Rent.

But I wanted to see if I gave a lot of information, so fire away. Commissioner Moore.

Thank you so much, madam chair. Thank you so much for laying this out for us. Really quick, just just for process oriented for me. Once the sheriff is involved, once, you know, we get to that process, who is clean to to perform the eviction?

Mhmm.

Who is clearing out that that tenant's space? Is it ours is it Hakim staff and the sheriff is there for

So over Yeah.

Overseeing? How does that work?

The sheriff's department works with Eagle Movers, who assist in actually physically moving out all of the stuff. So it's a moving company. And, ultimately, the housing authority pays for that, and then those costs would get, I believe, added into the third the thirds. Yes. The seconds and thirds.

And the and that individual's items are put where?

I don't know the answer to that, Joseph. Oh.

They're put

in storage for thirty days.

That we oversee. The storage, we oversee that storage.

I'm not sure here. I think Eagle Movers.

Okay. So Eagle the Eagle Movers, stores the items for thirty days. Yes. And then let's say the the it doesn't work out. I think what then happens? I'm just, again, trying to just process this. Right?

And I'm gonna get

And then please come up. Yes. Really or whoever. Come

up. We

Just so that I get really quick. Yes. Because I think I want us all to understand, you know, once a tenant is you know, their items are put in storage, they then have to they, you know, they they do have an opportunity for thirty days. But if that doesn't happen in thirty days, then what?

So I'm Jeanie Dawson. I am a HACM staff. And I know this only because of my previous role working as a housing advocate with community advocates and doing tenant advocacy. So, yes, so the moving company that is the sheriff's company or the sheriffs have an arrangement with the moving company. They give the writ to the moving company. They schedule the moves. They're usually have to be done, I think, within ten days. Mhmm. And then the tenants are notified. There's a notice put on the door.

So if the tenants are able to remove their own belongings, that's what everybody wants. But if they can't, then the movers will go there with the sheriffs who are armed. And it's not pretty, but the movers will move their items out. They will if there's anything that they feel is trash, it will get left on the on the side of the you know, to be picked up by garbage people. Mhmm.

The other stuff is taken to storage, and then they will hold it and charge the tenant for storage fees that will continue to go up for however long they decide to do it. If the tenants are able to reclaim their items, that's great. They'll come and get them out. Otherwise, eventually, the the storage company will auction off or sell, individual belongings.

Got it. And then, and the as far as the cost to the tenant, they are charged a day a daily storage fee. So they just have to pay for storage fee. They don't have to pay for back rent in order to retrieve their items.

The the the judgment from the court that goes to the housing authority does not include a continuous storage fee or ongoing storage. So that would be separate with the moving company.

Yeah. If I may.

By the time that has happened, the seconds and third states for the money judgment hearing is still usually a month or two in the future. We don't want to have that money judgment process conclude until the move out has actually happened so that we can assess any damage that might have happened in the unit during the move out. So at the point where the resident is trying to retrieve their belongings within that especially within that initial thirty day window, there won't have been a money judgment against them at that point. It'll just be the question of the writ and then the sheriffs and eagle movers coming.

Got it. And last question. Are tenants aware of this sort of process when, you know, if they're coming close or is being evicted? Is there something that, outlines to them, like, hey. This is the process.

Joseph, I would defer to you since you interact with the tenants.

Property management is always willing to talk to residents about active things. There's kind of $2. Bless you. There's kind of two big buckets here as far as the tenants who are engaged with the process and then the tenants who avoid the process. And if they're trying to avoid it as much as possible, they're not going to take advantage of any opportunities to learn more about it.

And and speaking very broadly, of course, individuals are always unique and cases are always particular. People who want that information can ask for it. Generally speaking, the we're serving notices that have a lot of information in them about and that will usually include stuff about eviction diversion. But we generally don't if we're saying, you know, pay your rent in thirty days Sure. Have a whole timeline at everything that could happen after that.

One of the the things I do in court, and we'll probably get into this generally when we talk about eviction diversion in the next section, is go over these consequences and just the shape of the future events so that no one is, even if someone comes to court not understanding what's happening or what's about to happen, they have a sense of, okay. This is what it's gonna look like from here. Here are your options in full.

And would you say that it's heavily the responsibility of the property managers to be able to forward some of this information? Again, this is perhaps, hey. You're on the verge, right, of, you know, moving toward an eviction. Would you say it's the property manager's responsibility to be able to share that information? And anybody can answer that question.

I would say that the property managers are not legal experts.

Mhmm.

So there's things that, yes, they can share, and they often do share. Sure. But other things they can't share. So, I mean, if we know the address of where they can pick up their items, yes, we would be more than willing to share it.

Yeah. So before this, Harold, this would be before this sort before the process, you know, starts roll the ball starts rolling down the hill where, you know, where it's just like, now we gotta go to court. Right? Before that, like, hey. You're thirty days behind, sixty days behind, ninety

days behind.

We we do share all that. We share the consequences consequences of That's what that kind of thing. We should be telling them, I'm pretty sure we do tell them that it's gonna cost you. You know? This is it's not just

That's what I mean.

You don't owe just the rent, but you owe the late fees, and then you owe court costs

Yep.

Attorney fees, and then ultimately the eviction fee.

Gotcha. Can you please state

your name for the record, please? No.

Carl Vesens junior secretary, executive director of the housing authority of the city of Milwaukee.

Thank you.

And, madam chair,

ultimately oh, just one more point. Ultimately, the notice that Joseph was talking about is something that we have served on them. You personally serve so that we know that they get it. We we post it on the door. We have process servers. Sometimes public safety will serve. Sometimes the property managers will serve. Okay. But those notices have to be served on the tenants. So at a minimum, they know thirty days before they're expected to be out. You're behind on rent. This is how much you owe. You gotta get caught up now.

And what is being served? Is served in hand, in person? Is it slid under the door? Is it taped to the door?

We do in person and on the door. Correct, Joseph?

Yes. The attempt is always made at least three times to give it to somebody in person and charge at the residence before. If we can if we make three attempts and we can't find anybody there on three usually on three separate days. It's at least two separate days, different times of the day. Sure. If after all that, you still can't hand it to somebody, it gets posted on the door and it gets mailed to them, I believe, first class mail.

Mhmm.

We can't do certified mail only

Okay.

For public housing.

Okay.

Some of the LLCs maybe. So those attempts have to be made. If they're ducking or if they're out of town, you know, it could be innocent or not as far as why they're not there, but it will be posted to the front door. And that's not

and is that documented?

Absolutely. We have affidavits in every case at a minimum from the process survey.

To have those for court,

to make sure that we have made our our proper service attempts.

Commissioner Yapes Klassen.

Yes.

And, Greg, you alluded to speaking to eviction diversion, so maybe you're gonna get on to that. But I was just gonna ask about mediation opportunities, etcetera, to avoid that.

For example, the Milwaukee mediation

Yep. Program that I don't know where they are now.

I used to volunteer there once in

It's now with the Milwaukee Justice Center. Okay.

Yeah. It used to be at the law school when

I worked

for them.

But we don't have a formal participation in that. I do think that we get requests to mediate from time to time, but I haven't been too involved. I don't know, Joseph. Yes. You're still relatively new. I don't

know if you've dealt with any mediations.

I haven't done any of it myself. We get the requests occasionally. Our advice generally has been that if property management wants to participate in this process, they can, but that we have our own ability to work with people directly. We're not slumlords trying to squeeze people for every, you know, thing every month right on time. So we don't think it's a process that necessarily brings a whole lot to us when we're trying to do our best to keep people housed all on their own already to introduce a a third party in the middleman.

So Got it.

We have the option open, but we don't make it a big part by process.

And the other thing to note that's maybe a little we're a little different than most landlords, because even from a repayment term standpoint, we have specific roles we have to follow. And so that sort of cooperative mediation approach doesn't always work well in the strict guidelines that the federal government has given us on repayment plans. And and so there's a little less flexibility. But as Joseph noted, we're always looking at being able to do those Okay. Those sorts of things whenever we can. Because, ultimately, we don't wanna have to file an eviction.

We just want the rent.

Thank you for that response. Okay. Commissioner I'm sorry. Commissioner Snyder.

Thank you, madam chair. This probably doesn't happen very often, but are vehicles part of an eviction? I mean, have you acquired an somebody leaves, you can't find them, and there's a vehicle involved?

I've never addressed that exact question. I assume if and if a vehicle is abandoned on the property, it would be treated like an abandoned vehicle generally is and towed, impounded, what have you. As far as it being part of a particular person's I've never seen, a damages line item for an abandoned vehicle or a towing fee or anything like that. So I think that would be handled separately.

Madam chair, in the case of an eviction where, law enforcement was involved, That happens.

Mhmm.

Mhmm. And an and an automobile was left on the premises. Would the automobile be taken down the toll if a person was incarcerated for some short period of time.

Do you mean during the the sheriff's coming and removing the process or someone who's incarcerated in the first place, say, five years and we have to evict No.

That's not what no. What I meant was during the process. Okay. So if there's a thirty or sixty day process and the eviction takes place and somebody comes, eagle mover, and they take the stuff out, would they also take an automobile?

I don't think so. Okay. I think that would have to be dealt with separately.

Yeah.

Okay. Because that would seem to me unfair. I would I would probably Somebody can't get can't get to work if they're they don't have access to a vehicle. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you. Ultimately, if people are incarcerated, we do have it come up sometimes where people have to you know, they end up having to go to prison for a few years and and we can't house them anymore. Generally speaking, we get a written release from them authorizing somebody else to come and collect their property. So as long as they are on top of it and reaching out to property management, arrangements can be made still. Thank you, madam chairman.

Oh, wait. Moving commissioner side. And all that. Commissioner Nelson.

In this process and say, this to the point where ego movers are now physically putting their hands on the property of the person and evicted. Are these items recorded and itemized as to what is in storage. And the reason I say that, what if, further down the line, there's a dispute from the renter and say, well, hey. I had more stuff than this. I had two tub I had two televisions, but I only see one. How do you deal with that? How is that done?

I would think that would be a dispute between the moving company and, the tenant, and and we don't have a we're not the people who contract for the movers. Okay. That's the sheriff's department. It's the only movers that are allowed to be used. So I don't know that we would even be involved. I haven't heard of any disputes in my time.

Okay. Can only say that in my experience and other states, the share, there is an inventory taken so that, people can't come back and say Right. I had a million dollars and not much of us.

Press. Took it. Right. They would have used that to be Dallas. They they rent to rent. There. Oh, it it does belong to us. Technically.

Okay. Thank you then.

Thank you. So if there's

no other questions, I did wanna talk a little bit about eviction avoidance just so that the board's aware of a couple of the options that are out there. Before we go into those, though, it's worth noting, for all of you that HUD does not allow us to forgive any balance that's owed to the pub to the PHA. So even if we wanted to forgive the rent and let them stay, we're just not allowed to. They have to pay it all back. If they don't pay it back, even after they're evicted, they're not eligible for housing until the a past housing authority is made whole.

So the HUD's very strict about that. That said, we do have repayment plans that we can we can look at. The the main form of rent repayment is an in court rent stipulation. And Joseph can maybe talk a little bit about how those are all calculated and everything. But generally speaking, we will after we file an eviction case, we'll be able to pretty easily determine, okay.

This case, it's a manageable balance. This is gonna be eligible for a stipulation, and we can try to work something out even though we've already filed that eviction. And as long as they stay up to date on both their ongoing rent and the payments under the stipulation, they can stay. If they violate it, unfortunately, the consequences that they're going to be affected for for violating that stipulation. Joseph, do you wanna talk a little bit about the 40% rule?

Absolutely. So as you, I'm sure, know have heard countless times, tenants rent a set of 30% of their income with certain deductions and, calculations made there. HUD guidance has been that their total payments to the housing authority kind of in any form, but in particularly looking at repayment plans, should never be above 40% of their adjusted income. So that gives us roughly 10% of their adjusted income for a repayment plan for monthly payments. So what we've done in the past and what we're continuing to do is to try and find a down payment size as a one off payment separate from that rule that allows us to pull their outstanding balance into that 10% over a reasonable period of months.

Because not only is it impractical for us to administer a ten year repayment plan, the court will not, accept it. And court sign off is required for, repayment plans done after, things are filed. So with that as our sort of maximum threshold, try we and find something that works. If someone is on minimum rent, our ACOP allows us to, increase that 10% from what would be, you know, 10% of nothing is nothing to a $50 maximum a month, which doesn't necessarily get us very far, but that's if you're on minimum rent, $50 a month is what your rent is set at. So in proportion, it's a reasonable amount of money, and it would make us start on a repayment plan even if they've got a big balance, hopefully.

Oh, it does it does behoove, tenants though to sort of work with us before the balance gets so out of hand that we some cases, look at and you say there's unless they've got $5,000 sitting around for that initial down payment, they were they're never gonna be able to get on to a stipulation, and our hand is basically forced to seek the judgment. Because, again, we can't let them stay there without paying rent, and we can't forget the balance. So that it it ties our hands a bit as far as what our options are. It I think it's probably appropriate to talk about the source of balances because I think everybody just sort of thinks, well, these large balances are from years and years of nonpayment of rent. And sometimes that's true that you could have months or even years of nonpayment rent.

But it's also important to note that a lot of the large balance cases we see are actually a result of unreported income, what we call a retro charge, where somebody hasn't told Marquetta that they got a job, and then their annual recertification comes up, and they've had eight, nine, ten months of this extra income that we didn't know about. Well, they're gonna get a huge retroactive charge because they're responsible for paying 30% of that income Yeah. For all of those months. And they probably didn't squirrel all that money away. And so a lot of times, that's gonna be a source of some of these balances as well.

And so it also behooves the tenants to stay up to date on reporting their income so that we don't end up with these large retro charges and thus difficulty working out a repayment plan. There is one workaround from the tenant's angle to the 40% rule that I did wanna mention because we do see these from time to time, and that is a chapter 13 bankruptcy. Tenants are able to file a three to five year debt repayment plan through the bankruptcy court that allows them to get caught up on rent while making their ongoing rental payments. And because it's through the federal court system, the 40% rule is not in play, and they would basically take whatever that big chunk is, add on a trustee's fee, which is like an administrative fee, and then they can spread that out to a maximum of five years, and they can repay the rent back to us that way.

Mhmm.

So that's another thing that we see from time to time, but, those are difficult cases to get all the way through, and they're complicated. The attorney's fees can be 4 or $5,000. You know, it can be a little expensive, but it is one other option that we do see tenants take advantage of sometimes.

Madam chair. Commissioner Moore. Really quick. Where does tax interception come into play?

So that is after the move out.

After the

move Tax intercept is for so it it wouldn't be like if we have a a tenant that we know is $500 behind. Let's put him into trip while they're still a current tenant. We don't do It's for judgments and move out balances after the fact.

It is there a threshold for the amount? Like, oh, it has to be over this amount? No.

I don't believe

so. And then, can tax interception be for multiple years Yeah. Until the the balance is paid?

Like I said before, the judgments that are owed to us are valid for twenty years. So if they don't get much of a return, they or they have a large judgment out there, they could stay in trip for a long time.

However, we would have to put that in we would have to activate activate that. That.

Correct. We we have to affirmatively, submit the debt to the state Got it. To to enter it into the trip program. And there's some other requirements of Sure. Notice and things like that.

But Thank you.

Generally are just part of account wrap up process at HACM.

Madam Chairman?

Yes. Vice chair Gottsler and then commissioner Snyder.

Vice chair. What you've just described obviously applies to public housing. Is this, to what extent do these same, processes and procedures and regulations that you're describing apply to the, rental assistance demonstration projects that are using low income housing tax credits and do have, section eight vouchers? And how do they how do these rules get applied as it relates to what what I call the Ben's properties. For some reason, they get called vets, which I still don't understand that.

But I know.

It's the market what we call market rate properties.

So I it's kind of step by step in that process. There could be some differences. A lot of the notice requirements and service requirements and how the judgments work, those are operations of state law, so those wouldn't really change. But there are some differences between public housing and the LLCs. Generally speaking, though, they all get thirty day notice of rent because they're all federally assisted housing. So that's one thing that is, the same. I'm trying to think what

are the main differences. The 40% rule isn't there for market rates, and that gives us a lot more flexibility. At the same time, those are generally much higher rental amounts in the first place.

So Yeah.

You have the potential for much larger balances, but you also have the potential for if someone is making, you know, $50,000 a year instead of, you know, $10,000 a year. They've got a lot more flexibility potentially to make a large down payment and, get on to repayment plan anyway. Yeah. So we definitely have more flexibility there with repayment plans.

Commissioner and I. Thank you, manager.

Mhmm. Are these are evictions adjudicated in in municipal court? No. It's, the county court.

It's county court. Mhmm. Yeah.

All of them. Milwaukee County Circuit Court in small claims.

Okay. Even though there's a HUD component to it?

Correct. Mhmm.

Okay. Or a city component. So it's not We

don't yeah.

They don't It's

not okay.

Landlord tenant law is governed, under chapter chapter seven zero four of state law. So it's a a state law process that is and thus goes to the the state court

Okay.

Which is the county court.

Thank you.

The way I think about it is kind of the people we tell to do something about it in the end are the sheriffs who are the the county, but the the sort of state agency versus, the city employees or federal employees.

Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other questions of the commissioners?

Okay. I also along with everything, we provided you guys with some spreadsheets that have very small type on them. Apologies. I I don't expect everybody to look at all of those, and and, frankly, I don't that's really it's quarterly updates on the actual cases that we're taking and where they're at and how much the judgment is if we got to that point, all that sort of stuff. I I wouldn't expect you guys to review all of it

Okay.

Ahead of time, and we probably won't be discussing individual cases as part of this update because that's inappropriate for

Sure.

Kind of privacy and and other reasons. But feel free to reach out to me if there's a line like, well, this one looks weird. What was this about? If you wanna reach out to me after the meetings, you're more than welcome to, and we can

have a discussion about individual cases. I'll probably just loop in Joe's, though, because he he knows about it.

Chair? Vice chair Gottsler.

I just wanna say even though other people may not have read them all, I

actually did. And I'm not not in this format, but on

a very large screen. And I appreciate seeing that detail, because as a commissioner, it lets me know that you have those records and that someone is actually tracking them. Now I can't tell obviously from that to what extent you're doing that, but at least I can see that you have it. And that's and I really appreciate that. Not that I ever doubted it, but, you know, one of the challenges that we've had over the past couple years is the commission not getting enough information. So this is this is really helpful, and it's a good, it's a good model for us to follow. And so thanks very much.

I and I would also say, we we put this together kind of guessing at what you all would want to know about. So if there's things you don't want on there or do want on there, the city attorney's office got a relatively new record system, legal management system, and it actually is pretty flexible on what kind of report reports we can generate. So we can make tweaks to it. This was just kind of my guess at what you all would find interesting to know about. And we definitely wanted to organize them by development so that you could kind of see what are the balances coming from the different developments and how many referrals are from which developments, that sort of thing. So, but we're happy to change it if any

Very has any Thank you. Input.

Manager? Commissioner Moore.

I just had a quick question in regards just sort of a blanket, question. So just even if I pull out of number and, you know, I did have an opportunity to review some of this material as well, but let's let's say the balances that are over $10,000 because that could be associated with months. I mean, you know, lots of months.

It it could also be an insurance deductible for a fire at a unit, and it's a one time thing, and that's $10,000.

Yeah. Could be, retro rent where didn't report their income, and now they have a charge right on it. So it's not always months that causes the the large balance. That's act that's good.

So that's why I said if you look at it and there's, like you see a cluster of cases or a particular case that you're interested, where did this big balance come from? You can always just email me, reach out after the meeting, or even before it, and we can look into it and get back to you one on one, not in

No. No. No. Not at not at all. I think that was that would be just really quick. One of the basic things that I would be interested in because I get retro. Like, you know what? You did report your rent for ten months. Well, here's this balance. Right? But I think more than anything, what I'm more so interested in is, back owed rent that has been several, several, several months past due. And what because that shows that we're not doing something right. You know? We're not there's just something that we're not doing right, whether it's, know, years compiled into something or, you know, I'm you know, the retro I get, but I'm more so interested in sort of what would those cases be. You know what?

You know, Sharlyn, it's really not that bad because there's only, you know, 10% of it. I so that's something I

would love to sort of,

you know, connect one on one just so that I get an understanding because it all boils down to either it's a process thing for us. Like, what are we not doing? Mhmm. Right? Is it is it the housing managers that are not collecting rent? Or like, what's going on? So that that would be something for me, madam chair, that I would really be interested in just so that we get a handle on what do we need to do so this doesn't continue.

Okay.

Yeah. Thank you.

And we can think about if ours if legal files is in a position to I don't know that we'd enter anything into related to the cause of the balance. I'd be surprised, especially because it all ultimately gets entered as a lease violation for nonpayment of rent. I mean, it's a record charge or monthly. But let me think about it.

Okay. Okay.

And maybe we'll just have a conversation too

or you know? I appreciate it. Thank you.

You know, that would be something would come from, you know, the

next day. One one of

the things we can do is rents uncollected report, which does age rents

Yeah.

Thirty, sixty, ninety days. And that kind of report, we can generate and then redact names. There we go. And Yep. So we can do it by I I'm pretty sure that we can do it by unit per development. Per development. Yep.

That would be what I would be interested in. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank

you. Commissioner Snyder.

Madam chair, thank you. Well, since you brought it up, attorney Cruz, the thing that I would be interested would be eviction trends. Mhmm. You know, I I think of, you know, the COVID period as kind of an outlier. At least you can explain, like, whether it was high or low or whatever it was. But year over year, you know, '23, '24, '25, how many evictions there actually were? I don't need the information now.

Mhmm.

But it I'm sure that you guys put that together.

We so we did transition to a new system in early twenty five. So the very like, the level of data that you're getting to that is gonna be hard to get before 2025. That said, our office always does a presentation to the common council where we at least have sort of total eviction numbers annually, like, what what we basically tell them what we did with our year. And one of the slides is always how many evictions and and files were referred, those sorts of things. So I I know I can get you that very high level information, but it will not be broken down by development.

No. I wouldn't be looking for that. I haven't seen that because I don't follow the common council

Mhmm.

Files. But, it would seem to me that it would be interesting to know, you know, what, if anything, is going on. I don't know that it would mirror the rest of the city and other rather large landlords who are, you know, in the newspaper a lot lately. But I would be interested in getting information like that.

Sure. I will I'll put a note down to get that over to you guys to get at least the last, you know, couple of years of what we reported to the council. Additionally, the plan moving forward is to do this update quarterly, and provide you guys with updated spreadsheets. And, we're gonna give you six quarters every time so that as we move, you can kind of see that trend.

Right.

And you can compare the quarters with each other. And also some of the stuff from the first quarter of twenty six, there's a lot of blanks on it because those are also pending cases or a lot of them are. So those things will start to fill in for the quarters that you'll be able to if you track it, you'll you'll kind of be able to see trends on which developments are sending, you know, more or less and what the balance sizes are from those developments as we move along. That's the goal at least.

Thank you, ma'am.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. So I would like to thank you all for joining us this afternoon, and we look forward to, continuing to work with you all. I also wanna acknowledge the way that you've been working with the team weekly on this. So thank you so much for providing us with the data. It was very palatable. We can understand it. So thank you for that as well. And, we will reach out with any questions we may have after this, but great job. Thank you so very much.

Well, thank you. Thank you. Okay.

Alright, Patty. Can we item the next item.

Item number two is a presentation regarding vacancies, unit turns, and an update regarding maintenance. Dakeisha Obi, Marquetta Treadway, NEC Robertson, Derek Wheeler, and Mike Wellman will speak on this item.

They can pull up their own

chairs. One

more chair. One there's one more wheelie chair.

Yeah. Thank you, Mike.

But

but there is only two mics that you will have to share. Yeah. Good

afternoon, team. Before we get started, I would like to go ask you all to introduce yourselves along with your title with Hakim Treval.

Good evening, madam chair. Speak up. Okay. Good evening, madam chair and commissioners. My name is Anicia Robertson, lead director of property management.

Good evening. My name is Derek Wyler, and I'm the associate director of property management at Westlawn

Good evening. I'm Dakisha Opey, assistant director for the poor public housing portfolio.

Good eve good evening. My name

is Marquetta Trepway. I am the director for leasing and compliance for public housing.

Good evening. Mike Woman, maintenance director.

Welcome, team. We will turn it over to

Sorry.

Hey, guys. Alright. So we will turn it over to you, whichever one would like to report out first.

Okay. Okay. My name again is for the tread way. Pardon the microphone. So we because we're recording this for, basically, for our minutes, but that way oh, and we're live streaming too so the folks can hear you. So it's a little weird and a little awkward, but it makes a difference to us on the back end. Thank you.

So, again, my name is Marquetta Treadway. And for the information that I have in front of

me as of today, we have 200 and Marquetta, would you wanna show them what piece is your piece so that they can find them?

I am looking at the leasing and compliance update page.

This page here. Oh.

Alright.

Okay. So we have a total of 269 units for public housing.

Mhmm.

Of those, 199 units are on what we will call on whole or under unit modernization, which is when we are able to take the unit offline for any major rehabilitation or modernization, which, requires something above site staff. So contractors may have to come in and fix something in the unit or something of that nature. So we take those units offline. Units and modernizations are not counted against our overall occupancy. However, they're still a part of our vacancy, units, and site staff still work in those units.

Although we may wait for contractors to come into those units. So those units, we have 199 of those units on hold or in modernization. Also, for applications, we are pulling applications for units. So far, as of the end of April, we pulled 200 for one bedroom, one twenty five for two. We have 30 new applications as we had previous applications for third, three bedrooms.

However, they needed to go back on the wait list because we were prepping three bedroom units for those applicants. And you don't wanna leave the applications open too long because then the information is outside of a hundred and twenty days, which is outside of compliance for HUD. So we put them back on the wait list, and then once the unit becomes available, we pull them and reprocess the income information because the application is good for twelve months.

Mhmm.

So we have 30 new application including the previous ones that were placed back on the wait list for three bedrooms. And then for four bedrooms, we have six units that have been processed, we're just updating the income because the same thing took place. We didn't have the bedrooms available at the time. Now we have the units becoming available, so we're gonna pull those and update the income information so those applicants can move into our four bedroom units. Of the applicants pulled in process as of April 2026, 26 applications were approved.

11 of those applications leased, six declined, nine are waiting to lease. Of those nine, three applications went to Hillside, two Riverview, one Arlington, one Lincoln, and two at Parklawn. As of today, we have put an additional 1,200 units throughout the whole from one bedroom up to five, I believe. We pulled an additional 1,200 units, and we will pull an additional 600 units as of Monday coming to make sure that I'm sorry. Applications.

Was just about to ask that clarification.

Yes. Additional 600 applications as of this Monday coming because we wanna make sure.

Explain why you're pulling so many applications and the waiting list needing urgent. Absolutely.

And I'm sorry. Monday is a holiday. Right?

Oh, thank you for that. Is this

I'm sorry. Thank you.

It is a holiday. Well, it's Tuesday.

Okay. So Tuesday.

Continue. Thank you.

And we are pulling so many applications because we want to have applicants ready to go as the units become available, because we are in we are turning units right away. We want to make sure we are able to get those units filled right away. So we don't wanna wait till the last minute to pull an applicant. We wanna have them on hand ready to go.

But we also have a waiting list that needs to be purged. Absolutely. And so they are purging the waiting list is notifying everybody on the waiting list and asking them to let us know if they're still interested Mhmm. And to update their information and everything so that when, Marquetta pulls applicants, we know that they're ready. So at this point, they're pulling so many applicants, but then they don't hear from a large number. So that's what we're waiting for.

Madam chair. Commissioner Moore. So is it so if we're pulling 1,200, is it, like, first come, first served? It's meaning if you if you sent out the request or, you know, you're pulling those applicants, I'm assuming they may get an email or what like, when you say pull it, what do you mean? When we pull applicants, they do get an email.

There's an email that goes out. They should keep their information updated within their portal.

K.

That is how we communicate with them. When we pull the application for processing, the email does go out. The number of units we have available, we we still need to be mindful to make sure that we are following how they come off the wait list so that we're not out of compliance with HUD.

Mhmm.

As mister Ann stated They we

pull it numerically. So whoever's at the top, it would go from one to 1,200 in this in this example.

Mhmm.

And then, they would send out the information.

So, and and forgive me because I'm just trying to understand. So when we pull the the 1,200, it it's for every it's for every whether you're waiting for one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom, or four bedroom. Is that how I am hearing it or not necessarily?

Not necessarily. So when we pull, we pull at it's a total of 1,200 apps that we're pulling. Correct. It could be, well, it is going to be 600 for one bedrooms because that's the highest number of vacancies we have at this moment Yep. And then 300 for two

Yep.

And so on. Got it. So but a total of sick 1,200 applications will be pulled. Got it. And so, again, the only thing that goes out,

through the portal, they they get an email.

They receive an email, and then we also send a follow-up email. Sometimes we make phone calls if we see that they've started the process, but they haven't responded. We'll reach out to them and say, hey. How about going and finish up your information? Is there anything we need to assist you with?

So the email, transpires, within the portal? Correct. Me so, it it hey. If you wanna continue your process, you know, or your application have been pulled. Yay. If you wanna continue your process, do this update your information. All of that is happening within the portal. Correct. Got it. And then once complete, then what?

Once the applicant has filled out all of their information, we start processing their, application doing the background check, credit, criminal, and How

long does that process take?

I asked my staff to keep it thirty days or less. We have a total of a hundred a hundred and twenty days from the date of pulling the application to the date of housing them for that information to stay compliant, or else we have to update the information again.

What is best practices? So you said thirty days or less is best practices fourteen days. Is it 10 you know, is it twenty days? What's best practices?

Best practice is thirty days at this time.

So and then once that is done, right, the the staff then they they do their background checks. You gotta, you know, check all these things. They you know, they get they then email back the resident or reach back out to the resident Once the or the portal. Everything is probably done in the portal, so

they may get an email to say, hey. Everything is complete. Once the applicant responds, we are in constant contact with them via email, sometime via phone depending on, if the applicant needs to speak with us. Got it. Sometime they we speak with them. Sure. But mostly through email. And we are communicating with them, letting them know what we have available, asking them where would they like to their application to go. And then once everything is processed, if they are approved, we send their application to the manager. We let them know what their rent is going to be.

We let them know we we let them know the rules upfront, processing, income, things of that nature, everything. We try to be upfront with them. We send the application over to the manager and let them know that the manager will be reaching out to them soon. And then the manager reaches out when they get the application, to have them either come view a unit or move in.

Got it. So once, thirty days are up, resident is then, here's our options. What would you like? Hey. I like this one. You know, option b. That then gets sent to the housing manager. The housing manager then has how many days to once receiving that application, how many days does the housing manager have to then

come I'm assuming we're we're now working on completing the process of having that individual move in. We asked the managers to reach out to them immediately so they'll there is some type of communication so that the applicant know we you know, what's the process? Do we have a unit ready for you right now? When would you like to move in? So we're asking the managers to reach out immediately as soon as they receive the application. Some applicants need to give a thirty day notice to vacate. Sure. So if they need to give that thirty day notice, then we assign them to a unit, have them come in and put down a security deposit if they want, and we assign them to a unit so they'll know that we understand your situation.

Sure. Sure. And then, typically, housing managers comply. We we know that housing managers are complying with that process. Once they then get get the the application, we know that housing managers are yep. They're immediately reaching out to that resident and getting them getting finishing up the process.

Yes. I have my staff reach out to for every application we send over to a development Yep. I have my staff reach out to that manager and say, hey. What's the process with this applicant? We don't want any applicant to sit, so we reach out within the week of sending it over to the manager. We'll reach out within the next week saying, what's the what's the process with this? Are they going to house? Because if they don't want the units, send it back. Let's talk to them or something different. So we do make sure that we reach back out to the manager and say, give us an update. What's going on with this applicant?

And in your level of experience, have we had any issues with managers just not being able to sort of or or taking too long to complete this final step?

Actually, not now. No. Now before everything was being organized, yes. But as of now, the manager of And

you say as of now, what are you talking about as of last week, as of as of the past, I wanna say year? Two years. Got it. Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, commissioner Moore. Commissioner, yep. It's Klasa.

It this is really quick, and I think you sort of answered this question. But I was gonna ask if you have waiting list based on for each of, like, the bed bedroom sizes you have available so folks are in line for the unit that best matches their family size, and then you can very more expeditiously, you know, connect them to an available unit.

So we have a public housing waiting list. It is several different waiting lists.

Mhmm.

Before me, there is a public housing wait list. And in within that public housing wait list wait list, there is one, two, three, four, five.

So when

they sign up, they sign up for their bedroom size.

Okay. That's what I was hoping that you would do. And then when you mentioned in terms of timelines for soon, do you have, like, a definition of that, like, twenty four hours, forty eight hours?

I'm sorry.

Like, just are you attaching, more definitive timelines to soon versus so versus soon, like, twenty four hours, forty eight hours?

For the managers to respond? Yep.

Because I think I heard you say soon or immediate, but, like, what does that mean? And so I I just find, like, when you're clear and you are provide very specific time frames, people are more apt to stay in line with those response times then in terms of records, and then you can better coach your team members to make sure that they're staying on top of response times. Absolutely.

So we do ask the managers to reach out to the applicants as soon as they receive the application. And then according to our ACOP, the applicant has three days to let us know whether or not they're interested in the unit. And then after the three days, we could set a time where if they have to give the thirty day notice to their landlord, things like that, then that's understandable, but we try to keep that. We don't wanna let it get away from us. And yeah.

Thank you. I think you're doing a really great job, and I love the system that you were reporting out, on earlier too. But just what I heard this soon, I just thought maybe you might wanna attach some on the actual timeline. But thank you. Yes. Commissioner Nelson.

Thank you for this report. One of my concerns, of course, everyone knows I'm a resident at Arlington Court. So I'm interested in quality living for the residents. And then we all have friends and relatives and people we know, and they said, mister Nelson, I'm on the waiting list. What the heck is going on? No one's contacting me. So looking at this report, I could see that there's a plan in place. You probably always have had a plan in place. You know, I don't mean no disrespect, but it seemed like it was clogged up. And so the way my mind thinks is sort of practical.

I said one of our major issues is money, cash, you know. I said, how do we make money?

Uh-huh.

We rent out the places, you know. If we're not renting out the places, then we are our worst enemies. And then I'm thinking, looking at a report that Cruz and the people before you submitted, I think on there These may not be the same words, but it's like a million dollars in rent is owed to us. I'm saying, how we reach that grand amount. That's a lot of money to me.

Maybe to someone else is not, but that's a lot of money. So I'm trying to think, are we progressing? We've got a new executive director. But it looks from this year report that you got a pretty good plan together. Action is taking place. So we need you to continue to provide us with this type of information. This is the information we could look at and make sense to us and we could comprehend it. But she can give a person something, but do they understand, you know, what they what they've got? So I I could speak personally. I could understand what's going on now.

Yes, sir.

So I just really said all that to say thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, commissioner Nelson. Do we have any other questions before we continue? Alright. We'll turn it back over to you. I will turn it over to one of the other directors. Alright.

Okay. Look.

Portfolio.

Once again, my name is Dakeisha B. With the public housing, we do have the vacant the unit vacancy where we are actually focusing on the four top developments who have the highest vacancy rates at the moment, which is Hillside, Locust Court, College, and Parklawn. We do have a plan where we are accessing to

Do you wanna just show them which, form they're looking at? Then it's got the PHA in the upper right. Mhmm. Continue.

Planning action to attack the units. We are also, one of our plans is to have some contractors come in and help us turn some of the units, especially at Hillside. We will be starting with them first because that is the one with the most vacants right now, which is the 75 units that we do have vacant. So we are working to get the contractors out so that they can actually assist us with turning those units sooner than later. Then we will also be deploying for College, Locust, and Park Line so that we can get those units turned.

We I will be also having a unit of maintenance that will be going to I'm a think I'm gonna start with, Locust and college where we were gonna go there, and we're gonna start working on vacant units there so that we can get the ball rolling with getting these vacants turned to assist with getting these units turned so that we can get them leased versus having them still sitting out. And we do have three, contractors that are interested interested in in helping us, which is intake, ICD, and lakeside remodeling. So once we we should have that finalized, hopefully, by Friday so they can start at least Tuesday, Wednesday of next week.

K. Madam chair? Commissioner Moore. Thank you so much. Let's start out with some basic questions. How did we get to so many units being vacant at these let's look at the four.

Most of them were most of them were evictions, and then some of them could have just been people moved out. And then there were some that was just lingering due to the units that were on hold because they had been in place for a while. So and then we had to wait. And then as we evict people, the number kept rising.

Got it. Okay. And then, when I think about because, you know, it was shared to me, like, some units have to be put on hold because, the damage, you know, depending on the what is being, you know, needing for that space. It may be, you know, more high level. Like, this is expensive to repair, so we're just gonna put this on hold as an example.

Mhmm.

Is it the housing manager's responsibility to sort of triage? So, for example, if I take Hillside that has 75 units, is it maintenance, or is it the housing manager's responsibility to sort of say, well, this is low hanging fruit. This need a little paint. You know? This just need a little clean out. Carpet needs to be cleaned. Boom. We're good to go. But you know? So that's sort of low hanging fruit. We could get somebody in there, this unit could be turned in the next five days. Right? Mhmm. Is that the housing manager's responsibility, or is that maintenance where somebody moves out? Hey, maintenance. You come triage and figure out what needs to be done. How does that, explain to me that process?

It starts with the management. So they always start with the housing manager to do the move out inspection. So once they turn their keys in Mhmm. The managers have to go out and do the move out inspection. That right there will say, hey. We can get this unit turned faster because they may have left a unit in really good condition Sure. Where we can go in, do a paint, do minor repairs, clean it, and we can put it back out so it can be leased. But it always starts with the management before it goes to maintenance.

Got it. And so, again, just using the example of just trying to be really basic here of, Hillside Terrace. Of the 75, do we then know how to and and I know that there are some contractors that that are coming in. But prior to that Yes. Right? Because this is I mean, I've been here since December 2024, and I think our list may have grown. We have never really gotten this sort of this level of information, if I'm not mistaken. But in regards to just what I'm seeing now, in regards to the '75, do we have that as sort of, is that something housing managers were already doing to to to sort of triage it? Right?

So Mhmm.

Let me take your example. Like, let me take your example. Let me I'm trying to be really clear. Let me take your example. Oh, you know what? This one, low hanging fruit could be a little pain, could be a little this. Hey. We can get this turned over really quickly. Did that exist? And if so, why wasn't it? What what was the reason as to why those low hanging fruit wasn't taken care of?

Well, some of them did get taken care of right away, so we were able to lease those units quicker. But then some of the other ones, because of the days that they had been vacant, we wanted to put more emphasis on it because we do wanna get the longer dates that the vacants have been sitting. We do wanna try to do our best to get those off of the wait list so that we can get them turned versus always going to the quick turns, which has only been probably, like, maybe ten to twelve days that we know we can turn it in five Uh-huh. Which give us a total of 17. But then we have to think when we get say, if we had just an example, if we have four units that we can probably turn into five days

Sure.

But we have another, six units that's been sitting for, like, maybe a hundred and twenty, we can probably change we can repair, get the unit ready, maybe three of them for the low hanging fruit as you called it. But then we wanna still focus on those ones that's been sitting out for a 120 because we don't want them to keep escalating in days versus the ones that still that just came in, say, two days ago.

Mhmm. After so many days being vacant Yep. We start losing subsidy.

I was gonna ask.

So it becomes an issue of, getting units that have been sitting because there have been some that are long term and we haven't gotten subsidy on them, what will happen is we occupy it, but we may not get subsidy on the unit again for the following year. And then the year after that, it will kick in because it was vacant for so long.

Harold, is that a ding on us? So when we have a unit that is, vacant for so long, we're we're you're saying we're losing money?

Yes.

Yes. Correct.

I'm sorry. Yes. That is a thing.

I'll come back. Thank you, madam chair. I'll let my colleagues, jump in.

I wanna also let the board know the process is this Thank you. Sorry about that.

That's good.

I just want the board to also know that that same process pertains to the LLC and tax credits and the markets when it comes to the property manager looking at the unit, putting in the work order, and the inspection, and giving it to maintenance. We all are on the same process.

Thank you. I have a question for miss Obi. I noticed in the report, the average days of vacancy is not listed for Hillside. Is there a reason why?

When I had pulled the when I pulled the report for the average days for Hillside, I got, like, three different numbers. The three different times I pulled the report, so I didn't wanna put that number in there just yet until I actually had a a accurate number of the average days for it.

Okay. So do you do you have a ballpark figure of what the average days are for Hillside?

I do have it, but I left it I left that part of the report, but I can get it to you offline.

Okay.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Do we have any other questions?

Madam

chair? Commissioner Snyder.

Yeah. Thank you, madam chair. Of all the things that I've been here before. July will be a year. Of all the things that I've heard and experienced and know a little bit about with regard to day to day housing issues, this is the most frustrating of all of them. Yeah. A 100 per I don't think that there's one thing I loo I don't lose a lot of sleep over this either. But if I'm waking up at night not understanding why stuff happens or doesn't happen, This is it right here. I have a really hard time understanding why stuff takes so long. It I was in the real estate business as a nonprofit.

And if I had a contract with a with somebody that had to whether it was janitorial or maintenance or whatever it was, if it didn't get done, then first of all, it was always on me. Not on my staff, it was always on me. And I I went out and dealt with it, and I know that most of them, at least the nonprofits that and a lot of the for profits because we were in tax credit development, they just you're just losing and hemorrhaging so much money. And you hear so many times, well, this isn't happening. I don't get called back in thirty days, sixty days, ninety days.

It all just, like, becomes mush in your brain when you're a board member. Do you know what I mean by that? I just don't get it. And if you have a contract, you have people who you're working with, you like them, you trust them, they're doing a good job, but it doesn't get done. And there's people that are out there that are lingering. That's the word. I think I heard the word lingering. And the turns and all of that, to me, it's just unacceptable. And I'm not saying that any of you are doing a bad job. I just don't get it.

Maybe I'm not that smart, but, you know, I just don't understand why this process takes so long. That's probably unfair, but that's the way I feel.

No. No. It's not unfair. Thank

you, commissioner Snyder. Vice chair Gottsler. Commissioner Moore. Yes. Super.

Thank you. And I'm hoping that I I was so engulfed in your your your comments that I'm just like, I think I I I forgot my, forgot my question. In reference really quick. To the three if you all can talk to how we got to this point where it's just like, oh, we can hire contractors to help us. Describe how that process came about now, why it didn't come about before, and, where the funds are coming from to be able to take care of it. And that might be a Harold Preston or a Yuval question, but I would love to know that answer.

Harold.

Yep.

I'm going to ask Ken to help, but part of it is we had 2, point $5,000,000 that you were gonna hear about later

Got it.

That needed to be obligated. And, we obligated it, and part of the obligation was to do vacant units.

Got

it. And that's how the money became available. Prior to that, I don't know if there was money in the budget, the comp grand budget to, do vacant units.

I would love, Ken, to talk a little bit. Thank you. I would love, Ken, to talk a little bit more about that timeline.

So Introduce yourself. Yourself. Yes.

Sorry. Ken Barbeau. I'm the chief operating officer for program services for the housing authority. We just recently, in obligating funds, we created a number of work items for this work. Normally, a unit turn can't be done through the capital funds. However, because of the level of work that has been done and the amount of deferred maintenance, we are allowed to put non routine maintenance into the capital fund. And so, we work closely with HUD, to on that, to make sure that we were doing it correctly.

Mhmm.

And we were able to allocate to each of the public housing developments, an amount of dollars from the, twenty twenty four capital funds to, to be able to do this deferred maintenance work. So we have, amount different amounts for each development. Arlington has an amount. College has an amount. High Hillside has an amount, out of the capital funds.

Mhmm. Got it. And then, couple things. For the three contractors, how do we go about choosing those three contractors?

There are actually four contractors. I think one couldn't

k, guys.

Couldn't do the work, you know, in the short amount of time that we had for Hillside.

Got it.

So we've con we've asked the other three to work on it. But out of the four, they were previously selected through an RFP that we did for scattered sites.

Got it.

And so we were able to piggyback on that RFP and use them since we had already done a competitive process, use them for these as well.

Perfect. And then

Madam chair.

Just last really, really quick. Are all four contractors going to be simultaneously working on one side at a time, or are they gonna be dispersed through the different four? What was what's the plan for the four contractors?

Well, I'll let, Dakesha.

Yes.

So for the four contractors, they will be dispersed. We will have at least two of them at Hillside because we, of course, we wanna focus on Hillside. Sure. We will put one at college, and we'll put one at Locust.

So that's the starting point? That's the starting point for them. Got it. Thank you. Vice chair Gottsler.

Thank you, chair. I, I guess my question is really about with the use of the capital funds then, Ken, would that mean that Allison would be managing that work or that would be managed by the maintenance department? Or how will that how will that work be supervised? Or will that be Takesha that will do

it? Right.

In in some ways, it'll be it will be a combination. I mean, it'll be managed by the property managers because normally, if you bring a contractor in to work on those units, it's done through the property managers. However, Allison will have a role, and her staff will have a role in that as well. But right now, I believe it's managed through Dakeisha just like any any maintenance in the development.

And then Allison would manage the drawdown of the funds or the or the disbursement of the funds?

Yes. Allison or and accounting.

Yeah. Thank you. Madam chair?

Commissioner Moore.

So then what would be the role? And this is probably your, question teeing up for you, Mike. What would be the role then of maintenance during this process?

To stock their units with parts, and overseeing how the work is going.

So the whole maintenance department will be overseeing the contractors and how the work will be doing and

It'll be it'll be shared between management and maintenance.

But it won't be the whole maintenance department. Right. No. And the they will still be doing work orders. They will still be doing banking and doing that.

I'm gonna what

weird is that gonna happen?

I'm gonna designate two guys to keep filling their units and just stay with the contractors and do work orders around. So if the contractors need something to maintenance, guys will be on-site.

Perfect. And then the other the other staff is the other, your our other maintenance staff will be keeping up with they'll be really focusing on work orders.

Work orders, and then we are gonna put a couple guys at College Court to get the ball rolling there

Mhmm.

Until we can get a contractor also going there.

Got it. And then how are you prioritizing the work orders? Because I know with some developments there

there It will be

strictly emergencies for right now until we can get a handle on a number of vacants, and then we're gonna go back and do the nonemergency work orders.

So when you say emergency work orders, as they're cut as the emergency work orders have to be, you know, responded to whether it's 24 or forty eight hours. But so whatever nonemergencies that's in the hopper, those won't be addressed.

Not right away. No. We have to get through emergencies and vacants, and then we'll start moving forward with doing nonemergency work orders.

On average, how many emergency work orders are we getting?

Just trying to get a sense

of volume.

You can get anywhere from 15 to 30 a day.

Okay. I'm just trying to, Harold. I'm just trying to think through, the stockpile of, work orders some of the developments that are there's there's quite a bit in particular developments. Mhmm. And so if we're only handling emergencies for right now, do we then communicate back out to our residents to say, yeah. You know, we know that the you know? And, again, there may be some triage in here, but it it would just whatever's in the hopper,

I'm There should be some communication that that's what we're handling, but there will be, a plan on handling the nonemergency work orders. And while they're not handling the nonemergency work orders, my staff is just finding out that they will be going through to find out where their duplicates and all, like, go Yes. The other day. They clean that up Yep. So we get an accurate number of work orders, and then, we will then go through and start doing work orders.

But while, maintenance is doing an emergency work order, if there is a work order needed in that unit, they should just bang that out as well.

Yep. Perfect. And then if we because of that, and I know we talked about some of the duplicates, if we can have a report on work orders just so that we have a sense, is the is it getting worse?

Mhmm.

Are we are we going getting through some of them? Unless unless I don't think

that's the

is there one? There is one. But