Redevelopment Authority - Regular Meeting

And at this time we are asking only for public comments on this topic. A draft of the PHA annual plan and other documents are in the binder before you and have been available for review at the central office located at 809 North Broadway and on HACM's website at HACM.org. I will provide a brief overview of the annual plan and its documents and the public hearing process, and Paul Williams will speak on the comments from the Resident Advisory Board and HACM's responses. Next, members of the public will each be given two minutes to speak about the plan. We ask that everyone be respectful of the process and of all of the folks either speaking or here to listen. Since item B3 is the resolution regarding the plan, we ask that the commissioners defer their questions until that item after this public hearing. First, some information about the documents that are the subject of this hearing. The plan and its attachments are basically the document that makes HACM a public housing authority, which HUD requires us to update and submit annually. This is a dialogue between HACM and HUD. This is HUD's form, their framework and requirements. It is a jargon-heavy, technical document for them to review and approve. Also of note, this is only applicable to HUD's public housing and Section 8 programs, not low-income housing tax credit developments or market rate units themselves, outside of any voucher holders residing there. I also want to thank former Interim Secretary Executive Director Ken Barbeau, who historically shepherded this document and who stayed on to complete the plan this year, even while tackling multiple job titles. The 2027 PHA Annual Plan delineates to HUD the goals and objectives of the public housing and voucher programs, which will help HACMs serve the needs of low income, very low income, and extremely low income families through HUD's public housing and voucher programs. The 2027 PHA annual plan and its associated documents include our description of any changes from last year's plan, estimated total financial resources for the year, any anticipated new actions for the upcoming year, and this year's progress in the organization's goals and objectives listed in the PHA five-year plan. There are also a number of related documents that HUD requests or are related to the process for the PHA Annual Plan. The largest of these are the Admissions and Continued Occupancy Policy, or ACOP, and the Administrative Plan. These are reference manuals for staff. The ACOP is used by public housing staff and the Administrative Plan for various voucher programs. They provide guidance on legislation, HUD requirements, and HACM policy to direct staff in their duties. The overall goals found in the annual and five-year plan include but are not limited to optimizing HACM's organizational structure and procedures to attain resiliency and sustainability, maintaining optimal occupancy rates for HACM's public and affordable housing developments, and optimal utilization rates for the Housing Choice Voucher Program while improving the HUD scoring for each program as HUD funding allows. reviewing portfolio repositioning tools to preserve and improve existing housing resources, and enhancing resident quality of life and self-sufficiency opportunities. This year, most changes throughout the plans are related to the full implementation of the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act, or HOTMA, which involves how HUD calculates things like income assets, eligibility, and interim income adjustments, for example. had activated some of the X rules a few years ago and now the balance has been implemented. Another group of changes are tied to the current administration's policy priorities. Specific to Hackam's plan itself, one new action is related to the list of properties eligible for potential disposition. While there are no current plans for new disposition actions at this time, the board may in future wish to develop a plan for disposition and sale of select vacant lots or scattered sites. Adding the list of vacant lots and scattered sites into the PHA annual plan now means one less step if that would be pursued. Although they will be listed in the PHA plan as potentially for distribution, the scattered site units will remain in active status housing residents, which is different from the last board discussion we had a couple of months ago about the previous list of units, which were categorized as being in disposition status. The 2027 PHA Annual Plan and its associated documents are considered living documents, which means that changes can be made as the need arises with any significant amendment or modifications that are not regulatory, having a review and receiving feedback from the Resident Advisory Board and presented to HACM's Board of Commissioners for review and approval. HACM CNI Coordinator Paul Williams will summarize the comments from the Resident Advisory Board. And thank you, I'm mostly done.

Thank you, Patty. Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Paul Williams, the C&I coordinator working with Community Services and Programs. As you may know, the Housing Authority has a Resident Advisory Board, or a BRAB, whose primary role is to provide advice to us regarding the PHA plan. and particularly comments and questions about changes to the plan. The process involves reviewing the plan with the RAB and taking their comments and answers. HACM is not required to make changes based on those questions or comments, but we must provide a response that explains why we will or will not make a change to the plan based on the RAB comments. This year, Mr. Barbeau reviewed the entire PHA plan with the RAB over two dates, July 7th and 8th, before his retirement, and we very much appreciate that. The RAB comments and questions were then compiled along with the associated Housing Authority responses to those comments. I then reviewed that document with the RAB at their next meeting on August 26th, and additional comments were taken at that time. So you'll find, and this is included in the plan, you'll find a complete compilation of the RAB comments and HACM's answers uh... under tab c one of the agency plant plan portion so it's vital to us that we have this dialogue with the red as representatives of hackham's public housing and housing choice voucher populations and we want to express our deep appreciation to all of the red members uh... for their participation in their process in that process any questions about that

Okay, persons who wish to speak about the PHA annual plan, if you have not already done so, should sign up at the sign-in sheet located on the side table on your right. For those who have prepared written comments, those comments will be shared with the board. Any e-comments received by 11 a.m. today have been distributed to the commission, or yeah, well, we didn't have any, so they weren't distributed, but all public comments received today will be acknowledged in the final submission. Do we have anyone who's signed up for the PHA annual plan? Mr. Sawyer, would you like to come up to the front, please?

Hello, everyone, once again. I want to stress the fact that a public comment is supposed to be reviewed by the RAB Board before submission. It's not responding to the public comment, just the Housing Authority. is what the raps responses are also to any statements that residents may make one of my biggest concerns is uh... i've asked over and over again direct uh... the rabbit was supposed to have a approved budget those folks start this year nothing has been presented to us even though We can't keep getting the runaround because we have to operate because residents are coming and complaining about stuff that we should be aware of. We shouldn't have to come here and be surprised because nobody that represents somebody wants to come and get surprises because they're not properly equipped and I'm going to say educated on the subject matter. Disposition. Statement about that. We've had no significant discussion on disposition. Also with the scattered sites, how can we actually have a significant discussion when the scattered sites are starting to get very upset because they're actually starting to approach people that they don't feel they have representation. They have not voted since COVID. And I can understand the things we're going to get done. They have certain people that they do want to speak for them and things of that nature, we just have to be more mindful of the resident portion of participating in housing. And in a lot of cases, when you work with residents enough, you end up with better ideas, better performance. There are a number of rules and regulations that are being used right now by housing that either I or RAB board members not only came up with, we structured those ideas. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Celia.

Does anyone else wish to speak on the public housing, on the PHA annual plan? There being no additional speakers at this time, this concludes the public listening session regarding the 2027 PHA annual plan, which was part of the 4 p.m. Wednesday, September 16th, 2026 meeting, the Hackam Board of Commissioners at City Hall Room 301B. Item B3. is a resolution approving the submission to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development of the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee's 2027 Public Housing Authority PHA Annual Plan, which includes the admissions and continued occupancy policy, the Section 8 administrative plans, and all other associated documents. Let me just get to see if I can find... So today's public hearing comments will be included as an attachment to the plan as directed by HUD and will be available on HACM's website at HACM.org, joining the draft of the PHA Annual Plan and other documents. The 2027 PHA Annual Plan and its associated documents are considered living documents, which means that changes can be made as the need arises with any significant amendment or modifications that are not regulatory having a review and receiving feedback from the Resident Advisory Board and presented to HACM's Board of Commissioners for review and approval. Myself, C&I Coordinator Paul Williams, Chief Operations Officer Zaina Farah, and Secretary Executive Director Harold Ince can answer any questions from the commissioners regarding the 2027 PHA Annual Plan and other documents.

All right. Thank you, Patty. Do we have any questions from the commissioners? Questions or comments?

Madam Chair.

Vice Chair Gotsler.

I would be interested to know how many RAB members participated in the review and discussion with Mr. Barbeau and Mr. Williams, if he has that information.

Yes, thank you for that question. So there were two meetings initially, and I believe there's 15 members of the RAB. It's 14 or 15, and the majority, so at least 14 participated in that initial discussion. And in the follow-up discussion on August 26th, we had two people who did not participate.

Great, thank you.

All right. Do we have any other questions or comments from the commission? Madam chair.

Yes. Uh, commissioner Moore. Thank you. Um, I just want to thank, um, the team for, um, allowing particularly board members to, um, just be able to have some more insight around. This is, I mean, if you look at the binder, um, it can look a little intimidating.

Yeah.

But for just me personally, I just wanna appreciate the team for reaching out, providing an opportunity for us to come in and have all our questions answered, go over sort of the high level of how it works even for us that have been on the board for a few years. It's complex what's being turned in. So I appreciate just having that separate time to be able to dig in a little bit more and ask some questions. I just wanted to take the time to be able to do that and also appreciate that we're looking at continuing to do those sorts of things where the team is reaching out to us, the staff is reaching out. providing us that one-on-one time to just understand because at the end of the day, you know, as board, as commissioners, we're responsible for the overall, you know, just the reflection of the agency and we want to do a good job. And for some of us that just don't have that background in public housing, I learn something almost every single time that I'm connected with staff and that I'm learning and I'm continuing to learn. So thank you all so much for just providing the space for us to have our questions answered and for us to just understand what it is that we're continuing to do. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Moore. Do we have any other questions or comments? to recognize it this time? Okay, there being none, would a commissioner like to move adoption of the resolution? Second. All right, can I get a roll call, please?

Commissioner Nelson? Aye. Commissioner Moore? Aye. Chair Hazlitt? Aye. Vice Chair Gotsler?

Aye.

Commissioner Borrell? Aye. Commissioner, oh, Commissioner Snider's not on yet, okay, sorry. Resolute, so item number, motion passes. Item number four is a resolution approving the adoption of a resident and program participant reasonable accommodation case system policy and procedural manual. Harold Ince will speak on this item.

On the adoption of the resident program participant 504, we are asking to hold till the next meeting because we are going through it and editing the language. I recently found out that CVR has its own 504 program. So this would just be for the public housing and for the tax credit and market rate properties.

Okay. Thank you so much. I'm glad to see it moving forward, even though we have to hold this over. It's good to see momentum on this subject at this appointed time. I'm sorry. I hear echo.

Commissioner Snyder, if you could mute. We're getting some feedback when you're not talking. Thank you so much.

Okay, thank you. But we do recognize you, Commissioner Snyder. Glad you can join us. Okay. Madam Chair? Yes, Vice Chair Gotzler.

Mr. Ince, could we request that we receive a copy of CVR's reasonable accommodation policy and procedures, please? Sure. Thank you. Great request.

Thank you, Vice Chair Gotzler. Okay, do we have any other questions or comments on this resolution before I put forth the motion? Okay, so is there a motion to hold over this item? Item R13803, resolution approving the adoption of the resident and program participant reasonable accommodation case system policy and procedural manual. Is there a second? Second. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Are there any abstentions? One extension? Yep. All right, the ayes have it and the item is held over.

Item number five is a resolution approving the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee's participation in the state's Wisconsin Retirement System, WRS, effective January 1st, 2027, and authorizing the Secretary, Executive Director, and his designees to take all action necessary to implement HACM's WRS participation. John Larson and Todd Slusar will speak on this item.

Good evening. Todd Slusar, Senior HR Business Partner.

John Larson, CFO.

Welcome. I'd like to provide a brief background on why we're recommending that HACOM join the Wisconsin Retirement System effective January 1st of 2027. The issue goes back to 2023 and the passage of Wisconsin Act 12. Act 12 authorized the city of Milwaukee to implement a new 2% sales tax, but one condition was associated with implementing the tax with a significant change to the city's pension system. The city was required to close the City of Milwaukee Employee Retirement System, or CMERS, to new entrants and enroll eligible new city employees in the Wisconsin Retirement System, WRS. Todd, you might want to speak into the microphone a little bit more. Thank you. I'm hearing myself. Okay. The city adopted the 2% sales tax in 2023. As a result, CMRS was closed to new employees after December 31st of 2023. Employees already participating in CMRS remained in the system, but employees hired beginning January 1st of 2024 can no longer become new CMRS participants. that also affected hackham because our employees have participated in siemers unlike the city however hackham was not required to join wrs hackham had the option of joining wrs or providing another retirement plan for its new employees the hackham board considered two mutually exclusive resolutions in 2023 One resolution would have opted HACM into WRS for new employees beginning January 1st of 2024. The ultimate plan was for HACM not to join WRS at that time and instead establish a defined contribution plan described as a 401 . In November 2023, the board chose the second option. It did not approve the WRS resolution and instead adopted the resolution directing HACM to establish the 401k for employees hired on or after January 1st of 2024. The 401k plan, however, is never established. The retirement issue was revisited around August of 2025. At that time, discussions were held involving then CFO Bradley, Interim Secretary Executive Director Ken Barbeau, myself as human resources, and representatives associated with the retirement program currently available to the Travol employees. during those discussions it was determined that hackham's governmental status hackham could not qualify to establish either a 401k or a 403b plan despite those discussions a replacement retirement program for the effective hacking employees was not implemented as a result we have employees hired since january 1st of 2024 who could not enter siemers and for whom the replacement retirement benefit contemplated in 2023 was never put into place We have now revisited the available options, and we are recommending that WRS as the long-term solution. WRS is an established public retirement system. It provides a defined retirement benefit, provides consistency with many other public employers in Wisconsin, and gives HACM a retirement benefit that can assist us with recruitment and retention. HACM's existing 457 plan can continue to be available as a supplemental retirement saving plan options. So fundamentally, this recommendation completes a process that began in 2023. Act 12 closed CMRS to new employees, HACM elected not to join WRS at the time, and authorized an alternative retirement program, and that program was never established. The issue was revisited in 2025 when it was determined that the 401K and 403B alternatives were not available to HACM, and today we're asking the board to resolve that the retirement benefit gap by participating in WRS. for those reasons we're recommending that the board authorize hackham to participate in the wrs effective january 1st of 2027. thank you any questions do we have any questions uh or comments from commissioners

Madam Chair? Yes, Commissioner Moore.

Todd, can you please confirm, just for the listening audience, how many folks this particular authorization applies to?

Right. Currently, as of today, there would be five employees that we have, and then going forward, after January 1, any new hires.

Thank you. All right.

Thank you, Commissioner Moore.

I'd like to piggyback on what Don just said. It's the five employees, but as we reorganize, it will grow for more of our employees. Got it.

That makes sense.

Thank you.

Madam Chair.

Vice Chair Gosselaar.

Just a comment that I think that it's very unfortunate that the commission has not previously taken any action on this and that it had to, that it's finally getting addressed now. And I just, as a current commissioner, I just want to make it clear that the commission and I think I speak for most of us on the commission that I'm sorry that this has happened and it's really has not been fair to those employees. So I'm happy that we're resolving it. I realize it doesn't affect that many people right now, but obviously this is part of a much larger plan to ensure that we have tools that can assist us in retaining good employees. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Götzler. Do we have any other questions or comments from the Commission? Madam Chair? Yes, Commissioner Moore.

Can you talk really quick about the financial implications of what this means?

Yes. Introduce yourself again. This is John Larson, CFO. The cost for this action is minimal because it only affects five employees. So the approximate cost was I believe $18,000 annually.

However, moving forward, John, as we have more folks move onto this system, it will continue to, that financial implication will continue to grow, correct?

Correct. The WRS system requires a 7%, well, it changes every year, but approximately 7%, and they do make that change every year.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Moore.

Madam Chair.

Commissioner Nelson.

So in reviewing all of this here, I know with most businesses, it's very competitive in trying to obtain and retain qualified people. So is that part of the deal, making sure that we are competitive with offering the WRS? Sure. where somebody else could come along. Say for instance, we don't offer WRIS, no kind of benefits that maybe you could be snatched away with a more handsome offer. Is that part of the deal too?

uh yes sir yes sir actually prior to um us not being in crms the pension was a big draw it was historically people were willing to take a little less actually in a salary knowing they had that pension and once that went away uh it affected the quality of staff that we were able to get in okay that's what i wanted to hear thank you thank you commissioner nelson

Okay, Commissioner Snider, did you have anything you wanted to say? Well, yeah, I did mention, first of all, I enjoyed

Commissioner Snyder, you're a little quiet, so I don't know if you can change your mic level. Otherwise, yeah, we're going to see if we can change it here. So I might periodically break in and kind of like translate for you. So you said, wow. Why don't you get that? So what you had first said was you appreciated having the meeting with Todd and John.

If you can hold your thought for just one moment, Commissioner Snider, we're trying to adjust the volume so you can be heard by the audience.

We're working on it still? You might need to bring the remote over there.

Okay, so I think I can just translate.

I think we are as high as we're going to be able to get. I will just basically every couple of sentences take a pause and I'll translate that so the room can hear for sure. We can hear you, but I'll have to relay it to the rest of the room. Thanks, Blue. So the question was, what happens to the pension in January of 2027 if Act 10 changes? 12. 10. I think it's Act 10.

I think it's Act 10.

Yeah, Act 10. I think it's Act 10. So that's the question.

Actually, since this was based on Act 12, if Act 10 would change, I would not have a bearing on the pension.

Right, you're right.

What about Act 12?

I guess if Act 12 would... Help yourself. It would be under... We would still remain part of the city, I would think. I wouldn't assume the city would go back to Seamers. I think they'd stay in WRS at this point. And I think we would too, actually.

Correct.

Thank you for that question, Commissioner Snyder. Okay. Do we have any other questions or comments from the Commission as they are working on our technology in the room?

Commissioner Snyder, could you just count to ten for us?

One, two, you're hearing me.

Madam Chair, it's usually best when people can't hear me.

We're glad that we have audio established. All right. I'm sorry, where was I?

Any other questions for commissioners otherwise moving?

Okay. Do we have any other questions or comments from the commission? No. Okay. There being none, would a commissioner like to move adoption of the resolution? So moved.

Second.

Okay. Can we get a roll call please?

Commissioner Nelson? Aye. Commissioner Moore? Aye. Chair Hazlett? Aye. Vice Chair Gatzler? Aye. Commissioner Burrell? Aye. Commissioner Snyder?

Aye.

Thank you, motion passes. Item number six is a resolution approving an award of contract to Roman Electric Company Inc. West Allis for the fire alarm replacement at College Court in the amount of $1,677,564. Zainafoura and Brad Birdie will speak on this item.

Please make sure you pull the microphones to you so we can all hear you. And please state your name and title for the record, please.

Zayna Farah, Chief Operating Officer.

Brad Bourdain, Maintenance Technical Specialist. Thank you.

So we are requesting approval to replace the system at College Court. We do need to get this done. We've had multiple service calls at the system and College Court just in The last 90 days has had 15 calls. So this is something that needs to be done. We would be using capital funds for the repairs. And if I recall correctly, it was a capital needs assessment, if I recall correctly. So Brad, is there anything you would like to add?

Just trying to stay proactive on the alarm systems. Just the parts are no longer available. Service calls are getting more and more expensive, more and more common. Just wanna make sure we stay ahead of the game.

Wonderful. Do we have any other questions or comments from the commission? Madam Chair? Yes, Commissioner Moore.

Thank you. Is the system malfunctioning or can you give us a sense of like, Brad, what's going on?

As the age gets older and older on a fire alarm system, this is more and more wear and tear. The parts are just, electronics in general, as they get, I'm able to replace a lot of it, but the parts are no longer available, or getting to be no longer available. So there will become a point where parts won't be available at all.

Please remind me how old this system is, roughly.

Both of them are roughly about 25 years. Thank you.

Madam Chair.

Vice Chair Gatzler.

Could the two of you just give us a very quick overview of what the RFP process was like since these are large amounts of money?

Oh, I was not part of the RFP process. That would be procurement and I don't think we have anyone here.

Dane work makes the dream work. All right.

Man with the answers.

John Larson, CFO. I do have the bid tabs here, and there was two companies that bid on both the Mitchell Court and College Court projects.

And why did we select Roman Electric?

On both bids, they were cheaper significantly.

Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other questions or comments from the Commission?

Madam Chair. Commissioner Nelson. I don't want to drag this out, but personally, I've been in two house fires, and it is devastating. I could go on and on and talk about it. But you had mentioned that there were 15 calls. Just in general, you don't have to go into deep detail, what was the nature of the calls? Why were they... You know, call.

So it would have been system malfunction, so, yeah.

The calls are replacement or repairs to trouble conditions on the fire alarm panel, failing smoke detectors, broken devices, wiring issues.

Just not working.

Correct, and I would go out, I would repair them, troubleshoot them, get them back up in working order, but it seems to be getting more and more common.

Well, I'm all for us having a proper system. I know. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

All right. Thank you so much, Commissioner Nelson. If there are no other questions or comment, would a commissioner like to move for the adoption of the resolution?

So moved. Second. Second.

great thank you can i get a roll call patty commissioner nelson um commissioner nelson moved and she's second yeah vice chair i'm sorry patty aye thank you commissioner moore aye chair hazlett aye vice chair gotzler aye commissioner burrell aye commissioner snyder aye thank you Motion passes. Item number seven is a resolution approving an award of contract to Roman Electric Company, Inc., West Allis, for the fire alarm replacement at Mitchell Court in the amount of $896,929. I'm sorry, $896,929. I don't know. Zaino Farah and Brad Birdie will speak on this item.

Okay, similar Mitchell Court has had 16 recorded occurrences during the last 90 days as part of the capital needs assessment that this alarm system should be replaced and I I do want to add to there may be more than 15 16 calls Again, these are after-hours college anything during the day can be handled by the on-site team So we would not necessarily have a record of that Brad, do you want to add anything?

Correct. Mitchell Court is the same as college. The system is about 25, 26 years old, just in desperate need of replacement.

Okay. Thank you. Do we have any questions or comments as it relates to this resolution from the commission? All right. There being none, would a commissioner like to move adoption of the resolution?

So moved. Second.

Roll call, please.

Commissioner Nelson?

Aye.

Commissioner Moore? Aye. Chair Hazlett? Aye. Vice Chair Gosselin?

Aye.

Commissioner Burrell? Aye. Commissioner Snyder? Aye. Thank you. Motion passes. Item number eight is a dis... Sorry?

Thank you, team.

Thank you so much, team. Thank you. Item number eight is a discussion regarding survey of board members. Chair Hazlitt will speak on this item.

Thank you. So I'm back with the board survey, everyone. Thank you so much for your participation in crafting this out for it to be its best. But before we consider the final board survey, I want to provide important information about its purpose and how the survey process and responses will be handled. The survey is intended to help us evaluate our effectiveness as a governing board, identify common themes, determine where additional commissioner training may be needed, and support the development of a comprehensive strategic plan for HACM. It is not intended to replace boards discussions, authorize agency action, or serve as a private vote on any matter that must be considered during a properly noticed public meeting. To protect the integrity, you can tell this language was given to us by legal, thank you Greg. To protect the integrity of the process, the surveys will be distributed and collected by a neutral third party administrator. In an effort to keep the process completely anonymous, commissioners will not be asked to place their names on the survey. And commissioners should not include any personal identifiers in the survey as those surveys may be subject to unredacted disclosure in the event of a record request for the same. Further, all personal identifiers will be removed before any survey responses or reports are provided to HACM. This approach is intended to give every commissioner an equal opportunity to provide candid and meaningful feedback. Commissioner should understand that anonymity does not remove the surveys from Wisconsin's public records requirements. The responses that are subject, I'm sorry, the responses that are submitted to the third party and the versions that third party provide to HACM are both public records. whether they are submitted on paper or electronically, and may be requested by residents, employees, members of the media, or third parties. Each commissioner should therefore respond thoughtfully, professionally, and factually, and should avoid including confidential personnel, resident, legal, or other protected information in any written comments. HACM will be responsible for retaining the survey responses and any related reports locally for at least seven years. Before the survey is distributed, the agency will coordinate with IT, our legal counsel, and third party administrator to ensure that all records are properly transferred to HACM, preserved locally, and available to the agency independently of the outside administrator or survey provider. Once the process is complete, the third party administrator will then compile the responses and identify broader governance themes, strengths, and opportunities for improvement. The results will help guide commissioner's training and board development and inform HACM's strategic planning process. Do we have any, I know that was a mouthful everyone, but you should have the final copy of the survey that will be administered. Do you have any questions or comments? All right. There being none, wow.

All right, we can. Madam Chair, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

It's okay. Commissioner Moore.

How often are we looking to do this assessment? Annually.

This will be done annually so we can continue to measure our progress or needs for training or any things can be addressed according to how it's developed.

And what would be the timeline when we do it annually? Are we talking about top of the calendar year, end of the fiscal year? What are we thinking?

I was thinking typically in the fall, like around October.

Perfect. Thank you.

Are there any other questions or comments? Okay, but thank you once again. I know, I don't believe that we have any records of previous board surveys. So we are sort of trend setting here with this initiative, as well as holding ourselves accountable for how we are helping the agency along. So kudos to you all for helping us. certainly helping with this measure and moving it forward so we can be the best we can be for the agency, especially working towards our mission. All right. There being no other questions or comments from the commissioner, can we read the next item, please?

Item number nine is a report from the secretary executive director.

Good evening, commissioners. I've been here 90 days, believe it or not. Over the last 90 days, we have focused on stabilizing operations and setting clear priorities. Day to day operations have improved with stronger financial transparency, better access to reliable data, and more consistent cross department communication. These changes are resulting in faster turnaround times and clearer inner department workflows. workplace culture is improving, staff engagement has increased, departments are collaborating more consistently, and we are seeing higher participation in problem solving discussions and cross team initiatives. High priority initiatives and recovery agreement requirements remain on track. Executive team alignment has strengthened and communications with board has been timely and accurate, supporting effective decision making and reinforcing clear governance management boundaries. Overall organizational accountability and responsiveness have improved and confidence among staff, residents, and partners are increasing. Our key risks are data and financial systems will need strengthening and we must continue building middle management capacity and long-term operational structure. Over the next 90 days, the priorities is to strengthen core systems, meet key recovery agreement milestones, reinforce executive team cohesion, improve resident focused services, and engage consultants to turn around our housing authority and make us move in the right direction. And with that, we will start with CVR's monthly report.

Good evening. Hello.

Good evening. Please state your name.

Good evening. I almost fell out. Yes, ma'am.

Tina Royalty, HCV Director.

Tracy Sheffield, Senior Vice President with CVR. Thank you and welcome. So tonight I will be giving the executive summary for CVR and Associates. And I'll start with our customer service and operations. We hired three new customer service staff in the month of August. They are currently being trained and we are getting them up to speed on their duties as assigned, so both phones and in office. Lobby traffic for our customer service had a total number of visits of 1,981 with our busiest day being on Wednesdays because we have our open lab that still runs every Wednesday. Our in-person lab assistants had 30 visits per session. We have two sessions every Wednesday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. That has increased a little bit just based on all the activities we've had in the last couple of months. Staff maintained a service level of 5,200. total inbound and outbound calls that came into our call center and went out of our call center. So that has decreased in the month of August based on the closing of our waiting list process and things of that nature. We've expanded our training to improve cross-training interdepartmental for our customer service staff, so giving them more information up front so that they are better apt to assist our clients that are coming into the office or calling on the phones. For our intake and leasing department, Everyone knows we had a two year pause on our waitlist selections, but that has begun already beginning in July. We have selected 800 HCV families off of our waiting list, with 57 families being issued vouchers and RAFTAs as of August, and 98 are still pending final review. Portability vouchers are being absorbed with the effective date of 7-1. We're almost finished with those. We just need to contact a few more housing authorities just to let them know what's going on, and then we will be doing a portability reconciliation to make sure that all payments have been received. We are planning to absorb or transition into our program, the HCV program, the EHV or emergency housing vouchers. We are waiting for some administrative plan amendments in order to do so. With that plan, there's approximately 92 families that will remain housed transitioning from the EHV program to our HCV program. which is set to sunset December 31st of this year. So we have to do that quickly, as quickly as possible. In our occupancy and quality control area, the recertification backlog has reduced to 487 in August from our previous reporting in July of 504. So that continues to decline every month consistently. So the plan is to push forward to get a lot of those late reexams completed, and we have a plan for that. With our PBB reviews, we are planning to go to the actual developments and do onsite assistance to get those families back in compliance as much as we possibly can.

Madam Chair. Commissioner Moore. Just so that we don't get through the whole thing and then I forget my question. From July to August, based on what you shared, it was about 17. Are you looking at continuing that sort of trend? To take care of the backlog, it'll be about 17 a month?

No, that's just the ones that were late, the late reexams that we had. If you can remember last year, we had quite a number more. No, correct. Consistently, we have been decreasing that number every single month. This particular month, it has gone down that amount, but that doesn't mean that we're not going to continue our efforts to get that down. So what we're planning to do is go to the developments themselves where we see the number of late reexams there. We are going to do in-person visits just like we do our lab visits in our office. But we're knocking on doors and handing out flyers telling them that they need to come down so that we can assist them right there in their particular housing space.

Quick question, how long do we give our residents for late reexams? Can a late reexam go to two years? I'm just hypothetically saying.

So it depends on the situation. What we're trying to do is save as many families as we possibly can by giving them an additional opportunity to complete because we don't want the vacancy on the PBV side because then that causes them additional work and strain to get those units ready and rehoused and things like that. So we're giving them an extra opportunity to get these recertifications completed. So that's what these are.

Correct, and if I'm just, again, because I'm just trying to understand, our residents have to be, it's yearly. Everyone has a reexamination every year, correct? And so this is not new news. They know that they have to do a reexam every year. Is there a penalty that if it goes, Hypothetically, you know, 60, okay, we're now 60 days in, um, is there a penalty for the longer it goes?

So some of these families are currently in intent to terminate status.

intend to terminate.

So they've been given an opportunity to complete. We've contacted them by mail. We've contacted them by email. We've contacted them by phone. I don't know if you remember the last few months, Tracy has stated that we've sent out robocalls that come directly from our system. So we've reached out to them multiple times. This is our last ditch effort in order to get these families in compliance. The more we can do, the more we can say we've tried, attempted to assist them. We don't want to terminate the families. That's not our goal. But our goal is to also have them help us help them. So that's what we're doing with this effort.

And then are there any legality issues for those that just refuse?

They have a right to a hearing. They have a right to.

And when I say refuse, maybe that's not the appropriate word. Maybe it's that doesn't respond. Let me let me say it like that. So if if I've gone several months, no response, then I'm just trying to understand where do we what happens that, you know, do we is it just, you know, they just didn't respond. So we're just going to keep calling and emailing and. throwing a letter on the door, like I'm just trying to understand.

So the normal process is they receive documentation stating that you have to complete your recertification. Yep. We give them 120 days to complete that recertification.

Before, wait, 120 days after?

Before.

This is the recertification. Okay.

Yes. It starts 120 days before the effective date. Got it. So they've already had 120 days. We start to notify them, hey, your restart is due. Here's your due date. They pass the due date. So now we have to say, okay, now we sent out another letter. Now we sent out a robocall. Now we sent out an email. So we've done all those things. These are families that have surpass that time at this point correct but and some of these families have received their termination notices stating that they are being terminated if they don't complete they're given a deadline at that point if they still do not respond to us or still do not help us help them get this completed they will be terminated they have a right to a hearing They request a hearing. We go through the hearing process. The hearing officer will determine if they are terminated from our program or if they're reinstated based on the documentation that we've provided.

Perfect. And let's say we've decided that because they just didn't follow through, they are terminated. Does that equal eviction?

It can.

It should. Okay. We're not the property managers. I appreciate you all giving me the brevity to just understand the process because once we get to this final point, this final process in the, okay, we've now deemed you that we have to terminate. Termination, I'm assuming, again, equals eviction. Now, is it we can then put them, yes.

It's up to the property manager.

The voucher terminates, which means the subsidy stops. Now we move it to the landlord. Now the landlord can decide to evict or not.

Got it.

So it wouldn't be for us to make that decision. That's what I needed to know. It's for the property manager, the development, the owner of the property to decide how they want to proceed. If they want to proceed and allow the family to remain in the unit, that's their choice. Got it. but we can't make that determination. They don't receive subsidy anymore. A lot of the families that we're dealing with that are in public housing properties, we are trying to assist them with saving their voucher. So remaining in their unit and us resuming payments again. That's what our goal is for some of the 487 that are left. Yeah.

And thank you all for moving the process, looking at where these families are, where our residents are, and actually going to the development or the site itself. So I really appreciate you all taking that additional step.

So the goal is to at least go to each development two times before the end of the year. So we started, we're starting this month. So this is not a part of this report, but we are starting this month and we are going to go to each development. We're going to try to hit every development at least twice.

Thank you. Please continue. Madam chair. Sure.

Before you go, you said twice, two times per year or two times before the end of this year, before the end of this.

So before January 31st, we're going to try to go to each development twice.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Commissioner Burrell.

talking about the situation commissioner morris talking about as of the four for this month talking about getting notification notification notification i'm talking about myself i did not receive notification notification the early part of this year i do recall talking to cvr regards of information getting my information in regards to certification i do recall giving you all my information outside i do recall putting my information in saying it's completed and as of the fourth of this month waking up of september waking up of determination the information you just talked about. Do y'all actually know how it feels to get a letter saying you're gonna be determined from not completing? How do I feel to get a determination letter for not having all information in? And knowing I gave my information, I have proof of information. Then when you call and say that you did this, that, and the other, you have rude people, some people that's very rude. And you say you just hired three new staffers. I dare for a person to tell you what you haven't done and you know what you've done and you have proof. now you know what the if i would have been how we would let my twenty and i do have a twenty and i say is that when you come out and go have their way they would like it you know is the way you respect the person and how we you know they give respect you need to give respect now like i see it like you said, it's left up to the landlord for determination. And I asked y'all before, I had an email that wasn't my email. I had to go down there on LISP in the early part of this year, the beginning part of this year, and I brought it to the commissioner board, if you recall, and I gave y'all my information. And again, like I said, it said everything was completed in September 4th, this month. Had to go back and redo this stuff again. So what do we need to do as residents in order for us to get this system and this matter updated and completed or what have you? And Madam Chair, it's just nerve-wracking. And the system that I'm going through right now, huh it just uh it just does something to me it does something to me and to hear like i said residents and then like i said i had to go on liaison i didn't want to act the way i act the beginning part of this year and i brought it to the table before yeah i brought this to the commissioner board before let me can i ask something i'm just i'm sorry madam chair because i just no really quick commissioner moore thank you um thank you i love you so much um

No, just along those lines, because I've had residents email us as well and just say, I've given this information and it disappeared or somebody lost it. So along those lines, what is the proof? that if something is given, is there a confirmation email? Then again, it has to go to the right email. Is there a confirmation something that says, thank you so much, we've received X document, or thank you so much, like whatever that process you're asking residents to do, there is something that's, again, that paper trail that's confirming because folks are saying, well, and I always tell them, always have a copy, but they're giving things and not Getting confirmation that those items are being received.

So what we request families to do is submit their documents into their rank cafe workflow.

Got it.

That is the first step. And. I can talk to you offline if you would like to, because we can show you what we see. But there are emails that went out. And those emails that went out did go unanswered. So if the documents were submitted, we request that you submit them into the workflow. If you cannot submit them into the workflow, the second option is to email them to our ticketing site. If you e-mail them to our ticketing site, you get an automated e-mail return that says, this is your ticket number, because then you can go back and reference that ticket number. In that ticketing site, they'll give you a ticketing number as soon as you submit it. The third option is to come into our office, and all of our staff is trained to scan the document in and create a ticket for you. So now the ticket is created when you come to drop off the document. So you still get the ticket number saying your information has been submitted. Here's your ticket number.

As of today, before I came down here, everything that y'all required, I did see it back over again. And as of today, I want to know, my daughter is going to become a nurse. Thank God for, you know, I'm going to take her off the lease. I couldn't do anything until then. But I do want to talk to you because I want to take her off my lease. And I couldn't do that before. But like I said, I'm going to do it afterwards.

And that's with more specific information we don't want to talk about. We'll take that offline. And she can talk afterwards. Yes. Yeah, I don't want to. But I do want everyone to understand that once that ticket is submitted or once that document is submitted into our office, there is a ticket that is created. That ticket is giving you the ticket number to go reference. I think Commissioner Moore was on a ticket earlier last week with a client that emailed us and it automatically created a ticket. The ticket, we can go back and any one of the managers can pull that ticket. Anyone in our office can pull that ticket unless it's confidential, they can pull that ticket and we can review anything that's coming into our office.

Okay, I just have a question because I heard something just a little differently and maybe I'm wired a little differently, but say for instance, there's a resident who has administered or provided whatever is required. What I'm hearing is there's some type of disconnect with them submitting paperwork and still yet receiving the termination letters.

There may not be all of the documents that we receive that we need. But I think she's talking about the documents that I received.

Are you saying when they complete their workflow to recertify for that year? To recertify, yes.

Okay. So are you talking about the message that they receive when they complete?

Yes. Okay. There seems to be a disconnect between what you all are doing and what they receive, and then they don't hear anything again until... the letter is produced. So what I'm trying to determine, and maybe we can talk offline, but there seems to be a disconnect with the system and either it's on the receiving end or through your end, but we really have to investigate a little more to see what's happening because we are getting these complaints a lot and we just want to make sure we're doing everything in our might to resolve it as soon as possible.

After the meeting on Monday, we did talk to Paul who gave us a little more information about what was actually being viewed from the viewer, from the participant side, which made us able to pinpoint where the issue is. Okay. Originally last year, there was a conversation about what was being given, what information is being given after they complete their research. We tell them, yes, you get a big green check mark, and that means that your recertification is completed, right? But now it's in review.

Mm-hmm.

Then there's an e-mail that goes out also that says that your workflow has been submitted,

And now in review, but they changed last year. That's what we changed last year. Came up. That's been in place. Paul identified a secondary area where their tenant sees when they submit their recertification. It's just on screen. It's nothing that's sent out. It's just on the screen when they complete that says your, your recertification has been submitted. We were through Paul. Thank you, Paul. We were able to drill down into that. We had a meeting today with Yardi requesting them to change the verbiage on that page so that it is more clear that you have completed your application, but it is going to be under review and we will contact you with any additional information that we may need once the information is reviewed. You could turn in, how the system works is it requests an upload of different income documents, things like that. The system doesn't read the document that you submit. They just say a document was submitted for this document request. So it's up to our team to actually review what was submitted, determine if it's sufficient, or if we need additional information. Yardi was going to get back to us after our meeting today, but we're hopeful that that will clear up that part of the system that was unclear for participants.

As you are moving to resolve that, we need to know how many people were impacted by that. It would be everyone. It was a system issue.

It was a system issue.

And it's a hard system code, so we can't change it. We rely on Yardi to do certain changes, and that's something that they were able to change. We were able to change the actual letter, but not the actual system.

Okay.

So they're working on that. They were supposed to do that by the end of the day today. So hopefully it's done when we check back, she's supposed to email us and let us know.

Great. And my, my last request is to make sure that this is being communicated to the residents, especially if everyone was impacted by it, they should be notified that if they experienced this, this is, you know, what you all are doing to resolve it just to keep everyone in the know. And that, um, they know what to do. So just communicating when we do, because technology isn't perfect. And humans work in technology isn't perfect. But as long as we're communicating when we're finding these things, it will help a little better. I don't know how you, do you use text messaging? Is it through Rent Cafe?

We don't use text messaging, but they can get messaging through Rent Cafe. We can post like a general message to people.

So it'll pop up when they log in and they'll see the message right away.

Okay. And then how are you working with like the housing managers around these?

They also get the same message. So we've updated not just our, it doesn't just update our system, but it updates the entire system. So Marquetta was on the call. Marquetta Treadway was on the call this morning as well. So it's going to update all of our intake files. It's going to update all of our annual recertifications and anyone reporting a change.

For HCV and public housing.

Wonderful. Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner Moore.

Just really quick, in a normal situation, once everything is reviewed and what would be the term you guys would say completed or approved on your end, a resident would then receive a final letter. Hey, you're all good to go. That would be a final letter.

They get a tenant portion letter that lets them know what their new portion of rent is. Thank you.

At that time, are they like resigning a lease or no? We don't resign a lease.

No, the lease is by the landlord again. And in public housing, it tends to go to month to month. And on the participant side, that's up to the landlord whether they issue a new lease or allow it to go month to month.

Okay.

Thank you so much. Commissioner Burrell. Are you leaving right away? I can wait for you. I have a question, actually, because speaking of that, I have a question to ask. Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions? I know you all have to finish. So we'll turn it back over to you to complete your report.

Once it's updated, once we get the update from Yardi, too. Okay. Thank you.

Ms. Nancy, do you have a card?

So...

Someone had wanted...

Moving along, for the VASH program, we have continued to make improvements. We have bi-weekly meetings that are now, due to all of our efforts, have decreased from an hour meeting every other Wednesday to about 15 to 20 minutes every other Wednesday. I think last meeting we had two issues that needed to be resolved and both were regarding scheduling inspections. So we've been doing a really good job as far as the VASH program is concerned. We've decreased the number of days for the search for veterans from 30 to 35 days from 40 days. And from start to finish, from referral received to lease up, we've decreased those number of days to 65 days. So we've been doing a really good job in our VASH program. We also have been requesting additional referrals from that program to fill all of our vacancies. So the month of August, we received 11 referrals, so we are requesting additional referrals. um for inspections um we've had a total of four one thousand four hundred and seventy nine inspections in the month of august which is an increase from our july inspection count um of one thousand three hundred and fifty nine and this is mainly due to our hiring a third inspector inspector So we now have three inspectors that are fully on staff and they are taking those inspections. For our HUD reporting, we are at a 98.2 first time pass acceptance rate with 16,793 PIC transactions submitted to HUD. And that gives us a 99% reporting rate in total. So we've increased that from the approved, HUD-approved rate of 95%. For our CMAP outlook, the current projected rating, we remain at a standard performer for 2026 as we speak right now. CMAP? CMAP.

Section 8 Management Assessment Program. They know what that is. Say that again.

CMAP stands for? Section 8 Management Assessment Program.

It's like the 100th grade.

It's one of those. It's 100th grade on the program. Yeah.

Thank you. We are remaining as standard performing as a projected rating as of current. As I stated before, we are continuing our lease up momentum by working with the PBV units to get those leased up before the end of the year. That's been one of our big push items to get those done before November 30th so we can have a little bit of wiggle room if we need to clean up some things. In addition to that, we are continuing our efforts with our HCV processing of the selected families from our waiting list. Hopefully, we will continue to get those vouchers in because we've issued some of those out, so we want those families to get those in. We are having briefings weekly. I think we provided the briefing material at the last board meeting So we are we having weekly briefings and the attendance seems to be pretty good when it comes to the attendance So and we've had a lot of families really use that and say that it was very helpful to them having those briefings and we are continuing to review and qc our calls and in-person customer service staff so um i really want to talk to you about who you spoke to if you have a moment also because what we're doing is we're actually reviewing the calls that come into our call center Um, the manager in that department is doing some audits to make sure, and we're giving coaching on the spot at the time while they're also listening to those calls to try to make sure that we're encouraging our staff to be friendly and helpful. And if they don't understand some or don't know something, ask the questions and then we're training on those particular items. So those are the things that we've done for the month of August. And we will continue the training for hot mob with our staff and our managers. So we'll be ready for the January 1st, 2027 implementation.

All right. Madam Chair. Commissioner Moore. Thank you so much. I think one of the things that I'm being challenged by is the inspection. I know that we currently have, we're consistent with this 50% fail rate. We got 10 units, half of them are failing. And I appreciate, thank you all for sort of mapping out the summary and providing us some data points. I was able to also just be a fly on the wall listening. I know that those monthly meetings started back up for landlords to just, you know, this is how you do it, right? If you got questions, this is like, it was great. Um, but I'm really, I want to figure out a way because, you know, when residents are calling stating that these, you know, they have issues and a lot of it is tied to a failed inspection. Um, they have issues in their homes. Um, I don't know what we do because we don't have a lot of places specifically for our residents to go. There was a particular situation I brought you all in on that you've been dealing with and thank you so much with. I know and I'm talking to the landlords as well, so I hope that you're hearing me. At the end of the day, we want our residents to live in healthy, livable homes, and if they are rodent-driven, and it is your responsibility as a landlord to be able to take care of some of those things. And so I... don't know what that answer is, but I do know that whatever mechanisms that we need to put in place, whether it's withholding until you get this item fixed, that having our tenants live in somewhere month after month after month, I get to go home and lay my head down and know that I don't have creatures crawling across my bed or my roof leaking. I want us to be use as much as what's in our power. And if there is, you know, policies that, you know, we need to enact to fix it, I don't know. But all I do know is that at the end of the day, we provide, we're not asking people to do anything for free. We provide you a check. to have people live in your home and your home which you should be able to maintain as a result of getting this financial reward. I'm speaking to our landlords because I really need them to get their act together. But at the same time, I need us to use whatever power is in our hands to make sure that we're leveraging all options to... again, gain compliance so that our residents can live in healthy homes. And if they have issues with the tenant, I think that's another piece as well that we need to figure out what does that look like? What type of support that we could provide them so that they're able to make sure that, oh, they are cleaning up after themselves or just doing things that creates a livable environment as well. So I'm not putting it all on our landlords, but I just want us to decrease this number because I don't know how long I'm going to be able to be comfortable seeing 50%. I'm just, you know, it's not going to, you know, a year from now, if I see it, you know, continuously go down, fantastic. But I just cannot y'all live at seeing this consistent 50% fail rate. Cause if you're failing, that means way to say, I'm just going to hold on to your money until you get it fixed or do whatever we can, whatever is in legally. legally in our power to do. So keep us posted in.

If I may, I can, I can explain the enforcement process that happens. And it is in fact, so when a unit goes out, when an inspector goes out to inspect a unit, it is, if there are deficiencies, the deficiency is either coded as an emergency issue that needs to be corrected within 24 hours or a non emergent issue that needs to be corrected within 30 days. We then schedule a re-inspection either the next day if it was a 24-hour fail emergency item or within that 30-day period, typically it's around 28 days, we go back out to the unit to see if those items were fixed. If they were not fixed, and let's say for example, owner responsible items, then the first of the following month after that cure period, we start abating HAP, which means that we withhold HAP from the landlord until the deficiencies are corrected. Acronym. for housing assistance payments. So the payments that we make to the landlord every month on the tenant's behalf, we withhold that until the deficiency is corrected. The landlord can then call us back and say, hey, I fixed the deficiencies. Please come out to the unit again. If we go out to the unit again and it passes, we don't return the funds that were abated. Those are they're not entitled to them. But we restart any payments. So if it was prorated in the middle of the month, we'll give them a portion for that date and then payments can resume moving forward. If a unit remains in abatement for a period of 30 days and the items aren't corrected, we issue a voucher to the tenant so that they can search for another unit. at that point. So we are enforcing that with landlords. And if you see on page, let me see what page it is in here, page 21 of the report under inspections process, most landlords do end up complying. Of course. We only had 80, or I'm sorry, 60 units that went into abatement for August in comparison to the number of fails. So most landlords are complying. What I think may be happening is that potentially they're using it as like a punch list. Like you come out and tell me what's wrong and I'll do it. What we have been trying for the last six to nine months before we schedule the inspection, we send them the inspire checklist in advance and encourage them to inspect their own property before we come to make sure that it's ready to pass inspection. We're just not seeing a trend of that moving forward for first time passes, which is the goal.

Thank you. No, thank you so much for that, because I think probably one of my concerns for those that don't, and you have to reissue to say, hey, go find somewhere else to stay, is the finding somewhere else to stay that we have challenges with. I wish our tenants could be like, you know what, do what we need to do, checklist, checklist, all right, and I'm out of here. We don't have that. That's our challenge right now that our residents, some of them have to endure unhealthy living conditions for quite some time because they don't have anywhere to go. They have to put up with what we're dealing with right now. Again, I don't have an answer as of this moment. These are some things that are challenging me just as an elected official here working for the city that it's just some of our residents, they're doing the right things, right? But they're living in some conditions that landlords simply just don't care. And it's unfortunate. And I wish we can give out these, hey, just go find somewhere else to stay. Our residents just don't have that authority to be able to do that. I'm done with my rant, but thank you. You're welcome.

Thank you. Does that conclude your report? Do we have any other questions or comments from the commission? All right.

Thank you also very much.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you to Paul for helping us with where it was located.

If you can blink online or something, if they are able to do stuff like that, please.

Thank you. Thank you both of you so much. Our next report is the summary of occupancy report.

Good evening.

Please state your name and titles.

Saina Farah, Chief Operating Officer.

Marquetta Treadway, Director of Leasing and Compliance.

Thank you and welcome. Thank you. So with the occupancy, we haven't moved the needle much. However, a lot has happened since our last board meeting. The compliance division with the restructure has started aggressively processing applications. So the process, just to be clear, is CVR gets a voucher. They approve someone for a voucher. They send over that paperwork to the Compliance Department at Hackamnow. And then the Compliance Department has to process that application for the tax credits. So it's unfortunately not the quickest process. However, last week we did train five additional team members. Marquetta trained five additional team members on application processing so we can speed that up. A vacant unit preparation has significantly increased. West Lawn has 45 vacant units. Carver Park has multiple vacant units. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but we've had a substantial amount of units turned that are ready to rent, and compliance is processing the applications during the day, and in some cases, they're coming in on weekends to continue working on that. So we do have the public housing applicants and the applications are approved. It's more of a getting the units ready to rent. That is actually, that's where the holdup is right now. The applications are ready.

Okay.

So I have a question, Zaina. Um, how do you, What is your projection towards us meeting the goal of increasing back to 96% from the 94% that we have listed here?

My projection is end of October. It should be doable by the end of October. If not, definitely the end of November. That's my projection on the 96% for public housing.

Okay. And how about by December 31st? What do you project we will land with our occupancy?

I would like to say 96 to 97%. We'll definitely be able to maintain at 96%.

Thank you. You're welcome.

My ultimate goal is at least 98% across the board continuously. We just got to get out of this backlog.

Thank you. Thank you. Madam Chair. Commissioner Moore.

Thank you so much. Zaina, can you talk a little bit about, so, one of the things you mentioned was getting the units ready um i thought that we hired some external contractors to help support that uh can you talk a little bit about or whoever can talk a little bit about where we are with that because i thought we hired the additional help to help us move to turn the units um a little bit quicker

Oh, go ahead. Thank you.

We hired three contractors to turn units at Hillside and then they moved to some of the public housing units after they were done with Hillside. It was just Hillside? For the most part, it was just Hillside.

So where did we land with that as far as they finished all the units at Hillside?

No, they only did... a small number of units. They did not do a lot. I can get you the number, but it was not a lot of units.

And do we know why that is?

It was because of the amount of money that they were charging per unit and the amount of money we had allotted for it.

Okay. And then are we still working with said contractors? Because they went to Hillside, but then they moved on. They didn't do a lot at Hillside because they were charging more than the allotted.

I don't think we're working with those contractors at this point. We are going to try to get new contractors. So we're back to kind of square one. Yes. Got it.

Okay.

Thank you. Out of the 361 vacant units, how many are ready for the LLCs?

For the LLCs, I do not have an exact number for the LLCs. You're showing 361 vacant for the LLC?

It says, yes, the LLC portfolio currently has 361 vacant units resulting in an occupancy rate of 81.23% with a slight decline on the report. That's the LLC portfolio, yeah.

Okay, I'm sorry. I have a different report in front of me. I do not have an exact number, but I'll definitely get that over to you. I'll have to get with the managers to get the exact number. And I will say I was out yesterday and some of the managers... I have to have some training on ready to rent. Okay. They're what they consider ready to rent versus what I consider ready to rent. Yeah. Okay. I'll get the exact number too.

All right.

Thank you. Do we have any other questions or comments? I'm sorry. You're not done with your report. Are you?

Okay.

I'll let you proceed.

Okay. All right. So, sorry. Okay. Rent collections are still about the same. We are trying to take a more aggressive approach to rent collections. Again, with public housing, the rent collections are strong. The rent collections under the tax credits need some additional guidance. The tax credit managers definitely need to get a little bit of a push there, so to speak. And we are working diligently with CVR. to try and get some reinstatements because that will increase the revenue, increase the subsidy. Mariquita's got a team going out to West Lawn for two days next week to just try and get residents to complete their research for CVR so that we can get some subsidy reinstated. And again, CVR's also doing that. at some of the LLCs. So that's another plan of action.

And one of the things that we are striving to do is to educate the residents on the difference between having to do a recertification for CVR versus doing the property management recertification. So we are trying to change up some of the language in our material so they'll know that it is a two-step process. And also we are working along with CVR to try and visit the developments on the same day so they can see both faces. And then they'll know, okay, I have to do this side and this side. And then we can get it all done at one time.

Unfortunately, the tax credit recertification will not take the same information. They won't share the information as the HCV information. Okay.

Thank you. Madam chair, commissioner Moore.

Um, does that include the, um, I know that, uh, I received some, um, calls and emails in regards to the, um, the book or that the res, what residents, the handbook, that is the handbook gonna be updated because residents were asking. There were some procedures. I think some people were probably using it to, some staff was probably using language that was a scare tactic to get them to pay the rent. And one of the residents were just like, hey, I just need to see this information in the handbook because quite a few of them use the handbook as a process, what happens first, second, third. Is the handbook going to be updated? That is actually getting ready to come before.

Yeah.

The lease agreement is the controlling document. for recertification and for rent collection. It really is the lease agreement and it's also the HUD rules and regulations and WIDA rules and regulations that govern whether or not a tenant will be subject to termination because they either don't pay their rent or they don't comply with the recertification process. The handbook may give some detail or the ACOP or the admin plan will give some detail. First notice, 120 days. Second notice, 90 days. Ultimately, it's not really a threat. It's a statement. Do what you're supposed to do in order to continue to stay in your unit. Absolutely.

I just wanted to get that on the record so that you know all everyone understands like what this process is what it what it looks like and it's nothing new right i know that there are things that we haven't done appropriately um in a long time and so you know residents may have gotten laxed and so it's we're at the point where we guess what you live here we got to collect rent right so thank you thank you

I just have a quick question for Mr. Ince or Ms. Farah. Is the resident handbook, is that considered a policy or is that considered a procedure that comes from staff? I guess I'm just trying to get a sense from you of how does the commission fit into that resident handbook process?

The handbook is procedure, it's not the policy. The policy was voted on with the annual plan or when you approve the ACOP, but everything in the ACOP is the procedure.

So I'm sorry. Go ahead. So Mr. Treadwell, so basically what I think I heard you hinting at was that the handbook is in the process of being updated, which would make sense because we're just now finishing up the annual plan for this year. And then that will be shared with the commission. Yes. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you.

My question is, how often is the handbook updated? Is it updated annually with the plan? Or how is that managed?

It should not necessarily need an update annually. It depends on whether or not we have changes to the annual plan or if there are any changes to any... I don't know. Housing notices that may be issued that mandate that we update the plan if HUD would issue some directive requiring some update.

For existing residents, I can see us giving one to new residents, but what about the existing residents? How would they gain access to the new information?

We discussed doing just the same method as the ACOP. You can click on a link and go to it because it may become expensive to try to print out so many books. So we have discussed creating a link for the resident handbook that they can access.

And it will also be available at 809 North Broadway. We would notify the residents it would be available there and we'll make it available at the property. That was my question. Thank you. That's good.

Do we have any other questions as it relates to The handbook. I know you have more information to share.

I'm just going to say that all our handbooks and rules and regs are going to be updated. Perfect. And then we will be following those as we are supposed to. Thank you. Okay.

All right. I'm saying it back to you.

OK. All right. And as far as work orders, again, we're still really just handling emergencies and working on the vacant unit terms. We do have a significant amount of emergency work orders. Apparently, DNS is called quite frequently. For instance, we have approximately 200 DNS work orders right now. So we have to take care of those first. We did have three new hires this week. They seem to be working out three new maintenance personnel started this week, and we're doing some more interviewing.

How many openings do we have, or vacancies, as it relates to your maintenance staff?

Oh gosh, I want to say... Well, we're hiring two more fire and safety, so take those out of the, I wanna say six to eight. I'm not sure, it's kind of a moving target right now. Okay, thank you.

And the last thing that the waitlist purge is CVR previously stated. The waitlist purge is officially complete. We closed out on August 17, 2026 and we officially completed the close on today actually for anyone who emailed or We made sure to get all the emails, faxes, phone calls, made sure everyone was reinstated if they contacted us in any way. So as of today, we were able to complete that today.

So it's all updated. That's what you're saying. Yes, sir. You did not accept any contact after the close date.

We only, we did. We, like any emails that came in and said, hey, I, let me rephrase that. You're correct. I just noticed what you just said. I just noticed what you just said. Correct.

It was just, go ahead.

They updated the waiting list with everybody who contacted within the period of time they were supposed to contact us. Once that period ended, no information was collected.

Okay. And we know that for a fact.

Yes. Okay. How long is the wait list currently now that it's been purged?

I have not been able to run the numbers yet because we just finished it today. So I'll be able to run that and get you the number of people.

Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Madam Chair. Commissioner Moore.

Is it something that we can get before our next board meeting though? That information. Run the information tomorrow.

Yeah, we can send out an email, part of the numbers. Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Chair.

Commissioner Nelson.

Just a simple question. In general, what is the longest somebody who's on that list has been waiting already?

It depends on their request. So we have some people like our one bedroom wait list. It tends to go fairly quick because we have a lot of one bedrooms. So it can be anywhere from two to three years for a wait for one bedroom. But for someone that need a five or six bedroom, it could be in excess of five to six years because once residents get in, they don't like to leave us.

They love us. Thank you, because I've been approached by people who said, Mr. Nelson, I've been waiting for years. And I couldn't phantom that at first. So I said, well, let me take advantage of you being here to ask that question directly. Okay, thank you. You're welcome.

Okay. Do we have any other questions? How about Commissioner Snyder? I know you're online.

Okay. No, not a problem.

All right. Thank you. Does that conclude your report or is there more? No, that's it. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

The next report is Public Safety Department Analytics and Initiatives Report and the Addendum to the Public Safety Report.

Wonderful. Madam Chair. Commissioner Moore. Really quick, will there be an opportunity to share how the event went, the hiring event? You all had a hiring event last week, I think it was. Yes, it was last week. Yeah. So, um, and it doesn't have nobody here.

It was mostly procurement staff on that. Okay. I don't see any right now. Okay. We can get, I'll make a note of that.

Yeah. Yeah. But from, from what, uh, the reports I received, it was very well attended with a lot of vendor, um, partners, partners, and it was a great event. Actually more attended this year than they did last year. Wow.

That's awesome. Hopefully we can continue to do that. Yes. All right.

Chief. Welcome. Welcome. Good evening. I'm Marlon Davis, the Chief of Public Safety for the House of Authority. Oh, you guys have the normal analytics and initiative report. I did want to talk about the framework of some of that because I think we have to understand what the nuts and bolts of this is. Housing Authority Public Safety Department operates in a multidisciplinary, data-informed, community-engaged, and proactive approach to public safety. So that's what the design of the report is. It's based on the framework and operational strategy of the Housing Authority Public Safety Department. I did finish something today that I wasn't able to get into you guys, not even proofed yet, but next month I will be delivering as part of my deliverables that particular framework and what that looks like for the Housing Authority Public Safety Department. The data from the normal report, August 4th through September 3rd, 465 calls for service, 633 officer-initiated activities. The time period we ended up being I think 13, 43 days more than the previous report. So some of the numbers may look different but for the most part calls for service went down or went up a little bit and officer initiated went down a little. That's due to the, some of it's due to staffing levels and of course some is just something that you can't really, control variables. So our officer-initiated activity was 57% of the total and the calls for service were 42% of the total, which is our aim. And again, our operational strategy is to be ahead of the curve as it relates to calls for service versus proactive and officer-initiated events. Our developments that were identified as being the eight most is Merrill Park, Park Lawn, Arlington, Cherry, Lapham, and Carver. Then we did Park Lawn, and there was a lot of visibility in there, as well as Locust, Oga Village, and College. When you look at the number for Merrill, that represents a high visible engagement. We intentionally are in Merrill to help quell some of the things that are going on. This past Friday, there was a pop-up event there where community partners, law enforcement, Safe and Sound, and Near Northwest Side Partners came out. There was a large response from the residents, and after speaking to the manager, there was some positive feedback that came out of there. We're also working diligently with the city attorney's office. We got some news about some resident today that was pretty encouraging. We are working in that development with intention. That's why the number is so high. We're doing a walkthrough tomorrow at 11 a.m. My lieutenant, Patricia Powers, is engaged with that engagement as well. That's part of our focus driven strategy as it relates to responding to community requests as well as what we see in real time and we do that collaboration with a bunch of different internal and external partnerships. So as I go to page seven, I'm just trying to get through this as quickly as possible. I know there's gonna be some questions. Page seven, we talk about our community partnerships and things that we've done, like I mentioned the pop-up event last week, but there was also a cleanup on August 29th at Hillside, and then a safe night out for the District Five area over at Carver on August 6th. That community engagement that we've been doing a lot of, is because we understand what those partnerships mean and how we can not only take the information from our community organization contacts, the leadership reach outs every month, the RO meetings, the conversations with our law enforcement partners, we've found that have some effective change in those environments based on a everybody all in type of mentality or type of strategy. We'll go on to the next piece is the addendum. Does anybody have any questions about the regular report?

No, please proceed.

The addendum was created after some conversations with, again, partnerships internally regarding West Lawn Gardens and the perception of what goes on there. We know that there's some targeted or some really challenged buildings in that development because of the way that they were designed and built. we work with district four very closely and this is a report out for that particular development the calls for service are higher than the officer initiated there's no getting around that the reason why is because We have other developments that are showing more of a need, but we did get officers in there to initiate 14. Some of these are calls for assisting the police as well. Page two breaks down the particular developments, the buildings within that development that are causing some of the attention, which you would see would be Maple and Beach. And the challenge is of the demographic makeup of those buildings and the way that it was designed with younger residents in those buildings who are just entering into adulthood and being out on their own for some of the first times. So some of those behaviors are still people working through their adolescence into adulthood. So we know that there's a challenge in that type of demographic in our community as a whole, and it's reflective in what we see accounted for in these reports. The report types on page three for West Long Gardens. Majority of our reports is daily activity logs and that's when the officers go through the development. But we do have trespass residents on this report and this is the time span same as the analytics report just to keep it in step if this is addendum that's gonna be looked at on a monthly. the community out contact an observation reports for when the officers out proactively looking at not only the uh... residents but they're looking around at the development the lighting the garbage in the following portion of that made this was of course in surveillance cameras checks the live cameras over hillside so home but doing their checks uh... regularly like that the expectation is and uh... we have uh... The vehicle tolls, we know that there's parking out there and it's an issue. I did provide this other breakdown on page four and five just so you can see in a graph chart what we're going through over there. The alarm troubles are what was discussed earlier with Brad Birdie, who seems to be leading the charge. And then documented events, that's another proactive measure where either the dispatcher gets a call and documents something just so it's on the record out there so we can have a view to go back and look and see what that document was. Or if I take a call or one of the leaders take a call, we'll document it in a documented event if it's not something that we'll be responding to.

Chief Davis, can you give us an example of what a documented event could be?

A vehicle rolled through here with a high rate of speed 20 minutes ago. It's not here anymore. I just want you all to know.

Thank you.

We'll get as much details and put that out in a document event just in case we get some calls about it later. We go to page five. We talk about the coordinated partnership strategy. It's very important for what we do, as I explained earlier. That list in the first paragraph, all of the entities that we work with outside of the agency. We also work inside of the agency, of course, with the property management team. But this developed outside agency partnership is important because it shows that we are not taking all the responsibility for what may be going on that may be above our wheelhouse or above the things that we have in our toolbox. So we need those engagements and it's reflective here. uh... on july thirtieth uh... within the ten of powers engaged with safe and sound and police the support to do a pop-up event and i believe it was at maple i'm not sure what it was then west london and that was the partner community wellness and safety was there as well uh... september third recently i reached out after having some discussions i forgot how this generated by restarts of the district for captain said hey was just a question but would you be able to give me some eyes right there set of cameras a camera bank in front of maple and the captain captain janet came back and said yeah we should be able to do that she reached out to the proper channels and as of monday there is a camera system up in front of Maple. The police department supplied that, so it just shows what we're doing to be thinking outside of the box when it comes to some of these things as it relates to insurance safe and secure environments for our residents, visitors, and staff. I also reached out to the Department of um, office of management and planning for the Milwaukee police department. And they gave me a year to date, uh, print out of what they see as level one, part one crimes. Um, and we're in the green and everything except for auto theft and, uh, nonfatal shootings. So that reflects that, We're also doing some engagement. This is a two-year time span that they gave, and I think it shows that there is some impact when safety is shared by internal, external, and the residents. When you get the buy-in, these are the results.

Thank you. Do we have any questions or comments from the commission?

Yes.

Commissioner Nelson.

I'd like to say thank you, Chief Davis, for your report. I'm really focusing whenever you come to the table, because I'm a resident at Arlington Court, and I've seen the bad. I'm very honest about my sharing information. I remember the bad when I first moved in to Arlington Court in 2020, and I've seen the improvement. I like your analytical approach as well when you talked about certain housing facilities were set up where a lot of young people were there and how you have to consider their immaturity, their development, their growth, into manhood womanhood and how you know we are when we're young we know how we were when we were young and so uh my question is how do you deal with training there's always something new going on in the world whether it's at the home we live in at the workplace so what do you do as far as training that sort of set program or approach that you use? How do you keep up with the current? For the team, yes.

What we do, we talk about leadership in this particular department. We have a monthly spotlight where, almost like a training bulletin. Okay, here's something for you guys to refresh with. So every month, the leadership team puts out a monthly spotlight. The captain... is very keen on what the operational cadence looks like and we refresh things with our team regularly and they may think maybe too much but that's a good question because we want to remain current in what the let's go with countries trends are and just like with the takeovers over the summer if we didn't have knowledge that there was a such thing as a takeover we probably would have got probably without travel would take over the night developments but because we staying current on the times uh... and the things that are partners are going as well uh... we we get to stay in front of some of that stuff training is important because that is how we expect people to spot and that's how we levels that the expectations based on the training and uh... and the policies the s o p s so we're constantly looking at step stuff that we tweak and stuff but Looking at a policy we may have done last year that didn't make sense, go back in there and change it. So we're always trying to evolve and stay current about what we are doing as far as the resources and our deliverables.

Yes. I'll conclude with this here. I wish everybody who's listening, everybody who's in this room could stay in a apartment facility like the one I'm living in for a year just to experience what goes on. And I tell you, the value of public safety would go through the roof for you is very important in a lot of different ways. Because as you get older, you may not be as sharp physically or mentally as you were in the prime of your youth. And so you're concerned about your protection. You may not be able to wrestle, this may sound a little corny, wrestle or duke it out with a criminal. So that's where public safety comes in. And once again, they cleaned up a lot of stuff that was going on at Arlington Court. And I was affected personally and directly by the cleanup.

deal so i appreciate you and i just end with that thank you very much absolutely and that includes your staff too of course thank you commissioner nelson commissioner moore um thank you madam chair um chief is it possible if um so the electeds each elected get um an omap report and omap stands for because i was looking for it Office of Management Analysis and Planning. This is something that MPD does. They provide each of the district with a report that outlines carjackings, near fatal shootings, homicide, robbery, rape, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, and motor vehicle theft. I'm wondering, is it possible for us to overlay where our developments are with our, because the data's already there, but just looking at where these incidents are happening, would absolutely help us with you know just even visually for the commission to look at a coordinated strategy strategy because you know when i look at my omap i I always know that I have my problem areas. One of them is my neighborhood where I live and another area of my district. But it helps me to say, okay, these are the partners I need to pull in. These are the things I may need District 3 to do a little bit more patrolling in particular areas. it would be really helpful for us because the data already exists to, um, have that information, um, just again, overlaid with where our developments are. Nothing that I need next month, but if it can be in the works, I would love to, um, I would just love to have a visual of where, you know, these critical incidents are happening.

Yeah, that's a good one. The stats that I talked about for Westline were from the OMAP, uh, where i got it from perfect about the year today for the past two years or whatever but i i'm going to have those conversations uh with omap and see uh if these are able to be shared i think i think like you know it's all public record yeah they're all public um so that's my concern that was that was my concern um but i will talk to them and then uh they have the ability like you said district three to for me to call them and say hey give me all the reports of my buildings in this radius and the old map thing. And then they'll show the heat chart. So it's hot here and then it gets cold and cold. You know what I mean? So I'm familiar with them. I'm going to start using that as a good source to look at some of our data.

Yeah.

And, and Yeah, absolutely.

I'll also share with you the one that I have just so you can get a sense of what we're receiving and what it looks like.

It existed in 2019. Oh, excellent. That's when I retired. But yeah, it was there. Thank you. Thank you so much, Chief.

Madam Chair. Madam Chair.

Commissioner Snyder and then Commissioner Burrell. Will you please?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Chief, I've been working with a committee of the Commission on Aging for Milwaukee County that opened up over in Havenwoods, opened in the State Park building, opened up a part-time senior center. They're there a couple of days a week in the afternoon. And it's right across the street, Park Lawn. And it's a little bit of a far field, but I wondered whether you or any of your officers have heard any rumors or anything about any sort of, you know, whatever problems going on in the senior center or in Haven Woods or whether you have a car that might be going into Haven Woods to take a look. I'm not saying that, I mean, I always liked Park Lawn a lot. I'm not Park Lawn, Berryland. I'm sorry, Berryland. I knew a lot of people there and I always thought it was a pretty safe place. But I wondered whether you'd heard anything about the senior center and whether there were elderly people or what was going on at the new part-time senior center.

I have not heard anything about the Haven Woods State Park opening up the senior center, but you're right, it is adjacent to our Berryland development, which is pretty much on autopilot. It's one of our better developments as far as conduct, behavior, cleanliness, all that. So they're in a decent spot. I'm very familiar with that area and that park as well.

I'm happy to hear that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner Snyder. Commissioner Burrell.

Chief, I have a question. I received a call in regards of West Lounge this week from a resident stating that they called public safety in regards of auto break-in, and then they called me back stating in regards of communication with the management. I do know like after hours they had to call public safety regards of the matter and they was calling telling me that you need I'm sick of people telling me what I need to do but I don't need to do but I'm question I'm asking the question right now I about communication y'all you all do communicate with the office right regards of when y'all get calls regards of auto theft and all this that and the other right

Yeah, but when we say auto theft, that's a level of crime. Of course, we want to know about it.

Burglary or robbery or tearing up a vehicle and all that.

Damage to these windows. We do document, like I said, a documented report or an observation report. If we are not physically going, But my dispatch operators understand when the police are to be caught and when to advise the residents to contact law enforcement for elements of situations like that, which are crimes. And they, of course, come out and investigate and do what they have to do. The other part of the question, yes, we try to partner with... with uh... management uh... they want to transition over westline so we're working with them through this transition and uh... because everything else in this or agency for working to get to where we want to be on a daily basis disaster yes thank you commissioners right here thank you do we have any other questions or comments commissioners

All right. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you.

And team.

Nope.

All right. Does that conclude your report or is it? It's my report. All right. Well, we can move towards adjournment. Can I get a motion to adjourn?

I motion.

All right. Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor, can you signify by saying aye? Aye. Any opposed, say no. Any abstentions? I didn't think so. The ayes have it. Have a great evening, everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Snyder.