Commissioner - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everybody. And my good friends are a blessing. With this, we open the meeting of the Housing Authority Board. And we will start with a Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice

It is the habit of this board since Mr. Sear is our designated liaison to the deity.

Father God, we just thank you for being here today. We just thank you, Lord, for covering this county with all the grace and faith that you have given us. Lord, we look to you for every decision and every discussion we have in this room today. And may your power be overwhelming, and may we be faithful stewards of what you want us to do. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you, sir.

All right, I think first we're going to start with an approval of the minutes, if I could have a motion in that direction. So moved. So moved. Any?

Second.

Directions, changes, alterations? All right. Second on that, and approve, all approve?

Aye.

Approved. All right, public comment. Ms. Lisa, do you have something? That's threatening.

All right.

We move from that to the executive director's report. Mr. Clark, please, sir.

Thank you. So normally I use this time, as you were kind of going back and forth, Lisa, I use this time to to kind of go over some of our key things like property management, property maintenance, and the housing choice vouchers to section eight. But since this is the first meeting of the month, we're gonna have the folks that actually do that down under new business present on each of those areas. We'll see if Brian's scheduled to be here to talk about maintenance. If he's not here, we'll cover that. But down under new business, we're gonna have Hassani talk about the housing choice vouchers and give updates about what's happened since the last meeting. Lisa's going to talk about what we have going on in the property management side of things. And then Brian or I will fill in for him if not to talk about the property maintenance parts of it. That said, in your packets you'll see we have the usual reports about our occupancy. You can see right around As of August, we were about 84% occupied at Fisher Manor, working to turn those over, 93% at Foxtown, 89% at Graceville Terrace, Riverside Estates, 91%, and our scattered sites, 100%, and Terrapin Grove, 97%. August work orders, we had 203 new work orders in August. We completed 120, and then 98 shown outstanding, but we normally get to those pretty quickly. They're just outstanding from the end of the month to typically the first of the next month. You'll get a housing choice voucher is in there, and we will go over that more when Hassani does her report. Let's see. Is there anything else? No. Also in your packets, so I have your attention that also in your packets is the finance report which is prepared by our county finance office. They have been amazing and part of a big process of the county taking over management of the housing authority and taking it over. We've also had the benefit of lots of staff that you don't get to see every day and part of that's the finance office, the leadership, the folks in the county commissioner's office, the kind of commissioners, etc. that that are providing a lot to it. So we worked over the years to really, really tighten up the finances within the last year. We've moved over our expense tracking and revenue tracking to the Tyler technologies that the county uses. We still use the SACS property management software to do our rents, our rent collections and things like that. And we've worked to integrate the two there. It's mostly a hand integration. They don't talk to each other, but it seems to be going pretty well. In regards to the financial reports that you have in front of you, you see that it's still early in fiscal year 27, and they reflect the first part of the fiscal year. But overall, the revenues and expenditures are beginning to start flowing through. administrative property and voucher accounts as expected staff continues to monitor each of the individual budgets there are a few individual expense lines that as you look at them appear to be above budget but mostly those lines had little or no original budget assigned to them so there are places where again as we could we're still learning about certain things that we might have expenses that we just didn't put in the budget and we're working with Jeff and Justine and Nicole in the finance office to make sure that those those are addressed At this point, though, there are no overall financial concerns that I need to bring up to the board. I will say that last Thursday, last Tuesday we met with Clifton Larson Allen the auditor to start the annual audit so we got that going on and we kick that off with our County finance and the auditors so we have to do that every year and it's it tends to be kind of extensive and deep because a lot of our funding for the housing choice vouchers comes from HUD and federal so there's a lot of auditing responsibilities but again Another thing that since the county's taken over, we've gotten a very strong, reputable, and competent firm to help with the audit. So I'm not gonna say I'm excited about an audit, but I think it'll go well. Just in regard to HOTMA, and that is, HOTMA is something that HUD is pushing on us, and it's, we're working to make sure that the housing authority is that we're covered with requirements both through our administrative plan which we'll be talking about here a little bit and that's being presented today and through ongoing program operations and the idea behind hoppa h-o-t-m-a is it modernizes a number of hud rules affecting how we administer assisted housing mostly regarding how income how people's income gets determined and what's allowed to determine what their income levels are and regarding calculations assets deductions and re-examinations so i do want to if you turn your attention to beyond our finance report if you look in to something i am personally very excited about a document called senior support services we're working real hard i've been working with lisa and i've been working with others in the community and But the Housing Authority is really working hard to launch a senior support services project. And the idea is to help adults remain safe, healthy, and connected, independent for as long as possible. So we provide a very good, and you guys talk about this a lot, we provide a very good home now, and it's even getting better in our three developments that are specifically targeted towards seniors. But unfortunately, what we're learning As we try to tackle this, that affordable housing alone for our seniors just isn't enough for many of them. So a lot of them are just, they don't have the support that a lot of families have with their families for various reasons. They're aging in place and it's getting more and more difficult for them to maintain. Health may be tracking and different issues are catching up to them or catching them, surprising them. and it's just difficult for them to um to maintain so when we took over in 2024 we did make major improvements in operations and in our facilities but those improvements revealed that we just have a growing need and there there's approximately 200 seniors that we serve through those those uh different developments with terrapin foxtown and graysonville terrace so What our vision is is to create a coordinated system of supports that allows our older groups to live independently longer there and to be able to do it healthier and happier. And also those residents support each other in a way that's very impressive most of the time. But when you get someone that hits a certain level and they need a lot of services, it tends to overwhelm even the folks around them and frustrates and makes folks angry. So what we've been doing, we've been working and reaching out to a lot of different partners out in the community to see what we can develop this senior support services add. So we've reached out to, of course, the Area Agency on Aging. who are always amazing. We've reached out to the folks at Queen Anne's at Home, a group called Chesapeake Caregivers. We've reached out to the Health Department, they've been great, and Chop Tank Community Health. We've worked with Adult Protective Seniors Services, our senior services staff, and volunteers and other groups. And our idea is to try to use those organizations and others to create the senior support services. The first thing we've done is we desire to have a home care assistance pilot where folks potentially from Chesapeake caregivers will come in and offer one-on-one services to our seniors out in the departments. The idea is that if Lisa or other staff notice that we've got a senior that just is having a hard time and they're not making it like they used to and could use a little bit of additional support, We could just implement this grant, this home care grant, to go out and meet with them individually and provide and see what kind of services, maybe provide the services directly, maybe help coordinate and bring other services in. And the idea is that we will have Chesapeake caregivers providing so many hours at each place, estimated, and then if we need to rotate them around, and they'll be able to either maybe provide regular services up to a certain amount of hours overall, or maybe they just need to stop in one or two times to check on one of our tenants. So that's, we've got a grant, yes, Mike.

Question. Yes. How do you do the outreach? I'm having a little hard time understanding how a senior living in a community, which I am one of those, and I never hear from any kind of outreach.

So I guess, There's a lot of different answers to that, and I'll let you ask Lisa when she presents too, but my answer to that is I'm not having a real hard time with that because there's a couple things you notice. One, if somebody regularly pays their rent and that stopped being paid all of a sudden, that's a factor. But also, as like I said earlier, the seniors and the tenants, they really support each other. So if somebody's having a... They'll let you know.

You're really just focused on people who are... in the system already.

Yes, in our developments. This is specifically for the folks in our developments. Now, if it goes well and we can find a way to expand it or if we need to or if we want to support like our housing choice voucher folks out in the community that are older, I see that, but... This is a step-by-step process where we're really just trying to find funds to do it and then make it happen and build it up if it becomes successful. But it's mostly within our developments.

I think generally, you'd have to, at least you could answer this better, we'd have to have some evidence of distress before we got involved because we're not going to go out sort of into the general community and

So the general community in essence is unaware of the potential availability of services

General Community has the Area Agency on Aging, which is very good. I mean, they're really, really good.

Some folks don't know about it. I had a neighbor that called me because of my background, referred him to the area office, and it worked out great. But a lot of folks don't know, even though they make every effort to advertise and put out on the street what they're doing.

Yeah, my concern would be the ones that slip through the cracks. Right. And I don't know if you've got a handle on... what kind of percentage of people that could benefit from senior services that just aren't even aware they're available.

Lisa, would it be your sense that there's enough awareness of it in the public?

Are you talking about in the public versus our tenants or just within our tenants?

Within the senior community of Queen Anne's County overall.

I believe that a lot of them do know. I mean, I don't think they, I mean, I've learned a lot. Of course I'm not to that point yet, but working with the seniors, um, I think that they know some, but there are so many different resources out there that I feel that they don't know about because it ranges from like in home care, like where they need a lot of care. And usually the people that need that family members are looking for it. Um, and then, I mean, it, It can be as easy as they need companionship and they want somebody. And there's some programs that we found that Mike and I have met with that offer just that or some groups other than the senior centers, what the things that they offer.

Thank you. How would this impact now the residents who have in-house care coming in on a paid basis. I mean, do we have many residents who have aids coming in that they're paying for on their own?

We have some, and sometimes it happens after they've lived there for a while and their health declines, and then they need it. But a lot of tenants can't. What we're finding is a lot of tenants can't afford that. then they are kind of stuck in some way. They don't have family members. They don't have any kind of assistance or help. And so we're recognizing it. I'm recognizing it, seeing it every day when I'm working with them because I'm working hand-in-hand with tenants and seeing the decline, even within months of tenants.

So do we see this as a needs-based thing or an age-based service that we're going to offer? Would we offer every... every resident the opportunity to participate in this?

This could be, the idea behind it is, I mean what we're thinking about right, well there's a couple things, first of all let me explain in regards to the senior support the actual going out and the home care assistance we see that as you know we would if if lisa or somebody in the property management team recognizes that somebody's having a certain issue that maybe one of our one of our our arrows in our quiver would be to you know say hey let's get see let's get the home care out there and just talk to them see what's going on see if they can support us and help us with that so it would kind of come up and bubble up that way but In regards to, if you think of, that's just one piece of this whole senior support services concept that we've been developing and working on and trying to build. We're trying to build it using all kinds of different funding sources and things like that. But this home care assistance, we're currently looking for grants to cover that. But there's also other core components, and I'll circle back to that point in just a second. But the other core components of what we're thinking about are the home care assistance, RESIDENT NAVIGATION AND CARE COORDINATION, WHICH WE WOULD USE OUR DIFFERENT PLACES IN THE COMMUNITY TO WORK ON THAT. ON-SITE HEALTH AND SUPPORT SERVICES, WHICH I WANT TO TALK ABOUT IN A LITTLE BIT. healthy aging and community engagement. Like one of my goals is I'd like to set up and try to get a higher percentage of our residents attending the senior centers and going there and offering incentives for our folks that actually go and participate in the senior centers instead of kind of sitting around their apartments all day and not doing anything and maybe getting depressed. So that'd be a big, and then also transition planning just to see if they need any more services, what needs to happen. So those are the key parts. So right now, Of that plan, what we're working on is one, we've got the grant into the community foundation to see if we can get some of the home care assistance covered. The other part is, which I am extremely excited about, is a partnership with Chesapeake, or Choptank Community Health Services. And you'll see in your packet, hopefully you'll see this news article that just came out, but they have got a van that is basically, this is primary care that they offer they offer it and they're able to reimburse reimburse insurance to pay for it and provide supports now they are going to be two two days out of every month they're going to be in our foxtown parking lot and they're going to be able to provide services not only to our foxtown folks but folks in that community that need to help they can stop by there by appointment only also and um This is, it's full, I mean, and Chop Tank Health Services, they've been great and we're gonna kick it off and kind of introduce it to the Foxtown community on September 29th from one to four right there in our waiting room there at Foxtown.

They're looking forward to that. What chance is there if that works out? Can we spread that up to Terrapin?

You're singing my song. That's the goal, Terrapin and Graceville Terrace. Right now, they actually, apparently, according to them, have a grant, and they'll see that if they get another van, I think that if this works out, they're willing to have that discussion.

What do they have, a PA on that thing?

PA or possibly MD. I mean, it's going to be like a full primary care there. So that is such a key part that I'm very excited about.

That's really good.

so i i just and hopefully we can pull us together it's a lot of moving parts and trying to do it in a way that we're using the resources that are already there to combine it all together and i appreciate property management i appreciate all our community partners yes my last question

Another question is there an income threshold to qualify for any of these if you can I mean can you make too much money in income and you are excluded you talking about the authority or they have any of these services pretty much every service that we have I mean they've got to meet an income threshold to be able to qualify to get into our apartments they got to be under a certain I think is it 50% of area median income

So they got to be lower than 50% to even get into one of our places.

Yeah, it's really monitored, and there's the monitor. Right.

And then every program.

Just to have somebody living in the community that's a senior that has sufficient income to live and buy their groceries and pay their rent or their mortgage or whatever, does that mean that person doesn't qualify for any services?

They could still come to the senior centers. Is my understanding. And then at the senior centers, they've got the wealth of all the expertise of the staff at those senior centers that are then know about all the different benefits that they could be eligible for.

Of course, in that situation, not precluded from getting services.

No, I think that, I mean, it depends what service they're looking to get, but that would have to go to one of the kind of the benefits people could advise them. In every situation, just like in our housing office, every situation is a little different, so it'd probably be good for them to come in, explain their situation, and then the benefits person would be able to say, here's what I think you got a shot at.

Moving on.

So that's that. That's very exciting. We had a visit just from a HUD On September 2nd, we had a visit from Lacia Summers, who is the field office director for HUD in Baltimore. um we also are in the process of rebranding and just trying to make our look a little tighter so you'll see that we have a new brochure that this is not it's not just a brochure we're going to go out we've got the new logo we've got the new look everything all our documents all our forms um our website is just going to continue to try to make it tighter and cleaner and easier for folks to understand and more professional as we move forward so that looking at DocuSign potentially some of our forms we might be able to sign electronically like if anybody's ever sold a house in the future where you just kind of or bought a house in the future you can just do DocuSign so we're in the process of starting that up right now we working on Commissioner transition we know that we're going to at least have one new Commissioner so we've got a transition guide that we've been working on We've also been working on reports for what's called the coop reports, which is the continuity of operations plan a report So that is a in case we ever have some sort of emergency. How do we make sure we continue operations? So that's something we're working on. We're doing that both for the county and then Brian Jr. Brian Barnshaw Jr. is digging deeper on specifically if we have an emergency at one of our sites. What's our strategy? What's our plan that we can whip out depending on the various scenarios? And there's it's a scary thing as you think about all the possible scenarios that could happen. Just as you know, one of the agreements that when the county took over that we had is that when the Slippery Hill developed the second part of their development, Slippery Hill 2, that they partnered with the Housing Authority, and the Housing Authority has 11% ownership in the Slippery Hill 2 part, which is not a lot, but Now, I just want to let you know that one of the things they did when they set up that partnership was they created a non-profit organization because they thought that's what was necessary for that. Turns out the non-profit organization wasn't necessary. They could have used the housing authority entity on its own, so they're in the process of redoing that legal paperwork just to reflect that. There's also the housing... Our housing choice vouchers that we have that we offer the project based vouchers at Slippery Hill. It took a year later to get started. So they're currently working on some paperwork to reflect that it took us a year. That's going thanks to Hassani's and others. That's going very well right now. It's expensive, but it's what HUD wants. But at that same point, we've got that flowing well at the moment. And I think... it's probably enough you guys are probably thinking but i think that's pretty much everything i have to add a lot of the other stuff you'll get more updates on how everything's going when we get reports from our property manager and our housing choice voucher expert and so that's my executive report you may have already commented on this i might have missed it but what kind of length of is the waiting list for for housing choice i mean for um for any What are we pulling? We were just talking about that this morning. How many years deep hours are waiting? So we're right now, it's at least a two-year waiting list. We're in county. We're in county. Out of county, it's...

So that's pretty much been around that same number for a long time.

It's about, yeah. Those waiting lists are still open. People can go wait on our website and get on that waiting list for our properties. But it's gonna be at least two years if you live in Queen, and you really need to live in Queen Anne's County to have a chance at most of our places.

You have to be a current resident.

Yeah, you can get on the waiting list and become a resident and not lose your spot.

I believe if we had the facility, re-establish itself. What keeps it from being longer is that it's two years long. I mean, there's almost no end to the housing that the public could use. And there's a measure that a county can afford, and we're pretty close to it. I think this is...

Yes, sir? All right, we ready to move on to old business?

Yes, sir.

All right. Thanks, sir. So first thing under old business is our new decks at Fisher Manor. Again, we're working to make that community nicer and cleaner. And one of the things, as we've redeveloped a lot of those apartments, we've worked on the outside. We've done things like that. We've cleaned it up. It's got a new playground. We've painted the back. storage units, and we work to keep it cleaner. We're also working intensely on crime and bringing that down to make it a nice neighborhood where people can enjoy to live. And what we really believe is one of the, there's two things in my mind, maybe three, that'll make it really look like a nice community where, you know, make it look like the nice community it is, and that's the Fisher Manor. The decks on those things are just really rough looking. So after a year and lots of architecture and lots of engineering, we have completed the bid process and we're working through the responsiveness and qualification issues with bids received. It looks like our apparent low bidder was determined to be non-responsive, so we're moving with the next bidder and hope to have that in front of the commissioners here soon. So that's very exciting. We think that we might have those. The plan is we'll have those decks done hopefully by the end of November now at this point. So the next thing is we've got paving. The next new thing would be paving at both our Fisherman and our Graceville Terrace parking lots. And we got a grant to pay for those. In the process of applying, the price of paving went up. So we went back to the state and asked, hey, look, can we have a little bit more money? Because if the money we have now, we could only do one of those parking lots and they are both in rough shape. And the state came back because they've been wonderful through the community block grant and they gave us the additional money. So we have additional money to do paving both in Fisher Manor and Graceville Terrace. Now, we might be pushing that out because you want to do both those projects at the same time to save money, according to our engineers out at DPW who have been a huge help for that. And so we're looking to push that out a little bit, but I believe once we get that going, that'll be another thing that makes it look nice. We are also in the midst of talking with some nonprofit organizations that do landscaping work to maybe get some nice landscaping out at Fisher Manor too. So that's the Community Development Block Grant. And then just to follow up from last year's board strategic planning you may recall that I believe it was last January, but maybe it was last November that the Housing Authority in complete in collaboration with our housing County Housing Office and the local management board has recently released a request for proposals for community needs assessment and this RFP builds on the interagency needs assessment concept discussed during our our strategic planning And the assessment is intended to look at community needs across systems rather than in isolation. So it's going to look across all three, including how community conditions, policies, and systems affect housing affordability and quality of life in our county. The goal is to produce a practical actionable recommendations that can help us the Department of Housing community organizations local leaders respond to current needs while planning for future growth so that's where we are and that's actually that RFP is out in the streets now and I think responses are due September 16th is the deadline for that so those are all the things we've kind of updates on old business Is it okay to move into the new business? All right. So the first thing I want to note, as you may have remembered, is an update to our Housing Choice Voucher Administrative Plan. It's that thick three-inch book right there. I emailed it out to the group about two weeks ago, two to three weeks ago, so you've got to have a look at it. But basically, this plan is the plan that, or it's not, it's a policy book. It's not a planning book. It's a policy book that establishes the policies that we operate when we administer the housing choice vouchers, the Section 8 housing assistance. Because it's federal money, it requires a book that thick, and we do use it. To put that book together, we use a group called Nan McKay. um they monitor hud requirements they're consultants they're countrywide they monitor hud requirements and provide updates to help keep the plan current because our plan had fallen several updates behind this version that i asked you guys to approve today will brings us from the 2023 version edition through july and august of the current year 2026. These are not changes being made because of a specific Queen Anne's County issue at this point. The purpose is just to bring the plan into alignment with current HUD requirements and recommended policy changes that have come from HUD. The updated plan also retains local policy language that some of you may remember that this board approved back in Chapter 8 and 9, including Section 911. that's 1.1 where we changed has some changes regarding how leases and rent. As you know the plan is more than a 1000 pages. So you guys received electronically to look it over and that you probably noted that the changes are shown in blue and delete languages shown with strike throughs. We gave you kind of a an information sheet. which roger made some good feedback about it that looks like this that said kind of the highlights of the notes that we put in the what we changed in the plan um roger noted and it's a good point which i hate to acknowledge but we should have put page numbers on it i apologize sections are kind on it but there weren't page numbers to take you directly to it but um hopefully you all feel comfortable through the information we provided um to um approve those amendments.

Does that require that we vote to approve?

It does. In the amendment sheet, it would be the second amendment on your amendment sheet if you're so inclined to make a motion for it. I think it's the blue amendment sheet. It's a blue sheet you got there. You can make that motion if you want.

Mr. Chair, I'll make a motion. I move the board approve the updated Housing Choice Voucher Administrative Plan incorporated in July and August 2026 upstates as presented.

Second.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? There you go, Michael.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, group. I appreciate it. That was a lot of work. I would like to thank Brian Barnshaw, Jr. for a lot of his work. I'd like to thank There she is Hassani for her input on this. There's a lot of work that went into that. So thank you all. So the next thing is, is just before we go, before we have the presentations from our folks, I just want to mention that we're also making some changes overall. So we're going to go into specific parts of the housing authorities, specific three key areas, our housing choice vouchers, the property management and the property maintenance. Housing authority is one of three also within the Department of Housing and Family Services. So we have been kind of working to bring that department since we've moved from the Department of Community Services and it divided up into the Department of Aging and Transportation. and also our department that we fall under the department housing and family services so within the packet you'll see that i have a little org chart that shows the department of housing and family services and how it falls out within that chart the biggest piece of the department is the housing authority that's in green and you can see how that falls out there that's what i consider one of the divisions now It's important to note that the Housing Authority is its own kind of organization. So it's treated by the county as a component unit. It's got its own budget separate from the county budget. But as far as how we do it for the org chart and handle it within the department, you can kind of see there. And I've checked with Jeff to make sure it's okay to display it that way. Jeff ranked for finances and he said it was. The other division you can see is in kind of a pink color. And that's the housing and family services. Those are the ones that provide like our rental oversight. They provide our affordable housing. They provide our homeless prevention work and our homeless support work and do some of the events around affordable housing that make a difference day. And a lot of other big things there. And then lastly, the blue is the local management board, which is our children and family services trying to make the community stronger. I believe Roger's on their board. So we have that. And then we have some staff like myself that cover throughout divisions and have the different colors located in different places. But I just want to draw your attention before we talk specifically about the housing authority that the housing authority is a component unit that it falls under the guise within the county of the new department of housing and family services um but and then the other key points on that that i will note is that the department of housing and family services um they're starting they the group is really working together so if we have somebody that might be having trouble with rent or making their rent um we can talk to the housing office see if there's any way they can help them out support them something like that um if If we have a family member that their house is not got plumbing or they got a friend or one of our housing choice voucher clients or maybe one of our homeowners we know about out in the community, they're just barely making it. They're paying their taxes, but they can't afford much else, you know, and they've got a leaky roof. Maybe we can help them with that from our county housing office. So those are just some of the ways that the department's working together now and being able to provide that service. In addition to working within the entire county which has been it really is a joy to work with folks across the county because everybody is very willing to help so with that i'll stop talking and allow some of our folks to come up and present if that's okay with you proceed i think the first person we we asked to come up was housing choice was in regards to housing choice vouchers which some folks know is section eight and that's hasani so hasani do you mind coming up and You can sit right here behind one of the microphones. All right, whenever you're ready, go for it. Thanks for coming.

You're welcome. Hi, my name is Hassani Poku. I'm the Housing Choice Voucher Administrator, and I administer the Housing Choice Voucher Program, formerly known as the Section 8 Program. It's a federal government program that helps low-income families, elderly families, and veterans and disabled individuals afford safe, decent, sanitary housing. With the Housing Choice Voucher, they can rent from a private landlord in a private market. So that's the option that they do have. They can rent a single-family home, townhomes, or apartments in Queen Anne's County. They do have the option after a year to transfer to any county, any state they would like to. after a year of being on the program. We received federal funding from the United Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is HUD, which means the landlord and the tenant both have obligations and responsibilities on the housing choice voucher program. Right now we're making sure a lot of our clients and landlords are staying in compliance with the program so we can obtain our funding and continue to get the funding. Right now we're currently administering 168 housing choice vouchers. We have three special purpose vouchers. We have 14 project based vouchers with slippery Hill right now. Those project based vouchers are tied to the unit, which means when our clients move, they cannot take the voucher with them. It will stay with that unit. Most clients pay 30 to 40% of the adjusted gross income. 40% of the maximum amount they would pay. We have one home ownership voucher in Queen Anne's County in Centerville. So we only have one person that has a home ownership voucher currently. We have two open foster the youth initiative vouchers. Those vouchers are for youth age 18 to 24 transitioning out of foster care. The referral comes from the Department of Social Services and it's for youth that build sufficient lives and the voucher can last up to three years. If they do get it we currently have someone with screen in but right now they haven't came to get the voucher once they do then hopefully we can get them leased up and find a unit in Clemence County. So that's the goal. We have three state voucher program. The state voucher program is a program that provides a rental subsidy for low income families that meet the criteria such as homelessness, disabled, 62 or older, or foster child. With the state voucher program, it's a five year program. It's different from that housing choice voucher program because these funds are administered by the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development. We received a grant of $75,000, which we were able to house three families in Queen Anne's County with that grant. We don't know how many more we will get. We did have a meeting today, and they did say 2,027 funding will be coming soon, so we hoping that at least we can house one more family, depending on what the funding will be. Right now there's 300 people total on our witness combined.

How long is that?

The waitlist? Our waitlist is not open.

Time-wise?

No, but we're in a shortfall currently. So we're not pulling anyone off the waitlist.

So right, even if we have somebody leave, we're not filling it. We're not allowed. It's part of our plan. It's just a voucher that goes away.

Yeah.

There's no hope for the person.

Not this year. Not currently.

Hopefully within some years to come. To become eligible for the housing choice voucher program, you apply to a waitlist. Again, the waitlist is currently closed. When they're open, we advertise in the local newspapers as well as the Queen Anne's County website. We set up a date and time application, and we close the waitlist based on the date, and sometimes we may put a maximum number of people that can apply. Once the waitlist is closed, then we send a letter to the applicant to let them know what their number will be on the waitlist. And that's based, again, on the date and time that they applied. Depending on the funding, if we do have the funding, then we will select them from the waitlist. We have to make sure they're eligible. We'll send out a packet with paperwork to determine eligibility. We have to make sure that they're not a criminal and they're not a sex offender, as well as they don't owe any money to public housing. So if they owe any money to public housing or the landlord, that's a way to not be eligible for the program. If they do owe money to give them the option to pay that money back to the House of authority or whoever they were over to even if it's clean as County, sometimes they may live in our convention. Well, but we do send a denial letter if they are not approved. If they are approved, we will send them a letter for a brief and a brief in this movie. They come in and we explain all the programs for the program. We also explain HUD expectations as a participant. During the briefing, they'll get a voucher. That voucher is normally for 90 days. In that new administrative plan, we ask for the voucher to be extended to 120 days instead of 90. What's that about just issued we give them a new landlord packet that the package so the landlord that they potentially will be ready to will fill out and if the unit passes inspection. Then they can move into that you know we will send a letter let me know that they can move in what they're not a great will be in the amount that we will pay the landlord. The one that this movement they cannot pay more than 40% of the adjusted gross income.

Do they need to meet all these requirements in order to get on the waitlist? No. They can get on it and then work on?

Yes, they will get on the waitlist first, and then we'll do eligibility the next step. And based on that eligibility is when we would determine that they're eligible for the program.

So it's boom, boom. They get on the waitlist, then you determine the eligibility before there's availability.

After. You'll sit on a wait list if you apply to apply we can't we don't do anything until we know that we may have funding and then if we do have funding will send the eligibility letter with a packet with all your information or have the income you have who's going to be in your house. Citizenship for that's done when the housing is becomes available if the funding becomes available to pull.

Thank you.

Landlords will sign a housing assistant payment contract and we they will have to be a yearly lease the first year will have to be a yearly lease. Right now we're currently in the shortfall is based on the previous contract where we no longer what we had to on a higher risk for the 14 project based on just a slippery Hill face too. Which resulted in the House of choice voucher program not being able to cover the House of choice voucher program as well as those 14 bounces from the project basis for real things too. Mike Clark had applied for a shortfall assistance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. So he did apply for shortfall assistance and we're currently, we received it last year and we're currently applying now to receive assistance. And result of that, we're currently taking the following measures to make sure that program integrity is established. Important. We're holding clients responsible for underreported income, setting up repayment agreements to pay back underreported monies owed to the housing authority. We are terminating housing choice voucher clients because we have to follow that administrative plan. And if they're not willing to pay the money back, then we have to terminate, unfortunately. Mike have also implemented a 5% cap on landlord rent increases, which is done once per year. So there's a cap, and that's going to help us strengthen the amount that we're currently under as of right now. We also are utilizing our HUD reports. We have an Earned Income Verification Report, an Income Verification II, and a new hire report that tells us the date the person got hired. We also have their income verification report that tells us any wages, any Social Security that's received any unemployment. So if we have a new hire report and it's stated you're not working, we're going to send you a letter. We send out a letter and we let them know, hey, congratulations on your job. Please report this income. Because what happens with the... income verification to is monitored by HUD. So if you report $10,000 worth of income and the system says you report, you actually make 30,000. That's the discrepancy and you may have to pay that money back. So those are the measures that were taken to make sure we strengthen income reporting.

Excellent. Sonny's been working really hard to, I mean, it's every day, it's a new, there's something new that she's having to respond to every day. There's something new with one of the tenants and then on top of it with the shortfall and having to make sure we do everything we can to respond to what HUD requires us to do in response to the shortfall. And then also making sure she's pushing real hard to make sure that the tenants that are receiving rent are reporting their income correctly. and asking them to report their stuff and it's not hard questions really it's really not that hard but she she stays on and make sure she's doing it it's been very impressive well well done thank you so the next one is to talk about property management that's lisa gray our property manager well

First big news I have is after two years of me begging and begging and begging, I finally have my new assistant property manager.

So I'd like her to come up and join us while we go over some of this information.

This is Kathy Colligan. Hello.

Hi there.

Very excited to have her on our team. She was the office coordinator with the housing division previously and then she applied along with many others and then we she was promoted and came over so very excited um very new she just started full time with us probably like what a week ago right i think so it's a transition over the past um month or so right so happy to finally have help all the time um she's been getting familiar with our systems files the properties meeting all the tenants at each of the properties, how we operate out in the field and at the properties. So welcome and very excited for her. So our main focus has been improving our day-to-day operations, as you guys know, and creating more consistency in how we manage the properties. Some of the things we've been working on include reducing and monitoring vacancies, improving unit turnaround time, which is a big one, Um, improving our applicant tracking and wait list process, keeping tenant files and documentation up to date, um, and getting them up to date, um, making inspections more consistent and improving the followup from those inspections, um, addressing tenant and lease compliance issues consistently. Um, that that's another big one that we're always having to work on. Updating the leases, the policy, the forms and notices and procedures. We put a lot of work into that. Creating clear and more consistent information for our tenants and overall working on having better systems in place so staff know what is expected and the tenants receive consistent, clear information from us. So vacancies, I know that's the big thing that everybody always asks about, especially at the meetings, the tenant council meetings, Why so many vacants? Why aren't they getting filled? Well, they are getting filled, but it's a constant cycle of getting them and then filling them up. So our biggest ongoing priority is reducing vacancies and getting available units leased up as quickly as possible.

What's the number right now?

18 vacants right now. I'm going to go into all of that. So we've actually created a new tracking system Um, process we've been working with Kenya, Mike, myself, and now Kathy, um, to where we are tracking. All the tenants were pulling for each unit. So sometimes we're having to pull like 10 different applicants for these vacancies. Um, it, this will allow, this has allowed us to see how many we contact for each unit. Um, cause we're tracking them and keeping them consistent with all the notes. How many actually respond because, you know, Kenya might reach out and they don't answer. Their contact information changed. They decline. So we kind of put those notes in of why they are doing so because everyone's like, well, that unit's been vacant for so long, and we put the dates on it. So now you can see, all right, well, we've pulled 10 people from the wait list for that particular unit. These are the notes. These are how many times she contacted and when the process ends. Sometimes, well, a lot of times I think she's found where she pulls them, starts the approval, they accept the unit, something changes within their situation, and they're unable to move or, I mean, so many different reasons. So then they withdraw, and then we have to start all over.

In a situation where someone can't accept, do they go all the way back to the end of the line if they say, well, I can't do it now, but I still want to?

So it does depend on the situation. So if they're wanting to stay on the, a lot of times they just decline, they're taken off the wait list, you know, they don't want to move anymore. Sometimes they say, okay, due to this situation, they can't move. They're not going to go to the bottom of the wait list on certain, you know, it has to be approved depending on what the reasoning and they have to be able to, you know, show the documentation or show the reason why.

But then it just automatically end up going to the back of the line. In case they just can't do it then, they can do it next month, but they can't do it now. That kind of thing.

Yeah, they won't go back to the back of the line. But again, it depends on the situation. So once they let us know.

Each situation individually.

So this whole process has given us a better picture of why leasing a unit can sometimes take longer, and we're able to answer that in a more detailed way to when we were asked, than what everyone's expecting. Sometimes we have to contact many applicants, like I said, then a lot of times, our wait lists are so long, so it takes years before we contact them. Their contact, even though they're told in the beginning, you need to make sure you update your contact information, that's a requirement, It may not all be updated. So we may have a good address, but not a good phone number. That's changed. So when we call, we can't get a hold of them. So then we have to mail the packet. And when we mail the packet, we give them a deadline to respond. But we still have to wait for that process before we can move on because that is our process and our policy. so these things can add up you know to add the time to the leasing process even when we're actively working to fill because i feel like that's in can you can i'm sure say the same is i feel like that's all we're working on is just constantly trying to get these filled we don't want vacants and then whenever we you know get down a little bit then it's like i feel like we get a whole range of them back up like we just did so To give you an idea, since last September, which is a year, we've completed 22 move outs, 27 move ins, five transfers, and we currently have 18 vacants. So when I started, even two years ago, I mean those numbers have like fluctuated. So it's like, you know, there was a huge amount. So getting, we're not really having the maintenance issues as much with getting the turnovers done. They're still having, you know, depending on the time frame, still having some time, you know, we're having to hire out vendors and get those completed and stuff. But now it's like falling on getting the, you know, the applicants to be approved in order to move in. So we're just going to continue to work on that. I want to get them down to zero, then get one and work on that and then fill it back up. So with the vacancies comes new move-ins. which are always one of my favorite things. I have been working on improving the move-in experience for our new tenants. That's one very important thing to me. I want them to feel welcomed and comfortable from the very beginning of the process. I don't want them coming in and feeling like they're an inconvenience or anything like that. I want them to come in because we're providing them their home. Um, so I have, I make folders with all the lease paperwork, um, additional information. I go over the, you know, it takes usually a move in takes at least, at least two hours minimum, depending. And you know, some of the seniors, they could take a little longer cause they bring, you know, family members and everything. Um, but I go through the paperwork in detail, make sure that they know they get a copy of absolutely everything. Um, I personalized the folder, you know, I get everything ready ahead of time. I make sure that they understand what they're signing and what's expected of them, what we're able to provide, detailed information on things about the property. And then I also do additional information. So I've been pulling resources like crazy, like Mike has talked about, with us working with a lot of different agencies and trying to get additional resources. They may not need them now, but they may need them in the near future. At the senior properties, I encourage them to join the senior center. I walk them to the senior center at whichever property. If the manager's available, I introduce them. I put the senior center calendar for every single senior center in the move-in packet. I also give them the application if they're not signed up. I encourage them to sign up and go over the activities that are available there. I also walk them around the property show them the important areas that they need to know about go over all the different amenities that we have whatever is at that property and then even introduce them to tenants along the way if they're outside if it's appropriate like if if the tenants walking down the hall and we you know make sure to try to introduce them to a lot of them because a lot of them you know at the senior properties they're sitting around in the you know community areas I also talk to them about the tenant council meetings. I encourage them to come. I go over that information, all the activities and opportunities to get involved. I highly encourage them to participate. That's like one of the biggest, my biggest goals is to get, and I've been hearing a lot of feedback that, oh, all the new tenants, because we've been having a lot of new tenants, you know, they're coming to the meetings, they're getting involved, they're doing X, Y, Z. So it has, you know, I hope it's helped. You know, I think it has because I've gotten good feedback from that. So my goal is to make the move-in process more than just completing the paperwork. I want it to be a welcoming experience that helps new tenants feel at home and welcome from the very beginning, rather than just moving into an apartment. Because they do take care of one another at these senior properties. They're like a big family, you know? You have it all. They fight. They help each other. They do everything. But I love it. So property improvements. We have been working on so many improvements across the properties. Most of these projects are included in Brian Barnshaw's report, but I wanted to give you a few. So signs across the properties. If you've I don't know if you guys have gone to all the properties or have seen prior the signs at the different properties. They're like half of them were, you know, didn't even have half the words on them. They're falling down. Mike and I and Brian and everybody has been, you know, walking around making sure and going through detail of which signs we're going to have. We're all going to have them consistent throughout all the properties. We are actually getting new signs for the main and they're all going to be the same except with the property name on it. So everything's going to be it's going to look more professional and uniform, you know, appearance across the property. So I don't know if the signs have been ordered. I know we just did the final. vote on it i don't know if they've been ordered yet or not but it will have the seals they'll have our logo on it the county seal on the other side so that's really exciting we are also working with zoo security to upgrade the key card access system so if you guys been at foxtown or terrapin terrapin especially it drives me crazy so you go in there and say tenant has a guest these are completely outdated They go to the front door and you try to look at that little box where all the names are. It doesn't matter if they find the name or not because they're not going to be able to contact them through that system. So we're trying to get that upgraded to where, you know, we have tenants that can't leave their apartment at times to where they can buzz them in. So they can't gain access. And you have somebody, if they have a delivery, a lot of them get their medications delivered to their apartment. A lot of times the delivery guys have a way to get in, but not always. So when their children come or grandchildren come, they can, hey, buzz me in. And they don't have to come all the way down to open the doors for them. So we are working with them to get that all upgraded. So hopefully really soon. And plus, half the time the cards at Terrapin, they go, access like loses access for some reason not sure why but they come they were working all of a sudden it loses access and i have to reprogram them all so it's a pain and i have to walk from one side of the property to the other to program them over and over again um so also at terrapin we have scheduled painting for all the hallways which i'm so excited about i've been begging for the painting i want it to look fresh it's very you know dark and dim That starts September 21st, so we're working on Choosing the colors and getting everything situated So we're going to do that in you know a process break it up the property so it doesn't inconvenience attendance They're gonna all be made aware and then after that My next big thing that I've been wanting to do there all the flooring on the second and third floors will be replaced so if you've been up there and There are stains down the hallways. Tenants drag their trash down the hallways. They spill things. So many different reasons, but they're stains. It's really... I can't wait for it to get changed. We're going to put vinyl flooring, so it's going to match the first floor throughout the whole property. They're getting a whole facelift, and it's going to be a fresh look, so I'm really excited about that, which I know Mike will go into the rest with Brian's... list all right and then Kathy's first project on board that she's been tasked to do is working with me and to start a tenant council at Graysonville Terrace Graysonville Terrace is the only senior property that does not have one I know that they did I've been trying to do research I'm not sure when it stopped how it ended or what but we're working on getting that done. So we are holding an informal event at Graysonville Terrace on October 1st, which you guys are all invited and I hope you guys can attend. But I am going to actually let Kathy tell you a little bit of the event that she's planning.

Like Lisa said we're just planning a fun informal Resident gathering where we want to you know sit and talk to the residents and we're gonna provide some food some good food and you know, hopefully a little entertainment and a short presentation on the community and Then we will also provide the information that they would need to start a resident tenant council and how to create it and how to run it and fill out for people that might be interested to get on board. Because we can guide them and help them, but it's really up to the tenants to do it. And the first thing that they need to do is to vote to actually have the tenant council. So hopefully we can get a vote done that night or shortly after.

That's October 1st?

That's October 1st, and I have flyers here for everyone. Which community is that? I'm sorry?

Which community is that?

It's Graysonville Terrace.

So look. What's the occupancy in that? How many people, how many units is that?

That is, Graceville Terrace, that is 38.

As you know, I go to every Well, that's what I'm wondering about because we've got a number of different facilities is there any way we can combine them these extra ones so that we don't wind up having to go to a

Well, we've been talking about the different options, and right now, I mean, this is just the beginning of the works right now, but one of the issues at Graysonville is they don't have a community room like Foxtown or Terrapin. So we've been working, trying to figure out if the senior center may be doing it during the day and in the afternoon once a month would. But the thing is, is if we combine them, the problem we're going to have is that I mean, yes, the county ride could potentially take them, but depending on the time and then on, you know, expecting, is it really fair to make Graysonville? Well, you have to drive to Foxtown to have your guys' meeting and be a part of their meeting to hear about that, you know, their information.

Yeah. I wasn't trying to shove the other ones into Terrapin. What I was wondering about, is there any way we could amalgamate the non Terrapin, non Foxtown into some kind of bulk because it gets unwieldy, all I can tell you.

We're considering the idea of Fisher and Riverside doing something to combine.

Anyway, we don't need to spend time on it now, but it's just something to think about as you go about it.

We have really been thinking about it and trying to come up with the best solution on what we could do. And I mean, so far, this is, and I think Foxtown and Terrapin, they do have theirs set in place so much, and I don't know. I guess we'll see. We'll see if Graysonville even wants to have anything. They may not vote to not have one, you know, so.

I'll tell you, I really believe that doing, going to those meetings is useful for two different reasons. First, you hear things that you wouldn't hear otherwise, but it also shows the tenants that you're on the case.

They love having you there, too. Oh, yeah.

They love it. And they appreciate it. And when I don't show up, they call me up at home and, where the hell are you? Anyway, that's good.

Yeah. So hopefully you guys can come and make it. And then we'll keep you posted on the future.

can we make sure that we're on the notification email list oh sure absolutely I don't think I've ever received one from tenant meeting at any of the properties that might be because I think they do it but we can ask the presidents of the associations to add you they'd be I'm sure they'd be happy for the tenant council meetings yeah there's not a notification it's like the same I'd go to them if I knew about it, but I never get notifications.

Terry Brown's is Wednesday. Yeah. What is that, the third Wednesday of every month? And Foxtown's the second? Wednesday. Yeah, it's the same every month.

Yeah.

But we'll make sure that we get you that information.

Thank you.

Thank you. Absolutely. So, I'm sorry. That's all. Anything else you want to add to that might with the other than no. All right well moving forward our priorities are just pretty straightforward. Continue to work on reducing the vacancies keeping our properties and tenant files in order improve consistency in our procedures and communication continue providing good service and making properties feel like home for our tenants. I think having Kathy on board will really help us continue moving in that direction. And I look forward to the improvements we can make together. And last but not least, as we were walking over here, just to show hopefully something great, is we just got notified that we won again for the shore update. Terrapin Grove did. for the best in 2026 golden anchor award the best independent living i just turned out the email that said we won so there will be um i know the jetty celebration that we went to to get the award but you know i do think that's great that they are recognizing you know what we're doing there in our tenant center well done all right thank you thank you thank you

And then just Brian had family engagement, so he wasn't able to make it for this. So I told him I would just go quickly over his updates for property maintenance. Our facilities manager is Brian Barnshaw. I'm going to start with welcoming Parker Blast. He is our newest facilities tech. So he just how long ago did you start, Parker? Three weeks ago, and he's been hitting the ground running. So it's great having you. Thanks for all your hard work. There for a while, Parker was our only facilities tech because one was out and one's been out. Shannard just came back from a long-term medical. He's back today. And then with Shannard and Parker and Melissa Brodcombe, we now have our full slate of facilities techs, folks.

How long is the waiting list to get something fixed?

We normally get it within the same day, within 24 hours, typically, right? Yeah, that's our goal, is to try to do it in 24 hours. Leaks and stuff like that even faster, because things like that. There's some stuff that if it's smaller, we have to move it, but we try to do it in 24.

I would say it's very clear to us that how the tenants feel about these facilities is exactly measured by how quickly respond so that the work order list is absolutely critical to running this thing right. And we do.

I've made the joke, and I think it's kind of true, is that when Brian walks across the parking lot, it's similar to when a person walks across a beach in Ocean City with Thrasher's French fries and the seagulls start attacking because they want the French fries. That's kind of what happens to Brian with the tenants when he's walking across the parking lot. So just a couple quick updates, and then we're done. But like I mentioned, the deck replacement at Fisher Manor, we're finally getting ready to get it started. We're going to have six trees planted down the driveway at Fisher Manor sometime this fall to make it look more like an estate. The grant has been approved for Fisher Manor and Riverside Estates for parking lots. And like I said, we were short on funds and we asked for money from state DHCD and they provided us more money to totally cover the cost of repaving those two lots. Fencing surrounding the HVAC systems and the dumpsters at Gracieville Terrace is looking chipped and ragged, and it's currently being replaced as we speak. We're currently doing remodels at Foxtown, Fisher Manor, Gracieville Terrace, Riverside Estates, and Terrapin Grove. And then our one scattered site out at Spatz Neck is completely being remodeled. The house is currently being leveled out and placed on a block foundation with an encapsulated crawl space. Other renovations for that space include replacement of the windows, the flooring, the appliances, the kitchen cabinets, and other similar improvements. There's a lot more than that day to day going on, but those are some of the big ones that we have. And Brian and his team are doing an amazing job. So that's the update.

Super. So I have a new business, guys. problem that we have had and a complaint that we have lived with for three years is the really second rate service that we get out of Breeze Lawn that the tenants in all the facilities are repeatedly saying breakdowns, failure of repair to get in quickly, If there is a common complaint, and my general tactic has been to let it blow over my head and tell him Mr. Clark is going to fix it. But that has not happened because he couldn't do it. And he couldn't do it because we're on some kind of contract. But I want to back up and say that. in a way, this thing has gotten to be, to me, an issue we really want to deal with for the following reasons. For a lot of, I would say a third of the people that are living in these apartments, they literally don't leave them, and that that is their access to the world. To them, it isn't just TV, it's life. So when you have a bad service that's breaking up and it can't get repaired, and it goes on and on like that, We're going to fix it.

Is there an alternative? We're going to make an alternative.

Of course there's an alternative. I don't know. There are a number of different issues. The first issue is there's a lot of service. You've heard the same thing. It's very intermittent. It breaks down. But secondly, there's a lot of... A lot of the tenants don't understand the packages. The packages are complicated. And one of them will say, well, I'm paying $140 a month, another one's paying $50. If one complains about a specific rate package, the company will come in, cut their rate down, and turn off half the channels. So I think what we need to do is arrive at some kind of a uniform good package at a price that's understandable and if we need to subsidize it a bit, I'm gonna push that we try to get that done because it's really important to these people who have so little input that we do a good job. So I want to ask for somebody to come up with a motion that that be a project we get on with.

Let me just clarify a little bit. So you were looking to find a vendor, could be any one of the table vendors. And design a comprehensible package that would be affordable and would service all of our properties. Exactly. I so move. I so move, yep.

Second. Everybody, all in favor? Aye. There we go. Michael, get her done. Who seconded that? Mr. Moran will find out some way to do it. I actually spoke to Todd Monn about it this week. He's utterly cooperative and favorable with this. I've talked to Michael, but it really is something at this point we need to get done. Studying something for two years is not the way this board works. So thank you. End of speech.

Where do we go from here, Michael? That's it. Announcements adjourned. The next board meeting is November 16th. So if there's not any further business, then if you want to entertain a motion for adjournment.

Motion to adjourn. So moved. Second.