Community Relations Commission - Regular Meeting

Present. Great.

Eric was not able to attend today, so I'll be sitting in for him today. So acceptance of the journal, the journal and proceeds of the community relations meeting held on 04/09/2026. Can I have a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Soak here. Next we will have under communications. We do have someone signed up for public speaking today. Mr. Mitchell? No? Oh, okay. He's not here today. Do we have anybody anyone else? Alright. Well, next we'll have our information only session. And tonight it's an honor to have Rockford Fire Department in the updates from chief

tile.

Hello,

hello, oh perfect.

Challenge one. You don't mind if I stand, do you? I just, it's a little bit more comfortable for me. Well, thank you very much for the invitation to come speak with you. I am Rebecca Tayo. I'm the new fire chief for the Rockford Fire Department. I feel incredibly honored and privileged to step into that role. I was appointed in October and so just had about seven months and it's been a busy seven months but it's been really something spectacular. So excited to kind of share with you an overview of the fire department and kind of the mission vision and direction that we'd like to take it. Okay? So first and foremost, 2024, we sat down as a fire department when

it was the

then accreditation manager and talked about what's our strategic direction. What we did is we gathered information from our external stakeholders and internal stakeholders and said, hey, what are the things we do well? What do we not do well? What are the things we want to fix? In the past, we've had seven or eight goals that we've managed over a five year period.

This time we wanted to take three really important goals and throw everything that we had at it, right? We want to tackle it and make sure that we accomplish these goals and make sure that they're very impactful to the organization. And so what we have in our strategic plan which is from 2025 to 2030 are three very specific goals. Number one is addressing critical deficiencies in service delivery to meet the expectations of the community and the needs of the personnel. So we're talking about our call volume workload, how we're how we're managing our response plans to meet the needs of the community. The second goal talks about community engagement. How are we engaging with the community? How are we reaching out to them? How are we providing education? How are we recruiting the future of the Rockford Fire Department?

We want to make sure that we are out there and engaging with the community. We don't want you to only see us when you call 911. So we want to get out there and be visible in the public. The third goal that we have is addressing the health wellness of our members, not just so that they're healthy when we're serving the community, but also that they're going to retire healthy. So we're looking at fitness initiatives, wellness initiatives, cancer prevention, And so those were the three big goals that we have. And when I talked about engaging with our external stakeholders, we learned several things. And typically these are the themes that we hear. Number one, we want a rapid response to emergency. When you call 911 you want us there quickly. Right?

The quick response, timely delivery of skilled, high quality care, strong focus on protecting life, property, and public safety, consistent reliable response when called upon. So when we when we gather all this information from our external stakeholders we we know that there's two questions. Are we available to respond and how fast can we get there? Right? So we're in constant evaluation of how we evaluate our service to the community.

We know that when call volumes up the reliability and availability of our services go down. That when workload is high, right, it can decrease our service to the community which increases the risk. And so we're constantly evaluating these things which is no different than the people in this picture did. Okay? History of the Rockford Fire Department in 1855 we were a volunteer organization.

And I always like to point out here on the right hand side, that top picture was fire station number three, company number three. And you can see the horses in that picture, but the one below it is also engine three, twenty something years later, where they they look a little happier in that photo because they have an actual, you know, truck with wheels and it's, you know, causing them a little less work. But we're doing nothing different. In 1881, paid fire department, the first chief, and four firefighters. And so Hello?

There we are. So these individuals, the people we stand on their shoulders, right? They built this great department that we have today. They also said to How fast can we get there? I really need it. How fast can get there? Are we available? Right? They're probably saying, hey, which horse is the fastest one? Right? So same challenges. So we're doing nothing. We've grown since, you know, 1881. Obviously, we have a fire chief. We house our nine one one division.

We have a prevention division, administration, logistics, training, and operations. A brief overview and I know this is like a 100 slide presentation and no. Just kidding. I'll probably kind of breeze through these. Right? We have an administrative chief, right, and a and a statistical analyst. That's a big part of what we do is we have to have anything anymore is data driven. We wanna be able to collect the data, analyze the data, and make good decisions. Our operations division, you can see the little map there of our jurisdiction. We have 11 different areas that we call still territories.

They're geographical planning zones. We have 11 different stations across the city. And right now, we have 10 engines, four ladders, and eight ambulances. And so we divide our resources into two districts, District 1 and District 2. See that District 1 has Station 1 and down from District 2. And the boxes in green mean that they're a double house. It means that they have an engine and a ladder at

those houses. Mhmm.

The unique thing about our operations division is that we have an EMS coordinator that manages our mobile integrated health program. And I'm gonna get to that in a We measure a lot of, again, analyzing the data, looking at our fire response calls. And historically, we have somewhere between five thirty, five fifty fire calls a year. And they're broken down into a lot of different categories. Here we go. That's okay. All right. This is probably better. Okay, you're right. You're right.

Okay, can you hear me? Okay, so we break these down into a lot of different categories: structure fires, cooking fires, vehicle fires, so we're constantly analyzing data. We look at our EMS calls and we look at general EMS calls, motor vehicle accidents, right, with injuries. We look at how we're transporting patients to the hospital, whether it's emergent, non emergent. So we're always looking at these things to make sure that we're operating efficiently and effectively for the community.

So our mobile integrated health program is a unique program that I think is innovative and it is in a lot of ways the future of the fire service. You know when we were talking about the increase in call volume and decreasing the availability of services, ability to respond, We know that there are a lot of people in our community that depend on the EMS system sometimes as their primary care. And what we've done is we've started to identify some folks that just need a little bit of assistance, whether there's you know the barriers to some health care for some individuals and how do we break down those barriers and help them live a successful life in their own home. Sometimes that's just helping people get medication or it's helping them get connected to the appropriate doctor, helping them understand their insurance a little better. And so our mobile integrated health managers are out in the community working with our unhoused population, working with substance abuse patients, helping them get the resources that they need so things don't become an emergency.

And so we have an incredible program in partnership with UW Health, in partnership with the Winnebago County Mental Health Board that's helped us kind of grow this program over the past ten years. And right now we have four mobile integrated health managers that are helping pave the way for this to continue to grow. And so they're out there in the community and there's just a lot of ways that we're helping these folks, you know, live a healthier and happier life and a more independent life for their medical conditions. We have our training division. As firefighters and paramedics, we have to train every day.

We have requirements through ISO and we have requirements through the Office of the State Fire Marshal, and so we have to make sure that our skills are maintained. We have a prevention division. Our prevention division has a prevention coordinator, we have inspectors and arson investigators, we also have our recruiter under this division. Nine eleven division. So in the county we have the county nine eleven center and then the Rockford Fire Department has our nine eleven center.

And so we have a host of people over there answering calls, you know they take the call, send it to either fire, it's either fire police or medical or sometimes it's all of it. And so they manage an enormous number of calls a year. In 2025 they had 104,000, over 104,000 emergency calls and almost 140,000 non emergent calls. And so they're they're pretty busy and they're housed in the headquarters right across the street. Our logistics division, because we're a busy department, one of the largest departments in the state of Illinois, we manage our own fleet maintenance.

And so out by the airport is our shop and so when our trucks have an issue we send them right to the shop, they get fixed, they get us back on the road, again that availability service. And so we've got our shop coordinator and we've got several emergency vehicle technicians that help us keep our fleet able to operate. So we've had some recent changes over the years. One thing over the past seven months that I've really been focused on is some organizational realignment. I like to streamline processes and make sure we're operating very efficiently.

One thing to note is that we are going to change our prevention division to the division of community risk reduction and you'll see in the green there we'll have a fire prevention coordinator and an EMS prevention coordinator because they're both, right? When I try to explain this to people I say, you know, on the fire prevention side somebody years ago probably the folks that had the horse and buggy, right, those guys said if only we knew that the fire was coming, if only we knew that we could detect it in some way and so behold the smoke detector, right. We can do some of the same things through our mobile integrated health program on the EMS side. How can we help somebody prevent the emergency? And sometimes it's just getting them the resources in the community and connecting them with other resources in the community to make them successful.

And so I felt like that was a really good move to move both of those under an umbrella of community risk reduction because that's what we're trying to do, right? You don't want to use us, right? You don't want to call 911. Where are the ways that we can prevent someone from needing emergency services? And so putting that under community risk reduction is one way that I think we can expand that program.

We look at our service demand overgrowth and so over the years in 2012 we ran 24,000 calls, 24,557 calls. We know that last year we ran 33,169 calls. So our call volume has snuck up about 3% every year. We did see about a 700, well about a thousand call decrease from twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five. Most of that came from the EMS side, which tells me that our mobile integrated health program is having an impact.

And so we are always constantly evaluating the rate of this growth and that we're making sure that our resources are available to respond. Because again from that the arrows, the slide with the arrows, when call volume goes up, we have so many resources in the community and if they're all busy on calls, are we available for that next 09:11 call? So as I stated, we have 11 different geographical planning zones across our 11 stations. Each one is a different fire station that's responsible for that area. You can see in the map on the right that big blue line is right about Alpine.

And I drew a line right through Station 11 there. And so some of the changes that we've made in the past year is we added an engine to Station 5 and an ambulance to Station 4 which gave us a little bit more coverage east of our jurisdiction. We know that we have a lot of traffic out there with a casino and everything that's been building and growing out in that direction And so when in 1996, I think Station five was built in a cornfield, and I don't know, I remember I remember what, you know, East State Street and that Perryville, it was all cornfields back then, right? And it's just grown and grown and grown. And so what we've what we've had to do since our call volume is growing in that direction is add resources to help concentrate that area.

You can see we're pretty well concentrated to the left of that line and so we're looking at how do we support the resources east of that line to make sure that our units are available to respond and we can get there quickly. With engine five, we did, and I know I'm probably going long here, we did we did see a decrease with the addition of engine five at Station 5, a decrease in response time and an increase in reliability. The ambulance that we added at Station 4, that helped equally distribute workload across our other ambulances and we saw their unit hour utilization go down as well. Unit hour utilization this is a long conversation but all that means is there's so many hours in the day and we try to measure you know our firefighters still have to eat, they still have to get intermittent sleep here and there over a 24 period, they still have to train, They still have to do station duties and chores. And so we try to put that time in there and what number of calls does it take to where their twenty four hours are completely committed.

You see right here Medic three, which is just off Marcusano, has a very busy day with the calls that are in the red and that's a very high unit hour utilization. Between the things that they're required to do on a daily basis and the calls that they're running every day, they're a very busy company. So something in the nine eleven center that we've initiated over the past couple years is called call triage. We've purchased priority dispatch that allows our call takers to take the call and they're triaging that call to see if it's a low acuity, high acuity call, and that's going to allow us to kind of adapt some of our response plans and eventually potentially keep our resources available to respond. So an echo call would be like a cardiac arrest.

An alpha call might be, hey I twisted my ankle but I can't walk on it, maybe it's not an immediate threat to life and we call that a lower acuity call and so we can kind of adapt our response plans to that as well and maintain availability of our resources to respond to the echo calls, right, cardiac arrest, the higher acuity calls that are more emergent and more life threatening. And so that program over in our nine eleven center, and kudos to our telecommunicators who have been working through this project because it's completely changed their work their workflow and the protocols that they follow and they've done a phenomenal job and it's going to allow us to be a lot more flexible in our resource delivery. So some areas of focus, last slide. I feel like I'm talking fast. Last slide here we've got some areas of focus obviously that health and safety we want a comprehensive wellness plan for that strategic plan that goal that we have for our people we want them to work well, work safe, and retire well.

Engine five, you know, adding resources and looking at our resources east along with that eighth ambulance, those things have been very impactful to our service delivery. We're looking at expanding our mobile integrated health program to be able to impact the community in a different way and get more on the preventative side of EMS. We're looking at our ProQA and our tiered response plan to increase unit and resource reliability. We're always looking at technology to make sure that we are making the best decisions we can make that are data informed and that they're accurate. And then recruitment.

We did start in the last six months a core committee, so community outreach and recruitment effort. That is going to help us again with that second goal in our strategic plan to get out in the community to educate and to engage and get more people interested and recruit firefighters to the fire department because sooner or later I won't be here anymore and someone's going to have to come after me and so we need to get some people interested and keep this great department moving in the direction that it's been moving for so long. So I just really appreciate your time and I don't know if you do questions but if you have any questions we don't want to do them here but if you want to email me at any point in time I'd love to have more conversation and answer any questions that you have.

Thank you. Are there any questions for?

I did have a question on the mobile integrated health. Is that is that a place that people go to an area do they call or?

So right now it's a referral based program and these referrals come from the hospital system. They might come from, you know, if our officers on company notice that they're responding to a certain address for a certain person, you know, more than, you know, three times in a month, that might trigger a referral to a mobile integrated health managers to contact that individual and see if they're eligible for the program. And so right now it's referral based.

I was thinking because we used to host aldermen's meetings at the church that I was at. And I think that would be awesome to introduce you to the community in the areas.

Absolutely. Anything you need, you know, I want to talk about and share again, engage with the community, and share what we have going on.

Thank you for coming.

Absolutely. Been a pleasure.

I did want to reference to this, and then I have a question. So I did just find out about this mobile integrated health expansion program like a little bit, just like maybe a year ago, which I was shocked because someone from the fire department had contacted me for homeless, and they were trying to find them housing. Yes. And I was trying to connect the dots, and then she broke this down to me. She was like, oh, and then they got them with community action. Yep. And we ended up placing them. So I was like, oh, this is and they told me a whole story how they found a young man, and he was living in the woods. And I just thought this was I was like, wow. I didn't even know we did this. I appreciate you guys continuing this because this actually got somebody housing.

Yes. And and and the collaboration that you mentioned with director Parnham, like, we've had conversations, you know, where there's a lot of you know overlap and opportunity there that I think that we could expand upon but yes that is part of the process and sometimes it's just starting with getting somebody a place to live let's start right with the basic necessities that people need And you know I appreciate her help as well because she's been a huge resource for us.

It is and I made a good relationship with the person that had reached out to me. I did had a question to add on to that. Now I would like with that maybe to form somehow where landlords could get more of a fire safety because then I took somebody in that had never lived in a house. Like, literally, he was in group homes his whole life, and then he's like, I don't know how to work a stove. And I'm like, oh, we didn't even think about that. So I would love to do something where and I know there's other landlords, especially if they're trying to take people in. Like fire safety course. I don't know if you guys offer that in this.

You know, we don't offer fire safety course. Sometimes we do, like, go to different larger like housing communities or like some of our high rises where there's a larger group of individuals and do you know some fire education there and it's we could do neighborhood meetings you know where that could be something or if there's any other thing we can always send our prevention bureau to and some of our public educators there to kind of maybe address some of those concerns that you have. So if you have any ideas where there's going to be a group of people or, you know, we can get creative on that I for

set up a group of people.

All right. There we go.

Even a smoke detector, they were like,

right, what

is this? How does it work? Sure.

The batteries are Yeah.

Right. Right. Yep.

Thank you.

I have a question. It's two part. Our mobile integrated health unit, how many other communities, either in Illinois or across the country, have that? And then I also wondered if there are other approaches of fire departments across the country that eventually you'd like to bring here that you think would meet some of the challenges that we're seeing?

Can you repeat the second part of

that question?

Yeah, yeah. So how many other communities, maybe just in Illinois, mobile integrated health? And then also, what other approaches do you think you might bring to the city of Rockford's fire department that you think are innovative and good?

Sure. I think that first, you know, I don't know the number specifically in Illinois of what I know that we were one of the first. I know that we're also one of the ones still standing a lot of times you know and with innovation and when trying to like you know we've even come across some things where we've said oh well that didn't work we have to pivot and because we're a larger organization I think we have a little bit more flexibility to pivot I know that we're looking at you know any opportunity to learn from other people I know Naperville has a pretty robust program that they've been pretty successful with and so we've reached out to them in the past. As far as programs you know coming to the community, think that this would be the one that's out there. You know I think that we're probably on with trend across the country and the things that I see in how we're utilizing our mobile integrated health managers.

I think that eventually where I see this going is getting into more of a deployable model where we have mobile integrated health responding to either mental health crisis or different crises within the community where that might not require an ambulance but a different resource. And so I do see that being the next step. There's a lot of different things out there across the country with, you know, fire departments and technology and what they're doing and, you know, some of those things with that technology piece is like drone first responder. That's a program that we've looked at as far as, you know, for our structure fires getting, you know, being deployed from the roof of our fire stations and going out. So that's like down the road, but there are programs out there and everybody's constantly innovating, again, to just add another tool to the toolbox to make sure that we're as efficient as possible and we're keeping resources available.

And so some of that drone first responder technology that people are doing, know, we're definitely looking at, but we're not close to that at this time.

Thank you.

Yeah. Commissioners any other questions?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you guys very much. It's been So reach out if you have any questions especially that group. Okay?

Thank you.

All right. Next up we'll have Health and Human Services updates from Director Akwaneet Parham. Good evening. As

Jiria said, I am Ankwuneth Parham. I'm the director of the city's Health and Human Services Department. The Health and Human Services Department for the city of Rockford has kind of a dual identity in that we are also the community action agency for all of Winnebago and Boone County. So what this means is back in the nineteen sixties under President Johnson's war on poverty, there was a national network established called the Community Action Network and this is essentially America's poverty fighting network. So across all counties in The United States there is representation by a community action agency there.

And in order to be a community action agency you have to be a recipient of federal community services block grant funds. And so the community services block grant program, which you'll see in some of the materials we provided, is known as CSBG. That program is, although those dollars come from the federal government and they're typically distributed via the states into these agencies that are dispersed throughout counties all across the country, they have a unique opportunity in that local communities are able to establish the priorities for those funds. So at the local level, those work plans are developed and agencies are required to conduct community needs assessments to look at what the needs are in their community, where the gaps in services are, and then they are able to essentially form their program, their CSPG program, around what the needs are in their own community. So, again, federal dollars, but they are distributed to help address local problems at a local level.

As the Community Action Agency, in addition to receiving those funds, we also have requirements pertaining to our board. So we have to have what's known as a tripartite board. And so one at least one third of our members have to come from either folks that are utilizing our services, so that's typically individuals who are living in poverty, or they have to represent organizations that are serving folks who are recipients of of our programs. And then one third of our membership also can come from the private sector, and the other one third of our advisory board comes from the public sector. So they are either elected officials or their appointees.

So, in that regard, our department, we have two divisions, so the Community Services Division and the Head Start Division, we have a lot of bosses, so to speak. City Council is our governing body, so they accept the grants. They vote for approval of acceptance of those grants on behalf of the city, so they are, like, legally our governing body. But by legislation we're also required to have that Community Action Advisory Board, that tripartite board that I just described. And because we have a Head Start program, we are also required to have a Head Start Parent Policy Council.

That is also a board that consists of parents whose children are currently in Head Start, some who are the parents of past Head Start students, and then there are also spaces on that board allotted for just general members of the community who may or may not have an interest in early childhood. So we operate with a number of different boards that provide varying levels of oversight and input into the programs and services that we deliver throughout our department. So yes, we are a public agency in that we are part of the city government, but again we serve a two county area and then we have these other tangential adjacent boards that we also have to work very closely with to do the work that we do. So what I provided to you all is actually just an excerpt from our most recent board reports. Our Community Action Advisory Board met earlier this week.

So these are some of the programmatic reports just kind of talking about where we are to date. But I started that off with just a list of the services that are provided across our two divisions. So like I mentioned, we have a Head Start division as well as our Community Services division. In Head Start, the differences between Head Start and Early Head Start is that Early Head Start serves pregnant women and infants and toddlers, so zero to three, as well as those moms. And then the Head Start program serves children three to five.

So we actually have both programs within our Head Start. And so we have collaborative classrooms with RPS two zero five at Summerdale Early Childhood Center, and then we also have our own freestanding center that is located at 902 Acorn Street, formerly the Fairgrounds site and that is known as PACE or the parent and child education center so we have both head start and early head start rooms at that freestanding facility and then we also have an early head start home visiting program as well where we have teachers who go out to families each week for a ninety minute visit every week. And one of the integral parts of home visiting is just the philosophy that parents are their child's first teacher. So it is a very interesting and effective model of our teachers going into the homes, working with parents and caregivers in addition to that infant or toddler and working through all sorts of things milestones in addition to the tenants of early education. And then overall we also provide health services and family support services as well.

So all of those things are also provided in the home to that family as well. We have a health services team, a registered nurse that's on our team as well that helps to ensure that the children in our program are getting their well child checks and all of the services that they need. And if we have children that are experiencing any sort of chronic conditions or advanced health needs, we're also able to help them to navigate the health care system to get the services that they need. So that is also offered to all of our children and families regardless of which site that they are at. And then lastly we also have a collaborative site with Trinity Daycare.

It's actually that's called the child care child care partnership program and so we are able to supplement certain head start services to those families that are enrolled at Trinity day care so then they are also able to have access to our health services team and our family support services. And then also the connection, a direct connection to the other division within our department which is community services that can help to assist those families and really stabilize their lives if they're facing other types of crises or situations that need intervention. So in our Community Services Division, we have a number of programs including a Community Action Scholarship Program for not only graduating high school students, but it is for adults returning as well, returning adult students. So that's a pretty exciting part of our program. We're actually in that process now.

The application process just closed, so our board is in the process of selecting and interviewing those recipients right now. We also have a community gardens program and in that program there are gardens all throughout our two county area that are staffed and they're pillaging gardens so that food is available for anyone to come and access. So that is one of the requirements of that program that folks are able to pillage those gardens. The EBRF program is a barrier reduction program which is actually sponsored by DHS and it is specific to folks who are receiving SNAP benefits. And so what it is, is it's a program that's designed specifically to help address barriers to employment that folks may be facing.

So you have to already be a SNAP recipient, but this program allows for flexibility to assist folks in some areas that most other like typical grant programs may not be able to do. So it might be something like, okay, if you need, you know, if you're a barrier to work, it could be a transportation issue. It could be that you don't have work boots. It could be that you need, you know, a particular type of clothing or the ability to purchase a uniform or something that's very specific and but those barriers that people face when they are trying to acquire and sustain employment. So that is actually we're part of a pilot project through DHS that funds that program.

We also have a number of homeless services and the funding sources for that are various federal and state programs for both homeless response, homeless prevention services, street outreach where we work very closely with our fire and EMS team as well. And then we also are able to serve youth who are aging out of foster care through some of those homeless services as well. In addition to that, we also provide housing assistance. So this could be in the form of rental assistance or mortgage assistance or security deposits or even eviction prevention as well. We also do quite a bit of landlord engagement in a very tight market where affordable and attainable housing is very difficult to come by.

We found that establishing quality relationships with landlords is critical to being able to get some of our residents that have the most difficulty being housed and and getting stable, that those relationships with landlords are key to being successful and helping those clients to be successful as well. So we actually received a special grant from a national initiative that's called Built for Zero that helped us to fund that role specifically. So we've done quite a bit in terms of just really creating a network with those landlords. We have a landlord engagement specialist who works with us. And he works very closely with those landlords and fosters the relationships and serves as a direct connection for them to be able to ensure that our clients who are being housed, many of whom may have situations just like Commissioner Johnson was mentioning, someone who is new and had not ever lived alone before and are facing unique challenges sometimes, that can be somewhat challenging for some landlords.

So just really having a direct connection in our offices to be able to navigate some of those challenges and again keep those relationships intact and help these individuals to be successful when they are able to to obtain stable housing. In addition to that, we also run the LIHEAP program, which is the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. And so LIHEAP provides financial assistance for electricity and natural gas services. And because we serve the two county area, that also can include propane support and other other forms of utility outside of what we may be used to here within the city. But LIHEAP is a huge driver of services in our community.

Just recently, by both volume and the amount of funding here, our agency in the Winnebago Boone County area, we were second only to Chicago for many years in terms of both the amount of funds that are paid out in LIHEAP benefits and also the number of individuals that utilize those services. About 16,000 folks access LIHEAP services annually. So that's a huge driver. It represents a significant amount of need in our community that is also reflective of the age of housing stock that's here in the community, as you all know. I know you're very engaged in the work that our city is is doing around housing.

But, as you know, the housing stock in our community is is significantly older than in many other communities and so that leads to a lot of energy inefficiency in housing. And so for folks that already may be struggling to afford their utility bills, that only makes it even more difficult when you're in a place that is, you know, you've got leaky windows and most of what you're paying for is going through the roof and and not actually being able to keep you warm. So there's a huge demand for that in our community. The only reason we actually slipped down to third place is another community downstate. They merged so now they're like three or four counties together.

So they're a little bigger than us now, but that's the only reason. But again, that just the energy burden on households and our community continues to be a significant issue with regard to affordability and really only compounds the issues of, you know, access to affordable and attainable housing in our community. In addition to that, we operate a medical respite program which we run-in conjunction with our fire department. And the medical respite program is actually we're one of the newest programs in the state, but we've done very well. But the purpose of medical respite is essentially when homeless individuals are released from the hospital but they may not actually be well enough if they were, you know, unhoused and living on the street.

They may not be well enough to go back to that but they are not sick enough to stay in the hospital. So medical respite is essentially a step down program where they are able to receive additional nursing care and observation while they step down and continue to heal even though they are no longer sick enough to remain in the hospital. So it provides them with a safe warm place to stay while they are completing the healing process. So we were one of the first programs one of the first medical respite programs in the state and again a high quality partnership that we have with our fire department and that is also going well and UW hospital is also our partner with that and so again this is something that we were able to move forward with establishing because with the other services that we are providing this was an area that was highlighted to us as a gap when we looked at okay these are folks that we've served before they went into the hospital, they're there getting this treatment. And now what is available to these individuals?

Because we knew that some of the situations they were going back to were not going to be conducive, you know, to them getting well. And so what did that mean for us as a community? What were the resources that we could tap into to develop an innovative solution to that? So that is one of our newer programs. I put other utility assistance there as well.

We do have, in some areas there is water assistance depending on who the water authority is again because we're in a two county area so sometimes that varies depending on where you are in the two county area but there is also some other assistance for water utility. We also have a weatherization program which allows low income homeowners to get energy saving measures put into their homes and so we provide that service as well. And then we also have a the impact program which is sponsored through our Winnebago County Community Mental Health Board. An impact is a program that allows us to provide intensive case management for some of the most mentally ill patients in our community. Before we applied for the funding for that program, the city kind of did a deep dive on folks that we had identified in our work with the homeless community that were the most severely mentally ill and that were essentially taking up the most significant amount of resources between not only our staff in the Health and Human Services Department, but also with fire and EMS and police and other services in our city.

So we quantified that and we realized that, hey, you know, it's a lot more cost effective to have case managers and services available to those folks to help them navigate as opposed to continually just cycling and spiraling without the necessary resources and support that they need. So that impact program has allowed us to work more intently with those folks and be able staff case managers who are able to provide the level of attention on to folks with higher needs in those situations. So again those are that's kind of the gamut of of all the programs that we've got going in the Health and Human Services Department. But again, just, you know, overall, our overarching goal being to just really help to not only respond to folks who are living in poverty, but also to work towards innovative ways to mitigate poverty in our community as well. And that is something that we look forward to doing more of for a long time.

Just the burden of folks who are living in poverty in our community has been so significant. We've been really focused on trying to respond to that. But the reality is, you know, it is it is my desire and the desire of our leadership team and our organization to really help to to get upstream and to help our families to really change the trajectory that they're on and not only just survive but also to thrive. So the, again, the information that I provided to you in your packet has some, again, like up to date data on some of these programs that I've talked about and just where we are in the year, some of the specifics about our work program across these various funding sources, and then some of the current initiatives that we are in right now and what that looks like across our programs. So I also provided you with our last Head Start annual report, so you can take a look at that as well.

And if you know folks that are interested, we are trying to create a pipeline that of people who may be interested in serving on our advisory boards both for the community action agency overall and also for the head start policy council. So if you know folks who have interest in those areas and and would like to be part of the solutions in our community, please don't hesitate to reach out and let us know that. But with that, I'm happy to entertain any questions you might have.

I have one, forgive me if I missed this, but what is PACE?

PACE is our freestanding head start and early head start center. It stands for the Parent and Child Education Center.

Thank you.

I just want to say thank you for the wonderful work that your department is doing, How have federal cuts to these programs affected your department? I'm sorry, is that too long

a it's question? Not. It's okay. To be honest, Commissioner Garwick, the reality is since, I would say over the last, I guess year and a half has it been two years yet? We have, it's really just been honestly a lot of confusion and delays as opposed to actual cuts for us.

It's been, you know, the threats of cuts and and, you know, a lot of of fear and uneasiness around funding sources, but not the actual reduction in funding that I know, like, a lot of other nonprofits and entities who were targeted with those cuts have experienced. So we've we have not experienced that. It's just really kind of just been the upheaval of, you know, uncertainty and not knowing and then, you know okay there's a threat this week and then that program is going to be cut next week and then someone sues and then it doesn't happen and that's so it's really just been it's really been that kind of just just uneasiness and confusion but not it has not resulted in direct cuts in that way. Outside of you know when the government was shut down and then now with you know the reduction in snap benefits but those are to individuals so we're what we then see is just people showing up with more need. Right?

And, of course, you know, you well, now when you don't have the same resources to be able to afford food, then, okay, well then, yeah, you may end up with a higher arrearage on your utility bill. So then the demand for LIHEAP would change as a result of that. But but really just cuts to our direct directly to the bottom line of our grants that we anticipated or were told or warned were coming, we didn't actually see.

Yes.

Hi. First off, thank you for the amazing work that you guys are doing, and thank you for this presentation.

So

I provide safe, stable housing for women coming home from incarceration. I see that for the housing assistance, the income eligible persons, what is the eligibility? Because I assume they have to make under a certain amount? Yes. So here's the thing.

Across our so like how I noted that there's several different funding sources for those homeless programs, sometimes the eligibility varies across programs. So one of the things is, you know, a person who's in need, they'll come in, they'll be intaked, and our case managers really try to work with them to understand the depth and breadth of their situation so we can identify which program they best qualify for that then also has the parameters on it that would best serve their situation. So, for example, some of the some of like the rental assistance or homeless prevention programs may provide assistance to a person for a lengthier amount of time but you know you have to be employed or you have to have a way to be able to maintain that housing after that assistance you know has has ended. And so that may fit one particular person's situation and it wouldn't fit another if say that other person was you know was disabled or they were in a situation and they didn't have income or something like that. So a lot of times the eligibility criteria for specific programs it's it is different.

It runs the gamut. So honestly you have to we have to know okay what's the what is that situation and even you know the amount of assistance and what that eligibility looks like also can vary based on you know household size and other things like that. And then are we talking about a family that may also, they could be a Head Start eligible family and then eligible for more programs? So there are more ways for us to kind of align the type of assistance that they receive. So there really isn't like a quick and dirty answer for eligibility because it runs the gamut. It does. Okay. Thank you. Well,

I want to say thank you also. I think everybody wanted to say that because this is a big workload. Yeah. Yeah. You know? And I I don't think there was even possible to have a staff large enough to address all the issues that we have Yeah. That's seated underneath this. Yeah. So I appreciate it. I know for me personally, I've worked three years with community action programs with ESG and rapid housing for people from the age like 16 to 24.

I do have a question about you have mentioned some programs where you guys assist with resources. Some of the things I've noticed is that a connection with, like, maybe helping someone apply for, social security or disability. I'm not educated on those things. And I didn't know if is that a part of that alignment with that group you were saying they kind of help with something like that.

So I think what I well, when I was mentioning some of like the alternative programs that don't have a lot of other sometimes there aren't payment payer sources for some of that assistance that was under the barrier reduction program which is mostly that's around people trying to pursue employment. So that's typically not the same need of someone who was trying to get benefits because they're typically, they may not be working. But that is not something that we, like, that we specialize in. I mean, of course, we have case managers that have assisted to a to a certain extent. But I mean to the to the extent of people needing like, you know, appeals and things like that or needing other legal assistance, that's not something that we that we provide at this time.

Okay. I was just curious because I know if they come in and they don't even realize they have a medical condition, now they can't work, Now we're stuck as a landlord kinda in this gray area. It was like, well, this person is never probably gonna be able to work because of of chronic illness. Mhmm. Now what?

Mhmm.

And I was trying to see if there was something, I don't know, as far as the outline of what the the next steps. I I try to assist as much as I can with filling out and connecting the people in the community, but I haven't been able to find a rock for somebody that is an advocate or even educated on stuff like that.

And, you know, I know that, you know, Prairie State Legal Services is a great partner for us but I do understand that you know capacity is an issue especially when there's so much significant need in that area. But you bring up a good point I don't know there may be maybe some sort of option or possibility even for us to partner maybe with with another agency even because I think there's some of the some of the legal aid organizations in the city of Chicago may provide some assistance in those areas and who knows I mean we've there have been some other areas in our community where we've kind of partnered with organizations that out of other cities that were able to provide some satellite help in our community that could certainly be something that we that we look into or explore.

And I recently met a I think her name is Angela Golden. She's a new case manager to some of the tenants that I have. It was a great conversation, very engaged. And I think that's good that you got how you just mentioned a pipeline of people. If if and they could should come from the city or come from youth services like this to connect them. So do you guys have, like, recruitment events that you guys do? Or how do you

guys So, most recently, did our staff, we went and participated in the graduation ceremony that the Northern Illinois Center for Nonprofit Excellence had with the folks who were graduating from their program. I believe it's called Equity in Board Representation or something I like may be misquoting that. My apologies to them. But but yes, so we were there and talking about our program and what our offerings were and and recruiting for our board there. So we'll be holding a couple information sessions with some of our sitting board members as well to talk about our programs and to help with that recruitment as well. So we we've got a nice little stack of folks that have indicated that they're interested in working with us. Yes.

Thank you. That.

I do apologize. I have to leave. Thank you, Anquanad. It was a wonderful presentation. Thank you. And thank you for your work. You.

I have a question. And I mean, thank you. I just I'm so aware of the breadth of knowledge you have to have to keep all these balls in the air. I can't even imagine it. And so all respect to you for knowing all of those things. With regard to the medical respite program, that's so interesting to me. I just wondered, is that referral based? Just so that when the person's being discharged from the hospital, does someone there then contact Yes. That team? Uh-huh.

Yep. So those referrals come directly from the hospitals.

And is it only the UW system or can it be from other hospitals in the area?

So do you know too?

Oh chief left me. I'm trying to think. I know that it may it may actually have expanded. I do know that at the time of our initial application that was our first partner that we were working with. And there was some we were having conversations with some other health systems as well for the referrals but but truthfully most of them come from WW. Sure.

And then for the impact program, I just was curious to know so for the case managers that are working with the more severely ill population, how do they help them secure psychiatric services? Is that somebody that comes through your office? Or do they do that again, like through

the Oh yeah, they, our case managers then, they also, they work with, with helping those individuals to navigate all the other services that are available in the community. So whether they're getting, you know, mental health care from, you know, the hospital, whether they're going through Rosecrans or wherever they're getting wherever they're getting services yes our case managers help them to to navigate that to ensure that they're getting you know all of the the holistic care that they need. Essentially you know housing is really it's really the the anchoring force around really helping to stabilize folks and to help them access the other things that they need. So really trying to help manage that process, help them to manage that process and secure the housing and stabilize. And then it's so much easier for the other pieces to fall in place.

But yes, our staff does work with them to ensure that they're getting up the appointments that they need through those services. So yeah, they can be that might be from the hospital. Some of them get services from L. P. Johnson, some from Rosecrans mental health care there. So it's it can vary.

And where does the medical respite program, where is that housed?

So there is space that we utilize at the rescue mission. And

can they, so they just stay as long as their need is? Uh-huh. Okay. Yep.

And again, it's step down care. So again, the goal is for them to be discharged in a reasonable amount of time as they get well. Yeah. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Any other questions, Commissioner? Thank you. Thank you so

much, Director.

Thank you. You. For your time. We definitely appreciate it. Thank you so much.

All right. Next we have discussions of presentations that were presented today. Are there any open discussions that you guys have? Any feedback off of what we've heard today?

Good information. Yeah. Very good. A lot of information I didn't know.

You know what? I did mean to ask a question about the fire department. I wanted to know how many open positions they currently have. I didn't see that in here. I don't know if it's possible to get that. Yeah. That'd be nice.

Any other questions?

I know they're graduating now. Some students.

Next we'll move on to unfinished business. We have the presentation from commissioner McDowell and Bravo on housing development ordinance updates. Alright. And I believe we all have a packet that was given to us. Yes. Everybody get

a packet?

Yeah.

I didn't put it up on the overhead. We'll try and get through it. There's a lot of information that you've already seen from other presenters. Essentially, what our task was was to see what opportunities and what barriers there were to creating more affordable housing in Rockford. Now, as you look at your packet, the first explanation is what is affordable housing.

We've covered that in other presentations and what types of affordable housing are there. That's been covered. The second page, Rockford at a Glance, gives you an idea, and this is from the 2024 census, and I know the city has updated information on this, and our median income is a moving target. So I used the federally published numbers that basically show if we wanna take the formula that people give of of taking 80% of the median income and taking 30% of that gross as a monthly maximum of housing expense, median in Rockford comes down to ten ninety five maximum monthly affordable expense, which with a 21% poverty rate, I think that addresses some of the real problems we have with affordable housing. It's kind of hard to quantify actual numbers on that.

But that's the city is has a has a fabulous study. If you go to the housing inventory page, there's a link. The city did a study on the projected housing market for Rockford 2023 through 2032, and the link is there because it's a really in-depth study. To summarize, we already know we're facing an inventory deficit. And there are several different statistics we can throw at that, but there is a shortage of inventory, and the lower we get in income affordability, the greater the shortage of inventory there is.

And that trickles all the way down to our benevolent agencies that want to provide housing for homeless people not having inventory themselves. So affordable housing is a key issue, not only in Rockford, but as we're finding, as we research some things. It's a buzzword nationwide, and it's just starting to be developed as pilot programs in a lot of communities, which we will get to here. So Rockford, the question is, what are the initiatives to increase affordable housing inventory? So I get to Rockford's current initiatives, which we already have several in place that are doing some wonderful things.

On the top of the list is a program called the Rockford Community Investment Fund, which is a grant based fund that provides loans for the rehabilitation of existing properties to be repaid once that property is sold or rented. So it's a revolving fund, and I don't have the statistics on how many properties have already been rehabilitated, but it's a pretty good number that we've already funded the rehabilitation of existing properties. There's also a home buyer assistance program where financial assistance is provided up to $14,999 based on income, debt and mortgage needs to support acquisition of a home. And we also have the Northern Illinois Land Bank, which has a lot of properties that are available to some of these programs. So those are initiatives some of the initiatives we currently have in the rehabilitation arena.

And then in the new construction arena for affordable housing, Rockford has initiated a tax rebate program where new construction can see a three year property tax rebate on single family, two, three family, or multiple family structures, which is an incentive. One of the drawbacks, which we will get to, is profitability. And getting a tax rebate can be thousands and thousands of dollars on a new construction project. We also have a fee waiver program. So Rockford will waive hookup fees, building permit, plan reviews, inspection fees, and hookups on approved new construction projects.

So that helps bring down costs for builders, making profitability more attractive. But there are challenges, and the challenges are what we really need to address because we still have this shortfall, and we're going to have this shortfall. Challenges in the rehabilitation arena, our current incentives make some of the properties attractive for contractors and house flippers, people who are looking for a specific profit out of rehabilitating a property, a potential deterrent to affordable housing may be that profitability. It still has to be something that can be rehabilitated and sold or rented within the guise of guidelines of affordable housing. So what are the key concerns?

Rising material costs, increased labor costs, higher rental rates following rehabilitation, increased sale of rehabilitation prices after renovation, and all of those factors can remove a property from an affordable housing category. And we need to focus on what can we do for affordable housing. Opportunities to affordable housing. Would be to potentially tailor some of these loan and grant programs to the current homeowners and add additional incentives to projects agreeing to rehabilitate and sell or rent within determined affordable housing guidelines. So when it comes to new construction, the fee waiver and tax rebates, as we said, is a great incentive, but profitability still becomes a deterrent for a lot of your larger builders.

They want to see a big profit. And what this didn't quite come out. I think I lost some stuff in here. One of the most popular incentives in many communities is the modular home program, which we've talked about. Rockford has an abundance of available land through the land bank, and that can reduce initial costs to homebuilders.

What are the advantages of modular homes? Reduced construction time, improved material efficiency, better quality control, lower overall construction costs. They have attractive and flexible home designs, and they comply with standard building codes. One of the things we talked about is does Rockford have any barriers with its codes and compliances? And it really doesn't.

Rockford sets to the international standard, and we build to that. We don't have a barrier there. There. Illinois does require modular homes to be constructed by certified builders using approved materials and code compliance practices. And we looked at what would the potential of a program similar to the community investment fund, what would it take to initiate a program like that to take a smaller builder who can work with a lower margin, utilize the advantages of a modular home construction, what can we do to attract this builder, get him compliant and certified, get him some land in Rockford, and start pilot program to build a few of these homes, to look at the profitability, to show the community what they are, to build a rubric, as it were, of profitability and procedure to build more affordable housing.

Rockford has a lot of strategic advantages, as we said, city controlled land availability. Obviously, a growing need for these solutions. We've got a strong regional manufacturing and construction culture. Rockford's always built something. Workforce and development needs among vulnerable youth populations.

We've got a workforce out there can train and bring up if we need to. We have existing community organizations that are all behind this and faith based partnerships and increasing interest in the modular home programs. And we did some research on communities that are engaged in this. Closest to us, too closest to us, Cook County, which has a population and a huge need, has a pilot program. And I don't feel so far behind the the ball here because Cook County's pilot program has built two so far.

So they are just getting off the ground. And they their economic development people are willing to speak with anyone's economic development people about how their program works, and there's a website link on there. And McHenry County is also looking into it through a Chicago organization. The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning is working with McHenry County on developing a module home pilot program for them. Cleveland has already implemented one.

In Michigan, there's the MI Home program, which is a revolving loan fund, as we discussed, potentially being able to do here. So they're doing that in Michigan. And there's another I found one in San Bernardino, was a benevolent agency, had a program. And there are many, many more of these. So to boil this down into simple terms, I think that we as a commission don't have the skill set to put a program together.

But I think we need to find the people amongst our economic development people and knowledgeable folks in Rockford to develop a think tank to how can Rockford develop a pilot program and fund it to actually be able to not only increase the awareness of the rehabilitation opportunities, but to look into the new construction, the modular home opportunities. Rita, I've talked

a lot.

What would you like to add?

I think the only thing that I would add is talking from different people in the community, business developers, just a few that I've talked to. I know there's probably talk to a lot of other people in the community. I think the biggest issue that we've been hearing is or what I've been hearing is just that initial that first project to get done. People, they're not sure of how it's gonna look. And so that's that's, like, the thing, I think, that most concerns the small developers.

And that's why maybe that's one issue why they're not coming forward right away because they're just kinda They wanna wait and see. How does it work? And they've got a lot of questions. One thing that both Jim and I had talked to you about with some people are there's there's developers that are very interested. But for them to come forward, I think their big thing is or one of their concerns is, like I mentioned earlier, how is it gonna be put together?

And they wanna be able to sit at the table with people and just discuss, you know, before they jump in. So if there's more opportunities, because I know that there's been, like, the fair that had gone on for people to come in and get information. But I think if small meetings maybe set throughout the community through the year are scheduled. I don't know if there's any other ones coming up. Mikaela, wasn't there a community event where we had people coming in, small developers, just to ask questions about the programs and land bank availability and Okay.

I'm not aware of that event, but that could be a really great thing for the commission to maybe plan or help facilitate with other developers or members of the community. I really, really like the concept and the idea. And I know if you guys have thought about who we could bring to the table here, whether it's having some type of a discussion. Maybe we start it here at the commission. We have a roundtable discussion or something like that and bring those start that conversation here. I don't know if it's looking at planning that type of an event, a fair, or something like that. But we could look at doing something like that.

I think Zion Development, we should get them back in here. The leader passed away, I think, last year. There's a new leader now. I went to a workshop that they had at Katie's Cup. And they were talking about many things that they're doing. But I think he would I think we would have him run

Run Kluwer.

Kluwer and to hear that because that might be and I think you're speaking with them as well. Yeah.

Can I ask in your oh, sorry? Go ahead. In your preparation for this, this is super helpful. Because I feel like when I like the cursory research that I was doing for our piece, like, it's hard to know where to start when you don't know what's already happening within city. And so from your conversations with folks and maybe even, Director Farm, I don't know if you have anything that you could add here, is there anything that's in the works at all with what we're talking about here, or would we be sort of starting a new project?

We're starting a new project, essentially. And I I did meet with the mayor and talked to him about it. And one of the things he is having put together, which will be on the website and available for public perusal, is a one page bullet point splash sheet of all of incentives that Rockford currently does offer, which is a start of getting people need to know what they already can do. But as far as developing a program for the modular home, I've spoken with region one, and they think it's a fabulous idea. And they've got the land.

Probably gives the land away, to be honest with you, to get a pilot program going. So I've spoken with people who think this is a great idea, but it is a new concept as to how do you best develop. That's why I say this is out of our area of expertise. But the people who know how to put grant monies and loan monies and pilot programs together and work with all of our agencies to get all of the right people around the table is, I think, the next step. How do we develop a pilot program?

How do we learn what has and has not worked in other pilot programs? And how do we utilize that to develop one here? But I think opportunity, all the tools are there. You know, we've got a plowed field. We need to seed it.

One of the I can't remember all the cities we're kind of running together. One of the cities that I did learn about did a fair, like you're mentioning. So I can go back. I didn't bring my notes with with me today, but I can go back and see what they did. And maybe there's somebody in that community who can answer our questions about how they put that together, too, if that's of interest.

I appreciate you putting this together, because I know this could have been way more lengthier than what you presented. So I appreciate them breaking this down.

Not my best work.

No. No. No. I I think it's a good start. I know you kinda touched on it, and you're right. It's a the lack of education. And there's complexity. Right? In each one of these topics that you listed of programs, and after someone sees it, and let's say they're just trying to get stable on getting good credit, they're gonna see this and run. They're gonna be like, I'm just trying to get a six six fifty. I mean, build a house now?

Yeah.

So I think they're when I see this, I think about, like, do we even have a ecosystem for housing here? Do do people understand the layers? Like, once you right. Once you move for maybe you go to a housing assistant program at community action, then you became a renter. What's the next step? How do you get connected to a home buyer program? And then get an opportunity to view houses that's available in the city of Rockford to even buy. Like, we need to it might be created. I don't know. But there needs to be some type of ecosystem flow where people are trained.

This is how you can move through this, and you can do it successfully. Whether it's even telling a story, this is somebody who's done it. This is a person that's a school teacher in Rockford. She established this routine, and then she was able to buy her own home. And she did it through a land bank or she built it. If I don't know anybody's ever built a home, I'm not gonna do it. Yeah. It's just like being a doctor in your family. If you've never seen any, it's kinda hard to envision yourself being a doctor. So I think you're right.

I think we do have enough people within our system to bring to invite them here to kinda piece these put all these puzzle pieces together. This is gonna be a very little this got, like, a little million piece puzzle we're gonna be putting together. But it's gonna look good piece by piece, and I think after it's it's done. And I I kinda wrote some stuff down because, like, even truthfully, like, we have I've seen in other cities where they've done, like they call it, like, community currency where let's say you were a teacher or you work at a bank. So you you give a certain amount of hours of volunteer service to the city and say, will train people to help money management.

Now we give you a voucher to put towards a down payment on buying a house. So, like, we pretty much give people they offer the city time or something, and then you give them an incentive. Because some people gonna be like, I have nothing to offer. But it could be they could be working at head start or they could be a part of a community cleanup project that happens every single month. Now we're raising property value because we committed to people houses being clean. I like that. I was like I've seen and I was like, you know, I was thinking about So how can we adapt to that in Rockford? Which we could do it. Yeah. And they have like a let me see.

I wrote something else down when you were talking because I was like, oh, I like this. What is it called? It's called aging in place. Like, I've seen and this is in other countries where they have, like, communities where, let's say, you are a retired person. You own 16 homes. You don't even have kids. You don't even know anybody else in the community, but you connect people who are maybe gonna be aging out of place and going to retirement livings with people in the community that need to buy houses. Now you're not commit competing with all these developers that's coming in at Rockford. Rockford is booming. People I sold my house to somebody that came from California. Mhmm. Never stepped foot in my house. But she sent the pictures, seeing my mom. I'm like, this is a great story, but I wish it would have been somebody in Rockford. Yeah.

You know? And I do agree. I know affordable housing people are scared of maybe developments, but we do need some expensive developments because you don't have to compete. Let's say, we build a development with a 100 apartments. Yes. We know developers wanna make money, so those one bedrooms are gonna be 1,300. But those people who work can pay 1,300, now they're separated from competing with the people that only could pay pay $800. So we do need those type of housings here, though.

The statistic that I wanted to get some support on, and I can't cite a source for it, so I can't quote it as fact, but it's a ballpark statistic. There are three basic levels that we market housing inventory to. There's the market value, which is people who can afford it. Whatever it costs, they can afford it. It's market value. I can afford it. I can buy it. It's not gonna strain my income. And we have a inventory of a 140 units to every 100 buyers in that category. So we have a surplus of inventory and market value.

We get to middle income, which is is middle income, where we have essentially for every 100 buyers 60 available properties. So we've got a shortage. We get to low income, it's 40 to a 100. And what happens is the middle guy either buys up and he's constrained and doesn't help the economy in any way because now he's broke because he bought it up, or he buys down and he takes it away from even the the lower pool. Yep. So that's really what we needed to do. And I'd like to be able to get that statistic cited to me somewhere. I'm working on it. But it is a number something like that. So we really need to focus on how do we provide that housing to fill those gaps.

You know?

And I'm glad you brought that up because that's what needs to be addressed because there are people out here a school bus driver can't compete with somebody that moves here in Rockford, and they're doing a residency. Yeah. And, like, you know, I'm gonna be here. They can't. You know? And that's not really fair.

If I had to buy my house, I wouldn't be living in it. Yeah. That's all there is to it.

You know? But you're but you're right. And I would like to hear from the the land what did say? The land bank trust?

Region one.

Region one. Well, is that the same as r one planning?

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen that through r one planning where they put up different properties and you can view them and then bid on housing and something like that. But a lot of people don't know about that either. You know? So you're right. It's it's really gonna be a lot of education, a lot of creative solutions being strategic. But we do have to start with the first piece, how we get people in front of us and start what's already been created. You know, how do we adapt that, and is that visible to everybody already that they know? And is it being utilized or is it underutilized? And then creating a plan. Because then we might be creating something that that really might be around.

Right. Our homes, too that Jim's talking about with the workforce development that different community members. I know, Andrea, you're working on pre fab homes. That workforce development just for the area is a big is a big Mhmm. Consideration to grow. Housing.

Yeah. Because we

have such a big need. Yeah. Because that that

home sharing program I was talking about, we do something similar like that at Home Depot. So I work for Home Depot also. And so, like, you've got a thing where they say 60% yeah. That's what I'm working on. 60% of the workforce for trades are gonna retire. So you got all these people, plumbers. We're gonna have plumbers. We're not gonna have carpenters. In about six years, how do we connect those people? Because that's gonna affect this too if we don't have people in the industry that actually build homes or even repair homes. So they kind of go hand in hand, too, with this.

Maybe we can work on There's been a push, though, for the trades.

So just listening, I've got the action plan open here for the next couple of months. And I think we can add some things to our action plan based on the discussion that you all are having. For June right now, we have a workforce development roundtable as a potential topic. I'm wondering if maybe we pivot away from workforce development. I think that that's something we need to do.

But based on the discussion that you're having now, maybe there is an industry expert or two that we need to bring in for the modular homes. Do we want to hear from a couple of the developers that you've had? Could we zoom in one of the pilot programs that you guys have researched? Maybe one of them would be interested to speak to the commission over Zoom, something like that. So what does June look like for us?

Is there anything we can add? July, we don't really have anything for July yet. There's a tentative food and security panel for August. So I think that there's some opportunity here to add some items to our action plan. So do you have any immediate suggestions? Or do you want to based on Rita and Jim's conversations that you guys have had, are there people that you guys could reach out to? And then we could get them on the schedule for June and July.

I would say July would give us time to contact people. Time sure flies.

It does.

June is right around the corner. So July would probably be better.

Okay. So July for some industry experts maybe? Could June maybe reach out to one of the pilot programs and see if they'd be interested in Zooming with us? Is that an option?

Do know if any of these programs are there or is there a program for credit management or any type of financial understanding? Because to start any of these

There's well, it depends on what avenue I think that you guys are going to look at it from. If you're looking at it from a developer standpoint and getting developers to the table, they should already be ready to take those steps. Right? They should have financing or know the pathways to that financing. I think if you're thinking it from a homeowner or a prospective homeowner's perspective, there's definitely experts that we could bring to the table.

I know that there's programs in our public housing authorities that touch on the things that you're looking at. There's I think they're called Family Credit Management. Family Credit Management. I know when I because I worked at the housing authority for a while, we brought in different experts that talked about financial aspects, all of those types of things that you had to go through to be able to become a homeowner. We had our own family self sufficiency program there where they were able to as they met goals, portions of their rent would go towards a down payment on a house, those types of things.

So there's definitely programming like that within our community. I don't know how readily available it is to the community at large. Typically, that tends to be for people who are living in subsidized housing or who are on federal assistance like SNAP benefits and things of that nature.

Design development also has a class for potential homebuyers as well.

Should we see if Zion could come in? Would that be a good conversation to have in June, see if Zion would be available? Yeah, that would be. Okay.

I mean, if they

Yeah. It's something that they already do. Yeah. But maybe we do two parts to it. I mean, it it does need to be addressed. We have a conversation with developers

Yeah.

With somebody expert. But I do think it needs to be addressed too for homeowners. So maybe one each.

And I think that there's so many components to this that it's, at this point in time, just an informational trading step anyway until we actually develop a program.

Yes. They have housing services, design development, and they have a class two going on right now.

Commissioners, are there any other questions for commission commissioner Bravo or McDowell on this topic?

Well, no. I'm thinking so, I mean, is it I mean, are we able to do two parts? Like, one, a developer meeting come in and sit in, and then someone in reference to one of these programs in regards to homeownership homebuyer? Like this home buyer's assisting program. This is an active program right now in the Sierra Rockford. Yes. Maybe somebody from that. So Director Parham gave

me the idea of family credit management. So I'll reach out to them to see if they could come in June. And then Zion, they do a lot of different things. They are developer, but they also offer some of the services that you're mentioning. So would we like to maybe have them come in June and talk about that component of things? Or do we want them to come in July too for the developer component? What would you guys like to see? And I can reach out and schedule that.

Well, if we do one for homeowner, because we is this action, I mean this plan that we're creating the program, are we saying we're bundling two together to address one thing or we can have a where it's an umbrella and then we have homeowners and then development?

We can do both. I think it would be helpful to bring the people to the table to figure it out. I do think that they're probably going to be separate initiatives though because you have to in order to get the, it's great to get the people ready to buy the home, And we need to do that. But we have to have the homes ready for them to buy.

Right, right. That's true.

So I don't know which one would be putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. But I think they're both needed in order to finish the quilt.

I would recommend whomever is available in June for both.

The homeowners would be great because they got a you need time to prepare anyways. House could be getting built. You might be a year away from buying. Yeah. We currently

have a program that is doing quite well in the rehabilitation that would fall into a homeowner's That'd

be great.

You know,

if a homeowner wants to get involved in that program and rehabilitate a house. So just three

You don't think we should look at that in maybe June?

Good.

If they're available in June, it'd be good. Because the workforce development roundtable, I mean, I think the homeowner's program will be good for June, and then we do the developer in July.

Yeah. That that makes sense. So the family credit management for June, who else do you want me to reach out

to? Zion?

Zion? Okay. Is there anybody any other entities?

For July, if we can get in touch with one of the other ones to Zoom in, think that would be great to see if someone else was available for July.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. So July we're thinking the pilot program.

Yes. Okay. Yes.

That makes sense. Okay. So July, I'll cross it out and I'll do pilot program. And then if, Rita and Jim, do you mind reaching out to those pilot programs to see if we could get somebody? And then I'll work on scheduling June and Family Credit Management and Zion. If there's any other agencies that you guys become aware of within the next two weeks, please let me know you'd like and you'd like to have them attend in June. We can have them as well. If we have a couple, we could turn it into a roundtable discussion and really kind of pick their brains a little bit. Okay.

Looks as though we are now at commissioners. Questions for the Alderman update? Were there any questions? Questions?

I think Mary had to head out early I know that Eric did email the mayor about a reintroduction to city council. I did email Eric asking for an update. He wasn't able to get back to me before this evening. So hopefully either we could email you with an update with that or we could provide an update in June. But I think that that's still in progress. Sounds great. New business.

Commissioner reports. Before we go in and I go around, I do want to acknowledge that we have been getting a lot of emails in regards to the data center build. Yes. And a lot of questions. There was one I think we all got a copy of the one that came across. No? Yes? Did. I didn't give them. Okay. Well

I do think I had forwarded it to just you and Eric.

Oh, okay. Okay. So we will table that until the next meeting. Unless, unless, Commissioner Garwick, you did

have I

something won't that you want to speak for an hour, okay? I promise. But I went to a panel discussion of some experts on the impact that the data center will have on not just the environment, but on the people that live in the area. And I really think that the city should consider a one year moratorium on the data center. That's

They should consider what?

A one year moratorium on the data center to gather more information. I really have a feeling

They are gathering more

Because as I brought this up so many times, like all evolving technologies, I mean, there was a time when people thought radio was going to kill everybody. So like all evolving technologies, the questions have to be answered. What is the impact? How are you going to provide power? What are you going to use for water? If those questions are satisfactorily answered, a lot of the concerns go away. And right now, the questions are not being asked

or answered. Nobody knows the

impact. Still nebulous because it's not even on the table at this point.

The mayor does a one minute thing on social media, he talked about this. And he said that other people want that land as well, so it is not done. And I think that's what happens sometimes. We react to right away the news. And I think, like you said, we need to collect information. And I'm sure the city would do that. I don't think the city would just say, oh, data center center because you have it has to come through city council as well. So I I I really was glad that he did the one minute thing and and shared, you know, right now where it's at that, you know, it's just it's still processing and other people wanna be on that land as well. So Yeah. It's not a done deal.

Okay. Good.

Yeah. I'm glad he addressed it too.

Put the bees back on it.

Yeah. But there there are apps too that actually you could put your ZIP code in. I was just playing with this yesterday. Mhmm. And it will tell you your environmental code for your home. It literally will tell you, like, what's your air pollution percent? Do you have something currently by you that's affecting you? So some people I do think we

jump Yeah.

Right there as soon as we hear something. But you're right. It's gonna take true information and where is this information being sourced from. Because they hate to find out we're getting information from somebody that's paid to make information look a certain way There

were experts on the panel, environmental experts. I mean, they knew what they were talking about. Thank

you. Any other emails? You just getting emails about people asking to do something?

We definitely get them shared with the commission for the next meeting.

Commission

reports. Any reports?

I just have one thing. I did have that meeting with the Director of the United Way about the 02/11 program because we've talked about how to get information out about services that are available in the city. She gave me just these are just little palm cards that I can give to each of you. But also, she they're in the process of having like a working group to figure out how to best implement two eleven in Rockford. So once that is kind of further along in the process, she offered to have either herself or someone from her staff come and speak with us if we'd like to know more about how that works.

Great. Thank you. Thank you. Any other reports?

So June 3 at UW Center downtown sport the sports factory, we have a job fair, which the city of Rockford will be there and a bunch of different local agencies. But I'm leading an initiative there where you actually can come in and get a free item of clothing. It could be a full suit, blazer, dress, bags. So anybody that needs something to prepare themselves to go into the work field or education, they can get free clothing for an interview. So if you guys can share that, I'll send you the flyer to email. It'll be at the sports factory in downtown. It's June 3 from eleven to four. Okay.

And it's also a job fair?

It's a job fair. So it's a job fair with actual agencies in Rockford that are looking to actively employ.

Are there any building trades? There are.

There are. So there I can I actually have it up here? About I think 46 different agencies and employers that'll be there like Hard Rock Casino, different hotel facilities in Rockford, health care like Walgreens hiring for pharmacy tech. The city of Rockford has some positions that they'll be recruiting for there.

That's a Wednesday. Good.

Oh, a WE program. Like, you can go and get a they're recruiting for people that wanna go into CDL program, and you can actually get free schooling and get a $200 stipend per week while you're going to school to get a CDL license. So whether you're gonna drive a school bus or go into, you know, something in distribution center local or around Rockford. There's a bunch.

There's a bunch.

A bunch of stuff.

June 3, is there a time?

Yeah. It's eleven to four. I'm going to email you guys the fly right now too.

Any other reports? Good. Alright. And we have come to the adjournment. And anyone want to adjourn us? Yes, I move. Second? Second. So moved. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.