Housing Authority Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

COMMISSIONER'S SPECIAL MEETING FOR FEBRUARY 5th, 2026. FOR FEBRUARY 5th, 2026. FOR FEBRUARY 5th, 2026. THE TIME IS 4.07 P.M. THE TIME IS 4.07 P.M. THE TIME IS 4.07 P.M. AND WE CAN START WITH ITEM TWO AND WE CAN START WITH ITEM TWO AND WE CAN START WITH ITEM TWO FOR ROLL CALL OF COMMISSIONERS FOR ROLL CALL OF COMMISSIONERS FOR ROLL CALL OF COMMISSIONERS STARTING WITH PRESIDENT DOUG STARTING WITH PRESIDENT DOUG STARTING WITH PRESIDENT DOUG SCHUMACHER. SCHUMACHER. SCHUMACHER. HERE. HERE. HERE. COMMISSIONER LUANA KIM IS COMMISSIONER LUANA KIM IS COMMISSIONER LUANA KIM IS ENROUTE. ENROUTE. ENROUTE. COMMISSIONER MARIANNE BIKES. COMMISSIONER Item three is the acknowledgment of the Ramatushaloni community.

The housing authority of the city and county of San Francisco acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramatushaloni, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. As the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramatushaloni have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. As guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramachishlaloni community, and by affirming their sovereign rights as First Peoples.

Thank you, President Shoemaker. Item four is the President's report.

No report from me.

great item five is general public comments uh noting this portion of the agenda is not intended for debate or discussion with the commissioner staff please simply state your business or the matter you wish the commissioner staff to be aware of it is not appropriate for commissioners to engage in debate or respond in issues not properly set in a publicly noticed meeting agenda IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS OR WOULD LIKE TO BRING A MATTER TO THE COMMISSION'S ATTENTION, PLEASE SEND YOUR COMMUNICATION VIA E-MAIL TO SFHAPUBLICCOMMENT AT SFHA.ORG. THAT BEING SAID, IS THERE ANY GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT IN THE ROOM OR ONLINE? IF YOU'RE ONLINE, YOU HAVE TO RAISE YOUR HAND AND ZOOM AND YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES FOR ANY PUBLIC COMMENT. WE DO HAVE SOMEONE ONLINE. MR. WILLIAMS, IF YOU WANT TO MUTE YOURSELF, YOU'LL HAVE TWO MINUTES.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Good afternoon, commissioners. This is Mr. Dennis Williams. I'm a resident of Plaza East. I'm also executive director of a community-based 501c3. We're in the middle of our second capital improvement at Plaza East. As you know, the executive director is no longer with you guys. Painstakingly, I've been through the planning process with Housing Authority, as well as the Resident Council of Plaza East and the residents. A lot of diligence went through specific planning for a project manager being from the community, from the Plaza East residents to ensure that there were no delays, that community were hired. And unfortunately to date, the progress is slow, is behind schedule. There's no project manager from the community to ensure that things are moving in the right direction so we don't go through a third capital improvement. Very little residents were hired, maybe two. I myself was hired by Oak Brook and was fired within a week for simply questioning the methods that was being used pertaining to part-time jobs instead of full-time positions. My position itself was cut down without the knowledge of our president, Ms. Martha Holland's knowledge or anyone else from nine months as it was advertised to the community to six months. And it was just an unfair process. And I just wanted to speak on that. It needs to be some kind of advisor, maybe working as a mediator or a go-between from Plaza East residents and our resident elected council to housing authority, because how long do we have to suffer? And then lastly, our redevelopment project that we painstakingly was on on the senior advisor of the Plaza East Advisory Committee. And McCormick and Barron Salazar was removed. But because they was removed, we lost our development.

All right, Mr. Williams, that is two minutes. But thank you for your public comment. Any additional general public comments? Okay. Closing general public comment. Item number six is a tenant representative report. Anyone from CCSD or the Public Housing Tenant Association in person or online would like to give a report out to the board at this time? If not, we can open for public comment in item six. Are there any public comments specifically in item number six? Great. Item seven, this is the acting executive director's report. We're going to start with item 7B today for the general communications from Daniel Adams. DANIEL ADAMS.

Thanks so much, Bennett. I have a number of updates to give. But first and foremost, I want to welcome our newest commissioners, Commissioner Lai and Commissioner Alvarez. It is delightful to be sitting on a full bench. What a great, strong commission we have for the first time, I think, Years. And so I'm delighted to welcome you both. And I'm expecting great things from you all. And you should expect the same of me. So let's plan to work together. And again, really excited to have a full commission to work with. Yep, sorry. A few updates. We did, on the 15th, received a HUD letter confirming our CMAP score. This is a Section 8 scoring system. We had self-scored to be a high performer. We did get confirmation from HUD that we are indeed a high performer. So I want to, again, we gave a presentation, I think to this effect, at the November Commission meeting, but it warrants repeating. And again, I want to congratulate the staff and also appreciate the work of former director Tanya Letijoux in really helping to move from troubled status. We skipped over whatever the medium status is, and we're in high performer status. So again, congrats to all who worked so diligently on that important work. I should also mention that our contractors contributed mightily to that work, both PEM and CVR. We've been going through a scoring process of their work, and we've seen real improvements on the contractor side as well, so worth mentioning. A budget was passed. Who knew that the United States of America could pass a budget? We have done it once again. It included the T-HUD bill. It is relatively good news for housing authorities across the country, including our own. I want to give a few quick points today, but we will be giving a full presentation on our budget relative to the past federal budget at our next commission hearing. So won't be taking too many questions today, though, if you have any quick clarifications. We're diving into the details. We were given earlier House-proposed and Senate-proposed budgets. This was some months ago, before the previous government shutdown. We were looking at anywhere from a $40 to $55 million shortfall for this current calendar year. And that's based on a methodology that HUD can employ, depending on congressional approval, called proration, where they basically pay cents on the dollar. So you have a dollar's worth of expenses, but they'll give you 90 cents or 89 cents. So we were anticipating a significant shortfall. Based on the approved budget, it is still a prorated budget at 95%. But given the inflationary factor that it comes along with that budget, Our estimates are currently we're looking at a $1 to $2 million shortfall next year instead of an order of magnitude higher. And at that scale, we would have reserves sufficient to cover that shortfall. So very good news. It doesn't mean that we can expand our programs and certainly not issue additional vouchers. So we're not. Not at that level of good news, but certainly relative to some pretty dire predictions that we were looking at previously, this is very strong. Secondarily, and we'll get into this a little bit in 7a, my presentation on the emergency housing voucher transition. Congress also approved, through the HUD budget, significant tenant protection voucher resources to help with the emergency housing voucher transition. So those have been approved, broadly speaking. The allocation formula, however, is TBD. So we don't know exactly how much money we'll be getting of the approved budget. We should have that by our next commission hearing. But it should be. almost certainly will not be sufficient to address the need, the overall need. Early estimates, we might be able to address around a third of the voucher needs for this population, our emergency housing voucher population. But again, we'll provide more clarity on that. Regardless, it is really, it will be of incredible benefit to our efforts as we look to convert this program from what we thought was a relatively long-term program to a very short-term program. So more on that in the subsequent point. I want to mention that we are working and finalizing an RFQ to select a development partner for Plaza East. So MBS was a co-owner at the property they have exited. So the Housing Authority is the sole owner, through its affiliated nonprofit organization, of the property. The property is in need of capital improvement. And we need a development partner to help lead that work, as well as identify resources, primarily through the RAD program, and leverage tax credits to make our capital improvement more robust. finalizing that RFQ and hope to get it out this month. We will, of course, bring any selected development partner to you for approval prior to entering into contracts, so more to come on that front. But it is extremely important that we move forward on this work. We've already asked for an extension on the application, the RAD application. We've received that extension. But we've got to take steps to move toward actually defining the scope and undertaking the work in short order. So we're moving forward on that. Finally, I think this is finally, I wanted to reference, particularly as we have new commissioners coming on board, the integration work that we're doing with the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development and the city more broadly. And we'll be, over the next few months, bringing more focused presentations to this commission on this topic. But to set the stage a little bit, and as a reminder, in March of 2019, HUD put the Housing Authority in default based on budgetary shortfalls that were not anticipated and could have been anticipated by the authority. The city stepped in with an emergency loan and negotiated a settlement with HUD, whereby the city assumed responsibility for the essential functions of the Housing Authority. And the Housing Authority, furthermore, agreed to outsource its main program areas to third party contractors. And so that's primarily the Housing Choice Voucher Program, but includes property management of the remaining public housing. And through that MOU between the city and the housing authority, HUD agreed to cure the default. And it was a major achievement. The MOU makes reference to a shared services agreement between the housing authority and the city, whereby the city, through this agreement, would provide for certain functions to the housing authority. including such things as IT services, HR. It's not prescriptive about the functions that the city would provide, but it alludes to this shared services agreement. There was an agreement drafted, but it was never executed. You'll remember the pandemic hit. Things got a little crazy. And so I think the integration work was put on pause for a number of years while just shoring up the functions of the housing authority and attending to the needs of residents took priority. But under the Lurie administration, there's been a renewed focus on this integration work. And as an initial phase of that work, we're pursuing three approaches. The first I just referenced, internet technology. The city is, through its Department of Technology, will be providing for the IT needs of the housing authority, much as they do for other agencies. across the city family. This will provide a very strong technological backbone to the authority's internet needs, IT needs I should say. And we'll be bringing an agreement for your consideration I think toward the end of this, maybe May, in May. Furthermore, we're working with the city attorney's office for them to provide general counsel services to us through a shared services agreement. They already provide specialized service through distinct agreements that we have with the city attorney's office, but we're looking for a more comprehensive agreement with the city attorney's office, and we're working on that with them this quarter. We will always need specialized HUD counsel as a housing authority, but we'll be proposing to expand our relationship with the city attorney's office. Finally, the controller's office, through its performance team, has done an assessment of the project-based voucher program. We were receiving a number of criticisms and concerns about the management of that program. So we've received their overall report and are starting to implement improvement measures. I should say, throughout the report it says things have already been improving, so we're on a good trajectory. And I think for next commission hearing, I'd like to have the performance team come and present on their findings to this commission. So I just wanted to provide that framing. This is going to be ongoing work and really interested in your thoughts about how we best take advantage of the city's infrastructure and strength to strengthen the housing authority as we move forward. So I'll pause there and see if there are any questions on that myriad of updates before we start talking about the EHV program.

Great. Thank you very much. Commissioners, anybody got any questions around the aforementioned myriad?

Myriad. Myriad.

All right. I'm wondering. Yes. Go ahead.

So, sorry. Go ahead. I'm just wondering if on the RFP that's been put out for Plaza East, if there is anything about a shared fee, developer fee, with the housing authority in that?

Great question. That level of specificity is not in the RF. It's going to be an RFQ, actually. So we're going to solicit qualifications rather than proposals. And I don't believe we have that level of specificity in the RFQ. But that would be part of the negotiation we would have with the selected entity.

OK. Other?

I've got one. Curiosity and sort of for future meetings potentially, just we heard the caller, and we've heard from Mr. Williams sort of a couple of times. And it seems like there are next steps around Plaza. I could use context. We have new partners there, some old. Just where things stand with Plaza given our sole ownership at this point. It would be nice to get a bit more background as we roll through this next phase with the RFQ and other discussions.

I think that's a great request, and I think what we should do is calendar a presentation on Plaza rather than get into too much specificity here. But we've taken note of that, and we'll put it on a future agenda.

Thank you. Well, first of all, I want to echo your congratulations to the staff and to former Director Letijoux and others around becoming a high performer. That is quite a big turnaround, especially in light of the historic arc of the housing authority. I think first time I can recall that we were a high performing agency. And I'm just wondering, is there a practical implication to being a high performer? Are there benefits to becoming a high performer in the long run?

Like special hats we might get?

I was hoping it would go beyond that.

I will have to defer to staff if there are any implications to this status other than pride.

I know that in the past, to become an MTO or an MTW agency, you had to be in that high performing category. Kendra, you looked like you were going to. We're seeking enlightenment here.

Good afternoon, commissioners. Kendra Crawford, housing operations director. Yes. So one of the things that we would be able to do is when MTW opportunities come on, we would have the opportunity to apply for one of those. And so one of the things that we have to be careful for, though, is that we don't get into a program that is not beneficial for our city. And so any MTW opportunities that come, that is something that we need to review very closely to ensure that it is something that will be beneficial for San Francisco. But yes, that is an opportunity.

OK. Thanks.

When it's available through HUD.

OK. Right. And those are sort of congressionally determined, not?

Yes.

Right. OK. So my mistake for not saying it, but this is the Moving to Work program that provides housing authorities with significant flexibility in terms of how they maneuver funds across programs. And San Francisco has never been an MTW jurisdiction.

Not that I'm aware of.

No, I don't think so. Yeah, great. Any other questions or comments on the acting executive director's report? Right. The one other bit of context just for all of us, I think, in the past we had a real estate committee that sometimes heard things like the RFQ conversation. Because we were a smaller group for a little while and because of sort of the composition of our commission, we didn't abolish, but we no longer have a sitting executive or sitting a real estate committee. We could certainly consider having one in the future. But for the time being, we're sort of hearing real estate items as a committee of the whole. And so that's how we'll handle this coming one if we determine in the future that we feel like it would be valuable to have a separate real estate committee. We are not handling a lot of transactions. And so for the moment, it feels like it's worthwhile to just hear it together. Should we discover that we want to have a committee, we could always take that up at a future time.

That's a great point to bring up. I think the committee is called a Development and Finance Committee, if I'm not mistaken. And it is a standing committee. Currently, we have to cancel it every month because we're not using it exactly as you described. But it's there as a vessel should this commission choose to want to use that delegated authority to have a vetting committee for real estate issues. The transactional work is not of a volume currently, but it could become such, and so I think it's something to consider. And we could, we have talked about amending the bylaws such that we don't, it could be more of an ad hoc committee, so we don't have to just every month send out a notice that says, hey, once again, we're canceling this subcommittee, which, you know, no one's complained about it, but it's a little odd to have a standing committee. And we're not able to merely, without commission action and change to the bylaws, merely put it on pause or on hold. So something for discussion.

I'm sure there were great reasons for having a subcommittee in the past. And yet I think in the short time that I've been on the commission, there has not been a volume of work either on the real estate front or generally that would require us to have that level of I think multiple committees. But we can certainly take up the bylaws. And if you want to work with council and staff to bring forward a proposed change of the bylaws so that we don't have to have such a committee but make it ad hoc, I would certainly welcome that. And we could discuss that as a commission. Wonderful.

Yeah. We'll pursue that.

Yeah. So great. All right. Do you want to move on to item 7b, Bennett?

7A. 7A.

Sorry, I just, I don't go backwards. I don't know what to say.

We took them out of order.

Yeah.

All right.

And I should note for SFGov TV, sorry, Dan, we have slides for this item. Thank you.

Shall I wait till they appear on the screen? You can start. OK. If you wouldn't mind going, yeah, wonderful. So the Emergency Housing Voucher Program, this was a program established in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan Act. It was a one-time funded program, but with a 10-year projected lifespan or tenure. It was a commitment of federal investment to address housing instability and homelessness that was exacerbated under the COVID pandemic. And it was specific to serve households who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, or human trafficking. So while the focus is really on homelessness, there was a menu of populations, vulnerable populations that the voucher program intended to serve. And San Francisco was very successful in utilizing the 920 vouchers that were provided to the city in identifying households who are now successfully housed in this program. Unfortunately, under the current administration, funding for the program was halted. And rather than terminating in 2030, we're looking at funding running out in about September of this year. So we, along with jurisdictions across the country, have been scrambling to figure out how to dismantle this program. It will no longer exist, but ensure continued housing for our vulnerable households. So following, there's just a few slides on the kind of demographics of the households. So you can see from the graphs predominantly black and African-American households are served. And we have many households. And then the kind of family status diagram on the right shows that breakdown. Near more than half of the households are single person households. So we're serving a lot of single individuals. And then small families are the primary recipients of this benefit. There is a fair bit of income diversity, though certainly the preponderance are extremely low income. But there are some folks who do have some disposable income to support themselves. But generally, this is a program that attends to extremely low income households. And you see broad distribution across the city, though more households are in District 6 and District 10. Of note, 99 households have ported out. So as we think about one of our challenges as we're thinking about a transition plan is communication and support strategies for those households who do not live in San Francisco. We have more resources locally to deploy, but we will be devising strategies to ensure that we're appropriately outreaching to those households who no longer live in San Francisco but have San Francisco-based vouchers. Next slide. For months, a working group of staff members from HSH, our Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, MOCD, and the Housing Authority have been meeting to first understand the kind of scope of the population and location and support needs and start devising strategies for transitioning this population from these now very short-term vouchers to permanent subsidy. So the plan is to as we accrue vacancy in our project-based voucher portfolio to offer project-based voucher units to emergency housing voucher holders so that they are able to move into a permanent voucher subsidy modality and they don't lose their housing. Our planning efforts have been complicated by a couple of factors. First is we are very much advantaged in our transition work to have a waiver approved by HUD that allows us to automatically, without needing to have every household fill out an application, to automatically place emergency housing voucher holders on our wait list. Through our admin plan, we'll give them a priority for vacancies. And thereby, we're able to administratively offer these voucher holders a project-based voucher unit. Without the waiver from HUD, we'll need to outreach to every household and have them fill out an application. to then be placed on the wait list. So the administrative burden of that would be significant. We have been very challenged to receive that waiver from HUD. I have had a number of conversations with both current and former HUD officials. We expect to get that waiver any day. I've been told verbally that we should get the waiver, but we have not gotten the waiver. And I cannot guarantee that they will approve it until we have it in hand. So although we're outlining our strategies and efforts, having that waiver in hand is an important baseline for us. The other indeterminate until recently was what kind of budget we were going to be looking at. Thankfully, with the recent passage of the T-HUD bill, we have that knowledge and will be developing and getting more information from HUD shortly. But you'll see in the strategies, we outline two strategies, both of which rely on our project-based voucher portfolio to rehouse these tenants. The first was imagining no support from the federal government in the form of TPVs. And thankfully, in last year's budget, local budget, the city of San Francisco's budget, the board approved $27 million available at the start of the next fiscal year to support the transition of these households from EHV to permanent housing, permanently subsidized housing. Even without the now new HUD support, we would be positioned financially to bridge the voucher payment, which will stop sometime around September, with a locally subsidized voucher payment until such time as we have the vacancies we need to rehouse the entire population. So on a spreadsheet, it works with this local allocation that we have. The wonderful news is we should be able to do much better than that with an allocation of tenant protection vouchers, which we'll be able to allocate to a portion of the families so that they can remain in their current housing situation. The tenant protection voucher will be swapped for the emergency housing voucher and no move will be necessary. So for a portion of the 920 households, we'll be able to just merely, again, switch out the emergency housing voucher that supports their current housing with a tenant protection voucher, and it will be There'll be some administration, certainly, but it'll be the least disruptive to the household's life, just because they'll be able to remain in their current house. For the balance of households, we will need to identify options for them within our project-based voucher portfolio and support them in their move to that unit. That's where the cross-departmental coordination comes into play. MOSED will be dedicating a project manager to help facilitate this process and coordinate between the parties. HSH has staff who are skilled in supporting tenant moves, and HSH holds the services contracts that are available to support tenants in this move. And the housing authority, of course, will need to interview the households and organize the offering of project-based voucher units to these households as we move forward. So that's our plan. As soon as we imagine launching, there's some rough timelines given in the presentation. We're in coordination mode and planning and readiness. Really, it will be April through June in this initial cohort to try and make some early moves of folks. We can't have everybody wait until September 30th and say, okay, now I'm ready to move. So we've got to move forward and incentivize folks to move prior to the cessation of funding. And then, as I say, we have both these tenant protection vouchers that we expect to receive shortly as well as a transition reserve to help ensure that we're preserving housing during this is transition period. So with that, I'll end my presentation. Happy to take any questions or comments.

Great. Thanks, Stan. Sharon, what's your life?

Great. Thank you for that. That was very informative. A couple of questions. Hopefully they're quick. First of all, how many project-based voucher vacant units do we have right now?

How many?

Vacant units. Yeah, PVV.

I don't know. Mama, did you have something?

Good afternoon, commissioners. So our contractor, CVR, is currently gathering that data. So we know we have around 800 vacant PVV. But we know that number, there's a lot of cleanup that need to happen. Some of the units are vacant in our system. But on the developer side, they may be in illegal cases or unauthorized occupants. So those are not truly vacant. And there's also some. vacancy where the referral is coming from different agency, like from the city department. So we need to figure out where the referral is coming. If it's coming from SFHA, those are the true vacant unit we control. So we're going through that data, and next meeting we'll .

That makes sense. And obviously, even if they're vacant and available for our use, the demographic, like basically the regulated requirements, may not align with the population. So understood. What is the worst case scenario planning here out of the 891 emergency housing vouchers that we have at the $27 million pot, the transitional pot that we have? What is the burn rate of that?

We can provide that information. I think we've been quite conservative in our projections. So we don't, in fact, as a mathematical exercise, even without the tenant protection vouchers, we imagine that we would be able to satisfy our, and based on that kind of attrition within the portfolio, it would probably be half that amount of the $27 million. But when we think about potential penalties for breaking existing leases, moving expenses, I believe just the logistics of the moves are going to be much more complicated than show up on a spreadsheet. So we've been conservative in our assumptions around that. And when we arrive at the $27 million to fully utilize the available transition reserve, that includes a contingency amount Do you have it offhand? It's 15%. 15%. So even within that conservative estimate, there's a contingency reserve there to address any unforeseen situations. Once again, we should be able to improve on that performance with the tenant protection vouchers that we have so that it's a smaller population to move.

Great. And then last question about the tenant protection vouchers. Great segue. When are we expecting the allocation to occur? That is a good question. Do you have a sense of that, Mamadi?

HUD is required, after the budget pass, they have 60 days to communicate the budget authority to all PHAs. So it's either April, probably around April, early April. So we should have a better idea of our allocation.

Great. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Commissioner Lai. Commissioner Cancino. Yeah, I'm curious about, you mentioned the 800 vacant, and granted it's not a true vacant, but the match across these sort of neighborhoods, the breakdown, do you have just sort of a, do those exist sort of across neighborhoods? the sort of neighborhoods or districts and sort of roughly the sort of dimensions that, you know, we see? Or is there a large mismatch that you're anticipating?

It's sort of much the EHV demographic. So it's mostly District 6 and 10, Bayview and Tenderloin. But we have a mapping. We can share that detailed information.

I'd love that. Thanks.

Just a quick point on that, and I want to be careful about setting up expectations that individual households will have extended choice about where they want to live. I mean, this is going to be challenging for folks. We do intend to, and per the admin code, to offer choices to households. But it's not that selection, choosing a unit is guided by the admin code. Unfortunately, there will be situations in which, like, here's what we can offer you, and if you choose none of these options, then you will lose your subsidy. So the kind of matching neighborhood to neighborhood, there will be a limit to the extent that we can curate our available vacancies to meet everybody's preference, and I just want to set those expectations up from the start.

I really appreciate that. And the question was, that makes total sense. And I think I'm just curious how much potential friction or difficulty with a fit you may anticipate ahead of actually hitting July or September.

It's a great question. I think there's a level of detail. I mean, I'm just eager to get into the work, to be honest. And I think we'll know more as we're starting to actually facilitate these moves. Just again, on the vacancy figure, You know, some of those units are in the process of receiving referrals. So one of the decision points or strategy points that we need to make is when we stop having referrals from the general wait list or other kind of preferences and start to hold vacancies for offerings. So there's a balancing of we don't want vacancies. So 800 seems like a big number to me and I don't want to give the impression that we have that many vacancies out there because it's just part of the churn of, you know, there are, you know, 8,000 project-based vouchers. So there's going to be some amount of vacancies just as people vacate and we're waiting for new referrals. So the true vacancy number of what we would be able to offer tenants today is a much smaller number because we've really got to stop the referral process so we have, we can redirect toward these, this particular population.

Yeah. On his point, there's the true vacant, vacant unit without any referral at this time is around 30. So 33-0. All other units have, they go into the process, they receive some referral, they go into the process, the screening. So the decision point is going to be when do we need to stop that. If any of those referrals are not successful, if we need to do another poll, we need to decide when we're going to stop that process. But our expectation through the process is every month, based on the turnover of this unit, we should be able to move around 30, 35 families. So it's going to take a while. But if we're able to do 35 a month, the planning right now is that we'll be able to move all 900 by probably end of 27.

So I really appreciate the kind of pointing out the location of where folks currently live. These are folks that have been traumatized, right? And that's why they're utilizing these vouchers. So I'm wondering, what is the strategy or what we're doing on communication so that folks also don't feel threatened, and how we're going to prioritize who is offered what where? And lastly, just what are the services that are going to be tied to help them get reacclimated to the extent that they have to be relocated?

Great questions. I think some of those will need to come back as we're really refining our timeline and implementation plan. We are, the important role that HSH plays in our working group is really to ensure communication with our service providers that are providing support for these residents. So we've already started planning when folks will necessarily need to come in for an interview with the project-based voucher contractor. know, to make sure that services is informed of that, can support the resident in ways that are helpful to them. If we're not receiving responses from tenants, you know, to have a conduit of communication with the service provider to be able to support that work. So the communication strategy is key. There's both the official communication that comes from SFHA informing the tenant of, you know, that their their voucher will end, and they need to come in and learn about options for new residents. So we'll do whatever we can to provide for the specific needs of the household. It is important to remember that the preponderance of the households are single adults, and so while They will also have specific needs. There's likely more flexibility in terms of their housing options than large families, for instance. So I think I'm hopeful that folks will find that the options that we are able to provide them are sufficiently attentive to their needs and priorities that we can minimize the inducing more trauma in this process. But folks are going to have to move. And I think we need to be clear-eyed about that. And there isn't the option of just staying where you are and having the city pay for your voucher in perpetuity. And so we need to be very firm about the off-ramp is really to move into a project-based unit.

Mr. Kim?

Thank you. Thank you for this information and the thoughtful sort of process through this. I just have some sort of questions or thoughts on how this will sort of roll out in sort of practical ways, because I think It is a thoughtful process about sort of the different strategies and the different sort of options. But in terms of, could you talk a little bit more about the magnitude of this project? From what, from this process? Because you talked about, I mean, these are short-term projects. They've been meant to be short-term. So to me, that means there's already some transition process in place. So it's not a completely new process. At the same time, it's an unexpected, shortened timeline, and it's a larger group of people. And I would imagine it's a group of people where, like human nature... Some are like, I'm on it right away. I'm going to do it right away. Some are, I'm going to wait till the last minute until absolutely has to go. And then you layer in people who are in trauma and who are already struggling to maneuver through life. Can you talk a little bit about the resources, the staffing, how you are going to be able to manage an influx of 800 people meeting them where they are, but meeting the deadline that we all have to. Could you talk just a little bit about the resources side of it and how you're going to monitor so that we don't end up in July, September, right, with where, yeah.

Great question. I think the favorable position we find ourselves in a city like San Francisco, where the mayor and the board took proactive action to put aside funds to help with this transition reserve, allow us to extend the timeline such that we're not going to be inducing trauma on our residents any more than they will just by having to move again, or on our staff and to try to organize. We can't move 900 people in a month. So as Mamadou referenced, I think we're projecting 30 to 35 moves every month. So this will be an incremental process. And we're able to draw down. So the HSH will work order funds to the housing authority. such that we can then replace the depleted emergency housing voucher dollars that we will no longer be receiving from HUD with a local source. So the idea is that the voucher payments go out seamlessly. It's just that they were currently and then soon to be formally funded through federal dollars through the EHV program. They'll then be funded through local dollars for just this transition period. So I think I don't have all the answers to your questions other than to continue to assert the fact that this really is a cross-departmental effort and that the And I actually have a meeting with our project manager on Monday to start talking through a lot of these logistics. It's a project. Someone's going to have to manage it. Somebody will say, oh, yeah, we need to talk to the service provider. Did you follow up with the service? Oh, no. OK, call them. So again, I'm confident given the fact that we have some breathing room in our timeline to figure this out. One of the complexities, in addition to the HUD waiver that we're waiting for, the TPVs, the tenant protection vouchers, which again are a total boon, but we need to figure out how those will be allocated, how much we're receiving, And it's likely that HUD will provide guidance on that allocation formula. So it may not be totally within our local TBD, but it may not be totally within our purview to set up criteria or prioritization of those tenant protection vouchers. in being good stewards of public dollars, we need to expedite this work. We have plenty of other, if we're able to expend fewer than $27 million in this effort, fantastic. Because the city has lots of other needs when it comes to extremely low income households where this funding can be used if we don't have to use it all for this effort. relatively favorable HUD budget, I'm optimistic that we'll be able to do it on a more expedited timeline. But there are some variables that are just outstanding that kind of impede our ability to be so specific with our plans at this date.

Any other questions, Commissioner? Questions down here?

Well, thank you so much for trying to explain it, because it's a lot to learn. For me, as the sitting here, listening, thinking about the project that you're talking about. It seems like it's kind of, the communication is very important to the resident so they don't have to go, you know, like some of the commissioner was asking about it, make sure whoever's going to be on the project, make sure communicate with the resident, understand when changing gear and they're, yeah.

Well, thank you so much, Commissioner. I do appreciate that. Throughout this very uncertain time, given shifting and sometimes aggressive federal direction, we are always prioritizing communication with our residents across a number of fronts and trying to balance that with not communicating when we're not certain about certain things. And so the uncertainty has actually really been challenging for us to, figure out, is this the time to reach out to residents when we don't know everything, but we need to tell them something? And so this comment is not specific necessarily to the EHV program, but to all of the ways in which norms are being threatened and changed, and how can we communicate with our resident population without generating undue anxiety, so it's a balancing act. But definitely appreciate the comment around the importance of communication.

Okay. Any other Commissioner questions? If not, I just have a couple. This is really quite a helpful report. So you mentioned the difference between the 920 and there's I guess about 99 that have ported out. Do we have a different responsibility as a housing authority to the ones that are in our jurisdiction than the 99 that have poured it out? Do they eventually become the responsibility of the housing authority in which they're living, or how does that work in terms of this?

Well, I will take a first pass at answering that question. This is not my poured out, so it's not my area of expertise. I would say that in a There is a version of our response to this crisis which could be merely a letter to all of these voucher holders that your voucher is coming to an end, and good luck. I don't believe that HUD has placed on us any additional burden than that. So I don't believe our responsibility as a technical matter is any different to the ported out voucher holders as it is to our local voucher holders. I think what we intend to do is provide them with exactly the same options as we communicate that their voucher is coming to an end, their subsidy is coming to an end. I think the challenge there is going to be that our project-based voucher program is in San Francisco. And so if they've found successful housing in other jurisdictions, our options are going to be local. But your question is a good one. I think we should discuss internally about coordinating with the jurisdictions in which they are housed and connecting with them with any supports that are local. But the technicalities of housing There would need to be some sort of transition from our locally supported voucher subsidy to wherever they're living. And there would need to be capacity then in that jurisdiction to take them on.

I mean, just on the service provision question that was asked earlier, I mean, obviously lots of things are done virtually these days. The project-based voucher portfolio is obviously local. The TPVs though, you know, can you help me understand on the tenant protection vouchers, you mentioned that there's not the option of just staying in your unit.

No, there is the option.

There is on the TPVs there is. Correct.

That's right. So if I misspoke, the TPVs would allow those recipients to remain housed where they are. So we would just swap out the subsidy source.

And I don't have a view on this per se, but one could imagine that there could be a thought process around sort of how one prioritizes the TPVs.

Correct.

That's right. And OK. So that's just a thought. I don't know exactly how it goes. But obviously, you guys have given this a lot of thought. And the waiver that you've sought is specifically for the project-based vouchers. And that implies that you don't either have the option or have not pursued the option of moving them into the housing choice voucher program.

The tenant-based voucher program. That's a great question. We do not have that option.

OK. It's not allowed under this?

It's not. We are in shortfall still. And so we are not able to issue additional tenant-based vouchers. And so that's the challenge we have. And even though our budget projections are more favorable next year, we don't imagine coming out of shortfall in a timely way.

OK. All right. And then I think this is my second to last question. The The challenge that was briefly described by Mamadou and that you're sort of outlining of sort of like, when do we start telling folks that we're no longer going to make referrals into project-based vouchers brings back echoes of our last couple of years of less than wonderful interaction with some of the housing providers that have struggled with a lack of referrals or have felt they were not getting timely referrals. And so what I would ask you guys to think about is, what is the whole harmless policy that you would provide to a housing provider that you are no longer making a referral to?

Correct. I'm so glad you brought that up. And it goes to the previous comment about communication. We do have planned outreach to the owners, the folks who own the buildings where these project-based vouchers are and really want to be in lockstep with them about this transition process. whether it's a hold harmless policy or whether it's close coordination so that the referrals basically that are now coming from the EHV program are made as efficiently as they would be off the general wait list. I think that would be our goal is that we're the language around holding referrals we want to be very careful that we're not just holding vacancies for long periods of time because no one benefits from that. And so, ideally, the voucher, the EHV placements are made as expeditiously as a placement off the general wait list. But, you know, some of those details are to be worked out.

Okay. I mean, just because it obviously raises a little bit of an alarm when you say you're holding a referral. So maybe to your point, we just find some terminology that is more accurately describing what you're planning to do.

Well, that's right, and there will be a point at which we need to say, you know, it's like turning off one spigot and on the other. Ideally, they are synchronous, and so it's just more that you're not taking referrals from the general wait list. You are now taking referrals from our agent.

Right. It sounds more like you're switching the referral source than it is like you're holding the referral.

That's a better way to describe it.

Okay. And then when we went through this conversation a little bit, I feel like one of the challenges that I heard from some of the housing owners was that, you know, and I don't know what the percentage is, so it's more of a question for staff, which is that there were a certain number of units that were failing inspections. There seemed to be some sort of spiral downward of a lack of operating revenue leading to a lack of repair work and sort of like, if you will, kind of a structural vacancy that was being built into some of these units, I think especially in some of the troubled buildings in District 6 and perhaps even District 10. So that's where we have both the overlap of the people and the overlap of the buildings. And I would just say, I know HSH is aware of this. I'm sure MOCD is aware of this. And so just to the extent that we can get ahead of the issue of sort of like, yes, we have units that are vacant, but they're also not Yes. Okay.

Well, and it's a great referring back to some of my opening comments about our integration work and the review that the controller's office has done of the project-based voucher program. We are really focused on continuing to improve those Basically, it's the referral to payment continuum. So how do we make sure that all the steps are, and again, we've made some real improvements already, but communication is key. The housing inspector is showing up on the day that the property manager is there and they have access to the unit. here, hey, property manager, here are the five things that often cause a failure, including the smoke alarm, which people disable. So before the inspector shows up and says you can't pass because your smoke alarm is out, check the damn smoke alarm. So those kinds of issues, I think, we're really eager to take on. And they'll benefit the program at large, but also this EHV work.

Great. All right. Well, I think everybody would love to see this as a regular part of the president's report. And if at some point the work starts to just take off and you're actually seeing a regular throughput, this would be a great item for us to see in some sort of dashboardy I don't think that's a word. A dashboard type element. I invented a new word that no one should use. So let's not use that again. Strike that from the record. All right. Bennett?

Yeah, if there's no additional commissioner's comment, we can open for public comment on item seven. We do have...

Hello. So I'm not asking a question. I'm just hoping that this project manager that you're looking for, the request or the application announcement will be where a lot of people can see it. And I'd love to take on the challenge.

Okay.

And a lot of you know me, and I do have the data metrics to go behind my name, and I think 35 vouchers moving them per month, I could do it.

Okay. Do you want to say your name for the record just so that everybody knows it?

Belinda Racklin. Thank you. I just wanted on record, I plan to apply.

All right. Thank you.

And just to clarify, we're not actually procuring a project manager. We're dedicating a project management staff within MOCD, a staff member. So just to clarify. But thank you for your comment.

OK, next.

Hello, commissioners. Michael Zorns, president of Citywide Council, senior disabled. I'd just like to mention that as we're taking comments or help from folks to include the residents in some of these buildings, I think that we may give a perspective of some of the folks moving from the emergency housing vouchers to the project-based vouchers if we live in one of those buildings. So just kind of throwing that out there, too.

Thank you.

Hi, good evening. Margaret McNulty, resident council advisors and 1760 Bush Street president. I know this isn't a place to have questions answered, but I was just wondering, what happens to the people in emergency situations after this? Is it just Red Cross that will be available? What do they do? And just consider that. And I also wonder if it'll be like the same 90-day rule that you usually have, that you have to use the vouchers and find a place within that short amount of time. That's all. Thanks.

So I just assume that as people are coming forward and asking questions at the podium that we're recording these, and we'll include those types of questions in our FAQs or whatever information we get back to residents, right? Thanks. Thank you.

We do have a public comment online. Mr. Williams, if you'd like to just unmute yourself. You have two minutes.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Appreciate you, Mr. Bennett, and thank you, Commissioner. I'm glad it's a full board now. I just want to quickly thank Mr. Joaquin Torres, City Assessor, who I've seen in a random yesterday at the Black History, the Mayor's Black History Kickoff, to briefly speak on what the Executive Director stated about the Plaza East development, and it's good to hear. As a principal of D.C. Williams Development, We see a structural problem at the Plaza East development in the past where HUD Section 3 was not adhered to and subsequently myself as a local community-based developer and the residents had to go to Washington, D.C. and advocate at the highest levels and brought back Mr. Richard Minocchio. Right now, currently, we see a lot of contracting, workforce.

Mr. Williams, this is a public comment on the emergency housing voucher item, not a general public comment item.

Okay, I thought it was included. Okay, well, let me speak on the vacant unit thing. Our dwindling population in the African-American San Francisco community, a lot of black residents are sitting either on a waiting list that seemingly never moves or just ignored. Longstanding residents must be able to gain access in their communities, not excluded. Currently, a problem has landed on my desk. Ms. Naomi, a 70-year-old elder lady in Sunnydale Housing Projects, was staying with her daughter three years ago. She thought she had her name placed on the lease. The daughter recently has moved to Betrayal Hill and is happy. And unfortunately, come to find out, the 70-year-old lady's name was never put on the lease, and she was being bullied just as this week and was being told that she had to move, which I know Sunnydale was in the middle of a development. But there's no reason why, as we've seen a problem citywide of different management companies coming and going and different discrepancies, why the egregious behavior towards a disabled woman that she would be put out with all her belongings. I'm a Board of Supervisors awarded community leaders, and it landed on my desk. I know I spoke with Ms. Kendra Crawford, but we couldn't find a resolution at this point. The daughter is now being told that either she go get the key, remove her mother from her unit since she was the head of household, or she will lose her spot in Patrell Hill. And again, I'm just saying that to say it's over 800 vacant units. There's no reason why we can't find housing for our elders, or maybe it's just what's going on in the black community. I'm not sure, but we seem to have these problems. And then also, as we stated, the Plaza East community meeting with our supervisor.

Your time is up, Mr. Williams. Thank you.

Any additional comments, public comments for item seven specifically? Okay, closing public comments on item seven. Item eight is the regular business consent items. We have one consent item for the commission special meeting minutes of our last meeting on November 17th, 2025. Would commissioners like to pull this item for further discussion? Great. Is there any public comment on the consent agenda? Not seeing any. We can ask for a first motion to approve.

Motion.

I heard Commissioner Pikes first and a second. Second. Commissioner Kim.

We'll vote by roll call vote.

A, aye or nay. Commissioner Lai is absent. Commissioner Alvarez.

I think I would have to, I can't vote. You can abstain, yeah.

Abstain is an option as well. Okay, abstain. Commissioner Cancino.

Abstain. I wasn't present.

Okay, great. Commissioner Cetili, for the approval of the commission meeting minutes on November 17th. Approved. Commissioner Pikes. Aye. Commissioner Kim. Yes. President Shoemaker. Aye. Thank you. Item 9 is the regular business consent items. We have two action items tonight. Item 9A is the resolution approving and authorizing the acting executive director of the Housing Authority of the City and County of San Francisco to execute Amendment No. 1 to Contract No. 25-00. 0-2, extending the term with Oak Brook, California LLC for an additional one year and increasing the contract amount by an additional $250,000 for a new cumulative contract amount not to exceed $630,000 for the Authority's Public Housing Capital Improvement Project Management. And this will be presented by the Housing Authority's Procurement Analyst, Karina Suarez.

Good afternoon, commissioners. Karina Suarez, procuring analyst for the San Francisco Housing Authority. And the authority is asking the board of commissioners to approve amendment number one to contract 25-002 between the authority and Oak Brook CA LLC. The authority is exercising the second option of the contract to extend Oak Brook's term for another year. The original contract was entered in February 1, 2025, and it is expired. January 31, 2026. The authority would also like to add in additional funds of $250,000 for a cumulative total contract amount not to exceed $630,000 for the continued management of the authority's public housing capital improvement project. In the past year, Oak Brook has been helping the authority with overseeing the capital improvement and renovation projects for existing affordable housing properties, collaborating with property management staff, working with authority on procurement scopes, and collaborating with contractors, architects, and other professionals to execute capital improvement projects effectively. Oakburg is currently still helping the authority in the last units of the vacant unit project at Plaza East, as well as helping the authority plan for upcoming projects like backyard cleanup at Plaza East, large-way security access by installing gates for more security. Any questions?

Any questions from the commission? I just have a question. Is the $250,000 extension, is that simply for project management, or does that include the actual work itself?

It includes the project management of the projects, yeah.

Okay. So when there's work to be done, like a cleanup project, that would be on top of this? This is just their role in project management?

Yes.

Okay. Okay. And it sounds like you're satisfied with the work that they've done to date.

Yes, OPEC has been doing a very great job. They're on top of a lot of their projects, and they help us with a lot of communications, as well as they set up team meetings every week with us, and they have helped us They've made things a lot more easier for the authority with our projects.

It's obviously not a ton of money compared to all the things that the authority does. It's a little hard to understand what the scope of what they're working on, because we're just seeing the project management fee, but we don't see what they're overseeing. And it's hard to assess whether or not this is a reasonable amount of money relative to the capital projects they work on or not. You have a sense of the proportion? Are they overseeing $10 million worth of work, $4 million worth of work?

I think Mamadou can answer.

Good evening, commissioners. So they've been involved in the first phase was the vacant unit. So we have 30 vacant units at Plaza Ace. So that work started last year. So we are 70% complete. So they've done 20 units. And there's 10 more units to go. And the plan is, the goal is to get those completed by April this year. So in the next phase, phase two, will be the painting of the exterior. So Oak Brook has been helping us on even hiring an architect to do the design. They're helping project manage basically the communication to the tenant and helping us really plan for it. And they were involved when we did the RFP to select a painting company. So they helped us on drafting the RFP and through the process. So that work is also scheduled to start March. So March this year, and it's going to take, on RFP, the goal was to get it done within three months. So right after the rainy season, we'll start the painting, next year painting, and within three months, it should be done.

Well, that's very helpful. And I think for those of us who have been on the commission, we're aware of the painting project and the vacant unit project. I'm just saying that when we get a project management contract in front of us like this, it's hard to assess the reasonableness of it because we don't understand what the scale of the capital projects that are being managed are. So do you have a sense? The types of projects you just described, are we talking about billions of dollars?

Yeah, the vacant unit was a $3 million project. The pending is $1.5 million right now.

And those are the major ones that are being anticipated?

Yeah, and right now we're working on the planning for the exterior work and the security, like improving the security on Lashway and overall, so we'll have a budget for that too.

And then I just have another question. We've had a number of callers and people come to the podium and register concerns or complaints about Section 3 hiring, other types of forms of economic opportunity that people feel like they're not coming to local residence or to businesses from the district or something along those lines. So can you help us understand what I assume Oak Brook and anyone that they are overseeing have Section 3 responsibilities, just like anyone else using money from the housing authority?

Exactly. So because all this funding are federal fund, we have to make sure we comply with HUD rule. But part of the procurement is to make sure we give, even when we do a selection, we provide some bonus point for any Section 3 contractor that apply for the position. So we do, and even on the hiring side, we do, it's not mandatory, but we do work with the different contractors we have to make sure if they have any opening, they give the opportunity to local residents like Plaza East or people living within Plaza East to apply for the position. So we're able, through these different projects, to have some local hire from Plaza East.

So I'll just speak for myself. And this is, I think, something that the city does not do well, not specific to the housing authority, just generally, is track information like this. So it's hard as a commissioner to understand whether the concerns that are being raised are grounded in fact or not. They seem very... There seems to be a broad set of complaints around local hire citywide, not specific to Plaza East. Just generally speaking, it just seems to be one of these things that's really a challenge in San Francisco, in addition to micro enterprises and things along those lines. So I'm not trying to single out the housing authority. I think what would be helpful is, as you bring forward these contracts, if Oak Brook has a responsibility for either monitoring the Section 3 work or the Section 3 compliance of the other people working for the housing authority, we'd like to know that. And if so, what's been the result? If they don't have that responsibility, let's figure out when we report that out. But it's just hard, I think, as commissioners to understand whether we're doing our job relative to this work and so forth when we don't get information relative to this. And again, I'm not trying to single out either of you two. Having worked with the city of San Francisco on this for many years, I just don't think the city does a great job of collecting this information. I wish it did. And so just more of a request, if you guys could think about both If you think the work is being done well, how can you show us? And if you don't think the work is being done well, how can you work with groups like this to make it better? I don't have a way to judge. But since it keeps coming up in public comment, I just feel like it's our responsibility to understand.

Thank you for the feedback.

Is that reasonable? And I don't have a timeline for you. I would really, as professionals, love for you guys to think about this and come back with whatever the best way to help us understand is.

Yeah, second. So yeah, we can come back with a presentation. I think there was a request also.

I don't expect you to have it at your fingertips. Yeah, for sure.

We'll prepare a presentation just to give you the background on what was done on FASA.

And just to incorporate it into your regular types of presentations. I mean, years ago, the first thing The artist formerly known as the Redevelopment Agency would have these types of things embedded in their project reports. We don't do as much work as they did, but if there's some way to just routinize this, it would be great.

I just want to chime in. I mean, you know, as a new commissioner, you know, I'm constantly trying to sort of understand, like, Do we have enough? Is this the amount of information that is typical? Is it enough? And have only sort of my gut to go on. And I think the recommendations mean a lot. How much sort of public comment follows an item means a lot. But I do sort of find myself craving a little bit more context. And exactly to Commissioner Shoemaker's comment, You know, as staff, you clearly think and you said as much, they're doing a good job. That's where the recommendation is coming from. And just giving us a little bit of color on what is it that sort of is behind that sort of feeling that this is, they're doing the work. What are you holding them up against? And, you know, that would be really, really helpful. Thank you.

So I see a lot of nods. So it sounds like we would all value this kind of information from you. So thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. OK. One more comment.

Just sorry. And thank you. Thank you again. I'm just a little curious. And I apologize that my ears are a little clogged, so. Trying to hear all of us and even, you know, all I can hear is me. So did you say there were 30 units that were supposed to be rehabbed and 20 were completed under the first contract?

Yeah, we started that work in April 2025. So we came back to the commission last September, and we did a change of order. So we added 10 additional units on that project. So the initial 20 were done on time. So they were done on budget on time. So there was additional 10 we added. That's the reason of the extension.

You read where I was going with it. OK, great. All right. And I would concur to even understand on the $250,000 for even the current year, I think understanding really what is the scope of work that they're doing is just important because otherwise how do we make sure there's transparency and that we are ensuring that the funds are being used in the way that we're expecting?

Great. Thank you. All right. With that, do we have a motion for this particular item?

Sorry, President Shoemaker, we do have to take public comment on this item first.

I never get it right. I apologize.

Is there any public comment? Do we have someone online? Mr. Williams, you have two minutes if you would unmute yourself.

Thank you, Commission. I won't take all day. I appreciate all the questions from the Commission. It's very refreshing. With the new funding that Oak Brook is getting and others, I would like to definitely, as I stated to the last administration, be brought on either in a project manager role and or a community liaison role because, as we were told as residents of Plaza East and as myself as an advisor, that what you guys are proposing should have been done last year in November as far as the vacant units as well as the backyards. So to give a company more money, You know, with delays, it's kind of egregious. But, again, for the sake of a successful project moving forward so that the residents' needs are met, I would definitely like to be employed in either of those capacities. Thank you. And there's enough funding now. Thank you.

Thank you. Any additional public comments on Item 9A? Okay, now we can ask for a first motion to approve.

Motion to approve.

And a second.

Second.

Thank you. Roll call vote. Commissioner Lai is absent. Commissioner Alvarez? Aye. Commissioner Cancino? Aye. Commissioner Satili? Aye. Commissioner Pikes? Aye. Commissioner Kim? Aye. President Shoemaker?

Aye.

Thank you. Item 9B. This is the resolution approving and authorizing the acting executive director of the Housing Authority of the City and County of San Francisco to execute amendment number one to contract number 24-0002, extending the term with FRH Consulting LLC for an additional one year and increasing the contract amount by an additional $400,000 for a new cumulative contract amount not to exceed $800,000 for the supportive services provider for Plaza East Housing Development. This will also be presented by Karina Suarez.

Hello again, commissioners. So this past year, FRH Consulting has been providing impactful services to the Plaza East community, helping residents with educational employment training, family, and individual self-sufficient goal setting. grant funds to support comprehensive resident services, including additional workforce, development training programs, assisting with business and contractor licensing, and targeting barrier removal support, such as computer software, interview preparations, and transportation assistance. Funds have also supported food and housing stability services, including food, distribution, housing, retention support, and coordination with the property management company Bell Properties with recertifications and rental assistance. FRH Consulting has helped provide the community with special programs and community building activities such as senior bingo events, walking groups, community closet access, resident meetings, cultural holiday celebrations. FRH Services has helped by communicating efficiently with a diverse population and providing effective and engaging services, enhancing the outlook of the families in Plaza East. We do have staff members of FRH here today that will be presenting a PowerPoint, and they will be going over talking about how they have allocated their funds as well as their programs, and they will be answering any of the questions that you may have. Great. Thank you.

As Karina mentioned, SFGov TV, there are slides for this presentation. Thank you.

All right. Good evening, commissioners. Good evening. Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Camille Hegney. I am supervisor of services with FRH Consulting at Plaza East, and I'm accompanied by part of my team today.

Good evening, my name is Danielle. I am the Director of Resident Services and the VP.

Hello, my name is Kiana Scott. I'm a Resident Service Coordinator at Plaza East.

Hi, I'm Destiny Green. I'm a Resident Coordinator and Workforce Development Outreach Specialist at Plaza East.

Good morning, everyone, or good afternoon. It's not the morning. I'm Njobe Dugas, Workforce Development Specialist at FRH Plaza East.

Perfect. All right. So I will be presenting a annual services report for you all today. So our resident supportive services at Plaza East has delivered integrated and resident-driven supports focused on our housing stability and retention, benefit access and basic needs, healing and wellness, support and engagement for both our seniors and our youth, and both resident leadership and workforce development. With expanded staffing and coordinated systems in 2025, we've been able to see significant increases with our resident engagement and our housing stability outcomes. This year, we reached out to 100% of our population, all 160 occupied units, and we came out with an average engagement of 60%. We continue to engage these residents through door knocking, flyer distribution, which is also translated for primary languages speaking for the household, block-by-block tabling, posting announcements in our common areas, and assisting with our communications for our site rehabilitation and distribution of information for those community meetings. Through our events, our workshops, and our community activities, we have achieved monthly participation ranging from 44 to 109 residents. These different forms of engagement include coffee hour, workshops, housing and community resource fairs, giveaways, which include back to school, Thanksgiving, and holiday, as well as our resident-led events. OUR SENIOR AND YOUTH PROGRAMMING AT PLAZA EAST IS RESIDENT-LED THROUGH OUR TENANT ASSOCIATION. OUR SENIOR PROGRAMMING, AS KARINA MENTIONED, INCLUDES BINGO, ARTS AND CRAFTS AND COMMUNITY CLOSET RESOURCE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH DPH CRISIS SERVICES AND YOUTH AND FAMILY PROGRAMMING AROUND SUMMER AND AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMS. For food stability, they support our community weekly in partnership with Booker T. Washington for a food pantry every Thursday. As far as resident leadership, we currently have five resident leaders who are working and engaging with our tenant association through participation in community events and through planning roles. Their monthly events are currently ranging from 20 to 50 residents served per event. In addition to group planning, we also provide one-on-one services and referrals to approximately 30 to 70 residents monthly. These include but are not limited to individual goal setting, connection and referrals to community-based organizations, burial removal support, and housing stability referrals. We also provide support and immediate stability and wellness needs around benefits and basic needs. These include but are also not limited to assistance with CalFresh enrollment and one-time gift card use, access to the weekly resident-led food pantry support, enrollment in PG&E's low-income utility programs, reach and care program, and medical program, if applicable, and assisted with residents' support for housing stability through Seasons of Sharing and SFERAP. We have utilized and assisted 41 total residents for being served in these areas. Moreover, our housing stability remains our primary focus here with FRH. We have worked closely with our on-site property management team, Bell Property, to be able to intervene early for houses that critically need stabilizing. This can be around compliance and being in good standing for their lease. We've been able to support them through lease violations, rental repayment assistance, payment plan coordination with property management, and legal referrals to Open Door Legal and Eviction Defense Collaborative. This year has had its challenges with navigating and handling communications regarding the site rehab with residents. We have assisted with notice distribution for updates and we have collected and awaited feedback, questions, and concerns to be able to follow up and ensure that the residents are informed. Through weekly coordination with our onsite property management team, Bell Property, we've been able to identify 19 households that are at risk for housing instability. 15 of these households have worked with some of our team members here and are currently engaged with our resident services. 11 of these households are now stabilized. Next slide, please, Bennett. Oh, sorry. Can we actually go back a few? I apologize. There we go. Thank you, Bennett. Perfect. So now I'll be able to share with you all a little bit about our new scope of services with our workforce development program. self-sufficiency. So through our workforce development self-sufficiency program, we've been able to enroll 17 residents who were eagerly ready to be able to get to it. This program was four months long with five modules, including financial stability, employment readiness and career pathways, entrepreneurship, housing stability, and healing and wellness. We hosted 16 workshops, excuse me, as well as a guest speaker series. In addition to serving those who were directly enrolled in the cohort, which is 17 residents, our outreach efforts still extended to the full community. So everyone has opportunity to be able to utilize these services. Our cohort participants achieved milestones, but not limited to California state identification, interviews for employment, reinstation of union cards, obtaining security guard cards, business licenses, and certifications.

Next slide, please, Bennett.

Some of our program includes seven of our total graduates, completed with 80% to 100% of program milestones. Also, 70% of all cohort participants, 17 residents, secured employment, launched a business, or entered an active job pipeline. All seven of our residents who graduated the program either received a laptop or an iPad to be able to assist them for their future endeavors. Next slide, please, Bennett. For our resident feedback and community needs, we have offered satisfaction surveys at all of our events and workshops, as well as tabling and outreaching on block to block, while still focusing on our community needs and our resident satisfaction. Current community needs that we have identified as a team on site are food stability, access to workforce and career opportunities, and rental assistance. Out of 45 resident satisfaction surveys you can see on the graph listed, 93% of responses marked their satisfaction at either a four or five star. We are continuously surveying and proactively receiving feedback to be able to execute the changes or needs provided from our community. We have understood that from the feedback from the residents, they have received a greater understanding of housing resources and stability options. Also, they have taken pride in being part of something positive and a supportive program. Overall, this year at Plaza East has been very beneficial and impactful. We have been able to see an increase in resident engagement, improved housing retention, elevated resident leadership, and being able to see our community advance to long-term stability and self-sufficiency. We are very excited to be able to open up additional resident-led opportunities. We want to encourage all of everybody in our community to be able to join and participate. And we hope that residents feel encouraged to participate within our programs. and come together to establish a community vision for the future. We work alongside our tenant council, and we look forward to continuing to impact our community with the community. So thank you all for the opportunity to present today, and we are happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Of course.

Great. Commissioners, questions for our presenters?

I just want to apologize for having to step out.

No worries at all. Please do hydrate.

So thank you, and apologies for that. Thank you for this. May I? Of course. So thank you for the presentation. Really appreciate it. I wanted to just ask on a couple of questions. One is, there seemed to be higher participation, I think, in August and September. And I was just wondering what happened then.

Absolutely. So in August and September, so for our programming, annually when we look at it, we have months that do fluctuate for participation. And we understand that we do have heavier months leaning during towards summer, back to school in August. So that would be around August and September. And then also further down towards the fourth quarter for November and December during the holidays.

OK, the December seemed to be lower than September and October, and even November. So that also struck me a little bit. So if you can maybe, well, so that's the other question that I have is just for clarification. On your survey, on your resident survey, and I really appreciate carrying that out. Of course. That's why the work is done. Was it an anonymous survey or, okay.

So we currently survey our community two ways. As far as community needs, those are anonymous surveys, and resident satisfaction is also an anonymous survey. In addition to that, we have collected about 79,000 community current needs so that they can let us know what they need as far as events, programming, resources, and also talking about whether they would like programming to be on the weekends or even in the evenings. And we can also share that data as well if needed.

Thank you. Of course. OK.

The commissioners with questions, comments?

I guess I do have a few, so thank you for the presentation. Who do you interact with on site? Like who's your main liaison with the housing authority or on site?

On-site, I work closely with our tenant association, our president of our tenant association. But we also work closely with San Francisco Housing Authority between Karina, Mamadou, Zawadi, and Kendra.

OK, great. And obviously, Plaza East comes up a lot at this commission, because I think it's one of the few properties that still considered public housing underneath the context of what we do as a commission. And so we get a disproportionate number of comments. So it's great to actually have you here and learn a little bit more. And it's hard just, you know, I appreciate the presentation and it's also hard to figure out exactly what this is. So I apologize if my questions are a little remedial.

No worries.

One of the things that keeps coming up is section three. And so I'm just trying to put together the pieces here with your workforce program. There seems to be some element of barrier removal work. But then I'm just trying to understand, is there a tie back to any of the Section 3 work that people are raising questions about? In other words, are you working with contractors or Oak Brook to try and tie people back to jobs? I see an armed guard test and various other things. Is that happening? And are you succeeding?

Yes. So we currently have been working with people who are going to be doing the rehabilitation. We have got outreach, and we have met with the contractors who have been awarded. And they've met with Njobe Dugas here on our team. And Njobe has been working closely with Zawadi to be able to provide referrals. And we have been able to... gather a list of people who are qualified within the community for these positions. I will say that additional opportunities would be very helpful for the community around Section 3, as I believe, if I'm not mistaken, I believe two positions are being offered. Yeah. OK. Yep. There we go.

Testing?

Here we go.

Here's your chance. This is your karaoke moment.

Well, I said good morning, so let me get it straight this time. So just to speak on this a little bit, the section three painting positions that are available They may be only offering one or maybe two positions. They're looking for specific qualifications, and there are people who have those qualifications. However, it's uncertain whether or not they want the positions based on the pay. And I'm just going to be really transparent about it.

Whether they want the positions based on a union painter pay scale.

Yeah. Exactly, what they're starting them off at. So essentially, they're starting them out at a lower rate. In the beginning, my understanding is that they wanted to hire Section 3, possibly train some people. There was one contractor that possibly had the position. Now another contractor has the work. So I'm working with Zawadi to understand exactly who at what level of experience that they want these particular people at. So like Camille was saying, A more expanded opportunities would really help us out at Plaza East. We have people that are available to work. However, some of them do not have the experience and training would be really helpful to get them started into the workforce, particularly those that haven't been in the workforce. So we have a very unique population. So being very transparent, I would love to see them. They would love to work. And they do need some additional support in that.

OK. So I'll just say, I find this topic super confusing. And I obviously don't have a lot of information. And I appreciate you trying to explain it to us. The Section 3 pay scale is Davis-Bacon or a union pay scale, right? So there's not some special pay scale that's available in this particular setting, correct?

Yes. So I believe that the people who are vending for the contract must adhere to a prevailing wage. What I think that it is is the amount of time of work. Some are part-time and not full-time opportunities. I see.

OK, so I would just say as one of the things that's hard for us, and maybe you guys could just step aside for a minute and we could just direct this to staff. I'm very confused as a commissioner, and I'll just say this. We have two things happening with regularity with pluses. We have complaints about a lack of opportunity for micro enterprises, jobs, et cetera. We have, I will just say, confusing testimony here that people are turning down jobs because they're not being paid enough or there's not enough hours in it, but they lack experience. So I'm not able to connect the dots. I recognize that this world is rather confusing and that sometimes the barriers to work and people's re-entry into the workforce or primary entry into the workforce is something that requires a lot of extra work. But since it's coming up at every hearing, I would just ask that since this is the one public housing site that we do have, that some additional work be given to thinking about how these things come together. Because it's awfully hard to approve a $250,000 project management contract and a $400,000 services contract and not see the dots connected. And so it's not specifically on housing authority staff. It's also on you as a contractor with us. $400,000 is actually quite a large services contract for a development with 160 families in it. It's much bigger than UCE and many other developments of this size. And so I applaud you. I know this is a very hard to serve site. But somehow, the work has to be done to connect the dots differently than we're hearing today. And it may be that we're just not understanding how the dots connect. And I totally get that we just may not be understanding a very complex story. But I would hope that you could come back with a better story that we could understand in the future. Because I'm just not seeing the placement story that accompanies this. Sorry, go ahead.

OK, I just want to say one thing. I've been here now for seven months. Before I got here, there was a whole Section 3 job down the Buchanan Mall. This is the main complaining you're hearing about that they didn't, I don't know what happened then. And that was even prior to any type of workforce development being with FRH.

no one has done i am so sorry i do not mean to attack the messenger here so like if it is not you guys i just we're we're not i'm not trying to signal you out so i apologize if that's how it came across i really sincerely apologize let me ask a process question let me just continue my apology uh i i think what i'm trying to say is we we hear a lot of noise and I don't mean that disparagingly, about the lack of opportunity. And yet we're approving $650,000 in project management and services contracts for Plaza East that is apart from the actual work. And I would like to see these pieces come together so that when we next hear something about Plaza East, we actually hear about the connections being made. Because it is the case that the city struggles with these things. But there are jobs that are entry-level jobs that are low barrier to entry jobs for most of these types of things. And it is difficult. It is very difficult. And I think if the project management work and the work that our staff could do to figure out what's happening here that is causing the disconnect, it would be wonderful for us as commissioners to hear that back next time instead of what we're hearing now. Just to add. Yeah, sorry, Mamadou. Go ahead.

Yeah, I think we have to do a better job at selling our success. Because through this process, we've been able to hire Section 3. Even FRH to the contract, I think one of the requirements is to hire within the praxis. And I think we have two staff that are Section 3. I think that's great, but two's not a lot. It's not a lot, but I think some of the projects we have the short term, like the painting is just for three months contract. I totally get it.

I totally get it. I'm just experiencing a disconnect between the types of training that people are being described as doing. I think the barrier removal is great. That helps for everything. But I would like to see some effort that we could understand to connect the dots. I'm not saying you're not doing it. I just can't see it.

When you say connect the dots, can you connect the dots for me?

Yeah, so if somebody is charged with project managing the general contractor, and the general contractor is a Section 3 obligation, and we have a service contractor who's doing barrier removal and job training and workforce placement, someone should be getting together to figure out how those things come together to accomplish as much as possible with the limited things. And knowing that we are doing an RFQ for work down the line. It may not reveal itself in these limited contracts, but for the next phase of work, we obviously want to be more successful.

Well, I think maybe more successful. I do think, to Mamoudou's point, I think we want to talk about success and relative success. I mean, these are relatively small contracts. Absolutely. And contractors come with their own workforce. So there's not the expectation that contractors will completely recast their own work. Of course. So the opportunities offered to community are generally fairly limited. So it may be that two positions for this scale of work is actually quite successful. So I think we can do a better job of explaining kind of relative success and certainly set up for the larger work. Again, these are, as you mentioned, relatively focused scopes of work. So our expectations around hire, and they're time limited, certainly the job placements that we actually want to encourage will be more continuous jobs, not somebody to have a position on a six-month painting contract, but really to be set up for success over time. We did our most recent Plaza East community meeting last week, I guess, had Iowena Pena come, who's the director of workforce development for the city, and gave a presentation on resources that they have to complement the work that we're doing on site. So I think your questions are good ones, and I think we can tell our story better. But I also want to be careful about setting expectations for workforce participation that exceed really what would be even typical or exceptional.

That sounds great. And I think, again, part of the challenge for us is we are having a hard time understanding the scale of the work being done because we are only seeing the personal services contracts. We're not seeing the scale of the contracts behind it. So we're sort of doing the best we can to understand what's happening. So thank you.

Can I just add as well that it is also the challenge for us because this is what we are advocating for. We are constantly having conversations. But we are listening to the residents and to them, And even to us, it does feel unfair with what opportunities are there. But we are constantly trying to explain that, like, let's get our foot in the door, and then we can keep building from there. But a lot of disappointment the residents have faced over the years. So we are trying to find something that's more consistent and that lasts longer. So then it's like, you're not here for just a second, and then now you have to go look for more work. So we also express the same sentiments. We do want to see more residents employed, but these are the challenges that we are also trying to address and make sure that everybody has a fair opportunity.

Those are great points. And so I think we all understand the challenges of limited Section 3 employment opportunities. It's not a lifetime job. It is a step forward that you then have to go get the next job. And it's not going to be at Plaza East. It's going to be somewhere else. I think we're just looking for some way to understand how these opportunities are connected and where they come together. So thank you for the time. All right. Any other? Let me ask my process question. Of course. Oh, I'm so sorry. Thank you.

No worries.

I got lost in my apology, and it went along.

So I just have a process question about this. Given the need for more clarity in making an informed decision, what is the impact if this was delayed to get more information to the next meeting and or versus potentially possibly proceeding but getting a report back in the next commission, could you provide some impact to either one of those in this process? Yeah, absolutely.

So currently. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry.

Thank you. So the current contract, it's going to expire. It's expiring end of, expire actually early February. So for us, we need to have a contract in place to be able to continue providing these services and continue making these payments. So we can always come back and provide more information, like address some of the feedback we received today. For the purpose of contracting, we need to continue providing these services because we've seen the value and we see the feedback.

So I would encourage the commission to take action on this contract today. I want to work with you all to be able to address your specific questions. I will say that there was quite an extensive report given work at the community. And so while I think there were some connecting the dots around the workforce piece that we need to work on, for the scale of this contract and the amount of information provided here, I would hope is sufficient for the commission to take action today. But happy to work with you all on what you would like to see in the future if even more robust information is necessary to take action on a contract of this scale.

OK. So is there a motion for a approval of this?

President Shoemaker, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I did it again. I'm sorry. You know, you should just turn off my mic, Bennett. Sorry.

Before we ask for a motion, we do need to ask for public comment on item 9b. I do see Mr. Williams online. If you'd like to unmute yourself, you'll have two minutes.

Good afternoon, Commissioner.

It's horrible that our tenant president is not able to be there because she was very upset with this proposal. I'm here to raise serious concerns about the extension. Residents were explicitly told the future resident services funding would be issued through an open RFP and that local resident-rooted organizations would have a fair opportunity to apply, and that did not occur. The same provider received a third consecutive year of funding through this extension. Second, Plas E's redevelopment is currently on hold. My understanding is that resident services funding is typically tied to an active redevelopment phase, and if services are no longer triggered at this stage, the basis for this contract should be clearly justified on the record. This is a HOPE VI site. If we're just paying salaries for these organizations, then the residents of Plaza East would like to hear that. We went to Washington, D.C. with the Housing Rights Committee and fought hard for this money to help financially help our community from our senior programs to the youth and on. And this is no slight at the staff. The staff is wonderful, but what they're able to do and what the residents receive is two different things. There's nothing for small businesses for the residents. Everything is minimalistic at best. We've asked for catered food at our functions, which was suggested, which would help San Francisco nearby eateries and restaurants in District 5. Nothing, no PG&E assistance, no rental assistance. Our children have not went to field trips as far as the museum to expand their horizons and help their education. Everything is based on outreach, which as you know, citywide is a problem. Jobs are very minimalistic. We hire contractors instead of the ones that come to our meetings that look like us or minorities. And as they stated today, Only two people from the residents are able to apply for these jobs. But there's millions of dollars leaving Plaza East every year. And I'm going to leave it at that. But something more needs to be done for the residents to have a fair shot or to have some success financially and some help. That's what we're doing this for, not just organizations to pay salaries with huge sums of our money while we're still left questioning what was the money even given for just using our name and our low income status to receive the money. I hope to work with Dan and others, but unfortunately, if we haven't seen anything that's why i asked to be a project manager after spending two years of my life thank you mr williams i think your time is up any additional public comment on item 9b you guys can thank you thanks so much for your presentation

Okay, President Shoemaker, staff can now ask for a motion for approval on 9B.

All right. Do we have a motion to approve with the understanding, as indicated by our acting director, that there would be a report back in a future moment? So moved.

And a second?

Second.

Thank you. Commissioner Lai, as you were not here for this presentation, we are taking a rolling call vote on this item. You do have the option to abstain from this vote if you would like. OK. Commissioner Lai abstains. Commissioner Alvarez?

Aye. I second it, so yes.

Little redundant due to the roll call after motion, but thank you. Commissioner Cancino? Aye. Commissioner Kim? Aye. Commissioner Bikes? Aye. Commissioner Citelli? Aye. President Shoemaker? Aye. Thank you. Item 10, is there any additional commissioner's comment?

No, I just want to thank the staff. I know that we had a couple of items here that we are still working our way through sort of what we're hoping for in terms of materials. So thank you for your patience with us. We'll work together to try and figure out what makes the most sense. And thank you, Director Adams, for helping guide us through. So with that, we make a motion to, what are we doing? Motion to adjourn. I was like saying leave, but I knew that was the wrong word. All right, motion to adjourn.

Time is 6.01 PM. Thank you.