Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

No, so right now I only have just me right now. I don't have like wake.gov open yet.

You don't, okay.

I'm about to open it on my end to make sure that I can hear it when he says that I can, but I don't have it yet. Okay.

Yeah, that's weird because that's what sounded like it's coming out of two different devices.

All right, they are started the test meeting, so you should be able to see it going.

OK. Good morning, everyone. Today is Monday. June 22nd. And we are. Working on our. Affordable housing committee. On today's agenda, we have. a Cornerstone pilot program. We have a Wake County Housing Symposium, a 2026 Point in Time Context, and we also have a CMC funding forecast, as well as a CLC Strategic Initiative.

It was just like that song. Okay, let's see here. Let's see if I can get it to pick up.

Yep, so I can hear it on my phone. It sounds good. It looks good. So I think we're good.

Brittany, are we all set with live and everything to go?

I'm waiting on confirmation. One moment. All right. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't holding up. Okay. Yes, ma'am. We're live.

All right. Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you today on this Monday, June 22nd, as we have another important opportunity to gather to talk about affordable housing. The Affordable Housing Committee is an opportunity for us to receive some important updates for something that is at top of mind for many of our residents, and so glad that so many have been able to join today. We have a robust agenda ahead of us that includes the Cornerstone Pilot Program, the Wake County Housing Symposium, the 2026 point in time count, COC funding forecast, and the COC strategic initiative. But before we delve into all of those things, I would like to start with approval of the minutes for the Affordable Housing Committee of March 16th. May I have a motion, please?

Yes, I move to approve the minutes from the committee meeting on March 16th, 2026.

And I will second that motion. All in favor, say aye. It has been approved, and so we are now able to move on with the rest of our agenda. I am pleased to take a moment to introduce our esteemed Director of Housing, Ms. Morgan Mansa, as she will be able to walk us through the next portion of our meeting. So, Morgan.

Thank you so much, Commissioner Waters. So I am really excited to come before you all this morning. We have two agenda items from the Housing Department, first of which is giving you a sneak peek into a new initiative with Cornerstone Center. This is going to be led by Erin Yates, who is the Division Director for Permanent Housing and Supportive Services for our department. I believe it's Erin's first time presenting to you all, but she is in no way new to this work. She is a leading expert in all things permanent supportive housing within our market and well beyond that within the Southeast. She comes most recently from CASA as she was at the helm of Kings Ridge, which is very near and dear to all of us on the call. And so with that, I'm happy to hand it off to Erin Yates to talk more about the Cornerstone pilot. Erin.

Thank you for that lovely introduction. I am honored to come in front of y'all. This is my first time, but I'm really excited. This is a really exciting project that we are doing because of the leadership that all of you have given us. So thank you. All right. Next. So the Cornerstone Center, I think you all know pretty well. If you haven't been over lately, please come check it out. It's beautiful. It's full of life and signs and people are really flourishing over there. It is a 20 unit building on Snow Avenue where we have supportive services on site, crisis intervention, clinical assessments. We have our psychiatrists coming over. We run groups. If you're ever feeling a little down, come join us in the morning. June is doing beautiful body movement, positive, healthy ways to start your day groups every day of the week. So definitely come join us one day. Since we reopened in February 26th of 2024, we've actually housed more than 36 people, which is a huge success for the population that we are working with. Next. So what we've discovered is that we really want to do a better job of continuing to align with Wake County's strategic plan. And so to this end, we wanted to make a few little tweaks. Y'all know this, y'all made a plan a couple years ago. We really wanted to strengthen our partnerships between housing and the reentry population. Next. What we know is that folks who are involved in the Justice Department actually don't have great outcomes, and we have really great partners in our community who are doing this work. But I think it's very important to talk about the fact that folks who are living in incarceration are seven to 13 times more likely to experience homelessness, up to five times less likely to receive health treatment, and four times more likely to face unemployment. And so while we have been working with the folks who have been homeless for a long time, we really want to lean into this population that has been overlooked a little bit. Next. So we believe Cornerstone is the solution. Currently, we are ending homelessness. It's been for folks who have been homeless for a little over a year or more. It's always been a requirement that folks have a disabling health and or mental health condition, and that we provide supportive services, more than 20 hours right now. And so what we're looking to do is expand this to go even further. um hud is showing that they're really leaning into the transitional housing model which cornerstone's been doing well for decades so we really want to shout this out and so going forward what we know we've been working with is um and the coc has done a really good job over the last few years of really prioritizing folks who have um chronic conditions they're meeting that chronic homeless definition and the coc has done such a good job we've actually I don't know. I don't want to say the wrong thing. We've done a really good job with that. And so we want to look for a population that's kind of slipping through the cracks a little bit with folks who have been justice involved. And so we're going to prioritize to match Wake County's strategic goal of the reentry population. We will continue those 20 plus hours of supportive services with a goal to get up as high as we can. We really want to expand the partnership. So not only the really great partners, really strong support staff that we have right now, we want to work better with our community, both internal and externally. And currently this pilot would be, is directed for Capital Area Workforce and LRC to really include workforce opportunities that we've not been able to do before. Next. So we've started a pilot. We are partnering with the Capital Area Workforce Development, the LRC, and the Great Raleigh Cleanup to utilize up to 10 of the cornerstone units. We're actually at about eight right now of folks who are involved with these groups that still meet that criteria, that are still homeless. Most have been homeless for over a year, that also still have a medical condition. Actually, next slide. Thank you. So similar to what we've been doing, still meet that homeless criteria, have a behavioral health or chronic medical condition. And now we're really adding that they've had the justice involvement and that they are interested in employment. For someone who has a long-term medical condition, employment might not be their main goal. That's a little bit different goal that we would work with them on. This is one where we really want to lean into the employment space and help folks be able to increase their income. Next. What does justice involved mean? It's a very broad definition, but the one that we're following is that an individual has been considered justice involved if they're currently or have been involved in the last 24 months, engaged with the criminal legal system, including incarceration, probation, parole, or active criminal charges. and where such involvement contributes to barriers to securing or maintaining stable housing. We always want to come back to that main goal of ensuring that people have stable housing. And so this is a population that we believe that their incarceration or justice involvement has maybe been hindering that. Next slide. It does not include everything. So one challenge is that if someone has been incarcerated for longer than 90 days, they're no longer considered homeless. And due to some other conditions, we want to make sure that we're not sort of working with the pretrial release folks. We want the folks who have already gone to court and have their charges have already been decided. They've already been incarcerated. And that's the population we're really focused on for this pilot. Next. So we have already gotten started. We have 20 hours of groups that we've had. And our goal really is to try to get to 40 hours so that if someone's either working 40 hours a week or we help them practice while they're at home at Cornerstone with having those supportive services to really help get back into that routine. So relationships that we have today and that we're working to expand a little bit more are with UNC, Southlight, NC FIT. We actually worked with NC FIT to help make sure our definition made the most sense for this population. Goodwill has groups that are coming out, Step Up Ministries, Capital Area Workforce, Wake Tech and Wake LRC, and then the Social and Economic Vitality Department. We're also having conversations with the Department of Public Health, and we've always been working pretty closely with the Department of Behavioral Health. So our goal is to really have strong internal and external partnerships. Next slide. What are our outcomes? Because we're focusing on the employment piece on top of what we've always been doing, we really want to ensure that people are able to get and maintain a well-paying job. What we know is that it's really hard to to work with a minimum wage and be able to afford housing. So we really want to make sure that that's a priority, that when folks move out, they're able to sustain. We'll work with them ongoing capacity as well. Increasing income. We really want to focus on all the social drivers of health. Often we talk about the social determinants of health, but we really like to say social drivers because it feels more of like a verb. It's not just the challenge of the determinant. These are the drivers. These are the things that we're focusing on really helping people move forward. And so we are looking at all the different pieces that folks need to help them be successful. As you can sort of see, education and access to quality education, healthcare, neighbor and built environment, social and community, and economic stability. These are what we're trying to create all of our pillars on to ensure that people are able to have the well-rounded supports and community that they need. We're doing regular check-ins while they're with us, and then we will have six and 12-month follow-ups at least after folks leave. I think I've got one more next. Next steps. So we started this pilot in March. We have eight folks who are with us already, which is really exciting. It's going pretty well, and we love our partners at the LRC. We have created a few MOUs with our original partners, and we will continue to work with our contracts team to make sure that we have the right relationships and conversations going forward with all of our partners. Right now we are meeting twice a week with the LRC to make sure that this feels like everyone has all the access they need. First is very specific to the participants and the second is more about programmatic goals and challenges and outcomes. So what we'll be doing is continuing to have both of those and then loop in our partners as we go. Our goal from here after this pilot, as it's successful and the end of December we will be feeling really good about this, is that we want to work with Eileen and the COC to open this up and so that referrals will go, going forward, all referrals will follow all COC guidelines and get all of our referrals through coordinated entry. And then upon graduating, participants will have all the supports, employment, and stable housing that they need, and that we no longer need the vouchers that we've had to sort of depend on in the past that have had complications. This will ensure that folks are able to live independently without that financial support.

And that's what we're doing over at Cornerstone.

Well, Aaron, thank you so much for helping us start our week on such a bright note. This was really important information. And I want to say as a new commissioner, the ribbon cutting at Cornerstone was one of my very first experiences. really special to me to see the work that you're doing. And I also want to applaud the number of partnerships that you have. You have some heavy hitters in our community for changing outcomes. And so thank you for that collaborative spirit and all the work that you are doing to help really, really give some of our neighbors who need a new start a chance to be successful. And I will look to my colleagues to see if there are any questions. And I see Vice Chair Jackson has a question and then followed by Commissioner Evans.

Awesome. Hi, Erin. Thank you for this presentation. Hi, Morgan. It's wonderful when we can expand our opportunities for second chances, and we know how critical housing is to that. So this is really exciting. Just two quick questions. Well, one, as a member of the Passage Home Board and a close partner with the county, can you share about, have you all explored connecting with Passage Home as a formal partner? I ask because of their cohorts, their self-sufficiency cohorts. There's actually a celebration this Friday. If it's not on your radar, I'll share it so that you can come and meet the folks and see what they're doing in those self-sufficiency cohorts. But I wondered about Passage Home as a formal partner that can be a part of this program.

I think that would be wonderful. We would love that connection. In full transparency, we wanted to start with a partner that we were already working with. The Great Raleigh Cleanup Partnership is one that's sort of been ongoing for a little bit, a few years now, I believe. And so the LRC has been working with us closely. And so we wanted to kind of just jump in with a partner we already knew. But we are open to everybody. This is definitely not meant to be a... We need the whole community, and I think that's one of the opportunities that we see here, and we would love all the connections that you can share. I am a firm believer that it takes every single one of us in this community to take care of all of us, myself included. So please, any connection would be great.

We will pass it on. Yes, I will definitely make that connection. And if not now for the pilot, hopefully that's ideal, but maybe coming up, but I'll make that connection. Second, I had the pleasure of touring Cornerstone last year, and it was such a wonderful space to experience. At that time, you all were sharing with me about the progress you're making with some of the neighbors that had been in opposition or just not really comfortable with this sort of critical community support next to them. I'm checking in to see how has that improved and if we're still on a very positive course with the neighbors in that community.

We are. It's actually been a kind of knock on wood. It's been a nice season. Lindsay Blank and Chica are running a really good program over there. They are very connected with all the community members. Trophy just partnered and opened a shared workspace next to us. They came right over to meet with the team to make sure that everyone's getting along well, that we have open dialogue. I will tell you, I think Lindsay and she could probably have everyone in the community's phone numbers. They offer it up regularly. And while we had calls in the past, it has really quieted down. And I can't think of a call we've had recently. Again, a knock on wood, but it's really going quite well. Things are quiet and peaceful. And now I don't think everyone even realizes who we are now. In a good way.

Nice. Thank you, Erin. I look forward to supporting in any other way.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Vice Chair Jackson. We'll go to Commissioner Evans.

Well, good morning. I don't actually have questions as much as comments. I want to say I love everything about the Cornerstone endeavor, first of all, and I was so It was such a heartwarming experience when I was there for the, I guess, ribbon cutting when it had been open for a while and getting to talk with the residents that I got to talk with. And I mean, just having them tell me this has changed my life and things like, I didn't think anybody cared about me. And now they know they do. I mean, and talking to a gentleman who was in his 60s who was determined at this point, and he told me his whole life story, but he was going to go back and get, he was getting his GED at this point in his life because he was determined to do so and working with Wake Tech to get in a program. So in general, I just love everything about the program, but I really, really like this new focus for those people who have been justice involved, who we know, it's not easy to get a good paying job out there anyway right now. Not as much as people might think if your skills aren't there. And so I just, I think that the fact that we're focusing on helping these individuals get the training, get the connections, doing the things to help them be successful in their wage earning is a huge part of the puzzle. I mean, we talk about this often, and, you know, I know Morgan and I have talked about it. You know, there's several components to addressing affordable housing. and getting people housed and we're coming at it at all these different angles but one of the most important that we sometimes don't talk as much about is improving upward mobility and so improving mobility for folks in their income earning and giving them opportunities is going to be a huge part of them being able to be stable once we get them into housing so I appreciate that You're going to focus on this group in this way, and I really look forward to hearing some results in a year or so. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Evans. Those sentiments are echoed across all of us as we really are appreciative of such a special and unique way to care for some neighbors who really need extra support to be successful. I had just one quick question as I was recently on a panel and had some discussion around reunification with children as we see citizens returning. Do you all have any need or have you seen that as an area to address where parents are needing to reconnect with their children and their families? And do you have any thoughts or partnerships that might be able to help bridge that gap as well?

It's kind of the work we've done all along. Unfortunately, homelessness does add complications with reunification. And so we are often working with families and social services and every other partner that we can. It's part of our housing stability plans. Within it, there's different categories, one of which is family. We definitely always want to encourage reunification because that's part of the community piece, that if we don't have our family, whatever that looks like, but the families to us, that's a... it's going to be hard for us to be successful without having that stability. And so we're always open to more suggestions. If you've got folks that we should be connecting with, please share that out. It is always part of our goal in those social drivers of health. That's what community includes is our family. And so we know that reunification can be complicated, but housing is a really strong component to that, that both with our voucher programs and with Cornerstone, we're always looking to ensure that people's families are included to as much as feels appropriate.

Well, thank you so much. I appreciate how you are really just taking a holistic approach and making us realize how important it is for each part of our community to be connected, for others to be successful. And I see Vice Chair Jackson has her hand.

Yes, just one comment. I meant to say, Erin, I like social drivers of health. So I will be using that one. Because determinants, it's become a buzzword. But I like drivers. It has a more powerful language, as you said. So thank you for that. I want to just go back to the very first slide. There are 20 units in Cornerstone. And you report 36 being housed. So that's 16 people, right, that have come and gone off. Can you share a little bit about any of the impact there? and how those 16 people have benefited from this transitional housing?

Absolutely. And it's actually from the, I mean, that's, yeah, we've gone through a few times. So what the transitional housing model is that we don't want folks in for longer than 24 months, but we also know that the sooner you can get someone into their own home, the better. So we will do regular check-ins, 30-day, 45-day, 90-day. We do regular check-ins so that when someone's ready to move out, we don't force them to stay longer than needed. We want to make sure that it's following their plan. And so what we do is that we actually had a great story of a woman who needed shoulder surgery and really couldn't move into her own home. She was in a shelter, just couldn't take that next step because she had to have surgery and had to make sure she was getting the health care she needed and getting that stability. She had the surgery. She was able to heal, move on, and then actually recover. through her disability benefits and working a little bit, she was able to move out independently and is actually doing quite well. We have families that have reunified. Actually, one of our pilot folks only stayed with us for a few days because just a few nights sleep, he said that he was able to actually reconnect with family He was working a third shift job, and he had folks that didn't live just outside of the area. And so for him, he just needed really a week or two to really just have a good night's sleep, stabilize, reconnect with some of his community partners. And he moved out. Before we could even really count him much, he was his own success story. We can't claim any of his. We've had lots of folks. We have folks that moved into Kings Ridge and are doing well. We have somebody who moved into New Bern Crossing, and they're doing well. And so the nice piece is that we were able to work with each person specifically. Often it's meeting with our psychiatrists, getting back on their medications, and counseling. feeling healthy enough to be able to live independently. Oftentimes it's hard if you're sleeping outside to take your medications well and take care of yourselves in the ways that I think we all wish we could. And so being able to get a good night's sleep, a good meal, get back on medications. There's actually a couple gentlemen I'm thinking of right now that were able to – that was their plan. They met with their psychiatrist. And now they're meeting with the same psychiatrist because it's a partnership with UNC. And so the nice piece of that is that they can just continue. They can still see the psychiatrist. They can still work with their medication providers. And UNC has both the behavioral health and physical health. So they can do a one-stop shop. They have day programs. And so the more we can really improve those relationships with our community partners, that's how folks are going to be successful once they move on from our programs.

Excellent. Thank you for those very human stories. Thank you, Erin.

Yes, thank you. And thank you for meeting everyone where they are and seeing all who come through your doors as individuals who have specific needs. And we are really appreciative and certainly look forward to having you back in the future for an update. So thank you again for your time and your work. And we have such a robust conversation ahead of us that I'm really excited that we'll be able to hear about our housing symposium. And so with that, I will give it over to Morgan Mansa for an update.

Thank you so much, Commissioner Waters. So yes, I mean, as you all know, earlier this year, we had the honor of hosting Wake County's first housing symposium. You know, kind of the thought process behind the why, right, the purpose of it really was to educate our community on the state of affordable housing in this region. There's a lot of data that's out there. There are a lot of myths and preconceived notions around what affordable housing is and what the need actually looks like. And so we wanted to bring all of our key stakeholders in one room to have a conversation around what the data is actually telling us. And the trends that we are projecting in terms of how we move forward from here. I mentioned the word stakeholders. And so aligning diverse stakeholders was also incredibly important to us. We didn't have a room filled only with affordable housing developers. We were very intentional around the who. Some individuals who have been in this work for quite some time, but also individuals and business leaders who should be a part of this partnership and a part of this work who may not have been over the last couple of years. And so the why behind that is because we need action and we need strategic investment. And so we feel like a bit of a broken record in that Wake County can't do it alone, but we really can't. And we, more importantly, shouldn't, right? And so- We were very intentional around the individuals in the room, too, so that it's not just an education piece and then people walk away, right? Very intentional around catalyzing that action and helping the individuals who are able to invest to invest in a manner that aligns with the priorities of the county and have really impactful outcomes for our residents. And then another goal of it was to reaffirm the fact that Wake County is a regional leader in this space. We have the largest housing department in the state of North Carolina. We have our research and data team. We also have very robust programming. We are the largest investor of affordable housing within our market. And so really reaffirming that reality to our partners and our stakeholders. And then last but definitely not least, we are going to be embarking on the 10-year anniversary for Wake County's housing plan next year. Hard to believe that it's already 10 years. And so kind of laying that foundation by way of this convening to get people excited about how far we've come, but also what's on the horizon for our fulfillment of the housing plan. So next slide. And so this is a snapshot of the agenda. We did, like I mentioned before, a housing report card. So really talking about the state of the county, and then also the state of investments in affordable housing through Wake County. We also did an intersection of affordable housing with philanthropy. Over and over again, we're hearing conversations around philanthropy having an interest in affordable housing and wanting to invest in a more meaningful way in scaling their impact. And so we brought in leaders from the Fletcher Foundation and the Triangle Community Foundation, as well as Coastal Credit Union, to have that conversation about that intersection. We also brought business leaders from our community to the table to talk about their work and their leadership within affordable housing to kind of excite other business partners in the room and give them some inspiration around what they can and should do to be supporters and leaders in affordable housing as well. And then finally, the closeout of the day was to talk about policy. I think oftentimes people, you know, see some of the, you know, things that we're... It's an interesting season right now for policy, but even though it's interesting, there's a lot of positive momentum that's taking place. And so we spent this time talking about that positive momentum. We also had a very honest conversation around those challenges, but we most importantly equipped people with tools and insights in terms of how we can jointly overcome those challenges, right? So yes, there may be barriers, but this is information that you should know. This is what you're able to do in your respective role. And so having very honest conversations around that. We had representatives from Habitat Wake, who are very strong in the advocacy space, as well as Novigradic, who's a national leader on policies and low-income housing tax credits. We also had representatives for the North Carolina Housing Coalition. So there were a lot of people who understand this work incredibly well and were able to equip folks with actions following that session. Next slide. Um, and before I move on to, I also want to give a shout out. It's not mentioned on the previous slide, but a huge thank you. Um, chair mile, um, opened us for the day. Um, commissioner Evans was also, um, you know, a speaker. She closed us out for the day and then deputy county manager. Thank you so much for also sharing remarks at the event as well. So again, it was truly, um, a blend of leaders showing that we care very deeply about this work. And so very grateful for you all's commitment and representation, um, for that day. What I love about this slide is a snapshot of everyone who was in the room. This, as you can see, gives you insight into some of our municipal partners who were in the room, our nonprofit partners, we had developers. It really was a broad spectrum of business leaders and nonprofit leaders. And so again, I think we're just, what it told us is that It's not just affordable housing, you know, traditional nonprofits and traditional leaders that are interested in this work. We had a lot of groups who may not be in the traditional affordable housing spaces, but very interested in trying to figure out what their role can and should look like. And then if you go to the next slide, it gives you a breakdown in terms of what those percentages looked like. And so the two largest percentages were nonprofits and municipal staff. So very strong representation from Apex, from Cary, from Garner, there was also representation from the city of Raleigh. And then the nonprofit space, it was a lot of the folks that we already know well who do really great work in this space. No surprise that we had strong representation from our developers, but 11% being business leaders, right? So individuals from the Raleigh Chamber, you know, local businesses who, you know, Trophy Brewing, different groups like that that you know, could absolutely do more in this space or are already doing tremendous work in this space. And then wanted to highlight the elected officials who were represented. This is not including our elected officials, so this shows other electeds within the market. And then financial institutions and philanthropy kind of the stat meandered a little bit, but it's 6 percent for that teal color in terms of their representation in the room on that day. Next slide. And oh okay well there, there should be a line on this so just imagine a line trending upward i'm not quite sure about where it went you all. But the most telling part of this of this chart is that our growth is driven by population absolutely, but it is also driven by the economics is both people who are moving here and staying here. but also the jobs that are relocating to Wake County that are making it so that this is such a vibrant community, a very robust community, and why we need to be thinking about the housing growth within our market for years to come. So what the stat shares with you is that in 2024, there were 665,000 jobs within Wake County. But what we know is that by 2035, the total number of jobs within our market is expected to increase by one-third. And so us knowing that number tells us that, okay, we definitely need to keep a pulse on what's happening within the natural market, but we also need to be intentional around what Wake County, what our housing department is producing, what all of our other municipal partners are producing, what are our developer partners producing so that we can all keep on trend to keep pace with those jobs that are coming to our market. I think another telling part of this chart too is that it reminds us that this is not just an affordable housing initiative. jobs are directly tied to the housing needs within our market, right? It is the reason why people continue to relocate to our market. And so that's why we had so much intentionality around having business leaders within the room. And that's why we are in this season, right? With the opportunity fund and so many other things within our portfolio. It's why we're making that tie in so heavily to the business community because they have, you know, the growth of their market has an unintended consequence of impacting the housing within our community. The next slide. And so we have some of the chart. We'll send this to you all afterwards because I don't know where the rest of the lines are going, but those data points are very critical.

But again, Morgan, I will say they do appear in our attachments. If anyone wants to look at the attachments, we can see those lines. So Yes. It is quite impressive what you're showing. And so pardon the technical glitch that we can't see them on screen. But if you want to refer to your attachments.

Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Waters. And it may be actually click it again because maybe it's coming in. Very okay. All right, guys, it's there. It's there. All right. So you're able to see it on the first slide. So then can you advance to the next one? All right. And then it's already here. But Click one more time. And then one more time. All right, friends. Okay, so what the next slide is telling you is that we talked about the job growth, we talked about the demand in that space, and how many units we are projecting we will need to help fill that gap based on how many people will relocate to our market. What this next slide is telling us is that, yes, we will need 230,000 units, but what we're projecting in terms of pace of production, pace of preservation, is that only 154,000 units are expected to be built during that same timeframe. So again, where will these people relocate to? What are we going to do to fill that gap? It's a conversation we need to have with our business partners, right? It's something we need to be intentional about as we engage with our municipal partners. When we're looking at their land development ordinances, what can we do so that more housing production can be produced outright What can we do to remove some of those barriers to produce more affordable housing and honestly, all housing at multiple price points within our market? What can we do to remove those barriers? Because the growth is coming. The business community continues to drive up more jobs and more opportunities here. And so how can we keep up with that competitiveness? They're very much so intertwined. Next slide. And so this slide, you know, before we're talking about the general market, right? So not specific to Wake County government, but the slide that's before you right now speaks to the impact that Wake County truly has had within the housing market of our community. And so the first stat is that, you know, when you look at 2018, our production was at 3,400 units, but then you look at today and it's over 9,500. And so between that seven year timeframe, we've more than doubled the number of units that we've produced or we've preserved within our market. And so, again, you know, that's very impactful. We asked our advisors, HR&A advisors, our consultants, to compare that to other markets across the country, and we're outpacing all of the other markets in terms of that very small timeframe of seven years and the amount of units we were able to increase in terms of production just purely based on what Wake County is investing in annually. And then what does that translate into? $132 million that Wake County has invested. And then again, more than doubled our level of investment since this housing department was created. And then the stat that I love the most, not to minimize our investment or minimize our production, but it's always encouraging to see the amount of investment that we've leveraged. And so $1.4 billion that this department was able to leverage, that this organization was able to leverage, since the creation of our department. So again, it speaks to the fact that government should not do this alone. We're not in this alone. And so how can we catalyze all of these resources within the community so that we can continue to trend upward for the production and the preservation of diverse housing options within our market? We're already doing this work. We have a very strong track record that you see on our screen. And so it's why we're in this season of bringing in new partners so that we can keep this momentum going. Next slide. And so it's always helpful to talk about the impact to the end user, right? So we first have an understanding of the broader Wake County housing market. We then transition to the impact of Wake County government within said market. But then when this slide talks with you about is what is the impact to the residents that we serve? And so across Wake County's entire portfolio of over 9,500 units, it's more than $4 billion of cost savings to our residents over the next 30 years because we were able to subsidize their rental, you know, their rental rates, because we were able to help offset their costs, which will help them with their, you know, lower transportation and give them access to, you know, additional equity to support things like their child care, to support things like their emergencies, all those other things. And so that cost savings piece here is very important and something that we're very excited about. The other half of the slide gives you a bit of a snapshot into what an example household will look like. And so for this office assistant that has one child, if they were participating in the broader market, it's showing the comparisons between what the market rate would look like versus the affordable housing development would look like. And so they have a cost savings of $790 per month, which would translate into over $9,000 in a single year compared to if they were to participate, you know, again, in the broader housing market in Wake County. Next slide. And so all of that information, we had a lot more data that was at the symposium, but wanted to share some snippets that we really enjoyed during our symposium. But building on that momentum, like I mentioned before, so in 2027, it will mark the 10-year anniversary for the affordable housing plan. We don't intend to write an entirely new plan, but we do want to do a little bit of a refresh to, again, remind the public of how far we've come, but to then kind of reaffirm what's on the horizon for Wake County in the affordable housing space for the next 10 years. Also, since the housing symposium, our department was asked to serve on the North Carolina Housing Coalition's policy committee so that we can help to be drivers around what should the important priorities be for the state of North Carolina within the affordable housing space And so very grateful for that opportunity. And I'm grateful that the Housing Symposium helped to create that opportunity for our department to serve the entire state in that space. And then next, it's a launch pad for the Opportunity Fund. It's something we've talked about for quite some time. Mark and the KHEC team have been incredible with creating all the details around this fund, something that we'll be launching in the next fiscal year. And so this gave us a space to, you know, talk more about the need for opportunity, right? The need to build in areas that have access to jobs and education and all the things that make Wake County so great. And then finally, regional collaboration. So it reaffirms the fact that Wake County is a trusted convener and leader in this space that we're able to bring the right stakeholders together to have important conversations around the priorities for our market. And so we've been asked at this point to consider another housing symposium next year. We want to make sure that if this is something that we embark on, that every year it adds value, right? We don't want it to become an event where it becomes lukewarm and it is not as impactful. And so we're considering something in the next year. But again, we want to make sure that it aligns with the needs of the community, that the content is something that you're not going to get in any other event. And the feedback that we heard from people in the audience is that, you know, this first symposium achieved that. So it's definitely a trend we want to continue to do for future iterations. And so I believe that's the last slide, but I wanted to give you all a snapshot, a bit of a debrief since there's been some weeks that's passed, but open to any questions that you may have.

Well, thank you, Morgan, and congratulations on an outstanding inaugural housing symposium. I've heard feedback and it was just a wonderful opportunity to bring together so many partners. And so I thank you and your team for leadership in 10 years. The level of impact that you have been able to have across communities and the number of partnerships that you have created is beyond what words can express in terms of our gratitude And so we are very fortunate to have your leadership, your team, and know any work that is done in the future will be done at a very high level. And so awesome. And I see colleagues with questions. I see Chair Mile. And then we will go to Commissioner Evans.

first of all good morning everyone and uh thank you so very much morgan uh i know you may not want to do it every year but i must confess it was an awesome event well attended and uh i mean you know it speaks volume in terms of what you guys are doing over there when you looked at the attendees uh of people that came to the event that day i mean it was a very good representation of our community in terms of every level of government, I mean, community, in terms of developers, relatives. I mean, it was just an awesome event. So I just want to say congratulations in terms of what you guys are able to put together and looking forward to another one. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Miles. Commissioner Evans, and then we'll go to Vice Chair Jackson.

Yes. Well, I also just wanted to commend Morgan and the staff and all that were involved in putting the symposium together. I was fortunate enough to be there for the entire day. And of course, I'm always proud of the work that our housing department is doing. But what I appreciated about the symposium was the breadth of conversations among all the different panels and how we very realistically heard about all the various challenges, whether it be limited amount of funding for the housing finance credits and all that goes into trying to be competitive with those. But as some of your slides a few minutes ago focused on, we also focused on you know, just the challenges around producing enough housing, just the supply and demand problem that we have. And we talked about land planning and zoning and how that plays a piece, you know, part in this. And so I was glad that there were several municipalities represented both with the staff and elected officials. But we need to get them all around the table. But I just felt like it was a very realistic discussion. You know, we were able to celebrate a number of things, but, you know, face some headwinds head on. And I thought for folks that weren't previously well informed about the issues, they definitely came away well informed. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Commissioner Evans. Vice Chair Jackson?

Yes. The symposium was just a model experience that it takes everyone. So kudos for getting so many people, so many different sectors, so many municipality partners. That is huge. really appreciate the work and the relationships that it took to create an event like that. My question is about the second to last slide. We don't have to go back to it, but where you showed the office assistant and the real experience of a working single parent and a child and the impact and also the benefit of participating in affordable housing. We know that several of municipalities, including the county, we are expanding our public safety staff. And really, my question is, Morgan, what are your thoughts and where is the conversation going in terms of prioritizing our essential workers that are serving our community and must live in our community? Raleigh is expanding their police force. I think it was Carrie. Those essential public safety staff, where is the conversation about that? What do you see on the horizon?

Yeah, there's actually a lot of momentum around this. The two areas where we're having the most conversations currently is first on the municipality, on the municipal side. So you know, as you all know, we have very strong partnerships with our municipalities. And so if there's a housing plan that's created within a municipality, our department has had some role in it, right? So there's been no plan from a municipality that's been created in isolation of Wake County, which is just an incredible milestone for, you know, for our county, you know, for local government. But from those conversations, they've brought up exactly what you've mentioned, right? And so right now, We're in a very interesting season with which one and a half, so one municipality has said, okay, well, let's create a rental assistance program to help our essential workers, right? So let's help people. So it's public. So the town of Morrisville is the first one to embark on this, where They want to have a rental assistance program for employees of Morrisville, both because they recognize that gap, but also as a way to attract people to consider working in Morrisville because they're having a hard time with retention, right? They have, you know, it's a really great place to live, but, you know, it's expensive to live there. And so from their housing plan work and partnering with Wake County to learn about that reality, That's their way to help to move that gap so that it's not just the affordable units that are being produced, but what are ways that we can incentivize on the other side because we recognize it's quite expensive to live here. And so from that cadence, there's now another municipality who is also considering doing that work. And so we're seeing the municipalities recognize that, right? Where Wake County can't be the only one to be in this space. And so they're saying, okay, we hear you. Let's see what we can do from a rental assistance perspective you know, to help fill that gap for our essential workers. So it's very, very encouraging to see that. And then on the other side is from the Raleigh Chamber. You know, our chambers have, we've had, you know, very strong relationships with them, talking with them about, you know, we can do all that we can on the production side, but what are you all, what can you do from your lens and from your leadership and influence to talk with the business community? And so they've been incredible partners to us in saying, okay, well, You know, we want to be a partner here, but what do we say to the business community? What's the ask to the business community? And so we've been in lockstep with them helping with that message so that it's the same thing that you're hearing from Wake County. They're also then hearing from our chambers to see how they can help offset those costs, too. And, you know, they recognize, you know, this is a benefit for their employees, but they also recognize that public servants and folks on the front lines, you know, are impacted probably negatively. if not the most than in the top three, and they want to do some work to help fill that gap as well. And so it's been very encouraging in those conversations too.

Yes, excellent. That's great. That's great to hear the momentum and the early wins. Our public safety and our public educators too need us to continue champion to make sure that they can live right here where they're providing their good service to us. Thank you, Morgan.

And Vice Chair Jackson, thank you for lifting that up. We always want to be mindful and continue that level of advocacy. And I often think of Commissioner Thomas's words of better together. And I think you definitely exemplify that in the conversation that we've had this morning that I see Commissioner Thomas with her hand up. And so I'll go to you now.

Thank you, Commissioner Waters. Thank you so much, Morgan, for that. I appreciate your question, Commissioner Jackson. I was going to ask about partnership with municipalities and counties. As I do work with the State Association and look to the future and future presidential initiatives, affordable housing has come up several times. I know that past President T. Davis talked a lot about public sector employees in general. That was his presidential initiative. And The state association has really been holding up Wake County as a model and especially after the symposium. So I wanted to give you kudos on that from the work that's happening in Dare County and Mecklenburg County and New Hanover is what I've heard about. But I always hear about, I heard about the housing symposium. I was asked lots of questions about it from other commissioners across the state. And most of their questions really have to do around partnering with municipalities and counties. How does that partnership even get established? How does that work? And I know you were instrumental in the housing listening tour work that we started. And so just wondering when you have municipalities that may not have housing plans or are trying to get there, what's the best way for counties to try to partner? I know that we are, and kudos to you, folks around the country are learning from your work and the work that you're doing. And folks in the state look to you as an example in your department. One, to, you know, think about misinformation and debunk misinformation that's out there around housing, but also in thinking about that recruitment retention part when it comes to public sector employees. We've got lots of counties that are having a hard time with recruitment and others that are having a hard time with retention. And the question that Commissioner Jackson asked about public sector I think is really important. So just wondering if you could speak a little bit to how the municipalities and the counties are really partnering here in Wake, how that happened, so that others could use that as an example?

Yes, and that's a fabulous question. And, you know, you spoke to, you know, a bit of the answer, you know, in your remarks and that, you know, we listen, right? I think that other units of government and other partners oftentimes dictate what should happen without being, you know, very intentional and responsive to the needs of the community. But I think at Wake County, we do things very differently in that we first listen to the municipalities We want to understand on the ground, what are the challenges that you're seeing, that you're hearing about? And from that, let's provide some recommendations that are very nuanced and adaptive to the unique policies and priorities of your specific community. And so I think that because we come in with that approach and that mindset to our relationship building and partnerships, they're very receptive to the feedback that we hear. And then in addition to that too, we just this year launched our new municipal impact fund And so, you know, I think that that's also been, you know, a very strong driver for municipalities. And so it goes beyond, you know, let's provide some data. Let's provide technical assistance. We can sit on a focus group with you. It's Wake County, you know, investing dollars into their momentum around affordable housing. And so we have already received responses to our RFP for the Municipal Impact Fund. We'll be updating you all shortly once we've scored, but we have some questions for the municipalities, of course. But very encouraging to see them respond to the Municipal Impact Fund because they told us, right, we're interested in affordable housing, but we may not be experts in this space, or we don't have staff dedicated to affordable housing, or Where do we start from here, right? And so creating that fund was just a very meaningful stake in the ground to say that, like, we're right alongside y'all. And so I think that's what's helped us to be incredibly successful is that we provide the data, we provide the relationships, but we're also providing capital to them to help them move things along so that it's not just something that's on a shelf. We're making sure they're implementing, too.

Thank you for that. That's really helpful. And I look forward to having more conversation over the next year about how we can put that model in place for other counties. Thanks. That would be great. Thank you so much.

Because then we're seeing better together going statewide. And so I'm really appreciative of the leadership and just your willingness to share what you've learned and your team being a great resource as well as a great connector. And this is important work and we're fortunate to have you at the helm. And so we'll circle back to Vice Chair Jackson.

Yes, two number questions. Morgan, remind me, what's the total amount in our municipal impact fund? And how many, let's ask it the other way, how many municipalities are we still waiting on to pick up and develop a housing plan?

That's a great question. So we have two municipalities. It's we can send a chart, right? So I would say two and a half municipalities is who we're waiting on. And I say half because there is a municipality who has started to do the work, but has not been approved by their council yet. And it's very important to us that it's not just a document that's drafted. You all are, you know, our leaders, our, you know, our elected officials. And so for us to create a document and not have your blessing, you know, We need to make sure, it's important to us, right, that the leadership of that municipality endorses it, supports it, believes in it, right? And so we have one municipality that we're waiting on to get to that point of approval. And then outside of that one, there are two that are still left to complete housing plans. And so we're very encouraged by the fact that one of those two are one that's who's applied for municipal funding. And so we feel like we're trending upward in the right direction. And then in terms of the number of investment, we have, we just have $50,000 for the fund. Now this is, it's a pilot for us. It's something that we're testing. And so if down the line, it makes sense for us to increase, you know, our funding for municipal impact, then we're happy to, you know, possibly consider that. But what's important to us too, is that we don't want to be the sole funders of their housing plan. And so, 50k felt appropriate in terms of us putting some skin in the game, but also calling to that municipality to say, well, hey, you know, what are you all going to invest? And so based on the two respondents that we've seen, it's balanced quite well for this first round that we're doing.

Yes, yes. Well, thank you for the relationships that you have with the municipal staff to move these forward. I know a few of those that we're waiting on is in District 2. So I offer support and being able to connect with my fellow council and town commissioners and council people down there in any way to support. It will be a good day when we have 100% of our municipals in on these solutions for housing.

Yes and we'll send after this you know after this presentation I can send all of the commissioners the list of where all of the municipalities are. I'm not gonna call out the two that are remaining on call today. Yeah, but I'll follow up with that.

Because I remember the last time you sent the chart. And so I was hoping that there would be a different number. So, but yeah, we'll continue to work to get both staff and town leaders moving in this direction. But thank you for you and your staff for what you've done so far. Really appreciate it.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Yes.

So this is 10 years of impact, which is incredible. And to see the progress and to moving closer to rounding out all 12 municipalities is really exciting. And so I know we'll all be waiting for the save the date for the next symposium. And we are appreciative of how successful your inaugural symposium was and do thank you. And look forward to ongoing opportunities to be supportive of the work that you're doing and being in spaces where you are to continue to amplify the work that you're doing. So thank you. And as we prepare to transition to another important topic, our continuum of care is on our agenda today. And so I believe Eileen Rosa will be with us next as she continues to lead with passion and energy that gets us all motivated in this important work. So I will kick it to you.

Thank you, Commissioner waters. Good morning, everybody. Um, so building on the momentum, I feel like that was a tagline, you know, that Morgan and Aaron had, um, in, in this morning's presentations as well. We are seeing some of that momentum in the homeless services space as well. Um, but it's always important to kind of, um, be checking in and relying on some of the older touch points that we have. And so, um, or the more traditional touch points that we have. And so I want to first start with our point in time results from 2026. So next slide, please. It's always important to share this information with a bit of context and a bit of, you know, just details about methodology because it is one of the more traditional but also less accurate ways of how we measure homelessness in terms of a real-time basis. Just a quick reminder that the point in time count is federally required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. COCs are required to conduct this annual count. of people experiencing homelessness on a single night within the last 10 days of January. And so this past year, we held it on January 22nd. Well, this year, 2026, January 22nd, 2026. And the PIT count includes a specific count and engagement for folks who are experiencing homelessness in an unsheltered location and those who are sheltered, specifically emergency shelter, transitional housing, and safe havens. So this is really, you know, a one night true snapshot that's, you know, intended to kind of estimate the scope and scale of homelessness. So we generally, you know, consider this an undercount, but it does give a unique snapshot and allows us to establish some consistency in our annual methodology. So it is an important insight. But next step or next slide. specific context for this year's count is that it was a white flag alert night, but it was a little bit warmer. It was on the warmer side and it was right before that weekend, that first storm weekend. So we had those two back to back weekends at the end of January, early February for the ice storm and the extreme cold. And so this was, comparatively speaking, a warmer night. And so we thought we would see some differentiation between the unsheltered and the sheltered count. We, of course, submitted our full results at the end of April to HUD, but took some time to make sure that these are, you know, they're always considered preliminary until HUD actually accepts them. And so we've had some tweaks just based off of methodology and feedback there. But this, it's important to note that this point in time count does not reflect our full system inflow. outflow or the impact of housing efforts made throughout the year, right? And so I think, you know, you heard from Aaron this morning about the number of people housed from Cornerstone and how long people might stay there, but then are able to exit successfully. We can demonstrate that throughout the year, but the point in time count is a true single night snapshot. So we're not capturing all of the households served through things like Bridge to Home or our other supportive housing programs. It's also not reflective of any eviction preventions that are successful, right? Folks that were able to help prevent at the front door, this point in time count doesn't necessarily reflect that. And so it's important to just note results differ slightly year to year based on HUD guidance, the weather, and of course our methodology. So next slide. We had so there's the two parts of the count. The unsheltered count is where we you know, confirm, it looks like the boxes got switched. Lots of PowerPoint things. Maybe there was an update here, but it looks like the text boxes under each heading were switched. So the first box should be sheltered count, and the second one should be unsheltered count. But the unsheltered count, we were able to use what's called the known locations strategy for the unsheltered portion of the pit count. So this meant that we had over 145 volunteers from 36 organizations that formed into seven different teams that were led by street outreach team experts, different agencies. We partnered with police departments, fire departments, and other community members across those different shifts so we could engage people who were sleeping outside and and survey them based on the requirements of the point in time count. We also then use the next day on that Friday to engage folks at meal programs and other day service centers to ask where they were sleeping the night before in the event that our unsheltered count did not actually sort of capture that experience. And then on the sheltered side, we work to pull those reports naturally through our service database and also work with our victim service providers who do not use HMIS for privacy and confidentiality reasons, but submit their de-identified data to us. And so then we do this merge and de-duplication of those data sets. And so with that, I'll share the next slide, which is our overview of results. And so the top line here is that we had about 1100, well, exactly 1150 people experiencing homelessness as a confirmed status on the night of point in time. This included 966 households, 293 of which were unsheltered or about 307 persons. We did not have any identified minors as unsheltered during this point in time count year. And then we see a consistency around 25% of our full population counted at point in time is chronically homeless. So about 25% of the population uh meets that chronic homelessness definition based on how they self-report and how they engage in the survey we have additional details and of course more real-time data on on that that informs our housing matches similar to what aaron kind of highlighted this morning and the needs of our of our population so you can see we we saw some difference between the shelter and unsheltered account but just to put it in a more visual way our next slide here is our pit trends over the years. And so certainly we've gone through a significant transition of the COC, but what I think is important as an upshot here is that as we've sort of stabilized and have had a more consistent methodology, what we're seeing is not actually a sharp increase or decrease in sheltered or unsheltered homelessness over the last three years. This is important because it means that we are effectively managing homelessness. We are using every opportunity that we can with the resources that we have to address inflow at the front door through prevention assistance, through bridge to home and diversion and rapid exit from shelter. And we're serving folks through more supportive housing, folks who might be more vulnerable and have been in the system a long time. but it means that we haven't made any significant progress sort of to get through or make that significant reduction. So it's good news, it's balanced news here, right? That we haven't seen a sharp increase or a sharp decrease, but we're rather consistent, which I think gives us some other opportunities. And next slide. The last piece that I'll just highlight today is the breakdown of households, both families and households without children. And then we also have our veterans and parenting youth. This is where we start to see, you know, hey, there might be a bit of an undercount in terms of folks who self-identify as veterans or maybe how we have access to the young adults. system and how we're able to to count and engage them during the point in time count um but we had about 15 unsheltered veterans during the night of the point in time um so right around 40 40 veterans total uh that night and again um about 576 um individuals without children in emergency shelter and 53 households with minor children in emergency shelter so um These have been pretty consistent over the last couple of years, this year, in particular, though we had some significant data cleanup and so again I think it's it's relatively good news that we did not see a sharp increase, given the transition of the system how we've been engaging folks and our expanded unsheltered methodology. And so I'm happy to take any questions on point in time data. This is just the snapshot. We'll have a lot more detail kind of shared and available on our website within the coming weeks.

Thank you. It's always important to see the data and see how our county is doing. And I'm looking for colleagues who have any questions, any questions at this time. I'm not seeing it, but I'll lift up one question. Because this number doesn't reflect a lot of the other data that you mentioned earlier, how does the federal government really use this and what is its impact on programming or funding? Do you have any thoughts around that?

Great question. HUD still uses it to produce an annual report from across the CSEs in the nation. So it is still an important snapshot. They also use it in conjunction with our annual system performance metrics, which we shared a couple months ago. And so they do look sort of annually, progress, inflow, outflow, and then they look at this one-night snapshot. In terms of how it impacts funding, there are some questions in our funding opportunity and grant applications that do reflect, you know, Can you give insight about your account? Why there wasn't an increase or a decrease? Can you give insight about this? And then there are additional points in the competition if we do see reductions in homelessness overall. And so I think, again, this is relatively good news that we haven't seen sort of a sharp increase over the last couple of years, and we've been able to kind of manage from there. But it is a consideration within the funding competitions.

Well, thank you. That's important to know. And I do appreciate you also lifting up that there's also opportunity to provide additional information that gives a more accurate and full snapshot of what our community is facing. Yes, absolutely. I'll go to Vice Chair Jackson.

Hello. Thank you for this. I had a community member ask me, why do they do it in January? It's the coldest night. Shouldn't it be done on the warmest night? So I don't know if you have any thoughts about that. But my question is, looking at the shelter counts and the transitional housing counts for that night, what percentage of those housing options were filled on that night? That would be a good perspective to kind of hold in context, knowing that this is the least reliable way to get a real accurate number of those impacted.

Our shelters, particularly our low barrier and other year-round shelters, are consistently full. And so we are at max utilization for them. Some of the transitional housing, I'd say their utilization rate might be a little bit lower, but still over 90%. And I would have to check the exact numbers. But really, that is just based on the time that it might take to turn over a particular unit in a transitional housing facility. space as opposed to a night-by-night sort of shelter bed or more temporary program. But we are, yeah, we have full utilization in our system. And that's another important, you know, data point that we can bring back as we do an annual, what's called the housing inventory count and can compare, right, the the point of point in time and how we're sort of maxing out our system, because it's an important insight into do we need to shift some of the priorities? Do we need to shift how we're targeting some of the beds and things like that? Awesome.

Thank you, Arlene.

Thank you, Vice Chair Jackson. A really important question. And I see Commissioner Stallings, who's had some technical challenges and is now able to ask questions. I know this is an important area of advocacy for you, given your advocacy in human services and lots of supports that you've spoken and advocated for. So glad that you're able to join the conversation. So I'll give you the floor.

Thanks so much, y'all. I have been having just my mic and camera's been disabled. I've been listening intermittently. So I apologize if this has sort of been touched on already. Rex has been helping me. But Eileen, what about our foster care youth who are unhoused living in DSS buildings? Is that all categorized under the foster care category or is that captured in any way by the COC numbers?

It is not captured in the point in time count because as minors and folks who are in care in that particular sense, they're not meeting the technical definition of homelessness. But we do and we'll talk about some of the funding opportunities that are ahead for us. um what those special considerations are for youth because that is considered right either you know folks who are who have been in foster care might be at higher risk of experiencing homelessness down the line just in all of those transitions and so we want to make sure that we are focusing on that population but hud has a pretty strict definition for the purposes of the point in time count so it does not include folks who are in in care incarcerated um on that particular night it does not include folks who are catch their finger doubled up on that night

Okay, thank you for that clarification. Welcome.

Thank you. I think that's an important distinction to make and helpful to know. I am not seeing any other questions, but this data is certainly important for us to have at top of mind. I know it influences a lot of decisions that are made, so thank you for bringing us this update.

Of course.

And I believe you have even more to update us on.

We could spend a whole day on all sorts of different updates, but I just have two other topic areas. So the next one is our COC funding landscape.

Do we have slides available?

Perfect. Thank you, Brittany. All right, and so the first slide is really just a reminder of sort of how our role as CoC lead agency fits into this infrastructure of some of the funding opportunities. So our CoC, one of our core services and core roles as a CoC lead agency is what's called the collaborative applicant role. It means that on behalf of our designated CoC, our designated geographic area, We apply and submit and put forth these applications to the federal government in accordance with all of their compliance and regulatory needs for the project types and for the actual COC infrastructure. So what that means is that we have to complete what's called a local competition to solicit actual individual project applications. So the service providers put forth an application for funding For a particular housing program or a particular service program that goes into our funding review committee process. And we ultimately make those recommendations up to the governance board. And so it's while we facilitate the local competition, it's not me or my staff directly making any type of decisions or recommendations. off of those applications. We are doing it through a transparent process with the funding review committee who's made up of non-conflicted representatives in our COC and from our governance board. The other part of the applications is our consolidated or regional application. So the full package that we submit to HUD and to other, you know, our state competition is both project applications, individual project applications, and then a consolidated or regional application where they are asking more general questions about our COC infrastructure, progress, system planning, and all of the above. On the flip side, we also operate as a grantee under these processes. So we have three direct grants that come through this same process, and they're considered infrastructure grants for the operations of the COC. So coordinated entry, which again is the process by which people actually have access to homeless services and permanent housing, through the system, the Homeless Management Information System, or our HMIS database, and then CoC planning, which really just supports primarily staff and personnel that it takes to put together these funding applications and administer the governance of the CoC. So there's sort of a dual role here, just important context for us as a CoC department and our roles. Next slide, please. Okay, this is a jam-packed slide, but it's the only way I think to communicate all three competitions that are going on right now. We had been awaiting, as you may recall, the federal fiscal year 25 continuum of care program notice of funding opportunity, say that 10 times fast, the COC NOFO, that had traditionally been annual. But due to some of what was included in the previous NOFO and HUD's release of that in November and December, there was ongoing litigation around that FY25 NOFO. And so we ultimately, that was resolved through the courts, and we ultimately did not need to submit a full funding competition whatsoever. all FY25 grants were sort of automatically renewed and are still receiving their grant agreements but we have now moved to the FY26 NOFO and so this was sort of forecasted along with the youth homelessness demonstration program or the youth homelessness NOFO at the same time so we are balancing two federal competitions and then a state pass-through competition with the North Carolina Emergency Solutions Grant, or ESG. And so just to take them one by one, the youth homelessness NOFO, there isn't a prescribed amount per community, but HUD has said that they will select 12 community recipients and up to 120 individual project applications that they expect to make awards for. And that can range from a minimum of $500,000 for a community all the way up to 15 million. We expect as a COC to be going after about 6 million. It might be a little bit lower. It might be a little bit higher because this is a new opportunity. This is the second time that the wake COC will be advancing a comprehensive application for this particular NOFA, and we believe we're in a very strong space, given our partners, not just in the youth space, but also the work that we've done regionally with the Youth Homelessness System Improvement Grant, or the YESI grant, which happens to be a part of this particular NOFO. So lots of acronyms, lots built in there. But the short of it for the YHDP or the Youth Homelessness NOFO is that it can cover, it can accept project applications for transitional housing, supportive services, which really just means outreach, case management, any of the other services that are not necessarily tied to a particular housing resource. And then also more infrastructure dollars for coordinated entry, HMIS, and COC planning to support that experience and success of young adult households aged 18 to 24. And so, you know, we are not a current YHDP or youth-funded community, so this would be a new source of funding to support us in our scaling of youth-dedicated resources. So that's the big first one that's underway. We then have the more traditional sort of HUD-COC NOFO. We have seen some significant changes, but not quite as significant as what we first saw, again, before some of that litigation on the FY25 NOFO. And so we do expect to go after about 8 million for Wake-COC. Our current annual demand is about 6 million. We're looking to increase the amount that we receive through bonus projects and just overall as a competitive community. But HUD has identified a number of priorities and have in the competition have sort of built in ways to incentivize shifts from permanent housing or permanent supportive housing to supportive services only. So really this emphasis on case management, exits to self-sufficiency, focus on treatment, recovery. And so While that can be difficult in a number of ways, I think the additional value and investment that you heard from Erin and from Morgan on the Wake County side is that we have a significant local investment. And so there's a way in which we can kind of balance this shift and be aligning with these priorities. And I think the Cornerstone program earlier is a prime example of how we need to be creative and be adaptable to how we can not only meet these priorities, but be responsive to our population. Right now, our HUD, our COC funded programs cover about nine permanent housing projects and serve about 245 households. And then we have those three infrastructure grants. So that just gives you a snapshot of what we have right now. And then lastly is the state. It's sort of a federal pass through. So not only is Wake County and City of Raleigh entitlement communities for the ESG dollars, but we also participate as a COC in what's called the fair share. So this is based off of our population and the poverty rate and different factors determined at the state level. And so our fair share of what we can go after for all of the projects under ESG is just under $400,000. It's actually a slight decrease from last year, about $40,000 decrease from last year, based on what was made available from HUD to the states. ESG can cover emergency services, so shelter and outreach, as well as housing stabilization programs through prevention and rapid rehousing. We currently have about nine projects that serve over 700 households annually because they're using some of those dollars, of course, paired with other sources to provide shelter, outreach, and rapid rehousing functions. That was a lot of detail. So I'm gonna sum it up in the next slide for our process and timeline. This is probably the most complicated part of all of the COC work really. And it's additionally complicated because it's over the summer and folks are kind of in and out on vacations and they're all competing timelines. So we have been running these local competitions concurrently. All of the opportunities were announced by the funding agencies early to mid June. We did some intents to apply so that we could understand maybe new providers who were looking to seek access to the funding and advance a project application. And we then published our local competitions. All of the project applications are due in July, and then we'll have our COC Funding Review Committee complete the evaluation of those and advance a recommendation to the COC Board. All of these competitions have final due dates to HUD and to the state between August 10th and August, actually August 26th as well. So August 10th, 24th and 26th, we will have large packages of funding materials that we will be advancing, but just a core service that we wanna make sure that we continue to be competitive for as a COC. So happy to take any questions on this front.

Well, thank you, Helene. It's really helpful to see how much work is involved in going after the funding. I just had a question just to help understand the competitiveness of the funding. Can you just speak to the landscape of the number of CoCs that exist nationwide?

Ooh, I don't know that I have that number off the top of my head, but just in North Carolina alone, we have about 12 COCs, which cover all 100 counties. And in most, some states that are particularly rural, they might just have one COC. So I'd say we're probably close to 100 COCs, probably more across the nation.

Okay.

Competition-wise, the way that HUD structures it is they kind of have, you know, a threshold or a process by which they pick projects as they move down the list, if you will. And so they have what's called Tier 1, which is basically guaranteed renewal funding for those competitive and eligible projects. That's about 60% of our annual renewal demand. That's part of the requirements that they changed in the NOFO. Historically, that has been 90% of projects being renewed in a more automatic sense. This year, it will be 60%. And then from there, they use the consolidated application and the competitive nature of the NOFO to decide across communities which other projects under that 60% might be selected. And so there are a lot of factors, but that is how the competition sort of happens across those COCs.

Okay, that's helpful to know, to have a better understanding of the landscape. And in terms of the actual documents that you're required to submit, how extensive or time, what's the time investment that your team is putting into this? Because I've seen traditional applications and anything typically related to the federal government tends to have a lot of documentation and a lot of information different reports and things that you have to submit. Just wondering what that looks like for you and for your team.

It's a significant amount of work, especially since there are three competitions at one time, but we're trying to align those deadlines and offering up consistent community opportunities for technical assistance. So having office hours, having other info sessions, webinars, sharing materials and things of that nature, but it is a significant amount of time. I don't know that I have an estimate really, but the consolidated application is what takes the most time. and facilitating the competition so we are responsible for all of the communications with potential grantees receiving those applications packaging it for the funding review committee and making those recommendations to the board so it is a pretty laborious process um but uh we've we've done it in the past this is not cert you know our sort of first um nofo and so we do have those systems in place to also just be updating as we go

Okay, well, thank you. That definitely helps paint a better picture of the work that is happening and your leadership and all those who are involved is greatly appreciated. I will go to Commissioner Stallings and then Vice Chair Jackson for questions.

Thank you, Commissioner Waters. And thank you, Eileen, to you and your team. I know this is such a heavy lift, but you have such expertise in this area. And so grateful that you are a part of our team moving forward with this. And just want to say thank you, because I know it's not easy, but it's always so obvious to see your commitment and dedication and passion for this work. I just had a follow-up about the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program slide. I believe you said that we aren't a current YHDP community. And why is that? Could you explain that a little bit?

Sure. So the YHDP is not structured like the traditional COC NOFO. And they actually haven't had it in the last two fiscal years. So this YHDP competition is actually the FY24 and FY25 competition. funding through HUD. So and the program has shifted. So they've made like very limited selections each year, only about six communities, whereas the COC NOFO is it's required of every COC to be going after that funding opportunity. And so it's just a more limited source. But the goal of that is to fund youth specific programs that eventually fold into the traditional COC NOFO process. And so I believe Wake County or Wake COC applied maybe two years ago in 2021. It would have been the 2023 competition, but we're not selected. However, last year we were selected as a youth homelessness system improvement community and have been participating regionally. And so I think we have, you know, the strength of our youth advisory board. We have the strength of our youth dedicated partners. And we're really in that good spot that we felt like it would be appropriate to apply again this year.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Saenz. I had that same question. Vice Chair Jackson?

Yes, I'm This is a question for Eileen and Morgan, if you're still here, Morgan. Back in April, there was a really good slide that showed how the county is contributing to this capital stack of multiple public-private dollars. Eileen, can you share with us again, and Morgan, what are those breakdowns between public-private and really federal and county? I just, you know, for my own notes and for anyone listening, just want to always keep it present how this is not all being done with county investments, but largely federal dollars, I know, with the COC. But if you all could just recount those, that breakdown, that would be really helpful.

I don't know if Morgan has it better off the top of her head, but the federal sources are just a small contribution to our overall landscape of homeless services and supportive housing. I think we're very well invested from a local standpoint compared to our other COC neighbors. So, yeah, Morgan, if you have anything more specific to add.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. So, you know, on average, a prime example for this year, you all approved $18 million to go forward for affordable housing production and preservation. That compares to, you know, our foreign entitlement grants from the federal government where we receive around $7 million. So definitely grateful for, you know, for that federal investment. But in terms of that compared to what Wake County invests in, it is significantly more. And then if you kind of look at the entire investment for our department, our programming, our services, all those things we provide, it's upwards of close to $40 million that Wake County invests. And so it's definitely a role from the federal government, but Wake County is a driver behind that. I would say that if we're looking at a capital stack for production, low-income housing tax credits is a really key investor. It's the largest investor in the nation out of the U.S. Treasury for affordable housing, and so they're always going to rank fairly high. And so I would say outside of our entitlement grants, county dollars, and the tax credit program, then from that you'll see investments from our banks. So, you know, groups like Truist, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, our CDFIs, they're very large investors to offset these costs And then beyond those different groups, there'll be a bit of a gap. And then we're seeing more trickles of philanthropy, more gaps within our market. We're seeing a lot of families and churches, capital campaigns, things like that, which will help to fill those gaps. But that seems to be a little bit more for groups like Healing Transitions or for CASA, where there's some aligned mission with our faith-based community. We will see some uptick there. But that's a very long way of saying It's Wake, banks, federal government through our entitlement grants. On the other side of the house, our tax credit programs. And then, you know, local commitments are also mixed in there to help fill those gaps where government dollars may not be able to go.

Perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Morgan.

Thank you for helping us understand the landscape much better. And we'll look forward to updates to see the outcomes for those applications. I appreciate your leadership and the work that goes into all that you do. And I believe you have one last update on the strategic initiative. And I will give you the floor again.

Awesome. Thank you, Brittany. So very excited to provide an update and we've been doing a lot of work in the background. We are not quite ready for a full sort of launch event, but we are very much ready to kind of kick off work starting in July. And so I want to introduce you all to what we're calling Wake at Home, which is the COC strategic initiative. to prevent and eliminate street sleeping through a targeted rehousing strategy. And so not necessarily our sort of traditional strategic plan structure that you can think of, but a way that really allows us to provide some synergy between the urgency of homelessness and unsheltered homelessness and balancing how we can make sure that we're targeting investments to create that sort of surge impact. um where you know when we were talking about the point in time count we haven't seen sort of a sharp increase or sharp decrease we need a surge investment and a surge level of action to to create that momentum um and to help us move forward and so um this is the name and the brand um we are very grateful for the county's support um on that front and and we're developing fundraising materials and other talking points and things of that nature because this is really um you know what is essentially a capital campaign um for the coc board and so i as county staff of course um am limited in in sort of what i can do um in terms of fundraising but this needs to truly be a public and private partnership and so we've continued to to refine those estimates and and understand um the the model and what we look forward to advancing and so Next slide is just a reminder that we've shared some of these components with you all. So I think one reminder is that what we're calling phase one is really a two year surge estimated at a cost of about $22 million to serve 1400 households. About 400 of those households would be from a direct-to-housing model, so specifically folks who are unsheltered or maybe in and out of shelter but have been significantly long stayers in our system and maybe have some more of those complex care needs. And then about 1,000 households who are moving throughout our system over the next couple of years. you know, about next 18 months that are at risk of longer term homelessness, where something like diversion or building on the bridge to home model can make a significant impact by serving more families and households through that sort of rapid exit model. And then from there, depending on our work and success in phase one, we would continue to refine estimates for what phase two would be, which is some shift in the population, right? That if we've significantly impacted unsheltered homelessness, we can kind of shift some of the resource focus to continue rehousing efforts and continue rapid resolution efforts and moving more toward the front door of the system, if you will. So moving more to that eviction prevention and folks who are maybe at risk so that we can avoid long-term homelessness overall and quickly resolve it for people who actually do make it to our front door and into shelter. Next slide. Okay, so quick snapshot of where we are. This has, I will say in full transparency, we have been moving sort of at an expedited clip here because there is a lot of opportunities for synergy, both on the state and national level as it relates to unsheltered homelessness and just in general, how we're navigating homelessness and being able to demonstrate strong performance and how we're seeing that success. And so for phase one, we have about $15 million identified and planned commitments to meet that need, both through new and leveraged public funds. So there is infrastructure that we have as a community that we do not need to reinvent the wheel on, but are able to kind of build on and maximize those vehicles by just investing additional dollars to help us move that much further. And so we have a current gap of about $6 million that we are looking and partnering with the COC board to launch a marketing and fundraising campaign to support Wake at Home, especially for funds and things that cannot be covered by other government dollars. So again, if we're thinking about those funding opportunities, they can traditionally cover sort of rental assistance and supportive services, whereas flex funds might not be available to be covered under federal sources. And so we're working to develop those strategies and opportunity menus to engage our business leaders and communities, especially those who are in downtown Raleigh, but also within our municipalities. We know that they've been facing challenges. We want to expand that partnership both with outreach teams there, local meal programs, the regional centers, and also law enforcement. It's a full partnership because we know that we don't necessarily have full consistent coverage of the whole county in terms of street outreach. It is still a goal and it is part of this initiative, but it's going to take everybody's partnership, both from a funding perspective and a service perspective. On the sustainability front, we are pursuing some larger philanthropic opportunities, and we're also exploring just learning from our sister department, Morgan and the housing team, how we could potentially structure some other type of fund long term to create This sort of sustainability structure, either through, you know, other municipal engagements, but also expanding regional partnerships and thinking that we could be, you know, much stronger as a region to to identify even larger investments from corporate or philanthropic sources and so We are navigating all of that with the COC board. We did a request for information or an RFI for partners to be a fiscal agent or a fiscal sponsor to help us hold the funds that could be fundraised through this initiative and be helping us think through what are some of those potential structures that we could explore long-term. This is not something that's sort of traditional, I think, for COCs. We have some local organizations lessons learned and how some of the other COCs are approaching this. Charlotte and Mecklenburg, I think, have a particular fund that they had piloted with us for a particular housing type. And so we've connected with them. And then there's also the other large cities that have made a significant impact In ending unsheltered homelessness over the last few years so working with those communities to understand what are some of the possibilities here and trying to be creative and innovative but also make sure that this is a sustainable. structure from our side so not too much to share on that point, but just you know, putting the seed that that is that is continuing to move forward next slide. The last piece that I'll just share is maybe a little bit more detail about the key components of the initiative, which is again, direct to housing approach from unsheltered locations, rapid resolution, and then complex care needs. And so when we're talking about a direct to housing approach for unsheltered homelessness, we have to make sure that we have that coverage for street outreach, that we know each person by name and are able to kind of assess their needs, but then on a more macro scale that we're able to identify and assess campsites or encampments by, you know, the special needs or location considerations that they have, right? We want to make sure people are safe and not at risk or close to traffic. We want to make sure that people have access to healthcare and are able to kind of navigate with services. And so it's important that we have sort of a consistent assessment and prioritization process as a community to be responsive to these needs. while also pairing it with housing and supportive services. So this is the difference between a direct-to-housing approach versus just sort of closing an encampment and not being able to provide the housing resources at the time of closure. And so we have to do both, but we also have to... pace ourselves, right, that we have a significant need. We have, thankfully, the experience of the City of Raleigh and the pilot at Dix Park last year and so are building on some of those pieces that came out of that strategy and just going to continue to iterate that work and iterate that process. So work on this front begins in July, so we are still functionally launching the initiative In July, it's just that we need to be careful about the level of detail and for safety and privacy reasons, want to be very intentional about that work for our unsheltered partners. And so that's sort of, that's like what's front and center coming up immediately. I can't share too many details, but we'll certainly be coming back to you within the next couple of months. with information and to do a more public launch, if you will, to celebrate that success and that momentum. But the other two pieces that are continuing to take shape and advance are the rapid resolution and complex care. So thinking about from a rapid resolution standpoint, how we have flexible financial assistance to support, maybe in non-traditional ways, exit from shelter. So for folks who are maybe just new to the system and they've come to shelter, but we don't want them to kind of, you know, get stuck there. We want to make sure that we are having conversations early and being creative about how we're addressing that. They're doing their housing problem solving. That's really building on what Bridge to Home does, right? And all of the core principles of Bridge to Home. And so it's really just about adding funds, deepening that bucket and supporting diversion for new households and creating that flow through shelter. Because as we create flow through shelter, we can also support movement from outside sleeping locations into those shelter beds. That's how it really just pairs together. And then finally, we've identified the complex care need, right? So as we engage with particular sites and folks who are unsheltered or of special need in shelter, that's where we're going to need to activate a multidisciplinary team. We have partners like Alliance who are already piloting this. on their own in partnership with the COC, in partnership with other partners of the COC. And so it's just about formalizing some of that process and creating that standard as we move through the initiative month by month, site by site, and moving together with our service providers. So a significant amount of care navigation there, but excited for what's on the horizon, especially given the expertise and partnership with the housing department. So Aaron's expertise from a permanent housing and services perspective, being able to help us navigate partnerships with healthcare and try new things, but very exciting momentum on this front. And yeah, happy to answer any questions for what we have so far.

Well, I'll start with a comment. I really appreciate all that has gone into this plan and this work. And I just also appreciate how you've really humanized the experiences of many of our residents who are just really having a difficult time and really bringing dignity into the work and really seeing people for who they are. And so I really just really applaud that work and I know that a lot has gone into this and we've got a lot of work ahead of us, but your leadership and just your posturing around the work is super important to the impact. And so I'll pause now to see if any colleagues have any questions. All right, Commissioner Stallings.

Yeah, you can tell I'm back. So now I can ask. So I just want to echo what Commissioner Waters said that the thoughtfulness about safety and privacy is so important. And thank you for being so sensitive and thoughtful about that. And I really like the opportunity menu that you talked about. I know we'll hear more details later, so I won't ask many detailed questions, but I really like that opportunity menu idea for businesses and faith-based organizations, giving them some specific examples of how they can plug in. And I think Chair Miles even sort of did that a little bit in the state of the city and county address. If any of you all may remember, there was some food security, sort of some specific asks at the end of that presentation that I really appreciated. So I would just like to lift up encouragement for us to continue to always give some concrete examples of how our business community and faith-based partners and other partners can specifically get involved in this work and others. So kudos to the work, and I look forward to hearing more. Thank you.

I love that. Thank you. And, you know, that that reminded me that in addition to all the updates that we shared today, there's always so much going on from the COC perspective, but we are working on planning for next year's white flag, right? The cold weather season is just around the corner. I know we feel like we're at the start of summer, really. But you know, we have a request for proposals out there for white flag partners so that we can be creatively thinking about how we can pair certain resources and pair different partners together that might not have the full package, but want to be involved in some way. And so we are, yeah, there's a lot of different areas that we're trying to explore that way. So that's an important reminder.

Absolutely. And thank you, Commissioner Stallings, for lifting up those important words. Are there any other questions? I'm not seeing any other hands. Eileen, I was just wondering for anyone on this call or for citizens who are interested in learning more about the COC and how they can have impact, what does your meeting schedule look like and what does it look like for someone to take a first step in getting involved?

Yeah, great question. So our COC membership meetings, actually most of our committee meetings, COC membership meetings and COC board meetings are open to the public. So all of those meetings that are available to the public are posted on our COC website, so wakenc507.org. And there's a calendar option that folks can be tracking those meetings and be joining those for ones that are public. We have our next COC membership meeting this afternoon. But maybe we need to explore renaming that because we did sort of adjust in our annual review of the COC governance charter. And written standards update some of how we're defining membership so that we can make sure that we're including everybody at the table, but that we're getting a bit more specific as our system grows on who is, you know, maybe a voting member or decision making member in the membership because we want to make sure that we're supporting their education, their involvement, and making sure that we have we have some of that consistent base for membership. folks who are informed and able to participate in those votes. And so everybody is welcome at those public meetings. And then otherwise, I mean, folks can apply to become a member. So if they'd like to just, you know, dip their toe in, come to public meetings, but there's also the application to actually become a more formal member on the website and then Similar to that opportunity menu, we look forward to having more direct action items for some of our more individual members that are just looking to get involved and support our homeless services partners and providers in the in the community.

Well, thank you so much for allowing us to see all the work that has been done, the data updates, and the opportunities for everyone to get involved and be a part of the solution. This has been a wonderful committee meeting, helpful update as we know affordable housing continues to rise to the top of any outreach that we do as we ask residents what they're concerned about. And so this time together has been wonderful. and we are looking forward to additional updates across all of the areas that we discussed today and before um we adjourn i'll pause to see if there are any last comments questions i'm not seeing any and so with that i will call this meeting adjourned have a great day