##VIDEO ID:gw438FAditY## e [Music] good evening I'd like to call the Tuesday November 26 2024 Housing and Redevelopment Authority meeting to order the first item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda is there any additions or corrections to this evening's agenda hearing none we'd be looking for a motion to approve the Tuesday November 26 2024 agenda so moved yeah motion by commissioner mua second and a second by commissioner Carter to approve this evening's agenda is there any discussion hearing none all in favor please signify by saying I I opposed motion passes 4 to zero moving on to item 3.1 it's the approval of the November 12th 2024 H board meeting minutes is there any questions additions corrections to the November 12th minutes hearing and seeing none we'd be looking for a motion to approve the November 12th 2024 H board meeting minutes so move second we have a motion by commissioner um Mueller and a second by commissioner mua to approve the November 12th 2024 H board meeting minutes any discussion hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed motion passes for zero we're skipping down to new business item 5.1 the adoption of utility allowance schedule for Bloomington H rent assistance programs may we have the staff report please yes good evening chair and Commissioners uh the item before you tonight is related to the housing Choice Voucher Program more specifically um and just a little background about utility allowances they're calculated um their calculation is important as we our excuse me oh my goodness is an important component of the gross rent calculation used in the housing Choice Voucher Program um and the allowance are based on an average consumption of an energy conservative household um Bloomington H utilizes the util utility allowance adopted by the Metropolitan Council just because we are in the same market area rather than duplicating that work the reason this is before you tonight is there is a 10% change from pre the previous year and so that is why it requires your approval um before it can be adopted just want to call out a couple of the major changes that would impact tenants in our program natural gas has dropped significantly across the board and conversely electricity costs are increasing but by a smaller margin so overall a total utility allowance we anticipating for most households is actually going to go down which means their gross rent calculation would go down which actually especially for households that are moving in the next year could mean that more housing options are available to them specific specifically I think the greatest impact would be for households that are looking for single family rentals because they tend to have the higher utility allowance cost so um this is actually G to potentially have a a good impact for some of the households on our program so again the request from staff tonight is to approve the attached utility allowance schedule and it would be effective January 1st of 2025 thank you are there any questions commissioner thank you um so you said this is tied to the met the Met Council numbers did they recently updated them assuming and they do that do they do that every single year yes thank you chair commissioner mua um they re-evaluate the numbers on an annual basis um and they also are adopting this updated utility allowance schedule to be effective for January 1st of 2025 so we are following their same um process any other questions seeing no other questions we' be looking for a motion to approve the attached utility allowance schedule for use in the housing Choice voucher and other rent assistance programs effective January 1st 2025 so moved we have a motion by commissioner Mueller second in a second by commissioner um mua to approve the attached utility allowance schedule uh is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed motion passes 40 moving on to item 5.2 property maintenance service agreement may we have the staff report on that please yes thank you chair um so this item is kind of a continuation of a conversation that we have been having with the board regarding um a restructuring of how we oh excuse me one second um of how we structure our our approach to our property management um of the prop the 42 properties we own and operate uh single family rental properties within the city um the Final Phase of this restructuring that's taken place over the last year is to execute an agreement for with a property maintenance company and the goals with this agreement are to have a provider who can provide that first L layer of service to tenants especially for emergency situations they would go into the properties assess the situation and complete any necessary immediate repairs additionally under this contract would be some non-emergency work orders including those submitted by tenants um and preventative maintenance tasks earlier this year staff completed an informal bidding process for these services and selected renew homes Inc um renew homes demonstrated capacity to provide the necessary 24-hour on call services that were desired their bid also stood out um for their approach to the services including building relationships with tenants and serving as a partner alongside staff to assess potential risks and future maintenance maintenance needs at properties in a way that we didn't necessarily see from other providers that provided quotes um they are also certified in lead safe work practices mold remediation and Inspire which all of which are Super relevant for our properties duude of their age and the programs that we run through the homes the proposed agreement of $888,000 would cover on call and emergency services and some non-emergency work orders on a monthly basis and we see this as the minimum most immediate level of Maintenance needs for our properties as we've discussed previously staff is in the process of developing both a preventative maintenance and capital Improvement plan for our properties and we anticipate this work will better Define additional maintenance needs beyond the emergency on call services that would be covered under this agreement and so at this time staff is proposing a six-month agreement with the option to extend for an additional six months and this six-month structure would give us the opportunity to expand or renegotiate Services once we have those plans in place in 2025 um so staff is requesting approval to enter into a Services agreement with renew homes Inc for property maintenance services for H owned rental property for six months for not to exceed amount of 88,000 are there any questions commissioner mua thank you chair um I would like to understand like what the plan is to evaluate the services of the um the the services uh company um once we get through the initial six months and then uh if we do choose to extend the the additional 6 months um what ultimately means that they were successful um how do we categorize that and then is this an ongoing thing if they are effective in what they're doing thank you chair commissioner mua so just to reiterate to make sure I understand the question is how are we evaluating success um under this agreement and what would be the thresholds we would use to determine if we were going to extend um I think there's a couple of factors that we are considering within this I think most critically is ability to respond in a timely manner to the 24-hour emergencies um I think that is a gap in service that we've had historically that we want to make sure is covered under this contract so that would be something that would be a top priority um I think another contributing factor honestly would be cost and making sure that the the costs within this contract are um a competitive uh price understanding the age of our homes and the the degree of need in some of in some of the homes so those are kind of the two costs I think we would consider once we're at six months whether or not we would move forward with another six months and then one follow up on the the cost piece what is the process to approve Emergency Services is there going to be a dollar amount is there going to be you know someone that they have to call from the city to get approval for something um how are we setting that up yeah thank you chair commissioner mua the way we've currently structured it is they would be the first kind of responders to those emergent uh immediate needs and under the contract it's um a flat rate that essentially were're paying to for them to provide that service they would address any immediate concern so say in example there was a leak they would turn off the water identify where that leak is happening and essentially give us an assessment of what what like what the final repair need to be um within the contract we do have some structure of they would come back then once that immediate problem at a later date to solve the final repair and we have a dollar amount within the contract for providing those Services over $1,000 so anything that would cost over $1,000 is then when we would go out and and receive um multiple bids to complete that larger scale repairs um outside of the contract sorry there's lots of questions this triggering so over $4,000 we would have to go out to get bids um is there concern about delivery with service right so like say we're in the middle of winter your water heater breaks and it's over $1,000 and we have to go out and bid to get better pricing which is what we need to do but that leaves the resident without hot water for extra time is there concern of delivery of service if um if that's kind of a limitation that we're going to have thanks chair commissioner mua for the question um under our requirements under state law there are some specific emergent situations that we have to resolve within 24 hours also under Inspire those are there's circumstances that we would need to resolve within 24 hours water heater is a great example of one that we would need to resolve and I think for those we would we would use a more expedited process um to to bring water hot water back to the service back to the family thank you any any other questions hearing no other questions we'd be looking for a motion to to approve resolution 20 24-24 authorizing staff to enter into an agreement between renew homes Inc and the Housing and Redevelopment Authority in and for the city of blomington so moved we have a motion by commissioner mua second second by commissioner Mueller to approve resolution 20242 is there any discussion hearing and seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed motion passes for zero moving on to item 5.3 direct income-based assistant program for the heights may we have the staff report thank you chair and Commissioners so this is a follow-up item from um both the October 22nd h meeting where you initially considered the uh hiia request and Associated financing for the heights that then went to the city council on November 18th uh on that meeting the city council uh did open a public hearing and received uh had a hearing for uh interested parties and on staff's recommendation deferred final decision on the the full financing package to December 2nd um with indication that there would be a vote of support and as part of that deferral um the staff also intended to bring back the the program structure for the proposed direct income based assistance program to the H for final approval and so that's the item that we're discussing tonight but I do want to make it clear that the funding for this program would be considered and potentially would be considered at the December 2nd city council meeting so we're considering a program structure ahead of funding so I do want to make that clear um but yes for tonight we'll be discussing the proposed program structure for the direct income based assistance program uh and so this program is recommended by staff to close the gap between what's considered an affordable housing cost relative to the amount of income that a household brings in um so the proposed structure um follows um a methodology that we'll go through later there is a a a PDF in your packet that I figured we could just talk through live and U get to an understanding on that and so the inclusion of this program in the overall financing uh the overall Associated financing of the hia request is intended to address the housing cost for those most cost burdened households um so those are the households that uh when you factor in the hiia fee on top of all of their other other housing costs that that those housing housing costs will exceed 30% of their monthly income and so there was an expectation that because of the the high financial burden that is likely to result from the hiia uh requested hiia that some households may not be able to cover their housing costs in an affordable way with their um with their monthly income so to talk through the the proposed structure um we'll go through the methodology later but I did want to talk through uh how this program proposed program would be administered so as you're aware the H administers it's um homeowner uh the home improvement loan program homeowner improvement loan program so that's the cdbg and also HRA uh budget funded program for homeowners to get impr uh rehab improvements on their home home and so the proposal for the direct income based assistance program is that it would be administered uh within that same framework in terms of application intake and eligibility consideration and so what that framework is uh it's actually the framework established by Hud uh it and it's also used for the Section 8 program and so there's a standard uh there's a standard list of income documents asset documents uh that are requested um for the applicant to provide and then there's a standardized calculation that's done with those documents to determine what a household's income is so we have existing staff capacity to to intake those applications uh and then determine eligibility of those households um so that's one thing I wanted to call out the proposed um structure for how this funding would reach would um reach the applicant the unit owner is that it would reduce um the uh h hiia assessment fee that that owner is responsible for U before it goes to assessment so that's why there's a bit of a truncated timeline on this we want to understand what the need is and how that funding gets allocated before this goes to assessment because once it goes to assessment that will include uh the interest which is expensive of course so uh once we determine eligibility that funding gets allocated to a household uh they're we are then able to lower what their prepayment fee is and the remaining balance is what is assessed and the interest would only be on that remaining balance so through that we're able to lower the payments that that that unit owner is responsible for the securitization of that um assistance comes through a um a forgivable loan so similarly um to our some of our other Assistance programs we record basically it's a secondary mortgage on the unit on the home and that has a a term in this case that coincides with the financing for the ha so 20 years and at the end of that 20e period that um that funding Is Forgiven it's it's not required that it's repaid if the homeowner decides to sell their unit or transfer their unit before that 20-year period they would be expected to repay that assistance back to the city back to the HRA and that would um come out of the most likely come out of the proceeds of their home sale they would have that option to pay out of the proceeds of their home sale um they could also choose to um repay the as part of the wider hiia assistance package we've um allowed for early payoff during that 20-year term and so early payoff would also um include repayment of the assistance so U there the early repayment conditions are outlined in the proposed structure uh the last thing I'll highlight before we go to the methodology is that this assistance can go to unit owners who are owner occupants and also to unit owners who are renting uh renting their units out but if um the applicant is renting the unit out they'll have to agree to um putting in place a restriction that their unit is rented to uh hous rented at an affordable rent for households at um 60 that are earning 60% Ami or less and that would be for that full uh term of the assistance so that full 20 years um and then same if if they are an owner occupant they'll have to Doc we have to document that they're earning 60% Ami or less so I think with that if you could pull up the methodology please we can go through that and then we can um take on some um discussion so I tried to outline what the kind of the flow of consideration is for how we get to a final allocation of funding thank you um so it's kind of a flowchart um hopefully that that made sense but we can just go through Slide by slide so uh as I mentioned uh eligible households whether that's for uh ownership or for units that are eventually being rented that's at that 60% Ami level and so I've put in um these are all just estimated numbers random numbers but they're all eligible from a income standpoint so those are the potential monthly some potential monthly incomes they actually vary from as low as that 30% Ami level up to the 60% just to show a as we'll get to later um severity of need so that's where we're getting monthly income the calculation for uh housing cost is inclusive of principal and interest on a homeowner's mortgage it's inclusive of their tax payments their property taxes it's inclusive of insurance for their property and then it's also inclusive of their HOA dues and the proposed hiia fee so that's what's rolled up into monthly housing cost and then to get our affordable housing cost it's simply 30% of their monthly income so with those numbers we can establish what the housing cost Gap is for each household and I just included a household that you for a demonstration wouldn't be eligible so household for um even though they would be paying that expensive hiia fee they are actually earning enough income for that to be considered affordable so they wouldn't be eligible for this program but the other three households are were they have demonstrated that they're eligible and we have established a housing cost Gap so next we'll take those housing costs gaps and um we're applying a ratio uh showing for for their Gap to their income what is the ratio there and the reason that we're doing that is to establish what the severity of their need is uh in the program structure we emphasized that this is a direct and needs-based assistance program and so priority will be given to households that have the highest demonstrated need so that's why we've included this ratio as part of the calculation so once we have a ratio established um I'm just tallying up the ratio to establish the percent of total need so that percent of total need is just the each households ratio out of the total ratio so once I have that percentage of total need uh I simply applied that to for example for this demonstration I just used 125,000 so applying that percentage to that total amount to get a direct assistance amount and you can see uh even though I guess I'll go back a couple slides the the housing cost gap for household 2 um isn't uh isn't extremely isn't much higher than household 3 but you'll see their assistance amount is much higher and the reason for that is that relative to their income their housing cost Gap is much higher the the ratio of Gap to income is much higher than household three so that's just to demonstrate that we're establishing priority for that household which has the highest severity of need and then in terms of the max allowed assistance there are two caps one would be that that Gap is covered for the entirety of the 20 years um if that if we're able to have enough funding that would be one G uh cap the other cap would be what their total prepayment fee is and that total prepayment fee is what's established in the fee resolution that the city council will consider UND December 2nd and basically it's their portion of the project cost so that's I included the household to just to show that in their case they were capped by the cost of the project and so that's where their um their assistance ended so that's the methodology happy to talk through it and then uh discuss any components of the program as proposed thank you are there any questions commissioner Carter uh thank you so I'm just trying to wrap my head around how it all works and so um so like on this slide for the eligible households household one it says direct assistance is 20,000 um around $20,000 so did so does that like we're not like how do they get re like how do they get the money from the city to then pay for their portion of the assessment do that make sense chair and Commissioners thank you for that question yes that absolutely makes sense so the way that the money benefits the owner is that we reduce what they'll uh be required to pay from that prepayment fee and that's that fee that's established in the resolution that the city council will consider in the second and it's their the their portion of the project cost uh the reason that that's a benefit besides it being paid on their behalf is it doesn't end up going to assessment so they're saving on interest um and the so that with this structure that we've proposed of paying it paying down the assessment uh the assessment fee or excuse me the prepayment fee the money never uh appears in the hands of the owner it doesn't uh it doesn't exit the city essentially but it is repaying um the the in fund loan for the h that that's essentially the structure got it um and then is it this is one time time right so we would not be requiring them to provide um proof of eligibility in an ongoing way um even though it's the over the course of 20 years like it's kind of a one-time thing and then if their income goes up significantly next year I mean that's that is what it is right um okay so I just wanted to make sure I was understanding um how that how it kind of worked chairing commission if I may the that I agreee with what you just said and that does mirror how it's handled for our other um assistance programs the rehab program there it's that onetime assistance there aren't uh checks going on into the future uh it would be for the for if there are unit owners that are renting their units and and apply and receive this funding those units would be rolled into our compliance program so there would be that annual uh touch point to see that the rents are being set at that affordable level and that the households that are being rented to are were within the um income threshold okay great I understand then I'm pretty sure I understand um are there other so we're we are approving tonight the kind of the framework is that what you called it the framework okay um are there other ways to do this that staff considered um but you decided that this approach was the best approach chair and commissioner is there were some other considerations of how the funding would be directed to the homeowner so just to talk through some of those it would be uh potentially just a lump sum assistance going directly to the owner then they would be responsible for deploying that funding our expectation is they'd be using for housing costs but the concern was there's no oversight in that scenario so that was why this proposal was put forward the other proposal would be um I think you kind of alluded to it would be checking uh like multiple payments over the the lifetime of the assistance so there was different terms thought about um potentially providing assistance annually for a certain period that creates a a lot of administrative burden so this is um the other benefit of this method is because the financial intervention is before the assessment it creates that interest savings and in that second scenario that I just outlined because that payment occurs after the assessment there's no savings there so there was some discussion of other structures and staff felt that this was the optimal structure okay thank you that's super helpful um and I I agree with staff's recommendation I think this is a good solution and I think because especially because we have the laa funding that is for a purpose like this um we're not having to dip into other pots of money and um yeah so I think it sounds good thank you other questions I have a question M turn Commissioners oh oh I have a question please um and maybe we've discussed this already but what if let's say in a year someone's income goes down and they would now be eligible is there a process or procedure option for that chairing Commissioners this funding as proposed is a one-time funding and the application deadline is intended to be before it goes to assessment and that funding would be deployed okay and so the the structure as proposed wouldn't it wouldn't cover the scenario that you've outlined chairing Commissioners I did want to uh Kim reminded me to bring up that um because staff haven't been uh we haven't begun collecting data on the household's income the there isn't a stronger estimation for what the need actually will be from uh unit owners at the Heights and and how many households will be eligible so the proposed amount that the council will consider on the second is for 250,000 there's no assurance that that is enough to finance the need the other scenario that could be the case is that um there are some households that have a a very high demonstrated need and um with this ratio approach that um benefits those with the most severe need it may be that those households um aren't have they're not able to have that full need met so just want to be clear that because we haven't been able to collect that data yet we're we don't have that full Assurance of if that if the 250 is enough commissioner carer uh thank you and kind of on the opposite end of that if you um let's just say there's three households and this is like a real scenario here um we could spend we don't have to you're not necessarily going to use all the 250,000 because there are these Max allowed assistance amounts per household yep okay thank you I have a question if the need is there let's say and we come to find out that you know the 250 isn't enough could there be the option to approach for a request for more funding um based on like future discussions I mean I understand that that timeline is very short so I do respect that I'm just curious kind of where that timeline sits and what happens if there are those extreme needs um could staff kind of I mean chair and commissioner yeah so there are some major cut off points in terms of um action that the the city must take I think the main one is um on February 10th there would be a resol that that's our targeted date for resolution of bond sale and so that's that million dooll Bond that's part of the associated financing that meeting would also include the consideration of the Tiff District establishing a tiff District so those dates to me feel like very hard cut offs um currently as proposed this this um direct assistance program we would start collecting applications on December 3rd assuming that the city council approves funding and there would be a deadline of the first week of January to receive those applications uh if staff were able to work very quickly to understand what the eligibility is what that full need is I would I would hopefully think we could bring back a request for additional funding within that small window yeah thank you are there any other questions uh hearing no other questions at this point we'd be looking for a motion to adopt resolution number 20 24-26 which is resolution approving a direct income-based assistance program and directing H staff to administer the program so moved we have a motion by commissioner Carter second and a second by commissioner Mueller to adopt resolution number 202 24-26 is there any discussion hearing no discussion all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed motion passes 4 to Z moving on to item six which is discussion items hi thanks chair uh I just have a couple items I wanted to raise to this group I acknowledge that we're not a full board tonight so everything I mentioned tonight I think we would we'll plan to follow up with an email with more information so everyone is on the same page um one thing I did want to bring up that um we are exploring is introducing consent items to HRA board agendas um so this is allowed under our bylaws um but it is a new uh it would be a new structure that the board historically hasn't been using um but consent agenda items allow for a quick approval of standing annual items like the utility allowances for example um covered under one vote and the board would obviously have the ability to pull anything from the consent agenda if they wanted to have a more in-depth discussion um so this might come up in December board um meetings that are coming up so I just wanted to bring that to your attention again um if we do move forward with that path we would send an email with more information about what that structure would look like for those board meetings um and then if there's no questions about that I can jump to my okay um the other thing I just wanted to remind all of you about is we do have a special meeting of the H board scheduled for December 10th and that's a concurrent meeting with both the port authority and the city council again there'll be more information over email about how that um structure is going to work I just wanted to use this time to remind you of that meeting any questions or discussion on any of those perfect I really like the consent agenda items thank you um so with that we'd be looking for a motion to adjourn the Tuesday November 26 2024 housing Redevelopment Authority meeting so moved we have a motion by commissioner mua second and a second by commissioner Mueller to adjourn the meeting is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed motion passes 4 Z we are adjourned [Music]