blanket. The lady next to me is always like, "I'm wearing four shirts today. >> Look at my layers." >> Um, I don't understand why it's so hard. I have a space heater in my office. >> I like 58. >> Not actually, but
>> I wouldn't mind if it was 58 degrees. God bless you. [clears throat] >> Yeah. >> If you text me often, I'll see you. >> I don't just 434
987 6321. >> Okay. And I'll text you more. Uh time to >> Yeah. >> How are you doing? >> Yeah. >> I'm running all weekend. Um
>> I feel like I like realiz that I've been taking it a little too easy this summer on the work schedule and I'm going to have to actually [laughter] hours. >> Here we go. We can do it tomorrow.
>> Seriously, >> correct? And I'm well I think like fear of failure is Now it is I did. Okay, going to call this [laughter] meeting to order. Can I please have a roll call of the commissioners? >> Commissioner Moss
>> here. >> Here. >> Commissioner Rosen >> here. >> Commissioner Oort >> here. >> Commissioner Pay >> here. >> Awesome. Okay, we'll take a moment of silence, please. Oh, how do I get to that? Please.
Okay. Um, I will turn it over now to John for a minimum rent discussion. John, Mr. Sales, sorry. >> Um, so, uh, everyone should have a small presentation. And this is more going to
be a discussion for the board. Uh come this came up uh right after we passed our budget. Uh and I promised that we would come back and uh talk about it. Um and I actually hope that we could you all give me direction today uh to move
forward in a direction that we would then post uh to begin the comment period. uh we would look to make the changes before the year before the budget. Um as you read as you go through
the presentation you'll understand why. Um so minimum rents uh so how is rent determined? Residents uh when applying for the programs have the ability to select uh two different methods for determining rent. It can be income based or it can be a flat rate rent. uh a
majority of our families do income based and so under income based there are still some categories that uh really help us determine what is the total tenant payment rent. So HUD regulations specify the formula for calculating the
total tenant payment for a uh tenant family. The TTP is the highest of the following amount to round it to the nearest dollar. So it can either be 30% of the family's monthly adjusted income, 10% of the family's monthly gross income, which is then uh divided by 12
for annual income, uh welfare rent, which is not eligible in Virginia, uh and a minimum rent, which can be set by the housing authority anywhere from between $0 and $50. Uh the CRA has the authority to suspend and exempt families
from minimum rent when a financial hardship exists. and HUD has uh regulations for what they consider a financial hardship. So the financial impact of making a decision. So right now we currently have 55 families that are uh currently paying
the minimum rent or being charged the minimum rent. Uh that equates to about $23,100 annually. uh the housing authority would have less vacancies hypothetically um if there it would have less vacancies
which will allow housing authority to receive more go ahead >> sorry uh why I don't see this in here but why is it what it is now >> why is it 35 $25 >> it was 25 when I first got here HUD made
a fuss because the housing authority was in shortfall status And so they said, "Well, you need money. You're not even charging the max you can charge a minimum rents. You need to raise your rents." And so we increased our rents to 35 at that point. >> Um, but that
>> And do we know why it was 25 and not zero? >> No. >> Just cuz >> it was 25 when I got here. So I don't have a >> reasoning for it. >> Uh, and HUD made us increase it. >> Yeah. Um, I know you're going to I know
like it says it can be whatever, but if they made us increase it or can we do whatever we want since we're not in troubled status or could they come back and say no, it >> I would recommend that we we're not in shortfall or troubled status. So, I
would recommend that we make the change. And >> sorry, I wasn't trying to jump to the punch line, but I just was trying to understand why it was ever $35. >> Yeah. Why anybody would choose >> 50 over zero I guess is maybe the part I don't
>> yeah I so HUD wanted us to go up to that 50 we had we are at 25 and so going to 50 from 25 was doubling it >> and so that wasn't wasn't going to really wasn't an option on the table. Uh the conversation at that time was to do
slight increases in the future. But if you notice as I go through and tell you guys uh the additional breakdown, you'll understand why we should just adjust it uh because
it's costing us a lot more not to adjust it. >> Okay. Sorry. Um sorry for that interrupted. So uh HUD determines our operating subsidy based upon the number of units we have occupied. Uh if you are not evicting as many folks, those units
stay occupied. So your operating subsidy is higher. Um savings. So reducing the minimum rent is likely to yield a savings in maintenance and legal services due to a lower number of evictions. On average, it costs $9,000 to turn a unit. Uh but in some cases
last year, we paid upwards of $16,000 to turn a vacant unit. After a family has moved out, on average, it takes approximately four to six weeks to turn a complete unit. Uh, and then there's additional time, a month or two to release that unit. Uh, West Haven, it
will definitely take that full two months, but like a site like South First Street doesn't take as long, but some of the violence that has happened at South First Street has made it so it's a little bit harder to lease even the newer units. um on average we spend more than $1,000
per family uh to go through the court process. And so if you're looking at those two numbers, at minimum we're going to spend $10,000 when we uh elect to evict a family. And so our eviction statistics from last year, uh CRJ filed 46 unlawful detainers
between January 1st and December 31st. 44 of those unlawful detainers were due to non-payment of rent. two were due to uh non-compliance and these were uh violent issues on the sites. >> Uh both of the families that were non-compliance were minimum rent payers.
Of the 44 unlawful detainers that were filed for non-payment of rent, only 21 were actually fully processed. Uh two of those 21 uh were families that were minimum renters. >> So in total, four families were evicted that were minimum renters. Uh if you
just save those two, you would have saved the $20,000 that you are projecting to lose by not charging a minimum rent at all. Uh in total, CRJ fully processed 23 evictions. In total, four of them uh were minimum rent
families. Um so it's costing us a lot of money to process evictions. Um there is language in our AUP now that states that uh a hardship could exist when folks are paying minimum rent. And so I think we
should make the decision to go zero as a minimum rent uh and not worry about whether a family hardship exemption gets processed or not. Go ahead. >> So
maybe I should know this. So, I apologize if I don't. So, if we lower the minimum rent, does that have any impact to like whatever the next >> threshold of rent is? >> No, it won't because all the So, the only rent that's not income income based
is the minimum rent because minimum rent if you have $0, $35 is your rent period. >> Okay? >> Uh if you have income, then that 30% is what's determined as your as your uh your um rent. So it only only the
families that are minimum rent are currently you can consider them severely rent burden because they have no income but they have a set dollar rent no matter what. And then that my it's you don't need to
answer it now. Um but I'm sure it'll be a question is just the non-payment of rent like what those levels look like for the the ones that weren't minimum rent. >> So the ones that weren't minimum rent um
of the 23 families that were evicted, $88,000 was the total amount that was owed. Uh the four families that were minimum rent, the total owed for those families was $1,245. The two families that were evicted for non-compliance issues, one was 3 months
behind, one was eight months behind. And the two um minimum renters that were just evicted for non-payment of rent, one was 5 months behind and one was 19 months behind. And the the non-compliance situation, I
assume that that's like a like safety and >> Yeah. Uh believe one was a shooting >> and uh one was a stabbing. >> Okay. >> I just think it's important for us to know that if you know somebody says,
"Oh, they owed $35." Well, no, that's not what the problem was. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And one of those, if you look at the case, it looks like we filed on it after was two months behind, but it wasn't because they were late in rent. It was because of the other issue. >> But yeah, so I just I want to I think
that's helpful for us to be armed with that information just, you know, as we, [sighs] >> you know, sometimes a a narrative gets out there that's inaccurate. And so it's just helpful for for us to like know
know this the story. Um, I don't know if I can motion. I would motion for zero rent. >> Second. >> Second. Do you want to ask us all about You want to ask us, Maria? Roll call us. >> Roll call.
>> Okay. Commissioner Moss. >> Agree. >> Commissioner Hicks, >> yes. >> Commissioner Rosenliff, >> yes. >> Commissioner Aoric, >> yes. >> Commissioner Payne, >> I guess. Yes. Okay,
motion passes. All >> right. So, um we'll get this posted and uh get it posted on on our website. Um get it sent out to our stakeholders. Uh 45 days will be the calling period. Um
our goal would be to after it's passed by you guys because it'll come back to you as an official policy. Yeah. um after it's passed to then do um we'll have to do research for all of these families that are currently zero income
families. So, uh they will actually be paying zero zero rent at that point. Um this change will only be effective on the public housing program initially. The voucher program has much larger ramifications and I'm still trying to
flush out what that looks like financially. Uh and so currently this will only go into effect on the public housing program. Uh if it gets deemed that hey there's money there on HCV side to absorb this as well that will come
back to you as a proposal before the end of the fiscal year. if it's deemed that it's not, which it's likely that it's not because we have uh 113 project based voucher units coming online at South First Street and 41
at Sixth Street. And so we're going to be using up a lot of voucher capacity. We won't have a lot of funding. All of those units are going to uh request more than the average. So we're currently averaging about 1,100 bucks a month per voucher. Uh there won't be a unit at
South First Street or Sixth Street that charges $1,100 in rent. Uh the five bedrooms go for closer to like $3,000 and a onebedroom goes for 1,500. So between 1,500 and $3,000 per unit. Uh
and so we have to save save some voucher capacity. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Yeah, I I actually expect a little more conversation about it. Uh about the rent rent piece. I thought this was going to be a longer discussion. Um
>> sorry. >> Oh, no, no, no. [laughter] >> Michael's going to make it. Michael's going to have some discussion. He's ready. >> Um so, just to be clear, before this takes effect, we we'll have to vote on this again at a full board meeting. >> Yes. Um, I guess we've already indicated
our our direction, but I did have a question of like what if any trade-offs are there for not having a minimum rent? I know we've highlighted finan potential financial benefits and um, two families were evicted for non-payment of rent or minimum rent, which um, you know,
obviously isn't most of the evictions, but it's still two families. Um, so yeah, are there, you know, negative trade-offs to consider? uh of course there are uh there's always some negative but uh I the negative tradeoff
is what any resident can do right now like if they lose their job they come in they come do a research their income their rent goes down uh and actually in that case we would put them in a hardship exemption so their rent would be zero anyway naturally um so the the
risk is housing authority not receiving that money um in a larger amount of families doing that. If that was to happen, HUD would have to respond because then at that point uh the operating subsidy would have to increase because we've had a reduction in what
we're receiving from tenants. Um that that is the largest risk. Uh but uh I would say there's far more positives with this. Um we have evicted families that have paid men on rent. If
They can't live at CRA. They can't live anywhere else in the city of Charlottesville. So, we have to make sure that is not happening. And if it is happening, it's happening because we've done everything we can and they cannot be successful in our family, in our community, and we have to protect our
other families as well. Um, so no, I I think this this is the right decision. Um, financially, I mean, we have spent a lot more on legal expenses. Uh, we've spent a lot more on turning these units. Like that 16,000 AL, it's
kind of sort of normal. >> Uh, because we typically have to go in and replace a bunch of doors, flooring, cabinets, countertops. Uh, and so, um, that could help us out a lot by itself. the addition not having I mean when we
file evictions we're typically filing it for 15 or 20 people uh if five or 10 were removed because they were minimum renters that's five or 10 less at resident services can then focus on the larger balances plus our staff can also
focus on giving those folks the additional attention that they need. So I think this is really a win-win uh especially for the manpower that we do have. I mean, Bridget Bridget knows I mean, she had four or five different communities. And so, on average, about
half of our folks aren't paying rent. And if we have 55 minimum rent payers, there's a decent amount of those folks not paying rent. We just didn't file on them. So, if we did file on them, that would be additional cost. This would alleviate that and eliminate it all together.
Any additional questions or for John Mr. Sales? Okay. Uh any far or public comments?
Little Maras, you guys have any comments? >> They won't line. Yeah, [laughter] I don't think so. >> Nobody's online either. >> Um, okay. That concludes our agenda for today. >> Uh, can I have a motion to adjurnn?
>> Second. >> All in favor? >> Yes. >> All oppose. Thank you. Okay.