Yeah. Today was pretty warm too. Yeah. I'll Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And I think it's supposed to be, like, really cold the rest of the week. Mhmm. Does it have So I'm like Not putting that on your screen. Yeah. A little nervous. Okay. And I'll have miss Hester reach out to you. Okay? In '88. I'll have miss Hester reach out to you. Miss Hester? What? Miss Hester, she's the HCV manager. Yes. She'll reach out to you. Okay? Okay? Yeah. The apartment. Present Hall. For example, Present Hall. Mhmm. For people, people who are disabled and disabled.
Yes. Yeah. I'll discuss it. I'll Yeah.
Because they're for Right. Literally. Literally. Oh, yeah. It's just No. Still detachment. Worse for the benefit. Offer like a presumed, profit. Instead of your support, you want it to Yeah. Just hang to you too. I'm closing a ticket. So we'll see. So Okay. We have a quorum, and it's 6PM. Chair Bridget asked that I start the meeting. She's online. Would Bridget, would you wanna kick off the meeting or do you want me to I think it's fine, maybe, for you to kick it off if you don't mind.
And I'll be there in person, within, like, fifteen minutes. Sorry, guys. Okay. So, let's call the 11/24/2025, board meeting for the Charlottesville Redevelopment And Housing Authority, meeting into session. Could we get a roll call from yes. Commissioner Hayes? Here. Commissioner Rosenblatt? Here. Commissioner Morales? Here. Commissioner Payne? Here. Commissioner O'Rourke? Here. Let's take a moment of silence. Alright. Let's move into general announcements, meeting dates, and reminders.
Should I just read off the CRHA meetings off of the second page? So we have the, board work session on Thursday, 12/11/2025 at 6PM. The regular meeting on Monday, December 22 at 6PM. Of course, the redevelopment committee meeting, first Thursday of the month from three to four with, our agenda has the Zoom meeting link. The safety committee meeting every third Wednesday of the month at noon, and then the
resident services committee every second Tuesday of the month at 1PM. And also too, when I spoke with miss Banks, more information about the safety meeting will be in her board report. That's within our board report. And are we supposed to attend the, like, the public hearing about the new rules for the five year plan or whatever from next year? We talked about that last month. Yes. So that that's gonna be on the eleventh. Okay. So you don't have to attend the public hearing? Right. That's gonna happen before you guys meet? Oh, okay.
Open to attend? Okay. Because we do it's publicly noticed. Yeah. But you do not attend that. That's for us to hear from Gotcha. The meeting members. You all are free to attend the year as well. But at the, five six to five meetings, will you guys announcements, from the board or even from our staff? If not, we can move forward into, public comments followed by far far comments.
So is anybody present in the audience? Please come up. State your name. Hello. My name is Terry Tyree. I'm a resident at South 1st Street, a FAR intern, a Virginia organizer intern, and a new member of the NAACP. So and before I I start, I do wanna say that I fear as a resident retaliation after I read this from CRHA.
Alright. Good evening, CRHA board and commissioners. My name is Terry Tyree, and I'm here tonight because I believe in accountability, transparency, and fair treatment for every every resident of public housing and every participant in the housing choice voucher program. I also believe that when leadership gives the word gives their word in a public meeting, that word should mean something. On November 6 at 1PM in a meeting with the executive director John Sales, he stated directly to me that there were units in the Dogwood and Noah profile that
accept HCV vouchers that he would be willing to transfer me to. This was not a vague suggestion. It was not hypothetical. It was a statement made by the executive director of CRHA in a meeting with full authority compliance manager, originally stated flatly that there were no units available. And compliance manager, originally stated flatly that there were no units at all.
Counsel, I need you all to hear how unacceptable and how destabilizing this is. He also stated that if I told him that I would like the Meridian Street unit, that he could guarantee that that could happen within a month or every month and a half. Happen within a month or every month and a half. Housing is not an abstract policy issue. It is not a paperwork detail. It is where me and my children sleep. It is where families live, breathe, work, and try to survive.
When leadership gives a resident hope and a clear statement about available units and then reverses their position without explanation, justification, or transparency, that is not just miscommunication. That's transparency. That is not just miscommunication. That's harm being done. It creates unnecessary stress. You see them shaking. Fear. You heard my statement. Executive director of CRHA did not have the accurate information on November 6, he should not have made that statement that he did. And if he had the accurate information that he saw for a minute and thirty
seconds before he came back to the conversation. If he did not have if he did have the accurate information, then the contradiction I'm hearing now raises serious questions about follow through, integrity, and the treatment of the housing choice voucher families. When residents ask for transfers due to safety issues, which I need a knee surgery on December 9, and I told him today the date. And today, he stated that I told him that I said the date was flexible and it was tell you, so unwilling to fulfill my reasonable accommodations, which I was
aware that should only take fourteen to thirty days, and this was placed on October 1, the original one. And I also would like to state that when I first put in my reasonable accommodations, I was given three different reasonable accommodation forms. And I asked about it and was told that the original form that I put in was the correct form. After the meeting on November 6, he stated to to get a new regional accommodation form and told me exactly what to put on it.
I did just that, and I'm still haven't received anything, not a not a transfer, not a list of available apartments. I mean, even with the strain and even being told the available apartments, I'm still waiting on the list. And, so I I just would like for you all to request a written explanation from CRHA regarding the sudden change in information about transferable HCD units, ensure that CRHA leadership is held accountable for giving accurate, consistent, and documented communication to residents.
Establish oversight so that residents are never again told one thing in private and another thing when they try to follow-up. And, protect families from retaliation, delays, and misinformation when they are trying to secure safe and appropriate housing to programs that are supposed to serve them. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Could we, move on to the next public comment? And I'm sure that staff and the board would be interested in just sorting out details, but that be more appropriate to move to the next comment and, know that
public comment. Hello. Good evening. My name is Annette Wilcox. I just noticed that that there there's some pretty pictures of the redevelopment on 6 South 6th Street, and I I was I was at a recertification meeting and was hoping because there's been an issue going on at the Piedmont Housing Alliance on 1400 Montecillo Road.
And if I have any questions about when what the date's gonna be done, I'll try to come come over to the redevelop go go to Mary Maria's office Okay. To find out. And and but, yes, for section eight people, and that's not expensive. I couldn't answer that, but I think that Maria might be able to at least
point you in the right direction. Try to bring it over next next week. Good evening. My name is Emily Dreyfus, and I'm a community organizer with the Legal Aid Justice Center. I've been having the great pleasure of working with the new class of FAR interns for the last several weeks. And today, we talked about the draft parking and towing policy, and I'm gonna read
some input from them about that. We are not sure about why the date of the draft policy says July 1, but we hope this is the beginning of a thirty day comment period or even more because of the holiday time. Towing puts a real hardship on residents. The interns want you to understand how difficult it is to owe hundreds of dollars that you didn't expect. Getting towed can cause cause people to lose their jobs, and they can lose their cars because the fees add up so fast that they can't be paid off. On the draft policy, they have the following concerns.
First, section four on towing, we suggest that you add to the final paragraph about liability that if a vehicle is wrongly towed, CRHA will assume responsibility. Second, section seven about inoperable vehicles can caused a lot of concern. The intern suggests that you change the notice period to thirty days for unattended vehicles because there are times when residents are ill or not able to use their cars, and they don't wanna see their vehicles towed without plenty of notice. Many of the, residents of public housing need to wait for a paycheck or two
before they're able to use their cars. They also would like to have notices on residents doors. If you're thinking of towing a car that has a valid permit, a warning sticker on the car is not enough. Notices also need to have language access information included. We've heard about how towing sometimes has impacted a lot of residents who are refugees, and, that's a big cause of concern for that fear unfairness. Section eight, which is titled miscellaneous. The first thing there is information in the first paragraph that didn't really make sense.
It looks like it might have been, like, cut and pasted from another policy. Paragraph three of this section, the interns would like to see that you delete the sentence about revoking or suspending parking privileges for people who park in an undesignated area. You can give residents notices to let them know they're violating parking rules. And worse comes to worse, you can tow them, but we don't wanna see people lose their rights to park near their homes. In paragraph five, please define that trucks are not allowed if they have more than two axles because some people's regular, like SUV vehicles, might be called trucks.
And here are some other questions and suggestions that the interns have. First, can residents legally park in different CRHA neighborhoods with their parking pass? So say if somebody lives in South 1st Street, are they allowed to park park at West Haven with their South 1st Street parking pass? Do guest permits expire each month? We would like them to not be dated so that we can have less back and forth to update them. Can a resident request an ADA accessible spot and a ramp to be installed? There is a ramp in Mickey Drive that is not in a spot that's easy to use. There's a shortage of parking in Mickey Drive and maybe also in Madison and Riverside.
We would like to see CRHA do a study and make a recommendation about whether assigned parking spots and more ADA parking are needed in these three neighborhoods. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, Tully. Any other members of the audience interest in public comment? If not, far comments? Good evening, everyone. My name is Latricia Gals. I'm the executive director of FAR. I just wanted to give some additional updates that we have around some community events
for residents that'll be happening in the month of December. So the first one is our community power lab, which will be held December 4, and that is at our office at LAJC. So that is from six to eight. Residents come from all sites and it's just for residents. And they chat, talk about things that are going on neighborhoods that concern them. And they are working on, building campaigns, but they're also learning organizing skill and advocacy skills. So that is a place where they have found, to come and meet. So that is one that is open.
And then there was just, a few other events that I have, and I'm sorry because they're on my calendar. So there is going to be an ornament making, for kids at Riverside on Saturday the thirteenth from one to three. And I feel like there was one other I know we are having a self care Saturday as well. I'm sorry y'all. I lost it. Yes. Here it is. It's not on Saturday. There's gonna be a self care post election event with Sister Circle, from five to seven that is going to be happening as well.
So, yeah. Any questions or if anyone wants to learn more about any of those events, please, feel free to see me in the community, one of our organizers, or go to our website and get some information there. So thank you all so much. Thank you, miss Gals. We can close public comment and move to updates from commissioners. Excuse me. You have a hand up in your attendees. Oh, okay. We can't see it. But please go ahead, whoever put their hand up. Oh, Dolores. I think it's Victoria. Victoria. Victoria. Hi. Oh, great. Okay. Thanks so much. Sorry. I'm new to commenting and didn't realize I had to know how to signal that
I was here. My name is Victoria Horak. I'm an attorney at the Legal Aid Justice Center, and, we represent low income tenants across Central Virginia, and we prioritize cases from, public housing residents, especially CREJ residents. And so I wanted to come to the board with some concerns we've seen over eviction rates. The reason we prioritize public housing residents is because as I don't have to tell you all that they're, like, the most vulnerable tenants. Once someone's evicted from public housing, there's often nowhere for them to go.
So we really, make sure to try to serve a lot of these residents. And over the last year, we've seen a concerning uptick in the number of evictions that are being filed by CRHA. You know, just recently, there were about 30 families on the docket for last Tuesday on the eviction court docket. And there'll be sort of chunks of these. There have been over a 100 filings in the last year. And we've raised some of these concerns with CRHA staff as well, but wanted to make sure that the board was aware aware of them. We understand that, like, HUD has directives for rent collection that CRHA is trying to
abide by, but we also wanna make sure that the housing authority and the city are providing resources and leniency to these residents who have very, like, few resources to draw on. Recently, we were just looking at the math, with the eviction judgments that CRHA is getting in court, and they are 15% of them are for really small dollar amounts, less than $500 And so it's kind of concerning that families would be put out just for owing less than $500 I spoke to a resident who came into our
offices recently sheriff was gonna become a victim for owing a $154. These are really small amounts of money. And even though there are some public funds, those are becoming more scarce. So we would just like the board and the staff of CRJ to consider more lenient eviction policies. We do have some recommendations for those. And this is one we've really talked about with mister Sales, increasing education for residents about sort of how their rent is calculated and how to request reexaminations so that
their rent is accurately calculated, increasing the use of repayment plans for residents who are behind. And a lot of times, CRHA is unwilling to to offer those plans. Once people are in court, we would love to see that policy change. It would be great if CRHA would eliminate its minimum rent, for tenants who really have no income, and not seeking writs of eviction for very low dollar amounts. So those are some of our recommendations, but we wanted to make the board aware of the problem. Thank you. And we have the Delphine car today.
I know. Delphine? Yes. Good afternoon. I I just wanted to offer some comments here, and we're not going to discuss specific files with regard to specific tenants. But I want to clarify because the statement that was made by legal aid is incomplete at best. Actually, CRH's staff works really hard with tenants who are behind on their rent payments to offer payment plans and other resources to avoid evictions, and CRHA has done a lot in terms of working on eviction mitigation strategies and resources to avoid having to
go to court with tenants. CRHA only really goes to court when the tenants refuse to work with staff and refuse to enter into a payment agreement. Also, keep in mind that no matter what the dollar amount owed is, if CRHA makes an effort to try to collect those, payments from the residents and makes efforts to try to enter into repayment agreement with the tenants. If the tenants continue to refuse, it is unfair to those who do pay their rents for CRHA to not seek evictions against those that do not pay their rents.
So there is more to that. We're happy to provide a, a fuller update to the board at a later time. I just wanted to show you the full picture as opposed to just one side of this argument. Thank you. Thank you, miss argument. Thank you. Thank you, miss Carnes. Yes. Yes. Alright. Let's do another public comment. My name is Angela Carr from Farbord in there. Nice to meet you. I know some of y'all up there. I've been up here probably once before, maybe twice. So just to kind of piggyback off of what you said, it's kinda in today's be honest.
You go to the store instead of getting a 25¢ bag of chips, that same 25¢ bag of chips is like a dollar and 25¢ now. You know what I'm saying? Eggs, $10. Milk, $20. You know what I'm saying? Like, I mean, let's keep it a bin. So a 150 something dollars, you have condemned I don't know how many children in the household, how many, you know what I'm saying, individuals in the household, but you have literally condemned, let's say, two kids, a man and a woman to figure it out. When CRHA is set in place, John didn't sell. I'm not saying John didn't sell.
Excuse me. I'm talking about the man who sold the property to CRHA, a black man when Vinegar Hill was here. Like, John did not sell that property to see a a family home is for a $154. You know what I'm saying? That come on now. Like, let's be honest, like, I mean, for a house, sometimes people fall back and that's okay, but give them the chance. Like, you can't just, oh, no. Why? Smash that chance away from them, like, a $154. I feel like that's unacceptable. You know what I'm saying? Like, your kids go to go to school in a certain area, they gotta figure that out. You gotta uproot them.
You know what I'm saying? Move them over here. Figure this out. Go buy the brand food. Like, that's a whole lot, and then they're we're poor already. So why you wanna kick them out $454? I think that should be and even 500. And I feel like that's that's, like, that's a lot. You know what I'm saying? If it wasn't for the residents of CRHA, if it wasn't for the residents in general, would there even be a CRHA? I'm just for real. You know what I'm saying? Like the the residents are would make up CRHA and if CRHA wanna set up a good example for people in general, you don't wanna say, oh, we gonna kick
you off for a $154. Who wants that's not that's not saying that CRHA is for me. That's saying CRHA is against me. I mean, I'm just saying from what I heard. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be rude to nobody, disrespect it to anyone. But if I was on the chopping block for a $154 that's petty. You know what I'm saying? A $154 that's I'm I'm losing everything behind a $154 when if y'all give me just a second. You know what I'm saying? Even if y'all reached out with tribe. You know what I'm saying? To to help them with different funds or different places.
Some people yo, literally have a lot going on in one day. And it's not enough hours in one day to get over here at 04:00 and be there on time. Or to get over here at 03:00 and be on time and to get my kids off the bus at two. I don't even have the transportation cause y'all just towed it. You get what I'm saying? So, like, let's keep it a bin. Like, y'all can give the people of the community that y'all get paychecks for. Y'all can give them a little bit more. You know what I'm saying? A little bit more of a chance. Not saying that the people in the community can't give back more or do more or do better because we can, but you gotta do better to get better.
You know what I'm saying? You can't just be, like, do better and they're just gonna do better. You gotta lead by example. You know what I'm saying? You gotta show us that you care. And once a person notice that you care, then they'll just, you know, take another step forward. It's kinda hard to trust somebody that you've been pretty much taught that you can't trust. You know what I'm saying? I mean, this is I don't wanna I appreciate your comment. Yeah. Thank you. I I think we should pay with, like, I don't think any of us know the specifics, and I I a hundred and fifth getting evicted over a $154 is
the the sound bite, I think, where but, like, I know we aren't we don't get in our don't get involved in the day to day execution, but we have had numerous meetings where we've gone over layers and layers and layers of eviction diversion. And so I don't want us to over I don't want people to leave over indexing to that sound bite because probably mister Sales knows the background of of that
case, but the rest of us really don't Yeah. Know. So but but I do appreciate I'm not discounting what you've done. I appreciate your points. I just I don't I I'd hate for everybody to just walk away with that. Yeah. No. I respect that too. And I'm a I'm a leave it at that. But you know what I'm saying? I'm just saying to a whole family homeless over the small amount of dollars, I feel like it is unacceptable. That's how I leave it at. You know what I'm saying? Not just saying a 154, even if it was two years that they owed it. You know what I'm saying? But just over the small amount, even if they pay 5 towards it or $2
towards it. It's like an electric bill, sometimes you can't keep it on, so I'm a put a little bit on there and, you know, move my money here, there, and there and kinda spread it out. It's a lot. And then, you know, CRHA keep test of all your dollars, all the pennies. So if I get a little raise, you're gonna take that too. So how do I put in the pennies or where do I put them or how do I remove them to make sure I have what I needed in my car? That didn't come out. So now I'm short on my rent because I need my car to go to work. You know what I'm saying? I'm a lose my job. So they do have to, I think, take in consideration of those little things of day to day lives and then children on top of that.
So I'm just I I feel real strong about that. I ain't gonna lie. So yeah. Thank you. Okay. So I believe we were going to any updates from commissioners. Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't have any. Anybody? Okay. One Just quickly kinda, like, general updates as, the LV Collective project and student housing right next to public housing sites has obviously been a big community topic of conversation. In January, city council is gonna have a work session about that topic specifically.
So anyone interested important to attend and make your voice heard in January about, wanting protections for West Haven and, other communities for large by rights student housing. In December, there's gonna be a city council work session about affordable housing specifically before a budget season begins. That would be, you know, another very important meeting for people to make priorities known and just generally the city council's, budget process will begin in December.
And, that's obviously always relevant to CRHA each year in terms of budget request for funding, not just for buildings, but for the, people and employee and services side of CRHA CRHA as well. Thank you. I may not have the most current or coherent update, but, mister Sales and I did talk about the, working on the CRHA nonprofit. And it sounds like, just for the sake of everyone else that due to, staffing
changes, resulting from the recent election, there's been some turnover, and so there's some reeducation, kind of pushing us back a little bit. So Yeah. Because it's in the hands of the city. So, when Alex left, Alex was working Alex Kaitlin was working on it. All all, like, I think the connection. And now that's bad, I mean, Kelly Brown, and so Kelly Brown is trying to get a handle on where we are and what a nonprofit would actually do. And so it's in the hands of the city at this point. And so is there anything that we should be doing on that front?
Or No. I think we're just waiting on them to be ready to actually put it in front of city council to approve it. Okay. I don't know what the internal staff process is in terms of where it's at right now. But I would add in addition to Alex Ikafuna leaving, the city's housing director left. And the office of Community Solutions had been what dealt with housing, and that was that entire office was eliminated and put under NDS. And along with that, Alex Ikafuna and the housing director are vacancies that are not
filled. So Kelly Brown is the overall NDS director. So I'm just guessing that, there's a lot on her plate that this is not, I don't know. They're good. I I could see there being a staff capacity issue. The overall NDS director would not traditionally be the person kinda being the point person on this. But Yeah. It just seemed like the people we were working with are are not there. And so there's a little bit of restart. Yeah. So I just wanted to let everyone know that. Okay. Next up is approval of the board minutes from October 27.
And they're in your emails. They were left out Yep. Accidentally. But they are in the emails that were sent out to anyone. Can I get a motion to approve? Motion. Thank you, mister Hicks. A second? Second. Thank you. Can we get our roll call for you? Commissioner Hicks? Here. Commissioner Rosenblith? Yes. Commissioner commissioner O'Rourke? I will abstain. Commissioner McDowell? Yes. Commissioner Payne? Yes. Alright. Motion passes. Thank you. Alrighty. Resolution. Hold on. It's after so I can read the things.
It should be the first section after. It is. I thought there was a resolution I had to read. No. And so I'm going to preference this with the two modifications. There won't be a vote on department policy. There's no there's no resolution attached to it. I will say the comment period where that went out. It's been ongoing for over a year now with multiple comments from a lot of different parties. And then resolution resolution fourteen ninety two, procurement policy modification?
We do have floors, who is our procurement contracting officer. Yes. And so she's gonna give us an update on the policy. There is the actual full policy in the package, and then there's a one pager behind it that highlights all the changes that are in, the policy. And, Dolores will go over those, and then we'll have, some question and answer at the end. Hi, Dolores. Oh, you're on mute. But you look lovely. Sorry about that. This is Joanna. This is Joanna. It's nice to meet you all.
It's John Sarah Dolores Adams and I'm the procurement consultant and, we have before you a resolution. You sent an update to your procurement policy. We, went through and we updated your procurement policy to bring it in line with the, changes that occurred to the HUD regulate HUD regulations at TCFR 200, which is our overall uniform federal guide guidelines that govern our procurement as well as there have
been some updates to the state procurement rates, the Virginia Public Procurement Act. So the policy had not been changed since 2020. I mean, excuse me, since 2002 and '20. So we wanted to, so, we look at the one pager. I went through and I highlighted a summary of the changes that we did that we put in place. One was the professional services threshold increase and is according to the Virginia the Virginia,
the VPPA Public Procurement Act. For professional services, the threshold is now 80,000. Previously, it was 60,000. So we increased it in your procurement policy to reflect the change in the Virginia Public Procurement Act. And although we are governed mainly by the federal procurement rules, there is a rule that says we have to abide by the most stringent of the state or the federal rules. And so in areas where the state procurement laws are more stringent than the federal
laws, we do have to abide by the federal I mean by the state laws. And this is an area where the state law is more stringent than the federal laws. So in this case, we do have to go by the state procurement thresholds instead of the federal procurement thresholds. The next change that we, that I like to discuss is it is a definition change in definitions. As of the October of this year, out October, the federal law changed and added
in some new, protected classes. I mean, we can give actual that they want us to, give preferences to in our procurement before it was, small women, minority. Now they have, veteran owned business or service service disabled veteran owned businesses. So we added definitions for what they mean. The, two CFR 200 didn't it didn't really give us a definition.
They just said we have to include them in the preference category. However, the Small Business Administration did provide definitions, so we used the definitions that were, the federal definitions provided this law business administration. So we provided those definitions, to our procurement policies, and we added those, of r 200.
And they were in our previous, procurement policy. We also added clarifying language in, some of the the the errors that were already there for micro purchase, blanket purchase agreement, legal services procurement. It was just they it was just clearing up the language from the language from the 2020 to make, it easier to understand, in many cases. So it wasn't any there were minor changes, but I did want to, I did
want to state that we did make some some, like, some changes in language in these different areas just to make it read better and to make it clearer and added clarity. The major change was with our threshold. We did, increase our procurement threshold and added some language to increase the flexibility as of October of 2025, the federal thresholds increased.
The micro purchase threshold, we can go up to we're going up to $15,000 for micro purchase. The BPPA does not have Virginia does not give have a particular micro purchase threshold. It's what you, set. Set. So we're we're going up to $15,000. The federal fall purchase threshold went up to 350. However, the state threshold is is limited to 250.
So that's what we have to limit ourselves sales to because we have to go with the most stringent. So we are updated to, we updated our small purchase threshold to the 250,000, which is the state's limit. And What was it before? Like Before it was a 100,000. That's okay. That's what I thought. Thank you. Sorry, Torres, for interrupting. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. It was a 100. And and the, and we did add in some so that we can and the
state changes their threshold, which they may do, you know, we when they have a general assembly may choose to change their language when they speak in January to reflect the federal. We will be able to, be added language that says that our, thresholds can update as state and or federal laws changes. And we added that language to, all our thresholds. So it can adjust as as the, regulations changes.
The next area, we added we added in language, for the Build America Buy America compliance. That that is, housing authorities had to implement that as of, last year. We had been we had waivers. We were exempt for it. So we needed to make sure we added we added that into our procurement policy. So we added a Build America, Buy America, section into our procurement policy under our,
intersection six. And then as I mentioned before, I added in these veteran owned business and service disabled veteran owned business, as part of our outreach, our small and disadvantaged business outreach categories. And and like I said, we added the language so that if the thresholds change, we can, go ahead. We can change our thresholds to meet whatever the regulations change. Because the state generally follows the federal, but we just won't know until, the general
assembly meets in January, and most of their changes take effect July 1. Is it normal practice? I'm guessing it's not best practice to wait five years. Is there, like, a a normal, like, should we be updating this annually or every six months, or should we really be updating it every time a regulation changes, which could be endless? Like, what's the best practice for that? Generally, we update it as as when the rates change.
Okay. But there's if there's some reg and and uniform guidance, I'd like to see if there's any particular, changes in the uniform guidance. There were some changes. 2024, there were no changes 2024. There were some changes where we had the, the small, the, disabled business and the service disabled business. The thresholds change increase in 2025. So it's not every year that there are changes, but, when there are changes, we
do need to make these updates. The, language added the language, it says, as thresholds changes, then our procurement policy, our thresholds can change in our procurement policies, automatically. That will keep us up to date. So our procurement policy will be up to date. Gotcha. But, other if something changes like adding in the BAWBRA regulation, buy America, build America, build America, buy America, and those regulations changes, something like that, then that'll be, like,
a significant change and we will have to, do, re add that section, the whole section to the procurement policy. And we'll have to come to board to make sure we let you let you know that that's a significant change that we have to add something new to it. Thank you. Y'all have questions for Dolores or any? Just to, clarify the small purchase threshold is 200,000, and that's that's what's in the, resolution. But I know 250,000 was mentioned about what's in the resolution.
Oh, I'm sorry. It's 250,000. You're you're good. You're good. Just wanted to I googled it just now to check which is right in 200,000, which is in the resolution is correct. Just out of curiosity, kind of what was there any specific event that motivated these changes, or is it just updating given legislative changes? Well, we have, about $3,000,000 that we're trying to procure in services to do the, parallel track work, which is at Mickey Madison Riverside.
And so, these changes will allow us to move forward a lot faster than going the, the other procurement method, which is, putting out request for bids and then waiting for them to come in and come back. We're not guaranteed a certain product. It's hard to ensure that we're gonna get a certain quality of product that way because we give them a spec. And as long as that the item meets that spec, then that's the item we have to go with based upon our bidding process. And so, this allows us a little bit more flexibility.
And the residents have already made selections on all the items. And so this is just a follow step to get those out of the theater. And, obviously, there are still thresholds at which bids would have to, go out for or sorry. Go ahead. Anything over the small purchase threshold, we have to do formal solicitations. So anything over the small purchase threshold, we have to do. And formal solicitations are invitation for bids, which are usually for construction type projects, request
for proposals, or qualification based solicitations or request for qualifications, which is like what we do for AME services. Request for proposal are more like service related contracts. Okay. And for those that, you know, aren't going to require that, more thorough bidding process, could you just walk through what the process is internally for how those are reviewed and approved? Yeah. So for a non, RFP request for official bidding process, the individual that is looking
for the service would complete a request, which that request then goes into it's a request and independent cost estimate all in one. It then goes to its supervisor. So if it's from redevelopment, it's going to be, Courtney, Smith providing that, form to, Quinta Taylor, who would then, verify that, hey. The funding is there. We have a contract, or we don't have a contract, and what's the next step for that? That product that package should include, the three or four quotes, showing that we've looked
for other items, and then we have a comprehensive bid package for those. And it should include the, estimate from, for the the scope of work, and then the supporting documentation from whatever vendor that we're soliciting. That information then goes to, miss Taylor. Miss Taylor then reviews it. From that point, it would then go to, finance or, or miss Dolores, which is highlighted in the package.
It can either go to the finance director or the contracting officer. At that point, a PO is an issue, for service as long as it's in line with our policy. Okay. Thank you. Alright. Any other questions? On the repair and let policy? Alright. Thank you. Next up is resolution fourteen ninety three, the Ferguson Enterprise contract. Yes. And so I'm going to take care of this. Thank you, Dolores. And that was that a resolution we needed action on? Yes. I would like action on, these three items.
1493. And four. Yes. So we have four item five items. No. 93, 94, 95. Right? Yes. Without taking action on, '92. On '92. But we also have 96 and '97. Are we taking action on those today? Yes. Okay. Okay. I was thinking 92. So we're Yeah. So 92, we are not, and the parking policy, we are not. Correct. Thank you. So resolution fourteen ninety three, is in line with, the procurement conversation we were just having.
This will allow us to break Ferguson Enterprise under contract for CRHA for a dollar amount not to exceed $200,000. Once you guys modify our care policy, this type of resolution would not be required, because we would have the ability to go up to $200,000 as a threshold. But since we do not have this in place yet and we need to move forward with, some of the work that's happening happening on those scattered sites. We have this contract. Omnia Partners is a consortium, that helps local governments and nonprofits, procure items.
They're a global company, and so they have the buying power of a global company. And so they have a, they are a partner that we can tattoo tap into to, care services and vendors. And so we are requesting that we use that vehicle, to get, Ferguson Enterprise under contract for a contract amount, not take c $200,000. This work is not just for parallel track. Ferguson is one of our everyday vendors. They provide a lot of, goods to the housing authority.
You guys have any questions? No. I guess the the only question is for all three of them really, are these all related to parallel track procurement? So they are related to parallel track procurement and housing three operations. So when we're looking at this, we cannot separate the capital fund parallel track work from what we paid this vendor. It's looking at the total that we pay the vendor in a year. And so the dollar amount, if we just looked at capital fund, we would not hit that dollar amount. They can close.
But since we use them for our everyday business, we're gonna we're gonna get closer to that $200,000 mark. And so, yes, all of these are getting to that max because of redevelopment, but they're these vendors are used every day or every month. Okay. Thank you. Can I get a motion to approve resolution fourteen ninety three, authorizing the authorizing the execution of a contract for maintenance for Harrison operations, supplies, and related services between CRHA
and Ferguson Enterprises LLC? Motion. Second? I'll second the motion. I gotta call for you. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passed. Thank you. Fourteen ninety four is very similar, and this is for HD Supply Facilities Maintenance. And this is also Omnia Partners, participant as well. They are probably the second largest That we used. They deliver, relatively quickly based upon our ordering. And so we will also be utilizing them for the preload track work.
And so this is a contract that we're requesting that you go to a dollar amount not to exceed $350,000. This would hit the threshold where you guys would come and do a contract even with the modification to our current plan. But this is one that we also need to do because we're utilizing them a lot. I think we're close to a 100,000 now. And so, with the work that we're proposing they're gonna do in parallel track for the next two and a half years, we're gonna exceed that every year, that $200,000 amount.
Questions about this one? Okay. Can I looking for a motion for resolution fourteen ninety four, authorizing the execution of a contract for maintenance, repairs, and operations, supplies, and related services between CRHA and HD supplies, facilities, maintenance, LTV? I'll motion to pass resolution number 1494. We're having a hard time with the numbers. Give me a second. Once it gets past three. Second. Alright. You're gonna call Moran. All in favor? Aye. Yes. All opposed?
Motion passed. It's five to zero. Alright. Next step, resolution 1495 for Home Depot contract. Yes. So this is the final one. And this has really come into play because Home Depot is now local, and their services are are really good to reach some other matters. And so we are looking to get them on a contract again for the $350,000 amount. I would say about 10 or 15% of the items being used for parallel track work will come from Home Depot. And so Home Depot won't be our largest, vendor.
They're not currently because they just got here. But they will, easily be our largest vendor throughout this process and most likely going forward. And so we're looking to get them under a contract for now, not 10 c three for 2000. Again, they are our Omni Partner, and so that is how this item is secured. Do you have any questions? Alright. Looking for approval of resolution fourteen ninety five, authorizing the execution of a contract for maintenance repairs and operations, supplies, and related services between CRHA and Home Depot USA. Passes back to you. Alright. Next up, resolution fourteen ninety six regarding the payment standard.
Yes. So each year, the housing authority must pass a payment standard utility allowance. And HUD provides guidance of what they believe a fair market rent should be in the area. And housing authorities are able to set their payment standard, 90% up to a 110% of that fair market rate. Since about 2021, CRJ has set that amount at a 110%. Last year, we did that even though, we were headed towards a shortfall because of
the market. And we had some flexibility with the federal government stepping up to cover the difference. We are no longer sure that will be the case. And so we have requested that our fair market rents stay the same, which is still above the fair market. We're requesting our payments and it stays the same as it was last year, which is still above the fair market rents. They're not at a 110. They're, like, at a 108%. But CRJ does not have the funding capacity to increase the payment standard.
We are just outside of a shortfall for this year. And so we are not estimating that we will be able to increase those payment standard rents for next year because we do anticipate bringing on additional units at South 1st Street and 6th Street that were required project based vouchers due to the redevelopment. And so we are holding steady or requesting you guys to hold steady on the payment standard, which is still above the fair market rents that had published in October. And so the rents would stay the same. Same. One bedroom at 0, studio at 1544, and this is including utilities.
A one bedroom at 1635, a two bedroom at 1,901, a three bedroom at 2,003 and $70, a four bedroom at 2,008 and $83, and a five bedroom at 3,003 and $15. Like I said, these do include the utility cost. We have a way of calculating the income and, the utility, what it should cost us, which is the next item you're gonna vote on. That's how we figure out what the total rent is and whether it's reasonable. And so, that is the all in number.
It is not the number that we tell folks because oftentimes, it's not the number because usually, are not covered by most, settlement year. Questions about the payment schedule? So I know we're not increasing them this year. And the fair market rents like AMI are calculated in part with the consumer price
index or inflation. So during the pandemic when inflation was very high, both AMI and fair market rents exploded, and they've kinda stabilized a little bit, but we're still kinda dealing with the wreckage of that impact. So we're not changing them, but, obviously, they're very high relative to 2019, 2018. Could you just walk through kind of the on the ground practical implication for when these fair market rents go up? What what is the impact of that, and what does that look like? So a lot of landlords of that? What does that look like? So a lot of landlords wait for us to publish this list because we'll get
a mass request for rent increases to maximize, which only makes our shortfall issue even worse because you're compounding, let's say, 700 vouchers. They all wanna increase $100 a month. You did have a magnitude issue of millions of dollars at the end of the year that were in the shortfall, which is what happened a couple of year, which would happen last year. And so that is what we are seeing. Other housing authorities are looking at that, and they're making some changes.
So, like, Virginia Housing is working on, some regulations now that when your project basing vouchers at tax credit sites that they have a max cap you could charge, for those project based voucher units. I will say that can negatively impact whether that property is sustainable because that developer is probably depending on how your rents from those units to subsidize the non voucher rents, which is exactly what we do. Because we have public housing units that pay $35 to $200 on average or $3
on average, to compare to a voucher unit that if your three bedroom is paying $2,218 for that unit. And so the big difference, but also that could drastically hurt, a program like our size of 700 when you have a large number of your landlords requesting increases. Like, I think the worst one we've seen so far is at, once they riled no. Mallside Mallside a couple years ago or last year when they were looking to sell,
they sent request to increase the rent by $305,100 dollars per unit. They have over a 100 units, that are receiving vouchers. And so that's a a huge, huge issue. And so, there's not much we can do. In fact, as long as the unit qualifies as, being rent reasonable, we can't deny it. And so any landlord that puts in a request will process it, and we have to process it. And could you just walk through when these fair market rents increase, how that's creating,
budget shortfalls for CRHA? Yeah. So our capacity, so our budget capacity is calculated by, each each year on how much they're gonna give us to run the voucher program. They estimate mean, when I got here or even if you just look at last
year's number. Last year, our per unit cost for a voucher, was, low 800. I mean, high 800. So it's $880. We're now paying over a thousand dollars per unit. And so that's, just without adding folks, you've already increased your per unit cost to $200 per month on the 700 families that you serve. So that's why it's almost been impossible for us to pull folks off the wait list for last year, because the money that we're that we are getting, even if
there's an increase, is all going to serve the families we're already serving, and that's not even enough. Because this year, we were in a shortfall. Last year, we were in a shortfall of almost I wanna say it was a million dollars last year, 1,200,000.0. It was estimated to be, like, 2,000,000. So we got it down a little bit, but this year, we ran back into a shortfall. It was good that it was, like, the last month of the year. But it a shortfall in this, time may not always be covered by the federal government. And so we just have to be super mindful of that because at the end
of the day, CRHA is responsible for the rates with all these families. Yeah. We can set you know, a lot of it's out of our control in terms of where HUD sets the FMR. We can set it between 90 and a 110%. You said we're about a 108% right now without increasing it. When we set it to a 110%, is my memory correct that the goal there is to increase the amount of units that someone with a voucher could practically be able to level.
Yeah. So you almost have to set above a 100, because HUD's fair market rents, number one, the way the formula calculates, it's looking at years prior. And so, you have to set it at a higher rate in order to get folks housed. What that number is is we are looking at trying to keep the same just because we know that's what we can afford because they're looking at our payment standard and adjusting from there. But I'll go over, like, some of the numbers. So an efficiency went from in 2025, the max was 14 o four.
That's what HUD estimated the fair market rent should be in this area. And this year went up to $1,421. The one bear burn went from $14.87 to 1,600. I will say that is the largest increase. The two bear burn went from $17.29 to $18.24. Three bedroom went from $21.55 to $22.18. Four bedroom went from $26.21 to $27.31. Then we calculate the five bedroom because HUD only goes up to four.
So there weren't really large drastic increases. But once you add another 10% to those, is where you get to, a $200 change. And that's what we have to have to avoid because we just can't afford it. Thank you. Yeah. No. Obviously, I think it's just, you know, very important for the community to understand how these things change and what's driving it and the practical impact of it and, you know, indirectly related. You know, when you have HUD setting the fair market rent for a zero bedroom
efficiency at a little over $1,400 a month, I think it's important context when we're thinking about that's that's the fortieth percentile of rents in our market. So when we're talking about the ability for market rate construction, which is a part of the solution. But we're talking about what it can and cannot do. If anyone thinks $1,400 a month for a zero bedroom efficiency is too much, their
housing options are not gonna increase with market rate development. I mean, that that level for everyone who cannot afford $1,400 a month for an efficiency, you're really talking about the need for subsidized publicly funded housing or vouchers being needed, then that's just kind of the the situation. Do you want to try to get that in payments? Gross. Sorry. It's That's not true. Other comments, questions on the payment standard other than general discomfort?
Okay. We are seeking, approval of resolution fourteen ninety six, resolution approving the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority's twenty five to twenty twenty six voucher payment standard schedule. Can I get a motion? Motion. Second? I'll second the motion. Thank you. All in favor? Yes. Yes. All opposed? Motion passes 52. Alright, guys. Got another one. This is 1497 on the utilities allowance. Yes.
So, this is another, yearly requirement. We are required to establish utility utility allowances for the ACV program. We currently, utilize the utility allowance of Virginia Housing. They do it every year, and so Virginia Housing has a contract to, manage the state voucher program. So they have, vouchers in the city of Charlottesville, and so we tapped them to utilize their utility allowance. You can see their utility allowance schedules, following the resolutions. They have, they look at it as as exposed walls.
So this will be like an apartment building. One exposed wall, two exposed walls. Could also be an apartment building, but it could be a townhouse. Three exposed walls kind of sort of the same thing. Four exposed walls, a single family home. And so, we will look at the size of the apartment as well as the, items checked off on the request for tenancy approval by the landlord, to calculate what the utility loan should be for that apartment or home. I will say this is an average, and it's looking at the state average.
And so, there are some things that are not included in utility loans. So, like, TVs, computers, all those things that we know households have and utilize, they're not included in calculating when it comes to, like, electricity. And so, we do ask, participants, like, if they have issues or if the utility allowance is not covering their needs, like, what's happening, their reality. We ask them to come to us to provide three bills, and then we can recalculate the utility allowance based upon that.
And so we do have an option, or we do have a way to to fix any, issues when it comes to, utility allowance being cut short. But this is is the utility allowance we are, proposing to utilize going forward for this upcoming year. Has this really so on the bottom, it says it was revised in December 2020. Has it not changed since then? No. That's just the the form itself. The form, has that date, but this is actually Oh, they update on the schedule. Okay. This was updated, I wanna say July 1. I saw it says July 1 on the effective date.
I just noticed at the bottom. That's why I asked. Yeah. This is, this form has the the date of 12/20, but they revised their, utility allowance around July 1 every year. Gotcha. Alright. Any questions on the or comments on the utilities? Alright. Seeking a motion for resolution fourteen ninety seven, adopting the revised CRHA utility allowances for section eight housing choice voucher program, fiscal year 2025 to 2026. Can I get a motion?
Motion. Can I get a second? Second. All in favor? Yes. All opposed? Alright. Next up, parking policy. Thank you. So this is gonna be a no vote tonight. We are just putting this in front of you guys, to have a discussion. So we started this discussion in hopes of passing this in 2024. And then I think the meeting it was supposed to be passed, it was actually be pulled. So we pulled and had some additional discussions with partners. We are not gonna always agree on the policies and verbiage in the policy.
CRHA in some in some cases, in some areas, we are looking to reduce liability. And so, inoperable inoperable vehicles on the site is a liability. Insurance companies look at that. Insurance companies look at that. And so that is one reason we have that in there. And it caused there's other issues that arise on the site when you have a number of inoperable vehicles on the site. And so that is the reason it's in here. It was already in the parking policy. This is not new. This is not a new addition to the parking policy.
The parking policy is in here because we're looking to clean up some language. So there, we had a contractor, Asus Towing that was previously doing the towing services, at the public housing sites. We are now using small town towing. We had quite a few complaints and issues with the previous towing company. And so, we look to change, vendors, to improve service. And so that was one of the reasons we added or are modifying this policy
as well as making sure that the fees, that the company is charging is reflected in the policy. And so you will see that on the back back of the policy, the inbound fee drop fee and the twenty four hour storage fee. The comments that were provided tonight are new comments. We have had meetings with FAR and Leeway to discuss this parking policy, number of times over the last year. And so, I need time to look at these proposed changes, for me to give
actual comment on. But some of them may be almost impossible, such as, like, moving a 88 parking spot. There's certain parkings for it to be eighty eighty eight parking spot. You have to have enough room around the parking. The actual parking spot for, sometimes a ramp and a vehicle or, like, a van to let off someone that's in a wheelchair. And the ramp itself, I will need to look into that to figure out, where that issue is and to what can be done about that. But the parking policy, does not have many changes.
The a lot of the comments that were made are not about changes, in the park the current parking policy. It's about changes that were already in place, not anything new that we're adding. And so this is an opportunity for you all to give us some guidance, on what direction you all would like us to to take this? Well, sometimes ADA requirements, kind of the lay of the land of what the structure is there, really just lays out what you can and cannot do.
So, like, spot details about where it is possible or not is kind of the because loading zones and then distance back, it can be really unwieldy to get anything added. But it's worthwhile. I would like to hear, you know, that staff's looking at, hey, are we having problem spots? If you have old housing stock that's never developed to I mean, a then what, it was '90. '80. Yeah. I was about to '90. Yeah. Yeah. Not to date myself. So it's like you have a lot of old stock that was never implemented Yeah.
In that type of way. I I've experienced that down in Scottsville pretty adamantly. Mhmm. The one thing I I understand liability issues. Some of and it might be worth discussion is, like, what's more like a policy rather than, hey. I have a a vehicle that's inoperable, of course, like an insurance company who's gonna look at that, and then it increases our rates, and then how how exposed we are as a whole entity. But, like, you know, aim total, but I've had old car. The inspection goes long. And then I got that little sticker, and it takes me a while to get
it in. So some flexibility with that, I think, is pretty reasonable. But without going through a list of what was shared with us, it it kinda Yeah. The devil's into that. It might be worthwhile. I mean, I'll just speak for myself. I can speak for the rest of the board, but staff to to discuss that because there are details. Like ADA get becomes an absolute really, lengthy process to shift, parking in that. I know that. So, there's some of that work that seems very administrative. Yeah. And I will add, yes.
We do have this policy, around, decals, inspection stickers, in our own vehicles. CRHA is flexible, so all we ask for is communication. Even if a vehicle is at risk of being towed, as long as there's some communication, hey. I'm waiting on this or I need this. Not only will CRHA assist with making sure the vehicle is isn't getting towed, but there's also resident service coordinators. Yes. There are some program requirements in order to tap into those services to get your
vehicle repaired. But CRHA has, vendors that you have worked with that will assist with that. There's a work requirement. I think you have to work a minimum of thirty hours a week. But we do have organizations that we have tapped in the past to assist. To me, it kinda sounds like, like that, yeah, that communication seems key, but kind of going both ways based on what Emily was saying. Right? Like, if it's at risk of being towed, just making sure that there's multiple hits at communication. I mean, I don't again, I'm I'm so new to all of this.
I don't I don't know how any of this works, but, sounds like yeah. If you're looking for communication, maybe that's what also residents are looking for too. Yeah. So there are notices that go out when a vehicle is at risk of Like, on the door and on the car, like she was saying? And go on the vehicle. Okay. But so could I mean, like, could we add one to the door? Is that I feel like that seems reasonable. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's something I I can be at. Yeah. Because if your vehicle is inoperable, you might not look at it all the time. You know? So I try not to look at it.
I know. Me too. I feel like it's a little scary. I'm thinking about my daughter's car that was just pulled into my driveway. Oh. Everything expired on it. Now it runs. Yeah. But if anybody looks close Yeah. Exactly. Somebody's gonna be at my house and I can know. Mhmm. Another question, we we got a public comment is, are there zoned areas? So if you do have a pass Yeah. Can and you live in, you know, South 1st Street, could you park in West Haven, like that kind of thing? Yeah. So we have one parking pass in any Woodfin Park.
The towing company would not know if you did not live in West Haven if you had a parking pass from SeniorHA. There's no way to tell. And so, yes, that that would be possible. And, obviously, it sounds like, you know, someone is parked there without any pass, you know, they can be towed. Someone does have a pass and you have the inoperable vehicle expired tags, you know, then you have a separate issue. For, you know, people who have a valid parking pass and the vehicle is either
inoperable or there's expired decals or inspections, it would seem like the issue is that the towing company during non business hours at their own discretion can tow. During business hours, CRHA could have that flexibility about, you know, okay. This is, you know, six months expired or something. Like, do we need to tow over that inspection? But the towing company may just be looking for Yeah. Are they just driving? I guess that's a good I mean That was probably the I know. Like, are they just trolling neighborhoods looking for cars to tell?
I mean, I get because they make money. Yeah. So it's at their discretion. They they do patrol the parking lots, and they have certain hours that they are allowed to patrol the parking lot. So it's not during the daytime. That's only a request from CRHA, staff member of CRHA. But after hours, they are allowed to patrol the parking lots. Wait. So so they're they're only allowed to patrol if you all request it, or they are also allowed to patrol anytime they want, like, in the in the whatever the window is? So during the daytime, they can only patrol Okay.
With the CIRHA phone call. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. If we have an issue, we would like you to look at this. Right. After hours, they're allowed to patrol the parking lots. Gotcha. So I think that's probably where there's more more sensitivity lies. Yeah. Right. And that's 10PM to 6AM every day, except for holidays. That's nice. Yeah. I mean, it seemed like that was that's where the issue I mean, obviously, towing sucks, but it's like a thing that if you own as an agency, it's going to be needed, but it sucks. And that cost so as people mentioned, it can damage someone's vehicle.
The cost is also not, just, completely incidental. You know, it could add up to hundreds of dollars. I think, you know, someone is there with no, you know, parking pass at all. Obviously, understand, you know, why they would be towed in those spaces. I guess the biggest questions for me are around if someone has a valid parking pass, is a resident, but the vehicle is inoperable. Or even just has expired For tag and then just take it? From 10PM to six 6AM, what that looks like for the towing company.
And then specifically on inspections, I have a general beef with inspections. A bit me too. Same. Most but in reality, most states don't have them. Yeah. There's studies that show there's no impact on safety. Yeah. Ralph Northam, when he was government governor almost eliminated them, but it didn't happen because the industry stopped him from doing it. I mean, they really just are attacks on people that accomplish nothing. Yeah. So really though, I mean, it's an industry strike. Yeah. It's like yeah. It's a product. Carve out. In I I I don't I don't understand why we would be saying if someone's
inspection is expired that they could be towed because there's no indication that that provides you you no information about the operability of the vehicle, or anything. I mean, it may be it may be they went to get maybe they don't wanna get the inspection and it's out of date. Maybe they went to the inspection, the vehicle's perfectly fine, but they're like, you need this $4,000 repair. And so they're like, well, I'm not gonna do that. I don't know. That that may be why there's an expired a car with an expired inspection sitting in my driveway that my doctor bought. Yeah. But someone can pay for that.
But the car's fine. Like Yeah. She's in you know? So yeah. Anyway, we don't need to. So we currently do have that, CRJ. We're providing written notice, at least seventy two hours in advance of of towing any and outro vehicle, that is probably displaying resident parking permits or a guest pass. And so that's the towing company or CRHA that either party, is required to do that. So the towing company will leave a sticker on the window. They are they're responsible for notifying CRHA.
The next day, CRG then sends out the notices, for those households. So but by then, it could be, like, twenty four hours. Right? So, I mean, maybe if we could expand that timeline. Twenty four hours? I mean, if they tell you if they put the thing on and then they tell you, like if they put the thing on 10PM, they tell you at, you know, 2PM the next day, then you have to get it out. We get the notification, like, when they're putting it on. So they send us a photo Okay. A notification that, hey. This permit was just added to this vehicle. Yeah. The location of that But so forty eight hours is is not that long.
Right? Like, that's pretty short. Well If you if they if they get it the next day. Right? Mhmm. That's forty eight hours functionally. Okay. Yes. Any tenant is allowed to request an extension. So seventy two hours is what we have in the policy. Tenants said that is not not conducive. Yes. I mean, it's not may maybe we can just make it longer. Right? Like, what what if we made it a week? Well, I think there's that, but I think maybe maybe the point is made, but, maybe you just wrote it down. Don't tell why for an expired inspection. I don't know. Yeah. I wanna make sure we close that one up. Is that I mean, is that a liability issue?
I don't know why it would matter. Delphine, She's she's still on the screen. But Let's see. I mean Hey, Delphine. Can you assist with that question? We can we can If not, we can We can have a I'm I'm here. Sorry. I had trouble getting off of mute. No worries. You're you're talking about the expiration of the inspection?
Mhmm. Right. We're just wondering, like, is is that a liability issue? And, like, do we have some kind of obligation that we need to tow for expired inspection or expired tags? Like, what No. You don't have an obligation to tow for that. It's just part of your policy. There's no legal obligation for a housing authority to tow a vehicle that has, an expired inspection sticker. Okay. So then I think we should know. I mean, because it is an entirely separate question from the inoperable vehicle that's been there for And if it's not a liability issue, then Then like, I don't know
why we so in and of itself, it's not. Now if the vehicle hasn't has been parked illegally and has not moved in a number of months and is not in I think that's a different order, then that's a different issue. But the inspection sticker being expired in and of itself is not a liability for the housing authority that I'm aware of. I don't think it that actually tells us anything about the operability of the car. No. Okay. What about, is registration the the same or is that different? Well, the registration raises a different issue because you have residents have an legal obligation
to register their vehicle in the Commonwealth of Virginia if they they are truly residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia, which they should be if they're residents of assisted housing operated by CRHA. So that's kind of a different issue because it goes to the question whether a resident basically should be eligible to be a resident or not, or is it really their vehicle? Or have they taken the steps that they have to take legally in order to maintain their vehicle in the commonwealth of Virginia?
Now if they're just moving from another state and they haven't had a chance to take care of that yet. They have some time to get that done. It's not something that's immediate, but it still is something that needs to be done in order for the vehicle to properly be associated with an individual? I'm actually thinking I'm I'm probably taking myself way down a path. So, like, the car was registered, but somebody got behind on their property taxes. And now they have an expired license plate tag, and they have a hold of
the DMV until they pay their taxes. And now it looks like maybe I'm I'm probably taking this too far. But Well, Well, we're probably getting into the weeds. But the Yes. The license plate tax in terms of paying the registration fee would be a separate issue. That in and of itself is illegal, whereas the state inspection sticker is another matter. Even police officers will not pull you over merely for an expired state inspection sticker. They will add it as an additional offense if they're pulling you over for something
else. Yep. But, now the tags are a different issue. And having the proper registration date, paying the fees to the DMV, along with having license plates that are from the Commonwealth of Virginia, that raises other issues with regards to legality of the vehicle and whether or not the vehicle is property properly registered with a resident who has a lease with one of our units. So that's that's that's a larger lead legal issue than the state inspection sticker.
Okay. Well, I'll take the win that you gave me on the inspection sticker. Thank you, miss Connors. That's helpful context though. So I think, you know, any notice could have some details about context. I mean, it's it's not out of the realm that the back of something says details from, like, twenty to seventy two to five days over to it can do x or y. Yep. And that's, you know, something that isn't could be written out in a policy or down the road somehow implemented into practices that the housing authority staff does.
I do agree with this inspection decals, and then you could, for lack of better term, wordsmith a little bit about including or I don't know, with axles, trucks, ex I mean, you can get a box truck that's two axles, like but you you know, excluding that, there's there's wordsmithing that could be done. And then part of me me is, like, maybe, knock on wood, but it's, like, if if you do that, I do understand staff wanting to get forward with a policy. So maybe there's a revision where, we could soon vote on that also.
I would love to We hear it. Revise and vote for the years now. We can. I asked maybe it's a dumb question. So there's the impound fee and the drop drop fee? Is that, like, I drop your car off my tow truck? Yes. So if they have your vehicle hooked up, they can actually take your vehicle. Once they have your vehicle hooked up, they actually have possession of it. There's a drop fee that the city which also passed as the max in So if you ran outside and caught them, you would get a pay $50 and they
would put it back down versus if they take it away, you have to pay the $1.50, or do you have to pay 200? You pay the $1.50. Okay. And if the vehicle says they're over twenty four hours, then there's $1.50 plus the $85 a day. Yikes. Well, And those are rates that are set by the state. Oh, okay. Interesting. I mean, yeah, towing rates are pretty shitty. Pretty yeah. They are. They're pretty consistent. Since everyone likes to hear about my kids, one just had his towed off Main
Street, and that's what he had to pay to get it. He didn't know he couldn't park there. Don't park there. You got a lot of park fun. I have a lot of places. The private lot? Oh, no. He was, like, parked on the street across from, whatchamacallit, Maggie Galley. And then he was very flexed as to where his car might be Yeah. When he came out. But, anyway, that so that does seem to be the the going rate. Okay. I'm just I'm rambling. Any, other questions or feedback for, on the parking?
No. I don't have anymore. Alright. Thank you, everybody. Good discussion. Housing director update. John Sales. Yep. Not too much of a change here. We currently have for the month, $76,000 owed. That's zero to thirty days. Those are folks that owe for the month. Of that 55,000 of it is in public housing. For the total unpaid, it's a $160,000 in public housing. About 211,000 across all CRJ properties. HUD's estimate for gold target for tenant accounts receivable is one and a half percent
or less. We are at 10%. So we are far over the goal. We do have 28, UDs that are currently being processed, and 28 pending first return, for non payment of rent. I don't think there's any other changes. Staff did go to, a couple of trainings this month. The HAMA conference, which is for property managers in this, Mid Atlantic region. It was hosted in Richmond in the governance conference, which, was hosted in Roanoke last
week. We had staff members at both of those. We are implementing a new, signing, method across the properties and, the offices, which will, allow us to track visitation and what we're seeing the most visitation, in those offices. And I don't think I have anything else. We did have a total of 1,300, visitors between their property manager's office last month alone. And, the current eviction, pending right off is about 70 $69,000.
Those are from cases of individuals that have already been evicted, and we have been awarded possession. Do you have any questions? I know Oh, no. Sorry. Go ahead. I know we've had multiple work sessions on the topic, but just because it came up in public comment tonight. With CRHA's existing eviction diversion programs, could you just go over what the some of what the current protocols are if someone enters into a payment plan with their minimum monthly payment would be? Because I know not to say that there's not always room for improvement.
We've got multiple work sessions, and there is existing diversion program and policies where CRHA is not just immediately moving to eviction as the first step for an individual, if that if the individual is not something that's a threat to safety, you know, or just payment issues? Yeah. So we created the eviction diversion program, I wanna say, earlier this year is when we wrote it out. Mhmm. And it, it allows it to be a resident service coordinator on each site that
has a case load depending on the number of individuals that are at risk for eviction, not just for nonpayment rent. It could be for failing to recertify, failing to report income, incidents on the site. Anything that you're you could get a twenty one thirty four, you can be referred to in that program. If it's a, immediate termination, then you will not be referred in that program. Once the individual is referred, the resident service coordinator reaches out to them to engage with them to figure out, like, what their not only immediate needs are, but what
are some of the barriers that they're running into, to address that. So it could be child care, it could be car repairs, it could be, hey, I just need a better job. And so we have individuals that can work with that training programs that they may be interested in. And depending on what those needs are, the immediate needs are addressed, either do, repayment agreements. So we don't have a minimum repayment agreement. It all it's all based on what the family can afford. And so we have been really lenient with the repayment agreements.
We do not engage with repayment agreements after we've already gone in gone to court and we're in court. We constantly send out flyers asking for folks to engage with us on repayment agreements before we get to that step, before we file anything with the court. If folks are unwilling to engage with us, that's when we have no other choice. Because we're calling really, putting flyers on doors, listing out thirty day notice, five day notices, ten day notices, thirty day notices. And a lot of times, it's the same families.
And so the same families get referred almost every month in the eviction diversion program. And even after they've been assisted and moved out or maybe they are in good standing at that month, the next month, they've been on that list, and they're back in the eviction diversion program. We are looking for ways to improve that. In the past, we have access city, to write a check to cover all all tenant account receivables. That's what happened in 2020. That's what happened in 2021, and I believe it did in 2022.
That does not address the issue because we're carrying a large balance all year long from tenant accounts receivable. Plus, now, is looking at that assistance as income. And so now it's compounding. So the assistance that, organization gives is not considered income. And so, if they're kind of constantly getting that assistance and we can see it on the ledger, then that creates another issue. And so we created this program to try to find folks in organizations that could work with us to address, like, the real issues.
So we have a lot of folks who are getting, daily pay. And so that's the pay as you earn. You're getting paid directly. So the company that will give you a portion of your check before you see your check. But that means you have already hedged your future earnings, but your future earnings are needed for your future costs. And so you have a lot of families who aren't seeing any of the rent money that they should be receiving because they're getting daily pays, and the daily pay
has taken a large portion of their money before they ever see it. And so it's not even just a resident problem. I mean, I have employees that that do it, and it's an educational thing. The only pay is the new payday loans. And so we are adjusting to that. I will say, the issue is not small. We have over about half of our families that are at risk for eviction. I've been saying that number about half of our families for, like, the last two years now because constantly we have about the same amount that don't pay the rent.
We are estimated to receive or or budget to receive about a million dollars in rent, from tenants. Well, already with still four months ago, we're already at a $160,000. So we're already over 10% of what we plan on budgeting and charging for the year. So we set up December, January, February, and March to go, and we're already at a 160,000. We're averaging 50 gonna 380 no.
280,000. And, actually, it typically gets worse as we go through the year because you're getting around holiday season. So folks typically pay even less. And so, that number is a real number and it cost jobs. Like, not getting rent collected will be a job at some point. And that's kinda sort of where we are. In, not that, you know, not to say that the system is necessarily perfect, but,
you know, as things exist right now, it's correct that if someone is behind on rent, it's required that CRHA reach out to them a certain number of times before eviction proceedings could even begin, including via certified mail, multiple methods of attempted communication. And, once those have run out, an individual formed eviction proceedings could begin. Still at that point, they could enter into a payment plan.
Correct? Correct. In that payment plan, depending on their situation, could be, you know, $20 a month. But eviction only begins after a minimum number of contacts to get on that payment plan, not requiring that it's all paid upfront and no response has been had, over, multiple communications again, including by certified mail, multiple communication methods. Which is not to say that the system is perfect. I think probably the big failure point is just that there's not enough staff capacity for those on-site resident services employees to handle that full caseload as intensively for each
individual as would be ideal, along with all the other work they have to do. But the system is not, you know, someone behind CRHA's entering into eviction without offering a payment plan. And then also, individuals may have already tapped out on these resources, but there there is an attempt to connect them with resources for, you know, the pathways fund, other things that could pay for emergency one time expenses. Again, for some individuals that may have tapped out on that source of money, I fully understand that that is not, you know, this perfect answer.
But anyway I think just because it came up in context, on public comment, I think the the context is always important. Yeah. I will say we are running into the, the lifetime limits a lot, where a lot of folks are tapped out because it's not just looking at housing. It's looking at whether you got vehicle assistance or childcare assistance. So it's looking at everything that you've received. A lot of organizations and folks are are getting tapped out. And then you have some groups that are combining. They're, like, combining their their sources.
So like a a few churches that used to give individually are now in a consortium. And so now you have even less folks to tap into this. Now you're tapping that one is tracking for all the churches. And so, it it's a lot more difficult now than it was last year, two years ago, three years ago. And so, it is a challenge. I I have a couple questions, I think, mostly because I'm relatively new. But, one is that, like okay. So we've been talking about the nonprofit. Is that something that would be able to help with this down the line potentially?
Yes. I will say, we've done this type of work without having a nonprofit. So, like, CAZF covered rents, in 2020. Like I said, the city, provided assistance in 2021 and I believe 2022 to in the tune of 230 and $240,000 Mhmm. To wipe all public housing rent balances. So yes. But I will say a lot of folks, are not going in this direction of providing assistance. They're looking at other means, but we have tapped in the past, some foundations.
And, again, forgive my ignorance, but, like, what was the decision making factor in terms of saying that once court proceedings had begun, you could not enter a repayment agreement? Because we've already obligated financial like, we've paid lawyers. We're already in. We've contacted the family, multiple attempts. We're now six to eight months in in most cases, and the balance is only creating continue to build. HUD looks at us as having, a goal, one and a half percent.
You're never gonna get to that goal if you constantly go eight, ten months, twelve months, six months. The court process already takes about two months to go through. And so that that is the reason. I mean, it's trying to reduce that that big liability that you have that I mean, $202,100,000 dollars is, like, three jobs, three positions. Right. Okay. I just think I mean, obviously, given everything, it's, like, increasingly difficult. It seems like a I don't know. It seems like something to maybe think about, given given how vulnerable our tenant populations
are and how how tough everything is right now financially for for everyone. But, yeah, again, I wasn't here, in terms of when this when this was being envisioned. And then in like, how many families like, you said it started this year, 2025, the Envision of Bridgerton program. So, like, how how are we measuring its success? We're looking at the number of families we serve and how many we can prevent from being evicted. Is that over, like I mean, because if you said some families are running into
their own limits Mhmm. Does that mean they're ultimately gonna be evicted? So we can't count them as a success that kind of. Right? Some families are running into the limits, but doesn't mean they're they're being evicted. Like, there's payment plans that folks can enter into, and they're not requiring I mean, we're not requiring a large repayment. Yeah. No. I just was trying to under like, what does that mean to run to your limit? The, like, the well, running into your limits is really around the programs that we tap into Correct. To get help with their rent. And so those programs impose limits on, like, the number of times or the amount
of money you could get for rent or for rent and a car and childcare and Mhmm. Like Health care or whatever. The whole gamut of things. And so we we don't have a limit. They In that case, they have a limit. So we don't have, like, an internal limit for families on how much they can receive? No. No. Okay. I will say if they are consistently receiving it, it becomes income. Yeah. And so then we add it. Yeah. So, like, if a family we look back and they've consistently received rental assistance, then
that becomes income annual income that we calculate. And do they know that? Yes. They're we inform them when we do it. Okay. We And that's a HUD requirement. Yeah. I mean It is a HUD requirement. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so we have been informing residents. So we'll look at the ledger. I will not say I will say it has not been that many families. Okay. But we also haven't been fully enforcing it as much. Right. Because so many folks have been tapping into them. I mean, you would have, we got said about a 100 families additional that you have to do income changes on because they're constantly tapping these these sources.
I would I would just say, I mean, we we've discussed it at multiple work sessions, and it's a very important topic. I think it was always continue to come up. But, you know, the way I look at it is there's one big questions. You know, should CRHA evict, period? And if there is an agreement that CRHA, CRHA, you know, nobody would want to do that. But if there's an agreement that, unfortunately, that's a reality of running a housing agency is sometimes eviction is necessary as a a mechanism that exists.
There's agreement there, what's going on? And, you know, I don't wanna paint with a broad brush because everyone's story is different. But I think, you know, if someone has gone multiple months without paying rent and over a period of months, CRHA has reached out and said, hey. You know, if you can get on a payment plan, we won't move to eviction. We can target that payment plan at a low level based on what your ability to pay is. We're also able to try to work with you on is the barrier, needing to increase income in terms of, you know, dealing with the long term issue.
And if after months of that, there's just no response, I think the real need may be almost kind of like a social work level where there are people with addiction or mental illness or who are elderly and in a position where, you know, maybe someone is not telling them the full story about how finances are being taken care of and that a lot of that may be the stories and, you know, and and maybe the kind of that's the level where the most important intervention would be. Because again, I mean, I mean, you are talking about a landlord where you cannot
pay rent for months and is saying, we're still not gonna evict you if you enter a payment plan in weeks and months that level of contact is doing that. I mean, that again, it's it's not a perfect system, but it's not Yeah. I'm just trying to under I mean, I just wasn't here when he No. Yeah. I don't mean to so I'm just trying to understand. I'm not trying to be negative at all. But Yeah. No. I literally just I'm trying to understand. I think it's also worthwhile, like, sharing that strategic planning we did, like, a year and a half ago. Because we started talking about, like, principles we wanted here and included.
We started butting up against, like, those larger issues of, like, what are what what can we even do now or in, like, just near future? And then we start budding into, like, real, like, systemic issue like, societal issues would actually be, like, the right way. And, like, where do we sit as an entity there? But specifically know Kathleen had put together a whole presentation for us. First meeting. Oh, okay. Alright. So you have to three in the detail. I was gonna ask her to resend that.
Yeah. Okay. We could probably talk about eviction all night long. But any anything else we wanna touch on tonight? Okay. John, we have HCB program manager Yes. Update and finance update and executive director update. Is that all you have tonight? Is that the John show? It is the John show. Finance, I'll do that one. I don't have much of an update, so I'll probably go through these pretty quickly. K. So HCB, you don't have much change. I won't say the HCB program manager is on here, miss Hester.
Oh, sorry. But I'm I'm gonna give you update. I'm not gonna put her on the spot, but she is on here. We currently have 445 families in the regular ACV program for a housing assistance payment of around $485,000 a month. We have 1,706 families on that wait list. We have not pulled from the wait list since we, created the wait list about a year ago. There are nine units that are looking. A majority of those are portings from the county or surrounding areas.
The mainstream program currently has 37 participants for a voucher, a half payment of around $40,000. There are three, there are three, voucher spots that are still open. We are at a shortfall in that program, so we are unable to lease those additional vouchers. This what you're gonna see with the mainstream program is really what happens at every housing authority voucher program in the country where, HUD gives you a voucher capacity, that
they believe, is reasonable based upon the funding limit. And after a couple years, you quickly realize that is not reasonable and not realistic to actually feel all of the capacity that you have. And so we have a capacity of 40. We are unable to fill three, voucher spots. There are 48, project based voucher units at Crescent Halls for a monthly half of about $60,000. Thousand dollars. At South 1st Street, there are 22 for a month. We have about 30,000. And the last project based site is the crossings, which, there's 19 with a half
payment of around, 14,700. For total, we have a 635 families in the voucher program for a half payment of $690,000 dollars a month. In the SysRAP program, which is the city funded, housing assistance program, there is a, there's 69 participants in that program for a monthly payment of $74,491.
There were 57 inspections completed this month, 40 annuals, non initials. We completed, 51 annual research with two that are past due. And that is the the stats for the HCV program. You guys have any questions? No. Thank you. Thank you, John. Finance. So we don't have much in finance. We have our auditor that's gonna be here the, I believe it's the January. They'll be taking a look at our finance, and they'll be looking specifically at the public housing program this year. Last year, they did the HTV program, which cleared all findings.
So we had a clean audit last year. And so we're looking to continue with that streak this year, with the public housing program and finance. And so we're preparing for that. We are also we've had a number of, fraudulent checks intercepted, using the post office box on the downtown mall. And so we are we've enrolled in, procure pay daily procure pay, which, which allows us oh, not pay. I'm sorry. Which allows us to enter, all pending checks into, our banking system, and it will
automatically, flag any check that is not in that registrar. And so it is a way to eliminate, this check fraud issue, but but it's very timely, in landlords who, let's say their check gets missed or, because we're running into a scanner, the check gets missed or is, like, missed into missed, incident in the system. That landlord is unable to cash that check. And so we've run into that recently. And so we are this month sending out a flyer to get as many of
our landlords sign up for ACH payments as possible. And so we'll have a landlord checklist, for how a landlord would get signed up for the program so they could start receiving ACH rent payments. They could communicate with the HBCF through the portal. They can also look up their tenant information. So once a tenant gets, like a recertification or re exam recertification or interim, their rent could increase or decrease, the landlord will receive that information in that system going forward so then they could correct their ledger, in their billing based upon those changes.
And so we're rolling it out. We had we did a test this month and we had some landlords, CRHA signed up. And so we were able to to get in there and we're able to see all of our tenants. And so we're rolling it out to everyone this month, with the goal to try to have as many of our landlords signed up by March, March 1. So then we roll into April 1, our budget year with hopefully almost all of our landlords and ACH. Save some money on checks, save some money on stamps. We send a lot of mail out a month.
Welcome to 2025. We're trying. Do you guys have any questions on on that? Okay. The executive director update. Bridget and I met for our two two ones, and so we're gonna be doing some, some revisions to the agenda to include more department updates. And so we're going over what's happening, in each department, high level. They are board report, but this will give individuals opportunity to actually hear some of this information next questions. I will, point folks to the redevelopment report, in the, resident service report because it
talks a lot about some of the things that we are tackling, especially when it comes to eviction diversion, and then some of the challenges that we're facing on the sites and what we're doing and what programs are offered. The redevelopment report is really important because it's talking about what units we have coming online, where they are in schedule. They're really nice drone shots that are capturing, the this historic project, and the parts that's being made at South 1st Street. I will say they are moving extra fast.
Yeah. I was gonna say I was gonna give Brandon a shout out, but he left too. He he'd had enough at Mhmm. 08:00. I don't know why. But if y'all have time, it is I don't know how they're moving so fast, but you should go drive down South 1st Street because literally, there'll be, like, another building Every day. From one week to the next. It's crazy. So definitely, like, the and the drain shots are great, and Brandon uses them in the redevelopment meetings every month. But, like, they are moving crazy fast for all the, like I feel like if
we were, like, in slow mo for so long and now it just feels like lightning fast. So, yay, builders at South 1st Street. And they're doing a job digging that hole at 6th Street. They've been really been digging that hole for a while. They've been digging that hole. I mean, you can see the the the progress holes they've been digging out for. It's gonna be some amazing parking down in that hole that they've been digging, and then more barricades come up around. Yeah. Like, every time I get back, there's, like, another row of protection Well, I think they from the hole. A barricade cost, like, $50,000.
I think I just signed a change order for it today. So very expensive barricade. So, John? Yes? Are you comfortable with the timetable? I know there was a delay out of your hands at the front end with, I mean, they're moving fast. Oh, yes. Because South 1st Street is is going to be fine. 6th Street Street is where we're gonna have the delay. Okay. There are five months and a half fine, I would say. Okay. What else do we have? The government shutdown has ended, of course. We are still looking at, the impact, both short term and long term on that,
as well as the impact. I'm gonna say it again. The impact on, not collecting rent. I will say CRHA had some layoffs reduction in workforce, and this is part of the problem. And so, we laid off three employees, this month alone. And it's not because the government shutdown. Our money was not impacted with the government shutdown. What is impacted is folks not paying the rent. CRHA and HUD anticipates every year that CRHA is gonna collect this certain amount of
rent. HUD actually puts it on their formula to determine how much we get in operating money. So if HUD expects us to collect a million dollars and we collect $600,000. HUD isn't giving us a difference. That difference is is just loss. And so, we have to get to a point where we're actually collecting what we are building. The, reader of the report also looks at relocation, because we will be relocating, families parallel track. And so that has started. Miss Taylor has a very detailed report here that goes over, what we're doing with
LEAP, the local energy alliance program. There was a partnership, with LEAP and CRJ to look at all of our dogwood homes to make sure that, they're weatherized. They're receiving some energy efficiency, some gas improvements. And so we are, finishing up that work, currently, and we'll be looking to see what other projects we can undertake quickly in this upcoming year. She also identifies the homeownership program in HCV. We currently have, some individuals that are interested in that, and so they're going through
the process. They're at different levels. Some folks are just, became interested in it. We have folks that are actually in the first time home buyers class and the housing counseling classes. And so we do have a goal, to provide up to five housing choice vouchers, make them available for, homeownership. And so, we are working to to complete that goal. I mentioned previously in a, previous meeting language access and the changes that will occur there. We are still finalizing what other options are available to keep, those who finalizing what
other options are available to keep, those folks employed because we cannot use federal funds to cover them. And so, currently, they are redevelopments covering a lot of their cost, and it is non federal money. But that will not be the case forever, and so we'll have to look to figure out how we continue to provide that service. Because just like at West Haven alone, there are nine different spoken languages, and, it's roughly about 20 to 25% of our families, and it's our really large families.
And so we have to be able to engage with them, and so finding the best way to do that and also cover the cost of that service. This program, will be getting moved out of redevelopment to, resident services, but that's to ensure that, it is being fully utilized throughout the entire agency, including in the HV program and the public housing program. And also in that same report, you can find the minutes from, the redevelopment committee,
and notes from that meeting. And I think that is all I have. This is the last. Alright. Any, comments or questions for mister Sails? Alrighty. Open it up for public comments. Yes, ma'am. Again, my name is Terry Towery. I'm a resident at South 1st Street. I didn't know if I had to do that again. But, and I interned at far in Virginia organizing. So just listening to everything that was talked about. I'm glad that you all decided to, go revise or review the parking policy because
we just now, as an intern, if that far, reviewed it today. And I just wanted to say, a lot of the the policy reviews or notices, I just cannot imagine somebody who's being evicted being unwilling to enter a payment plan, especially if it's only 10 or $20 or whatever it may be very low. I I don't, and especially after multiple notices.
I just I just I don't I don't see how that is possible, but I I hear what you're saying. But, again, being a resident that has been affected by your contradictions. And, I just don't trust anything that has been said as far as you all reached out to residents multiple times, and you all made residents aware about the eviction diversion program.
I just went over my lease with the interns and noticed that in the lease, it stated, you know, you could possibly contribute, like, volunteer service or community hours to pay your rent or or something like that inside the lease. But I'm pretty sure not everybody knows that or have went over with you or sitting with their property managers at least a a signing. I feel like, you got a pretty good team that, helps you cover your tracks,
mister Sales. As far as you say one thing and do something else in in regards to my reasonable accommodation, I would also, again, like to ask you all, can you please request a written explanation from CRHA or mister Sales or miss Banks regarding the contradictory statements about available units. I don't wanna be forgotten about. I don't I'm helping the communities. I'm out here. I'm doing the footwork.
Again, my name is Terry Tyree. I don't wanna be forgotten about, and it's been a whole month. I have three kids, a four a four year old, a two year old, and a one year old. I can't carry them up and down three flights of steps every day. I now have a hamstring spray strain. Since the my appointment of finding out that I needed a ACL reconstruction, and I have a, torn lateral meniscus and a torn medial meniscus.
I really, really don't hear any concern for the residents in your voice or in any of the policies that you create or make. It's like you do the bare minimum to look good to the city, and you're asking them for money. But, ultimately, this is not helping us. You're not helping us. You don't care. I told you I had three kids. I told you my surgery surgery was on December 9. I tired that you and then you said that that, you cleared an audit last
year, which is pretty surprising because all the residents that, I mean, I've been living I lived in West Haven. I lived in Mickey Drive, and I lived at South 1st Street now. There's rumors about embezzlement. Every month, somebody's money order or or or or check that they pay rent goes missing. And I don't know how much of this information really reaches y'all. I don't know how much y'all really know. And and it I have never I really hate that this is the encounter we have to have because when I was so excited.
I have the recording. I was so excited, wasn't I, on November 6, mister Sales? So excited when you said, yeah. All all of them take HTV vouchers. Oh, what would you been rolling? A treasury? Yeah. Which one? What are you looking for? A two or three. Do you have anything in the range of $18.45? And you and you and you pause for a minute and thirty seconds, which made me either think you were searching in your notes or the computer to see what was available or whatever. But, ultimately, double check the facts.
Double check that he's saying, oh, yes. We've reached out to the residents multiple times. Get the proof. Get the notices. Make sure. Because at this point I mean, even just now, you all asked him, does the residents know? I I don't know if it was about the eviction version or or or or something in the parking thing, but me and another resident here said no. And he said yes. Are you a resident? How do you know they know? Nobody receives responses from the emails.
I do, which is pretty surprising. I appreciate it. Probably won't anymore after today. But, nobody receives responses. Has met you. You're not doing the footwork. Far is. We are. You're not doing anything to make sure the residents are taken care of until you're put on the spot light. I'm hoping within a week now, I get moved. It's not fair. And with all these changes and and money and approvals that you're getting, I don't
know how you're doing it. You like I said, I don't don't know how long you even been in the position that you're in. And I do not mean to be disrespectful because I'm hoping to be on the board or or or mayor one day. So watch it now because I care about my residents. I care about my community. I care about my people. You've Do we have any other public comments?
Yes. Hi. And I'm gonna be real quick. This is real fast. I just want y'all to know that, no, for real. I just really want y'all to know that the last time I was here, when I was, like, saying about my barman and stuff, I just want y'all to know, I never got a response. Like, when I reached out and asked why or whatever, it was like I said what I said. It left me there. I still, till today have not gotten a response from you, missus Toronto Max. Still, just so you know. No. Nothing, like, at all. I wanted to know why did I have to stay barred. I wanted to know what why was I barred because I wasn't fighting.
My barred paper said I was fighting, and a physical fighting is physically putting your hands on someone. None of that happened. So when I reached out to ask why or, you know, any further questions, I was ignored. So I just wanted to tell y'all that too. That's all. Miss Horik has her hand up. Okay. Thank thanks, Kathleen. This is Victoria Horrific again from the Legal Aid Justice Center, and I know it's late, so I won't keep everyone. But I will say, I was the one who brought up the eviction rate. And I would be happy to provide the board with some of the data that we saw looking at the court records and not speaking about the low dollar eviction
amounts just from anecdotal evidence of folks coming into my office, but these are, like, the amounts that are shown in the in the court records and the court filings. I also wanted to address one issue, that I think miss Carmes were brought up about how it wouldn't be fair not to evict families who have lower rent amounts when when, like, families with higher rent amounts are being evicted. That's why they're I think it's CRAJ's policy that after, like, a few months, of not paying, people face eviction rather than, like, having a dollar amount cut off.
And I would just say that, those families that only pay, you know, a $102,135 dollars in rent, they truly have nowhere to go. So I I think from our perspective, it's like those are the families that CRHA most should should be trying to work with, because there really isn't any other housing for those families. And then the sorry about the background noise. The third thing I would just say is, we would urge CRHA to inform residents about how to get hardship exemptions and have their rent recalculated just to make sure
that those rent amounts are accurate and that that's not the reason they can't pay your rent. And in fact, there's a new state law requiring those kinds of notices. So we would hope CRHA sends those out to educate residents further. Hi. Emily Dreyfus. Sorry. You didn't call me. Is that okay that I start? Yes. Go forward, Emily. Sorry. I was make I was making a note when it's the end of the day. Sorry. I wasn't ignoring you. Yeah. I appreciate everyone's comments tonight and the fact that you all are spending time and having discussions about these difficult issues. I think that there's some lost in translation things happening where a policy might not
be clear to the staff. And so what property managers are implementing is not what is maybe being the intent of the of policy. So the idea of flexibility and meeting people where they are is not always happening. And the issue of no flexibility once something's in court, like, that's something that CRK could tell your lawyer not to do, and create a more responsive system that will
help people from becoming homeless. And, lastly, I just can't let go that comment of miss Karnes saying that it was a sound bite when Victoria Hora mentioned that someone was evicted for a $154. That's a real human. I don't know what happened to him. I don't know if he became homeless or if he was able to rescue the situation at the last moment. But we really do need to bear in mind that people don't have other options. So I hope that we can make a much more resident centered practice in the
future. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Emily. Okay. Any, Sorry. One more real quick. I did not know about the rent program. I learned that in the internship and I was I was really happy to learn that because I was like, wait what? You can do something to lower your rent if you owe some rent? That was really surprising to me, and I think that is really every picture I offer that. Like, I I applaud you on that. I really do. I think that is amazing. But I did not know that, and I've been a resident, since my daughter was born 23. So that's two years. I just Thank you.
Okay. Any additional comments? Alright. I got a motion to adjourn. Motion. Second? I'll second the motion. All in favor? Yes. All opposed? Meeting adjourn? Yes. Make the rules.