recording in progress. All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Detroit Housing Commission Board of Commissioners meeting for Thursday, July, 24 2025 it is 10am let's get started with a roll call.
Yes. So I see Commissioner Cringer, President, excuse me from Williams, right. I see Commissioner Seibert,
present Commissioner Hosey and Commissioner Cohen are excused for today, but we do have quorum, so let's move on to agenda. Item number two, approval of the agenda. I have a motion to approve the agenda. Thank you.
30 comments on the agenda, all in favor,
aye. Aye. Agenda passes, moving on to Agenda Item number three, approval of the minutes. These are for the regular board meeting of the commissioners on June 26 2025
I have a motion to approve the minutes.
There any comments on the minutes as presented?
Okay? All. Moved All in favor.
Motions passed, moving on to agenda. Item number four, public comment period on agenda, action items, I believe we have a recording that we play. I
there will be two opportunities for members of the public to provide comments to the board, the first opportunity is now when any member of the public may comment on any agenda action item, comment is limited to three minutes for individuals and five minutes for group representatives. To ensure speakers adhere to the time limits, the timekeeper will give a One Minute Warning for persons with a three minute comment period, and a two minute warning for persons with a five minute comment period. This warning will be by means of a tone. When the speaker's time is up, the timekeeper will disconnect the call later, there will be an opportunity for public comment on matters unrelated to agenda action items, members of the public must sign up in order to address the board during either public comment period. If you are appearing at the meeting virtually, you will be able to sign up by calling the number specified on the DHC website andor by raising your hand and identifying yourself within the Zoom app during public comment, all other persons may sign up if they are able to appear in the room, provided there is sufficient space to accommodate those who care to make a physical appearance. A person representing a group must identify themselves and the group when calling, when your name is called, if you are in the room, please stand and state your name in a clear, audible tone. And if you are appearing by zoom, when your name is called, please respond clearly and audibly after your microphone is unmuted.
So do we have anyone signed up for public comments on agenda action items online. Is there anyone who would like to raise their hand to comment on agenda action items? Okay. Do we have anybody signed up for in the room? Comments on agenda action items?
Okay? Okay, moving on.
First order of business, DHC, action items, resolution 3315, approval of tenant. Accounts receivable, write offs. June 2025, and Mr. Johnson and make some comments Sure.
Thank you very much. So I want to make sure at this point that we tackle this item, we introduce our new CFO. So for those who are unaware, our former CFO, Luke Joseph, recently resigned, I say thank you to Luke for his service. Really appreciated the time you spent with the agency helping us stabilize and get stronger. But I also want to welcome our new CFO Nicolette car loan. Nicolette comes to us from the obviously, the business of being CFO generally, but you've had a couple of key two points on your tour that I wanted to make sure you highlighted, which can you say a few words about your experience.
Thank you. Morning, everyone. Morning fishers, yeah, I'm glad to be here. I'm excited, and I'm back in Detroit. My new project was the planning authority. Started out as the CFO, ended up as the CEO, and we turned on all the lights. So very proud of that. And I'm excited, excited to be here and help with public housing.
Great. Thanks.
So I think the idea was for you to just say a few words about this item, and then I think we've got a more detailed presentation that Irene is going to leave for us.
I am working with the planet accounts receivables, with the team trying to accomplish our goal, to get the results, and we're looking forward to clean up the accounts receivable. I understand that Irene has been spearheading this project and gaining traction and results along the way, and I look forward to working with her and being that momentum with the other once again.
Okay, absolutely. So thank you for that. And I would just say that it's a team behind this force which includes Joanne on your team, who's doing a really significant great job. Joanne first, and the CO lead is she, Leslie, so getting on to the resolution today, humble for as we asked last month, for you to do a pre approval up to 100 a million dollars of write offs as Aaron Commissioner area change or revise that agreement to say anything that was any tenant receivable that was prior to
July 1, 2024
we were given permission to do that. That number came out to be roughly a little over $600,000 and these are tenants that have vacated. They're no longer in the program. This was a corporate hygiene initiative going through cleaning making sure that the balances were correct. They want charge rent subsequent to them moving out. And that was a series of adjustments so that when their balances went to the collection agency, it was true, and it had been re verified. So that was roughly, if you look at page 19, the total there, and I have to put my I got trifocals, right. I don't know what's going on every day changes. But if you look at page 19 663,000 was the net number that was written off for receivables prior to July. 1, 2024
which, yes,
I need all of the above. It depends on what day it is, other than on Sundays, I can see everything because I'm working. Okay, well, we're on live TV, so let's, let's keep going. Oh, it's hard for you to read, right? So we'll, we'll, yeah, yeah. So I'm so sorry, so we can get you in front of you. I'm sorry.
You know what I do? I do my phone, and then I put it down
your tablet. So maybe we can print her a copy during this meeting, so that she could see it. I don't know who can print that off for her, but these are tenants who are no longer in the program. Had left 2021 2223 we cleaned all of their information up. It's not going unresolated that they still owe balances the finance team are in the process, or have sent that off to the collection agency, and so that they just, you know, when they left, they were evicted, unless they deceased. You know, of course, that goes away, right? But, and that's what this shows. So it was 663 today, we're asking for July 1, 2024
to June 30
to be again. These are in the participated attendance. Who are the unfortunately died, uh, they were evicted, or they just, yeah, yeah. They said, I'm moving on. So with that, that was $97,000 and that's page 20. And so the on page 13 a resolution already $760,000 that is a combined total of those two you previously gave us pre approval on a one time basis. We duly noted that, and it helped us clean things up so that we can look at balances. We're constantly working through this on the AI eviction prevention project team. So 760,000 but technically your your approval? Nine, 7000 you gave us pre approval up to a million prior to 712, 1024 but we just made sure we had the holistic to get us back on the same page, the holistic amount. These are tenants that have vacated and no longer in profit. It's a massive a
series of years. I have
a couple questions. So, so, you know, couple things stood out for me on this. I'm glad you guys did this purge. You know, clearly, digs is a pretty significant outlier. We have a lot of big balances there. Are we specifically addressing the management issue there? Like It shocks me that we would allow balances to get that high? Yes.
So if you recall, last year, we were talking about hybrid. Hybrid. We worked with our legal counsels, both Union and non union, to talk about this, and the hybrid management was the solution, given it all away, and letting it manage is not where we want to go in the future. We were talking about DHC expertise with the property management, along with, mostly, you know our maintenance techs who have who are very seasoned and know how to work on a lot of our age buildings, and know the tenants more important we have relationships with, with our residents, so that, yeah, so short answer is, yes, it's being addressed. Has been addressed, and we're still in the process of corporate hygiene. Lot of trainings have happened. We're still trying to move this is a very difficult market. I will say it's not an excuse. But even our partner is having trouble with maintaining a staff and hiring people who, if we do hire, or think we hire, we can refer to our HR director here. Maybe the background checks don't come out well, and so we finding a lot of that as well. So it's definitely a problem. We knew that property management overall, for DHC, was an issue. We've been working closely with our deputy director of real estate management Tiffany, who has joined Rens in 2023 I've been working with her since then, since I started, and he's doing a phenomenal job. So as we continue on with this corporate cleansing identifying, we've assisted within our programs, working with our compliance officer, sherray Leslie, to your answer yes, and we still have more work to do, as the CR eviction prevention project has shown.
My other question was,
we had there was, I thought this must have been a typo. There's a $45,000 accrual at scatter site West at What page
are you on? I'm sorry, I'm on 17 Uh huh
column. Well, then on numbers so from the right, going left, yeah, yeah. 123,
top, sort of center, right.
Mm hmm. 45 933, 60. Mm hmm. At 1097 a month, they were paying rent for 42
months. Absolutely,
this is what. So this is again, cleanup, right? So these have been vacated, and although maybe in our, our management side of the of the and Yardi, we stopped it and pick we stopped, and we only found, out of all this, 23 instances where it was not caught. So out of the over like 404 50 items, it just was an administrative exercise to clean the sub ledger out on the finance side. So you did have numbers ranking, and then we had allowance, of course, book against it, so the net book was zero, right? However, when we look, you know, it's just cleaning up corporate hygiene, that's all. I'm gonna say. This stuff is dating back many, many years. And so on the operation side, it may have been correct in Yardi, per se, where, you know, the pick was updated the person had in the participation. So if you look at, and I do want to say, if you look back at the recertification, the Lincoln recertification process, this is all stemming from that. And again, when I talk about there's been reform and yes, great job to the people who came in 2023 club. I want to say, wonderful job for those who have stayed, kept the lights on prior to 2023 because some of these initiatives started then, but they just didn't have the Calvary to come in and help them. So if you look at various charts that's in your current current board packet that shows about recertifications, you saw in 2022 that there was a massive, you know, initiative to take down the delinquent research because it was over, you know, 1000 right? And so these, to me, this is the knock on impact, where the finance side, like we sampled some files, and we were looking through it, and we saw the move out packages there. It just didn't resonate that to the finance team, whatever the breakdown was, I'm not sure. But one for this should not be so that was
going to be my question in these numbers. So let's just take that like an extreme outlier, that 45,000 that was an eviction. We show the lease period from 95
to 2024 so they're in there for 19 years.
Is that 45,000
actual rent that was owed up through the eviction date, or is that functionally a fictitious accrual that was happening because we didn't book the move out, but we were still accruing the rent, and so that was actually never rent that was owed because the person was gone at that point terminated occupancy.
So two things happen, Aaron, and I'm explaining it this way. When we went through, we the AR, addiction prevention team project managers, Jack, we had to look at every record, and we had to process adjustments. And so those adjustments to what you said, we had to adjust that was not what was not truly old. This 45,000 should represent what's going to go to the collection agency. So it may have been, you know, accruals up to June of this year, we had to go back and take those out. We had to do a paper form agreed with the CFOs office and write out all those late fees, reduce those late fees that happened after they truly left the premises, that may have been still a coin in the financial sub ledger, so those have been adjusted out, and that was over. We sent over 400 homes, and this was off paper. We're moving to the cloud, but this was all paper, and that's why I'm giving kudos to Joanne hertz, who sits in the finance team under the leadership of Neva because of the fact that she had to process all that the AR eviction committee. You know you guys. Know you great. We know who we are, but we have to leverage our relationships across the entire organization. And that's why we came to this humble board and asked, Can we clean this out so we can get good reports out of the system for this purpose. So this 45,000 should represent what this tenant owed real that could
be the real number first. This is not the reverse.
This is not the all the different adjustments. Adjustments was part of normal business practices. We estimated it would be about 900,000 right? But we took out the adjustments. The net is the 663,000
on page 19. Okay,
that's one question. Uh, the difference between intimidated, initiated versus eviction is every property manager needs to save the bus system to evade
ideally, the answer is yes. It starts, you know, we follow our a cop. We should be following our a cop, which is our plan that HUD has approved, and it's hard red, so it should start with a 10 day notice, okay? And a lot of people like our our manager here, who has done a wonderful job. He's an excellent Brandon from the earnings, it starts with that. And then after, you know, some people may say, you know, I'm not paying. The gig is up, I'm leaving. Others might stay to the very easy and they have to go through the legal process working with our wonderful Angela smiley team.
Okay, all right, thank you so all
right. You ready to
any other
questions,
I will call for a motion to approve resolution,
massive, 3315,
I get emotional. Motion.
Are you want me to read it? No, you don't. If
you need a second,
Miss Williams, you have a second
any other comments or questions on resolution? 3315, that's how Yeah,
that's the lesson.
Okay, all in favor. All right,
okay, thank you. Moving on to the next agenda. Item, resolution, 3316, good news, execution of branch agreement between the rocket community fund for the scattered site home ownership
program. So commissioners, thank you. So what you have before you is a request to allow us to enter into an agreement with rocket Community Fund for initiative we are working on with the scattered site program. So for those who don't know, we have a scattered site of housing program where we're in families live in single family houses that the Housing Commission operates. Unfortunately, this portfolio has been very difficult for us to manage and maintain for a range of reasons, and so we've really struggled honestly with the specific parts of the management process, like unit turnaround, etc, with this portfolio, because unlike another development that might have 400 units of that are very common, each individual house has its own unit turnaround issues. However, this is a very important asset. Each of these houses is home to someone it. Each of these houses has rental assistance associated with it, and each of these houses also has an intrinsic value as a house. So what we engaged Ryan community fund about what fund about was, is there a way for us to first, try to make these homes home to the tenants who've been living in them. Second, how do we make sure we capture the rental assistance of potential use it in other parts of the portfolio? And third, how do we get value for the house? Greg and Tyler, I love you to talk further about it, but I just wanted to make sure they had a little background on it before the item is heard. Void,
sure. So we are coming before you today to seek your approval to enter to grant community bonds. We would have an attachment on the grant. We've not had it yet, so we expect that in the next couple of weeks, when we get a copy to each of you, when we have that. So we really, in addition to what our people are saying, you know, our our goal in the department is to expose our scattered sites. So we've broken that down into essentially a two pronged strategy, starting with our vacant structures, but those are occupied, and so this grant will help fund the home ownership program. We're working in partnership with 2017 with resident services to make sure that the FSS tenants have opportunities to purchase a home if they said, choose. So the grant gets triggered for vacant sites, if you have up to this near occupiable and up to about $60,000 and rehab HQs standards. And so the tenant wishes to purchase one of those homes, then that would trigger the grant. If it is an occupied site, that same 60,000 threshold of five as well. And so either scenario, tenant can get up to 65,000 repairs, and then the funding will also be towards down payments if it's matched. So we're working closely, as I mentioned, with with Denise's team to fill out the program.
And very unlucky going to that's any
questions. Why don't we? I'll take a motion, and then we'll do discussion. So can I get a motion to approve resolution? 3316, alright, questions. Commissioner rencher, yeah. So just wanted to know how many single family in total? A little over 297 right now,
the ones are lots. The difference is lots. So she's right with the 200 but they're like vacant lots, correct? It's about 190 occupied.
That is, sorry, that is structures occupied for around 155 50 for that, obviously, if I was
okay, and who's going to work with? Who, who? Essentially, this is going to dispute our assessment program
for the ownership piece, yes, and then for the vacant but I did not mention, um, we are working on moubring, the Detroit Land Bank Authority to utilize that broker. So all the vacant sites will be handled through the land bank, and you know, any sort of sales needs will come back to the DHC for a conditional date to the land
okay. So the question I asked about if it's going through the FSS program is also looking at available packet where it showed how many
of the people in pipeline,
the pipeline for FSS that exists? Well, it's a five year program, so for each participant and whenever they enroll during the program for five years. But we also are opening the opportunity for not just FSS participants to purchase these funds, but as well HCV and any li pH that may be interested and are qualified
in Thomas represent town page 31
pay me at the bottom.
So if he's on the pipeline, I will also have an opportunity. I just because I'm also just a typical MSS
is a five year program, so it really depends on how how invested they are in searching for jobs and buying higher paying jobs to increase the slope. And so what we have found, actually, what we have is people. It may take, it typically takes LF residents good two years to, like, really get kicked in and but we have a lot of opportunities now, so we're getting a lot more people involved. We have a lot of different training careers in them. So it's, it's moving up a little faster people are enrolling. So
this on this program until you're saying it'll be around five years
before they No, I was just saying how long the program is right now. We have, we just have, we actually have 84 that are employed, and we have a total of 40 right now that are escrow so they're already escorting so they can take their funds right now and put towards purchasing a home, but then with the down payment assistance. So we're active the FSS and the Homeownership Program are tied together, so as they are learning about FSS, they also enroll in the Homeownership Program. Once you enrolled in home ownership program, you're automatically assessed and then assigned to home buyer classes, or what have you, whatever you need to move you up to the purchase the point of purchasing a look at home. So it's an evolving wheel that just keeps going right now.
And one of the things we've been collaborating the resident services team on this just setting criteria for how you kind of advertise, right? So whether it's based on current escrow ballots availability, we're establishing, like a checklist of how we're going to improve, get everybody involved. So you know, 10 remaining for 10 year based on certain criteria.
Okay, I was just wondering
there was an ability to and then we have one of them this correctly, these people in their houses, home ownership, counseling and consent office, yeah, yeah,
yeah. So there is a whole process. Actually, there is, like a whole process. So we call it in process, but it is categorized because you have people that are they, they may be qualified, but they're not working yet. So then we get them a job. You have people that are working and they have savings already. So then they're ready to start shopping. So if they're ready to start shopping, they can look at the scatter site homes as well as any other homes in the market, but we keep we keep that role on a consistent basis. When they're done with the home buyer classes, then they move to shopping because they've already been pre qualified and pre approved in the home buyer process.
So we could share the standard operating procedures that they thought they created for your background?
Mr. Williams, any questions? Not at this time. Okay.
Tyler, just quickly, because we have
had a lot of discussion about redevelopment of the portfolio. Rad, etc.
Can you just quickly
over Arthur mentioned
section 18 and disposition versus what we're doing in the raster so we're clear about some of the tools that we're using here?
Yes, so we would leave utilizing what section 18 dispositions will be here. We've actually had a kick off all of our strategies all this week. So we're going to employ our strategy consultant to actually help us prepare those section 18 applications, starting with the first batch of vacant sites that you all approved, meeting last boards meeting. And so come out of that process with those consultants, as they're going to we're going to break the applications into three batches. They're going to assist us with each of those applications, and then
hopefully at the at the end of that, we will have
step by step. So let me get to it ourselves. Moving forward should we get to? And so say would be true. And so we also have them. Part of their analysis is helping us understand whether it makes sense to it all introduces section 32 tool as well, just for home ownership. So we are again. We got our first kick off call today, but we should have
clear, a clear set of next steps,
if it's okay, for me to add, I think, just to make sure that you, the whole audience understands. So the what this you're alluding to is a way to make sure that the rental assistance that supports each individual family in their unit, without with sort of operating subsidy, is is captured and not lost, right? And so the section 18 process would allow, would allow that rental assistance to be turned into higher value rental assistance demonstration or red rental assistance, and then it would go back into our portfolio for use in it potentially either project based section eight work that Fauci team leads, or maybe part of one of the redevelopment efforts, but that rental assistance will be retained. One other important aspect to highlight here about the rental assistance is there probably be a few cases where people who are living in occupied or occupying single family scattered site units might say, you know, I'm not ready to participate in a home ownership program, but I would like to stay in a continue to receive the subsidy. Will also have the ability to relocate them if they'd like, to another DHC unit, and it's also something called a tenant protection voucher, which they are also eligible for if they elect so they they'll probably they'll have a range of choices, including owning their house, in each case that we're talking about an occupied unit, but the rental assistance will be retained in our portfolio and available to be used for future development. All right,
so I'm just going to say it back, and there's my total lay misunderstanding. So section 18, we're functionally declaring a HUD that as a public housing asset. We're disposed of this. I think some really functional ops life is where the language is. It's very difficult to manage and are very expensive on scatter site side, but we don't lose the public housing resource in the form of rental assistance, which is really important. And so what many housing authorities across the country have done with these scattered sites, have done this section 18. We're taking it out of the public housing program to move it to home ownership, retain the rental assistance, and then we can protect the tenants in the three ways that you mentioned. Either they can enter the home ownership program, which is a different set of resources that we have program against it. We can take that rental assistance that was project based at the time because of public housing asset, and functionally pull it back into the pool, then move that tenant to another site and reallocate or they can get the protection voucher, which give them other viability. So, you know, I think this is for scattered site. My preferred path on these because I think it allows us to protect the residents housing assistance, but gives them some agency, and we could take a What have become liabilities on most public housing balance sheets, because they're just very expensive to maintain, and give people some options on what they want to do,
and so and so the brand to have
someone who either go into the housing like ownership program or at least get a
voucher. Yes, each each person who's in one of the units today will have a choice. They can say, I'd like to buy this house. I want to work with a program that you developed to buy this house. I'd like to move to another DHC site, or I'd like a tenant protection voucher, which I can use in the entire market area. And as as Aaron was saying, it gives them a lot of agency and will bring all, I think, of our resources, frankly, to their door, so they've got a choice while also retaining our rental assistance. So just one other point would be that retained rental assistance could allow us to add new public housing somewhere else in our portfolio. So as we look at some of our redeveloped sites like let's talk about digs and Forest Park, which we're hoping to achieve a Choice Neighborhoods grant for might be able to bring new rental assistance to house. Every one of the 150 or so rental assistance benefits might be able to help us build more affordable housing at that site and better. Yes, okay, the important
is to explain, as we're doing these redevelopments, we're using different kinds of tools, and so what we're giving up and what we are retaining and trying to give people as much agency as possible. Okay, any other
comments or questions. Okay,
let's vote on resolution three, three and one, seven, all in favor. Aye,
sorry, sorry, I moved on. My bad. Yep. 316, bye. Ben. Okay. I think motion passes, passes. Yep, great. Okay, what we have
approval
to renew DHC, commercial general liability insurance policy resolution, 3317,
thank you so for this item, I think we're going to be hearing from our General Counsel, who is coming to us via via the use of zoom here. But we also have the benefit of assistant Council Anjani smile we in the event that we're unable to raise miss so Ono, which on Zoom. Kirsten, are you there?
I am Hello and good morning to everybody. So here before the board, I have a resolution for approval to renew DHCS commercial general liability insurance policy with the Housing Authority risk retention group. Because HUD has issued a procurement waiver for for housing authorities to obtain insurance directly from hard we did not need to have to go out to solicit bids. As a result, we requested a quote from harg, as we've had insurance with them for several, several years now, in order to renew this policy, within the board letter, you'll see the breakdown of the coverage amounts, the deductible and the premium amounts for each component of these insurance liability for each of these liability insurance pieces, the total premium is $295,097 $295,097 this quoted premium is a commercial is for our commercial general liability, and it is a 9.6% increase from last year's premium. On average, most insurance renewals are seeing increases in the 20% range, which makes this a very beneficial and advantageous policy renewal for DHC. Additionally, it aligns directly with the insurance increases in previously years, which is a great thing for us right now, particularly when considering inflation. The reason behind having these policies that are not only to to protect the DHC assets, but also because it is a requirement under our ACC contract with HUD. Finally, I also want to note that this policy in particular provides us the possibility for dividends at the end of each policy year, and I'm pleased to report that we are anticipating a total amount of approximately $152,388.28
in dividends to be paid out upon our policy renewal in August, in order to help defray the cost of These new policies. And I'm happy to answer any questions from the board.
Thank you, Kirsten. Let's get a motion on resolution 33170, I'm going to do moved and seconded. Moved by Commissioner Williams, seconded by Commissioner Commissioner wrencher. Okay, questions,
one more question, just knowing and understanding that you did not go through the procurement process, what is the what is the comfort that you have not by believing this is the cheapest insurance pathway? Was there any comparison to other opportunities to work with any other company.
We did not look for any comparison with any other company, because hard traditionally has always had the best rates. I did seek counsel from our one of our outside counsels, to get an understanding if this was a competitive rate. And he said very much so, given the fact that most insurance policies are going up upwards of 20% these days because of inflation. So and as much as we did not get additional quotes from other companies because we did not go through the bid process. I do know that this is a competitive price and a very advantageous price for DHC. And in fact, the original quote was almost 10% and we negotiated it down to 9.6%
of an increase. That's the point of clarification. Kirsten, Housing Authority, insurance is relatively narrow field. Are there many other organizations that offer this insurance and and also, do they all offer offer dividends?
Thank you for the clarification question. Arthur, no, there are not a lot of companies out there that are willing to ensure housing authorities out there at all, and so this particular company has been a part of the insurance risk pool, which is why HUD has issued this bid waiver because they already know it is the not only best suited company to provide this type of insurance, but also the best situated in order to give us the most competitive pricing.
I think I have seen Hartford and AIG
in this space, but they're apart from, maybe the mutual, but the big differences, right where it's mutually following, and we were in early as I recall, right? Yeah, our shares, I so that 9.6 is also That's gross, the gross the dividend right now, not the dividend, which is like, why, you know, it's not making sense for us. And this my Kirsten. My biggest question for you was on these policy limit numbers, you know, I'm a little concerned they look like to me. But what's your comfort level on where we're at? Or the coverage amounts, deductibles seem fine, but the coverage levels, you know, did you do a review of that when you were bidding the policy? Or did we just roll forward the last policy
we did take a look at the coverage amounts, and given the actually, I'm pleased to announce that we will be receiving a low loss award from harg and the HAI group as a result of our low the small amount of claims that we've submitted. And as a result, that's as Yes, because we've only submitted, I believe, a total of two claims in the last year specifically for this, and they were so low in dollar amount that we didn't feel the need to move those dollar amounts anywhere. Yeah, is
this? This this is an annual renewal. Yes, that is
correct. I mean, at some point, even if we're not going
to take the policy to bid, I do think it would be wise to maybe get a broker to look at these coverage amounts, just to make sure, right, that we're sort of very costly thing I'm obviously concerned about. So yeah, but if we're in line with sort of last year's law summers. It's probably five, you know, every two to three years, just at least having a broker look at the coverages is probably worth the time.
Yep, and I will say, next month before this board, I will be presenting an item regarding outside legal services, and under one of those categories that we went out to bid for, for outside legal services, is insurance coverage. So we have some counsel, hopefully that will be able to advise us, similar to the capacity of a broker, in terms of what this coverage you know, if we should be moving our coverages up and down depending on our loss runs,
okay, but we'll look into a broker as well.
Okay, the questions, all right,
swim stuff that, but we can still take a vote.
All in favor, aye. Okay. Two passes onward, the informational item,
yes, and or informational items, I think she jumps in doing vehicle purchases. I'm
introducing the person who is alright. So thank you, members of the board. We've got a couple of informational items today. First one is vehicle purchases. Colleen will be providing that information.
Good morning again. Everyone. Colleen Muhammad, just giving information a little bit on vehicle purchases. We looked at our current inventory, and we saw there was a need for the staff to get some updated vehicles. Most important maintenance team, we're purchasing those through some of our capital funding through a force account that we're allowed through hood, as well as our operational for resident services and other needs. So we're looking for a total of five vehicles. Currently, we're in the midst of getting those purchase, two of them this week, and three others for the company. So just wanted to keep you all in the loop and the progress with that,
and maybe within through the chair at maybe not August, but definitely the September meeting. We want to come and look at it. Portfolio wide. We taken a good look, working with our procurement team, Colleen and Amanda Susan, who have done a phenomenal job of bringing us to where we are today and soliciting bids and getting good quotes within building partnerships, but working with Tiffany and Edrick. Edrick Matthews is our supervisor of the maintenance techs and, of course, our capital genius here, Mr. Mike efforts, we're trying to look at the polar wide and look at contracts and doing make versus buy, especially this last winter we had, we were really 100% relying on contractors to put saw and snow removal, especially on our parking lots. And so with cost benefit analysis, we're also looking at procuring a couple trucks. And we know saw made them up in four or five years, but we would have fought them twice as we continue on the pattern contractor, so we're taking those evaluations So more to come. These were just to fill immediate need as we change it to a workforce, making sure the team can put drywall, big equipment, a stolen refrigerator and the utility vehicle, making sure that Denise and her team with deliveries, because her partnerships have grown with materials and goods for home and furniture, and this is really nice quality things that they don't have to go rent a truck. They can do it on their own. So just leveraging funding from different sources, doing the analysis, hopefully with the finance team to make this happen. So coming forth and then being a request for additional vehicles and the back part of it should be a reduction in contract law should wait. So,
man, I like to ask this, are we going to look at so are these mostly pickups for maintenance?
Make it low maintenance? Need a combination of all hiccups will just be needed for at least a couple just to help drop saw so we don't have to pay $7,000 right drop spot when it don't have big snow removals in our parking lot, then we don't have to call them. But most of these are utility trucks to put in equipment and supply so that they don't have to keep going back and forth. Because we're building working on hire a special project manager to help us build out an inventory so we can buy through the procurement process. And I think they went over with Commissioner Bothy, we can buy stuff in both utilizing contracts. And Michael's a really good negotiator too. He I don't know who Patton and Robin, I know between the two, but he's really good at that. So we combine both so that the team can work more efficiently as they go through the portfolio of our you know, over 2000 units that we
have. I only mentioned that earlier. Asked if I drive one, but I am aware of municipality that just did all of their parks department and things relates to all electric vehicles, lightnings, in particular. For lightnings, it's a very cheap time to buy an electric truck, and the operations and maintenance on them is nothing. You do nothing. There's no oil changes.
There's no like it is. It is open and
so and they will install the chargers for you for free. It's a very good time to buy electric pickup trucks. Thank you for that. Yeah. So I'd like you know, we reduce our carbon footprint to have lower operations cost, and we are highly incentivized to do so I encourage you
get a bed. Okay, yeah, because the ones we are processed with now, just to translate cargo vans, the pickups were next. So, yeah, keep that in mind. Looking we
just had an immediate need, the, you know, the Ford will ride now, we just had an immediate meeting. Just had to make a move relatively quickly, because we're, we're moving on the limit.
Okay, all right, so that was the first informational. And second one, it's important, I think, this month in particular, for us to be introducing talking about the performance last year and talking about goals. And so Irene, you know, has been operating a process with each of our leads to sort of develop some goals, so you can hear about that today.
Irene, sure. Okay, good to share again. So working with a wonderful and very resilient and loyal team members our directors, building our corporate hygiene in 2023 you know, working with Emily rob a sherae, Denise Felicia and everybody else, a host of everyone else. We're trying to show now outcomes of these operational goals. So we knew where we were at, delinquencies, all the operational challenges that we have. Mr. Ranger was a great mentor to me and explaining, you know, nobody cares about that. Let's talk. You know, we know you're going to fix that. Let's go to the outcome, and it was more development. So I would definitely, you know, under the leadership of Tyler, with development and her team, Greg. But what's key is, if you look at page number 30, this is how DHC footprint is cracking and affordable housing. And again, the font that they're too small, we'll, we'll work with Tamela, kind of help her do landscape versus portrait, and maybe a little bit bigger for the team to see. And she see me, but on page number 30, you see four tremendous outcome of what we're doing every day. So the first one is, is relevant. It's really affordable housing opportunities. It's really our operational goals that we work on. Are we? Can you see that? Miss
it's page 29 Yep.
So it's okay, yeah, you got it? You want to say page? No, I will go to the next page. Yeah, you're talking about campus, alright, okay, you got it? Okay, I make sure you got it. So this is where we're tracking that. So the first one is dealing with affordable housing. And again, we're trying to look at our footprint and affordable housing as we move toward amazing and that's a word that the board has referenced the DHC team here. They want us to be amazing, right? Arthur, so when we look at number one, we want to look at the total number of families house. And right now that's not just with under the low income public housing, but it's also the vouchers, not just Felicia vouchers, tenant based vouchers, but also the project based vouchers that is utilized, and not just the eight vouchers that maybe is on the deal, but maybe those eight out eight vouchers maybe higher than 60 pounds. So we're starting to track that with uh, our performance lead performance officer, who is now gathering all that information, because again, we had to do the corporate hygiene, the data dictionary, bringing it all in. And she's done a wonderful job of getting us there, Emily O'Reilly, and then we also want to talk about the goals of what Michael investment in capital, and what Edrick and Tiffany investment in real estate management. How much money are we putting in take the salaries out to the actual properties, to increase the resident experience. And so there has been a lot of work done across the portfolio. You some people walk in and say, Well, I can't really tell. Well, you don't see what you used to see. You know, right? You see units getting turned you see, you know, more maintenance on the facade and and you see entryways. You see concrete being laid, more work to be done. It's not perfect, because we're dealing with limited funds, but you see more being strategically placed back into these properties for a better resident experience. When we move on to number two, talking about building generational growth. If this is the family self sufficiency program, you buy your home, you're walking into that home with equity because you have people like rocket you have Huntington Bank that's also helping with the down payment. So if you bought a house for $100,000 and you got your own equity escrow that you say that you may use the furniture or put down on the house, and then you get 25,000 or other money, you walking in with equity, and it helps the payment below helps you to move forward. You can leave it to your children, grandchildren, rent it out as you move on into, you know, into other journeys in your life. So those goals right now, we want 1000 participants, and we're looking at this over the next five years, right we feel we're going to get more, because Denise has now full throttle team, and they're out at different events. They're bringing more people in. There's more outreach, but more to come. We also looking at home ownerships, and I think with the development work that the scatter sites that Tyler and Greg has been working on, we can see more families getting today. I think to date, we got five, six as
of last week, six, seven of last week, we six homeowners, four under contract, and five now shop. So it's
consistent. Well, it's consistent. We only did one last year. We need a standard operating procedure, because it was like having a baby, because it touched so many different departments, inside and outside. So we invested in that. That was one of the number one goals. And people like, why is this the number one goal? Because we want people to be able to have generational wealth and see and grow. And so we're looking at about $3 million in home ownership equity over the next five years. And what that means, you know, we averaging around 25 30,000 for each, each so you take that times one, 100,000 that's what, 3,000,030 you know, 30 walking in with home equity. And it could be more, in some instances, 92,000
with the six home loans. And
again, you have to walk before you run. What's why we so. We did one last year, and now we're so we're doing SOPs. We're probably going to get to a really healthy number this year, if we can use that and the grant to really get this right then, couple years from now, we can really, we can get that number to where it needs to
go. I think you said that really low. What does that 92
balance? Because
we have annual report is how many people that pass six people have purchased home. Of the six people, they have a total of 91,650, in home equity, meaning that the value of the home the down payments that they put down themselves. One was 40,001 was 27,000 17,000 that's equity. Now
that's just out of six people. So just imagine what's going to happen. So if we move to point number three, reshaping sustainable affordable housing, this is where Tyler and her team is coming in. We are looking at to have over a billion dollars in the next five years. I think we're going to reach that like, really before then. And because we got Parkside 200 over 200 million Garden View Estates boosters coming down, Sheridan's coming down the pipeline. So just impacting individuals in this humble board, and I think there was you commissioner, Aaron, that says, What about the residents in Detroit that have under 30% AMI, I want at least 200 and so this, this is increasing that footprint as well. And then finally, on number four, and it's not finals, the number one. Without partnership support, we wouldn't be able to have these conversations we're having now, we wouldn't see the growth that we're having now. Denise, we say $10 million in the next five years. I think that's a really no number, but we wanted to start out just so that everybody would know this is dollars that we're also getting from people who are helping rocket Huntington Bank, but it's also other significant donors who donate services. Wayne State University, at your event,
United Healthcare,
forgotten harvest Gleaners, we have a myriad of rescues, 100 food mission. It's just Yeah, Detroit rescue mission donated all the food for our entire summer event. So from June to October, they're supplying the food for each event, which is twice a week. Talk about the food that was donated, the food that was done. Oh my goodness. So we done. They've done three events so far. The first one, we had smothered chicken, baked chicken, barbecue chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, peas, dinner rolls. I mean, a full encore dinner. And it was just, it's been that way, even at an event for digital seed, we had, we had asparagus. Okay, asparagus is pretty expensive, so that was really great that they have donated all of this food. So we have events on Wednesdays and Fridays every week from now, well, from beginning of June to the end of October, and they will be double
the food. And you passed out calendars to the board. Maybe, yes, we can give feedback on how the board would like these events. It's on a piece of paper, but it may not be a calendar notice, and it may I
can definitely find I can definitely send out calendars. It'd be wonderful for you guys to come out and see what we do. Our events are really big. We have partners that come out from Wayne State Health, Wayne State Medical School, they come out. We have NP that nurse practitioners, they're doing
during but talk about the furniture too. It's
just a lot. So it's a lot, it's a lot I can take up all the time, but it's a lot. So we have furniture coming. We have a donor partner, hearts of humanity, and they give us brand new clothing, household accessories, rugs, lamps, furniture, bedroom furniture, Ralph Lauren, brand new furniture from IKEA. And I can't think of the other so, so we've housed a lot. It's just a lot we've housed since 2020 and given us more than at this point. From 22 to now, they've given us items in the number of, like, $4 million value.
So with that, the connection is we've housed over 400 and it's like 438 individuals since January, 2024 yes, there's approximately 50% of that is homeless individuals. Those homeless individuals have benefit and give
a donation, food, clothing and furniture, bed, a bed, a bed, mattress, frame, dinette, said something that a chair or a sofa, something they can sit in in the living room, as well as something to sit at the table to eat and then a bed to sleep in.
So we want to capture this footprint and present it definitely to this board, get your feedback on which what you would like to see or track. We're hopeful to have some type of KPIs generated next month in this board packet to show the impact of your leadership to us and how we're making a change in the lives of affordable housing,
that's absolutely
so we again information. We want to make sure you saw this. You see our normal KPIs, but as they're being shared using board time. So impact KPIs, so people understand what impact about it.
And, you know, since we're here, Arthur, you know, just kind of talking about our and I'll be back on page 29
for you. Down.
This is the first, I think, in this last quarter, is the first time where DHC, since that I can see, and we just started checking in 2024 where our end of participations are now less than net than what we're bringing in from amending, you know, new families into the program. So this is a great turning point. You know, before we, you know, we were doing a lot of work, working under the leadership of our compliance officer, Ray Leslie, and our partner, continental management, Jackie. We were, you know, we were moving people the wait list, all these great things. In June of last year, working with the city of Detroit, we brought 31 people in. But as as we were bringing people in, we were cleaning up with the research, you know, and people were ending participation. Now we're at a plateau where now our missions are higher than our in the participation. And so I'm, I'm very, very pleased with that, because it, it shows us that we're turning a point. And, you know, I'll let Felicia when we get when we're ready, yeah, team 100 DHC. But, you know, there's a six, seven, so,
so, you know.
And I think when we have our off site with the board, and we talk about risk and opportunities and what KPIs we need to track, and that should be around September, October, based upon when the board wants to do that, I think more KPIs may come out of that, or different KPIs based upon the risk appetite. So,
so I didn't see that the amount of units that need to be rehabbed of occupied. Where's that? Or what do you have I
do so the number of units that have not been taken off. So we have a there's three pools. There's unit that's been taken offline because and they're under HUD approved, and they do not account against us for three reasons. One, they're under contract. We're reviewing Brewster, for example, for the environmental and the results are coming out really good. Following up on that Parkside is going through a redevelopment. So we are because we have a chat or a communication of a housing assistance plan that's been approved by HUD, we can take those units offline. We also have units four categories taken offline because they're going to be utilized by resident councils as well as Resident services. And then the fourth is this gentleman here who presented a contract in January. He's turning units, so he has a contract in place that as he we took him offline, and today, I think he put him back like 5050, over 50 units. Okay, so the other bucket, and so that that number, the other bucket, is about 500 units that are constantly being turned. People are in and out, and they're being turned by our partners, continental and our realm, individuals, who's turning in it. So the total is around 900 unit in total. And so that's why our number is 85% occupied.
So like, the amount of units, like, minus the park side, minus like, I'm just saying you're like, need updated, be occupied.
I feel like we can distinguish
between we can we got 400 and HUD approved status, and it's 5050, it's 414 as of I would say seven one. And then we have another like 459 that we're turning across, not just, um, DHC owned, but also our mixed finances. Mixed finance is a low number. Us less than 100 we. Have the biggest number, and we're turning them and so that's why our vacancies at 85% so we have roughly a little over 800 minutes.
You need some cotton beer. We don't know the
other apartments
it's just, if this is small, if they gotta go in and do some small work, they'll do it if and because we gotta look at our operating dollars versus capital.
What we mean when, when you say, I've gotten him operating,
okay, all I'm saying is when they move out. So we make a designation of, is it going to use capital be headed by Michael, or is it something small enough, you know, they just gotta go in and clean the apartment, maybe change out the floor, maybe something really basic, and it's using normal operating dollars, and continental will do that. He has one across the portfolio. He's worked closely with Continental. You could talk, I don't have to talk for you circle. And that was the contract that you guys approved in January to do up to 150 utilizing $3 million of capital dollars. Didn't want to talk about that. Yeah, we shared it right there. Yeah.
We're at Sheridan one right now. We are in the process of, there's a couple of projects going on as we're doing the modernization of these units, but we're proud to say, you know, there's some challenges, but it's not cost, costing us more money. It's just the deliverables of how many units we were doing at State Fair was a positive experience, but because of the infrastructure at the Sheridan, it slowed us down. Because, you know, just in order to do change of valve, you have to basically shut off the water to entire building. So not anticipating that. We've actually moved around it. We've actually, you know, worked with the residents work the building management company, and we're getting through it. So we literally had a meeting yesterday to get some bottlenecks out of the way in terms of management, product delivery and everything else, because we are limited to the the amount of space that we have also to do this work. But positively, we're going to be getting more units now after this meeting yesterday, and we're looking forward to getting over this Sheridan, too. We're also looking to get another crew started at the Harriet Tubman so we can actually have two projects going at the same time, and when I came to the board, there was a growing pain. We had to understand what needed to be done. But we are moving forward and looking forward to getting more units. Not only she exceeding me 150 but you know, as as we're understanding more efficiencies, we're actually adding more units to the projects that were going on. So when we come back at the finished product, not only that, again, we're looking at staying on budget, but we're looking at adding more units than the ones we promised you in the first place. Maybe,
if I could just real quickly hitting our follow up items on page 32 Yeah, the status that they've moved on, anything you want to say on the screen cleaning
so the screen premium was it was asked by a resident, and again, through our fiscal needs assessment, that was headed by a capital manager here, and also our room director, who took a look at from an inspection groups as well. Facade work needs to be done. And so we're focusing more on that, first, just to leverage our resources. And so this is still so on hold, really. The second one dealing with the report to the board about hashtag, who rents that Parkside process through the rent eviction project that we're doing for AR, a lot of things have came to light, and we're working closely with continental change management. Has happened there, and then the process of hiring a new property manager, in addition the residents there who had concerns in regards to their receivables, deeper dives have been taken, and that's still in process, but at the end of the day, all residents will be, you know, any adjustments that that needs to be made, or clarification of understanding that's still in process, and we continuously doing that, But we're hopeful that that can be all settled by definitely mid August. The new property manager should be starting by the end of this month. We have the vice president going out, working, doing recertifications. We have regional managers right now in the interim, and then they're working closely with our compliance officers. So that is definitely in process, and we've asked for individuals to definitely be patient with us, because it's just been a lot of changes going on, and that's across the portfolio, you know, ins and outs of management, because our bar is higher than it used to be, right, internally and externally. And so we're just weathering the storm, but it's as at the end of the day, the residents will be made whole. Our our team members internally here, we've booked on through some things, but the issue is now for many individuals is they might need an interim recertification, right? So they may not, they may have stopped work six months ago or a year ago, and they just need to have their income re verified and updated.
Sojo doors, Soldier
doors, we said that once these were implemented, that we would do an efficiently. You can just give a status of the door.
Yeah, the doors are almost all in and we're going to start on that project. We're having a kickoff meeting we'll get with the project managers, and we will have a time frame of how we are going to do it. We actually did a test run about a week and a half ago with one of the doors, and the contractor came back saying, that seems like it's going to be good, and we're going to get started on that really soon. I think we can take the AR initiative
off the list, Because we just seem to be update,
Yup, just to the update.
What else we want to do for departmental suits.
So I did want to do Alicia for the departmental update, but I think less people have urgent items other than that, we'll go to
Good afternoon board. Good morning, good morning on the board.
For the sake of time, I'm not going to
be labor, but I do want to just make a few key points, because I do think that the HCV program right now is in a place where we we want to celebrate our wins. And just to give you a little hindsight, at one point, at our lowest over 5100 voucher holders. Our program was more than half delinquent in annual recertifications and rent increases. We contract executions and moves and just about every process you can name. We were severely delinquent in we were not meeting the metrics that hood has in place for our program, and it was very critical and to come to today where we are have met, in most cases, exceeded some met some guidelines for HUD. We're in a very good place. We are more than over 100% with our hands and resources. Okay? Take. We are operating within our administrative plans and timelines on all processes across the board. So just to say that it took a long time, a lot of hard work, but we couldn't have did it without, you know, the backing of our team and our leadership and the board, because what was critical was staffing. We could not get staff, we couldn't retain staff. And you all gave us, you know, the the approval to get our rates to be competitive, and that was the game changer. So now it's continuing to stabilize the program. We serve as five counties, not just the city of Detroit, continue to stabilize the program, increase professional development, because our program touches a lot of different areas. When we talk about home ownership, some of our home ownership, a lot of our HCV people have been successful with partnering with Denise's team. And, you know, we do the administrative on that, and we touch, have best test. We touch some of the new, you know, in the future, there may be some red and project based so just making sure that my team is strong, so that we can handle all the different tentacles and the things we touch under our program. But again, I just want to say thank you, because we could not have done it without the support and backing of our board and leadership team and coworkers and departments and everybody that came together to help us get to where we are, definitely
everybody it was a team.
Alright. So
can Sharon give us a little update about digital C and what that meant to him and what he has been trying to do for the residents here and in partnership with the city of Detroit, what just happened in rocket Wayne State near it, yeah, to
start, it's a long story, but they just keep it short. We partner the CDO before it starts on funding and some different partner merit they will see. And with that collaborating, we were able to provide pretty wild some of the DHC communities about 450 resident, and it's good for three years. I'm hoping that. And it's a very decent bandwidth. It's a 509,000 for for household. So we are hoping, you know, just looking for at least an
opportunity. To get
better training programs, these things, running marketing programs that, even now they have access to their home they can use that they can use for the sum of telehealth services they can use for
any job searching. So hopefully that
will help them follow their
lifestyle. When did you start trying to do this? I know when I came in, he was running in with a presentation and and, you know, working with art Thomas at the city. So when did you start the
initiative was actually in 2000 the time when we heard actually set the benchmark for what is broadband. Before that, it was not people were selling and now sort of just keeping saying this apartment at that time, they actually came off the fifth minimum. This is the requirement for the software. So we, we started during that time, we presented during the resource we funding. That time, it was not really going anywhere. Then when the offer funding came, we submitted to city. That time, it was actually, you know, we got some, some some information that money is available. But then what it was happening with the Aqua fund, so it was just burned back burners. But luckily, the city came back and they, they found money, at least for this. And I'm going rocket,
rocket may close the deal. Yeah, hoping, you know, we
will be able to get some of other The goal is to get all the relevant at the public side, actually our performance. We also put all the HCB relevant. We had a service available for that. At some point. We'll see if we get
So right now, it's just digs rooster and Parkside. That's highly Sports Park. Sports Park is the other F,
yeah, there's,
there's no, there's a dream for, at least for me, right, to have this one. It's
digital inclusion, and it's a it's a major priority for us. Excellent. So I think what we're going to do, unless there are other informational items that people wanted to share from their departmental monthly reports, you won't say
anything about security.
Okay, all right, well, then I did want to have one one, what would I share one other item and update in the form of an update before we go to general public comments. So as I think many of you will remember, at the last board meeting, there were members of the resident Council and their advisors, as well as members of the Friends of park side who presented to the Board indicating their concerns about ongoing use of common facilities, out of out at Parkside for different programming use. We had a robust discussion about it here. I was directed by the board to come up with a solution that would allow both friends of Parkside and the resident council to occupy the space that we have in the in the community building out there at at Parkside, so we had just to make sure everybody knows what we did. Since then, we conducted a listening session. We let both both parties submit their information about their proposals, about how the space should be used. We listened, and then we responded to both of them with proposals for use of the space. They To my knowledge, they both received those proposals, and both groups are currently at the last report, speaking with their internal groups to figure out what direction they'd like to take, whether they want to accept the proposal, or, or, or, or what, what other responses they'd like to provide to our proposals. I know that there's board meetings of both. There was a board meeting this past week of the resident Council, and I also know there's been meetings of the board planned for next week for friends of Parkside. I should add one other important detail. It was noted by members of the board that the resident Council, because it's part of a HUD obligation needs to be given primacy and making sure they have space. So what we have done, with help of our resident services team, is made available an interim space to resident Council immediately so they have a space to meet and do some of the things that they are planning to do until there's a resolution to this matter. But again, as we move on into questions, I want to make sure that we I give you guys an update on what's happened there. I do fear that both groups did not get what they want exactly, but I do think a compromise has been proposed that that we hope will work for both. At any rate, I just wanted to make sure as the end of our departmental monthly reports that was provided that background and so we can go on to the next items, if you, if you
care, to Commissioner Seibert.
Commissioners, any questions
before we go to public comment? I
understand. I actually had two quick ones not to necessarily answer for today, just wondering, you know, based on rules and regulations of federal government, what we're looking at now, how's that going to impact the city of Detroit and Detroit Housing Commission, and then what is it we need to do at this time to prepare for some of those things? There's a bunch of things that I heard that are changing about vouchers and the talent that people will be able to stay on the voucher.
And then I was trying to reconcile the
delinquencies that I saw for each public housing project with the write offs, and I'm wondering if it's like a certain property management issue, or is it like, or is it like a building specific issue where you're seeing most of the people who are the delinquent
So I would just say that there
is and was
significant opportunities for improvement. Okay? And we are working hard toward bringing the standards up. And we under the supervision of our real estate management deputy, we are having in our compliance officer and meetings I'm having, we're having weekly meetings in some shape or form to talk about how we can come together, clarity based turning units, if it's leasing, what's going on with the research. And so there's a lot of attention now hitting all at once, versus you're just fixing one piece of it, and then the rest go bad. Then you gotta catch up. We're hammering it all collectively together and trying to do it efficiently. So to your to be politically
correct,
yes, there was, there was problems. Yes, there still is problems. Some are internal, some are external, working, but we're focusing on our internal problems. The AR eviction project team, which is, you know, making sure individuals understand that there's a path other than getting evicted, that you can sign it a tenant payment agreement, making sure that your paperwork, your current situation, is updated, maybe going through debt counseling, and then also going through maybe a housekeeping class. That was the feedback that was was given, and then we have proper sign off. And maybe they can be some choices to help them going forward and moving forward. And so those are some of the external we're also working with capital, and some of the, you know, working with capital funds to kind of fix things that need to be fixed up and have a constant maintenance going on with the funding that comes from the CFP program that 25% that we get on the maintenance. So I think it was a montage of a lot of different data now that had occurred over years, and now we're trying to catch up and at the same time, do everything all at once. So the answer is yes, there's a lot of external issues and internal we've came a long way internally, and that's what our partners but there's still a lot of room for world. Did I say that really?
So on the other topic, Yeah, I'm good.
I'm very good. I think that's great. On agreed
at me one day, trying to be fabulous, because there's a lot of hard working people. And I would be remiss to say that we have Ezra, we have mister Sean, we have a lot of great people who've been mister Joe, doing a lot of great things. Generally, I call the closer, but they're doing great. But then, if I'm missing on this end, then it all fails, right? And so what we're trying to do is get, first of all, everybody what they need to succeed, supplies, making sure they got the partners and vendors to do what they need so that we can come together, work all together, and step together, versus they stepping over here. We do not, but then we not keeping them. We not doing what other things that need to be do, or also we have, unfortunately, maybe residents who you know may need to we really be enforced about their behaviors, and so decrease in others residents experience. So we're trying to pull all that in one line, and we we move together. And I think before it was this, this, this, this and No, no impact, we're trying to make a greater impact by taking all these different facets that cause us to not perform well, to cause the resident to not have a good resident experience, and work collaboratively together, along with development, so that we can move the needle. And we saw a lot of that. That's the ACB, right? You saw that momentum with ACD,
did that answer your questions a little
so just to follow up on the other other half, which was, thank you very much, Irene, that was very good. So about I think commissioners, ibert asked about what is going to happen to people whose SNAP benefits are going to change and they'll have less access to food, and the way that that affects their bottom line. And since we look at every tenants bottom line through recertifications, do we have any flexibility in this way? So I actually reached out to former policy colleagues about this, and there is some research that they are sending about what the kind of rough estimate would be now. It's not something that we can take into consideration now, but unfortunately, programs like meetup and eat up and others that provide food for folks in the summer and school lunches that provide food for people during the week are going to be impacted by these cuts. That could be depending on what state's abilities to pay are. It could be relatively severe. It's basically the same. We'll keep running the program, but you have to pay, instead of paying for 30% of it, you might have to pay for 70% of it. And I think that that's where the impact is going to be developed. We do have a little planning time, because I think that that comes goes into effect at the end of next year. But it's a, it's a it's a very big concern, and I should have some research about what its impacts will be soon
to that too. So hearing that from the board, last month, we made some initiative steps, and so we've gotten more you, more sites, senior sites, under the Forgotten harvest deliveries, but significant. We had one of the partners that was at Brewster less Friday was keep growing Detroit, and they are going to be working with us to try to rebuild community gardens at our sites.
The only thing I might add to that, Donald, is that so we have that with the big, beautiful Bill reductions. We're now in appropriations budgeting seasonal in DC. So I'm just going to say this. I will see if an appropriations bill actually gets done. Actually, the most likely outcome is that there's not political will and do a continuing resolution where nothing will change. But I think it is also important to just say that at least what is proposed now will have a very material impact on our business, absolutely about a 25% cut in HUD staffing levels nationally, which will be a massive blow to capacity at HUD to help facilitate our work, which we are highly reliant on. But the proposed cuts to the Rental Assistance Program, particularly section eight, are very material. Are very, very material, and will hurt a city like Detroit, really, like very dramatically, so, and could happen very quickly. So, you know, this gives me, like, a tremendous amount of anxiety. I'm very scared about this. Personally, I don't think the political will is there right now to actually make that happen, but it is extremely important for DHC, for our residents, to make clear to our representatives how important the work of DHC is, how important public housing is as a resource in a city like Detroit and we as an institution, I think at some point, are going to be forced to accelerate the change in our business model. We are going to have to grapple with these cuts to rental assistance. I think at some point so it is, we are going to have to move faster than we might want to, because we are we, we are going to be potentially put in a position where we have to protect our residents in the best way that we can, which is not going to be an ideal way. So I just, you know, for the leadership team, for the staff and the folks who are online, you know this is it's just going to be tough. It's going to work. We're gonna have a lot of headwinds. So I'm optimistic that cooler heads will prevail, even if there are changes that will be a little smoother. But right now, what's on the table is very concerned. Is very concerned. So, you know, I know we get a lot of animosity towards the DHC, but you know, this is a time for solidarity, to the most that we to the ways that we can have it.
So we have been very cognizant about watching and seeing where the trajectory is going to go with the changes that will again, it will impact everyone in the affordable industry, but absolutely the HCV program, where we're monitoring, we're working with partners externally, having conversations internally, so that, because, like you said, it can we don't know what to anticipate. So we have to start looking at what is so we are having those discussions. We are having those talk with why I am having those conversations with community partners who also affect how our residents live holistically on our program. We work together on a lot of different areas, and right now everyone is, you know, we're having think tanks. We're trying to figure out what will happen, worst case scenario, what it looks like. So those discussions are being had. They're being had industry wide, with narrow and other agencies. So it is a real concern. It is a
real concern,
and so immediate. It comes down to cash and being able to pay landlords to keep individuals housed so we have seats and descendants.
Yeah, there is no voucher issuance at this time right now we are our protection is what we have on program right now, making sure that we can keep these family families house so we're not able to issue new vouchers. We're like most of the agencies. We're very in a very precarious finance position. So our main goal right now is keeping our current households and keeping them piles um, everything is increasing. Renters, rents are increasing, and we're working closely very well with our team to make sure that we're Yep, that we're monitoring our finances again, that we can maintain health
shareholders. And we started this last year. So it's, you know, right? We started this all last year, given funding because of it. And we, when you hear, Oh, they have 1000 you know, vouchers that those are empty coupons. To your point, because we're trying to weather the storm, like you said, we may have to work quickly, so we're trying to cut it as much as we can stop. You
know, that's, that's the thing I like. It's, it's the sort of Fauci and choice that we have to make already on serving more people or having a rental subsidy that people can actually find quality housing, and that's a choice that we have to make now, that choice could be like, really dramatically aggravated. And so there is no good answer, right? There is no good answer. So we have to make the best choice that we can, given the circumstances and much of it have been out of our control. So that's we're already making those choices today. We don't have to make the dramatic one, yeah, but I just, I'm trying to make sure public understands that like this is not, these are not good options. We're trying to make the least bad. All right. Well, I'm trying to keep us on Gen X. We had guests. I'll make sure that we're anything else on the management team. Okay, let's move to general public comment and try to get A recording pass this to
this is the opportunity I
speaker, this is the opportunity for public comment on matters unrelated to agenda action items. Comment is limited to three minutes for individuals and five minutes for group representatives to ensure speakers adhere to the time limits, the timekeeper will give a One Minute Warning for persons with a three minute comment period, and a two minute warning for persons with a five minute comment period, this warning will be by means of a tone. When the speaker's time is up, the timekeeper will disconnect the call. If you are appearing at the meeting virtually, you will be able to sign up by calling the number specified on the DHC website, andor by raising your hand and identifying yourself within the Zoom app during public comment, all other persons may sign up if they are able to appear in the room, provided there is sufficient space to accommodate those who care to make a physical appearance. A person representing a group must identify themselves and the group when calling. Please note that speakers may not pool their time nor yield time to another speaker. Persons who have called in to sign up to speak during the public comment period will be recognized first in the order in which they signed up, then all others who have raised hands when your name is called. If you are in the room, please stand and state your name in a clear audible tone. And if you are appearing by zoom when your name is called, please respond clearly and audibly after your microphone is unmuted.
This is the opportunity
matters, unrelated to agenda, action items. Comment is limited to three minutes for individuals and five minutes for group representative. Okay,
worn twice. All right,
so Tim, do we have anyone signed up online
in the room first. Sorry, I always forget her. So I saw Mr. Rowe, so you signed up. Yes,
good morning, commissioners. M DHC staff, and congratulations to the new board member, Mr. Venture. My name is Zachary row I'm the executive director of the principal Parkside. We are resident led group founded in 1991 by residents. I want to give a shout out to the residents and fop board members who joined today's meeting by zoom. Also want to thank you the commissioners for listening at the June meeting to residents who shared how much further parts that meant to them. They felt heard and respected. And thank you as well mr. Jameson and his team. I'd like to thank Mr. Jameson, his team, who met twice with us to discuss our future Parkside and to share a draft agreement. Next week, our board, which includes the majority of Parkside residents, will meet to talk about the current situation and what it could mean for our work. While I understand agreement cannot be discussed in detail right now, I do want to say that the process and possible changes could affect our ability to to continue serving the community for over 30 years. It also could impact our funding and partnerships. We will welcome the involvement of one or two commissioners to help guide the process and to ensure reflects the board's goals and resident voices we help the path forward, build on the spirit of divorce direction from the Germany, but but through a good faith effort to move forward together. Thank you for your time, for supporting the people. Parkside, thank
you. Mr. No
Sanders, Miss Sanders, good
morning. My name is Kimberly Sanders. I'm operational manager for Frankfurt. I'm here today to tell you about what's been going on in the last month since the last time we met. It has been our pleasure to continue to work and do the work for our community. We have started our summer program. We even though it was a late start, we still had 20 summer campers to sign up. They have started gardening. So to Denise point, we're building a garden at the community with in tangent, with our seniors and our summer campers, they're doing fall vegetables now. They're been doing learning, tennis tech. We have computer lab. So they go to computer lab for an hour a day. We have meet up and eat up. So they're doing breakfast and lunch. So our summer craft program, even though it started a little late, we spent robust in making sure that our young people have something to do during the summertime and having fun by doing it, also, we were able to have our health fair. We were with everything that was going on with the space. We didn't know if we were going to do the Health Fair this year. We had an opportunity to continue the health fair. It was a success. Normally, we reach over 500 people this year because we scaled back. It was still 300 with over 40 vendors, so that our community not only know that they're here to support, support them in any way, but also help with their health needs, our health and safety fear move forward to then coming a entrepreneur here because we did a after school program last year And we talked to kids about business. So two of our after school students were able to sell their products during the beer and both sold out. So they really great and exciting time for our community. Lastly, we are we had an opportunity to get our first round of tech, those home computers. So when I was telling you the last time that our goal is to make sure that every family out at the villages of Parkside had a computer, we had just the first round to come in. So if they came and did the classes, they were able to receive your computer, and now we're waiting working on getting them services, so they'll get free service, internet service for a year. I think that covers we're doing a lot sometimes with everything that's going on. It feels like, Nehemiah, you're working and fighting at the same time. But we believe that the work is great, and we're here for it, so I thank you for your time. I thank you for supporting anybody
else in the room.
Okay, first speaker, bottom line is, who?
You more of Moto. You can come off of mute.
Hello. Can you hear me? We can hear you.
All right, good, good morning. And my name is Robin Brookins. I live in the villages of Parkside and I voiced my opinion last meeting you guys has had, and I only came. I started, I told you before, I didn't know anybody in the community, and I only started being a part of the or engaging with the community as the redevelopment came about, and they started calling so many meetings. And um, through the meetings I was at my first meeting, I I showed my concern, I spoke my concern about, you know, a resident Council, or whatever like that. And today, you know, it's a little bit frightening situation to be in, on both sides a little bit, because I feel that the resident Council is not listening to the residents, and being that, I haven't lived here as long as a lot of people, I don't know, many people, I have had personal conversations with a few residents here, and people are afraid to speak up For where they live, and that's a bad culture to live in. And so, you know, I feel like I need to speak up. And I just got a couple of points. I got my own timer going real quick, so I got a couple of points that I made last time. And since last time, till today, I've asked other resident council members, and they said they don't know what they do. They've been in office since January, and they they're not providing any services to us. I also heard back early on that resident councils will need units or whatever. I'm not sure what that means, but we haven't even tried to understand what they need the space for. And I am here to advocate also for the friends of Parkside, because resident Council has been last meeting, I heard somebody continue to say, well, resident Council is the standing voice for the residents. Well, if they're not listening to the residents, and they're not having meetings with the residents and and offering us, you know, an ear as to what residents want, they can't really speak on our behalf. And since January, there's been no meeting. There was a meeting scheduled for last Saturday. I attended, and it was rescheduled, you know, so I don't understand why are they given? I do understand why, because I understand the law, but I don't understand the way it's being ran, you know, it's, it's a little bit sketchy, and with that, like, I feel like any good business is run at its best, and it gets its best returns with the proper people and the proper and with the best people in position for the for the job that gives you your best return. And so
what I
want to say, I'm sorry I got so many things wrote down right here. Um, I just want to say, like, residents, and I did say, I wanted to say some things about the redevelopment. One time I got 15 seconds, residents kind of just don't want to get lost in the redevelopment. We got to kind of be able to trust our leadership. And if we can't trust our leadership, we can't, you know, say anything about all the changes that's being made, and there are discrepancies between what's being told and what's being shown. And I think that's my time. I have more, but that's my time, and I thank you for listening to me.
Thank you. Ma'am, Angela,
Miss Angela, you
can come off of mute now.
Miss Angel, please proceed. Miss
Angel, if you're speaking, we cannot hear you, although it appears you're off
me. Can you hear me now? Yes, you hear okay. Thank you for the opportunity to comment. My name is Angela Pruitt. I am an advisor to the resident Council, and it's disheartening to hear I believe her name was Miss Brookins, basically say she attempted to go to a meeting. And then here, Mr. Jameson, the executive director, say that there was a meeting held. Resident Council sent the notice out for the meeting. A lot of residents showed up, but they were not given access to the community room, even though they had a confirmed date to meet. So they are trying to handle business, but they were not giving access until the end of June, beginning of July, to any space they do not have the resources that they need to operate as a resident Council, they have tried, in good faith, to negotiate with the executive management team, and Denise has given some time and Mr. Jameson and they thought they had reached an agreement when they received two addendums to sign regarding their space once their resident council voted on it, the the whole terms of the agreement were basically switched, and I'll read it said the new term say Resident Council shall not initiate or engage in any communications, whether verbal, written or electronic, with any resident or occupant of villages of Parkside to or for without the express written permission of the T TV, p2 or DHC resident. Council is about advocating on behalf of residents if they're being restricted or have to check in with DHC when they want to talk about grievances, debt collection, complaints, maintenance, repairs, all of that. That's not autonomy for a resident Council. In the spirit of HUD guidelines, I'm asking that the board, the actual board of DHC, take time to sit down and talk to the resident Council, to talk about whether or not in good faith the negotiations regarded them, accessing space, accessing the meeting rooms for the purposes of serving The residents has been honored or done in good faith. Now maybe you guys will agree that it was or maybe you agree that it was not, but I'm asking the board as representing the group as their advisor of resident Council, so that residents don't get disarmed about their resident council that has not been able to operate, what you have are members that are about to expire in their position and they haven't been even even able to perform their duties. This is unfair to those ladies who came forward and were elected duly by the residents. This is unfair the board needs to meet solely with the resident Council and see how the good faith communications broke down, and what's being asked of them that does not help the residents. And I think I'm a group, so I should get an extra two minutes on there to finish my conversation, because I am the advisor for the resident council. So in continuing on my time, I'd like to say that if a resident doesn't see professionalism, and they show up to a meeting and the doors are locked and they have to be turned away, if a resident Council is given information to approve in less than seven days, and the property management is saying you have to give us more than seven days notice, and you're subject To other people using the rooms when resident Council, under HUD's guidance, should have first opportunity and residents to use space, community space, office space. So I'd like the Board to take a look at what the resident council was offered originally that didn't have that language that now has language that restricts the resident council from actually acting in the best interest of the residents at the villages of Parkside and so with that said, the board, before any other meeting happens needs to listen to the resident Council and let them present proofs and evidence on how they tried in good faith to negotiate and how Those every time something was agreed and voted on and took back or tried to be taken back, there's been an ongoing problem with the resident Council getting access to Office space or meeting space or being interrupted while they're in the space. And that's all I have to say. Please meet with them. DHC. Board you.
Thank you, Angela, good information to respond to,
please. So thank you, Miss Pruitt for your call in and again, I appreciate your advocacy on behalf of the resident Council and many of the things you said that were a couple things in there that I think I just for the record, I'd like to make sure accurately represented I was describing a meeting that happened, not the meeting you're describing, I think, unfortunately, accurately where you did not get access to the space you intended. Talking about a board meeting of the that I was advised took place among members of the resident Council. The second thing I'd want to mention to you was that we did just, I think, I think that that Miss Pruitt is speaking about an offer to manage and control the space that was made to the made to the resident council before last month's board meeting. That offer was made and it was made in good. It was made sincerely and in good, in good faith. At this board meeting last month, however, commissioners directed me to seek a different arrangement which was discussed here. Alf had the chance to write, share in person, share in writing that the commissioners directed me to come up with a different solution. So I appreciate your frustration. We have been able to make available an interim space, and as you know, we took very significant action to make available the space we had, but we've been directed to create a solution that works for both groups of people. I realize that it may not be what everyone wants. I think you've probably heard today from the friends of Parkside who have concerns about it as well. We've acted in good faith. We're going to continue to act in good faith and at the direction of our commissioners, and hopefully we can reach a conclusion with this that allows you to have the space that you should get, and that we've been working hard to get for you.
Is the board willing to meet with the with the resident Council of villages of Parkside, that was the request. And the language regarding that, and they were trying to communicate to the residents what was going on. And by having that meeting canceled because they could not access space, you know, the board really should meet with and that's all my request was. So, Mr. Jameson, no disrespect to you, but that's what the request
is. So we have a majority of
the board here, but not all the members of the board. My inclination, I'll speak for myself. The other commissioners can weigh in. My inclination is, the friends of Parkside still have to have their board meeting. There's a proposal on the table about space sharing. I would like that to reach this conclusion at the Friends of Parkside have the ability to discuss with their board. If we're able to reach agreement, then my hope is that's not needed, and we move forward. If we're unable to reach agreement on this space by next meeting, then I'm certainly open to considering that we have open meetings requirements, right? We have those are people's schedules that we have to deal with. We have regularly scheduled board meeting, but I would expect this to be on the next board meeting agenda, and if we have resolution on a but at least I as a commissioner, I'm not going to insert myself into the middle of this right now. It's not an appropriate thing for a commissioner to do while we're in the middle of discussions with two different groups. So I think that that would be my recommendation, at least a position I'm at, but I don't speak for the full
board, so so we are dealing with two different Well,
yes, I went to Parkside and resident Council, and there's a
proposal on the table for how they would share space at Parkside and how that would be negotiated between the two of them. Mr. Rowe just stated that they have a board meeting coming up this week, next week. I'm sorry, next week, next week. So they have a meeting next week for them to discuss it. My inclination would be to not run rough shot over the proposal to let the parties discuss with their constituencies. Come back to Mr. Jemison to discuss if we are not resolved by next month's meeting, we can have discussion about whether or not we want to intercede. I'm also a little hesitant, without the other Commissioners here to sort of make that decision,
and I'm not sure what the question is, do we are asking for us to intercede, or just we'll see they're saying we they were just like for us to
visit the appropriate space
conversation so whatever,
There's not equal footing with resident Council and the nonprofit entity. So I guess I'm confused, because resident Council and residents have Miss Angela, you want to unmute there? We all right. Oh, you muted me. Well, we,
we can't have. I don't think this is the appropriate form for this kind of back and forth, but I think hopefully you've heard Commissioner Seibert say that if we're unable to reach a conclusion on this by the next board meeting, they will make a decision at the next board meeting about whether they have that listening session, and it will probably be something like this because of open meeting laws so Ms Pruitt, hopefully you feel like your request has been heard and there's been a recommended action.
Thank you very much.
Everyone else online, you
absolute president,
Julie, if you Goodwin.
Jonathan, Goodwin, you're off mute, but we cannot hear you.
Jonathan Goodwin, can you hear us? You're off mute, but we cannot hear you. I
Okay, unfortunately, Goodwin, we cannot hear you, so perhaps we'll come back to you. Tim, is there anyone else signed up?
It's the last one.
MS, COVID, maybe one more time. I'll just ask if you can perhaps put yourself on speaker phone or for some reason we can't hear you. You are off of mute, but we cannot hear you.
Okay, well, unfortunately, I think we're out to move
on anyone else in the chat?
Okay?
All right, we will bring public comment to a close. Then
onto Commissioner comments, Director, Commissioner Williams. I
is being
very interesting. I'm looking looking something good now. Welcome. Your job is this is going to be easy? Yeah, but thank everyone for Good job. Good
job. Thank
you. Commissioner. Comments from staff.
Okay with that? So close to being on time, could I have a motion to adjourn. The whole. So, all in favor. Aye. All right, thank you all.
