All right. Good morning staff morning commissioners. Welcome to the Board of Commissioners meeting of the Detroit Housing Commission Thursday, August 24 23. We'll open the meeting with a roll call.
Yes. Good morning, Mr. Taylor. Here with Williams. Here, Mr. Sabir Dear Miss Collins absent Mr. Halsey absent. We do have a quorum.
Thank you. First item on the agenda approval of the agenda can I get a motion to approve the agenda, please? Thank you. Thank you. All in favor. Aye. Second item on the agenda approval of the minutes from the regular and closed session meeting of July 27 2023. And may have a motion for green disk discussion. Favor. minutes are approved. Moving on to our first session for public comment. There'll 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 limit 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 morning 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 may sign up in order to address the board during either public comment period. If you're appearing at the meeting virtually you will be able to sign up by calling the number specified on the DHCS website and or by raising your hand and identifying yourself within the Zoom app during the public comment. All of the 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 your group must identify him or herself and the group when called. Please note that speakers map 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 than 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 and audible tone. And if you're appearing on Zoom when your name is called please respond clearly and audibly after your microphone is unmuted. recording in progress. So with that, do we have anyone signed up for the first public comment period on the agenda?
I believe there are none.
There are none. Is there anyone online who has raised their hand for public comment? No. Okay, as a reminder, there'll be a second public comment period later in the meeting. To DHCC action items first item resolution number three to zero for right off of accounts receivable.
And the presenter on this is Luke Joseph CFO. Alright Luke.
Good morning, commissioners. Good morning, everyone. This is our accounts receivable write off request that's done on a quarterly basis. This is the write off as of June 30 2023, which corresponds with our fiscal year end as well. And we're requesting that the for the commissioners would approve the write off 95,003 $85.21 And we do have an attachment to the resolution is finding where these figures came from. Whether they were kind of initiated or deceased or eviction. Those are found on page 16 or B 16. Correct.
Okay, I think I want to say about trending does seem relatively consistent quarter and quarter other than that.
I mean, with the exception of the first quarter of two I mean the first the first quarter of fiscal 23 was the only one that's that was on the low side but the rest are pretty consistent. We're hoping that with all the recertifications and everything else that comes along but the problem the biggest problem is that
just sometimes people end up not being for one reason or another and then
just as a footnote, so just under US GAAP the actual expense has already been taken in the previous year. Yes, this is just a cleanup of the balance sheet only. It does translate the cast but really these are deceased tenants tenants who are in the participation. So there's nothing at this point hitting the p&l is just pretty much the balance sheet is taking the individual receivable off the books and also taking the allowance that had already been previously forced balance sheet in that zero income statement net zero because the expense the bad debt expense has already been taken. You have approximately 1.7 million sitting in your allowance account which states the bad debt has been taken over the previous years. So this is just cash that we will never collect because the Senate tenant is deceased. That's been proven and they've been totally taken out of the progress
we immediately book Those are good points. And then we also do allowance for doubtful accounts we could get into these are already like Irene said definitely this resolution does not affect the future. Our financials it's already been adjusted for
and would like to say though that it is clear that particularly on tenant initiated, we let you start doing the amount of rent which I can get and I divide that into the number of months people have been not paid. It is obvious we need to do a better job in rent collection. Yeah, and to get people in the first or second month of their arrears and not months later when it would be next to impossible to clean up.
So this would be falling on the management.
Yes, it's the onsite property manager responsibility. It is
and we are working with them to improve communications between them and the tenants. So things are definitely going in the right direction. I feel like just taking a little time just your corrections will
always take longer than a sob, you decline decline decline property management and then you sort of bottom out, but the declining is sort of more rapid than the than the upswing again. So yeah, we're moving them that way.
Okay, my motion to approve. So moved. Second. Any discussion, further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Thank you.
Thank you. And two agenda action item number two approval to enter into the contract with Plante Moran PLLC for financial compliance and auditing services resolution number 3205. that look again?
It is look again we have submitted an RFP try to remember the days but somewhere in July we reached out I personally reached out to multiple CPA firms. Only two companies submitted there.
And then on page 20, it gives you the evaluation that the committee did between the two the primary one and the other one. And how we arrived at that percentage and why we chose plant Moran it was pretty clear at data superior classification also for those people who are not aware they've been our auditors for
quite a long time. They've been here since before it started.
And like I was telling Sandra what's good about them is they actually help us with the smaller things. When we need them. They've been very, very loyal and very cooperative. And they gave us very fair pricing. And as big as they are they were actually less their offer was less financially than the other firm, which I was actually pleasantly surprised to see a firm as largest climber in offering less finding, you know their fees less than the other CPA firm. So I'm requesting that the board commissioners would approve, giving Plante Moran a three year contract with option of two year to one year options and total between all of them to add up to 527 Five the original three year is three or three 600 in the option of your one is 109 600 and he or two is 114 300. So when you combine all five years is 527 500.
Okay, why don't we take a motion and then we can do discussion. I have a motion to approve the resolution 3205 support Okay, thanks look for this. You know so industry best practices generically is to rotate firms more frequently. You know we are specialized industry plant has a big footprint here. I'm less troubled by that. But I would like to know the plan on rotating staff. We should at least have a new incharge every three years I think just to make sure we are getting fresh eyes on our books. So he's who's our is at Lisa
who was the lead Jenny is the person who helps her but I can request from Lisa to assign someone else with Jenny.
I think Jenny was the was new to us to two years and then last year in terms of the lead person, but we should just confirm that
yeah, I'm not so worried about the partner in charge because I'm doing the day to day but the in charge manager right like if we need some dilution of somebody new every three years should be part of their standards, because we need a fresh set of eyes on it.
100% agree on that
and that's probably part of their standard practices everything but like I would like to make sure that that is followed any other discussion?
So just to clarify you want Lisa to be changed or Jamie
now the partner in charge I'm not fussed about.
It's Jenny. Yeah,
the onsite in charge.
She's been on board for do you want to three years
so standard practice will be over three years.
This is Jenny second.
We should just check them just
thank you. I just wanted to clarify. Thank you.
Okay, any other discussion? Okay, all in favor. Thank you. Action Item number three approval to enter into contracts construction management Administrative Services resolution 3206. Who is presenting this one?
This is Matt Lenz who's joining us
for the attached resolution is request to enter into two professional service contracts, one of which will for construction management and administrative services, one of which will be with sovereign AEC LLC element will be with visions consultants, LLC. Both contracts will have the same duration and financial terms. There will be the base contract of two years 200,000 And then both contracts will have 100,000 renewal year options and there'll be two one year 100,000 renewal options. Total terms of each contract, four years $400,000 As a professional service, contract the RFP was advertised on April 17. The RFP due date was May 26. The evaluation committee for the RFPs that on June 27.
But that did not include Irene even though it says not booking representatives are not present at the meeting.
The four submitted proposals were reviewed and scored Saverne and visions were the clear winners in the scoring. jumped to page 24. Oh, you we'll see. So as I read noted, the voting committee were the four listed under the committee members. Not voting representative. I should have just noted that Irene was sent the information she was not attending non voting. So that's my mistake. I should have clarified that a little bit. But the comments on the respondents you will find on page 25 And the scoring for the actual breakdown her company as consensus by the Committee on page 26. I have also placed in the center of the table for you guys to review all four proposals. If you'd like to take a look at the actual details included a couple of 100 sheets of paper there so I figured maybe one one was enough. Thank you.
Let's take a motion within the discussion of a motion to move support Mr. Matt. So we're gonna say some met so so this is a new capacity that we're bringing out right as you know, on page 22.
No, we have so we have done this before. Historically, we've always had construction managers under contract for some on site or anything administrative for some technical assistance. A lot of times if we're doing like we've gone into roosters when we were doing civil work, porch replacement and roofs kind of all within like a year time. Instead of having one of our person just kind of sit there we'll use one of these CRMs to go there. Do all daily reports photographing Davis Bacon wage interviews, specs, verification Scope of Work verification, just everything a superintendent construction manager would do a site and kind of be our frontline. We use this we've historically we've used this a lot at that type of heavy intense a we got a lot of work going on at this site, rather than have somebody burn up all their time their internal staff. We use someone's both these contract both these contractors had a previous cm contract as well. So they're very familiar with our expectations of basically just go with specs and you're craftsmanship.
What is the work that you specifically identified that that rose the need up to bring them? Suspect I know but are there specific projects or specific improvements that you feel like you need this high intensity help on I have
some future thoughts? I'm not exactly sure that's specifically built there yet. We're going to do some unit turns at one of our sites that are going to be a lot of units throughout the entire site. It would be good to have somebody there because it's going to be very field heavy. It will be 75 to 80% of one of my specialists time to have them just sit there and walk around inside. So that will be one of the upcoming vacancy reduction initiatives. We're going to take on that will come to the mind first. We're also going to do we just entered into last month the Smith home site improvement so I think having somebody out there looking after that some unit turns are going to go on and potentially some exterior siding tech work I think we're going to do having placing someone out there as well. It was kind of on my radar.
What does this look like from an FTE perspective like what do we buy it for 200,000 Is that understand there? It's seven FTE because project specific but are we buying 10 People are we buying five people are we by I'm trying to assess whether or not like if we are using this frequently enough. Does it make more sense for us to internalize this or the work? Is the work to episodic that it doesn't make sense to do that.
So it's it's or something else. It's absolutely there it's so so these are not we will issue task orders we will issue POS offerings to blanket contracts. I don't like to use the word warranty contract but that's what this is. So we will go to them both for task order for pricing. Hey, we need a person to sit at digs you know and do look over 20 unit turns or whatever we got going out there. Provide us with the data reports. We'll get the best pricing back from them. And then they will kind of determine in a negotiation with us. Hey, do I need one person? Do I need two? Is this going to be eight hours a day? Is it going to be four and we'll break down all the terms per Pio that's issued from these countries. So you're looking at it consultant company. That's why it's a professional service corrupt and you're willing to pay them well over a couple years and the terms have been 202 for two years. Yes, because if if I have to take one of my specialists and just place them out there 80% of the time. They're probably not working on anything else in here talking about upcoming jobs, doing payments, closing out things so kind of gives me a side staff. Extension for I don't have to bring that person in and I pay overtime, pay insurance and all the other stuff that goes along with this kind of
maximums This is not pleasing not to exceed. So that's what we're looking at and how to parse them out.
He's written basically like a retainer contract where you're like you fill it down.
We generally moving we've always had environmental companies, architectural companies, cm companies we've always had those 100 Yes, a retainer.
To comment on this. I would say that I would add that I think that in the map talked about sort of a number of units being turned into one local site. I could see some of this work extending to some of the redevelopment activities as well. We'll have an inspection architect, of course, but then you've got someone doing the same sort of work at those kinds of properties. And we will think of more projects that go along with there's a lot of stuff in the pipeline that could require a will require this kind of oversight as well.
So I know we're gonna get into this whole thing. Our strategic meaning to piggyback off of the standard status was central, or under the executive team, the standard I've been talking about having an architect to look at the whole scope of work to kind of verify when we do contract with contractors that the work is being done correctly, having a structural engineer that we can look at and contact and make sure that they can reconcile and make sure that we're doing the right things up front so we don't have another park side or other types of incidents like that, and also an environmental stuff sort of so we want to talk about that more, a little bit more at the strategic meeting, so that we can have a chapter on art and that can be in our best interest so that when we do go out and farm out and hire, you know, to get the work done, whether it's a new development and working with with mass team, that we have someone that we can verify that, hey, this is the approach. What do you think about that so that we can do it right the first time and we have signed off and of course partnering with the city of Detroit VCs,
figure out balancing workload and cost in house versus question questions,
comments?
And this is all the properties. Yep. covers every property that was managed by us or ones that are not
anymore. Yep. Any work we're doing we can because we as both Senator and it's kind of stated
to us by development and shouldn't do so it's even something at work. could potentially be a part of it
all on favorite
Okay, nobody's favorite. I'll vote yes. Yes, it's much needed. Yeah. Oh, yes. Thank you. You go. Oh, you're sweating. Okay. No more informational items. Okay, and we will move on to our monthly operating reports.
Okay, humbled members of the Commission here. We heard you lightly off the last talked about some time to hear it since January. We've sent in May. A nice little schedule saying how we can move to being amazing. And one of the classes was bringing in talent or lifting up talent within the organization to help what I'm doing about that talent alignment. And coming this month we will have a new REM director who will be charged with the daily KPIs making sure things are working in a fashion that Sandra and I don't have to jump down in the weeds. We can get reporting to help us work on Development Development Development. We also will have a new deputy REM director there was restructuring done to do that. We're in the process of making a final selection and we're very happy. This will be our general literally our general boots on the ground person that go from site the site to make sure the work is being done to look at things and say hey, why isn't this done? Why why why isn't having we closed this out so that we can eliminate some of the noise that we're hearing and make our tenants more comfortable. Meanwhile, the Sandra and a team of ours will be working on Development Development in development right I'm gonna keep specifying that there was a new promoted general manager for maintenance to help work with the property managers to work with the property maintenance individuals to make sure work has been smoothed down on that position. I understand have been vacant for quite some time. So you're leveraged off of a talented individual within the organization. And then we're actively searching for a new development director. So when we talk about going forward, I'm having the mark and having the bench press that having structural engineers having proper general managers, having proper environmental specialists to work with a organization a hole so that we can further the mission on development of making affordable housing. So we wanted to let you know that we're working on this we're trying to get our corporate hygiene as we say and tag working with the existing talent here at the AAC bringing in new talent so that we can focus on development, development development. And then finally for the housing project development. We're happy to say that over 40 Project vouchers were used in this last midterm round in April. They were awarded August the eighth and so we are supporting that along with Garden View kit project is moving along the mayor has approved now as a whole holistic view. You know, we have some environmental concerns, but we're working closely with the city of Detroit and Eagle as well as the community of card and you push that on, here's a sample. You can pass that around of what joint collaboration with all the community leaders in that within our district seven, as well as on DC stay tuned. Don't leave anything.
Oh, no, I think we're I think we're good. I will say prospectively, we're going to be looking at issuing a small number, maybe 100. Probably no more than that. Other project based vouchers are currently in 100 is a small number of projects. Number of a number of vouchers. Thank you project based vouchers. We'll put them out and we'll have to do another competitive RFP that will probably go out closer to late September early October. In anticipation of a new Mr. Low Income Housing Tax Credit round for 9% which will probably we're told will be sometime with a December 2023 submission date. I've got some other RFPs that we will be dropping into the hopper moving forward but that's probably the most the most important one for develop the development community in and around the city. Let me see. Okay.
So let's see executive loop Finance.
Good morning. So these financials are poor quarter the period ending June 23 and Canada does correspond with our fiscal year end because it is a fiscal year and there will be some changes on accruals and prepaids and stuff that you just accounting, but just based as it stands today, these are the numbers that and then the one that probably stands out that I would like to touch on because they're all pretty straightforward, but the rental assistance shows a year to date, net income of approximately 1.6 7 million because we have requested some of the reserve funds from HUD and so that's the explanation on there, unless there's any other specific questions, but that's the thing that I wanted to touch upon. The other one is we're still working on recertifications as far as offense scoring pretty consistent with other months hasn't moved up or down really that much. And as you notice the bullet point before the first quarter corresponds to the earlier counts receivable right off that we discussed in how we have an allowance for bad debt already in there. That's 1.09 And that's already part of already accounted for, as we discussed earlier in the resolution. Anything else that I may be any specific questions.
So I'm looking at fifth D page 50, which is our collections in the chart on the right, for the third party managers versus VHC manage properties and everything about that right. So we are still 22 percentage points below our comp on third party management. And I'm gonna assume for the quarter that if we were to break down, so 52 is kind of a roll up right? About rent collections down 6% Make sure I want to make sure I'm interpreting this right but the vast majority of that increase. The the vast majority of the decline is related to our own manage properties, right.
When I think about that, right? We're thinking about that.
Is there some justifiable reason why we are 22 points below the election right. And our third party manage properties. Is there something in there that is not evident other than bad management practices?
I know the booster that we paid the payments is July, so this is June so Nope. Then I think it's we are not doing a good job in rent collection. And there's no there's nothing we can think of that justifies there other than we're not doing good job
for we're working on that.
Now following but also it was the delinquencies So in June I mean probably had a different management company as well not to mention their name but
he's talking about them and his company. So we are working on something we have a plan that that that is in play to increase the rent collection. And just as the unknown the average rent roll for our own properties have increased. So that is a bit of a good news because it's showing that the recertification process that currently is in place that we have up to 300 households left this delinquent which is a low number we're you know, around 88% were in a good good trend trajectory. The average worker role has increased. So with that increase happening, and the collection still where it's at that makes the percentage drop so we there needs to be improvement and we do have a plan in place.
I will probably ask about this next month.
You will ask about it next month you will definitely know 22 percentage. Oh that is terrible.
And the goal we need to get to 95% or better.
What I mean like yeah, the our third party should not be like screaming for joy by comparison.
If the if the numbers if our numbers were, were the current am e's are I feel like it's within we can get there I still think we can get there to take us a little bit longer but we've got some ideas. We've got some things we're putting into place that will turn this trend around.
Whenever we have new talent coming on board new boots on the ground new general on the corner, I'm coming on call today. I'm not coming on the ground. So we do feel definitely um we've been talking about December being our highlight one but even before then you should see
absolutely being asked about the way that we do record collections by site other we still take in paper checks or we use an online portals is the system the same across all the other frictions in the way that we collect rent that we are like self inflicting armor
Absolutely, absolutely. We do not have key assets. We don't have a website that they can just, you know don't you know, pay online. We don't have a Dropbox is still manually driven. We are looking at that as well. But of course we're trying to put an infrastructure in and then we want to build that where so the answer is absolutely yes.
I thought we just settled that a long time ago that everybody was in on the electronic talking about paper.
Getting people to what's the word up, it's up the uptake. It's the people that we've got two issues. One is getting tenants back into paying rent, right? We've not been good at that, and they were coasting, and people think well that asked him that pain that's. So we've got to get tenants back into the lease obligations. And we've got to get ourselves back into the lease obligations and be serious about it. I have lots of conversations about rent but with managers when they call about an issue and I'll say well, did you do what are you doing? Is that a lease violation? Well, it is what have you done with it? Well, I've made a note to the file. Well, the that doesn't help you get that issue resolved, nor does it help the resident understand you're serious and paying attention about this issue. So we've got a lot to do with it's on both sides to make sure that we're doing okay, people understand where we are now. I know we've talked about this before and talk about it all the time. So I think it's I need to the new director of real estate management coming in is really driven decision making, looking at the data we've got, we're going to help with when we hire and make an offer to someone as the deputy that that person then works with both managers and maintenance around driving, not just getting our units are supposed to be getting managers to manage the way they're supposed to think about much more holistically than just doing delinquent restarts. My baby won't be delivered in my lease itself. So did be shortened by about 30 pages. Well, not only that, but have they explain the lease. So I will tell you so residents services I think for you leases have been explained however, does it need reinforcement? Does it mean something gonna keep going forward? Yes. Denise and her team was working with our outside Marketing and Communications Group 98 forward to put together a series call them YouTube videos. How do you you know have to care for your unit? How do you do this and things that will explain as an onboarding of what their responsibilities and roles are versus ours? How we work together and what our expectations are what they should expect of us
and also during the research recertification process when they meet you know questions or or just reminders are gonna walk through up and visibly witnessed that with our compliance manager. And when that
thank you, there's a lot of movement. So I'm hoping for what I call cosmic convergence. It'll all come together and fit in nicely and we'll be seeing sort of collective AHA across the organization.
If you ask finance, hey, rental assistance.
So I'm not sure
so today, Felicia is on the on site work in a joint partnership with the city for landlord fear and making sure the programs that we have here they're aware of it, but just to highlight here, the hummingbird contract, which is under way is moving along. recertifications are being processed notifications have been sent out to the voucher holders, and we're just kind of working through that process. So to date, I know there's different numbers in the report, but to date, since I would say July the 12th is when we started tracking and seeing how many recertifications have been done. It's been about 362. Again, start out you have to have the upfront work, you know, looking, you know, sending out letters and all that. So we're working through that and we're very hopeful. We have between two dc staff as well as hummingbird staff. We're looking at 4200 research to be done by the end of December between the two parties. 2500 resorts was committed in the contract, and then the remaining bmdc And then Miss Sandra can talk about long longer term which came up in our last meeting solution.
So we have currently on right now we have about 16 people in the department doing vouchers we're probably I would say maybe about from optimum 1010 to 12 people short we're looking at what we need to do and one of the one of the search term solutions right now. And I had a new staff two weeks ago that we've done, I've done published a request for proposals for firms. To come and actually been on managing our tenant base portfolio to actually run it from top to bottom. The only thing that we would be prepared to keep in house would be our project based voucher program, dealing with developers across the city and our special purpose vouchers including mainstream for mental health, family unification, youth aging out of foster care, those particular programs. So we will account for about 1500 will be about in total.
What we are including the project base. Yes,
that's correct. And then the rest would be done by them and including, we put him asking for a call center and we've asked for a whole number of things, including the standards into the contract that our expectation is that they will hit a high performance status for the tenant base program. It's like we built those standards in our property management contracts with our private management companies. Would
you say just for a moment why that's important. I mean, it's important for our residents Absolutely. But also for Desi why that is important.
It's important for several reasons. One because it's it's sort of it's real estate industry standards, basically number one. Number two, it's important for us because sometimes there are grant programs that when when HUD when you apply to HUD, HUD will say sort of where are you on the spectrum of ratings right? And you're eligible for if you're able to get an extra million dollars if you qualify at this level, but you don't at another level if you don't even meet what their threshold is you can't apply and so we could be jeopardizing the financial benefit that we could accrue to this organization. And that translates into a benefit to investments I mean, it all flows, flows back and forth that way. It also means that we subject ourselves to greater scrutiny from our regulators. It also means that we find that you get the kind of notoriety that the outlier and other kinds of people like that will come and find the weaknesses and really mine those which then undermines the credibility. I mean, it just goes to undermine our credibility in the in the workplace, in the city, and the kind of work we do and none of that accrues to the benefit of the organization or the office employees or, more importantly to you as board members or most important to residents to how we do our work. And so we're committed to get this thing right. And to get it right as quickly as possible, but we don't need to spend time trying to respond to one off. If our systems are tight, then the one off is an exception that that's like something went off the rails. But is the system sound? Yes, we have to get we have to be able to get the system sound and working and we're supposed
to say get where are you in the process? You know, you have issues that are
yes, that RFP was issued in the afternoon of August 9. I met with the rental assistance stamp morning of the afternoon of August 10 And we let it have a long lead time because there's a lot of information we're asking for. So the submissions are not due back until mid November. And that's because we also know that there's a couple of other housing agencies who have dropped their their HCV RFPs have published them and are in the process. And so there are only a limited number of organizations that we do this and we wanted to make sure that we were given enough time for those other agencies to decide who they're going to select. And then those agencies that who are selected can decide what to take us on or other folks not getting an award would did for us as well.
And I assume we would be the largest contract in the state outside of Michigan. Is that right?
Yes, we are. That's right. But but but because there are only a handful of agencies that do this organizations that do this nationwide, the demand for their services is growing. I will share with you I had a conversation with another
housing agency
that has about the same size voucher program as us. We were talking about I wanted to find out who was doing his program. And so we've sent this off to that group as well. But we also got under the discussion that this is a difficult program to manage for anybody and so the thought of trying to keep it in house while we're doing all these other things at the same time just didn't seem to make sense to us and we needed a quick hit as quickly as possible. We he and I were talking about the fact that because the program is is difficult. You've got to balance number of vouchers and budget authority and you've got all these moving pieces. Maybe some of us ought to get together and have a serious conversation about how this program how this program offers going because it's not getting less complicated. Even though HUD thinks that that's what they're doing in some ways.
So if we ended up going down that route, entirely externalize it would you anticipate based on your conversation with your peers, we break even on the housing voucher program, do we make a slight margin between the sort of It's a maybe I can't remember the fee as call it we get the administrative fee, the admin fee less the contract costs, is that net positive is that neutral is that negative?
So we've done some modeling and we think it is net positive, not windfall positive, but
do you want to? Yeah, so we've looked at that. When we looked at the make versus buy, we feel that net is going to be neutral because there's a hybrid solution. We still are doing project based and specialty vouchers, and we still have to outsource and so we have enough staffing. You know, we were very lucrative with the staffing because projects is a lot and as we do more development. Go ahead. I mean, and as we do more development and we push out and be more partners out here, you know that that will take a lot so from us, it's not it shouldn't be a loss. It definitely should be either neutral. We won't and it's still we still can support a central office.
So there so you're covering admin, okay. I mean, like that's
yeah, within the program. And also back office. It is
an unbelievable organizational like tap sack right on this thing and like it is, it is the thing that we get. It is hard on reputation to have 1185 delinquent annuals when we go to Washington and ask for more money, more money.
And it's also hard when I explained to stamp as we think that one of if I was a contractor or contractors did on this, there's still room to accommodate employees, existing employees, whether it's in the
project base and special purpose vouchers or other places in the organization with transferable skills, in compliance or in other areas where we need the kind of technical calculations that that they're used to do seven or potentially at the contractor and the RFP does say that the contractor should feel free to talk to existing HC employees as well. And a half an hour and a half. I got my question. No, I didn't. Didn't I hear you? I read I read that somewhere in the budget or the in the contemplation there's going to be in a deputy executive director higher did I hear you say that was over real estate management. So that's just over real estate management. Okay. She's She's the Chief Operating Officer coo I got that truck out. I don't understand. Okay. So that's, that's good. I mean, that was existing position. I think it's been vacant for over a year may have been retooled a couple of times. Yeah, because this is this was a lot. Well, thank you because I wanted to be sure I heard you quickly. Yeah, it was just over that. Okay. About your side
matter human capital improvements.
We met our obligation for the CFB lead abatement grant. We met on August 3, ahead of the August 30 is ended so we were about three weeks early on. Thank you. Let's close down. Yep. No, it's just out of the blue just checked out. We got two years from August 30. Yep. And then we can close them all right.
When obviously General Counsel
nothing to report thank you in resources Justin. squeaky voice Nope. You're muted, Dragon. There you go. Nope. Jason, you're now you're coming to like a chipmunk. So what why don't you just go to the next person and why don't you just join us in the boardroom? Okay, thanks.
That was kind of fun. It sounds like a chipmunk. Okay, we'll move on to it.
Is Here it this year fiscal year, we are mostly working on the Cybersecurity Initiative. And for the last one year we are implementing different tools and now we are actually adopting the framework. We are adapting analytical framework for securing overall IT controls putting up the different I would say guidelines rules to make sure this environment is more secure from the outside right and also inside. For the last couple of months we have a lot on the identity management. And now we are classifying the data what we need to protect and how we want to protect and we are implementing all the data protection active framework all the tools to protect our any type of communication, travel communication, static communication or what we're doing to the emails or the SharePoint or teams or teams communication. on the IT side, we have implemented them. Now what we are doing for the last month or two we were doing all these external activity chat management and now we are going to the insight on threat management. Like especially for the endpoint security, pulling all the logs from the security to just bring everything to one bigger central dashboard to see exactly what is going on and we can add some more AI intelligence to that to do that. more proactive engagement on these type of issues.
Craig, can you tell us this is staff undergo any annual training on cybersecurity or readiness a question for you Irene. You know, what I heard was a lot of systems focus but are like our human vulnerabilities. Is that part of the plan?
The Cyber awareness training is coming. We just
signed just signed off for that. Yeah, so
we have the like a we are using sound security for the Cybersecurity Awareness Training. For the staff that will be for eg staff.
So that should be being rolled out before the end of the year because we just we just entered into the new fiscal budget. It was placed in fiscal year 24 budget. So that should be happening now. From a cybersecurity perspective for those who actually work in low li pas program and ACV program. That's a part of what we have to do in order to get access to keep or maintain our access to the system to pick but for those who don't. And for those who we are going for before December, right because you're purchasing the same program that I just signed off on that those who did in the budget. And so we just signed off that night we'll talk about some of the network how you upgraded the network, all the good stuff that you've been doing, you know your team do that as well. We have upgraded the whole network. That's so there's something about ciment thanks for Broadway syndrome is
Irene and this money that you are able to do all this improvements. You're also getting our phone system, it's coming. We have added a secondary internet service or like a, like a redundant internet. Like an additional one gig bandwidth. So now we have to get bandwidth for the Internet,
disaster recovery,
disaster recovery single provider or dual channels. So right now
it's a single provider coming from two diverse central office but we are planning to add one more either have providers or some some somebody else to add a bit more layer on that 12123
that notice down here and they have the infrastructure, they've been working on it. So hopefully we can work with them as that service.
That's what that's what we are doing. So lots of activity we have done in the last one year and this year. We have a lot of things to do in it.
Others know as we touched my data, we've touched a lot of nonprofits there has been a uptick in fraud in the local nonprofit environment and it's mostly been through social engineering. I think there's a there's a ring operating. It has mostly been LinkedIn profiles. Hi, this is Sandra Doxxing your email you need to send money typically targeting finance people. So something is going on in the city.
Yeah, I've been getting hit almost every once or twice a week. For the past month and a half, two months DocuSign signed a huge DocuSign and that kind of thing is our paid pay this invoice, you know, call us and check this out, because you owe us money. And they've been coming to me and I just tell them about them and then I just delete because it's just it's a mess. He makes sure
they can't get the one network once we let it know that then you put it into the system to make sure that it won't even come to the network.
We have the impersonation policies. But some of these emails are so close that somebody is using Gmail the content is very normal content. So, for that perspective, there is some protocols if finance system anyone asked to make a check, finance has to do something internal control that they can they have to verify the request on ledger.
Do we have a I assume that we're not doing a Massimo work but do we have a deliverer manual callback in finance system to verify wire information when we're sending dollars out or ACH?
Well, everything everything was for the accounts payable, so even the ACH but it has to come approved from the department and the department head usually gets smaller just
because I've gotten we've gotten calls from the bank saying someone's here with a check.
Yeah, or something we haven't already spoke with Comerica to like especially since our not to discuss the the new management with the AME but since they since the new companies have taken over I have had an uptick with even though they're legitimate checks, but the bank thinks they're fraudulent and obviously you know, we verify it, so and we approve those checks because they are accurate. But um you know so I believe we have a pretty strong you know, system in here as far as checks and balances and went before the check is written in
unfortunately to against us what just happened in July and August because the tenants was writing they're used to writing your cashier's checks or their manual checks. The banks like snow hold up, you know, because the banks are increasing their level of security and it disrupt our business. And so the answer is, yes, America is doing it. Luke and I talked about that all the time. And he's he and his team are very much on top of that.
Last question really does do we have a cyber fraud insurance policy? We
do have?
We do Yeah. Which is why we've moved to two step authentication on a number of our The other thing I would call the attention that the Chuck's been doing, you know, we move to this mobile maintenance system so that managers can, residents can call on a work order at their property management office on site, and then the manager sends that out to the maintenance team for specific maintenance tech to get the work done. We've had some holes in that system and whether it's paper or whatever, so we've now ordered of having hand tablets because the phones just are too little for the guys to handle. So the tablet stock can take pictures can do all of that. And we're going to start training people starting with managers. No more paper, work orders. They've got to all be electronic. They've got to go back and then once they're closed out, they get back sent back electronically. So human hands don't have to touch it. No one can say I forgot to close it out. Or if it's done inappropriately, we know who to go talk to retrain, or whatever we have to do. We think that that will then make us both more efficient and effective, but it'll also be better for product looking at productivity. And accountability, as well.
Shall we bounce back to human resource? Yes,
David is your thank you.
listeners. This is my natural voice. video transmission. I have nothing to report but it'd be backing off of cybersecurity. We recently did are working on Office security, health and safety and we did some CPR training, AED training. And then this week of Tuesday, we did some off security. Looking at our cameras possibly getting higher resolution cameras to identify more details if something is going amiss or right and but we'll be expanding some of that trainings to additional staff members as the weeks go on. Here the next few weeks in question
procurement
records upcoming solicitations are listed on page 69. We have coming up the electrical repair service the humming maintenance and upgrade the boiler maintenance and repair service as well as the generator maintenance or repair service. A lot of people do download back to succeed all the RFPs but then, at the end of the day, we get sometimes two or three people sometimes one. So I've actually discussed this with both Senator and Iran to see how we can reach out to more people to make to submit that's trying to resolve that hopefully we'll get one fix on RFPs in the future. But everything has been electronic for a while. In the good old days. We used to put them in the legal news we just left now
versus our residence or procurement resident services
commissioners. I just want to still highlight our new method of reporting. I just thought it was very important for us to really let you guys start understanding the different things that we are required to do for the money that we now have. The amount has increased so much. So if you you know I kind of left in the whole description and it's still a long report because I left in his description so that you guys can read more and get a better understanding. I do also want to highlight our upcoming events in case you guys want to come out. So September is going to be our workforce and Career Expo that we'll be highlighting our jobs plus grant Jobs Plus sites so we have a job plus Center at state fair here. COMM And Envision Center. So the whole month of September will be based on that and then October we'll be closing out our programming outdoor programming with pink out and all of our events pertaining to harvest festival you know, instead of trick or treat those kinds of things with pink out is really our opportunity to help and provide services for cancer fighters, cancer survivors and caregivers. And I'm gonna be partners
do you have helping you with all your events?
59 Yeah, we're at 59 and growing and looking to grow.
What do they include?
Oh, a mirror. Yeah. So some of the newer ones that we have on board and definitely with the city of Detroit we have CZ we also have we're looking at they have a housing department the housing and our HR D but there's an organization I just reached out to
hopefully one Troy
Yeah. Oh, Rebecca. Rebecca global, reached out to her so that's going to be something because we're working on establishing our Homeownership Program will not only HCD but being able to provide homeownership opportunities for LSU as well. And then we do have two significant providers that come out and that's our ABC vision and our dental those are significant they have been coming out and we get at least 60 to 75 70% individuals actually getting free eye examinations and prescription glasses, as well as dental services that is happening at our events. So become our attorney our events going forward. You're gonna see ABC vision. You can see the dental and just a mere Yeah, healthcare, voter registration on the ACP program signing up our residents for affordable connectivity, the federal money that come down for the $30 credit every month towards their internet services, and then actually providing them with Internet services and providing them with computers. We are we raffle off computers at every event.
So I just want to add one. There's a new partner about to be a new partner. That floored me when I read about it. And that's CBS I never thought about workforce, the Workforce Development Program. So Lisa's tapped into that. And one of the four pillars of that program is to talk about providing jobs for returning citizens from incarceration, which is wonderful because I think you know, we've changed our how far we help our look back is in terms of criminal records, to get people eligible to move into public housing or to the voucher program. HUD has been about this for a number of years. Secretary fudge has reinforced that so that making housing agencies much more aware that we should be doing something which which we've been doing so. I just, it was just nice to see who's sort of coming into the fold and, and Denise really
and their training is extended past pharmacy techs so they do training and employment opportunities for retail hospitality is expanded outside of the healthcare
their workforce, work seems to be hitting or firing all cylinders, the YouthBuild grant seems to be not performing as well as we had hoped. Is that fair to say?
Well, um, we've had a struggle in maintaining in relationship with a construction partner. And so what we have found is we find construction partners that want to help us but then they want a significant amount of funding for that and the funding usually exceeds the amount of our grant. And so what we have come up with right now, which has been working well, is our connection with Wayne County Community College so they have a whole construction piece where we've actually sent two people through there already. They passed it one of the participants is now in a pre apprenticeship program with the union because that connection and partnership comes along with the relationship with WC three. So we're moving along we are also expanding our new contractor, Tabasco, so we're looking at doing a home ownership and training piece with them so that they can go work at this modular inspector again, building homes and then looking at giving them that first
and youth Bill YouthBuild and the GED completion stuff as Wayne County Community College, also the partner there
now we actually have an instructor that we hired. So it's organization that's what they do is GED and the GED is pretty much it's always going to probably ongoing because some people graduate and are able to pass early on after the training. There's some additional so that kind of will always seem like it's accumulative across time.
General public
comments.
This is the opportunity for public comment on matters unrelated to agenda action items. Comments is limited to three minutes for individuals and five minutes for group representatives to ensure speakers adhere to the time limits that 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're appearing at the meeting virtually you'll be able to sign up by counting the number specified on the GHC website or by raising your hand and identifying yourself within the Zoom app during the comment period. All other persons may sign up if they are able to appear the room provided there sufficient space to accommodate those who care to make a physical appearance. A person representing a group must identify him or herself in the group when calling. Please note that speakers may not pull 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 than 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 and audible tone. If you're appearing by zoom when your name is called please respond clearly and audibly after your microphone is unmuted. So with that I think we'll open up the line. Thanks. A friend Mr. Rowe is up first. Mr Rowe Can you hear us?
Yes, I can't. Thank you. Hello, my name is Zachary rota executive director of friends of Parkside and a former president of Parkside because the Parkside was established by residents for residents in 1991. I want to express my gratitude to all the Parkside residents who attended today's commissioners meeting. Here are some updates on what parsehub has accomplished since the last day she commissioners meeting provided food and household items to more than 161 families continue hosting our weekly Tuesday bingo game for seniors from one to 145 held our bright futures summer youth program for children aged six to 14 Monday through Thursday from 10 to three for five weeks. parsha Parkside chosen to learn basic dance move basketball, baseball skills keyboarding nutrition and went on field trips including the bailout Nature Center bowling, co 313 to learn about drones and CJ Barrymore that your January time especially at CJ Group head are held our meet up and eat a breakfast and lunch program for children aged 18 and younger. held our voice of Parkside video premiere, which showcase videos taken by Parkside residents on the subject of security, surveillance and peace. It was an amazing, amazing event and we will be available online in the near future. This was a project between fop and you European School of Information. We have a contract with the Michigan Community Health Workers Alliance to provide community health workers services at Bethel in Hartford memory your churches and at WCC D. continuing our partnership with UVM on various research projects, including the peroxide and energy burden and the community tech workers Initiative and the space project with the University of Detroit Mercy Detroit community design center supported by kreski playing the next plan the next upcoming Parkside monthly meeting on Wednesday, August 30 of the topic is tackling maintenance together finding answers to residence issues and Sabrina Ballinger with TVP management formidable will be present. So at the last meeting Desi Commissioner passed Resolution 3202 approval to negotiate a real estate development agreement between the two Housing Commission and denotes co development company for the redevelopment of the village of Parkside preserve, Parkside supported the resolution with that say and before the Detroit housing commissioners vote on the actual agreement. I would like to suggest that Detroit housing commissioners that would suggest that to Detroit housing Commissioner X Josko has a meeting greet with TVP residents and fop fop will be happy to play in the host this meeting. Also in hindsight, I will realize I have not acknowledged the ACS decision to continue to host these monthly meetings by zoom does great because it makes these meetings accessible to residents and stakeholders. I know there's an ongoing challenge between convenience and security. I would like to suggest that JC reconsider the requirement to include an email address to attend the meetings because some residents do not have a use email. So I told residents to use know that email.com to sign up putting meeting so if you see that that's us telling residents that you don't have email to us that in closing, I would like to thank DC commissioners and staff for all that you do to support the public housing residents, including the residents of beauty Parkside for the Parsa. Can I do what we do without your support? Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Any comment from
management? I just would like to say hi Zachary. Okay, let me okay. Just so you know that Mr. Irving, who is the president and CEO of GE NASCO has has reached out to the tenant reps. They've done some virtual introductions in some conversations, and it is our intention that probably in the next month or so, if not less, there will be a beginning series of meetings and meet and greets. And then actually trying to figure out some working sessions as well. So it's continues to be stressed as UNESCO by us and they have really agreed as well, to make sure that this is a heavily resident participated, operation or going forward and planning sessions, so you are not forgotten. Thank you.
To other folks and ally.
Goodwin, yes. Hello, everyone. Yes, my name is Julissa Goldman. I'm a representative rep here at Friends of Parkside and I'd also like to invite Parkside invite I'm sorry. It has a commission to our Parkside community meeting this August 30 at 6pm to 730. Zachary has already alluded to Sabrina Baldwin, TV, TV management for a minute we'll be here. We also we have the Detroit Police scene, fifth precinct divided and we just want to have representation for Detroit housing, to discuss our proposed maintenance action, discuss maintenance concerns and solutions and what can residents do. We will have fun food and raffles and you are more than welcome to come. And I appreciate that. Thank you so so much. Thank you very nice. Thank you.
Thank you Miss Coleman. Thank you. Everyone else in life. Okay, see anybody in the room? No. Okay. Same no one else. Thank you for those comments. Oh, I'm sorry.
I just want to say and I've said this over and over again. I've been here 14 years now. The Housing Commission and I just want to commend Sandra, Irene, Gwen, Luke, and all the staff because i This is the most that I've seen those tried to grow and be a team and accomplish two goals pure THC, and I just wanted to put it on record. That that's how I feel. We go we're definitely going up. We're definitely going on.
That's very nice to hear. Thank you. Okay, any other staff comments?
I just have a couple. I just want you to know we're having an all staff meeting on September 19. To talk about moving forward how we're going to do that will history review and to really talk about goals and objectives for this organization, both in the short term, near term and longer term moving forward. So, so that will be something we'll do all afternoon on the 19th. I also would be remiss if I didn't want to say thank you to Erica Shelby. I'm not sure she's on but Erica has served as an Operations Coordinator and Operations Coordinator and contract administrator for a number of years here. And then we asked her if she would, in the interim be the interim director of real estate management, which she has done since February. She will be moving out of that role as the new director comes in next Monday on the 28th. And so I wanted to say thank you to her for all her work and effort and for her willingness then to onboard and help onboard the new incoming director. She will be moving to a different slot in the organization, one that she has wanted and one that has wanted her back. So we're trying to again go to fit talent and and energy and right size people in the right positions and so she will become the deputy in the procurement department and lend her talents there. So that we can track our contracts. When they're coming in when they're going out when they're overdue and all of that stuff again, so that we've got our corporate hygiene in place for procurement so we don't find ourselves with lapsed contracts. I know contracts that we without without having something to immediately take their place. So thank you to Erica shell.
Commissioners Okay, with that, I will take a motion to adjourn.
So moved. Second.
All in favor we are adjourned. Thank you all. Thank you. recording stopped
