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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHousing Commission Board Minutes May 22, 2024 k**Y�•: i f Lansing Housing COMMISSION 419 Cherry St., Lansing, MI 48933 Telephone: (517)487-6550 Fax: (517)487-6977 Minutes of May 22, 2024 Commissioner Henry called the meeting to order at 5:32 p.m. Mr. Fleming called the roll. PRESENT AT ROLL CALL: Commissioners Emma Henry, Loria Hall, Ashlee Barker, Heather Taylor absent, and Don Sober. STAFF: Steve Raiche Karen Chase Kim Shirey Victor Verchereau Jennifer Burnette Guests: None Commissioner Hall motioned and Commissioner Barker seconded a motion to approve the minutes of the April 24, 2024, commission meeting. The Motion was approved by all members present. Public Comment: limit 3 minutes per person • Anthony Nevillf— Lived at Capital City Apartments for 10 years. I have several complaints about Capital City Apartments. Anthony states the office is falsifying records by signing his name to them. The office hours went down from 40 hours to 16 hours. The rehab that was done at Capital City Apartments was not done right. The building is falling apart because of bad rehab. He states the office is not doing their job like calling the exterminator. Maintenance can't fix anything. Can't get into the office to even make an appointment for the office without going through the security guard. Parker-Arntz came in and took all the exhaust fans out of the bathrooms and it is now causing mold issues. Can't get any mediation through the office. Commission Henry asked to get everything he is saying in writing. We will investigate it. Commission Sober will help him gather the information to give to the board. Action Items: • LHC Board Policy on Conference Attendance — Proposed. Mr. Fleming took the suggestions from Commissioner Taylor and made some changes to the policy. One of the suggestions was two conference meetings, I rewrote it to say LHC will budget for TDD/TTY#: 1-800-545-1833 Ext.919 121 "Equal Housing Opportunity" Lansing Housing Commission Board Meeting June 26,2024 Lansing Housing Commission Minutes May 22,2024 Page 1 of 6 :: : z i f Lansing Housing COMMISSION 419 Cherry St., Lansing, MI 48933 Telephone: (517)487-6550 Fax: (517)487-6977 two national meetings per year and one Michigan meeting per year. If you exceed the two conferences per year you will need to get board approval. Commissioner Taylor questioned what good standing meant, so Mr. Fleming added the wording Bylaw for the Lansing Housing Commission because there is a section in there on attendance that was passed by the board last year, and article 5 of the Lansing City Charter related to the appointment of board commissioners. In those two things explains what we are talking about when it relates to in good standing. Mr. Fleming added that reservations will be completed in a timely manner once attendance is approved. He also added Rail to car, air. You will be compensated based on the LHC Travel Policy. LHC will pay per diem for food and will not pay for anything outside of that. Mr. Fleming tried to take in account Commissioner Taylors changes. Commissioner Barker asked if approval can be done by email if the next board meeting is too far away or canceled. The answer is yes with the official approval being done at the next board meeting. We will put out a schedule of the conference dates and where they are. Commissioner Barker motioned Commissioner Sober seconded to approve the LHC Board Policy on Conference Attendance as presented. Motion was approved by all members present. Informational Items: Finance Report April 2024 • Steve and Doug met with the finance committee yesterday talking a little bit about where we are year to date, we have a couple of months left in the fiscal year which ends on June 30th. The numbers you have in front of you are going to be somewhat in the ballpark where we are likely going to finish the year. • 1 am handing out some information on the FY25 Budget. You will be asked to approve the formal budget at the June board meeting. We have a positive outlook on next fiscal year's budget. Housing Choice Voucher April 2024 Jennifer Burnette provided a brief overview of the April 2024 HCV Reports TDD/TTY#: 1-800-545-1833 Ext.919 n "Equal Housing Opportunity" Lansing Housing Commission Board Meeting June 26,2024 Lansing Housing Commission Minutes May 22,2024 Page 2 of 6 k**Y�•: i f Lansing Housing COMMISSION 419 Cherry St., Lansing, MI 48933 Telephone: (517)487-6550 Fax: (517)487-6977 • LHC in conjunction with CAHP is continuing to outreach for additional participation in the FSS program and have 1 new Contract of Participation signed during the month of April. • In the month of April, we issued zero regular HCV vouchers and are on track to distribute over 50 in the month of May, 1 VASH orientation and four vouchers were issued with the assistance of community partners. • We have ten that are issued out searching or pending inspection with VASH. Two in the application process. • We have two hundred (200) applications that were mailed out during the month of April. Twenty-two regular HCV that are currently out searching for units. We have 52 applicants that have pending documentation or final approval. Then we have thirteen units that are approved and pending inspection or pending lease up. Asset Management Report April 2023 Public Housing (PH) Scattered Sites — Karen Chase • Public Housing Scattered Sites we currently have sixty-six units left in public housing. Fifty-nine of them are occupied, which is an occupancy rate of 89% at the end of April. There were zero (0) move-in, zero (0) move-outs, and one (1) transfer. • Still struggling with getting applications back that are sent out. • There was a total of zero open work orders. Discussion Items: • Commissioner Henry asked Mr. Fleming to get a status or year-end report of the other amps to be included in the June board meeting. • Capital Funds — HUD looks at the units we have and then we get capital funds based on that information. We have more capital funds than we can use. We found that we can take those funds and invest in new developments. We are in the process of looking at that. We must use the funds before we lose them. • Procurement Policy — a copy of the procurement policy has been given to you so you can go through the new amounts. We want to update the amounts that we can go to without board approval. This will be an action item at the next board meeting. TDD/TTY#: 1-800-545-1833 Ext.919 n "Equal Housing Opportunity" Lansing Housing Commission Board Meeting June 26,2024 Lansing Housing Commission Minutes May 22,2024 Page 3 of 6 k**Y�•: i f Lansing Housing COMMISSION 419 Cherry St., Lansing, MI 48933 Telephone: (517)487-6550 Fax: (517)487-6977 Other Items: None Deputy Director Comments: • HUD VASH is picking up and regrowing. HUD put out a notice asking housing authorities who administer if they would like to request additional administrative funds to be used specifically for VASH. Those funds can be used for hiring staff specifically for housing and administer vouchers. The funds can also be used for security deposits. That is what we want to use the funds for if we receive them. • Continuum of care decided not to fund PSH Grants, and we are looking for a solution. We think that we have found a solution after many conversations with HUD. We will be able to move the people affected by the PSH grant ending to our two PSH programs if we have room and funding in those programs. We received this in writing. Executive Directors Comments: • Doug passed out a site plan of the proposed 9% (Riverview 220) deal of the building across the street it shows the placement of the building. • 1 am working with the city to possibly purchase the corner where Baryames is currently located with some of the city's funds. We may be able to work with them on getting something done. • City Hall is going to go right next door to the building across the street. • The 55-unit 4% deal that we wanted to put on the property next to the 9% deal, but the city would not sell us that property. It is now where the new city hall is going to be. The 4% deal will be moved down the street to the property that is across from the Lansing State Journal building. • We have a name the building contest going on with the staff name the building for the 4% deal. We will send them to the board to be judged. • The city has dollars that can only be used for demolition or remodeling. So, if the city demos the Davenport building, we can use those dollars to purchase the Baryames corner. • If we purchase Baryames we will have green space. It will also protect our views. We can use the front end for parking when using the retail. We may lease out parking to the city. • Talked to the people that owned the parking lot on the corner of Cherry and Lenawee (Michigan Bankers Association) about maybe needing some extra parking. Not sure we will at this point. They were not willing to sell but they did say they might be willing to lease us some space. TDD/TTY#: 1-800-545-1833 Ext.919 "Equal Housing Opportunity" Lansing Housing Commission Board Meeting June 26,2024 Lansing Housing Commission Minutes May 22,2024 Page 4 of 6 k**Y�•: i f Lansing Housing COMMISSION 419 Cherry St., Lansing, MI 48933 Telephone: (517)487-6550 Fax: (517)487-6977 • Meeting with the city. There is a home loan on Oliver Gardens that is preventing us from renovating. The deal doesn't work with this loan. It is a forgivable debt at 20 years. We are at year 18. We are working with the city to forgive the debt early not sure it that is a possibility or we would buy the debt meaning that LHC would buy the debt for the next two years so it would be off the books. When we go to reindicate it that debt wouldn't show up and the deal would work. Then in two years we (LHC) would go back to the city and say now that we met the 20 years can you now forgive the debt. • 1 also met with the Gillespie Group and the Boji Group on the old McLaren property. • 1 talked to Child and Family Charity this morning at their event. They are on the Washington side in the other part of the property. Community Mental Health is going to be moving to the other side of the McLaren property. The main hospital is still available. • On the end of the parking lot there are some out locks that is some green space, we talked about purchasing those and building some row condo there. Then we would turn around and turn them in to the home ownership project. • The main hospital, I have an architect coming in to look at that building to see what kind of conversion could be done on the floors into apartments. • Community Mental Health owns the building on the front of the property. • 1 am going to PHADA in New Orleans next week. I went to NAHRO and met with Senator Levin, Debbie Stabenow office when I was out there and Elissa Slotkin office. Going over housing stuff. Talked about we can only get 20% project-based vouchers. We are asking for non-working agencies to go to 50% project-based vouchers. • We did a Waverly Place tour with the mayor. Commissioner Henry and I with the mayor. He requested a tour. We went to two occupied units and a vacant unit. We gave him a realistic look at how lives are really like in public housing and some of the challenges we have. • 1 went to the BMCC conference here in Lansing. It is an MSHDA conference. Everybody that is anybody that is in affordable housing was there. • Strategic planning I turned over to Vic. The first phase is interviews with staff and with residents. Vic oversees this. Then they will move to board level. • We are supposed to send to the city of Lansing an Annual Report which I have given you a copy. We are responsible for sending to the city of Lansing not only our audit, but we can give an annual report. For the last couple of we put together a year in review. This report will be published on the website. • Commissioner Barker had a couple of questions. First regarding Riverview 220, does the council have to approve the CBG? No is the answer. Second you mentioned you get calls for project-based vouchers, why do you say yes or no to anyone that calls? In the deals we have in the agreement that they will get some project-based vouchers and also have a preference for section 8 vouchers. Some places may take section 8 vouchers, but they also require three times your income and the voucher holders can't come up with the amount requested. TDD/TTY#: 1-800-545-1833 Ext.919 "Equal Housing Opportunity" Lansing Housing Commission Board Meeting June 26,2024 Lansing Housing Commission Minutes May 22,2024 Page 5 of 6 k**Y�•: i f Lansing Housing COMMISSION 419 Cherry St., Lansing, MI 48933 Telephone: (517)487-6550 Fax: (517)487-6977 Development Activities: Other Activities: President's Comments: Other Business: Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 6:48 p.m. Date Emma Henry Board Chair Date Doug Fleming, Acting Secretary TDD/TTY#: 1-800-545-1833 Ext.919 n "Equal Housing Opportunity" Lansing Housing Commission Board Meeting June 26,2024 Lansing Housing Commission Minutes May 22,2024 Page 6 of 6