Amesbury Housing Trust

RECEIVED By City Clerk at 9:15 am, 2/18/22 AMESBURY CITY HALL 62 Friend Street Amesbury, MA 01913 Amesbury Housing Trust MEETING MINUTES January 12, 2022 @4:30pm VIRTUAL Members present: Kerry Hamel-Pope, Margaret Hoffman, Flo Pamphile, Kathy Troiano, Nancy Frick, Steve Stanganelli, Mayor Kassandra Gove, Drew LeFleur Others present: Angela Cleveland 1. Call to Order at 4:31pm 2. Minutes from November 10, 2021 – Mayor Gove moved that we approve the minutes as presented. Nancy Frick seconded. Roll call vote. Yes: Steve, Kassandra, Margaret. Nay: None, Abstain: Nancy and Drew 3. Public Comment - none 4. Election of Vice Chair. Mayor Gove nominated Margaret Hoffman to be Vice Chair. Steve seconded the motion. Roll Call vote: unanimously approved. 5. Communications  New Member welcome – Kathy Troiano introduced herself to the members and the members introduced themselves. She has experience with senior housing and housing with disabilities.  Housing Trust Account update. Ms. Cleveland announced that according to the City’s Treasurer is $90,439.96. We will start seeing more revenue into the account as we jumpstart the Short-Term Rental Licensing program. 6. Existing Business  Senior Citizen Rental Assistance Program – based on the Senior Citizen Circuit Breaker program. We can provide up to 150% of the credit on their income tax. Not required to fund it. How it works: people submit an application to OCED. We would review them (along with their income tax return). Margaret asked if we know how many people might be eligible for this? Unfortunately, we don’t know the eligibility by their residency and owner/rental based on the State’s data which is two years old. As a whole in the City, about 900 people were using the Circuit Breaker program. We think it might be less than 100. Do we know what the amounts they are asking for will be? The maximum amount is $1,200 in 2022. Drew asked if this sustainable long-term? How do we continue funding it? Steve said that is a good question. The other programs we have that income means tested programs are probably about a couple hundred thousand dollars. If we introduce something and people start relying on it, it sends a poor message. Steve said this is going to be based on our future funding sources. One source is the monitoring fees from Amesbury Heights. Other funding sources could be in lieu of fees for affordable housing projects. The third funding source is passing the Community Preservation Act. It didn’t pass in 2018.  The Mayor said she feels this isn’t a lot of money, as the maximum amount is about one-month’s rent. It’s like “kick the can down the road”. We might be better served by spending our time on updating the Inclusionary Housing bylaw and ADU bylaw. However, we could work on the administrative piece of it now so that it’s in place so that when are ready we can take it off the shelf and implement it. In the meantime, perhaps we start thinking about how to collect more data to truly understand how many people this would really help so we know how much money we will need. Margaret asked how we deal with tenant issues right now. We send to social service agencies for funding, but we also have a complaint form in the Mayor’s office. This can help file a claim with the Attorney General’s office. Unfortunately, no one is really submitting those claims right now, potentially for fear of being evacuated, but also because they may not know how to navigate the system. Pettengill is saying that right now another big issue is release of housing vouchers to help people pay rent. Flo said that housing preservation is important. It would be great to have a tenancy preservation program, however, we know that our budgets are tight. We also need to figure out how to navigate this process administratively. Maybe we should have a small emergency fund set aside? Margaret asked if the City tried to pass CPA. Yes – back in 2018. The state match is large right now and could be a solid source of funding. We need to get the public on board though. Steve said we are the only community that has passed this in the State. Perhaps we could start working on the operational framework for the program…how can we start collecting data? How can it be administered? What does that application process look like? Kathy asked what happens if seniors don’t file a return due to low income? Steve said they would not be eligible? Margaret said, do we want to initiate a program that we can’t fund? Steve agrees with that, but if and when we can potentially fund it, there is a program in place to administer it. What does someone who is reviewing the applications need to do this? Drew asked if we have ever looked at the priorities that we developed to run a quadrant exercise to see what the level of resources needed are. The Mayor thought that was a good idea. Drew offered to do that with our six priorities. Steve offered to put together an application and Margaret offered to help. Margaret asked if we should put it to a vote. Steve said unless we are ready to fund it, we can put it to a vote to allocate funds. We are not ready to allocate funds. The Mayor said this is just a tool in the toolbox.  North Shore HOME Consortium Funding Update Angela gave an update on where we are with working with the social service agencies. After meeting with the North Shore Home Consortium and Community Action/Jeanne Geiger, both agencies reached out with concerns about capacity and liability of managing the funds. One thought, so that we don’t have to refuse the HOME Funds Allocation, would be to have the City administer the program. We would ask the North Shore HOME Consortium if we could modify our agreement with them to say that the City would allocate the $37,197 to support a Tenant Based Rental Assistance Program (TBRA). Angela asked if the Trust would be willing to consider allocating funds from the Trust to hire a part-time staff  person to administer this program? This could be a great opportunity to bring a part-time housing planner on board, and grow into administering the Senior Citizen Rental Assistance Program, housing creation/monitoring, MBTA Communities, 40B work, etc. The Mayor expressed concern over this being a long-term commitment, but rather the TBRA program could be a pilot. Motion from Margaret to hire someone to support a tenant based rental assistance program that is funded by HOME funding from the 2019 allocation. Steve seconded. Steve asked who handles the funding for this. Angela clarified that we would ask our planning peers for a job description. This position will be very specific to the HOME tenant based rental assistance program. Steve asked if it was possible to expand this role deal with housing production to work with Habitat for Humanity. The Mayor said it depends how much we can afford to pay and how long this person we would have this position. Angela will follow up with North Shore Home Consortium to determine if we can modify that agreement. Steve asked whether it is appropriate to put a limit on the allocation from the Housing Trust fund to hire the part-time employee? Angela said yes, it would make sense. However we don’t know what that amount would be at this point. Margaret amended her motion: to hire someone to support a tenant based rental assistance program that is funded by HOME funding from the 2019 allocation, based on the research Angela is doing on salary and job description. Steve seconded the amendment. Roll call vote: passed unanimously. 7. New Business  Angela asked if the group would be willing to split into a working group to look at our current housing list and how we could prioritize areas for new housing development. Nancy, Margaret and the Mayor volunteered. Angela will put together a meeting before our next Trust meeting. 8. Next Meeting – February 9, 2022 @4:30pm 9. Motion to adjourn from Steve at 6:01pm. Nancy seconded. Passed unanimously.