Affordable & Fair Housing Partnership

EASTHAMPTON AFFORDABLE & FAIR HOUSING PARTNERSHIP 50 PAYSON AVENUE EASTHAMPTON, MA 01027 April 23, 2020 Minutes of the meeting of the Easthampton Affordable & Fair Housing Partnership meeting held on Thursday, April 23, 2020 at 6:00 p.m. via Zoom. Meeting adjourned at 7:30 p.m. Members Present: Janna Tetreault, Koni Denham, Kate Shapiro, Jackie Brousseau-Pereira, and Ken Iavecchia. CPA Committee members present: Dan Rist, Greg Rolland, Scott Cavanaugh. Other attendees: Jamie Webb (Assistant Planner) Minutes: A. Approval of February meeting minutes tabled until May B. Discussion with CPA Committee re: Emergency Rental Assistance Program. The Easthampton CPA Committee is very interested in moving forward with the Housing Partnership and the Planning Department to create an Emergency Rental Assistance program using CPA funds. Many other communities in MA have been working on this as well. Janna mentioned that she has a conflict of interest and will recuse herself from participating in the creation of the program. Janna works at Community Action Pioneer Valley and CAPV has been talking to Amherst about responding to their RFP to Administer their CPA Emergency Rental Assistance program. The two Committees discussed on how to best move this project forward. A decision was made to form a subcommittee of CPA and Housing Partnership members with Kate and Jackie taking the lead on working with CPA and the Planning Department. The tentative plan is for the subcommittee to develop an RFP and present it to the CPA Committee at their next meeting. All HP members voted in favor of creating this subcommittee. C. Update on Housing Market Study No update. Planning Department reports that study still relatively on track as far as we know. Planning for more interaction with the consultant later in the summer. E. Next Meeting Next meeting is scheduled for May 28, 2020. It will be via Zoom.