Housing Commission

6/27/2022 - Minutes I. Call to Order Members Present: Robert Millar, Jack Commo, Stevya Muzuko, Leslie Black-Plumeau, Deputy Mayor Jim Duncan (Council Liaison) Call to Order by: Robert Millar Meeting Start Time: 6:07 PM Minutes Recorded by: Jim Duncan II. Agenda Review No changes were made. III. Approve Previous Meeting Minutes Decision: Approved Motion by: Jack Commo Second: Robert Millar IV. Public Comment None V. City Council Updates Councilor Duncan discussed the hiring of Elaine Wang as City Manager and Yasamin Gordon’s departure as Equity Director. There was discussion about the Equity Audit and questions about progress on implementing the Housing Trust Fund. VI. City Updates None (no City staff) VII. Master Plan review and discussion of 2022-2023 Priorities and Strategies Jack - Code enforcement work is something commission should be focused on; Larger families are crammed into smaller housing Robert – Housing trust fund should be in work plan to take up when it comes to us as soon as it moves forward; What about funding streams? Add to work plan to advocate for funding source for the HTF based on prior Housing Commission memo. Jack – Liked relationship building for landlords/tenants; not previously in work plan so challenging to think about how to integrate. Robert – Housing summit could be useful but difficult without staff support; Needs to have structural setup to get useful takeaways and may be hard without staff support Discussion of reappraisal process: is there a role for Housing Commission? Will residents seek out a way to voice concerns and be heard and is this a place that will have that? Commissions wants to be  challenging to think about how to integrate. Robert – Housing summit could be useful but difficult without staff support; Needs to have structural setup to get useful takeaways and may be hard without staff support Discussion of reappraisal process: is there a role for Housing Commission? Will residents seek out a way to voice concerns and be heard and is this a place that will have that? Commissions wants to be kept updated on this – where should they point people to? – would like timeline document, website, FAQ to point people to. Discussed other items that may be missing. Maybe a new housing needs assessment? One way to address the unit size question. This is a good time to be redoing assessment because of new data on demographics – should be considered for next year? VIII. Equity Audit Discussion Several equity audit recommendations are in line with things that the Housing Commission has shown interest in working on. Zoning is an area where we can do more – unsure how the Commission can work on this. The Commission could play a larger role in education – people are getting thrown into tight housing market without supports Leslie thinks it’s a logical place for Commission to be looking at Zoning and how it creates winners and losers; CCRPC did a ‘bylaw review’ or ‘bylaw scrub’ in other towns that would improve housing outcomes Stevya does think focusing on education and on-the-ground outcomes is important, not just higher level issues; providing classes on financing with interpretation; explaining what is being signed. Housing Commission asked Council Liaison to track down and share with City Manager the memo about a Housing Liaison position and ARPA funds related to service coordination. Discussed how even navigating processes that are tailored to limited English proficiency residents can still be challenging; more than just interpretation is needed. Need to have people to bridge the gap between language communities and the City – there is no point person for hearing those needs and then surfacing them back to City. VHFA has been tasked statewide with providing first generation down payment assistance, and engaging in more direct outreach to New Americans. Without the on-the-ground liaisons to navigate, the resources and processes will be critical. Jim shared about community engagement procedures being discussed by Council – maybe there is a way to plug into that, bring this feedback to Council. How do we get commissions involved? We can do more to hear people and make them feel heard through our processes. Discussion of next meeting – Asked for Housing Trust Fund update; education and how we want to move forward with that – get heads around what exists and what is going on currently; possibly have CVOEO representative come speak to the Commission Discussion about how we will get that info about CVOEO out to community? How does such a session benefit the Community? Use a session with CVOEO to understand how to extend their work to the community more. IX. Adjourn  Discussion about how we will get that info about CVOEO out to community? How does such a session benefit the Community? Use a session with CVOEO to understand how to extend their work to the community more. IX. Adjourn Motion by: Leslie Black-Plumeau Second: Jack Commo Meeting End Time: 7:26 PM