The City Council held its 19th meeting of the 26th Council on Monday, November 4, 2024, at 5:00 PM in the Vincent E. Griego Chambers. The meeting included proclamations, administration Q&A, consent agenda approvals, public hearings, and final actions on several ordinances. Key topics included the Homewise home rehabilitation program, domestic violence commission report, opioid settlement strategic plan, Gateway West shelter contracts, the Apprenticeship Empowerment Ordinance, and legislative priorities.
The 19th meeting of the 26th Council will come to order. All counselors are present this evening with Council Penya join us via Zoom. Civic Plaza parking passes are provided for members of the public. You can obtain a parking pass from council staff at the near at the table near the chamber's entrance. Members of the public, city staff, and the media have the ability to view this meeting in person and on live streams through four different platforms of TV on Comcast Channel 16, the Gov TV website, YouTube, and Zoom webinar. The live streams can be accessed from most smartphones, tablets, or computers. Also, this meeting is captioned, closed captioned, and you may enable the closed captioning services on your television or device at this time. The video recording of this and all past council meetings will remain available for viewing at any time on the council's website. Council staff is available via telephone if members of the public need assistance finding the videos online. Please call 505-768-3100 for assistance during business hours Monday through Friday from 8 to 5. The council will take a break at approximately 7 p.m. this evening. With regard to decorum in the chamber, we want tonight's proceedings to be as civil and respectful as possible. Please do not make any personal attacks and please no applause or other outbursts during the meeting. The meeting will go a lot smoother if we are respectful of one another. Mr. President. Well, we go to proclamations and presentations. We have three presentations tonight. We'll hold them to three minutes apiece. Councilor Pena to start. Mr. President, I'm having some technical difficulties. Can you proceed, please? Presentation by Joanna Gilligan with Homewise, who will provide an update on the home rehabilitation program. Thank you for coming tonight. Yes, I'm here with my colleague Elena Gonzalez, who is our chief operating officer. So three short minutes. We just wanted to give a quick update on the deployment of 3.3 million dollars in ARPA funds for the home preservation program. We wanted to give Councillor Pena a thank you for her work securing these funds in August of 2022. And we've been working with the Department of Health, Housing, and Homeless and Homelessness to assist residents in the city. So we have over 60 residents being served by the program, which provides grants of up to $50,000 for homeowners on below 80% area median income. And these clients are coming from a wide range of council districts across the city, which is great. To date, we have completed work in 29 homes and deployed more than 1.5 million of the 3.3 million dollars in ARPA funds to help these homeowners. We recently surveyed clients on the first 19 clients who got through the program. We had an over 85% response rate. So we have seen pretty high satisfaction rates from clients, uh both regarding the overall experience and communication, which is always a really important and challenging part of the job, making sure we're communicating well. Um, we are also hearing from clients that they're generally, although not entirely satisfied, but generally satisfied with the contractor experience. Um, finding contractors to work in the program has been a challenge. Um, small contractors are hard to find, and so we have been able to, I think, deliver um a fairly high quality experience. And then for any contractors that are not delivering them, we've moved them off of the program list. Um, we're also following two CFR 200 procurement requirements, so that's added a little bit of complexity. Um, and part of the program design has really been to ensure that any improvements that are made are increasing the energy efficiency of the home. So we're generally seeing costs flat or decreasing almost half of program participants report that their utility costs decreasing, which is great because often these folks are moving from gas to electric, and so keeping those costs flat or lower has been a big priority. Um, and you know, I think we wanted to share just a few bit of of what we heard from clients in the first round. I think that they're feeling like their homes are safer and more comfortable. Um, that we've often found um unaddressed issues like outdated electrical systems, things like that that can cause home safety problems and are really trying to, as we said, keep a focus on addressing um the energy use so that that the homeowner um is able to live in a more comfortable home without spending more money. Um, so uh I'll close with a quick photo of generational homeowners Francis and Tanya and Borelis, who have owned this home for 300 years. They got a new roof, an electrical upgrade, and mini splits. Thank you.