Okay Peppin, District 5, Boston City Councilor, and I am the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Housing and Community Development.

Today is Friday, June 12th, 2026, and it is exactly 1005 a.m.

In accordance with chapter two of the acts of the 2025 modifying certain requirements of the open meeting law and relieving public bodies of certain requirements, including the requirement that public bodies conduct its meeting in a public space that is open and physically accessible to the public.

The city council will be conducting this hearing virtually via Zoom.

This hearing is being recorded.

It is also being live streamed at Boston.gov-City-Council-TV and broadcast on its finity channel A, RCN Channel 82, and files channel 964.

Writing comments may be sent to the committee.housing at Boston.gov.

It will be made a part of the record and available to all counselors.

Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing.

Individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify.

If you wish to sign up for public testimony and have not done so, please email our central staff liaison, Ryan Pratt at Ryan.gov for the student link and your name will be added to the list.

Today's hearing is on docket number 0792.

Message in order to authorizing the city of Boston acting through its mayor's office of housing to apply for and accept and expand the federal fiscal year two thousand twenty-five continuum of care grants funds of the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development in an amount not to exceed $50 million.

These funds will be used to support programs that provide services and housing persons experiencing homelessness.

This matter was sponsored by Mayor Michelle Lou and was referred to the committee on April 15, 2026.

We will also hear on docket number 0913 message in order authorizing the city of Boston to accept and expand the amount of 16,834, 742 dollars in the form of a grant.

The federal FY26 Community Development Block Grant awarded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development will be administered by the Mayor's Office of Housing.

The grant will fund housing, economic development, and social service programs.

The award amount is estimated from prior years.

We will also hear on docket number 0914, message in order authorizing the city of Boston to accept and expand the amount of $4,825, $132.90 in the form of a grant.

In the form of the grant, the federal FY26 Home Investment Partnerships Program Grant awarded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to be administered by the Mayor's Office of Housing.

The grant would fund the production of new affordable rental and home ownership housing and also provide operating support for community development corporations.

The award amount is estimated from prior years.

In the form of a grant.

The award amount is estimated from prior years.

Docket number 0916, a message in order authorizing the city of Boston to accept and expend the amount of $1,489,61600 in the form of a grant.

The federal FY26 emergency solutions grant awarded by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to be administered by the Mayor's Office of Housing.

The grant would fund street outreach, emergency shelter, homelessness prevention, rapid rehousing assistance, and shelter services.

The award is estimated from prior years.

These matters were sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu and were referred to the committee on May 6, 2026.

Today, I am joined by my colleague in order of arrival, Counselor Aaron Murphy.

I think Councillor Braden, do you want to?

Okay.

I'm sure I'm seeing everyone.

I don't see her on yet, but once she goes on, I will acknowledge her.

Okay.

I'm going to waive the opening remarks for today, just because we can go straight to the presentation.

And now I would like to introduce today's panelists.

We have Rick Wilson, who's a director of administration and finance.

We have Christina O'Keefe, Director of Neighborhood Housing Development.

Katie Cahill Holloway, who's the director of supportive housing, Daniel Johnson, director for the Office of Housing Stability.

We have Donald Wright, interim chief of the Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion.

Alicia Porcina, Director of Small Businesses, and I believe we should have Katie Gal as well, Director of Workforce Grant Making.

So with that, I want to pass it over to today's panelist.

Thank you, Counselors.

Okay, so Ryan, I'm sharing my screen, right?

Yes, that works.

All right.

That work?

I think it worked.

Okay.

Good morning, counselors.

For the record, my name is Rick Wilson, and I'm the Director of Administration and Finance at the Mayor's Office of Housing.

I'm joined today by senior staff from MOH as well as interim chief Donald Wright from the Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion, and another senior staff from the Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion and the Office of Workforce Development.

We're here today to request approval to accept and extend our annual grants from the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development or HUD for the upcoming fiscal year.

Today's hearing covers uh funding from five HUD programs, our four entitlement grants, our community development block grant, home investment partnerships initiative, housing opportunities for persons with AIDS, emergency solutions grant, uh, and the continuum of care program.

Um, combined these grants total over $79 million, which will primarily be used during the city's upcoming fiscal year 2027.

Um, as you will hear, these are extremely important sources of funding for the city that support uh a number of programs for low and moderate income Bostonians and formerly homeless individuals and families.

Is the screen sharing working still?

Thumbs up, looks like it is okay.

Uh so first I'll talk about our uh HUD entitlement grants, CDBG Home Hoppa and ESG.

Um these grants uh are determined by statutory formulas based on factors like population, age of housing, extent of poverty, and housing overcrowding, um, the funding allocations for each jurisdiction depends on the total of funding available for the across the nation, um, these formula inputs as well as the number of jurisdictions eligible for funding.

Um, in other words, the more jurisdictions are eligible, the less funding each jurisdiction receives, and that is a trend that we've been seeing from seeing for many years.

Um luckily uh the appropriations act passed by Congress earlier this year rejected um some of the Trump administration's proposals to to slash funding for these programs and provided uh close to level funding for these grants for for PY 26.

So here are our PY 26 allocations uh for CDBG and home.

Um we think we're seeing small decreases of about 100,000 each.

While HAPWAR are housing opportunities for persons with AIDS is increasing by over 200,000, and ESG is declining slightly by 21,000.

So our total allocation is essentially level at just over 27 million dollars or 0.17% less than last year.

And as costs, as we know, costs are in our are increasing, and that means that we can do less and less with our HUD funding.

I'll start by I'll dive into a little more detail for each of these sources.

So starting with CDBG, our FY27 CDBG allocation is 16.8 million dollars.

MOH is the primary administering agency for these funds, but we do subgrant a portion of them to OEOI for small business assistance, to workforce development for job training and readiness programs, and to the Office of Bear Housing and Equity for investigation activity.

For MOH, we use our CDBG funding for first-time home buyer assistance, home repair programs, acquisition and preservation of affordable rental housing, and the development of community gardens and open space through the grassroots program.

Next we have home, and our FY27 home allocation is 4.8 million dollars.

And we use this entirely to fund the development of affordable rental housing.

Home funds must be used for households at or below 80% of AMI, but 90% of the units funded with home have to support households up to 60% AMI.

For HAPWA, our FR27 allocation is $3.9 million.

MOH is the administrating agency for HAPWA for all of Norfolk, Plymouth, and Suffolk counties.

We use HOPWA for tenant-based rental assistance, short-term mortgage, rent utility assistance, housing counseling, and permanent housing placement for people living with HIV AIDS.

And our last entitlement grant is ESG.

It's our smallest one: 1.5 million dollars is our allocation for FY27, which we use to fund street outreach and homelessness prevention activity.

So those are our four entitlement grants.

Next, I'll talk about our largest HUD grant, which is the Continuum of Care program.

This is actually a number of different grants, but it's all through the same program.

It's a competitive grant program focused on homelessness.

MOH administers the COC funds for the city of Boston, but the vast majority, 94%, are passed through to 18 different nonprofit housing and service providers.

As shown here, you'll see that in the city of Boston, 90% of our COC funds support permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing programs for nearly 2,000 homeless formerly homeless households.

We will leave in housing first.

The targeted populations for this funding include chronically homeless individuals, individuals with disabilities, mental health and substance use disorders, veterans, domestic violence survivors, youth and young adults.

We also use COC funds for our HUD-mandated homeless management information system or HMIS, coordinated entry, and housing navigation.

I'll just take a moment to just provide an update on our COC funding overall, as you probably know.

Counselors last year, HUD attempted to reorient the COC program away from housing first, away from permanent housing and towards shelter transitional housing treatment and work requirements.

They issued a NOFO at the end of last year that prioritized those programs over permanent housing.

Those changes would have resulted in the loss of hundreds of permanent housing units in Boston and would have jeopardized housing for many vulnerable individuals and families.

Thankfully, we, along with a number of other jurisdictions, were success have been successful in court and in Congress at beating back those changes.

And HUD is in the process of renewing all of our CFC grants for this fiscal year and for the next for the next fiscal year.

And that's what we're showing here.

And that's what you're voting on, or that's what you're what this hearing is about today.

However, HUD did just release their 2026 COC 2026 NOFO, and as we expected, they are once again trying to move forward with these changes.

It's not quite as bad as the NOFO they released last year, but we are working through that right now and working with our provider partners and with the state and our lawyers to review that NOFO and take action.

So that covers all of the HUD grants before you today.

I did want to just quickly highlight what we intend to accomplish with these funds.

As I mentioned, they support a broad, you know, a broad range of impactful programs and services.

The targets that we're showing here are just for our HUD funds.

They don't include city operating inclusionary development, neighborhood housing trust or community preservation act.

For FY27, with our HUD funding, we are planning to create 750 income restricted housing units, provide down payment assistance to 115 first-time homebuyers, help 230 homeowners with home repairs, provide home buyer education and foreclosure prevention to over 1,600 individuals, help 2,000 formally homeless households with permanent housing and supportive services, provide housing assistance to 500 people with HIV AIDS, and help 900 individuals with homelessness prevention services.

The Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion is planning to help 1700 businesses with technical assistance, storefront improvements, and small business loans.

OWD will provide job training and readiness programs to over 2,000 individuals.

And finally, through the grassroots program, MOH will help will help create or expand six community gardens or open space projects.

The next few slides just show some photos of HUD funded activities.

Here you see on the left a recent home repair project carried out by the Boston Home Center.

And on the right, a first-time homebuyer who was assisted with CDBG funding.

Next, we have homelessness prevention and street outreach.

The photo on the left shows our Office of Housing Stability at a community event sharing information about tenant rights and eviction prevention.

OHS utilizes both CDBG and ESG funding.

And on the right, is we have a Pine Street in Street Outreach worker on the street, and that activity is funded by ESG.

Next we have neighborhood development and business assistance.

On the left, you have a very recent uh acquisition opportunity program project.

Council Evan, this is in your district, Parkside on Adams, right in Rosendell Square.

Um and we use CDPG funding.

Uh CBG funding was one of the sources we used to support that acquisition to convert those 43 units to income restricted housing.

And on the right, you see a small business that receives CDG funding to uh do a facade improvement program to do a facade improvement project.

And here we have Workforce Development.

Um on the left, we see a graduation day at the Justice Resource Institute, which is a re-entry program.

And then on the right, you have recent graduates from the International Institute of New England's Bridge to IT Proficiency Program.

And again, OWD utilizes CWG funding for their grants.

So before concluding, I did just want to note that our HUD-funded activities are informed by input from Boston residents and stakeholders.

We have a HUD approved citizen participation plan that we have to follow in developing our five-year consolidated plan and our annual action plan.

We hold virtual and in-person hearings.

We post our draft plans online for public comment before submitting them to HUD.

We also post all of our consolidated annual performance and evaluation reports or capers online, so residents can see what we accomplished with our funding.

And all of these documents are available um on the on the moh website.

So that concludes our our presentation.

I want to thank you again, counselors, for your support um of of our work and for your time today.

Again, these are you know critical funds uh for MOH, our HUD funding is uh uh close to half of our our budget comes from HUD funding.

So really important for us and the work that we do, and we're happy to answer any any questions you have.

And I think I'm the only one presenting today I think the rest of the folks here are are happy to answer any questions we have about our programs.

That's perfect.

Rick thanks so much for that very thoughtful and just um informative presentation I am a big fan of the projects that have already been started and have been able to really benefit from a lot of these um grants so thank you I want to also acknowledge that we have been joined by counselor Louis Jeanne and I believe that counselor Flynn is is also listening in so wanted to make sure I acknowledge him.

I'm going to dive right into questions in case my colleagues do have questions about the grants or if they want to find out more um starting with counselor murphy I'm gonna be flexible with time um I don't abuse it but you know if if you need five seven minutes I'll be okay with that and um just let me know if you need more time.

So counselor Murphy the floor is yours.

Or if you have okay I'll council Murphy can you hear us I'll come right back to Councillor Murphy.

Counselor Louis Jeanne do you have any questions?

Yeah good morning everyone thank you for the presentation um I just had a question and I was um I've been on double junior and I joined a bit late um obviously these these grants are super critical and I will be very enthusiastically supporting them want to thank all of you for the hard work that you do to make sure that everyone is housed in our city as many of us say housing is a basic right and everyone should have access to it.

I just had a question I think the question will be for Rick or I'm not sure who can answer it on the call but um I know that a portion of this grant that these grants is for the continuing is for the continuum of care and I'm wondering I know that there was an is an ongoing lawsuit uh challenging the administration's termination of the continuum of care grants I just wanted to sort of know how that lawsuit interacts with accepting these grants that are currently before us.

Yeah I'm happy to I can I can get started and if necessary um Katie Kahle Holloway who's uh leads our supportive housing division and oversees the COC funding can can jump in if necessary but um yes we uh last year um uh well we're involved in a few lawsuits uh uh against against HUD right now um one should be yeah um one has to do with uh some terms and conditions that were added to our HUD grants uh last not just our HUD grants but across the country um terms and conditions that were added to HUD grants by the CHUP administration around um you know what the quote unquote DEI activities or gender ideology things like that and and and um requiring jurisdictions to certify that they would not engage in any of those activities there were other conditions as well um we along with uh a number of other jurisdictions filed suit in King County Washington um to and and we're successful at getting a preliminary injunction um against those those terms and conditions so that that preliminary injunction is still in place that we are able to access our funds without having to sign on to those conditions um which is great uh and then I think the one that you're probably more uh specifically referring to is the case in Rhode Island um that has to do with the the the NOFO the NOSA funding opportunity that HUD put out last year where they were attempting to shift the priority for COC funding away from housing first away from permanent housing um towards uh treatment and shelter and and street known encampments um and work requirements um and again we were successful with another another another a number of other jurisdictions in the the um national alliance to end homelessness um we were successful at winning a preliminary injunction in that case as well um that prohibited HUD from implementing that that NOFO um we also advocated in Congress with other jurisdictions and Congress included language in their appropriations act that prevented HUD from doing some of the things that they were attempting to do.

So they pulled back that NOFO.

And the grants that um you're hearing about today, the COC grants for VPY 25 um are all just renewal grants.

So we they HUD, at this point um thanks to the law student, thanks to the congressional action, HUD is just renewing all of our all of our CFC 25 grants, so we're able to retain all of our permanent housing with these funds.

So that that's what's in front of you right now.

Now HUD did just uh I don't know if it was last week or the week before, just issued their NOFO for the following year, where they are once again attempting to do you know put in place some of these changes, decreasing the priority or for permanent housing.

Uh it's not quite as bad as what they tried to do last year.

I think Congress put some parameters in their appropriations act that that limits what HUD can do, but it still has some problematic uh language.

We're looking at that right now.

We're talking to other jurisdictions, we're talking to the law department around that NOFO.

Um but what's in front of you today um is thankfully uh is is we're able to renew all of our COC grants, all of that permanent housing um with the funds that that are in front of you right now.

And Katie, I'm not sure if there's anything you want to add.

I think I've covered it.

No, I think you covered it well, Rick.

I think the only thing I would say is COC25, as Rick said, is being non-competitively renewed.

Um, and the reason that HUD is able to do that is because in COC 24, they actually released a two-year NOFO.

And so in the prior administration, the intention had been that they would non-competitively renew COC25 based on performance in COC24.

Um, the Trump administration tried to sort of upend that by releasing two NOFOs in COC25 to try to implement the changes that Rick described.

But um thankfully, through the court action, HUD withdrew those NOFOs and then reverted to the non-competitive renewal of COC25.

Thank you.

Thank you for that update.

And um thank you for that update.

And the lawsuit is a preliminary injunction, so the lawsuit is still ongoing.

Is that correct?

I think it technically is, but I think at this point it's probably essentially a moot because we renew our our funding.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

And then uh I think this is my last question.

Is are any of these grants helping us house um victims of domestic violence or any of these?

Uh, do we use any of the funding from these grants to help those um who are in search of housing as a result of uh intimate partner violence or domestic violence, sexual assault?

Yes, we have several grants in the portfolio that are specifically um targeted to support people that are survivors of domestic violence and other forms of intimate partner violence, gender-based violence.

Um, those are sponsored.

Um, there's a mix of providers in them.

Some are certified as victim service provider providers like Casa Mirna.

Um, they sponsor a couple of them, and then we have other providers like Justice for Housing.

They're not a victim service provider, but they do have specialized services to successfully serve this population.

So within the portfolio, I think we probably have like four or five grants that are specifically targeted to that population.

Thank you.

To the chair, um, I'd love it if I could get information more, like just in writing about the grants that the mayor's office of housing uses, or just the financial numbers behind the uh housing supports that we provide for folks who are victims of intimate partner violence or sexual violence or domestic violence.

So through the chair, if I could get that information, that would be great.

Thank you.

I think those are my questions.

Just want to thank everyone on the call for the incredible work that you do for most vulnerable residents, um, Danielle Johnson for the incredible work that you do in the Office of Housing Stability, Chief Wright because of the important overlap between you know economic opportunity and housing and Alicia persona for all that you do to support our small businesses and everyone, Christino, keep everyone on this call.

I'm just really grateful for the work that you do in your belief that everyone deserves a place to call home.

Thank you.

I didn't just I did want to step in, counselor.

I just I don't want to get in trouble with with the lawyers.

Uh, and and uh take back my comment about the lawsuit being moved.

We are still in the process of um getting our grant agreements from from HUD for our COC25 grants, so even though they are in process, but the lawsuit is very important because they have we actually haven't don't have signed grant agreements yet.

HUD keeps saying that they're working on them, and we're sure that they will that they will come.

Um, but it's very important that that the lawsuit is still on place so that we can um put pressure on HUD to actually deliver those grant agreements and make sure we can access our funding.

Okay, thank you.

Good to know.

As whatever the council needs to do, I remember this started uh last year.

I'm sure we get we're happy to continue supporting the lawsuit effort.

So thanks for that update, Rick.

And thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Counselor.

Okay.

Um let me check if Councillor Murphy is with us.

Yes.

Counselor Murphy, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair.

Just want to thank everyone on this call.

And honestly don't have any questions.

I listened in and have been following these grants, and just we'll be strongly supporting them.

And all the work you do, just thank you again.

It's Friday.

It's a warm one.

I hope everyone has some nice plans for the weekend, but know that you know this budget cycle, I guess it's somewhat almost 98% behind us.

Um, but we'll continue to advocate and work alongside you throughout the year to make sure that we're housing and especially these grants.

It's special to see, you know, that we're targeting most vulnerable populations that um, you know, we need to continue to support.

So thank you all for the work you do.

Appreciate you all.

Thank you, Chia.

Thank you, counselor.

Thank you for joining.

Okay, let me just make sure I don't have any other problems here.

I think they came back.

Perfect.

Okay, no.

Um, just to make sure Ryan, I'm not missing any colleagues for it.

I had a few messages say that they were listening, but they cannot do they don't they're not asking questions.

So, I believe that everybody who should be a panelist is a panelist.

Perfect.

No, that's great.

Um, I am very grateful for the work that all of you do.

It's just uh the housing department has been doing such heavy lifting for for the city and for the residents of Boston to make sure that people are housed.

I am I've been obviously been able to learn a lot of the work that you do, the grants that you are in Mr.

Amazing projects that you not only have done in my district but across the city, uh being able to I I was able to have a nice beautiful um meeting with a lot of the department heads of the housing cabinet a couple of a few weeks ago now, and it was just brilliant to see the different areas that you all cover.

And um the work that you do does not go unnoticed.

So I just want to make sure that I was saying that here in this forum.

I don't have questions on the grants.

I I will be supporting them.

This is important work for us to continue to provide for our residents.

And um, yeah, but I wanted to make sure that if you had any holding comments or any final remarks that you would like to provide, I would love to give you the opportunity to do that now.

Well, I'll I'll just say uh we are so appreciative of your your support, counselor, and and all of all of your your colleagues on the council as well as the mayor, um, in uh you know the the our work and in supporting our use of this of this funding um and our you know fight to preserve it um and continue to operationalize it for um as as council murder said the most vote vulnerable members of our our community.

Um I'm not sure I'm not sure if um if Donald is is still on or if he would like to say something.

Um but again just uh really help grateful for your support as well, and and not just in our head funds, but also in the city budget process, you know.

Uh I think we were following that closely as well, and and I'm glad to see the actions that you took there.

Nothing really on my part.

Just want to thank you, counselor, and as well as the others for your support.

Um, and also Rick and to the MOA's team, your continued partnership as we collectively do this work.

So thank you all.

Thank you guys.

And I actually thank you to Ryan for pointing this out.

And um in the docket for regarding continuum of care grant, it says um 50 million, but the presentation it says 52 million.

Can you just put in a clear clarification?

Sure, yeah.

We and we did ask through IGR, we did ask for that to get updated on the docket, so I hope it's it's it's not too late to do that.

But I think um initially we had estimated 50 million um when we first submitted the the request um for the for the hearing.

Um and uh and then subsequently we actually got the awards from HUD.

So um, so um so we we asked for that amount to be increased to to 52.

So it's a great yeah, it's great.

Um I mean, a lot of that has to do um with it's kind of rent increases on on the on the operating side, but um but it is you know of course we're very happy for our grants to go up every year.

We wish we wish uh the others, uh you know, CDBG and home and the other grants would would also um would also be increasing.

That's brilliant.

Okay, thank you so much for providing that clarification.

And I guess it's a good thing that it's a little more than expected.

Um that is it for me.

Ryan, do we have any public testimonies?

No public testimonies today.

Okay, perfect.

Um, if that's the case, then um I truly hope that everyone um has a good weekend.

Thank you all so much for the work that you do.

It's gonna be a busy weekend in Boston.

We have um a very important game of Haiti versus Scotland.

Um I'm a little biased to call Haiti, but um I just am so excited for the work that you all do and looking forward to looking at.

You and me both, sounds for Pipin.

Oh, let's go.

And at least not saying something, nothing, but I know Alicia's bias too I know who she's rooting for.

I 100% Haiti, so I need to find a Haiti jersey somewhere because everyone's rough and um but okay.

Well with that, this hearing on docket number 0792.

0913 through 0916 is officially adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.