Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Community Planning and Housing Committee with Denver City Council.

Your community planning and housing committee starts now.

We are on air.

This is Denver City Council's Community Planning and Housing Committee.

We have just reached a quorum.

It is Tuesday, September 9th, 2025.

I'm Sarah Parity.

I'm one of your two city council members at large.

I will pause and see if we have anyone online to introduce themselves, although maybe we don't, because we thought it was you.

Yeah.

All right.

Then we'll start on my little start on my left.

She teleported.

I am Flora Mitres.

I've got our present district seven.

And here's my left.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Jamie Torres, I represent West Denver District Three.

Good afternoon, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4.

Amanda Sawyer, District 5.

All right.

And we're starting off with Madora Higa.

So Ledora, you want to introduce yourself and your item.

Yeah.

Midorah, she, her pronouns, director of homelessness resolution programs with the city and county of Denver's Department of Housing Stability.

I know you all had a late night.

We joined you online.

We're a long vote.

So I understand.

So I'm here today to talk to you about our rapid rehousing contracts.

And there's other hostees in the room if there's additional questions that I'm unable to answer.

So hosts and our partners are diligently working on our rapid rehousing contract amendments, and we thank you for taking the time to hear about them in advance.

There's a few things that I want to share with you all.

Most of these contracts, well, all of these contracts are for up for amendment, so they've already been approved for the first time.

So they were the first six were for uh three-year contract terms.

In most cases, we're adding cost of living increases for future years, as we've discussed in other presentations.

In some cases, we're adding funds that came from the Salvation Army's canceled contract, so just needing to reallocate the funds that were originally for that.

And then some funds are being used to expand rapid rehousing support to families specifically.

So uh the action requested today, which is a pre-approval of the following contract amendments to add a funding to rapid rehousing programs, including Jewish family service of Colorado, uh their locally funded rapid rehousing adding 1,467,487.

Uh Didolores Project Rapid Rehousing adding 22,278.

Urban Peaks Rapid Rehousing, adding 12,079.

Volunteers of America's Rapid Rehousing Plus Care, adding 1,102,542.

Volunteers of America's Green Willow Project, adding $6,663.

Volunteers of America Shelter Interrapid Rehousing Project, adding 1,184,433.

And then lastly, the Jewish Family Service of Colorado Transformational Homelessness Response, Rapid Rehousing, adding 795,766, and extending that particular term through the middle of 2027.

So 630 of that is incorrect.

No.

2026.

This is wrong.

I'm so sorry.

And we've shown you all this slide before about our spectrum of work, and so just wanted to frame with you all where we're at in that.

So everything that I'm overseeing now is related to housing and rehousing, and so just focused on the rapid rehousing intervention specifically.

So what is Rapid Rehousing?

It is supportive housing intervention designed to help individuals and families experiencing homelessness to exit uh quickly exit homelessness, hoping to increase the number of households exiting to permanent housing, to prevent households from returning to homelessness, to increase a household self-sufficiency to decrease homelessness overall by providing up to 24 months of rental assistance or financial assistance.

Our rapid rehousing programs are modeled after the National Alliance to End Homelessness Standards and Best Practices.

So we're really working to make sure that our programs are able to accomplish three primary goals.

So reducing the length of time, program participants spend experiencing homelessness, exiting households to permanent housing, and limiting returns to homelessness within a year of program exit.

This leads to hosts tracking multiple metrics with our contractors, and this includes ensuring that participants are able to move in on average of 60 days or less.

So a short move-in time.

And then we're also looking to make sure that at least 80% of the households that exit the rapid rehousing program exit to permanent housing.

So once they're done with the program support, they're housed on their own, and at least 80% of the households exit that exit don't become homeless again within a year.

So these are all sort of metrics that we're looking at.

This is a list of the primary elements of our rapid rehousing programs, regardless of population, provider length of support, referral pathway.

So these are just the basic elements that are incorporated in a rapid rehousing program.

This includes housing search and placement, so that includes assisting with obtaining vital documents that are necessary for moving in, guiding clients towards suitable housing opportunities that fit their needs and the resources, and also just making sure there's some client choice involved in there, providing move-in and rental assistance.

So this includes financial assistance for rent application fees, utilities, deposits, and moving expenses, providing clients with household items that they need to move in because who wants to live in an empty space, and then providing that short to medium financial assistance of three to 24 months.

The case management is really critical aspect of all of it to making sure that participants are connected with referrals, community connections, affordable housing resources, really just trying to focus on increasing their stability once the program ends, and then also focusing on employment and benefits acquisition, making sure that folks are increasing their income or the supports that they receive by applying to cash and non-cash benefits and then supporting with employment.

So wanting to make sure folks are aware of who's eligible for rapid rehousing and how they're referred to.

We use a literal HUD definition of homelessness.

So really making sure that people are literally literally homeless.

They're either staying in a shelter or in a place not meant for human habitation, and that our referral sources are primarily coming through one home, our local coordinated entry system, sometimes there's some direct host referrals, and then those referred households must be active in host funded shelters.

So we're trying to make sure the referrals that the providers are getting are folks that are already in our system and that they're available for support, right?

So that they're easily found, easy to connect with so that folks can work with them quickly.

And then just a little bit about where we're at today.

So rapid rehousing does not align with the calendar year.

Households are referred and enrolled on a rolling basis.

Since all these programs have been active for this year, and in many cases prior to this year, we wanted to show you all how that looks over time.

So just kind of an overview with the totals line this year up to August 25th of 2025, because that's when this data was pulled.

87 of those households were housed prior to 2025.

So remember that rapid rehousing can go up to 24 months, so they could have been housed at any other point up to that 24 month time frame before.

And then this year, our providers have housed 98 households, and we have people who are enrolled, so about 39 households who are enrolled who haven't yet moved into housing, they're in housing search.

So, right, like still in the process of finding the right housing for them.

So we outlined all of that data by the seven programs that we're discussing today.

And then just more about how this is working, provided some 2024 data.

There's 713 households that were served.

Um, 241 of those households have moved in prior to 2024, and then 446 moved in in 2024.

Uh, this is a really large number, and also it's using like the last bit of our COVID era funding that we had as a city, so big bump last year, a little bit less this year, probably a little bit less next year.

Um, but it's not just about the contracts.

Host continues to provide technical assistance and engages with providers to continuously improve our performance.

So one of our program officers, Galen Beeny Coyle, she leads a monthly rapid rehousing and friends work group.

Um, so providers come, they get together, they review data regularly, talk about where there's discrepancies in the data, where things could be improved based on that, look at best practices, that could be anything from how do we create a standard housing plan or what kinds of assessment tools might be able to use to enhance our performance.

And then another one of our program officers, Rosie McQuigan.

She supports case conferencing efforts to support family referrals, so meeting with our providers that support families and also the family shelter providers to quickly connect folks who are ready for a rapid rehousing intervention.

These programmatic efforts have led to more consistency among providers and in interest and tools.

So the providers are seeking out more resources from us.

The regular meetings increase trust with the providers, and this allows us to address concerns in tandem rather than after the fact.

Okay, I'm gonna go through all of the contracts now individually, so bear with me a lot of information.

All of the slides contain the current contract term.

Most of these were originally January 1st through December 31st of 2027.

There is the proposed amendment amount, which is the very large numbers I rattled off at the beginning, so can kind of explain what we're thinking in these expansions through each of these contracts.

And so Jewish Family Service, this is their locally funded contract.

They have agreed to take a large part of the funds that were originally allocated to Salvation Army.

These additional funds will be used to support a greater number of individuals and families, so we're asking for them to serve 90 households through the contract term.

Jewish Family Service is a large organization.

They have expansive programming within their agency, including employment and food resources that sort of enhance their rapid rehousing programming, and just making sure that it's clear they serve both individuals and families.

The Dolores project, again, they had that original three-year contract term.

We're primarily looking to add COLAs to their contract over the next two years.

This program holds consistent with Dolores Project's roots, and they only serve women, transgender, and gender expansive folks.

Dolores Project started their rapid rehousing program as a COVID era program, working with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, and they wanted to continue that work and so had applied to RFP, and that's how they landed a contract with us.

So their referrals do come specifically from Delores Project Shelter and Aladdie Village to maintain the consistent population.

So it is another output for some of our all-in-mile high sites.

And I just wanted to highlight one of the neat things that they do.

When clients move into their new housing, they work to create a map of local resources nearby so that the client can connect more quickly with their community, which is awesome because moving into a new neighborhood or a new place is hard and not knowing like where's my closest grocery store and do I need a laundromat or is there a you know like a food bank nearby?

The next contract is Urban Peak.

Again, this was the original three-year term.

Um we're looking to add money to this contract primarily for COLAS.

As a reminder, Urban Peak is our primary youth provider in the community.

Um this program can serve both single and parenting youth, so it's not just exclusively youth ages 18 to 24, but sometimes those youth have kids too.

And this allows those young parents to continue to receive that age appropriate support, and we're looking to have them house 60 households throughout the contract term.

All right, on to our tranche of volunteers of America contracts.

So the first one is the rapid rehousing plus care.

Again, this was the original three-year contract term, it will stay the same.

They're taking on additional funding as well, and the plan is to serve 82 households through the contract term.

This VOA program has been operating for several several years and is operationally different because they provide clinical supports to the households that they serve.

Um they use that as more like a short-term brief intervention so that they can bridge someone to a longer term mental health support if it's necessary.

And those it's an optional support, but trying to make sure that that particular program gets referrals of folks who would likely use that support.

And they support both individuals and families.

The second VOA program is the Green Willow program.

This program exclusively serves survivors of domestic violence or intimate partner violence.

Um, their data isn't in HMIS because of DV or IPV partners can't be in HMIS.

Their goal is to serve 33 households through the contract term.

And this is our only rapid rehousing program that's specifically funded to serve this population.

So it's an important part of the breadth of work that we're doing.

Oh, and the um additional funds for this are also for COLAS.

And then the last VOA contract is shelter interrapid rehousing.

We call it SIR.

This program also started operating during COVID alongside the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, and this is an extension of that work.

The additional funding we're adding here is used specifically to support families that are exiting our family shelters.

So the contract term again is staying the same, and they've increased their goal to house 64 households through the contract term.

They do serve both individuals and families, but the additional funds will be used for families only.

And then I put this other Jewish family service contract last because this is part of a state contract and a grant.

So it's a little bit different operationally than from what we have.

It is the contract term is different.

They started in 2024 in the middle of 2024 as opposed to the beginning of this year.

And their current contract was set to end at the end of this year, but we're adding funds that were not spent by another provider.

GFS thankfully agreed to take on these funds after spending down the majority of their original contract.

And this is mostly COVID era last bit of ARPA and some other state funding.

They serve both individuals and families as well, just as a mix of their other rapid rehousing programs that are in there.

So that is all of the contracts.

Don't have a review slide, but if you want me to go back to the first one so you can see all of them in total, I can go back.

Sorry, I have a Q here.

I was just looking to see if anyone else was getting in it.

You want to get in?

Okay, cool.

Alright, well, we will start with Madam Proch and Mark Campbell, followed by Torres.

Thanks, Midori.

Sorry for the pause.

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair.

I had a few questions around the rapid rehousing.

I know at one point it's that balance between the services for the housing and then also the case management.

On average, how much would you say goes towards the case management component?

I know that's part of the advancing success.

Yes, so there's a lot of things that go into it, and it can depend on the provider how much they pay their staff.

We're really trying to keep everyone around a similar caseload.

So case managers having about 20 households that they're supporting at a time, so it can be dependent on the program.

I can get you like an exact number of what that looks like overall, but in all of these slides, we've included lines for the 26 for the original contract.

Well, the 26 amounts and the 27 amounts showing the difference between staffing and all of the other costs, but typically the other costs, including the financial assistance for households, cost more.

It's because rent is expensive, and then when we're talking about families, rent can be even more expensive depending on the number of bedrooms that are needed for a family.

So staffing is a little bit lower, housing is a little bit more expensive.

Maybe that will balance out and that will be a saving grace in the next couple of years.

I don't know.

Um, but it I can get you something that's more finite.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

And I think you kind of led right into what my next question is is um, and I appreciate that there are a few contracts in there three, I think, that are specifically looking towards families and being able to do that rapid rehousing for you know families, families with children.

Um, what is the housing stock availability to do, you know, multiple bedrooms?

Is that I mean, are we we have the funds to do it?

Do we have is that stock there and available and what do we need to do to if it's not?

Yeah, um, so a couple of things.

Um, a since our side of the house is usually around the homelessness response programs.

I don't have a clear understanding of housing stock.

If we're talking about affordable housing stock, you all know we don't have that.

Um, so um most of these programs are looking at what would be fair market rent.

So there is a number that's dictated by the federal government based on our community.

Um the 2026 numbers just came out.

I looked at them an hour ago.

Um, and so it's not a ton of money for fair market rent, but we are looking for fair market rent.

And so all of our providers are asked to build relationships with uh property partners in the community in order to facilitate having units available, in addition to the individual providers having those partnerships with landlords.

We do still have our housing connector contract um for land um for unit acquisition and landlord engagement.

So they are asked to find a number of units annually so that we can leverage the units through their program.

So housing connectors um bread and butter program, so to speak, is the use of the Zillow platform.

So all of our partners can be trained with housing connector, get a special login to the Zillow platform for units uh that they are partnered with, and so they can um the case managers and the clients can apply directly to those units that housing connector is partnered with.

Um there's some incentives for the property partner using housing connectors, some landlord mitigation fees.

So if there's any damages or things like that, they can help support with um any sort of arrears that might come up for a household that missed a rent payment.

Um so there's some benefits in using the housing connector platform.

Housing connector has told us that they often have multi-bedroom units available on their bread and butter platform, so that's not usually been a challenge.

So our contract is specifically asked for them to look at studio and one bedroom units, which but they weren't procuring enough of, but have built more relationships over the past year and a half, two years to be able to have a better array of housing resources available.

That's good news.

Yeah, I mean, that's great news.

I was expecting just the opposite to be um occurring, but that's great to know.

Um, I think I know are there a lot of other people in the queue.

Okay, okay, I'll ask one more question.

Um, the coordination um with Denver Public Schools for rapid rehousing, is that mostly at the agency level, or is there a larger coordination that's happening with Denver Public Schools being able to have that continuity for kids?

Okay, so um the definition for homelessness for schools, the McKinney Vento definition is different than the HUD definition of homelessness, and so those two things don't typically align for us.

So, as a reminder, for us, we really focus on the use of the HUD definition of homelessness, which is not the same.

The McKinney Vento definition is much more liberal and includes folks that just don't have a fixed permanent address, where we're looking for folks that are really either staying in shelter or are unsheltered.

Um, so there is a limit as to to what um a McKinney Vento liaison or someone from DBS could do to refer into rapid rehousing.

Typically for households that do meet the criteria um related to literal HUD definitions, um, those folks um have connections with our outreach teams and shelter providers to refer folks to the connection center and other places like that.

So specifically with families, again is a reminder like uh this is a preview of a connection center, right?

Uh uh presentation, but um, when folks are calling into the connection center, I know we heard some complaints about them yesterday, but when folks are calling into the connection center and they're not immediately referred over to shelter, the connection center team is working with those households to look at other housing opportunities for them and to complete coordinated entry assessments for those folks who are literally homeless, so they do get added into the queue while we're trying to wait uh for shelter beds for them.

Yep.

Okay, that's very helpful.

Yep.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm glad you asked that.

Um, I forgot to welcome council president and councilwoman Lewis to the meeting.

Um, and council member Torres, you are next, followed by all of you guys.

Thank you.

Um, the only uh is this the universe of rapid rehousing contracts?

There are not others that have RR already approved or in progress.

Um, so this is a primary universe of rapid rehousing contracts, and then we also have some rapid rehousing currently that runs through housing central command that's separate.

We are slated to discuss with you all housing central command on October 16.

18th.

And we have not yet received our award of ESG that's federal funding for 2025.

Is that um a grant we wait for before we do the work or are we reimbursed?

Um so the way that it works is the you are awarded in the year.

So we get an award in 2025 and we can use that award once we receive it because we continue to receive delays and receiving the award, we typically use it the year after, um, just to make sure that the funds are available, but it is a reimbursement-based contract.

And that's from HUD?

Correct.

Okay.

And that's different from CDBG.

It is, it falls under the same um sort of uh formula funding for the city.

Okay, thank you.

Um, I'd be interested in um uh how or if rapid rehousing as a program took budget hits, um, or like how you arrive at your annuals, just kind of looking through these, it's decreasing from 26 to 27 by a few million dollars.

Yeah, um, so just wondering kind of what's what's factoring in there.

Yeah, um, I'll talk about this chunk of programs first.

So when we're thinking about rapid rehousing, we're trying to kind of get away from this idea of this 12-month calendar year because rapid rehousing doesn't function in a 12-month calendar year, which is really hard because our budget is that way.

So uh we're rethinking the way that rapid rehousing works and hoping that our contracts can begin to overlap so that uh there's a way for all of the programs to sort of ramp up over a period of time and ramp down during their contract term, which is why many of these programs, when we look at them, we're saying, oh, we're gonna have them house 90 households over the contract term, um, so that there's a period where they're ramping up and ramping down.

Um, and so that would make it so the final year of the contract would spend a little bit less money because the middle year of the contract would need the most amount of money if they're serving the most amount of people in that middle part of their term.

Um, related to cuts, that's yet to come.

Um, and I think that we would have more explanation in our housing central command presentation next month, okay.

All right, thank you.

Great.

Um council, followed by Sawyer.

Thank you.

Um, I love this program.

It's so exciting to see people get housed into actual housing.

Yes, um, so this program always makes me excited.

Um, it does make sense about the wrapping ramping down.

Um, and I'm curious, is that why your rim peak has like such a low dollar amount?

And obviously, Urban P serves youth, so their contract seems to be a lot different than others, like it has a lot more admin cost.

Can you tell me like how and I don't know if anyone from Urban Beaks here?

Um, but I'm curious like why does theirs look so different than everything?

Yeah, they have a higher staffing cost, um, and so we're trying to work with them on how they might use the number of staff they have to serve more households, okay um, and so I think there's just a glitch in the system in the way we did the contract initially.

Okay, so doesn't have to do with the fact that they serve children.

No, and they don't serve children, right?

Everyone that's supported in rapid rehousing is over the age of 18 because they need to be able to sign a lease.

Oh, okay, so it's like the 18 to 26 year olds.

24, yeah.

Serve youth.

Yeah, youth is a rough term.

24 year olds are kids too.

They agree.

Yeah, um, no, that's um okay.

So that makes sense.

They're so it's serving the 18 to 24 year olds, and so why only 16,000?

For the increase, yeah.

Um, so we're only looking at adding uh cost of living increases and the cost of living increases are only for staffing, they're not for the financial assistance.

Okay.

And so, but when I was looking at the other numbers, they were like in the millions.

Yes.

So the ones that are in the much higher numbers.

I'll go back to this first slide, the overview slide.

Or 12,000.

Yeah, so the ones that are adding millions, we're adding a lot more households.

So they're they're serving more households.

It's not just the cost of living adjustment for staffing.

All right, that was all I had.

Thank you.

Of course.

Great.

Councilmers.

Thanks.

Thanks, Midori.

I'm just curious why there is such a differential in the cost per intervention, right?

So like even between the two Jewish family services contracts, one is like 45,000 per cost per intervention.

The other one's like 17,000.

So what is the what's the difference?

Why?

Um, this is a question we knew is gonna come up.

Um there's a lot of variables.

So one for Jewish family service specifically, um, they typically overlap all of their programming.

Um, so um, in some ways they're using their braiding the funding that they have together, so their locally funded contract can be braided with their Thor contract.

Got it as an example of that.

Um, so with the Salvation Army contract that was canceled earlier this year, Salvation Army is already serving people, which you all were aware of, and so we needed to transfer all of those clients out of that program, and Jewish family service took on the bulk of those clients, so they transferred a bunch of clients.

So they had already moved in.

So their initial cost was already addressed, right?

The deposit, the initial rent, the household items were already addressed when they took on those clients.

And so when programs end or funding changes, that happens a lot where we're transferring someone into a new program to maintain their assistance to meet that 24 months of service.

So wait, just before you go on, not to interrupt, but I just want to make sure I'm understanding what you're saying.

So that's the $17,000 per intervention because they already had the housing setup and the household goods and all the things is that.

So they'll work to braid in their funding.

The Thor funding.

That's the other one that I'm the Thor funding, the state funding.

Um, this is supporting, we're adding there, they are going to support additional households.

Um, I can tell you how many more households that they're supporting.

40 more households that they're supporting with the additional funds, but this would also maintain the support that they're um the existing support for the households that are enrolled in the program.

So the number might look lower because we're just doing some real basic math of being like contract total divided by number of households rather than the specific nuance of like this household is gonna get this many more months of assistance, or this household gets this much assistance.

We also can't predict those things because we don't want to keep households enrolled in a program or receiving financial assistance that they no longer need.

So if a if a family or household is like, okay, I figured it out, I got my job, I can do this on my own, and we pay less of their rent, or they're able to exit the program early.

We want to account for that too.

So in some ways there's a lot of guessing and modeling involved, and we can't always know the uh cost of each person on the front end.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

That's really good to know.

And it just it clarified a lot for me.

It's just like when you're looking at it on a slide, right?

It's very hard to wrap your mind around the why would this one be so much more than that one.

It's the same, same agency, like same all the same stuff, but it's not really when you get down into the nitty gritty.

Yes, okay, thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um, I do not have anyone else in queue.

I don't think she wants to give it.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you.

Go for it.

Um, my question was just the funding sources.

I think it would be helpful to see like what's general fund, is some of this coming from the homelessness resolution.

Everything moving forward is gonna be in the homelessness resolution fund that's locally funded.

So this contract that's on the screen, the state-funded contract, which says state funding is state funded, but all of our other programs will be funded by the homelessness resolution fund moving into 26 and 27.

And in the past, they were ARPA and other funds, right?

The yes, lots of different things.

Okay, um, uh, so ARPA, some general fund and combination of homelessness resolution fund.

Oh, I should also add there is a small bit of home funding, which is part of that formula funding, Councilwoman Torres, that we use for tenant-based rental assistance.

So if we lose that funding, we'll need to figure out that's federal funding.

But it's braided in and um that will be in the we can make sure you have that information.

I'll make sure that's in all the resolution requests.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, that's all I have.

Okay, thank you so much.

Um I will just ask maybe one or two questions.

Um I'm curious.

I it caught my ears that um you all have like a provider meeting around these contracts because that seems so useful.

Um, and I can imagine how the rapid rehousing is uh maybe more amenable to that than certain other areas, but was just curious if um in your side of host, if there are other um provider convenings like that of folks who are providing similar services.

Um when I was out of town a few weeks ago, you met Kevin Kelly who's on my team.

He talked about our rapid resolution contracts.

He does a monthly meeting for rapid resolution providers to discuss that intervention in particular.

Um, and so in it just uh let me see if I can go through all this.

Um, so Galen does the rapid rehousing and friends, uh Rosie does the um case conferencing, and then there's also a family solutions group that's really focused on family homelessness.

Um then we have Kelsey and she leads a complex case review meeting every month.

That's a meeting that's been going on that predates most of us, um, I think since like 2010 or 2012.

Um, and that's really for lots of different sectors to come together to talk about folks that are experiencing homelessness who are just stuck.

Um, and that's been a really useful meeting for resource sharing.

Um, and then uh so Evie uh Evangeline Benger on my team who she presented while I was out too.

Um she oversees our housing central command efforts.

So we do a monthly partners meeting, and her folks um on her team are also meeting with partners pretty much every day at this point because of the the uh expedient efforts for housing central command.

Um we have a program admin, Elizabeth Murray, and she supports some of our work with DHA, and she does a weekly meeting um on the voucher resources we have there.

So there's lots and lots of work groups happening.

Um we have no shortage of those and really want to make sure that our providers are supported and the work that they're doing.

Thank you.

I'm not surprised to hear that, but that's um interesting, and I'm sure those are I'm sure that's where like a lot of the magic happens, I'll put it that way.

Um on the family homelessness topic, I do want to ask a quick question about that just because I see that Jeff is here, it's not our direct topic today.

Um, but we have continued to hear concern that we have a pretty high number of families on wait lists right now.

So if someone wants to just take a minute to um sort of update us on that, I would appreciate that.

And if if it's not the moment, then that's fine too.

But um, we're all hearing about it again, I think, and and concerned as we head into fall and the school year and all that.

Thank you, Jeff.

And if you can introduce yourself, good afternoon, Jeff Kasitki, deputy director and host.

Um, we are seeing an increase in um family homelessness.

The wait list is currently as of uh right now is it 259 families?

Uh which is up uh by nearly 100 from what it's been on average uh last year, uh higher than the year before.

However, we do see some like seasonal fluctuations, the numbers do tend to go up in the summer.

Um, but it could be driven by a number of factors currently working on some additional data analysis around this.

I think the rescation of uh work authorization um for newcomers is having an impact as well as the ongoing increase in evictions.

Uh that we're that we've been seeing year after year in Denver is also causing an impact.

Uh we have um taken a couple of steps in order to try to mitigate the impact.

We did add uh additional funding from the border crisis uh fund to be able to provide rapid rehousing to some families who uh primarily newcomer families who have been uh in the Tamarak and our other family shelters for longer than we would like that are kind of um stuck there and needing some assistance hopefully that will help with the throughput in the shelter uh we're also um and we'll talk about this at the hearing next week going to be adding um an emergency congregate shelter option for uh during the winter uh so that we're just sure that no families end up having to um you know be in their vehicles or outside during cold weather if we're not able to accommodate them right away in our other shelters or in the with the hotel voucher program.

Actually I feel like we just got like kind of an announcement so um maybe we'll have you come back soon and talk about that more specifically but thank you for I believe Polly is working on a hearing around family homelessness that was requested um about a month or two ago.

Great.

Thank you Polly thank you Jeff I appreciate that update um does anyone else want to get back in the queue or have full of questions after that okay well I think that's it Midori thank you I love the slide with all the arrows um that slide is like yeah and having it at the beginning of every presentation it's so helpful thank you so much good to see you um we should have action I oh god um this one's recent briefing yeah these are not action items we actually have no action items today so um which is great given the frame of mind that your chair is in no just joking yeah basically it was a late one for us last night yeah it was um anyway thanks so much Midori and then our next briefing is from Adam Lyons from the other side of the host house and he is online because he is I am assured mostly recovered from COVID and I really hope that's true.

Adam because we would not want you slogging through if you need to be outside so but hi we can see you.

Can you all hear me okay?

We can yeah so you can um go ahead whenever you're ready to do so.

And Adam's presenting on um just an informational briefing about um how we use covenants in the city um to secure affordable housing over time.

We thought it was a good time for us to do a deep dive on that because we've had we've had it come up a few times now.

So thank you Adam for for making this happen.

Oh absolutely and just uh first introduce myself Adam Lyons deputy director of housing opportunity for host and I do just want to start off by expressing my regret that I could not be there in person today but trust me you all did do not want me to be there um and I do want to just thank you all for allowing me the opportunity to present virtually um I am on the other side of the the COVID illness that hit me last week so feeling much better so really happy to be here today with you all um if not uh virtually.

So yeah I wanted to uh start today and again thanks to uh to Pauly Kyle for running the slideshow for me today.

I don't see it quite on my screen yet but I'm sure it'll come up in just a second.

Uh there we go.

I am here to talk about affordable housing covenants um in the city and how we monitor those how we enforce those and really just the ins and outs of what the what we include in those covenants and how um how they are tracked and monitored.

So if we can go to the next slide um same slide that uh you just saw from the Dory here but we will be focusing on the bottom portion of this slide of the spectrum of host work uh really around the affordable housing units uh rental and affordability covenants uh really fall within the uh new construction and preservation uh really anything that we provide funding for uh through hosts as far as uh public subsidies for gap financing uh require covenants as well as projects that are subject to the expanding housing affordability policy or even pre-EHA uh negotiated agreements as well all do follow some form of rental and occupancy covenants this presentation the bulk of it at least will be really uh applicable to the projects that do receive host funding um you know those covenants are fairly standard throughout uh I will touch on briefly at the end how homeownership covenants work especially as they relate to the partnership that we have with our land trusts and their land leases that get recorded on onto those properties um so if we can go to the next slide um so for the rental and occupancy covenants, there's really two uh primary functions of these covenants.

It one restricts the rents uh or it restricts the incomes of the tenants that occupy the units as well as the rents charged to those tenants.

Um as I mentioned, we record these covenants on the property for all uh city and or federally funded affordable units in the property.

Um and the rents, uh, there is a section in each covenant that rents shall not exceed um the lesser of either fair market value for comparable units in the area or 30% of the household income for the designated AMI unit.

I have an illustration on the next slide that kind of shows this.

But what we're really saying here is that if if fair market values for rents, if there's rent softening in our area, the property owner is going to be required to use the fair market value as published by HUD.

Um and this is something that we're seeing uh more and more these days as rents are softening in our community.

Um in 2025, fair market rents actually saw the decline from 2024 rents.

So just uh for uh some comparison, an 80% AMI rent uh is about 2,500, a little bit more than 2500 a month.

However, fair market rent for that same unit would be just a little over 2100.

So in that case, we would require property owners to charge lesser of, which in that case for an 80% AMI unit, it would be the fair market rent.

Uh tenants' uh household income shall be at or below that designated AMI of that unit.

So that does leave open the possibility that let's say a 50% AMI income household could uh could qualify and could reside in a 60% AMI unit, um, they would be charged the rent applicable to the 60% AMI unit, even though they are below that.

Um, however, the same could not be in the reverse.

Uh 60% AMI household could not rent and reside in a 50% AMI unit.

Uh and each year, these uh both rent and incomes are published by HUD, and we adopt those uh into all of our agreements.

And so, you know, as incomes and rents uh per HUD do increase, property owners are allowed to raise their rents accordingly.

Um if we go to the next slide, this is really just uh a table that is an illustration of what we put into our covenants.

Um we are fairly specific.

Each unit is assigned uh an AMI threshold.

So this case uh here, this is an actual project um that is in operations now.

It has 30%, 60%, and 70% AMI units.

Um, so you can see kind of the breakdown of each one, and that's what we look for each year in our annual reporting and compliance.

Um, so you know, I think a question that we often get asked is what if you're you're at 58% AMI, you get a promotion at work, you get a pay raise, now you're at 62%.

Um, we allow for most projects to float AMI units.

So in that example, the person that's at 58% AMI and a 60% unit, now they're at 62% AMI.

We would allow that to now become a 70% AMI unit, and then we use the next available unit unit.

So the next available 70% unit that comes available uh would then be the next 60% uh AMI uh unit.

So they would float, you know, the 60% unit would become a 70%, the next available 70% would now backfill that 60% unit, so that the total unit numbers at the bottom there are uh maintained throughout the course of the term of the covenant.

So if we can go to the next slide, please, Pauly, thank you.

Um a few other additional covenant requirements.

We do require that the city has the right to uh to receive reports.

We do annual reports on every property in the portfolio, as well as with uh the rights to inspect those units.

We do a sample inspection of all units um every three years.

Um, and of course, as you know, issues come up, we may inspect the properties uh more often.

But we have uh, you know, two uh very wonderful housing inspectors in-house within host, and they inspect thousands of units uh throughout the city each year.

Uh, we also require that property owners uh have a record retention schedule where really they're keeping the uh household uh demographic data, their income data, and the rents charged for those, really throughout the life of the covenant.

Um, and there's also lease requirements.

I think the primary one here is that all leases must be for at least 12 months.

Um, if there is a mutual agreement between both the owner and the tenant, then that can be a shorter term, but it does have to be uh mutually agreed upon for it to be shorter than 12 months.

And then there are a variety of prohibitive lease terms that we will not allow for in a lease agreement.

These are things like agreements to be sued, waiver of a jury trial, waiver of legal proceedings in general.

Um tenant or owners are not allowed to charge tenants with legal fees if there is some kind of legal action.

So we do require that there are there are certain clauses in some leases that may be applicable for market rate units that we would not allow for affordable units, property standard, uh sorry, affirmative marketing and tenant selection plans, every property that we invest in has to provide us as a condition of receiving kind of the first dollar of our investment and affirmative marketing plan.

This is just the plan of how the property owners are going to market the property.

With the really the goal there is to affirmatively market the property to uh to different uh populations or demographics that are used to apply.

Sorry, Adam, excuse me.

Uh you sound like me uh last week.

Um God.

Yeah, be safe, uh, councilwoman.

And uh so the affirmative marketing plan as well as a tenant selection plan, and this really is a plan that's also approved by host, um, that really says how the property owner will select tenants.

This plan can vary really depending on the project type.

Um, for example, if it's permanent supportive housing where there's uh project-based vouchers in play, a lot of times they will have to source uh some percentage of their tenants through the coordinated entry one home system.

So that things like that would be detailed in their tenant selection plan.

Uh property standards, we require that all properties um at least uh at a very bare minimum, um, are always up to local building code requirements, as well as the federal um requirements of housing quality standards or HQS and HUD is now transitioning to a new uh property standard called Inspire, and we're also adopting those property standards as well.

So each property inspection will go through to make sure that both local code and the federal property standards are being adhered to.

Uh, and then lastly, the term, uh, which I'll speak about a little bit more in the next slide, uh transfers, and this is really uh getting at transfers of ownership interest in the property.

Uh, in order for a property owner to sell a property, host does have to uh agree to in riding that we consent to the sell of the property.

Um, but since covenants uh are recorded against the title to the property, they run with the land of the property.

If a new owner were to buy a property, they're still subject to the same covenant uh requirements that the original owner uh was subject to.

And then just that the city has the right to enforce these covenants through our many mechanisms of enforcement.

So we can go to the next slide.

This really gets into the term, which in this case is really the length of the covenant.

So the preservation ordinance um under section 28 of the DMRC requires that all uh developments that receive city subsidy for the creation of preservation of affordable housing, restricts the rents and incomes for a minimum of 60 years.

So every covenant uh that we place on a property um that is funded by the city has a minimum of 60 years.

We oftentimes we'll go higher than that.

We can go all the way up to 99 years, and that we use that more as a negotiation tool, or if it's uh a property that may already have a 99-year land lease, like through DHA's D3 agreement with the city, we'll record much longer covenants than just the minimum 60 years.

But that is the absolute minimum that we are able to go for any city subsidy.

Um won't talk a whole lot about expanding the housing affordability or EHA in this presentation at least, but the minimum requirement there is 99 years.

So even though those projects are not funded directly by the city, um, because the uh the applicable percentage of affordable housing required in those developments, um, you know, we require that that term is 99 years, and they have kind of a very similar but kind of separate covenant for EHA properties generally.

As I mentioned, covenants are recorded with the city clerk and recorder and uh run with the property.

So they're on title to the property.

Um, if a title company were to be working on a transaction of a cell, they would obviously be aware of this covenant and know that the covenant um is required to transfer from one property owner to the next.

Um, and lastly, on this point, city covenants are generally maybe layered with other covenants.

So, you know, the general rule of thumb is that kind of the most restricted covenant prevails.

So, in a lot of cases, especially with low income housing tax credit projects, CHAFA will record their land use regulatory agreement or Laura, which really is applicable just to the federal IRS tax code for uh low income housing tax credit program.

If the city funded the project as well, we would have our covenant on there.

If the state's division of housing also funded the project, they're going to require their covenant gets recorded.

So a property could have multiple covenants on it, and the property owner would just have to uh be in compliance with all covenants on the property.

That's why I was mentioning that the general rule of thumb is that the most restrictive um prevails because if you're if you're following the most restricted covenant, then you're almost guaranteed to be following all the least restricted covenants, kind of also recorded against the title.

So lastly, I do want to just touch briefly on home ownership covenants.

Um, the vast majority of homeownership projects that hosts invest in are in partnership with a community land trust, being Habitat and the Colorado uh community land trust or elevation community land trust, or even now with uh Tierra Collective and the GES coalition with them really forming and getting uh off the ground with their local land trust for the GES community.

Um, in those cases, we often will just defer to the land lease and not record a separate home ownership covenant.

Um, however, we do require that each of these covenants include a city rider that gives the city enforcement rights if the land trust is unable or unwilling uh to enforce the requirements of their land lease.

Uh in these cases, they do restrict the buyer income at the initial uh sale, the initial sales price, and then the subsequent sales prices and the income of the buyers as those homes sell over the course of a 99-year term.

It's often tied to a formula um where you look at consumer price index or 3% annual growth.

Um, you know, they can vary slightly, but they all are really designed to ensure that the home is not just affordable for the first buyer, but really affordable for all subsequent buyers over the course of the 99 year term.

These do have that long-term term with renewals.

So, and the way it typically works is that the initial buyer will purchase the home.

There'll be a 99 year covenant in the form of a land lease recorded, and then the next buyer, um, they would be a whole new 99 year covenant.

You know, if say a family it does stay and pass the home down multiple generations and then never really transfers ownership within that 99 year term, that family could renew that uh that land lease for another 99 years, really making sure that the homeownership opportunities develop here are um affordable in perpetuity.

Um, a few other just land lease requirements and terms.

Um, the the home buyer must use it as their primary residence.

Uh, there is lease fees that get paid to the land trust who does uh maintain ownership of the land.

These are very nominal.

I think we mostly see about a hundred dollars uh a month in a land lease fee.

Uh, and even including that land lease fee, it's always um calculated in a way that the home is still affordable, that the monthly uh mortgage, principal interest tax, and insurance, HOA fees, all of that are still at an affordable level for the buyer.

It also talks about just improvements to the home and maintenance of the home.

Of course, homeowners that purchase homes within a land trust or with a homeownership covenant can make improvements to their home.

Um and uh, you know, just make sure that the maintenance is upkept there.

Uh and there's also typically stipulations around refinancing the home or putting second mortgages on the home as well.

Um land trusts that we work with can also purchase and sell uh affordable condos.

And in this case, a land lease would just would not make sense.

The land, you know, if they're buying one individual condo of a 30 unit condo building, they can't also own the underlying land.

So in these cases, we would have a city approved covenant on those properties with the same uh city rider that would give us the rights to enforce that covenant, um, if anything were to go south with the our land trust partner.

Um, and then there's these large development areas like Central Park, like Green Valley Ranch.

And in these cases, there's typically one kind of template land lease or uh template covenant for all the affordable properties that would be developed there.

So they may look a little bit different than the you know the the ones I was discussing earlier or the projects that we do fund, because these are just kind of one stock covenant that gets applied for a whole large redevelopment area.

Um that's the end of my uh you know prepared presentation and just happy to uh take any questions that you all may have.

Thank you, Adam.

I learned a ton from that, actually.

Um, so in the queue, I have um councilman Torres followed by Councilwoman Sawyer.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, how many covenants?

So it was interesting to me you mentioned that there are covenants at the city overseas, but then other entities do as well.

Can you give me an example of other groups that um have or create covenants?

Yeah, so most common in the city, we would see um if it's a low income housing tax credit project, then Chaffa would have their land use regulatory agreement or Laura.

That's really specific to IRS tax code.

So, you know, to be eligible for low income housing tax credits, you need to have some percentage of the units.

Typically, you know, I guess they're the lowest barrier is 40% of the units at 60% AMI.

Because tax credits are super competitive throughout the state, the vast majority of tax credit projects that we do see developed are 100% affordable.

So Chaffa's Laura is really just going to say that the units are restricted at 60% AMI or below.

They don't get into that granular level of detail like we do, where we do the AMI by unit table of 30, 40, 50s and so on.

Um, so they will have one of those as a requirement for all tax credit projects.

If the state um division of housing or other state entities are also uh providing financing for a project in the city, they will also record a covenant.

Uh state covenants are most typically for 30 years.

So um, you know, so they'll maintain compliance on their covenant for a number of years, and then of course anything that the city invests in uh would be uh a 60-year covenant that we would also enforce as well.

So, you know, I think you know, most typically for a tax credit uh development, we would see three covenants, but there could be some variation of that.

But anything that the city would fund would just have our covenant.

Okay, thank you, um, Adam.

Remember when host was um first starting as uh uh a department or an agency?

One of the big uh metrics that was being tracked were covenants that were coming to the end of their life or the end of their term.

Um yeah, how um and this I don't know that you have this information just top of mind, but I'm really interested in how we are tracking those.

What do we do when these covenants come to the end of their term?

Are we trying to keep them or are we letting them turn over?

Oh, yeah, thank you for that question, councilwoman.

And you know, since host founding is kind of uh, you know, dovetails pretty nicely with the preservation ordinance and the 60 year requirement for a lot of projects that host has invested in since our founding, um, we we're not even close to that 60 year time frame.

There's still several years left on those covenants.

Uh the same is true for projects under the low-income housing tax credit program.

The tax credit compliance period itself is only 15 years.

However, CHAFA does require an extended use period, uh, which is at least 30 years, often 40 years.

So, you know, the tax credit program uh, you know, came about in the late 80s.

So I think we're really just now starting to see a lot of those uh projects that, you know, even with the extended use period that are coming up for uh expiration.

Um, but of course, there, you know, is a long history of the city investing in these properties um well before the 60 year period of affordability, um, where we may have done 20, 30, 40 year covenants that are coming up for expiration.

Um, and you know, our number one goal is to see how we can preserve those and keep them affordable into the long term, whether that's reinvestment in a property through um, you know, a preservation strategy.

Um, if there's existing city debt on the property through an earlier investment, we're always willing to work with the property owner to say, hey, how can we restructure this debt?

Can we forgive a portion of it?

Um, can we just extend the term so it's not like one big balloon payment at the end in exchange for extending that covenant?

Um, but you know, there are others that, you know, just they're they're excited to meet the end of their covenant.

And um, you know, that once it expires, they really wanted it to expire.

Uh, they may very well may convert it to a market rate development.

They may want to demolish it and rebuild a new market rate home because since I mentioned earlier that covenants run with the land, if a project gets demolished tomorrow, that covenant still doesn't go away.

The the new housing that is built on top of that would have to still uh comply with that covenant.

And if uh units are offline that are under a city covenant for any extended period of time, we essentially pause that covenant and add the the years or the the just any time that was offline onto that covenant.

Um so you know, it does happen, unfortunately, that covenants just do expire.

Um we don't release the covenants.

We just, you know, they all have a date certain of when they expire.

So when they expire, they expire.

Um, but you know, we do try to work with property owners to to ensure that um, you know, that you know, we're at least willing to work with them, whether it's reinvestments or debt structures to keep that going.

And one thing that we do see uh fairly often is that you know, a property owner has maybe they may have owned the building for 20, 30 years.

There's still another 20 years left on the covenant.

They want to sell the building and so we'll work with the new buyer in that case to say, hey, um, do you want us to take the debt that's existing on the property and assign it to you all in exchange for a covenant?

Are you interested in maybe some rehab dollars?

Um, you know, so I think when properties sell, that's also a good opportunity to extend covenant lengths.

Um, but we really do.

We we track this uh data pretty well in our uh Salesforce data repository.

We know when every covenant is coming up for expiration, and we try to uh get um get you know get meetings scheduled with the owner fairly often.

Of course, there's the preservation ordinance that requires uh notice to the city as well as the new state bill or now state law uh House Bill 1175 that was passed last year that kind of gave us extra protections um for preservation properties that so not only are we tracking it internally, they're also required to report to us when covenants are near expiration.

Can you follow up um later, Adam, with the numbers of units that um may be coming to a close.

I remember back then it was still like a couple thousand that were kind of on a cliff, um, but I don't remember exactly the details of how long before I thought it was like in the next five years or something relatively soon.

So um, and then the other piece, you know, we've been getting a lot of um the projects coming through from the downtown development authority, the Barth Hotel was not in that one.

Just wanting to um hear if there's any context you can give about the covenants on that property as a senior low-income housing property in downtown that I think is really important to try to keep.

And I just didn't know if it was coming to an end or if there were other kind of considerations happening there.

Yeah, so I think specifically to the Barth.

This is a project that we did uh reinvest in, I believe in 2020.

Um, so it was after the 60 year mandatory requirement for covenant.

So when we reinvested in the property in 2020, we did record a new 60 year covenant on that, which is five years lapsing.

Uh, there are still 55 years left on the covenant.

So, you know, I I know that the property has been up for sell.

I, you know, there's purchase and sell agreements out there.

Um we were upfront with senior housing options at the time of the sell that that, you know, we don't release covenants that the the buyer would be subject to the terms of that covenant and the length of that covenant more particularly, which still has uh several, you know, 55 years left remaining on that.

And I do believe that's one that the state also has a fairly long-term covenant on as well.

Um, and I can't speak for the state, but I know that they typically take the same direction of, you know, we we we the covenants run with the land.

There's really, there's not much within our purview that we can do there once they're recorded, they're, you know, they're stuck to the land.

Um, so that one still has a long-term covenant, and any buyer of the property would be subject to the terms of the covenant.

Got it.

Okay, thank you, Adam.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much.

Um, I have Council Member Sawyer next.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Adam.

Really appreciate this.

And I think just along the lines of Councilman Torres' questioning, because I do remember, especially in our first term, host was very, very concerned about the um number of properties that were coming online that were going to expire over the next, I want to say it was like five years, which would mean we're in that period right now.

So some updated information would be super helpful to see like what are we looking at in terms of the number of units that are set to expire in the next five years.

With that also, I I had a an update that came through to this Stapleton Redevelopment Plan.

And I know it's been renamed Central Park, but I'm talking about the actual document, which is still named the Stapleton Redevelopment Plan.

So sorry, that's the name of the document.

Um because back then when Central Park was being developed and that plan was being written, the covenants were 20 years.

So there are still affordable units being developed today in Central Park under the Stapleton Development Plan that only have covenants of 20 years.

And I'm wondering if that is something that can be changed based on the fact that our ordinances now say 60 years and and in practice we actually do 99 years.

It's just I feel like that is uh it's a legacy thing that exists, and maybe there is no option for changing that, but if there is I feel like we should push for that.

Yeah, absolutely, councilwoman.

And if the affordable housing that's being developed in Central Park Stapleton or under that uh massive redevelopment plan is seeking host funding, then it would still be required to be the 60-year covenant.

And we recent projects with Northeast Denver Housing Center.

Um they, you know, they just recently completed, or I guess recently as being in the past two years or so, uh, what they call Central Park Two and Three.

Um, those both had 60-year covenants.

Uh, there was another one that just recently got approved by city council that was Beeler Park Flats.

That has a minimum of 60 year covenant as well.

So if host is providing funding to these properties, regardless of what the the, you know, the development agreement says.

We are still bound to the preservation ordinance and we would still record the minimum 60 years.

Now, preservation ordinance does not contemplate a minimum for homeownership projects.

So we do try to work with, you know, when there are affordable homeownerships, and there again, there has been one with Northeast Denver uh in the near future, uh, it was like 70 uh affordable condo units.

We did work with them to go above the 20 year minimum requirement with that one.

Um, it was only 30 years if my memory's serving me right.

Um, so yeah, I feel like that's the one I'm thinking about that was on the floor.

We realized like we were lucky that we got 30 years out of it, which is only half of what our, you know, ordinance says we should be getting out of it at this point.

Yep, and the preservation ordinance is really rental specific.

So it doesn't um, you know, and that's why I I really appreciate our land trust and the work that we do with them, because we know that those homeownership opportunities are really, you know, forever affordable.

Um, so and that's the vast majority of the homeownership developments that we do invest in uh nowadays are with our land trust partners.

Um, but but you are correct.

I, you know, for the the Central Park condos that Northeast Denver developed.

Um that I believe was the last homeownership project in Central Park that you know host funded, and we were able to squeeze, you know, 10 additional gears than what would otherwise be required just by the development agreement.

So, Adam, follow-up question for you on that.

Is there a, and you might not have an answer for this, which is totally okay.

Sorry for putting you on the spot.

Is there a reason why our preservation ordinance only covers rental when our focus is really shifting more towards this land trust home ownership uh generational wealth creation model?

Like, is that a gap that we need to go look at?

Is there a legal reason why that is the way it is?

No, I think it's natural.

There's no legal reason why there is no that that I'm aware of at least while there is no not similar protections for homeownership properties.

However, it is something that I'm working with the team on now, is to bring an amendment forward to the preservation ordinance, um, you know, really in light of some of the the changes at the state level through um House Bill 1175, which I referenced earlier, um, which again is also uh silent on home ownership.

It really is rental specific as well, but that's something that we'd be happy to take a look at uh in any future preservation ordinance updates.

But again, you know, the projects that we are funding now are almost always 99 years at least.

I know that um we're working on one now that's not with a land trust partner, and it's 70 years of affordability.

So even when they're not land trust partners and the you know, the very few and far between ones that we get that are not with um you know elevation or habitat or character lativa, um, you know, we're we're pushing for as much affordability and as the as much length of affordability as we can get.

Awesome, really appreciate that.

Thanks for flagging it.

And um, I know you guys had to put aside the uh updates to the preservation ordinance for a little while because there was a lot of there was a lot going on there for a minute.

Um, but if you are getting ready to circle back um to those and actually kind of bring those through council, I think that's really great.

And I think um it would be worth looking at this gap that is sort of identified in the potential home ownership issue.

Um, just because if we can close that gap, that makes sense for us to do because our our vision is sort of shifting um to a different model now.

So thanks.

That's it.

Thank you.

Um, Councilmember Alvidres.

Thank you.

Um I actually have a similar line of questioning because I think that when we look at these 99 or however long your um covenants, it doesn't make sense that it would be in a rental property because then the developer gets this huge amount of equity in cash.

And I would love to see that go to families that are doing the home ownership program.

So I think the answer to that is that they have better lobbyists, big apartment and affordable housing builders than homeowners.

So I'm just gonna deal that there.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um I'm gonna pause in case anyone else would like to ask questions because I have a few, but maybe else, okay, cool.

Uh, my notes here.

Um, so Adam, I have seen um two kind of enforcement issues come up around these things.

Um there's been the example that I know you're aware of of like the Vigno Hotel situation where it's really about um whether the whether rents that are being charged are in compliance um and other of those kinds of rules.

So, in other words, um, the covenant's certainly in place, the building is operating, there are people in affordable units, but then we're concerned about um whether all of that's being followed correctly.

Um, and that seems a little different than um the kind of thing that your inspectors would be looking for, I would assume, but maybe I'm wrong about that.

Actually, I would love to hear a little more about what they inspect for, I guess.

Um, and then the other situation would be a situation where we're concerned that an owner of a property is not respecting the covenant at all or is maybe seeking to challenge that legally.

Um, and that would be like the example, potentially with the bars that council member Torres brought up.

Um, so I'm curious if we've ever hadn't had to get involved in, like, you know, in court or sort of legally resolving one of our covenants.

Um, just yeah, those two things, which are both very large.

I'm curious about.

Thank you.

Yeah, well, let's start uh, you know, with the first one.

And and one thing that uh, you know, wasn't in the present uh presentation is when I was talking about some of the other uh lease provisions like inspections and reporting, we also have a prohibit uh prohibition on certain fees.

So a tenant may only uh be charged fees that are customary customarily like charged in rental housing.

So that's things like you know, laundry fees, things like that, um, you know, for use of laundry machines, but they can't be charged these arbitrary fees that aren't, you know, really tied to the housing that's being provided there.

Um, so you know, we do, and a lot of that stuff we may not hear about um until, you know, we do hear complaints from tenants, and then we always do uh investigate and inspect that.

Um, but mostly in our annual rental reporting, we are just uh asked to show, you know, what are the rent rules?

You know, what's being charged and what's the income of the tenants that are occupying that unit, um, just to make sure that they're in compliance with the rental and occupancy requirements of the covenant kind of alone.

Um, on the inspections, this is mostly physical inspections.

So it is things like property standards.

You know, are fire uh smoke detectors working properly, you know, are is the really the building up to local code um and federal housing standards.

Um that's really what the physical inspections actually look for.

And you know, they are all well trained in both local code and federal programs.

Um, so that's what they're looking for there.

And there could be other, you know, cosmetic issues that you know are 100% a nuisance and an issue that for the tenants that reside there, but it may fall outside of both local code and um federal standards that we really just don't have the enforcement rights over.

Um, so I think that's the first part.

But we we do, you know, when we do hear about um any arbitrary fees being assessed, then we we definitely look into those um and make sure that, you know, are they allowable?

If not, then you know, you're gonna be in default of the covenant, um, and we'll put you temporarily out of compliance until you to you make amends or repay overcharges and things like that.

So that's one thing that we do look at.

Um can you kind of restate that the second part of that question, please?

Um, yeah, I'm just wondering if we've ever actually had to enforce one of these covenants against like a new owner.

Yes, we we enforce the covenants, you know, all the time.

Uh, you know, we do even through the course of annual reports, we'll notice that a property is overcharging uh some tenants for rent, and we will temporarily place them out of compliance until they uh they cure the issue, whether that's repaying the tenants for what they've overcharged um and resetting the rent down to the appropriate level, we'll make sure that all of that's in place before we put them kind of back in compliance.

Um I am not aware of a rental and occupancy covenant that has uh made its way through the court system.

Uh you all may recall some of the homeownership issues in Green Valley Ranch, uh, where properties were being sold to non-income qualified home buyers, kind of just um, you know, title companies missing the covenant, uh brokers and everything like that.

That did make its way through the through the legal system uh with the favorable rolling that uh really upheld our covenants and you know, that's still um, you know, I think last I heard still being worked out to where the home is being uh transferred um either back to the market to be resold to another affordable family.

Um, but in this particular case, the uh the home buyer who had their home sold out from under them in Green Valley Ranch was the new buyer to allow them to stay on as a tenant.

So I I'm not quite sure on the outcome of that, but the court did uphold uh home ownership covenant in that case.

Um, Adam, could you ask the relevant CAO folks?

And actually, some of them might be listening, but I don't need anyone to jump on.

Could could we like see that case or just get the citation for it or whatever?

Thank you.

I will follow up with that as well.

Um, yeah, and so that that's really my question is more like situations where we've had to um just enforce the actual existence or validity of the covenant.

Um are you aware of us having had to do that in any other instances?

No, I've never seen it on the rental side, um, but really just uh the the Green Valley Ranch, and that was more of like an an HOA kind of super lean uh issue there, which has also since been addressed by the state legislature.

Okay, yeah.

Um and then is that something?

I mean, would we would we ever um if it really came down to it, would we ever let a covenant go in lieu of enforcing it, or are we pretty much like you know, going to fight for them?

You know, I I believe that we would fight for them as we have in the past for the you know, at least the one example of homeownership ones that I uh reference, and um, and like I you know had mentioned that we there's no precedent that I'm aware of of even releasing a covenant.

We do when a covenant expires, we will get asked occasionally by the property owner if we can release it.

And the advice that we've gotten from the city attorney's office thus far has been, you know, no, the covenant expires and it's expired.

So we we really don't even record anything, the title at the end of a covenant to release it.

So I'm not aware of um any releases of covenants.

Now we have uh amended a covenant or replace an existing covenant with a new covenant, um, which is likely more uh prohibitive in some cases or extends the term and things like that, but I I have never seen us just not enforce a covenant or allow one to um just be, you know, blatantly out of compliance.

Have you seen the state do that kind of um like enforcement in court in Denver ever?

I nothing that I'm aware of, no.

Okay, um, the other thing I'm this is sort of relates to Council More Torres's question, um, which is about we're always curious about kind of the numbers, you know.

Um, and I know there's also like Chaffa has housing stock that's covenant restricted.

Um, there are the land trusts, as you've mentioned.

Um, I would be really curious on as much information as you have or can you know easily put together about um the numbers of the different types and then like where they are, you know, and and that second part I know can be tricky, but um, just the spread around the city, um, in council districts or whatever that might be.

Oh no, that's actually a very easy uh good chairwoman.

Uh, we have our affordable house.

Is it on the dashboard?

Sawyer says it's on the dashboard.

Sorry.

Yeah, that's all publicly accessible on the dashboard.

It includes both uh city uh city funded and non-city funded.

So these could be maybe the handful of tax credit projects that you know SHAFA is restricted, but we didn't invest directly as a city.

It would also include the ones that are done through um EHA and pre-EHA negotiated agreements.

Um you could also sort by council district, uh, a really great tool there that shows really well.

Is that um just on the rental side, or is it also home ownership as well, and there's there's uh I think we can they do filter versus homeownership versus rental, yeah.

All right, I love when there's a dashboard.

We all know what I'm gonna be doing this evening.

Um, and this is uh, and those the this is everything that feeds into the dashboard are projects with existing affordability covenants.

So were a covenant to expire, it would drop from this dashboard.

Got it okay.

Um, and I think council president also wanted to hop in and ask a question.

Yeah, so um I'm gonna piggyback on councilment tours and councilman.

Um parody for the Barth Hotel, as somebody who is sits on the downtown development authority, there's too many D's, the 3D um board that I sit on.

Um I wish it was like 3D, it's more work than that.

How how that we that project has come to our attention as a board member.

So I'm putting on my D DA hat.

I had when I was at when I briefed as the board member, I had concerns because I know about the covenants.

So, how do we insert ourselves to make sure that we're keeping those covenants?

Um, because the Barth Hotel has provided housing to seniors in that neighborhood for as long as I've been alive.

Um, so it's a it's a it's weighing heavily on my mind, and I feel like I just didn't get a clear answer.

So I just wanted to bring it back up again.

Yep.

So I think specifically to the Barth.

I, you know, we there was an issue, like I mentioned back in 2020 where the boiler went out, and post provided some kind of emergency repair funds for that.

Um, and you know, the preservation ordinance doesn't isn't tied to a specific dollar amount.

So if even if we would have invested, you know, five dollars into the project, that would require a new 60-year covenant.

So when we reinvest in the property in 2020, that's when the new 60 year covenant went on the property.

Um, and then you know, there have been other issues going on the property, and yeah, granted, it is, you know, it's a historic building, it's old, or you know, things are bound to break, things are bound to happen.

So, you know, at the time, in close communications with senior housing options, uh, the owner of the property.

You know, they let us know about a few other things going on in the property.

Um, biggest issue was really the elevator um needed to be repaired uh on that one.

And um, so we did respond back to them in October of last year, so just uh a little uh less than a year ago that put the property temporary out of out of compliance.

So we did send them a notice of noncompliance and said, Hey, here's kind of the issues that we're seeing with the property, we're gonna put you out of compliance.

Um we, of course, we would give any property owner the right to cure before we put the property in default.

Um so in default is really when we uh could take other steps like calling our loan, making them repay any debt on the property, um, and so on.

Um so we did send out that letter of non-compliance in October of last year for the property.

I think it was shortly after that is when senior housing options just notified us that you know this building is just no longer sustainable for their needs that they would like to sell the property to uh a new buyer.

Um so at that point we kind of was like, well, let's place everything on a hold right now.

We'll work with the new buyer to um, you know, to do an assignment and assumption of you know any existing debt if it's not repaid at the closing um or the sell of the property, um, and then just uh to negotiate the covenant at that point to either extend it um if we were gonna keep the money in the deal or just let them know uh of the covenant requirements on the property.

Um and that's kind of where things have uh been more or less on a standstill since then.

So we did uh notify them if they were out of compliance, did give them the opportunity to cure, um, but you know, then at that point is when they decided to sell the property.

We were uh, you know, very upfront with them that a cell would not remove the covenant, which also really impacts the purchase price for the property.

Um if covenants run with the land, and you know, so it's all and you can only use the property as affordable housing for seniors, then they senior housing options that's calculated into their sales price sales price for the property.

So they set those their sales price based upon uh the covenant being uh recorded against the property.

So how do we do enforcement?

Because if the I've heard that the one of the potential buyers wants to move the um affordable housing to it off site, so how do we make sure that we're enforcing it?

Is there someone in the room that can answer that question?

Um we may have folks from city attorney's office online.

They I emailed them elatedly, so I but I think um, well, Adam, you can probably tell me if you know if one of your city attorney colleagues is here, and if not, I can ask Tim who's there that maybe Brad Beck.

I did not see anybody on uh at least the panelists.

That's okay.

It was really late notice.

Um, and I don't know if if Dr.

Raife has any uh anything.

Can I yeah, or if you want to add that'd be great, or can we leave that as an outstanding item that get followed up on?

Yeah, I do see uh Megan from the city attorney's office online now with their hand up.

Okay, um, Megan, if you want to answer this, raise your hand.

Oh, it looks like Megan's trying to speak, but we can't hear her yet.

Um, why don't we hear from Dr.

Raife and then I'll give Tim time to promote Megan so she can add her two cents as well.

Megan Wiples, I think, Megan.

Um, hey, Jamie Reif, I'm the executive director.

There is not a process or a way to remove a covenant or transfer a covenant.

Um, and I've spoken um additionally to national partners just to see if this is a precedent that other cities have set.

Um, and no one is aware of this being done here in Denver nor nationally.

So when I attribute, you can make sure that that's enforced.

Um like how do we force to make sure that's yeah?

So again, you know, Adam spoke to uh the court systems as one potential method.

I mean, they literally it cannot be used for another purpose when the covenant is on the site, so it can't be used for another purpose.

Um, and then any legal challenges of non-attorney.

Um, you know, Megan can speak a little bit more to that, but that would be the next recourse.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, then okay, great.

That's good question.

Um, we have well, I want to see if if Megan does want to add anything to that, and other than that, we have five minutes left and no one else in queue.

So we may be about done.

Uh sure.

Megan Weeples with the city attorney's office.

I missed part of what Dr.

Wright said because I was switching from um uh to panelists.

But from what I heard, I think that she and Adam covered this exactly in the city's position.

You know, there are a number of ways that this could end up uh coming out, but the city's position is that covenant is enforceable, and we'll do what we need to do to enforce it.

So perfect, okay.

Thank you so much for attending.

Really appreciate that.

No problem.

Glad someone asked you a question, so it was worth it.

Um, anybody else wanna anything before we wrap?

Okay, um, well, then that is that.

No, nothing to vote on.

Um, five minutes back.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you.

Oh, we have two items on consent.

Good lord.

Does anybody need to pull anything off consent?

Are we good?

Okay, great.

Have a good afternoon.