Aloha and good afternoon.

Well, the Joint Committee on Executive Management and Housing Homelessness and Parks Peace come to order.

Welcome members, uh committee co-chair Waters, Councilmember Cordero, Councilmember Nishimoto, Okimoro, Tolba, and Councilmember Dosantos Tan.

Council members Kiaina and Wire are excused.

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Council members, we are on to agenda item number one, informational briefing presented by the National Association of Counties on the Counties for a Housing Solutions program.

I turn the time over to Council Chair Waters.

Thank you so much, and thank you for doing this joint committee uh meeting together.

It's really excited to introduce you all to Patrick Spence.

He's the program manager and of economic mobility of the National Association of Counties.

About a year ago or so, I was invited to participate in a cohort of various cities across the country.

And it was put on by Patrick Spence and his team, where we would look at county-owned properties that we could build affordable housing on.

And we came up with a presentation to Department of Land Management.

Um we haven't quite done that yet, but uh here is Patrick Spence in order to lay out what we did during our cohort and what we can continue to do.

It's almost like he gave us a recipe to a really, really, really good dish.

And here he is.

Uh back to you.

Um Co-Chair Tupola.

Thank you, Mr.

Spence.

Please proceed.

Thank you very much.

Um aloha, good afternoon.

It's an honor to be here.

Um my name is Patrick Spence.

I work for the National Association of Counties in Washington, D.C.

If you don't know who that what that is, we represent all 3,069 county governments across the United States, um, including, of course, Honolulu.

Um, and I specifically have our portfolio focused on housing and economic development.

Uh next week, we're hosting our conference, and I hope to host some of you uh over in Maui.

So I was delighted to be able to make this in in person.

Um happy to be here.

If I speak poorly, I'm gonna blame that on jet lag, but uh let's get started.

So over the past year, year and a half, I worked in partnership with Chair Waters as well as staff, including um Chris Chastick, uh Duncan Asorio, Lily Hirooka, Alika Kipaloma, and Kevin Imanaka.

To basically take a look at county-owned land that can be utilized for affordable housing.

Um I should say, you know, I'm with NACO.

I'm not from here.

I'm I'm from the continent.

I'm not here to tell you, you know, what you should do with your land.

What I can do is talk to you about what I've done in partnership with the chair and what other counties around the country have managed to do.

And it's up to you to decide, you know, is this work worth prioritizing?

Um the concept here, I think is fairly straightforward.